May 2024
LEAD STORY
The 20 Best Post Millennial Spiritual Memoirs
If you are a spiritual seeker, then you will find that the list of books recommended here by Ashish Virmani will save you the time and effort of googling for modern spiritual classics to further your journey. And if you are not, perhaps it’s time to start the process with these gems
In writing a spiritual autobiography, the role of truthfulness and honesty on the part of the author is paramount. Without this, it cannot be said to be worth the paper it is written on, or at best, it could be a second- or third-rate work. Also, the author’s willingness to share the difficult periods of their life with the reader is crucial. To omit the experience of adversity in their life or gloss over it means denying the reader a very human experience as well as the very rationale and need for spiritual enlightenment. Also, to be able to bare the uncomfortable aspects of their human personality in the light of the Higher Truth, which they have attained, is important, as are the qualities of humility and modesty. In fact, all of the above are aspects of genuine spiritual attainment and are inherent in the experience of spiritual awakening.
In choosing these spiritual memoirs, all the above factors have been taken into consideration as well as the fact that this is a selection of the stories of ordinary people—as against spiritual masters—who awakened spiritually. With one or two notable exceptions, these are all stories of regular people like you and me, following a variety of spiritual paths, who awakened either gradually through spiritual practice or suddenly due to seeking a way out of intense adversity and suffering. There are also a couple of memoirs by the spiritually gifted such as genuine psychic mediums or those who can see angels or read people’s energies, but they are few and far between. For the vast majority of humanity, a consistent (preferably daily) spiritual practice, is the best possible way to spiritual attainment. This, I would say from personal experience, is the surest, most sustainable, and gentlest way to happiness.
This aggregation of stories aims to supply the reader with thumbnail sketches as reference points in the hope that they will resonate with at least one in the selection, if not more. For those on the spiritual path, this will hopefully add more fortification to their belief system. For those who have not yet chosen a spiritual path, this article should hopefully provide a doorway to higher knowledge, in fact, the highest knowledge available to humankind. Spiritual faith is the highest aspiration of humanity, and this article hopes to illustrate that it is a portal open to ordinary people, equally.
• My Journey through Time: A Spiritual Memoir of Life, Death, and Rebirth Author: Dena Merriam
Publisher: Dena Merriam
First Publication: 2018
Dena Merriam is an American disciple of the spiritual master Paramahansa Yogananda. An avid meditator for decades, Dena’s meditations opened up a gateway where she could experience her past lives. This book relates them as they were revealed to her present consciousness. A thrilling book, My Journey Through Time sheds light on the workings of karma and the law of cause and effect so that readers can better understand the underlying conditions that have caused their own present circumstances and relationships. Incidentally, Merriam is well-known in international spiritual circles and is a great aficionado of Indian spiritual culture.
Website: https://www.denamerriam.com
• The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami
Author: Radhanath Swami
Publisher: Mandala Publishing (In India by Jaico Publishing House)
First Publication: 2008
This tale of a Jewish-American boy, Richard Slavin, who at 19 decides to follow the call of his heart and come to India, is both heartwarming
and hair-raising. Hair raising because the boy has practically no money and is determined to follow
t h e dangerous overland route to India via Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, to arrive in India around 1971. How he embarks on a spiritual journey through his apprenticeship to advanced yogis and spiritual guides, once in India, forms the crux of this book. Today, many decades later, Radhanath Swami (Richard was given the name by his guru Srila Prabhupada of ISKCON) himself is a revered spiritual teacher, based in Mumbai, and the spiritual guru to celebrities such as Will Smith and Russell Brand, among others. This is, quite simply, an honest and exhilarating book.
Website: https://www.radhanathswami.com
• Hollywood to the Himalayas: A Journey of Healing and Transformation
Author: Sadhvi Bhagwati Saraswati Publisher: Simon and Schuster (In India by Jaico Publishing House)
First Publication: 2021
Sadhvi Bhagwati Saraswati This is the story of an American woman who accompanied her husband to India in the late 1990s and fell deeply in love with Indian spirituality. Sadhvi Bhagwati Saraswati (she does not publicly reveal her American name) had an intense spiritual experience on the banks of the Ganga in Rishikesh in 1996 that changed her life forever. She stayed on at the Parmarth Niketan in Rishikesh under the tutelage of her guru HH Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji, and today, nearly three decades later, she is a famed spiritual teacher herself. This book is an intimate look at her life and personal issues, which include childhood abuse and an eating disorder in her teens, among other things. The willingness to show the vulnerable side of her character is what makes the book priceless and a treasure for readers undergoing these all-too-common issues.
Website: https://sadhviji.org
• Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer to Near-Death to True Healing Author: Anita Moorjani
Publisher: Hay House
First Publication: 2012
Anita Moorjani wrote this groundbreaking book on her near-death experience (NDE) and the spiritual realisations that were afforded to her after a near-fatal bout with cancer. During her NDE, Anita experienced a realm of unconditional love and interconnectedness that transformed her understanding of life and healing. She recounts the overwhelming feelings of acceptance in another dimension and the realisation that embracing one’s true self is fundamental to well-being. The book challenges conventional notions about illness and recovery, suggesting that a lack of self-love and authenticity in daily living can contribute to physical ailments. This book has guided thousands
of people, if not more, to live true to themselves. A pioneering book in every way, Dying to Be Me underscores
the powerful connection between the mind and body.
Website: https://www. anitamoorjani.com
• Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife
Author: Dr Eben Alexander
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
First Publication: 2012
This by-now famous book of a doctor’s near death experience in hospital and his return to life is an example of the afterlife being verified by a practitioner of the scientific method. Dr Eben Alexander was a successful American neurosurgeon who, one day in 2008, was struck by a freak and p a r a l y s i n g case of brain meningitis. He was in a coma for several days w h e n he had his a m a z i n g e x p e r i e n c e s of the afterlife, which he details in this book. T h e several realms of t h e a f t e r l i f e that he traversed and the s o u l s he met t h e r e
are all p a r t of his story, a s is the tale of how many aspects of his life on earth came together after his body recovered from meningitis.
Website: www.ebenalexander.com
• Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia
Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Publisher: Viking
First Publication: 2006
This well-known book is a writer’s account of what happened after she experienced a ‘dark night of the soul’ in her marriage and felt the impossibility of carrying on. She subsequently divorced her husband, quit her job, and went on a year-long journey to find her true identity and pursue the things she really wanted. These included gourmet pleasure in Italy, spirituality in India, and love in Bali. There was a film version of the book, released in 2010, with Julia Roberts playing the author. The book is a real pleasure to read because it is candid and unpretentious with the writer showing up as her true self, instead of someone trying to fit in with society’s ideals. It was also a pioneering book in the writing of women’s spiritual memoirs because it paved the way for a host of women writers to claim their rights to self contentment.
Website: https://www.elizabethgilbert.com
• My Love Story: The Autobiography Author: Tina Turner
Publisher: Penguin Random House
First Publication: 2018
The queen of rock ’n’ roll, Tina Turner, writes about her unusual life which saw so much suffering during its early years (including being an unloved and unwanted child) but took on epic proportions of career success
and victory post her forties. It was
a remarkable achievement considering she was a woman of colour, pretty much on her own in a male
dominated m u s i c industry and also past the
p r i m e of her youth.
T i n a talks about the highlights of her life in this invigorating and somewhat thrilling book, and of the people who helped her along the way. She credits her ability to climb out of the abyss she was stuck in to her spiritual faith and practice of Nichiren Buddhism. She writes unhesitatingly about the long hours and days she spent chanting during her most desperate times when she feared for her life and safety, and about how her spiritual faith was eventually instrumental
in her survival and great career success. Website: https://www.thetinaturner.com
• Stumbling into Infinity: An Ordinary Man in the Sphere of Enlightenment Author: Michael Fischman
Publisher: Sri Sri Publications Trust, India First Publication: 2009 (in America) This is an account of an American disciple of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Michael Fischman, who went on to become the president of the US Art of Living Foundation. Michael met Sri Sri in 1979 when the spiritual master was barely known and was seeking to establish his organisation and philosophy. As one of Sri Sri’s earliest overseas converts, Michael had the amazing fortune of being trained directly under the master himself, which he describes
in this book. The author talks of his experiences with the central techniques of Sahaj Samadhi meditation and Sudarshan Kriya, and of the experiences of living in Art of Living communities in the US and adjoining countries.
This book is also an intimate look at t h e disciples who made up Sri Sri’s world during his early years and his personal interactions with them long before the movement expanded and became a worldwide phenomenon.
Website:http://www.stumblingintoinfinity.com
• The Laws of the Spirit World
Author: Khorshed Bhavnagri
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House First Publication: 2009
This book is the story of an elderly Parsi couple, Khorshed and Rumi Bhavnagri, with two sons, Vispi and Ratoo, who, unfortunately, died tragically in 1980 in a car crash on the outskirts of Mumbai. They were only in their twenties. The parents were inconsolable until their sons began communicating with them from the Spirit World through the medium of automatic writing. This book is based on the
spiritual lessons that the sons passed on to their mother, Khorshed, from another dimension in the afterlife. It advocates the law of cause and effect and that the causes we make through our thoughts, words, and actions in the human world determine not only our reality in this life but also our state of life post-death and the happiness or misery we suffer afterwards.
• Angels in My Hair: A Message of Hope from the Angels
Author: Lorna Byrne
Publisher: Random House
First Publication: 2008
Angels in My Hair is the story of an Irish healer, Lorna Byrne, who can see angels as a matter of course in her daily life. Ironically, the author was thought of as a ‘retarded’ child even by her parents. A lack of parental love, being dyslexic as a child, and being taken out of school at age 14 meant that Lorna never learnt to read and
write. This book, in fact, came out when Lorna was nearly 55 years old and had distinguished herself as an outstanding healer in Ireland and the rest of the world. It was written with the help of someone Lorna trusted. She details how she had to face poverty as an adult, a miscarriage, and the early death of her husband, which left her with four mouths to feed. She also talks about the people she healed by guiding them to their angels. A truly authentic book.
Website: https://lornabyrne.com
• A Youthful Diary
Author: Daisaku Ikeda
Publisher: World Tribune Press (In India by Eternal Ganges Press Pvt Ltd)
First Publication: 2000
This book, in a diary format, is suitably subtitled One Man’s Journey from the Beginnings of Faith to Worldwide Leadership for Peace. It covers nearly 12 years in the life of young Daisaku Ikeda, from the beginnings of his faith in the late 1940s to the time he took on the mantle of the third president of the Soka Gakkai, a Japanese lay Buddhist organisation, in 1960. It is a very human story of a struggle— from the confusion, ill health,
a n d relative p o v e r t y of the protagonist amid the ruins of post-WWII to a resurrection of his life under the umbrella of strong Buddhist faith. The most charming aspect of this book is its modesty, as Ikeda, the son of a seaweed fisherman in Japan, candidly lays bare his day-to-day struggles with his failing health, his problems with relationships, and his attempts to build a happy family even as he struggles with his vision of the worldwide spread of Buddhism.
Website: https://www.daisakuikeda.org
• Soul Lessons from the Light: How Spiritually Transformative Experiences Changed My Life
Author: Yvonne Kason
Publisher: Author’s Choice Press, iUniverse Inc.
First Publication: 2022
Yvonne Kason is a medical doctor from Canada who first coined the term ‘spiritually transformative experience (STE).’ She has personally experienced multiple STEs during the course of her lifetime, including a kundalini awakening in her twenties; and, amazingly enough, five near-death experiences (NDEs) over decades. This is the story of a medical doctor who was interested in meditation and spirituality early in life. This book describes the conflict she experienced between her career as a doctor and the spiritual path that she organically chose. As a disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda, Kason describes herself as a ‘Christian yogi’—someone who bridges the gulf between Hinduism and Christianity. Dr Kason has also founded Spiritual Awakenings International (SAI), an organisation with a mission to raise awareness globally about spiritually transformative experiences of all types, which currently has an active presence on social media.
Website: https://dryvonnekason.com
• 50 Life Lessons: A Practical Guide on How to Maximise Happiness
Author: Suma Varughese
Publisher: Hay House
First Publication: 2022
Suma Varughese has been a magazine editor for decades, and her latest book, 50 Life Lessons, consists of wisdom gleaned from her own growth and spiritual transformation. In this book, the author talks transparently about her self-doubts, her struggles, and the turning points in her life, which led her ever deeper into spirituality. Covered are many concerns that contemporary urban dwellers face, such as the quest for identity, the need for a support group or groups, fulfilling one’s life purpose, or ‘dharma,’ the importance of vulnerability, and many other topics. From her vantage point as the observer of the lives of numerous individuals, Suma writes with gentleness about the things that really matter as a human being: self-improvement on a daily basis, humaneness, self-acceptance, and respecting and benefitting other people, to name a few
• Love Everyone: The Transcendent Wisdom of Neem Karoli Baba Told through the Stories of the Westerners Whose Lives He Transformed
Author: Parvati Markus
Publisher: Harper Collins
First Publication: 2015
Parvati Marcus
Neem Karoli Baba was one of those legendary Indian gurus who could induce among his disciples a state of advanced meditation with his mere physical presence. An enlightened master, best known to Westerners as the guru of Ram Dass ( or Richard Alpert, a Harvard professor), Neem Karoli Baba advocated no comprehensive body of teachings. In fact, he rarely spoke, and his instructions to his disciples consisted of two pithy maxims— ‘Love everyone’ and ‘Feed everyone’—of which the former is the title of this book. The author, Parvati Markus, is a well-known American book editor, and in the book, relates the transcendent wisdom that the guru transmitted to his disciples, especially Westerners, as they came flocking in the footsteps of Ram Dass. These are here-and-now stories and anecdotes about Neem Karoli Baba that date nearly half a century ago, remembered afresh as if they happened just yesterday. This book would be of interest to anyone who has a connection to the counterculture of the seventies.
Website: https://parvatimarkus.com
• Finding Venerable Mother: A Daughter’s Spiritual Quest to Thailand
Author: Cindy Rasicot
Publisher: She Writes Press
First Publication: 2020
When American author and marriage-and child counsellor Cindy Rasicot moved with her husband and teenage son from Northern California to Bangkok in 2005, she wondered how she would occupy herself in a foreign land. Always interested in feminist issues, she attended a women’s conference in Bangkok where she encountered a Thai Buddhist nun, the venerable Dhammananda Bhikkhuni. The nun talked about compassion and the futility of anger during a particularly stormy and turbulent conference session, in which traumatised women from war-torn countries were participating. The nun’s words and calm countenance stirred something deep in Rasicot, and she felt herself drawn to this tall, slender woman and Buddhism. For the next three years, the author entered the nun’s world and began her journey of personal transformation and spiritual development under the Buddhist tradition, which she relates in this memoir.
Website: https://cindyrasicot.com
• Mahashakti Awakes: An Autobiography of Spiritual Awakening
Author: Santosh Sachdeva
Publisher: Yogi Impressions LLP
First Publication: 2018
This is a book about a householder spiritualist, a wife, mother, businesswoman, a student, and later, the mentor of Kundalini Yoga, and her spiritual awakening. It tells the story of Santosh who grew up during the Indian Partition. The author describes how the event seismically affected her and her family’s life during her early years. She describes her marriage and the events that came after, including her meeting with holy personages that led her onto the spiritual path and also her husband’s relatively early death. The tale of her spiritual awakening, however, forms the crux of this book. Santosh’s spiritual path is Brahma Vidya and the Tibetan practice of The Eight Spiritual Breaths, a technique she was taught by her guru, Justice M L Dudhat. The Eight Spiritual Breaths technique is intended to serve as a guide to aspirants on the spiritual path and assist in kundalini awakening.
Website: https://santoshsachdeva.com
Santosh Sachdeva
• The Light Between Us: Stories from Heaven. Lessons for the Living
Author: Laura Lynne Jackson
Publisher: Random House
First Publication: 2015
Laura Lynne Jackson is one of the world’s better-known psychic mediums, which means that she can connect in another dimension with deceased people. She had this ability ever since she was a child, but it took several years for her to understand that she could use it to help other p e o p l e . Especially
for people w h o s e r e l a t i v e s or loved ones have p a s s e d a w a y suddenly or in circumstances that are not normal, Laura often
brings back messages of hope and consolation from their loved ones in the afterlife, which can give the survivors the strength to go on
living. For many years, Laura worked as a high school English teacher on Long Island, New York, concealing her psychic abilities which
enabled her to read people’s energies and pick up information about their past, present, and future. But post the millennium when the world’s consciousness shifted, with several books, authors, and spiritualists speaking and writing about the paranormal and near-death experiences (NDEs), the times caught up with Laura, and she eased into her role as a psychic
medium full-time. This book is an authentic, instructive, and moving story of the author’s life.
Website: http://lauralynnejackson.com
• A Baptist Preacher’s Buddhist Teacher:
How My Interfaith Journey with Daisaku
Ikeda Made Me a Better Christian
Author: Lawrence E Carter Sr
Publisher: Middleway Press
First Publication: 2018
Lawrence E Carter is an American Baptist
preacher and a disciple of the late civil rights
leader Martin Luther King Jr. A person of
colour himself, Carter distinguished himself
early on in religious circles as an outspoken
proponent of black rights and non-violence
in America. At some point in the author’s
mid-life, he discovered that King’s ideals had
become hopelessly eroded and marginalised.
This gave way to despair within him about
the overwhelming currents of society. Then
fortuitous circumstances conspired to bring
Carter to undertake an interfaith journey
with Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda. Carter
travelled to Japan to meet and hold a dialogue
with the late Ikeda who happened to be the head
of an organisation of 12 million Buddhists in
192 countries and territories around the world.
36 LifePositive | MAY 2024
Brought together by a common resonance in Mahatma Gandhi’s life and philosophy, Carter was rejuvenated. This is an account of how the author was able to see the rationale of his role as a Baptist preacher in a world being unified by interfaith religious currents of humanity, truthfulness, and compassion.
• Learning to Eat Along the Way: A Memoir
Author: Margaret Bendet
Publisher: She Writes Press
First Publication: 2015
This is the real-life story of an American newspaperwoman who was sent to interview Swami Muktananda in the mid-seventies, when he was visiting Hawaii. Bendet was so captivated by the swami’s message and the shaktipat (the energy transmission) he gave her that she walked out of her job and marriage to follow the swami and become part of his American entourage. In this dramatic
way, she embarked on a journey of spiritual transformation, eventually coming to live in Muktananda’s ashram in India for several years. Spending a total of three decades living in the swami’s ashrams the world over, this down-to-earth book describes her various experiences in India and what she did in the years following her guru’s death.
Website: https://www.margaretbendet.com
• Auspicious Good Fortune: One Woman’s Inspirational Journey from Western Disillusionment to Eastern Spiritual Fulfilment
Author: Sumangali Morhall
Publisher: Mantra Books
First Publication: 2012
This is the compelling tale of a modern British woman who writes about her life
Lead story 37
before and after she met her Indian guru, Sri
Chinmoy, and of the 10 transformative years
she spent with him from 1997 to 2007 (when
he died). During her twenties, Sarah Emily
Morhall (later ‘Sumangali,’ which means
‘auspicious good fortune’) had a sudden
near-death experience in England, which
opened her eyes to the preciousness of her
life. She subsequently began searching for
life’s meaning, her journey leading her to
study meditation with Sri Chinmoy in the US.
She then began the journey to discover her
deepest self. Heartwarming, courageous, and
well-crafted, this spiritual memoir follows a
Western woman learning the ways of the East
and putting them into practice in her modern
world.
Website: https://sumangali.org
Some honourable mentions
While choosing the 20 best spiritual memoirs
written after the year 2000, a couple were
close to making it to the list. Among these
are The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into
Life’s Perfection by Michael A Singer; Chants
of a Lifetime by Krishna Das; Apprenticed to
a Himalayan Master by Sri M, and Diary of a
Ashish Virmani, a mainstream journalist for over 18 years, found maximum fulfilment in spiritual writing. He has interviewed personalities like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Sadhguru, Deepak Chopra, Swami Parthasarathy, Sunandaji, and others, who led him to a path within himself that he has ever since pursued. As a practising Buddhist, he has written substantially about Buddhism and now devotes himself to his Buddhist practice full-time.
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