Books

Dharma Sisters: Stories of Awakening Five women discuss their journey to initial awakening and from there to embodied enlightenment. What’s striking and heartening is how different the journey is for each woman. It’s an incredibly high book and highly recommended for those who’ve been on the path for a while and are ready to “get ‘er done”! I’m an interviewee in this book under my spiritual name, Saraswati.

Ordinary Women Extraordinary Wisdom This is another book of interviews with modern awakened women. They are from the lineages of Adyashanti, Papaji and Eckhart Tolle, and though the interviewees are at different levels of awakening, I found them all fascinating. I gobbled this book up!

Daughters of the Goddess: The Women Saints of India This gem was published in 1994 and is now out of print (though lots of used copies are available), and I wish I had found it earlier. Fascinating to read about these women, most of whom I’d never heard of before, with a few now living in the U.S. and providing free weekly online meditations.

In a different league altogether is Mother Meera. She’s an incarnation of the Divine Mother, and you can unbelievably receive her darshan live every day on YouTube! Highly recommend everyone check out her daily meditation at least once! Mother Meera is famously available to everyone. She doesn’t care what faith you are, nor does she want you to change your practice or allegiance. Her darshans and meditations are always free.

Sara is the author of How to Be Happy NOW…Even if Things Aren’t Going Your Way, available on Amazon.com or Amazon UK, CA, FR , IT, ES and DE. © 2024 Sara Weston. A FREE excerpt of the book is available here.

Reading

Highly recommend the Three Jewels of Awakening to anyone who is a spiritual student or teacher! It’s the best, most concise book I’ve seen on how to engage correctly with the spiritual path, so that you keep your journey sacred and precious. And though it’s a small part of the book, what may be most valuable is the discussion on the traps both students and teachers can fall into. If you really hear these words, they can save you a lot of time and pain on the path!

As someone who has taught for many years, I personally chuckled in recognition at this advice to teachers: Many people will put you on a pedestal when you teach, and later, they will attempt to tear you down….Be unmoved by people’s opinion of you. You will be praised and you will be blamed, loved and hated, clung to and shoved away. Don’t fall for it! These are normal reactions of a student’s ego, especially when it’s under duress as the spiritual aspirant seeks to subdue its authority in favor of freedom. Be still either way. Let them do what they will while you remain centered.

When I was a young student, I read over and over again the teaching stories in The Snow Lion’s Turquoise Mane, and in particular fell in love with the stories about Patrul Rinpoche. The bright and funny way he called bullshit on sectarianism and hypocrisy reminded me so much of my own teacher. I recently found the 2017 book Enlightened Vagabond: The Life and Teachings of Patrul Rinpoche and really loved reading even more about this great enlightened teacher.

Some of my other favorite collections of teaching stories are Wisdom’s Blossoms: Tales of the Saints of India and Zen Antics.

Rereading

Every year or so I reread my favs. There are many great books about the life of the historical Buddha, but A Life of the Buddha (previously entitled The Awakened One) is my favorite. It’s very clean and bright.

I’ve read Autobiography of a Yogi an absurd number of times. If you haven’t read it, run, don’t walk to get a copy!

I have a great heart connection to Sri Ramakrishna, and read about him year round. I’ll open The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna most weekends and read a few pages. If you ever feel bad, you can read a few pages of this book and be lifted above the world. The energy in it is very powerful.