Banyen Books & Sound

Specialties

Canada’s Spiritual & Healing Resource since 1970.

Independent bookstore providing all the tools for conscious living, personal growth & spiritual awareness.

In addition to books, magazines, cards and author-​related events, we offer CDs & DVDs, tools for meditation, yoga & healing, musical instruments, a wide range of altar items such as statues, crystals, incense, candles, & singing bowls as well as other items that convey a sense of Beauty, Spirit, Integrity – be they tools, charts, games, colouring books, card sets, medicine objects, or ceremonial clothing.

History

Established in 1970.

The Golden Lotus Restaurant and Natural Food Store on Fourth Avenue at Bayswater was a hothouse for spiritual seekers, new vegetarians and spaced-​out hippies grounding through good work. Banyen was born in a tiny book corner of the Golden Lotus. That lovely place was a connection to India, meditation and spiritual growth from 1967 to 1970. As its sun set, what was to become the Naam restaurant, Lifestream, Woodlands, Nature’s Path, and Banyen Books arose.

After visiting the newly-​opened Shambhala Booksellers in Berkeley in 1969-​and spending three solid days there; and after going to India (as a student of the great meditation master Kirpal Singh), and asking everyone I met what were the greatest books they’d ever read, and making notes, combing bookstores, libraries and my friends’ brains for a year, I was ready to make the leap, at age 21, into visionary entrepreneurship.

~Kolin Lymworth