Must Read Books: 5 Books That Will Change Your Life

1. The Tao of Pooh

This book will answer the question: “What’s going on when the world doesn’t feel quite right?”

This book had a profound influence on my life. I still remember sitting down to ‘just flick through the first few pages’ and emerging from it after ploughing through 1/3 of it. After reading it, I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

It’ll give you a different perspective on the nature of the all the stuff that doesn’t seem right in your life.

If you want to go deeper with Taoism and really mess with your mind, check out the Tao Te Ching. It’s the original Taoist handbook. There are many different translations available but I prefer the Stephen Mitchell version.

This is a must-read book for anyone who wants to find the core of the pain in their life.

 

2. The Way of the Superior Man

This book will answer the question:

“What characteristics and traits does a Man living a life of integrity have?”

David Deida is a profound spiritual teacher whose books have help thousands of Men and Women around the world experience a greater level of depth and intimacy in their lives.

TWOTSM walks you through a series of concepts and ideas to help you understand how a ‘Superior’ Man needs to live his life.

This isn’t so much a transformation manual as a new age ’10 commandments for the spiritual Man’, but it doesn’t diminish the power of this text.

If you’re ever stuck in a situation with women and you don’t know what’s going wrong, this will give you a quick understanding of what’s happening.

This is a must read book for anyone who wants a guide on a more powerful and ethical way of living.

 

3. Fountain Head

This book will answer the question:

“What would it look like for someone to live a life of integrity?”

If ‘Way of the Superior Man’ is a book about how to be more authentic, then the Fountain Head is a first hand account of what authentic living actually looks like.

Ayn Rand’s novel follows the life of Howard Roark as he is expelled from an architecture school and makes his way into the world. Yes, whilst it sounds boring when written like that, it’s so much more when you look deeper.

Roark is expelled because, despite his brilliance in technical aspects of architecture, he chooses not to conform to the design aesthetic principles decreed by the forefathers of architecture.

He decides that he will build buildings with characteristics that he appreciates in other people – integrity, strength, honesty. Nothing will be added that isn’t necessary. Nothing will be included that could have been left out. The building will be a monument to its purpose and nothing more.

The book follows his journey as the world tries to contort Howard into meeting its standards, and he continues to live his life not even paying attention to their standards.

This quote sums Howard up:

“Well, Mr. Roark. What do you think of us?”

“I don’t think of you.”

It’s not a rebellion against society or a war on design principles, it’s simply one Man living his life on his terms, not in-spite of the world, but simply regardless of what the world says he should do.

This is a must read book for anyone who wants to understand what living with integrity really means.

 

4. Power vs. Force

This book will answer the question:

“What needs to change to remove suffering and pain and naturally live a life of integrity?”

Whilst I disagree with the methodology used to develop the concepts in Power Vs. Force, I love the conclusions he arrived at through his methods.

Power Vs. Force starts off by exploring the underlying nature of suffering and pain in a similar fashion as the Tao of Pooh. Where it differs is that it then goes on to explore the different stages that a person can move through on the way to the absolute removal of the cause of these negative experiences.

This is what Hawkins calls the Scale of Consciousness.

If you’ve read Endgame (details below), you’ll know how excited I get by this scale, and how it formed the basis of the development of the AI philosophy for a long time.

This is a must read book for anyone who wants to understand the different stages in development that someone can go through on their journey of personal transformation.

 

5. Endgame

This book will answer the question:

“How do you make the change to remove the core of suffering and pain and naturally embody the traits of a Man living a life of integrity?”

I wrote Endgame in response to what I saw as a deficiency in spiritual and self-help teaching around the world.

From my perspective, most teachers were very good at describing the way they saw the world and outlining the characteristics that they embodied in their perception of the world, but struggled to provide any concrete means of personal transformation other than ‘just do what I do and eventually you’ll be like me’ (read: fake it till you make it).

Endgame is an attempt to provide a deeper look at the specific mechanisms that create the characteristics that emerge from a different way of experiencing the world. It then goes on to provide a pathway through which this different way of experiencing the world can be achieved.

Yes, I get that this sounds like a pretty lame attempt to flog off more copies of Endgame but if you don’t believe me, check out the reviews here.

This is a must read book for anyone who want to make me feel better… And for anyone who wants to find a way to transform the core mechanism that drives personal transformation.