Putting it all Together

This exercise will help you find a deeper understanding of and better experience with the Principle and Sutra Exercise for today (Sunday).

Go to a place where a lot of activity is taking place, such as a shopping mall. But something to eat from the food court. Sit on a bench. Close your eyes. With full awareness, taste the food, smell its aroma, and feel its texture. While keeping your eyes closed, pay attention to all the sounds in your environment.

• What's that music in the background?
• Christmas carols?
• The theme song of a movie?
• Can you tune in to the conversaton of the people next to you?
• Can you hear scattered phrases, words?
• Do any sounds strike you as attractive, or draw your attention more than others?

Now put your awareness in your body, feel everything around you. The hardness or softness of the bench or sofa - is it wood, or metal, or fabric?

Now open your eyes and observe the scene around you, the people walking, the colors, the shops, the items in the windows, and the art galleries.

Now close your eyes and in your imagination note once again what you have experienced - the tastes, the smells, the textures, the colors and the objects you saw, the sounds you heard. Now pick an item from each of your sensory experiences. An example of these might include the following:

• strawberry ice cream on your tongue
• the smell of baking bread
• the touch of craggy rocks under your feet
• a beautiful painting of the sun setting over the hills
• Christmas carols
• theme song from the James Bond movie Goldfinger

Now tell yourself that all these sounds, smells, textures, and tastes are part of a story. Ask yourself what the story is. Ask your nonlocal self to reveal the story to you. Now let go and assume that your nonlocal self will provide the answer in the form of a synchronistic experience.

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Chopra goes on to say:

The exercise above is an actual example of an experience I had at a shopping mall during Christmastime. One year later I was in Jamaica. I had taken a drive into the countryside. I saw a scene very similar to the picture in the painting - a beautiful sunset over a hill by the ocean. Upon inquiry I learned that this place was called Strawberry Hill and the James Bond movie Goldfinger had been shot here. There was a beautiful hotel on Strawberry Hill. I decided to go inside. They had a luxurious spa. The spa director was delited to meet me, and he told me that he had been looking for me for the last several weeks because he wanted advice on Ayurvedic therapies. We ended up talking about a mutual collaboration.

Several years later I also met the owner of the hotel, who was a record company executive. His wife had an illness for which she consulted me, and we became close friends. He helped me with great advice when I produced my first music CD with healing meditations.