Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day
#2991 - Monday, November 19, 2007 - Editor: Gloria Lee
Nondual Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
"I have only ever read one book ( Sati ) which I was unable to find fault with in non duality. But it's been completely ignored in the spiritual field. Even the author keeps himself private."
When one of our readers, Alan Murphy, wrote this to us all the editors were intrigued to discover Sati is a novel. Our list of nondual novels is rather short. Even more unusual was to find the writer is a best-selling author of young adult and children's fiction who specializes in the thriller genre. Christopher Pike is really a pen name taken from a Star Trek captain in the early 1960's T.V show. Perhaps because it is so unlike his more well known books, Sati is out of print and can only be found used. Yet on Amazon it receives mostly rave reviews:
"I have read all the recent books on spirituality and found them useless. I am so lucky to have found this book. It is so wonderful in the way it is written, the depth of wisdom, the storyline and the characters. It holds the wisdom of the centuries in such a simple book. It is so life changing and touching. Five stars is not enough." --Amazon review
"If you read only one book, read Sati.
Read it with a completely open heart and mind. Listen to it. Understand it.
I wish I could afford to buy Sati in great big boxes and hand it out to people. I want the whole world to read it and understand it. I want it to be in every language. I want to learn languages so I can translate it." --Amazon review
From
Publishers Weekly
Does God exist? Is she a blonde, blue-eyed woman named
Sati, encountered hitchhiking in the Arizona desert where she is
picked up by Michael, a long-haul trucker at odds with life? The
questions crystallize back in Los Angeles at the trucker's
ramshackle apartment, when Sati declares she is the deity and
sets about proving it. No miracles, but changes come about for a
motley cast: a dying AIDS victim, a drug dealer, a fundamentalist
preacher, Michael's estranged wife and their little daughter.
Each is attracted to Sati's beautiful simplicity, though they
confront and challenge her. When her life is terminated
violently, they realize she "had given us a taste of our
inner silence, a taste of ourselves." The ancient hope for
redemption is recast in this sprightly contemporary parable, the
first adult novel from a best-selling author of young adult
fiction.
"I have read many spiritual/philosophical books
in my life. This is easily the only one I would recommend
completely. It touched me in a way none have ever. It is an
enjoyable read, a book of real wisdom and one that affects by
what is not said but is clearly there. Probably not well known as
it is under the children's section and few children would grasp
the depth, meaning, and beauty of its words. If placed in the
right section it would be a huge bestseller. It has everything
and more."
--From a review by Alan Murphy, who was also kind enough to send us some quotes from Sati. And thank you for bringing this book to our attention.
"A girl who will change everything for those she meets. She may change everything for you too! " from front page of one book.
"All who meet her will wonder. He tries to solve the mystery of her origin. What he finds will break his heart and send him into the depths of despair yet at the same time will open his heart and mind to wonders he never imagined "( From inside cover )
" I will teach you to say I don't know and be glad . That is true knowledge"
A man - or a woman, I speak of both, of course - who finds me is never ill. He is always strong. Nothing can harm him. He does the greatest service to humanity. By his mere presence, he brings life and joy to all.
Pure being transcends thought. It can only be experienced when the minds slips beyond thought. It cannot be imagined. In the present there are no worries or anxieties. The present is always filled with joy, with love. If you were to live fully in the present, the stress and strain of your entire life would be washed away.
I tell you without any doubt that everything is inevitable.
There comes a time for everybody when words and reasons can become such a great weariness.
If you accidentally poke yourself in the eye, you do not get angry at your finger. You do not blame your finger. This is because your finger is part of you. In the same way and this is not just some high ideal, you are a part of everybody else. Let your anger flow if you must but understand it is all directed at yourself. Understand it is also the same with your love. All love is directed towards the self.
Being perfectly silent it cannot be reached by someone trying to reach it. When you try you create more activity in the mind, in thoughts. This takes you further away from your goal. It is a paradox.
I am all things, yet I am beyond all things. There is nothing higher than me. This body can suffer. But I am more than the body. I never suffer.
" But you say you are God? We are all God. The only difference between you and me is that I know I am God... you are all divine. You are the same as myself. When I talk, I talk to myself. There is only one of us here."
Her compassion for those who suffered was outweighed only by her complete unattachment to them. Some might say she was indifferent. I know her ocean of joy was simply too vast to be disturbed by any wave.