Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Proven Ways To Heal, Find Purpose & Expand Consciousness to Change Your Life, with Deepak Chopra!

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

Incredible Secrets About Healing & Consciousness Revealed by Deepak Chopra!   The WORLD FAMOUS mind-body expert, bestselling author of over 93 books, and founder of the Chopra Foundation, Dr. Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, FRCP, unveils RADICAL PROOF that all of our consciousnesses are intertwined....PLUS his Foolproof Equation for Happiness!    From his journey through conventional medicine to his mind-blowing pivot into the mind-body connection, Deepak dives deep into how our society is making us sick and what to do about it.   He explains how to reduce stress, experience reality beyond our 5 senses, why science desperately needs spirituality, and exposes the truth about psychedelics (including his own experience with LSD as a teenager)!   He discusses the 4 QUESTIONS you MUST ask to achieve ultimate awakening, why we’re trapped in a “socially induced hallucination”, and how gratitude unlocks your soul’s potential.   Deepak Chopra also breaks down: - Are psychedelics a shortcut to higher consciousness, or do the risks outweigh the benefits? - His mind-blowing experience with LSD as part of a Harvard research study & how it shaped his beliefs on compassion and healing - How our mood and surroundings can change your biology & ability to heal - Why spiritual people heal faster from illness - Practical ways to find peace and unleash creativity anywhere you’re at, even the most loud/stressful environments - A game-changing definition of LOVE that will reshape your world - His groundbreaking exploration of AI as a health tool   And don’t miss his thoughts on why we need to heal our current trauma to protect our future generations!   Join us for this epic journey into the science of spirituality and the future of healing - TUNE IN to MBB today!  Deepak Chopra’s Sages & Scientists Harvard Symposium: https://www.sagesandscientists.org/ Deepak Chopra's latest book, DIGITAL DHARMA: https://www.deepakchopra.com/book/digital-dharma/ Deepak Chopra's A.I, Digital Deepak: https://digitaldeepak.ai/ BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All our problems, whether there's lack of abundance or its stress or conflict in our families or in our political systems or the wars and terrorism in the world come from one thing. What is ailing us is uniquely human. No other animal has this desire for pleasure that ultimately exhausts itself into a form of addiction. food addiction, tax addiction, foreign addiction, drug addiction, addiction to melodrama, addiction to money. You can't get enough of it. Spiritual traditions place a deep emphasis on education of fundamental reality right from the beginning in childhood. Everybody is a walking hologram of the universe unique no matter who they are.

We create these social constructs, then we buy into them. we've become part of the herd, the history of humanities, war, and terrorism. Since its inception, the United States has not even had five years or a decade of peace. And now it's come to a point where you have medieval tribal minds and modern capacities for destruction, which is a very dangerous combination. It's my biologues breakdown. She's going to break it down for you because you know she knows a thing or two. She's going to break down.

Hey, I just found out something astounding. Approximately 63% of those of you listening to or watching Myambialx Breakdown are not subscribed. We know you're listening and we know you're watching because of all of the awesome comments you leave telling us how Myambialx Breakdown is helping you lead a happier and healthier life. We love that. But the best way to support our show is to subscribe. It's also the only way to get latest updates and to know when new episodes drop. So anywhere that you listen to podcasts and on YouTube, please subscribe, hit the bell icon so that you know, know when a new episode drops. Thank you so much and on to the episode. Hi, I'm I'm Biali. I'm

Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to our breakdown. This is the place where we break things down so you don't have to. Gosh, this is a flagship moment for us. We're talking to Dr. Deepak Chopra. This is someone Jonathan and I have wanted to talk to literally since we started this podcast. Dr. Chopra's going to walk us through how your environment, the people you talk to, the way you talk to, the way you talk, the things you eat, how you live your life is actually the majority of determining your health, not genetic factors. We're also going to talk about how biology influences our moods, obviously, but how does our mood literally impact our biology and our ability to heal? He's going to explain how 50% of our happiness is determined by our mindset and that by

embracing a sense of awe, of curiosity of wonder, we can literally change the length of our telomeres, which is a massive indicator of how we age. Also, if you're not walking around ecstatically joyful about existing, he's going to explain why you should. If you've ever wondered, can you achieve a sense of ecstasy without drugs? He explains that our brains are wired for the receptors to these chemicals and that we can actually produce a sense of awe, of wonder, of a euphoria without substances.

Dr. Chopra's also going to talk about his latest book, Digital Dharma, how AI can elevate spiritual intelligence and personal well-being. Also, Digital Deepak is a thing. You can have him as your AI twin companion, and that's at digitaldepak.aq.a. Also, Deepak Chopra's Sages and Scientist Symposium at Harvard takes place September 14th,

So check that out or go to sages and scientists.org. This is a really, really dense episode. There's a tremendous amount of information and also a lot that Jonathan and I got to process. So please stay through to the bitter end. This outro is one of our favorites. And I think it'll really add to the conversation. It's such an honor to welcome Deepak Chopra to the breakdown.

I'd love to start with how you exist in New York City. I kind of thought that you would want to live somewhere quiet and peaceful. Do you find quiet and peace? anywhere you are. Is that the secret? That's the secret. I am peaceful and creative and have equanimity, no matter where I am. And New York is a very dynamic city, so I have the advantage of silence and dynamism and creativity.

And also I'm one stop from any location in the world. I can take a flight to Kenya, Botswana. I'm going to Peru, Keto, all one flight. Well, you literally are a dream guest for us. When Jonathan and I started this podcast, you were literally one of the people we dreamed that one day we'd get to talk to and now some, I don't know, 50 million downloads later.

We were so honored to have you here. Not only has your impact really changed the way, you know, the world understands the mind-body connection and so many different aspects over the almost 100 books that you've published. You know, one of our interests here is really that intersection between science and spirituality, which really used to be something that you kind of didn't talk about in public circles, meaning people didn't talk about that. You really have been a champion for really understanding this sort of intersection.

Can you talk a little bit about what it was like to enter sort of mainstream Western medicine with a perspective that is so different from the way we've been taught to think here in the West? Well, I was trained in medicine in a very, what I would say, mainstream orthodox manner. I went to medical school in India, then I got my training in Harvard and B.U.N. Chaffes. I specialized in neuroendocrinology, the study of brain chemistry. And I was

very wedded to the scientific method for exploring what we call the world, including our biology. My father was a cardiologist and trained in England. He was a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. And in fact, he was very well known for his discovery of high altitude heart disease when there was a war going on between India and China. So he was also very mainstream. After I graduated from medical school and took my internship in residency here, mostly in Boston, at the medical schools. I was training in, as I said, brain chemistry and neuroscience and neuroendocrinology. And during the 70s, which is when I had most of my training and 80s,

we were looking at molecules that now are well known, but weren't that well known then. Serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, whoopiates. one of my colleagues was Candice Pert, who later became the chief of brain chemistry at the NIH. And one day, she said, these are the molecules of emotion. And I had never heard that. And I said, boy, that's the biggest insight of the century. You should write a book about it.

She said, I will, if you write the introductions. So she wrote this book called Molecules of Emotion. that got me into the mind-body connection but then I started to ask myself where does experience happen you know does experience happen in the brain for right now for example we're having an experience right you're listening to me and you're looking at me

but where is the experience happening is it happening on the screen is it happening on the internet is it happening on the brain or is it happening in your consciousness? So, you know, when you look at this very clearly and reflect on it, you realize that there's no experience in the brain. For example, there's no image of you in my brain. There's no image of me in your brain.

And there's no image anywhere along the way on the internet, on social media, all there are is zeros and ones in digital codes. And so experience of seeing is not happening in the ice. There are digital codes, electrical information going to the ice. Experience is not happening in the brain. This world doesn't fit inside your brain. And if you were seeing me in your eyes, you should see two of me upside down,

curved and nine centimeters apart. So the only place where experience is, happening is in consciousness. And then you say, what is consciousness and spiritual traditions have called it the spirit? All these years for thousands of years. And consciousness has no location. It has no borders. It has no form.

And it is infinite and timeless and dimensionless. And yet without it, we could have this conversation. So that got me into what. is now called the heart problem of consciousness or the mind-body problem, as many people have said, but it goes back a long time. Plato and Aristotle and all these people addressed it. So it did Western philosophers, so does sages and scientists throughout history. But now for the first time, it's becoming part of our conversation. So science asks what is happening out there. And spirituality asks, who wants to know? What is it that wants to know? So there is something that we

observe and there is something that is doing the observing. And it's not the mind because the mind is also the observation. It's part of the observation. You can observe your mind. You can observe your thoughts. You can observe your emotions. You can even observe your ego identity. You can observe your body, you can observe the world. So whatever this is, this observer, which is almost incomprehensible because it has no location in space time, without it, there's no experience and there's no science. So, you know, science depends on spirituality even to experience the scientific method. Scientific theories are conceived in consciousness, scientific experiments are design in consciousness

and scientific observations are made in consciousness and consciousness is the ineffable spirit without which there is no science, no philosophy, no nothing, no artificial intelligence, no internet.

So it's very important that this conversation is happening right now in the world. In fact, it's the number two conversation in the scientific world right now. The first is what's the universe made of and the shortest answer is made of nothing. And the second is, well, then why does it look like this?

Why does it have colors and textures and tastes and smells, hardness, softness, rocks, galaxies, if it's all made of nothing. So science and spirituality are how nothing becomes everything. That's a short summary. I mean, we almost don't need to ask you anything else, but we'll go ahead and indulge ourselves here. My MNBialx Breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful.

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Make this the year you stop guessing about your health with superpower. Superpower. Not only did Superpower reduce their price to just $199, but for a limited time, our listeners get an additional $20 off with the code break. Head to superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention my ambiol, let's break down to help support the show. You know, one sort of kind of evolution that you're talking about is understanding that, you know, biological processes are going to impact emotional experiences.

but we also know that the converse is true, that our emotional experiences then impact our biology. And this sort of feels like the next sort of evolution in, I think, a lot of lay people's understanding of the connection between mind and body. Can you talk a little bit about sort of this two-way system of the impact of body and the emotional and conscious experience? Yeah, actually, it's two-way,

but it's also inseparably one. Wherever a thought goes or an emotion goes, a molecule goes. And wherever a molecule is there, there is emotion and thoughts there. Emotion, so mind and body are entangled and complementary to each other as experiences. Right now, as I'm speaking to, which is very kind of mind-boggling in a way, Your frontal cortex is being activated. But then there are all these people are listening and watching this podcast. Their frontal cortex is being activated as well.

So all our minds at this moment, your mind, my mind, and J.C.'s mind, and the people who are watching us and listening to us, they're all entangled in a matrix, in a web of, I would say, awareness or consciousness. So this is radical proof right now that we're all inseparably interconnected. So, you know, I go to these conferences where people all the time talk about mind and body, but they can't define what the mind is. You know, I've asked many people in mind-body conferences, give me a good definition of mind-and-body. And they all kind of start to stutter.

And the last time we had some agreement on what the mind is was at a conference with Dan Siegel, who's a neuropsychiatrist. And he said something very interesting. He said the mind is embodied, embodied, it's in the body, not just in the brain. Because, you know, now we know that in the brain, it only speaks in English with an Indian accent, but the mind is everywhere in the body. It's embodied and it's a relational process that directs the flow of energy and information in an ecosystem of beings. So there is no individual mind. The mind is cosmic and this conversation is being processed outside of

space time because consciousness is not in space time, which is actually mind-boggling. There is not multiple minds. There are differentiated expressions of one mind. And similarly, there's no one body. You know, your body is conceived with eating, breathing, digestion, metabolism. Your body is exchanging molecules with all sentient beings right now. In the deeper reality, there's one mind, there's one body. And when we actually experience that, that's called love.

you know, because love is not just a sentiment, it's the ultimate truth, that there's one consciousness differentiating into innumerable so-called minds and bodies, but in the deeper reality, one mind, one body, and one consciousness. And that is divine. We had Neil Thies on the podcast, and, you know, Neil Thes, obviously kind of, as he describes, it sort of accidentally stumbled upon this notion from a very physiological, you know, kind of derivation. But, you know, what his work and sort of what you're talking about, you know, sort of lead us to is, you know,

this kind of notion of understanding on, you know, a physiological level and an emotional level and really on a spiritual level. Can you talk a little bit more about what that, that oneness kind of feels like how we access it and also how it impacts us when we tap into that. Yeah, first of all, he is a good friend of mine. And I've known him for 20 years. He started as a physicalist.

Then he became a dualist. Then he became what do you call an idealist and finally he understood non-duality, which is great. as you know, he's a Buddhist practitioner of Buddhism too. So when we experience a move to this direction of oneness, which is a fundamental reality, it's not fictional or anything, all the algorithms that you can see right now, AI is a good example,

they can access the facts of this oneness. But when we move in this direction, It begins with empathy. We feel what others feel. Then it graduates to compassion, which is the desire to alleviate suffering. And then, you know, that desire to alleviate suffering,

strangely enough, the alleviation of other people's suffering diminishes your suffering. So compassion, even though it seems altruistic, ultimately is helping you. You know, empathy is feeling, what others feel, compassion, desire to alleviate another's suffering, so your suffering diminishes. That leads to love. And in Indian tradition, we say karma yoga, which means love in action,

because love without action is meaningless. Action without love is irrelevant. Love in action is a yoga, a yogic practice, which leads to liberation from suffering and the experience of what is called joy or bliss and equanimity and loss of the fear of death, which is the ultimate spiritual experience. These days it's very fashionable for people to say, I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious. But it sounds cool, but actually the religious experience is exactly that. Finding your identity of oneness, number one, number two,

the spontaneous emergence of these qualities, which are empathy, compassion, love, joy, equanimity, and finally, loss of the fear of death. So that's the essential spiritual experience in every tradition. And now we have a scientific basis to understand that, because as you move in that direction, your neural networks and your gene activity changes in the direction of what is called homeostasis or healing, healing being wholeness or holiness or the oneness. And this is physiological, limbic resonance, their brain networks that rewire and introduce decreased inflammation, decrease the activity of those genes that are responsible for chronic disease.

We had a one-week retreat in the year 2014 on mindfulness. illnesses. And actually, Neil was part of that study, as were people from Harvard and Mount Sinai and Duke University and UCSD and UCSF. In one week of the experience, the level of the enzyme telomerase, which is responsible for how we age in the length of telomeres, basically a genetic lot. The level of telomerase went up by 40%. There's no drug that does that. One of our collaborators was Elizabeth Blackburn, who got the Nobel Prize for discovering to Lomres. It took us four years to get the study published because nobody would believe the results. All the genes that are responsible for healing and minimizing inflammation,

including genes that are responsible for heart disease and cancer and autoimmune disease, they went down. and all the genes that were responsible for healing or homeostasis went up some 17-fold over baseline. Finally, we got the study published in nature, translational psychiatry. Now it's been replicated. So this is ultimate proof that what we call the spirit or consciousness, it conceives, constructs, governs, and becomes everything that we call physical reality.

So the notion is some sort of, I don't want to say it has to be transcendental, but some sort of being in touch with something bigger than yourself is not only kind of socially advantageous, but we now know what also Eastern traditions have sort of known for thousands of years. We now have sort of proof that that is facilitating an environment in your body of homeostasis, of healing. Is this why people who are religious get better faster? Yeah, people who believe in a higher purpose, higher cause, understand that we are part of the matrix of relationship.

There's no such thing as a thing by itself. There's no object that exists by itself. It exists only in relationship to other objects. there's no living being that exists by itself only in relationship to other living beings and that includes the entire ecosystem of life if you put a plant in a vacuum, it dies, put a rabbit in a vacuum with dice,

you put them both together, they both thrive because they are actually even the word, environment is probably a misnomer because, you know, we have, if you can look at a tree as Eastern traditions do, the trees are your lungs, the earth is recycling as your body, the rivers and oceans are your circulation.

The stars created the atom in the burning of starscapes billions of years ago. 50% of the atoms in your body are from the Milky Bay galaxy. The other 50% come from other galaxies, two trillion galaxies, into our galaxy by a phenomenon called gravitational wind.

So who are you? You're the entire universe pretending to be this person on our podcast. So that is always being part of spiritual traditions that, you know, when we get to the core of our being, we are holy and we are healed. How do we begin to make this practical and tangible for people who may have heard these ideas? is before and they kind of conceptually get it, but they feel very disconnected because the world has been set up for them. Society has been set up for them where they live in their apartment or their house. They don't feel like they are overly connected. They're going to their job

that they may kind of like maybe they don't like it. They have the stress of paying bills. And the world feels like it's not set up for them to access this consciousness. What do you advise someone to start with. I live in New York City, as I mentioned earlier, and I walk the streets, and I'm shocked that nobody's surprised that they exist. It's totally astonishing to me that we're not surprised that we exist, you know? That I exist should be a perpetual surprise. That's a quote from Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian poet.

So what happens is an entire lifetime goes by, and we're living like, biological robots, as you said, trying to pay bills distracted by the stock market or the political landscape or innumerable melodramas, both on social network and on our private lives. And then suddenly, if you're a little bit aware, suddenly you start to notice that old age is coming, that there is infirmity and there's this exit that we call death. this is when some people start to wonder you know unfortunately it's not part of our education

we should be part of this education you know in my tradition four questions are needed to wake you up and you don't need to know the answers just don't to ask the questions one is who am I second is what do I want

third is what is my purpose and the fourth is what am I grateful for. And if you live these questions, slowly there's an awakening. You don't need to know the answers. Because you say, who am I? Am I this body? Which one? Fertilized eggs, zygote, embryo, baby, toddler, all the way to dusty death. Am I this mind? Which one? Emotionally frozen at the age of eight years? Well, that's good news for some people. You can run for president, you know. So am I the mind, a changing mind? Am I the changing mind? Am I the change? changing emotions, am I the changing body, or is there something deeper in which all this

change is occurring? It begins a journey. Just living the questions moves you into the answers. And this should be part of our education, I think, right from the start. So we're not bamboozled by the hypnosis of social conditioning. Well, one of the things that you say is the irony of modern secular society is that countless people are placed in prosperous circumstances that allow the time and freedom to actually pursue these things and to be on the quest of, you know, finding their purpose, you know, seeing the light, like having these experiences. I wonder if you can talk a little about kind of what ails us. Like so many people are using alcohol, drugs, work, sex, porn, you know, food, anything to fill.

you know, that God-shaped whole. It's, this is an epidemic. Like, we all have been given this vocabulary for understanding our psychological wellness, and yet we don't seem to be getting weller, right? We seem to be sort of now, let's all do psilocybin, let's microdose, you know, let's constantly be high,

and maybe that will fix it. What is ailing us? Like, can you help us understand? What's the thing that we're, kind of missing? It's a very interesting thing because what is ailing us is uniquely human. No other animal has this desire for pleasure that ultimately exhausts itself into a form of addiction.

So, of course, our body is built for pleasure and also is built to recognize pain. That's how we survive. pleasure and pain. But then we think that pleasure in its numerable, innumerable forms, you mentioned, food addiction, sex addiction, porn addiction, drug addiction, addiction, addiction to melodrama, addiction to security, addiction to money, addiction to success. You can't get enough of it. And so that's what addiction is.

Your pleasure has exhausted its energy, and you can't get enough of what you don't want anymore. And yet you suffer. You see the news, you know, so-month-so made $11 billion. They went to Italy to celebrate and they drowned in the yacht. Okay. And what were they seeking? More pleasure. More pleasure.

More pleasure. More pleasure. More pleasure. and fulfillment and contentment. And contentment occurs when you have meaning and purpose in your life, when you live a life of self-inquiry, self-reflection, contemplation, awareness. And these days the popular word is mindfulness. But mindfulness is not exactly what the original word was in these traditions.

of meditation, the word was vipasana. Vipashna means insight. When you observe something without buying into the social constructs about it, then it reveals itself to you. And it reveals itself to you

as an aspect of your own staff. So when people have contentment, their meaning, purpose, reflective inquiry, they know how to be quiet, non-judgmental. and they also value the meaning of authentic relationships, not just physical relationships,

but relationships built on deep listening, attention, deep caring, affection, deep appreciation, because everybody is a walking hologram of the universe, unique, no matter who they are. And finally, radical acceptance. and I call these the four A's acceptance, appreciation, affection, and attention. That's also part of the journey to fulfillment. And as I said, this is uniquely human because we create these social constructs,

then we buy into them, and then we wonder, you know, we've become part of the herd, basically. And I think over thousands of years, there's been a marty group of sages and scientists and psychotics, shall I say, who have escaped this web of imprisonment. There's a poem of Rumi. He says, why do you stay in prison when the door is wide open? But of course, the prison is invisible. It's part of our indoctrination for 40,000 years of human constructs. I'm going to be super honest with you. I want those relationships.

I want that life. And also there's an aspect of existing that for me, and I think for many of us, feels overwhelming, meaning I want to eat healthy foods, but they're often expensive, hard to get. Or we have a societal structure where underserved populations don't have access to education, to food, to clean water.

You know, crime is rampant. We have a political system that is on its head. You know, many of us don't have the option to pursue things that we love because it doesn't pay the bills, right? Like, many people experience this sort of weight. And I wonder if, you know, you have any suggestions for people to tackle that.

because what that leads to is depression, anxiety, right? Gut inflammation, brain inflammation, autoimmune diagnoses. I don't mean to pile it all on you, but I sort of want, I want to be given guidance of, you know, what is the thing I need to do to get to the place where you are, where you're living in New York City, one of the craziest cities on the planet, and you still feel this sense of peace, quiet equanimity. And I don't want to just say it's because, you know, you have privilege, you're a doctor,

you've been part of a class that many people don't get to be part of. I don't think that's it. But I really am honestly asking, you know, do I have to leave the world in order to feel part of it? Because it sort of feels like any time I turn on the news or television or pick up my phone or look at an email or have to pay a bill, it all feels like a lot. and I'd like you to fix it. Well, you know, first of all, if you want the real truth and real answer, then the great spiritual traditions would say all our problems,

all our problems, whether it's personal relationships or its lack of abundance or its stress or conflict in our families or in our communities or in our political systems or the wars and terrorism in the world. All these come from one thing, the socially induced hallucination of the separate self. That's what they say in the spiritual traditions. And those spiritual traditions place a deep emphasis

on education of fundamental reality right from the beginning in childhood. Attempts have been made to do that, philosophers like Jake Krishna-Murti and other idealists. But the world has never accepted that. For 40,000 years, the history of humanities, the history of war and terrorism, I'm looking at the history of the United States.

Since its inception, the United States has not even had five years or a decade of peace. Not, you know, the war of independence, the civil war, first world war, second world war, Vietnam War, Korean War, Afghanistan War, Iraq War, you name it now, interfering with other wars, Ukraine, this, that, the other. So we haven't had this experience that we are all longing for. And now it's come to a point where you have medieval tribal minds and modern capacities for destruction, which is a very dangerous combination. So that's the deep answer.

But now giving you the more practical answer, I'm 78 now chronologically. Biologically, I feel very young. I feel like I'm less than 50. But chronologically, I'm 78. I feel like I'm 78 biologically. We've switched. I'm biologically good, but chronologically I'm 78.

And, you know, as a young doctor, as a resident, I was like everybody else, exacting plants. driving ambition, hard work, stress, smoking to wax of cigarettes a day, getting drunk on Friday nights during my hospital internship, just like everybody else, okay? You sound cooler than I ever was. Then slowly things changed. You know, I said, if I'm going to help my patients, then I have to take care of myself. I remember putting a pacemaker and a patient, putting them on an intuburn.

in the hospital, in the ICU, going outside the hospital to smoke a cigarette. I mean, that was my condition. So I totally understand what people are saying. But today, living in New York City and having the luxury of time and hopefully a little bit of wisdom of aging and still a vital body, I don't start work till 11. I don't work after 5. I go to the farmer's market in Union Square and buy inexpensive organic food.

I usually cash out $100 and then give them $5 to $10 to every homeless person I see. And then I engage with my own foundation to expand this conversation. How do we create a more peaceful, just, sustainable, healthier, and joyful world? all the tools, whether it's social media, whether it's AI, to give information. I say to myself, if I'm going to post something on social media, can I be of help? I don't want likes or dislikes. I just want to be of help. So during the pandemic, we started a program called never alone. Dot love. You can check it out. And it's actually a program for teen depression and suicide prevention. but now it's expanded to online and offline communities of social engagement for good.

So never alone is about the four-ays, attention, affection, appreciation. We use technology, we use chat pots, and we've intervened in 6,000 suicidal ideations and 20,000, 20 million text messages happening with our emotional chatbot. But now as I look at technology, that is improving. We're already outdated. So I think personally, if we have shared vision, very important, maximum diversity, not just of ethnicity and race and gender, but maximum diversity of thought leaders, shared vision, some kind of an emotional and spiritual ecosystem where we are there for each other,

and strengthening each other's capacities for whatever we're good at. So once again, shared vision, emotional and spiritual connection, global communities for peace, justice, sustainability, health and joy, we can create a pandemic of healing in the world. And we have the technology now. That's why I'm also a fan of technology. The only thing we can do is expand this conversation, and that's why I'm so happy to speak to you.

You're expanding the conversation. We're signing up for the pandemic of healing. It is part of why we do this podcast. We think we can make a difference by being in people's ears and sharing this type of information. I've heard you talk, you know, this feels like the global answer, the macro answer, and if we get down into the specifics,

I've heard you talk about the equation for happiness. How do people start, you know, the individual, at the individual level before global change happens or as a catalyst towards that global change? How does someone in their own life right now who may be just getting introduced to these ideas start to implement it? How do they start to reduce stress in their life?

How do they start to wake up? Yeah. So, you know, let's recap the question. for happiness because there are many iterations of that and many, many diverse opinions on that. But basically, the happiness equation is number one attitude to life. So if your attitude to life is life as a gift is an opportunity, then every adversity is an opportunity and a challenge for creativity. You have to reframe yourself when you see adversity.

Whatever the adversity is, I'm having a problem with my significant other, my kid is on drugs, you reframe it. What is the challenge here and what is the opportunity? And soon enough, you know, human creativity is such. You'll have amazing ideas, especially if you take some time to reflect. That's 50% of our happiness equation is just our attitude. Are you a complainer, condemner, criticiser, or playing the victim? that's it or are you looking for joy 50%. 10% comes from money.

If you're very poor, you're going to be unhappy. If you're very rich, you're also probably going to be unhappy because you confuse your self-worth, your net worth. But then the remaining percent is the daily choices you make, which are either for personal pleasure, which bring transient happiness, but for fulfillment, which comes from meaning, purpose, and relationship.

Do you have the ability to make other people happy? So that's on a very personal level. But also there's a big misconception that the treatment of the mind and the treatment of the body are two different things. So people who are in the mind field, they're treating mental illness above the neck. And people who are in the body field,

they treat everything else, including the brain, but they look at the body. The fact is, anything you do for the benefit of your body improves your mind, whether it's exercise or good sleep or good nutrition or emotional resilience or managing your biological rhythms or vagal stimulation, things like simple things like eye exercises, smiling with your eyes, smiling, taking a deep breath, chanting, singing, putting awareness in the heart.

practicing yoga or Tai Chi or Qigong or martial arts or dance or singing and ballet, cultural activities like theater, literature. You know, I grew up when I was a teen, the world was an adventure. There was so much to explore, you know, in all these fields. I couldn't get enough of my reading of literature and philosophy and science and picnics and, you know, going for holidays and meetings. and meeting friends with diverse cultures. Today people are, they think that food comes from the internet,

that all life is on this computer or on their phone. They have no idea of how interesting the world is. So, you know, if you want to create this pandemic of healing and joy, we have to come back to, you know, things that bring us joy. You know, when's the last time you went to a comedy theater or watched even, And I used to, when I was an intern, I used to get depressed, I used to watch Candid Camera, you know, that program. And in five minutes, I was feeling better no matter what the situation was.

But we've lost the arts, we've lost the humanities, we've lost literature. You know, five years from now, your body will be different. Everything will be different. The thing that makes you grow is your engagement with people and your engagement with books, in my opinion. It's so powerful to think about how much our reality changes by reframing our problems and having a, this is an opportunity attitude. I've heard you speak about creativity, which is fascinating. And I want to touch on that. But before that, would you say that not having that attitude, that the stress is killing us because we don't have the opportunity to problem solve?

Yeah, you don't. By the way, if you just ask yourself, at the end of the day one question, what am I grateful for? What happened today that I could be grateful for? And suddenly things come into your mind, images, sensations, thoughts, and you start to feel better just asking the question,

what am I grateful for instead of complaining and condemning? Because no matter what is happening in your life, gratitude opens the door to your soul. So that's one of my favorite, ways to help people understand that notwithstanding what's happening in your life in the world, just asking what, you know, and finally I've come to the conclusion that I'm grateful that there is existence and I'm part of it, you know? I mean, what a miracle to exist. And even when we just slow down a second and start to hold that idea, I can feel myself being

happier. It's like someone made this furniture. Like how did that happen? This environment. It's just like all of a sudden creates a childlike sensation of wonder that is a natural antidote to many of the things that we struggle with and the very heaviness of I have to solve this problem, that problem, another problem. Yeah, Jonathan just mentioned furniture. That piece of furniture is the history of the universe. It's a tree, it's an ecosystem, it's farmers, it's factory workers, it's stars, it's galaxies. The history of the universe is in every object that you look at. It doesn't matter what the object is. And it's much harder to go and pursue the endless need of consumption when you are much more enamored and in awe of the things around you because it takes more

time to be enamored. There's a vacuum in the consumption of addiction that we can counterbalance, which really leads into the notion of the quantum body, which I've heard you talk about being attacked for when you introduced this idea. But if I'm, you know, correct me if I'm oversimplifying it. But the idea is that the things that A-Los and the problems of the body can be almost miraculously overcome in a way that previously may have sounded impossible. Yeah. You know, the history of this idea of the quantum body is very interesting because, of course, you know, when I use words like quantum physicists, quantum physicists, they roll up their eyes

and there he goes again. But, you know, quantum field is defined as the ultimate ground state of existence of the universe, the ground state of the universe. The quantum body, therefore, has to be part of the ground state of the universe. You know, the ground of your existence and the ground of all existence, there's one common ground of existence.

Now, physicists look at the quantum field as some objective mathematical field theory. But in Eastern Wisdom traditions, what you and I call the quantum field is called the body of bliss, the body of joy. And the physical body and the mental body

are called the karmic body or the conceptual body. So if you close your eyes right now and you do nothing, you'll immediately become aware that you're having a conversation with yourself. And if the conversation

is a happy conversation, some memory, the body feels pleasurable. If the conversation is some traumatic experience that you had in the past, then the body feels uncomfortable.

So that's why it's called the karmic body or the conceptual body. It has no intrinsic reality. It's your story. And for your story, there are innumerable versions of that same story. Ask your mother, ask your brother, ask your husband or wife, and they have a different story about you than you have about yourself. So your provisional story is projecting as your mental body and your and your physical body

and your experience of the world. But behind this internal dialogue, there is what they call the causal body or the bliss body, the body of the soul, not the body of the mind. That is what I took my inspiration for from when I wrote

quantum body. It's the body of bliss, the timeless body without a story because it has infinite stories in it. And at the moment you just, you know, when I have a distressing thought, it's just another story. And there are millions of versions of that story. So let it go.

I mean, as long as you hold on to your story, you're going to have some kind of issue. But without the story, you have the body of bliss, the healing body. That's the real quantum body. So when we are able to access this or assuming that we're able to access this, is that Nirvana. Is that enlightenment? Is that a transcendental experience? What is that? Yes, it's a transcendental experience joy, number one, where you have no fear of death because death happens to a story, not to you, and where you have the spontaneous emergence of platonic values, goodness, truth, beauty, love, compassion, joy, equanimity.

which is our ground state. Every baby that's born has that, unless it's wet or it's hungry. In which case, if the mother changes the diaper or gives it some comfort food, maybe it's back to that state of joy. You just have to look at a baby, you know, and there's an expression in India,

every child that is born is proof that God has not yet given up on human beings. Because the child is the total embodiment of joy. It's trying to catch your eyes. it's smiling all the way. If you kick a dog, the child will wince. It has spontaneous empathy, spontaneous compassion. If you hurt another person, the child will cry.

So, you know, we are built for joy, but we are bamboozled by constructs and stories. We're built for joy, but we're bamboozled by constructs. I love that. And if we're tying this to health and well-being, is it that these states then are the way to have, and I don't mean to sound hyperbolic, but miraculous healing or healing that is expedited or ways in which, you know, that we transcend the mechanic ideology of Western medicine and think about how people really do recover from illness, prevent illness, extend their telomeres in ways that we never thought possible. Yeah. So right now the science

says that less than 5% of chronic disease, and that includes all disease, Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease, autoimmune disease, less than 5%, probably less than 4%, is due to what are called fully penetrant gene mutations, which means these mutations are going to guarantee the disease, 4%. So if somebody has a baraka gene, like I use the example of angixtes, which means, Julina Jolie. She had the baraka gene. She had a preventive mastectomy, which was the right thing to do. Okay, because undoubtedly she would get breast cancer, if not other types of reproductive cancer. Now, thanks to technology, we have something on the horizon called CRISPR where, metaphorically speaking, you'll be able to cut and paste genes the same way as you cut and paste your emails.

So metaphorically speaking, you're reading the barcode of a gene. you delete it and then you insert the gene, right gene, voila, the disease is gone. That's the promise of CRISPR and technology. That's 5% or less. The rest is what we call epigenetic, which means the genes that are responsible for disease. So let's say you have a gene, for example, there are 43 genes that predispose you to cancer. Only two of them are fully penetrated. The rest are epigenetically modifiable through lifestyle, which means good sleep,

managing your stress, engaging in healthy, loving relationships, emotional resilience, your food, and basically how you think, how you feel, how you behave in the world, changes the gene activity of more than 95% of those genes which even predispose you to disease. I need to hop in here. We had Gabourmette here, and he talks about this in the myth of normal. I mean, he's talked about it for a long time. You know, this is the kind of thing. I just need to kind of pause here and have you sort of elaborate on this. I just want to be clear. So you're saying out of 100%, the number of genes for things that we think of as in many cases inevitable, right? you're saying approximately 95 or 96% of those things are actually impacted by our relationships,

our environment, the food we eat, the emotional environment that we exist in. That's an astounding number. So I wrote two books, three books. One was called Super Brain. The other was called Super Genes. The third was called Healing Self. And my co-writer is Rudy Tansy, who's the head of genetics at Harvard, and they're in charge of the genetics lab at Mass General Hospital.

And he was the first one to inform me of this statistic. And we addressed it in our book. And then, you know, it caught the attention to even the U.S. Congress. he was asked to actually show the data over there on this. So nobody is disagreeing about what you just said, that 95% or more. And even those fully penetrant genes, you know, I'm now thinking, how do we revise our concept of our genes? What are genes?

And, you know, genes are the symbolic representation of the experiences of our ancestors. That's what they are. And so the epigenetic modulations go back to just, you know, our immediate ancestors. So, for example, if somebody's grandparent was a Holocaust victim in, say, the Netherlands, when the Nazis invaded, now three generations later, they have diabetes and metabolic syndrome because of the history of trauma three generations ago. For me, yeah, for me, it's two generations.

generations. My grandparents were from Eastern Europe. They were refugees. And when I think about my grandmother, you know, escaping and like that boat ride, the gamete that is me was in her. Yes. She's alive in your genetic activity right now. In fact, without her, you can't have this conversation. You can't do anything. All your ancestors are alive as your genetic activity in your body at this moment. I can feel it. I can feel it, Dr. Chopra. Now we go all the way back to the history of human life. Oh, yeah. Then those genes are the symbolic representation of the experiences of our ancestors. So if you want to change that, we have to start to change our experiences, not only for ourselves, but for our future generations. And for the past. Like if time is not linear, right,

that that healing is bi-directional. Retro constant, yes. Right. Okay, Jonathan, I have to go a little esoteric here. I literally was scrolling to that page, that section of our document here, and I'm like, if we don't start talking about nonlinear time, I don't know what we're doing. The first thing that I want to just say, you're not on drugs right now, correct? No.

You're not. You're not. I make my own drugs. My own cognac, my own whatever. X-D-MDMA. Right. The reason I'm asking is that when you talk about this oneness that we are all part of, and when you talk about losing the fear of death, right, when you talk about understanding that you literally are one with the universe, that there is not separation emotionally,

spiritually, physically, these are the kinds of things that people do report when they are on a certain class of drugs, right? People are, I mean, I live in Los Angeles. I like to say you can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone who's having an ayahuasca ceremony or has been to one this past weekend. So, you know, people are seeking these, and people have been obviously using these medicines for, for generations and generations, and they're used in sacred ceremonies. But more and more people are using these kinds of medicines and drugs. And they're having these experiences. And in many cases, it's taking people who have been, you know, cases of incurable depression, incurable panic, anxiety, fear. And many people are having those diagnoses kind of, you know, disappear as they're

having these profound transcendental experiences where they are accessing. the kind of thing that you clearly do not need to be on drugs to understand. Is that a shortcut? Is that a good idea? Are we reaching some sort of global higher consciousness by having more people have these experiences? What do we do about this? So what happens biologically with things like ayahuasca and other psychedelics is that they decrease the activity of, part of the brain called the default mode network, which is the biological correlate of the ego mind. So as soon as the, you know,

which is a social construct anyway, the ego mind, but as soon as that starts to dissolve, there's even some semblance of ego dissolution, then they lose the fear of death, they feel universal love and all the things that you're talking about. So you asked me, are you on drugs? And I said, no,

But when I was 17 years old in medical school, I was part in, this was in India, and the medical school, we had some Harvard faculty. And this is the 70s, exactly, not even 70s, sorry, 60s. 64 is when I went to medical school. So around 65, we had some Harvard professors. And this is the time when, you know, LSD was very being part of scientific science. studies before it was banned. And I was part of a study where I was given LSD and among other medical students. And I happened...

I'm sorry, can you just slow it down? You were given LSD as part of a study? Yeah, study by Harvard Medical School. Like on a tap? Like everybody takes them and see what happens? Yeah. And then there's a control group who doesn't get the LSD, but they get no drugs. They get something that looks like a little sugar pill.

So I was in the experimental group. Now, those days, in India, there was in the newspapers all this talk about Mother Teresa, who was apparently known to kiss children with leprosy. You know, their leprosy wounds would heal when she kissed them. And then we were doing studies on the salivary. immune system. And lo and behold, we found that actually with that intense compassion that she had, the immune system responded to the experience of her kissing the children with leprosy. So I had read all that. And as part of the experiment when I got LSC, I just happened, not happened.

I had a poster of Mother Teresa in my dorm. And I was thinking about that poster for eight hours, and my heart was filled overwhelmed with compassion. And that was at the age of 17, the one experience with LSE. And it changed my whole thinking about how compassion heals. Then I came to the United States. It all happened, you know, residency, all that is nonsense, et cetera. And I even forgot about the experience.

But it was a holy experience. You know, the LSC experience was a holy experience. Now, the current rage about psychedelics, yes, it is life-altering. Yes, it heals some people, a lot of people with PTSD. Yes, it alleviates depression. It causes ego dissolution. But, you know, once something becomes a rage, then you see issues too. I mean, now we are seeing what is it called ketamine can be addictive and can kill.

We had Matthew Perry, the example. I just read a report of somebody using Ibogaine in South America and diet. from it. So, you know, you have to be very cautious. What happens in Western societies, suddenly something is seen as a panacea. And this is, psychedelics have very good uses. I support psychedelic research. Our foundation does too. But always with caution, they're not for entertainment. You know, they should be used selectively under supervision, either qualified Shaman, a real one, not go to two days to Peru and become a certified

Shaman or something like that. But there are authentic people who can take you through these journeys, including therapists, psychotherapists. We work with psychotherapists also in New York City. So just a little bit of caution. But yes, I believe that when Moses fed mana to the Israelites, there was fungus in that mana.

I also believe that Jesus, when he converted water, the cross must have had some points. We had Brian Murarekou on, who is on a lifelong journey to prove exactly that, that there is Ergot, you know, hiding in all of these places, and he does really incredible research on this. And also the Jewish people had a synesthetic experience at the base of Mount Sinai.

We heard, you know, we saw sounds, and we had a collective, you know, sorry, it makes me very emotional because this is, you know, the myth of my people, that we collectively, you know, heard trumpets coming from the heavens that signified a unification. And it was a synesthetic experience. And when we say we all stood at Sinai, people are like, that can't happen. And it's funny because mystical Judaism says, we all stood at Sinai. And if you understand time is linear, we didn't all stand at Sinai. but this is one of those like hidden mystical things

that makes its way through our consciousness that, you know, I finally don't feel so scared to say. And that memory is embedded in your genes right now. Correct. That's what makes me cry when we talk about it. This is amazing. And I'm curious about just the practical nature of that LSD trip. Is it possible that it primed your brain in some way

to understand that level of compassion and made it easier once you transitioned and you had gotten through the trials and tribulations of the Western world that allowed you to return and sort of re-access something biologically that you can now produce your own high chemicals. I put that in air quotes for people who are only listening because the idea that we all have the ability biologically to create our own chemicals is I think maybe the hope. Yeah, the receptors for these molecules exist in your body in your brain. So there must be the ligands that fit into the receptors. You can't have a lock

without a key or a key that doesn't fit into a lock. So we're built into that. And the memory of that influenced my life, although in between I lost it, you know, during my internship and residency and, you know, being part of the medical establishment, believe it or not, in the 70s, early 70s, as interns and doctors, we were offered commercials. We did commercials for cigarette companies, wearing a stethoscope and white coat, smoking a cigarette and saying, you know, Lucky Strike is better than camel cigarettes,

both unfiltered. Things have changed a lot. But when I was in training, we were totally, I'll tell you, in a different world. I do want to talk briefly about, digital Dharma, how AI can elevate spiritual intelligence and personal well-being. This, I'll be honest, this surprised me. And I'm trying to be open-minded and I am open-minded.

But it surprised me because I didn't know that there would be a way for your wisdom, you know, to kind of meet with this notion of AI. Can you sort of tell us just, you know, in a nutshell, your motivation, you know, for for opening us up to understanding AI as a tool for personal well-being? So, you know, the motivation of this book came to me. I see a while back when I read Deep History and particularly Yuval Harari's book Sapiens, where he says that 40,000 years ago, we had what is called a cognitive revolution,

and we became storytellers. And to be human is to have a story. And original stories were gossip and then even now that the dominant stories, but then they turned into other stories. You know, stories about race, about religion, about money, about nation states. So the entire human civilization

is actually a result of humans telling themselves stories and sharing stories with others. Then it occurred to me that that's what AI is. It's a large language model. And it's just telling us many stories, the story of physics, the story of biology, the story of philosophy, the story of religion,

the story of mathematics. And actually, no human being can access all these different languages. And so I said to myself, could I use AI and its algorithms and the right prompts to first of all make it my personal confidant? Instead of keeping a journal, I make an imaginary Deepak, which I have also created, by the way, it's called digitaldepart. You can check it out on the internet, ask it any question. You can have a conversation with my digital twin even today in English, in Spanish, in Arabic and so forth.

So I said, can I first use AI as a personal friend, call it the other Deepak? And I started experimenting with it. And I said, well, can I use it as a research assistant? So I was experimenting with it. So I had a philosophical idea. I wanted scientific backing. So I would say, you know,

did Schrodinger and Max Planck have anything to say about spirituality, you know, and sure enough, I got all their insights. So it became a research assistant. Then I said to myself, can I use it as a coach, a health coach, both for mental and physical well-being. I discovered I could. And then finally I said, how about air becomes the guru of all gurus? You know, it becomes the spiritual advisor for all of us because has access to all the thought spiritual leaders of the world. That was the motivation for the book. And then I happened to meet Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI.

And I said, do you think we can create a more peaceful, just sustainable, healthier, and joyful world using algorithms? He said, yes, we can if you have the collective will. So that became the book. It's incredible. Well, our favorite, Deepak is the one that we're looking at and talking to right now. and combining with in the larger universe.

So... Well, this will be gone soon. The other will live on. Well, you also will live on with us. And thank you so much for talking to us. As we said, it's been a dream of ours to speak to you. And we're just so honored. So we wish you only good things.

And thank you for digital Dharma. And as I said, there's nothing like the real thing. And we just can't believe we got to speak to you. So thank you. Jonathan, we did it. We wanted to speak to Deepak Chopra. And we finally did it. Are we retiring now?

I mean, we should just go to the farmer's market and get our fruits and vegetables. I mean, he's one of those people who has like a real presence about him. I had some Michael Singer vibes talking to him. There's just like a place that you find in yourself that, I don't know. I don't know if other people experienced that. Maybe it was just me. But. Let's do a little workshopping.

I'm going to help you wake up. Ready? Number one, who are you? I'm just grateful that you're even asking a question. And you're in awe that you exist at all. I actually am one of those people who does get periodically freaked out that we exist. This started when I was a teenager.

And my friend Jacob is a person who shares this with me. Jonathan, I think you share this with me. I'm freaked out that you exist a lot. I've shared this with my kids. Like I did it in an age-appropriate fashion, but like, can you guys believe, like, can we just take a second? Like, do you understand what's happening right now? Like, we're having a conversation in a universe that, like, we have bodies and there's a table.

And like, in an age-appropriate way, I did it. But a little bit, they're like, whoa, that's trippy, you know? All the factors that conspired to make us exist at all, and then make us exist in this particular iteration across from one another, having this conversation that we just also spoke to Deepak. and all the things that have to happen for him to exist, and then for him to exist on a screen with us, and then for other people to potentially hear that conversation

and exist collectively. Like the whole idea that there is no individual minds, but there's actually just one collective mind that we are just little spokes of, and that our bodies are the same as that. Like, that gets pretty trippy, pretty quick. Yeah, you just did it. You just did the fractal of our existence.

Because I like to tie things to little snippets in other episodes that we've done. In the Ron Funches episode, he talks about how sometimes he believes things because it's just more fun to believe in something than nothing. And it is a, it's an exercise that people can track at home. Like, think about all your bill. and the argument that you had and the conflict that may not be going well and a situation that you don't have a solution for and how stressful that is.

Don't spend too much time in there, but just feel what that feels like. And then switch gears and think about a few things that you just really enjoyed. And sometimes we suggest this and people are like, write me on the internet and they're like, I can't find anything. My heart goes out to that situation.

because that is someone really deep in struggle. But if you can just for a moment hold the possibility of, I am grateful for something. And oh my gosh, I can't believe that I exist and that I have a body, even if it has some pains and aches and softer in the middle or whatever it is. And I can't believe, and you start to get into that joyful, childlike amazement, like my hands start to tingle in that second space. I start to feel expanded. I start to feel hopeful and I start to feel just excited.

Well, I think, you know, a place that we're often encouraged to try and tap into that is like, you know, nature. And by nature, I don't mean a fancy resort in, you know, Carmel by the sea. I mean that, you know, looking up, right, if you look up, no matter where you are, no matter what apartment you're living in, no matter what shelter you're living in, what house, what condo, whatever, we all have the same sky over us. We all have the ability to look up into this expanse that's hovering over us. And, you know, there's, there's so many fascinating things just about that. And, you know, the fact that, like, the sky's not actually blue, like, that's a reflection and it has to do with physics and it's really cool. And, you know, there's sometimes clouds and clouds. And

are holding precipitation. Like, we don't have to own anything. We don't have to do anything about the fact that that's the sky. And at night, you see stars because the planet has rotated such that we are looking at galaxies. We're looking at, I don't even know the number.

We're looking at so many stars, right? Those are things that exist for all of us, no matter what we're going through, no matter where we live, where we came from, how much money's in our bank account, right? Is there a place of being able to tap into, we share that experience of living under this sky, right?

That's super basic. Another thing, you know, that we can do is, you know, and this is a deep cut, you know, you have consciousness. Even in your suffering and even in your struggle, you have the ability to, you know, fight in your own head with yourself, to have this sort of, how do I want to live? What am I doing? That conversation is profound. And it only happens because you're thinking, right? Because of the mind. And the other thing is,

you know, whenever like I do a meditation or if people tell me to like think of something that brings you joy, it's almost impossible. I'm just going to be honest. It's almost impossible. If I think of any human being, even ones that I love, it inevitably brings up the things that are wrong, the disagreement we're in, the thing that they won't do that I want them to do, I rarely think of people when I'm asked to think of like a relationship that brings you joy. I think of a pet. I think of my cat. You know, I think, and with all due respect to the ones that I have now, that's not the cat I think of, you know. I think of the cat that was like 15 pounds and would lay on me. It was like having a weighted blanket anytime I sat down. And this cat would like a drool in joy and just constantly purr.

And I think of that feeling of the sensation, you know, of what it felt like to have this creature that loved me, you know, nuzzling up next to me, right? That feeling like that you get when you think of something like that, that's the feeling that heals you. If you can make that grow, even if you can cognitively try and keep that feeling going, that feeling going, that feeling. that, try it for one minute. See if you can sustain that feeling of appreciation, closeness, intimacy, whatever that is. If you can keep that going, that is what the great meditation practices are accessing. I can't get to the place where a lot of people get without thinking of that cat. Many people can just like tap into it, like, oh, I've got it. I'm in it for 10 minutes. I have to start real small, you know,

finding that one thing, whether it's nature, whether it's a pet, whether it's just the fact that I exist. That's the place I have to start from. I have to keep it very basic or I need lots of drugs. But you have an entry point. Yeah, we all do. We all have an entry point. We have to believe that. Number two, what do I want? You want lots of supplements. You take a lot of supplements. Oh, what do I want is a question that most people don't have. ask themselves. And if they do, they don't ask themselves, why do I want the thing that I want? Well, what do most people want? What do you think most people want? Well, he has an example of saying, you know, if you want money to, for the sake of money, you will be fundamentally unhappy.

Right. Okay, but people usually don't just want money. People want money so they can buy a house. They want a car. They want to not have to worry. I mean, like, that's kind of what, what I think a lot of people would say. Like, I want to live in a safe neighborhood. I want, you my kids to, you know, be able to go to college. I don't know, whatever it is. But I think what he's asking us to look at is what's behind that, what's underneath it, you know? What does it mean?

Do you want safety? Do you want love? Do you want companionship? And to try and remove the material things and say, what's the actual thing you want? Because people can want money for different reasons. He had a story somewhere else. where he says, you can live in a $50,000 house and be given the opportunity to move to a $500,000 house.

But if your neighbor has a million dollar house beside you, you won't move. So the notion of how we're programmed to have a narrative about ourselves is really important. So if I want money to have a car for prestige and influence, I'm not going to be happy. Hold on. It's not that you're not going to be happy.

It's that that happiness will expire. You will want something bigger, better, more. So it's not just the car. You'll want the packet. You know, it comes with like the package where you get like the better wheels, like the sound system and the GPS, like whatever it is. You will want more. That car also will at some point need to be replaced. You will keep wanting more. That's an endless pit. You know, that's like Smog, like that all the gold is not enough gold. Correct. However, if you want reliable, transportation because and the transportation is a means to an end to something else that brings you value like I am able to now go across town and see the person who I like to spend the most time with and before I had to take the bus or it was an unreliable car, etc., etc., then all of a sudden that will bring you much larger scales and more sustained happiness. Well, right, and I think also understanding, you know, it's not just I want a car, right? It's I want freedom. I want to get out of the place that I'm in.

I want to have more opportunity. I want to be able to pursue things that I cannot pursue without the ability to safely and reliably get there, right? But also, like, you know, when you think about, you know, what do we want, right? Like, think about the least spoken for people in our society, right? What do they want? That's technically what we all want.

want. That's the basic needs we need to be addressing, right? Clean drinking water. Food that is not poisoned. Like really basic stuff. That's our basic needs as humans. The rest, as Dr. Chopra talked about, the rest is like just this, it's a hologram. It's the illusion that we're creating. And I think social media and sort of the way that we're living our lives, like, it's allowing the hologram to appear real. That's what it is. You know, Jonathan, we were FaceTiming yesterday, and the pixels hadn't fully populated yet. And I thought he had a filter on. He looked like a baby, Jonathan. Like, his skin was perfect, and he looked like he was glowing. And I was like, is Jonathan all of a sudden using a filter?

Does he want me to think that he's, like, youthful? Who's he talking to that he needs to look young and sexy? And then I realized, oh, the pixels just haven't populated. I just rapidly aged backwards because I had so much awe and joy. Benjamin buttoned me. No, but what I realized is those are the images that by and large you're looking at when you look at, you know, influencers and with all due respect to people who are, you know, making their lives and careers that way, when someone is looking to sell you something and if they are the thing that they're selling, like that's, it's just a very elaborate seductive hologram. But when we think about, and I don't mean to be like this Debbie Downer,

but that's how I was raised to thing. Like, look at all this. But do you remember? Like he said, do you remember? There's homeless people on the street. There's children who don't have a place to sleep. There's children who need to go to school so they can get food because they can't get it at home, right?

Like, living in that tension means, and this is, I think, what I got from, you know, from Dr. Chopra is, like, what did I say? do I have to leave the world to be part of it? No, you have to be able to live with all of it. It all exists. And you cannot let the sadness drag you down, but you also cannot let the avoidance of that joy

allow you to disengage from the reality of the world that we live in, which is that there is suffering. Before we get more into seductive holograms, I want to touch base on what you talked about. You said, I was brought up this. way. Do you remember what you said that in reference to? Yeah, I was brought up to never be comfortable with, I don't want to say with happiness. I was brought to always have an awareness of the other side.

And he talked about how we're brought up frames how we view hardship and how we frame our reality. Is it amazing that we exist? I think very few of us are brought up that way. How do we approach situations in our life? Are the opportunities? And when he talked about, my child is on drugs as an opportunity, I don't think very many people can say,

what is this an opportunity in my life for me to understand, discover, find a creative solution for? What did you make of that? I mean, that made perfect sense to me in that. if you're coming from sorry totally unrelated

I did not know my sweater has buttons on the inside you're in awe of your sweater it's a miracle that's ADHD in action the reason the reason that made total sense to me is because

if you operate from the framework which Western Capital Society operates from I hate to say it if you operate from the framework that my purpose on this planet is to get the most pleasure at whatever cost so that I can keep moving forward and have society's definition of success be my definition of excess, then any challenge, any impediment can be seen as completely antithetical to my trudge to success.

And what that leads to is who can I step on to get to the top, right? this sort of like notion of what's best for me is what's best, as opposed to saying, I am part of a dynamic system that includes good, bad, everything in between, and my job is to find a place of equanimity when we had Michael Singer on and I said to him, how do you function in the world? He's like, I'm a business person. I've had to deal with lawsuits against me. Like if you get to this place of framework, even your child struggling with addiction is something that is waiting for you to find a way to transform it. Meaning you get to look at yourself. What can you do? What can't you do? Where are you powerless? Where can you surrender? Where can you find other people who can give you support? So there's an opportunity for human connection. Where can you try and repair something? It doesn't mean trying to seize back control, right, of people, places, and things.

But that's this, like when you talk about a holistic view, that's what he's talking about. This is also something we've talked about when, you know, many, many religious people or people who formerly come from religion will say, well, this bad thing happened, so how can I believe in God? Or this bad thing happened, how can I, you know, continue to believe that there's any purpose in the universe. It's all anarchy and it's all chaos. What if your concept of God of something bigger than you includes all of the things that happen because we're human? You know, why did Hitler exist? Because Hitler existed. It's not like God was like, let's see what happens if we send this guy down and he does all these things. That's not how God works. God is not, that's not the puppeteer, you know, that many of us

are raised to believe God is. If I appreciate God, for the good that happens in my life, I also have to understand that the things that are not good in my life are also from God, but I don't yet understand how to incorporate that, and that's because I'm not God.

Let's make a pact between you and I right now, but also with whoever's listening because I think this will be a fascinating exercise for us. Anytime we experience frustration, annoyance, we substitute that person is wrong or doing something or needs to change to pause and a reflection of what is this opportunity for me right now? What is being brought up? And what I got from Dr. Chopra was the idea of slowing down and entering an unknown with

curiosity and with optimism, the idea that by approaching life as a gift and that it's a miracle to be here and with that sense of awe, when we explore frustration, when we have these signals that can then be interpreted as opportunities, we don't have to have an answer. Just entering and reframing that space and sitting in the unknown creates the opportunity for creativity. Okay, I think that's all fine and good and it's great. Let's give a practical example. Because I think we need to give a more practical example. I will give a very practical, tangible example.

Sometimes... Here's come. I'm annoyed that it takes you so long to spit a sentence out. Great. Let's use that as the example. Okay. All right. So, I'm annoyed.

When you feel that frustration... When I feel... And I want to be clear. Like, I don't want people... like he's not taking too long. Okay, Canadians. I get it. But in general, I'm going to just, I'm going to broaden this out. I often, it's how I'm made. I often get frustrated when people don't kind of communicate the way I want them to. Can we, can we broaden it to that? Yeah. Okay. And sometimes it really is, and you know, I'm just a twitchy person. Sometimes it is like if someone

like won't spit something out. Like it's just sometimes hard for me. Okay. So what is that? What it is is it's an opportunity for me to say, here's the thought process. And I don't do this all the time, but I'm getting better. And like, I don't know why it took me 48 years to get here. But you know what? Here we are.

Okay, what that's an opportunity for me to do is say, hmm, hmm, hmm, I'm curious about that. Instead of I'm going to bark at that person or be annoyed and not want to deal with them or say something snarky, okay? I'm going to be curious first. Hmm, that's interesting. There is a part of me.

that is having a difficulty with the way this person's communicating. That means it's stimulating something old. So there's something about when people don't do things the way I want them to, say things the way I want them to. There's something about that that is triggering a part of me. It's not all of me. It's a part of me that does not have the ability to be patient, to be tolerant, or to be open. So some part of me, and I do. believe this is old, you know, I think it starts when we're little. It's the way we interpret the world or the messages that we get from our family. Some part of me learned that if it's not done my way, I'm going to, I'm going to have to do something so that I don't feel the discomfort that I'm feeling.

The first thing is I'm curious, right? Instead of just snapping at someone, I'm going to be curious about it. The second is acknowledging that there's a part of me that is getting activated here. I don't know why. It's probably old. And then the third thing is I have to say, what is this teaching me? And I like to cut people off. So when I stop cutting people off, what I'm being taught to do is have patience. What is so uncomfortable about being patient? Do I think I'm not going to get my chance? Do I think I'm not going to be heard? Do I think that that person will poof disappear and they'll never hear what I say unless I interrupt it, right? Those are. all of the lessons that come from, oh my God, will they just spit it out already? Are you open for an observation? No. Moving on. Yes. You have a, that was a very complex and actually quite insightful and brilliant psychoanalytical analysis of yourself.

There were so many thoughts in that and a lot of story. How would it be different if you felt a normal? and watched all those things, didn't allow yourself to go into any of the analytical and literally went into the cat vibe. And what I mean by that is you connected with the love and kindness that you can access when you have the image of that cat on you. And you go right from annoyance to that vibe

to there's an opportunity here and tell yourself you don't know what the opportunity is. Because in the absence of story is you enter an unknown. And in other places, he didn't get to it on this podcast, but in other places, he's talked about the power of the unknown as the creative potential and moving into the collective consciousness, a higher sense of understanding by not having narrative, by not attaching to it, not allowing the rhetoric of our minds to sort that for us, but to feel this sense of compassion opportunity and the expansiveness of that opportunity

when we don't solve it can lead us to something even more magical than we previously had thought about. Yes, and what I'm also hearing is that where are the places where the negativity can be replaced by something else? So the negativity of like, why won't they do it my way? Oh, wait, there's a place in me

that doesn't always feel that. and the judgment that I have on myself when I realize you're doing that again. Why are you so mean? Why are you such a bitch? That's where I get to also revisit that. So it's kind of like, I mean, the optimal thing, any time there is a place for negativity and judgment

that you're able to have kindness. Valerie also points out that for people who struggle with not always knowing how to articulate something, right? You can have frustration with yourself or be aware that other people are frustrated with you, which leads to this whole self-fulfilling prophecy of this is why I shouldn't say something or this is why I shouldn't spit it out.

Like, look how frustrated people are. So for that person then to be able to say, where is my place of kindness for myself and an understanding that not everybody's going to do things the same way, but this is why if we all have more of this, we have more opportunity for conversations and for people feeling connected. I think that's amazing.

It really did strike me that the narratives that we hold can be very negative on ourselves as we're like, oh, I do this. Sorry, are there any other kinds to have? I do this because I was trained in this way and it becomes very labeling of ourselves and if we can bypass that into a sense of feeling

and opportunity, how powerful would that be? if people have been following along in this conclusion, what we've been going through are Deepak's four questions, and we were only at number two. We covered, who am I? What do I want? And a third is, what is my purpose? He talks about not knowing the answer

is just as powerful as knowing an answer, and in fact, not knowing the answer may be more powerful than knowing an answer. and that the answer will change and evolve over time, especially as we get older and we're in different situations and different phases of our life. I mean, this relates strongly to, I mean, it's a result of the second question, right?

Because like, what's my purpose, you know, for many people, it's like to support a family or, you know, to be of service to others or like, in my job, I need to do this. But like, what's our purpose? You know, he's looking for like, move all that out of the, the way. Like, what's the much, like, what are you literally here for? You know, it reminds me of when

we had Robert Green on. And also when we talked to Scott Galloway, right? What's your passion? Like, what are you good at? What are you here for? And, you know, I loved when Robert Green talked about this, especially in the context of, like, power and, you know, like, many of us, especially in this society, in this culture, in this stew that we're all in, many of us are not even kind of given the opportunity to think about it. A lot of people would say that's a luxury, right? That's like an elitist thing. Like, oh, only like rich people get to think about what they're here for. But that's actually not true because there's only one you that's ever been, no matter who you are or where you are. And, you know, one of the, you know, kind of fascinating aspects,

like for me, I love following sports and I love the stories of athletes. right? And so many athletes talk about, I had this talent. And if it weren't for, you know, and then fill it in, if it weren't for that coach who came and visited from the, you know, from the school, if it wasn't for, you know, the brothers and sisters that, you know, the organization that helped me like have a place to play. If it wasn't for, right? People with talent exist everywhere. People who are intuitively, artistically gifted, they spring up every not just in places where there are art academies or writing academies, right? There are athletes born all over, right? But it has to be the right situation to find, oh, your gift is something

that we can know about. So when we talk about, like, what is your purpose? What were you uniquely gifted with that gave you a set of skills that make you the person that's going to go out in the world? When I talked to my older son who's starting college, you know, he's like, well, I guess I could be a lawyer because like, and I said, you can absolutely be a lawyer if you want to be a lawyer and plenty of people want to be lawyers. But if there is something about you that lawyers don't have, that other professions need, such as if you're particularly compassionate, right, if you specifically want to help people, right, find what, what that passion can lead you to without this sort of notion of, I should do this. A hundred percent. Valerie is quitting being a producer because

She wants to be a ballerina. She's leaving right now. But sometimes the most unique combinations come from unlikely pairings of skill sets. So Valerie could be a producer ballerina. And Miles could be a lawyer with compassion who also does X. Not that lawyers don't have compassion. I didn't mean that.

I just like, you know. But sometimes the training we get also then contributes to the unique set of skills. Number four is what am I grateful for, which we've covered. if you've gotten this far and you're listening to this episode, go back and listen to the part on the happiness equation. 50% of your happiness is actually your attitude. And that doesn't mean you have to be happy,

but it's about what is your attitude, right? Having an attitude that has a perspective that can hold gratitude even when you're not happy is still putting you in that equation for happiness. And gratitude and or even just, embracing the unknown. So many people, myself included, I've definitely struggled with this, where there's something I don't know and I will choose a solution just to get the solution chosen. And it won't be the right solution in the end, but I rush that process and I've learned this.

I've gotten so much better. But as a younger person, especially, I would very quickly be so uncomfortable with the unknown that I would just pick anything to avoid the discomfort and that's, I think, a massive game changer for anyone. If you can embrace the unknown and think about it as an opportunity, the last thing before we wrap this pretty awesome conclusion of, if I do say so to myself, I've been having fun, is he had talked, again, in a different scenario, about the biology of just listening.

And I think this is fascinating, M, because the question that he was answering was, what do I do if someone is struggling? What advice do I give them? How do I help them? If someone is not happy at their job, if someone is having trouble in their relationships, if someone, someone, someone, someone.

And he says, lots of therapists give advice, and they don't necessarily give great advice. And he says, the best therapist listen. And he said, the biology of listening, first there's limbic resonance where the limbic systems start to mirror or track one another. And then he says there's limbic regulation

where we start to regulate with one another and through the regulation, there's then revision. And there's a long history of this, but he says there is hard science to show that simply just listening and allowing someone to process can help them readjust. And I think it's another reflection of how we all exist in relationship to one another.

And that is really being open to the unknown because for many of us, it's uncomfortable to not give advice or to not fix it. I mean, this is, you know, a lot of the sort of like when people talk about, you know, the difference in gender is that like men always want to just fix it, you know? And I think that's true, but I think also men often want, want and need to be listened to. And I think we all need to be listened to without, you know, knowing that someone's going to try and fix it. Sometimes you just do need to release it. And it's a great segue to say, listening is important.

And we highly recommend digital Dharma to understand how basically AI can listen to you and elevate spiritual intelligence and personal well-being. So the book is available now. Also, Digital Deepak, your AI twin companion, powered by the collective wisdom of Dr. Chopra's 97-plus books, videos, and audio teachings. That's available at DigitalDepak.a.I. Also wanted to mention Deepak Chopra's Sages and Scientist Symposium at Harvard takes place September 14th and 15th and 15th. Please check it out. If you happen to be near Harvard University in Cambridge. And to learn more, go to sages and scientists.org.

Jonathan, I'm really grateful that we have this podcast and that we finally got to speak to, you know, one of the masters in this arena in conversations about mind-body and really literally everything. We talked about everything. And, yeah, very grateful. So make sure to share this episode. I feel like this is one.

that you might want to listen to more than once. It's a juicy one. And from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's Myambiolics Breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down.