The Mind of the Soul: Responsible Choice [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Gary Zukav (Author), Linda Francis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 4, 2004

"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." So begins one of the most significant works you will ever encounter.

People make hundreds of choices every day -- both large and small -- yet most individuals feel they have little control over their own lives. Now Gary Zukav, author of the monumental bestseller The Seat of the Soul, joins his spiritual partner, Linda Francis, in a revolutionary look at the power of choice and how to use it wisely. They explain how changing our decision-making can help us avoid self-defeating patterns of thought and action -- and help us take control of our lives by creating authentic, positive power.

The Mind of the Soul describes how each moment in life is a moment of decision: wheth- er to persist in the old, limited patterns of life or to choose instead to experiment with the unbounded, liberating potential ahead of us. Using the same pragmatic terms that made The Heart of the Soul so meaningful, Zukav and Francis allow readers to develop, step by step, the ability to break free of unconscious choices that hold them back and limit their fulfillment in life.

Whether your choices are large ones -- concerning work, marriage, parenting, or divorce -- or smaller day-to-day choices, such as shouting or showing annoyance when you are angry, they carry consequences for which you must assume responsibility. You will discover that in any situation one choice among the many that present themselves to you is the optimal choice -- to create harmony, cooperation, sharing, or reverence for Life. When you make this choice, you gain the freedom to experiment with your life, see what does or does not work for you, learn to change yourself instead of blaming others, open your heart, and develop authentic power.

The Mind of the Soul is a book to be used, not merely read. It is packed with specific, practical exercises, diagrams, and meaningful illustrations that make you a participant in the process of responsible choice. To accompany this book, the authors have created a special Self-Empowerment Journal with additional material to help you focus your thoughts and emotions as you read and to invite you to record your insights after each exercise. The discoveries you make in both the book and the Journal will become a permanent part of your life long after you have turned the last page.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

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 bestseller in The New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, and other publications; and the New York Times bestseller Soul Stories. His books have sold millions of copies and are published in twenty-four languages. He is a graduate of Harvard and a former U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) officer with Vietnam service. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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 an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• ISBN-10: 0743254406
• ASIN: B000IFS0UY
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,172,433 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

46 of 49 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.