Friday, February 29, 2008
Awakening Your Inner Pharmacy Through Your Five Senses
DEEPAK CHOPRA
When most people think of nourishment, they usually consider the nutrition that is derived from food. According to Ayurveda, the ancient healing science of India, nourishment is available through all five senses – touch, sound, sight, taste and smell. Your senses are the portals to your inner pharmacy that provide natural health promoting chemicals to improve immunity, relieve anxiety and depression, normalize digestive function, and keep you pain free.
Pay attention to your environment. Feed your senses nourishing, interesting, inspiring impulses. Your body/mind is nourished through the exploration of new domains. See your environment with fresh eyes. Don’t take your world for granted.
Listen to beautiful, interesting, different music from around the world. Listen to the sounds of nature – birds singing, the wind blowing through the leaves, rain beating on your roof, ocean waves crashing against the shore.
Feel the texture of things. Dig your hands into the earth. Stroke your pet. Caress your loved ones. Feel a sculpture. Rub your hands along a tree bark.
Look at your world with fresh eyes. Notice things you don’t usually pay attention to. Look at the many shades of green that nature paints. Watch the clouds manifest and dissolve. Go to your local art museum and walk through the galleries. Really look at the faces of the people in your life.
Taste things as if for the first time. Bite into a tart apple. Savor the flavor of freshly baked cherry pie. Pop a clove bud in your mouth. Taste your lover with a passionate kiss. Drink a freshly squeezed glass of orange juice. Delight your taste buds.
Notice the aromas in your environment. Breathe in the fragrances of your garden. Sniff the smells of dinner. Inhale the scents of your loved one. Go outside after a rain and smell the earth. Notice how closely smells are linked with your memories and emotions. The energy and information of the world is translated into subtle sensory impulses that are experienced on the screen of your consciousness. These inner impulses are known in Ayurveda as Tanmatras. We can think of them as mental quanta, the subjective equivalent to the subtlest units of matter in the physical world. Awakening the Tanmatras through active imagination creates an alert mind and vital body.
Read the following visualizations, then close your eyes and invoke a vivid impression in your mind.
SoundImagine the sound of:
A cricket, chirping outside your window at night.
A grandfather clock, sounding six o’clock.
A coyote howling at the moon.
TouchImagine the sensations of:
Walking on a sandy beach.
Taking a hot shower
Stroking the soft cheek of an infant child
VisionImagine the sight of:
The sun setting over the Pacific Ocean
A flock of geese flying in formation overhead
An Olympic diver jumping off the platform
TasteImagine the taste of:
A fresh, ripe peach
A spoonful of chocolate chip ice cream
Gargling with mint flavored mouthwash
SmellImagine the smell of:
Bread baking in the oven
A new bar of sandalwood soap
A freshly cut lemon Balance your senses through both inner and outer experiences of nourishing sounds, sensations, images, tastes, and smells, and your inner pharmacy will enlivened to keep you balanced, healthy and happy.
Detachment
DEEPAK CHOPRA
In order to acquire anything in the physical universe, you have to relinquish your attachment to it. This doesn't mean you give up the intention to create your desire. You don't give up the intention and you don't give up the desire. You give up your attachment to the result.
This is a very powerful thing to do. The moment you relinquish your attachment to the result, combining intention with detachment at the same time, you will have that which you desire. Anything you want can be acquired through detachment, because detachment is based on the unquestioning belief in the power of your true Self.
Attachment on the other hand is based on fear and insecurity-and the need for security is based on not knowing the true Self. The source of wealth, of abundance, or of anything in the physical world is the Self; it is the consciousness that knows how to fulfill every need. Everything else is a symbol: cars, houses, bank notes, clothes, airplanes. Symbols are transitory: they come and go. Chasing symbols is like settling for the map instead of the territory. It creates anxiety; it ends up making you feel hollow and empty inside, because you exchange your Self for the symbols of your Self.
Attachment actually comes from poverty consciousness, because attachment is always to symbols. Detachment is synonymous with wealth consciousness, because with detachment there is freedom to create. Only from detached involvement can one have joy and laughter. Then the symbols of wealth are created spontaneously and effortlessly. True wealth consciousness is the ability to have anything you want, and with least effort. To be grounded in this experience you have to be grounded in the wisdom of uncertainty. In this uncertainty you will find the freedom to create anything you want. When you understand detachment you won't feel compelled to force solutions. When you force solutions on problems, you only create new problems. But when you put your attention on the uncertainty, and you witness the uncertainty while you expectantly wait for the solution to emerge out of chaos and confusion, then what emerges is something fabulous and exciting: This profound state of alertness-your preparedness in the present, in the field of uncertainty-meets with your goal and your intention and allows you to seize each situation, problem, or challenge as an opportunity. Once you have this perception, you will open up to a whole range of possibilities and further unveil the mystery, the wonder, the excitement, and the adventure of being alive.
Love, Deepak
In order to acquire anything in the physical universe, you have to relinquish your attachment to it. This doesn't mean you give up the intention to create your desire. You don't give up the intention and you don't give up the desire. You give up your attachment to the result.
This is a very powerful thing to do. The moment you relinquish your attachment to the result, combining intention with detachment at the same time, you will have that which you desire. Anything you want can be acquired through detachment, because detachment is based on the unquestioning belief in the power of your true Self.
Attachment on the other hand is based on fear and insecurity-and the need for security is based on not knowing the true Self. The source of wealth, of abundance, or of anything in the physical world is the Self; it is the consciousness that knows how to fulfill every need. Everything else is a symbol: cars, houses, bank notes, clothes, airplanes. Symbols are transitory: they come and go. Chasing symbols is like settling for the map instead of the territory. It creates anxiety; it ends up making you feel hollow and empty inside, because you exchange your Self for the symbols of your Self.
Attachment actually comes from poverty consciousness, because attachment is always to symbols. Detachment is synonymous with wealth consciousness, because with detachment there is freedom to create. Only from detached involvement can one have joy and laughter. Then the symbols of wealth are created spontaneously and effortlessly. True wealth consciousness is the ability to have anything you want, and with least effort. To be grounded in this experience you have to be grounded in the wisdom of uncertainty. In this uncertainty you will find the freedom to create anything you want. When you understand detachment you won't feel compelled to force solutions. When you force solutions on problems, you only create new problems. But when you put your attention on the uncertainty, and you witness the uncertainty while you expectantly wait for the solution to emerge out of chaos and confusion, then what emerges is something fabulous and exciting: This profound state of alertness-your preparedness in the present, in the field of uncertainty-meets with your goal and your intention and allows you to seize each situation, problem, or challenge as an opportunity. Once you have this perception, you will open up to a whole range of possibilities and further unveil the mystery, the wonder, the excitement, and the adventure of being alive.
Love, Deepak
Food as Medicine
DEEPAK CHOPRA
Most anthropologists date the origin of modern people to about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. Up until about 10,000 years ago we spent most of our days hunting and gathering for food. During the course of a day we sampled dozens if not hundreds of food sources. In addition to any animal protein we could snare, we ate a diverse range of roots, leaves, fruits, nuts, berries, beans, mushrooms, and seeds. Some primates in the wild today have been observed to nibble on over two hundred different kinds of plants each day.
The average Western diet is much more limited in variety, and as a result we miss out on the extensive natural pharmacy that is available. Unfortunately, burgers, fries and a diet Coke do not allow us to take advantage of the age reversing properties that a delicious, widely varied diet offers. Each day nutritional scientists are discovering new health-promoting chemicals that are available to us through food.
A simple and practical approach to insure you have healthy nutritional variety is to pay attention to the tastes of your food. According to Ayurveda everything edible can be classified according to one or more six basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent. If you sample foods that correspond to each of these tastes throughout the day, your meals will provide a wide assortment of health promoting nutrients. Let’s look at these six tastes one by one.
Sweet.
Sweet is the taste of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Foods that carry the sweet taste increase your body bulk. Breads, grains, nuts, pasta, most fruits, starchy vegetables, dairy, oils, and all animal products are considered sweet. Sweet foods supply the majority of what we consume in a day. In every category of taste, there are foods that are highly nutritious and others that should be eaten more sparingly.
Favor fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, cereals, breads and nuts. In addition to supplying your energy needs, they are good sources of fiber. If you are not ready to go vegetarian, reduce your intake of red meats, favoring cold-water fish and egg whites. Minimize your intake of highly refined sugar and wheat products. Favor low fat dairy, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated oils, while minimizing cholesterol-rich products and foods with partially hydrogenated oils.
Sour.
Any food that is mildly acidic is experienced as sour. Citric acid, lactic acid, ascorbic acid, and butyric acid are just a few of the acidic chemicals you may have heard of that contribute to the sour taste of foods. As with the sweet taste, there are sour foods that are more nutritious than others.
Favor oranges, grapefruits, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and tomatoes while reducing your intake of pickled foods, green olives, alcohol and vinegar. Small helpings of low-fat yogurt and buttermilk can aid in digestion. Although aged sour cheeses can be delicious, use them sparingly as they are usually high in cholesterol and more difficult to digest.
Salty.
Salt is the flavor of ion-producing minerals on the tongue. The principle salt of our diet is sodium chloride, which comes from mines or naturally salty bodies of water. The salty taste is also carried in soy sauce, many sauces, seaweed, fish and salted meats. In the right dose, salt adds flavor and stimulates digestion. Too much salt can contribute to high blood pressure and fluid retention.
Pungent.
We often use the term, "hot" to describe the pungent flavor. The spiciness of pepper, ginger and other pungent sources comes from essential oils that interact with chemical receptors on our tongue. Most pungent foods contain natural antioxidants and infection-fighting chemicals. Due in part to their anti-spoiling properties, pungent spices have been highly prized for millennia. A shortcut to the land of spices was a major incentive for the fifteenth century journey of Columbus. Pungent flavors stimulate digestion and help mobilize stagnant secretions. Recent studies have suggested components of garlic and onions may help lower cholesterol levels and high blood pressure.
Commonly available pungent foods include: chili peppers, cayenne, black pepper, fresh and dry ginger, horseradish, onions, garlic, leeks, mustard, cloves, cinnamon, peppermint, thyme, cumin, cardamom, basil, oregano, and rosemary. Adding spice to your life will serve both your palate and your health.
Bitter.
Bitter is the taste of many green and yellow vegetables. Some green leafy vegetables such as endive and kale are particularly bitter. The bitterness is due to natural plant chemicals known as phytochemicals (phyto means "plant" in Latin). These phytochemicals have detoxifying, disease-preventing and healing chemicals that improve our chances for long, healthy lives. Broccoli and cauliflower, for example, are rich in the phytochemicals known as isothiocyanates, which have been shown to help fight cancer and heart disease. Asparagus, green peppers, and cabbage are rich in flavonoids, which help resist genetic injury, fight infections and may even reduce your risk for memory loss. The bottom line: Eat your vegetables – they are good for you.
Astringent.
The last of the six tastes is more of an effect than any actual flavor. Astringent foods have a drying, compacting and puckering influence on your body. Beans, legumes and peas are considered to fall within the astringent category, and provide excellent sources of vegetable protein, complex carbohydrates and fiber to your diet. Several fruits are astringent such as cranberries, pomegranates, persimmons, and tart apples. Green tea is also astringent and has been found to be a rich source of natural cancer preventing chemicals. Astringent foods are an essential component of an age reversing diet.
Preparing For What’s Not In The Syllabus
Girish Deshpande
“So children”, began the teacher. “How was the English paper?” Almost in unison the children replied, “Difficult master. Some questions were not even in the syllabus”. The teacher smiled. He closed the books for the day to give them a life lesson. Such real-life situations begin to gather larger proportions as we grow older. We are completely befuddled when we have to face situations which are ‘out of syllabus’. How many situations can we foresee as a surety of occurrence? When a child is born, parents make all kinds of plans in terms of his schooling, education, marriage or monkhood. Some parents even go as far as planning his career. However, in this euphoria of meticulous planning of seeming certainties ahead, one vital truth tends to get lost: Preparation for death, of oneself and of those dearest to us. Death is a mystery to most of us. While we are uncertain as to how and when it will come, we are certain that it will. All things compounded die to change form. The question is: Are we prepared for the event? There are two options before us. One, we choose not to think about it. Two, we try and understand the prospect and when it does eventually come we reduce our suffering of facing the upheavals of emotions that come with it, for as long as the process lasts. Either way we cannot overcome the surety of the event. There is transition and impermanence all around us. In death is creation of new life as in nature old leaves fall to give rise to new shoots. In cosmic happenings stars are collapsing every second to give rise to the new. Our own body sees constant death of cells that give way to new ones. What we perhaps fear most about death is fear of the unknown. Perhaps no friends, family, known faces; possibly all alone in a foreign land. Also, what we are afraid of is the ignorance about who we really are, essentially because we live in a make-believe understanding of ourselves. How we eventually die, and what form we assume is the result of many factors, our accumulated karma or deeds, our genuine remorse and practices in overcoming our bad karma, the intensity of intention, action and culmination of every karma, good and bad, the state of our mind in life and death. This is determined by conditioning the mind, calming it, observing closely the actual process of thoughts arising in the mind. And the responsibility we attach to dealing with each one of them. Specifically those from anger, attachment and fear amongst the other nonvirtuous ones, because these eventually will translate into speech and action, affecting our relationship with other sentient beings. Being ever watchful of our emotions, and not merely religious rites, norms and practices, will determine how we actually live our life and how we will eventually die and be reborn. This is the essence of Buddha’s Dhamma too. Having explained this, the teacher said to the students: “If we are mindful of this, we would be in a position to score well in our final examination, since now, death and the process of it will never be out of syllabus”. The students smiled.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Anapanasati Yoga - OSHO
OSHO
Buddha invented a method, one of the most powerful methods, for creating an Inner Sun of Awareness. The method that Buddha used is known as Anapanasati Yoga. The Yoga of 'In-coming' and 'Out-going' Breath Awareness.
We are breathing, but it is unconscious breathing. Breath is Prana, Breath is the elan vital , the Vitality, the very life and yet it is unconscious; you are not aware of it.
Buddha used Breath as a vehicle to do two things simultaneously; one to create Consciousness, and another to allow that Consciousness to penetrate to the very cells of the body. He said, Breathe Consciously. That does not mean to do 'Pranayam'-'Yogic Breathing'; it is just to make Breath an object of awareness, without changing it.
There is no need to 'change' your Breath! Leave as it is, natural; do not change it. But when you breathe in, Breath Consciously; let your consciousness move with the In-going Breath. And when the Breath goes out, let your concsciousness move out with it.
Move with the breath! Let your attention be with the breath; flow with it.
One hour is enough! It looks like such a small amount of time, but it is not. When you are trying to be Aware, an hour can seem like millennium, because ordinarily you cannot be aware for more than five or six seconds.
To be conscious of the Breath means that no thoughts can be allowed, because thoughts will distract your attention.
Automatically, thinking will stop; you cannot both think and breath consciously! When a thought comes into your mind, your attention is withdrawn from the breathing. A single thought, and you have become unconscious of the Breathing Process.
The more you try to do it, the more your endeavor to do it, the more conscious you will become. It is arduous, it is difficult, but once you can do it, you will have become a different person, a different being, a different world!
Buddha says,... Move consciously with the breath and you will create a Center of Awareness within you... Then your whole body becomes the Universe.
Only after practicing Breath Awareness for a long time - when you are finally able to remain with the breath, to be Aware of the breath - will you become Aware of the Gap when there is no movement of Breath; Breath is neither Coming In nor Going Out. In the Subtle Gap between Breaths, you are at your center.
Deepak Chopra Interview with Powells
Deepak Chopra
Deepak, elbows on the conference table, hunched over a microphone, talking about God. "Christ wasn't a Christian and Mohammed wasn't a Mohammedan," he explains, obviously not for the first time. "Buddha wasn't a Buddhist. These are dogmas and ideologies. The fight is about semantics."
The author of twenty-six books (translated into thirty-five languages) describes How to Know God as "a scientific approach to understanding the divine."
Everything that we experience as material reality is born in an invisible realm beyond space and time, a realm revealed by science to consist of energy and information. This invisible source of all that exists is not an empty void but the womb of creation itself.
Our brains, Chopra explains, are hardwired to know God; seven biological responses, each one evident in the literature of every organized religion, correspond to the seven levels of divine experience. Each of us, the author insists, can experience God, but "we need a model that is both part of religion and not bounded by it."
We talked for a half-hour or so on a rainy winter afternoon.
Dave:
In How to Know God, you cite Vedanta as an influence for much of your thinking on the subject. I thought we could start by providing some background for people who haven't read the book.
Deepak Chopra:
In this book I explain God as infinite intelligence, the source of all information: energy, matter, and of course, also space and time, the structure and the fabric of the universe. Then I show how through biological responses humans are capable of experiencing first bits and pieces of this infinite intelligence and, ultimately, the infinite unbounded intelligence, directly.
I've drawn on Vedanta because it is a wisdom tradition that talks about unity consciousness and the one reality from where everything comes. There's a level of existence where space, time, matter, and energy all resolve into pure potentiality. In physics, that's called a singularity. And, in fact, all the latest theories of physics seem to say that space, time, matter, energy, and information are really nothing other than different frequencies of vibration of the same field of pure potential.
The seven biological responses - fight/flight response, reactive response, restful awareness response, intuitive response, creative response, visionary response, and sacred response - are progressively more expanded states of awareness. In Eastern traditions, they are frequently expressed as metaphors. The seven chakras, for example: the first chakra is about survival, which is fight/flight response; the second chakra is about the ability to react, control, and be empowered, in other words, the reactive response. And so on.
This is a scientific approach to understanding the divine, and in many ways it reinforces equally valid, more traditional approaches: love, prayer, meditation, going within, karmically appropriate actions...
Dave:
You draw on various traditions, both Eastern and Western. Often you'll cite passages from the Old or New Testament to support your examples. At the same time, you acknowledge that many of your ideas would be considered blasphemous to strict followers of Christianity.
Chopra:
If you're a fundamentalist, it doesn't matter what religion you are, Hindu or Buddhist or Christian or Muslim, you're tied to a literal interpretation of the scripture. So yes, some of these ideas would be considered blasphemous if you get stuck with just one aspect.
But you'll find all seven responses in biblical literature. An example of the fight/flight response is Jehovah when he gets upset. The reactive response is Moses when he gets upset with the Pharaoh and the Egyptians. The restful awareness response is Psalm 44: Be still and know that I am God. It's also Jesus Christ: the peace that passes understanding. The intuitive response is, again, Christ, when he says, "Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be open unto you." The creative response is the Book of Genesis. The visionary response is the thirty-five miracles in the New Testament. And the sacred response is when Moses asks God, "What's your name?" and God says, "I am that I am." Or when Christ says, "Before Abraham was I am."
Biblical literature contains the various stages of understanding God, as does Vedanta and every other religion. The fact is that Christ wasn't a Christian and Mohammed wasn't a Mohammedan; Buddha wasn't a Buddhist. These are dogmas and ideologies. The fight is about semantics.
Dave:
Is there a trait or a feeling readers of this book would share? Maybe a frustration with organized religion?
Chopra:
In many cases, it's the simple fact that science and technology have dismantled our traditional beliefs. If we are aware what science has shown us, we can no longer think of God as a dead white male in the sky. We can no longer squeeze God into the volume of a body and the span of a lifetime. That limits God.
This is a huge universe. Planet Earth is a speck of dust in an unbounded expanse, an ocean of space-time. We're part of a little galaxy on the outskirts of infinity. A simplistic notion of God is no longer tenable.
Yet we still have the same questions: Where did I come from? What am I doing here? Is there any meaning to my existence? What happens to me after I die? Who's the real me? Do I have a soul? Does God exist? If God does exist, why should He or She or it care about me? After all, I'm just a little microbe on a piece of cheese in the junkyard of infinity.
The questions remain. The anxiety has only increased. Nobody wants to die. Nobody wants to lose their identity. I think we need to look at the whole issue from a deeper level of questioning. The fact is though that when we do that our science begins to validate the idea of an underlying intelligence. Science begins to validate that within each of us there is at least something that is not subject to mortality.
Dave:
You make the distinction between the brain and the mind, and you use the metaphor of the brain as a radio, receiving waves or broadcasts. Essentially what a person "hears" depends on how open those lines of communication are. Is he or she accepting what's being broadcast? And listening?
To explain, you go into detail about the physiology of neurons and synapses, how the brain works. Does what you're saying speak to people who might not be as familiar with those concepts, people who might not have backgrounds in science?
Chopra:
It might or it might not. I can't help that. I must express what I think our current science suggests. The more you look at it and speak to eminent neuroscientists and physicists, the more apparent it becomes that consciousness is independent of brain, that if anything the brain edits the consciousness, taking bits and pieces to reinforce a prevailing worldview.
Amongst the sages and psychotics and geniuses you find access to domains of consciousness that you don't find under the hypnosis of social conditioning. What we call everyday reality is actually the psychopathology of the average edit.
These ideas may not speak to everyone. On the other hand, I find people who perhaps do not have the background to understand it but by diligent examination of what's written in the book and by their own studies begin to open up. When you write a book, you don't necessarily try to please everyone. You have to tell it the way you see it.
Dave:
You speak of detaching from the material reality of self. You use an analogy of personality traits and ideas of self as birds roosting on branches; the birds can fly off at any moment; the birds and the branch are not one and the same.
As far as progressing from stage to stage, you mention in the book that many people are comfortable at Stage Two and see no reason to seek a closer relationship with God. Is there a particular hurdle that people tend to fear more than others? Is it detachment from materialism?
Chopra:
If you look at Vedantic tradition, there are only five reasons why people suffer: they don't know who they are; they're attached to that which is impermanent and insubstantial; they are afraid of that which is impermanent and insubstantial; they have a false sense of identity through their ego; and they're afraid of death. Period. Those are the five causes of suffering.
The Vedanta also goes on to say that all these causes of suffering are contained in the first one: people don't realize who they are. If they did, they'd be free. They wouldn't have these other problems, including the fear of death. So while it is a fact that people find it difficult to detach, what is death if not the big detachment? Entering into the unknown. If you're going to have to do it anyway, why not start now? If you open yourself to the unknown, you'll find a part of yourself that indeed is free.
Dave:
In Creating Affluence, you explain that detachment doesn't necessarily mean living the life of a monk on a mountaintop. You can be part of the world; you can live an affluent life.
Chopra:
Detachment is not a physical thing; it's a mental phenomenon. Attachment could be said to be the same thing as fear and insecurity. Detachment is the same thing as being comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty, which are facts of life.
There's a classic Zen story about two celibate monks who are walking on a pilgrimage. They come across a girl who is very lovely and beautiful and sexual, and she wants to cross the river. The young monk is attracted to her, and he says, "I'll take you on my shoulders and carry you across the river and drop you off on the other side." He does that, and the two monks continue on their pilgrimage until after a while the old monk starts to have a frown on his face. He's upset. Six hours, seven hours go by, and finally he looks at the young one and says, "I can't believe you did that." "Did what?" the young monk asks. "You carried that woman on your shoulders." "I dropped her off six hours ago," the young monk says. And the old monk responds, "But you're still carrying her."
Attachment is a mental state, not a physical one.
Dave: Has the response to the book been different in the U.S. than other parts of the world?
Chopra:
Actually, I'm really surprised by the response in the United States. The book made it to the New York Times Bestseller list as a hardcover. It's getting good reviews. I've been invited to speak at Harvard Divinity School and many other academic institutions as a result of it. The book is doing well in Asia and India and Singapore and Europe. The U.S. response is as good as anywhere else.
Dave:
You've written that technology is a neutral force, as good or as bad as people make it. What positive changes do you think technology will bring in the near future?
Chopra:
For one thing, the Internet. If you really think about it, the Internet is cloning our soul. The genome project is cloning our bodies; the Internet is cloning our collective psyche. If you want to know what is happening in world consciousness, go to the Internet.
I think this technology can bring a true spirituality to the world and create a critical mass of awareness. Possibly in the future I see the elimination of poverty, economic freedom, the repair of the ecosystem, the elimination of war...all possibilities. In biotechnology, in the near future, you'll be able to replace your body organs with your own cells. That will be a great boon to those who are blind, to those with terminal heart disease, to those who are paralyzed. It's amazing what can happen in the near future if you focus on the positive aspects.
On the other hand, the technology is powerful enough that we could use it to cause our extinction as a species. Again, it has nothing to do with the technology.
The way I see it, creativity directed outward is science and technology. Creativity directed inward is spiritual evolution. Most of our creativity has been directed outward so our spiritual evolution has not kept pace. We need to bring that back. Once you do that, technology is the most wonderful thing.
Dave:
The Internet connects people in a way that people haven't been connected before. Some evidence suggests that many of the ills we've developed in the West will become common everywhere - not just because of the Internet, of course, but also with the spread of capitalism, economic imperialism at large.
Chopra:
It's all a question of how you are prepared to deal with the world. I find I can use technology to my advantage. I don't allow it to dominate me. No matter how hectic the schedule, I'm fine.
It's not necessary to get caught up in the melodrama; it's a matter of training yourself properly. You'll find highly stressed people in rural areas. I've been to remote areas of the world where there's not a soul to talk to, where people live a very laid back life, and still they have addictive problems and divorce and misery. It has nothing to do with the outside environment.
The outside environment is an excuse. The real existence is inside, but you have to train for it. It's like training for anything - you have to learn to ride a bike, you have to learn how to deal with people and circumstances around you and not be victimized by them.
Dave:
Any competitive athlete knows about a "zone," a state in which you're no longer conscious of what you're doing; you simply are. In the book, you use the example of a marathon runner, but I think any sport would apply. For example, the basketball player who sinks ten difficult shots in a row, after the game, will say, "I was feeling it. I was in the zone."
One doesn't tend to think of athletics as the home of spiritual matters, but there's definitely a state athletes reach where they're no longer conscious of what they're doing.
Chopra:
It's true. I just saw a program the other day about these football players who said, in the middle of all that screaming, a deafening noise from the stands, they don't hear a thing; their minds are totally silent.
Dave:
To look back on the day when you were practicing medicine...Do you still think of yourself as a doctor?
Chopra:
Healing, health, holy, wholeness...it's the same word. I was trained as a technician, not a doctor. Modern training of a physician is to make him or her a superb technician who knows everything about the human body but a lousy doctor because you know nothing about the human soul.
Dave:
Do you see that changing? Improving?
Chopra:
It is. I speak at Harvard once a year. I've spoken at UCLA, Johns Hopkins, Yale, and the world is changing.
Dave:
What kind of advice do you give young doctors?
Chopra:
I don't. I just explain the bigger picture of what healing could be. There's a new generation of doctors who are very interested in the broader perspective of what healing really is.
Dave:
Are there books or authors that you fall back on, books you go back to?
Chopra: I think there's a lot of good research and data. I don't follow authors as much as I watch the research.
Dave: In journals?
Chopra: Yes, in journals. There's some really good research at Duke and at Harvard, and of course all literature in the field of physics. There's some fascinating stuff happening.
Dave: Many of the examples you cite to bring your arguments together are from prominent scientists, for instance Einstein, Schrodinger, and Stephen Hawking, to name a few.
I didn't grow up in a particularly religious atmosphere, but even so I was taught that science was somewhat anti-God. Do you find that ironic?
Chopra: Science will be responsible for the climactic overthrow of the superstition of materialism.
Dave: This book comes recommended by the Dalai Lama himself. Is there a particular experience or anecdote you'd share about the time you've spent him?
Chopra: The Dalai Lama is the most innocent, childlike person I've met, full of wonder and amazing wisdom that has nothing to do with book knowledge. It's all from experience.
Dave: Does it feel different, being around him?
Chopra: Definitely. It feels different around him; it feels different around Mother Theresa and Nelson Mandela. You feel the power of spirit.
Dave: You mention Mandela. Where does politics fit into all this?
Chopra: Politics is part of the fight/flight and the reactive response at the moment, as is business. It has a long way to go.
Dave: In another interview, you noted a certain concern about the man who recently was elected President and his lack of...
Chopra: ...awareness.
Dave: Awareness of the world at large, let's say.
Chopra: Well, he's learning to delegate appropriately, so maybe we'll survive.
Deepak, elbows on the conference table, hunched over a microphone, talking about God. "Christ wasn't a Christian and Mohammed wasn't a Mohammedan," he explains, obviously not for the first time. "Buddha wasn't a Buddhist. These are dogmas and ideologies. The fight is about semantics."
The author of twenty-six books (translated into thirty-five languages) describes How to Know God as "a scientific approach to understanding the divine."
Everything that we experience as material reality is born in an invisible realm beyond space and time, a realm revealed by science to consist of energy and information. This invisible source of all that exists is not an empty void but the womb of creation itself.
Our brains, Chopra explains, are hardwired to know God; seven biological responses, each one evident in the literature of every organized religion, correspond to the seven levels of divine experience. Each of us, the author insists, can experience God, but "we need a model that is both part of religion and not bounded by it."
We talked for a half-hour or so on a rainy winter afternoon.
Dave:
In How to Know God, you cite Vedanta as an influence for much of your thinking on the subject. I thought we could start by providing some background for people who haven't read the book.
Deepak Chopra:
In this book I explain God as infinite intelligence, the source of all information: energy, matter, and of course, also space and time, the structure and the fabric of the universe. Then I show how through biological responses humans are capable of experiencing first bits and pieces of this infinite intelligence and, ultimately, the infinite unbounded intelligence, directly.
I've drawn on Vedanta because it is a wisdom tradition that talks about unity consciousness and the one reality from where everything comes. There's a level of existence where space, time, matter, and energy all resolve into pure potentiality. In physics, that's called a singularity. And, in fact, all the latest theories of physics seem to say that space, time, matter, energy, and information are really nothing other than different frequencies of vibration of the same field of pure potential.
The seven biological responses - fight/flight response, reactive response, restful awareness response, intuitive response, creative response, visionary response, and sacred response - are progressively more expanded states of awareness. In Eastern traditions, they are frequently expressed as metaphors. The seven chakras, for example: the first chakra is about survival, which is fight/flight response; the second chakra is about the ability to react, control, and be empowered, in other words, the reactive response. And so on.
This is a scientific approach to understanding the divine, and in many ways it reinforces equally valid, more traditional approaches: love, prayer, meditation, going within, karmically appropriate actions...
Dave:
You draw on various traditions, both Eastern and Western. Often you'll cite passages from the Old or New Testament to support your examples. At the same time, you acknowledge that many of your ideas would be considered blasphemous to strict followers of Christianity.
Chopra:
If you're a fundamentalist, it doesn't matter what religion you are, Hindu or Buddhist or Christian or Muslim, you're tied to a literal interpretation of the scripture. So yes, some of these ideas would be considered blasphemous if you get stuck with just one aspect.
But you'll find all seven responses in biblical literature. An example of the fight/flight response is Jehovah when he gets upset. The reactive response is Moses when he gets upset with the Pharaoh and the Egyptians. The restful awareness response is Psalm 44: Be still and know that I am God. It's also Jesus Christ: the peace that passes understanding. The intuitive response is, again, Christ, when he says, "Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be open unto you." The creative response is the Book of Genesis. The visionary response is the thirty-five miracles in the New Testament. And the sacred response is when Moses asks God, "What's your name?" and God says, "I am that I am." Or when Christ says, "Before Abraham was I am."
Biblical literature contains the various stages of understanding God, as does Vedanta and every other religion. The fact is that Christ wasn't a Christian and Mohammed wasn't a Mohammedan; Buddha wasn't a Buddhist. These are dogmas and ideologies. The fight is about semantics.
Dave:
Is there a trait or a feeling readers of this book would share? Maybe a frustration with organized religion?
Chopra:
In many cases, it's the simple fact that science and technology have dismantled our traditional beliefs. If we are aware what science has shown us, we can no longer think of God as a dead white male in the sky. We can no longer squeeze God into the volume of a body and the span of a lifetime. That limits God.
This is a huge universe. Planet Earth is a speck of dust in an unbounded expanse, an ocean of space-time. We're part of a little galaxy on the outskirts of infinity. A simplistic notion of God is no longer tenable.
Yet we still have the same questions: Where did I come from? What am I doing here? Is there any meaning to my existence? What happens to me after I die? Who's the real me? Do I have a soul? Does God exist? If God does exist, why should He or She or it care about me? After all, I'm just a little microbe on a piece of cheese in the junkyard of infinity.
The questions remain. The anxiety has only increased. Nobody wants to die. Nobody wants to lose their identity. I think we need to look at the whole issue from a deeper level of questioning. The fact is though that when we do that our science begins to validate the idea of an underlying intelligence. Science begins to validate that within each of us there is at least something that is not subject to mortality.
Dave:
You make the distinction between the brain and the mind, and you use the metaphor of the brain as a radio, receiving waves or broadcasts. Essentially what a person "hears" depends on how open those lines of communication are. Is he or she accepting what's being broadcast? And listening?
To explain, you go into detail about the physiology of neurons and synapses, how the brain works. Does what you're saying speak to people who might not be as familiar with those concepts, people who might not have backgrounds in science?
Chopra:
It might or it might not. I can't help that. I must express what I think our current science suggests. The more you look at it and speak to eminent neuroscientists and physicists, the more apparent it becomes that consciousness is independent of brain, that if anything the brain edits the consciousness, taking bits and pieces to reinforce a prevailing worldview.
Amongst the sages and psychotics and geniuses you find access to domains of consciousness that you don't find under the hypnosis of social conditioning. What we call everyday reality is actually the psychopathology of the average edit.
These ideas may not speak to everyone. On the other hand, I find people who perhaps do not have the background to understand it but by diligent examination of what's written in the book and by their own studies begin to open up. When you write a book, you don't necessarily try to please everyone. You have to tell it the way you see it.
Dave:
You speak of detaching from the material reality of self. You use an analogy of personality traits and ideas of self as birds roosting on branches; the birds can fly off at any moment; the birds and the branch are not one and the same.
As far as progressing from stage to stage, you mention in the book that many people are comfortable at Stage Two and see no reason to seek a closer relationship with God. Is there a particular hurdle that people tend to fear more than others? Is it detachment from materialism?
Chopra:
If you look at Vedantic tradition, there are only five reasons why people suffer: they don't know who they are; they're attached to that which is impermanent and insubstantial; they are afraid of that which is impermanent and insubstantial; they have a false sense of identity through their ego; and they're afraid of death. Period. Those are the five causes of suffering.
The Vedanta also goes on to say that all these causes of suffering are contained in the first one: people don't realize who they are. If they did, they'd be free. They wouldn't have these other problems, including the fear of death. So while it is a fact that people find it difficult to detach, what is death if not the big detachment? Entering into the unknown. If you're going to have to do it anyway, why not start now? If you open yourself to the unknown, you'll find a part of yourself that indeed is free.
Dave:
In Creating Affluence, you explain that detachment doesn't necessarily mean living the life of a monk on a mountaintop. You can be part of the world; you can live an affluent life.
Chopra:
Detachment is not a physical thing; it's a mental phenomenon. Attachment could be said to be the same thing as fear and insecurity. Detachment is the same thing as being comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty, which are facts of life.
There's a classic Zen story about two celibate monks who are walking on a pilgrimage. They come across a girl who is very lovely and beautiful and sexual, and she wants to cross the river. The young monk is attracted to her, and he says, "I'll take you on my shoulders and carry you across the river and drop you off on the other side." He does that, and the two monks continue on their pilgrimage until after a while the old monk starts to have a frown on his face. He's upset. Six hours, seven hours go by, and finally he looks at the young one and says, "I can't believe you did that." "Did what?" the young monk asks. "You carried that woman on your shoulders." "I dropped her off six hours ago," the young monk says. And the old monk responds, "But you're still carrying her."
Attachment is a mental state, not a physical one.
Dave: Has the response to the book been different in the U.S. than other parts of the world?
Chopra:
Actually, I'm really surprised by the response in the United States. The book made it to the New York Times Bestseller list as a hardcover. It's getting good reviews. I've been invited to speak at Harvard Divinity School and many other academic institutions as a result of it. The book is doing well in Asia and India and Singapore and Europe. The U.S. response is as good as anywhere else.
Dave:
You've written that technology is a neutral force, as good or as bad as people make it. What positive changes do you think technology will bring in the near future?
Chopra:
For one thing, the Internet. If you really think about it, the Internet is cloning our soul. The genome project is cloning our bodies; the Internet is cloning our collective psyche. If you want to know what is happening in world consciousness, go to the Internet.
I think this technology can bring a true spirituality to the world and create a critical mass of awareness. Possibly in the future I see the elimination of poverty, economic freedom, the repair of the ecosystem, the elimination of war...all possibilities. In biotechnology, in the near future, you'll be able to replace your body organs with your own cells. That will be a great boon to those who are blind, to those with terminal heart disease, to those who are paralyzed. It's amazing what can happen in the near future if you focus on the positive aspects.
On the other hand, the technology is powerful enough that we could use it to cause our extinction as a species. Again, it has nothing to do with the technology.
The way I see it, creativity directed outward is science and technology. Creativity directed inward is spiritual evolution. Most of our creativity has been directed outward so our spiritual evolution has not kept pace. We need to bring that back. Once you do that, technology is the most wonderful thing.
Dave:
The Internet connects people in a way that people haven't been connected before. Some evidence suggests that many of the ills we've developed in the West will become common everywhere - not just because of the Internet, of course, but also with the spread of capitalism, economic imperialism at large.
Chopra:
It's all a question of how you are prepared to deal with the world. I find I can use technology to my advantage. I don't allow it to dominate me. No matter how hectic the schedule, I'm fine.
It's not necessary to get caught up in the melodrama; it's a matter of training yourself properly. You'll find highly stressed people in rural areas. I've been to remote areas of the world where there's not a soul to talk to, where people live a very laid back life, and still they have addictive problems and divorce and misery. It has nothing to do with the outside environment.
The outside environment is an excuse. The real existence is inside, but you have to train for it. It's like training for anything - you have to learn to ride a bike, you have to learn how to deal with people and circumstances around you and not be victimized by them.
Dave:
Any competitive athlete knows about a "zone," a state in which you're no longer conscious of what you're doing; you simply are. In the book, you use the example of a marathon runner, but I think any sport would apply. For example, the basketball player who sinks ten difficult shots in a row, after the game, will say, "I was feeling it. I was in the zone."
One doesn't tend to think of athletics as the home of spiritual matters, but there's definitely a state athletes reach where they're no longer conscious of what they're doing.
Chopra:
It's true. I just saw a program the other day about these football players who said, in the middle of all that screaming, a deafening noise from the stands, they don't hear a thing; their minds are totally silent.
Dave:
To look back on the day when you were practicing medicine...Do you still think of yourself as a doctor?
Chopra:
Healing, health, holy, wholeness...it's the same word. I was trained as a technician, not a doctor. Modern training of a physician is to make him or her a superb technician who knows everything about the human body but a lousy doctor because you know nothing about the human soul.
Dave:
Do you see that changing? Improving?
Chopra:
It is. I speak at Harvard once a year. I've spoken at UCLA, Johns Hopkins, Yale, and the world is changing.
Dave:
What kind of advice do you give young doctors?
Chopra:
I don't. I just explain the bigger picture of what healing could be. There's a new generation of doctors who are very interested in the broader perspective of what healing really is.
Dave:
Are there books or authors that you fall back on, books you go back to?
Chopra: I think there's a lot of good research and data. I don't follow authors as much as I watch the research.
Dave: In journals?
Chopra: Yes, in journals. There's some really good research at Duke and at Harvard, and of course all literature in the field of physics. There's some fascinating stuff happening.
Dave: Many of the examples you cite to bring your arguments together are from prominent scientists, for instance Einstein, Schrodinger, and Stephen Hawking, to name a few.
I didn't grow up in a particularly religious atmosphere, but even so I was taught that science was somewhat anti-God. Do you find that ironic?
Chopra: Science will be responsible for the climactic overthrow of the superstition of materialism.
Dave: This book comes recommended by the Dalai Lama himself. Is there a particular experience or anecdote you'd share about the time you've spent him?
Chopra: The Dalai Lama is the most innocent, childlike person I've met, full of wonder and amazing wisdom that has nothing to do with book knowledge. It's all from experience.
Dave: Does it feel different, being around him?
Chopra: Definitely. It feels different around him; it feels different around Mother Theresa and Nelson Mandela. You feel the power of spirit.
Dave: You mention Mandela. Where does politics fit into all this?
Chopra: Politics is part of the fight/flight and the reactive response at the moment, as is business. It has a long way to go.
Dave: In another interview, you noted a certain concern about the man who recently was elected President and his lack of...
Chopra: ...awareness.
Dave: Awareness of the world at large, let's say.
Chopra: Well, he's learning to delegate appropriately, so maybe we'll survive.
Spirituality in a Material World
Awareness isn't something you achieve, says Deepak Chopra. It's what happens when you stop trying so hard.
Interview by Lisa Schneider
Called "the poet-prophet of alternative medicine" by Time magazine, Deepak Chopra, M.D., is the founder and CEO of the Chopra Center for Well Being in Carlsbad, California. Dr. Chopra was born and raised in India and came to the United States in 1970 to train and then practice internal medicine and endocrinology. He has since developed his own philosophy of wellness that combines Ayurvedic healing with Western medicine and focuses on a balance between mind, body, and spirit. Dr. Chopra is the author of more than 30 books on a variety of topics ranging from herbal medicine, aging, and meditation, to quantum mechanics, golf, and the poems of Rumi. He spoke with us about his latest work, "The Book of Secrets."
I was surprised by what you wrote about spiritual seeking. You say, "Seeking is doomed because it is a chase that takes you outside yourself." But it seems that some of your biggest fans are spiritual seekers.
You know, we all go through those phases at a certain point. The seeker will realize that what they're seeking is the one who's doing the seeking.
Seeking can become stressful when you apply the same laws that you apply in the material world—hard work, exacting plans, driving ambition, and attachment to outcome. Ultimately spiritual awareness unfolds when you're flexible, when you're spontaneous, when you're detached, when you're easy on yourself and easy on others.(Read an excerpt about spiritual seeking from Deepak Chopra's book.)
Are there practical steps that people can take to increase their awareness?
Yeah, in the Eastern traditions, those steps have been referred to as the different kinds of yoga. Yoga literally means union, so the yoga of knowledge, which is a scientific understanding of how the universe operates—the yoga of love, which is paying attention to the impulse of love, which is, after all, the impulse toward unity. The yoga of stillness or contemplation or meditation. And also, the yoga of action, the attitude you have when you perform action, when you do yoga in the spiritual worship or when you have the inner conviction that everything you do comes from God, belongs to God and that every breath of yours and every movement of yours is a divine movement of the eternal being, then those are the steps that bring you closer to the supreme intelligence that orchestrates the universe.
Your book suggests our body chemistry can tell us about our consciousness. How so?
Look at the cells and how they function, you see that each cell has higher awareness. It is doing what it does to maintain the welfare of the rest of the body. The stomach cell's not saying, why should I digest food for the heart and the brain? And the brain doesn't say, why should I regulate the activity of the stomach? So they are inseparably interdependent. They have higher awareness.
Each cell has creativity because every time there is a challenge to the body, the body has to come up with a creative solution. Each cell knows how to commune with other cells instantly, both locally and non-locally, each cell is bonded to every other cell, each cell practices what it does with maximum efficiency—it never hoards anything. Each cell obeys the laws of giving and receiving, each cell has awareness of what's happening in the body, and each cell knows the secret of immortality, because even as it dies, it passes on everything it knows to the next generation of cells.
So if you want to look at the human body as an example of consciousness, it's a direct reflection. Consciousness conceives, governs, constructs, and becomes the activity of the body. And in every human body, or for that matter, in every biological organism, there is an inner intelligence that reflects the wisdom of the universe and is, in fact, the ultimate and supreme genius.
You say that our bodies are always experiencing dying–that "Cells are constantly dying and being replaced" and then ask the rhetorical question, so what are we so afraid of? Why do you think the fear of death seems to be built into us?
The fear of death comes from limited awareness. As long as you think of your real self as the person you are, then of course you're going to be fearful of death. But what is a person? A person is a pattern of behavior, of a larger awareness. You know, the two-year-old dies before the three-year-old shows up, the three-year-old dies before the teenager shows up.
So the real you is neither the perceiver, nor the object of perception, but the real you is that formless spirit that is constantly evolving and sometimes even taking quantum leaps of evolution and expressing itself as both the perceiver and the object of perception. And if you can shift your internal reference point from your skin-encapsulated ego to that larger domain of awareness, then you will find that it's your ticket to freedom—that you do not need to fear death because you're already dying every moment to the past.
The fear of death is the fear of the unknown, and yet, the fact is, we live and breathe and move in the unknown all the time. The unknown is from this moment onwards—you're already living there. You have the pretend game that you're living in the known, but the known doesn't exist anymore, it's already gone. Everything you know is about the past. So you have to both intellectually and experientially be willing to embrace uncertainly, ambiguity, and step into the unknown. The known is a prison of past conditioning. The unknown is always a fresh field of possibilities.
Would you equate this constant evolving and recycling with reincarnation?
You can say that, but you know, there's only one "I" in the end pretending to be all these different "I"s so I really don't even believe there's such a thing as a person; there's only the infinite pretending to be a person, as a temporary pattern of behavior. So what does reincarnate is the wisps of memory and threads of desire, born of past experience.
You write that unity, as opposed to duality, is "the purpose of evolution." What do you mean?
The fact that we experience separation is really a perceptual artifact. There's only a single reality that differentiates into both mind and body and then from body and environment. So our perceptual experience of the environment is different than the body, the body is different from the mind, and the mind is different from the soul.
There are two types of ignorance that we come to in this world, one is innate ignorance, which is this perceptual artifact of separation and the other is cultural ignorance.
Just like, your DNA, for example, differentiates into the different cells of your body, your heart cells and your brain cells, and your kidney cells are different in appearance, but not different in their essence. They came from the same double strand of DNA and if I wanted to isolate the DNA in every cell of your body, even though these belong to different organs, I'd get the same information. So the appearance of the expression of the different organs in the body is different, but it's still the same essence. So, too, every observer is a differentiated aspect of a single observer and every object of perception is a differentiated expression of the same observer, because the observer and the observed, the seer and the scenery, the knower and the known are differentiated aspects of a single consciousness. The goal of all spiritual seeking is to realize that experientially and intellectually—but more importantly experientially.
Cultural ignorance is when we take these ideas of duality and then we create institutions around them—so religious and cultural and social indoctrination perpetuates the ignorance.
Do you believe humanity as a whole is evolving toward unity, toward a "New Age," a new level of consciousness on a global scale?
Yeah. I think it would need a critical mass of people to reach a certain level of awareness for humanity as a whole to be affected so I do not know when that would happen. I think the fact that we now have technology, for example, the Internet—Beliefnet, for example—to take information and knowledge and you can rapidly spread it to so many people. That could never have happened say, 2,000 years ago. But today, I personally look at the Internet as the cloning of collective consciousness, our collective soul, it could be much faster than we think it's going to be.
In another interview you said that "religion pulls us apart and spirituality brings us together in love." Do you think that someone who identifies with organized religion can benefit from your books, from this philosophy?
Religious people can only learn from this kind of philosophy if they go to the basic experience of the founder of their religion. And then they'll realize that Christ wasn't a Christian and that Buddha wasn't a Buddhist and Muhammad wasn't Muslim. These people were having the experience of unity consciousnesses and universal consciousness and they spoke of it in words. So if you're a real Christian, you should be listening to what Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount and then you are expressing the universality of spiritual consciousness.
Because if you claim that your religion is exclusive and that your God is exclusive, then how can that God manage the whole universe? We are one speck of dust in probably the junkyard of infinity and there are billions of galaxies with billions of planets and billions of solar systems. We should not diminish the magnificence of God by giving him a sexist male identity, an ethnic background, squeezing him or her into the volume of a body and the span of a lifetime and a regional geography. That's really not paying a pure respect to the magnificence of the Almighty.
You grew up in a Hindu family in India. Do you consider yourself Hindu today?
No. I'm distressed that Hindus can be as violent as anybody else, the only difference is that they're vegetarians.
Would you talk a little bit about your own spiritual practice?
I meditate two hours in the morning and about half an hour in the evening. And I go to the gym for about 1 hour which I consider to be a really spiritual practice as well. And then I have the attitude during the rest of the day that the only step I'm taking that's real is the one I'm taking at the moment, so I try not to anticipate the future or think about the past, but stay grounded in the moment. And those are the mostly, daily practices—meditations, exercise, and staying in the moment. Once every three or four months, I try to take a week of silence in the wilderness and sometimes my family will join me but sometimes I'll do it all by myself.
When I interviewed your son two years ago, he said that two of the qualities that inspired him, of yours were your curiosity and your not taking life too seriously.
[laughs] That's probably true.
Do you think these qualities can serve as spiritual tools?
I think so. I think seriousness is a mask of self-importance and self-importance in turn is a mask for self-pity. So if you're really going to pursue a spiritual way of living in the world, you must be lighthearted and carefree, have humor, be able to tolerate ambiguity and embrace uncertainty, and be forgiving of yourself and everybody else.
Interview by Lisa Schneider
Called "the poet-prophet of alternative medicine" by Time magazine, Deepak Chopra, M.D., is the founder and CEO of the Chopra Center for Well Being in Carlsbad, California. Dr. Chopra was born and raised in India and came to the United States in 1970 to train and then practice internal medicine and endocrinology. He has since developed his own philosophy of wellness that combines Ayurvedic healing with Western medicine and focuses on a balance between mind, body, and spirit. Dr. Chopra is the author of more than 30 books on a variety of topics ranging from herbal medicine, aging, and meditation, to quantum mechanics, golf, and the poems of Rumi. He spoke with us about his latest work, "The Book of Secrets."
I was surprised by what you wrote about spiritual seeking. You say, "Seeking is doomed because it is a chase that takes you outside yourself." But it seems that some of your biggest fans are spiritual seekers.
You know, we all go through those phases at a certain point. The seeker will realize that what they're seeking is the one who's doing the seeking.
Seeking can become stressful when you apply the same laws that you apply in the material world—hard work, exacting plans, driving ambition, and attachment to outcome. Ultimately spiritual awareness unfolds when you're flexible, when you're spontaneous, when you're detached, when you're easy on yourself and easy on others.(Read an excerpt about spiritual seeking from Deepak Chopra's book.)
Are there practical steps that people can take to increase their awareness?
Yeah, in the Eastern traditions, those steps have been referred to as the different kinds of yoga. Yoga literally means union, so the yoga of knowledge, which is a scientific understanding of how the universe operates—the yoga of love, which is paying attention to the impulse of love, which is, after all, the impulse toward unity. The yoga of stillness or contemplation or meditation. And also, the yoga of action, the attitude you have when you perform action, when you do yoga in the spiritual worship or when you have the inner conviction that everything you do comes from God, belongs to God and that every breath of yours and every movement of yours is a divine movement of the eternal being, then those are the steps that bring you closer to the supreme intelligence that orchestrates the universe.
Your book suggests our body chemistry can tell us about our consciousness. How so?
Look at the cells and how they function, you see that each cell has higher awareness. It is doing what it does to maintain the welfare of the rest of the body. The stomach cell's not saying, why should I digest food for the heart and the brain? And the brain doesn't say, why should I regulate the activity of the stomach? So they are inseparably interdependent. They have higher awareness.
Each cell has creativity because every time there is a challenge to the body, the body has to come up with a creative solution. Each cell knows how to commune with other cells instantly, both locally and non-locally, each cell is bonded to every other cell, each cell practices what it does with maximum efficiency—it never hoards anything. Each cell obeys the laws of giving and receiving, each cell has awareness of what's happening in the body, and each cell knows the secret of immortality, because even as it dies, it passes on everything it knows to the next generation of cells.
So if you want to look at the human body as an example of consciousness, it's a direct reflection. Consciousness conceives, governs, constructs, and becomes the activity of the body. And in every human body, or for that matter, in every biological organism, there is an inner intelligence that reflects the wisdom of the universe and is, in fact, the ultimate and supreme genius.
You say that our bodies are always experiencing dying–that "Cells are constantly dying and being replaced" and then ask the rhetorical question, so what are we so afraid of? Why do you think the fear of death seems to be built into us?
The fear of death comes from limited awareness. As long as you think of your real self as the person you are, then of course you're going to be fearful of death. But what is a person? A person is a pattern of behavior, of a larger awareness. You know, the two-year-old dies before the three-year-old shows up, the three-year-old dies before the teenager shows up.
So the real you is neither the perceiver, nor the object of perception, but the real you is that formless spirit that is constantly evolving and sometimes even taking quantum leaps of evolution and expressing itself as both the perceiver and the object of perception. And if you can shift your internal reference point from your skin-encapsulated ego to that larger domain of awareness, then you will find that it's your ticket to freedom—that you do not need to fear death because you're already dying every moment to the past.
The fear of death is the fear of the unknown, and yet, the fact is, we live and breathe and move in the unknown all the time. The unknown is from this moment onwards—you're already living there. You have the pretend game that you're living in the known, but the known doesn't exist anymore, it's already gone. Everything you know is about the past. So you have to both intellectually and experientially be willing to embrace uncertainly, ambiguity, and step into the unknown. The known is a prison of past conditioning. The unknown is always a fresh field of possibilities.
Would you equate this constant evolving and recycling with reincarnation?
You can say that, but you know, there's only one "I" in the end pretending to be all these different "I"s so I really don't even believe there's such a thing as a person; there's only the infinite pretending to be a person, as a temporary pattern of behavior. So what does reincarnate is the wisps of memory and threads of desire, born of past experience.
You write that unity, as opposed to duality, is "the purpose of evolution." What do you mean?
The fact that we experience separation is really a perceptual artifact. There's only a single reality that differentiates into both mind and body and then from body and environment. So our perceptual experience of the environment is different than the body, the body is different from the mind, and the mind is different from the soul.
There are two types of ignorance that we come to in this world, one is innate ignorance, which is this perceptual artifact of separation and the other is cultural ignorance.
Just like, your DNA, for example, differentiates into the different cells of your body, your heart cells and your brain cells, and your kidney cells are different in appearance, but not different in their essence. They came from the same double strand of DNA and if I wanted to isolate the DNA in every cell of your body, even though these belong to different organs, I'd get the same information. So the appearance of the expression of the different organs in the body is different, but it's still the same essence. So, too, every observer is a differentiated aspect of a single observer and every object of perception is a differentiated expression of the same observer, because the observer and the observed, the seer and the scenery, the knower and the known are differentiated aspects of a single consciousness. The goal of all spiritual seeking is to realize that experientially and intellectually—but more importantly experientially.
Cultural ignorance is when we take these ideas of duality and then we create institutions around them—so religious and cultural and social indoctrination perpetuates the ignorance.
Do you believe humanity as a whole is evolving toward unity, toward a "New Age," a new level of consciousness on a global scale?
Yeah. I think it would need a critical mass of people to reach a certain level of awareness for humanity as a whole to be affected so I do not know when that would happen. I think the fact that we now have technology, for example, the Internet—Beliefnet, for example—to take information and knowledge and you can rapidly spread it to so many people. That could never have happened say, 2,000 years ago. But today, I personally look at the Internet as the cloning of collective consciousness, our collective soul, it could be much faster than we think it's going to be.
In another interview you said that "religion pulls us apart and spirituality brings us together in love." Do you think that someone who identifies with organized religion can benefit from your books, from this philosophy?
Religious people can only learn from this kind of philosophy if they go to the basic experience of the founder of their religion. And then they'll realize that Christ wasn't a Christian and that Buddha wasn't a Buddhist and Muhammad wasn't Muslim. These people were having the experience of unity consciousnesses and universal consciousness and they spoke of it in words. So if you're a real Christian, you should be listening to what Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount and then you are expressing the universality of spiritual consciousness.
Because if you claim that your religion is exclusive and that your God is exclusive, then how can that God manage the whole universe? We are one speck of dust in probably the junkyard of infinity and there are billions of galaxies with billions of planets and billions of solar systems. We should not diminish the magnificence of God by giving him a sexist male identity, an ethnic background, squeezing him or her into the volume of a body and the span of a lifetime and a regional geography. That's really not paying a pure respect to the magnificence of the Almighty.
You grew up in a Hindu family in India. Do you consider yourself Hindu today?
No. I'm distressed that Hindus can be as violent as anybody else, the only difference is that they're vegetarians.
Would you talk a little bit about your own spiritual practice?
I meditate two hours in the morning and about half an hour in the evening. And I go to the gym for about 1 hour which I consider to be a really spiritual practice as well. And then I have the attitude during the rest of the day that the only step I'm taking that's real is the one I'm taking at the moment, so I try not to anticipate the future or think about the past, but stay grounded in the moment. And those are the mostly, daily practices—meditations, exercise, and staying in the moment. Once every three or four months, I try to take a week of silence in the wilderness and sometimes my family will join me but sometimes I'll do it all by myself.
When I interviewed your son two years ago, he said that two of the qualities that inspired him, of yours were your curiosity and your not taking life too seriously.
[laughs] That's probably true.
Do you think these qualities can serve as spiritual tools?
I think so. I think seriousness is a mask of self-importance and self-importance in turn is a mask for self-pity. So if you're really going to pursue a spiritual way of living in the world, you must be lighthearted and carefree, have humor, be able to tolerate ambiguity and embrace uncertainty, and be forgiving of yourself and everybody else.
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