Customer Reviews

The Mind of the Soul: Responsible Choice

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4 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Common sense says that if you act on something, think something or feel something then you own your experience. You are responsible for your choices and each choice has consequences. It's hard to argue with the simplicity of such an understanding but you would be shocked how many people miss the lesson. The authors go a long way to tell a short story but it's a story that needs to be retold ad infinitum. I can't say that I learned anything new but my history of reading such books probably surpasses this book's target audience. What seems basic knowledge to one person will be a well spoken revelation to another. In fact, I'm sure that 'Mind of the Soul' has the ability to affect needed change in those who are eager and ready to learn.

A great book for those who want to know more about themselves & grow by learning. An excellent book for those who like to know more & develop spritually. Highly recommend it!!

I'm enjoying reading this book. It is very simply written and can be understood easily.

The book was delivered in a timely manner and in GREAT condition.
Thank you.

This book is great for personal growth. It showed me to look at my choises in a whole new way. This book is eazy to read. The book is set up so you can follow its insight. A good book for doing inner work on yourself.