New York Times bestselling author Deepak Chopra shares the spiritual practices that will help us to uncover the true secrets of joy in the most difficult times. Happiness is something everyone desires. Yet how to find happiness—or even if we deserve to—remains a mystery. The goal of life is the expansion of happiness, but today’s society reinforces the belief that fulfillment comes from achieving success, wealth, and good relationships. Chopra tells us that the opposite is true: All success in life is the by-product of happiness, not the cause. In this book, Chopra shows us seven keys for a life based on a sense of your “true self” lying beyond the ebb and flow of daily living. Simple daily exercises can lead to eliminating the root causes of unhappiness and help you to: • Recognize real happiness and not settle for less • Find true self-esteem, which doesn’t depend on anything outside you • Return to the state of joy, peace, and spontaneous fulfillment that is your natural birthright • Focus on the present and learn to live it fully • Experience enlightenment After all avenues to happiness have been explored, only one path is left: the journey to enlightenment. In The Ultimate Happiness Prescription, we are taken on an inspiring journey to learn the secrets for living mindfully and with effortless spontaneity for the true self, the only place untouched by trouble and misfortune. “Deepak is both my medical doctor and my spiritual mentor. There is no one whose advice I prize more highly. Over the years, he has been a source of immense happiness for me, and now, with The Ultimate Happiness Prescription , he can be one for you as well.” —Wayne Dyer Deepak Chopra, MD, founder of the Chopra Foundation and Chopra Global, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a clinical professor of family medicine and public health at the University of California, San Diego, and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of more than ninety books translated into forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. Time magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.” Your first and most reliable guide to happiness is your body. The body is designed to support the mind, and working together they create the state known as happiness. When you're deciding whether or not to act, ask your body, "How do you feel about this?" If your body sends back a signal of physical or emotional distress, reconsider the action. If your body sends a signal of comfort and eagerness, proceed. Together, mind and body form a single field. It is artificial to separate them as we usually do. Every experience has a physical component. If you're hungry, the mind and stomach are hungry together. If you have an incredible spiritual experience, your heart and liver cells share in it. You cannot have a single thought, sensation, or feeling without your body responding. The first key to happiness tells us that by being aware of your body, you are connecting to the underlying field of infinite possibilities. Why do mind, body, and spirit feel separate when they are not? Because of lack of awareness. Awareness has tremendous power. It tunes into every cell. It regulates the body's countless interactions. Awareness is the invisible, silent agent that lets your body know what your mind is thinking, and at the same time it sends feedback from the body so that the mind feels supported and understood. Ideally, when you experience being loved, your mind will grasp that you are loved, your cells will be nourished by that love, and your soul will rejoice that you have reached deep enough to find the source of love. Every good thing in life saturates your whole being. When mind, body, and spirit are in harmony, happiness is the natural result. Signs of the absence of harmony, on the other hand, are discomfort, pain, depression, anxiety, and illness in general. Unhappiness is a form of feedback. It signals that disharmony has entered the field somewhere— either in mind, body, or spirit. Awareness has become disconnected. Only when we look at the situation in this holistic way can we link health, wholeness, and holiness, for all three share the same root word, and all three share the same state of harmony or disharmony. You may have heard the saying "The issues are in the tissues." This refers to the fact that psychological issues such as anger, depression, neurosis, hostility, and free-floating anxiety are not simply psychological. They have a correlate in the brain, and through the central nervous system the brain makes every cell and tissue in your body aware that you have an issue. The entire field quivers at the slightest twinge of pain or pleasure. In other words, the field is aware. When you consciously pay attention to what your body is telling you, this awareness is tremendously increased. Awareness isn't
