Deepak Chopra and "The Seven Principles of Spiritual Success"

Recommended by Shirley Robinson, I read this book in 1998 after returning from my 1997 travels.  It introduced me to consciousness, stillness and non-judgement and had a profound effect. I read it again while hiking The Annapurna Circuit in 2001 where it really took root.

Some favourite quotes

• Take time to be silent, to just BE. Meditate for 30 minutes twice a day. Silently witness the intelligence within every living thing. Practice non-judgment.
• Today, bring whoever you encounter a gift: a compliment or flower. Gratefully receive gifts. Keep wealth circulating by giving and receiving care, affection, appreciation and love.
• Inherent in every intention and desire is the mechanics for its fulfillment. Make a list of desires. Trust that when things don’t seem to go your way, there is a reason.
• Seek your higher Self. Discover your unique talents. Ask yourself how you are best suited to serve humanity. Using your unique talents and serving others brings unlimited bliss and abundance.
• Success in life could be defined as the continued expansion of happiness and the progressive realization of worthy goals.
• When we begin to experience our life as the miraculous expression of divinity — not occasionally, but all the time — then we will know the true meaning of success.
• But first, you have to practice stillness. Stillness is the first requirement of manifesting your desires, because in stillness lies your connection to the field of pure potentiality that can orchestrate an infinity of details for you.
• I get in touch with the power of pure potentiality by taking time each day to be silent, to just be.
• You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait. You need not even wait, just learn to be quiet, and still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
• Wherever you go in the midst of movement and activity, carry your stillness within you. Then the chaotic movement around you will never overshadow your access to the reservoir of creativity, the field of pure potentiality.
• The cosmic psyche whispers to us softly in the gap between our thoughts. We can learn more about the universe “between our thoughts” than actually “from our thoughts”.
• When the mind is quiet, we come to know ourselves as the pure witness.
• I get in touch with the power of pure potentiality by taking time each day to commune with nature.
• I will practice non-judgement. Today I shall judge nothing that occurs.
• I allow myself and those around me the freedom to be as they are. I do not rigidly apply my idea of how things should be. I do not force solutions on problems.
• Uncertainty is the fertile field of all possibility.
• I embrace the present and become one with it. I fully experience it.
• I know that this moment is as it should be because the whole universe is as it should be.
• Whatever relationships I have attracted into my life at this moment are precisely the ones I need in my life at this moment.
• You must accept the present as is. Accept the present and intend the future. The future is something you can always create through detached intention, but you should never struggle against the present.
• Be the source. If you want joy, give joy to others. If you want love, learn to give love. The easiest way to get what you want is to help others get what they want.
• Everything that happens in the universe starts with intention. Intention is the very basis of creation.
• I will make a list of all my desires. I will carry this list with me wherever I go. I will look at this list before I go into my silence and meditation. I will look at it before I go to sleep at night. I will look at it when I wake up in the morning.
• Desire and intent are different. Desire has attachment. Intent does not. It’s imperative that we harness the power of our pure intention— independent of the outcomes of our actions.
• I am unattached to outcome. I am comfortable in the realm of uncertainty. I do not anticipate or resist, I allow.
• Everyone has a purpose in life … a unique gift or special talent to give to others. And when we blend this unique talent with service to others, we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals.
• If we stop the circulation of money — if our only intention is to hold on to our money and hoard it — since it is life energy, we will stop its circulation back into our lives as well. In order to keep that energy coming to us, we have to keep the energy circulating. Like a river, money must keep flowing, otherwise it begins to stagnate, to clog, to suffocate and strangle its very own life force. Circulation keeps it alive and vital.
• If you want to reach a state of bliss, make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved of and the need to judge.
• At any given time, the universe is giving you the best result possible.
• There are no accidents… there is only some purpose that we haven’t yet understood.
• Every person is a God in embryo. Its only desire is to be born.
• We are the universe pretending to be individuals.
• You are consciousness itself, both as it manifests in the material world, and as it lies in unmanifested in your being.
• Life is a cosmic game of hide and seek in which we lose ourselves to find ourselves.
• When you 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… Your true Self, which is your spirit, your soul, is completely free of those things. It is immune to criticism, it is unfearful of any challenge, and it feels beneath no one.
• The ego is your self-image; it is your social mask; it is the role you are playing. Your social mask thrives on approval. It wants control, and it is sustained by power, because it lives in fear.
• Quotes on Wisdom Trove