12 Books Like I Say Unto You

I loved this book because it really made the case that consciousness survives death. The author achieves this by quoting long series of people who have died and been revived. The stories are organized by the issue they deal with, for instance how near-death experiences are almost always felt to be "more real than 'real' life." The sheer volume of these statements from people with widely differing backgrounds and belief systems, coupled with the fact that almost all of the stories are overwhelmingly positive, convinced me that I have to examine my fear of death and wonder how "realistic" it actually is.

I loved this book because it used documentable evidence, free of fraud or hoaxes, to show that our awareness survives death. I've always loved science because it never claims to know "the truth" -- instead, science considers the evidence and draws conclusions based on that data, free of anyone's opinion or authority. And on that basis, the evidence emerging from ICUs everywhere convinces me that materialistic science needs to reconsider its own basic assumptions. What impressed me was how reassuring this evidence turns out to be. I've never been religious, and I'm still reluctant to say I believe in God just because of all the bad things that "believers" who claim to be "devout Christians" are saying and doing these days. Yet the evidence presented in this book makes me feel good about believing that there is an afterlife, and I'm happy about my prospects as my life inevitably comes… show more.

With this Hungarian author, I share the same birthday, as well as our mystical philosophy on life. Her book is an epic alchemical tale spanning centuries that describes the evolution of consciousness through subsequent incarnations from one life to the next.

I find not only the book itself fascinating but also the story of how it came into being. The author began to write it in a bomb shelter during WWII. Afterward, the Communists banned it and burned it, yet a few copies were miraculously rescued and hand-copied during dictatorial times.

Today, the book enjoys cult status in its homeland of Hungary. Unfortunately, the English translation is currently out of print, but if you can lay your hands on a version you can read, don’t miss out on this masterpiece.   

We humans, for all our accomplishments in science, art, engineering, architecture, and literature, are haunted psychologically by the stark awareness of the reality that we all die. The various individual, group, and collective unconscious ways of trying to deny the reality of death are legion.

Becker stunned me with the way he organized a penetrating discussion of how many domains the effort to deny the reality of death enters. In the process of exploring these roads of travel to deny death, I found myself searching my own efforts to get meaning in my own life and try to prepare for my death.

The next one on my list of the top 5 spiritual books is The Book of Secrets by Osho. He is my favorite spiritual teacher, and although he never wrote any books, the texts from his speeches were published in several compilations. Everything you read from him can be useful, but this book stands above the rest in its length, depth and practicality.

This book is based on a 5000 year old tantric scripture consisting of 112 meditations to achieve liberation. What Osho basically does is that he adds commentaries and his own experiences to each of the techniques, thereby making them understandable and practical for the modern seeker. If I had to recommend any book on meditation, it would definitely be this one.

The third book I would suggest is Living with the Himalayan Masters by Swami Rama. Written as an autobiography, this book follows the life of a famous spiritual teacher, and his many adventures on his path to becoming one. I personally love biographies, and this was one of the most interesting ones for me. I think you would get just as inspired by it as me, and you could even continue with The Autobiography of a Yogi by Yogananda.

I love this book!  I’ve returned to it many times over the years. It’s my rock. It contains a series of questions and responses of students in dialogue with the well-known Indian sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. His teachings are direct, down-to-earth, and very timely, in that they address matters of continued importance to all of us: the nature of reality, suffering, mind, body, agency, fear, happiness, peace…and pretty much every truth you can think of!  It’s 550 pages of unadulterated wisdom.   

The perfect crime? Actually not! It was so imperfect that it turned into the perfect crime by just pure luck. No clues were left behind. In fact, there was nothing to trace the murder back to the murderer except his own guilt. 

His guilt turned out to be his biggest punishment. When he finally surrenders, he feels at peace–the long-eluded peace. 

When it was published in 1992, Rinpoche’s superior translation replaced the first English translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead from 1927. This has been a go-to for anyone preparing for their own death or that of a loved one, when the Western way of dying falls short. This book is an indispensable guide to the process of life and death. 

I was 25 when I came across a well-known book by P.D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching.

This book is based on the teachings of a spiritual teacher Georges Gurdjieff. Reading this book was a turning point in my life. It gave me hope and direction, and revived my quest in self-discovery.

This book is a delightful must-read for anyone who is searching to find life’s meaning and familiarize themselves with an esoteric understanding of life.