Good concepts badly presented... Review on The Power Of Your Subconscious Mind - Dr. Joseph Murphy

The human brain is beyond our comprehension. There have been so many attempts to understand it all through the ages...right from the Bhagavat Geeta that states '' Your soul is the traveller, your body the chariot and your mind, the one holding the reins of the chariot'', to the Bible which says '' If you pray with a complete belief that you will be answered, answered you will be'', to the legions of scientists who keep flushing out theories after theories about the brain and how it works.

What do all these things have in common? for starters, none is definitive beyond a point..and well, I guess they cant be - if anything is infinite, it cant be measured, so also is the case of the mind i'd say. Im so addictive to it, ever since my school days when I had spend quite an applaudable bit of time and energy after two things.. lucid dreaming and a girl..well, I wasnt able to make creditable progress in either - lucid dreaming, well I sure did have a few of them, though to date I wonder if it was really whats called lucid The girl, well, sure she talked to me, but that was the most I could get her to be interested in me :-)

So I was really interested when I saw this book and bought it...i had already heard about Dr. Joseph Murphy and the guy seemed genuine to me. But I was disappointed with the book.

Let me try to sum up the book for you. All of us are acquainted with the three states of the mind - the conscious, the unconscious and the subconscious. This book attempts to reveal the power of the latter. It opens well, kindling our curiosity and stating samples, but by the time you complete the book, you realise its still doing the same - kindling our curiosity and stating samples. It rarely goes beyond that. Thats a pity. The essence of the book can be summed up as a single sentence - The author states that if you start believing in something and start stating it over and over again in ur conscious mind, then ur subconscious will take over and make it happen.

Whether that is possible or not is a question for another day. The opinions might vary and every person is free to think what he or she wants. Im not one to question the credibility of Dr Joseph Murphy. He has more followers and admirers than anyone I have known who has delved so deep into the unknown area of the subconscious. But he could have done better with the presentation and structure of the book. For one thing, the over-cited examples slowly start to give a bad taste in ur mouth. And there are no attempts made to understand why or how the subconscious can make things like that possible, if it can. Its only stated that it can - to hell with the rest.

The author keeps on edging us to talk to your subconscious, tell it what it is that you want, how desperately u want it..and then leave the rest to the arcane forces of the subconscious..He says that it will soon be revealed that you will get exactly what you wanted, exactly how you wanted.

Agreed, the book has some fine thoughts. There are instances that will really set u thinking. But they are so few and far between, you will find it too taxing to reach them wading through all the weedish writings surrounding them. There are numerous refereneces to sayings from the Bible and the author makes a fine attempt in explaining how these sayings are actually referring to the subconscious. Better packaged and lesser samples - it might have made a good read.

Actually I understood my mistake only after bringing the book home, in my enthusiasm of purchasing the book I hadnt noted the two words in its front page - SELF HELP. Now I would never have bought a book on the mysteries of the mind if it has been termed as a self help book. I understood then itself that the book would be full of encouraging phrases and crap that would make my day miserable.I usually steer clear of these self proclaimed self help books from the time I once read one and got inspired to try out the art of 'throwing ones hat over the wall to climb the wall'. My book stated that if the wall is too tall and u cant make urself climb it , throw ur hat over and then u will be forced to find a way to climb it in order to get the hat back. Case in point, I have been trying to clean my room for ages, since I couldnt make myself do it I 'threw my hat over the wall'- asked some distinguished guests over for dinner, thinking that would force me to clean up. Well there they came and there my room was, as dingy as ever. Sheepishly I took them out to the hotel... Since then I have developed a strong aversion for self help books. I'd rather not throw my hat over the wall, even if I dont scale the wall, i'd at least have the hat on my head.

So keep ur hat on ur head. This book aint worth climbing the wall for.

Honestly...I tried talking to my subconscious, asking it to like this book...until it asked me to shut up.