Today we are blessed with an abundance of wonderful spiritual books. NO ONE NEEDS TO BE WITHOUT GREAT TEACHING AT THIS POINT. However finding the teaching that is most useful for you at a particular moment in your life can be difficult. The books described below are all of exceptionally high quality. They contain the clearest, cleanest descriptions of the path and the world that I know of. If you read some or all of these, you will be well oriented to the world as I believe it actually is.

For your convenience, each title below has been linked to it's home page at Amazon.com, or you can select the following link to search for second hand copies at Abebooks.com.

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

I believe there is no better book addressing the basic psychological issues of the spiritual path. The fact is that most people are not on the verge stepping into the bliss of pure being. Rather, we are involved in complex emotional and mental problems that call for our daily attention. At this stage, finding a right attitude and real solutions to these problems is the core of the path. Peck's book helps immeasurably with this. The main sections are on "Discipline" - meaning the attitudes and practices that help sort out life's psychological tangles, "Love" - the best examination I've ever seen of what love is and what it isn't, "Growth and Religion" - how existing belief systems may contribute to neurosis and realization, and "Grace" - the magic within life itself.

Psychosynthesis and The Act of Will by Roberto Assagioli

Roberto Assagioli did a remarkable thing back in the 1970's: he articulated an understanding of the human psyche that incorporated everything from the lowest aspects of the unconscious to the highest aspect of spiritual life. He called his approach "Psychosynthesis," and this name well describes the challenge before us all: how to bring together all the various aspects of our "selves" into a coherent, coordinated whole. Psychosynthesis - as both a model of the psyche and an approach to growth or treatment - is the best system I know. Probably the best introduction to Psychosynthesis available today is What We May Be, a wonderfully practical and accessible book written by one of Assagioli's students, Piero Ferrucci.

Be as You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi edited by David Godman

To the extent one truly has an integrated personality and is seldom subject to the sways of emotional life, then the teachings of Ramana Maharshi provide an incredibly clear path into the life of the soul. This great sage lived permanently in a state of complete identification with the essence of all being. Amazingly for us, from that state he was able to function and to teach - although the majority of his "teaching" was delivered through the power of the transformative silence that surrounded him. He did answer the thousands of questions that were put to him, and many of those replies have been wonderfully well organized in this priceless book. The path is "self-enquiry," turning the mind inward to find out who it is at the core of being.

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Very much in the same line as Ramana Maharshi, Eckhart Tolle brings the mind to bear on the limitations in consciousness created by the mind. Coming from his own direct experience of life outside the confines of "normal" mental processes, Tolle provides incredibly clear insight into how the mind sustains our sense of isolation and unhappiness. To see all this clearly is to enter into an entirely new perspective on life.

The Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East by Baird Spalding

One of the claims of the "esoteric tradition" is that there are and always have been a great group of fully enlightened "Masters of Wisdom" living quietly on the planet. The best introduction to this group that I know of is The Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East. The first three volumes of this series are the travel log of a group of North American researchers who had the great good fortune to be welcomed into the Masters' lives for three years in the late 1890's. The stories are fantastic and the teachings wonderful.

The Reappearance of the Christ by Alice A. Bailey

In 1895 an English adolescent had a visit from one of the Masters who indicated to her that there was a great work for her to do if she could "give up being such an unpleasant little girl" and gain a measure of self-control. Eventually she succeeded in these steps and developed and ongoing working relationship with that Master as well as a second Master who dictated to her the most comprehensive description of the world from the spiritual perspective available to us today. This series of books, known as the Alice Bailey teachings, are demanding reading for serious students. However, this particular volume is easily accessible and it contains the teaching's most important message: the Masters are returning to open roles in the world led by their Teacher, the One we in the West know as the Christ.

The Great Approach by Benjamin Creme

This book brings Bailey's work into the here and now. Creme too has had long-term contact with one of the Masters, and his work over the last quarter century has been to bring their advent to the attention of all who would listen. He describes the world as the Masters currently see it and outlines the steps that we must take to establish order and justice for all people. This is a book that asks the essential question: What kind of a world do we want and what are we willing to do to help create it? Fortunately, it also assures us that the necessary leadership for real world transformation is at hand.

Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

India has a long tradition of "avatars," incarnations of fully enlightened individuals who come to offer some service to humanity. Paramahansa Yogananda was such a one. In this book he tells his own story with great humility and humor. The book is saturated with his great love of God as well as the toil of bringing a powerful approach to God-realization to much of humanity. The Self-Realization Fellowship lives on as the result of his great effort, making his teachings available to all who seek them.

The Wheel of Rebirth by H. K. Challoner

How does on become enlightened? Many, many lives of gradual refinement of one's being. Our life is the path. To my mind no book demonstrates this better than this one. Challoner, with the help of a teacher on the inner planes, was able to re-experience a whole series of lives and recounts them in vivid detail. At the end of each retelling, the teacher points out the lessons in that incarnation and how the relative success and failure to learn those lessons set up the major themes of the next incarnation. Seeing all this in another's life helps tremendously in gaining perspective on the important themes of one's own experience.

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