of wisdom and an avid student of the human condition, it is not often that I am truly surprised with the revelation of new meaning about myself. But then I discovered the profound work of Chetan Parkyn, which is why I am happy to introduce this book detailing each of the 192 Life Themes. In it, Chetan leads each of us to our untold inner story. Once discovered, our Life Theme will serve as a call from our soul to wake up to the destiny we were born to fulfill.
It was my great pleasure to experience a series of three life-changing readings with Chetan in 2014, and when he pointed out my Life Theme — the theme of Contagion — it described me to a T. It made sense on so many levels and echoed the spiritual drive that has been the central purpose for my being. What was particularly amazing was the fact that he had absolutely no way of knowing the most intimate aspects of my nature, and yet he revealed many dimensions of my innermost self, working only from my birth information.
That same information — birth date, time, and place — can now guide each of us to our unique Life Themes, courtesy of this book and the remarkable exploration contained within its insightful pages. If you have read his first book, Human Design: Discover the Person You Were Born to Be, you will already be familiar with the lightbulb moments that illuminate our innermost self. It’s as if he is reading our design for life, as archived in some magical scroll at the exact time we entered this universe.
I have had the good fortune to spread my work and teachings to millions of people worldwide, first through the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series, which has sold over 500 million copies in multiple languages, and later through The Success Principles™. I have devoted my life to empowering people with the principles, strategies, and skills laid out in each of those books and demonstrating that we each have the capability to unlock our greatest potential and achieve success and happiness. I know that Chetan is dedicated to that same outcome. It makes abundant sense that if we are to be in control of our own success and personal fulfillment, then understanding our purpose, our mission, and our essence is a key component of whatever our strategy needs to be.
Prepare to recognize yourself within this invaluable guide. Because once we are led to our Life Theme, many things will make sense or slot into place. One other layer of the great mystery of life will have been stripped away.
Those of you who know me and my work will perhaps relate to this excerpt of Chetan’s portrayal of my Life Theme: “The depth of your commitment to making a contribution that benefits humanity will be either tested or enhanced by your desires.... You are the quintessential torchbearer who loves to inspire others to pay attention to assets and ideals that resonate....You delight in passing the flame of your own excitement to everyone around you...[and] expand trust, prosperity, cocreation, and all manner of potential experiences to the entire world.” Yep, that sounds like me!
My work with Chetan provided me with “chicken soup for the soul” of an entirely unique nature — my life’s purpose was suddenly decoded and laid bare, in easy-to-understand language, allowing me to come to the inescapable conclusion that my soul had provided a perfect plan for orchestrating my life’s journey, even before I was born.
As a success coach and mentor, my passion is to inspire others, show them how, and point the way. Chetan’s great gift, as a master of the Human Design system, is to guide people to the core of their innermost truth and awaken them to knowing and trusting their life purpose. I can’t recommend highly enough his work and this powerful success tool to guide your footsteps.
Having an awareness of our own Life Theme is just the beginning, though. We can also delight in reading the themes of those we love, helping us to better understand them and fully embrace their individuality. Having unequivocal acceptance of the people closest to us, and knowing that they deeply understand and accept who we are, has the potential to take our relationships to new levels of deep connection and profound fulfillment; furthermore, knowing the Life Themes of family members and business associates provides a new dimension of acceptance and positive cooperation that can only contribute to our success.
There is a saying attributed to the great philosopher Aristotle that “knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” The fact that you are reading this book means you are taking the next step on your path to greater self-knowledge and wisdom. I welcome you to the journey and celebrate your success. Now, I invite you to turn these pages and step into the greatest story ever told: the story of your life.
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
