- Mindfulness in Plain English by the monk Bhante Gunaratana. Probably the most universally recommended book on general mindfulness.
How to Get It Done
- Awake! It's Your Turn by Angelo Dilullo. Can't really praise this enough.
- The BATGAP bot is an impressive AI sage.
Direct Pointing/Non-duality - These books may help provide a sense of what enlightenment is about, and the direction to lean into.
- Nothing Personal by Nirmala. One of the best and most useful books on what this is all about.
- I Am That by Nisargadatta. Classic text of transcribed talks, this might be my desert island spiritual book. Free audio of the text
- The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts. Thought provoking and relatively palatable even for a mainstream audience.
- Be As You Are: The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi by David Godman. A classic, a compilation of many quotes arranged by topic.
- Gateless Gatecrashers by Ilona and Elena (also the free pdf version). Transcripts of conversations with seekers, containing some of the most direct pointing instructions available. Their forum, Liberation Unleashed, has guided many to an understanding of no-self. This kind of guiding is also available by way of their Liberation Unleashed bot. If you dare, even more raw and a bit rude at times is similar written material from Brutal Beginnings (pdf).
- Perfect Brilliant Stillness by David Carse. Personal experience and hardcore, no holds barred nondualism.
- The End of Your World by Adyashanti. While this could be interesting even for seekers, this is probably most useful for those who have experienced a degree of awakening.
Other readings:
- What is Enlightenment, a collected series of posts by user iamquiet on reddit, from realization.org by way of archive.org.
- The Finders
by the somewhat questionable Jeffery Martin. This book presents research into over 1000 people considered to be
enlightened. Note that the Finders Course material is now freely available online. Also The Layers of Depth in Fundamental Wellbeing, many descriptions of various parts of the path from Martin's work and the numerous participants in the Finders Course.
