Reddit reviews The Sermon on the Mount: The Key to Success in Life

https://www.amazon.com/Sermon-Mount-Key-Success-Life/dp/0060628626

First of all, let me preface this by saying I am no longer a Christian in the sense that most Christians see themselves. But I remain very religious in my life and always try to be open minded. I still have firm beliefs in many principles of the teachings of Christianity, but I do not believe in an anthropomorphic God. That is just where I ended up in my life. I would never begin to tell people what they should believe. That is a fool's game.




Having said that, however, you asked for assistance in finding a way to God. I'm going to give you some advice to help you to find your own path. I suggest you read the book "Sermon on the Mount" by Emmet Fox. It is a wonderful explanation of the Sermon on the Mount and the spiritual teachings of Jesus. This is a very good teaching of the principles of Christianity that helped me many years ago to reconcile the dissonance I felt in watching my church do things that just didn't jive with me morally.



The reason I suggest this is because he explains very specifically how it is up to the individual to find the path to a spiritual awakening. A quote from the book that has always meant something to me:



"It is as a king, the absolute ruler of his own kingdom, that the Sermon on the Mount considers is you; for this, after all, is the most complete of all similes. When you know the Truth of Being, you are, as a literal fact and not merely in the rhetorical sense, the absolute monarch of your own life. You make your own conditions, and you can unmake them. You make and unmake your own health. You attract to yourself certain kinds of people and certain conditions—and others you repel. You attract yourself to riches or poverty, and peace of mind or fear—entirely in accordance with the way in which you govern your kingdom. Of course, the world does not know this. It supposes that the conditions of one's life are largely made for him by outer circumstances, and by other people. It believes that one is at all times liable to unforeseen and unexpected accidents of one sort or another, any one of which may seriously inconvenience or even completely ruin his scheme of life. But the Truth of Being is just the contrary of all this, and, since mankind has nearly always believed the false version, we cannot wonder that history has been so full of mistakes and suffering and trouble."




Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Sermon-Mount-Success-Life/dp/0060628626


PDF of the book:
http://harrykatz.com/Sermon/Sermon_On_The_Mount_eBook.pdf



Edit: typos, etc.

First of all, the proverb is "Resentment is like drinking rat-poison and expecting the rat to die."

Second, that's a Zen Master Gelada, not an orangutan or any another sort of ape. (Apparently, it's unclear whether geladas should be classified with genus Papio, the baboons.)

Last, although the OP did not attribute it to anyone, this is usually ascribed to either the Buddha or Nelson Mandela. It comes first from the 5th Century scholar Buddhaghoṣa, who wrote:

> By doing this [getting angry] you are like a man who wants to hit another and picks up a burning ember or excrement in his hand and so first burns himself or makes himself stink.

The thought was made a little clearer by spiritual leader Emmet Fox in his Sermon On The Mount:

> There is no question about its [hatred's] practical consequences to you. You might as well swallow a dose of prussic acid in two gulps, and think to protect yourself by saying, “This one is for Robespierre; and this one for the Bristol murderer.” You will hardly have any doubt as to who will receive the benefit of the poison.