Deepak Chopra
This month, Deepak Chopra celebrates the release of — by our count —his 50th book, The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore. Next month, the beloved physician, poet, prophet and author travels to Costa Rica to lead The Human Forum, a three-day gathering of 500 environmentalists, economists, peace workers, artists and musicians dedicated to creating a more sustainable and compassionate world. The forum, which is open to the public, is an offshoot of Alliance For a New Humanity, Chopra’s ambitious mission to merge the millions of initiatives and individuals working for social change into one great “movement of movements.” “Creativity is the highest expression of spirituality,” Chopra told us, in between taping “The Happiness Prescription” for San Francisco public television. If the social change movement can be organized into one grand symphony, then Chopra, who creates like a man possessed, is our pick for conductor. What is “The Happiness Prescription?”Over the last five or six years, I’ve been looking at the relationship between happiness and subjective wellbeing. Science has focused on stress and disease for years. We know that when you’re stressed it leads to all kinds of problems. Epidemics of our time — cardiovascular disease, cancer, infectious disease and addiction — these are all connected to stress. But [I’ve been focused on] the opposite — if you’re happy, are you healthy? Most people have the idea if I’m healthy, if I have a good relationship, or if I’m successful, I’ll be happy. But it’s the other way around. Life situations don’t make much of a difference. If you win the lottery, you’ll be happy for a little while, but after a year, you’ll be exactly where you were. People have certain set points in their brains for whether they look at things as problems or opportunities. That set point is determined almost genetically, but it can be influenced by meditation, cognitive therapy and, for some people, by antidepressant drugs that act in the very short term but can change your set point. I’ve seen the studies correlating winning the lottery to stress and anxiety in some situations.Yes, this is true. Even if you have a tragedy — let’s say you have a death in the family — after a year or so you’ll be back where you started. Life situation adds about 8-10 percent to your happiness quotient. What makes a significant difference — other than from, say, spiritual discipline or meditation or cognitive therapy — is if you make other people happy, you’re happy. If you do something meaningful, you’re happy. If you have a sense of accomplishment, of creativity, you are happy. If you make a significant difference in your community, or to the environment, you’re happy. But given all that research, there’s something that’s called “existential outcome happiness,” which comes from questions like, “Is there any meaning to our existence?” “Do I have a soul?” “Does God exist?” “What happens to us after we die?” You can have everything, but still have this existential unhappiness. What I’ve been doing is looking into all the research, but then looking deeper into Buddha’s teachings on impermanence, the non-self nature of objects, the non-self nature of our own being, interconnectedness. It has been a great adventure to introduce Buddha’s story as well as his wisdom into this search. I’m hoping it will revive interest in wisdom traditions. If you had to distill your best advice down to one key piece, what would it be?Really understand that you are not a separate self. We are all connected, and everything we call “life” is actually a relationship — even our bodies, which are relationships of organs, which are relationships of tissues, which are relationships of molecules, which are relationships of atoms, which are relationships of subatomic particles. And ultimately there’s only the relationship of consciousness to itself. Somebody totally gets that when they say, “as long as there is me and mine, and me and mine is the predominant internal dialogue, then I will be unhappy.” Because the person you think you are doesn’t exist. You’re a confluence of relationships. If you pay attention to relationship, you will solve even the problem of existential unhappiness. From there, it all includes compassion, which means to be able to suffer with other people. It means to feel the pain of the environment, or what we call the environment, which is really our extended body. It means to be able to help brothers in distress, to understand at the deepest level you wouldn’t exist except in terms of the other. Jesus says to love your neighbor as you love yourself. The deeper meaning is that the other is you. You define yourself. You define even your enemies. You know, George Bush defines himself by looking at his enemies -— Osama Bin Laden, and so on. They’re explicit enemies but they’re also allies, because everything co-creates everything else. To put it simply, the only way to freedom is through compassion. And when there’s compassion there’s love, and when there’s love there’s healing. Not love just as a sentiment, or an emotion, but love as the deepest doing-ness, that we’re actually a single consciousness differentiating into many observers, many points of view and, ultimately, many objects of perception. So in that way, a practice of giving back is like an active expression of our inherent interconnectedness.Yes. But love without giving and love without action is meaningless, and also action without love is irrelevant. There’s lots of angry activism in the world. That’s happened with the environmental movement. If you understand that consciousness is a field, then even justifiable moral outrage adds to the anger of the field. True healing requires activism of a sacred kind, coming from a place of creativity and sobriety, when you’re not outraged even by the gross injustices of the world. Outrage adds to the drama. When you get involved with the melodrama of it all, creativity is lost, and the highest expression of spirituality is creativity, not holiness in the traditional sense, but creativity. We talk about God as the Creator. The more we have access to our own creativity and our collective creativity, the closer we are to the Creator, whatever that mystery is.It seems like you’ve been making a concerted shift towards speaking and focusing on environmental issues.It was a natural evolution. I started as a physician. First you’re treating the body, then you’re treating the mind, then the spirit. Then you realize you can’t treat someone separate of their social interactions. And you can’t look at social interactions isolated from the environment. It’s all one continuum. But the theme remains the same — healing. You have said that humankind’s next evolution will be an evolution of consciousness. What does that mean?If there were a critical mass of people employing insight, imagination, the power of intention, conscious choice making, creativity, inspiration, higher guidance and the awakening of dormant potentials which come about from experiencing our non-local self — which is not the personal self but the transpersonal self — the world would transform, because the world is an expression of our consciousness. Consciousness is a field, and our individual consciousness is just an outcropping of the field. This field transcends space and time, so it would be possible to reach a critical mass that would affect the field itself, transforming even individual consciousness. So that even if you are totally unaware of the greater issues confronting humanity, if there is a critical mass of coherence in that field, your consciousness could spontaneously be affected.In very simple terms, our individual mind is part of a larger mind, whatever you want to call that — “cosmic mind,” “the mind of God,” whatever — we are all contained in one mind. And if there’s turbulence in that mind, then our [individual] minds are in conflict. What keeps you up at night?Meditation. I wake up every hour to meditate for half an hour. I’ve been doing that for almost twenty years; it’s a habit. I meditate in a practice that’s called “witnessing awareness,” and even when my body is fast asleep my consciousness is awake. I get a lot of rest that way. If your mind is still, then even in the waking state your body is completely rested. Sometimes I get so rested that I have to go to the gym.What keeps you focused and motivated and hopeful?I don’t believe in hope. I think hope is a sign of despair. You know, only people who are in despair use the word hope. You have to be in a state of consciousness that is beyond hope and despair, which means a state that is creative, peaceful, not melodramatic, not hysterical, anchored in sobriety and in touch with your soul. Transcendence means beyond hope, beyond despair, beyond pleasure, beyond pain and yet still being conscious of choices you can make that are creative. The best way to change the future is to be fully in the present and to practice intention. But intention not as attachment or addiction.How do you know if your intention is being motivated by attachment or addiction?As long as there is addiction or attachment, there is anxiety. When it’s creative, it’s inspiring and it’s very pleasant. The worst state is addiction. The second is attachment. The third is craving or desire. The fourth is intention. The fifth is just the seed of intention. The sixth is choiceless awareness, which is when you have no choices but you’re so grounded in choiceless awareness that your choices become the ecstatic evolutionary impulse of the universe. So it’s total flow. You don’t make any choices. You allow the universe to choose.What issues are most woefully ignored in public discourse? I would like to hear people talking about economic disparities — really addressing the fact that 50 percent of the world lives on less than $2 per day, 20 percent on less than $1 per day, while we have people who are actually proud to fly private airplanes and display obscene extravagance. It’s already not even politically correct, or won’t be, I hope. [We] must address the fact that there are 250,000 sexual contracts in the brothels of Bombay, that women don’t have any choice because they’re so disempowered. Society has been so primitively sexist. If you empower the women, economy improves, AIDS rates drop and children go to school. So, the answer to AIDS is not retroviral drugs or condoms; it’s the empowerment of women. Extreme poverty can’t be cured by giving aid. The only thing that has been shown to work against poverty is transformation of leadership.What are some of the most exciting ideas or organizations or people that you’ve run across? What’s on your radar these days?I think leadership is the most exciting thing. I teach corporate leadership through a program called “The Soul of Leadership.” Right now I’m working with Frito Lay, a division of Pepsi, which is going to start nutritious projects, completely carbon-neutral manufacturing and consciousness work with 49,000 people next year. So that’s the corporate world, but then there’s the world of the UN which is very grassroots in villages with women and children — and that’s even more exciting.Okay, the final question: what question do you wish our readers would ask of themselves?“How can I help?”Perfect
Friday, February 29, 2008
New Age Supersage
DEEPAK CHOPRA
By Ptolemy Tompkins
To chart the transformation of Deepak Chopra from just another proponent of holistic health and nutrition into the international supersage he is today, one needn't look further than the covers of two of his books. On the back of 1997's The Path to Love, Chopra stares out at us wearing a black coat and white collarless shirt that give him a vaguely clerical look. His expression is earnest, but a little geeky. On the back of this fall's The Daughters of Joy: An Adventure of the Heart—Chopra's third novel and his second book published this year—all that has changed. A glint of gray shows at his temples, and the tentative half smile of the earlier picture is replaced by a confident, twinkly-eyed grin. Dressed in a black pullover more Melrose than Madras and posed with the easy confidence of someone used to working with photographers and stylists, Chopra has the look of a guru who has arrived.
And arrived he has. Chopra's Mission Control—the Chopra Center for Well Being in La Jolla, California—attracts thousands of visitors and millions of dollars' worth of business each year. His list of friends and admirers runs from Demi Moore to the Dalai Lama. Chopra's 29 books have sold over 10 million copies in English alone and been translated into more than 30 languages. His overall yearly profit exceeds $15 million. His son Gotham and daughter Mallika are each following in his footsteps, Gotham with books and TV gigs and Mallika with a website on human potential. Traditional and alternative medicine, Far Eastern spirituality, New Age philosophy: Chopra's is the name preeminently associated with them all.
Of all the Asian gurus who in recent decades have managed the crossover into the hearts and minds of Westerners seeking enlightenment beyond their own borders, Chopra has arguably been the most successful at erasing apparent differences between East and West by packaging Eastern mystique in credible Western garb. When Larry King turned to him for answers in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, viewers saw a man with a mind completely at home with both tradition and modernity and a heart big enough to mend their differences. Plenty have tried, but no other contemporary importer of Asian wisdom has managed to embody this synthesis in as appealing a package as Chopra has.
Born in New Delhi in 1947, Chopra started out with dreams of becoming a novelist before his cardiologist father convinced him to go to medical school instead. He came west at 21, ending up as an endocrinologist and chief of staff at Boston Regional Medical Center. Fueling himself with coffee, cigarettes and alcohol, dispensing pharmaceuticals that numbed symptoms but often made no deeper impact on his patients' illnesses, Chopra found himself thinking more and more about the heritage of traditional healing he had left behind with his move to America. In 1985, after hearing a lecture by Transcendental Meditation guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Chopra became interested in Ayurveda, an ancient Indian science of healthy living based on an understanding that the physical body has its roots in the world of spirit. Convinced that it held secrets the modern world was in dire need of, Chopra turned his life around. He stopped the cigarettes and alcohol and plunged into a study of Ayurveda and other sciences of traditional healing. Soon he was downloading In-dia's vast corpus of wisdom on the subject into a series of slim, digestible volumes with names like Perfect Health and Uncondi-tional Life. From insomnia to obesity to cancer, no modern misery went unexamined.
With 1993's Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, Chopra broke through in earnest. The book became a best seller, got Chopra wide coverage in the media and established his image as a man of science with the soul of a mystic. In the years since, Chopra has steadily enlarged his reputation from that of healer to philosopher-at-large. East and West, mind and body, science and spirit: Chopra's smiling, ever more confident face has become an icon of the hope that the world is entering a new age of synthesis and understanding where all such rifts will become mere memories.
Anyone with a glancing knowledge of the writings of the human-potential movement of the past 40 years will have no trouble finding in Chopra's work influences, both hidden and acknowledged, from beyond India's borders. Abraham Maslow, Teilhard de Chardin, Joseph Campbell, Carlos Castaneda and other counterculture standards blend into the mix with a healthy helping of contemporary psychologists, biologists and physicists. "Our brains are hardwired to know God," Chopra has said, in a characteristic splice of old-fashioned mysticism and modern techno-speak. In The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, he explains that "the physical universe is nothing other than the Self curving back within Itself to experience Itself as spirit, mind and physical matter ... The same laws that nature uses to create a forest or a galaxy or a star or a human body can also bring about the fulfillment of our deepest desires."
Chopra's take on those desires is one of the aspects of his thought that most sets him apart from the traditional Eastern texts he sources. Does union with the cosmos mean renouncing one's wealth, one's fame or other such amenities? "If you have guilt, fear and insecurity over money or success or anything else," Chopra writes, "these are reflections of guilt, fear and insecurity as basic aspects of your personality." Having thoroughly examined and come to know your true nature, he argues, "you will never feel guilty, fearful or insecure about money or affluence or fulfilling your desires because you will realize that the essence of all material wealth is life energy, it is pure potentiality. And pure potentiality is your intrinsic nature."
In other words: don't worry, Demi.
Chopra's news on pain—desire's unfortunate partner down here in the phenomenal world—is equally cheering. In How to Know God, Chopra explains that for one who is enlightened, "a rotten tooth, a tumor or a detached retina" can each be seen as "a cluster of photons, a warped image made of light ... My identity floats in a quantum fog as photons wink in and out of existence. Observing these shifting patterns, I feel no attachment to any of them. They come and go; I am not even troubled by having no permanent home. It is enough to be bathed in the light."
It's a smooth, seductive rap, unfolding in much the same way in book after book. The Daughters of Joy is no exception. Unlike Chopra's previous novel Soulmate, which dwelt at length on specifically Eastern ideas like karma and reincarnation, Daughters focuses on a figure long popular in Western myth and legend, and among contemporary New Agers as well: the Wise Woman. Its slim plot revolves around Jess Conover, a young reporter at a Boston newspaper. Confused, adrift and emotionally anemic, Jess stumbles, seemingly by chance, on a classified ad in a newspaper: "Love has found you. Tell no one. Just come." Could the message somehow be intended for him? Chopra's loyal readers won't linger a nanosecond on that question. Jess's apparently random discovery of the ad, they will know, is an example of what Chopra calls "SynchroDestiny," a process in which the world around us lays out clues in order to draw us into its deeper levels. Jess wrestles his doubts aside long enough to call the number and drive out to the New Hampshire farmhouse of Dolly, a motherly, enigmatic sage who has, indeed, placed the ad just for him.
Jess soon learns that he has stumbled into a sisterhood of modern mystical sorceresses who, page by page, short-circuit every last one of his ingrained, materialist expectations about the universe and his true place in it. Mysterious potions are drunk, lingering glances exchanged, and the mundane world falls away to reveal a visionary landscape of miracles, marvels and fulfilled hearts—one that, Jess discovers, had been there all along, just waiting for him to stumble on it. "We didn't lead you into an illusion," Dolly explains to Jess as he struggles to find his bearings in this dizzying new world. "Dear me, the places you came from, the things you've trusted all your life, the people you've invested in—those are the illusions."
As is the rule with Chopra's books, the proceedings finish up with clearly laid-out instructions to help the reader find the magic lying at the heart of his or her own world. "Life is set up to bring you every needed situation in its own right time." "Judgment is a negative belief system held in place by stuck energy." "Fear is the spiritual opposite of love." And so forth. "Damn it," Jess remarks at one point in his adventure. "I was caught between sobbing and screaming. En-chantment overload will do that."
Ever since his early days as an advocate of alternative healing and nutrition, Chopra has been a magnet for criticism—most of it from the medical and scientific communities. Accusations have ranged from the dismissive—Chopra is just another huckster purveying watered-down Eastern wisdom mixed with pseudo science and pop psychology—to the outright damning. Chopra's extravagant claims for Ayurveda and other traditional healing techniques can, some have argued, create false hope in genuinely ill people and dissuade them from seeking medical care and guidance. Chopra has weathered all such claims, either with smiling equanimity or, on occasion, a call from his lawyers. In 1996 London's Weekly Standard published an article accusing him of such unsavory activities as plagiarism and soliciting a prostitute. Chopra sued and scored a resounding victory, forcing the paper to recant its charges and print an apology.
That Chopra is a smoothie—who in his quest to construct a pleasing and seamless model of the universe tends to jump to easy conclusions and to spackle over problematic gaps and inconsistencies in the ideas he presents—is obvious to all but his most starry-eyed fans. But grousing about such crimes—as many do—does little to explain his enormous popularity. Chopra is as rich as he is today not because he has been dishonest with anyone, but because his basic message—that love, health and happiness are possible, that mystery is real and that the universe is ultimately a friendly and benevolent place where orthodoxies old and new can meet and make peace with one another—is one that he wants to believe in just as sincerely as his readers do.
"Nothing feels more impossible than human suffering," says a character in The Daughters of Joy. "We get trapped in it because we've lined up our unsolved problems like horses on a merry-go-round. Every day the same horses go around inside our heads. Old grievances, unforgotten pain, resentment, anger, failure and insecurity—the circle keeps turning." Through his books, videos and workshops, Chopra offers a ticket off that merry-go-round. He is hardly to blame if, to date, there has been no shortage of takers.
INTERVIEW WITH DEEPAK CHOPRA
Deepak Chopra is a traditionally trained physician of Indian origin who emerged onto the American medical scene in the eighties preaching and practicing medicine based on the eastern principals of healing the whole person as opposed to the piecemeal approach often used by many western doctors: treating symptoms and individual ailments with drugs and surgery. After applying more mainstream tactics at the beginning of his career, Chopra stated that he felt like a “legal drug pusher.” Taking note of the teachings of his eastern relatives and other holistic physicians, he instinctually recognized that healing did not take place exclusively in this physical realm. Deepak Chopra dared to proclaim that in order to heal the body, you needed to treat the whole person rather then a conglomeration of body parts. Hence, the term “holistic.”
Deepak Chopra was also so bold as to infer that there was something more at work that impacts our health and wellbeing. Whether you call it your brain’s chemistry, your soul, your consciousness or a combination of the three (whatever terminology makes you feel more comfortable), there is a mysterious, yet legitimate mind/body connection at work in all of us and it is taking place even as you read this.
PR.com (Allison Kugel):
I want to start by talking to you about meditation, because it’s pertinent to your new book, Buddha. I’ve heard you speak about what should be achieved during meditation. You speak a lot about how in the western world we consider the goal of meditation to be relaxation just because our lives are so crazy and busy. But you actually describe this space that exists in between our conscious thoughts. Can you elaborate on that?
Deepak Chopra: Yeah. The space between our conscious thoughts is referred to as a discontinuity. This is the ground of our existence and more and more it’s being recognized by a few scientists, that the essential nature of everything is a discontinuity. When you look at a table or a tree or a plant or a piece of rock, they too are made up of atoms. The atoms are subatomic particles and the subatomic particles emerge out of something and then disappear into the same place. So a few scientists are beginning to recognize that even though everything appears physical to us and our senses, at the most fundamental level of creation it’s a vibration. It’s something that is going on and off. The space between the two “ons” of every vibration is a discontinuity. That might be the ultimate ground of everything in the universe. So, that means that the discontinuity that exists between your thoughts is the ground of, not only your existence, but the ground of all existence. In other words, the consciousness that is at the background of your thoughts is the same consciousness which is at the background of all the intelligent activity of the whole universe.
PR.com: Does that mean that we’re all sharing the same consciousness?
Deepak Chopra: At the most fundamental level, yes. We’re all contained in a single consciousness. That consciousness has depth to it, so there’s a personal domain, there’s a collective domain and there’s a universal domain. Is the drop in the wave in the ocean the same thing? The answer is yes. They all share the same common bed.
PR.com: When we practice meditation, how can we reach that state?
"Buddha," by Deepak Chopra
Deepak Chopra: Well, there comes a moment, if you’re diligent with your meditation, there comes a moment where there are no thoughts and there is no device that is being used for meditation as well. In the eastern traditions, frequently the device that is used for mediation is called a mantra. Mantra is a sound that has no story attached to it. So if, for example, you mentally repeat the phrase, “Thy will be done,” that really has no story other then surrender. So if you keep mentally repeating something like that, it starts to compete with your thinking process. If you just stay with it very, very effortlessly, then there comes a time when the mantra and the thoughts kind of cancel each other out and your replacement is neither mantra nor thought.
PR.com: And then what is achieved in that state?
Deepak Chopra: Complete silence in the mind and therefore complete silence in the body as well; a state of unity consciousness. What separates you from others is your individual mind that manifests as your personal ego. So if you take that out of the way, there is nothing that separates you from anything else in existence. Now, we know from even fundamental particle physics that the space between subatomic particles or what you call the discontinuity is a field of possibilities. It’s a field where space, time, energy, information and matter all become one. It’s a field where there is uncertainty. It’s a field where there is creativity and it’s a field where there is something called observer effect. The means intention orchestrated fulfillment. It’s a state of consciousness. When consciousness is without thought content, then everything is unified.
PR.com: As mentioned in your book, some of the things that are involved in practicing Buddhism are letting go of the self, non-doing and the concept of time being an illusion. These are concepts that must seem very alien, especially to people in the western world where things like deadlines, ambition and money take precedence. Can you go over each of these things and explain how people here in the United States can incorporate this into their lives?
Deepak Chopra: The non-self refers to no separate self. So the very logic of it, just to take it very logically, you’ll see that your body fluids are the recycling of water, your breath is the recycling of air, your thoughts are the recycling of information, your emotions are the recycling of interactions with other people, your personality is the recycling of relationships. So when you really see yourself in all these different aspects, you see that you don’t exist by yourself. You cannot define yourself without talking about everything else that you’re in relationship to. So the idea of non-self is really a different way of saying that relationship is the key to fulfillment. Without relationships you feel lonely, you feel alienated, you feel fearful. So actually all problems including conflict, war, terrorism, ecological destruction, economic disparities, poverty, lack of caring for what is happening to other people… this is the cause of all our suffering. Buddha is absolutely right…
PR.com: Meaning isolation is the cause…
Deepak Chopra: Fear, isolation and the feeling of separation. The feeling that it’s all “me” or “mine.” It’s a wrong identity. There is no such thing as “me” or “mine.” There is only “us.” There is only what the Buddhists call “interbeingness.” And it’s very much part of western religion. When Jesus Christ says, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” or “Forgive your enemies,” all of that. Everything that is written in the gospel, it’s not about “me” or “mine.” It’s all about “us.”
PR.com: What is non-doing?
Deepak Chopra: Non-doing means when you perform an action without being addicted to the outcome, which is the [source] of stress. You know, the deadlines, meeting this margin in profits, the need to make so much income. What happens is the addiction itself, the anxiety that is created by the addiction in itself, interferes with the process. When a gardener puts a seed into the ground, he doesn’t take it out everyday to see how it is doing. You plant the seed and you pay attention to it. You water the ground and when the season is appropriate the seed comes out. You don’t force it. So the Buddhist’s idea of non-doing simply means that if you are in alignment with the ecstatic evolutionary impulse of creation then your very intention will orchestrate the situation. The circumstances will be events in your life that will give you the creative opportunities to take you to the next place without any anxiety on your part. So again, it’s not only true of Buddhism, but Jesus Christ talks about it. He said, “Look at the lilies of the field. They neither toil nor spin, yet they are more gloriously glowed then Solomon in all his glory.” Or, “I say to you, do not worry about tomorrow.” So the best way to prepare for the future is to be totally in the present and not be addicted to outcome. That is an attitude of non-doing. It’s the attitude that, “Everything I do is part of the impulse of the total universe.”
PR.com: To expand on that point, you come from the point of view, I would assume that we are spiritual beings. Is that correct?
Deepak Chopra: Yeah, by spiritual I mean conscious. Without consciousness there is no life.
PR.com: Why do you suppose we are on this physical plane where we live with money, material objects and things like clothes, jewelry, cars and things like that? Is that a test for us?
Deepak Chopra: Yeah, and it’s also a stage of evolution. When you have all that and you realize that you can say, “Been there, done that,” and it’s not important to you anymore. So every stage of evolution has its own expressions.
PR.com: Do you think one can be enlightened and still enjoy material possessions or do you believe that in order for true enlightenment to be achieved, you have to denounce any kind of materialism?
Deepak Chopra: I think an enlightened person can enjoy everything, with or without material possessions. The difference is addiction.
PR.com: And the concept of time as being an illusion?
Deepak Chopra: Well, if you’re in love then time doesn’t exist. If you’re having a good time, it flies. If you’re having deadlines then you start to think, “I’m running out of time.” If you’re bored you say, “Time is dragging.” If you’re in a very anxious situation, then time takes forever. Time is the way we measure our experience. In the deeper domains where there is unity consciousness, time doesn’t exist. Time is the movement of thought. It separates the observer from the observed when in the deepest reality, the observer and the observed, the seer and the scenery, the lover and the beloved… they’re all the same consciousness.
PR.com: How do you determine, according to your understanding, what you would refer to as the soul or the spirit, and the brain? In other words, when that inner voice speaks to us or when we are having certain thoughts or feelings, what is coming from our soul and what is coming from our brain?
Deepak Chopra: Everything comes from the soul. The brain is an instrument. All your fears, all your anxieties, all your phobias, all your imagination, all your fantasies, all your desires, your creativity, your insight, your intuition, your inspiration, your conflicts… the soul is a place of extreme opposites. It’s a place of ambiguity, a place of uncertainty, and a place of contradiction and paradox. The brain is just the instrument which orchestrates what your soul is. Your soul is evolving. It starts from a place of extreme ignorance and ultimately ends up in a place of extreme enlightenment. That’s our journey. We use our brain and our body to orchestrate everything.
PR.com: But, if you take somebody like a mental health practitioner, and you were to bring up the topics of bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression, phobias, they would argue that it comes from chemical reactions taking place in the brain. Do you disagree?
Deepak Chopra: Well, if I am listening to Beethoven on my radio and my radio is damaged, I won’t be able to hear Beethoven until I fix the radio. They’re right. You have to fix the instrument. But the fault of the instrument is not a reflection of the user of the instrument.
PR.com: Do you always live in a space of complete balance or do you ever have moments, like the rest of us, where you feel out of balance or less peaceful then you’d like to?
Deepak Chopra: I don’t get affected by imbalance, let’s say. So, if I’m traveling from here to Malaysia tonight and I have jetlag… first of all… I don’t experience it the way other people experience it. But, on the other hand if I have it, it’s not a big deal. I’m not uncomfortable by being uncomfortable.
PR.com: You’ve said that you are a follower of the teachings of Buddha, and you wrote a book about it, obviously. Yet, you don’t consider yourself to be a Buddhist or a follower of any particular religion…
Deepak Chopra: Well, my next book is called The Third Jesus, so there you are. I’m trying to see what the experiences were that Jesus Christ had in order to say what he said. The reason it’s called Third Jesus is the first Jesus is historical and the second Jesus is the one hijacked by the Christians and the church. The third Jesus is a state of consciousness which is very similar to Buddha.
PR.com: Is it fair to say that you’re more of a student as opposed to someone who adheres to any one particular religion?
Deepak Chopra: It’s fair to say that I try to see spirituality in the teachings of great wisdom traditions. I try to find the spirituality and the universal insights in the teachings of great prophets… of those people that we call “enlightened.” So, for me there is no difference between the consciousness of, say, Jesus Christ and the consciousness of Buddha. That’s why I think spirituality is the biggest threat to religion.
PR.com: How do you define God?
Deepak Chopra: I think the best definition of God is that God is a mystery. [It’s] the mystery of existence, the mystery of life, the mystery of the universe. As we get closer to this mystery, then we experience love, we experience compassion, we experience creativity, we experience intelligence, we experience joy, we experience loss of fear and loss of fear of even death. We experience inspiration, insight, intuition, imagination. Those are the things that bespeak of the mystery of our own existence. I would say that as soon as you try to conceptualize this mystery, say like a dead white man in the sky, then you lose the essence of the mystery. The moment you conceptualize it, then you limit it to your concept. If God is infinite then God cannot be conceptualized, just like infinity cannot be conceptualized. I would say God is also the source of space, time, energy, information and everything else that exists in the universe. The only definition that’s valid is that God is infinite possibilities.
PR.com: As far as our physical biology, you’ve talked many times about the fact that we are capable of changing our biology and our physiology. On Anderson Cooper 360 you spoke about prayer having a positive impact on health and even helping to potentially reverse life threatening conditions. Do you believe that peoples’ prayers are actually being answered, or is it that by praying you’re getting into a more positive state whereby you’re actually doing it yourself, that you’re changing your own physiology?
Deepak Chopra: Everything you do, you do your own self. Even God is your own creation. I think at the deeper domain, consciousness is what influences biology, what influences social interaction, personal relationships, behavior, environment… everything is the result of consciousness. Now it depends from the depth of which that consciousness is orchestrating its activity. If it’s coming from your limited ego self then it’s not that powerful. If it’s coming from a more collective or universal domain then it’s more powerful. But, everything is you, whether it’s the isolated you, the universal you or the collective you. It’s still you.
PR.com: How can the everyday person tap into this energy to stimulate and improve their own immune system?
Deepak Chopra: It’s a journey. It’s a journey of meditation, behavior and relationships. And it’s a journey of surrender and insight. So if you pay attention to taking time to be still, if you pay attention to nurturing relationships with love and compassion, if you perform actions without being addicted to outcome and if you take the journey of deeper understanding into the nature of reality, then by and by you will have the realization that everything that is happening in your life is a reflection or a mirror of what’s happening in you.
PR.com: Talk about reversing the aging process and what you’ve mentioned in the past about how you can actually reverse it to the point where you can make yourself, biologically speaking, fifteen years younger or fifteen years older then your actual chronological age.
Deepak Chopra: Your biology is an expression of what’s happening in consciousness. The fastest growing segment of the American population right now is over the age of ninety, and in many parts of the world, over the age of one hundred. A lot of that has to do with better nutrition, better lifestyle and better living conditions. That we’re not dying of smallpox or heatstroke or frostbite, and also because our nutritional status is such that our immune systems are healthy. But knowing that, we also know that if somebody is really abusing their body physically and emotionally, they are burned out and they smoke two packs of cigarettes a day and take drugs and alcohol and their relationships are really messed up, then they could be biologically forty-five even though they’re chronologically twenty-five. In other words, the biological markers reflect a much older biology then their chronological years would suggest. Similarly, if you have somebody who is sixty-five or older but they are physically and emotionally fit, then their biological markers could be much younger. Things like blood pressure, bone density, body temperature regulation, metabolic rate, fat content, cardiovascular conditioning, cholesterol, muscle mass, the strength of muscles, sugar tolerance, sex hormones, hearing, vision, skin thickness, immune function… they could be all reflective of a much younger age. The human body is a function of literally, all the forces of nature. If you understand that these forces of nature are an expression of your own consciousness then you can reverse these forces of nature.
PR.com: Are there certain markers in different parts of the world, where people are living to be over one hundred years old and higher? Are there a few things that come to mind in what people are doing there that they’re not doing here [in the United States]?
Deepak Chopra: Yeah. In places where people live much longer they have respect for the elderly. They think that older people are more useful to society. They don’t have the idea that when you’re sixty-five you have to go to Florida and live there in retirement. It’s a different mindset.
PR.com: Have you been ostracized or criticized for your holistic views?
Deepak Chopra: In the eighties, but nothing since then. In the eighties and maybe nineties, but not now.
PR.com: Not in the mainstream medical community?
Deepak Chopra: No. Actually next week I lecture at Harvard Medical School. I do it once a year and I’ve been [lecturing] there for seven years. It’s one of the highest attended lectures by the medical community.
Deepak Chopra
PR.com: That’s good news! Do you find that many medical institutions are asking for your advice and for your input?
Deepak Chopra: Not advice but definitely for education. We have programs that we offer to medical institutions and also people who take our courses (at The Chopra Center). We’re recognized by the American Medical Association for what they call “The Physicians Recognition Award.”
PR.com: You often refer to quantum science. Can you elaborate on what quantum science is?
Deepak Chopra: Quantum Science is that science that looks at activity at a very subatomic level (subatomic = smaller then an atom and therefore the properties that make up an atom) of creation. It gives us more and more insight into the nature of consciousness and what I refer to as discontinuity.
PR.com: What inspired you to write this book about the life of Buddha?
Deepak Chopra: Actually, the death of my father. I was in India and I was cremating my father’s body and even though I’d always thought about death and loss, I still felt it at a deep level. I decided to actually explore this whole idea of impermanence, myself. Then I realized that Buddha had done it so well, so why not explore his life.
PR.com: What do you think Buddha’s ultimate goal was as far as how he lived his life and the example he tried to set?
Deepak Chopra: Well he was a physician in a sense. He made the diagnosis when human beings experienced suffering, and like a good doctor he said, “These are the causes and this is the way out. Here is the prescription.” So I think he never saw himself as a God or a prophet. He said, “If we want to decrease our suffering and the suffering of others, then we have to wake up to our own potential.”
Deepak Chopra was also so bold as to infer that there was something more at work that impacts our health and wellbeing. Whether you call it your brain’s chemistry, your soul, your consciousness or a combination of the three (whatever terminology makes you feel more comfortable), there is a mysterious, yet legitimate mind/body connection at work in all of us and it is taking place even as you read this.
PR.com (Allison Kugel):
I want to start by talking to you about meditation, because it’s pertinent to your new book, Buddha. I’ve heard you speak about what should be achieved during meditation. You speak a lot about how in the western world we consider the goal of meditation to be relaxation just because our lives are so crazy and busy. But you actually describe this space that exists in between our conscious thoughts. Can you elaborate on that?
Deepak Chopra: Yeah. The space between our conscious thoughts is referred to as a discontinuity. This is the ground of our existence and more and more it’s being recognized by a few scientists, that the essential nature of everything is a discontinuity. When you look at a table or a tree or a plant or a piece of rock, they too are made up of atoms. The atoms are subatomic particles and the subatomic particles emerge out of something and then disappear into the same place. So a few scientists are beginning to recognize that even though everything appears physical to us and our senses, at the most fundamental level of creation it’s a vibration. It’s something that is going on and off. The space between the two “ons” of every vibration is a discontinuity. That might be the ultimate ground of everything in the universe. So, that means that the discontinuity that exists between your thoughts is the ground of, not only your existence, but the ground of all existence. In other words, the consciousness that is at the background of your thoughts is the same consciousness which is at the background of all the intelligent activity of the whole universe.
PR.com: Does that mean that we’re all sharing the same consciousness?
Deepak Chopra: At the most fundamental level, yes. We’re all contained in a single consciousness. That consciousness has depth to it, so there’s a personal domain, there’s a collective domain and there’s a universal domain. Is the drop in the wave in the ocean the same thing? The answer is yes. They all share the same common bed.
PR.com: When we practice meditation, how can we reach that state?
"Buddha," by Deepak Chopra
Deepak Chopra: Well, there comes a moment, if you’re diligent with your meditation, there comes a moment where there are no thoughts and there is no device that is being used for meditation as well. In the eastern traditions, frequently the device that is used for mediation is called a mantra. Mantra is a sound that has no story attached to it. So if, for example, you mentally repeat the phrase, “Thy will be done,” that really has no story other then surrender. So if you keep mentally repeating something like that, it starts to compete with your thinking process. If you just stay with it very, very effortlessly, then there comes a time when the mantra and the thoughts kind of cancel each other out and your replacement is neither mantra nor thought.
PR.com: And then what is achieved in that state?
Deepak Chopra: Complete silence in the mind and therefore complete silence in the body as well; a state of unity consciousness. What separates you from others is your individual mind that manifests as your personal ego. So if you take that out of the way, there is nothing that separates you from anything else in existence. Now, we know from even fundamental particle physics that the space between subatomic particles or what you call the discontinuity is a field of possibilities. It’s a field where space, time, energy, information and matter all become one. It’s a field where there is uncertainty. It’s a field where there is creativity and it’s a field where there is something called observer effect. The means intention orchestrated fulfillment. It’s a state of consciousness. When consciousness is without thought content, then everything is unified.
PR.com: As mentioned in your book, some of the things that are involved in practicing Buddhism are letting go of the self, non-doing and the concept of time being an illusion. These are concepts that must seem very alien, especially to people in the western world where things like deadlines, ambition and money take precedence. Can you go over each of these things and explain how people here in the United States can incorporate this into their lives?
Deepak Chopra: The non-self refers to no separate self. So the very logic of it, just to take it very logically, you’ll see that your body fluids are the recycling of water, your breath is the recycling of air, your thoughts are the recycling of information, your emotions are the recycling of interactions with other people, your personality is the recycling of relationships. So when you really see yourself in all these different aspects, you see that you don’t exist by yourself. You cannot define yourself without talking about everything else that you’re in relationship to. So the idea of non-self is really a different way of saying that relationship is the key to fulfillment. Without relationships you feel lonely, you feel alienated, you feel fearful. So actually all problems including conflict, war, terrorism, ecological destruction, economic disparities, poverty, lack of caring for what is happening to other people… this is the cause of all our suffering. Buddha is absolutely right…
PR.com: Meaning isolation is the cause…
Deepak Chopra: Fear, isolation and the feeling of separation. The feeling that it’s all “me” or “mine.” It’s a wrong identity. There is no such thing as “me” or “mine.” There is only “us.” There is only what the Buddhists call “interbeingness.” And it’s very much part of western religion. When Jesus Christ says, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” or “Forgive your enemies,” all of that. Everything that is written in the gospel, it’s not about “me” or “mine.” It’s all about “us.”
PR.com: What is non-doing?
Deepak Chopra: Non-doing means when you perform an action without being addicted to the outcome, which is the [source] of stress. You know, the deadlines, meeting this margin in profits, the need to make so much income. What happens is the addiction itself, the anxiety that is created by the addiction in itself, interferes with the process. When a gardener puts a seed into the ground, he doesn’t take it out everyday to see how it is doing. You plant the seed and you pay attention to it. You water the ground and when the season is appropriate the seed comes out. You don’t force it. So the Buddhist’s idea of non-doing simply means that if you are in alignment with the ecstatic evolutionary impulse of creation then your very intention will orchestrate the situation. The circumstances will be events in your life that will give you the creative opportunities to take you to the next place without any anxiety on your part. So again, it’s not only true of Buddhism, but Jesus Christ talks about it. He said, “Look at the lilies of the field. They neither toil nor spin, yet they are more gloriously glowed then Solomon in all his glory.” Or, “I say to you, do not worry about tomorrow.” So the best way to prepare for the future is to be totally in the present and not be addicted to outcome. That is an attitude of non-doing. It’s the attitude that, “Everything I do is part of the impulse of the total universe.”
PR.com: To expand on that point, you come from the point of view, I would assume that we are spiritual beings. Is that correct?
Deepak Chopra: Yeah, by spiritual I mean conscious. Without consciousness there is no life.
PR.com: Why do you suppose we are on this physical plane where we live with money, material objects and things like clothes, jewelry, cars and things like that? Is that a test for us?
Deepak Chopra: Yeah, and it’s also a stage of evolution. When you have all that and you realize that you can say, “Been there, done that,” and it’s not important to you anymore. So every stage of evolution has its own expressions.
PR.com: Do you think one can be enlightened and still enjoy material possessions or do you believe that in order for true enlightenment to be achieved, you have to denounce any kind of materialism?
Deepak Chopra: I think an enlightened person can enjoy everything, with or without material possessions. The difference is addiction.
PR.com: And the concept of time as being an illusion?
Deepak Chopra: Well, if you’re in love then time doesn’t exist. If you’re having a good time, it flies. If you’re having deadlines then you start to think, “I’m running out of time.” If you’re bored you say, “Time is dragging.” If you’re in a very anxious situation, then time takes forever. Time is the way we measure our experience. In the deeper domains where there is unity consciousness, time doesn’t exist. Time is the movement of thought. It separates the observer from the observed when in the deepest reality, the observer and the observed, the seer and the scenery, the lover and the beloved… they’re all the same consciousness.
PR.com: How do you determine, according to your understanding, what you would refer to as the soul or the spirit, and the brain? In other words, when that inner voice speaks to us or when we are having certain thoughts or feelings, what is coming from our soul and what is coming from our brain?
Deepak Chopra: Everything comes from the soul. The brain is an instrument. All your fears, all your anxieties, all your phobias, all your imagination, all your fantasies, all your desires, your creativity, your insight, your intuition, your inspiration, your conflicts… the soul is a place of extreme opposites. It’s a place of ambiguity, a place of uncertainty, and a place of contradiction and paradox. The brain is just the instrument which orchestrates what your soul is. Your soul is evolving. It starts from a place of extreme ignorance and ultimately ends up in a place of extreme enlightenment. That’s our journey. We use our brain and our body to orchestrate everything.
PR.com: But, if you take somebody like a mental health practitioner, and you were to bring up the topics of bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression, phobias, they would argue that it comes from chemical reactions taking place in the brain. Do you disagree?
Deepak Chopra: Well, if I am listening to Beethoven on my radio and my radio is damaged, I won’t be able to hear Beethoven until I fix the radio. They’re right. You have to fix the instrument. But the fault of the instrument is not a reflection of the user of the instrument.
PR.com: Do you always live in a space of complete balance or do you ever have moments, like the rest of us, where you feel out of balance or less peaceful then you’d like to?
Deepak Chopra: I don’t get affected by imbalance, let’s say. So, if I’m traveling from here to Malaysia tonight and I have jetlag… first of all… I don’t experience it the way other people experience it. But, on the other hand if I have it, it’s not a big deal. I’m not uncomfortable by being uncomfortable.
PR.com: You’ve said that you are a follower of the teachings of Buddha, and you wrote a book about it, obviously. Yet, you don’t consider yourself to be a Buddhist or a follower of any particular religion…
Deepak Chopra: Well, my next book is called The Third Jesus, so there you are. I’m trying to see what the experiences were that Jesus Christ had in order to say what he said. The reason it’s called Third Jesus is the first Jesus is historical and the second Jesus is the one hijacked by the Christians and the church. The third Jesus is a state of consciousness which is very similar to Buddha.
PR.com: Is it fair to say that you’re more of a student as opposed to someone who adheres to any one particular religion?
Deepak Chopra: It’s fair to say that I try to see spirituality in the teachings of great wisdom traditions. I try to find the spirituality and the universal insights in the teachings of great prophets… of those people that we call “enlightened.” So, for me there is no difference between the consciousness of, say, Jesus Christ and the consciousness of Buddha. That’s why I think spirituality is the biggest threat to religion.
PR.com: How do you define God?
Deepak Chopra: I think the best definition of God is that God is a mystery. [It’s] the mystery of existence, the mystery of life, the mystery of the universe. As we get closer to this mystery, then we experience love, we experience compassion, we experience creativity, we experience intelligence, we experience joy, we experience loss of fear and loss of fear of even death. We experience inspiration, insight, intuition, imagination. Those are the things that bespeak of the mystery of our own existence. I would say that as soon as you try to conceptualize this mystery, say like a dead white man in the sky, then you lose the essence of the mystery. The moment you conceptualize it, then you limit it to your concept. If God is infinite then God cannot be conceptualized, just like infinity cannot be conceptualized. I would say God is also the source of space, time, energy, information and everything else that exists in the universe. The only definition that’s valid is that God is infinite possibilities.
PR.com: As far as our physical biology, you’ve talked many times about the fact that we are capable of changing our biology and our physiology. On Anderson Cooper 360 you spoke about prayer having a positive impact on health and even helping to potentially reverse life threatening conditions. Do you believe that peoples’ prayers are actually being answered, or is it that by praying you’re getting into a more positive state whereby you’re actually doing it yourself, that you’re changing your own physiology?
Deepak Chopra: Everything you do, you do your own self. Even God is your own creation. I think at the deeper domain, consciousness is what influences biology, what influences social interaction, personal relationships, behavior, environment… everything is the result of consciousness. Now it depends from the depth of which that consciousness is orchestrating its activity. If it’s coming from your limited ego self then it’s not that powerful. If it’s coming from a more collective or universal domain then it’s more powerful. But, everything is you, whether it’s the isolated you, the universal you or the collective you. It’s still you.
PR.com: How can the everyday person tap into this energy to stimulate and improve their own immune system?
Deepak Chopra: It’s a journey. It’s a journey of meditation, behavior and relationships. And it’s a journey of surrender and insight. So if you pay attention to taking time to be still, if you pay attention to nurturing relationships with love and compassion, if you perform actions without being addicted to outcome and if you take the journey of deeper understanding into the nature of reality, then by and by you will have the realization that everything that is happening in your life is a reflection or a mirror of what’s happening in you.
PR.com: Talk about reversing the aging process and what you’ve mentioned in the past about how you can actually reverse it to the point where you can make yourself, biologically speaking, fifteen years younger or fifteen years older then your actual chronological age.
Deepak Chopra: Your biology is an expression of what’s happening in consciousness. The fastest growing segment of the American population right now is over the age of ninety, and in many parts of the world, over the age of one hundred. A lot of that has to do with better nutrition, better lifestyle and better living conditions. That we’re not dying of smallpox or heatstroke or frostbite, and also because our nutritional status is such that our immune systems are healthy. But knowing that, we also know that if somebody is really abusing their body physically and emotionally, they are burned out and they smoke two packs of cigarettes a day and take drugs and alcohol and their relationships are really messed up, then they could be biologically forty-five even though they’re chronologically twenty-five. In other words, the biological markers reflect a much older biology then their chronological years would suggest. Similarly, if you have somebody who is sixty-five or older but they are physically and emotionally fit, then their biological markers could be much younger. Things like blood pressure, bone density, body temperature regulation, metabolic rate, fat content, cardiovascular conditioning, cholesterol, muscle mass, the strength of muscles, sugar tolerance, sex hormones, hearing, vision, skin thickness, immune function… they could be all reflective of a much younger age. The human body is a function of literally, all the forces of nature. If you understand that these forces of nature are an expression of your own consciousness then you can reverse these forces of nature.
PR.com: Are there certain markers in different parts of the world, where people are living to be over one hundred years old and higher? Are there a few things that come to mind in what people are doing there that they’re not doing here [in the United States]?
Deepak Chopra: Yeah. In places where people live much longer they have respect for the elderly. They think that older people are more useful to society. They don’t have the idea that when you’re sixty-five you have to go to Florida and live there in retirement. It’s a different mindset.
PR.com: Have you been ostracized or criticized for your holistic views?
Deepak Chopra: In the eighties, but nothing since then. In the eighties and maybe nineties, but not now.
PR.com: Not in the mainstream medical community?
Deepak Chopra: No. Actually next week I lecture at Harvard Medical School. I do it once a year and I’ve been [lecturing] there for seven years. It’s one of the highest attended lectures by the medical community.
Deepak Chopra
PR.com: That’s good news! Do you find that many medical institutions are asking for your advice and for your input?
Deepak Chopra: Not advice but definitely for education. We have programs that we offer to medical institutions and also people who take our courses (at The Chopra Center). We’re recognized by the American Medical Association for what they call “The Physicians Recognition Award.”
PR.com: You often refer to quantum science. Can you elaborate on what quantum science is?
Deepak Chopra: Quantum Science is that science that looks at activity at a very subatomic level (subatomic = smaller then an atom and therefore the properties that make up an atom) of creation. It gives us more and more insight into the nature of consciousness and what I refer to as discontinuity.
PR.com: What inspired you to write this book about the life of Buddha?
Deepak Chopra: Actually, the death of my father. I was in India and I was cremating my father’s body and even though I’d always thought about death and loss, I still felt it at a deep level. I decided to actually explore this whole idea of impermanence, myself. Then I realized that Buddha had done it so well, so why not explore his life.
PR.com: What do you think Buddha’s ultimate goal was as far as how he lived his life and the example he tried to set?
Deepak Chopra: Well he was a physician in a sense. He made the diagnosis when human beings experienced suffering, and like a good doctor he said, “These are the causes and this is the way out. Here is the prescription.” So I think he never saw himself as a God or a prophet. He said, “If we want to decrease our suffering and the suffering of others, then we have to wake up to our own potential.”
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.
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