If You FEEL LOST In Life, Watch This To FIND YOURSELF! | Deepak Chopra & Jay Shetty

Deepak Chopra 0:00 You have to have experienced love in order to create love, and then you bring into action. It starts with empathy, which is feeling what others are feeling, compassion, which is the desire to alleviate suffering, and if you have that, then that is the basis of all love.

Jay Shetty 0:17 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 0:17 But then love has to move into action as well.

Jay Shetty 0:20 [upbeat music] Hello, everyone, and welcome back to On Purpose. Thank you so much for making this commitment to learning and listening about work, life, and love. And today's episode is going to be a real treat for each and every single one of us. Our guest today needs no introduction. He's an incredible thinker in this space. He has been inspiring us for decades, and he's the co-founder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing and the Chopra Foundation, and has written over 86 books on health, wellness, medicine, and several of them are New York Times bestsellers. Today's guest is none other than Deepak Chopra. I know so many of you are so excited for this episode. I know so many of you have been looking forward to us sitting down together again. Deepak, thank you so much for being here.

Deepak Chopra 1:15 Thank you. Thank you, Jay.

Jay Shetty 1:16 I'm so grateful for this opportunity. I was just sharing with you earlier, I had the opportunity and the fortune to meet you three years ago in New York.

Deepak Chopra 1:24 That's right.

Jay Shetty 1:25 And I was interviewing you for two of your books at the time, Radical Beauty and You Are the Universe. And when I met Deepak, I h- I want everyone who's watching and listening to know this, I'd heard so much about him. I'd read his books because my father used to read his books, so they'd be in my house since I was a young, young boy. And when I met him, the most fulfilling feeling I got to experience was that he wanted me to succeed, and he wanted me to succeed because I was trying to help others. And he was so encouraging and so supportive that I felt that genuine energy of love and encouragement and empowerment from him. So your blessings have been-

Deepak Chopra 2:00 Thank you

Jay Shetty 2:00 ... very important in my life, Deepak.

Deepak Chopra 2:02 Well, your success is very important for everyone.

Jay Shetty 2:05 Yeah. Well, thank you.

Deepak Chopra 2:06 It's not just about you, right?

Jay Shetty 2:07 Absolutely, 100%. For me, it's not at all. And so we're very grateful to have you today.

Deepak Chopra 2:12 Thank you.

Jay Shetty 2:12 And today I'm very excited because you interviewed me two days ago, and you were sharing that you can't wait to talk about your past and your journey, which I think will be really illuminating for my audience. And let's go all the way back. New Delhi, I believe, is where it all began, uh, for you.

Deepak Chopra 2:29 I was born, uh, immediately before India's independence, uh, from, uh, British colonialism. So I'm frequently referred to as one of midnight's children. You'd know that phrase-

Jay Shetty 2:44 Yeah

Deepak Chopra 2:44 ... coined by, uh, Salman Rushdie.

Jay Shetty 2:47 Mm-hmm.

Deepak Chopra 2:48 Uh, so, uh, it refers to all of us who were kind of at the cusp of the old era of colonialism and independent India. And, uh, my father was an army doctor. He was actually in the war when I was born, so he wasn't in New Delhi. He was, uh, a prisoner, uh, in, um, Imphal, which is now in, uh, what we call, used to call Burma, Myanmar, uh, and under siege by the Japanese. So he saw me months after I was born.

Jay Shetty 3:24 Wow. And, uh, what was that experience of growing up at that time and on that cusp like? Like, take us back to what that experience was like and...

Deepak Chopra 3:33 Well, you grow up, uh, and, uh, awareness comes very gradually. So my first memory, actually v- very significant memory, is when I was six years of age. My father was, at that time, in England, training to be a medical doctor and then a cardiologist. And I was living with my grandparents, uh, as was my younger brother, who later became the Dean of Medical Education at Harvard Medical School. So we're all a family of doctors. And, uh, I remember at the age of six years getting a telegram, uh, from England. In those days, the postman used to knock at the door. It took actually 48 hours to get a telegram from England.

Jay Shetty 4:27 [laughs]

Deepak Chopra 4:28 Two weeks to go by ship or boat, and two days by airplane, Dakota planes. Anyway, the telegram was that my father had passed all his exams. He was a member of the Royal College of Physicians. My grandfather, uh, w- used to be an old, uh, army sergeant in the British Army, so he had a gun. He went to the ceiling of the apartment building, shot a few rounds into the air to celebrate, took us to the movies. I still remember the movie, Alibaba and the 40 Thieves. And then he took us to a carnival, and then in the middle of the night, he died. So I remember waking up to the wailing of women. Uh, he was taken for cremation, and the next day, uh, he was brought back in a little bottle of ashes. And one of my uncles said, "What is life? Uh, here he was yesterday celebrating with the kids, and now he's a bunch of ashes in the, um, in that bottle." And I remember not only being scared, but also even at the age of six years, having my first [laughs] existential crisis. What's going on? Where is he now? So, you know, and that continued throughout my childhood, uh, and into medical school, and essentially shaped my life-

Jay Shetty 5:58 Yeah, that's-

Deepak Chopra 5:59 ... that one episode.

Jay Shetty 6:00 Yeah, what an in- unbelievable experience to experience so young.

Deepak Chopra 6:04 Yes.

Jay Shetty 6:06 Thank you for sharing that. And, and I really feel that how... When were the moments where you started finding those answers to that existential questioning? Like, when did you start becoming more awakened to the answers that you now share with the world?

Deepak Chopra 6:21 Not till, uh, a long time after that, you know.

Jay Shetty 6:25 Right.

Deepak Chopra 6:25 When I was, uh, in high school, all I wanted to do was be a phys- uh, to be a writer. [laughs] My secret wish always was to write.

Jay Shetty 6:35 Oh, wow.

Deepak Chopra 6:35 And my secret wish always was to write fiction more than anything else. Now, I have written a lot of fiction too, but mostly historical fiction. And I, at the age of, uh, 14, was reading a book called Lost Horizon, and, uh, it was about, uh, this mythical place called Shangri-La where people don't age and where they don't die. And, uh, it was a very interesting book, and I was inspired to write fiction on my own. But my father, as you know Indian fathers, they want their kids to either go to medical school or engineering school. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 7:18 [laughs]

Deepak Chopra 7:18 He wanted me to follow in his footsteps, and so he knew that was not my interest. And, uh, when I was about 15, he gave me some books. Somerset Maugham, uh, who was a physician writer, so th- these are amazing books, Of Human Bondage, The Razor's Edge, which talks about existential, uh, issues. And so I was so inspired by these books that I told my dad, uh, "I wanna be a doctor." And then, you know, I had to do biology all over again to enter medical school. And the thing is that, you know, when you go to medical school, you're supposed to understand health, wellbeing, and all of that, but day one of medical school is anatomy, which means you're introduced to a corpse. So you're supposed to understand life by looking at a dead body.

Jay Shetty 8:10 Hmm.

Deepak Chopra 8:10 That's the model. It's been the model ever since, um, [smacks lips] Michelangelo's times-

Jay Shetty 8:15 Wow

Deepak Chopra 8:15 ... and still is. And so that kind of model stuck in my mind. The body's a physical machine, and, uh, consciousness is a byproduct that, you know, we are molecules that manufacture thoughts. And I lived with that model throughout my medical school years, I told you yesterday, at that time, because, uh, we were introduced to the dissection table and, uh, you know, there's a certain smell that comes from a corpse, and especially if it's been preserved with formalin. So I couldn't get the smell out of my hands, you know, dissection. So I started smoking cigarettes to get rid of the smell.

Jay Shetty 9:00 [laughs]

Deepak Chopra 9:01 And I was experimenting with all kinds of things then. We had some students who had come from, uh, Harvard. Our s- medical school was founded by, amongst other foundations, the Rockefeller Foundation, so we had lots of visiting professors and, um, sometimes visiting students. And these students from Harvard Medical School, um, introduced me to LSD first time. This is before [laughs] even The Beatles got involved.

Jay Shetty 9:31 [laughs]

Deepak Chopra 9:31 And, uh, so I had some interesting experiences during my medical school years with smoking, alcohol, LSD-

Jay Shetty 9:40 Scotch. [laughs]

Deepak Chopra 9:40 ... scotch, the whole works. And it didn't stop till much later, after I actually came to the United States.

Jay Shetty 9:48 Wow. So we've had... This is so interesting because I was sharing the other day-

Deepak Chopra 9:51 Yeah

Jay Shetty 9:51 ... my experimental phase.

Deepak Chopra 9:53 Yes.

Jay Shetty 9:54 And wh- what were you experimenting with? Was it just because it was new at that time? Was it because you felt a certain feeling? Like, where was that experimentation in your mind and life coming from?

Deepak Chopra 10:05 So we're talking about the mid-60s.

Jay Shetty 10:08 Hmm.

Deepak Chopra 10:09 A lot was going on. The Vietnam War was coming to an end. There was a lot of protest against the Vietnam War. Um, uh, you won't even know this, but there was the riots in America-

Jay Shetty 10:23 Yeah

Deepak Chopra 10:23 ... uh, against the Vietnam War.

Jay Shetty 10:26 Of course.

Deepak Chopra 10:26 There was a shooting at Kent State, um, University. And, uh, there was huge global uprising for peace. The feminist movement was just starting. Gloria Steinem was burning her bra in, in Cambridge, uh, Massachusetts. Greenpeace was coming. As young, uh, late teenagers and people who were just embarking on our life journey, we were very idealistic. We thought the world was, uh, going to change.

Jay Shetty 11:00 Hmm.

Deepak Chopra 11:01 The best hit on Broadway was Oh! Calcutta and Hair. And, um, uh, LSD, rock and roll, music were in the air. Uh, The Beatles had just r- uh, published their album, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. So yeah, the... It was a time of idealism, uh, but also a time of experimentation, and also the feeling that the world was changing, but it didn't. We actually regressed.

Jay Shetty 11:28 Yeah. How have you felt about that? Because it's interesting that everyone who's listening and watching right now, the audience that's listening now, may feel that we're kind of going through that period again in the world, where there's an uprising of conversations around obviously the gender pay gap, women's rights. We have more of a conversation right now about equality and unit- unity. We have, again, the conversation around the planet and the environment. It's almost like those same themes in, in our generation are coming to the top. Do you think... You just said there that we've regressed. You don't think that the 21st century-

Deepak Chopra 12:00 I thought we were going to see a world transformation. We were seeing social justice, economic justice, uh, conflict resolution Perhaps the absence of war, a sustainable environment, and a critical mass of consciousness that was moving in the direction of a more peaceful, just, sustainable, healthier, and joyful world. But it did not happen. Twenty years later, in the '80s, you had these, my own counterparts on Wall Street and all these corrupt scandals on Wall Skate, uh, Wall Street, and the idealism was totally shattered. And then we started to regress until, as you said, recently now-

Jay Shetty 12:46 Mm

Deepak Chopra 12:46 ... the conversation is picking up. But it's not enough to pick up this conversation. You know, we have to actually see why we failed in the past.

Jay Shetty 12:55 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 12:56 And that is because idealism without action is useless. You know, they say that love without, uh, action is irrelevant, and action without love is meaningless.

Jay Shetty 13:07 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 13:08 But when you have love in action and love for the greater good, then things can happen, and I'm hoping [laughs] they'll happen now, or we'll wait another 30 years long after I'm gone. Um, we might not even survive with climate change and all the-

Jay Shetty 13:23 Yeah

Deepak Chopra 13:23 ... that's happening right now.

Jay Shetty 13:24 Yeah. Wow. So you really think... And I'm just digressing from your journey. I want to go back to it, but I think this is such a fascinating point that you've raised, that actually the real missing link is acting on our idealistic views and-

Deepak Chopra 13:36 See-

Jay Shetty 13:36 ... and getting involved

Deepak Chopra 13:37 ... and without, uh, being a angry social activist-

Jay Shetty 13:41 Right

Deepak Chopra 13:41 ... without being an angry peace activist. That's a contradiction in itself.

Jay Shetty 13:45 Yes.

Deepak Chopra 13:45 You can't be an angry peace activist. You have to be a peaceful-

Jay Shetty 13:49 Peaceful

Deepak Chopra 13:49 ... being in order to create peace. You have to have experienced love in order to create love, and then you bring into action. It starts with empathy, which is feeling what others are feeling; compassion, which is the desire to alleviate suffering. And if you have that, then that is the basis of all love.

Jay Shetty 14:08 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 14:08 But then love has to move into action as well.

Jay Shetty 14:11 Yeah, absolutely. What a beautiful answer, and I really hope everyone who's listening and watching right now, if there's any cause that you feel empathy towards, if there's ever a moment in your life you feel compassionate, start thinking about how you can experience that and then act with it. That's what we need.

Deepak Chopra 14:28 Let love-

Jay Shetty 14:29 Lead

Deepak Chopra 14:29 ... creep in-

Jay Shetty 14:30 Yes

Deepak Chopra 14:31 ... and let it become the healer and motivation for everything you do.

Jay Shetty 14:34 Yes, absolutely, absolutely. We need more of that. I, I couldn't agree more. I really feel that way, that we live in a world today also when something's happening, we're very good at changing our social media picture.

Deepak Chopra 14:44 Correct.

Jay Shetty 14:44 We're very good at changing the color of our profile, and that's good because we're standing up for something. But to really change something is going to requi- require activation.

Deepak Chopra 14:53 We're polishing our selfies instead of getting in touch with ourself.

Jay Shetty 14:57 Yes. Yeah, exactly, and it's, it's just such a simple option to take that versus to do more. So no, I love that. Let's, let's go back to your story because I, I really want to get there. So when was it now that you're experimenting with LSD, you're, you're smoking cigarettes, you're, you're drinking scotch, you're having all of these experiences while being a medical student? When is the point that you come to a spiritual awakening?

Deepak Chopra 15:18 So, uh, the year 1970-

Jay Shetty 15:22 Mm

Deepak Chopra 15:22 ... I get a letter from a foundation in the United States that if I pass certain exams that were then given by the American Medical Association and another agency called the Foreign, uh, something Executive Council for Foreign Medical Graduates, uh, that I could get a scholarship.

Jay Shetty 15:44 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 15:45 Now, I had not even applied or thought for a scholarship, but I did the exams, and, uh, I passed. And I showed up in New Jersey at a little hospital in Plainfield, New Jersey, a community hospital. I realized when I was here that actually this whole scholarship thing was an excuse to bring foreign doctors into the United States because all the American doctors were in Vietnam-

Jay Shetty 16:12 Wow

Deepak Chopra 16:13 ... and there was a big shortage of physicians. The prestigious posts went to university hospitals for American graduates, and the foreign graduates were then relegated to community hospitals, which offered no education, but lots of work. So I ended up being in this small hospital in New Jersey, and all my colleagues were also foreign doctors. They were from Egypt, from Korea, from, uh, Italy, from, uh, the islands, and so on. And basically, we were cheap labor, four or five dollars an hour. But I got to actually experience what it was to be in, uh, a very traumatic environment. So we had gunshot wounds. Um, the hospital had a reputation for being connected, quote-unquote, to the mafia and all of that. So I worked hard that one year, and then I, uh, got, um, uh, a position in an academic institution, Boston, associated with Harvard Medical School. And, uh, what happened there was I first did my internal medicine. I still s- smoking and drinking and partying as a intern and resident. And then as I was finishing my internship and residency, I became a quote-unquote internist. I then took a specialty training in endocrinology, which is the study of hormones, and, uh, then in neuroendocrinology, which is looking at brain chemistry. And I had some very interesting colleagues, but also my mentor at that time was, uh, a person called Seymour Reichlin. He was world famous. He's now 94, and he still, if he finds a snake in his garden, he'll dissect the brain of the snake looking for neurochemicals. [laughs] But, uh, at that time, now we're well into the mid-'70s, we were discovering In the brain, these chemicals that now everybody knows about.

Jay Shetty 18:28 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 18:29 They're called neuropeptides. So neuro because they're in the brain, peptides because they're protein-like molecules. And one of my colleagues at that time, Candace Pert, she was later the chief of brain chemistry at the NIH, she used the phrase molecules of emotion, and I'd never heard that word. And now everybody knows things like serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin-

Jay Shetty 18:54 Oxytocin, yeah [laughs]

Deepak Chopra 18:55 ... uh, opiates. But that was, we were just discovering these things.

Jay Shetty 19:00 Molecules of emotion.

Deepak Chopra 19:01 Molecules of emotion. And so that got me hooked to the so-called mind-body connection. And, uh, uh, at the same time I was, besides the research, I was also seeing patients. And I was very perplexed as to why two patients who had the same illness could see the same doctor, get the same treatment, and have completely different outcomes. One could die, the other one could recover. So I started writing down the stories of my patients just to see if I could learn something from them. And, uh, I then started submitting these to medical journals, but nobody would accept them. So then what happened is, um-

Jay Shetty 19:42 And they wouldn't accept them be- be- because?

Deepak Chopra 19:44 Because, uh, they're too anecdotal.

Jay Shetty 19:47 Right.

Deepak Chopra 19:47 There's not enough research. So then I s- thought maybe I'll publish them for the general public, and the publishers wouldn't accept that either. It was too New Age. So one day I saw, um, an ad in The New York Times about this big. It said, "If you wanna get your book published, we can do it for $5,000." It was a vanity press. And so I didn't know what that was about. I paid 5,000, which was a lot of money for me.

Jay Shetty 20:16 It was a lot of money.

Deepak Chopra 20:16 We used to get $202 salary a month.

Jay Shetty 20:20 Wow.

Deepak Chopra 20:21 So I had to borrow the money. I got 100 books, very shabbily produced. I didn't know what to do with them. But now at this time, because of all my, you know, what I was learning, I'd given up alcohol and I'd given up every experiment. I was meditating. And, uh, one day I was giving a lecture, uh, to the students at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, and there was a young woman, a student there in divinity school, and she said, "Uh, can you give me a bunch of those books that you're talking about?" I had 100, and she took 12, and she put them in the window of the Harvard, uh, Coop, which is now Barnes & Noble in Cambridge. And, uh, the book was picked up by some kid who gave it to his mother on Mother's Day. She happened to be a literary agent. She called me and she said, "Why do you not have a regular publisher?" I said, "I tried." And she said, uh, she said, "How much did you pay for this?" I said, "5,000." She said, "I'll get you a 5,000 advance." Next thing I know, the book is a national bestseller.

Jay Shetty 21:26 [laughs]

Deepak Chopra 21:26 I'm getting calls from Jackie Onassis and from major publishers all over the country, and I didn't know, my life transformed. So then I actually got in very deeply involved in mind-body medicine. I knew that my colleagues in, uh, Boston were a little embarrassed about me because they didn't believe what I was doing. I went to California and, uh, to give grand rounds at a hospital, and somebody convinced me to come to California, and they'd open a center for me. So that's when I went to California.

Deepak Chopra 22:02 In the meanwhile, I als- had also met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and, uh, you know, he was as popularly known those days as the guru of The Beatles.

Jay Shetty 22:12 Mm-hmm.

Deepak Chopra 22:12 And, uh, actually misunderstood by the world because he was so popular. It happens when you get popular.

Jay Shetty 22:19 Mm-hmm.

Deepak Chopra 22:19 But he was, uh, a very profound being, and he asked me, uh, to study or get involved with first Ayurveda and then Vedanta and consciousness. So that was how it happened. I told him about the molecules of emotion, and he said, "They're not real."

Jay Shetty 22:39 [laughs]

Deepak Chopra 22:40 So that's when I really understood that mind-body medicine was a good start for integrative, uh, health and wellbeing, but it wasn't what, um, these great luminaries were talking about that, as we said, you're not your body, you're not the mind, you're not even in this world, and somehow you're creating the experience of the body, the mind, and the world. So that happened almost, um, I was, I would say, 36, um, when I started to shift into the world of consciousness and trying to figure out ultimate reality. Uh, before that, I was a mind-body integrative doctor, and I still am. I keep my license in California and Massachusetts. We have a medical practice, but my interest right now is unveiling fundamental reality.

Jay Shetty 23:34 What gave you that inclination at that time? Because it was so early on in all of these themes, beliefs, philosophies kind of coming to the West with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, et cetera. It was, it was such an early time for terms like consciousness and reality and illusion. Like, those weren't themes that were spoken about in such a broad way as they are now. What gave you the conviction at that time that that's the direction you wanted to go in, and that there was some reality there as opposed to everything you'd studied?

Deepak Chopra 24:06 I, um, I spent a lot of time with people that Maharishi introduced me to.

Jay Shetty 24:12 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 24:13 There were seers, there were, um, Ayurvedic healers, there were philosophers, there were other adepts in the realm of Kashmir Shaivism, Vedanta-

Jay Shetty 24:28 Mm

Deepak Chopra 24:28 ... and the perennial wisdom traditions. So I immersed myself into that environment. I also got very familiar with the terminology-

Jay Shetty 24:38 Mm

Deepak Chopra 24:38 ... you know, that they were using. And It made intellectual sense but still didn't make experiential sense.

Jay Shetty 24:46 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 24:46 So that's when I really got deeply involved in not only mantra meditation, but in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, especially the chapter on the siddhis, and then I also, uh, um, got involved in various other, uh, disciplines: tantra, Kashmir Shaivism, um, self-inquiry, self, um, self, um, uh, reflection, transcendence, but also got into the habit of being a witness of my mental space, my body, what's happening inside my body-

Jay Shetty 25:26 Mm

Deepak Chopra 25:26 ... and also of perceptual experience. And, you know, once you get, um, so deeply experientially involved, there's no going back. It's like a new child who's been born, can't return to the womb anymore.

Jay Shetty 25:39 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's, it's like-

Deepak Chopra 25:41 So but it was a period. It was 10, 15 years of that.

Jay Shetty 25:44 That's incredible. I love this, by the way. This is amazing. For anyone who's listening or watching right now who hasn't heard Deepak's full story before from him, this is a, this is amazing. D- and you also, we were talking about this the other day, you also end up spending some time as a monk too.

Deepak Chopra 25:58 Yeah, that was actually recently.

Jay Shetty 26:00 Oh, wow.

Deepak Chopra 26:00 It wasn't that long ago.

Jay Shetty 26:01 Oh, okay. Oh, I thought it was... Okay.

Deepak Chopra 26:02 No, I mean, being with Maharishi was like being-

Jay Shetty 26:06 That's what I mean

Deepak Chopra 26:06 ... in a monk environment.

Jay Shetty 26:07 Yes.

Deepak Chopra 26:08 But then a few years ago, I thought to myself I needed a break from, um, break from being so much in the public-

Jay Shetty 26:18 Public, yeah

Deepak Chopra 26:19 ... eye. I wanted to experience anonymity. So actually, I, instead of going to an ashram in India, I went to, um, uh, the north of, uh, the forest in, uh, Korea-

Jay Shetty 26:34 Oh, wow, okay

Deepak Chopra 26:34 ... in South Korea, the border of, um, um, North and South Korea. And I went into a Buddhist monastery and, uh, spent some time as a monk. We shaved our head, uh, shaved our eyebrows, uh, put on robes, uh, went with a begging bowl every morning through the streets, uh, or the streets of the village nearby the monastery. Um, I had a couple of, um, um, apprentice monks with me. Um, there was, of course, the senior monk at the monastery, and we kept silence, uh, throughout the day. But then, and we had one meal and, you know, in, in these Buddhist countries, there's a tradition that if a monk goes by the street, you offer food, it's considered, uh, a benefit.

Jay Shetty 27:29 Yes, yeah.

Deepak Chopra 27:29 You know?

Jay Shetty 27:29 Auspicious.

Deepak Chopra 27:30 Auspicious.

Jay Shetty 27:31 Yeah.

Deepak Chopra 27:31 And you get rewards, karmic rewards for feeding the monks.

Jay Shetty 27:34 Yeah.

Deepak Chopra 27:35 So we used to end up, uh, returning to the monastery with so much food, you'd think we'd gone to Whole Foods or something.

Jay Shetty 27:41 [laughs]

Deepak Chopra 27:42 And the monks would keep filling it up, and there was one meal. And then in the night, they would chant all night.

Jay Shetty 27:49 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 27:50 Um, and we would listen. So it was a good experience, anonymity, and also the freedom that comes from, uh, not being, uh, beholden to the world, in a sense.

Jay Shetty 28:03 Yes. Yeah.

Deepak Chopra 28:04 Uh, it was a good experience.

Jay Shetty 28:05 Yeah. Why was anonymity so... Why do you think anonymity is so important for all of us in our life to experience? Why is it such a fascinating experience?

Deepak Chopra 28:15 Because, uh, when you, uh, uh, go past your ego identity-

Jay Shetty 28:21 Mm

Deepak Chopra 28:21 ... there's a bigger identity that is, uh, so huge, it's incomprehensible. It can't even be described, and there's a freedom and a joy that comes from that. And, uh, I had had glimpses of that-

Jay Shetty 28:38 Mm

Deepak Chopra 28:38 ... but this period of intense stillness... And by the way, since then, I've kept a week of silence, uh, every year. Sometimes-

Jay Shetty 28:46 Wow

Deepak Chopra 28:46 ... I do more. And, uh, that week of silence, usually in September I do every year-

Jay Shetty 28:52 Mm

Deepak Chopra 28:52 ... just to go back to the taste of timeless being-

Jay Shetty 28:57 Yeah

Deepak Chopra 28:57 ... instead of, you know, our ego identity, which we keep polishing every day now, especially these days with social media and books and promotions and you name it.

Jay Shetty 29:07 Mm.

Jay Shetty 29:08 What's something that people can do daily to access that experience? Because like you said, our days are just busy with work and family and commitments and events. What's something people can do daily that helps them access their true identity, their self, going beyond the ego and the mind and the body?

Deepak Chopra 29:26 I think the basic of it is to still the mind as much as possible and just become a silent witness, um, to that which is happening on the screen of your consciousness.

Jay Shetty 29:41 Mm-hmm.

Deepak Chopra 29:42 So if you, um, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, and then, um, you know, I usually start with a little reflection. Who am I? Who wants to know the answer? What is it that wants to know the answers to the question, who am I? Uh, what is my purpose? Uh, what do I want for me and the world? What am I grateful for? That's how I start.

Jay Shetty 30:09 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 30:09 Then I go into a little bit of breathing and then mantra meditation, and then what I do is I witness, uh, what's happening on the screen of my consciousness, just, uh, becoming aware. And sooner or later, you realize that what's happening on the screen of consciousness is not who you are.

Jay Shetty 30:28 Mm-hmm.

Deepak Chopra 30:28 You're the one who's watching that. And then what's happening on the screen of your consciousness ultimately leads to deep insights about mind and body and the physical world, which actually doesn't really exist, but we can get into that when we talk about meta human. But I think if people just ask these four questions every day-

Jay Shetty 30:49 Mm-hmm

Deepak Chopra 30:50 ... before they start their day, even without a prolonged meditation, uh, process, who am I? What do I want? What's my purpose? What am I grateful for? Suddenly, the windows to the bigger reality starts- start to open.

Jay Shetty 31:03 Absolutely. This is such a beautiful point that Deepak's making right now for everyone listening and watching. It's just such a simple way of starting to transcend the noise and the clutter that we feel every morning when we wake up and the first thing we do is look at our phones. All you have to do is just switch that habit for asking yourself these questions and all-

Deepak Chopra 31:22 And you don't need to know the answers because, you know, there are no fixed answers. These answers keep changing. All you have to do is live the questions, and then life keeps moving you into answers that you need at that moment in your life.

Jay Shetty 31:35 Absolutely.

Deepak Chopra 31:35 And it all happens spontaneously, synchronistically speaking.

Jay Shetty 31:38 Such a great point because these answers are revealed-

Deepak Chopra 31:40 Yeah

Jay Shetty 31:40 ... and received.

Deepak Chopra 31:41 Yes.

Jay Shetty 31:41 They're not, they're not found.

Deepak Chopra 31:43 And they're pertinent for that moment in your life.

Jay Shetty 31:46 Yes.

Deepak Chopra 31:46 Not necessarily the answers.

Jay Shetty 31:48 I love that. I think that's such a good point because so often we put this pressure when we ask a question that we must find the answer now. It's like the education system has-

Deepak Chopra 31:56 Yeah

Jay Shetty 31:57 ... drilled us to believing that you have the right or wrong answer within moments.

Deepak Chopra 31:59 No, what was that, uh, poet who said, uh, "Live the questions and life will move you to the answers"-

Jay Shetty 32:06 Yeah

Deepak Chopra 32:06 ... when you need them. Because if you got them right now, you may not be even prepared for them.

Jay Shetty 32:11 Wow. Yeah, that's a good point. I know life has done that to me a lot of times.

Deepak Chopra 32:15 That's it, yeah.

Jay Shetty 32:15 Yeah, when you ask questions, and you think you want the answer now.

Deepak Chopra 32:19 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 32:20 But then when you actually receive it, you realize, yes, I wasn't prepared.

Deepak Chopra 32:22 That's right.

Jay Shetty 32:23 Absolutely. Wow, what a profound, what a profound way of thinking about it. I love that. That's, that's made a huge shift in my mind.

Deepak Chopra 32:29 Thank you.

Jay Shetty 32:29 Not even to want to answer the questions now.

Deepak Chopra 32:31 No.

Jay Shetty 32:31 Just ask them and let your day

Deepak Chopra 32:33 And let them come.

Jay Shetty 32:34 Yeah, let them come.

Deepak Chopra 32:34 They come in the form of insight, intuition-

Jay Shetty 32:37 Oh, that's awesome

Deepak Chopra 32:37 ... inspiration, creative, um, uh, creativity. But most importantly, they come in the form of, uh, meaningful coincidences.

Jay Shetty 32:48 Yeah.

Deepak Chopra 32:48 Or what Carl Jung called synchronicity or what religious people say grace.

Jay Shetty 32:53 Yes.

Deepak Chopra 32:53 That's it.

Jay Shetty 32:54 Yeah, yeah, meaningful coincidences.

Deepak Chopra 32:56 That's it.

Jay Shetty 32:56 Absolutely. Yeah, how beautifully said. I love that. So this is, what I love about your journey, Deepak, is just that at every point, it seems that you've been a seeker for more. Like, you've continually gone in the direction of more learning, more growth.

Deepak Chopra 33:12 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 33:12 Never settling. How have you seen the medical industry shift? How have you seen other things around you shift with time? Because you've really gone all the way. Do you think that we are seeing shifts in the medical world?

Deepak Chopra 33:24 Yeah, we are seeing shifts. When I started, I felt like a loner.

Jay Shetty 33:28 Yeah, I can imagine.

Deepak Chopra 33:29 Uh, but now, integrative medicine is part of every institution-

Jay Shetty 33:34 Amazing

Deepak Chopra 33:34 ... even including academia. And, uh, in the last 15, 20 years, our foundation has done a lot of research, so we've made it pretty mainstream right now. So to summarize very shortly what has taken 30 years to learn, or more, 40 years to learn, is that only 5% of disease-related gene mutations are fully penetrant. So let me explain this-

Jay Shetty 34:03 Yeah, please

Deepak Chopra 34:03 ... for those, uh, yeah, for a lay audience. So a genetic, [clears throat] a genetic mutation is a, is a mistake. It's an error in the gene. Genes are stretches of DNA that code for proteins. So DNA is, uh, stands for deoxyribonucleic acid, and there are four of these, uh, named after alphabets, adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, ATCG. So ATCG are the four letters of life. In English, we have 26 letters. In most languages, human languages, we have more than 20 letters. But the language of life, DNA, has only four letters, ATCG. And these spell out words that we call genes, and the body is a story spelled out by those genes. So when people say, "First there was the word, word was made into flesh," in a way, it's very literal, actually, when you start to look at the biological mechanism. Now, once in a while, or more than once in a while, there are genetic mistakes. So you might think of them, again, we're speaking metaphorically, uh, but a spelling mistake. So instead of the word being spelled correctly, maybe one of the letters, ATCG, is missing, or it's in the wrong place, or it's upside down, or you have redundant two letters instead of one. That mistake, genetic variation, is called a mutation. Now, only 5% of these genetic mutations that are associated with disease, cancer, heart disease, um, arthritis, strokes, um, you name it, autoimmune diseases, Alzheimer's, only 5% actually guarantee the disease. Which means if you have one of those mutations, you're going to get the disease. Like Angelina Jolie had a gene called the BRCA gene, which predicts breast cancer 100%, so she had a mastectomy to prevent the cancer, rightly so. For those 5%, there are new technologies that are being developed right now, and CRISPR is one of them, which means you can cut and paste a gene the way you would an email. So you would take the defective gene, you'd read the barcode with the molecular scissors, you delete it, and then you'll insert the right gene. It's not happening right now, but it'll happen in the near future. But what people don't understand is that's 5% of illness.

Jay Shetty 36:41 Wow.

Deepak Chopra 36:41 The rest, even the genetic mistakes that are associated with disease, depends on how you live your life.

Jay Shetty 36:48 Wow.

Deepak Chopra 36:48 And very simple things like sleep, meditation and stress management, movement, yoga and pranayama. Now, yoga and pranayama goes way beyond exercise because with yoga and pranayama, there's a particular nerve in the body called the vagus nerve. It's the 10th nerve. And the word vagus is a Latin word, but it's re- related to the English word vagabond. So this nerve comes from the midbrain. It influences your facial expressions, so you can now do micro expressions and see if a person is happy or not. It influences the, um, eye movements. It influences the tone of your voice. Are you threatened? Are you stressed? Are you friendly? Are you happy? It influences your heart rate activity, then it pierces the diaphragm, and it influences the activity of every other branch of the vagus nerve that goes to all the organs in the body. So when I discovered this through yoga teachers and masters, I realized that the yoga asanas, you know, we say yoga asana, and people usually translate that into as postures.

Jay Shetty 38:00 Mm-hmm.

Deepak Chopra 38:00 But actually, the word asana means seat, as you know, seat of awareness, seat of consciousness. So each yoga asana is a particular seat of co- consciousness that stimulates a particular nerve that is going to-

Jay Shetty 38:15 Ah

Deepak Chopra 38:15 ... a organ in your body, and the only reason for that nerve is self-regulation or healing or homeostasis. So when I discovered that, I became fanatic about yoga.

Jay Shetty 38:26 [laughs]

Deepak Chopra 38:26 I haven't mi- missed yoga now for as long as I can remember.

Jay Shetty 38:30 That's amazing.

Deepak Chopra 38:31 Not one day.

Jay Shetty 38:32 Wow.

Deepak Chopra 38:32 Okay? Not one day of yoga or meditation or, um, or pranayam. So-

Jay Shetty 38:38 Yeah

Deepak Chopra 38:38 ... it was a long time, so when you put together y- you know, yoga, movement, sleep, stress management, healthy relationships and emotions like love, compassion, joy, equanimity, uh, food that doesn't kill your microbiome, which is the two million extra genes in our body which are not human. So you only have 25,000 human genes, but you have two million bacterial genes in your body. This is called the microbial microbiome. It is much ... It's as important as the human genome. So you can change the activity of your microbial genes just by changing your diet. So if you go, um, not even vegan, but if you go maximum diversity on plant-based foods and foods that are not contaminated with antibiotics or hormones or, uh, insecticides, um, you can change your genetic activity-

Jay Shetty 39:35 Wow

Deepak Chopra 39:35 ... and the population of your genes in less than six weeks, and which means then you're reinventing your body because your body is spelt out by your genes.

Jay Shetty 39:43 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 39:44 So this got me going strongly into how do we-

Jay Shetty 39:47 Wow

Deepak Chopra 39:47 ... reinvent our bodies by resurrecting our souls and going past our minds, and that's what I'm obsessed with now.

Jay Shetty 39:56 Wow, I love that. I'm so glad you're obsessed with it because the fact that we're so responsible for our own wellbeing is huge in the sense of belief that there are ways in which we can rewrite that story or rewire it.

Deepak Chopra 40:09 You can rewrite the genetic structure of your body. You can't change the human genes-

Jay Shetty 40:16 Sure

Deepak Chopra 40:16 ... by the way, because you got them from your parents, but you can change their activity. So-

Jay Shetty 40:20 Right

Deepak Chopra 40:20 ... here's one of our researchers. Um, we put one, uh, we put people through a one-week retreat where they not only learnt mantra meditation, but they also practiced the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali from the chapter on the-

Jay Shetty 40:34 Yes

Deepak Chopra 40:34 ... siddhis, particularly transcending the senses. In one week, literally, and this is published now in major peer review jour- journals. If people wanna check them out, go to choprafoundation.org, and you'll see all the research, and the research was in collaboration with scientists from Harvard, from UCSF, from Duke, from Scripps, of course Chopra Foundation, Mount Sinai in New York, and what did we find? We found that in one week of this practice of meditation and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, all the genes that are responsible for healing and self-regulation, they went up some 17-fold over baseline. These are human genes, and the genes that cause disease or inflammation went down drastically. The enzyme, there's an enzyme in our body called telomerase. It influences the length of telomeres, which are like little buttons at the end of your chromosomes. The, the level of the enzyme went up 40% in one week, which means people are reversing their biological age at a genetic level.

Jay Shetty 41:42 Wow.

Deepak Chopra 41:43 Okay, now, how far does this go? We don't know because, you know-

Jay Shetty 41:46 And that was just one week.

Deepak Chopra 41:47 It's just one week, and, you know, the people who are in samadhi for weeks at a time, those traditions are not that prevalent. You know, there's a technique in Ayurveda called Kaya Kalpa-

Jay Shetty 41:58 Mm

Deepak Chopra 41:58 ... where you go into a retreat where it is totally dark, where you have no communication with the world, where you transcend, where you eat minimal, um, maximum diversity of plant-based foods, and within six months, you come back a younger person biologically, physiologically. You know, I'm 72 now.

Jay Shetty 42:23 I know. You're looking incredible.

Deepak Chopra 42:24 Um, um, I-

Jay Shetty 42:25 Yeah

Deepak Chopra 42:25 ... you know, I, I'm not, uh, focused on aging anymore.

Jay Shetty 42:29 Yeah, I've, I've-

Deepak Chopra 42:29 Because I think that's a mistake.

Jay Shetty 42:30 For anyone who s- uh, follows Deepak on social media, Instagram or Facebook, if you don't already, I highly recommend it, but I've never seen you miss a day of yoga or meditation.

Deepak Chopra 42:40 I don't. I don't.

Jay Shetty 42:40 I see you every time, and you inspire me so much because I just think, like, if you're able at your current body's age to be able to do the things you are with your body and how healthy you are and how healthy your body and mind are, I mean, we have no excuses. Like-

Deepak Chopra 42:53 There's biological age, which is the exact biomarkers.

Jay Shetty 42:58 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 42:58 So what's blood pressure, bone density, body temperature regulation, fat content, cholesterol, vision, hearing, skin thickness, wrinkles, hormones? That's biological age.

Jay Shetty 43:11 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 43:11 Then there's chronological age, when you were born, what your birth certificate says.

Jay Shetty 43:15 Yes, yes.

Deepak Chopra 43:16 Then there's psychological age. How do you feel?

Jay Shetty 43:18 Yes.

Deepak Chopra 43:18 And then there's spiritual age, which is timeless.

Jay Shetty 43:21 Yes.

Deepak Chopra 43:21 Which has no age whatsoever.

Jay Shetty 43:23 Absolutely.

Deepak Chopra 43:23 So, you know, we have to make these distinctions and see which of these we're talking about.

Jay Shetty 43:29 100%, 100%, and when you said at the end there that you're not thinking about aging anymore, what did you mean by that when you said that?

Deepak Chopra 43:35 [sighs] It's now, um, something I talk about, uh, in my new book-

Jay Shetty 43:41 Yeah

Deepak Chopra 43:41 ... Metahuman, that, uh, what we call body, mind, and world, and aging, and birth, and death are actually human constructs. They're not real. Now, uh, we can go into that to the extent that you want.

Jay Shetty 44:01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Deepak Chopra 44:01 I can try and explain-

Jay Shetty 44:01 Should we dive into the book for a bit?

Deepak Chopra 44:02 We can.

Jay Shetty 44:03 Yeah, yeah-

Deepak Chopra 44:03 If you want

Jay Shetty 44:03 ... let's do that. If that's what you wanna do, let's, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Deepak Chopra 44:05 If you want, yeah.

Jay Shetty 44:06 Yeah, no, no, I'd love to. I've, I've got so many questions on the book that, that we'd put together for you, so I'm happy to do that.

Jay Shetty 44:11 So in one of the things, this is what I was looking at, the... You start the book by prompting two questions, right? In moments where you feel very happy, do you watch yourself being happy? And when you're angry, is someone, is some part of you free of anger, right? Why did you start with these two questions?

Deepak Chopra 44:28 So in all the spiritual traditions, um, not necessarily just the Eastern traditions, they speak of two worlds, the immanent and the transcendent. So the immanent is this world that we're in right now, this spacetime causality, New York City, the hotel we're in. And then the transcendent world is the world of infinite being or consciousness. At all times, we're in both these worlds without knowing. But once you become aware even slightly that the awareness of a thought is not a thought, right? If you're able to observe a thought, then you, the observer, is not that thought, right?

Jay Shetty 45:18 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Deepak Chopra 45:19 Similarly, the observer of the emotion or which is the awareness of an emotion is not the emotion.

Jay Shetty 45:24 Agreed.

Deepak Chopra 45:25 Or a perception or a color. You know, right now we are perceiving through our five senses, and what we are perceiving is colors, forms, uh, shapes, sounds, sensations in our body, maybe emotions, and thoughts, and maybe images.

Jay Shetty 45:48 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 45:48 That's the raw material of experience. That's all there is, okay? The words body, mind, and world are human constructs based on the interpretation of these raw sensations.

Jay Shetty 46:03 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 46:04 So once you start to become a witness of experience, you realize that you are intrinsically free of the experience unless you identify with it.

Jay Shetty 46:15 Mm-hmm.

Deepak Chopra 46:15 Unless you say, "That's me."

Jay Shetty 46:17 Yes.

Deepak Chopra 46:17 It's not you. It's an experience you're having, right?

Jay Shetty 46:20 Absolutely.

Deepak Chopra 46:21 So once you bind yourself to the experience, which we call the karmic web-

Jay Shetty 46:26 Mm

Deepak Chopra 46:27 ... of existence, then you are in that circle of karma, memory, desire. Uh, you are constantly seeking validation. You're afraid of people who criticize you. You're flattered by people who flatter you. You feel beneath someone or superior to someone. It's the melodrama of our daily existence.

Jay Shetty 46:51 Yes.

Deepak Chopra 46:52 So when you can observe what's happening in the realm of experience, and instead of reacting to it, you observe the reaction to react even for a second. Instead of reacting to the experience, you observe the reaction to react, you suddenly realize that your range of options or choices right this moment is actually infinite.

Jay Shetty 47:17 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 47:19 And you don't have to be a bundle-

Jay Shetty 47:20 Wow

Deepak Chopra 47:20 ... of conditioned reflexes and nerves that's constantly being triggered by people and circumstances into predictable outcomes. So you become a mu- um, you become... You're at the mercy of every stranger on the street.

Jay Shetty 47:33 Yeah.

Deepak Chopra 47:33 So I think it's very important to know that, yes, I'm having this experience, but I'm intrinsically free of this experience. So that's how the book starts.

Jay Shetty 47:42 Yeah, and I absolutely love that because it's an analogy I usually use to share that experience is like when we're in a car and someone hits the car, we say, "Oh, someone hit me."

Deepak Chopra 47:51 Yes.

Jay Shetty 47:52 But actually, they didn't hit you. They hit the car.

Deepak Chopra 47:54 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 47:54 And you're identifying as the car as yourself.

Deepak Chopra 47:57 Yes. Now, how about if they hit your body?

Jay Shetty 47:59 Yeah.

Deepak Chopra 47:59 You know, and, and your body perishes, right?

Jay Shetty 48:03 Yes.

Deepak Chopra 48:04 So that's the argument people have against the argument that, uh, spiritual people have-

Jay Shetty 48:13 Mm

Deepak Chopra 48:13 ... which is you're not your body, you're not your mind.

Jay Shetty 48:17 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 48:17 So but, you know, you remember that famous, uh, dialogue between Samuel Johnson and, um, and whoever that idealist was, and he said, you know, "The world is a projection of consciousness." And I think it was Samuel Johnson who hit his leg on a piece of stone and said, "I refute you thus"-

Jay Shetty 48:37 Mm

Deepak Chopra 48:37 ... saying that, you know, you get hit by a bus-

Jay Shetty 48:40 Mm

Deepak Chopra 48:40 ... you're going to, you're gonna break your bones-

Jay Shetty 48:44 Sure

Deepak Chopra 48:44 ... and you might die.

Jay Shetty 48:45 Sure.

Deepak Chopra 48:45 So, uh, why do you say that the physical world is an illusion? Now, if you want, we can address that.

Jay Shetty 48:51 Yeah, let's address that. Yeah.

Deepak Chopra 48:52 Let's address that.

Jay Shetty 48:53 Absolutely. Yeah.

Deepak Chopra 48:53 So, you know, this is... Of course, I take people through the book very slowly.

Jay Shetty 48:59 Of course.

Deepak Chopra 48:59 But if you asked a regular person on the street, "What is this?"

Jay Shetty 49:04 Mm-hmm.

Deepak Chopra 49:05 They'd say, "It's a microphone."

Jay Shetty 49:06 Mm-hmm.

Deepak Chopra 49:07 If you ask them, "What's this?" You'd say, "This is a watch."

Jay Shetty 49:11 Mm-hmm.

Deepak Chopra 49:12 "What's this?" "This is my hand." "What's this?" "This is my body." Now, if you really start to look at this very carefully, before you call anything by its name, microphone, hand, body, um, watch, before you use that, those words, it's an experience.

Jay Shetty 49:36 Mm-hmm.

Deepak Chopra 49:37 And the experience is actually not a physical experience. Color, form, and shape are not physical experiences. If I asked you, "Where in the physical world is the color red located?" You would say, uh, nowhere.

Jay Shetty 49:53 Yeah.

Deepak Chopra 49:53 In fact-

Jay Shetty 49:53 Well, everywhere

Deepak Chopra 49:53 ... there's no color red in the physical world. What's coming to your eyes are electromagnetic vibrations which have no color.

Jay Shetty 50:00 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 50:00 What's happening in your eyes, there's no color, and if I asked you to imagine a beautiful run s- red sunset, you have a picture in your consciousness, but there's no picture in your brain.

Jay Shetty 50:12 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 50:12 There's no picture in your eyes, and actually, the sunset is not... If you're imagining it, it's not in the physical world.

Jay Shetty 50:20 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 50:20 Now, what you don't realize is when you're looking at a real sunset, all you're experiencing is color.

Jay Shetty 50:26 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 50:27 The rest is a story. Okay, that's a sunset. This is a body. Okay, colors, shapes, textures, sensations, smells, images, emotions, and thoughts have no location in the physical world.

Jay Shetty 50:44 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 50:45 And yet, out of this raw material, we create the idea of a physical world. So in Sanskrit, that's called Jagat Mithya, the world appearance-

Jay Shetty 50:55 Mm

Deepak Chopra 50:56 ... on the screen of your consciousness, and your body is part of that world appearance because people, you know, they say, "Where are you?" People say, "I'm here," but there's no one inside there.

Jay Shetty 51:04 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 51:05 Okay? Because this is also an experience in consciousness. The mind is an experience in consciousness. Moreover, it's a shifting experience in consciousness. No, you know, a thought is un- ungraspable. It's ephemeral. It's evanescent. You can't catch it.

Jay Shetty 51:20 Yeah, transient, yeah.

Deepak Chopra 51:21 Okay? You can't catch a perception. I look here, I look there. These are two snapshots of perception, and they're evanescent.

Jay Shetty 51:28 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 51:28 I look at my body, and by the time I look at it again, it's a different body because it's recycling so fast-

Jay Shetty 51:34 Mm

Deepak Chopra 51:34 ... at the level of atoms and molecules and information and energy. So the fact that we call this a body, it's actually a changing experience of sensations, images, feelings, and thoughts that is a modified form of your own self.

Jay Shetty 51:49 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 51:50 And it's changing. It's ungraspable. Same thing with the mind. It's ungraspable. Same thing which we will call with the world. It's a changing experience of shifting what we call qualia in the, in the spiritual literature now, in the consciousness literature, there's this word qualia-

Jay Shetty 52:07 Mm-hmm

Deepak Chopra 52:07 ... instead of quantum. A quantum is a unit of measurement, but a qualia is a unit of experience, so if I tell you, "Think of your wife right now," and you see an image, that's a qualia.

Jay Shetty 52:19 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 52:19 Now feel the emotion connected with that, that's a qualia.

Jay Shetty 52:22 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 52:23 Now think of what you want to do with her this evening, go out for dinner or a movie, that's a qualia. So qualia are units of experience. When we string them together, we create the construct of mind, body, and world.

Jay Shetty 52:38 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 52:39 And once we create that construct, then we're stuck with constructs like birth and death and karma and memory and desire and all the things which make a very fascinating human experience, but it's not reality.

Jay Shetty 52:52 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 52:52 It's, it... We are already in a virtual reality, okay? So today, with, uh, VR and immersive augmented experiences and dreamscapes, it is becoming clear that the world that you and I are inhabiting right now is a collective human dreamscape, and as body minds, we are fictional characters in that dreamscape, and it's an illusion that we can upgrade or we can downgrade.

Jay Shetty 53:22 Mm-hmm.

Deepak Chopra 53:22 Uh, you know, we can create heaven out of it or hell, but it's still not fundamental reality, and now with the new technologies, this is becoming very clear.

Jay Shetty 53:31 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 53:32 Once you realize that the world is a construct, yes, the construct has been evolving through mythology, through religion, through economics, through history, through society, through culture, but it's still a construct.

Jay Shetty 53:48 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 53:49 And what these great seers, these great, uh, rishis were able to do is they were able to deconstruct it. Once you deconstruct it, what are you left with? You know, when you left, you've heard that expression, «neti neti neti»," I'm not the mind, I'm not the body, I'm not the intellect, I'm, I'm the observer. What are you left with? Once you deconstruct everything, what you're left with is formless, infinite, dynamic field of infinite possibilities, infinite creativity, infinite love, and the source of intention. So that's what yoga originally was and should be.

Jay Shetty 54:34 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 54:34 Yoga means union, union with the self, which is also the self of the universe, and this is where, you know, I got totally seduced, that human suffering, as the Vedanta says, comes from not knowing true reality, fundamental reality, confusing perceptual reality with fundamental reality, grasping and clinging that which you cannot grasp or cling, the fear of impermanence, the construct of the ego, and the fear of death. These are all the same thing, not knowing what is real and what is a projection, and even the projection can be changed.

Jay Shetty 55:15 Absolutely. Wow, w- what a class in, what a master class in, in, in reality and illusion.

Jay Shetty 55:21 How does, then, one function within the world but then still understand? Because I think the challenge people have on a day-to-day basis, as you've probably heard for decades, is this, "Well, if it, if, if what I'm experiencing is not complete reality, then where do I go from there? Like, what do I do?"

Deepak Chopra 55:37 Well, we all go to the-

Jay Shetty 55:38 "Do I get married? Do I fall in love?"

Deepak Chopra 55:40 Yes.

Jay Shetty 55:40 "Do I not? Do I work?"

Deepak Chopra 55:41 So we go to the movies every, you know... I used to go to a lot of movies.

Jay Shetty 55:45 Yeah.

Deepak Chopra 55:45 I don't that much [laughs] anymore because what we call everyday reality is a more interesting movie-

Jay Shetty 55:50 Sure

Deepak Chopra 55:51 ... than most movies-

Jay Shetty 55:52 Yeah

Deepak Chopra 55:52 ... don't have the imagination to capture the, what is happening In what we call everyday reality. So we're in it, we might as well enjoy it-

Jay Shetty 56:02 Mm-hmm

Deepak Chopra 56:02 ... and upgrade it.

Jay Shetty 56:04 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 56:04 And that's what the expression is, to be in the world and not of it.

Jay Shetty 56:09 Of this world, yeah.

Deepak Chopra 56:10 Okay? Or, uh, we are spiritual beings having a human experience, or non-local beings having a local experience. Timeless, but in time. Once you understand that, and once you also get into the habit of self-reflection, self-inquiry, o- observing perceptual experiences without necessarily judging them, so I'm right now having the experience of colors and forms and tastes and smells and sounds, I don't necessarily have to qualify this experience. And transcendence, where, you know, you go to that place where there is no mantra and no thought and just deep stillness, then the shift starts to occur that you're not identifying with your body, mind, or experiences of the world, and yet you're enjoying them-

Jay Shetty 57:01 Mm-hmm

Deepak Chopra 57:01 ... or not enjoying them, and now you wanna do something to shift. And since you're in the world, you know, about, um, 25 years ago I wrote this book, how to make that practical. And I don't know how, but, um, uh, basically I came up with the idea of the seven spiritual laws of success.

Jay Shetty 57:22 Mm-hmm.

Deepak Chopra 57:23 The law of pure potentiality, the law of giving and receiving, karma, intention, desire, um, least effort, um, and detachment, and dharma. Those seven principles guided me into a new idea of what success is. Uh, the progressive realization of worthy goals, the ability to love, have compassion, but most importantly, to identify with your creative center instead of the projection that's coming from that center, because most of the time our experience of... is coming from identifying with a projection-

Jay Shetty 58:03 Yeah

Deepak Chopra 58:03 ... that has been created by the conditioned or ego mind. Now, the ego mind is not gonna disappear, uh, as long as you're in this body. Or actually, you're not in the body, the body's in you, but whatever. So it's not going to disappear. But if you keep it in the background and you're aware of it-

Jay Shetty 58:20 Mm

Deepak Chopra 58:20 ... and you ask yourself, "What am I motivated by?" And I have these little tricks in my mind, pursue excellence, ignore success, and then everything happens. Synchronicity, meaningful coincidences, the state of grace, effortless being, spontaneous fulfillment of desire. [laughs] These are little things over the years that I've gleaned as my little catchphrases to remind myself-

Jay Shetty 58:46 Yes, of reality

Deepak Chopra 58:47 ... that I must live a life that is based on love.

Jay Shetty 58:51 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 58:52 And if it's not based on love at the highest level, you know, as the Vedantas say, love should radiate from you like light from a bonfire.

Jay Shetty 59:01 Yeah.

Deepak Chopra 59:01 Not focused on anyone and not denied to anyone. It's just the light of the sun.

Jay Shetty 59:07 Yeah.

Deepak Chopra 59:08 If you start... And it takes time, you know, remember, I'm 72.

Jay Shetty 59:10 Of course it takes time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Deepak Chopra 59:12 So I, it took me a long time.

Jay Shetty 59:13 And, and I think that's the most beautiful thing, is that what we're having to do on a daily practical level is just continuing to realign-

Deepak Chopra 59:20 That's it

Jay Shetty 59:20 ... and just being able to recognize that all your exper- you are not your experiences. You are not the result of an external result. You know? You don't have to take on that burden. Just like layers of clothes, we've just been wearing all these emotions like layers of clothes. You can just take them off and let go. They're not you.

Deepak Chopra 59:39 That's very beautifully said.

Jay Shetty 59:41 Yeah.

Deepak Chopra 59:41 But you see, this is also very interesting because awareness is never as free and creative when it's not tethered to an experience.

Jay Shetty 59:57 Correct.

Deepak Chopra 59:57 Whether the experience is that which we call the body-

Jay Shetty 1:00:00 Correct

Deepak Chopra 1:00:00 ... that which we call the world, or that which we call the mind.

Jay Shetty 1:00:03 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 1:00:03 When awareness is untethered, which we call pure awareness, it's infinite.

Jay Shetty 1:00:09 Mm.

Deepak Chopra 1:00:09 Formless, but infinite. You know, Tagore had a beautiful poem. He said, "In this playhouse of infinite forms, I caught sight of the formless, and so my life was blessed." The formless is the real you, and it's infinite.

Jay Shetty 1:00:22 Yeah.

Deepak Chopra 1:00:23 The form is a phenomenon, and as the phenomenon, it's you as that phenomenon. So when you see yourself in an object, we call that beauty. When you see yourself in another person, we call that love, because ultimately there is only the self as both the subject and the object of experience.

Jay Shetty 1:00:42 Mm. Absolutely. Absolutely incredible, Deepak. Every time I sit down with you, I always get another revelation and a, and another thing to focus on. Genuinely, I'm not just saying that. I can just sit and listen to you because, yeah, I'm just starting to piece things together, and I really hope that when the book comes out, we can sit down again-

Deepak Chopra 1:00:57 I'd love to

Jay Shetty 1:00:57 ... and go deeply into just the book.

Deepak Chopra 1:00:59 Well, when the book comes out, maybe we go into the steps to awakening.

Jay Shetty 1:01:02 That's what I think so. I think that would be amazing when the book comes out.

Deepak Chopra 1:01:04 How about we go into, um, Living the Awakened Life?

Jay Shetty 1:01:08 Absolutely. I'd love that. I'd love that.

Deepak Chopra 1:01:09 Let's do that in, in October.

Jay Shetty 1:01:10 Yeah, because today I feel like we've really been able to capture your story-

Deepak Chopra 1:01:13 Right, yeah

Jay Shetty 1:01:13 ... and your background and your journey. And when the book comes out in October, I believe-

Deepak Chopra 1:01:16 Living the Awakened Life

Jay Shetty 1:01:17 ... that's when we'll go into that world.

Deepak Chopra 1:01:19 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:01:19 So Deepak, we end every interview with a final five. This is a rapid fire, quick-fire round. S- uh, answers have to be one word or one sentence. So the first question is, what's your favorite principle in a book you've written? What's one of the number one principles or...?

Deepak Chopra 1:01:35 How can I serve?

Jay Shetty 1:01:37 How can I serve, beautiful. Thank you. Wonderful answer. Second question, if you could get everyone in the world to start doing one thing every day, what would it be? If you could task the world and they could take on one practice, what would be that one practice?

Deepak Chopra 1:01:50 Ask yourself, "Who am I? What am I?" And see what happens.

Jay Shetty 1:01:55 Okay, awesome. Number three, if you could define the human experience in one word, what would it be?

Deepak Chopra 1:02:02 Sacred and profane.

Jay Shetty 1:02:04 Okay, amazing. Number four, what do you feel is your greatest accomplishment?

Deepak Chopra 1:02:09 These days I would like to say my grandkids.

Jay Shetty 1:02:12 Oh, beautiful. And question number five, what is one thing you're looking forward to accomplishing this year? Or learning this year?

Deepak Chopra 1:02:20 Sharing my revelations with the world.

Jay Shetty 1:02:23 Amazing. Deepak, thank you so much for being a living example of everything you speak about.

Deepak Chopra 1:02:28 Thank you. Thank you, Jay.

Jay Shetty 1:02:28 If you already don't follow Deepak on Instagram and Facebook and all the other platforms, Twitter, et cetera, please go and follow him. He is, uh, a real example of everything he shared today. His practice of yoga, his practice of meditation, everything he speaks, it's just emanating from you all the time.

Deepak Chopra 1:02:44 Mm.

Jay Shetty 1:02:44 Uh, being with Deepak for a few moments, you, you get to experience that too. So please, please, please go and follow him. His book Metahuman is coming out in October. We will do another interview for that book, because I believe there's so much to dive into. And today we've been able to uncover Deepak's incredible life. I didn't know all of that. I'm sure all of you didn't as well. So please go ahead, grab the, uh, Seven, uh, Spiritual Laws of Success as well. It's a phenomenal book, one of my favorite ones, so highly recommend that reading before Metahuman when it comes out later this year. But Deepak, thank you again-

Deepak Chopra 1:03:14 Thank you. Thank you, Jay

Jay Shetty 1:03:15 ... for this incredible, incredible opportunity.

Deepak Chopra 1:03:17 It, it was a privilege. Thank you.

Jay Shetty 1:03:18 Thank you, and thank you for being such a supporter of my work-

Deepak Chopra 1:03:20 Thank you. Thank you, Jay

Jay Shetty 1:03:21 ... and such an encourager.

Deepak Chopra 1:03:21 Thank you.

Jay Shetty 1:03:22 Means the world.

Deepak Chopra 1:03:22 Thank you.

Jay Shetty 1:03:22 Thank you so much.

Deepak Chopra 1:03:23 Thank you.

Jay Shetty 1:03:24 If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here. I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book, Think Like a Monk, from thinklikeamonkbook.com. Check below in the description to make sure you order today