Library / Authors (comments #1)

There have been dozens of books I have bought - and lots I have actually read(!) - but none more influential on me than The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra. Published back in the seventies, it is his attempt to match the basics of eastern thinking (especially on religion) and the (then) evolving field of quantum physics. It may sound pretty contrived, but the similarities are absolutely amazing and have stayed in my mind ever since I read it. I have a few more of his, "Web of Life", "Uncommon Wisdom" and "The Turning Point", but none so influential as "The Tao of Physics

Paramahansa Yogananda wrote "Autobiography of a Yogi" and it is an absolute stunner. His description of his early life and awakening, followed by becoming one of the most revered Yogis is actually a very readable story, but with the most mind-blowing "psychic" incidents dotted throughout the book. I´ve read it a couple of times, also some of the books written by others about him and his later followers. High on my list of people I would have loved to have met.

Ram Dass is a typical (the typical) west-coast hippy-trippy professor. He did all the mind-expanding drugs with the likes of Leary, but went the whole hog with the Indian mysticism trip and converted to the extent of even changing his name from Richard Alpert to Ram Dass. I picked up his "How Can I Help" in the early 90´s (it even has a Singapore / Brunei boarding pass as a bookmark), then spent nearly 20 years trying to get a copy of his seminal work "Be Here Now" - seemingly long out of print, but appearing on Kindle a few months ago. I also have print copies of "Still Here" and "The Only Dance There Is". Good stuff.

David Bohm is another writer on my long-time list, with his book "Wholeness and the Implicate Order" in my "hunt for" list since Singapore-times. A combination scientist (mainly influenced by Einstein) and philosopher (influenced by Krishnamurti and the Dalai Lama), he is another one looking at eastern philosophy and quantum physics to try to understand consciousness. Certainly harder-going than Capra, but worth the effort

Karen Armstrong is a writer I found in the last few years - and one who specialises in producing very readable tomes about different religions. Her "History of God" is a great starting-point for an understanding of the Middle-eastern" religions, whilst her "Battle for God" gives a real insight into the fundamentalism that seems to have been causing problems for a long, long time.

In a similar vein, Bernard Lewis´s "Crisis of Islam" is a really good way of understanding the Sunni / Shia schism that is causing most of the problems in the world right now.

Amit Goswami has written a number of books, but I specifically liked his"The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World" in which he expounds on Monistic Idealism v Cartesian Dualism of mind and matter.

Since René Descartes divided reality into two separate realms—mind and matter—many people have tried to rationalize the causal potency of conscious minds within Cartesian dualism. Science, nevertheless, presents compelling reasons to doubt that a dualistic philosophy is tenable: In order for the worlds of mind and matter to interact, they must exchange energy, yet we know that the energy of the material world remains constant. Surely, then, there is only one reality. Here is the catch 22: If the one reality is material reality, consciousness cannot exist except as an anomalous epiphenomenon.

The Monistic Idealism philosophy, instead of positing that everything (including consciousness) is made of matter, posits that everything (including matter) exists in and is manipulated from consciousness. Basically, that is Adviata Vedanta

Ramesh S Balseker has a "mixed" reputation (to say the least), but his book " A Net of Jewels" has a huge number of beautiful little aphorisms, each of which can which can keep your mind occupied and centred. That is one I have on my phone as an e-book

Ming-Dao Deng has a similar book with it laid out as offering some wise words for each day of the year and entitled "365 Tao: Daily Meditations".Another one I have on my phone as an e-book