Monday, September 1, 2008

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne


After 3 days of tests we had 3 days off to relax, so I decided to spend some time reading a book “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne. The 186 pages thick secret is best suited for me, a person, who is always ready to read a book with less text on glossy sheets. So “The Secret” deals with “laws of attraction” as they have termed it. For all the depressed souls, the book tells how to motivate oneself and get onto the right track and for the already happy ones “The Secret” proves it’s method better and even if they are the same methods it goes out of its way to prove it logically using Quantum Physics!

To achieve your defined goals the book talks about 3 simple steps....
1. Believe
2. Show Attitude of Gratitude
3. Imagine from the beginning that you have what you want

To satisfy the scientific readers: Human beings are considered to be the transmission towers emitting frequencies of thoughts and then the entire universe conspires to transform these thoughts into realities, condition being that the thought has to be powerful enough. So one needs to believe the positive side of the thought and learn to show the attitude of gratitude by thanking everyone for little acts. After these steps one needs to understand that the universe is a genie and will certainly go according to the “Your wish is my command” principle.

For non scientific readers: The universe is said to be made up of energy. Energy is defined as one which is neither created nor destroyed, and has been existing since the beginning which only transforms it's state from one form to another. The author very creatively defines God in similar, rather exact same words to satisfy the non technical crowd (to help the book sell many copies obviously!)

Now the doubt arises in the 3rd step. If one starts imagining that the goal has been achieved before it actually happens and starts behaving like a winner then what’s the use of following the instructions mentioned?(Are they trying to preach the good old saying: "ignorance is bliss"?)

At one place the book asks the reader to open the book randomly whenever in a fix and read the lines on that page. This would help the reader to get the solution for his problem. Doesn’t this show that the book is full of the same repetitive text on every page?
The book again wittily takes no responsibility if its mentioned steps don’t work for the readers. It asks the readers of this category to switch over to something else if the steps mentioned don’t make them feel good about their surroundings and figure out a different course to attain their targets.
The book has different chapters dealing with different spheres of one’s life including health, wealth, relationships etc. It refers to its official website www.thesecret.tv for further information required by the people influenced by this book. The gist of the book has been written in 500 words in this post,but you need to shell out 550 INR to read between the lines.