The best books on spirituality and self-discovery

Who am I?

I was 5 when I saw my grandfather die. He drank morphene from a bottle, to stop his cancer pains, and soon after he stopped breathing. In the silent peace that followed, I realized that I too shall die one day, and life on earth will continue. The questions, Who am I? Where do I come from? What am I doing here? and Where will I go when I die? felt like the most important questions to find answers to before I die. The book, In Search of the Miraculous: Healing into Consciousness, was written fifty years later, and is the fruit of my search and discovery of answers to these questions.


I wrote...

In Search of the Miraculous: Healing into Consciousness

By Eliza Mada Dalian,

Book cover of In Search of the Miraculous: Healing into Consciousness

What is my book about?

In Search of the Miraculous: Healing into Consciousness is a comprehensive guidebook for seekers of truth, and desire to find their way out of fear, pain, and suffering. Recipient of seven book awards, this book is filled with ageless wisdom that brings a new level of understanding to our journey on this planet. It is both a thought-provoking mind feast and a step-by-step road map to transforming the limitations of the ego-mind and becoming more conscious and free. Many exercises and Q&As on how to heal the wounded ego and transform it into consciousness are also offered to make your reading practical and experiential.

This book has also been translated and published in Spanish, Estonian, and Russian.

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The books I picked & why

Crime and Punishment

By Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Pevear (translator), Larissa Volokhonsky (translator)

Book cover of Crime and Punishment

Why this book?

I might not have come across this book if it was not on the list of required reading in school.

It was the first time that I felt excited about reading a book. This book, as all the other writings of Dostoevsky, have a soul and penetrate into the deepest depth of the human psyche.

Crime and Punishment was written in 1886, but it is a timeless classic. If you are interested in exploring and understanding the paradox of life’s challenges, this book cannot be missed!

(Other must-read classics written by Fyodor Dostoevsky between 1869 and 1880: Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot.) 

Crime and Punishment

By Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Pevear (translator), Larissa Volokhonsky (translator)

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Crime and Punishment as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Hailed by Washington Post Book World as “the best [translation] currently available" when it was first published, this second edition has been updated in honor of the 200th anniversary of Dostoevsky’s birth.

With the same suppleness, energy, and range of voices that won their translation of The Brothers Karamazov the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Prize, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky offer a brilliant translation of Dostoevsky's astounding pyschological thriller, newly revised for his bicentenniel. 

When Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in the St. Petersburg of the tsars, commits an act of murder and theft, he sets into motion a story that is…


Book cover of In Search of the Miraculous

Why this book?

I was 25 when I came across a well-known book by P.D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching.

This book is based on the teachings of a spiritual teacher Georges Gurdjieff. Reading this book was a turning point in my life. It gave me hope and direction, and revived my quest in self-discovery.

This book is a delightful must-read for anyone who is searching to find life’s meaning and familiarize themselves with an esoteric understanding of life.  

In Search of the Miraculous

By P.D. Ouspensky,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked In Search of the Miraculous as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New


Book cover of In Search of the Miraculous: Chakras, Kundalini and the Seven Bodies

Why this book?

Osho is one of the greatest mystics of the 20th century. He has over 650 books in print, translated into 68 languages.

This particular book is for those who are interested in deepening their understanding of the Eastern esoteric teachings about chakras and energy bodies.

Explained from an experience and perspective of a mystic, it can help to increase your understanding and widen your perspective of how the energy centers inside and outside of the body work.

In Search of the Miraculous: Chakras, Kundalini and the Seven Bodies

By Osho,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In Search of the Miraculous as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Osho writes in a style which is clear, simple and often humorous.


Black Elk

By Wallace Black Elk, William S. Lyon,

Book cover of Black Elk

Why this book?

What do the Native American elders know that is not easily accessible to others?

Through the eyes of, and experiences of Black Elk, a Lakota Sioux elder, you will enter into the mysterious world of Native American wisdom.

You will begin to understand the vital importance of the wisdom that the elders have carried from generation to generation, while silently balancing the positive and negative forces on this planet.      

Black Elk

By Wallace Black Elk, William S. Lyon,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

"An unprecedented account of the shaman's world and the way it is entered."
STANLEY KRIPPNER, PH.D., coauthor of 'Personal Mythology: The Psychology of Your Evolving Self' and 'Healing States'

"Black Elk opens the Lakota sacred hoop to a comic


Book cover of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

Why this book?

If we want to live life fully we must embrace death fully.

Death is an integral part of life, which cannot be ignored.

This book helps the reader understand the wisdom of the Tibetan Book of the Dead and its purpose to help the dying soul to dis-identify from the worldly attachments and find liberation from within.

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

By Sogyal Rinpoche,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Explains the Tibetan understanding of what happens when a person dies, and how this can help in a person's daily life, in caring for the terminally ill and the bereaved, and to deepen one's understanding of life.


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