The Bhagavad Gita
The Maha Bharata
The Torah
The Tanach
The New Testament
The Tao Te Ching
The Chuang Tsu
The Way of God (Moshe Luzzatto)
Most anything by Stephen King
Star Trek books
I love the Srimad Bhagavad Gita (The Glorious Song of God)! Here's a selection from My original translation of the Gita:
2:11: The Blessed One said: While speaking learned words, you are mourning for what is not worthy of grief. Those who are wise lament neither for the living nor for the dead.
2:12: Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings, nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.
2:13: As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul also passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.
2:14: O son of Kunti, sensory perceptions afflict one with cold, heat, pleasure and pain. They appear and disappear and are impermanent. Therefore endure them all O descendent of Bharata.
2:15: One who is never distressed, O best among men, and who remains unaltered [in the face of] suffering and pleasure and is patient, he is eligible for immortality.
2:16: Being does not come from the non-existent, nor does non-being arise from the eternal. This is the considered conclusion of those who see the truth.
2:17,18: Know you by Whom all this imperishable is pervaded. The destruction of this immutable is not possible for anyone.
All these bodies are perishable, but it is said of the eternal embodied soul that it is indestructible and immeasurable, therefore fight, O descendent of Bharata.
2:19: Anyone who considers the slayer or anyone who knows the slain and thinks him killer or killed lacks discernment. No one slays nor is anyone slain.
2:20: It [the immutable soul] is not born, It does not die, at no time did It come into being, nor will It come into being hereafter. It is unborn, eternal, permanent and ancient. It is not killed when the body is slain.
2:21: How can that person who knows the soul to be indestructible, eternal, unborn and immutable, O child of Partha, slay anyone or cause another to kill.
2:22: Just as a man casts off worn out clothing and accepts new ones, even so the embodied soul discards worn out bodies and enters into different ones.
2:23, 24: This soul cannot be severed by weapons, burnt by fire, wetted with water, nor dried by the wind.
It is unbreakable, unburnable, It cannot be wetted nor dried. It is eternal and all-pervading, equable, immovable and eternally constant.
2:25-28: The soul is said to be unmanifested; It is inconceivable and unchanging. Therefore, knowing the soul to be thus, you should not lament.
Moreover, if you determine the soul to be constantly born and eternally dying, even then, O mighty armed one, you ought not to lament.
For those born death is certain and for those dead birth is certain. For the sake of the inevitable you ought not lament.
All beings are unmanifested in the beginning, manifested in the middle, and again unmanifested in the end. O descendent of Bharata, where therein is cause for lamentation?
2:29: Some see the soul as amazing. Some speak of the soul as amazing, while others hear of it as amazing. Still, no one truly knows the soul.
From such works of faith and truth the soul finds peace even amidst times of great turmoil and assurance that "This Too Will Pass."
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