Road to Utopia lyrics

It's a simplistic premise, but it has caught the imagination of millions of people around the world. In brief, The Secret's Ask. Believe. Receive' formula has its basis in the principle that like attracts like. "Everything that's coming into your life you are attracting into your life," says Byrne in the book. "You are the most powerful magnet in the universe... so as you think a thought, you are also attracting like thoughts to you."

Though, as an article in The Washington Post pointed out, Byrne's science is "inexact" - "When it comes to magnets, it's op­posites that attract," - the principle works like this: If you think posi­tive, those positive thoughts are sent out into the universe in the form of vibrations, and these attract positive things. Conversely, if you think neg­ative, those thoughts are similarly sent out into the universe and at­tract bad things.

So to get good things in your life, all you have to do is ask for them, be­lieve you will get them and you will get them. Want the perfect figure? Believe you'll get it and you will. Want a great house? Believe you'll get one and you will. Want a million dollars? Just believe you'll get it and you will. No work required, no tal­ent, no education, not even luck. Just positive thoughts and belief. It's so... simple.

That simplicity is why this book has sold more than 13 lakh copies in the US since its release at the end of 2006, and over 60,000 copies in India since its release here six months ago - despite the fact that, at Rs 550, The Secret is more than double the price of other bestselling self-help books such as Paulo Coelho's The Al­chemist and Robin Sharma's The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari.

"In India alone it has been on the bestseller list for over six months in the non-fiction category," says Rahul Srivastav, Indian representative of Simon and Schuster, the publishers of The Secret. "Since we are not printing the book here, the cost is higher and despite that we have made phenomenal sales. We've even sold copies of the audio book which costs almost Rs 1,000 and have been getting orders for the DVD as well."