Staff Picks, Popular, Reccommended

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Staff Picks, Popular, Recommended

A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants: A Memoir by Jaed Coffin

Six years ago at the age of twenty-one, Jaed Muncharoen Coffin, a half-Thai American man, left New England's priveleged Middlebury College to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in his mother's native village of Panomsarakram--thus fulfilling a familial obligation. While addressing the notions of displacement, ethnic identity, and cultural belonging, "A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants" chronicles his time at the temple that rain season--receiving alms in the streets in saffron robes: bathing in the canals: learning to meditate in a mountaintop hut; and falling in love with Lek, a beautiful Thai woman who comes to represent the life he can have if he stays. Part armchair travel, part coming-of-age story, this debut work transcends the memoir genre and ushers in a brave new voice in American nonfiction.

An Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

Named one of the 100 best spiritual books of the 20th century, Paramahansa Yogananda's remarkable life story takes you on an unforgettable exploration of the world of saints and yogis, science and miracles, death and resurrection. With soul-satisfying wisdom and endearing wit, he illuminates the depest secrets of life and the universe--opening our hearts and minds to the joy, beauty, and unlimited spiritual potentials that exist in the lives of every human being.

Arrow to the Heart: A Commentary on the Heart Sutra by Ken McLeod

This exciting, trail-blazing non-traditional commentary on the Heart Sutra takes the reader right into the emptiness of all experience through a delightfully irreverent combination of wit, irony, prose, and poetry.

"Forget about looking.
That's just how you keep your distance. To see you have to step into the jaws of experience. Chew and be chewed, until nothing is left."

Ask and It is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks

This fascinating book by Esther and Jerry Hicks, which presents the teachings of the nonphysical entity Abraham, will help you learn how to manifest your desires so that you're living the joyous and fulfilling life you deserve. As you read, you'll come to understand how your relationships, health issues, career concerns, and more are influenced by the Universal laws that govern your time-space-reality -- and you'll discover powerful processes that will help you go with the positive flow of life.

Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus

Banker to the Poor is an inspiring memoir of the birth of microcredit, written in a conversational tone that makes it both moving and enjoyable to read. The Grameen Bank is now a $2.5 billion banking enterprise in Bangladesh, while the microcredit model has spread to over 50 countries worldwide, from the U.S. to Papua New Guinea, Norway to Nepal. Ever optimistic, Yunus travels the globe spreading the belief that poverty can be eliminated: "...the poor, once economically empowered, are the most determined fighters in the battle to solve the population problem; end illiteracy; and live healthier, better lives. When policy makers finally realize that the poor are their partners, rather than bystanders or enemies, we will progress much faster that we do today." Dr. Yunus's efforts prove that hope is a global currency. --Shawn Carkonen

Book of Kin by Vladimir Megre

A new visit to Anastasia's glade in Siberian taiga and conversations with his growing son cause Vladimir Megre to take a new look at education, science, history, family and Nature. Through parables and revelatory dialogues and stories Anastasia leads the author and the reader on a shocking re-discovery of the pages of humanity's history that have been distorted or kept secret for thousands of years. This knowledge sheds light on teh causes of war, oppression and violence in the modern world and guides us in preserving the wisdom of our ancestors and passing it over to future generations.

Breaking the Drought by Stephen Levine

Here are poems of the heart that speak directly to our spirit today. Anyone who reads them will be quickened and touched. Both timely and timeless, these visions of grace are like nectar to soul." --Lama Surya Das

Buddha by Deepak Chopra

Deepak Chopra brings the Buddha back to life in this gripping New York Times bestselling novel about the young prince who abandoned his inheritance to discover his true calling. This iconic journey changed the world forever, and the truths revealed continue to influence every corner of the globe today.

A young man in line for the throne is trapped in his father's kingdom and yearns for the outside world. Betrayed y those closest to him, Siddhartha abandons his palace and princely title. Face-to-face with his demons, he becomes a wandering monk and embarks on a spiritual fast that carries him to the brink of death. Ultimately recognizing his inability to conquer his body and mind by sheer will, Siddhartha transcends his physical pain and achieves enlightenment.

Although we recognize Buddha today as an icon of peace and serenity, his life story was a tumultuous and spellbinding affair filled with love and sex, murder and loss, struggle and surrender. From the rocky terrain of the material world to the summit of the spiritual one, Buddha captivates and inspires--ultimately leading us closer to understanding the true nature of life and ourselves.

Busting Loose From the Money Game by Robert Scheinfield

All your life, without realizing it, you've been playing the money game...and losing. Now, finally, you can win. You were taught certain rules but now you can become better at playing the game. The only way to win The Money Game is to bust loose from it and start playing a new game that works for you. This book will make money a total non-issue in your life and open a portal to a new relationship with money and a radically different way of living.

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

"This is the greatest novel in Native American literature. It is one of the greatest novels of any time and place...I teach it and I learn from it and I am continually in awe of its power, beauty, rage, vision, and violence." -Sherman Alexie

Cosmic Love by Jan Spiller

In this powerful guide, astrology expert Jan Spiller shows you how the practical science of astrology can lead to real-life results in the realm of intimate relationships. Moving beyond the commonly known sun-sign profiles, Spiller delves into the meanings and mysteries of your personal North Node--the vital point where the obits pf tje earth, moon, and sun intersect--to help you bring love into your life. For more than thirty years, she has studied how the effects of the Nodes of the Moon help us steer our path, and stop sabotaging relationships. By locating the position of your North Node, which can be found in teh chart provided, and the house in which it falls in an important relationship, Spiller provides you with the astrological, psychological, and spiritual tools to: Learn the secrets to open up to intimacy, move beyond old hurts, allow others to be themselves, experiment with new ways of interacting in important relationships, discover what gifts your partner brings to you and what gifts you bring to your partner, and navigate through the energy of past-life connections.

Cosmos and Psyche by Richard Tarnas

Distinguished philosopher and cultural historian Richard Tarnas demonstrates the existance of an astonishingly consistent correspondence between planetary alignments and the archetypal patterns of human history and biography. Based on thirty years of meticulous research, this brilliant book points to a radical change in our understanding of the cosmos, shining new light on the drama of history and on our own critical age. It opens up a new cosmic horizon that reunites science and religion, intellect and soul, modern reason and ancient wisdom.

Creating a World Without Poverty by Muhammad Yunus

Economics professor Yunus claims he originally became involved in the poverty issue not as a policy-maker, scholar, or researcher, but because poverty was all around me. With these words he stopped teaching elegant theories and began lending small amounts of money, $40 or less, without collateral, to the poorest women in the world. Thirty-three years later, the Grameen Bank has helped seven million people live better lives building businesses to serve the poor. The bank is solidly profitable, with a 98.6% repayment rate. It inspired the micro-credit movement, which has helped 100 million of the poorest people in the world escape poverty and earned Yunus (Banker to the Poor) a Nobel Peace prize. This volume efficiently recounts the story of microcredit, then discusses Social Business, organizations designed to help people while turning profits. French food giant Danone's partnership to market yogurt in Bangladesh is described in detail, along with 25 other businesses that operate under the Grameen banner. Infused with entrepreneurial spirit and the excitement of a worthy challenge, this book is the opposite of pessimistic recitals of intractable poverty's horrors.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

In her early thirties, Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a modern American woman was supposed to want-husband, country home, successful career-but instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she felt consumed by panic and confusion. This wise rapturous book is the story of how she left behind all these outward marks of success, and of what she found in their place. Following a divorce and a crushing depression, Gilbert set out to examine three different aspects of her nature, set against the backdrop of three different cultures: pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and on the Indonesian island of Bali, a balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence.

Energy of Life by Vladimir Megre

The Energy of Life, Book Seven of the Series, re-asserts the power of human thought and the influence of our thinking on our lives and the destiny of the entire planet and the Universe. It also brings forth a practical understanding of ways to consciously control and build up the power of our creative thought. The book sheds still further light on the forgotten pages of humanity's history, on religion, on the roots of inter-racial and inter-religious conflict, on ideal nutrition, and shows how a new way of thinking and a lifestyle in true harmony with Nature can lead to happiness and solve the personal and societal problems of crime, corruption, misery, conflict, war and violence.

Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama by Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama's autobiography should leave no one in doubt of his humility and genuine compassion. Written without the slightest hint of pretense, the exiled leader of Tibet recounts his life, from the time he was whisked away from his home in 1939 at the age of 4, to his treacherous escape from Tibet in 1959, to his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. The backdrop of the story is the 1950 Chinese invasion of Tibet. He calmly relates details of imprisonment, torture, rape, famine, ecological disaster, and genocide that under four decades of Chinese rule have left 1.25 million Tibetans dead and the Tibetan natural and religious landscapes decimated. Yet the Dalai Lama's story is strangely one of hope. This man who prays for four hours a day harbors no ill will toward the Chinese and sees the potential for good everywhere he casts his gaze. Someday, he hopes, all of Tibet will be a zone of peace and the world's largest nature preserve. Such optimism is not naive but rather a result of his daily studies in Buddhist philosophy and his doctrine of Universal Responsibility. Inspiring in every way, Freedom in Exile is both a historical document and a fable of deepest trust in humanity. --Brian Bruya

Grandmothers Counsel the World by Carol Schaefer

"What would the world be like if our grandmothers were in charge?"

Ponder that. It's the first line of the introduction in Grandmothers Counsel the World (Indigenous Women Elders Offer Their Vision for Our Planet).
This new book celebrates the value of age. It's a dialog with 13 native women from tribes worldwide talking bout how to bring about world change.Reading this is a calmative. The women's stories are warm and personal, the photographs compel us to think deeply about beauty, about how lives might be lived better, and what would happen if. A deep lesson lies within the book - when everyone benefits, the individual benefits more.

I am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta by Sri Nisgardatta (translated by)

This collection of the timeless teaching of one of the greatest sages of India, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, regarded by many as a modern spiritual classic, is a testament to the uniqueness of the seer's life and work. I Am That (now in its ninth printing) continues to draw new audiences and to enlighten anxious seekers for self-realization.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was a teacher who did not propound any ideology or religion but gently unwrapped the mystery of the self. His message is simple, direct and yet sublime.

I Am That preserves his dialogues with the followers who came from around the world seeking guidance in destroying false identities. The sage's sole concern was with human suffering and the ending of suffering. IT was his mission to guide the individual o an understanding of his true nature and the timelessness of being. He taught that mind must recognize and penetrate its own state of being, not being his or that, here or there, then or now, but just timeless being.

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan

Food is the one thing that Americans hate to love and, as it turns out, love to hate. What we want to eat has been ousted by the notion of what we should eat, and it's at this nexus of hunger and hang-up that Michael Pollan poses his most salient question: where is the food in our food? What follows in In Defense of Food is a series of wonderfully clear and thoughtful answers that help us omnivores navigate the nutritional minefield that's come to typify our food culture. Many processed foods vie for a spot in our grocery baskets, claiming to lower cholesterol, weight, glucose levels, you name it. Yet Pollan shows that these convenient "healthy" alternatives to whole foods are appallingly inconvenient: our health has a nation has only deteriorated since we started exiling carbs, fats--even fruits--from our daily meals. His razor-sharp analysis of the American diet (as well as its architects and its detractors) offers an inspiring glimpse of what it would be like if we could (a la Humpty Dumpty) put our food back together again and reconsider what it means to eat well. In a season filled with rallying cries to lose weight and be healthy, Pollan's call to action--"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."--is a program I actually want to follow. --Anne Bartholomew

Life: Selected Quotations by Paulo Coelho

Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back where I came from because i didn't have the courage to say "yes" to life?

Love Poems From God by Daniel Landinsky

In both eastern and western spiritual traditions, it is believed that certain mystics and saints receive a gift from God that make them poetic conduits of the divine, bearers of "love poems from God." Twelve of these timeless spiritual writers, six from the East and six from the West, are beautifully presented in this inspirational volume. Daniel Ladinsky, best known for his gifted translations of the great Sufi poet Hafiz, brings his art to this rich and luminous collection.

Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Plotkin

In his magnum opus more than 25 years in the making, psychologist, eco-therapist, and wilderness guide Plotkin (Soulcraft) brings forth a new model for the whole of human life and spirituality in our world in dire ecological need, spoiled by patho-adolescent society. Beginning fittingly with elder eco-sage Thomas Berry, Plotkin calls us to a fresh circular conception of individual and collective evolutionary life genuinely reconnected to the wild of nature. Using the indigenous template of the four compass directions, his eight stages on the wheel of spiritual development are the Innocent, Explorer, Thespian, Wanderer, Soul Apprentice, Artisan, Master and Sage. The Wheel is a deep-structure portrait of nature-and-soul-oriented cultures, a portrait that encompasses child-raising practices, core values, stages of growth, rites of passage, community organization, and relationship to the greater Earth community, he writes. Leaning heavily on psychology, Plotkin also draws upon a heavenly host of the rich sources that inform a lifetime including poetry, global cultures and much more. Graceful prose is counterbalanced with diagrams and clear chapter structure. Plotkin offers an essential, weighty book for our perilous times.

New Civilisation-Book 8 by Vladimir Megre

The New Civilisation, is the eighth book of the Series. The first part of the book, already published as a separate volume, describes yet another visit by Vladimir Megre to Anastasia and their son, and offers new insights into practical co-operation with Nature, showing in ever greater detail how Anastasia's lifestyle applies to our lives. Describing how the visions presented in previous volumes have already taken beautiful form in real life and produced massive changes in Russia and beyond, the author discerns the birth of a new civilisation. The book also paints a vivid image of America's radiant future, in which the conflict between the powerful and the helpless, the rich and the poor, the city and the country, can be transcended and thereby lead to transformations in both the individual and society.

Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

Pollan (The Botany of Desire) examines what he calls "our national eating disorder" (the Atkins craze, the precipitous rise in obesity) in this remarkably clearheaded book. It's a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. You'll certainly never look at a Chicken McNugget the same way again.Pollan approaches his mission not as an activist but as a naturalist: "The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world." All food, he points out, originates with plants, animals and fungi. "[E]ven the deathless Twinkie is constructed out of... well, precisely what I don't know offhand, but ultimately some sort of formerly living creature, i.e., a species. We haven't yet begun to synthesize our foods from petroleum, at least not directly."Pollan's narrative strategy is simple: he traces four meals back to their ur-species. He starts with a McDonald's lunch, which he and his family gobble up in their car. Surprise: the origin of this meal is a cornfield in Iowa. Corn feeds the steer that turns into the burgers, becomes the oil that cooks the fries and the syrup that sweetens the shakes and the sodas, and makes up 13 of the 38 ingredients (yikes) in the Chicken McNuggets.Indeed, one of the many eye-openers in the book is the prevalence of corn in the American diet; of the 45,000 items in a supermarket, more than a quarter contain corn. Pollan meditates on the freakishly protean nature of the corn plant and looks at how the food industry has exploited it, to the detriment of everyone from farmers to fat-and-getting-fatter Americans. Besides Stephen King, few other writers have made a corn field seem so sinister.Later, Pollan prepares a dinner with items from Whole Foods, investigating the flaws in the world of "big organic"; cooks a meal with ingredients from a small, utopian Virginia farm; and assembles a feast from things he's foraged and hunted.This may sound earnest, but Pollan isn't preachy: he's too thoughtful a writer, and too dogged a researcher, to let ideology take over. He's also funny and adventurous. He bounces around on an old International Harvester tractor, gets down on his belly to examine a pasture from a cow's-eye view, shoots a wild pig and otherwise throws himself into the making of his meals. I'm not convinced I'd want to go hunting with Pollan, but I'm sure I'd enjoy having dinner with him. Just as long as we could eat at a table, not in a Toyota.

Oneness by Rasha (received and transcribed by)

In February 1998, Rasha began a profound dialogue with the universal presence, "Oneness" - the Divinity we all share. As Oneness guided her step by step through the agonies and the exultation of an experiential voyage to God-realization, Rasha painstakingly documented the principles that lay the foundation for a new level of understanding of the phenomenon we call "life". Filled with astounding metaphysical concepts and catalysts for change, Oneness speaks ina voice that is non-technical, and in the same breath, indescribably loving and personal.