I’ve been winding my way through the collection of Eckhart Tolle I downloaded. Wonderful stuff. I’ve been listening to one recently called Living a Life of Inner Peace and it’s straight up comedy. He’s got the audience roaring on the recording.
I did a search on Tolle, wondering if he was showing up in the media at all, and boy did I get a shock. Apparently Tolle, along with The Bible, was with Paris Hilton as she went into prison.
Thankfully, living in Korea allows me to avoid most of the hoopla surrounding Hilton, although I did notice they carried her exit from jail live on CNN World.
When seeing that she was reading Tolle I scanned a few other articles to see if maybe a transformation was taking place. Unfortunately all I could find were backhanded mentions of Tolle by gossip columnist vermin in regards to a subject they must cover 100% negatively.
I found one bit that said Hilton was moving away from New York to somewhere quiet. Interesting, I thought, until I found out she was moving to Beverly Hills. Oh well. I suppose in her world that might be like getting in touch with nature.
At any rate I love Tolle’s work to the extent that I’m not affected by who else is reading it. Although I will say I dislike the New Agey cover art his publishers seem unable to veer away from. Hopefully his dalliance with Paris will help get his message out.
July 3, 2007
More Eckhart Tolle
June 25, 2007
Brothers Karamazov
Brothers Karamazov. This is a book I’ve wanted to read for a long time, but quite honestly have been afraid to start. While doing some research about Blood Meridian I came across several comparisons between BM’s Judge Holden and Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor as being amongst the great literary villains in history.
So I knew then I had to finally read it. I’m ripe for this sort of faith vs. reason contemplation and so I’m eating up the book.
Of course, as pictured above, The Grand Inquisitor stands on it’s own as a novel, but functions in the novel as a book within a book.
I’m not going to go on with my usual brief musings about Dostoevsky or The Brothers Karamazov. I’ll just leave it as I love it.
Although I will mention one thing running through my mind. A novel like B.K., will people still be reading it thousands of years from now? As we read the Bible or the Odyssey? Can this sort of book withstand a change of civilization? One would think so.
May 13, 2007
Alan Watts
Since I mentioned Watts in my last post I’ll go ahead and give him a little more time here.
I ran into his lectures by accident. I think I did a search on meditation.
While most people think of him as a Zen teacher, he was actually never ordained as a Monk. Rather, he was an autodidact, which is to say, self-taught.
This makes me like him more. He was raised Christian, so he is prone to using it as an example of incorrect spirituality. And he formally trained in Zen, but isn’t beyond mentioning it’s problems. The fact that he’s not pushing any one kind of spirituality makes me like him more.
May 6, 2007
Rick Roderick
Over here in Korea I spend a lot of time walking around aimlessly. For most of my life I’ve been doing this, but it wasn’t until recently that I realized I was actually practicing a form of meditation. So I like it even more.
The difference in Korea is an MP3 player. I walk around the back alleys of Korea listening to various lectures, audio books and podcasts. It is this sort of thing that makes me realize I am quite content and somewhat lucky in life.
One of my favorites for three years running is The Teaching Company. These guys advertise in magazines like Harper’s. They offer lecture series on all sorts of topics, most of which are historical or philisophical in nature.
I just finished “Nietzsche and the Post-Modern Condition” by Rick Roderick. After three years of listening to these things I can say Roderick is the most captivating lecturer I’ve heard. He was from West Texas and raised a Baptist, which helps cast Nietzsche in a totally different light.
One point he makes is that Nietzsche is totally misunderstood by general public as a fascist philosopher. This was mostly due British scholars depicting him as such immediately following WWII. But Roderick argues this bias prevents the greatness of Nietzsche’s ideas from reaching the general public, especially in America.
Apparently Roderick died in 2002, which isn’t terribly surprising in hearing his cigarette ravaged voice during lectures. But he did two other series for The Teaching Company, one of which (“Philosophy and Human Values”) I’ve already put on my player.
I like the idea of someone like Roderick being preserved and finding an audience following his death. I suppose once upon a time this would have been more common-had the Greeks had MP3 players. Of course today this concept is almost fetishized in music.
I found this Website dedicated to him. You can download his lectures directly from the site.