Gary Zukav - Seat of the Soul: 25th Anniversary Edition with a Study Guide

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This book is dedicated to my parents, Morris L. Zukav and Lorene Zukav, with love, respect, and gratitude.

I am grateful for the joyful love, continual support, and endless creativity of Linda Francis, my spiritual partner since 1993 and probably long before. I am amazed frequentlythrough our tendernesses and power strugglesthat I not only love her, but I love loving her. This expanded, reenergized, and rededicated Edition carries within it the commitment that we share to creating authentic power and spiritual partnerships and to supporting people around the world to create them. Thank you, Beloved.

I first read The Seat of the Soul in 1989.

As with all books Im excited about, I had also bought copies for my friends and colleagues so everybody could be reading it at the same time. I happened to be the first to finish, which meant I had no one to discuss the book with. So, I got my hands on the Mount Shasta, California, phone directory and called Gary Zukav.

Mr. Zukav, hello, my name is Oprah. I just want to talk to you about your book and would love for you to come on my show and share your

What did you say your name was?

Oprah.

Could you spell that, please, he said.

I did. O-p-r-a-h, and the h is silent, I explained. And then I told him that I had a talk show, and had to explain what a talk show was, because Gary had been without a TV for several years. This, of course, made me even more eager to speak with him. I wanted to know how he knew what he knew. The things hed written resonated so deeply with me, and felt so true, but how did he know for sure?

The Seat of the Soul changed the way I see myself. It changed the way I view the world. It caused a profound shift in the way I conduct all my relationships, business and personal.

The book came to me at the perfect timeat a moment in my life when I was ready for and open to more. More connection. More harmony. More peace. More joy. I could sense that there was more to our existence than day-to-day experiences and the rituals of work and relationships, more to life than our five senses could hold.

The Seat of the Soul put into words what my own soul already knew and had been trying to tell me. It was such an exhilarating awakening to see affirmed in print what I hadnt discovered the language to articulate myself. When I first read the words multisensory perception, I felt as though Gary had touched a nerve. In fact, the book felt like one great multisensory explosion. Everywhere I looked after reading it, I saw and experienced life in a new light.

Garys book was one aha moment after another, all steering me in the direction of true north. My favorite insight: When the personality comes fully to serve the energy of its soul, that is authentic empowerment.

Its no big secret that I have a big personality. Ive been using it to my advantage since the third grade. But using that personality to serve my souland making sure the two were alignedchanged the way I did everything. I suddenly recognized all the times Id gotten off track by letting my personality rule. I started to notice that the degree to which I ever felt unhappiness, discomfort, or despair was in direct proportion to how far I let myself stray from the seat of my soul.

The chapter that stirred me most was the one about intention. These words became my living creed: Every action, thought, and feeling is motivated by an intention, and that intention is a cause that exists as one with an effect. If we participate in the cause, it is not possible for us not to participate in the effect. In this most profound way we are held responsible for our every action, thought, and feeling, which is to say, for our every intention. Those words changed my life.

Prior to reading The Seat of the Soul, I suffered from the disease to please. Like millions of people, most of them women, I was a slave to the needs, wants, and desires of others. I would say yes when I seriously wanted to say no. I would give precious time and energy, money, giftswhatever was askedsimply to avoid the possibility of upsetting someone. I once flew from Chicago to Spain, appeared onstage for less than forty-five seconds at a friends charity benefit, then got back on a plane and flew straight to work to do my showall because I didnt know how to say no. To this day, I couldnt even tell you what the charity event was for.

This sort of thing used to happen to me a lot. My life was a whirlwind of one event after another, nonstop speaking engagements, appearances for almost anyone who asked. I wanted people to like me. And as long as I gave them what they wanted, I suppose they did.

My breakthrough was recognizing that my intention to be liked was causing all the requests. Cause and effect. If your intention is to do what other people want, they will keep asking you to do exactly that. That was an aha moment! When I changed my intention to be about doing what I wanted, what I felt was worthy of my time, the effect automatically changed.

Twenty-five years later, today, for me, moving with intentional purpose is like breathing, but I had to learn the practice from the pages of The Seat of the Soul . Gary Zukavs principle of intention fundamentally altered my every action. It even changed the consciousness of The Oprah Winfrey Show . When we first started, producers would present their ideas in a weekly pitch session, but after encountering Garys ideas from The Seat of the Soul , I created a new policy. For all the producers, I would say: State your intention for the show first. Why do you want to do it? What do you want the outcome to be?

Sometimes producerswho had to fill two hundred show slots a yearwould make up an intention just to appease me, and I would say, Nope, not a good enough reason. Even if the intention had no redeeming value other than, We just want to entertain people and get a high rating, I encouraged all of us to be clear about it. State your case with intention and purpose, and the result will follow suit.

On Gary Zukavs first appearance on my show, in 1998, we discussed the nature of the soul. That interview set my career on a new course. Bringing spirituality to daytime television was uncharted territory. Having a conversation about consciousness, responsibility, intention, and the Law of Cause and Effect was not exactly ratings-busting TV, but I told myself, If not now, when? To be honest, had I not owned and controlled the show, Garys thirty-six appearances over the years would never have happened. My producers were convinced in the beginning that television wasnt ready for a conversation about the soul.