Here are 100 books that Sadhana of the Heart fans have personally recommended if you like
Sadhana of the Heart.
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Fascinated with consciousness, spirituality, and the power of mind, I started reading books by Thich Nhat Hahn, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, and Alan Watts as early as 5th grade. But I was also infatuated with math and logic, which led to a degree in mathematics at UC Berkeley. Knowing there was more to understanding truth beyond logic, I balanced out my worldview with an M.A. in transpersonal psychology. For more than twenty years, I have passionately devoted myself to the study and practice of transformation. As a certified coach using expertise in interpersonal neurobiology, design thinking, and Conversational Intelligence®, I have provided thousands of transformative experiences for individuals, executives, teams, and organizations.
Singer made distinct all the imperceptible knowings I’ve felt throughout my existence about the power of the mind, beliefs, and all the habits we have that hold us back. He made the invisible visible and with that came more choices and possibilities. I felt invigorated, at peace and also empowered while I read this book. I honestly couldn’t put it down!
I reveled in not just the content but the style with which he presents truths about our existence. (And it was just so enjoyable to read!) The last part about death changed me in a profound way and offered me the gift of presence in a way I’ve never been able to achieve through other means.
Who are you? When you start to explore this question, you find out how elusive it really is. Are you a physical body? A collection of experiences and memories? A partner to relationships? Each time you consider aspects of yourself, you realize that there is much more to you than any of these can define. In this book, spiritual teacher Michael Singer explores the question of who we are and arrives at the conclusion that our identity is to be found in our consciousness, the fact of our ability to observe ourselves and the world around us. By tapping into…
Without my longtime commitment to the spiritual path of Siddha Yoga, I am quite sure that I would never have even met my wife Seana for I would not have been ready for her, let alone survived the trials along the way. And I certainly would not have been able to meet the calamity of her sudden death and come to know it as something else entirely. I have discovered the most strange and wonderful thing—that hidden within the death of a loved one may also be her final gift to us. And this is what I wish for you—in your moment of greatest need, though the world feels shattered into a thousand shards—may you remember this possibility and fully receive what the beloved longs to give you in farewell.
A few years ago when my wife suddenly died, on the second day I spoke to a dear friend who also happens to be a longtime monk on my spiritual path. He mentioned a book by a psychologist who took people to see the greater arc of their soul’s journey—their ‘lives between lives’. That doctor was Dr. Michael Newton, and this is my favorite of his series.
At the time, reading it had a profound effect on my growing understanding of the greater arc of the human soul and provided an immense sense of peace. Above all, it soothed my tattered mind at a moment when life felt incomprehensible and helped me make sense of our larger purpose for being here even while still grieving. Through 70 case histories of real people who were regressed into their ‘lives between lives,’ Dr. Newton reveals life continuing on the other side, ways…
Featuring seven case histories of real people who were regressed into their lives between lives, this text discusses the mystery of life in the herafter.
Without my longtime commitment to the spiritual path of Siddha Yoga, I am quite sure that I would never have even met my wife Seana for I would not have been ready for her, let alone survived the trials along the way. And I certainly would not have been able to meet the calamity of her sudden death and come to know it as something else entirely. I have discovered the most strange and wonderful thing—that hidden within the death of a loved one may also be her final gift to us. And this is what I wish for you—in your moment of greatest need, though the world feels shattered into a thousand shards—may you remember this possibility and fully receive what the beloved longs to give you in farewell.
The Gift of Nothing, written and illustrated by Patrick McDonnell, happens to be one of my absolute favorite books. Nestled like a rare bird in between Captain Underpants and Star Wars at a book sale in an elementary school cafeteria, I made a gift of it to my wife, Seana, and in time the story of Mooch and Earl grew into a cherished part of ours as well.
Mooch (a cat) is looking for the perfect gift for her best friend, Earl (a pooch). She wonders, What do you get someone who has everything? It dawns on her. Nothing! So, after looking everywhere for nothing and not finding it, she finally gets a really big empty box (because it was a lot of nothing). When Earl opens it, he declares, “There’s nothing here!” “Yesh!” says Mooch. “Nothing ... but me and you!”
Mooch the cat desperately wants to find a gift for his friend - Earl the Dog. 'But what do you give the guy who has everything?' Mooch wonders. The answer, of course, is nothing! This simple story features characters from one of the world's most successful comic strips - Patrick McDonnell's Mutts. With the same warmth and charm that he brings to the daily cartoon McDonnell's delightfully spare illustrations and simple text have created a book with the makings of a classic - perfect for gift-giving all year round.
That’s the eternal question, isn’t it? Out here in the manifestation, I am Duff McDonald, author and journalist, father of Marguerite, husband of Joey, and general man about town. I’m a Canadian who moved to the U.S. to go to college and never went back. But who am I, really? I am the same thing as everyone else, a speck of consciousness in the possibility machine, a perfect creation. This whole thing has divine origins, something I only realized not that long ago, and it set me free. I can’t wait to see what happens next. I have, of late, discovered that maximizing one’s awareness is the main quest of a human life.
I don’t like rankings — I think we count and rank to our collective detriment – but if I had to make a list of the most important books I’ve ever read, this would probably be on top of the list. What is it about? It’s about finding your true self. On the one hand, the task couldn’t be simpler: You are what you are, so there’s hardly a Hardy Boys mystery to crack here. On the other, we cloud our own understanding with so much illusion that few of us have the capacity to see the truth about ourselves. Maharaj can be a bit prickly, but he’s more love than anything else. If you try this book and you can’t connect to it, put it down and return to it later. That’s what I did – the first time, it was impenetrable; the second time, it penetrated to the…
That’s the eternal question, isn’t it? Out here in the manifestation, I am Duff McDonald, author and journalist, father of Marguerite, husband of Joey, and general man about town. I’m a Canadian who moved to the U.S. to go to college and never went back. But who am I, really? I am the same thing as everyone else, a speck of consciousness in the possibility machine, a perfect creation. This whole thing has divine origins, something I only realized not that long ago, and it set me free. I can’t wait to see what happens next. I have, of late, discovered that maximizing one’s awareness is the main quest of a human life.
I don’t think that I am different from the majority when I say that for most of my life, the idea of “discipline” wasn’t that attractive to me. I wanted freedom. But in this book, as well as all her other books, the Siddha meditation master Gurumayi Chidvilasnanada convinced me that the means to a perfect existence must come through discipline. You cannot find yourself if you do not first sort yourself out. The goal isn’t recklessness; it’s improvisation within defined constraints. That’s where the magic happens. Gurumayi is one of the clearest thinkers and writers that I have ever come across. More importantly, everything she writes is infused with love.
In this collection of fourteen talks, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda teaches students how to cultivate yoga discipline of the senses on the Siddha Yoga path.
That’s the eternal question, isn’t it? Out here in the manifestation, I am Duff McDonald, author and journalist, father of Marguerite, husband of Joey, and general man about town. I’m a Canadian who moved to the U.S. to go to college and never went back. But who am I, really? I am the same thing as everyone else, a speck of consciousness in the possibility machine, a perfect creation. This whole thing has divine origins, something I only realized not that long ago, and it set me free. I can’t wait to see what happens next. I have, of late, discovered that maximizing one’s awareness is the main quest of a human life.
Baba Muktananda is surely the most entertaining – dare I say, “cool” — of all the great gurus. This book, a collection of Satsang, or Q&A sessions, with the Siddha Yoga Guru, is a very easy-going, unpretentious discussion of the most important things about finding yourself. As the title promises, you are not a finite being; you are infinite. It’s very convincing.
This compilation of questions and answers, drawn from talks and conversations between Swami Muktananda and spiritual seekers he met as he traveled in the West, covers a range of topics, from the first questioning of the nature of existence to the final attainment.
I personally have struggled with weight, blood sugar, and blood pressure challenges while I was in my teens and twenties. It was through functional medicine and many of the strategies I share in my book that I was able to create a positive shift in my own health and support the health of my clients. In my education and subsequent research, the Vagus nerve always stuck out to me as a unique and underrepresented component of the health journey. My curiosity regarding human anatomy and physiology led me to this important and missing answer: enabling our bodies to enter a healing state and initiate the recovery of our health.
A major part of upgrading your health involves upgrading your thinking, and that is what I learned from this book. My eyes were opened to common thought patterns that were holding me back and provided significant boosts to my mindset and ability to remain objective in the face of stress and emotion.
The practice of what is commonly known as hatha yoga is but one of eight branches of the body of knowledge that is yoga. Yoga is a sophisticated system of self-empowerment that is capable of harnessing and activating inner energies in such a way that your body and mind function at their optimal capacity. It is a means to create inner situations exactly the way you want them, turning you into the architect of your own joy. A yogi lives life in this expansive state, and in this transformative book Sadhguru tells the story of his own awakening from a…
I’m an award-winning author of novels and magazine articles. You can find my articles—many on mind-body and spiritual topics—in Oprah magazine, Prevention, National Geographic, and more. I started doing yoga back in my twenties when a woman almost-literally floated by me at the gym. When someone said she was the yoga teacher, I got off the spin bike and followed her into the class. I’m now a certified yoga teacher and longtime meditator. I’ve studied many classic yoga treatises, but it’s so much more fun to read—and to write—books that deliver yoga’s deep philosophies in a lighthearted, easily digestible way.
This spunky yoga memoir came out more than a decade ago (the same time as my first women’s yoga novel), and it remains my all-time favorite fun yoga read.
When 25-year-old, death-obsessed, cigarette-smoking Morrison follows her beloved yoga teacher on a Bali retreat, she’s too cynical to believe everything she’s learning. Still, she gives it her best shot (even while occasionally feeling called to wine, brownies, and “the prana of the Prada”).
When Morrison finally stops trying to reach her unattainable ideal of enlightenment, she comes to understand that self-acceptance is a key yoga aim. If you haven’t read this laugh-out-loud book, do so now!
What happens when a coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking, steak-eating twenty-five-year-old atheist decides it is time to get in touch with her spiritual side? Not what you’d expect . . .
When Suzanne Morrison decides to travel to Bali for a two-month yoga retreat, she wants nothing more than to be transformed from a twenty-five-year-old with a crippling fear of death into her enchanting yoga teacher, Indra—a woman who seems to have found it all: love, self, and God.
But things don’t go quite as expected. Once in Bali, she finds that her beloved yoga teacher and all of her yogamates wake up…
I’m an award-winning author of novels and magazine articles. You can find my articles—many on mind-body and spiritual topics—in Oprah magazine, Prevention, National Geographic, and more. I started doing yoga back in my twenties when a woman almost-literally floated by me at the gym. When someone said she was the yoga teacher, I got off the spin bike and followed her into the class. I’m now a certified yoga teacher and longtime meditator. I’ve studied many classic yoga treatises, but it’s so much more fun to read—and to write—books that deliver yoga’s deep philosophies in a lighthearted, easily digestible way.
This little memoir (some 200 postcard-size pages) packs so much yoga punch.
Clendenin goes through a lot of bad stuff—a lifelong drinking problem, the death of a relative, a life-altering medical diagnosis—but she relays it all in such a fun, girlfriendy way you can’t help but cheer her on.
Her saving grace is the yoga teacher training she begins as the book does, which carries her through the awful life events. My favorite is the way she summarizes and modernizes the four parts of the classic—and very obtuse—Yoga Sutras (e.g., one take: “don’t let that nasty ego tell you who you aren’t”).
“It was nothing at first. Just a little twitch. My left ring finger was twitching, slowly, almost languidly, the way fishing line does when you’ve hooked something without any strength. Like a baby perch. I hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet.
My first thought: Stress?
(Nope, think again)”
And here begins a journey that Anne Clendening never saw coming, tried to deny, avoid, postpone and otherwise reject. After all, how does a dark L.A. hippy chick who swore off booze at 22 fit an early onset Parkinson's diagnosis into a life of bartending in Hollywood rock clubs and yoga?…
In my journey, I've sought to blend my interest in ancient wisdoms into a coherent, accessible philosophy I call "Nowism." My aim has been to simplify and share complex teachings in a way that resonates and helps. Through my writing, performing, and speaking, I try to bring these concepts to life, hoping to ignite a spark of understanding and self-discovery in others. More than anything, before I leave this world, I want to contribute something (no matter how small) to the legacy of personal empowerment. I aspire to help people see the world more clearly, to understand themselves more deeply, and to find joy in the present moment.
Be Here Now transcends the typical book format with its unique blend of illustrations and diagrams, creating an immersive experience.
It inspired me to practice a life-changing exercise: sitting, conjuring the feeling of being enough, without striving for more. This practice, sparked by the book's wisdom, led to a profound shift in how I perceive the world. While watering a garden, I experienced a moment of heightened awareness, where everything felt more electric and alive.
This transformative journey even inspired my TEDx talk 'Using the Present to Create the Future.' I highly recommend this book to anyone on a path of mindfulness and self-discovery.
Beloved guru Ram Dass tells the story of his spiritual awakening and gives you the tools to take control of your life in this “counterculture bible” (The New York Times) featuring powerful guidance on yoga, meditation, and finding your true self.
When Be Here Now was first published in 1971, it filled a deep spiritual emptiness, launched the ongoing mindfulness revolution, and established Ram Dass as perhaps the preeminent seeker of the twentieth century.
Just ten years earlier, he was known as Professor Richard Alpert. He held appointments in four departments at Harvard University. He published books, drove a Mercedes…
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