A road map to spiritual renewal, with the crossroads marked by a popular guide who seems to have lost his footing. In his earlier nonfiction works Chopra (Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, 1993, etc.), a medical doctor, successfully balanced medical science and intuitive healing. Ayurvedic medicine from his native India was not incompatible with Western medical technology, he proposed, as he wooed many Americans to an exploration of a body/mind connection with good health. Now based at his newly established Chopra Center for Well Being in southern California, the doctor is exploring—and stumbling over—more ephemeral areas like love. That may be because his subject is so chameleon-like, a four-letter word at the service of saints and sinners, of lusting couples, charismatic preachers, suffering artists, and self-sacrificing parents. Chopra limits his exploration to the love of romantic relationships and launches the trek from babyhood, where "I am completely loved./I am completely lovable," to the experiences between man and woman that are labeled "love." Chapters include attraction, infatuation, courtship, intimacy, surrender, passion, and ecstasy, each a stepping stone to connections with god or the cosmic spirit. The image of god is fairly flexible here but gives major weight to Shakti, the wife of Shiva, as the representative of "cosmic passion." Along the way are thoughts about courtship as "shared birth," and introductions of concepts such as Dharma (unity), Karma (cause and effect), and Moksha (liberation, ascension). Included are excerpts from poetry (among them Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, the Indian Rumi and the Upanishads), checklist exercises, and limp case histories. A concluding chapter set in a New Mexican twilight is reminiscent of Carlos Castaneda's desert dialogues. "Know thyself" is the message here. Neither as direct as the Bible nor as engaging as Shakespeare, Chopra's pathway may nevertheless serve as an on-ramp for some bewildered lovers.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-517-70622-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1996
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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