Echoes From the Gnosis – The Gnosis of The Mind is written by G. R. S. Mead the first modern scholar of Gnostic tradition. G. R. S. Mead was the private secretary of H. P. Blavatsky and in 1906 he published the first volume of eleven in the series Echoes From the Gnosis.The works are a combination oftranslations and interpretations of ancient Gnostic writings. Long before the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, Mead translated these esoteric texts of various origins such as Christian, Roman and Greek. Unfortunately I have only been able to find six of the eleven volumes, download them here:
The Gnosis of The Mind
Lobsang and Lobsang - Krhomteng Gompa Tawang
Last April I spend some time at the Tawang Monastary up between Bhutan and the border to Tibet. This is the second largest Buddhist monastary in the world, the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama and the first stop in safe-land for the 14th after his escape from Lhasa. One day I walked the mountains for hours to reach a branch of Tawang Monastary a nunnery called Khromteng Gonpa. Here lives about 20 nuns practicing Vajrayogini. It translates to ‘the diamond female yogi’ and it is a series of tantric practices including methods for preventing ordinary death, intermediate state, bardo, and rebirth by transforming them into paths toenlightenment. Here is a part of one central meditation, Meditation on the Mandala of Vajrayogini:
“My body is red in colour, with a brilliance like the fire of the Aeon of Destruction. I have one face, two arms, and three eyes which look up towards Dakini-land. With my right hand I hold a downwards-facing outstretched curved knife marked with a vajra. With my left I hold up in the air a skullcup filled with nectar.”
These women are hardcore. Download a detailed description of the practice A Long Sadhana Vajrayogin here. Keep in mind that these instructions are post-initial:
A Long Sadhana of Vajrayogini
Rain on the Nile by Ajahn Amaro has the subtitle ‘Talks & Travels‘. The book was published by the Abhayagiri Forest Monastery in California in 2009 and it consists of Ajahn Amaro’s, a well-known and well-respected teacher of Buddhism, poems, teachings and itineraries from a travel to Egypt with a group of american Buddhists. Download it here (260 pages):
Rain on the Nile
The Urantia Papers also know as The Urantia Book or The Fifth Epochal Revelation is a long and very strange book. It is said to be written sometime between 1924 and 1955 somewhere around Chicago. The author is unknown and there are many speculations about how it was written from sleeping mediums to plain materialization. The story itself is quite amusing, Wikipedia has an extended article about it here. The fascinating thing about the book is its precision and details about the life of Jesus and the construction of cosmos. The Urantia Papers consists of more than 2.200 pages. Download it here:
The Urantia Papers
Bushido the Soul of Japan is is Inazo Nitobe’s description of the Samurai code, Bushido. Bushido literally translates “the way of the warrior” and it was a widespread philosophy of work, war, art and spirituality which influenced the entire society. Bushido has it´s roots in Zen-Buddhism and the ethic codes of the Japanese chivalry and Bushido is a philosophical foundation for a range of martial arts such as Aikido and Kendo. Bushido the Soul of Japan was first published in 1904 and here it is:
Bushido the Soul of Japan by Nitobe Inazo
The Debate of King Milinda – The Milinda Pañha is a famous work of early Buddhist literature, probably compiled in the first century B.C. It presents the core Buddhist doctrines in an attractive and memorable form as a dialogue between a Bactrian Greek king, Milinda, who plays the ‘Devil’s Advocate’ and a Buddhist sage, Nagasena. Download the free pdf ebook here:
The Debate of King Milinda
Hallucinogenic Plants was a part of a serie of books and field guides published in the seventies under the name Golden Guides.Hallucinogenic plants were written by Richard Evans Schultes – a founder of modern ethnobotany. The book is a good intro to psychedelics that has been much further explored since it was published, but I have chosen to post it here because of it’s usability, rich illustrations (by Elmer W. Smith) and the fact that Richard Evans Schultes wrote it. Download it here:
Hallucinogenic Plants – A Golden Guide
Supermundane -The Inner Life – quadrilogy was written in 1938 by Nicholas Roerich and his wife Helena. From the intro:
“Friend, how can we discuss the Supermundane if energy is not yet realized as the foundation of Existence? Many will not understand at all what is meant by this, while others may think that they understand the significance of fundamental energy, but cannot think about it with clarity. It is necessary to train one’s thought upon the idea of energy until the feeling of it becomes as real as the feeling about any solid object. We speak about feeling, because knowledge alone cannot provide an understanding of energy.”
The books are posted here with the permission from the Agni Yoga Society, which holds the copyright. Download the books here in PDF-format:
Supermundane
The Shiva Samthita – A Critical Edition is a translation of the ancient teachings on tantra known as Shiva Samhita. The sanskrit title means “The Collection of Verses of Shiva” and the book is considered the most important root text of Hatha Yoga. It starts out by outlining various methods of liberation and philosophical ideas and it goes into details on the non-dual Vedantic philosophy. Download the complete English translation of Shiva Samhita here:
Shiva Samhita
The Teachings of Ajan Chah – A Collection of Ajan Chah’s Dharma Talks includes the following eight Dhamma books by Ajahn Chah, more of them are here on the site as single volumes:
• Bodhinyana (1982)
• A Taste of Freedom (fifth impression – 2002)
• Living Dhamma (1992)
• Food for the Heart (1992)
• The Path to Peace (1996)
• Clarity of Insight (2000)
• Unshakeable Peace (2003)
• Everything is Teaching Us (2004)
Download the ebook here (725 pages):
