Great Personal Transformation Books
True Self Discovery Books

Passage through the dark night of the soul into the light of true being

The Self Knowing Who You Are When You're Trying to be Someone Else What if feeling depressed in an abusive world was a first inkling of your true self? How can you improve yourself with a self that needs to be improved? How can you become what you want when wanting blocks your experience of it? Our social structure rewards you for how you think and what you do but gives little or no support for who and what you are. If you are like most people you are living your life without yourself, motivated by achievement, social position and survival, but with little esteem for your own personal value. But what if who you are is really quite wonderful? What if you actually are everything as a person that you ideally try to be- noble- patient- understanding? What if every moment whether in joy or sorrow is infinite and exquisite? The Self will guide you through the societal snares that reinforce themselves and bind you up in reaction. It supports you in experiencing your autonomous self - free of the conditioning of culture. The release date is near for The Self - Scroll down to sign up to be notified when it is available.

Author David Hoefer David's Blog

David Hoefer's favorite books about personal transformation

Become What You Are Alan Watts Author David Hoefer says, "I appreciate Watts insights into who we are, really." ISBN: 1570629404	THREE: The Way of Zen; Nature, Man, and Woman; Psychotherapy East and West Alan Watts I found Watts scholarly depiction of Zen Buddhism, Art, and Religion to be insightful and profound - very much worth the read. ISBN: 0394419049	The Gnostic Gospels Elaine Pagels Pagels makes profound comparisons between early and orthodox Christianity. It provides perspective for the beliefs, attitudes and reactions I find myself engulfed in. ISBN: 0394502787	Practicing The Power of Now Eckhart Tolle Tolle s insight and constructive exercises support the awareness that takes us from who we are trying to become to being our true self and knowing it. ISBN: 0340822538
Stillness Speaks Eckhart Tolle A good book that will help you appreciate Tolle s numerous reflections on awareness and the self. ISBN: 0340829745	Tao Te Ching Stephen Mitchell Perhaps the most meaningful translation of the Tao ever written. ISBN: 0061142662	Essential Rumi Coleman Barks This twelfth century poet eloquently expresses the experience of awareness, and is a pleasure to read. ISBN: 0062509586	The Awakening of Intelligence J. Krishnamurti A profound discussion on thought, ego, and awareness. ISBN: 0380456745

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Chapter 1 Excerpt

Knowing Who We Are

I could say I know we are all divine and you may already believe that this is true. But believing we are divine is not the same as knowing we are divine.

Believing we are divine actually blocks the experience of being divine. It is an affirmation that creates a feeling of divinity while sidestepping the fears and unknowns that precede any true experience.

A true experience brings with it a true knowing. An experience has feelings associated with it - but the experience is not the feeling. Knowing I am divine, for example, does not mean that I feel divine. Instead I feel joy, exhilaration - happiness.

Knowing I am divine does not require repeated prayers and affirmations. It requires no effort. I am content simply to look ever deeper into being, itself.

A true experience comes from standing still - doing nothing that interferes with the information arising within us. Our slightest reaction alters it, and we are reacting all the time.

Scientists go to extremes to avoid contaminating evidence - not allowing their own involvement to alter what they are looking at. They simply want to know.

To know, they have to allow what they are looking at to show them. Science is as much concerned with how it knows as it is with what it knows.

The notion of conducting an experiment designed to support our own bias is absurd. We gain the satisfaction of knowing we are right while remaining lost in the very ignorance that prompted our investigation - yet this is what we typically do when we look for the truth of our self.


Everything in life arises in conjunction with everything else. Every living cell is connected to every other life form. Every thought is derived from every other thought. Light arises from darkness as darkness arises from light.


If we suppress one aspect of our lives we suppress all aspects of our lives.


To know our self we have to allow all of the evidence and all of the feelings.

To experience our feelings we have to stand still - stop reacting, suppressing, averting - but how do we do that? How do we stand still - become the observer - when our attempt to be still is just another reaction?


Think about it. If I'm discontented and quiet myself in order to find contentment, I'm back to creating a better "me" so that I can feel better.

Awareness can have no motive. The moment we do one thing to get something else, we are back to designing our life - trying to achieve this with that.

Standing still will allow my divinity to arise, but until it arises, I have no idea what divinity is. Saying it is such and such is just another presumption or belief taken
on to achieve a feeling or assurance without facing the sorrow, fear, often depression arising from the darkness that is also within me.

There is an infinite aspect to standing still. Standing still allows infinite reflection. A commitment to be with and observe whatever, out of infinite possibilities, is revealed.

To know oneself one must be willing to allow the darkness for as long as darkness lasts - not knowing if or when it will end. Not knowing if our worst fears about ourselves will be sustained.

We have to remain open to the reflections that come to us, triggered by the feelings and information arising from within us - triggered by the reactions of life and others to us.

To know who we are we have to care about what is true.

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