Recommended Books and Materials


This page is a list, in no particular order, of various books, websites, audio and video courses, teachers, you name it, that I have personally found beneficial on the “journey.” Read. Listen. Enjoy!

    A New Earth: Eckhart Tolle
  • A New Earth Eckhart Tolle has become a spiritual phenomenon. His style is simple, his writing direct and it is easy to feel the clarity of Eckhart’s vision. His webinar with Oprah Winfrey was quite well done, and many millions have been introduced to ideas about spiritual awakening and enlightenment that are still not too mainstream. Along with the Power of Now, this book can have a profound impact.


    • Ask the Awakened by Wei Wu Wei

  • Ask The Awakened The author of this book used the pseudonym Wei Wu Wei. He was an Englishman who traveled extensively in the East and visited many of the great masters of the mid 20th century. His books are a wonderful read on some of the more subtle points of the entire subject of awakening. This book, Ask the Awakened, puts a wonderful spin on some of the more intriguing ideas of enlightenment and awakening.


    • What the Buddha Taught

  • What the Buddha Taught: Revised and Expanded Edition with Texts from Suttas and Dhammapada
    One of the best books I’ve ever read on the Buddha’s teachings, primarily because the author is less concerned with the “religion” and practice of Buddhism. He focuses far more upon what the Buddha said, as best as can be determined from the earliest written texts.


    • A Course in Miracles
  • A Course in Miracles The Course is a fascinating guide to spiritual transformation and personal development. Much loved and often criticized, those who study it report that it really does foster miraculous change, although, in all fairness, the Course can be a tough read for many. It takes many concepts in Christianity and turns them upside down, giving them a far more Buddhist feeling. I studied it for 11 years, and I’m grateful that I did.


    • Loving What Is
  • Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life Byron Katie is her name, and her program “The Work” is another great program for personal change in the same vein as The Sedona Method. While the Sedona Method focuses first on feelings, Byron Katie goes straight at our thoughts and beliefs. Her questions are highly useful, and I’ve found at times that switching to The Work has been extremely helpful to me.


    • The Sedona Method
  • The Sedona Method I love the Sedona Method. I must say it is one of the best things that ever happened to me. It is a unique and easy to learn program for serious personal transformation. It radically changed my life, and I credit its primary instructor, Hale Dwoskin, and its creator, Lester Levenson, with not only bringing me out of a very dark place in my life, but literally helping to “turn on the light” in me and my experience. Be sure to read my review. To get the full audio course on CD go to The Sedona Method website.




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A.K. Photography

Please note: all of the products listed above are for sale somewhere, whether your local bookstore, Amazon.com and others. If you click the links above, you will be taken to a product page where you can purchase the item. You can support my writing and teaching by purchasing through the above links as I receive a small commission on each item purchased. Thank you in advance.

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Guru Quotes

But beauty, real beauty, ends where intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of a face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don’t think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful.

—Oscar Wilde

Intelligent practice always deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence, the fear that I am not. And of course I am not, but the last thing I want to know is that.

—Charlotte Joko Beck

Q: Since all is pre-ordained, is our self-realization also pre-ordained? Or are we free there at least?

A: Destiny refers only to name and shape. Since you are neither body nor mind, destiny has no control over you. You are completely free. The cup is conditioned by its shape, material, use and so on. But the space within the cup is free. It happens to be in the cup only when viewed in connection with the cup. Otherwise, it is just space. As long as there is a body, you appear to be embodied. Without the body you are not disembodied — you just are.

—Nisargadatta Maharaj

So the most important thing to realize is this: Your life has an inner purpose and an outer purpose. Inner purpose concerns Being and is primary. Outer purpose concerns doing and is secondary…. Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that. You share that purpose with every other person on the planet – because it is the purpose of humanity. Your inner purpose is an essential part of the purpose of the whole, the universe and its emerging intelligence.

—Eckhart Tolle


Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of a Soul, Self or Atman. According to the teachings of the Buddha, the idea of self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of ‘me’ and ‘mine’, selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill-will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities and problems. It is the source of all troubles in the world from personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, to this false view can be traced all the evil in the world.

—What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula

The disappearance of this fundamental question [How do I know the state of an enlightened one?], on discovering that it had no answer, was a physiological phenomenon, a sudden ‘explosion’ inside, blasting, as it were, every cell, every nerve and every gland in my body. And with that ‘explosion’, the illusion that there is continuity of thought, that there is a center, an ‘I’ linking up the thoughts, was not there anymore.

—U.G. Krishnamurti

Twittering...

  • RT @driedshitbuddha: I've been all over, met plenty of people. Never found an "ego" anywhere. Yet everybody talks about it. 1 week ago
  • To Hell with rules! There are no rules! 2 weeks ago
  • You are not a spiritual being having a worldly experience. You are Life, being-ness, the world, the experience, everything. :-) 2 weeks ago
  • The second the words are written are spoken, you've entered the dream state. You may do it consciously, but still... the words are not it! 2 weeks ago
  • New article at :: Why Are We Here? - Puppetji 3 weeks ago
  • Social media. Social networking. Life talking to itself. It's fun but a bit bizarrre. Isn't talking to yourself a sign of insanity? LOL 2010-02-05
  • Glass half full or half empty? 99% of time 99% of humans are glass half empty. And really the glass is always completely FULL! 2010-02-03
  • New article at :: Interview by Michelle Vandepas at Talking Purpose 2010-02-01
  • For the techno geek who is trying to awaken -- Ask yourself, "Who is it that wants an iPad?" 2010-01-27
  • New article at :: Levels of Control 2010-01-25
  • More updates...