one

One
$16.95
It is a pleasure to read "One" with my four-year-old granddaughter. "One" is a simple book with few words and lots of white space on the pages. Its simplicity makes it easy for my granddaughter to focus and offers a serene reading experience for me. There is a certain amount of magic in this book as the paint blotches and numbers come alive on the pages and easily create emotion and empathy in readers. Kathryn Otoshi's use of colors and numbers as characters offers immediate familiarity to children. It is a brilliant approach, considering colors and numbers are a big part of a young child's learning world. My granddaughter seems to feel quite accomplished when she identifies the colors and numbers in this book.

The second time we read the story, my granddaughter was already filling in the words as I intentionally left them out. She loves the parts when Red gets bigger, and bigger, and BIGGER and then later in the story gets very . . . very . . . very small. She also likes it when One enters the story. Ms. Otoshi presents this transition perfectly. Just when all the colors are feeling a little blue because Red was mean to them, One shows up. One is different. He is funny and makes the colors laugh. At this point, a little smile lights up my granddaughter's face. She also likes it when all the colors finally standup to Red. When the story is over, I ask her what she should say when someone is mean to her. She replies, "No."

As a 2009 IPPY Award silver medalist, I purchased "One" to see what a gold medalist had to offer, so that I might learn and be inspired. I know a good book when I see one, and I now understand why "One" took the gold.

Butterfly Kisses for Grandma and Grandpa

One
$7.99
Like many others I was introduced to Richard Bach through Illusions when I was a teenager. When One was suggested to me years later I had high hopes for the book but I could have had no idea how much this book would really affect me. One is a book for soul-searches and dreamers. It came to me in a time in my life I questioned everything about the world and brought me a sense of peace. I highly recommend this book to anyone who feels they have lost their way in life.

O.N.E. Coconut Water, 11.2-Ounce Aseptic Containers (Pack of 12)
$21.20
If you don't already like coconut water, this won't change your mind about it as it is more of an acquired taste for most but it is as good as any I have tried.

One: Essential Writings on Nonduality
$15.95
This slim volume collecting excerpts from some of the world's well known sacred texts and enlightened writers makes a simple point, that awakening to our true nature is not a process or experience bound by culture or theology.

Most of One's selections are quite short, ranging from 5-10 pages, and are served with up with introductions setting time, place, and context. If the title and the introduction hadn't already clued you in, it very quickly becomes obvious that sages of ancient India to the script writers of the popular film series The Matrix all have an identical message to convey, that conventional reality is only surface reality, the mind like a movie screen on which fleeting images of light are projected. What lies below, the real reality, can never be described, is approached through humility and abandonment of all conception and striving, and leads to loss of self, the dissolution of I into God, the union of subject and object - enlightenment, rapture, nonduality.

While the religious writings (including selections from Hinduism, Buddhism,Taosim, Native American animism, mystical Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are interesting enough, it's the book's latter half that has the most direct appeal to the modern reader. In it, writers working in such diverse fields as the arts, psychotherapy, and education present perspectives of their professions informed by nonduality.

Most of the selections should be fairly comprehensible to anyone with a decent secondary education. The introductions go a long way in helping explain concepts and expressions used in traditions the typical Western reader may not be familiar with, for example in Hinduism or Buddhism. Ironically for a collection issued in the US, I found one of the densest and least penetrable texts to be of a Christian enlightenment experience.

This is a wonderful book for a new spiritual seeker, or an old one who hasn't been exposed to the well-trod paths winding through other corners of the world. Reading it may help us recall that, despite differences in language or ideology, our quest for awakening is after all is a quest to be fully human.

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