Download or read book How to Attain Enlightenment written by James Swartz and published by Sentient+ORM. This book was released on 2010-02-16 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Goes through the entire gamut of topics covered by the Vedas, making use of yoga, detachment, the ego, karma, dharma, love, meditation and much more.” —East and West Magazine This complete guide to enlightenment presents the wisdom of the ancient science of self-inquiry, a time-tested means for achieving spiritual freedom. The author discusses the purpose of self-inquiry, the quest for lasting happiness, issues of identity and transcendence, the role of wisdom and action, and the subconscious obstacles to freedom. He convincingly refutes the popular view that enlightenment is a unique state of consciousness and debunks a host of other enlightenment myths. In his straightforward style he reveals proven methods for purifying the mind, and includes chapters on love, the science of energy transformation and meditation. He takes the reader from the beginning to the end of the spiritual path, patiently unfolding the logic of self-inquiry. “Vedanta is the original systemized enlightenment teaching, and James does an extraordinary job of extracting the essential nectar of the teachings from its dusty, ancient, Sanskrit origins and elucidating it with utmost clarity. One review cannot do this teaching, with its rich history and depth, even a modicum of justice. James’s book is the best introduction there is to this subject.” —Consciousness Junkie “Explains methods of Vedanta in his survey of spiritual techniques, pairing theory with practice and explaining the myths and realities behind an enlightened state. From reflections on moving to a larger living space and clutter to assimilating experiences, How to Attain Enlightenment is a powerful survey any new age library needs.” —The Bookwatch

Download or read book Steps on the Path to Enlightenment written by Lhundub Sopa and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2004-06-15 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Steps on the Path to Englightenment: The Foundation Practices marks the first volume of a much-anticipated, comprehensive commentary on the Lamrim Chenmo by the renowned Buddhist scholar, Geshe Sopa. This landmark commentary on what is perhaps the most elegant Tibetan presentation of the Buddhist path offers a detailed overview of Buddhist philosophy, especially invaluable to those wanting to enact the wisdom of the Buddha in their lives. In the Lamrim Chenmo, Tsongkhapa explains the path in terms of the three levels of practitioners: those of small capacity who seek happiness in future lives, those of medium capacity who seek liberation from the cycle of suffering, and those of great capacity who seek full enlightenment in order to benefit all beings. This volume covers the topics common to the first level: Tsongkhapa's explanations of the role of the teacher, his exhortation to take the essence of human existence, the contemplation of death and future lives, and going for the refuge. Given his vast knowledge and his experience in both Tibetan and Western contexts, Geshe Sopa is the ideal commentator of this work for the modern student of Tibetan Buddhism.

Download or read book The Lazy Man s Guide to Enlightenment written by Thaddeus Golas and published by Gibbs Smith Publishers. This book was released on 1995-10 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thaddeus Golas is a lazy man. Laziness keeps him from believing that enlightenment demands effort, discipline, strict diet, non-smoking and other evidences of virtue. He found a way to enlighten himself - and you - with two sentences. The first is We are equal beings and the universe is our relations with each other. The second? The universe is made of one kind of entity; each one is alive, each determines the course of his own existence. If you remember this, that's all you really need to know to understand this book. Originally published in 1972, and in print for 15 years, THE LAZY MAN'S GUIDE TO ENLIGHTNMENT teaches you, amongst other things, how to feel good.

Download or read book Awakening the Buddha Within written by Lama Surya Das and published by Harmony. This book was released on 1998-06-15 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lama Surya Das, the most highly trained American lama in the Tibetan tradition, presents the definitive book on Western Buddhism for the modern-day spiritual seeker. The radical and compelling message of Buddhism tells us that each of us has the wisdom, awareness, love, and power of the Buddha within; yet most of us are too often like sleeping Buddhas. In Awakening the Buddha Within, Surya Das shows how we can awaken to who we really are in order to lead a more compassionate, enlightened, and balanced life. It illuminates the guidelines and key principles embodied in the noble Eight-Fold Path and the traditional Three Enlightenment Trainings common to all schools of Buddhism: Wisdom Training: Developing clear vision, insight, and inner understanding—seeing reality and ourselves as we really are. Ethics Training: Cultivating virtue, self-discipline, and compassion in what we say and do. Meditation Training: Practicing mindfulness, concentration, and awareness of the present moment. With lively stories, meditations, and spiritual practices, Awakening the Buddha Within is an invaluable text for the novice and experienced student of Buddhism alike.

Download or read book A Death on Diamond Mountain written by Scott Carney and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigative reporter explores an infamous case where an obsessive and unorthodox search for enlightenment went terribly wrong. When thirty-eight-year-old Ian Thorson died from dehydration and dysentery on a remote Arizona mountaintop in 2012, The New York Times reported the story under the headline: "Mysterious Buddhist Retreat in the Desert Ends in a Grisly Death." Scott Carney, a journalist and anthropologist who lived in India for six years, was struck by how Thorson’s death echoed other incidents that reflected the little-talked-about connection between intensive meditation and mental instability. Using these tragedies as a springboard, Carney explores how those who go to extremes to achieve divine revelations—and undertake it in illusory ways—can tangle with madness. He also delves into the unorthodox interpretation of Tibetan Buddhism that attracted Thorson and the bizarre teachings of its chief evangelists: Thorson’s wife, Lama Christie McNally, and her previous husband, Geshe Michael Roach, the supreme spiritual leader of Diamond Mountain University, where Thorson died. Carney unravels how the cultlike practices of McNally and Roach and the questionable circumstances surrounding Thorson’s death illuminate a uniquely American tendency to mix and match eastern religious traditions like LEGO pieces in a quest to reach an enlightened, perfected state, no matter the cost. Aided by Thorson’s private papers, along with cutting-edge neurological research that reveals the profound impact of intensive meditation on the brain and stories of miracles and black magic, sexualized rituals, and tantric rites from former Diamond Mountain acolytes, A Death on Diamond Mountain is a gripping work of investigative journalism that reveals how the path to enlightenment can be riddled with danger.

Download or read book Swami Rama of the Himalayas written by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait and published by Himalayan Institute Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The biography of Swami Rama complete with over 300 photographs.

Download or read book The Power of Now written by Eckhart Tolle and published by New World Library. This book was released on 2010-10-06 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's no wonder that The Power of Now has sold over 16 million copies worldwide and has been translated into over 30 foreign languages. Much more than simple principles and platitudes, the book takes readers on an inspiring spiritual journey to find their true and deepest self and reach the ultimate in personal growth and spirituality: the discovery of truth and light. In the first chapter, Tolle introduces readers to enlightenment and its natural enemy, the mind. He awakens readers to their role as a creator of pain and shows them how to have a pain-free identity by living fully in the present. The journey is thrilling, and along the way, the author shows how to connect to the indestructible essence of our Being, "the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death." Featuring a new preface by the author, this paperback shows that only after regaining awareness of Being, liberated from Mind and intensely in the Now, is there Enlightenment.

Download or read book The Easy Way to Enlightenment written by Leigh Ann Kittell and published by Balboa Press. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you read shelves full of books about self-help and spirituality and are now asking, How can I go deeper? The Easy Way to Enlightenment: 7 Lessons to Give Your Soul the Adventure of Your Life redefines and demystifies enlightenment, putting it well within reach for todays modern spiritual practitioner. The lessons and practices in this book will help you honor your past achievements and discover how to harness the creative forces of your soul, your connection to spirit and Mother Earth, and your creative magic to live a brighter, richer, and more satisfying life. The Easy Way to Enlightenment gets you off the bench and puts you into the exciting game of applied spiritual living, teaching you how to access higher forms of guidance and contribute your unique gifts to planet earth.

Download or read book Enlightenment Now written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-02-13 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR "My new favorite book of all time." --Bill Gates If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. By the author of the new book, Rationality. Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation. With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.

Download or read book What is Enlightenment written by Osho and published by Penguin Random House India Private Limited. This book was released on 2018-09-10 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "You are both and neither, and that is transcendence." The ultimate destination on a spiritual journey is enlightenment. But there's a reason why countless people embark on this journey yet only a handful reach the destination. Enlightenment is as much about the journey as it is about achieving the goal at the end. It is understanding and accepting different truths—some easy and some nearly impossible to handle. It is about singular focus and accepting the bigger picture at the same time. In other words, it is anything but straightforward. However, if there's anyone who can explain a difficult concept in the most straightforward manner, it is Osho and in What is Enlightenment?, he does exactly that. Read on.

Download or read book Enlightenment Is Your Nature written by Osho and published by Watkins Media Limited. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores and explains the fundamental difference between psychology, therapy and meditation. "Enlightenment” in Western cultures has long been associated with the 18th century movement that brought about a new “age of reason.” As Zen, Buddhism, and other eastern wisdom traditions have captured the imagination of the West, “enlightenment” has come to be known as a specific state of consciousness attained by an individual on a spiritual or meditative path. However, the Judeo-Christian context, with its belief in a divine power “out there” and separate from the individual, hinders most Westerners’ ability to comprehend “enlightenment” in the Eastern sense. Our theistic conditioning leads to such common misunderstandings as perceiving enlightenment as the attainment of supernatural powers, or as something achievable only by those who are somehow “special.” In this work, Osho deconstructs these misunderstandings and offers a radically different view of enlightenment, freed from all spiritual and religious beliefs – including the distortions of asceticism and renunciation that have arisen in Eastern and Western cultures both. Taking the reader step by step through the history of how both East and West have approached the mysteries of the human mind and spirituality, Osho offers a simple science of consciousness that he calls “the psychology of the buddhas.” It is a science that in very clear terms shows how one can, through awareness and taking full responsibility for one’s life, go beyond all limited belief systems, habits, and superstitions of the mind. That process, he says, brings us back to our nature – and that is enlightenment.

Download or read book Spiritual Enlightenment The Damnedest Thing written by Jed McKenna and published by Wisefool Press. This book was released on 2009-11-25 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A MASTERPIECE of illuminative writing, Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing is mandatory reading for anyone following a spiritual path. Part exposé and part how-to manual, this is the first book to explain why failure seems to be the rule in the search for enlightenment, and how the rule can be broken. :: Book One of Jed McKenna's Enlightenment Trilogy. Contains Bonus Material.

Download or read book Loving Your Way to Enlightenment written by Marc Gafni and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2014-09-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Love is so confusing. What does it mean? Is it an emotion? Who should we love? How and How Much? When and Where? What is the relationship between romantic love, impersonal cosmic love, sister love, evolutionary love, and outrageous love? How do love, sex and eros relate to each other? Why is a right understanding and experience of love the core of education, medicine, sex, business, politics and just about everything else. Read this book and let your love life be expanded and transformed forever. Fall in love all the way! May Marc Gafni's Loving Your Way to Enlightenment blow your mind, heart and body open; may you experience the force of his teaching as profoundly as we have experienced it in the Circle at Venwoude. These teachings read as if Marc Gafni is talking to you personally and transmits his wisdom and brilliant worldview right into your Being. mauk pieper, director of ciw europe and author of humanity's second shock and your unique self It is very rare that one comes across a teacher or a book that is 'changing the game'. My friend, Dr. Marc Gafni is such a teacher. He is a rare combination of brilliance, depth and heart. michael murphy, founder of the esalen institute, ca. usa

Download or read book Thought is Your Enemy written by Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti and published by Smriti Books. This book was released on 2002 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a compilation of discussions between UG Krishnamurti and various questioners in India, Switzerland, Austria, Netherlands and UK. This book aims to show that the religious states of bliss and ecstasy can never be experienced, can never be grasped, contained, much less given expression to, by any man.

Download or read book Steps on the Path to Enlightenment written by Lhundub Sopa and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-12-12 with total page 729 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geshe Sopa continues his elucidation of Lama Tsongkhapa's masterwork on the Buddhist path with an explanation of superior insight (vipaśyanā), or wisdom, the pinnacle of the bodhisattva's perfections.

Download or read book From Self to Self written by Leo Hartong and published by New Harbinger Publications. This book was released on 2005-09-18 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compilation of expressions, questions and answers that came about in response to Leo's highly praised first book Awakening to the Dream. Leo writes with characteristic insight and uses metaphor to illuminate the paradoxical and apparently confusing nature of non-dual reality. His original writing is reinforced by a vast knowledge of non-duality in other spiritual traditions and he weaves these together with his own direct path to present clear pointers to contemporary seekers. An appropriately chosen quotation taken from various sources appears at the end of each short chapter. Also included at the end of the book is the full text of the Hsin-hsin Ming by the third Chan patriarch Seng-ts'an. “The words in this book repeatedly point to the essence which knows the reading as it takes place. Rather than an encouragement to follow a lengthy path, it is an invitation to step off the path. It does not point to 'your' awareness, but to Awareness itself in which the idea of 'you' appears. It does not point to 'your' beingness, but to the undeniable Beingness that appears as you.”

Download or read book The Myth of Enlightenment written by Karl Renz and published by Inner Directions Foundation. This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether you meet Karl Renz in person or through this book, the encounter will leave you with a radically different sense of yourself. Karl's unique ability lies in exposing the beliefs we've built our lives on, beginning with our root sense of individuality. Our current predicament is the result of believing ourselves to be something other than what we really are. This self-imposed limitation causes our incessant searching and suffering.Throughout these dialogues Karl unceasingly brings us back to the truth of our real nature by helping us recognize the fleeting and impermanent nature of the self we've come to believe in. Even momentarily seeing the truth of who we really are immediately frees us, if only temporarily, from these self-imposed limitations.Karl's purpose-if we can say he even has one-is to reflect our own divinity, which he skillfully and uncompromisingly expresses throughout the pages of this book. By realizing the implication of his words, we can live life to its fullest and experience the boundless freedom that is our essence. The most detailed and authoritive text on the true meaning of the Taylors Masonic rituals! The principal contents of this book are the Official Taylors Lectures on the Three Degrees of Craft Freemasonry. These lectures deal with the description of the ritual of those Degrees along with their moral and symbolic significance and are of a formal nature, arranged as catechisms - that is by question and answer form. The text can be studied at home or can be preformed by two or more brethren in open lodge. Much evidence suggests that many sections of these lectures are as old as the degrees themselves. This book adds much to ones enjoyment and understanding of Freemasonry. The most detailed and authoritive text on the true meaning of the Taylors Masonic rituals! The principal contents of this book are the Official Taylors Lectures on the Three Degrees of Craft Freemasonry. These lectures deal with the description of the ritual