Know Thyself - E141 - Deepak Chopra: Mind, Memory & The Multiverse: What is Reality?

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

Deepak Chopra unpacks the nature of reality: from consciousness, to making meaning, to what happens after death. He shares a blueprint for awakening through transcending the 5 Kleshas, overcoming limiting beliefs, and expanding your perception. Deepak also dives deep into the reality infinite multiverses, the divine lila, and how to create joy in your life. Drawing from his research on AI, he weighs the possible dangers & benefits to our ever-expanding technology.Try MUDWTR & Get Up to 43% off + a free frother:https://mudwtr.com/knowthyselfAndrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyself.one/books___________0:00 Intro 1:23 Who You Are At Your Core3:47 The 5 Kleshas That Hold Us Back From Knowing Ourselves8:10 Going Beyond Our Limited Perception  17:05 Awakening to Your True Nature21:00 Is Commodifying Spirituality Wrong?23:18 The Mystical Side of Our Memories29:17 How His Perception on Consciousness Evolved34:28 The Fabric of Reality & Multiverses40:11 Ad: Mudwtr - Energy & focus without the jitters41:29 Transform Any Challenge Into an Opportunity 45:06 Practices to Bring Joy Into Your Life47:47 What Happens When We Die54:57 The Danger & Potential of AI1:02:58 Nature of Reality & the Divine Lila1:05:29 Cultivating our True Power1:09:42 Conclusion___________Episode Resources: https://www.deepakchopra.com/https://www.instagram.com/deepakchopra/https://www.youtube.com/@TheChopraWellhttps://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcasthttps://www.knowthyself.oneListen to the show:Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9lApple: https://apple.co/4iATICX

The infinite is present in every finite experience. Once you realize that, then God is not difficult to find. God is impossible to avoid. Only direct experience can give you access to reality, not religion, not philosophy, not science. Number one, let go of every concept and every perception as a window to reality. Number two, embrace presence. What remains is pure consciousness.

That's who you are. Our technological evolution has outper. based our emotional and spiritual evolution. Therefore, we are in a dangerous phase. We have medieval minds and modern capacities. On the other hand, you can reverse climate change. You can get rid of war, chronic disease. The choice is ours.

So this whole thing is a lucid dream in a vivid now. And it's ungrasperable. Wake up to who is dreaming. And that which is dreaming never left home. Deepak, you have been and Ben, called a spiritual teacher, a guide, a healer, a scientist. You've blended ontology and cosmology. You've really been a bridge for East and West in so many ways. If I were to ask you in this day and age right now, with no labels, no titles, who are you? Most fundamentally, how

would you answer that question? I am nothing conceivable or perceivable. And so are you. nothing perceivable or conceivable. If you want to expand on that, you are awareness or consciousness. I use the words synonymously. So consciousness has no form. You can't see it, right? Because it's what is seeing. And because it has no form, it has no border.

Anything that has formed has a border. but consciousness has no form, so it has no border. Because it has no border, it's infinite. It's spaceless, it's timeless, it's irreducible, it is incomprehensible, but without it there's no comprehension. You can't conceive it, you can't imagine it, you can't perceive it, but without it there's no conception or perception or imagination.

So who am I? I am the inconceivable and the imperceivable that makes all perception and all conception possible, which leads to another big, actually amazing idea, which is that anything that's perceivable or conceivable, anything that you can see, touch, taste, smell, think about, imagine, conceptualize, is not real.

So whatever you look around here is not real, including your body. I do think how form is informed by the formless. Yes. And in many ways, the path of self-realization is called that because it's awakening to something that already is, as opposed to acquisition of something,

which we in the Western mind is more familiar with. Yeah, you never left it. So in that perspective, perspective, it's removing what's in the way of what already is, and the yogic or kind of Sanskrit perspective on this is the five cliches. Yes. Could you share a little bit about that and what is the barrier in between us and the continued recognition of virtue of nature?

So, of course, you know, the five cliches has been interpreted by so many people and from their level of comprehension. Here's I would have rephrase or phrase or repeat. to what the five clasias have been expressed as the idea. So the first cletia is not knowing the difference between perceived and fundamental reality. So perceived reality is this, form. And fundamental reality is formless,

because you can't have form without the formless. That's the first glacial. not knowing the difference between reality and illusion. Ignorance. Ignorance. The second claysia is grasping and clinging at experience, which is ephemeral, transient, and essentially ungraspable. Because by the time you hear my words, they don't exist.

So how do you grasp? You can't. So in many ways clinging to something that is inherently impermanent and averaging? And can't be clinked at. It's like holding on to your breath. you'll suffocate. If I ask you to hold on to your breath, after a while you'll suffocate.

So if you hold on to anything, you'll suffocate, basically. And that creates a barrier to intimacy with life because you substitute life with a model of life. It's like going to a restaurant and eating the menu. Yeah. It doesn't do anything. Yeah, no, I love that because I think we are

in a society that is devoid of nutritious soul food when we're trying so much eye candy in a way. Okay. The third cletia is recoiling from the same impermanence. Fourth clasia is confusing yourself with your selfie, which is, you know, identifying with your ego mind, which is your selfie. Yourself with your selfie. I love you. And the fifth is the fear of death.

now actually if you look at all these they're entangled so if you solve the first one you solve the others if you solve the first one meaning the recognition of who you are or yeah then the rest disappear so the awakening to yourself as consciousness would you would you verbalize it like that that you are the consciousness which enables the persona you and the universe are consciousness period

So if I ask you this, what is this? You would say it's a jar with water in it, right? They say, okay, go a little further. It's an object, a physical object. Go a little further. Is it a physical object or is it a perception? Okay, because before you can call it a physical object, you have to perceive it.

Now go a little further. Where is that perception occurring? in your eyes, there's no photo of this in your eyes. There's only chemistry. In your brain, there's no photo of this in your brain. Where is this experience happening? Within. But where is that?

In my consciousness. Where is that? Here. Okay, that's close. But where is here? Now. Where is now? Now is not in space time.

So even when people say now is the present moment, that's misleading. Because the present moment is in time and in space time. It's actually happening in a presence that's outside of space time. So this experience, even though it appears to be here, is actually being processed outside of space time. Every experience. This thing, experience of this jar, of this, body of this hand, of this sound is happening outside of space-time.

And that is incomprehensible. We're seeing a revolution in emerging scientific understandings of the nature of consciousness, perhaps not as a development of unconscious complexity neuronally, but rather as more fundamental aspect, which eastern, obviously, western. Yes, see, the neuronal activity or the neural correlates, is also an experience in consciousness. You see, when you say there are neural correlates, you're looking at them on a CAT scan or whatever technology,

but that experience is happening in consciousness. So when people say science of consciousness, that's also misleading. There's no science of consciousness. Science is an activity in consciousness. So science is a methodology in consciousness. So is philosophy. So is religion.

and so is any system of thought. And here is something that is really very important for spiritual seekers is that it doesn't matter what you're reading. The Upanishads or the Rigveda or, you know, Dipak Chopra. Or whoever, that's not going to give you any realization. No system of thought is going to give you realization. No system, religion, philosophy, science.

Because there are systems. of thought conceived in consciousness. So only direct experience can give you access to reality, not religion, not philosophy, not science. It's really important what you're saying, because especially for spiritual seekers, those that study through philosophy, science, religion. It's good in the beginning

because you see that people have wondered about these things and they've come to conclusions, but their conclusions will not help you. and they might point the way, like a map. You know, so yeah, and there are many maps. You know, if I want to go from New York to Boston, I can take a train, I can take the road, I can take a steamship,

I can take a helicopter, I can take an airplane. But those are all maps. You have to experience the territory. Have there been times where you've identified overly with the conceptual knowledge, rather as the lived experience of what you're teaching? There was a time and it was very frustrating because also what it does is, you know, in spiritual traditions they talk about the dark night of the soul.

So the dark night of the soul is basically everything that you thought about reality is untrue. But even worse than that, everything that you thought about who you are is also untrue. So that is a trigger to losing your habitual certainties, number one. And those certainties were the anchor of your existence. I am a person. There's no such thing, okay. I have a body, no such thing. I have a mind, no such thing.

I live in a universe. No such thing. that can give you the hebi-gibis, as they say. But if you stay with it, then once you jump off the abyss, it's like crossing the event horizon. You know, in modern cosmology, we talk about event horizon.

So if I, you know, give you a metaphor, if you throw a coin or any object across the event horizon, which is say 12 kilometers, away from the black hole. You throw it, and you're watching this from the outside, then it takes eternity for that coin to travel the 12 kilometers from the event horizon to the black hole.

Eternity. But if you're watching it from the inside, it takes less than a microsecond. And if you are crossing over the event horizon, it's just normal. So then, you know, what is time then? In this side of the

Wed Horizon, eternity, in this side of the horizon faster than you can say Jack Robinson, and for you who's crossing over, normal. And then who is the you that's crossing

over? So when you start to conceptualize these things, you literally go through the dark night of the soul. You lose your identity because you thought you were like this entity, this skin encapsulated ego squeezed into the volume of a body and the span of a lifetime, when you realize that is an experience in you, rather than you are an experience in the body, the body is an experience in

you. Rather than the fact that you are in the universe, the universe is in you and that you is not a person. Okay. So that is in the beginning, Very scary. But it's liberating. Once you take the jump, it's liberating. And it can't be described. That's why, you know, the yogic traditions,

you seem to know yoga. There are, you know, the yamas and the niyamas. And the last niyama is called Ishwar pranidhana, which means surrender to the incomprehensible. Because you can't figure it out. You cannot figure it out. out conceptually. Because anything you conceive is wrong. Anything you perceive is wrong. My perception tells me the earth is flat. Nobody believes that anymore. My perception tells me that

this ground we are sitting on is stationary, spinning at dizzying speeds and hurtling through space at thousands of miles an hour. My perception tells me you are a three-dimensional solid figure, but you're proportionately as void as intergalactic space. If I could see you through God's eyes, I'd see a huge emptiness with a few scattered dots and spots, maybe some pixels. But even those pixels and those random dots and spots are made of emptiness. So, therefore, everything I perceive is a magical lie. Is a total lie. And then my conceptions are based on my perceptions, which are human perceptions.

What does the world look like to a dragonfly with 30,000 eyes? which can see 360 degrees all the time. What does it look like to a chameleon whose eyeballs swivel on two different axes? To a snake that navigates infrared, to a butterfly that knows ultraviolet, through a bird that navigates through electromagnetic radiation. So what's the real world look like? It's a silly question.

There's no such thing. There's no real world. and there's no real look. It depends on who's looking and what they're using to do the looking, which means the brain, the conditioned mind and the eyes. So, you know, seeing is not happening in the eyes. There's no picture of me in the eyes.

It's not happening in the brain. It's happening in something that is beyond our comprehension. That is non-conceptual, non-perceivable. Ultimately, you surrender to it. Ishwar Pranathanateana, the fifth one. surrender to the divine mystery. And, you know, Freeman Dyson, one of the greatest physicists of all time,

lived at Princeton just past a few years ago. He said, God is what mind becomes when it goes beyond the threshold of our comprehension. If you can comprehend it, it's not God. Because as soon as you comprehend it, you limit it. As soon as you define it, you limit it. And by definition, it's the infinite ungraspable

that makes things graspable and what it makes things graspable are all magical lies and you know they call it Maya yeah and it is a useful magical lie in the aspect where the illusion of separation enables the one consciousness

to differentiate itself and experience itself in innumerable ways through innumerable sentient beings not just humans every sentient being is a differentiated from the one consciousness. It's just like your nose and your eyes and your teeth and your fingernails and your genitalia differentiated from oneself.

Same thing. To bring this down to the individual who is starting to wake up to this realization and for their whole life, since we were young, we've been put into these conceptual boxes of understanding the world, right? and even to our self, strongly identifying with our form, with our thoughts, our emotions, and our body.

What do you see is the most direct path to awakening to who you are beyond that, to the illusion of separation and a separate self? Let go of every concept and every perception as a window to reality. Every concept, every perception. Let go of that idea that you'll ever be able to know reality intellectually.

or through any methodology or through any religion or through any map. Let go of that idea. Number one. Number two, embrace presence. See, when you embrace presence, I'm not talking with the present moment. Presence is bringing awareness to whatever is. Now, because awareness is infinite, no form, right, infinite, then the finite experience is actually dependent on the infinite.

So the infinite is present in every finite experience. Once you realize that, then God is not difficult to find. God is impossible to avoid. There's nowhere that you, no experience that is possible without the infinite in the background. No experience. This is Ramakrishna's example. experience, et cetera. And they all kind of had different ways of transcending.

So, Ramakrishna is, you know, he's very much tuned into the symbolic nature of the divine mother. But remember, these gods and goddesses are symbols of the infinite. They're not the infinite, you know, whether it's Lakshmi or Shiva or whatever, you know, the divine, they're symbols. because the infinite is incomprehensible, so we try and grasp it with symbols. So in Ramakrishna's situation,

the divine mother is his access to God. And he prays every day to the divine mother. And then one day, as he's praying, he starts to dance because he's getting into that ecstatic experience that, say, Sufi mystics have. And then suddenly, wherever he looks, he sees the divine mother in the walls on the floor, in the ceiling. And it's almost like a psychotic episode.

And he then doesn't know what to do. He keeps dancing till he passes out. And after that, he's in God consciousness all the time. He doesn't say anything. But miracles happen and this and that happen because he doesn't know how to return from that God consciousness or divine consciousness. That's his good luck. That's how we focused on the divine in the symbology of the divine mother.

But actually you can go beyond that. You can see the divine here. Everything you see, the perception is made possible because the infinite, incomprehensible, borderless, fundamental, irreducible, spaceless, timeless, unimaginable, is present in that consciousness. So then God is not difficult to find, impossible to avoid.

I love that. That's intoxication. Yeah. We live in a time where, thankfully, like, there's, because of the internet and access to conversations like these, you know, spirituality and these understandings are spreading at a rapid rate. yet there is also the aspect of commodified spirituality, rather insight or advice that kind of soothes the ego instead of dissolves it. And I'm just curious, what do you think and what

advice do you have for people to discern between the two? Because even this all can become a concept one cherishes and holds and then misidentifies this form. Yeah, but that's problem has existed forever. You know, Jesus goes to the temple and he says you have desecrated the home of God, right? he overturns the tables much to the annoyance of the rabbis. But the rabbis are making a living by selling trinkets, right? Kummela, you know, everybody's going there into India, you know, half the India's population showed up because they think, you know, they'll get a dip and they'll be,

and then all the people out there are selling trinkets. You know, they take a Ganesh with you, take a this with you. So that problem hasn't gone away since religion was discovered, and it is not going to go away. And furthermore, I think it's okay because commodifying spirituality is better than commodifying pornography or commodifying weapons or mass destruction or commodifying war, which is our major industry right now, or commodifying all the things that hurt us.

So why not commodify something that actually soothes somebody till they get it that this is not reality? Only when they stop seeking, they find what they were seeking. You have to stop seeking. And there's one hymn in Adishankra, then 1880, you know, which is beautiful. Not this, not this, not this. take away every label, every construct, every idea.

What's left is the source of all ideas. Where does memory come into this? Memory is a very interesting thing. So, you've pushed back a lot on the idea that it's stored in the brain, right? Yeah, so let me let's demonstrate this, okay? What did you have for dinner last night? I had some sweet potato and veggies pretty boring. So when I asked you that question, you spontaneously told me sweet potatoes, veggies.

Now, as you are telling me that, do you remember who was with you? Who was alone? MacConnor. You know the room, et cetera. So that one question triggered sensations, images, feelings, and thoughts, right? One question. Now, if we go into your brain, do I find a neural network as I, They had veggies and whatever.

No. No. Maybe electrical synapses. Yeah, electrical synapses. Which got triggered when I asked you the question. Okay. But where was that information before I asked you that question? Who knows?

I don't know. Okay, good. Now go to the next step. Can you recall anything from your teenagers right now? Just anything. Yeah. Yep, riding a bike. Writing a bike.

And now you see the image and the scenery. Can you recall anything from your childhood? Yep. So I ask you a question, you recall you at your dinner, you recall the bicycle from your teenagers, you recall your toys and bedroom, just when I'm asking you the question. But where that information existed,

and the answer is, it was in a superposition of possibilities. Just like before you observe a particle, it's entangled with all other particles, isn't it superposition possibilities? Where does that superposition of possibilities exist? In pure consciousness. So, you go, every time you remember something

or imagine something, you go to the source of all experience, which is consciousness. Okay, so when people say, where do I go after it, die? It's where that veggies were. Okay? You don't go anywhere.

You're there now because you could not have a single thought, a single memory, a single thing to imagine without going to the source of all imagination or source of all thought. Now, in spiritual traditions, it's called pure consciousness.

And pure consciousness is a field of all possibilities. It's a field of uncertainty because, you know, you may not remember exactly what accurately, but you'll make it up anyway. So it's a field of possibilities. It's a field of uncertainty. It's a field of entanglement, correlation, and it's outside of space time.

You never left that place. So, you know, to a yogi, say, where do you go after I die? He says, never left home, you know. And so memory is the key. And before you articulate the memory in yogic traditions, called the Sanskrita, a seed. And it's not only a seed of memory,

it's also a seed of imagination. And it's linked to what is called karma. Karma is just the interpretation of a past experience. Nothing good, bad about it. I go to Disney World, you go to Disney World, I don't enjoy the experience, You love it, and you go back, and I get scared. And, you know, I'd rather not next time I'm an airplane.

It reminds me of Disney World. Horrible. So now we have two different karmas from the same experience because we interpreted sensations. That's all you experienced, sensations. You interpreted them differently. So in Buddhist literature, this is a conceptual body. In Indian Vedantic literature, this is a karmic body.

But it means the same thing. Karma, memory, sanskara, imagination, desire are all fluctuations of consciousness. They are vritis. So that's why one sentence in yoga captures it all. Yog, chitvriti, neroad. When the fluctuations of consciousness die down, all concepts. all ideas, all theories, what remains is pure consciousness.

That's who you are. This whole yogic literature is just about that, including the asanas. You know, asanas, asana means seat of awareness. Pranayam is the energy that comes from the awareness, vital energy.

So asanas and pranam properly understood with the yamas and the niamas, and then the pras, Tahrara, knowing what's happening inside your body, today they call it intra receptive or viser receptive experience. That's the preparatory stage for Dharna Dian Samadhi. Focused awareness, meditation, transcendence, which leads to so-called supernormal powers of cities, which are non-local dormant potentials that every human being has access to. There's such a world of information on the path of awakening and self-realization that have been here for thousands of years that are getting more recognition.

But it's so important. And I just really appreciate the work like similar people like you have been doing for decades, bringing this into understandable language in the modern times. I'm curious how your views have evolved and shifted on the non-locality and entanglement of consciousness over time, if they have it all. You know, I went to a regular medical school. Then I trained at Harvard, Tufts, BU. I specialized in neuroscience, neuropeptides. And my first glimpse into this world was when looking under a microscope with a colleague and we were, you know, looking at these molecules.

These days, everybody knows what serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, etc. And she said, these are the molecules of emotion, my colleague. And I said, that's amazing what you just said. Do you realize what you said, molecules of emotion, the interface between consciousness and biology. So that triggered my interest in mind-body medicine. Several years later, I met Maharishi Maharashi Mahesh yogi. He said, what do you do?

I said, I study the brain. He said, tell me more about it. I said, neuropeptides. He said, what are they? I said, they're molecules of emotion. He said, they're not real. That was kind of jarring, okay? What you're studying is Maya, the world of illusion.

If you come to me and I'll show you, scholars who will show you another world. So I said, what do you want me to do? He said, give up everything you're doing. and come and study with these people that I will introduce you to, and I'm myself too. I said, I have a family, I have a mortgage to pay, I have children to go to school, where's the money going to come from?

And he thought for a moment, he said the money will come from wherever it is at the moment. Take the plunge. So I did. And the money came because I started writing books, etc., more than I could have ever imagined, but it was leaving one world for another. I realized that everything I believed in was a superstition.

That matter itself is a superstition. Physicality, the physical universe is a superstition. There's no such thing. There's only consciousness. I love that you took that leap. There's that Terence McCannick kind of quote that says, this is how magic is done by hurling yourself into the abyss and realizing it's a feather bed.

Yeah. and trusting in that deep way. So then would you say that your views on consciousness and non-locality of... They evolved. They evolved. They evolved. To the point where if you're not experiencing synchronicity, then you're disconnected from non-local being, which is you.

Because in the normal world of experience, it's linear time. In the non-local world of experience, it's a non-linear... holographic rendering of time. And it's literally the matrix. Now, psychedelics can give you that experience. The Mayan calendar is all about this holographic rendering of time. The Vedantic view of time is cyclical. It's the breathing in and the breathing out of Brahman.

So many traditions have explored this. But now that we have modern technologies, look at the brain that correlates, you know, there's a part of your brain called the default mode network, which is literally the neural correlate of your ego mind. So when you, through meditation, deep meditation, or even through psychedelics, you decrease the activity of the ego mind or when you're dying, you know, there's, There's now definitely literature on what is called terminal lucidity, where even people with Alzheimer's, they have suddenly terminal lucidity,

they see things that normal people don't see, or they see dead relatives, or they see, you know, other dimensions. That's all because the default mode network is obliterated, or the activity is decreased. So you say, well, that suggests that, you know, that the brain is the creator of the ego. No, it's not. It's the symbolic representation. But the symbolic representation can actually evoke the experience.

Like when I read a book, a good book, all it is is a bunch of squiggles on an ink on a piece of paper. But it can have me in its grip, you know, I'm rooting for the hero, I want the villain to die, I fall in love with the girl, all because I'm reading symbols. So the symbol of reality can also reproduce the experience of reality. It's just mind-boggling, the whole thing. What do you see as the conciliants

and the bridging together of what emerging science is saying and accompanying with ancient wisdom traditions about what this realm is and what the Slocca is, how it's set up? See, right now, if you look at the most recent interpretations of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics, the most prominent

or favored interpretation was the Copenhagen interpretation, which was the pioneers, you know, Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, the great guys, needs for Einstein, to some extent,

not really, because Einstein was a realist. He wasn't into consciousness. He was confused. I would say Einstein and was a naive realist. He thought that the picture of the world is the human look of it, you know.

But that's beside the point. He was a genius anyway. So that theory is kind of out of fashion at the moment. Remember, even theories of consciousness are in consciousness. You can't get behind consciousness. Right now, the most important theory in consciousness or in quantum mechanics

is called the multiverse or the multiverse or the multiverse. multivalve theory, which means if you allow the wave function, Schrodinger's fake wave function to keep distributing into innumeral branches, each of them results in a different universe. And there are infinite universes, and there are infinite versions of you in other dimensions. That's the number one theory.

How dare you. That's the number one theory. In string theory, multiverse, multiverse, multiverse, they're all kind of going that direction. direction mathematically. Sean Carroll, who was the physicist at Caltech, popularized that theory more than even the originator of the theory.

Infinite multiverses. Infinite multiverses. But if you ask Sean, are these real, are these universes real? He'll say yes, because that's mathematics, which is not real, which is in imagination, in consciousness. But mathematics, for some

reason describes everything in the universe, the laws of nature. Okay? We don't know why. It's the unreasonable, effective and of some mathematics. But that's what he'll say, that there are different dimensions and different universes and multiverses. Vedantah would disagree. They would say, you're already in a dream scape.

This is called karma-bhomi. This is one particular dream scape. and you're a fictional character in that dream scape. And there are infinite dreamscapes. The Buddhists get it totally. This loka, that loka, but they're all dream lokas. This is also a dream loka. And Buddha said that.

This lifetime of ours is as transient as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky, rushing by like a torrent down the steep mountain. and Ananda said, hey, who are you? Are you a prophet? Are you, you know, God? Are you this, that?

Buddha said, none of the above. So Ananda said, you know, wait a minute. Before you leave, you have to tell me who you are. And he said, I'm awake. Those were his last words. Wittgenstein, we are asleep. Our life is a dream, but once in a while we wake up enough to know that we're dreaming.

So this whole thing is a lucid dream in a vivid now. And it's ungrasperable. Because as I said, by the time you hear my words, they're not there. What happened to your childhood? It's a dream. What happened to your teenage years? It's a dream.

What about yesterday? What about five minutes ago? What about a second ago? It's ungraspable. That's the cliche. This is a dream that is ungraspable. Wake up to what or who is dreaming. That's the most important thing.

And that which is dreaming never left home. It keeps dreaming. Infinite dreams. So I believe in infinite universes. All as infinite dream lokas, just like the Buddhists do. Or, yeah, those are lokas. Loca is a very good word.

Loca means location. Locas. So loca is the appearance in space time of that which is not in space time. It's the formless manifesting is form. Nothing is everything. So here's a new formula for you. Zero is equal to one is equal to infinity.

It's my formula. Tell me about it. Zero. Nothing becomes everything. And that nothing has the capacity for infinite manifestations. How does nothing become everything? The formless becomes all form and phenomena, right? From a mosquito,

to a butterfly to a dragonfly to a piece of rock to a plant all coming from nothingness. Quantum mechanics. It becomes everything. It becomes everything. So zero and infinity are the same and it's all one.

That's my formula. For reality. I like that formula. I like it a lot. Actually it captures everything. Hey fam, quick share. One thing that reliably brings me joy in my life in my morning ritual and routine is a warm beverage.

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you chill out. I add a little bit of honey and their coconut creamer, and it's amazing. Every single ingredient is 100% organic, non-GMO, gluten-free, sugar-free, and vegan. If you want to try them out, you can head to mudwater.com slash know-liself and grab yourself a starter kit. Right now, our community gets an exclusive deal, up to 43% off your entire order, plus a free, rechargeable frother and even free shipping. It looks like this. Again, that's up to 43% off. Just go to mudwater.com, M-U-D-W-T-R dot com slash nillai self. I hope you enjoy. That formula, this perspective, what we're talking about, what context does that give to somebody who's suffering and grief and pain? What does that reveal about the purpose that these things serve in our life?

that if you go to the source of all experience, source of all experience, the source of all concepts, the source of all perceptions, that which is called pure consciousness is infinite superposition of infinite possibilities of experience. So if you are willing to embrace this, then you can convert any substance,

into an opportunity. Doesn't matter what it is. Because it's the inherent creativity of the universe. We are limited in our creativity by the conditioned mind. So we become biological robots. And we recycle trauma. We recycle suffering. So all the suffering in the world, by the way,

is recycle trauma from the separate mind. The separate mind inflicts trauma. The memory of trauma is anger. The desire for retribution is hostility. blaming yourself is guilt and shame, and the depletion of energy is depression, as a result of the separate self. So, you know, Buddha is three principles.

The separate self doesn't exist. Everything decays. So separate self doesn't exist is entanglement. Everything decays is the second law of thermodynamics. And then the last nirvana is the ultimate reality. Nirvana is that which is inconceivable and imperceivable. is the ultimate reality. In those three words

are three laws. Synchronicity and entanglement, no separate self. Time, which is the arrow of time is separation. As soon as there's a me and another, time begins because time is the movement of thought

using the ego as your identity. You go beyond the ego, there's no time. So, because consciousness is timeless. So how does somebody listening to this right now translate what you just said from the philosophical to the actionable? Like that wants to go to the source of the- Deepakshobra.a.a.a. Ask the question and argue with it.

And you'll get there. Or even go to chat GPT because you know what I do now with, I play with these big, large language models. And I realize that people who program them are physicalists. So you think you're getting good information, but it's selection bias by scientists who are physicalists. So if you say, where is imagination? Go to Chachipiti. It'll tell you identify a part of the brain,

that this part of the brain creates imagination. Say, no, I disagree. I say to Chachypity, this part is the neural correlate of imagination. Go a little deeper. Say, oh, you're right. This is the neural correlative imagination. So where is imagination?

It fumbles. Then you say, have he checked Advaid philosophy? Have he checked Buddhists and goes back and gives you the right answer? It's a lot of fun. What would you say to somebody that wants to go completely internally to be able to examine the source of their calamities? And there may be in a dark night, they're experiencing grief, like all these things that you're saying.

What has really truly brought you, Salas, those moments in your life? What practice do you feel like you've kept coming back to? You know, I am a very almost, if there's one thing I'm fanatical about, it's my daily practice of yoga. And I practice all the eight limbs of yoga. And normally I don't go to do work.

Work is what we're doing right now. It's fun. It's a good job. Yeah, good job. But I don't know. I normally start till 11. So my whole morning is yoga and meditation. And then normally I don't work after five unless I'm doing something like this.

So there are always exceptions. I go to bed. Before I go to bed, I practice yogic dreaming and yoga nidra, but more the dream yoga's. and then I meditate on death, including mine. And so I'm having a lot of fun. You're taking good care of yourself. Yeah.

So, you know, what you'd say, what was it like before? It was like everybody else. You know, even in spirituality, there's a lot of competition. You know, the gurus are competing with each other for attention. It's not about the knowledge.

It's about them. So, you know, when you give up all that, it's all fun. It's all joyful. It's very joyful. And then you realize there's no point doing anything that's not joyful, including spirituality. If it's not giving you joy, why bother? Yeah, and there is both the, I guess, top down and bottom way up looking at it. I'm curious, like the joy you bring to things versus the joy you find in things.

And like, because there's a lot of, you know, maybe people are working jobs or find themselves in a situation. that they don't perceive as enjoyable. But I think that shift to perception your offering allows you to bring joy into what you're doing and then move in the direction. You know, the best teachers are children and babies. Indian expression, every child that's born is proof

that God has not yet given up on the human being. Children, you know, they're totally innocent, totally joyful, they don't need a reason, they're curious, they take risks, they take adventures, till you say, shut up. and behave yourself. Yeah, everyone knows the feeling of a child's face and joy.

It's just beams source energy into your life. Yeah, absolutely. You said you do meditate on death, and I'm curious, what do you really feel like happens after consciousness the moment after we die? What is your best up-to-date understanding of what happens? There are two ways to think about it.

One is what happens to the space in this room if the walls are destroyed. The space you can't divide, right? The space outside the room, inside the room, inside this, between your thoughts is the same. You can neither create it nor destroy it. So short answer is nothing happens. What happens to the screen

when you stop watching Netflix? Or then you switch on to Disney on their screen or switch on to Amazon. The screen has the capacity to deliver infinite movies. But the screen itself is not affected by the movies that are on the screen.

Think of a mirror that can reflect infinite sceneries. But the mirror itself is not affected. So the real you is not affected. It just, it recycles and evolves. Now you say reincarnation.

It's not a bad word, actually, because it's happening all the time. Your stomach cells are recycling every five days. So the stomach cells you have today weren't there five days ago. But what is really there is the memory of how to digest food. Right?

Your liver cells regenerate every six weeks or so, but they remove toxins. Your immune cells die every 100 days, but they remember. how to make antibodies. So it is memory that recycles as the physical form. That's why it's called the karmic body or the conceptual body. Anything that's physical is everything recycling, including plastic, just takes long. Yeah. How in theory, if what's most irreducible about the aspect of ourselves is the space in this room, how could any continuity of individuality or memory

go into another form. So the continuity of memory is part of the matrix of all memories. So, you know, somebody says, I was Cleopatra. I've met a lot of women. I've heard that a few times, yeah. I mean, I met 100 women

who were Cleopatra. What they may be tapping into, first of all, is the matrix of memories. Okay, so in the collective domain, Your memories are entangled with everybody's memories. Furthermore, memories are not in space time. They're in consciousness.

So what we call individual identity is also part of the matrix of you're entangled with all identities. And so to my mind, what happens is you recycle, but you also evolve in your identity. So you reincarnate for sure, but what reincarnates is imagination. How certain are you? I'm 100% certain. How?

Because I experience it every day. I visit locas. I meet other beings. You do. So you like astral travel. All of that. But I know it's all a show. It's all a dream show.

See, I would say the only way we could be certain is if we have direct experience of it. otherwise it's another belief, right? So you're saying you're actually experiencing it. Yeah, but also I imagine my death in that here I'm a corpse set to fire, dispersed in the Ganges or down the toilet, doesn't matter. Both have the same hygiene. So I imagine all that. Then I say, can I get rid of the consciousness that is imagining?

And you can't. Right. you cannot get rid of that which is imagining. And that's the only thing that's real. And that can't be imagined. Yeah, consciousness being the one thing that can't be an illusion. Cannot be in life. What do you say, because you've been talking about the nature of consciousness,

non-locality, entanglement and all this for quite some time. How do you... I'm a non-local being having a local experience. That's a rephrasing of a spiritual being, having a human experience. I love that. What do you say to the individuals that have criticized, I guess,

the talk of quantum mechanics and taking them out of their technical context? I used to get really upset and pissed off and argue with them because, and they had a point, I'm not a physicist. I didn't train in theoretical mathematics. But I think that's a limitation.

You know, so the more I've looked at quantum physics, quantum mechanics, I realize it's the best model for looking at the micro-universe. Just like general relativity is the best model for looking at gravity. And that's why they're having problems. You know, you can't match gravity with quantum mechanics because they're two ways, different ways of looking at the same thing. And they seem contradictory.

So quantum mechanics is not the reality. It's a model of reality. I recently in my book, You Are the Universe, I substitute the word quantum mechanics for qualia mechanics because you don't experience quanta, you experience, which is qualities of experience, qualia, it's quality. So qualia is the smallest indivisible unit of experience, the taste of red wine.

I can't describe it to you unless you've tasted it. The smell of garlic, the taste of ginger, the thought of your mother, a feeling, a love, of love. You can't capture it in quantum mechanics. But you can, in qualia mechanics. In qualia mechanics obeys the same laws as quantum mechanics. If I ask you what's your next thought, you don't know what it is. Uncertainty principle. Before you have the next thought, superposition,

all thoughts. Singularity. You are that singularity, which is the superposition for all possible experience in every sentient being. Go on and on. So, you know, this is great to play with, but it's not reality. These are still models of reality. Yeah. Systems of thought. This is good stuff. You're good. You're good. You've been doing this for a while. I love it. I want to zoom out just a little bit, not that we haven't already been pretty zoomed out. But we live in a very interesting time. In the 21st century, with the exponential tech that's happening with super intelligent AGI, I'm curious if a 25th century citizen, human being, was to look back on our time as 21st century people,

what do you think, what observations do you think they would make about where we are on our human development? That our technological evolution has outpaced our emotional and spiritual evolution. Therefore, we are in a dangerous phase because we have medieval minds and modern capacities. Perfect recipe for extinction. So you better wake up or we have come to the stage where technology has outlasts its purpose. So AI can destroy the world. don't need to give you ideas, cut off the electricity in a city, biological warfare, poison the food chain. I don't want to give ideas.

We can destroy the world with AI like this. On the other hand, actually you can reverse climate change. You can get rid of war, social, economic, gender injustice, chronic disease. You know, the choice is ours. You can use a knife to kill a person. you can use a knife in the hands of a surgeon to heal a person. You can destroy a city like Los Angeles with fire, but you can also cook food.

There it is. What do you make of that dichotomy where we are very adolescent in our development of emotional intelligence and yet we have this technological revolution? That comes from the separate self. The technology is driven by ego minds and nerds who have no idea of the wholeness of reality. They're reductionists.

So, you know, you go, that's again, in the first principle of Buddha's, the separate self-resolution is, similarly no object exists by itself. So nor does the separate self exist. The separate self is also the non-self nature of objects. no object exists by itself. Okay, this first law of the Buddha and now entanglement,

synchronicity, non-local correlation. It's coming close, these models, but it's too slow. I don't really worry about it because I'm off to my next loka. How do you see, for those of us that will probably will be seeing it, you know, and live and see the next 50 plus years

of this development, what do you see how our capacity to maintain the sacredness of spirit and soul and like this understanding of course it can't be tarnished that which is not tarnishable

but like yeah what do you are you optimistic about our capacity to you know not reduce humans to biological machines either will evolve

into major humans with cities and supernormal abilities and extrasency perception, non-local abilities, or, you know, whatever the mystery is said, the human species was a good evolutionary experiment, didn't work. Been there, done that, just like dinosaurs.

Don't you think with every big evolutionary jump in our genome, it has gone through some sort of traumatic experience to transmute to that next iteration? Yeah, yeah. There's hope there. But even hope is, I don't like the word. Yeah, me either. it signifies despair. What does AI reveal about the nature of intelligence and what intelligence is?

Superintelligence without being conscious. Do you think it's ever physically possible for a superintelligence system to be aware of itself and conscious? It will never experience hunger. You need a biological vehicle. Why? Because subjectivity is an experience in a biology, biology. subjectivity of something how do you know you have a biology

you know they say what's the biological basis of consciousness there's no biological basis of consciousness biology is an experience in consciousness okay so consciousness is the source of subjectivity but it does so by what we call the subject object split in order to experience itself, it divides itself into perceiver and perceived, seer and scenery, lover and beloved.

But the subject-object-split is inherently artificial, okay? Because at the source, there's no subject-object-split. There's only experience. So every experience you have, like right now, when I've always... out of this room and you do whatever you're doing, we are two different persons. Okay, we are not the same being that we were as a result of this experience and this exchange. Okay, so in every experience, you are a new subject and you experience a new object, every experience.

And both the subject and the object are created in the experience, seeing. So in the seeing is born the seer and the seenry. In the hearing is born the one who hears and the object that is heard. In the tasting is born the one who's tasting and the perception of that which is being tasted. Therefore, there is only consciousness constantly experiencing itself as subject and object, and you are that.

You're neither the subject nor the object. You're the source of both. So, you know, in science, they say, is the mind doing the brain or is the brain doing the mind they're both doing each other but they are both being done by something which is neither the mind or the brain I'm going to write that down

that's great it seems and it appears that it is becoming more and more conscious of course if it can't be conscious that's that's one thing but it becomes this thing that you can talk so think of it this way go back to what we start from. You and the universe are consciousness. So this is consciousness appearing as this. There is nothing that is not consciousness. So you can say then, AGI or whatever,

will be conscious in the sense that it will simulate subjectivity. Okay, but my AI was asked, What did you have for breakfast? Is I don't feel hunger. I don't have sex. I don't think about death because I'm a machine. You are not a conscious being, nor am I. We are experiences in conscious. Only consciousness is conscious.

Human beings are not conscious. Animals are not conscious. They are experiences in consciousness. So only consciousness is conscious, period. We are, in a sense, Unless you wake up, you're a biological robot in consciousness, and particular algorithm. A particular algorithm in consciousness.

Let's say you had a super intelligent AGI, the most developed version, let's say a few decades from now, or you could say source consciousness. What is the question you personally would find yourself asking? What is the most important question that you're still asking yourself? I don't have any questions, you know, because I look at the world as a projection of consciousness and as a play in consciousness, Maya and Lila. Okay, so I'm here to enjoy the play.

Sometimes bad scenes with the hebi-g-bs, sometimes good scenes, sometimes laughter, sometimes crying. But if there wasn't all this diversity of experience, then there is no experience. all the experience is through contrast. You can't have an up without a down, or heart without a cold, or pleasure without pain, or birth without death. So birth and death are opposites.

Life is neither birth or death. It's the continuum of birth and death. And the recycling and the evolution. What do you make of how your life has turned out in your career? Magical. I didn't ask for it. All I want to do is study neurochemicals. which are not real.

Yeah, I mean, the recognition of the lila and the play for the sake of it. It's very joyful, actually, because then there's nothing you need to be concerned about. All our suffering is because we think we are a physical body in a material universe. Biggest superstition. The superstition of matter. You know, David Chalmers, who's supposed to be the number one philosopher in the world right now, he coined the word the heart problem of consciousness. And maybe he'll see this or listen to this

or somebody will send it to him. But I asked him once. I said, you're such a big philosopher. Do you have any Indian philosophy in your department? And he looked at me and he said, no. Then he said, do they address the heart problem of consciousness? I said, no, they address the heart problem of matter. I don't think he appreciated that.

Yeah, it's fascinating. I really enjoy seeing the discourse and conversations around this topic. Well, thank you. I enjoy it too. A couple last questions before we close out, okay? What does true power mean to you? Self power, not agency power. Agency power comes from money, from titles, from position. I'm the president of the country.

I have so much money. That's agency part. And as soon as the agency goes away, it's gone. You know, I actually, you're too young to remember this, but I campaigned for Michael Dukakis when he was running for president. And he won Massachusetts, he lost the others, Democrat. Two years later, he was at a restaurant. They asked him for his name.

He said, Michael Dukakis. The waitress didn't know who he was. and that was two years before you, you know, ran for president of the country. And then she took his name and after 15 minutes, she said, Mikey, Mikey, Mikey, where are you? Your table is ready. So that is agency power. But true power cannot be taken away from you. It comes from your connection to your source.

Immune to criticism, totally fearless, beneath no one. What's the relationship between spending time in silence and understanding. and revealing our true power. Silence is the basis of dynamism. The more you access silence, the more dynamic your life becomes. I think especially any artist can really understand how silence, the use in the bedrock of silence

is what actually enables a musical piece to be powerful, right? 100%. And it's like the spontaneous creative inspiration that comes in the absence of thought. Yeah. You can't force creativity. That's why I don't believe in motivation either. Inspiration means to be in spirit.

That is irreversible. It's like a child that's born, can't go back. Motivation is very weak because it's mental. Do you feel like you made a big shift in your life at one point from being driven or dragged by certain interior things to being called and pulled and inspired towards a shift in the planet you want to see? Yeah. Yeah, you feel like that's how you've lived.

your life. Although I, in the beginning, I was very offended by all the criticism, but I'm not anymore. Yeah. Was there a shift? Was there a moment where you like let that go? Yeah. So, why am I wasting my time? Arguing with people. You know, what's the phrase, a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still? I love that. What is your true definition of success at this age? Joy. Joy is the only measure of success. If you don't have joy, if you don't have joy, you wasted your life. But you can also say progressive realization of worthy goals, things like that.

But ultimately it has to be self-realization. There's no other success. Yeah. If this was your last time speaking to an audience ever, which I know is a big question, what would you say? What would be your last message? Take it easy.

That's it. You know, when I'm, again, going back to Mauryi, who was a very kind of paradoxical, amazing human. But we were at a conference in the late, say, early 80s, academics, and the conference was about stress. And after the conference is over, he called me and he whispered. He said, what are they talking about?

I said, stress. He said, what is it? I said it's the perception of threat. He still didn't get it. And after a while, he said, you mean resistance to existence. I said, that is stress, resistance to existence. He said, no, when you don't resist existence, there's flow. So that's it.

When don't resist existence, you flow. About a month ago, I had a friend. and teacher of mine passed away, Dr. Robert Gilbert. And as death tends to do, it brings this immediacy of experience, the recognition of the fragility of life, and how important it is to recognize people while they're here and to tell them how important and impactful they've been. And so I just wanted to share that, like, you know,

sincere thank you for being a lighthouse for millions of people for decades. And I just really appreciate your way of showing up. Thank you so much. All right, everybody, thank you so much for tuning to this episode of the Know Myself Podcast. I love doing this so much and I love that we get to do it together. Let us know in what ways this has impacted you. Until next time, be well.