That’s an excerpt from Deepak Chopra’s new book Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul, which I’ve read just enough of to keep on my “Must Read” list. This is compelling reading from a recognized leader in the rapidly merging fields of spirituality and health care. Being a recognized expert in both fields gives Chopra an authoritative and fascinating perspective. Much of the book focuses on what Chopra calls, “the body’s infinite capacity for change and renewal”.

Here are some other excerpts:

• Your physical body is a fiction.

• Instead of making do with the physical form you were given at birth, why not look for a breakthrough, a completely new way of approaching the body?

• Breakthroughs occur when you start thinking about a problem in a fresh new way. The biggest breakthroughs occur when you start thinking in an unbounded way. Take your eyes away from what you see in the mirror.

• From a biological point of view, there’s no reason why the body should be flawed. So start there. Having erased every outworn assumption from your mind, you are now free to entertain some breakthrough ideas that totally change the situation:

• You have been inventing your body from the day you were born, and the reason you don’t see it that way is that the process comes so naturally. It’s easy to take for granted, and that’s the problem. The flaws you see in your body today aren’t inherent. They aren’t bad news delivered by your genes or mistakes made by Nature.

Although you might, as I do, come at the topic from a somewhat different perspective, or reach different conclusions, this is an outstanding contribution to the ongoing study of how one’s understanding of soul and body has a direct influence on how one experiences health.