THE VOICE WITHIN

In his ground-breaking book The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, lifestyle guru and bestselling author Deepak Chopra offers his perspectives on attaining success.

His central argument is that worthwhile and lasting success is not the result of exacting plans or one-dimensiol, driving ambition. Rather, it is the outcome of an understanding of our true ture and learning to live in harmony with tural law.

Chopra writes of the Law of Least Effort thus:  

“The fourth spiritual law of success, the Law of Least Effort, is based on the fact that ture’s intelligence functions with effortless ease, with carefreeness, harmony, and love. This is the principle of ‘Do less, and accomplish more’.

If we observe ture at work, we see that the least effort is expended. Grass doesn’t try to grow; it just grows. Fish don’t try to swim; they just swim. This is their intrinsic ture. It is the ture of the sun to shine. And it is human ture to make our dreams manifest into physical form — easily and effortlessly.

What is commonly called a “miracle” is actually an expression of the Law of Least Effort.

Least effort is expended when our actions are motivated by love, because ture is held together by the energy of love. When we seek power and control over other people, we spend energy in a wasteful way. When we seek money for persol gain only, we cut off the flow of energy to ourselves, and interfere with the expression of ture’s intelligence.

We waste our energy chasing the illusion of happiness, instead of enjoying happiness in the moment. Attention to the whims of the ego consumes the greatest amount of energy.

But when our interl reference point is our spirit, our actions are motivated by love, and there is no waste of energy. Our energy multiplies, and the surplus energy we gather can be channeled to create anything we want, including unlimited wealth.

When we harness the power of harmony and love, we use our energy creatively for the experience of affluence and evolution.

How can you put the Law of Least Effort into action? There are three things you can do.

The first thing is to accept people, situations, and events as they are, not as you wish they were, in this moment. This moment is as it should be, because it took the entire universe to make this moment. When you struggle against this moment, you struggle against the entire universe. You can intend for things to be different in the future, but in this moment, accept things as they are.

The second thing is to take responsibility for your situation and for all the events you see as problems. This means not blaming anyone or anything for your situation, including yourself. Responsibility means the ability to have a creative response to the situation as it is now.

All problems contain the seeds of opportunity, and this awareness allows you to take the moment and transform it into a better situation. Every tormentor or tyrant becomes your teacher. The relationships you have attracted in your life are precisely the ones you need at this moment; there is a hidden meaning behind all events that is serving your own evolution.

A third way to put the Law of Least Effort into action is to practice defenselessnes. This means relinquishing the need to convince others of your point of view. By doing this, you gain access to enormous amounts of energy that have previously been wasted.

When you have no point to defend, you stop fighting and resisting, and you can fully experience the present, which is a gift. In this joyful, simple freedom, you will know that what you want is available to you whenever you want it, because your want is coming from a state of happiness, not from a state of anxiety and fear.

The Law of Least Effort assures us that there is always a simple, tural path to fulfillment.”

—the harbinger