JACK CANFIELD
IN 1979, AT AGE twenty-seven, I had the good fortune to have a reading with a Shadow-Reader (Chayyashastri) in Mumbai, India. My life was at a crisis point; everything I had done until that moment no longer made sense to me. The kind savant told me many things about my life, past, present, and future, and the quality of what he related to me resonated so deeply that it changed my life forever.
Until then, I had been a mechanical engineer, but he told me I was going to do the same work as he did: reintroducing people to the lives they had forgotten. He instructed me to get ready for a new system to come into my life. I would write books that would introduce this system to the whole world, changing people’s lives forever. Within a week of having my “shadow reading,” I was introduced to palm reading by a very accomplished Indian gentleman. After a short illustration of all the features in hands, he insisted, “now practice!” And so my journey of reading for people commenced. In the following years, I experimented with all the wisdom traditions I could find, always anticipating finding “the system” that had been foretold.
It became apparent, when I found it in 1993, that the system was Human Design. Yet I had to wait till 2009, a full thirty years after that 1979 reading, for my first book to be published, Human Design: Discover the Person You Were Born to Be. A few years later followed the second book, The Book of Lines: A 21st Century View of the IChing, the Chinese Book of Changes, and now The Book of Destinies is the third book.
The 192 Life Themes in this book are drawn from dozens of writes and rewrites over twenty years with my life partner and coauthor, Carola Eastwood. This work has been refined from giving thousands of personal and partnership readings, along with intense study, periods of deep meditation, and moments of pure insight.
Just as a fine wine takes many years to mature and each sip is worth savoring, so I would recommend that you take in your Life Theme one sip at a time. You are not here by chance. There are no mistakes in the themes for this Universe. Let your Life Theme be a guide for you. — CHETAN PARKYN
WHEN I WAS NINETEEN, I lost my first child and developed a burning desire to find meaning in my life. As I stood on a cliff top one summer night and heard the lyrics of George Harrison’s song “My Sweet Lord” wafting through a nearby open window, a stillness came over me, and I prayed. Miraculously, my prayer was answered and I had a full spiritual awakening right into the heart of God, where I remained, in a state of indescribable bliss, for three days.
Filled with a desire to teach others about awakening into soul awareness, I began studying the world’s religions and ancient wisdom traditions. When I first discovered astrology I was amazed by its accuracy. After years of study, I became a professional astrological consultant, columnist, and teacher.
That, along with training in counseling psychology, became the foundation upon which I built a private practice. I loved my work and continually studied new modalities, sensing there was something more that could be profoundly instrumental in helping my clients. I just didn’t know what that something might be.
In 1998, I was introduced to Human Design, and I intuitively knew it was what I had been searching for. I was both dismayed and delighted to learn a simple truth about how my Human Design worked — dismayed because it had taken me so many years to learn this but delighted because now I had the key to relationship success.
My pursuit of learning Human Design also led me to meet my soul mate, Chetan, when I traveled to San Francisco to attend his class! As if orchestrated from a realm beyond our everyday awareness, our lives came together, not only into the soul-mate relationship I had long desired but also into a working partnership that has spanned almost two decades as we have cocreated a method to bring Human Design, and now the 192 Life Themes, to the world in an easy-to-understand way and help readers pursue a more enlightened and fulfilling life.
This book is written for you, our readers, and it is my heart-filled wish that you hear the song of your soul as you read about your Life Theme in the pages that follow. — CAROLA EASTWOOD
The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.
— FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov
HAVE YOU EVER ASKED YOURSELF what is your life purpose? Have you considered what you are doing here and whether you are on the right track to being fulfilled?
Some believe that there’s no real purpose to our lives. We are simply part of a random process, a relentless spawning of groups of cells continuously reproducing themselves only to march to their inevitable doom.
Others believe we were created by a God whose only interest is discovering if we can be “good enough” to be accepted into his kingdom and who will cast us into everlasting, heinous torture if we fail to make the grade. And we only get one lifetime to get it right.
In either of these two viewpoints, the goal of life is not fulfillment. In the former, there is no purpose, and in the latter, one must die before hoping to find fulfillment.
Then, others believe we have thousands of lifetimes to slowly evolve through many layers of consciousness, with no way of expediting this journey. Through eons, we create karma that has to be cleared, and we can be stuck in an endless progression of lifetimes in which we are helpless because it is all “in the hands of God.” In this perspective, perhaps fulfillment can be reached, but we are powerless to ensure it. And it is going to take a very, very long time.
Yet social and biological science have shown that the one consistent driving force of all beings is toward “more life.” For us, that means more experiences and more pleasure, all leading toward a greater sense of fulfillment.
I am reminded of a time when I had recently concluded driving an exhausting overland bus trip from London, England, to Kathmandu, Nepal.
On an evening under a powerful full moon, I was having dinner with a Swiss couple in Kathmandu when we noticed an orange-robed sadhu standing in the doorway. In India, Nepal, and some other countries, there is an ancient tradition of spiritual seekers who let go of all earthly possessions and travel, mostly on foot, throughout the lands, gaining spiritual knowledge and experience. They are called sadhus, and they often travel dressed in orange robes and carrying a begging bowl and a walking stick. This sadhu was friends with my dinner companions, and he was immediately invited to join us for a cup of tea.
It quickly became clear to me that this sadhu had studied life in depth. He had great levels of insight and wisdom as he engaged in discussion with my Swiss friends, telling them all sorts of things about themselves and their lives. For ages, he talked with them, completely ignoring my presence.
It was fascinating, but in my impatience, I interrupted him and asked if he would say something about me. Turning my way, and looking briefly at me, he announced, “Full Moon Birthday!” Then he turned back to my friends and carried on where he’d left off.
He was right, of course. I had been born under a full moon.
Another age seemed to pass while he continued describing all sorts of wonders and mysteries to my friends about their past, present, and future lives, and again, I felt completely left out of the picture.
Finally, in exasperation, I interrupted the sadhu again and insisted he tell me something else about me, and again, he turned to me, looked me squarely in my eyes, and announced: “There are many lifetimes, Baba. This lifetime is the most important!”
I have to say that this single statement reawakened my inner