As someone who’s devoted the past several years to traveling the spiritual path, I’ve made it a point to devour as many works of wisdom as possible. These works come in the form of books, talks and courses. Many have had a transformational, life-altering effect on me.

Before getting to my numero uno favorite, here are the spiritual works that have touched me to my core.

My favorite spiritual books

Those would include the books the Tao te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita, Be Here Now by Ram Dass, The Power of Nowby Eckhart Tolle, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essay on Self Reliance, The Surrender Experimentby Mickey Singer, Siddharthaby Herman Hesse and The Miracle of Mindfulnessby Thich Nhat Hanh.

Some notable omissions include A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, which I loved but found to be largely repetitive of The Power of Now.I also liked Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda, but didn’t have the profound response that so many other spiritual seekers have had. The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav, which Oprah reportedly keeps at her bedside, is an iconic spiritual book that didn’t resonate with me. Finally, and shockingly, I found The Untethered Soul, also by Mickey Singer, to be a tedious, tough read. Why is this shocking? Read on…

The best courses I’ve taken

Living from a Place of Surrender is a fantastic, eight-hour course/series of talks by Mickey Singer. The talks sum up everything Mickey has learned in his fifty year spiritual journey.

The best in-person course I’ve taken is the one created in the 1970s by Jon Kabat Zinn, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). It’s eight weeks of intensive meditation and mindfulness study AND practice. If you get a chance, do this. Go online and see if there is a class near you. MBSR is taught all over the world.

Favorite talks/lecture series

I love listening to Eckhart’s talks that I get as a subscriber to Eckharttolle.com. I normally listen to fifteen minutes of his or Mickey Singer’s talks each morning before I meditate.

As for talks specifically about meditation, I love Adyashanti, Jon Kabat Zinn and Peter Russell. Their teachings are all simple, powerful and resonate with me.

Which brings us to my absolute favorite spiritual work I’ve come across in all my years on the path. Drum roll please…

And the winner is…

Mickey Singer’s The Untethered Soul Lecture Series Collection.

It’s 18 hours of talks by Mickey that expound on the book. Now you see why I said it was shocking that Mickey’s book The Untethered Soul didn’t make my ‘best of’ list. All I can say is that these talks are absolutely, mind-blowingly good.

In them, Mickey sums up the path of yoga from several different angles. As with any deep work about spirituality, the central theme is that we are not our thoughts or our minds. We are the consciousness that notices what our minds are doing.

Why they’re so good

The reason these talks are so unbelievably powerful stems from the combination of three factors: 1. Mickey Singer is a gifted speaker who communicates in easily understandable, compelling language; 2. He is an undeniably intelligent human being, i.e., the guy is smart as a whip; and 3. He has devoted the past fifty years of his life to studying and working on the spiritual path. Add those three up and you’re bound to get great material.

The point of this piece is not to describe in detail what Mickey says in these groundbreaking talks. It is to recommend these talks to anybody who wants to grow spiritually.

Why I’ve listened to this five times

I am currently midway through the FIFTH time listening to the lectures. Yes, I’m on my fifth go-round. Why would I listen to 18 hours of talks for a fifth time? Because I learn something new every time. Different concepts and ideas resonate with me at different times. I’ve gotten several article ideas listening to these lectures.

Each time takes a few months as I only listen to ten to fifteen minutes a day. I like it like that. Just a little bit each day.

The cost is $105 so it isn’t cheap. But I don’t care how little money you have, that is a pittance to pay for something so profoundly beneficial.

And just in case you’re wondering, I have zero connection to Mickey. I’ve never met him. I just think that he is the best spiritual teacher I’ve ever come across. And these lectures capture his teachings better than anything he’s put out.

The takeaway

The central aim of my work on Medium is to help those traveling the spiritual path as best I can. Most of the time, that means writing about the teachings of great masters like Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle and, of course, Mickey Singer.

So I’ll beat this dead horse one last time by saying that these Singer lectures are the best of the best. I can’t recommend them highly enough. You can find them at Soundstrue.com. Here’s the link.