The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

 In a fresh preface to The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra, in the 25th anniversary edition, published by Bantam Press in 2022, the author acknowledges that when he first wrote the book that he may not have been fully aware of the hidden message that it contained.

He writes: 'The hidden message is that life is created from the top down. The source of existence is the field of infinite pure consciousness, the very thing that Lord Krishna declares in the Bhagavad-Gita when he says, "I am the field and the knower of the field." He isn't speaking as a divine voice or the incarnation of a god. This is a deeply human voice. It whispers inside everyone.'

Twenty-five years ago he felt that he could not have used those words but he did know that 'the bottom-up approach to life had overwhelmed society', and by this he means the idea that creation begins with subatomic atoms and so on to rocks and plants, somewhere along the way, human beings. 

He writes: 'The wreckage that such a worldview leaves in its wake is incalculable. It sweeps away every spiritual tradition in the world, every spiritual aspiration, along with the soul and even the human spark itself.'

'Behind the mask of materialism, spirit patiently waits,' he writes.  

The book, he says, could also be called The Seven Spiritual Laws of Life, and that 'success is only the threshold of a great, unending journey.'

Success is 'the unfolding of the divinity within us'. The book's subtitle is: A Practical Guide To The Fulfilment Of Your Dreams. 

 

 

  

 

Do This Tonight to Wake Up Happier Tomorrow (5-Minute Routine)

The #1 Journaling Method for Brain Health You Need to Know | Dr. Arif Khan

Deepak Chopra: Journey to Perfect Health: A Guided Meditation

"But We Had Music" by Maria Popova (read by Nick Cave for The Universe i...

Living Carefree - A Meditation with Deepak Chopra

Empowered Me: A Guided Meditation for Self-Empowerment from Deepak Chopra

The School

 

THE SCHOOL

​On completion of the regular Saturday morning cleaning sessions we were each, on our way out, handed a newspaper-wrapped parcel of cloths. The Principal of The School led the cleaning team and he stood at the door to distribute the parcels, which were referred to as 'bundles of joy'. Each contained six cloths that had been used for cleaning the building that morning. They were not rags. They were made from unwanted material that had been donated by students, cut to size and hemmed. Some were used to cover broom heads which were then lovingly and attentively stroked along the ceiling and walls removing the dust that had accumulated through the week. Some were used to polish the floor. Each student had one narrow strip of floor to cover. We stood in a line, face to the wall and then, after quieting our minds, we crouched down, proceeding backwards rubbing floor wax over the linoleum, removing every mark as we went. Woollen cloths were then used to remove the wax and buff to a shine. Afterwards the floor appeared as a glossy pool. Windows required three cloths. One for washing, one for drying, and a linen cloth to finish.

​

It was the spring school holidays and so the cloths would not be returned till the next session two weeks away. But the instructions given were to attend to the cloths promptly. We were expected to launder them by hand, removing every trace of dirt, then dry them, iron and fold them neatly. When they were handed back to the Principal he would examine them and momentarily hold them to his face.

​

Back home I went downstairs to the outside laundry with its old cement wash troughs. As I was giving the cloths their last rinse something happened. It was as if the clear water from the tap began to gush through my chest. It felt like my whole body was filling with water, which then rolled in waves all around me. It was extraordinary, as if the world had been transformed and I was now floating in an ocean of bliss. I felt saturated with love. I went for a walk and everyone I met I greeted with a smile and they returned my smile as if they could feel it too. I felt that I had entered a world that had been there always, but had been closed to me. I kept walking for hours through parklands, circling the city, as if I was floating.

​

Then a thought came, 'I must be Jesus'. Oh yes — my second thought — and that is considered a form of madness. People who believe they are Jesus get locked up in institutions.

​

I was returned to my usual state of being, which I did not regret. I felt like I had experienced for a time a higher reality. It existed, and I knew that now. I never told anyone. There are things that people are not able to hear.

​

I returned the cloths. But I didn't go back to The School. I could find my own way now. We cannot become more of what we are — only less of what we are not. 

 

Cheryl Howard © 2022

 

Black Dog

Black Dog

I contemplate the worst that humans can endure.

Hard labour, a Gulag in Siberia, for instance.

Think of only one —

too many would make it worse,

this depression, the name it is known by these days,

that makes me feel that I am dead.

Shamed and pained as I am in fact living.

Think of them, the political prisoners —

if they can survive, so must I.

It is not nearly so cold here and the labour is not so hard,

it only seems like it is.

The loneliness of how it is to speak

a different language that no one understands;

to have come from some strange place

that no one has heard of.

Except they do and they have. I am right here,

invisible among them.

The dog next door, a large black Labrador,

he barks at me whenever he sees me.

It is a 'Come over here! I too am alone'

kind of bark.

I lift my heavy feet, walk, and push my concrete hand

through the wire fence.

He sniffs my hand and places his big paw on my arm.

Dogs can smell sadness.

I place my hand on his broad head.

He looks up into my eyes as if I am

the most wondrous creature he has ever seen.

He wants me to stay, to pat him,

talk to him.

I have no god to beg to be loved.

But I have this dog with eyes that are deep wells

and the truth is in there as it is in all that lives.

I cannot help that the people here

worship inanimate objects.

They look at my clothes, my house, my car

and don't see me.

The black dog and I search the winter land.

Something builds.

Is it a soul, that feels like it is coming alive?

Cheryl Howard © 2022

 

New Meditation for Healing by Deepak Chopra

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Into My Arms (Official Video)

go gentle

  

 'I was once standing on an escalator in Melbourne ascending from the underground train system. Lots of people were pushing past so I was being jostled but then — and I can still feel it — a woman placed her hand on my arm. I turned around and she said, "It'd be easier if you stood over to the other side of the escalator." She had a lovely voice, and a manner that seemed to give a window into a life well lived and well liked. Her touch, her hand on my  arm, was filled with warmth ... The woman's touch, her hand on my arm, was warm; it had the characteristic of demonstrating the heart. I moved to the other side of the escalator, she grinned and sipped her coffee, and I thought "I'm sure your friends must love you".' 

p150

Pádraig Ó Tuama

In the Shelter: Finding a home in the world.

Hodder 2015 

 

 

 

 

light-hearted and carefree

  

'There are some who live day to day concerned about not having enough of whatever they feel is necessary for their happiness and security. Their bodies most likely echo those feelings by sending messages of discomfort in the form of anxiety, worry or stress.

This however, doesn't have to be. Instead, if we learn to trust the intelligence of the universe and practice living carefree, we can live fearlessly without worry and focus on lack.We can expect only the best and live our lives from a place of true joy. 

When the mind nourishes the body with carefree thoughts and feelings the body returns to its natural state of happiness and calm and from this place of bliss you are able to regain the memory of who and what you really are, a spiritual being, inextricably interconnected with the creative power of the universe.

Reconnecting with your true nature you cross the invisible boundary between the ego and true self. You begin to feel more light-hearted, finding humour in everyday circumstances and laughing more, even at yourself because you no longer take yourself so seriously. You handle the unexpected with calm and ease and your life becomes free from melodrama.

What if you learn to detach from worry about the future and instead trust that there is always enough of everything you need. How will you change? Will you feel happier and more carefree?

Notice that all these qualities are available to you right in the moment if you choose them and in this relaxed and blissful state there is nothing you lack. All your needs are met with no exception. 

Practice living each moment as it comes with a light and open heart and pay attention to how those carefree moments carry with them greater abundance and boundless joy.

Experience the joy of all that you love, including yourself. As a spiritual being you fear nothing because you know there is nothing to fear and all that truly exists in the world is love.

I move through my days light-hearted and carefree knowing all is well.'

Deepak Chopra

Meditation for Anxiety

 

Meditation for Anxiety - A Deepak Chopra Guided Meditation

Toward a Psychology of Being

Photo by Daniel Oines, Flickr creative commons

'These psychologies give promise of developing into the life-philosophy, the religion-surrogate, the value-system, the life-program that these people have been missing. Without the transcendent and the transpersonal, we get sick, violent, and nihilistic, or else hopeless and apathetic. We need something "bigger than we are" to be awed by and to commit ourselves to in a new, naturalistic, empirical, non-churchly sense, perhaps as Thoreau and Whitman, William James and John Dewey did.

I believe that another task which needs doing before we can have a good world is the development of a humanistic and transpersonal psychology of evil, one written out of compassion and love for human nature rather than out of disgust for it or out of hopelessness.

There are certainly good and strong and successful men in the world ... But it also remains true that there are so few of them even though there could be many more, and that they are often treated badly by their fellows.

... this fear of human goodness and greatness, this lack of knowledge of how to be good and strong, this fear of maturity and the godlikeness that comes with maturity, this fear of feeling virtuous, self-loving, love worthy, respect worthy.

Preface, p. iv
Abraham H Maslow, 'Toward a Psychology of Being'
Van Nostrard Reinhold NY 1968 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

The Law of Pure Potentiality

Photo by Wonderlane, Flicker creative commons

'… we are, in our essential state, pure consciousness. Pure consciousness is pure potentiality; it is the field of all possibilities and infinite creativity … Being infinite and unbounded, it is also pure joy. Other attributes of consciousness are pure knowledge, infinite silence, perfect balance, invincibility, simplicity, and bliss. This is our essential nature.'

 

'The experience of the Self, or ‘self-referral’, means that our internal reference point is our own spirit, and not the objects of our experience. The opposite of self-referral is object-referral. In object-referral we are always influenced by objects outside the Self, which include situations, circumstances, people, and things. In object-referral we are constantly seeking the approval of others. Our thinking and our behaviour are always in anticipation of a response. It is therefore fear based.

 

In object-referral we also feel an intense need to control things. We feel an intense need for external power. The need for approval, the need to control things, and the need for external power are needs that are based on fear … When we experience the power of the Self, there is an absence of fear, there is no compulsion to control, and no struggle for approval or external power.'

Deepak Chopra, 1996, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Bantam Press

David Bowie

'It's rather disturbing because when you're young you think so much is important including oneself. As you get older I think you find less and less is important apart from one of them,  being a love of one's fellow man and a care for their survival. A care for one's immediate family then friends then wider like ripples in water.'
 

David Bowie

 

'Check ignition and may God's love be with you'

'I think my spaceship knows which way to go.'

in the night

European Southern Observatory, Flickr creative commons

 

'Coming back into self after a crisis is as slow as mending bone. Psychiatric illness affects the deep centres of the brain that govern perception, emotion, behaviour and personality. These areas - the prefrontal cortex, the thalamus and limbic system manifest the hidden experience of the mind as opposed to the core motor and sensory function of the brain.

In the night I slip past the night staff and go out into the courtyard, lie down on a bench and look up at the sky. The night air ripples. According to Scottish mathematician J. S. Haldane, "the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." This gives me comfort. The stars are out - gleaming cantos of space. In the wide, wide night, there is only the essential smallness of self and the tiny equilibrium of earth and air on which we exist.'

Kate Richards, 2013, Madness: A Memoir, Penguin.
https://katerichardsaustralia.wordpress.com/ 

the albatross

photo by Ron Knight, Flickr creative commons

 

'Wingspans of these birds can approach twelve feet, a reach so wide they cannot flap to take off. Instead they nest on the highest, most exposed ridges so that it is enough to merely stretch their wings into the wind and be vaulted skywards. After take-off they can watch the ocean heave beneath them for two years straight without touching earth or rock. Human beings seem so marginal to their lives that I had the sense that they could barely see me, as if their gaze passed right through me. I sat within inches of one nest, and though the bird sat stiffly, and was clearly uncomfortable on land it breathed an air of impassive serenity. Its feathers trembled like dusted snow, a dazzling, laundered whiteness.'

'They mate for life, and with increasing numbers lost to long-line fishing hooks more of them are standing lonely vigils on the ridges of Bird Island, waiting for mates that never return. Populations are falling as a result. Ornithologists tell us that albatrosses are not clever birds. Developmentally they are quite primitive, and the stereotyped patterns of their behaviour are sluggish and slow to adapt. But as I sat and watched them I thought not of illegal fishing or their reported simplicity but of Herman Melville's awe on an encounter with them: "At intervals it arched forth its vast archangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark. Wondrous flutterings and throbbings shook it ... Through its inexpressible, strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took hold of God. As Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself."

Gavin Francis, 2012, Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins
 

The endurance of emperor penguins

Photo by Christopher Michel, Flickr creative commons

 

'Masters of endurance, they weather the coldest and windiest habitat on earth - they are the only penguin that shows no territorial aggression, having realised that in order to survive personal space is a luxury they cannot afford. They live through storms of hurricane-force winds and temperatures as low as minus 70 degrees C, leading Apsley Cherry-Garrard to observe that in his opinion no creature on earth has a worse time.'

'I wondered if there at the end of the earth I might learn something from the emperors, of the purity of living in the physical senses, of a life without tangles of motives or the radio-chatter of the mind. They seemed to offer a welcome all too rare in the natural world, perhaps even a kind of forgiveness.'

Gavin Francis, 2012, Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins