I find it very helpful to keep a book on the go that is from outside of my world. I do this for a couple of reasons.

1. Open mind: It keeps my mind open. It helps me remember that there are other worlds and perspectives than my own. Sometimes it actually encourages me to realize that some of my theological suspicions were well founded.

2. Open heart: It keeps my heart open. Sometimes I will read something that totally catches me off guard and exposes the cynicism, bitterness, hardness, callousness, resentment or anger that my heart has gathered in its defense.

Right now I’m reading Paramahansa Yogananda’s, “Autobiography of a Yogi”. I’m reading it because I finished reading “Steve Jobs” over Christmas and discovered that he read this spiritual classic every year. I just got my copy in the mail this week and I’m already half done. I caught myself getting very emotional at points because of his simple, childlike openness, as compared to my sometimes closed and calloused attitude. I also saw that his revelations confirmed many of the ideas that have been brewing in my own mind.

Such exercises confirm to me that we are all one, that there is no separation, and that there is great joy and love in this insight.