Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™ve spent my professional life as a psychologist delving into the inner workings of the ā€œself.ā€ After working with thousands of clients over the past twenty-five years, Iā€™ve come to understand the liabilities and limitations of the mindā€™s constructed sense of personhood. These books, including the one I wrote, attempt to address the ages-old question of ā€œwho am I?ā€ from a different perspective than that of conventional conceptual identity. They transmit something to us about the core consciousness of our make-up that we may know intuitively but do not encounter often in western discourse. If youā€™re a truth seeker, curious about your essential nature, then Iā€™m sure youā€™ll find them compelling. 


I wrote

The No-Self Help Book: Forty Reasons to Get Over Your Self and Find Peace of Mind

By Kate Gustin,

Book cover of The No-Self Help Book: Forty Reasons to Get Over Your Self and Find Peace of Mind

What is my book about?

There is a global identity theft occurring that has robbed people of their recognition of their true selves. The masterā€¦

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of I Am That

Kate Gustin Why did I love this book?

I love this book!  Iā€™ve returned to it many times over the years. Itā€™s my rock. It contains a series of questions and responses of students in dialogue with the well-known Indian sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. His teachings are direct, down-to-earth, and very timely, in that they address matters of continued importance to all of us: the nature of reality, suffering, mind, body, agency, fear, happiness, peaceā€¦and pretty much every truth you can think of!  Itā€™s 550 pages of unadulterated wisdom.   

By Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked I Am That as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Back cover This collection of the timeless teachings of one of the greatest sages of India, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, is a testament to the uniqueness of the seer's life and work and is regarded by many as a modern spiritual classic. I Am That (first published in 1973) continues to draw new audiences and to enlighten seekers anxious for self-realization. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was a teacher who did not propound any ideology or religion, but gently unwrapped the mystery of the self. His message was simple, direct, and sublime. I Am That preserves his dialogs with the followers who cameā€¦


Book cover of The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Kate Gustin Why did I love this book?

I find that this book offers a quiet, yet captivating transmission that gently guides me to the deepest understandings about mind and consciousness. Reading it feels literally transformative like experiencing the ripples a shiny pebble continues to make in a pond long after it is thrown. By the end of the book, standard notions of pebble and pond, ego and time, self and other are completely overhauled. I read it the way I usually read through a good piece of fiction ā€“ without being able to put it down. Utterly riveting. 

By Eckhart Tolle,

Why should I read it?

26 authors picked The Power of Now as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

**CHOSEN BY OPRAH AS ONE OF HER 'BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH'**

The international bestselling spiritual book, now with a new look for its 20th anniversary. Eckhart Tolle demonstrates how to live a healthier, happier, mindful life by living in the present moment.

************

'I keep Eckhart's book at my bedside. I think it's essential spiritual teaching. It's one of the most valuable books I've ever read.' Oprah Winfrey

To make the journey into The Power of Now we will need to leave our analytical mind and its false created self, the ego, behind. Although the journey is challenging, Eckhartā€¦


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Book cover of I Am Taurus

I Am Taurus by Stephen Palmer,

The constellation we know as Taurus goes all the way back to cave paintings of aurochs at Lascaux. This book traces the story of the bull in the sky, a journey through the history of what has become known as the sacred bull.

Each of the sections is written fromā€¦

Book cover of The Gift

Kate Gustin Why did I love this book?

The poems of Hafiz delight me. I go to this book when I tire of heady prose descriptions of spiritual teachings. His skillful and playful use of metaphor makes the wisdom teachings about our true nature immediately accessible. I feel as though this book invites me into a dance with the author and with lifeā€™s mysteries and dares me to let go of my analytic mind. What a relief!

By Hafiz, Daniel Ladinsky,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Gift as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Chosen by author Elizabeth Gilbert as one of her ten favorite books, Daniel Ladinskyā€™s extraordinary renderings of 250 unforgettable lyrical poems by Hafiz, one of the greatest Sufi poets of all time

More than any other Persian poetā€”even Rumiā€”Hafiz expanded the mystical, healing dimensions of poetry. Because his poems were often ecstatic love songs from God to his beloved world, many have called Hafiz the ā€œInvisible Tongue.ā€ Indeed, Daniel Ladinsky has said that his work with Hafiz is an attempt to do the impossible: to render Light into wordsā€”to make the Luminous Resonance of God tangible to our finite senses.ā€¦


Book cover of Being Aware of Being Aware

Kate Gustin Why did I love this book?

When I crave a razor-sharp account of my ā€œselfā€ as an emanation of living consciousness, I go to Rupert Spira. This tiny book is deceptive in that it contains vast universal truths condensed into short, meditation-like chapters. The writer in me loves how each word is absolutely precise. Iā€™m impressed with Spiraā€™s impeccable languaging of something as elusive and unfathomable as primordial awareness. My mind gets a good workout from this book, while it simultaneously relaxes into its teachings. 

By Rupert Spira,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Being Aware of Being Aware as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Everybody is aware, all seven billion of us. We are aware of thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions. All people share the experience of being aware, but relatively few people are aware that they are aware. Most people's lives consist of a flow of thoughts, images, ideas, feelings, sensations, sights, sounds, and so on. Very few people ask, "What is it that knows this flow of thoughts, feelings, and perceptions? With what am I aware of my experience?"

The knowing of our being-or rather, awareness's knowing of its own being in us-is our primary experience, our most fundamental and intimate experience.ā€¦


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Book cover of Who Will Take Care of Me When I'm Old?: Plan Now to Safeguard Your Health and Happiness in Old Age

Who Will Take Care of Me When I'm Old? by Joy Loverde,

Everything you need to know to plan for your own safe, financially secure, healthy, and happy old age.

For those who have no support system in place, the thought of aging without help can be a frightening, isolating prospect. Whether you have friends and family ready and able to helpā€¦

Book cover of The Prophet

Kate Gustin Why did I love this book?

This parable takes my breath away. The lyrical verse is gorgeous. While the content differs from the non-duality focus of the four books Iā€™ve listed above, it is no less deep. I love how this book instructs us poetically to live as our best selves - to love and work, and feed and govern and parent from our hearts, from our wholeness. Opening this book feels like a balm, like hearing a lullaby, like warming in a ray of sunshine, and being reminded that I, too, am that light. 

By Kahlil Gibran,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Prophet as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of the most beloved classics of our timeā€”a collection of poetic essays that are philosophical, spiritual, and, above all, inspirational. Published in 1923, Gibran's masterpiece has been translated into more than twenty languages.

Gibranā€™s musings are divided into twenty-eight chapters covering such sprawling topics as love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, housing, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.

Each essay reveals deep insights into the impulses of the human heart and mind. Theā€¦


Explore my book šŸ˜€

The No-Self Help Book: Forty Reasons to Get Over Your Self and Find Peace of Mind

By Kate Gustin,

Book cover of The No-Self Help Book: Forty Reasons to Get Over Your Self and Find Peace of Mind

What is my book about?

There is a global identity theft occurring that has robbed people of their recognition of their true selves. The mastermind culprit has promoted the idea that we are each a separate self, with an inner commentary that often spews forth a distressing flow of worry, blame, regret, and guilt. This book offers an antidote to this epidemic of stolen identity, isolation, and self-deprecation: no-self (a concept known in Buddhist philosophy as anatta or anatman).

The No-Self Help Book turns the idea of self-improvement on its head, arguing that the key to well-being lies not in the relentless pursuit of bettering oneā€™s self but in the recognition of the self as a false identity born in the mind, a narrative of personhood pieced together from disparate neural activations.

Book cover of I Am That
Book cover of The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Book cover of The Gift

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