Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - Deepak Chopra on Waking Up to Your Full Potential #130

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

My goal with the podcast is to have conversations that matter. And as part of that process, I want to push and challenge myself, and by doing so, hopefully do the same for you. Today's guest is someone who entirely fits the bill. It is the one and only Dr. Deepak Chopra. Deepak is a medical doctor, a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation and Time magazine has described him as ‘one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century’. He recently published his 91st book called ‘Total Meditation’, which offers an exploration of the physical, mental and spiritual benefits that a practice of meditation can bring. In our conversation today, we touch on a whole variety of different subjects, including the problem of instant gratification. We delve into how much of what we do and think is influenced by those around us. Many of us as we get older, or even in response to challenging life circumstances, whether it be grief, loss or heartache, are grappling with the eternal existential questions – Who am I? And why am I here? Deepak provides some really practical tools to help us answer these questions for ourselves. And he also shares some tried and tested techniques to help us get started with meditation. Deepak believes that most of us sleep walk through life and are not in control of our thoughts and feelings. The underlying theme throughout this conversation is how we can wake up to our full potential by accessing new levels of awareness that will ultimately cultivate a clear vision and help us rediscover who we really are. I found this conversation stimulating and felt my mind very much expanded afterwards. I hope it does the same for you.  Show notes available at drchatterjee.com/130 Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee/ Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee/ Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

All our responses to the world are automatic. You're like biological robots. You have no freedom whatsoever in this so-called waking state because it's a reactive state and you're a bundle of conditioned nerves and reflexes constantly being triggered by people and circumstance into predictable outcomes. That's not being awake, that's being asleep.

Hi, my name is Rangan Chatterjee. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More. Hello, this is episode 130 of my podcast. This week's conversation is something a little bit different. And my goal with the podcast is to have conversations that matter and as part of that process, I want to push and challenge myself and by doing so, hopefully do the same for you. Today's guest is someone who entirely fits the bill. It is the one and only Dr. Deepak Chopra. Deepak is a medical doctor, a world-renowned pioneer in integrative

medicine and personal transformation, and Time magazine has described him as one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century. Recently, his brand new book, his 91st book, Total Meditation, came out, which offers an exploration of the physical, mental, and spiritual benefits that a practice of meditation can bring. In our conversation today, we touch on a whole variety of different subject areas, including the problems of instant gratification, as well as diving into how much of what we do and think is influenced by those around us. Many of us, as we get older, or even in response to challenging life circumstances,

whether it be grief, loss, or heartache, are grappling with the eternal existential questions, who am I and why am I here? Towards the end of our conversation, Deepak provides some really great practical tools to help us answer these questions for ourselves. And he also shares some tried and tested techniques to help us get started with meditation. The underlying theme throughout this entire conversation is how we can wake up to our full potential by accessing new levels of awareness that will ultimately cultivate a clear vision and help us rediscover who we really are. I found this conversation challenging, I found it stimulating, and I felt my mind very much expanded afterwards. I hope it does the same for you. Now, on to my conversation with Dr. Deepak Chopra.

It's our world culture today that can be summarized in a single phrase, instant gratification. The world culture is, instant gratification. The world culture is about instant gratification. If you have a headache, there's something you can take right now. If you can't sleep, there's something you can take right now. Your blood pressure is high, you can take a tranquilizer, on and

on. And this is based, obviously, on a false presumption that there's a material solution to unhappiness or anxiety or stress you know if you can't believe your eighth whole thing just have a fantastic big deal you know so the world culture and how we are educated and how we are bamboozled by the media and special interest groups and particularly in my world the medical world the special interest groups include everything from biotechnology to pharmaceutical companies to the politicians. There are 28 healthcare lobbyists in Washington

for every congressman. Lobbyism is a technical nice word for official corruption. So we have a problem. Medical education is also subsidized by special interest groups. All you have to do is open a medical journal and you can see all the ads and the promos. You watch television, at least in America, they'll tell you, you know, this thing is good for your insomnia or for your whatever arthritis, but could also make you impotent and kill you and everything in between but go ask your doctor to give it to you and so you know it's part of our programming it's the hypnosis of social condition yeah i think that's a good point to really try and find out the origin of this for you and the bit in the book that really struck me

was because, you know, I'm aware of your work. You're actually a part of our family lives. My daughter's reading one of your books at the moment. Often we have your children's meditation apps when we're doing sort of family meditations together. So it's your voice actually, you know, plays a part in our family lifestyle. But when there's a part in the book where you say, I think it's back in the 1970s, when you were an intern, or you were certainly a busy, stressed out doctor in the United States, you would help relieve that stress with booze and fags. And for me, as someone who's familiar with your work, it was really nice to read that, but also quite interesting. So I wonder if you could sort of explain what

was going on there. And at what point did you start to look at things in a different way? So it's a very interesting thing. I did my internship at a small community hospital in Plainfield, New Jersey. And then I went to Boston and I was with all the academic hospitals, you know, BU and Harvard and Tufts. And I remember my first grand rounds at the Boston VA hospital. Grand Rounds at the Boston VA Hospital. And, you know, we had this very famous speaker. He was the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. His name was Franz Engelfinger.

The New England Journal of Medicine, at least in the U.S., is the most prestigious journal. He was a medical doctor, gastroenterologist. medical doctor, gastroenterologist. And as soon as he started to speak, all of us residents, fellows, and other doctors, they lit up a cigarette in Grand Rounds, okay? And I also remember as a resident taking care of patients that I had treated, you know, put a pacemaker in or put a ventilator, put a patient on a ventilator, resuscitate the patient and then go outside the hospital and smoke a cigarette, having done that. So it was part of our culture to get drunk on Fridays.

If you were not on call, the other guys were on call, so they couldn't get drunk, but we could, the rest of us. And so that spiraled in my life into a crisis. It spiraled into a situation where I had 20 patients on the outside, on the OPD, as we call it, outpatients, 20 patients in the ICU,, 20 patients in the ICU and 20 patients in the hospital, 60 patients a day. And, you know, trying to cope up with that and also trying to cope up with the demands of the relatives. You know, it's not just the patients, you have to

talk to the relatives, everything. And I was experiencing, in hindsight, I was experiencing what is very common amongst medical doctors, especially psychiatrists, but all medical doctors, emergency room doctors as well. And that is what we now call burnout, physician burnout. So I was experiencing that. Now, the other thing was that in the 70s, late 70s, I was a fellow at New England Medical Center and the Boston VA and my immediate boss was Seymour Reikland who's now 96 by the way who's now 96, by the way.

And he was at that moment, the president of the Endocrine Society. And we were actually looking at neuropeptides like serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, opiates. And one of my colleagues used the word, these are molecules of emotion. And I got kind of captivated by that phrase, molecules of emotion. Then, of course, we later discovered that they're not only molecules of emotion, they're immunomodulators.

They modulate the effect of the immune system. So this was the era when we started to talk about neuropsychoendocrine immune modulation. immune modulation. So the brain, the mind, the endocrine system and the immune system were entangled in what we call homeostasis. And that was for me exhilarating just to think of, you know, we learn in medical school about the immune system, the endocrine system, this, that, the other. We never talk about the healing system. And yet, when we go to medical school, the first lesson you learn in physiology is homeostasis and inflammation, which are both self-regulating as the intention behind inflammation. And homeostasis is self-regulation, which is healing, basically. So this was exhilarating, but at the same time, very challenging

because nobody was talking in those days about mind or body or stress yeah stress but not solutions to stress yeah no thank you really really illuminating and that was that was roughly when in the late 70s in the early 80s yeah yeah and then i wrote a book in 1985 and i wrote quantum healing and i was vilified i mean it was totally attacked for those books earlier books now quantum healing which was released in 1988 is now reshowed with rudy tansey writing the foreword he's runs the neuroscience department at Mass General at Harvard. So we've seen a turnaround in the mainstream circles of medicine. Yeah, I mean, really incredible to see that. Incredible for me, as you know, I came out of

Edinburgh Medical School in 2001, and then had to go on my own journey, you know, all kinds of reasons in my own career where I started to question everything I was taught and started to look at things differently. I think it was always there within me, but it takes a while to sort of undo some of the things that you've learned, right? And actually, that really is one of the underlying themes to me throughout the book Total Meditation. There really is this emphasis on awareness and how do people become more aware. And Deepak, I've got to say, for me, I talk a lot about this and I think a lot about this because awareness is the first step really to make any kind of change. And I think early on in the book, I think you make the case that

you were asked, I think, what is the single most important lifestyle practice? And do correct me if I'm sort of got this slightly wrong, but your answer is to wake up. And I found that so powerful. What does waking up mean? And what would you say to people who are listening to this right now, who have no concepts of waking up? And how would you make it relevant to them? make it relevant to them okay so every day we go through three cycles of what you might call awareness three cycles this morning i woke up so that's the first cycle it's called the waking state and we are in that state right now and then then at night, when we close our eyes, we go through what we call the sleep state, which has two phases, deep sleep and dreams. During deep sleep, we have no experience consciously.

We have no experience consciously. But there is awareness, even in deep sleep. If I make a loud noise or if I pinch you, you respond, which means at some level there is awareness even in deep sleep. And deep sleep, as we know, is rejuvenating and triggers homeostasis, self-regulation, removes amyloid, fine-tunes the immune system, endocrine system, et cetera. Deep sleep is very important, not only for the human species, but every living organism. And there are species, by the way, like some birds and other species,

underwater animals, that sleep during migration, even with half the brain navigating migration and half the brain sleeping there's nothing that doesn't sleep no living organism that doesn't go through this cycle so what is dream state deep dream states is the fluctuation of consciousness without conscious experience you have this fuzzy experience that you call sleep dreams. In the morning, when you wake up, you know that you dream, but most frequently it's very vague. It's very kind of ephemeral. You know, it's kind of evanescent.

You can't capture the dream, so to speak. And then you're in the waking state and you say well this is the waking state but actually you're sleepwalking and the reason you're sleepwalking is that most of your reactions to the world are not coming from conscious awareness or choices that you're making at this moment. We are constantly bamboozled by what I said earlier, the hypnosis of social conditioning. So all our responses to the world are automatic. You're like biological robots. So that means we are in a daze.

We are actually very predictable in our responses. Every situation, every circumstance, every news event, pandemic, elections, a stranger on the street can offend you by insulting you, flatter you, etc. You have no freedom whatsoever in this so-called waking state because it's a reactive state and you're a bundle of conditioned nerves and reflexes constantly being triggered by people and circumstance into predictable outcomes. That's not being awake, that's being asleep. Now, of course, if you go a little deeper, you look at

philosophers like Wittgenstein who said, we are asleep. Our life is a dream. But once in a while, we wake up enough to know that we're dreaming. So what does he mean? What he's saying is that every experience, like this experience we are having right now, is part of the dreamscape and that your body and mind are also fictional characters in the dreamscape. Why do I say this? If you say I am my body and my mind, then I'll ask you which one? You were once a fertilized egg, then you were a zygote, then you were an embryo, then you were an infant, then you were a child, then you were

a teenager, then you were a young adult, then you are what I'm seeing right now. Which one is the real you? Okay. Which one is you? Which body is you? The fertilized egg or this one or the one that's going to get old and firm and die or the one that you had as a teenager when you were going through puberty. You see, when you try to figure out what's your identity as a body, there's no solution. When you try to figure out your identity as a mind, there's no solution because your body is constantly recycling of earth, water, and air. Your mind is the recycling of everybody else's thoughts. There's no original thought unless you're Einstein or you're Beethoven

or you're Bach or you're Vivaldi or you're a Rishi from ancient India. There's no creativity, just recycling social constructs. And therefore, you're asleep. If I asked you what happened to your childhood, it's gone. It's now a dream. If I asked you what happened at 5.47 last Tuesday, a dream. If I asked you what happened at 5.47 last Tuesday, what were you thinking? You can't tell me in all probability. So that's now a dream. What happened to five minutes ago? That's a dream. What happens to my words? By the time you hear them, they don't exist. So any encounter you have with the physical world is an encounter of the past. There is never an encounter of reality. As soon as I see an object, I say, oh, what is this? It's an iPhone. What's this? This is a hand. What is this? This is a headphone. These are human constructs. You know, on the

sensory level, this is a combination of sensations it is texture it is smell it is taste it is sound it is shape it is color you show this to a baby no idea that this is called an iphone or this is called a headphone these are human constructs. All we experience is awareness and its fluctuations, which are sensations, perceptions, images, feelings, thoughts, and then we label them as mind, body, and universe. There's no such thing. The whole thing is a dream, and you are part of the dream. As a body-mind, you're part of the dream. But we use a very interesting word in our language.

It's the most common word in every language. It called I say I was a baby I was a child I was in love I am out of love I lost my job I was a very careless teenager I was you know an addict who's the I that never changes despite everything else that changes? That's you. That's the real you. And when you encounter that real you, you wake up and you wake up to creativity. You wake up to love. You wake up to compassion. You wake up to truth, goodness, beauty, harmony. You wake up to inspiration, insight, imagination, creativity, vision. You wake up to a higher quality. That's what it means to wake up. You sort of say that babies have got that awareness, haven't they?

Babies, I'm guessing, don't need to wake up. Babies are already there. Does that mean then that actually it's society, it's schooling, the way we talk to our kids? then that actually it's society is it's schooling the way we talk to our kids is it all this conditioning that actually takes us away from being fully aware so that when we get to our midlife crises we then have to really try and unlearn what we've learned in society to go back to what we once intuitively knew well there are two sides to that so baby is aware there's no question a baby is fully aware when you look at the baby it's also fully joyful fully embedded in the world of wonder and curiosity and love you look at the baby its eyes are joyful it's trying to lock its eyes with your eyes to see.

If you look into the baby's eyes, and then if you do, it smiles. Okay. The only time a baby is in distress is when it's wet or it's hungry. And that's because it needs to return to homeostasis. So it says, and the mother immediately responds. And how does the mother respond? Through attention. She listens.

Through affection. She loves the baby. Through appreciation, she notices how unique the baby is. Totally, even though it's joyful like all other babies, there's something very unique about this baby. So she appreciates that. And in the beginning, at least, before the baby is sent to school, she totally accepts the baby as is, as is. So the relationship between a mother and a baby is actually very pure, is very innocent, full of wonder, curiosity, love. And we would say empathy, compassion, joy, kindness.

It's the ideal relationship. In fact, there are studies now where I have seen the babies in the room fast asleep. The mother is in another room fast asleep. The baby feels hungry. The mother's breast leaks with milk at the same time. So even in deep sleep, they're in communion. This is called non-local communion, non-local communication these days. And people are developing models to explain that in science.

So you're right. A baby is enlightened but doesn't know it. Okay. It's in pure innocence. Then it gets bamboozled by our constructs, which are necessary because you can't live in the world without these constructs. Money is a construct, but we made it up, right? We made up money. There was a time when I said, you know, give me a haircut and I'll fix your shoes. And then you say, oh, let's do that. Then

I said, you know, give me your eggs, I'll make you an omelet. And then that extended till we said, this is too inconvenient. Why don't I just write on a piece of paper, I owe you this. That became money. Then it became colonial empires. It became slavery. It became Wall Street. It became all these constructs, latitude, longitude, nation states, colonial empire, Greenwich Mean Time.

Who says it has to be Greenwich Mean Time? Why is it not Calcutta meantime? Or Botswana meantime? Or Burundi meantime? Well, this is our colonial history, which has bamboozled us into a construct which is very useful for creating science and technology. But it's useless when you want to know, who am I that's trying to wake up? When you say, who am I? Am I to wake up when you say who am i am i this changing body

mind am i changing personality am i changing what when you start to ask this question you've begun your journey so a lot of people are asking this question uh and i'm interested as to whether you think this is increasing um i what i've seen the last few years, and I appreciate with my experience and where I'm up to in my clinical journey, the fact that I am in my sort of early 40s compared to you at a different stage of life, we potentially are going to have a different perspective on this. But I see a lot of people at my age, maybe in their 30s, actually having all the so-called signs of success, like the job, the car, the two holidays a year, whatever it is that they feel is society's definition of success.

They've got it, yet they're feeling that something deep is missing inside them. This is covered in lots of documentaries at the moment, but this whole idea that we're materialistically more well-off than ever before, cars, as you said, iPhones, whatever it is, but at the same time, anxiety, stress, depression, these things are just going up and up. They're going through the roof. And I think that really speaks to what you're talking about, that many of us are, we're asleep. We're just sort of sleepwalking through life without really understanding who we are or why we're here. And I've got to say that I was very, very surprised. We're very flattered that halfway through the book, you'd mentioned me, my book, The Stress Solution,

and the idea of which I write about in the book about micro stress doses and macro stress doses. So first of all, thank you. You're a good writer. You're a very good writer. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. And I, you know, as I say, I'm super flattered you mentioned me in your book, but I'd really like to understand what is going on. Is that what you're essentially talking about? I'm just, I'm trying to make sure that it's relevant for every single person listening. They get it. They're like, oh yeah, you know, I've got that. I've got the job. I'm married. I've got the car, but I'm just feeling as though there's something missing. Is that what you're speaking to when we talk about waking up and gaining awareness? Is that often the trigger that some people need? Yes, but you know, it's very interesting.

That's the trigger that modern society needed to address what has been called in spiritual traditions an existential crisis or even a dark night of the soul this is a well-known factor in the spiritual traditions so what did the pandemic do it instilled a feeling of collective grief and what when do we have grief? We get grief when we lose something that we took for granted. You lose a parent, you lose your marriage, you lose your job, you lose your health. You go through grief. Everybody at some point goes through grief. Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to AG1, one of the sponsors of today's show. Now, if you're looking for something at this time of year to kickstart your health, I'd highly recommend that you consider AG1.

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As an emergency room, sometimes I saw a person go through the stages of grief within an hour. They had a massive heart attack. Everybody was hovering around them. You know, the alarms were going on. People were looking for a pacemaker, intubator. They were resuscitating the patient. You could see the patient in panic. And you could see that there was a process going on, which today I call grief. And when grief happens, first thing that happens is you feel victimized. You say, oh, you know, why me?

Well, right now it's the whole world, but nevermind, that's the first stage of grief. The second stage of grief is actually anger, sometimes even hostility. And then the third stage is frustration. It doesn't work. And then people start to go into the fourth stage, which is resignation. And then something terrible happens. It's called despair and helplessness. And I've seen people die in that stage of despair and helplessness, because they were so aware of their mortality in that moment.

Only in a few people. Once in a while, you see the next stage. And that next stage is acceptance. And as soon as they accept that moment for what it is, you also see something else, peace. Now, once you see that, there's an opportunity for meaning. So what I'm asking right now is, we are going through collective grief. And why are we going through collective grief? Because we took our existence for granted. We also took our awareness of existence for granted. Okay, we take it for granted. Now,

existence for granted. Okay, let's say we take it for granted. Now, one of your fellow Bengalis, a great sage by the name of Rabindranath Tagore, he said, that I exist is a perpetual surprise. Now, what a phrase to come from this great human being was not only a great poet, but a sage, a rishi, a philosopher. He said that I exist is a perpetual surprise. And he also said, and I'm not directly translating him, but the sentiment exactly. He said, if you're not perpetually surprised by your existence then your humanity is incomplete okay so this is what has happened if this pandemic is pointing out to us that our humanity is incomplete because we're not even surprised or grateful that we exist and we have no idea why we exist or why there is awareness

of existence because if there was no awareness of existence then for all practical purposes there's no existence. This is the great mystery. Now in our Indian tradition, the tradition of you know Sanatana Dharam or you know the schools of thought that come from the great sages or Tagore or Shanti Niketan they say that human suffering occurs only because of five things only because of five things in Sanskrit they are called declations number one we are asleep to our true identity Number one, we are asleep to our true identity. We are asleep. We have no idea of our own creativity.

We're just recycling everybody else's ego reactive responses. So number one. Second, we are clinging to a dream because every experience is a dream. If I said what happened to you five minutes ago, that's a dream right now. So you're clinging to an evanescent, ephemeral, transient, ungraspable dream. The third cause of human suffering is you're recoiling from the nightmare which the dream frequently becomes, as when there's a pandemic, there's a war, there's terrorism, there's eco-destruction, there's climate change. Now we're recoiling from this dream is becoming a nightmare. The fourth is you're identifying with the provisional identity,

which is your current body-mind, not your body-mind from 10 years ago, not your body-mind 10 years from now. So you're identifying, you have a screwed up identity. It's called the ego. And the last cause of human suffering is the fear of death. So these are the five kleshas. And the only solution is to wake up to your true identity, which is unlimited, immeasurable potential for creativity,

for maximum diversity of expression, for higher consciousness, for your capacity to create a better world. All those, which we call dharma, is part of waking up. How does one go about waking up? I used to do this as a practice but I no longer do it because I think I'm awake at the moment

so I used to stop every once in a while during the day and ask myself am I aware and then I would ask myself what am I aware of And then I would ask myself, what am I aware of? And then I would realize that at the end of this question, all I was aware of sensations, perceptions, images, feelings,

and thoughts. That's it. That's the totality of all experience. Sensations in your body, the five perceptions, sound, touch, sight, taste, and smell, that color and shape, images in the mind, imagination, feelings, emotions, and thoughts. Now, if you want an acronym for this, it is S-I-F-T, SIFT. That's the totality of all experience. The rest is a story. You know, it could be a religious story, a theology, a philosophy, a doctrine, a dogma, or scientific story, but it's still a story. If you want to wake up, recognize what's my story right now? Are there other versions of this story? And you realize there are infinite versions of every story, every thought, every feeling,

every emotion, every perception. You know, if I asked you, what's that? You might say, it's a rainbow. And another person said, that's love. That's wonder. That's exhilaration. Or somebody might say, it's just water vapor yeah it's it's about you know it's about curiosity isn't it open-mindedness um yeah and there's there's a

lovely there's i can't remember which chapter it says a lovely lovely bit in the book where you talk about a ripe mango and i actually read it to my daughter last night because you know kids get this stuff like she got it you know this idea that a mango yet to me or to the person look at it it might be this beautiful ripe yellow orangey mango that's going to be sweet and succulent but someone else may look at that completely differently an animal may not see that completely differently. An animal may not see that as yellow and orange. They may say that as just a dull blob. And it's this kind of, this awareness, this perception, this understanding that things, you know, that the word identity

is something that's coming up a lot now on the podcast, because you actually talk about it really very beautifully in the book. You talk about the divided self and I've never heard it. I've never seen it written like that. I thought it was such a beautiful way of explaining the conflict that so many authors have. I wonder if you could explain the divided self and why people listening and watching to this need to know about it and then i guess we'll move on to what people can do but i but i i really love that as a concept the divided self okay so the divided self another word for it is the separate self i am a separate entity as a human body-mind from everything else.

So I'm here and then everything else is out there. There are people, there are situations, there are others, there are animals, there are plants. But I am separate. I'm the perceiver and that is the perceived. I'm the observer and that is the observed. This is our common experience because as soon as you're born, you're given a name.

This is your name. This is your ancestry. This is your culture. This is your family. This is your economic status. And that becomes your identity. Nevermind that your body and mind are changing, but that's now your identity.

And it's a provisional identity as a separate self. And what do we call it? Me. And what do we call the outside? Whatever is outside of me, we call the other. So right now, this is me. You are the other. But this me can only exist in relationship to the other if there is no other actually there is no me in the in the what there's an african greeting uh called ubuntu ubuntu right so i the other makes me possible so me and other are entangled you can't have me without the

other the other can not have me cannot be the other or cannot have a sense of me without calling me the other okay so this is our common fragmented mind existence, divided mind existence. My mind is separate from your mind. And it is, by the way. Your personality is separate. Your body is separate. Your emotions are separate. So we are the divided self.

But who is having the experience right now of this conversation? Now we're going a little deep. Okay. I is having the experience. Because i is both me and the other because i is the awareness in which we are sharing this experience right now we're sharing this experience in what the old traditions of india would call chitash. Chitakash is the infinite space of awareness. Today, what do we call it? We call it cyberspace. It's the same space because cyberspace has squeezed us into a bandwidth of experience. You both have to be on the same zoom coordinates, right? And everybody who's listening to us has to also be in the same coordinates

and we made them up just the way we made up latitude longitude drainage meantime wall street etc so what we're doing right now is we are sharing the space of consciousness within a certain bandwidth of experience whatever the coordinates are for the Zoom call or whatever this podcast is, okay? Is that reality? Is that narrow bandwidth of experience reality? What's outside this range? Your visual experience of the world is less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum. Your auditory experience of the world is less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum. Your auditory experience of the world is less than 1% of possible sonar vibrations. And on and on.

You never experience anything more than 1% of fundamental reality. And you call it the reality. It's not. It's the dream scape. Okay? When you break these boundaries, then you're no longer in the dream scale okay when you break these boundaries then you're no longer in the dream

you're you woke up and you realize something which is very difficult for people to realize that your essential being is formless formless has no form now this is actually wonderful because if it has no form, it is infinite. If it has infinite, it's not in space-time. If it's not in space-time, then it's immortal. It's timeless. It's not subject to birth and death. The Bhagavad Gita talks about it. It says, water cannot wet it, wind cannot dry it, weapons cannot shatter it, fire cannot burn it.

It's ancient. It's ancient, it's unborn, it's not subject to birth and death. What is subject to birth and death are constructs in the human mind. Okay, now once we know that, all those five kleshas disappear. They disappear because you realize that everything you were fearing is part of a dream state, including your body-mind. Deepak, I just love hearing about this. And as I listen, I have this sort of, I'm holding two things in my head.

And again, maybe that's a construct, an sort of, I'm holding two things in my head. And, you know, again, maybe that's a construct, an artificial construct that I'm making up that doesn't exist. But I'm feeling that our ability to understand that depends on where we are on our spiritual journey. Correct. So, you know, I've said on on many occasions before my sort of journey started when i lost when my father died seven years ago um that and actually as you were talking about going through life asleep i actually thought of my dad and i thought you know dad you know medical school in kolkata came to the, works hard to bring up his family,

does three night shifts, four night shifts a week as well as his job. So he only sleeps three nights a week for 30 years, gets ill at 59 with lupus, kidney failure, dialysis. As a family, my whole adult life until seven years ago revolved around looking after dad. But the journey I have been on since dad died has been transformative, both professionally, but also personally. And for me, it was about taking a pause, stopping, asking questions, which I know is a big part of the themes you write about in the book, this idea of self-inquiry. And I actually feel that this is sort of plays into the micro stress doses I've written about before is this idea that we're so busy with this little hits of stress, you know, email, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, work,

responsibility, childcare, responsibility, marriage, whatever it is, it just adds up, adds up. So we have very little time to sit with ourselves, think and look inwards. But as part of that journey, as part of understanding how my life experience has affected who I am today, the penny dropped for me maybe two years ago. So I feel that I'm able to follow that conversation and what you've just been speaking about in a way that five years ago, I don't think I would have got that. I think it would have been too much for me, but I think I'm now able to resonate with it and really connect with it. How would you, as someone who's very experienced with this, like if someone is struggling to follow that line of thought,

how would you potentially explain it to them in a slightly different way? Or is that even possible? Yeah, it's possible. But let me actually respond to your story because I was seven years of age living in Mumbai with my grandparents. My brother was four years of age living in Mumbai with my grandparents. My brother was four years of age. Our father was a cardiologist and he was trained in Britain. And we were living with my grandparents.

And one day we got a telegram from my father that he had passed his exams. And he was now a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, which was a big deal in India at those days, post-colonialism. So my grandfather, who was a sergeant, army sergeant, took us to the rooftop. He had an old rifle and he blew some rounds into the air to celebrate. Then he took me and my little brother to a movie. I remember the movie. It was Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves. And then he took us to a carnival, actually, which was close to the house, took us to a nice restaurant, came home. We went to sleep. In the middle of the

night, he died. And I remember waking up to the sound of wailing women in the house and the servants taking me and my brother to a neighbor's house. The next day he was cremating and his ashes were brought in a little jar back home. And one of my uncles said, what is a human being? Yesterday he was with the kids, taking them to carnivals and movies and restaurants and firing rifle rounds in the air. And today, it's a bunch of ashes. And I had my existential crisis right then

at the age of seven. What happened to my grandfather? Right? Okay. And then my little brother, his skin started to peel. And they took him to every doctor. They couldn't make a diagnosis. And then my little brother, his skin started to peel. And they took him to every doctor. They couldn't make a diagnosis. And then some local healer said, he is feeling vulnerable.

He's exposed because he's missing his parents. If they come back, he'll be fine. Sure enough, when my parents came back, he was fine. So, you know, somewhere in the background, there was mind and body going on and an existential crisis. I ended up going to medical school, residency, training, I think because of that crisis. OK, that crisis where I lost something, somebody that I dearly loved and I had no idea what happened. somebody that I dearly loved and I had no idea what happened to them. Now, it takes a long time. So you say, you know, what does it, how can you help somebody who's not even thinking about this? Okay. Well, if they're not thinking about this, you can ask them to ask

themselves four questions every day, only four questions. Before we get back to this week's episode, I just wanted to let you know that I am doing my very first national UK theatre tour. I am planning a really special evening where I share how you can break free from the habits that are holding you back and make meaningful changes in your life that truly last. It is called the Thrive Tour. Be the architect of your health and happiness. So many people tell me that health feels really complicated, but it really doesn't need to be. In my live event, I'm going to simplify health and together we're going to learn the skill of happiness, the secrets to optimal health, how to break free from

the habits that are holding you back in your life. And I'm going to teach you how to make changes that actually last. Sound good? All you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash tour. I can't wait to see you there. This episode is also brought to you by the Three Question Journal, the journal that I designed and created in partnership with Intelligent Change. Now, journaling is something that I've been recommending to my patients for years. It can help improve sleep, lead to better decision making and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. of anxiety and depression. It's also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviours into long-term habits and improve our relationships. There are of course many different ways to journal and as with most things it's important that you find the method that works best for you. One method that you may want to consider is the one that I outline in the three question journal

In it you will find a really simple and structured way of answering the three most impactful questions I believe that we can all ask ourselves every morning and every evening Answering these questions will take you less than five minutes But the practice of answering them regularly will be transformative. Since the journal was published in January, I have received hundreds of messages from people telling me how much it has helped them and how much more in control of their lives they now feel. Now, if you already have a journal or you don't actually want to buy a journal, that is completely fine. I go through in detail all of the questions

within the three-question journal completely free on episode 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen to check it out, all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal or click on the link in your podcast app. Sit quietly, close your eyes, put your attention in your heart, ask four questions. Don't worry about the answers. First question is, who am I? Okay, am I the body? Am I the mind?

Or am I the awareness in which this is a changing experience? Second question is, what do I want? Do I just want lots of money? Will it make me happy? Okay, what do I want? Do I want a good relationship? Do I want... If you don't ask the question, you're not going to get what you want. But then ask yourself also, what is the limit to what I want? What is the limit? Where will I be contented? Don't worry about the answer. Third question you ask is, what is my purpose? Why do I exist? Just to go, you know, at the end of my life,

if somebody asked me, what was your life about? I'd say I went to work 24-7. I made a lot of money. I worked the heck out. And, you know, is that my legacy? What is your purpose? And the last question, which is the most important, what are you grateful for? And, you know, I ask this question every day.

What am I grateful for? If you don't have time for four questions, ask this one question. What am I grateful for? And your body will go into a different mode just by thinking of the things you're grateful for. And we know now inflammatory markers go down, gene expression changes, there's homeostasis just by keeping a gratitude journal. We did a study with chronic heart failure patients

on digoxin and many drugs and then people who were just doing a gratitude journal. Guess who did better? The ones who were keeping gratitude journals. Yeah, I love that. That's really tangible. That is very actionable. And I guess it just speaks to this idea of taking a pause and turning your attention inward and asking yourself, pause and turning your attention inward and asking yourself, you know, this is such a simple idea, but it's so effective. And it is remarkable how many of us these days don't feel we've even got time for five minutes of self-reflection each day. But we do have time for an hour on Instagram and an hour on YouTube and a few hours on Netflix. And I get it, right?

I'm not here to judge anyone. I'm just saying that's a very practical take home for people that I think would automatically start to just change their perspective on things and allow you to start going deeper. There's one other thing which is very practical. It just says stop, another thing which is very practical i just say stop notice and choose that's it stop notice notice how you're feeling notice the sensations and feelings and perceptions and then choose what you would like to experience i mean doesn't matter it's a piece of chocolate ice cream. Stop. Notice. Feel your body, then choose how you would like to feel. And actually, that would feel very good. That little chocolate ice cream would feel very good. If I took the right amount and ate it mindfully, it would actually be exhilarating.

Yeah, rather than inhale the entire tub without even being aware of it, right? Which is something I have done on many occasions in the past. Deepak, look, there's so many threads there I want to explore, but I'm conscious we only have 10 minutes left. Although I have been informed you're going to be in London next year, so I'm very much going to try and book some time with you. I'd love to meet you, yes. Thank you. And actually go deeper.

But for the last 10 minutes i really want to get on to meditation i think because that's essentially what the book is about on on well on on one level that is what the book is about um you know how does somebody there's so many different meditation techniques out there and i think meditation is very confusing for people I wonder if you could sort of give some of your top tips how can someone who's never tried before or they've tried and fallen off the wagon how would you recommend that they get going with a meditation practice you can start with just sitting quietly with your eyes closed and do nothing for five minutes. Do nothing.

And if you can handle that, then start observing your breath for five minutes. Again, not manipulating. If you can handle that, then start observing sensations in your body for five minutes. Just with non-judgmental awareness of first nothing then breath then maybe sensations then you could pick a perceptual object whatever it or you can pick an image in your mind a candle or a flame or a sunset so there are many techniques of meditation which i outlined in the book which are natural by the book, which I'm not sure, by the way, concentration, reflection, inquiry, contemplation, transcendence, awareness of body, awareness of breath, something called interoception,

where you can actually become aware of what's happening in the visceral part of your body. In yogic traditions, that's called interoception. So in the West, we are concerned with perception. We're never's called interoception so as in the west we are concerned with perception we're never concerned with interoception but you can train yourself to be a yogi that you're fully aware of what's happening in the body and you can even regulate it you know right now because of our interest in biology i'm looking at the vegas nerve which is is in the Indian traditions, in the yogic traditions, the vagus is part of a whole system, autonomic nervous system that's called Brahmanadi. Now, we have these very interesting reports.

that FDA in the US had approved vagal stimulation for intractable epilepsy. Okay, so what they were doing is putting electrical implants in the vagus nerve, stimulating it with the handheld device, and then, you know, seeing if it relieved epilepsy. And sure enough, it does. Okay. But what they found was that people who had other problems like rheumatoid arthritis or lupus or bronchial asthma or any inflammatory disorder, they were getting better. So, you know, I met with the R&D chief of one of the biggest companies in the world. And they said, we are now going into electroceuticals because this is the next revolution in medicine, how to stimulate the vagus nerve electrically. I said, well, you don't, first of all,

have to do it electrically. You can do it through magnetically because electromagnetism is the same activity. So you don't have to be invasive. You can put a magnet and do it. But why don't you try deep breathing and yoga they all stimulate the vagus nerve and he said oh you know and meditation all stimulate the vagus nerve and he said but how do we make money out of that i said well fund some

research on vagus stimulation but now this company has 2000 engineers000 engineers working on electraceuticals somewhere in New Jersey, in our country. But what I'm saying is, if you understand how meditation works, it doesn't matter which meditation, it's quietening the mind, getting to the source of thought, which is the fundamental reason why we meditate. Along the way, you do many many things including vagal stimulation and self regulation and actually it's the best way to return to what we might call home base and you can try any one of these things try stopping try noticing just be more conscious of the choices you're making if i was asked one definition of enlightenment, it would be consciously choosing freedom from the conditioned mind, period.

I love that. I'm going to be thinking about that for the rest of the day and this evening. It is something that is so powerful, yet so many people I think have, they want to, it's like what you said right at the start of this conversation. They want it now. It's like, it's going to help you in my stress hours. I've meditated once. I don't feel any different. It's not for me. I'm not going to do it. I'm looking for the next thing. You know, keep searching until you find that thing and i i've had an interesting journey journey with meditation myself and i and i know you write in the book that it is a journey i tried all kinds of things you know actually you know when i was 16 15 or 16 it was one of the summers when we were in kolkata with my mom and my fam and my cousins and mom took me and my brother to learn uh meditation i think it was transcendental meditation at the time. You know what? I was, yeah, it could have been, but I wasn't ready.

I was some sort of, I thought, what is all this crazy stuff? You know, meditation, what's that going to do for me? Man, I wish I had taken it more seriously then because all I'm trying to do now is learn what actually mum was trying to teach me back then. But I've tried using apps and sometimes it's helped. Sometimes, you know, I go through different phases. At the moment, I prefer to meditate with nothing.

Just literally sit there in stillness and just observe. And I find that's the most, that's the best one for me at this moment in time. And of course, that could change. But I do have a question. I have these beads that I just got from my mum's house, because my kids have both got these. And I've grown up watching my mum use these beads to meditate. And I know that one of the mantras you write about at the back of the book is something that my kids also were taught by their grandma to do whilst going, you know,

whilst feeling each and every single one of these beads. Now, I've got to say, I tried this a few days ago. I found it really difficult, right? So I found it much easier to sit in silence and meditate for 10 minutes the way I'm used to doing it. I found this quite distracting. I wonder if you could sort of shed some thoughts on why that might be and whether i should actually spend a bit more time practicing

well you wouldn't have found it distracting if you had found if you had done it as a child that would you take it for granted now it's something unfamiliar so you're trying to break a habitual mode of experience that this does. You know, your habitual modes of being broken by doing this process. But this process, using a mantra, or in the Christian tradition, Hail Mary or Thy will be done. These are very powerful centering techniques

because they take you away from your story. So again, in the wisdom traditions of the world, but particularly from India, from the great sages, we say that these practices take you away from your karmic story. And what your body is, is a reflection of your karmic story. story and what your body is is a reflection of your karmic story it's the interpretation of past stories whether they're cultural stories or personal stories but this is the separate conditioned mind and that process takes you in the reverse direction so it's a very powerful technique i would say try it for a few more days your mom knows what she's telling you yeah fantastic i'll be sure to send her the youtube link to this when it's done i'm sure she'll be delighted to hear

that but i i but i totally agree it is i just thought it was interesting and also that there's a bit of i've heard you i think speak on a podcast with oprah before and i think you mentioned about these um mantras and um sometimes you should say them, but other times you just sort of say them silently in your mind. What's the difference between whether you actually say it or think it? Anything that is subtle is more powerful.

You know, in the physical level also, you know, when you get to the atomic level and subatomic level, that's much more powerful. You can, you know, an atomic bomb is based on basically very subtle levels of existence, right? At the level of particles and force fields and molecules and atoms and beyond that. So anything that's subtle is powerful. So our emotions and thoughts are much more powerful than our everyday perceptions, which are influenced by our emotions and thoughts. If I asked you, what are you thinking at 9.57 last Tuesday, you have no idea. But if somebody asked me, what were you doing on 9.11, I wouldn't be able to tell them because that was a very, very powerful emotional experience.

So we only remember selectively certain emotions and experiences. So if I just, if your audience just stopped right now, and instead of listening to you and me, they just became aware, we can ask them to do that right now. Instead of listening to you and me they become aware of that which is listening so as you're listening to me become aware

of that which is listening there's a presence there that presence is the real you and it is at peace already there. That presence is the real you. And it is at peace already. So don't look for peace. It's already there. It's just being overshadowed

by distraction. That's it. And what you can do right this moment is be aware of your own presence and ask yourself one question. Is anything wrong right now? Is anything wrong right now? Is anything wrong right now?

And now is not a moment in time. It's the presence of being, awareness. Nothing wrong. So, so powerful. In that silence, I suddenly had an awareness. I could feel and I could hear my heart um which was happening all along i just was putting my attention on the screen and what am i going to ask you next and how am i going to close the conversation off because we're almost out of time

and you know i guess you could say that's presence to the conversation but it's taking me away from what was actually going on inside. Look, I want to be respectful of your time. Thank you for the, for the time you've given today. Honestly, I mean that.

Yeah. Privilege to talk to you. Yeah. Well, thank you. I wonder if we could just leave the listener. It was a very powerful way to stop, but the podcast is called feel better,

live more. When we feel better in ourselves, we're going to get more out of life you've actually left so many tips throughout this episode you've already discussed them but are there any sort of final thoughts any final tips that you would encourage the listeners the viewers to go and start applying right now in their lives to improve the way that they feel. Earlier I said four questions. Who am I? What do I want? You know, what's my purpose? What am I?

There are four intentions that you could also start your day with, which I do. Close your eyes. I'll take you through these. Okay? Close your eyes. Feel your body.

Feel the sensations from the inside out. And mentally, just say joyful energetic body. Joyful energetic body. Few times and feel what happens to your body. Now put your attention on your heart and mentally say to yourself, loving compassionate heart and feel it in the heart. Loving compassionate heart. Now bring your awareness to your third eye between the eyebrows and mentally say reflective alert mind and see the clarity of an alert mind but reflective and quiet. And now expand your awareness outside the boundaries of your skin. Let it pervade all of space and time. And mentally introduce the intention your eyes. If you had those four qualities every day in your body

and your mind, you're free. A wonderful way to finish. Thank you again. Thank you for encouraging us to step outside the norm and challenge what we regard as normal, think about things differently. Thanks so much. And I'm looking forward to the next time already. Namaste. Thank you. Namaste.

Thank you very much. Big honor. Thank you. That concludes today's conversation. What did you think? Did you enjoy it? Did some of the themes resonate with you? I really hope so.

Now, as always, do think about one thing you can take away from today's conversation and implement into your own life. Would it be the four questions that you can ask yourself daily? Will it be a regular practice of gratitude? Or will this finally be the prompt you need to start a daily practice of meditation,

even if it is just five minutes every morning as soon as you wake up? Of course, please do let Deepak and I know what you thought of today's show on social media. And you can also visit the show notes page for this episode on my website, drchatterjee.com, where there are links to Deepak's work, his book, articles where he shares his own daily practices, as well as his morning routine. As you heard,

I was really flattered to be referenced on two occasions in Deepak's new book, Total Meditation, with respect to the way I describe and break down stress in my second book, The Stress Solution. I talk about stress under the umbrella of micro and macro stress doses because I found it's a really simple way to help people identify where stress lives in their life, what impact it may be having, and then most importantly, I go on to give really practical tools that anyone can use to help us feel calmer, more in control and happier. The stress solution is available all over the world in paperback, e-book or as an audio book, which I am narrating. So if that interests you, please do pick up a copy. Now, is this a conversation you think someone in your life needs to hear?

Well, if so, why not take a moment right now to choose a few people who you think would benefit from hearing this episode and send them a link with a personal note. This is such an impactful thing to do. It serves as an act of kindness that has benefits not just for the other person, but for you as well. Don't forget this episode, like all of them,

is also on YouTube if they prefer to watch videos as opposed to listen to audio podcasts. A big thank you to my wife, Vedanta Chatterjee, for producing this week's podcast, and to Richard Hughes for audio engineering. Have a wonderful week. Make sure you have pressed subscribe, and I'll be back in one week's time with my latest conversation. Remember, you are the architects of your own health. Making lifestyle changes always worth it. Because when you feel better, you live more. I'll see you next time.