My reading list over the four decades span, goes somewhat like this. This list is exclusively those books that I read about philosophy, religious practices, self-help books.
There was a time in my life when library was most important as a source of sustenance for my inner and emotional strength. Books were my friends with whom I would agree or disagree quiet blatantly. Even to this day, there is a search within me as I read books. I am partial to spiritual books, and it helps me find my own realm of religion which more a mix and match of ideologies and belief system.
List of Books Read (1984 – Present)
The list of books on spiritual topics and self-help books were the following:
- My youngest brother of my father and uncle’s Pocket Size Gita in English transliteration (read daily as part of the evening prayer since 1986 for two years)
- Adhymata Ramayana in English (read every day with some exception from 1987 to 1997)
- “The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale (read in 1988)
- “Living with the Lama” by T S Lobsang Rampa (read in 1988)
- “Education and the Significance of Life” by Jiddu Krishnamurthy (read in 1989)
- “I’m Ok, You’re Ok” by Thomas A. Harris MD (read in 1994)
- “Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life” by Thích Nhất Hạnh (read in 1995)
- Books on Zen Meditation Quotes (read in 1996) During this time I read some Rumi’s works.
- “Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” by Robin Sharma (read in 1996)
- Sigmund Freud’s “Interpretation of Dream” (read in 1997)
- “Shri Vishnushasharanama by my Great Grand Uncle (read as part of the lamp lighting since 1997)
- 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Steven Covey (read in 1998)
- “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Paramahansa Yogananda (read in 2011)
- “God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita: Royal Science of God-Realization” by Paramahansa Yogananda (read in 2012 second book still pending)
- The Gita (Original Sanskrit Text reading since 2019
- Karma: A Yogi’s Guide to Crafting Your Destiny by Sadhguru Jaggie Vasudev (read in 2021)
- Inner Engineering by Sadhguru Jaggie Vasudev (read in 2022)
- Online JK Foundation display works of Jiddu Krishnamurthy
Lot of YouTubers channels on Spirituality and I am slowly shifting to visual medium books and talks on spirituality. The influencers on those topics are convincing based on their personality and diction versus in-depth understanding of the subject.
This is a small list of books that has influenced my life. I must say I was shocked and surprised by Jiddu Krishnamurthy’s thoughts the first time encountered it. I would keep turning his thoughts in my head and try to understand it, as best as I could.
Given that I tend to over think often that it was very stressful for me to process the ideology that he stood for. But I enjoyed learning and always challenged my thought process in the exercises that were place before my mind.
Processing Mind and Gallery of Debates
I recognized very early in my life that my thoughts were bringing me down. Mr. Peale’s book was just an accidental read; but from that point forward in life, I sought out books on self-help.
My reading expanded with every new author that I read. But my understanding levels were based on the level of my mind’s maturity. But then, I always had a sense of fairness in the things that I read.
But to this day, I would debate each thought that gets into my head. This habit is so set in me, that there is no book that I have read so far, except for the fictions, has gone without being questioned. Sometimes if a fiction has some flaw that I could see then it would also be questioned.
Early and Later Influences from Reading List
My life is a series of books that influenced my mind, soul, and spirit. It would make an excellent walk in the clouds for the reader of my works. I absolutely enjoyed anything about God, Spirit, Well-being, Spirituality, Meditation (especially Zen), and most definitely anything on Human and Spiritual love.
One of my heartfelt desires is to become a Zen Nun. But I could equally understand that running away from the world and becoming a nun will not change the internal strife. I have been aspiring since I found the Moon a spiritual companion during my hideout days as a teenager. I always had this confusion: “Am I good enough to be a Nun? Or am I trying to escape from the life’s lessons?”
Because I had this intense pleasure in little things and that is when I started to question the term called Nun and Nunhood. You don’t need props to be spiritual and being spiritual does not mean you renounce the world altogether.
Lover of Peace Within and Without
In the pursuit of becoming a peace-loving calm person, I decided to be a common woman who searched for God in her private moments. I have touched that supreme calm about four or five times. I also had figured the way to be less agitated by artificially creating the meditative calm. Yet, I am still searching for the ultimate truth!
Fluctuation of Spiritualism
“I’m ok, so are you, and so are we all!”
Madeup from Book title
Things in the space of spiritualism are still in fluctuation within me. I am not unhappy about having volatile answers to spiritualism. But in the process, I have found a statement flash across my mind’s eye were the above phrase. The various hardship and unfairness in the world seem to be justified either in the spin of Karma or Vicious circle of birth and death.
Every religion is trying to answer the question of human existences and existence of the material world. All the search in Sciences and Humanitarian fields have been so to answer the ultimate question Why? The fact that the question is still unanswered and still hanging in there gives us the chills of no comprehension of the situation and plight of human life.
Are we dispensable? Is the sense-based understanding of the world merely a sandbox situation? These and much more are the confusion still in my mind. But the illusion, if it were created to understand and grow then, our lives are shaped and structured as lives filled with lessons.
Itinerant Storyteller 