I hope Hacker News black lines today out of respect for this man.

Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
by Richard Feynman

Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance

My Life and Work by Henry Ford

My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla by Ben Johnston and Nikola Tesla

The Autobiography of Charles Darwin by Charles Darwin

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

“Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.” Steve Jobs

Don't worry, it's not about yoga in the western (posture) sense. Yoga means union.

It's about realizing your "true self" as a tiny fragment of the greater whole. Like a water drop merging with the vast ocean.

Fun fact:

Steve Jobs instructed everyone at his funeral to receive this book as his final gift...

This led to the realization that you can change what makes you happy. Though it's very difficult to do that work in today's climate, and impossible over short time scales. A practice like transcendental meditation or yoga is essential in my opinion.

Disappointing that well-tested multigenerational wisdom like this is often downvoted on HN =/

disclaimer: currently reading Autobiography of a Yogi.

Read Autobiography of a Yogi first.

Contemplate on "who are you?"

You are just a tiny fraction of the whole consciousness.

So when you do any kind of work, realize you are not the Doer. You're just an instrument serving the moment unfolding in front of you.

This is the teaching Lord Krishna gave to Arjuna when he felt can't fight in the war against his family in the allegorical story in the Bhagavad Gita.

Lens your perspective a bit...

The premise of the story is a war between a family fighting for dominance.

Arjuna is one of the greatest archer at the time and he was fighting against one side of his family.

Both side sought out Lord Krishna for help for their cause. Lord Krishna gave each a choice - His army or Him as a guide.

Arjuna chose Him as a guide and majority of the book is about the dialog between them.

The scripture is deeply allegorical and metaphorical. Bayasa, the author, wrote it as a guide to live one's life (Self-Realization).

The war is actually talking about the "war" every human being is fighting inside themselves. The "good" versus the "bad" or virtues versus vices. That's the whole reason why we suffer. It's all an inner journey :)

I'd highly recommend reading The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda as his Master and other great saints explain more about it than I can.

Anna Karenina - 8/10

The Code of the Woosters 8/10

Fooled by Randomness 7/10

Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life 8/10

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia 9/10

Reluctant Fundamentalist 9/10

The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes 8/10

The Last Question - Asimov - 9/10

The Magic of Thinking Big - 6/10

The catcher in the Rye 8/10

Models 7/10

High Fidelity - Nick Hornby 8/10

The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman 7/10

The Surrender Experiment - 10/10

Untethered Soul - 9/10

The Autobiography of a Yogi - 7/10

Raja Yoga - Swami Vikekandanda - 7/10

Something Fresh, something new - 7/10

Karma Yoga - Swami Vikekandanda - 8/10

Thinking, Fast and Slow - 9/10

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates 10/10

The Pearl by John Steinbeck 7/10

At the risk of being ridiculed, I'll venture to say this: There's a big part of us that we don't fully know. All of us are trying to different things to find happiness. Above book proposes that Meditation has answers to most of the questions and talks about various Yogi's. This triggered a deep desire for me to know more. I learnt Meditation from a different organization and am very happy at where I am. This book started that journey.

Warning: There will be a bit of mysticism in all this. Take what your gut says and leave the rest.

[1] https://www.ananda.org/autobiography/
[2] https://www.yogananda-srf.org/

"Wisdom is the greatest cleanser."

"Continual intellectual study results in vanity and the false satisfaction of an undigested knowledge"

"In shallow men the fish of little thoughts cause much commotion. In oceanic minds the whales of inspiration make hardly a ruffle."

Other notable books that had an impact on the way I think are:

On The Shortness of Life - Lucius Seneca

Steve Jobs Biography - This was way back before I moved to states and gave me an intro to states as well as S.V

I too have a very low opinion of India like you do. I have often said food and yoga are the only great things to historically come out of India and a few good mathematicians of course. So food alone is one reason to visit!

The others here have mentioned about the geographical beauty of India. Skiing in the Himalayas alone is worth it.

I was born in India but moved away at a very young age. I did go back from time to time. Like you, I too think Indian culture is old and full of ignorance. It is biting them in the ass. My comment history will attest to that. But then again, what developed nation wasn't? At some point the church prevailed in Germania too. But this is changing, albeit at a slow pace. Why? Indian values have been traditionally been placed on peace/ cowardice ;). They never had a deranged lunatic who propelled them into the scientific age with a war based economy killing half of his own population. They never had genetic cleansing of population. So any change into the scientific, modern age is going to happen at a very slow pace. Unless of course they go to war with China and their existence is threatened. I guess you can see what I'm getting at. Spirituality. There's a fundamental divide in east-west spirituality and its a lot more deeper than you think. It's enlightening to visit these places. Please do read autobiography of a yogi or anything by vivekananda if you go on such a trip. It's not just mindless, non-scientific drivel. You'll see a fundamental difference from Nietzsche.

Next, history. India is home to the oldest known civilization in the world, the indus valley civilization. So you can imagine how rich the history is. And needless to say, I'd imagine you know the importance of visting historical sites, especially say Auschwitz in your country. There is some stuff we never want to repeat. Oh and I couldn't help but type this, you can take a train in India without fear! I kid, I kid.

Autobiography of a Yogi has inspired people, such as Steve Jobs. Walter Isaacson, a biographer, records that Jobs "first read [it] as a teenager, then re-read [it] in India and had read [it] once a year ever since."
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, told his story of attending Steve Jobs memorial service, where the attendees were handed a small brown box on their way out. "This is going to be good," he thought. "I knew that this was a decision he made, and whatever it was, it was the last thing he wanted us all to think about." The box contained a copy of Paramahansa Yogananda's book, "Autobiography of a Yogi."

[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_a_Yogi

(While writing i realized that since last one year my outlook towards reading has shifted to politics like anything)