The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [89]
• If timelessness has no relationship to your being, it will take work and determination to get what you want. You have no power over time. Instead of playing with it, you are subject to its inexorable march.
From these three broad categories one can project three different belief systems. Consider which one best applies to you.
1. I am pressed for time. There aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish everything I want. Other people make a lot of demands on my time, and it’s all I can do to keep everything in balance. What I’ve gotten in life I’ve earned through hard work and determination. As far as I know, this is the road to success.
2. I consider myself pretty lucky. I’ve gotten to do a lot of the things I’ve always wanted to do. Although my life is busy, I find a way to make enough time for myself. Every once in a while things just fall into place on their own. Deep down, I expect my wishes to come true, but I am okay if they don’t.
3. I believe that the universe brings you whatever you need. Certainly that’s true in my life. I’m amazed to find that my every thought brings some response. If I don’t get what I want, I realize that something inside me is blocking it. I spend time working on my inner awareness far more than struggling with outside forces.
These are just snapshots of Sankalpa, but most people fall into one of these categories. They represent, again in a very general way, three stages of personal evolution. It’s useful to know that they exist, for many people would find it hard to believe that there is any reality other than the first one, in which hard work and determination are the only keys to getting what you want.
Once you gain even a hint that wishes can come true without so much struggle, you can resolve to move to a new stage of growth. Growth is accomplished by awareness, yet you can resolve today to change your relationship to time:
I will let time unfold for me.
I will keep in mind that there’s always enough time.
I will follow my own rhythm.
I will not misuse time by procrastination and delay.
I will not fear what time brings in the future.
I will not regret what time brought in the past.
I will stop racing against the clock.
Try to adopt just one of these resolves today and see how it changes your reality. Time isn’t demanding, although we all act as if the clock rules our existence (or if it doesn’t, we still keep a close watch on it). Time is meant to unfold according to your needs and wants. It will start to do that only if you give up the opposite belief—that time is in charge.
Secret #13
YOU ARE TRULY FREE WHEN YOU ARE NOT A PERSON
SEVERAL YEARS AGO IN A SMALL VILLAGE outside New Delhi, I was sitting in a small, stuffy room with a very old man and a young priest. The priest sat on the floor swaying back and forth as he recited words inked on bark sheets that looked ancient. I listened, having no idea what the priest was intoning. He was from the far south and his language, Tamil, was foreign to me. But I knew he was telling me the story of my life, past and future. I wondered how I got roped into this and began to squirm.
It had taken strong persuasion from an old friend to get me to the small room. “It’s not just Jyotish, it’s much more amazing,” he coaxed. Indian astrology is called Jyotish, and it goes back thousands of years. Visiting your family astrologer is common practice everywhere in India, where people plan weddings, births, and even routine business transactions around their astrological charts (Indira Gandhi was a famous example of someone who followed Jyotish), but modern times have led to a fading away of tradition. I had chronically avoided any brushes with Jyotish, being a child of modern India and later a working doctor in the West.
But my friend prevailed, and I had to admit that I was curious about what was going to happen. The young priest, dressed in a wrapped skirt with bare