Prisons of Our Mind and the Road to Freedom


Book Description

Psychological and spiritual insights of a personal journey in understanding the workings of our mind.




Prisoners of Our Thoughts


Book Description

This timely book expands on Viktor Frankl's seminal Man's Search for Meaning, examining the book's concepts in depth and widening the market for them by introducing an entirely new way to look at work and the workplace. Alex Pattakos, a former colleague of Frankl's, brings the search for meaning at work within the grasp of every reader using simple, straightforward language. The author distills Frankl's ideas into seven core principles: Exercise the freedom to choose your attitude; Realize your will to meaning; Detect the meaning of life's moments; Don't work against yourself; Look at yourself from a distance; Shift your focus of attention; and Extend beyond yourself. By demonstrating how Dr. Frankl's key principles can be applied to all kinds of work situations, Prisoners of Our Thoughts opens up new opportunities for finding personal meaning and living an authentic work life.




The Bitter Road to Freedom


Book Description

The Bitter Road to Freedom is a powerful, deeply moving account of an earth-shattering year in the history of the U.S. and Europe. Americans are justly proud of the role their country played in liberating Europe from Nazi tyranny. For many years, we have celebrated the courage of Allied soldiers, sailors, and aircrews who defeated Hitler's regime and restored freedom to the continent. But in recounting the heroism of the "greatest generation," Americans often overlook the wartime experiences of European people themselves—the very people for whom the war was fought. In this brilliant new book, historian William I. Hitchcock surveys the European continent from D-Day to the final battles of the war and the first few months of peace. Based on exhaustive research in five nations and dozens of archives, Hitchcock's groundbreaking account shows that the liberation of Europe was both a military triumph and a human tragedy of epic proportions. This strikingly original, multinational history of liberation brings to light the interactions of soldiers and civilians, the experiences of noncombatants, and the trauma of displacement and loss amid unprecedented destruction. This book recounts a surprising story, often jarring and uncomfortable, and one that has never been told with such richness and depth. Ranging from the ferocious battle for Normandy (where as many French civilians died on D-Day as U.S. servicemen) to the plains of Poland, from the icy ravines of the Ardennes to the shattered cities and refugee camps of occupied Germany, The Bitter Road to Freedom depicts in searing detail the shocking price that Europeans paid for their freedom.




Rebel Buddha


Book Description

There’s a rebel within you. It’s the part of you that already knows how to break free of fear and unhappiness. This rebel is the voice of your own awakened mind. It’s your rebel buddha—the sharp, clear intelligence that resists the status quo. It wakes you up from the sleepy acceptance of your day-to-day reality and shows you the power of your enlightened nature. It’s the vibrant, insightful energy that compels you to seek the truth. Dzogchen Ponlop guides you through the inner revolution that comes from unleashing your rebel buddha. He explains how, by training your mind and understanding your true nature, you can free yourself from needless suffering. He presents a thorough introduction to the essence of the Buddha’s teachings and argues that, if we are to bring these teachings fully into our personal experience, we must go beyond the cultural trappings of traditional Asian Buddhism. "We all want to find some meaningful truth about who we are," he says, "but we can only find it guided by our own wisdom—by our own rebel buddha within.







Earning Freedom!


Book Description

Michael Santos helps audiences understand how to overcome the struggle of a lengthy prison term. Readers get to experience the mindset of a 23-year-old young man that goes into prison at the start of America's War on Drugs. They see how decisions that Santos made at different stages in the journey opened opportunities for a life of growth, fulfillment, and meaning.Santos tells the story in three sections: Veni, Vidi, Vici.In the first section of the book, we see the challenges of the arrest, the reflections while in jail, the criminal trial, and the imposition of a 45-year prison term.In the second section of the book, we learn how Santos opened opportunities to grow. By writing letters to universities, he found his way into a college program. After earning an undergraduate degree, he pursued a master's degree. After earning a master's degree, he began work toward a doctorate degree. When authorities blocked his pathway to complete his formal education, Santos shifted his energy to publishing and creating business opportunities from inside of prison boundaries.In the final section, we learn how Santos relied upon critical-thinking skills to position himself for a successful journey inside. He nurtured a relationship with Carole and married her inside of a prison visiting room. Then, he began building businesses that would allow him to return to society strong, with his dignity intact.Through Earning Freedom! readers learn how to overcome struggles and challenges. At any time, we can recalibrate, we can begin working toward a better life. Santos served 9,135 days in prison, and another 365 days in a halfway house before concluding 26 years as a federal prisoner. Through his various websites, he continues to document how the decisions he made in prison put him on a pathway to succeed upon release.




The Fallows


Book Description

One man goes on a quest to find his lost love facing not only the gods themselves but also humanity and the forces of nature. In a spiritual adventure the man inspires not only the gods but also the people of the earth to save the world from global warming, war, famine, disease, and abuse. Together the gods and mankind join hands to call forth the evils of the world back into Pandora’s box, which was once released into the world by the mighty Zeus because Prometheus stole fire from Mount Olympus and gave it to man. I wish not to overwhelm the readers by stretching their consciousness beyond the boundaries of their own reason. But for you to gain the most out of your reading experience of The Fallows, you must know that I have worked hard to speak to its readers on three different intellectual levels. And I hope that you will enjoy this book, for in truth I cried tears with every line of poetry that was written, and it’s no lie: The Fallows was truly a remarkably healing experience for me as I hope that it will be as much a healing experience for you. The first intellectual level in which The Fallows speaks is primarily a poetic story. It is a tale about a man who was born into the world without knowing his true family, and after his quest to find them, he comes home to find he has lost the only woman that he loves. In metaphorical language, the man goes into the forest to call upon the birds of the air for love, symbolically representing humanity as John the Baptist in the Bible was once weeping in the wilderness. In the forest he is met by the great phoenix, and he is sent out on a quest to save the earth, and if he accomplishes the phoenix’s quest, the birds of the air will gather to find his love. Left alone and hungry after the phoenix and his kin fly away, the man eats a poisonous flower and perishes, representing the fall of humanity, as Adam and Eve once ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, bringing death and sin into the world. From this point on of this great story, you are left on your own to discover The Fallows; it is a great story about man’s love for woman and woman’s love for man and the love they have for their child and the gods, but most importantly it is about their love for the earth. I do not wish to ruin the rest of the story before you have had the chance to read it yourself, so I will not reveal any more of its major themes. The second intellectual level in which the book speaks is found in the allegorical messages written in the poem that are in reference to my walk across America for love, inspiring the people of the world to unite their strengths, hearts, and resources to heal the earth, which provides for us all. When the sunset rises in New York from the east, early in the morning I will fill a jar with water from the Atlantic Ocean to be carried across America in my backpack to be dumped into the Pacific Ocean in California exactly while the sun is setting over the west. The jar poetically represents Pandora’s box of evils that have been released into the world. What most people don’t know is that it was not Pandora’s box at all which was opened but a jar that was opened because of her curiosity. Thus Pandora’s jar is what was opened to release the evils into the world; the only spiritual force left in the jar was hope. The ancient poems written about Pandora in the past speak of a clay jar that was opened, not a box. Pandora’s box does sound better than Pandora’ jar, but in all actuality there is still a debate over the issue because there are also references to a box. Which one is the truth, we unfortunately may never know. I am walking across America for love and for all lovers that ever were and for all lovers that will ever be to add more emotional charge to the words of love in this poem for all times dedicated to lovers forever and eternal. Because actions will forever speak louder than words. I have read that great writers in the past would go on walks through the e




Are Prisons Obsolete?


Book Description

With her characteristic brilliance, grace and radical audacity, Angela Y. Davis has put the case for the latest abolition movement in American life: the abolition of the prison. As she quite correctly notes, American life is replete with abolition movements, and when they were engaged in these struggles, their chances of success seemed almost unthinkable. For generations of Americans, the abolition of slavery was sheerest illusion. Similarly,the entrenched system of racial segregation seemed to last forever, and generations lived in the midst of the practice, with few predicting its passage from custom. The brutal, exploitative (dare one say lucrative?) convict-lease system that succeeded formal slavery reaped millions to southern jurisdictions (and untold miseries for tens of thousands of men, and women). Few predicted its passing from the American penal landscape. Davis expertly argues how social movements transformed these social, political and cultural institutions, and made such practices untenable. In Are Prisons Obsolete?, Professor Davis seeks to illustrate that the time for the prison is approaching an end. She argues forthrightly for "decarceration", and argues for the transformation of the society as a whole.




Agape Road


Book Description

The road believers travel is broken with twists, turns, and detours into worldliness and man-made religion. Thankfully, God uses that broken road to draw us back toward the destination our hearts long for----intimacy with Him. In Agape Road, author Bob Mumford illustrates how to avoid taking detours by abiding in Jesus. Experiencing God's unconditional agape love gives us the security, identity, and belonging we cannot get any other way.




The Road to Freedom


Book Description

The Ho Chi Minh Trail was a decisive factor in the defeat of American forces in the Vietnam War. At the peak of its 16 years' operation, the Trail ran through North and South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Despite an estimated 4 million tons of U.S. bombs, efforts to stop the transport of supplies to the North Vietnamese Army over the Trail failed, and by 1975 over a million tons of supplies and 2 million troops had been transported along its path. The author and photographer, the first Westerners to traverse the entire length of the Trail, trace the footsteps of the hundreds of thousands who designed, built, used and fought along it. They interviewed villagers along the Trail as well as key military and political figures on both sides of the conflict, including the mastermind, General Vo Nguyen Giap. Their accounts show that this Trail was a remarkable feat of engineering and tactical warfare of the Vietnam War era. Virginia Morris traveled around the world due to her interest in anthropology, history and natural history but later became focused on Asia. She spent two years in Laos, the first working for the United Nations Development Program and the second traveling in remote areas undertaking research for this book. She holds a Ph.D. in Engineering, and is presently a partner in an engineering consultancy in the U.K.