100 Books Like The Life Divine

I respect this book because it challenges the common-sense distinction between action and inaction. Part of the epic Hindu poem Mahabharata is a cunning text. On its spiritual surface, it preaches overcoming suffering, casting away ego, practicing detachment, and unifying oneself with the divine. Yet these tenets simultaneously boost Krishna’s rhetoric to convince Arjuna to slaughter his own family.

This is a thinly veiled attack on the Buddhist ideal of doing nothing on the grounds that every inaction involves action and vice versa. Its real insight, for me, is that we should sometimes actively do nothing. My favorite instance of the Gītā’s widespread influence is a contemporary Bengali no-loitering sign that reads: ‘If you have nothing to do, please do not do it here.'

I don’t like rankings — I think we count and rank to our collective detriment – but if I had to make a list of the most important books I’ve ever read, this would probably be on top of the list. What is it about? It’s about finding your true self. On the one hand, the task couldn’t be simpler: You are what you are, so there’s hardly a Hardy Boys mystery to crack here. On the other, we cloud our own understanding with so much illusion that few of us have the capacity to see the truth about ourselves. Maharaj can be a bit prickly, but he’s more love than anything else. If you try this book and you can’t connect to it, put it down and return to it later. That’s what I did – the first time, it was impenetrable; the second time, it penetrated to the… show more.

Baba Muktananda is surely the most entertaining – dare I say, “cool” — of all the great gurus. This book, a collection of Satsang, or Q&A sessions, with the Siddha Yoga Guru, is a very easy-going, unpretentious discussion of the most important things about finding yourself. As the title promises, you are not a finite being; you are infinite. It’s very convincing.

I don’t think that I am different from the majority when I say that for most of my life, the idea of “discipline” wasn’t that attractive to me. I wanted freedom. But in this book, as well as all her other books, the Siddha meditation master Gurumayi Chidvilasnanada convinced me that the means to a perfect existence must come through discipline. You cannot find yourself if you do not first sort yourself out. The goal isn’t recklessness; it’s improvisation within defined constraints. That’s where the magic happens. Gurumayi is one of the clearest thinkers and writers that I have ever come across. More importantly, everything she writes is infused with love.

This book is actually an illustrated online serial, currently 64 episodes in (and on pause at the moment, but I have it on good authority that it will resume). One of my favorite episodes deals with a mysterious young woman preparing a mysterious—magical?—breakfast of zucchini and eggs…but it’s full of spoilers, so you should probably just start the story from the beginning.

I love Twice: The Serial because it's an amazing contemporary fantasy story, well told and beautifully illustrated—a great example of the kind of fantasy I love, which is the "slow build" type...we're in the real world and then mysterious things happen around the edges...and then right in the middle.

I love the dreamy art and timeless wisdom in this unique book. It reminds me that I'm in an eternal state of oneness with the universe right here and right now. This book is soothing and beautiful and speaks to the deepest longings of the soul!

Aristotle’s Metaphysics marks the beginning of attempts to articulate the philosophy of metaphysics as a science. Retrospectively applying Kant’s division of metaphysics as transcendental philosophy to Aristotle’s writings: Aristotle’s Metaphysics is an in-depth examination of cosmological and theological metaphysics.

I personally enjoy Aristotle’s Metaphysics because it is mysterious. It is difficult to read, and the fact that it was written with an entirely different alphabet is exciting. Aristotle’s Metaphysics is his attempt to systematically blend his particular preference for empiricism with metaphysical insights learned from Plato’s philosophy.

The history of Aristotle’s Metaphysics – in terms of, for example, its title and organization – is fascinating in itself; however, what always stood out for me was recognizing Aristotle’s own excitement. Book 5 of his Metaphysics is often thought of as a kind of metaphysical dictionary, and shortly after this summary of vocabulary terms, it is as if Aristotle grabs hold of… show more.

Pippin’s book impresses me because it makes clear how the modern German philosophy of Kant, Hegel and others, may fail to get to grips with deeper questions concerning why things matter at all.

Western philosophy is concerned with reconciling thinking and reality, but this neglects the fact that meaningfulness is not fully grasped by what can be rationally known and explained. Our sense of things mattering precedes whatever we may come to know about them: think of how music can grip us in ways which we can never fully explain. This issue leads Pippin to a hugely enlightening account of the difficult (and problematic) work of Martin Heidegger that I find the most plausible interpretation of his work.

This book shows how one can question the very status of philosophy in the modern era, and think about alternative ways of making sense of things.

Dussel does what Latin American philosophers allegedly should not do. That is what I love about this book.

Whereas Latin American philosophers allegedly should take for granted assumptions from supposedly “enlightened” philosophers who have worked in the Global North, Dussel rejects such assumptions, say, the one that philosophers should never talk about imperialism as if this political issue were philosophically irrelevant.

Whereas Latin American philosophers allegedly should only tackle disputes in metaphysics raised by philosophers from the Global North, Dussel articulates disputes these likes usually ignore, e.g., the dispute on how or under which conditions a liberation could exist.

Whereas Latin American philosophers allegedly should import Northern right-wing policies of depoliticization, Dussel politicizes philosophy in a left-wing vein while opposing the war-driven attitudes of the likes of Henry Kissinger. 

This is a popular, reliable, wide-ranging introduction to metaphysics by two respected philosophers. It covers topics such as personal identity, fatalism, time, God, free will and determinism, possibility and necessity, and criticisms of metaphysics itself. It asks why there is something rather than nothing, and whether distinctions between good and evil and between right and wrong have any objective reality. Ted Sider is a leader of new developments in contemporary metaphysics.