Mind Body & Spirituality with emphasis on Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Joe Vitale, Bob Proctor and Rhonda Byrne of The Secret. Does your body make things happen, or is it your mind? Many have formed considerable debates around this topic, but few have touched upon it as frequently as Dr. Deepak Chopra, and Dr. Joe Vitale, Bob Proctor and Rhonda Byrne of The Secret. But is there a way to determine who's right from these two groups?
Chopra, a board-certified doctor specializing in endocrinology, tends to give more emphasis to the mind & body connection in his teachings. Early in his career, Deepak Chopra books focused on the ways that the mind could heal the body through spirituality and mind-body medicine. This mind-body-spirit connection was purported to have the ability to heal conditions including cancer and AIDS. In addition, his techniques are prescribed for mind-healing through meditative processes called Vedanta.
Meanwhile Vitale, Proctor and Byrne have pushed a different sort of spiritual message that the "Universe" is responsible for bringing things to the body that the mind has visualized. They term this the "Law of Attraction," which is the center of The Secret book and DVD. In somewhat of an opposition to motivational speaker Tony Robbins' philosophy of taking action in order to achieve, The Secret seems to give unlimited power to an individual who uses their ability for focused, positive thinking to visual wealth, health and happiness, among other things.
In a 2008 seminar called, The Secret to Your Best Year Ever in San Diego, Calif., Tony Robbins' seminar followed one from some motivational speakers of The Secret. In it, he pointed out some items that he disputed about the motivational benefits of The Secret, including:
o Changing the title of the theory to "A Secret" rather than "The Secret" due to his belief that there are many secrets to achieving success;
o The thought of thinking or believing in something and having the universe deliver it to you is a lazy view of how things work; and
o State of mind, rather than focus, is what drives people to take action and what enables them to attract their desires.
The Secret claims to have taken much of its historical basis from New Thought, a kin to Unity Christianity which is said to have developed in the late 19th century. Full of cryptic symbols and images of repression, The Secret is advertised as something that civilization wasn't meant to know. In the movie, it is shown as being hidden, buried and shunned as a covetable item.
Chopra, though credited with starting the "New Thought Movement" in the United States, has explored his philosophy of success as a connection between mind, body and spirit that is within oneself. Books such as 7 Spiritual Laws of Success and Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire focus on how meditation can bring people to a deeper reference point within themselves, where they experience greater emotions and heightened knowledge.
Since both philosophies depend upon the focus and determination of a person's inner workings, is there a way to determine which force has truly done the work? Is it a viable experiment to sit two people side by side while one meditates and the other focuses on positive thoughts until one person gets what they truly want? Of course, it's impossible to measure a number of factors that go into an experiment of this type, such as spirituality, positivity and even desire.
So no matter how lazy, ineffective, emotional or biased one person claims a particular philosophy to be, the simple answer is that tools for success may vary from one person to another. There's only one way to find out: try it for yourself.
Olu Jatto