00:00:00
we've created a world that's very dangerous right now I think we are on the brink of a possible Extinction deep
00:00:07
October right here one of the world's biggest experts on health Wellness Time magazine's one of the top 100 icons of
00:00:14
the centuries also written 93 books when you look at the direction of travel as a civilization what advice do we need now
00:00:22
what agree stress Humanities problems come from our inability to sit quietly and do nothing you're always doing doing doing we have human doings we're not human beings
00:00:33
anymore take some time every day to be unoccupied ask yourself who am I what do I want and what is my purpose people don't ask these questions they only know
00:00:44
that they suffer and they want an immediate solution which is you know something like a antidepressant and
00:00:50
that's what we've created every experience shapes our biology when you look at the situation do you see an adversity or an opportunity how is this
00:01:01
determined by your childhood if your parents were complaining condemning criticizing playing the victim you will
00:01:07
see every situation as an adversity can be changed yes how there are actually many studies on what is called the happiness equation number one is
00:01:18
this is your 93rd book if you were to write one last book what would be the Top Line message I hate to use this word it's misinterpreted but the title would be
00:01:31
before this episode starts I have a small favor to ask from you two months ago 74 of people that watch this channel
00:01:37
didn't subscribe we're now down to 69 my goal is 50 so if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted if you like this channel can you do me a quick favor and hit the Subscribe button it helps this channel more than you know and the
00:01:50
bigger the channel gets as you've seen the bigger the guests get thank you and enjoy this episode
00:01:56
[Music] as I was reading through your work a certain word came up over and over again and it was the word
00:02:10
purpose um so I wanted to start this really by asking you what is your purpose what mission are you on you've written I'm hearing this is your 93rd book
00:02:22
if there is an umbrella that one could call your purpose what would it be for the last uh 35 years I've used our non-profit
00:02:37
Foundation Chopra foundation with the the mission statement of reaching a critical mass of people in my mind a billion people per personal and social transformation
00:02:52
for a more peaceful just sustainable healthier and joyful world so those words are very carefully chosen peaceful sustainable healthier
00:03:04
just and joyful so everything is under that umbrella going back to the start of your story
00:03:16
um what do I need to you know that profound purpose that mission you've been on for the last 30 plus years where does that stem from what's the
00:03:28
earliest sort of domino that fell to put you on course to to pursue that as your life's work
00:03:37
i s I trained in Internal Medicine and then Endocrinology which is a study of hormones and then I went on to study neuroscience and
00:03:51
neuroendocrinology I saw the relationship between what happens in our consciousness and particularly emotions
00:04:02
and how that affects our biology as a physician I was always impressed by how giving
00:04:09
information to a patient affected their metabolism you know if I told somebody you had
00:04:15
cancer just the word cancer you could see immediately their blood pressure go up
00:04:21
the heart rate speed up their platelets get sticky and you know a whole Cascade of events
00:04:29
in their biology which was essentially inflammation and propensity to disease just hearing bad news and
00:04:37
interpreting it and having an emotional response to it I remember giving that nurse to a
00:04:44
patient and then immediately realizing that I'd made a mistake I was reading the wrong chart
00:04:50
so I immediately apologized and I saw his biology changed in a moment and now you know 40 years later we realized that every experience you have every
00:05:03
experience doesn't matter what the experiences could be emotional but it could be food it could
00:05:09
be sleep it could be exercise it could be breathing or yoga but right now this conversation you know we're having this conversation and you and I
00:05:21
are exchanging information in our frontal cortex of the brain and genes are going on to facilitate the neural networks
00:05:34
that make this happen but then there are people listening to us maybe hundreds of
00:05:39
thousands their brains are being activated so I realized that you know you couldn't
00:05:45
localize the mind you know if you ask a neuroscientist conventional neuroscientists where is
00:05:52
the mind they'll point to their brain but the brain only has the neural correlates of
00:05:59
the Mind the Mind itself you can't localize it's both embodied it's a relational and embodied process
00:06:07
so you know the mind doesn't exist by itself it exists in relationship to other Minds so it's relational and embodied in the brain but in your
00:06:19
biology and it regulates the flow of energy and information in our bodies and in the ecosystem of relationships now if
00:06:33
our identity fundamental identity which is that of the separate self is which is a socially induced
00:06:44
hallucination in my opinion because the separate self doesn't exist period but that hallucination or that idea of the
00:06:56
separate self creates anxiety it also creates anger because of trauma in the past so anger is nothing but remembering the memory of trauma
00:07:10
hostility is the desire to get even anxieties the anticipation of trauma again in the future blaming yourself is guilt and guilt leads to humiliation humiliation and the
00:07:22
combination of everything I've said leads to depression which is the number one pandemic of our time not kovid
00:07:29
depression stress hostility resentment that causes inflammation so you know suddenly I had this idea that if we went back to some of the wisdom traditions of the world
00:07:42
that said our essential nature is as the Buddhists say inter beingness we are you know famous statement of technotron we are inter beings that
00:07:55
interrise in the inter isness there's no isolated self and but that isolated fearful self has created the trauma that we see in the world that that
00:08:08
actually manifests as War terrorism ego destruction greed leaders who are only interested in power mongering influence peddling cronyism corruption and their
00:08:21
own self-interest so we've created a world that's that's actually um pretty dangerous right now and I thought in my naive Day about
00:08:36
35 40 years ago if we had something that could actually collectively shift Consciousness and actually I was one of the founders of an association
00:08:48
called Alliance for a new Humanity and we had people from Civil Society lawyers attorneys people from the United Nations with this
00:09:01
idea that we could reach a critical mass of people for a more peaceful just sustainable
00:09:07
healthier and joyful world but even the organization faltered because there was Schism within the organization you know people
00:09:18
again power mongering and fighting within the organization for dominance or or you know leadership in a very selfish way so the organization
00:09:34
folded it didn't go anywhere I decided to continue on my own so when you talk about this separated self you're referring to Identity I'm referring to identity identity which is
00:09:47
you know I did our crisis today and has been of identity an identity on a personal level is this the person you know this story that I tell myself about who I am and that I
00:09:59
accept about myself correct and for a country they have their own identity they accept that they are the United States of America and we are this and
00:10:05
this is who we are correct and then that causes separation and a disconnectedness you talked about how you created an
00:10:12
organization to try and combat this and get to that critical mass and then the organization itself failed which makes
00:10:17
me think is this not just innate in humans that we are greedy selfish powermongering corrupt
00:10:26
at our core it's been our Evolution since hunter-gatherer times and it got worse in the Industrial Age and then I think
00:10:37
um it got even worse with within the wars you know the first world war second world war but if you read history the history is one of violence
00:10:51
ever since human beings have existed other species are violin too but not not in the way we are for power or for money or for
00:11:08
um this idea of uh you know extreme nationalism which is a form of tribalism in my opinion or the whole history of colonialism is just that and now we've
00:11:20
reached a point with the information age where you know it's kind of nothing is secret anymore and yet um
00:11:33
the intensity of what's happening in the world look what's happening in Ukraine or right now what's happening in
00:11:40
Pakistan or what's happening in India or what's happening in Korea look at any place in the world maybe you live a few places like New Zealand or you know Bali
00:11:52
or a couple of places like that the rest of the world is is actually in extreme turmoil so we have medieval Minds and modern capacities now that is not a
00:12:07
good combination a medieval mind restricted to a little area in medieval times caused Havoc there but now globally that medieval mind that tribal
00:12:20
mind and our modern capacities it's a terrible combination everybody everybody listening to this now in some way is suffering yes in some way yes everyone's suffering is slightly
00:12:33
different but if you zoom out far enough it's pretty much all the same to some to some degree yeah um
00:12:38
if you had a you know a young person come to you and they were I don't know they don't even have to be young 16 years old maybe 30 maybe 45 and you had
00:12:46
to give them some broad advice on how to suffer less for the remainder of their life what advice would you give them you know
00:12:57
we've reached a stage in our Evolution where people don't ask these questions they only know that they suffer and they want an immediate solution which is you
00:13:09
know something like an antidepressant or whatever and that's what we've created with the
00:13:17
materialistic interpretation of the universe wisdom Traditions tell us we suffer because in that fact in the Eastern wisdom tradition we serve five causes not knowing who we are number one
00:13:31
not knowing the nature of reality no isolated self clinging and grasping at experience which is ephemeral you know experiences ephemeral it's transient it
00:13:44
you can't catch it like regret or it's experience you know if I ask you you can't hold on to this experience if I asked you what happened to your childhood you say it's a dream but if I
00:13:56
asked you what happened to last night it's a dream what happened to this morning is a dream what happens to these
00:14:02
words by the time you hear them they don't exist and me trying to cling on to that so let me try juggling on that then we also
00:14:09
recoil from that if it's unpleasant we confuse ourselves with our ego identity which is socially induced and we fear
00:14:16
death those are the five causes of suffering so wisdom Traditions say you have to figure out what is reality and
00:14:23
when you figure out what is reality and you can't do that at 16 unless you're being groomed you know in in wisdom
00:14:30
Traditions you were groomed for wisdom and that started what we call self-education which is what yoga is by the way yoga means Union
00:14:42
with the self misinterpretation of yoga as this is just the physical postures but the eight
00:14:49
limbs of yoga are all intended to find your true self so there are principles of social intelligence emotional intelligence physical posture breathing techniques
00:15:01
withdrawal of the senses focused awareness meditation Transcendence once you get to these last three aspects of yoga Transcendence is the key
00:15:16
you find out who you really are the self which knows the self not Bamboozled by social constructs so let's go through those five things number one not doing reality reality is
00:15:31
not local it's infinite so so what do I need to understand then to avoid that form of suffering I need to understand
00:15:37
that it's not localized and therefore that means that you are infinite you're at one level I'm everything and nothing and everything and nothing and
00:15:49
actually you experience love love not as a sentiment but the in ineffable interconnectedness with all that exists people have those experiences with psychedelics these days or you can
00:16:01
actually give somebody an experience like that with even VR because we are already in a VR number
00:16:08
two number two clinging grasping that which is ungraspable every experience is ungraspable so the awareness of an experience is not the experience the awareness of a thought is not a
00:16:21
thought the awareness of a thought is independent of the thought if you identify with the awareness instead of the thought which is like a cloud going through the sky
00:16:33
you don't either attach yourself to it or you don't identify with it takes training
00:16:40
so you know and in the rig Veda let Noble thoughts come to me from every side because your thoughts are not your
00:16:47
production your thoughts are socially constructed and there's there's recycle through you and yet we identify with them so number two is identifying with
00:16:59
that which is ephemeral transient ungraspable number three on number two we so we need to not attach not associate with thoughts
00:17:11
not associate with experiences in order to be free you can associate with them but you're not attached or identified to them you can
00:17:23
associate with thoughts so if you've had a trauma in your early life or something or you've been through something not so
00:17:28
good or you've been dumped by your boyfriend and then we would identify with that and actually that
00:17:34
epigenetically by the way that's intergenerational now we know that you know in the Holocaust for example during
00:17:40
the invasion of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany there were a lot of there was famine amongst the Jews and now three generations four generations
00:17:53
after that the people's descendants who were traumatized they have diabetes because
00:18:00
somewhere in their body there's a memory of famine so they're holding on to carbohydrates they have insulin resistance Etc if you take a mouse and
00:18:11
you expose it to a smell that it likes for example lavender and then you give it to my electrical
00:18:18
shock for Seven Generations the mice will be fearful of that particular smell I've been to a cow Farm in Hawaii where they used to
00:18:29
have electrical wires as fences mild electrical shocks now they don't have the wires but the descendants of those cows that were traumatized they won't
00:18:42
cross over that fence or they won't cross over where the Border was so it's it's this is another mystery where is memory most people if you ask
00:18:54
them where is memory they'll point to the brain if I ask you what did you have for breakfast today
00:18:59
what did you have for breakfast uh that's a really good question I had a salad okay with some chicken so no where
00:19:07
was that memory before I asked you the question there's nowhere in the brain you can point out
00:19:13
that memory was but as soon as I ask you the question the neural networks go fire
00:19:19
but where is the memory Retreat from the only places Consciousness but Consciousness can't be localized you know when people get brain injuries car crashes they lose their memory sometimes
00:19:29
yeah so radios damaged you don't listen to the music doesn't that prove that it's in the brain somewhere
00:19:36
is is the is Shakespeare in in on your movie screen or your television set is is actually anything you read in the book is the author in the book
00:19:50
it's that you know you're confused the instrument with the user of the instrument the fault of the instrument is not a reflection on the user of the instrument
00:20:01
Shakespeare nice would live on like the the CD or like these that's really okay yeah but where is that mind that localized in the CD
00:20:16
in the brain somewhere isn't it no the brain is just like your CD said okay what happens in the brain is called the
00:20:21
neural correlates of experience nce this as I said earlier there's no experience
00:20:27
in the brain that's where you can put a knife through it the brain has no self-awareness
00:20:36
when you think about some of these um neurological diseases like dementia Alzheimer's what does that present evidence for in
00:20:48
terms of I mean I guess a lot of people aren't really clear at the moment where where Alzheimer's and Dementia starts or
00:20:55
what's called Alzheimer's now we know is due to accumulation of a substance called amyloid in the brain so about there are 40 genes that
00:21:07
predispose you to force Alzheimer's or which three are probably fully penetrant which means they predict the disease because that's genetic determinism
00:21:19
the rest are related to things like lack of sleep or inflammation or stress or a diet that causes
00:21:28
inflammation or lack of unregulated biological rhythms Etc so there are identifiable causes for Alzheimer's but again Alzheimer's is and
00:21:41
these neurological diseases all diseases like that we're talking about two different things
00:21:47
we're talking about Consciousness is a fundamental reality and then we're talking about the instrument that we
00:21:53
call the brain now I should say to you though that what I'm saying is not necessarily accepted by mainstream science but
00:22:04
mainstream science cannot answer the hard problem of Consciousness or where experience happens and is not interested
00:22:11
you know right now the two most promising things in medical science well there are three or four are you know one is what we call Gene
00:22:23
editing crispr so you'll be able to cut in base genes soon the way you cut and paste
00:22:29
emails but that'll affect maybe five six percent of genetic determinism the rest
00:22:35
is lifestyle epigenetics so that's where we are in medical science and with machine learning in artificial intelligence I think we'll be able to predict disease and make it more
00:22:48
everything will be more personalized predictable preventable in the future but we are talking about two different things right now we're talking about biology
00:23:00
and we're talking about the heart problem of Consciousness we'll get on to the pillars of well-being um wanted to
00:23:06
finish those five points of suffering yes we can call the five clacias glacias yeah in Sanskrit so that we were number three right recoiling from
00:23:17
experiences that we interpret as unpleasant but see once again the awareness of the experience is not the experience so once you can observe the experience you're
00:23:29
free of the experience you don't identify with the experience oh that's an interesting thought passing
00:23:36
by the screen of my Consciousness like a cloud in the sky I'm not the cloud I'm the sky I'm not this I'm not the play on the screen on the screen
00:23:48
so an example would be so the sentence is recoiling from experiences that unpleasant they're unpleasant so give me an example someone in my life someone in my family dies yeah so you obviously are
00:24:00
scared right because you identify with the experience but everybody dies I mean trillions of people have died you're not the only one who's going to
00:24:12
die and then what dies is another mystery the body dies the seeds of memory recycle because what is memory but it's
00:24:26
information and that's recycled through Collective Consciousness as soon as you're born you're already born into an interpreted world a world with memory a world with imagination a world with
00:24:41
non-local Consciousness that is now localizing through your brain as this process that you call the body the body mind is a process in consciousness
00:24:52
Consciousness itself is not subject to time only you know time is an experience we
00:24:58
have as soon as we have subject objects split so as soon as there's subject object split which is artificial
00:25:06
in nature is the unified activity then time is Born the experience of time is born so in your life if someone dies God forbid um do you suffer you grieve which is a
00:25:22
natural process and it has a life cycle you don't hold on to it in fact you embrace it
00:25:28
you embrace the anytime you recoil or deny resistance creates even more stress so what we call stress is resistance to
00:25:41
existence in the moment okay if you don't resist experience in the moment you know it's passing by so something really bad happens at work I get a really bad you know my boss
00:25:54
tells me I'm fired the mindset required to ever avoid suffering in that case is to
00:26:02
take the news it's not a mindset it's a it's a step in awareness the awareness of the mind is not the mind
00:26:12
who is it that or what is it that knows a thought that is what you need to shift to okay
00:26:20
once you shift from the experience to the awareness in which the experience is happening you're independent of it and that's what
00:26:31
actually those eight limbs of yoga are about it's a process a shift in identity we started with that a shift in identity from your assumed self to your
00:26:46
fundamental self which is infinite which is without cause which is not subject to birth and death
00:26:54
which is spaceless timeless incomprehensible infinite irreducible and fundamental it feels almost like I'm stepping out of
00:27:04
myself and looking at myself correct looking at the projection of projection of myself we're looking at the projection of yourself she's really looking at your avatar and
00:27:18
it's very hard to do because we we are increasingly becoming avatars especially with things like social media yeah yeah
00:27:23
we've been we're being reinforced like you know I have two million followers or a million followers about 500 000
00:27:29
followers they're following my avatar so we don't know who we are you're confused yourself with the Avatar and the battle
00:27:35
is all between Avatar's wanting importance how does one resign from that battle and take back my peace actually the opposite of that is
00:27:47
creativity the creativity is the opposite of determinism if you don't want to be a biological robot or an algorithm which is what we
00:28:01
are now we are biological algorithms biological robots and that's by the way part of our Evolution it's not something all animals but the animals have an advantage they
00:28:14
live in the present moment but you and I have an imagination that can see into the future that can even
00:28:21
look at death you know as the culmination of this life experience we regret the past we anticipate the future
00:28:29
we're never in the present when this is the only place we are right now is the present there is no way to escape it but in our imagination we escape it so the
00:28:40
worst use of imagination is stress the best use of imagination is creativity creativity is a disruption in the algorithm it's a discontinuity
00:28:50
fundamental creativity not you know usual Innovation like iPhone 13 instead of iPhone 12 with a better camera that's not what creativity is creativity is a death and a resurrection it's a death of
00:29:03
context meaning relationship and story and a new meaning relationship and story whether it's that's fundamental creativity that's
00:29:16
Einstein coming up with the theory of relativity or the Quantum physicists breaking every rule
00:29:24
that we knew in Newtonian physics or a great piece of art Beethoven Swift these are original original creativity is a disruption in the algorithm to to decide
00:29:37
to provide Avatar my avatar getting into this sort of Avatar wall with a with other avatars my antidote to that is my own creativity your own creativity you
00:29:49
know every moment you have a choice to repeat the past or be a pioneer of creativity of the future and that happens by the way it happens individually it happens collectively we
00:30:04
change World Views you know the world is not flat anymore you know the ground is not stationary anymore you know the
00:30:11
world is not Material anymore every technology that you use is based on the new idea that the essential nature of
00:30:18
the physical world is it's not physical I could see you as you really are I'd see a huge emptiness with a few scattered dots and spots and some random electrical discharges and at the most
00:30:31
fundamental level There Are No Boundaries boundaries are perceptual so when we experience the spiritual ecstasy
00:30:39
which is ineffable There Are No Boundaries that's why people in near-death experience people with psychedelic experience people with
00:30:49
Peak experiences athletes musical performance any any break from ordinary reality
00:31:00
is ineffable and healing actually that's why at the recent Resurgence in psychedelics is very interesting because you know it it takes you away from
00:31:16
your identity of being squeezed into the volume of a body in the span of a lifetime
00:31:23
and point number four the five points of suffering Point number four point number four confusing your selfie with yourself
00:31:29
your ego identity we've talked about that and number five is death death but all of them have one solution
00:31:37
first one find out who you are how does one find out who they are Transcendence there's no here's another thing there's no system of thought
00:31:49
no system of thought religion philosophy or science that will get you into knowing true reality because systems of thought are just that systems
00:32:01
of thought what is it that gives rise to thought that is what you won't do no and that's been the Eternal Quest in spiritual
00:32:13
Traditions I'm not talking about religious Dogma or ideology but there you know these days is very fashionable for people to say I'm not religious but I'm spiritual it means the same thing
00:32:24
when you have a spiritual experience number one Transcendence you find your identity beyond space and time number two emergence of platonic values
00:32:35
like truth goodness Beauty Harmony named after Plato or love compassion Joy Equanimity and number three loss of the fear of death that's Jesus that's Muhammad that's Ruby that's Buddha
00:32:49
that's every luminary that you have can study since people created systems of thought so how does what's the easiest way to
00:33:01
track you know there's someone listening to this right now they are driving up the motorway they're a lorry driver take
00:33:07
some time every day to be unoccupied even spiritual Pursuit is an occupation so take a little bit of you know what I
00:33:18
think it was Kafka or somebody who said all of human problem Humanities problems
00:33:23
come from our inability to sit quietly and do nothing we'd rather electrocute ourselves we're always doing doing doing we have human doings we're not human beings anymore
00:33:36
so if I take some I I pull over the the Lorry that I'm driving up the motorway and I said you know what Deepak told me
00:33:42
take some time for myself so I sit in the Lorry for 15 minutes every day how is that going to help me to
00:33:48
transcend it starts to process we begin to ask yourself who am I reflect on this these questions every day who am I
00:34:00
what do I want what is my purpose what am I grateful for and who am I without these constructs it's it's a big mystery right Who You
00:34:15
Are ultimately you realize you're the awareness in which all experience happens but you're not the experience the experiences in time you are not in time and that this requires a different kind
00:34:29
of education it's not part of our culture it used to be part of cultures you know
00:34:35
if you read Plato and the Republic and you'll see that you know this was part of every culture
00:34:44
but it was a few luminaries people romanticize even about this in India's spiritual country well India's been violent forever a few luminaries the sages of the
00:34:56
upanishad and we have romance around the Greek culture you know Bob you know the
00:35:02
Greeks were the most civilized in the world well yes Socrates and permanent ideas and you know Pythagoras and I can name a few but the rest of the country
00:35:14
even in those times you know they had slavery they had sexism they had these the the source of the Olympics
00:35:27
where they used to sacrifice humans and you know we're still performing it even in our days we're
00:35:34
still repeating that cycle with the what do you call cheerleaders the the Virgin vessels of the past
00:35:42
we haven't changed actually much what else in terms of starting your day like daily habits so you talk about
00:35:48
sleep as being incredibly important here are the the daily habits um number one is sleep now we know by the way that lack of sleep is the number one predictor of premature death from
00:36:01
cardiovascular disease lack of sleep is also predictor of Alzheimer's lack of sleep interferes with their creativity lack of sleep causes inflammation so that's for sure
00:36:14
number one number two uh I think is any practice that quietens the Mind meditation reflection contemplation sitting quietly watching your breath ETC
00:36:27
number three is exercise number four is Mind Body coordination as in that's different than regular exercise yoga practice and martial arts breathing practices Tai
00:36:41
Chi Qigong they actually activate a different part of your nervous system which is the parasympathetic nervous
00:36:47
system which it causes self-regulation in the body so it's not just exercise it's you know
00:36:54
something that puts mind and body together even gymnastics or things like Judo and I mentioned martial arts but yoga is my practice
00:37:08
uh then emotionals your emotional and physical environment your social environment because we live as social beings so you know if you're if you're
00:37:20
you have toxic relationships it's going to cause physical toxicity um then nutrition we now know that you know that food that causes inflammation
00:37:31
refined manufactured processed food with chemicals antibiotics hormones insecticides pesticides it's poison it's like putting poison day putting Agent
00:37:43
Orange in your body so organic food farm to table maximum diversity or plant-based Foods now we know a lot about micronutrients we know about biological rhythms
00:37:57
But ultimately I think spiritual experience is very important because no matter what you do no matter what you do no matter how healthy you are there is old age
00:38:08
there is infirmity and there is death so unless you face those bright head-on when you are healthy not when you're in a crisis not when somebody dies in your family then everybody panics
00:38:22
okay I had a crisis in my life when I was six years old you know my father was in England he was training to be a cardiologist I was living in my grandfather
00:38:35
and one day we got a telegram that my father had passed all his exams he was now a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians big deal in those days we got
00:38:46
a telegram my grandfather wanted to celebrate so he took me and my little brother to a carnival then to a to a movie I even remembered the movie
00:38:57
Alibaba and the 40 thieves and then we went to a fancy restaurant and then in the middle of the night he died and they took him to for cremation
00:39:08
brought his ashes back in a little jar about the size of this coffee cup a little bigger and one of my uncles said what happened yesterday he was taking
00:39:19
the kids to a carnival and today is a bunch of Ashes my little brother who'd later became the dean of education at Harvard Medical School he was four years old he started
00:39:31
to lose his skin his skin started peeling off I went into a panic and you know my uncles took my brother to every position they couldn't find the
00:39:44
diagnosis till somebody said you know he's missing his parents he's feeling vulnerable he's losing his skin
00:39:52
shedding his skin because he's that's a metaphor for his vulnerability he'll be fine when his parents come back
00:39:58
and sure enough as soon as they came my brother was healed so at six years I had
00:40:04
a crisis existential crisis went on to become a doctor but what happens you go to medical school the first thing you see is is uh is a corpse you're supposed to
00:40:16
understand Life by dissecting a body you know it's the way we are trained you've
00:40:21
started off by looking at a human being as an anatomical structure rather than a
00:40:27
process in consciousness so it took me a long time you know going through medical school training myself going through crises smoking addictive
00:40:39
behavior alcohol I remember um res resuscitating a patient putting a pacemaker putting him on a respirator and then going outside to smoke a cigarette
00:40:52
and then you know I was disgusted with myself I threw away my cigarette that evening I threw away the scotch
00:41:04
and I decided that I want to understand who am I it's almost like in that moment you observed someone that was so full of life just moments earlier
00:41:16
turn into as you said Ash is in a jar scattered in the Wind and you go where is the where is my granddad yeah
00:41:28
he's not local no look right which is our essential nature actually to be non-localists to be connected with all that is
00:41:40
an Indian poetry and Poets in general John William Blake you know we are led to believe a lie when we see with and not through the eye that was born in the
00:41:53
night to perish in the night while the soul slept in beams of light so when we looked through the conditioned mind that's a lie when you look beyond the conditioned mind
00:42:04
that is light do you think you'd be doing the work you are today if your granddad hadn't passed away when you were six in their
00:42:10
circumstances I think that was a very pivotal moment at six years of age existential crisis
00:42:18
most people don't have that at the age of six because it brought you a bunch of questions didn't it really profound
00:42:23
questions about the nature of life and existence existence and and love and tigor Indian poet love is not a sentiment it's the ultimate truth at the heart of creation
00:42:39
that you and the other are the same being in different uniforms is it do you have a Ponder if some of your beliefs are if that moment really was pivotal that
00:42:52
some of your beliefs might have been a way to justify your sadness yeah denial is a way of justifying sadness I don't think belief is
00:43:04
belief in many ways is a cover-up for insecurity you know if I say do you believe in electricity he said no I see that device that transistor that TV set
00:43:16
electricity gravity is my experience so I don't believe in belief but faith is something else faith is the knowingness of the invisible
00:43:31
without which there is nothing visible the invisible is the source of all things visible so when you when your day comes when my day comes when we're no longer I'm
00:43:44
preparing for it right now you're preparing for this in my tradition there are four stages of Life first 25 years
00:43:50
they're called ashrams ashram is a place to rest or that which you identify as your home first 25 years education second 25 years family
00:44:02
children Fame Fortune if you want third 25 years giving back and now I'm fourth self-realization preparation for death how does one prepare for death by
00:44:16
knowing and experiencing your non-local self what people would call spirituality or death spiritual but authentic experience I'm not talking about
00:44:28
Dogma or self-righteous morality or jealousy with the Halo or cunning hypocrisy we can all pretend to be spiritual but if you've had the experience when
00:44:40
you know yourself as non-local then the unknown is the only place to be the known as already happened it's a prison and what do you believe happens once you
00:44:51
die I think the dream continues the dream continues in a different frequency domain of Consciousness these days actually if you look at some of the
00:45:03
theories of the universe mathematical theories current materialistic view is that the visible universe is about 2 trillion
00:45:16
galaxies 706 trillion Stars uncountable trillions of planets based on that current estimate with the James Webb Telescope and all this
00:45:28
our planet is not even a spec one grain of sand in all the beaches of the world so the other day I went to a beach
00:45:35
picked up a grain of sand and a breeze game he drifted off and the beach didn't notice that one grain was missing that's planet Earth 2 trillion galaxies but I
00:45:48
recently interviewed Caltech professor of physics Sean Carroll who sits on the desk of Richard
00:45:55
Feynman one of the greatest physicists of all time Einstein sat at that desk for a while
00:46:02
Sean Carroll believes there are infinite universes infinite universes it's incomprehensible the idea that there are infinite universes
00:46:14
but I believe they are and that you and I have a a cosmic Journey that is infinite and infinite means infinite infinite is incomprehensible it
00:46:29
never ends you change uniforms you change experiences hopefully you evolve like a spiraled staircase but it's a never-ending Horizon does
00:46:42
that mean rank what people call Reincarnation of some sort or is it even people yeah but what is reincarnation
00:46:49
see everything recycles matter recycles we agree energy resize because we agree information recycles we agree if Consciousness is what gives rise to
00:47:02
Energy Information and matter and energy information matter or human constructs for modes of awareness and consciousness why would Consciousness not
00:47:14
recycle why would it be the only exception it wouldn't be the same Consciousness though would it it would
00:47:21
be bits of the No it's it's it's a Consciousness with seeds yeah of potential manifestation seeds of Desire and seeds of memory
00:47:38
now if you want to be totally you know I want to use the spiritual language which is not fashionable but is fashionable to Karma memory and desire
00:47:51
so karma is past experience an interpretation of past experience if you go to Starbucks have a cup of coffee that's karma now depending on your experience
00:48:05
you like it or not you decide to go back to Starbucks or not to go to Starbucks you go to whatever the other places and get a cappuccino so memory recycles as desire
00:48:17
and desire recycles as karma karma simply means experience don't think of it good bad and this is the software or awareness that recycles and evolves in Cosmic time
00:48:32
now this is the theory but you have to experience it so I asked you what did you have for breakfast but then I could ask you do you remember a happy episode from your
00:48:43
teenage years or your childhood and immediately the memory comes where was it not in your brain
00:48:50
you know I hadn't skated I learned skating when I was eight years ice skating I didn't skate for 30 years at the age of 38 with my two little kids
00:49:02
Rockefeller Center Ice there picked up a pair of skates started to skate every cell in my body including my brain had recycled
00:49:15
a few million times where was that memory of skating big mystery quick word from one of our sponsors I have to say I've been on a bit of a journey with this brand because
00:49:28
when I started my business in new territories when we first moved social chain to the to New York City the first
00:49:34
place we went to was wework we moved four of our team members out to New York City and we built the business from
00:49:39
there um I have to say there's something magical about weworks I've spent the last two or three weeks in LA in a wee
00:49:46
work and as you walk in the front door every day it's almost like that sense of community that sense of magic excitement
00:49:52
camaraderie is tangible and you don't get that when you're working at home you don't get that often when you're sat in
00:49:59
your bed on your laptop there's something about getting out and getting into a wee work that makes me feel a
00:50:04
sense of Entrepreneurship and and creativity and building and the way that we work to design both both in the way
00:50:10
that they offer subscriptions so that you can work you know on demand but also the the flexibility of the contracts
00:50:16
means that it's just the perfect place for businesses to scale their companies and if you haven't checked out where you
00:50:22
work and you want to you can go to we.co CEO and there you can get 50 off at trial Day At wework Close to You over the last couple of how long maybe four
00:50:34
months I've been changing my diet shall I say many of you have really been paying attention to this podcast will
00:50:40
know why I've sat here with some incredible Health experts and one of the things that's really come through for me which has caused a big change in my life
00:50:46
is the need for us to have these superfoods these green Foods these vegetables and then a company I love so
00:50:54
much and a company I'm an investor in and then a company that sponsors this podcast and I'm on the board of recently
00:51:00
announced a new product which absolutely spoke to exactly where I was in my life and that is heal and they announced
00:51:06
Daily Greens Daily Greens is a product that contains 91 superfoods nutrients and plant-based ingredients which helps me meet that dietary requirement with the convenience that hewell always
00:51:18
offers unfortunately it's only currently available in the US but I hope pray that it'll be with you guys in the UK too so if you're in the US check it out it's an incredible product I've been
00:51:29
having it here in La for the last couple of weeks and it's a game changer what is the thing that you believe to be true
00:51:35
that most people disagree with you on right now my interpretation of what I call Quantum healing a quantum mechanics I wrote a book called Quantum healing in
00:51:47
1988 it was vilified I reissued it a few years ago because now we have science and I'm doing a book with the quantum physicist at the moment
00:51:59
where I believe that our biology like everything else is is quantum mechanical it's it's it goes every experience shapes uh our biology
00:52:11
and experience happens in the moment so your body is changing in the moment depending on the experience you're having at a very fundamental level pleasure pain Joy sorrow eating
00:52:24
breathing digestion metabolism elimination thinking feeling aspiring fearing all every experience shapes of biology we are the metabolic
00:52:37
product of experience and experience doesn't happen in isolation it happens in The Matrix of relationship so what people disagree with me is this
00:52:50
whole interpretation I've been attacked by you know mainstream scientists but I had been persistent because I'm a physician and I see people and you know
00:53:02
I'm not sitting in a lab dissecting rats or doing designing experiments theoretically but you see people and as you said people suffer
00:53:13
and uh you know if you're a physician that should be your job to address suffering not be a technician who can
00:53:20
fix everything about the human body know nothing about the human soul or The Human Experience this this morning I was at an event and I had a guy come up to me after and he said I'm 40 years old
00:53:31
now Stephen um I'm in a job and I don't like it it really doesn't like his job that he's
00:53:38
in um he's I'd say trapped as maybe a strong word but he feels unable to take the leap towards a life that he feels will fulfill him
00:53:50
um he referenced being scared of what his friends might say um and he just there was this almost
00:53:56
this desperation in his face as he spoke to me he was seeking words of advice from me to him to help him out of that situation
00:54:02
of like I'm 40 years old I've got a partner I've built this life but it's not resonating with who I am and I just
00:54:08
I could feel the suffering that's a lot of people that are listening to this right now they are
00:54:13
that's that's that's so what our social structures have created and yet you know
00:54:19
the people like Joseph Campbell oh coined the expression follow your bliss uh follow your joy follow your
00:54:27
purpose follow your meaning follow your Dharma you know in Buddhism they said three things will save you one is
00:54:36
take refuge in the community of conscious beings take refuge in a higher purpose and take
00:54:44
refuge in Transcendence if you do that your life will be meaningful and meaning is what drives us you know there are actually many Studies by the way recent
00:54:57
studies on what is called the happiness equation I'll give it to you um H is equal to S Plus C plus b so H stands for happiness is equal to S set
00:55:11
point in the brain the set point in the brain is when you look at the situation do you
00:55:18
see an adversity or an opportunity how is the set point determined by your childhood if your parents were complaining condemning criticizing playing the victim you will see every
00:55:32
problem every situation has an adversity condemn complain criticize and play the
00:55:38
victim on the other hand your parents or your caretakers or your ecosystem or relationship when you were growing up first three four years of life they were looking at opportunities there were
00:55:51
always you know engaging in compassionate empathetic conversation and joy and laughter and celebration then you'll have a set point for
00:56:01
happiness this set point determines 50 of our daily happiness experience can this head point be changed yes by self-awareness by reflective inquiry by
00:56:13
mindfulness by actually knowing that you have a problem most people don't even know they have a problem so that's 50
00:56:19
percent so s plus C conditions of living primarily material conditions of living money so if you have if you're extremely poor
00:56:33
you will suffer if you're extremely rich that doesn't guarantee that you'll be happy in fact what a lot of rich people do is they confuse their self-worth with their
00:56:45
net worth so I I wrote a book before this called abundance that was inspired by Bob
00:56:50
Marley one of his lyrics where he said some people are so poor all they have is money so happiness when it pertains to money is 10 of your daily experience
00:57:02
if you win the lottery you'll be ecstatic in the beginning in six months you'll plateau in one year you'll be back to your set point so even if you win the lottery in five
00:57:14
years you might be worse off because now you're worrying about taxes you want to put your money in the wherever you know
00:57:21
in the Bahamas or something and you're it's become your identity money if you're you know all billionaires money is their identity they confuse self-worth with uh net worth
00:57:34
so that's ten percent now we have 40 remaining that's the choices we make every day there are two kinds of choices we make every day once for personal pleasure
00:57:45
sex alcohol entertainment movies shopping shopping is the number one choice for pleasure by the way in the world that's why we call people consumers a very ugly word to describe a
00:58:00
stardust being with self-awareness but does pleasure bring you happiness it does but it's transient you know if you're and you have the danger of being addicted to pleasure if you have an
00:58:13
addictive personality as I did okay so uh pleasure brings happiness transiently there's another choice you can make that
00:58:25
actually is called fulfillment when you have meaning purpose in your life and if
00:58:30
you know how to make other people happy by giving them attention which means listening appreciation noticing their
00:58:38
uniqueness affection letting them know you care and acceptance radical acceptance you can't change another person so you feel better which is what we're trying to do all the time changing
00:58:49
other people so we feel better impossible you can't change yourself even if you try so acceptance
00:58:58
what would you what would you say to that guy what should I have said to him in terms of advice
00:59:03
because he did really actually have told him let's take a day off and let's go fishing or let's go into you know have a picnic or let's go to see a comedy
00:59:15
let's go see it just stick discontinue and try this a little moment of being not doing not thinking not
00:59:30
feeling not speaking I take a week of Silence every year now I'm taking even longer so sometimes I'm thinking you know a month in silence but you know I'm
00:59:42
76 so that's my different stages of life too in the hope that that might help him
00:59:48
realize that he's playing the wrong game or he's thinking about the wrong in the hope that you know one thing you can do
00:59:54
to alleviate anybody's suffering to some extent is fully accept them and listen to them don't give them advice you know people feel better if you just listen to
01:00:05
them and there's Neuroscience that their amygdala cools down if you just listen with deep empathy which means you feel what another person feels there's some
01:00:17
biology around this you know when you feel what another person feels and you deeply listen there's a phenomenon
01:00:24
called limbic resonance your emotional brain resonates with their brain and then if you deeply listen to them and
01:00:31
you let them know you care for them there's another thing that happens it's called limbic regulation and then the
01:00:38
third step is limbic revision the neural networks rebuyer so acceptance affection
01:00:46
appreciation and attention that's what you do don't give them advice people go to therapists to get advice therapists don't do that they listen
01:00:59
good therapists listen interesting and in the old traditions you know that's why people went to confession they basically you know revealed their
01:01:10
so-called sins to the priest and they felt better one of the things I've read about um
01:01:16
I've heard you talk about is this the role that affirmations and positive self-talking um those kinds of things can have on our
01:01:26
healing to some extent anything mental is weak this is what I've wondered because a lot of like you know books and like Instagram will say look in the mirror and say nice things yourself or
01:01:38
yeah it doesn't work it's mental mind is weak you have to go deeper it's you know to say if you're trying to force yourself to be positive that's
01:01:50
exasperating that's very stressful but instead of forcing yourself to be positive observe your thoughts you know observe both negative and positive thoughts and you see that all
01:02:00
experiences by contrast you can't have a one without the other you know it's like a pendulum can't swing only in One
01:02:07
Direction it has to swing in two directions hot doesn't is meaningless without cold
01:02:14
pleasure is meaningless without pain Joy is meaningless without suffering birth and death are actually not even opposites
01:02:27
birth and death are opposites life is the Continuum of birth and death you can't have one without the other in biology there's something called apoptosis program cellular death when
01:02:40
the cell forgets to die it becomes cancer that's what it is a cancer cell doesn't
01:02:47
die when it's supposed to normally our cells are dying constantly so you can be born again that's the literal meaning of Born Again
01:02:59
what you think of them what do you think success is then if we're stepping away from
01:03:04
this identity which can cause so much suffering what is for me success is the progressive realization of worthy goals number one and where they got that's a subjective measure so for me that's it
01:03:16
could be taking care of my dog yes taking care of your dog but if money is your goal for the sake of making money then you'll never be happy but if
01:03:30
money is your goal so you can actually make a difference in people's lives including your own and your family but
01:03:37
also community in large that that's a really good so it's number one Progressive realization of worthy goals number two the ability to love and have compassion
01:03:49
and number three actually which is for me the most important to always go back to your Creative
01:03:56
Source once you have this ability to go back to your Creative Source you will be successful no matter what
01:04:09
don't be Bamboozled by the hypnosis of social conditioning don't be in a rush to conform you know there's studies that if Gallup I'm on The Advisory Board of Gallup if you have a house that's fifty
01:04:22
thousand dollars and you're offered a house that's five hundred thousand dollars but your
01:04:27
neighbors have million dollar homes you won't move you're always comparing yourself to the
01:04:33
other person this is how we are socially programmed rush to conform comparison with others
01:04:43
and you know if your child doesn't conform then he's not a good student and I used to um but my son was growing up he always was reading comic books and
01:04:56
you know engaging in games and sports in my was very important mathematics and my
01:05:02
wife would constantly complain that he's not good at school I said wait a minute we'll he'll
01:05:09
he'll do what he's enjoying let him do what he's enjoying he ended up creating a sports company a comic book company and now he has a very successful business called the religion of sport
01:05:23
with Tom Brady won five Emmys wasn't a good student so I said don't focus on your weaknesses focus on your strengths and if you have a child who
01:05:35
loves to play tennis it's poor at math get him a tennis coach and one day he might get a mathematician to be his accountant you when you look forward at the
01:05:47
direction of travel that we're on as a civilization what advice do we need now the most don't get stuck in melodrama
01:06:02
this whole world is full of drama drama everything is that sells his drama news is not news anymore it's opinion and drama and all the violence in the world is
01:06:14
drama and you know you read about drama shooting killing incest well crazy stuff
01:06:21
and we're addicted to trauma actually and then we complain about it addicted to trauma or drama yeah but
01:06:33
and what's the cost of being addicted to trauma and drama suffering because because you sacrifice yourself for the drama or being a conformist does this
01:06:47
mean we have we should like you know I'm thinking about really my relationship with technology and social media and news feeds and stuff well technology is
01:06:54
neutral you know and it's inescapable it's past part of a revolution if you don't adapt to technology you'll become extinct well so it's part of our Evolution how do we use technology you
01:07:07
know in my field AI machine learning Precision diagnosis and even intervention I believe Technologies so it's a great
01:07:19
gift but again technology can destroy the world too this is what it means to be human be humans are very interesting species are
01:07:30
Fall From Grace is exactly what you know mythical Traditions tell us the knowledge of Good and Evil we ate the fruit it's hard to go through life these days
01:07:42
and not be tempted by drama it's even someone who you know it's a process it's a process what is that
01:07:50
process growth you know people some people do grow some people do evolve and I think
01:08:02
ultimately that is the purpose of our existence is to keep evolving do you ever get tempted by drama or distracted not anymore I used to
01:08:12
I used to I used to engage in debates it was like you know big high for me to win a debate
01:08:21
how long ago well I started in school and I left debating only recently I was just five years ago I was debating Richard Dawkins in in Mexico
01:08:34
and I felt foolish after that you know so you made the decision not to debate anymore not to engage in debate anymore no because
01:08:45
nobody changes the Mind The Debaters don't change their mind the audience doesn't change their mind they in fact they get reinforced by the opinions they
01:08:56
came with so if we do want to try and change people's mind because see the change if you want peace in your life be peaceful if you want
01:09:07
love in your life Give Love whatever you want engage in that I think that's the only thing you can't uh you have to be the change that you want
01:09:20
to see in others and then people respond not what do I just say not by what you do but just by your presence you've written 93 books as I said
01:09:33
earlier I think this is your 93rd I've been told this book about living in the light new book yoga for self-realization
01:09:42
I guess my question you know I I can't comprehend the concept of writing so many books I've like I wrote my first
01:09:48
one and then I'm currently writing my second one and I've been it's just consuming all of my time and I'm I went
01:09:54
off to Bali if I spent a month there writing it in I'm sure you enjoyed that I love it I always get there to write
01:10:00
um it's amazing but my question to you you know I think this book is fantastic and I think that we'll talk a little bit about you're gonna SEC but
01:10:06
your 94th book it's coming this year it's called Quantum body with the quantum physicists so I feel kind of uh good about that because I've been
01:10:18
talking about that for now since 1988 that's 12 plus 23 that's over 30 years I've been vilified attacked everything about that and I realized that people
01:10:33
are territorial you know the physicists say who the heck is he talking about quantum physics
01:10:38
the biologists say he's not trained in biology he's a physician who the heck is he talking about biology
01:10:45
and yet my experience tells me that your body is non-local it follows the principles of quantum mechanics and now found some some supporters who know the math
01:11:00
and you know even the body can be understood mathematically now I don't know if you're familiar with this theorem called girdle's theorem which says it's very
01:11:13
famous theorem and you know girdle was a German mathematician who was Einstein's
01:11:18
favorite colleague when they they're both immigrants to America at Princeton but he came up with the theorem which says there are theorems in math
01:11:29
that are true but you can't prove them and their disruptions their their basically mathematics is platonic truth describes everything in the universe
01:11:41
and yet there are theorems that don't follow algorithms when a mathematician thinks
01:11:47
of them he said where did this come from they don't know they can't even prove it
01:11:54
but it seems intuitively true and if they follow the theorem it leads to new creativity so I think creativity is inherent in the
01:12:06
universe where aspects of that creativity and with self-awareness we have sourced to that creativity but that
01:12:13
creativity will never happen if you don't take time to actually incubate in discontinuity in my life I figured it out nine steps intended outcome number
01:12:31
one information gathering number two information analysis number three incubation taking time off go to Bali play golf if you're a republican that's
01:12:44
mystery school for Republicans or whatever so incubation and that is a time you settle with uncertainty and then there's that Eureka experience Insight so incubation leads to Insight
01:12:58
which is a disruption it's something totally new new context new relationship new story and then if the Insight is accurate then you're inspired not motivated motivation
01:13:10
is mental inspiration as the word says in spirit then you implement it then you integrate
01:13:17
it and then you are a death and a resurrection these are my nine steps to creativity I just made them up some
01:13:24
information for intended analysis information gathering information analysis incubation Insight inspiration
01:13:32
implementation integration incarnation I use that for writing my books I can tell yeah and if you so if you were to write one last book if I said Deepak you could write one more book that's it you
01:13:46
can only write one it's going to be your last ever book which subject matter would you think was the most important subject matter to
01:13:52
write that last book about and what would be the Top Line message of that book I hate to use this word it's misinterpreted but the title would be
01:14:05
enlightenment explain what do you mean like why would why enlightenment what would the book be about the only solution ultimately
01:14:18
to know truth with the capital T you're not your body you're not your mind you're not your emotions they're all um like clouds passing through the sky
01:14:32
you know when when I read some of the great luminaries which can shine our life is a dream we are asleep but once in a while we wake up enough to
01:14:44
know that we were sleeping Buddha when he died he said this lifetime of us as transient as Autumn clouds to watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements
01:14:57
of a dance a lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky rushing by like a torrent down a steep Mountain as I look back now my life 76 years it's a dream
01:15:12
but it's been a good dream with a few nightmares here and there but it's been a dream and I feel the only solution is to wake up now you
01:15:24
know when the Buddha was dying people asked him who are you are you a messiah are you God your messenger he said none
01:15:31
of the above he said who are you he said I'm awake finally I think that's our ultimate Destiny to wake up what do we need to do to wake up
01:15:42
we need to question our everyday reality and human constructs they're useful money is a useful construct latitude longitude are useful constructs but
01:15:54
there's still constructs they're not reality what is the source of these constructs when you get to the source
01:16:01
you realize that your capacity for creativity is infinite your capacity for love is
01:16:07
infinite your capacity for compassion is infinite your capacity for healing is infinite and ultimately you are infinite
01:16:17
having a dream right now if I made you prime minister or president of the world you know if there was one significant
01:16:24
change you could make to lead us more towards that better future of Enlightenment I would say an education
01:16:30
that does not sacrifice self-awareness we have information overload right now I don't need information overload I can
01:16:40
Google it or now go to chat GPT or something like that what I need to know is who am I how do you feel about chat GTP chat it's good I think it's very good and I
01:16:53
think it's unavoidable also I actually went to a demonstration recently by Microsoft on something that's coming soon it's called Prometheus it's Way
01:17:04
Beyond chat GPT it'll put most of us Physicians out of business here because it makes the best diagnosis gives the best information what happens
01:17:18
then in terms of your purpose and your meaning well we have more time for creativity fundamental creativity to create joy in the world I think the essential messages
01:17:32
if you're not joyful you wasted your life I you know I see entrepreneurs all the time young guys coming up to me with amazing ideas but they're talking about
01:17:45
exit strategy before they've started the business it's like you know dividing the loot
01:17:53
before there's a train to Rob but they're already talking and we're living in a hustle culture you know I
01:17:59
have five exits you keep exiting exiting exiting and you're still hustling and you're dying and that's the Final Exit you're still a hustler so I say make Joy
01:18:13
and self-understanding self-awareness the fundamental purpose of existence and everything else will follow where's your joy what is that where do you drive it from
01:18:25
the fact that I exist and I'm aware of existence that's a Perpetual surprise to me I was looking at emotions and what's the healthiest emotion you can have it's not love it's not compassion
01:18:40
it's not even Joy it's all it's Wonder why do we exist and why do we have the awareness that we exist if
01:18:57
you're perpetually surprised and full of wonder and joy you return to innocence and what we've lost to this world today is the loss of Innocence
01:19:11
how do I get my innocence back are you married I'm in love okay if well when you have a
01:19:18
child you'll see it you'll see it you know a child is spontaneous is in the moment is joyful unless it's
01:19:29
way too hungry but that's a different situation but it's joyful it is looking I was the other day I was in a in a train you know from
01:19:41
Orlando Airport to baggage claim everybody was stressed in the train bearing masks Panic to mother on the phone and full of anxiety and she had a
01:19:53
little baby in the crib and this baby was looking around in total amazement finally it caught my eyes and it gave the most amazing smile and
01:20:05
the whole the whole room lighted up just looking at that innocence we have lost our innocence and we we take it away from our children
01:20:19
so you know when children love laughter they love stories they love surprises you know they love to play peek-a-boo when's the last time you were surprised
01:20:36
I can't recall being surprised so when I feel when I feel I want some Joy I just look at children playing is there a way to bring that Joy back into our lives as a
01:20:49
practice that innocence yes play um play not drama as adults play is seen as a waste of time no please is when you find
01:21:00
creativity and joy I'm not talking about drama I'm talking about play for the sake of play now even Sports has become competitive
01:21:12
but when you played because you were playing when a musician is playing they're not thinking of the end when you're singing a song you're not thinking of the ending of the song
01:21:26
you're in the song when you become the song when you become that which you're playing when the music and the musician become one when the nor and the known become
01:21:38
one when the Observer and the Observer come on when the lover and the Beloved become one that's Transcendence that's Joy let's play
01:21:51
living in the light yoga for self-realization this is your fourth phase of life and you're into your
01:21:57
self-realization phase do you know the book The Body holds the score there's a lot of similarities between
01:22:03
obviously your philosophy and that yes that that book about how and I was Rick because you know I've I start I think
01:22:09
everything as a skeptic so breath work and a lot of spiritual things I start as an ultimate skeptic I need science I
01:22:16
need evidence I need proof and as I read through that book and watched some videos of that one of the things that
01:22:21
it's proven is phenomenal for your mental well-being is things like acting yoga they talk about psychedelics and
01:22:28
things like that as well but one wouldn't assume that there's a profound amount of scientific evidence that yoga
01:22:35
and acting have really positive mental health implications correct why is Yoga so good for us as humans yoga means Union Union with yourself and
01:22:48
yoga has eight limbs as they're talking about in this book and ultimately all those book eight limbs are meant to
01:22:57
give you only one Insight you and the universe are made of awareness you're not made of
01:23:04
energy you're not made of matter you're not made of information you're made of awareness awareness is non-local fundamental not subject to birth and
01:23:17
death infinite and formless so befriend your non-local formless self you know again I go back to poetry acting is great poetry is even better
01:23:32
rabindranath tagore one of my favorite poets said in this Playhouse of infinite forms I got sight of the formless and so my
01:23:43
life was blessed befriend the formless and then the forms will be seen as expressions of the formless without the form list there is no form
01:23:58
is the morphing of the formless into space-time and causality this theater of space time and causality where we are playing as avatars
01:24:11
that is something for me to think about tonight um it's become abundantly clear to me over the last I don't know um over the last couple of years in
01:24:23
particular as um more people know who I am because of this podcast and I do teach them to stuff on TV that you can cause yourself
01:24:29
such a tremendous amount of suffering by getting more and more attached to your avatar and like your avatar becoming more of a defined thing and I think I've
01:24:36
spent a lot of my definitely the last two and a half years trying to resist as much as I can this temptation of
01:24:42
becoming my avatar and doing that on a practical level I thought you know well resist labels Steve so don't be anything
01:24:49
don't like in terms of your bio you know your your professional bio don't be those things just you're 32 right 30 30. wow but that's pretty young to have that
01:25:03
awareness yeah because I could see how I could cause myself a ton of suffering and build a life which wasn't really Who I Am by being a social media CEO for
01:25:11
example success at an early age yeah you confuse your celebrity with yourself yeah outside of me just like saying to myself okay I'm gonna write books and I'm gonna
01:25:23
do this theater and we do this music show and I DJ Now and I do all these other bits and pieces I was in psychedelics for a while with um a Thai
01:25:30
Life Sciences as a creative director and an investor and outside of me doing just doing lots of stuff which is I thought
01:25:35
was the antidote to not to resisting my label you're telling me that the real antidote
01:25:40
to resisting my label is like a higher sense of Enlightenment right I would suggest a book for you yeah at your
01:25:46
stage you're trying to be useful it's called the wisdom of insecurity interesting by Alan Watts the more you
01:25:54
embraced in security and unpredictability the more access you'll have to the unknown
01:26:01
and the unknown is the source of all creativity the known as the prison of the past
01:26:08
we have a closing tradition on this it's funny we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest
01:26:22
because what the question is I'll show you you're the first person to ever see that question can you see it
01:26:30
what is my biggest insecurity I'm reminded of a cartoon I saw of a grave site and there was a sign on the grave site and said
01:26:50
to whoever was standing by the gravesite where you are I was where I am you will be so embrace
01:27:04
the idea of death and if you do it you'll see it's death that makes life possible because death is creativity have you
01:27:18
struggled with the idea of death all my life since six years and that reared its head to some degree
01:27:24
when your parents passed yes and now I'm a stage where I'm embracing it totally how did that impact you
01:27:32
losing your parents as someone that's been sensitive and insecure about it I would
01:27:37
say grief sadness longing but our longing can be the way too how long ago was that that you lost your
01:27:49
parents oh my parents only in the last 20 years but grandfather with whom I lived in the first few years of my life
01:28:01
he was like a parent my grandparents were my parents because my my parents were in England at that time and I was
01:28:09
I and my brother were left with our grandparents who brought us up and that by the way was a big that fear
01:28:17
of Abandonment also is a driver the fear of Abandonment is a driver and there is no cure for that other than don't think about yourself all the time
01:28:30
anytime you by the way you are suffering ask yourself who am I thinking about if you're thinking about your avatar
01:28:41
it's very true Deepak thank you so much thank you for having me this was one of the best conversations I've had oh thank
01:28:47
you so much that's a huge honor you you really are um you've been a someone that I followed from from afar but have had
01:28:52
tremendous admiration for and everyone that I've encountered that's encountered you well has been so you know we have
01:28:58
mutual friends with yeah we're sort of in business together in many respects through the healing actually they're
01:29:03
lovely people yeah um and it's been an honor that you would come here and spend some time with me today and it's been my
01:29:09
privilege thank you thank you so much Deepak thank you as you might know the show's now
01:29:15
sponsored by Airbnb absolutely love Airbnb always have always been a you know saved my life on so many occasions
01:29:21
and my team when we first got in touch with Airbnb were talking about how most people don't realize that their place
01:29:26
where they currently live could become an Airbnb and I guess the second question there is how much could your
01:29:32
place be worth and it turns out you could be sitting on an Airbnb gold mine without even knowing it some people
01:29:38
Airbnb their entire homes when they're away that's what I did in New York whenever I left New York my place was on
01:29:43
Airbnb and people rented it out sometimes for a day sometimes for two days sometimes for a week and it's a great way to cover some of the bills
01:29:49
while you're away so whether you're looking to go on holiday or you just want some extra cash for bills or you want to buy something nice for a
01:29:55
valentine that you love whatever it might be head over to airbnb.com UK host and you can find out how much your current property where you live can earn while you're not there I suspect it
01:30:07
might blow your mind because it certainly blew mine [Music] oh [Music] foreign