Begin to meditate--or renew your practice--with this straightforward guide that is free from pretension and complication.

From one of America's top meditation teachers and mindfulness experts comes a revolutionarily simple approach to everyday practice-especially if you don't think you have the time or the patience.Imagine you're sitting on a cushion with your legs crossed, ready to tap into unlimited joy. There's just one problem: You can't get comfortable (let alone still), and your head is full of way too many thoughts.The problem is not with meditation, or you, though-the issue may be with your approach.When properly understood and practiced, meditation should feel easy, calming, and comfortable. In Bliss More, maverick instructor Light Watkins provides the tools for making it E.A.S.Y. (Embrace, Accept, Surrender, Yield), dispels the biggest myths and misunderstandings, and shares real-world tips and straight talk for hacking into this ancient practice. The result: a happier and healthier you, inside and out. Watkins also shares candid testimonials from people whose lives have been enriched through his method, and extensive resources for transforming a daily chore into an enjoyable activity. Even the biggest skeptic will look forward to sitting for meditation every day.Whether you're a novice or an experienced practitioner, Bliss More will shed light on the path to a clearer mind, better sleep, and more bliss in everyday life.Praise for Bliss More:"With Light Watkins as your guide, you will unlock the secrets to establishing a regular and powerfully healthy daily practice."-Deepak Chopra, M.D."If you're ready to start a solid meditation practice, look no further."-Rosario Dawson, actress"Light takes the world's most powerful practice and turns it into something you can't wait to do, something you're actually excited about."-Pam Grout, author of E-Squared and Thank & Grow Rich"Bliss More is a treasure trove of powerful, practical, and priceless techniques to finally master your meditation practice."-Davidji, meditation teacher and author of Sacred Powers

For 30 years Mike Finch gave his total allegiance, his energy, his devotion, his dreams, and his love to Guru Maharaji (the Lord of the Universe, Prem Rawat). He also gave Maharaji and his organizations two inheritances, a house, and hundreds of thousands of dollars. As Maharaji's former chauffeur Mike was close to him personally; he lived as a renunciate in Maharaji's ashrams, and was authorized to reveal Maharaji's secret teachings. The book is a narrative of Mike's time with Maharaji, and his struggle to surrender his life to Maharaji, and to achieve the liberation that Maharaji promised. It is a story of being confined within a rigid belief system, realizing it, and learning how to break out from it. It is a story of how he came to live, think, feel, behave, and love, without 'the Guru', meaning both Maharaji, as the actual guru in his life; and in a more general sense of learning to face oneself and the world without any intermediary or negotiator, of any kind, in between. Recommendation from Steve Hassan I have recently made the time to finally read this fine book, although I was sent a review copy over a year ago. I am glad that Mike followed up and sent me another copy, and that we had the chance to sit down for lunch, along with a brief addition of his lovely life-partner Gail. I have been doing my 'work' of helping former members and raising awareness since I left my own involvement with the Unification Church (yes, the Moonies) back in 1976. I say this here, because it is rare that I get to learn from a fellow traveler, a former member from another totalistic group, with insights and perspectives that dovetail with some of my own conclusions, but from a somewhat different orientation. I heartily recommend this book for people to read. Not just former members of Guru Maharaji (aka Prem Rawat), not just former members of other eastern 'guru' groups, nor even other cult groups of every shape size and orientation. It is a book that the general public can benefit from reading - especially the last fifty or so pages. I also think people who have been devoted to a religion of any kind who have left it would find this insightful - but particularly former long term members of high demand groups and cults. In my cult experience, my recruitment and indoctrination to have utter and complete belief in Sun Myung Moon as the Lord of the Universe paralleled Mike Finch's. They achieved my total submission to Moon and his beliefs and practices and organization within a few months. I dropped out of college, donated my bank account, turned my back on poetry, art, my family, friends to work for the Messiah and to 'save the world.' I was prepared to die or be killed for Moon. I was also absolutely sure I would spend the rest of my life doing his 'will.' That ended abruptly when I fell asleep while driving a fundraising van, and my family did an intervention and rescued me. When I learn about Lifton and brainwashing, Jonestown and other cults - like Scientology, Krishna, TM, Children of God, DLM - it became clear that all of these groups were deceptively recruiting and using social influence techniques and other mind control methods to enslave people. And so I began my crusade which has lasted these several decades. Mike Finch: He walked out on his own, with the help and prodding of his life-partner Gail, who had woken up herself to the realization that not only was Maharaji not the Lord incarnate, but also that he was extremely abusive and harmful. She helped him see what he knew from his experience was true. This book, and his web site where he continues his exploration, restarts his life and continues to evolve, surely is a very important guide for the multitudes of people who are still in cult groups after twenty or thirty years. He also offers them hope, that you can come out, and reclaim your personal power and move forward. Read this book and share it with others! Steve Hassan

There are hundreds of meditation books out there. Many written by monks, and some written by hippies and spiritual gurus. But how many of these books are written by an ordinary dude? Someone who is just like you: someone who has a day job, whose preferred outfit is jeans and a t-shirt, and enjoys knocking back a few beers on Friday night? I'm as ordinary as they come. The only difference...I've been meditating for over 13 years. And I want to show you how you can meditate too—in a straightforward language that any ordinary dude or dudette can understand. Over a decade of practice, meditation has transformed my life, bringing more peace, calm and clarity into it than I could have ever imagined when I started at the age of 19. And now, I want to share how meditation can do the same for you.

Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa “shows us how the tremendous power of medical meditation can heal not only the body but also the mind and soul” (Deepak Chopra) in this practical and engaging guide to natural healing. Proven effective by scientific research and presented here by Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa and Cameron Stauth, the practice of Medical Meditation revolutionizes the healing process. By balancing and regenerating the body's ethereal and physical energies through simple meditations, Medical Meditation unites the mind, body, and spirit into a powerful triad. Each Medical Meditation here has a specific physiological effect, targeting afflictions from arthritis to ulcers to cancer. Dr. Khalsa details the five unique attributes that endow this type of meditation with far more power than standard meditation. The combination of special postures and movements; exact positioning of the hands and fingers; particular mantras; specific breathing patterns; and a unique focus of concentration can change your entire biochemical profile, easing you into a calm, healing state. Practiced in conjunction with conventional or alternative medical treatments, cutting-edge Medical Meditation activates the healing force within you.

Ashtavakra Gita is regarded as one of the highest scriptures of Advaita Vedanta. It is a legendary discourse between the sage Ashtavakra and King Janaka, where the teacher expounds the highest spiritual knowledge to a deserving disciple. This book is a compilation of talks with Acharya Prashant on the Ashtavakra Gita. Seekers have come to clarify their doubts and find practical applications to daily living. Acharya Prashant brings the heights of the scripture to a level where the listeners can benefit from the verses, understand them, and ultimately rise to their heights. It doesn’t matter whether you are a veteran or a beginner in the spiritual field; this book is a must if you wish to get familiar with the timeless wisdom of Advaita Vedanta in a contemporary setting and language.

Millions of people meditate daily but can meditative practices really make us ‘better’ people? In The Buddha Pill, pioneering psychologists Dr Miguel Farias and Catherine Wikholm put meditation and mindfulness under the microscope. Separating fact from fiction, they reveal what scientific research – including their groundbreaking study on yoga and meditation with prisoners – tells us about the benefits and limitations of these techniques for improving our lives. As well as illuminating the potential, the authors argue that these practices may have unexpected consequences, and that peace and happiness may not always be the end result. Offering a compelling examination of research on transcendental meditation to recent brain-imaging studies on the effects of mindfulness and yoga, and with fascinating contributions from spiritual teachers and therapists, Farias and Wikholm weave together a unique story about the science and the delusions of personal change.

A lively and razor-sharp critique of mindfulness as it has been enthusiastically co-opted by corporations, public schools, and the US military. Mindfulness is now all the rage. From celebrity endorsements to monks, neuroscientists and meditation coaches rubbing shoulders with CEOs at the World Economic Forum in Davos, it is clear that mindfulness has gone mainstream. Some have even called it a revolution. But what if, instead of changing the world, mindfulness has become a banal form of capitalist spirituality that mindlessly avoids social and political transformation, reinforcing the neoliberal status quo? In McMindfulness, Ronald Purser debunks the so-called "mindfulness revolution," exposing how corporations, schools, governments and the military have co-opted it as technique for social control and self-pacification. A lively and razor-sharp critique, Purser busts the myths its salesmen rely on, challenging the narrative that stress is self-imposed and mindfulness is the cure-all. If we are to harness the truly revolutionary potential of mindfulness, we have to cast off its neoliberal shackles, liberating mindfulness for a collective awakening.

A classic collection of excerpts from one of the great spiritual leaders of the twentieth century--now in the newly designed Shambhala Pocket Library series. Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) went from his origins in a small south Indian village to become one of the great spiritual teachers of the twentieth century. He taught that the only way to create peace on earth is to transform the human psyche—but that there is no path to this transformation, no method for achieving it, and no gurus nor spiritual authorities who can help. Rather, the transformation is a truth that each of us must discover within ourselves. This classic collection of brief excerpts from Krishnamurti’s books and talks presents the essence of his teaching on meditation—a state of attention, beyond thought, which brings total freedom from authority and ambition, fears and separateness.

Spirituality.The search for happiness --Religion, East and West --Mindfulness --The truth of suffering --Enlightenment --The mystery of consciousness.The mind divided --Structure and function --Are our minds already split? --Conscious and unconscious processing in the brain --Consciousness is what matters --The riddle of the self.What are we calling "I"? --Consciousness without self --Lost in thought --The challenge of studying the self --Penetrating the illusion --Meditation.Gradual versus sudden realization --Dzogchen: taking the goal as the path --Having no head --The paradox of acceptance --Gurus, death, drugs, and other puzzles.Mind on the brink of death --The spiritual uses of pharmacology.