For all those who believe, expect a miracle! – Linda Goodman
According to Maharshi Patanjali, one of the greatest sages of India, ”Swadhyaya” or study of self and others in relation to us, is one of the action plans to master “Yoga” (Emptying the Mind ). This means listening to others’ experiences, reading books by various masters, and contemplation on our own experiences.
There are a number of masters of meditation in the world from east and west who researched several mindfulness and meditation topics and authored books that contain distilled wisdom and science from their lifetime experiences and studies. The best way to enhance our wisdom and know ourselves better is to learn from their experiences through books. Even more powerful than this is to read right spiritual magazines that provide articles on key teachings and wisdom from these world spiritual masters.
Few of the recommended books include:
1. The Art & Science of Meditation by Dr. Newton Kondaveti
2. You are the Placebo by Joe Dispenza.
3. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach.
4. The Miracle of Mindfulness by ThichNhatHanh
5. Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton.
6. You Heal Yourself by Louise L Hay
7. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma.
8. Power of your subconscious Mind by Dr Joseph Murphy.
9. Self Aware Universe by Amit Goswami.
10. Books by Osho.
11. Wherever you go, There you are by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
12. Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahamsa Yogananda.
13. Living with Himalayan Masters by Swami Rama.
14. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.
15. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse.
16. Conversations with God by Neal Donald Walsh.
17. Ikigai by Hector Garcia, Albert Liebermann.
18. The Practice of No Problem by Jeff Carreira
19. Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza
20. The Celestine Prophecy 9 Insights by James Redfield
21. Mind to Matter by Dawson Church
22. The Untold Story of Sita by Dena Meriam
23. Patriji Answers by Brahmarshi Patriji
Spiritual Magazines / Newsletters
1. ‘Buddha-CEO’ by Buddha-CEO Quantum Foundation (buddhaceo.org/magazine)
2. ‘Spiritual Science’ and ‘Spiritual India’, by Pyramid Spiritual Societies Movement, India (www.instamojo.com/spiritualindia/)
Meditation helps to move our brains from neuro-rigidity to neuro-plasticity. This means the mind is open to receive more knowledge and supports learning newer information.
Spiritual books open us to a whole new world of knowledge! We get the distilled knowledge of the lifetime of the authors / masters in their few books. The way we start looking at our life can dramatically change as our consciousness expands with the new spiritual knowledge. When we understand the experiences of these masters, our own life experiences start appearing to us differently as we contemplate on them with a different perspective. Whenever we read a spiritual book, we carry those positive and elevating thoughts in our mind for a few days after the book is read. This results in staying away from limiting thoughts and beliefs in our mind and makes our meditations more deeper.
Books also give us a tremendous amount of clarity. Therefore, investing time in reading any number of right spiritual books is highly recommended in strengthening our meditation practice, while aiding us greatly in our personal transformation.
Tips on reading the books:
When you start to read a book from this list, sometimes you go very fast and complete a lot of pages in a short time. Thereafter, you may notice that you are taking much longer to complete even one or two pages. You are interested to read but progress very less. This is a common phenomenon with many people. This happens because our mind is not ready to receive more when it needs to synthesize the knowledge (on that topic) already received. When you recognise that you are not making much progress in reading, one recommendation is to just put that book aside and start reading a different book. You can go back to read the earlier book again after a few weeks or months.
Similarly, audio books are a great option these days for those who do not have a fixed place / time to read a book or cannot focus on reading physical books. Audio books contain the same content as the physical book and are often read out by the author himself / herself. It takes fewer than 12 hours of listening time to complete an audio book in most cases. Those who commute long hours or travel often, can take advantage of these audio books and benefit greatly, something I do regularly.
Our paths are Knowledge Path and Meditation Path. Both are equally important to see the transformation in oneself in the shortest possible time. Linda Goodman says, “Books are the swiftest shortcut to Enlightenment”. Hope you take an immediate action today to acquire some of the books from the above list from your favourite online / book store and start reading. You can also subscribe to the above mentioned magazines. They are a great way to stay connected to Meditation.
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