By Jilles
In the seventies and eighties it was called Spirituality and people turned their noses up, thinking it had something to do with witches and patchouli-smelling hippies. After Louise Hay came on the scene with her books and started a successful publishing company called Hay House, these books became known as New Age – which had the idea clinging to it that people could heal themselves by chanting weird affirmations and going to yoga and eating only veggies. These days it is called Consciousness and these books are accepted by most people who view it through a more holistic lens. Now the focus is more about wanting a better life but from the inside out.
Having been a stock buyer for both this section and psychology too, I always get the question what the difference is between the two. My answer: psychology is about cleaning up your ‘inner room’, making it look nice and comfortable. Consciousness, on the other hand, is about leaving the room entirely.
Eckhart Tolle explains it this way:
“The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the ‘thinker.’ The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.”
During these many years as a stock buyer I have read loads of books, both to clean up my room and to step out of it, starting with the cleanup and eventually ending up outside. So what follows is my list of the best of the best Consciousness books. How do I know they are the best? Because you can read them again and again and find new wisdom every time you open them up. It’s almost like magic. Some of the titles that follow I have read more than eight times, and I still get eye opening experiences reading them, thinking “why didn’t that jump out to me the first seven times?” So without further ado here is my list:
Practicing The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
This little hardcover was written after the famous The Power of Now. For this book Tolle took out all the exercises and then rewrote the whole thing. The Power of Now is the bestseller with more than 5 million copies sold, but this little gem is so much more powerful without the question and answer format. This little powerhouse of a book never stops revealing its secrets about how to live your life in a harmonious and loving way. I’ve been taking it with me on all my retreats and it has never stopped giving me more and more insights.
The Untethered Soul (& Living Untethered) by Michael Singer
This was the first book that explained it all to me so I could actually fit all the puzzle pieces of my journey together and gave me the full picture of all the components of being human, why life works, why it doesn’t, and how to make it work for you.
In the follow-up book Living Untethered, he gives you tools to get rid of the bad habit and make life work for you.
This book was a game changer for me. If you haven’t read this, you are not serious about your spiritual journey.
Letting Go by David Hawkins
One of the most important aspects in your growth process is letting go. Let what go? The personal structures you created to protect yourself. You mostly came up with these defense mechanisms when you were a child and they are totally outdated, but are still running your life. Hawkins explains that your soul is the gateway to an enlightened life, but our mind, clinging to patterns inside of us, is blocking our natural inner light. This whole book is about letting those blocks go, written from all levels on the emotional ladder that tells you where you are in your personal growth process.
Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz
“Your heart is like a magical kitchen. If you open your heart, you already have all the love you need. So it’s not: I need someone to love me to prove that I am worthy of love.” (Does that sound familiar, Letting Go fans?)
This book explains from a Toltec perspective what love is, not just romantic love, all love, and then explains how we interpret love, what poison we use to make love toxic, and then how we can get rid of this toxic way of thinking and believing. This is a book for everybody, not just for lovers, although this would be a great help. Like Jesus said, life is about loving, even our enemies, so put this one on your TBR pile.
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Eckhart again. Where The Power of Now was focused on our personal journey, A New Earth takes a bigger perspective and shows us how our mindset (closed off or open) impacts the world, and how the Universe is constantly trying to support us. But we humans have a difficult time listening to good advice. In the end it still comes down to us, taking that one step in the right direction, changing one thought at the time, being in the moment.
What an amazing new earth we could be living in if we all did it together.
The Christ mind books by Paul Ferrini
These books are out of print (you can still get them second-hand) but still as relevant as when they came out. The four volumes are channeled by Jesus, or the Christ mind, which we all carry inside us as potential. Even if the Christian terminology is off-putting to you, the wisdom in these books isn’t. Imagine Jesus living here and now, explaining the mechanics of your inner life and advising some simple suggestions to get on the right track again.
Money and the Law of Attraction by Esther and Jerry Hicks
This book is written through the lens of the law of attraction (what you focus on will expand). On the surface it looks like the Hicks books are only about attracting stuff, but when you read them carefully, they explain the exact same principles the other books on my list explain. In these books Esther channels a group of spirits called Abraham, who does all the talking.
Watch some Youtube clips of her, because Abraham is not only very smart but also funny. If the channeling scares you, don’t worry, the Hickses bring their message with a lot of humor. “Hoooo…hoooo,” Esther as Abraham making weird noises, then deadpanning that he is a ghost. It is the message, not the messenger. And in the end there is just one message, told throughout the ages in many different voices, like Joseph Campbell reminds us in his most famous work The Hero With a Thousand Faces, it all comes down to love, love for yourself, love for your neighbor, love for your enemy.
A Return to Love (& The Mystic Jesus) by Marianne Williamson
A Return to Love was written by Marianne Williamson after having studied A Course in Miracles, an in-depth psychological explanation of the teachings of Jesus. Don’t confuse this with Christianity, that and Jesus are two completely different things. In this book she tells about how these teachings changed her life with many examples that really resonate because they are so familiar to all of us. The basic premise is
to move from fear to love. In The Mystic Jesus, the follow up, she delves a bit deeper and explains that the force Jesus had access to is the same force we have access to, as long as we drop everything else and let it guide our lives. Gary Zukav said it best in The Seat of the Soul: “the longest journey is from the head to the heart.”
Now you know where to start if you feel inclined to take this journey to the heart with this list. “I think you are missing some classics,” you might say at this point, like A Course in Miracles or the books by Louise Hay. No, that is your list, this is mine. Make your own list and put it out there, inspire people with the books that have had an impact on you and your life. Should you pick up one of these books, good for
you, it’s nice to step out of your room every now and then and see that the Universe is so much more than what we see. And sharing these experiences makes the world a better place one step at a time, because you come out with a new perspective that you are sharing with your friends.
Will you share your favorite lists or books on the subject with us so we can all compare and find new gems to read that will push us out of our locked rooms? Two know more than one. Three know more than two. Lets bring a new perspective into our day to day living and do better.
About the Author: Lilia
