Deepak Chopra is a speaker who makes one wish one had a rewind button, so dense are the insights that he provides (and rattles down in quick succession) that it’s impossible to “get” everything without pausing, repeating and reflecting.
The few thousand strong crowd at the Jaipur Literature Festival’s Front Lawn didn’t seem to mind as they lapped up every word from the charismatic speaker. There would have been few speakers happy with taking the slot after Oprah, but Chopra had no problem following Oprah’s act. In fact, he was instrumental in facilitating the idea of inviting Oprah to Jaipur and the literature festival.
A slight thinning of the large crowd is easily explained by the fact that, compared to Oprah, Chopra is a bit less exotic for a largely Indian crowd. In fact, many of Chopra’s topics are familiar in the Indian context, given that he draws from the Bhagavad Gita and similar works.
Deepak Chopra Explains How 'I Am the Universe'
Chopra started with a literally mind-blowing five-minute whirlwind presentation titled “I Am the Universe” that, like JLF 2012, exceeded all expectations. It culminated in the question “Who Are You?” According to Chopra, a combination of stardust, which is a confluence of space, sound and light - and consciousness. The mind is what regulates energy and information and recycles them.
Even the body recycles and, for Chopra, Twitter and Facebook are global mind networks that constantly recycle information. Even the body, he says, recycles itself and the one we have today is not the same as the one two years ago but the 2012 model. That certainly is an approach worth thinking about.
Chopra went on to describe the three ways in which philosophers and other thinkers have tried to understand the universe. The dualist theory, or Cartesian dualism, was based on the mind-body split, which is no longer viable. The second theory was non-dual materialism, which focused on the 'nothing' once one goes beyond sub-atomic matter. He mentioned both Rumi and Stephen Hawkins as proponents of this theory. Finally, the third theory of non-material idealism or non-material consciousness is the one he advocates as the only still viable one.
How Do Chopra’s Teachings Relate to Everyday Life?
Interviewer Amrita Tripathi asked the valid question of how all of this comes into our everyday life; and, knowing Chopra for his calmness, how he manages not to get stressed out. Deferring the answer to that question, Chopra first talked about the four levels of consciousness, which are being, feeling, thinking and doing. He demonstrated “being” – the silent awareness or atma by making the audience aware of its being with a few seconds of silence.
“Feeling” includes platonic values such as love, compassion, equanimity and joy. Similarly, “thinking” does not refer to thinking on the ego level, for example, about the mundane things of life such as one’s shopping list, but thinking from a creative level. Lastly, “doing” means the unfolding of consciousness. Smiling, Chopra revealed that he does not get stressed because he goes through all four levels.
Chopra Asked About His Research on Jesus and Buddha
Probably the most spiritual comments for an audience hungry for these kinds of thoughts came when Chopra was asked by Amrita Tripathi about his writings on religious leaders, such as Jesus and Buddha, and which one was the most fulfilling. Chopra explained that during his research, he took the experiences of the religious founders into account, that is, their location, background and so on. He noticed that they transcended their ethnic, national and other boundaries and went beyond the subject/object split.
In terms of ethical principles, Chopra found the common thread among religious leaders was that, as enlightened beings, they were inseparable parts of spirit, or god, rather than self-righteous. Finally, what they have in common is a loss of fear of death.
Drawing from his own experience of meditation on death and his own finality, Chopra defined death as the end only of the body-mind apparatus and that, in fact, every process is a dance between life and death. The child, for example, that we all once were, is already dead, so is the teenager and so on. Pointing to death and resurrection, Chopra claimed that, for creativity’s sake, “you have to die to an old context.”
Chopra stressed the importance of staying in the present
Cells that forget to die, for example, become cancer cells as cancer is a cell forgetting about death and going on a quest of immortality throughout the body. Chopra stressed the importance of staying in the present, saying: “If you live in the moment – the only moment that never ends – you anchor yourself to the cutting cusp.” Here, at the immediate future and past, lies the transformational vortex to the infinite mind.
Asked toward the end if he had one message for people, what it would be, Chopra didn’t have to think long and answered quickly: “Take it easy”, causing laughter in the audience. He added: “Understand who the heck you are”, before pointing out that we tend to get caught in everyday life rather than focus on the bigger picture. “There’s a huge magnificence between the banalities of everyday life,” he pointed out. All we have to do is discover it.
Simone Preuss - Simone is a freelance writer, editor and translator who decided to go solo after a successful career in publishing. That was more than ...
