Da Vinci Decoded: Discovering the Spiritual Secrets of Leonardo's Seven Principles

Da Vinci Decoded: Discovering the Spiritual Secrets of Leonardo's Seven Principles

Author Michael Gelb ignited the current fascination with all things Da Vinci with his runaway bestseller, How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day. Just as that book showed readers how to use the seven Da Vincian principles to develop their creative potential, his new book, Da Vinci Decoded, will help you use the same principles to cultivate your spiritual potential. Wonder. Appreciation. Awareness. Wholeness…In the Western world of the fifteenth century, these personal qualities were all boldly embodied in one extraordinary man. From art to botany, anatomy to mechanics, Da Vinci was a profoundly original thinker fully in tune with the world of man and nature, and with the divine spirit that bridges the two. In this bold new guide to awakening the soul, Michael Gelb draws on Leonardo’s writings, inventions, and works of art to show how you, too, can practice the seven essential principles by which Leonardo lived and worked: Filled with practical exercises that will help you put each of the seven principles into use, a series of reflective questions designed for self-assessment, and inspirational sayings drawn from the world’s great wisdom traditions, Da Vinci Decoded offers a wide range of tools to use in your spiritual quest. Now you can let Leonardo and this book be your personal guides to creating your own personal spiritual renaissance today. Author Michael Gelb ignited the current fascination with all things Da Vinci with his runaway bestseller, How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day. Just as that book showed readers how to use the seven Da Vincian principles to develop their creative potential, his new book, Da Vinci Decoded, will help you use the same principles to cultivate your spiritual potential. Wonder. Appreciation. Awareness. Wholeness...In the Western world of the fifteenth century, these personal qualities were all boldly embodied in one extraordinary man. From art to botany, anatomy to mechanics, Da Vinci was a profoundly original thinker fully in tune with the world of man and nature, and with the divine spirit that bridges the two. In this bold new guide to awakening the soul, Michael Gelb draws on Leonardo's writings, inventions, and works of art to show how you, too, can practice the seven essential principles by which Leonardo lived and worked: Filled with practical exercises that will help you put each of the seven principles into use, a series of reflective questions designed for self-assessment, and inspirational sayings drawn from the world's great wisdom traditions, Da Vinci Decoded offers a wide range of tools to use in your spiritual quest. Now you can let Leonardo and this book be your personal guides to creating your own personal spiritual renaissance today. Michael J. Gelb is a world-renowned innovator in the fields of creative thinking, accelerated learning, and leadership development. His clients include Dupont, Merck, Microsoft, and Nike. He is the author of How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day and its companion volume, The “How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci” Workbook. He lives in Edgewater, New Jersey. Chapter Four How to Find the Grail It Is Within You “What the undeveloped man seeks is outside, what the advanced man seeks is within himself.” –Confucius, Analects “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, lo here! Or, lo there! For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” –Christianity, Luke 17:20—21 “He is seated in the hearts of all.” –Hinduism, Bhagavad Gita “On God’s own nature has been molded man’s.” –Islam, Hadith “God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him.” –Judaism, Genesis 1:27 “His light is in every heart.” –Sikhism, Guru Nanak In Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code the protagonists, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon and French cryptologist Sophie Neveu, find themselves caught up in a whirlwind of intrigue and danger as they seek to track down the Holy Grail and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. While evading Paris’s top police detective and a fanatical, murderous albino sent by Opus Dei, they follow clues written in blood and invisible ink provided by Sophie’s murdered grandfather, who served dual roles as curator at the Louvre and grand master of the Priory of Sion. After decoding an anagram that guides them to clues hidden behind the Mona Lisa, they are eventually led to a vault in a private bank, where they find the special cipher box–supposedly designed by none other than Leonardo da Vinci–that holds the secret of the Grail. But as Joseph Campbell writes in The Power of Myth , “The Grail . . . is that which is attained and realized by people who have lived their own lives. The Grail represents the fulfillment of the highest spiritual potentialities of the human consciousness.” Leonardo may actually have designed a cryptex, or cipher box, like the one described in The Da Vinci