In the world of religion, some things stay the same, while many are constantly adapting to meet our new world of the internet and cell phones, scientific discovery, increasing awareness of gender and race dynamics, multiculturalism, the numbers of people identifying their religion as “none” or “spiritual but not religious,” and so much more.

We have chosen a few books below that address these issues, each in its own way.

"The religion of tomorrow, according to Ken Wilber, will not be one religion, but all religions guiding their respective constituents toward oneness with Ultimate Reality. This book is Ken Wilber’s comprehensive synthesis of all the elements that make for human development from the Big Bang through the course of material and biological evolution. The recent discoveries of science, especially in the areas of developmental psychology and historical criticism, as well as mystical experience, have enabled him to bring together contemporary science, the wisdom of the world religions, and an integral presentation of the human condition with all its potential. The endless complexities of the evolutionary process gives way to a sublime simplicity, culminating in the spiritual and integral evolution of the human person toward unity with That Which Is." —Thomas Keating, author of Open Mind, Open Heart

“Rita Gross offers readers an amazing example of a lifelong, ongoing commitment to feminist thinking and practice. Her visionary insistence that the path to ending patriarchal domination must lead us beyond gender is a revolutionary paradigm shift, one that can lead to greater freedom for everyone.”
—bell hooks

What might religion look like in the future? Using Buddhism to explore this question, Ken Wilber offers insights that are relevant to all of the great traditions. He shows that traditional Buddhist teachings suggest an ongoing evolution leading toward a more unified, holistic, and interconnected spirituality. Touching on all of the key turning points in the history of Buddhism, Wilber describes the ways in which the tradition has been open to the continuing expansion of its teachings, and he suggests possible paths toward an ever more Integral approach. This work is a precursor to and condensed version of Wilber’s The Religion of Tomorrow.

If you’ve heard about the many benefits of mindfulness practice but think you don’t have time for it in your busy life, prepare to be proven delightfully wrong. Mindfulness is available every moment, including right now, as Zen teacher Jan Chozen Bays shows with these twenty-five mindfulness exercises that can be done anywhere. Use them to cultivate the gratitude and insight that come from paying attention with body, heart, and mind to life’s many small moments.

It’s been said that Jack Kerouac made it cool to be a thinking person seeking a spiritual experience. And there is no doubt that the writers he knew and inspired—Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gary Snyder, and others—were thinkers seeking exactly that. In this re-claiming of their vision, Robert Inchausti explores the Beat canon to reveal that the movement was at heart a spiritual one. It’s about their shared perception of an existence in which the Divine reveals itself in the ordinary.