The Law of Success

This book gives seven basic principles including the law of giving and the law of cause and effect that define the way people should live and the spiritual correlations that help people grow.

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
Fans of The Secret argue that the ex­amples given by the book's critics of the harm that the Ask. Believe. Re­ceive' formula can do are extreme. The book is inspirational, they say. This book motivates them to work to­wards their goals with the belief that the goals can be achieved.

"Rhonda Byrne has not given a key to life per se," says practicing Buddhist Varuna Mahajan. "Instead, she has given people a good founda­tion from which they can move for­ward."

If that's really the case, then The Secret serves the-same purpose as books like Jack Canfield's Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Paulo Coel­ho's The Alchemist, Deepak Chopra's The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Spencer Johnson's Who Moved My Cheese, Robin Sharma's The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and Mitch Al­boin's Tuesdays With Morrie, all of which were and continue to be high­ly influential when they were pub­lished. While they provide 'keys' to life and living, they are seen as guides, not books of rules.

At the core of The Alchemist (1988) is the philosophy that if you really want something to happen very bad­ly, the universe will conspire to make it happen.

"It's a book that really changed my perspective. It showed me that the magic is actually inside me and all I had to-do was to follow myselling books in history. Motivational speaker Jack Can-field's Chicken Soup series, which was first published in 1993, has been a great source for inspiration for many people.

"The first couple of books in the Chicken Soup series helped people realise that people all over the world have problems; that they are not the only ones to suffer," says Rashmi Se­hgal. No wonder that the series stayed on the top of the New York Times bestseller lists for years.

Deepak Chopra's The Seven Spiri­tual Laws of Success. A Practical Guide to the Fulfilment of Your Dreams (1994) provided readers with seven basic principles of life, includ­ing the law of giving and law of cause and effect, and Robin Shar­ma's The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari (2003), showed readers how to strike a balance between the Eastern and the Western philosophies to live with greater courage, joy and under­standing.

While some self-help books speak of philosophies that can be applied to day-to-day life, such as Tuesdays with Morrie, where the author tours about embracing life and living it to its fullest, others like Who Moved My Cheese by DR SPENCER are about how to make changes in your life.Both these books have often led people to make inspired decisions.