The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence (Hardcover)

by Deepak Chopra (Author), M.D. Deepak Chopra (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Devotees of the bestselling author (The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success), who founded the Chopra Center for Well-Being, will welcome his latest ideas on how to live a more fulfilling life. He employs his familiar combination of scientific theory and new age mysticism to present this guide to harnessing what he calls synchro-destiny. According to Chopra, an important level of human existence consists of the nonlocal or spiritual domain. Drawing on the example of physics's unpredictable quantum leap, when an electron unpredictably jumps from one orbit to another, he maintains that our own lives too are unpredictable, that it is impossible know what direction life will take. However, such randomness in the universe is actually interconnected. Unpredictable coincidences are, the author maintains, important messages that can be used to achieve one's true destiny. This process of synchro-destiny consists of connecting the individual soul to the universal soul through a number of mental exercises, provided here. Although Chopra's theories are expressed in a confusing and repetitive manner, the techniques he advocates may prove interesting to those who enjoy his humanistic, if convoluted, approach to self-help. Among the seven principles for achieving synchro-destiny are the daily practice of meditation, a continued focus on one's deepest desires and the acknowledgment of emotional pain.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Chopra is at it again, finding yet another way to share his mystical knowledge by helping us get to know ourselves better, or live fuller lives, or learn how to forgive some childhood slight, or rewrite our destinies, or explore the mystical realms that dwell within us. In this book, Chopra focuses on the coincidences that occur in our lives. Using a rather complicated assemblage of scientific-sounding information, combined with vintage Chopra-isms, the author teaches that coincidences are messages, clues about our lives that we need to follow more closely. He claims that if you live your life with a better appreciation of coincidences and become sensitive to the underlying meaning of these events, you will achieve the spontaneous fulfillment of your deepest desires. Per usual, the book includes exercises and steps to lead you along the way to the promised conclusion, a happier and more fulfilling life. Chopra has established a name for himself in the self-help genre, so librarians might want to be sure they have a copy. Kathleen Hughes
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harmony; 1 edition (October 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609600427
• ISBN-13: 978-0609600429
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #63,488 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

94 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A PERFECT fit ... for me., April 7, 2004

By	J. Donie "Quill and Lens" (Cincinnati, OH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

No book is for everyone ... no book can reach every person in the infinite variety of lives we live. But THIS book was precisely what I was looking for when I found it. I've referred to it over and over and over again and it has proven to be of invaluable assistance to me as I've worked to change my life from the inside out.

As I first read the book, and was blown away by how perfectly it filled in the gaps in the picture of life that was forming within me, I also realized "this book isn't for everybody". Read the other reviews and follow your instincts. If it sounds like something that you've been searching for but haven't been able to find ... then I think you'll be delightfully pleased. If it sounds like smoke and mirrors to you, then look for something else. If you're in the mood for an apple, why eat an orange and blame the orange when you're done?

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fulfill Your Desires!, October 22, 2003

By	Lissa Coffey, Host of coffeytalk.com "DoshaDiva" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

I took Deepak's class, SynchroDestiny, years ago at the Chopra Center. I loved it! So I was really happy that I could have this book to read over and over again. And for anyone who likes the book, I recommend that you take the class, it is phenomenal!

There are so many things that I like about this book. Perhaps the most valuable for me is in learning to recognize life's little signals - those messages that show us we're headed in the right direction. It's about awareness, and recognizing that these are not random coincidences, but signposts we should stop and look at.

This book, and "The 7 Spiritual Laws of Success" are two books that I will always keep and refer to often. Thanks, Deepak, for sharing your profound wisdom with us once again!

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Symphony of Synchrodestiny, February 23, 2005

By	Ramanathan S. Manavasi "Voracious Book Reader" (Macon, Georgia, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Each of us is immersed in a network of coincidences. We are synchronized with one another through a conspiracy of coincidences. This synchrony is choreographed by a great pervasive intelligence that lies at the heart of nature. We discover that by applying attention and intention to these coincidences, we can create specific outcomes in our lives. We consciously shape our destinies moving closer to enlightenment. This is the miracle of Synchrodestiny.

The universe is an on-off phenomenon. The continuity and solidity of the world exists only in the imagination. In reality, we are all flickering in and out of existence all the time. The sensory experience of al living beings is a purely artificial construct created in the imagination. There is a Zen story in which two monks are looking nat a flag that is weaving in the wind. The first one says, "The flag is weaving." The second one says, "No, the wind is weaving." Their teacher comes over and they pose him the question. The teacher says, "You both are wrong. Only consciousness is moving." As consciousness moves, it imagines the world into existence.

Without consciousness acting as an observer and interpreter, every thing would exist only as pure potential. That pure potential is the Virtual domain, the third level of existence. The first two levels are the Physical domain and the Quantum domain. It is nonlocal and cannot be depleted. It is unending and all-encompassing. Tapping into that potential is what allows us to make miracles.

There's a deeper level of reality," says Chopra. Science calls it quantum reality. Quantum in physics defines the smallest indivisible unit of information and energy. So a quantum of light is a photon, a quantum of gravity is a graviton. Our thoughts are also units of information and energy. When energy has a pattern, it becomes information." To improve on Einstein, "energy and matter and information are interchangeable." In the quantum world we are inseparable, interconnected. Gautam Buddha said: "We are inter-beings that inter-arise in the inter-isness." We had known for thousands of years that at another level, the quantum level, we are inseparably connected. We are fields of energy and information in the universe of energy and information, where everything is happening at the speed of light.

When our body cells are caught in the same field of resonance, they are all dancing to the same music. Stomach cells are making hydrochloric acid, immune cells are generating antibodies, the pancreatic cells are manufacturing insulin, and so on. Biochemically, certain changes in our body correspond to the movement of our planet. All of nature is a symphony, and we are part of it. We are all patterns of nonlocality pretending to be people. In the end, it is all spirit.

Considering our physical bodies, we are really, a collection of recycled molecules. We are constantly remaking, regenerating ourselves. Our emotions are just recycled energy. They come and go depending on situations, circumstances, relationships and events. Our thoughts are recycled information. Every thought we have is actually part of a collective database.

We can never understand the how, where, and when of anything, even something as simple as boiling water. We have to surrender to uncertainty, while appreciating its intricate beauty. What we call personality is built on a foundation of relationships and situations.

Meditation happens. Sleep happens. It is the same with intention. Intent is a seed in conscious-ness, or spirit. Intention's infinite organizing power orchestrates countless details simultaneously. We, as human beings, are capable of creating positive changes in our lives through intent. So, why do we lose that ability? The ability is lost when the self-image overshadows the self, when we sacrifice our true self for the ego.

Usually we see only cause-and-effect relationships - linear trajectories. Yet, beneath the surface, something else is happening. Invisible to us is a whole web of connections. Intentions are woven into this web, which is much more context-bound, much more relational, much more holistic, much more nurturing than our surface experience.

Consciousness orchestrates its activity in response to both attention and intention. Attention activates the energy field and intention activates the information field, which causes transformation.

This wonderful book, the New York Times Bestseller will change some skeptics who think that Deepak Chopra is yet another silver-tongued snake oil salesman. Chopra uses his verbal gifts to bring ancient East Indian teachings to a 21st-century audience.

He clarifies many scientific proposals and theories - Minkowski's Eight dimen-sional hyperspace in pp 50.

On pp 49 ff., Deepak illustrates beautifully the fantastic, fabulous and mind boggling experiment of physicists - a charged, unobserved beryllium atom was capable of being in two separate locations at the same time! It is the observation alone that turns possibility into reality.

On pp 52 ff., he describes the Einstein-Podolsky Rosen Paradox which proves that nonlocal communication or connection is a reality.

On pp 99 ff., he illustrates nicely how in the universal "I", everything is not only possible, it already exists, and simply requires intent to collapse into a reality in the physical world.

Part II deals extensively with meditation, mantras and seven principles of Synchrodestiny.

This is one book which I would like to take with me when I shuffle off my mortal coils and leave for another world