Books read this year

  • Brave New World
  • One Hundred Years of Solitude
  • The Twilight Saga [ 1-4 ]
  • How to Read a Book
  • What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
  • Turiya - The God State: Beyond Kundalini, Kriya Yoga & all Spirituality (Real Yoga)
  • How Psychology Works
  • Being You: A New Science of Consciousness
  • How to find love
  • Make something wonderful
  • American Gods
  • The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
  • Logicomix
  • The Phoenix Project
  • The Art of Dying by Osho
  • The Old Man and the sea
  • Zen Mind Beginners Mind
  • Isa Upanishad
  • Chhandogya Upanishad
  • Enlightenment is your nature
  • 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think

Books In Progress:

Remnants from Last Year

  • Dhando Investor [ Not in that mental state of value investing rn ]
  • Lives of the Stoics [ Got enough philosophy to be useful ]
  • Meditations by Marcus Aurelius [ Same with meditations ]
  • Code Breaker by Walter Issacson [ Excited upto the point of decision for a Nobel Prize. Felt like that was all I needed ]
  • Krishnamurti’s Notebooks [ Needs absorption rather than completion ]
  • Dream Yourself Awake [ Practice is more important. Only after mastering certain techniques, I will move forward ]
  • The Monk who sold his Ferrari [ Started re-reading but dropped it ]

Newly added

  • Love Her Wild
  • The Sun and her flowers
  • Milk and Honey
  • Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance [ Too much zen already :P ]
  • Indian Philosophy [ It’s a big one. So much information, it’s hard to just process ]
  • The Book of Secrets by Osho [ About techniques, no point in finishing the book ]
  • Mulamadhyamkarika: Wisdom of the Middle Way by Nagarjuna [ Really intrigued by first chapter but cannot get time to contemplate on the ideas, pretty complex ]
  • Oxford Handbook on Philosophy of Death [ Philosophy needs decent time to digest through introspection and speculation, which I currently don’t have ]
  • Head First Design Patterns
  • The Little Book about OS Development
  • The God Delusion
  • Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid [ Really beautiful ideas which I really want to absorb, rather than read ]
  • Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: A Science of Cooking
  • The Beginning of Infinity
  • The Design of Everyday Things
  • Lokpriya Sayar aur Unki Sayari
  • Catch 22

Notes

  • I read word “Bardo” for the first time in Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. When I read The Tibetan Book of Dying and Living, I found out that Bardo was a Tibetan word taken into English, and has a very big significance in Tibetan.
  • Tibetans are very clear about stages after death, re-incarnation, enlightenment on par with our clarity about daily tasks we do.
  • The more I read about neuroscience, the more I love reading philosophy.
  • On Sanskrit and Sanskrit Texts:
    • Sanskrit Grammar is such an elegant topic that was written a long time ago. I have no problem with people rejecting anything, but if we have no appreciation for the roots that we gave to the world, we are losing our identity into it. Sanskrit Grammar is one of the first complete grammar of any language in the world. Very elaborate.
    • I am more intrigued by Eastern Philosophy because it’s easy to understand, easy because it fills gaps from our traditions, other related stories like Puranas, and folklores. Since Nepali language is derived from Sanskrit as well, I can contemplate some ideas from Sanskrit into my mind directly too. I have at least learned primitive level Sanskrit Grammar.
    • Most of the Buddhist texts were originally written in Sanskrit and Pali. Still to this day, Tibetans read both Sanskrit and Tibetan translation.
    • In Nepal and India, we see Hinduism as this giant ball of tradition. We, as intellectuals, need to be able to separate contemporary usefulness of traditions from philosophy, and give it a fair chance without making it a mockery by comparing it with Western Philosophy.
    • Upanishads are the lesser known beautiful extracts of Hindu tradition that comes under Vedanta. Upanishads are called Vedanta [ The End of Vedas ] because it’s said that they contain all the teachings of Veda in a more succinct form. Philosophical foods of thought that have been neglected because it’s hard to make philosophy a part of tradition unlike stories ( a.k.a Puranas ). There are many Upanishads, but 108 principal ones. Among them, 9 or 11 are said to be of significant importance. They are just like a few poems long.
  • Make Something Wonderful by Steve Jobs is a simple yet beautiful book on how Steve’s mind worked. And, it really is inspiring for someone who wants to build stuff for people.
  • Every school should teach How to Read a Book. Reading is not just memorizing or marking something as complete. Reading is much more. And it depends on what you are reading. You shouldn’t read everything the same way. Like Francis Bacon said, “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” It’s easier said than done.
  • Having a kindle really helps me because I can pick and drop books at any time without feeling guilty about it. I usually have around 200 books on my kindle.
  • If you are curious about getting overview and some details into theory of consciousness, Being You by Anil Seth is a great book. I loved his talks through the years, and this is a good digest of the whole field of consciousness and his theory of it.
  • Read Psychology so you can understand your mind better. Reading Psychology + Meditating helps me clarify a lot of my confusions, and helps me accept conclusions that I don’t feel like accepting.
  • I have been pretty intrigued by death for a year or two now because I see it as hindrance to my true fulfillment. How can I truly be if I am always running away from something invisible? I still have amends to make, but a lot of ideas have been still like a lake on my mind. It’s not that the waves don’t come, but they settle quickly. I hope to be in equanimity with death soon enough, so that I can truly live.
  • Zen is nothing more nothing less than mindfulness. There can be a thousand teachings and koans, but the essence is to simply be. The closest example of Zen that you can understand is Kung Fu Panda. Compare Master Shifu, Po, and Master Oogway; right in that comparison is answer to what Zen is. Knowing is one thing; accepting is another which you can learn from Shifu.
  • I am really loving Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.

If you have any recommendations, or want certain recommendations; hit me up.