It´s a huge pleasure to be able to present to all of you this extraordinary book on one of the most important schools of Budism: Shambhala. This book is like a Bible in terms of this particular vision of Budism named by this name.
   Oriental culture should be closer to Occidental one if we want to have a more appropriate idea about what´s going on in the world nowadays.

   This book talks about yourself and your relation to the rest of the world, understood as the perfect place where goodness extends itself everywhere. One of our main missions is to be able to get balance and equilibrium. Life sometimes is difficult but if we are able to assimilate what it´s happening around us, everything makes sense and a inner fealing of quietness, holy greatness and goodness will accompany us along the way.

  Through this book, will be able to understand the pivotal importance of apreciating every single thing: the caress of the breeze, the peace of the sunset, the joy of the dawn...

  According these pages, to get that we must invocate the "dralas", as the energy to experience magic, as the way to come true our dreams.

  To be able to get them, we have to get first of all fearlessness, in order to be brave and to chance everything in our chase of our correct path: the sacred path of the warrior.

  The beloved author talks in these terms about fearlessness:

"Fearlessness is the absence of cowardice. That is to say, cowardice, or uncertainty, comes from speed, from not being on the spot, and from not being able to lead life properly and fully. You miss a lot of details, and you also miss the overview. To correct that, you need ROOM for fearlessness, which comes from having faith in your existence. Basically speaking, fearlessness is not particularly a reward or a goal, but fearlessness is part of the journey on the path. Fearlessness alternates with fear, and both of those are kindling for the fire. You are nervous, speedy, fearful. Then that brings another area of steadiness, solidity, and calm. So fear and fearlessness constantly alternate".

   The biggest objective in any life is to get happyness and this book is the perfect guide to get it. The first step about it is to feel yourself in harmony with your own spirit and this pages will tell you the rightest way to do so.

  In other words we can point out five level to become proper warriors:

  Level One: The Art of Being Human
Experiencing the world as sacred and seeing basic goodness as your birthright.

Level Two: Birth of the Warrior
Recognizing your habitual patterns and discovering fearlessness.

Level Three: Warrior in the World
Developing confidence in all aspects of your daily life.

Level Four: Awakened Heart 
Allowing your heart and intuition to open so that you communicate fully with the world.

Level Five: Open Sky
Trusting who you are and genuinely caring for others.

 Following these steps your life will become meaningful because an enourmous sentiment of goodness and uprightness will soak your heart and after that, your existence will be precious forever.

 It´s up to you. One treasure, a true one is awaiting you.

  Are you going to drop the bomb or not?

"FREE FALL". BY WILLIAM GOLDING.

"An injury to the innocent cannot be forgiven because the innocent cannot forgive what they do not understand as an injury".

"When did I lose my freedom? For once, I was free. I had power to choose".

"Understanding requires a sweep that takes in the whole of remembered time and then can pause".

"Our mistake is to confuse our limitations with the bounds of possibility and clap the universe into a rationalist hat or some other".

"We are amateurs at heart".

"I made fantasies of myself daring the most awful and gruesome loneliness to know the very feel of death".

"I am looking for the beginning of responsibility, the beginning of darkness, the point where I began".

"If you find no resistance you do not become suddenly one with your victim".

"Perhaps consciousness and the guilt which is unhappiness go together".

"For to go back is- what?"

"Those who have nothing are made wild with delight by very little".

"I had ample time to consider the problems of attachment. I began to appreciate dimly that a thread must be tied at both ends before it can restrain anything".

"Art is partly communication but only partly. The rest is discovery".

"What is it like to be you?"

"I said I love you. Oh God, don't you know what that means? I want you, I want all of you, not just cold kisses and walks - I want to be with you and in you and on you and round you - I want fusion and identity - I want to understand and be understood - oh God, I love you - I want to be you!"

"Don't think. Feel. Can't you?"

"No one can be certain of anything".

"Once a human being has lost freedom there is no ends to the coils of cruelty".

"When you are young, you cannot believe that a human relationship is as pointless as it seems".

"From the moment she let me take her virginity the change began between us".

"Nothing was permanent, nothing was more than relative".

"One must be for or against".

"What we know is not what we see or learn but what we realize".

"How could a man even be sure that he knew anything?".

"Everything is related to everything else and all relationship is either discord or harmony".

"Truth is useless and pernicious when it proceeds from nothing but the mouth".

"Is the world truly what the world looks like to the outward eye, a place where anything goes if you can get away with it?

"Justice must not only be done, must be seen to be done".

"But he was a wise man and he did what is always best in such circumstances: that is, nothing".

"He was the best teacher I ever knew. He had no particular method and he gave no particular picture of brilliance. It was just that he had a vision of nature and a passionate desire to communicate it".

"What men believe is a function of what they are".

"What is nearest the eye is hardest to see".

"Aren't you looking forward to being famous and rich which is as much as to say you don't care a damn?"

"If you want something enough, you can always get it provided you are willing to make the appropriate sacrifice. Something, anything".

"The past was not a series of icebergs aground on some personal shore".

"Normality is a condition only arbitrarily definable".

"Don't you see how our imperfections force us to torture each other?"

"All day long action is weighed in the balance and found not opportune nor fortunate or ill-advised, but good or evil".
 

"Desolation Angels". By Jack Kerouac.

  This book was published in 1965 and it describes the author's life when he was between thirty four and thirty five years old. It's divided into two books: one that contains two parts, Desolation in solitude and Desolation in the world. The other book is titled Passing Through and has four sections: Passing through Mexico, Passing through New York, Passing through Tangiers, France and London and the last one, Passing through America again.

 As usual, this novel is autobiographical. On this precise time, Kerouac had written and handed his "On the road" to the publishers. Despite having got certain renown for that, his life style was the old one: travelling, writing, enjoying life, asking himself eternal questions, and leading a very simple and plain life based on the crucial importance of being able of recognizing "here and right now" as a element by which there was no room for losing time in any aspect.

 This book is a treaty about Life where the author at the same time relates his experiences in the daily life and express his innermost feelings from the bottom of his heart. Feelings related to his worries about the sense of Life, Religion, friendship, material things, women, faithfulness...

  Through these pages, the reader is able to feel really close to the writer because the latter with a brilliant and vigorous prose attracts the interest and besides forces you to keep reading in order to know what's going to happen next.

   A lot of anecdotes, real situations: some funny, others no much... by which you start to understand the incomparable experiences, needs, vows, and projects of a mind completely  unique. A mind where there was room not only for dreams but also for the try of making a better world by achieving his dreams, chasing the purest silhouette of the stars...

 I'd like you to step up and decide to have a look through these points of view of an inquisitive human being who died in absolute ecstasy and tormented because of his bold and honest commitment not  to go on with his eyes closed.  

"Life ahead". KRISHNAMURTI.

      "You get peace, when you discover beauty in your heart that gives you the urgency to bring a revolution in the world"
   "The way you talk, the words you use, the gestures you make, -these things matter very much-, for through them you will discover the refinement of your own heart"
   "It's essential that you create an atmosphere of beauty. The way you dress, the way you walk, the way you sit, the way you eat, -all these things and the things about you, are very important"
   "The peace through security, financial or certain dogmas, rituals, verbal repetitions, leads to contentment and resignation. There is not creativeness"
   "You must know what are you afraid of"

      These sentences are some of which you will be able to find among the pages of this great book. As usual, Krishnamurti responds to several questions make during his lectures or he simply develops the topics by himself.

      All the subjects are of paramount importance: happiness, fear, ambition, intelligence, love, truth, ideals, education...

      We all should face life by trying to discover and understand those element that are so present in our lives. It is time to handle them, not to avoid them. The problem is the majority of people prefer not to deal with themselves, being hidden in decors of  fake contentment.

      In the pages of this book, you will find answers, that read in with the consistent introspection, will take you to the land you always should've pursue: yourself.

      There is a life ahead, because life is forward, on a borrowed time. The ending is unknown. Life is testing us all the time in terms of helping us to go through the right path to our destination. And for that, we do need to discover ourselves, to think deeply about all the marvels and deeds that happen all around us. It is time to open our eyes, and hearts... it is time to be determined to appreciate the greatness of a life given to do something big, meaningful. It is time, to make a difference.

      Life ahead... Life is the most precious gift ever. And it is our responsibility of be worthy of it. The way we lead our lives, is the best definition of who we are. And we all are always on time, as long as we keep breathing. This book is a celestial present to be fulfilled, accomplished, not to take anything for granted.

      A book, that once understood, will help us to better ourselves, and by doing so, to better the world.

Man's search for meaning by Viktor E. Frankl.

  The author of this book, Viktor Frankl, expent three years at four different concentration camps: Theresientadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Kaufering and Turkheim that was a part of the Dachau complex. He was arrested in September of 1942. He was eligible for a U.S. immigration visa. Although he decided to stay for the sake of his aging parents. His wife and parents died in their concentration camps.

     Man's search for meaning is a proof of how we can overcome the most horrible conditions based on the way we think, the way we nourish our souls. Frankl's would say: "Those who have a why are able to endure any how".

6 million innocent people were murdered by the Nazis. Only in Auschwitz 1.5 million. Frankl survived and gave us these pages to never forget what human being is capable of: "man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz. However, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips".

  This inspirational author, created the technique called logotherapy which consists of widening and broadening the visual field of the patient so that the whole spectrum of potential meaning  becomes conscious and visible to him. According to logotherapy we can discover the meaning of life in three different ways:

      1- By creating a work or doing a deed.

      2-By experiencing something or encountering someone.

     3-By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.

At the same time, he differentiates the tragic triad as the causes that make us feel unhappy:

    1-Suffering.

    2. Guilt.

    3. Death.

    In his pages, he talks about these elements... contents of pages that I just mention for the reader to dive into.

   But, what is the meaning of life? Is there an unique one for all of us? Or depends on the particular person?

   Frankl doesn't refer to this topic only. He explains other very interesting themes like love, aging, depression, life's transitoriness, or concepts like existential vacuum, paradoxical intention or pan-determinism.

   More than 12 million copies have been sold worldwide of this book becoming a book of reference for generations and generations that hope for a better world. This is a living testimony of someone who survived to one of the biggest barbarities in the history of humankind. As the philosofer Winslade explains, Frankl was once asked to express in one sentence the meaning of his own life. He wrote the response on paper and asked his students to guess what he had written. After some moments of quiet reflection, a student surprised Frankl by saying: "The meaning of your life is to help others find the meaning of theirs".

   A wonderful book that changed, and keep changing the world for the very best. Thanks for showing us what the human soul is capable of doing... the both sides of it...

  Memorable quotes from Man's search for meaning.

        1. He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How. Nietzsche.

        2. Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning.

        3. Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.

        4. Life holds a potential meaning under any conditions, even the most miserable ones.

        5. Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.

        6. A man can get used to anything.

        7. Love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.

        8. The salvation of man is though love and in love.

        9. Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved.

        10. Suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the size of human suffering is absolutely relative.

        11. No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolutely honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.

        12. In Auschwitz I had laid down a rule for myself which proved to be a good one: I was silent about anything that was not expressly asked for.

        13. Man does have a choice of action.

        14. Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

        15. Even though conditions such us lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone.

        16. There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.

        17. The last inner freedom cannot be lost. It is the spiritual freedom, which cannot be taken away, that makes life meaningful and purposeful.

        18. If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.

        19. I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard.

        20. It is such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself.

        21. Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come and yet it is over already. Bismarck.

        22. Emotion which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it. Spinoza.

        23. Those who know how close the connection is between the state of mind of a man, his courage and hope, or lack of them, and the state of immunity of his body  will understand that the sudden lost of hope and courage can have a deadly effect.

        24. It doesn't really matter what we expect from life, but what life expects from us.

        25. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

        26. No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situations repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response. Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand.

        27. When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering and his task, his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.

        28. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life.

        29. That which doesn't kill me, makes me stronger.  Nietzsche.

        30. What you have experienced, no power on earth can take away from you. Not only our experiences, but all we have done, whatever great thoughts we may have had, and all we have suffered. All this is not lost, though it is past: we have brought it into being. Having been is also a kind of being, and perhaps the surest thing.

        31. Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn.

        32. There are two races of men in this world, but only these two: the race of the decent man and the race of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere.

        33. No one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them.

        34. Man is able to live and even to die for the sake of his ideals and values.

        35. Mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish , or the gap between what one is and what one should become. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.

        36. Existential vacuum: he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people whish him to do (totalitarianism)

        37. The meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour.

        38. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone's task is as unique as is is specific opportunity to implement it.

        39. Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life. To life he can only respond by being responsible. Logotherapy seen in responsibleness the very essence of human existence.

        40.  Life as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now.

        41. Logotherapy tries to make the patient fully aware of his own responsibleness.

        42. The more one forgets himself by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love, the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.

        43. What matters is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

        44. Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.

        45. The only really transitory aspects of life are the potentialities. In the past, nothing is irretrievably lost but everything irrevocably stored.

        46. Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy.

        47. Paradoxical intention: it is the way to replace any fear by a paradoxical wish.

        48. Nothingbutness: the theory that man is nothing but the result of biological, psychological and sociological conditions, or the product of heredity and environment. It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.

        49. Pan-determinism: the view of man which disregards his capacity to take a stand toward any conditions whatsoever.

        50. Man doesn't simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.

        51. The basis for any predictions would be represented by biological, psychological or sociological conditions. Yet one of the main features of human existence is the capacity to rise above such conditions, to grow beyond them. Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.

        52. How can we dare to predict the behavior of a man?

        53. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility of the West Coast.

        54. Man has good and bad potentialities within himself. Which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.

        55. Man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz. However he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.

        56. Tragic optimism: human capacity to creatively turn life's negative aspects into something positive or constructive.

        57. Happiness cannot be pursued. It must ensue. One must have a reason to be happy. Once the reason is found, however one becomes happy automatically. A human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation.

        58. To achieve personal meaning one must transcend subjective pleasures by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love.

        59. Hope and positive energy can turn challenges into triumphs.

        60. Why some people feel so empty? It is a question of the attitude. Positive emotions, expectations and attitudes enhance our immune system.

        61. I do not forget any good deed done to me and I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.

The book of life. J. Krishnamurti.

  This book is a compilation of selected themes or topics spread along the author's conferences around the world. The format of this book is organized by the days and months of the year. It contains 365 days and with each of them, there is a meaningful selection of some of his words. As usual with Krishnamurti, the reader can enjoy a delicious variety of universal topics: love, education, attachment, solitude, listening, authority, desire, marriage, attention, intelligence, conditioning, reality, truth, mind, etc.

 Krishnamurti's life was a journey to spread his word and vision about the world we are living in. Dozens of books gather his lectures with different audiences around the world. That was his mission, trying to make a better world, based on the the pillars of goodness, humility, forgiveness, compassion, learning and love.

Today it is September 3rd, and for this particular day we have a message in his book: "Unity of mind and heart". For him, intelligence is the union between the intellect and the emotions. "In intelligence there is the inherent capacity to feel as well to reason". According to him, modern education had developed the intellect, cornering the emotions. And there can't be any balance in that. Emotions come from the heart and mind and the latter should hold their hands for a better world.

 The book is filled with very meaningful sentences and quotes, originated from the author's inquisitive and kind mind.

 It is the reader opportunity, to plunge into these wise pages and recognize himself in them, letting himself be reflected, observing himself in the clear light of his own emotions.

 I discover J. Krishnamurti some years ago. His books has been so inspirational in my life, helping me to understand the world much better, nearing me to those recondite zones where we wander so often without noticing: the daily life...

 I wish you all to enjoy and embrace every single one of this pages. Because in them, there is wisdom, that humble wisdom that helps us to flow with the soft wind of our hearts.

 G. P. Fishers, 9/3/2012

 To main page.