Shambhala Sun reviewer asks if Buddha was an Atheist.

There is an elegant solution for everything.

I just received Edwin F. Bryant’s comprehnsive edition of The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali’s. The book is filled with a history of commentaries and insights, as well as the original Sanskrit as source material and should make for a tremendous study reference on yoga philosophy and vedic culture.

It’ll be fun to work through it.

It’s All Yoga, Baby, a great yoga blog I’ve recently discovered, has a great review of A World Out of Balance, a yoga book I’m eager to read. Written by Michael Stone, this book brings the ancient aphorisms of Patanjali into our modern context.

One thing I really like about her review is the opening paragraph which calls attention to something that also has bothered me about the ultra-hip, self-absorbed yogi class. She writes:

One of the drawbacks about being a yogi blogger is that I get regular exposure to some of the most tasteless and depressing aspects of yoga in Western culture (and y’all know what I’m talking about, because I can’t stop myself from commenting on it). Crass commercialism, hypersexualization, narcissism, branding… it’s enough to sometimes make me wonder why I bother with this practice.

Which is why I’m so grateful for Yoga for a World Out of Balance: Teachings on Ethics and Social Action (Shambala Publications, 2009). The latest book by Michael Stone, a Toronto-based yoga teacher, psychotherapist and author, puts to rest my unease about current developments of yoga and assures me that it’s a practice that is not only worthwhile, but essential for modern life.

Agreed. I’ve been put off more than a few times by self-absorbed yogis who are more into image and posing (not the asana kind) than any kind of true practice that leads to change or realization.

I’m off to find this book. I’ll write my own review at some point down the road. In the meantime, check out the

Okay, for starters I’m a big Nathan Fillion fan. Not like man-crush big, but come on, Fillion has to be the most likable guy on TV. Plus, he’s played some great roles on fantastic shows like Firefly (another show I loved), Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Yes, Josh Whedon has kept him busy) to name a few. So this alone is enough to tune in and catch an episode. So, tune in I did.

Now, I’m hooked.

Beyond the Fillion-factor, I love Castle because it’s a smart and funny crime drama with just the right amount of camp and sexual tension. Plus, the writing is great and the characters likable.

And kudos to ABC for actually releasing a Richard Castle novel – Heat Wave, the first Nikki Heat book. This book is the central premise behind the show. His research for the book is why he follows around and eventually partners up with Detective Kate Beckett in the first place. The book is a nice piece of cross-marketing. And, based on reviews, it’s not a bad crime read either.

Throughout my writing career I’ve written or some other creative writing off and on from music video treatments and screenplays to novels, short stories and poetry. Along the way, I’ve made about every mistake you can make, learned some great tricks, had great successes and a few white whales I can’t seem to conquer.

The most important thing to know as a writer is that you have to write, a lot. Write every day, every morning, write when you’re on a break at work, write before bed, write at lunch. Scribble the words on napkins, in journals and into your writing program of choice.

The one resource that I really love is The Lie That Tells A Truth by John Dufresne. No other books has had the impact this book has had on how I approach the craft of writing fiction. His book is full of great information, first-hand examples of how he tackles tough writing challenges and best of all the book makes for a great read. Dufresne’s style is funny and personal. He writes like he gives a damn. And, he knows what hell he’s talking about.

If you write, read this book. Of course, do it while writing. Read it in the nooks and crannies between putting ink to paper (or font to form?) and I think you’ll find that the insights will give you fuel, help you find certainty and just enough hubris to do the unthinkable: write a novel.

That’s my plan. I will write a novel this year. I’d hate to let John down.

This is great. Aldous Huxley narrates his book A Brave New World as actors perform sections from the book to the music of Bernard Herrmann, the great composer who worked extensively with Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Scorsese and other great diretors.

This is a digital conversion of the original LP so there is a lot of noise, hisses, pops and scratches, but this is brilliant to listen to nonetheless.

Find the MP3s here.

The Conscious Cook by Tal Ronnen is one of the most beautiful cookbooks I’ve ever seen. The typography is beautiful, the colors exquisite, the food photography completely tantalizing.

And that’s just aesthetics. The recipes themselves are amazing. This book, along with Alicia Silverstone’s The Kind Diet provide an incredible Vegan one-two punch of delicious, natural, earth and animal friendly cooking with flair, flavor and tons of taste.

In The Conscious Cook, we get to see what the new face of Vegan cuisine looks and tastes like. There are no bland, boring or dull dishes here, only rich, savory and satisfying dishes.

Before I became a vegetarian I had this fear that I’d get easily bored with the cuisine. I also had a sense that the faux meats where horrible. I was wrong on both. Granted, the psuedo-saugage, veggie burgers and other veg-meats have made great strides. So much so that I’ve dined at veggie restaurants where you’d never know you were eating chicken or beef if you weren’t paying attention.

This is a great cookbook. It’s full of photos, information and dynamic recipes. The layout is clean and fresh. Designwise, this is one of my favorite cookbooks ever.

A recent story in the New York Times discusses the release of a long-await and very mysterious book by the great psychonaut Carl Jung. The Red Book, set to be released October 7th of this year promises to blow minds while delving deeply into the psyche, dreams and thoughts of one of the world’s greatest minds.

The book has been shrouded in mystery for almost 100 years and still creates a bit of unease even to this day. According to the Times article,

Some people feel that nobody should read the book, and some feel that everybody should read it. The truth is, nobody really knows. Most of what has been said about the book — what it is, what it means — is the product of guesswork, because from the time it was begun in 1914 in a smallish town in Switzerland, it seems that only about two dozen people have managed to read or even have much of a look at it.

So, what is the book about? Well, in essence it’s the search for the Holy Grail. In other words, the primal and very essential search for Soul. Or, as the article puts it, the story is one of the classic hero’s journey where “Man skids into midlife and loses his soul. Man goes looking for soul. After a lot of instructive hardship and adventure — taking place entirely in his head — he finds it again.”

What did the author find as she read the book? She summarized her reeading of it like this:

The book is bombastic, baroque and like so much else about Carl Jung, a willful oddity, synched with an antediluvian and mystical reality. The text is dense, often poetic, always strange. The art is arresting and also strange. Even today, its publication feels risky, like an exposure. But then again, it is possible Jung intended it as such. In 1959, after having left the book more or less untouched for 30 or so years, he penned a brief epilogue, acknowledging the central dilemma in considering the book’s fate. “To the superficial observer,” he wrote, “it will appear like madness.”

I can’t wait to read it.

There is a great quote by William James at the beginning of Dark Lore, Volume 1 that reads,

Round about the accredited and orderly facts of every science there ever floats a sort of dust-cloud of exceptional observations, of occurrences minute and irregular and seldom met with, which it always proves more easy to ignore than to attend to.

As I finish up with Entangled Minds by Dean Radin and launch into In Search of the Miraculous by P.D. Ouspensky, I can’t help but feel the timeliness of this statement as it bears down on me.

There is so much we don’t, can’t and won’t understand, not in lifetimes. These questions aren’t answered by religions, or science or philosophers but can only be answered I believe from within. To quote Swami Vivekananda,

The goal of mankind is knowledge … Now this knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside: it is all inside. What we say a man ‘knows’, should, in strict psychological language, be what he ‘discovers’ or ‘unveils’; what man ‘learns’ is really what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.

In other words, knowledge, knowing, learning is really a form of remembering.

This is about gnosis, knowledge of self and deep understanding that transcends books. The most important things we can learn, we already posses if we could all only remember where we left them.