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Jaya's recommended book list 

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If I were only going to recommend 11 books in English:

 

  • Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Sensing, Feeling, and Action

  • Irina Tweedy, Chasm of Fire

  • Wendell Berry, This Day

  • Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life

  • Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet 

  • Lao Tsu, transl. Stephen Mitchell, Tao Te Ching

  • Jacques Lusseyran, And There Was Light

  • Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That

  • Joanna Field (Marianne Moore), A Life of One's Own

  • Chogyam Trungpa, The Essential Trungpa

  • J. Krishnamurti, Meditations

    (Most of these books are in English. My favorite books of all time are in Hindi and Sanskrit but it can be hard to find translations into English that bring across the depth and nuance of the originals.)


Accessible authors to begin with:

  • Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart and other books

  • Byron Katie, The Work

  • Rumi, transl. Coleman Barks, Essential Rumi


Ancient texts and poetry (more than 200 years old):

  • Dogen, transl. Tanahashi, Enlightenment Unfolds

  • Gautam Buddha, transl. Bhikkhus Bodhi & Nanamoli, Majjhima Nikaya

  • Hafiz, transl. Daniel Ladinsky, The Gift

  • I Ching

  • Kabir, transl. Linda Hess, The Bijak of Kabir

  • Lao Tsu, transl. Stephen Mitchell, Tao Te Ching

  • Mirabai, transl. Jane Hirshfield & Robert Bly, Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems

  • Patanjali, transl. Orit Sen-Gupta, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras

  • Rumi, transl. Coleman Barks, Essential Rumi

 

Modern poetry (less than 200 years old):

  • Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and other books

  • Wendell Berry, Collected Poems, This Day, and other books & essays

  • e.e. cummings

  • Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet and other books

  • Denise Levertov, This Great Unknowing, and other books

  • Naomi Shihab Nye, Fuel, and other books

  • Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems and other books

  • Rainer Maria Rilke, transl. Joanna Macy, Rilke's Book of Hours

  • David Whyte

  • Carl Sandburg, Breathing Tokens

         
 

Embodiment, movement, yoga, trauma release and healing:

  • Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Sensing, Feeling, and Action

  • Alice Burmeister, The Touch of Healing

  • Peter Levine, Waking the Tiger

  • Aloka Marti and Joan Sala, Awareness through the Body

  • Sandra Reeve, Nine Ways of Seeing a Body

  • Vanda Scaravelli, Awakening the Spine

  • Orit Sen-Gupta, Vayu's Gate and other books

  • Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score
     

Autobiography (people telling their own story):

  • Joanna Field (Marianne Moore), A Life of One's Own

  • Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life

  • Jacques Lusseyran, And There Was Light

  • Irina Tweedy, Chasm of Fire
     

Modern voices based in Ind0-Tibetan spiritual traditions:

  • Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

  • Ram Dass, How Can I Help? and other books

  • Dipa Ma, Knee Deep in Grace

  • J. Krishnamurti, Meditations, and many other books

  • Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That

  • H.W.L. Poonja, Nothing Ever Happened and other books

  • Ramana Maharshi, many books

  • Sraddhalu Ranade, Integral Education

  • Chogyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, and others

  • Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Carefree Dignity


Modern voices from Europe and the US:

  • Abrams, The Spell of the Sensuous

  • Anonymous, The Way of a Pilgrim

  • Brene Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me and other books

  • Roberto Calasso, Ka

  • Margaret Charles Smith and Linda Janet Holmes, Listen to Me Good: The Life Story of an Alabama Midwife

  • John de Ruiter, Unveiling Reality

  • Joseph Jaworski, Synchronicity

  • Byron Katie, The Work

  • Steven Levine, Meetings at the Edge

  • Gita Mallasz, Talking with Angels

  • Daniel Quinn, The Story of B

  • Simone Weil, Waiting for God

 

Science and ecology related:

  • David Bohm, Unfolding Meaning, The Ending of Time (w Krishnamurti)

  • Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

  • Manasobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution

  • Joanna Macy, Mutual Causality in Buddhism & General Systems Theory, and other books

  • Bill Mollison & others, Permaculture


Fiction, writing and art:

  • Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way

  • Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines

  • Annie Dillard, Abundance and other books

  • Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God and other books

  • Annie LaMott, Bird by Bird and other books

  • Michael Leunig, The Stick and other books

  • Antoine Saint Exupery, The Little Prince

  • Alice Walker, The Temple of My Familiar

  • Lynda Barry, Syllabus
     

In Hindi:

  • Kabir

  • Meerabai

  • Sahajobai

 

In Sanskrit:

  • Patanjali's Yoga Sutras

  • Yoga Vashisht

 

In Castellano:

  • Teresa de Avila

  • San Joan de la Cruz

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