Hello people.

Basically, I'm a historian.  I know that sounds weird, and it is, but that's what my degree is in, and it's what I've trained as.

A big part of that is research.  A historian can't even put pen to paper unless they've taken the time to serious familiarise themselves with all the big relevant stuff on the period they're studying.  This means books.  Lots of books.  You just surround yourself with books like you're playing cowboys and indians in a book fort and cane your way through them.

I've got a pretty solid grounding in both Eastern and Western philosophy.  Those are your two major traditions, and if you can get comfortable with both, and see how they link together, you're onto a winner.

It's not as hard as it sounds.  Like in history, any period will always have one single standard book about it, by someone who's really taken the time to get inside it, properly, and metabolise it for your consumption.

Now, this doesn't mean the encyclopedia.  It means that someone has understood this topic so well that they've seen the beating heart of it, and once you get that heart understood, you can then go on to do your own research and have it make sense.  You know where things go.

I'll start with Western Philosophy first.

Your absolute number one port of call here is a man I continually reference called Bryan Magee.  He actually did the metabolisation thing for the entire Western Tradition.  He took that hit, that's quite a feat in my book.

Also, Magee is a model of clarity, famed for it.  His writing is crystal clear, and he never obfuscates or claims more than he knows.  Really, this guy.  Start with this guy.  If you don't start with this guy, you'll have to come back to him to make sense of all the mess in your head from reading someone like Heidegger.

The first book you want to read is called

CONFESSIONS OF A PHILOSOPHER.

It is a semi-autobiographical work that contains a crystal clear analysis and overview of the entire Western Tradition.  There is very little Magee says that I do not agree with.

He's got some poorly developed views on the philosophy of morality and religion, but I am honestly unaware of anyone in the world who has grasped Western Philosophy as well as him, and I am absolutely certain that no-one has communicated it this well.

Once you've read that, then check out "The Great Philosophers" by the same guy, Bryan Magee.

In fact, let's be honest, I'm just going to talk you through his back catalogue now, but it's worth it, believe me.

The Great Philosophers is a set of interviews with the world's top specialists in the work of these people.  Magee is just like the light cutting through the darkness here, and his ability to bring clarity to this body of work is unreal.

Once you've read that, and ONLY then, read his magnum opus - The Philosophy Of Schopenhauer.

As a philosopher reading this, I fucking creamed.  It is superb.  Once you've read those previous two and then this one, unless you are a fucking moron, you will very clearly see how to link Eastern and Western thought.

Once you get Magee down, not only will you have a brilliant overview and context for further study, but he also helpfully points you in the right direction.

As such, I don't feel the need to go into much more detail about what to put on your Western Philosophy reading list - just start with Magee and the whole thing will just open up for you like a precious and delicate rose made of pixie dust.

You might also find it eerie how much I have stolen from this man.  Hehehe.

Eckhart Tolle is your port of call for your central metabolisation of Eastern Thought.

He has all the flaws of an Eastern thinker - but he also has this intense clarity of communication and indeed a very stripped down way of talking about things, that I can only assume comes from his background as a Cambridge academic.

The Power Of Now is a brilliant piece.  It really Westernises Zen as much as it can be Westernised without dropping the reverence - but it's still a self-help book that does tend to reduce things to Oprah-friendly vignettes.  A New Earth is much stronger.  That's like his thesis on this shit.

Much more detailed content, less "enter the now".

Tolle, as I'm sure you're aware or at least are about to find out, is a highly reverent man.  He's very reverent about stillness, and although he often caveats this, is clearly a fully paid up subscriber to the heresy of annihilation, but you should have enough of an understanding of what that means by now not to get sucked into it.  If not, check my blog and the comments after the "Deepening Of Liberation" post:

http://ruthlesstruthdotcom.blogspot.com/2011/06/deepening-of-liberation.html

Nonetheless and flaws aside, Tolle's work is brilliant.  You can see that he's really turned his mind toward breaking enlightenment down  into something communicable, and what he's got he communicates very well.

I'll give you a reading list for Eastern Philosophy now - feel free to poke around, but without that kind of clarity Tolle gives you, you'll be adrift on a sea of prajna before you know what's hit you.

The first piece to have is this:

www.wikipedia.org

Yes, humble Wikipedia.  There's a lot of terms being thrown around in these works - they all mean something with an english equivalent, but you rarely find that translated as those who translate them tend to have that reverence thing going on.

With Wikipedia you can just type in the word and go "Oh, it means wisdom" or something like that.  And bitching at hippies aside there are some subtle distinctions that help, so yeah.

On the bright side, Eastern Philosophy, once you get past the weird words and stuff, is written much, much better than Western Philosophy, and some of this stuff just is incredibly beautiful in it's own right.

The best thing is that almost all of the good stuff is free online.

Here's the list:

1 - The Platform Sutra. - This is epic.  Read it.  It is basically the equivalent of the Bible, but for Zen.  A fucking tour de force.  Free online.

2 - The Tao Te Ching - The one work of Lao Tze, the grandfather of all hippies.  As annihilaitonist as they come, but utterly compelling and beautifully written.  It's up there with the best poems ever, and it's profound to boot.  Free online.

3 - The Bhaghavad Gita - This is beautiful, there's no getting away from it.  Like a distillation of the Hindu Upanishads (the core basis for Indian philosophy), this is just lovely.  It also contains what I can only describe as forensically detailed descriptions of the infinite, as well as a lot of great insights and everything.  There's stuff about reincarnation and karma and mystical stuff like that, and all the insights are couched in terms of the Hindu pantheon of gods, but by golly, it's fucking good.  Free online.

Actually... yeah.  I'll sound a note of caution about the Gita.

When you read it, really search hard to get a version that does not have some fucking knob jumping in every four lines to inject twenty lines of opaque theology into it.

Really.  Just read the actual Gita.  That way you'll get through it without punching the computer.

Those are probably your big three.  Of all the things I've read, those three are just head and shoulders above the others in terms of brilliance, so check em out.

In other news - you can't go wrong with a sutra, if Buddha's in it.  He really is the fucking shit when it comes to crazy-profound insights.  He really is lost when it comes to triggering the state, but his work on the depth of it is just... well... he birthed a world religion.  So yeah.

As for more modern pieces, it's really Advaita which has the heavy hitters.  Two really rise above the crowd.

1 - Ramana Maharshi's "Be As You Are" - a collection of dialogues collated by a fellow called David Godman if memory serves.  Free online on Scribd.  He's very good.

2 - Nisargadatta Maharaj's "I Am That" - again, this is free online and is a collection of dialogues.  This man has the patience of Job.  More edge than Maharshi, not quite as cuddly.  Brilliant.  Free online.

Christian Philosophy.

There are three pieces of Christian Philosophy that are fucking magnificent.

1 - The Great Divorce, by C. S. Lewis.  This is the book that started me on philosophy, set the question I have sought to answer for my whole life, and no-one freed through RT would be free if the Narnia guy hadn't written this.  It's incredible.  Fucking incredible.

2 - The sermons of Meister Eckhart. - Eckhart Tolle's birth name is Ulrich.  He changed it to this because this guy impressed him the most of all the philosophers of which he is aware.  He has a point.  Meister Eckhart takes Christianity and actually turns it into something with serious philosophical weight and power.  Don't take my word for it.  He's amazing.  All his stuff is free online.

3 - The Gospel Of Thomas. - If you've ever wondered what Jesus actually said, wonder no more.  This early 'gospel' has no narrative, it's just a collection of Jesus's actual sayings.  Many will say that this is an invention of the gnostic movement that arose in the wake of his death.  I say that if it is, that's a fucking good movement.  Either way - and make up your own minds on this - the person who you will meet in those sayings is very far from meek or mild.  Free online.

I think that's probably enough for now.  Of all the stuff I've read it's these things which have stayed with me, and which I would, with no reservation, recommend to you as the core part of your research into philosophy.

Have fun...