Read one book at a time, slowly. If you can, read alongside a teacher or a study group, because a text is easier to understand when you can ask about it. These are starting points, not a ranking. I will add my own notes as I read.
The Bhagavad Gita
- Edwin Arnold, The Song Celestial (1885). An older English verse translation, free on Project Gutenberg.
- Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita. A modern, readable translation with an introduction.
- The Gita Press (Gorakhpur) edition, for Hindi readers.
Yoga and meditation
- Swami Vivekananda, Raja Yoga (1896). His account of Patanjali's yoga. Note that "Raja Yoga" also names the meditation taught by the Brahma Kumaris, which is a different thing, so check which one a book means.
- B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
Devotion and poetry
- Rabindranath Tagore (with Evelyn Underhill), One Hundred Poems of Kabir (1915).
- Tulsidas, Ramcharitmanas, in the Gita Press edition.
The Buddha's teaching
- The Dhammapada. Many translations exist; Eknath Easwaran's is a readable one.
- Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught.
- Bhante Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English.
Self and meaning
- Ramana Maharshi, Who Am I?
- Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning.
- Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi.
A note on free texts
A few of these are old enough to be free to read online, but copyright depends on the edition and on who translated it, so check before you copy anything. I have marked only the one I have confirmed. Please buy or borrow the rest.
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