Fritjof Capra is one of the foremost green thinkers, especially in the field of ecology and systems thinking. He is the author of many seminal books, such as the Tao of Physics, The Web of Life, The Turning Point and most recently, The Hidden Connections. He is currently teaching at Schumacher College and I was lucky enough to be able to grab him for two interviews, one about relocalisation initiatives (in particular the Transition Town Totnes project due to start this September), and one about peak oil. Unfortunately one of my kids put a chair leg through my mp3 player so I was unable to record the first one, instead taking copious notes, so any mistakes herein are entirely down to my poor note taking. The second (which I’ll post tomorrow) was filmed, so the transcript is taken directly from that.
In your latest book ‘The Hidden Connections’ you write, “creating sustainable communities is the great challenge of our times”. In relation to Totnes and the relocalisation initiative about to start here how might we start to achieve this?
This is a question that would generate different kinds of answers from different kinds of people. Some would say you need a revolution, some that you need community development and so on. I always come back to education because that is my area. It is not necessarily the best way but it is the one I am most familiar with. My answer derives from the fact that the concept of sustainability is alien to most people, and many don’t understand it. Lester Brown who devised the term 25 years ago and if later became widely known as the Brundtland definition, “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
When I first heard it I was confused by it. It set me thinking as to why I found it confusing, and I ended up thinking that it was because it is a moral exhortation to create as many opportunities for future generations as possible, yet it is an exhortation that doesn’t actually tell you how to do it. I tell people that what we need instead is an operational definition. The key to this is that we can use ecosystems as models. They are adaptive and sustainable, they support life, they recycle, they are solar powered.
In terms of creating sustainable human communities, our aim has to be to redesign them so that they don’t interfere with nature’s inherent ability to sustain life. Our first step is to understand how Nature sustains life. The second step is then to introduce these principles into design, which we call ‘eco-design, to redesign our technologies, social institutions, commerce and so on. The first step is that we have to help communities become what I call ‘eco-literate’, there is really no way round this. It needs to happen at a very early stage in a relocalisation process.
How can the concept of the Network be applied to relocalisation, beyond just linking the various local groups together?
When you study the principles and basic concepts of ecology you can see them as basic principles of all living systems. At the Centre for Ecological Literacy we have tried to turn these principles into bite sized pieces for teaching, distilling them into 6 principles of ecology. For each one we have created a symbol and photos and we have been teaching it in schools. The 6 principles are;
Networks
Nested Systems
Cycles
Flows
Development
Dynamic Balance
Networks is listed as the first principle because it is it the defining characteristic of life. Wherever there is life there are networks, be they metabolic networks, food webs, human social networks. I tried in recent years to put all of these principles into a nutshell, as they are all different ways of seeing the same thing. Nature sustains life by creating and nurturing communities. We all know what a community is, even if we don’t have it. It is something that, if we have it, we recognise it, and if we don’t have it we feel its absence. Be it English football hooligans or US inner city gangs, they are all seeking community. Community is visceral and real, and that is why I think it is central to a definition of sustainability. The experience of a living network is the experience of a living community. The network concept is important, as sustainability is the quality of a community, an individual cannot be sustainable. Creating communities is creating sustainability.
How can we ‘nudge’ communities towards self-organisation (a central element of systems thinking).
If we empower people they will self organise, it is the nature of life. If you are empowered to participate you will self organise. I worked with a business consultant called Patricia Shaw, who works as a ’systemic business consultant’. She worked with a UK company with 12 people who had a very domineering boss. The boss had to leave for 2 hours, one younger woman said something, and Patricia made a point that she had spoken. Later she spoke again Patricia said the same. Within half an hour the young woman was at the flip chart giving a presentation. What Patricia did was to observe the group and to give it gentle ‘nudges’ at different points, a subtle but very powerful skill.
Does Globalisation Have a Future?
No, not economic globalisation. It has peaked, in much the same way oil has. The current global capitalism has created a number of interconnected problems - increased poverty, alienation and pollution, destroyed communities, environmental destruction, in the human political realm we have seen diminished democracy. Within the last year we have seen a turning point in perception. The model no longer works, even within its own perameters, never mind those that you or I might use. Opinion polls in the US show that people don’t believe in it anymore. South America appears to be turning away from it as a continent.
How much faith do you have that technology can save the day?
Technology has a big part to play, but if technology could solve the problems they’d already be solved. If it was only technology that is the problem we would already be there. I drive a Toyota Prius, and if everyone in the US drove one too, the US would be self-sufficient in oil, and not need to import anything from the Middle East. Wind power and biofuels are there and ready when we decide to use them. In the supermarket the organic food costs more than the non-organic, of course it should be the other way round. This is a question of taxes and subsidies. As a scientist I believe in human creativity and human discoveries, but the problem is not a matter of technology, but one of short termist politics, vested interests, and so on. The solutions exist and make sense, sense that is clear to most people. If we feed our children good food they won’t become obese, if they grow the food too they will be healthier and more cooperative, with the added benefit that they will be building soils which will be locking up carbon… there is no downside to this…
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Interview with Deepak Chopra
For the past decade, Deepak Chopra, M.D. has been at the forefront of a major trend in holistic healing. Since the early 1980's Chopra has successfully combined his impeccable credentials as a practicing endocrinologist with his exploration of mind/body medicine. By doing so, he has dramatically influenced many in traditional medical circles and helped bring the enormous benefits of holistic medicine to the general public's attention.
Chopra created a paradigm for exploring the healing process - a model he calls Quantum Healing. He recalls, "As doctors we are taught to prescribe tranquilizers for people who are feeling anxious to promote tranquility. We give sleeping pills to people with insomnia. Quantum Healing looks past all the wonder drugs and modern technology to a natural way of healing which speaks to an integration of mind and body."
Rather than turn his back on his conventional training, he extended his practice to bring together the best of ancient wisdom and modern science. In 1984, he helped to introduce Ayurvedic medicine to the United States, and within a year he established an Ayurvedic Health Centre of Stress Management and Behavioral Medicine in Lancaster, Massachusetts. He was also the founding President of the American Association of Ayurvedic Medicine.
Since that time, he has emerged as one of the world's leading proponents of this innovative combination of Eastern and Western healing.
Chopra combines ancient mind/body wisdom with current anti-aging research to show that the effects of aging are largely preventable. By changing your perception of aging and by being aware of your body and how it processes intelligence and experience, you will change how you age.
Chopra lectures around the world making presentations to major corporations and organizations such as the World Health Organization in Geneva, the United Nations, and London's Royal Society of Medicine, as well as a number of major U.S. medical institutions.
THE INTERVIEW
Veronica: By changing one's perception of aging, we can change our age. How?
Dr. Chopra: Well, most people think that aging is fatal and scientific data shows that that's not true. People don't die of old age, they die of diseases that accompany old age, and they are preventable.
Most people think that aging is irreversible and we know that there are mechanisms even in the human machinery that allow for the reversal of aging, through correction of diet, through anti-oxidants, through removal of toxins from the body, through exercise, through yoga and breathing techniques, and through meditation. Most people believe that aging is normal but nobody defines what normal aging is. What we call normal may be the psychopathology of the average. Most people think that aging is genetic and yet if your parents lived to age 80+ that will add three years to your life.
The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years. Most people believe that aging is universal but there are biological organisms that never age. Most people believe that aging is painful and we know that pain is from diseases that are preventable, not from aging.
People have to change their concepts of aging and I am not asking them to do so based on some fanciful notion, but on scientific fact. When they change that, then their perception of aging will change and it will become clear to them to grow old and to become wiser, to become more creative, to become the springboard for creativity and affluence. Once your perception of the whole phenomenom changes, your reality will change, because reality is nothing other than your perception of it.
Veronica: You have stated that if we could effectively trigger the intention not to age, the body would carry it out automatically. Could you explain that?
Dr. Chopra: Yes, because intentions are the triggers for transformation in the body. If you want to wiggle your toes, you do it through intention. There are two components to biological information in the body, one is intention, the other is attention. So to go back to the example I gave you, to wiggle your toes. The first thing that happens is that your attention goes there and the second thing is there is an intention, so this biological information with attention and intention is what biological information is given. Awareness that acts as biological information goes to components, then an informational component, and then there's a localizing component, and that's how the body behaves.
If you can wiggle your toes with the mere flicker of an intention, why can't you reset your biological clock? The reason most people can't do it is because, first, they never thought of it and secondly, they think that certain things are easier to do than other things. For example, it is easier to wiggle the toes than reset the biological clock, but that is just a belief that is rooted in superstition. If we could understand that the human body is a network of information and energy, then we would see that the same principles apply everywhere in the body.
Veronica: That is just what I was about to say, something as profound as stopping the aging process, or actually reversing the aging process, one would think would have to be implanted at a deep level for it to work.
Dr. Chopra: No, it's the same mechanism. It's just that we have been indoctrinated into believing that some things are easier, some things are more difficult. Expectations determine outcome, always!
Veronica: You have also said that our bodies are our experiences transformed into physical expression, in other words, our bodies are the outpouring of our belief system?
Dr. Chopra: And experiences, so if you are having the experience of anxiety, your body is making adrenaline and cortisone, if you are having the experience of tranquility, your body starts making valium, if you are having the experience of exhilaration and joy, your body makes interleukins and interferons which are powerful anti-cancer drugs. So, your body is constantly converting your experiences into molecules.
Veronica: And we can change our interpretation or experience of the world at any time.
Dr. Chopra: That's right. One person's enemy is another person's best friend. My favorite food might give you a rash, etc. Every experience that we have is unique to us because at some deep level we make an interpretation of it.
Veronica: You go even further and suggest that when you see yourself in terms of timeless, deathless being, every cell awakens to a new existence.
Dr. Chopra: Because the body is the end product of intelligence and how that intelligence shapes your reality will shape the reality of the body. The body is a field of ideas and it is a field of interpretations and when you change your experience of your own identity to a spiritual being, the body expresses the physical manifestation of that spiritual reality.
Veronica: You go on to say, true immortality can be experienced here and now in this living body. It comes about when you draw the infusion of being into everything you think and do. This is the the experience of timeless mind and ageless body.
Dr. Chopra: Yes.
Veronica: Is this why it is so important to live with passion, to have a dream, a reason for living, even if that dream is only for our own joy?
Dr. Chopra: I think that is a very important component, to have passion, to have a dream, to have a purpose in life. And there are three components to that purpose, one is to find out who you really are, to discover God, the second is to serve other human beings, because we are here to do that and the third is to express your unique talents, and when you are expressing your unique talents, you lose track of time.
Veronica: Most people think of time as linear and some of us feel that there is only so much of it, and that it is continuously running out. Almost as though our entire life is like an hour glass and the sand is running through, and we don't know how much sand we have left so we'd better enjoy every single moment. This kind of thinking is further reinforced every time we are faced with the death of someone we know. How does this kind of motivation, of enjoying every moment because time is running out, and we don't have forever, compare with living joyfully without any kind of time anxiety at all, as if we really did have forever?
Dr. Chopra: The only way you can do that is when you know that part of yourself that is in fact, forever. There is a part of yourself that is not subject to change, it is the silent witness behind the scenes. That is essentially your spirit, the spirit being an abstract but real force. It is as real as gravity. It is as real as time. It is incomprehensible. It is mysterious but it is powerful and it is eternal. It is without beginning, without ending. It has no dimensionality, it's spaceless, timeless, dimensionless, eternal, forever. When you can get in touch with that part of yourself, then you will in fact see that present moment existence, even an entire lifetime is nothing other than a flicker in eternity, a parenthesis in eternity, a little flash of a firefly in the middle of the night in the context of eternity.
What happens with that knowledge, with that experience, is that you begin to experience mortality as quantified immortality, you begin to see time as quantified eternity and when you see it against the backdrop of who you really are, then the anxiety of daily existence disappears. So, one ceases to be troubled by, as well as influenced by, the trivial things of daily existence, the little hassles that create stress in most people. So, it becomes much more joyful and you realize that the present moment is as it should be, there is no other way. It is the culmination of all other moments and it is the center point of eternity. So, you pay attention to what is in every moment. And when you do that, then you realize that the presence of God is everywhere. You have only to consciously embrace it in your attention. And that's what creates joyfulness. You have to know the reality and the reality is that we are eternal.
Veronica: I suppose then that the first way of looking at life is actually unhealthy.
Dr. Chopra: Right.
Veronica: The new paradigm tells us that we are constantly making and unmaking our bodies at the quantum level which means that we are constantly unfolding hidden potential. Can you talk about this quantum level?
Dr. Chopra: If you look at anything physical, you find out that at the quantum level, it is non-physical. The body is made up of atoms and subatomic particles that are moving at lightning speed around huge empty spaces and the body gives off fluctuations of energy and information in a huge void, so essentially your body is proportionately as void as intergalactic space, made out of nothing, but the nothing is actually the source of information and energy. If you'd approach that level, then you would realize that the body is a print out and by changing the software, by influencing the programming, and by getting in touch with the program, you can create a new body anytime you want.
Veronica: How does living in the present moment contribute to agelessness?
Dr. Chopra: Living in the present moment creates the experience of eternity. It is like every drop of water in an ocean contains the flavor of the whole ocean. So too, every moment in time contains the flavor of eternity, if you could live in that moment, but most people do not live in the moment which is the only time they really have. They either live in the past or the future. If you could live in the moment, you would see the flavor of eternity and when you metabolize the experience of eternity, your body doesn't age.
Veronica: Meditation lowers biological age. How?
Dr. Chopra: By quieting the mind, which then quiets the body, and the less turbulent the body is, the more the self-repair, healing mechanisms get amplified. In fact, scientists have shown that the better your DNA, your genetic machinery is at healing itself, the longer you live. That's how meditation lowers biological age.
Veronica: What about the power of love in healing or agelessness, someone else's love or the love of our own self?
Dr. Chopra: Yes love, but in the true sense, not as a mere sentiment or an emotion but love as the experience of unity consciousness, which means to know that you are connected with everything in the universe. Not only are you connected with everything in the universe, you might be the same being in different disguises with everybody else. So, when you have that experienced knowledge you lose the ability to hurt people and you also lose the ability to be hurt by people. That's love.
Veronica: Your approach to medicine is based on Ayurveda, which comes from India. How do you describe it?
Dr. Chopra: Ayurveda is the science of life and it has a very basic, simple kind of approach, which is that we are part of the universe and the universe is intelligent and the human body is part of the cosmic body, and the human mind is part of the cosmic mind, and the atom and the universe are exactly the same thing, but with different form, and the more we are in touch with this deeper reality, from where everything comes, the more we will be able to heal ourselves and at the same time heal our planet.
Veronica: What will medicine look like in the future?
Dr. Chopra: Medicine in the future will give everyone the ability to become their own best healer.
Veronica: Thank you Dr. Chopra, it has indeed been an enlightening conversation
Chopra created a paradigm for exploring the healing process - a model he calls Quantum Healing. He recalls, "As doctors we are taught to prescribe tranquilizers for people who are feeling anxious to promote tranquility. We give sleeping pills to people with insomnia. Quantum Healing looks past all the wonder drugs and modern technology to a natural way of healing which speaks to an integration of mind and body."
Rather than turn his back on his conventional training, he extended his practice to bring together the best of ancient wisdom and modern science. In 1984, he helped to introduce Ayurvedic medicine to the United States, and within a year he established an Ayurvedic Health Centre of Stress Management and Behavioral Medicine in Lancaster, Massachusetts. He was also the founding President of the American Association of Ayurvedic Medicine.
Since that time, he has emerged as one of the world's leading proponents of this innovative combination of Eastern and Western healing.
Chopra combines ancient mind/body wisdom with current anti-aging research to show that the effects of aging are largely preventable. By changing your perception of aging and by being aware of your body and how it processes intelligence and experience, you will change how you age.
Chopra lectures around the world making presentations to major corporations and organizations such as the World Health Organization in Geneva, the United Nations, and London's Royal Society of Medicine, as well as a number of major U.S. medical institutions.
THE INTERVIEW
Veronica: By changing one's perception of aging, we can change our age. How?
Dr. Chopra: Well, most people think that aging is fatal and scientific data shows that that's not true. People don't die of old age, they die of diseases that accompany old age, and they are preventable.
Most people think that aging is irreversible and we know that there are mechanisms even in the human machinery that allow for the reversal of aging, through correction of diet, through anti-oxidants, through removal of toxins from the body, through exercise, through yoga and breathing techniques, and through meditation. Most people believe that aging is normal but nobody defines what normal aging is. What we call normal may be the psychopathology of the average. Most people think that aging is genetic and yet if your parents lived to age 80+ that will add three years to your life.
The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years. Most people believe that aging is universal but there are biological organisms that never age. Most people believe that aging is painful and we know that pain is from diseases that are preventable, not from aging.
People have to change their concepts of aging and I am not asking them to do so based on some fanciful notion, but on scientific fact. When they change that, then their perception of aging will change and it will become clear to them to grow old and to become wiser, to become more creative, to become the springboard for creativity and affluence. Once your perception of the whole phenomenom changes, your reality will change, because reality is nothing other than your perception of it.
Veronica: You have stated that if we could effectively trigger the intention not to age, the body would carry it out automatically. Could you explain that?
Dr. Chopra: Yes, because intentions are the triggers for transformation in the body. If you want to wiggle your toes, you do it through intention. There are two components to biological information in the body, one is intention, the other is attention. So to go back to the example I gave you, to wiggle your toes. The first thing that happens is that your attention goes there and the second thing is there is an intention, so this biological information with attention and intention is what biological information is given. Awareness that acts as biological information goes to components, then an informational component, and then there's a localizing component, and that's how the body behaves.
If you can wiggle your toes with the mere flicker of an intention, why can't you reset your biological clock? The reason most people can't do it is because, first, they never thought of it and secondly, they think that certain things are easier to do than other things. For example, it is easier to wiggle the toes than reset the biological clock, but that is just a belief that is rooted in superstition. If we could understand that the human body is a network of information and energy, then we would see that the same principles apply everywhere in the body.
Veronica: That is just what I was about to say, something as profound as stopping the aging process, or actually reversing the aging process, one would think would have to be implanted at a deep level for it to work.
Dr. Chopra: No, it's the same mechanism. It's just that we have been indoctrinated into believing that some things are easier, some things are more difficult. Expectations determine outcome, always!
Veronica: You have also said that our bodies are our experiences transformed into physical expression, in other words, our bodies are the outpouring of our belief system?
Dr. Chopra: And experiences, so if you are having the experience of anxiety, your body is making adrenaline and cortisone, if you are having the experience of tranquility, your body starts making valium, if you are having the experience of exhilaration and joy, your body makes interleukins and interferons which are powerful anti-cancer drugs. So, your body is constantly converting your experiences into molecules.
Veronica: And we can change our interpretation or experience of the world at any time.
Dr. Chopra: That's right. One person's enemy is another person's best friend. My favorite food might give you a rash, etc. Every experience that we have is unique to us because at some deep level we make an interpretation of it.
Veronica: You go even further and suggest that when you see yourself in terms of timeless, deathless being, every cell awakens to a new existence.
Dr. Chopra: Because the body is the end product of intelligence and how that intelligence shapes your reality will shape the reality of the body. The body is a field of ideas and it is a field of interpretations and when you change your experience of your own identity to a spiritual being, the body expresses the physical manifestation of that spiritual reality.
Veronica: You go on to say, true immortality can be experienced here and now in this living body. It comes about when you draw the infusion of being into everything you think and do. This is the the experience of timeless mind and ageless body.
Dr. Chopra: Yes.
Veronica: Is this why it is so important to live with passion, to have a dream, a reason for living, even if that dream is only for our own joy?
Dr. Chopra: I think that is a very important component, to have passion, to have a dream, to have a purpose in life. And there are three components to that purpose, one is to find out who you really are, to discover God, the second is to serve other human beings, because we are here to do that and the third is to express your unique talents, and when you are expressing your unique talents, you lose track of time.
Veronica: Most people think of time as linear and some of us feel that there is only so much of it, and that it is continuously running out. Almost as though our entire life is like an hour glass and the sand is running through, and we don't know how much sand we have left so we'd better enjoy every single moment. This kind of thinking is further reinforced every time we are faced with the death of someone we know. How does this kind of motivation, of enjoying every moment because time is running out, and we don't have forever, compare with living joyfully without any kind of time anxiety at all, as if we really did have forever?
Dr. Chopra: The only way you can do that is when you know that part of yourself that is in fact, forever. There is a part of yourself that is not subject to change, it is the silent witness behind the scenes. That is essentially your spirit, the spirit being an abstract but real force. It is as real as gravity. It is as real as time. It is incomprehensible. It is mysterious but it is powerful and it is eternal. It is without beginning, without ending. It has no dimensionality, it's spaceless, timeless, dimensionless, eternal, forever. When you can get in touch with that part of yourself, then you will in fact see that present moment existence, even an entire lifetime is nothing other than a flicker in eternity, a parenthesis in eternity, a little flash of a firefly in the middle of the night in the context of eternity.
What happens with that knowledge, with that experience, is that you begin to experience mortality as quantified immortality, you begin to see time as quantified eternity and when you see it against the backdrop of who you really are, then the anxiety of daily existence disappears. So, one ceases to be troubled by, as well as influenced by, the trivial things of daily existence, the little hassles that create stress in most people. So, it becomes much more joyful and you realize that the present moment is as it should be, there is no other way. It is the culmination of all other moments and it is the center point of eternity. So, you pay attention to what is in every moment. And when you do that, then you realize that the presence of God is everywhere. You have only to consciously embrace it in your attention. And that's what creates joyfulness. You have to know the reality and the reality is that we are eternal.
Veronica: I suppose then that the first way of looking at life is actually unhealthy.
Dr. Chopra: Right.
Veronica: The new paradigm tells us that we are constantly making and unmaking our bodies at the quantum level which means that we are constantly unfolding hidden potential. Can you talk about this quantum level?
Dr. Chopra: If you look at anything physical, you find out that at the quantum level, it is non-physical. The body is made up of atoms and subatomic particles that are moving at lightning speed around huge empty spaces and the body gives off fluctuations of energy and information in a huge void, so essentially your body is proportionately as void as intergalactic space, made out of nothing, but the nothing is actually the source of information and energy. If you'd approach that level, then you would realize that the body is a print out and by changing the software, by influencing the programming, and by getting in touch with the program, you can create a new body anytime you want.
Veronica: How does living in the present moment contribute to agelessness?
Dr. Chopra: Living in the present moment creates the experience of eternity. It is like every drop of water in an ocean contains the flavor of the whole ocean. So too, every moment in time contains the flavor of eternity, if you could live in that moment, but most people do not live in the moment which is the only time they really have. They either live in the past or the future. If you could live in the moment, you would see the flavor of eternity and when you metabolize the experience of eternity, your body doesn't age.
Veronica: Meditation lowers biological age. How?
Dr. Chopra: By quieting the mind, which then quiets the body, and the less turbulent the body is, the more the self-repair, healing mechanisms get amplified. In fact, scientists have shown that the better your DNA, your genetic machinery is at healing itself, the longer you live. That's how meditation lowers biological age.
Veronica: What about the power of love in healing or agelessness, someone else's love or the love of our own self?
Dr. Chopra: Yes love, but in the true sense, not as a mere sentiment or an emotion but love as the experience of unity consciousness, which means to know that you are connected with everything in the universe. Not only are you connected with everything in the universe, you might be the same being in different disguises with everybody else. So, when you have that experienced knowledge you lose the ability to hurt people and you also lose the ability to be hurt by people. That's love.
Veronica: Your approach to medicine is based on Ayurveda, which comes from India. How do you describe it?
Dr. Chopra: Ayurveda is the science of life and it has a very basic, simple kind of approach, which is that we are part of the universe and the universe is intelligent and the human body is part of the cosmic body, and the human mind is part of the cosmic mind, and the atom and the universe are exactly the same thing, but with different form, and the more we are in touch with this deeper reality, from where everything comes, the more we will be able to heal ourselves and at the same time heal our planet.
Veronica: What will medicine look like in the future?
Dr. Chopra: Medicine in the future will give everyone the ability to become their own best healer.
Veronica: Thank you Dr. Chopra, it has indeed been an enlightening conversation
Work assiduously on your belief system
• VITHAL C NADKARNI
IF RECENT research is to be believed most of the newer anti-depressants do very little for people. In fact, a placebo or dummy pill may work just as well for people with mild or moderate depression, British doctors who analysed a large number of published and unpublished studies said. They added that people taking the drugs say they feel better simply because they’re swallowing tablets which they think are helping them. Other treatments like exercise and talk therapy provided as much benefit as the drugs, the experts said. All this only validates the power of belief. So instead of blaming your brain for its alleged deficits and frantically popping pills to correct the chemical imbalance, you might be better off if you worked more assiduously on your belief system. But that still does not satisfactorily explain what causes depression in the first place. Once you understand that, you can correct its maladaptive cycle incredibly fast; in just 24 hours, claims British psychologist Joe Griffin who has pioneered a revolutionary theory that links REM sleep and evolution of dreams to roots of depression and other neuroses. For 40 years it’s been known that depressed people have excessive REM sleep, he writes in Dreaming Reality, co-authored with Ian Tyrrell. They dream more than healthy people. Griffin and his colleagues at The Human Givens Institute claim that the negative introspection or ruminations that depressed people engage in actually causes the excessive dreaming. When you dream you burn up much more energy, and your brain cells aren’t refreshed because you are not getting enough slowwave sleep. That’s why depressed people wake up feeling tired and drained. But once they understand the link between dreaming and depression they can begin to work on it immediately. For today’s worry is tomorrow’s depression. Nip it in the bud and it will not bloom into tomorrow’s nightmare. That’s exactly why Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra recommends thought control (chitta-vritti nirodha). “Take physical exercise,” Griffin adds (echoing Patanjali). “Keep your mind focused outwards off the negative introspection. Know the importance of bringing in a bit of pleasure and challenge back into your life.” The Gita gives exactly same advice: balance right amount of work, play, and fun with the proper amount of dream and thought (yukta swapnavbodhasya) to banish pain.
IF RECENT research is to be believed most of the newer anti-depressants do very little for people. In fact, a placebo or dummy pill may work just as well for people with mild or moderate depression, British doctors who analysed a large number of published and unpublished studies said. They added that people taking the drugs say they feel better simply because they’re swallowing tablets which they think are helping them. Other treatments like exercise and talk therapy provided as much benefit as the drugs, the experts said. All this only validates the power of belief. So instead of blaming your brain for its alleged deficits and frantically popping pills to correct the chemical imbalance, you might be better off if you worked more assiduously on your belief system. But that still does not satisfactorily explain what causes depression in the first place. Once you understand that, you can correct its maladaptive cycle incredibly fast; in just 24 hours, claims British psychologist Joe Griffin who has pioneered a revolutionary theory that links REM sleep and evolution of dreams to roots of depression and other neuroses. For 40 years it’s been known that depressed people have excessive REM sleep, he writes in Dreaming Reality, co-authored with Ian Tyrrell. They dream more than healthy people. Griffin and his colleagues at The Human Givens Institute claim that the negative introspection or ruminations that depressed people engage in actually causes the excessive dreaming. When you dream you burn up much more energy, and your brain cells aren’t refreshed because you are not getting enough slowwave sleep. That’s why depressed people wake up feeling tired and drained. But once they understand the link between dreaming and depression they can begin to work on it immediately. For today’s worry is tomorrow’s depression. Nip it in the bud and it will not bloom into tomorrow’s nightmare. That’s exactly why Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra recommends thought control (chitta-vritti nirodha). “Take physical exercise,” Griffin adds (echoing Patanjali). “Keep your mind focused outwards off the negative introspection. Know the importance of bringing in a bit of pleasure and challenge back into your life.” The Gita gives exactly same advice: balance right amount of work, play, and fun with the proper amount of dream and thought (yukta swapnavbodhasya) to banish pain.
The Golden Mean Is Well Within Reach
Indu Jain
In governance, the core idea is to ensure the positive alignment of the pancha tattvas. For this, action has to first spring from within, from the inner core that all of us have, including those of us who are in the business of governance. India’s growth rate is computed on the basis of material resource development. This involves spending these resources. The focus is on production and consumption. However, resource management ought to give sufficient importance to the regeneration and revitalisation of these material resources as well as the subtle resource that resides within us. As individuals we need to align outer growth with inner growth through inner engineering. We expend our physical,mental and spiritual energies without making a conscious effort to rejuvenate ourselves through the preservation and enhancing of these energies. Our failure to look at resource rejuvenation and not just resource mobilisation and exploitation arises from our weakness for tamasic activity. Conservation, preservation and rejuvenation are intrinsic to sustainable inner and outer development. Pre-industrial India was considered Soney ki Chidiya or the golden bird because people were content. Lifestyles were environment-friendly and there was room for reflection and introspection that enabled people to seek the truth without encroaching on another’s path. There was greater scope for creative pursuits in the fields of art, philosophy, culture and spirituality. And there was greater tolerance and understanding of different perspectives. What was the secret of a system that allowed for both inner and outer growth? How did people find the Golden Mean? Achieving this ought to be easier with technological advances that are meant to make life easier, our chores simpler, and so leave us with enough time for meditation and deep thinking. However, this does not seem to be happening. Technology and other advancements seem to have made our lives more hectic and stress-ridden. Life has become a race against time. Therefore, inner growth is intrinsic to sustainable development. Earlier, conditions fostered the flowering and growth of different schools of thought. Diversity was celebrated, even respected. Today, the trend is towards uniformity of thought, word and deed. There are greater conveniences but less comfort. There are more time-saving devices but we seem to have less time at our disposal to think about what we are doing. The Kumbh Mela, a congregation of people of various persuasions on a given day every year, happened despite the absence of sophisticated communication tools like TV, newspapers or the internet. In Haridwar, for instance, everyday is a celebration of sorts for people from across the country. Those in governance could take the initiative to revive our ancient knowledge systems that are rich in healing techniques besides containing a wealth of wisdom on a variety of subjects. Tradition and culture are as much a part of our heritage as are stone monuments. In ancient India the individual was encouraged to live in harmony with himself, his environment and community, by bringing about a balance between his inner and outer realities. It was recognised that growth on the material plane must be balanced with growth on the subtle plane. As individuals and as members of society we need to strive towards achieving the right balance, inside out.
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