At some juncture, we have asked ourselves, “What is the meaning of life? Why does anything matter if I’m going to die in the end? What is the point of all this struggle?”
The point of life, according to Indian (Indic) sages, is to give our struggle meaning. We can do this either by leaving behind a legacy or leaving cycle of death and rebirth, or both.
In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl concurs. It’s not for us to ask what the meaning of life is, he says. It’s life asking us this question, and how we live each day is the answer. A person who has lived life well will have good answers to the larger questions we grapple with.
The Factors of a Well-Lived Life
What does a life well-lived mean? Does the person have a lot of fame and fortune? Does life dance on their fingertips rather than the other way around?
Over the course of humankind, many philosophers have shed light on these questions. In 1989, American philosopher Robert Nozick highlighted 15 factors that comprise a life well-lived:
- The most important goals and values of life,
- How to reach these goals without paying a big price,
- What kinds of dangers and obstacles could threaten our reaching of these goals,
- How to recognize and avoid or minimize these dangers,
- What different types of human beings are like in their actions and motives (these present opportunities and dangers),
- What is not possible or feasible to achieve (or avoid),
- How to tell what is appropriate when,
- Knowing when certain goals are sufficiently achieved,
- What limitations are unavoidable and how to accept them,
- How to improve oneself and one’s relationships with others or society,
- Knowing what the true and unapparent value of various things is,
- When to take a long-term view,
- Knowing the variety and obduracy of facts, institutions, and human nature,
- Understanding what one’s real motives are,
- How to cope and deal with the major tragedies and dilemmas of life, and with the major good things too.
The answers to the above questions vary by personality and stage of life… and they are often directed by the first question: the most important goals and values of life.
Let’s taking Question 8: knowing when certain goals are sufficiently achieved. A woman from a middle-class family might feel that having 10 times her annual expense is enough, while a rich man may seek 10X more than what he owns. When it comes to what is appropriate when (no. 7), a person who loves cracking jokes may not think twice about making light of a somber situation, but such behavior would horrify a sensitive person. A depressed person would be terrified about traveling alone while a happy person would relish the idea (“what limitations are avoidable and how to accept them”).
What is Philosophy?
This leads to two conclusions. One, no one can give you the answers; you have to discover them for yourself. Two, no answer is carved in stone; your thoughts will keep changing (read, evolving) with your priorities.
The most effective guide for discovering your own answers is philosophy, which means love for wisdom. The Oxford Dictionary defines philosophy as “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.” This is good, but its other explanation is better: a theory or attitude that acts as a guiding principle for behavior.
Philosophy helps you build sound judgment, reason, and values that keep you centered in life. It teaches you resilience, how to behave in a way that makes you proud of yourself, and finding your own path to fulfillment in a world filled with imitation.
But how should you start with philosophy, especially Indian?
7 Indic Philosophy Books for Beginners
Given its vast scope, philosophy can get overwhelming. Since it’s not black-and-white like science, one could struggle to discern from the mountains of literature.
That’s why I’ve recommended the following Indic philosophy books for beginners who want to dip their toes in the subject.
These books do not offer insight into our sects like Shaivism, Smartism, and Advaita Vedanta. What they offer are the fundamentals of Purushārtha (the objective of man) and how to build a meaningful life.
1. The Complete Book of Yoga
Many of us think yoga is physical exercise that makes us flexible. But it’s much more. Yoga means to yoke oneself to the Eternal Truth, which makes it the path to mukti (liberation). The Complete Book of Yoga by Swami Vivekananda elaborates on the four paths of yoga.
They are:
Karma Yoga: The purpose of the human life is to gain knowledge that dispels ignorance. This knowledge comes from meaningful work, which is the only karma we must concern ourselves with, and not the fal (the fruit or reward, which is also karma).
Swami Vivekananda’s essays on Karma Yoga teach us to work for work’s sake, love for love’s sake, and do our duty for the duty’s sake.
Bhakti Yoga: This is a search for God that begins, continues, and ends in Love. “Bhakti is greater than Karma, greater than Yoga because these are intended for an object in view, while Bhakti is its own fruition, its own means and its own end,” Narada muni says in his explanation on Bhakti.
This is the closest that unrealized souls like us come to liberation as we lose sense of ourselves in our devotion. But in a lower form, it turns into fanaticism — we get attached to an object without genuine love and want to impose it upon others.
In his essays, Swamiji teaches how Bhakti can cut the chords of misery in our lives.
Raja-Yoga: It’s easy to deny the existence of facts just because they’re difficult to prove. It’s equally easy to attribute hard-to-prove phenomena to miracles, superstition, or a puppeteer sitting above the clouds. Both are harmful.
The truth lies in Raja-Yoga, which declares that:
“[E]ach being is only a conduit to the infinite ocean of knowledge and power that lies behind. [Raja Yoga] teaches that desires and wants are in man, the power of supply is also in man, and that whenever or wherever a want or desire has been fulfilled, it was out of this infinite magazine that the supply came and not from any supernatural beings.” — Swami Vivekananda
Nature is filled with gross and subtle manifestations—the subtle ones are the causes and the gross are the effects. Through his essays, Swamiji enlightens us on how to acquire the subtle perceptions that direct our senses on the right aspects.
Jnana Yoga: History is proof that the rise of a nation comes with the rise of people who strive for something higher than physical matter, and its fall begins when people abandon such a pursuit in exchange for materialism.
The pursuit of the Infinite is the most glorious struggle a human being can take up, and Swamiji elaborates on these details in his essays on Jnana Yoga.
The Complete Book of Yoga laid the foundation for Daily Sattvik. Reading its whet my appetite to study Swamiji’s work further and also led me to other Indian sages and philosophers.
2. Mahabharata Unravelled II — The Dharma Discourses
The author Ami Ganatra has written two books before this one: Ramayana Unravelled and Mahabharata Unravelled. Those are transcriptions of the Sanskrit epics (and I recommend reading them too). Meanwhile, Mahabharata Unravelled II is more of a guide on sattvik living.
The book comprises discourses from Bhishma, Vidura, Narada, and other wise souls in dialogue and story forms, covering aspects we grapple with in our lives:
- Procrastination: “The person deluded by ignorance, ego or lethargy, fails to open his eyes to imminent danger and gets destroyed…Those who, considering themselves very smart don’t take precautionary measures also lead themselves into trouble… But the person who understands the nuances of time, place and situations, always acts well after having thoroughly thought through the situation and therefore achieves all that the aims for.”
- Control over senses: “How will he, who has not won over himself, ever win over his enemies?”
- Treating others: “Do not trust one who is not trustworthy and do not trust blindly even those who are trustworthy.” And, “A person should be served in the same coin as he serves others. Deceitful should be responded with deceit and honest ones with honesty.”
- Not creating negative karma: “When we think, speak, and act as per the situation and not out of the shadripu—lust, anger, greed, arrogance, delusion, and jealousy— then our actions will not create negative karma.”
I keep this book by my beside and read a few pages each night. Vidura’s wisdom gave king Dhritarāshtra solace, this book gives me peace. Hopefully, I will become a better person too.
3. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy
As discussed earlier, philosophy gives us the resources to find meaning and to deal with life’s unavoidable hassles. It is a guide for an enlightened life led with far-sight, foresight, and insight.
But while Western philosophy has separate branches like Metaphysics, Epistemology, Logic, Ethics, and Aesthetics, Indic philosophy integrates them all.
Indic philosophy has different schools: Cārvāka, Jaina, Bauddha, Nyāya, Vaiśeka, Sānkhya, Yoga, Mīmāmsā, and Vedānta. Each of them offer their interpretations to the meaning of life, but none exist in an echo chamber. Because a philosopher first has to state their opponent’s case, follow it up with a refutation, and finally, their own position or conclusion.
As Satish Chandra Chatterjee and Dhirendramohan Datta write in An Introduction to Indian Philosophy:
“The openness of mind—the willingness to listen to what others have to say—has been one of the chief causes of wealth and greatness of the Indian philosophy in the past, [and] it has a definitive moral for the future.”
The book offers not just intellectual stimulation, but also practical wisdom. We understand our place in the cosmos, our relationship with each other, and our path to personal fulfillment.
4. The Bhagavad Gita (commentary)
When I was young, I was told reading the Bhagavad Gita leads to mukti. It took me years to realize that the book didn’t have magic, but its teachings enable us to function in the world without getting attached to it. Such nishkāma karma, where doing the task assigned to us is the only reward we need, is mukti.
But the Gita also presents a series of contradictions. For instance, Rajarshi Nandy points out, in one verse, Krishna tells to Arjuna to go beyond the Vedas, while in another He says that the person who doesn’t follow the Shāstras is probably deluded.
For beginners in philosophy, this might get confusing. Hence, a simple interpretation is a good starting point, which Eknath Easwaran’s book The Bhagavad Gita does. A summary precedes each chapter, adding perspective on how we can apply the Gita’s teaching to our daily lives.
5. What Are You Doing With Your Life?
The philosopher J. Krishnamurti had a profound impact on many lives, including, probably the Indian scientist Vikram Sarabhai. When Krishnmurti would visit Ahmedabad, he would sometimes stay with the Sarabhais when Vikram was young. And the scientist embodied quite a few of his teachings all his life. Like how he treated everyone as equal, how he invested in his personal growth, and so on.
But Krishnamurti’s (or K’s) teachings can come across as esoteric, which is why What Are You Doing With Your Life is a good place to begin. It compiles a selection of his books, recorded dialogues and public talks.
It’s premise is this:
“Our problem is not how to meet life, but how can the mind, with all its conditioning, with its dogmas, beliefs, free itself? It is only the free mind that can meet life, not the mind that is tethered to any system, to any belief, to any particular knowledge.”
K suggests being aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions non-judgmentally. That is how you can understand them. Then, you lose the need for pleasure or the fear of pain. Just living well becomes your answer to “What is this life for?”
Yes it’s simple, and no, it’s not easy. But nothing worth it ever is.
6. Business Sutra
It’s a myth that business and leadership are about handling people and getting the most out of them. As Peter Drucker pointed out, “That one can truly manage other people is by no means adequately proven. But one can always manage oneself.” If you want the performance of people around you to improve, he adds, you must first improve your own performance.
Performance is not about working longer hours to exceed targets. It’s about working on the things that matter, understanding different perspectives, and being a person whom others trust. That is how you build a successful business—one that gives you wealth, happiness, and meaning.
Devdutt Pattanaik’s Business Sutra offers insight on these aspects. The book looks at business, relationships, and life overall through the lens of Indian mythology and philosophy.
There are a few apocryphal tales (Rama stepping on the stone of Ahalya, Hanuman eating his version of the Ramayana). But rather than debating over their truth, take them for what they are — stories with morals you can apply.
7. Autobiography of a Yogi
Did you know that Steve Jobs had requested copies of this book to be distributed to attendees at his memorial service.
One can imagine the impact this autobiography of Paramahansa Yogananda had on him. It probably influenced his minimalistic living, his remarkable intuition, and his ethos behind product development.
Autobiography of a Yogi presents profound spiritual insight in the form of personal narrative. This gives you the space to draw your own inferences. Plus, it explains that karma is not a means of punishment, but one of learning and spiritual development.
One of my favorite quotes from the book, however, is a piece of wisdom the Paramahansa got from a saint:
“For the faults of many, judge not the whole. Everything on earth is of mixed character, like mingling of sand and sugar. Be like the wise ant that seizes only the sugar and leaves the sand untouched.”
The other one is by Paramahansa on modesty:
“Trees bend low with the burden of ripening fruit; it is the barren tree that often lifts its head high in an empty boast.”
Note:
It may appear like sacrilege to not mention Sri Aurobindo’s or Ramana Maharshi’s books in this list—and maybe it is. But for beginners, their philosophy books could feel overwhelming, which is why I’ve left them out.
If you know of books that I’ve missed and could benefit learners, do share.
Summary
Success doesn’t come merely from knowing what’s right and wrong, nor does it come from flash-in-the-pan acts of heroism. Success is a result of doing the right things by default.
Reading the above books will give you knowledge. But succeeding at life requires putting knowledge into practice. Without action, knowledge leads to hollow erudition and incoherent behavior. And without knowledge, action is thoughtless, leading to misery and burnout. Knowledge combined with action leads to wisdom.
Read the above books slowly. When you find a curious thought, pause. Mull over how to apply it to your daily life. Infuse the beliefs and values of the wise in your actions and you will find sattva: balance, purity, goodness, and light.