Personal Developement and spirituality are two genres that are unusually prone to bullshit, mostly because what fits into either is unusually open for interpretation. Today I thought I’d throw out a couple recommendations that I’ve found helpful in my own life, and I think are worth checking out.
Level Up Your Life, by Steve Kamb: Steve created nerdfitness.com, which is a great fitness resource, especially if you’re a bit of a geek (obviously). He started out as an out of shape introvert that hadn’t traveled outside of the United states, and got himself in shape and became a world traveler (while continue to play video games and other geeky activities on occasion). Level Up Your Life is the “Strategy Guide” for life, showing how you can do what he did by turning your life into a video game, complete with quests to develop various areas (with point values), levels, D&D classes, etc. If you set up a profile on level up your life dot com it even lays everything out like a D&D character sheet.
How to Be Alive: A Guide to the Kind of Happiness That Helps the World by Colin Beaven: An alternate title for this great book might be “a Guide to Karma Yoga for Westerners.” Karma yoga is essentially acting in service to others without any expectation of gratittude, reward, acknowledgement, etc. As Beaven puts it at one point, the method he’s laying out isn’t just a self-help method, its an “other-help” method as well.
Finding Ultra by Rich Roll: Technically a memoir, there’s a BUNCH of really useful self-developement advice in here. I know I’ve mentioned this book before, but seriously, its that good. Rich is the real deal, taking himself from a Standard American Diet eating couch potato to a multi-Ultraman finishing vegan in a year. The best part? The man is damn humble. He’s said in multiple places that there’s nothing special about him, anyone can do what he did as long as they’re willing to stop trying to hack their life, and put the work in.
the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A manual to how to work with the mind written long before Western Psychology was even close to being a thing, based entirely on direct experience. Like the Bible, there are numberless translations of Patanjali’s Sutras, and many are garbage. If you want the real heavy hitter, go for the Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali, written by an Indian professor who walled himself into a cave the last couple years of his life to focus on practice, the book comes in the form of annotations to Vyasa’s commentary, along with a handful of essays written by the translator. If, understandably, what is in a sense a Doctorate paper written as annotations to someone else’s Doctorate, Chip Hartranft’s translation is a great introduction, written by a scholar/practitioner with a background in both yoga & Buddhism. Edwin Bryant’s translation is also very good, Edwin is yet another scholar/practitioner, and brings in insights from various traditional commentators (including Hariharananda, author of Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali). For a more approachable traditional commentary, look for a series of large format books called “the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Study Guide to Book _” by Baba Hari Dass. Babaji is a classically trained Indian yogi who has spent decades living in California and teaching Westerners, and his commentary is a direct product of that endeavor. Unfortunately Babaji is in hospice currently after a serious medical event, and, unless its published posthumously, it looks like we might never get his commentary on book four, These volumes are beautiful as objects in themselves, with large full-page images of various saints and spiritual designs.
the Heart of Yoga by TKV Desikachar: Its technically a textbook, but its still a great read, laying out the basics of the teachings of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, the man who taught BKS Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois, Indra Devi, and is in many ways directly responsible for the popularity of yoga in the West. Written by his son, its highly recommended to anyone interested in a serious yoga practice.
Light on Yoga & Āsanas: The first is a brick of a book written and illustrated by Iyengar with detailed instructions for more postures than anyone would likely need. āsanas is a coffee table book of photographs of Sri Dharma Mitra performing more than on hundred postures. Dharma Mitra comes from a tradition unrelated to Krishnamacharya, but he is a highly accomplished yoga in all aspects of practice. Both books are a testament to what a life dedicated to practice can create. I would have loved to meet Iyengar while he was alive, and hope someday to visit Dharma-ji’s school in New York and hopefully meet him.
