Mind of the Soul [Hardcover]

Gary Zukav (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 2004

If you believe you are the victim of circumstance, that you are stuck in your current unsatisfactory situation and that nothing can be done to improve things, THE MIND OF THE SOUL is the book for you. Here Zukav encourages us to take responsibility for our actions and to see how they have created our lives. He shows us how to see and make new choices that could open up a whole new range of possibilities. And he gives us a clear, accessible, step-by-step plan for discovering our full, authentic power - the power that comes when our personality and our souls are truly aligned.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Gary Zukav is the author of the number 1 bestselling phenomenon THE SEAT OF THE SOUL, the bestseller SOUL STORIES and THE DANCING WU LI MASTERS.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Welcome

This book can dramatically change your life by showing you how to take responsibility for the choices you make and break free from the illusion that you are a victim of your circumstances.

Everyone knows that when you make a choice, that choice changes your experience. When you take a new job, move to a new city, or get married or divorced, your experience changes. That is obvious, but other choices that you hardly think about make differences in your life, too. For example, when you shout because you are angry, that is a choice, even if you do not think of it as such. Even if you assume that it is natural to shout when you are angry, that is still a choice. When you shout, you create particular consequences -- people avoid you or start arguments with you. When you do not, even though you are angry, different things happen.

All of your choices create consequences, whether or not you think about your choice and even whether or not you are aware of making a choice. When you make a choice, you create consequences for yourself. That is why it is important to understand that you are always making choices, and to become aware of what you are choosing. If you do not make this effort, you will continue to encounter the consequences, and they may not be the ones you would want.

This book is about the power of choice and how to use it wisely. It gives you the tools you need to make responsible choices, and supports you experientially and in practical ways so that you can make responsible choices long after you have finished reading it. Our intention is to give you the most well-rounded, grounded, and practical introduction to responsible choice that we can.

This book is designed to be used, not merely read. The exercises, in particular, are important. Without them, you will still be able to understand the concepts, but they will not be nearly as useful. You will know more, but unless you actually choose responsibly, you will not change.

To assist in the process of meaningful change, we have also created a special Self-Empowerment Journal to accompany this book. It will help you focus your thoughts, emotions, and insights as you read and as you apply the exercises to your life. Of course, you can still benefit greatly from The Mind of the Soul without buying the companion Journal, but if you do not, we ask you to buy a notebook that you like to look at, hold, and write in, and record your discoveries after each exercise. Create your own exercises and write them, too -- in whatever journal you choose. Most of all, experiment with what you learn and observe the results in your own life.

Last, we ask you not to accept anything in our book on faith, but to read it with an open mind and an open heart. If something we say strikes you as valuable, apply it to your life and see what happens. If you feel it does not apply to you, let it go.

Make your own choices.

Love,

Gary and Linda

Copyright © 2003 by Gary Zukav and Linda Francis --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (February 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743248155
• ISBN-13: 978-0743248150
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #585,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

GARY ZUKAV is the author of The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics, winner of The American Book Award for Science; The Seat of the Soul, the celebrated #1 New York Times bestseller; Soul Stories, also a New York Times bestseller; and many others. His books have sold millions of copies and are published in twenty-four languages. He is a graduate of Harvard University and a former U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) officer with Vietnam service. He lives in Oregon with his spiritual partner, Linda Francis.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gary Zukav understands personal power, October 16, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Mind of the Soul: Responsible Choice (Hardcover)

This wonderful book explains the value of making choices bearing the consequences in mind. This is responsible choice and Gary Zukav has got it right. I recommend this book because it helps readers take control of their lives. All we have is the power of choice. We can't control others, even though we may influence them (if they are open to that). I also suggest another brilliant book, Optimal Thinking: How to Be Your Best Self which shows you how to accept what is out of your control and make the best choices from what is in your control. In Optimal Thinking, you are provided with simple roadmaps to overcome all painful emotions (anxiety, helplessness, anger, guilt, disappointment, envy, hurt, loneliness etc.) and strategies to create your best life. Both of these books are must reads!

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful!, April 22, 2004

By 

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mind of the Soul: Responsible Choice (Hardcover)

Gary Zukav and Linda Francis contend, perhaps reasonably, that a decision and an opportunity confront you every instant. You can choose to remain bogged down in a rut of habit and fear, or to break loose and create a boundless new future. This book - the newest in their "Seat of the Soul" series, which the authors seem to assume you have read - urges you to liberate yourself from the burden of the past, which they maintain really need be no burden. Fear not, hate not, resent not. Instead, chose harmonious cooperation, love, freedom, reverence and peace, choices that lead to true happiness. The authors maintain that you truly are free to choose, and exhort you to take responsibility for your choices. Abundant hypothetical examples, personal anecdotes and exercises provide the intellectual foundation, such as it is, for their New Age-flavored advice. We choose to believe that people who appreciate confident self-help counsel will find much here to savor. Skeptics, who may find that so many upbeat pronouncements give them the jitters, have made alternate choices and need not apply.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful, more fodder for the choir, January 31, 2006

By 

Dennis R. Mitton "tolstoy" (Eastern Washington, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mind of the Soul: Responsible Choice (Hardcover)

Though I'm agnostic concerning the `new physics' (of which Zukav is an early advocate) I found this book to be very readable, almost simple. There is much for the choir here: after some short praise for science as a valuable tool `for the five senses' he jumps directly into `the science of the soul which is not limited to the five senses.' There is no explanation or argument here - maybe he does that in other books - and the reader is just expected to follow along. For those of us who don't follow along there is still good stuff here. His ideas concerning choice and responsibility are excellent as are his encouragements for self-understanding.

Still, though, there are such obvious and glaring inconsistencies that I think I must have missed something. Zukav takes an entire chapter, for example, to explain that you should give heed to you `inner landscape' and if something doesn't feel `right' or `good' then you shouldn't do it. (Horrible advice, I think. Feelings should be only one component of a decision and have been often known to lie.) This seems to be a recipe for a cloistered life, never moving out from what is comfortable. In later chapters he writes about how frightening it can be to move out of our comfort zones when our feelings are so at odds with our desires... I suppose this can be resolved with the New Age mantras that `There is no real good or bad,' or `There is no reality - it is all perception.'

All of the common themes are here - harmony, attention, attraction, the primacy of feelings - nothing new to the self-help reader but the `homey' spin and usefulness for reflection make it better than most.