Top 10 Books For Spiritually-Minded Self-Actualizing People
The Importance of Reading in Personal Development
When it comes to personal growth, developing a consistent reading habit is an absolutely CRUCIAL component of the process.
While various practices such as meditation, contemplation, journaling, going to therapy, traveling, and exposing yourself to a variety of new experiences can certainly go a long way in raising your consciousness, without a consistent reading habit, it will be impossible to develop the deep, nuanced, multi-dimensional and multi-perspectival mind required for becoming the most you can become in this lifetime.
Books are essentially an author’s deepest life insights and wisdom neatly packaged into a couple hundred pages.
Decades of wisdom from the world’s most brilliant minds are just sitting on the shelves waiting for you to intake their wisdom!
Of course, there are thousands upon thousands of books out there, and only a few can be read by you in this lifetime.
To aid in helping you distinguish which books you ought to read, I created my Book List which includes a 1 star through 5 star rating along with a brief review of each for the 100+ relevant personal development books I’ve read so far in my life.
In this post, I’ll be covering the Top 10 books that have been the most impactful on my life so far.
For the spiritually-minded self-actualizing folk reading this, I think you will find this Top 10 list immensely valuable.
In addition, if you would like to purchase any of these books, I will leave affiliate links to the books peppered throughout this post.
If you click the link to purchase the book, it will put a couple extra dollars in my bank account.
Enjoy :)
10: Beyond Azara by Martin Ball
Being the only fiction book included on this list, Beyond Azara was written by Dr. Martin Ball, who has a HUGE passion for studying religion and using psychedelic substances to learn about consciousness.
In light of that, this book tells the story of Jendru, a monk in the psychedelic religion, Azar, who is soon to take his vows that would put him into a lifelong status of monkhood.
Prior to taking his vows, he ends up meeting a man named Serloq, who is known as an outcast to Azarians for his “wacky” and “outlandish” beliefs.
In meeting with this man, Jendru has insights and awakenings that forever alter the course of his life.
That’s all I will say here, as I don’t want to spoil the rich, extravagant story for you.
I literally couldn’t put this book down.
If you are interested in spiritual awakening, embodying spiritual awakening, and how collective ego manifests in religions and institutions, then this is s MUST READ.
It is clear that all of Martin Ball’s deepest personal insights are peppered into this story.
9: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
I’m pretty sure this is one of the top-selling books of the 20th century, and for good reason.
This book was perhaps the 2nd or 3rd personal development book I read back when I was 16 years old.
I truly believe if I hadn’t read this book, I would not have gone on to do the work I am doing as a life coach, or at least I wouldn’t have come into the profession as quickly as I have.
At the time of reading this book, I was a shy teenager with sub-par social skills.
And in being an INFJ, who is naturally wired to experience deep connections with other people, my shyness really withheld me from experiencing what my heart desired.
Through reading this book, I gained various insights and received practical tools on how to connect with others better, and through applying the information, I can see how this branched into deepening various connections I already had and helped form various new bonds as well.
Although the book talks in 1930’s language (the time when the book was first published), the insights still apply extremely well to the present day.
If my words resonate with you, I highly recommend picking up this book.
8: Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Dr. Anna Lembke
Through the rise of the prevalence of the smartphone, internet, social media, pornography, junk food, drugs, etc, humanity’s dopamine receptors are becoming collectively FRIED.
Attention spans are getting shorter, people are becoming lazier, more short-sighted, more impulsive, more obese, less motivated, and overall are just having less energy and zest for life.
In the age of this dopamine economy, it is more important than ever to take a conscious approach to optimize the dopamine in your brain.
Through this book, Dr. Anna Lembke will provide you with all the cutting edge science on the neurochemical dopamine, which is the chemical primarily responsible for motivation and reward-seeking behavior.
In addition, she will provide various practical tools you can implement to help heal your damaged dopamine receptors and keep them functioning at optimal levels.
After reading this book, I started living my life far more consciously and intentionally when it comes to the “rewards” my brain seeks.
While I am far from perfect (it is so hard to escape the dopamine economy entirely), I am living a much healthier life in part due to reading this book.
I cannot stress enough how important optimal dopamine is for your self-actualization.
7: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
This book served as a powerful application of relating deeper forms of spirituality towards discovering and realizing my life purpose.
Tolle explains how transcending ego-based consciousness is the key to personal happiness, finding our life purpose, and transforming the world.
In this book, he dives especially deep into the various ego functions and mechanisms that can withhold the expression of Love and Truth from your being, keeping you locked into a more selfish, egoic state.
This is one of the most important books any spiritual seeker can read.
6: All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks
There is so much talk from various spiritual teachers and gurus on Love and embodying Love, which is great and all, but virtually no one actually puts an actual definition to Love.
Through this book, contemporary feminist philosopher bell hooks puts a working definition to Love, describing Love-in-action as being something that “nurtures the spiritual growth and self-actualization” of another person.
In calling out the vast lovelessness that pervades our entire society, both individually and collectively, bell hooks articulates how we can evoke more Love in our lives, both to ourselves and to others.
Bell hooks gets it, it is Love and only Love that is going to heal and save our world.
I felt called out by my own lovelessness by this book, and feel myself to be a more wise, conscious, mature, and loving person having read this masterpiece.
A must read for anyone on the path of any form of growth.
5: LSD and the Mind of the Universe by Dr. Christopher Bache
This book blew my fucking mind.
Dr. Christopher Bache was a professor of religious studies who intentionally and therapeutically worked with high doses of LSD for multiple decades (unbeknownst to anyone other than he and his wife and few trusted friends) for the purpose of healing & spiritual awakening.
This book is mostly a sharing of his trip reports (in chronological order) that illuminate the purpose of life, nature of reality, future of humanity, and how all of this impacted Bache’s life personally.
In reading his reports, I felt shivers and tingles ignite throughout my body at times, in resonance with the various awakenings I’ve had throughout my journey.
In centuries from now, when humanity hopefully reaches a more collectively spiritually-awakened state, I believe this book will be remembered as one of the most unique books of its time that also accurately foreshadowed much of what is to come in the future.
This is one of the best books I have ever read, and is a must read for any honest spiritual seeker.
4: From The Core: A New Masculine Paradigm For Leading With Love by John Wineland
It is my belief that our world is facing a crisis of masculinity.
Toxic masculinity (which is just immature masculinity/boy psychology) is rampant, and is destroying the world in many ways through its unconscious and domineering nature.
I’ve only met a handful of men/masculine-dominant people in my life who truly embody a deep, still, grounded, purposeful, mature presence who are whole-heartedly committed to evoking Love in the moment.
The author of this book, John Wineland, is someone who gets it.
This book is what conscious masculinity is all about.
This book is primarily oriented towards deepening romantic relationships and the transmission of Love in day-to-day to life, but one who reads could also glean how the insights from the book can apply to all domains of existence.
If you are familiar with the work of David Deida, it may benefit you to know that Wineland was a student of David Deida, so his insights are quite similar to Deida’s.
While I think Deida’s work is solid, I found the language in his books to be cringe at times, socially uncalibrated, and he was often far too in-the-clouds.
Wineland’s voice is more grounded, practical, and socially calibrated while remaining deeply moving and inspiring.
He takes the best of Deida’s work and builds upon it.
Through this book, I was able to see so much unconsciousness that I was embodying in my day to day life, and especially in my previous romantic relationships. I felt so called out that it was a little bit painful at times (but that’s a good thing!)
An absolute must read for any masculine-oriented person.
3. The Book of Not Knowing and Pursuing Consciousness by Peter Ralston
This is one of the greatest books of all time.
This book is referred to by some as the “bible of consciousness” for a good reason.
It is the most direct, practical, no-bullshit book written for experiencing enlightenment and deepening consciousness.
Along the way, every possible mechanism of the ego that prevents direct experience of Truth will be illuminated.
After all, the spiritual path is basically just ego-transcendence.
And to quote the wise words of Leo Gura: “The ego is puppeteered by psychological and existential forces beyond its comprehension. Survival entirely runs the ego but this survival is so subtle and intelligent that the ego is blind to it. But as you do this work you slowly start to see all the ways your ego acts out and why. Serious development is consciousness of every way in which survival runs your mind. Until then you’re just a sophisticated survival puppet.”
Ralston’s book is perhaps the very BEST on planet Earth for becoming aware of the subtle and not-so-subtle mechanisms of ego that keep you locked into your blind, habitual patterns of survival.
It just so happens that as you do this work, you become more aware of Truth, which opens the door for a direct experience of this thing called “enlightenment” to occur.
The sequel to this book, Pursuing Consciousness: The Book of Enlightenment and Transformation is equally as powerful, but dives more deeply into the distinction between enlightenment and personal growth.
Both of these are books that radically altered the course of my life for the better.
You have to read these.
2. All Ken Wilber Books
I don’t know how in the fuck more people don’t realize this, but Ken Wilber is the greatest philosopher in all of human history up to this point, and he’s still going!
He’s fairly popular, but he’s not world-renowned like a Socrates or a Kant or a Nietzsche.
The thing with Wilber is, he’s hardly ever said anything new, he just SYNTHESIZED everything we already know!
Ken Wilber is the creator of Integral Theory, which is an extremely comprehensive framework that aims to unify a broad spectrum of disciplines of various western theories along with Eastern traditions and frameworks.
Being a very psychologically-minded person, the most moving aspect of Integral Theory to me is Wilber’s synthesizing of all human developmental psychological research into a single framework.
Through learning these various frameworks (read Integral Psychology for a brilliant analysis), the way I see and conceptualize people and society changed forever (in a good way, but there are shadows so be aware) and brought me towards a greater understanding of, and thus empathy, for all people on Earth.
Of course, there is much more to the theory, and you will have to read Wilber’s various books in order to learn about it.
But I promise you, if you read a few of his books and are willing and diligent to get through how incredibly DENSE and comprehensive his books are, your perspective on life and reality will be radically altered.
I’d recommend reading A Brief History of Everything to get an overarching view of the framework.
I loved Integral Psychology and Integral Spirituality, which helped me to get a full-spectrum, comprehensive understanding of the psychological and spiritual development of mankind.
Trump and a Post-Truth World was probably my favorite book of Wilber’s, as he applied his framework to the present day political sphere in the United States, but I’d recommend reading some other books of his first in order to deepen your understanding of the framework first.
I was even so moved by Integral Theory that I decided to get my life coaching accreditation from an organization called Integral Coaching Canada, which is the only coaching school in the world (as far as I’m concerned) that teaches through this framework.
In my eyes, it is the most full-spectrum way of coaching that exists, and thus helps maximize the transformation in the lives of the individuals who are being coached.
Read Ken Wilber. Now
Conversations With God Books 1-3 by Neale Donald Walsch
Oh My God.
The above phrase is how it felt to read these books.
I believe these books are some of the most important texts ever written.
The guy who wrote this book, Neale Donald Walsch, doesn’t even really claim authorship over it because he insists that rather the words that ended up on the page were channeled by God/Source/Spirit/Brahman/the Universe through him.
Being disgruntled by the world, Neale wanted answers, and in asking his questions, he would find a clear voice that would speak through him in written form.
In writing this book, Neale would never force anything onto the page. If the voice was there, he would write. If it wasn’t, he would not write.
Oftentimes, he would just awake in the middle of the night and he knew it was time to write.
These three books contain the conversations that Neale had with the clear voice that he calls God.
Through channeling God consciousness, he explains the entire purpose, structure, and function of the Universe, Life, and Humanity.
Book 1 is about personal issues, Book 2 is about societal issues, and Book 3 discusses universal Truths.
In each of the books, I got shivers and goosebumps multiple times, and was brought to tears on several occasions from the sheer resonance of the words on the page.
No other book I’ve read in my life has been able to do that.
Everything that I’ve learned throughout my life and in my various awakenings was reiterated in this book, but also SO MUCH was added on top of it throughout reading these texts.
These are books that I will probably read at least 5-10 times EACH in my life because they are filled with profound insights on every single page that can be powerfully applied in day-to-day life.
I like to open them when I feel I’ve fallen away from Myself.
Seriously, these books can change your life if you allow it.
When reading these books, I recommend reading with an open heart and emotional body.
Don’t pay excessive attention to and analyze the meaning of every single word and phrase, read the book OPENLY, and allow its contents to MOVE YOU.
Take what resonates, and discard what does not (A LOT resonated for me, a few minor aspects did not).
These 3 books are far and away the best on this list.
Read them.
Conclusion/Offers
Go and read these books, and if you are going to purchase them through Amazon, please use the referral links peppered throughout this post to do so.
I wish you the best on your journey, and go read!
I also want to let you guys know about an offer I am beyond excited for that begins on January 5.
Starting on January 5, myself along with Dr. Devon Almond are hosting The Lifework Sanctuary, in which we are taking on a cohort of 12 individuals who have heard the whisper of a higher purpose calling them, and seek to architect a life that aligns with their innermost truth.
You can find some more details of this community in the image below:
If you are interested in joining, please book a quick 15 minute call with me so we can chat more and get you onboarded.
There are only 4 out of 12 spots remaining at the time of me sending this post, so if you have resonated with my work for awhile and want to step more deeply into your life purpose, now may be the best and most affordable time to do so.
Also, check out my Book List for more books!
Hope to see you soon!
With Love,
Wyeth