10 AM - 5:30 Mon-Sat
1 PM - 5:00 Sun E-mail:
questka@mindspring.com 619 West Main Street
Charlottesville VA 22903 Phone: (434) 295-3377
Toll Free: (800) 346-9223 We are in the big yellow building with white pillars
down from the train station – up from the bus station.
Also visit:
The Quest Institute
Quest Bookshop, Inc. is an independent bookshop in historic Charlottesville Virginia, specializing in books on human and spiritual development. In a warm, friendly atmosphere, people are encouraged to browse and read from the many shelves of new and old titles. Quest Bookshop is recognized for its carefully selected titles in psychology, parapsychology, metaphysics, Eastern and Western religion, Native American, health, healing, nutrition, astrology, dreams, and UFOs.
Candles, crystals, incense, journals, windchimes, bells, stained glass, statues, jewelry, tarot cards, bumper stickers, sage, essential oils, audio CDs, and videos & DVDs are gift items for many occasions.
The shop is noted for its large selection of lovely greeting cards. Unusual are the "tea bag" greeting cards that include a tea bag for the recipient to enjoy as they receive the thoughtful greeting. We also carry musical greeting cards!
Special orders are welcome and books are shipped around the world.
Special discounts are given to Senior citizens and to book clubs.
The mantram, or mantra, is a short, powerful,
spiritual formula from the world’s great traditions, repeated silently
in the mind, anytime, anywhere. Examples of mantrams are Rama, Rama, used by Gandhi, or My God and My All, repeated by St. Francis of Assisi, or Om Mane Padme Hum. Easwaran taught the use of the mantram for over forty years as part of
his passage meditation program. He explains how the mantram works, and
gives practical guidelines for using it to focus our thoughts and
access deeper resources of strength, patience, and love. The mantram
can help us replenish our energy, release creativity, and heal old
conflicts. These resonant phrases work equally well for parents with
young children, colleagues at work, couples in a relationship, in
illness or depression, and even at the time of death. And Easwaran
shows how repetition of the mantram can open the door to a life that is
increasingly meaningful and fulfilling. 
In Taking the Leap she introduces a new way of
responding to moments of shenpa: learning to stay present. Rather than
running from life’s hurts, you can actually stop and open your heart,
and therein discover courage and compassion. This book presents the
“four R’s” of working with shenpa: recognizing it, refraining from acting out against ourselves or others, relaxing with the underlying feelings, and resolving to make this our way of life. With her characteristic warmth and
encouragement, Pema Chödrön offers transformational teachings and
practices that readers can immediately put to use in their daily lives.
Pema Chödrön is an American Buddhist nun in the lineage of Chögyam
Trungpa. She is resident teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, the
first Tibetan monastery in North America established for Westerners.
She is also the author of many books and audiobooks, including the
best-selling When Things Fall Apart and Don't Bite the Hook.
This collection of sixty-one new poems, the most ever in a single
volume of Oliver’s work, includes an entirely new direction for the
poet’s work: a cycle of eleven linked love poems—a dazzling
achievement. As in all of Mary Oliver’s work, the pages overflow with
her keen observation of the natural world and her gratitude for its
gifts, for the many people she has loved in her seventy years, as well
as for her disobedient dog, Percy. Mary Oliver is one of the most celebrated and best-selling poets in
America. Her books include Red Bird; Our World; Thirst; Blue Iris; New
and Selected Poems, Volume One; and New and Selected Poems, Volume Two.
She has also published five books of prose, including Rules for the
Dance and, most recently, Long Life. She lives in Provincetown,
Massachusetts. In Everyday Dharma, Willa Miller, an
authorized lama in the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition, reworks ancient
Buddhist techniques and adapts them for western readers seeking
personal transformation. Becoming a Buddha, Lama Miller explains, means
observing the mind and actions and then doing the physical,
psychological, and spiritual work to move closer to one’s wisdom
nature. Dharma is spiritual practice; it’s what one does every day to
make one’s mind and world a better place to live. Each chapter includes
a passage to read, an exercise of the day that relates to each week’s
topic, a quote from a sage, and tips on how to make daily practice a
little easier. The book shows that it’s not necessary to subscribe to a
particular — or any — belief system to benefit from this program. "It’s
only necessary," says Lama Miller, "to believe one deserves to live a
more fulfilling and meaningful life." 
Mindfulness is going mainstream, and author
Deborah Schoeberlein pioneers its practical application in K-12
education. By showing teachers how to tune into what’s happening,
inside and around them, she offers educators fresh, straightforward
approaches to training attention and generating caring in the
classroom. Mindful Teaching and Teaching Mindfulness emphasizes how the teacher's personal familiarity with mindfulness
seeds the ground for an education infused with attention, awareness,
kindness, empathy, compassion, and gratitude. The book follows a
teacher from morning to night on typical school day. The schedule
provides a practical context for applying and promoting mindfulness
throughout the day. Brief, readable segments focus on a full range of
topics including classroom procedures, lesson structure, and pacing, as
well as social and emotional learning. This approach familiarizes the
reader with mindfulness and fosters gradual and steady skills
development. Reading the book catalyzes readers’ insights and inspires
the teacher’s self-confidence in applying mindfulness — personally and
professionally.
The 13th century Sufi poet Rumi traveled in a landscape divided between
the Persian and Byzantine empires, and his works express the passions,
fables, and faith of both worlds. In this book, Rumi enthusiast Kamla
Kapur reworks some of his writings into 30 tales of wit, wisdom, and
faith. The basis for her stories is Reynold A. Nicholson’s translation
of Rumi’s six-volume Mathnawi, an epic mystical poem of more than 25,000 verses. Kapur brings this
dense, intimidating work into a far more readable form, putting her own
spin on the stories yet remaining true to Rumi’s vision. In charming
tales such as “The Witch of Kabul” and “Moses Learns a Lesson,” she
brings Rumi’s verses to life as clever fables. Pilgrimage to Paradise gives readers one of Persia’s greatest literary treasures in an accessible form that enlightens as it entertains.
$21.95 - Order Online from Quest
For nearly 2,000 years, Nagarjuna's teachings have occupied a central
position in Mahayana Buddhism. An essential part of the study and
practice in the great Indian Buddhist monastic universities, these
teachings were later incorporated into the Tibetan monastic programs
that modeled their curricula on their Indian predecessors. In The Middle Way, the Dalai Lama offers a brief, brilliant, and complete presentation of
the ultimate view of reality in the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism. The
teachings are about the Buddhist view, yet the Dalai Lama presents them
in a way that allows any interested reader to grasp this profound
outlook on life. Like his many books on compassion, The Middle Way is vitally important and universally applicable. With its release, the
Dalai Lama adds his wisdom teachings to the already established
recognition of his incomparable compassion.
$19.95 - Order Online from Quest