Spirituality & Mysticism
Books for the inner journey. Mystics and seekers, Sufi poetry and teaching, Kundalini and mantra, prayer, daily meditations and Gurdjieff's Fourth Way. Quiet books, mostly, the kind people keep by the bed.
Featured Spirituality & mysticism books
from the Initiatic Point of View
Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
"As long as men put their own private interests ahead of the interests of the collectivity, the whole, they will never solve their problems. By "interests of the collectivity", I am not referring only to human beings, but to the whole Universe, that men are using as they wish, to gratify their own desires... look at the way animals are exploited, trees destroyed, mountains and the sea polluted. Once men develop the technical means, you will see what they will do with the sun, the moon and other planets. Humans use everything that exists for one purpose: their own material satisfaction.
All this must change: the means must now become the goal. We must make universal brotherhood, universal harmony, our goal, and put all the means at our disposal, our qualities, faculties, talents, strength and energy, to work toward that end. Only then will the problems of mankind be resolved.'
Human beings come and go, work and play, and busy themselves with all kinds of things, never realizing that their life is growing dim and dirty because they do nothing to protect it. They think that the life they have received is theirs to dispose of, and that they have a right to use it for pleasure or become rich, learned or renowned, as they please. So they draw on their reserves without restraint until, one day, they find themselves utterly spent and obliged to abandon all their activities.
It is completely senseless to behave like that for, once we have wasted our supply of life, we have no other resources to fall back on.
The Sages have always said that the only thing that is essential is life itself, and that we must protect, purify and sanctify it and eliminate whatever may hinder or prevent it from developing. And, if we do so, life will give us everything else: health, strength, power, intelligence and beauty - everything ! The highest form of magic, the highest form of White Magic is to lead a pure, luminous life.'
Love, Wisdom, Truth
Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
To be born a second time is to be born to a new life, the life of the Kingdom of God, the life of the great Universal White Brotherhood.
Two thousand years ago, in Palestine, Jesus gave us the key to all spiritual work, when he said, 'Unless a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God' Today, the Master Omraam Mikhaël Aivanhov interprets these words for our benefit. The water Jesus speaks of is Love; the Spirit, fire, is Wisdom, and Love and Wisdom unite to give birth to Truth which is the new life. In his commentary, the Master Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov shows how these three virtues of Love, Wisdom and Truth, correspond to man's psychic structure composed of heart, mind and will. Explaining that our physical bodies mirror our psychic being, he shows how Cosmic Intelligence has inscribed the secret of love in our mouths, that of wisdom in our ears and that of truth in our eyes..
This volume, which is the first of a series, sets out the essential foundations of Omraam Mikhaël Aivanhov's Teaching and reveals the vast scope of his thought in which Holy Scripture, esoteric symbolism and the sciences of man and of nature meet and complete each other in one all-embracing synthesis.
The Yoga of the Sun
Omraam Mikhaël Aivanhov
'When we focus our attention on the sun, the centre of our universe, we draw closer to our own centre, our higher self, the sun within; we melt into it and begin to resemble it more and more.
But to focus our attention on the sun also means to learn to mobilize all our thoughts, desires, and energies, and put them to work in the service of the highest ideal. He who works to unify the chaotic multitude of inner forces that constantly threaten to tear him apart, and launch them in the pursuit of one, luminous, beneficial goal, becomes a powerful focal point, capable of radiating in every direction. Believe me, a human being who masters the tendencies of his lower nature can benefit the whole of mankind. He becomes as radiant as the sun. His freedom is such that his consciousness embraces the whole human race as he pours out the superabundance of light and love that dwell within him.
The world needs more and more human beings capable of dedicating themselves to this work with the sun, for only love and light are capable of transforming humanity.'
An eco-spiritual approach to transformation
by Michael Lindfield
All evolving organisms - be they corporations, human beings, or nations - undergo change. Our society is currently at a critical point of change, with many institutions and structures of governance, economy, education and social welfare facing collapse. Increasingly, we feel the ripples of this upheaval in our own lives. In order to create a future that nourishes and supports all life on Earth, we need to learn, individually and collectively, to harness our inner creative abilities and translate them into practical, everyday life. The Dance of Change deepens our understanding of the cyclic nature of change and so helps us work more consciously with it.
A.J. Arberry
The Whirling Dervishes have intrigued many a traveller to the East with their amazing display of controlled, mathematically precise movements at varying speeds carried out in an atmosphere of complete serenity. But few know that they are associated with the name of Jalal al Din Rumi (1207-73). the greatest mystical poet of Islam, who is said to have founded the Order, nor that their circling opened the way to states of mind where the nature of the world lay revealed. Rumi was brought up in the Sufi tradition, that inner core of Islam which claims. to interpret the secrets of the Koran, and at the height of these all-night periods of dancing he would expound his teaching by impromptu verses and conversations, which were recorded by his followers. Passed down in MS for 700 years and only recently published for the first time in Persia, these Discourses here appear in their first English translation. Ranging widely over many topics that concern us intimately today, they provide a unique key to the wisdom of Islam, and the many delightful stories and parables they contain make for pleasant as well as profoundly instructive reading.
The New Sacred Prostitute
Edited by Kenneth Ray Stubbs, Ph.D.
Women of the night--women of the light:
the sacred prostitute, the temple priestess, the sexual healer,
the embodiment of the archetypal Goddess.
Who is she today?
Without a continuing lineage, without a temple, the contemporary sacred prostitute has many faces.
Today she is
The Porn Star
The Sex Surrogate
The Meditation Teacher
The Group-Sex Hostess
The Artist
The Masseuse
The Call Girl
The FireWoman
The Nurse
Nine women share their work, their lives, their insights,
Their personally written stories bring us to a deeper understanding of our sexuality and our humanity.
Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
Farmers were the first moral philosophers, says the Master Omraam Mikhaël Aivanhov : they don't expect to reap if they have not sown, and they know very well that, if they sow cabbages they will not harvest carrots.
How can someone who sows nothing but hatred and strife hope to reap a harvest of love and peace? If you want a marble palace you are not going to start building with clay bricks. If you want a healthy body you are not going to give it poisonous food.
How can anyone expect to develop a healthy, sturdy psyche, a lucid mind and a generous heart if he is seething with anarchic thoughts and feelings poisoned by his own greed and resentment? Exactly as we sift. and select suitable food or building materials, we have to sift and select the thoughts and feelings that present themselves to us. The laws that govern the psychic life are the same as those which have already been seen to govern other aspects of nature or technology. It was neither man nor society as a whole that invented morality: it is intrinsic to nature, to every aspect and dimension of nature. Morality is simply the extension on the human, psychic level, of the laws of nature.