January 31, 2000
Prolific author Chopra (The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Creating Health, etc.) explores the different ways people apprehend God. Chopra contends that there are seven responses to God and that "the brain cannot register a deity outside the list of seven responses." Chopra's seven include: fight or flight (a God who can save us from danger), reactive (a rule-giving God), restful awareness (a God who brings tranquility out of chaos), intuitive (a good and forgiving God), creative (God as Creator), visionary (God as exalted) and sacred (God as the source of everything). Different personalities envision God differently, says Chopra; a go-getter determined to shape his own destiny will imagine a creative God, whereas someone who feels she is just barely getting through the day will have the stage-one "fight or flight" response, envisioning a God who can rescue her. For Chopra, these seven ascending stages are normative; someone who has reached stage seven is more in tune with God than someone stuck at stage one. (Readers from law-based religions may feel dismayed that Chopra so devalues their "stage two" conception of God.) To help spiritual pilgrims reach the seventh stage, Chopra recommends that they see themselves and others "in the light," forgive themselves when they err and seek out the sacred and the unknown. Like most theories that claim to be all-encompassing, Chopra's scheme is often reductive, but this will nonetheless be a worthwhile addition to the spiritual seeker's library.
December 1, 1999
Chopra takes readers on the ultimate trip beyond the quantum world into a virtual reality where people can become cocreators with God. Well, a few people can. Everyone else is moving between the first six stages of godly experience, an instinctual searching that Chopra says humans are programmed to undertake. As usual, Chopra adopts a tone that alternates between philosophical and scientific, mixing inspirational anecdotes with forays into quantum physics. Stories about Chopra's cousin in India alternate with information about photons and a quantum world in which nothing is real. Many readers, especially those not scientifically inclined, may loose their way in the quantum wilderness, though Chopra gamely tries to explain the physics in many different ways. All of this prepares the soil for the author's extended discussion of what he calls the seven stages of knowing God: Protector, Almighty, God of Peace, Redeemer, Creator, God of Miracles, Pure Being. The earliest stages, unflattering ones to God, seem to be identified with the God of the Bible, though Chopra takes care to point out that he is not comparing religions. More enlightened perceptions of God--further along in the seven stages--result in the potential for miracles and ultimate awareness. Those who prefer their New Age inspiration in more digestible form, however, may lose their appetite long before reaching the seventh stage, but Chopra's status as a spiritual guru will prompt heavy media coverage, which in turn will spur demand for the book. ((Reviewed December 1, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)
October 15, 1999
Chopra on our "instinct" for God.
Copyright 1999 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.