Audiobooks narrated by Chirag Patel

Zhuangzi | Chuang Tzu: The foundation of chinese esoteric thought

The Chuang Tsu is one of the most important books in Chinese literature and philosophy. It is one of the two foundational texts of Daoism. Also titled Zhuangzi, it is a commentary and extension of the Dao de Jing/Tao Te Ching, in the same way that Mencius' Analects are an exploration of Confucius' thought. Written in around 300BCE during the Warring States period, it is a collection of anecdotes, fables, and stories that are as silly and funny as they are profound and thought provoking. Where the Dao De Jing is a distilled and poetic exploration of the Way, Zhuangi takes a much more human and real-world path through the mysteries of the Dao. Using often humorous anecdotes, allegories, parables and fables mixed with conversations about particular aspects of the Way. James Legge’s translation is perhaps the most sophisticated and exacting one in existence. It carries as much as possible of the subtlety and detail in the original masterwork. It is regarded as one of the greatest literary works in all of Chinese history, and has been called 'the most important pre-Qin text for the study of Chinese literature.' Its main themes are of spontaneity in action and of freedom from the human world and its conventions. The fables and anecdotes in the text illustrate the illusion of distinctions between good and bad, large and small, life and death, and human and nature. While other ancient Chinese philosophers focused on moral and personal duty, Zhuangzi promoted carefree wandering and becoming one with 'the Way' (Dào 道) by following nature. It has influenced great Chinese and Western writers for more than 2000 years, including Oscar Wilde, Yeats, Nietzsche, Sima Xiangru, Li Bai, Su Shi and Lu You.

James Legge, Zhuang Zi (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

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Zen Buddhism and Its relation to Art | The Poet Li Po: Two classics of Chinese literature and study

Two books by the greatest translator of Chinese poetry, Arthur Waley (1889-1966) Arthur Waley was one of the first great Orientalists, bringing translations and commentaries from China and Japan to the West. This volume combines two of his books, the first investigating how Zen buddhism evolved to produce the kinds of artwork that it does, and how the artistic practice is also a spiritual practice. Zen Buddhism can often be confusing to the outsider. This book explores the evolution of Zen, from it's origins and early masters through to it's influence in the modern world on art and literature. This second part contains a selection of poems by China's greatest poet, Li Po, of whom it was said 'Li Po’s style is swift, yet never careless; lively, yet never informal. But his intellectual outlook was low and sordid. In nine poems out of ten he deals with nothing but wine or women.' 'The world acclaims Li Po as its master poet. I grant that his works show unparalleled talent and originality, but not one in ten contains any moral reflection or deeper meaning.' Ebook contains images of Li Po taken from manuscripts around his time, and over the centuries as he became recognised as one of China's great poets. Book editions include classical illustrations of and calligraphy by Li Po

Arthur Waley (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

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Xhosa Folk-Lore: South African Folk Tales Vol II

George Mccall Theal (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

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What Did Jesus Really Say?: A Study Of The Inner Knowledge

In the first century AD a religion was born: Christianity, with Jesus Christ head of the Church. Little evidence survives regarding the critical formative years, all from second-hand sources and mostly one man, Paul of Tarsus, who never physically walked with Jesus. The living narrative of Jesus’ life is in question. More in question is the message he gave. Historians are divided as to what Jesus said and did, and today many doubt the accuracy of the New Testament canon that Christians take as scripture. A wide divergence grows with coming of the modern age. Historians and scholars grotesquely disagree, a few believing Jesus never existed and to the other extreme of every word of the Bible being God’s inerrant word. “What Did Jesus Really Say?”, authoritatively answers these formerly unanswerable questions. Jesus taught of an inner world, and this very inner world can be tapped today for answering what the written record cannot reveal. Trusted inner sources are the key and were tapped for this book. It is a short read packed with informative material that will forever change present-day understanding of life and death and the beyond in all disciplines of modern thought, and bring clear resolution to the Jesus story.

Arthur Telling, Cleopatra De Los Dolores (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

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Unusual Topics & Interesting Reviews: Opinions & ideas that'll make you sound like a deep and learne

If you're struggling with how to demystify the world, check out this guide. With answers about everything from AI and mental health, to living through hard times and discussions of philosophy, theology and spirituality, it contains a wealth of interesting facts, ideas and opinions. Also includes a section on marijuana-related questions, and properly reflective reviews of great sci fi, fantasy, non fiction and comedy books. You'll be guaranteed to find a classic work that you'll love in there.

Chirag Patel (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

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Time And The Gods: The Book That Influenced Millions of Fantasy Writers

Lord Dunsany was the most influential writer in the genre that came to be known as fantasy, of which his stories set trends for that continue to this day. He was an influence on Tolkien, Lovecraft, Gaiman, Borges, Clarke, Moorcock, Yeats, Le Guin and many more besides. Worlds of monsters and magic, of strange names and stranger tales, were all born in Dunsany’s work. Before him, the closest thing to fantasy that existed was folktales; after him, people built worlds beyond imagining and epic stories in the lands he first explored.

Lord Dunsany (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

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The Verbal Truth of Christianity: How the Church Co-opted the Jesus Message

“Jesus said, ‘Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All.'” This spoken by the Master was banned by the budding Christian Church two-thousand years ago, still deemed a heretical teaching to this day. The Verbal Truth of Christianity effects to bring you to the crux of the central message of the Jesus mission, a universal one of reality's truer nature, the defining of God and cosmos in believable and constructive terms; an understanding of the eternal realm and our relation to it. A simple message overlooked by scholars, yet of such complexity it takes lifetimes to realize; to see and understand how by ignorance and fear we frame our living narratives in birth and death -- necessitating a false mortality. In Chapter 1 this book offers a greater explanation of what “life” is and sets a foundation for a more developed, elevated, meaningful, concept of “God”. Chapter 2 opens with a short exploration of the time and place setting of the story of Jesus, making effort for determining who he was, what he said, why he said it, and further to sift out what he said that the Christian Church embraced, and what he said that the Church rejected. And more importantly, we will begin to see what the Church teaches that Jesus never said or taught. In Chapter 3 we will briefly look at credible gospels of Jesus that the Church rejected then and still rejects now, primarily the “Gnostic” Gospel of Thomas lost to the ages until uncovered by chance in 1945. Chapter 4 reconciles the canonical (New Testament) gospels of the Christian Church with legitimate rejected gospels that the Church deemed heretical (wrong teachings). From this, and with our more elevated understanding of life and who God is, a clear Jesus message emerges of which logic and understanding replaces the childlike message of “faith”.

Arthur Telling (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

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The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories: Strange Tales and Dark Wonders from the Man who Created Mod

This was the book that launched a genre. Modern fantasy collections trace their lineage back to Lord Dunsany, and this was his first work that today's readers would recognise in tone and settings.This was the book that launched a genre. Modern fantasy collections trace their lineage back to Lord Dunsany, and this was his first work that today's readers would recognise in tone and settings.

Lord Dunsany (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

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The Sayings of Lao-Tzu: An accessible narrative prose translation of the Dao De Jing

A prose translation of the Tao that focuses on bringing out the subtlety and depth of the classic Way. Translations of the famous Way and Virtue (Dao De Jing/Tao Te Ching) focus on the poetics and depth of the original. In contrast, Giles’ translation focuses on telling stories with the text, drawing out the nuances in a way that is more familiar to Western audiences from philosophical and religious texts. “Few can help being struck by the similarity of tone between the sayings of Lao Tzu and the Gospel enunciated six centuries later by the Prince of Peace. There are two famous utterances in particular which secure to Lao Tzu the glory of having anticipated the lofty morality of the Sermon on the Mount. The cavilers who would rank the Golden Rule of Confucius below that of Christ will find it hard to get over the fact that Lao Tzu said, 'Requite injury with kindness,' and 'To the not-good I would be good in order to make them good.' It was a hundred and fifty years later that Plato reached the same conclusion in the first book of the Republic. It is interesting to observe certain points of contact between Lao Tzu and the early Greek philosophers. He may be compared both with Parmenides, who disparaged sense-knowledge and taught the existence of the One as opposed to the Many, and with Heraclitus, whose theory of the identity of contraries recalls some of our Sage's paradoxes. But it is when we come to Plato that the most striking parallels occur. It has not escaped notice that something like the Platonic doctrine of ideas is discoverable in the 'forms' which Lao Tzu conceives as residing in Tao. But, so far as I know, no one has yet pointed out what a close likeness Tao itself bears to that curious abstraction which Plato calls the Idea of the Good.” eBook Includes images of Wang Bi's classic commentary to the Dao.

Lao-Tzu, Lionel Giles (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

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The Illusion of Choice: Fighting against the eternal fates (2060-2070)

Sometimes, honour and bravery can win a reprieve from destiny. A story of hope and despair, as Artificial intelligences, posthumans, and other minds struggle against their fates. Amongst other events... The too-biological Zee leaves, feeling the call of an older blessing than the ones her peers have received. An old man, who knows more than he should, arrives at the school, to try and show Zu that here is a path other than the one others have demanded of him. Hofstadter, the AI in the form of a teddy bear, begins her own complex journey into being. A life that could have been filled with light is instead infected with darkness, and the Soldier passes on to his reward.

Chirag Patel (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

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The Heads of Cerberus: The Book that Created Dystopian Sci Fi

This book, set in a dystopian Philadelphia in 2118, invented a new, creepier kind of dystopian Sci Fi. - Perhaps the first science fantasy to use the alternate time-track, or parallel worlds, idea. -Groff Conklin - A pioneering variation on the parallel worlds theme. -Boucher and McComas - A highly imaginative work, one of the classics of early pulp fantastic fiction -Everett F. Bleiler “Stevens, to her credit, manages to keep her story taut and suspenseful, at the same time that she injects pleasing snippets of humor here and there, mainly thanks to the character of Arnold Bertram, a portly thief who had tried to rifle Trenmore’s safe back home and had also been thrown into the year 2118 as a result. The author presciently posits the coming of a second World War, and yet her Philadelphia of two centuries hence still somehow contains “clanging street cars,” shooting galleries, and “movie” theaters. (I love that fact that Stevens puts the word “movie” in quotes; first used around 1911, it must have still seemed a newish, slangy word by 1918!) A pseudo-scientific explanation, at the novel’s end, for all the mishegas that had come before goes far in claiming for the book its place of pride in the early sci-fi field... a most entertaining and atmospheric read.” -Sandy Ferber, fantasyliterature.com

Gertrude Barrows Bennett (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

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The Gods, When Mortal: The Future Begins (2020-2042)

New recording of the epic Science Fantasy tale. Three who become legend rise in the ranks. The first full volume of Still Light. Covers the birth of AI and posthumanity, and the hidden cabal of mystical powers that control humanity’s fate. The three begin their rise to power, joining the mystical ranks of Abraxas. We begin an age of war unlike any known before, as individual soldiers are given the ability to change nations. An old rival is reborn as a terrifying ally, and an artificial intelligence intended to be a slave finds a new freedom at the heart of Amenti.

Chirag Patel (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Chirag Patel