The Seat of the Soul - Gary Zukav

Started reading this book because Oprah had said something along the lines of this book being the second most impt book next to the Bible, to her.

This book is essentially a New Age spiritualism book, and I feel that its ideas have a lot of similarities with Buddhism concepts. in a nutshell, the key idea here is that humans' end goal is to evolve beyond the five-sensory world into a more spiritual one, which can only be possible if one connects more deeply with one's soul.

I think that many of the concepts that the author talks about do contradict each other somewhat, and he tends to talk in very absolute terms, which makes me feel uncomfortable as I'm really not sure where he is getting his ideas from or on what basis he derives them.

Anyway, I do find certain concepts rather appealing, and I've put down the top three here.

Karma being generated with intention. I intuitively am drawn to the idea of karma, and that there is ultimately a chain effect to the things that we do. The author goes further and says that mere thought is sufficient to generate good and bad karma. Hence we need to be careful what kind of thoughts we seed and cultivate. This certainly sounds really Buddhist. While I'm not sure whether mere thought itself immediately creates karma, I do think that thoughts ultimately seep into one's personality; it is difficult to be a person of good character if one predominantly thinks badly of other people.

Addictions in life. I think this also stems from the Buddhist concept of "fixation". We are often addicted to all kinds of wants that we crave to fulfill, esp material ones. These cravings are bottomless pits, although I do think that there is some joy to be had in succumbing to them once in a while :p I'm not ready to lead an ascetic life. Notwithstanding, I do think that I need to guard against having too much of them - they do point to deeper issues that need to be thought through and addressed.

Power. I think instinctively, I often find myself drawn to "power" in the aggressive and ostentatious way (think macho movies, Vin Diesel, fast cars, etc). However, the true power that the book talks about is a different kind: an alignment with love, clarity, understanding, compassion, and being strong enough that one needs not harm other beings to demonstrate one's "power". Based on my interpretation, it seems to be an inner peace, acceptance and awareness of things. I intuitively seem to understand that this "authentic power" means, but I'm unable to put it into words properly. I also think that this authentic form of power goes against the more traditional and "masculinised" form of power. I will need time to understand this point much better, as I observe myself in various situations and how I react to issues.