A Literary Prescription for

Spirituality

For the quiet sense that there is more, and the wish to explore it in your own way.

Spirituality does not have to mean religion. For a great many people it begins somewhere quieter and more personal: a feeling of connection to something larger than the self, a hunger for meaning, a pull towards presence, stillness and the inner life. It can be found on a hillside as easily as anywhere, and it asks no particular belief of you. These books and poems are for that open, undogmatic search, for anyone who senses there is more to life and wants to explore it on their own terms.

Books Poetry Quotes & Prose

Books

Prescribed reading

Some of these are gentle guides to presence and the inner life, and some are stories that carry more spirit than many a sermon. None of them asks you to believe anything in particular. They are simply good companions for the questions, from writers who have spent their lives exploring meaning, awareness and connection.

The Power of Now

Eckhart Tolle · 2004

Tolle’s modern classic is really about a single practice: stepping out of the endless chatter of the mind and into the present moment, where a deeper stillness lives. He calls it presence, and finds in it something close to the sacred, without ever leaning on religion. For anyone who senses that peace is somewhere nearer than they thought, this is the doorway.

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have.”

The Untethered Soul

Michael A. Singer · 2007

Singer asks a quietly startling question: who is the one listening to your thoughts? From there he opens up the idea of an inner witness, a part of you that is calm and free beneath all the noise. It is spirituality as inner freedom rather than belief, clear and practical and quietly transformative. A wonderful place to begin exploring your own awareness.

The Seat of the Soul

Gary Zukav · 1989

Zukav writes about aligning your daily life with something he calls the soul, a deeper intention beneath the surface wants and fears. It is gentle, hopeful and entirely undogmatic, more an invitation than a doctrine. For readers drawn to the idea that there is a truer self worth living from, it offers a thoughtful, spacious map.

The Power of Myth

Joseph Campbell · 1988

Drawn from Campbell’s conversations with Bill Moyers, this explores the great myths of humanity not as literal truth but as metaphor, as humanity’s oldest attempts to speak about meaning and mystery. Campbell’s famous invitation, to follow your bliss, has sent countless readers towards a more soulful life. Wise, warm and gloriously undogmatic.

The Four Agreements

Don Miguel Ruiz · 1997

Drawing on Toltec wisdom, Ruiz offers four simple principles for living with more freedom and less self-inflicted suffering. It is spiritual in the broadest, most practical sense: about how you treat yourself and others, and how much lighter life becomes when you stop believing every fearful story. Short, clear and quietly liberating.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Richard Bach · 1970

A fable about a seagull who refuses to accept that life is only about squabbling over scraps, and sets out instead to learn what flight, and freedom, and the spirit, can truly be. It is a tiny book that has meant a great deal to a great many people. For anyone who suspects they are here for more than the daily grind, it is a small, soaring reminder.

The Celestine Prophecy

James Redfield · 1993

A spiritual adventure novel that follows a seeker chasing an ancient manuscript through the rainforest, unpacking ideas about synchronicity, energy and awareness along the way. It is spirituality as page-turner, undogmatic and open, and it sent a generation looking more closely at the meaningful coincidences in their own lives. A gentle, questioning read.

Illusions

Richard Bach · 1977

From the author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a fable about a reluctant messiah who teaches that reality is more malleable, and more magical, than we assume. It wears its wisdom lightly, in the form of a strange and charming story. For anyone drawn to spirituality without doctrine, it is a playful invitation to question what is really possible.

Poems about spirituality

For the spirit, in your own words

from “Song of Myself”

Walt Whitman, 1855

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
…I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
…I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,
And you must not be abased to the other.

Whitman finds the sacred not in any temple but in himself, in the grass, in the body and the soul held as equals. It is spirituality as radical belonging: to yourself, to the earth, to everything. No doctrine, no distant deity, just an ecstatic sense of being alive and part of it all. A wonderful place to begin your own exploration.

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“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church”

Emily Dickinson, c.1861

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church —
I keep it, staying at Home —
With a Bobolink for a Chorister —
And an Orchard, for a Dome —

Dickinson quietly makes the case for a spirituality entirely her own: her church is the orchard, her choir a songbird, her worship simply being fully present in the living world. It is the perfect little poem for anyone who feels the sacred more in nature and stillness than in any building. Devout, in its way, and completely free.

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from “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey”

William Wordsworth, 1798

…And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
…A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

Wordsworth reaches for something he can barely name: a presence, a spirit interfused through nature and mind alike, felt rather than believed. It is one of the great expressions of a spirituality without dogma, rooted in awe at the living world. For anyone who has felt that sense sublime and wondered what to call it, here it is, in the finest words.

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from “Stars”

Sara Teasdale, 1920

Alone in the night
On a dark hill
…I know that I
Am honored to be
Witness
Of so much majesty.

Teasdale stands alone under the night sky and feels, simply, honoured to witness it. There is no god here and no creed, only a clear, humble awe at the sheer majesty of being alive beneath the stars. It is spirituality at its most elemental, and her plain, modern voice makes it feel utterly true. A poem to take outside on a clear night.

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Quotes & Prose

Quotes about spirituality to keep

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Carl Jung

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You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.

Rumi

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The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

Joseph Campbell

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Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Rumi

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The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.

Ram Dass

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From Georgia

A little stillness

A gentle practice for dropping beneath the noise into something quieter, and an essay on staying open to the small signs and synchronicities of a meaningful life.

Connected to the Divine (432Hz)

Guided meditation by Georgia Clare

A soundbath-style practice tuned to 432Hz, for settling into stillness and a quiet sense of connection to something larger than yourself.

Listen Now For Free

A Daily Meditation for Connection

Guided meditation by Georgia Clare

A short daily practice for stepping out of the small, hurried self and into a felt sense of connection with the wider whole.

Listen Now For Free

Receiving Signs

Personal essay by Georgia Clare · The Library

On staying open to the quiet coincidences and small signs that can make life feel connected and meaningful, without needing to explain them away.

Read the Essay →

The 21-Day Meditation Course

Guided Meditation Course · Georgia Clare

Three weeks of short, guided meditations to help you build a calm, steady daily practice, one day at a time.

Start the 21-Day Course →

Questions people ask

Reading for Spirituality

Where should I start?

Start with The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, which is really about one simple, difficult thing: coming fully into the present, where a quieter and deeper self is waiting. And if you would rather begin with a story, Jonathan Livingston Seagull says as much about the spirit in a hundred pages as many books manage in five hundred. The poems below are a gentle way in too.

What can I read to explore spirituality without religion?

Plenty, and none of it asks you to sign up to anything. The Untethered Soul and The Seat of the Soul are both about the inner life, awareness and the part of you that watches your thoughts, with no doctrine attached. Or begin with the poems and the lines to keep further down the page. This is spirituality as a personal, open exploration, not a set of rules.

Which quotes about spirituality are worth keeping?

Quotes worth keeping include “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin), “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” (Carl Jung) and “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” (Rumi). You will find these and more in the quotes section above.

Can reading really deepen a sense of spirituality?

It genuinely can. For many people spirituality begins as a quiet hunch that there is more, more depth, more meaning, more connection, than the surface of a busy life suggests. Reading people who have followed that hunch, patiently and without dogma, gives you both language and companionship. These books will not hand you answers, but they are wonderful company for the questions.

Spirituality

Prescribed reading

For the spirit, in your own words

Quotes about spirituality to keep

A little stillness

Reading for Spirituality

Where should I start?

What can I read to explore spirituality without religion?

Which quotes about spirituality are worth keeping?

Can reading really deepen a sense of spirituality?

More prescriptions await.