A GUIDE TO SELECTING
Books About Ego Awakening and Non-Duality
Different paths for different layering of cultural conditioning and temperaments
Ego awakening is at the core of non-duality. The central idea of books about ego awakening is that your quality of life benefits most from breaking identification with the mind.
The reason is that this identification – the egoic illusion – is causing a sense of separation, which translates into an endless stream of desires that never lead to lasting satisfaction.
Satisfaction only follows from seeing through the illusion and surrendering to whatever impulses then surface.
Regarding self-development, it’s also considered a first step, as any successful attempt to improve oneself, strengthens the idea of a separate self, which is the root cause of the problem you've solved and will manifest in new ways.
Ego awakening is central in many wisdom traditions, but their methods vary a lot, because the traditions arose in different times and cultures, meaning different types of conditioning that require different approaches to be undone.
There are non-dual Hindu, Buddhist, Dzogchen, Taoist and Sufi paths of various kinds that would lead to ego awakening.
Some methods involve silencing the mind by focusing it on objects, itself, emptiness or god.
Other methods use the mind to falsify its own belief patterns by investigating their substance.
Yet, others play with perceiving without a mental layer or approach it like a mindset change.
With regards to style, there are various options of books too:
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Analytical (Sam Harris)
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Meditative (Eckhart Tolle)
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Methodical (The Presence Process)
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Anecdotal (Damnest)
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Simplified (Burkeman)
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Science-based (Steve Taylor)
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Philosophical (Taboo against knowing who you are)
Ultimately, with each path the mind is supposed to shift from its usual conceptual mode of perception to a non-conceptual one. This means you perceive without words in your head, like when you’re in a flow state and move without thinking. Only, this goes one level further, in that you’re not even perceiving yourself without words in your head.
The first moment of ego awakening does leave a mark, because it falsifies some long-held beliefs, but it’s never permanent.
Once egoless perception becomes more stable, the person can still participate in its old life or any kind of life it’s compelled to live, but the perception is without a deep belief in this personality or others or even the world at large.
A person is in a permanent state of ego awakening is considered enlightened and therefore not really a person. And, yet, he or she might appear to anyone else to be an average person.
Such enlightenment would usually involve a stage where someone loses their fear of death and a moment where the energy system of the body undergoes a transformation due to a Kundalini awakening.
Some consider ego awakening to be a form of spiritual growth, but many spiritual practices are more concerned with obtaining supernatural abilities or healing and would therefore have the opposite effect in terms of breaking identification with the mind.
Types of Books about Ego Awakening and Non-Duality
Here you find a list of archetypal books about ego awakening and non-duality from which we captured the essence in a short summary. The books are listed in a random order. We don't earn any commission on your selection.
"Freedom from the Known"
Jiddu Krishnamurti has been highly regarded by other authors and teachers in the field of non-duality for decades. His teaching style was very direct and explicitly refrained from any method. There were practical instructions in his work, that could be called methods, but his emphasis on the no-method path was mainly to make you question why you do things – where the drive originates – rather than what you do.
"The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You"
This book by Alan Watts deconstructs the false belief in being an autonomous self in a manner similar to his many public lectures that are available on the web. It's playful, philosophical and thought-provoking, but yet understandable even for novices.
"Wake Up Now"
Stephan Bodian more or less wrote a guidebook about all the stages of ego awakening and the various methods that can be applied. It's written in a very clear, rational way and would particularly suit anyone with either an analytical mindset or someone who's making a leap from a beginner level to intermediate (if there is such a thing).
"Spiritual Enlightenment, the Damnedest Thing"
This provocative book by Jed McKenna (real name unknown) is about an enlightened Westerner who has found himself in the role of teacher. In conversations with spiritual seekers, he dismantles the many false ideas that exist about ego awakening and enlightenment. His main grudge is against the spiritual community, which he belies is only trying to make the egoic dream more pleasant instead of waking up from it. He explains the difference in great detail, which has proven to be rather disturbing for some, but awakening for others.
"A New Earth"
Eckhart Tolle became famous for his book "The power of now". While the core idea of practicing to observe thoughts from a distance has helped many people find more peace of mind, it often leaves the ego in place. This book by Tolle therefor dives deeper into the topic of how the mind falsely identifies with thought and creates and ego-identity from this. He shows how emotional residues then fuel this ego sensation and that the way out is in facing those feelings without a story.
"Considering Non-Duality"
This concise book by Bukuru founder Richard van der Linde is particularly aimed at anyone in the process of considering the validity of non-duality. It contains a collecting of arguments from various disciplines that point at the validity of this philosophy, without claiming that any of these arguments prove this worldview to be correct. Because this worldview is logically impossible to prove, as the book will explain.
Bukuru's Zero-Books Approach
The key to ego awakening seems to be that the seeker needs to realize its own blindspot in the understanding of non-duality. While it may seem very straight forward, true understanding would result in the experience of non-dual perception. Hence, when someone is not experiencing this frame of mind, they didn't fully understand it.
Nowadays, there is an enormous amount of free content on the web available. You can also read more about non-duality in this section of our website.
About Bukuru
The core philosophy of Bukuru is that each person should test their own beliefs. The project started as a quest to categorize self-development books in such a way that it would become easier to find books that match your beliefs. However, along the way we concluded that the essence of most books can be captured in a few sentences – if the idea is original at all. Instead of helping people buy books, we now help people not buying books.