Philosophy audiobooks

Shamanism For Our Time

By: Ruth-Inge Heinze

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Shamanism has survived through human history because it still fulfills needs which are otherwise not met. In whatever environment shamans work, they shift the attention of their clients into the interconnectedness so necessary, especially in urban societies. Read more

Falling Awake

By: Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 56 minutes

Abridged: No

By paying attention in the moment and to the people we are with, Jon Kabat-Zinn says we can bring a richness and power to our lives that goes beyond healing to give us meaning, wonder and joy in life. “It’s very similar to falling asleep,” he says, “only this is actually falling awake.” Kabat-Zinn has decades of experience with the effectiveness... Read more

Thomas Merton the Man

By: Ron Seitz

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 55 minutes

Abridged: No

In late 1993, Michael Toms made a "pilgrimage" to the hermitage of Thomas Merton at the Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. This is a recording of his visit with Ron Seitz, who was a young poet when he befriended and was mentored by Merton. Here Seitz offers memories and insight from the life of the brilliant Trappist monk and spiritual teacher. Read more

Wild Heart: The Politics Of Place

By: Terry Tempest Williams

Narrated by: Justine Willis Toms

Length: 55 minutes

Abridged: No

Environmental politics becomes a matter of sensual passion rather than political correctness in this rich, colorful mosaic of thoughts on wildness, landscape, animals, and humans. It sparkles with gems of insight mined from Williams' own profound sense of belonging in nature and includes the voice of the late Edward Abbey, maverick... Read more

Dialogue With Sir Laurens Van der Post: A Mythic Journey, Part 1

By: Laurens Van der Post

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 56 minutes

Abridged: No

The experiences of Sir Laurens Van der Post, including time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp and a sojourn in the Kalahari desert after World War II, give him a broad perspective. He shares with us the mythic origins of Hitler and Nazism, and why the end of “the age of leaders” is relevant today. Read more

Dialogue With Sir Laurens Van der Post: A Mythic Journey, Part 2

By: Laurens Van der Post

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 56 minutes

Abridged: No

Sir Laurens Van der Post had a long friendship with Carl Jung. He talks here about the significance of Jung’s work and the compelling story of events surrounding Jung’s death. He also shares his perspectives on the I Ching and the nature of time, and why feminine wisdom is coming of age. Read more

Dialogue With Sir Laurens Van der Post: A Mythic Journey, Part 3

By: Laurens Van der Post

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 56 minutes

Abridged: No

Sir Laurens Vander Post placed great significance on dreams. In this dialog he shares how collective and individual dreams relate to our changing times. He also speaks about the emergence of new meaning and hope for the future. At age 86, he had a thought-provoking outlook on living and dying. Read more

How to Live Your Dreams

By: Barbara Sher

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 54 minutes

Abridged: No

What is it that you really want in life? Do you have a dream--something you've always wanted to do, and maybe never even told anyone about? Barbara Sher has a plan to make your dreams come true: Ask yourself what your dreams really are, and then do what it takes to make them happen. It sounds too simple to be true, until we realize that we are... Read more

Traveling Light For the Good Life

By: Richard Leider

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 55 minutes

Abridged: No

Are you living the good life? asks Richard Leider. Are you living with people you love, in the place that's right, doing good work, with a sense of purpose? Here is a challenge to reconsider the structure of your entire life, to choose for yourself what is needed to "repack" it for greater purpose and satisfaction. Read more

Hope for the Universal Human

By: Barbara Marx Hubbard

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 54 minutes

Abridged: No

Exciting developments are taking place in human evolution. Past, present and future point toward tremendous leaps in our awareness and co-creative capacity. And Barbara Marx Hubbard is a scout on the edge of evolution, pointing the way and cheering us on. Read more

Angels: Where Science Fears to Tread

By: Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D. & Matthew Fox, Ph.D.

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 56 minutes

Abridged: No

How does modern physics parallel and transform the concept of angels? How did a split between science and spirit come about and how are the two being reconnected? What is the importance of wonder and awe in scientific study? The answers to these and many other questions are explored in this dynamic conversation between a scientist and a... Read more

Death Is Not The Enemy

By: Christine Longaker

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 54 minutes

Abridged: No

Since suffering is an inescapable fact of life, Longaker says, "what we need to learn is how to go through suffering, how to bring the experiences of suffering into our spiritual path and purpose, because that is how we can transform it." Facing death--either our own or that of our loved ones--is a part of life; eventually, we are all touched. Read more

Living The Creative Life

By: M.C. Richards

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 55 minutes

Abridged: No

A teacher, poet, painter, writer and potter, Richards has never lacked imagination, which she defines as "singing to a wide invisible audience."  Her wisdom flows from an intensity, an honesty and a tenderness we don't often find in this world. Read more

Change Your Mind - Change The World

By: Nancy Napier

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 54 minutes

Abridged: No

Do you feel overwhelmed by the problems of the world?  Do you wish you could do something about some of them, but don't have the time?  Nancy Napier suggests that changing our thought patterns is a powerful way to begin changing the world.  "We're all taught to believe that it's reasonable for some people to have and others not to have," she... Read more

Rumi: The Supreme Mystical Guide

By: Andrew Harvey

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 55 minutes

Abridged: No

There is probably no one more qualified to illuminate the life and work of Jalaluddin Rumi, the great thirteenth-century Sufi mystic and poet, than Andrew Harvey, who possesses the very eloquence and passion he admires in Rumi's work.  Harvey likens Rumi to Buddha, Ramakrishna, Shakespeare and Jesus Christ. Read more

The Zen Of Work

By: Les Kaye

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 54 minutes

Abridged: No

In 1970, Les Kaye asked the management at IBM if he could take a three-month leave of absence to live in a Zen monastery.  Suprisingly, they said yes.  A year later, he was ordained as a Zen monk.  Back at IBM, he discovered joy, harmony and fluid relationships in a job that had previously been an endless desert of problems to overcome and goals... Read more

Buddhism For Everyone

By: Slyvia Boorstein

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 56 minutes

Abridged: No

Boorstein found a deepening and enrichment of her Jewish faith through years of meditation practice. She says, "You don't have to be a Buddhist to practice Buddhism. It's not about being a something--a Buddhist, a Jew or a Christian--it's about being more awake." Read more

The Science Of Soul

By: Fred Alan Wolf

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 55 minutes

Abridged: No

One of the most compelling questions of all time is, do we have a soul?  And if we do, what exactly is it?  Fred Alan Wolf, well-known resident physicist on Discovery Channel's "No-Zone" program, gives us an answer and a unique definition.  He also discusses spirit, space, time, consciousness and the possible origins of the universe. Read more

Essential Mystery

By: Huston Smith, Ph.D.

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: No

The life of Huston Smith reads like an adventure novel.  One of the foremost religious scholars of our time, Smith lived in a missionary household in China, monasteries in Japan, and a sweat lodge in North America. Introduced to Vedanta through spiritual pioneers Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard, he engaged many of the contemporary wisdom giants. Read more

Expanding Human Spirit

By: Huston Smith, Ph.D.

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 56 minutes

Abridged: No

Westerners look to science to explain the way things are. Yet science often overlooks something essential to life: the human spirit. Although spirit cannot possibly be seen through the lens of a microscope, captured on a video camera or explained through scientific experiments, few of us would deny that it exists. Huston Smith breathes new life... Read more

Appreciating Your Originality

By: Thomas Moore

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 56 minutes

Abridged: No

As former monk Thomas Moore points out many of us are working overtime to "build and manufacture a self, just as we build and manufacture the world."  Moore explores how and why we cover up who we really are and offers a vivid sense of what it means to live with passion and creativity through following the lead of your authentic self. Read more

Practice Makes Perfect

By: Bo Lozoff

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Following your bliss is not always easy.  In fact according to Bo Lozoff, there's only one thing more difficult:  not following your bliss.  Lozoff is following his at the Human Kindness Foundation he co-founded, where he gets to "see people in some of the most profound changes of their lives." Read more

Balance Through Bodywork

By: Jon Schreiber, Angela Porter & Denise Berezonsky

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Jon Schreiber, America’s foremost Breema specialist and director of The Breema Center in Oakland, CA, discusses this unique bodywork based on nine universal principles that nurture the mind and body, guiding one towards a unified and harmonious state of well being. Read more

The Gift of Giving

By: Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Inspired by stories from her grandfather, an orthodox rabbi and scholar of the Kaballah, Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., tells with wit and inspiration of her emergence from a socialistic, atheistic upbringing to a life and medical practice filled with grace, mystery and wonder. Read more