>>presenter: Hi Googlers and hi YouTube.
I'm [ indistinct ] and I'm a software engineer
in the Maps Team and in my 20 percent time
I help out with personal growth initiatives
at Google.
So first I'd like to remind everyone here
that May is Personal Growth Month in New York
City.
You can find out more at the GoLink go/pgny.
There's tons of resources.
I'll be teaching a course, an introductory
course in meditation and awareness for anyone
who is new to the field.
But today on behalf of the Authors at Google
series I'm proud to present Dr. Deepak Chopra.
[applause]
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Thank you.
[applause]
>>presenter: Thank you for joining us today
Dr. Chopra.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Thank you.
>>presenter: So it's been said that if Dr.
Chopra were to marry his close personal friend
Oprah Winfrey --
[laughter]
she would become Oprah Chopra.
[laughter]
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: I mentioned that on her
site and she did not appreciate it.
[laughter]
>>presenter: [laughs] Well, then we'll cut
that from this video.
But all joking aside we're delighted to have
Dr. Chopra here today.
He's world renowned as an expert in matters
of spirituality and mind/body medicine and
millions of people look up to him for guidance.
He's authored dozens of books, many of them
best sellers.
And most recently he's published a book Spiritual
Solutions: Answers to Life's Greatest Challenges.
So Dr. Chopra I'd love to ask you a few questions
about your book in general and after about
half way through the hour we're gonna open
up the questions to the audience.
How does that sound?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: That sounds great.
>>presenter: Great.
So first of all a warm welcome.
How are you finding Google New York City?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: I've been here before
--
>>presenter: Yeah.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: and I think it's a great
space.
In the language of the audience it's cool.
[laughter]
presenter: Have you gotten lost yet?
[laughter]
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: I never get lost.
>>presenter: Oh that's fantastic.
[laughter]
Most of us get lost all the time so --
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: [chuckles]
>>presenter: that is wonderful.
So I wanna know so having published so many
other works, so many wonderful works, what
was your main motivation or goal or inspiration
for this particular book?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: To reach the audience
that we are speaking to right now because
my audience is already on board with the idea
that spirituality is awareness, it's consciousness.
I think many of the people who are new to
the word spirituality associated it with religion
or dogma or ideology or self righteous morality
which is just jealousy with a halo.
When I use the word spirit or spirituality
I mean awareness.
And awareness has many components which we
can talk about as we proceed.
>>presenter: Fantastic.
So you would say that your audience primarily
for this book is people who are new to the
ideas of --
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: People who are new to
the ideas of spirituality.
Scientists once again --
>>presenter: Okay.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: because I have a constant
kind of battle with scientists and we can
talk about that too --
>>presenter: Sure, sure.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: so I decided to change
tactics for awhile.
>>presenter: Okay, so this is mostly for,
this crowd is largely scientific as you must
know so this may speak particularly well to
this audience.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Yeah, this is an audience
of technologists I wouldn't necessarily call
them scientists.
>>presenter: Sure.
Think we have a mix.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Okay.
[laughter]
>>presenter: So one thing is in this book
you talk about the usefulness of when addressing
a problem instead of addressing it from what
you called the level of the problem you advocate
addressing it from a place of expanded awareness.
And so I'm hoping you can tell us a little
bit about what the difference between these
two might be.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Good.
So let me start out with something that you
will be very familiar with because all of
you deal with information in a sense.
When my wife was pregnant with our first child,
Mallika who's sitting in the audience, my
chief resident called me and he said, "You
know I just took your wife's blood sample
and it shows a thalassemia minor trait."
So I went and looked at the blood sample and
sure enough the cells were not what you see
normally.
It took me two days to go to the library to
track where I could find that information.
Then I was in New Jersey, then I had to go
to the public library in New York, and it
took me another two days.
And what I discovered was very exciting and
that is that that blood trait existed along
the exact route that the armies of Alexander
the Great took in 323 B.C. from Greece, from
Macedonia to India.
That the trait, and of course I told my wife,
"It seem like your ancestors were screwing
around."
[laughter]
But it took me five days to get that information.
Today I could go to Google and take me less
than a minute.
I'd get to some sites and then from there
go to other sites and in a minute I'd have
that information.
So what does information do?
Information expands our awareness of what
is.
And so through the Google network, which is
the biggest search engine, we expand our awareness.
But there's another thing that people don't
understand: our state of awareness actually
chooses the information that we seek out.
So if my state of awareness is I wanna understand
the causes of war, terrorism, global warming,
social injustice, economic injustice, all
the things that are kind of surfacing now
as the what's happening in Syria and all the
Middle East the so called Arab Spring, Occupy
Wall Street, then my state of awareness looking
at this global picture will seek out the right
information.
So they co-feed on each other.
The information expands awareness but the
state of awareness also expands the information
we seek.
>>presenter: Sure.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: And if by awareness I
mean spirituality, which is my definition,
then awareness has many more components than
information.
Awareness influences your moods so if you're
depressed then everything looks dark and bleak.
It influences your beliefs, it influences
your assumptions, it influences your perceptions,
it influences your expectations.
So in the book my thesis is that all problems
exist because of what I call contracted awareness.
Contracted awareness means you feel separate
from the ecosystem.
The Google network is an ecosystem so you
feel separate from the ecosystem that nurtures
the web of relationships.
And that then of course results in fear, in
anxiety, in expectations that are doomsday
prophesies, in assumptions that everything
is gonna go wrong, and so on and so forth.
So in my mind the analogy is you're walking
in a dark room and you have a candle, that's
the light of your awareness, and you keep
bumping into stuff and so everything's a problem
and that's you're world.
But now imagine that you can expand that candle's
light of awareness.
So now you have a flashlight and you can move
around and everything that seemed like an
obstacle is actually has a purpose.
This has a purpose, this has a purpose, that
screen has a purpose.
So all problems are now opportunities for
some purpose.
So that's expanded awareness.
You now feel connected to the web of relationships,
the network of relationships, which is exactly
what Google is, it's a network of relationships.
So I like to use the Google example here.
But then imagine another state which I call
pure awareness, that's called pure awareness
in Eastern wisdom traditions.
And here now you're in the same room but all
the walls are transparent, glass, including
the ceiling and the floor, and the room is
flooded with sunlight and you look outside
and the whole world is your playground.
There are no problems and therefore no need
for solutions, you are the creative, evolutionary
impulse of the universe and so you play, you're
in flow, every situation is a conspiracy of
the total universe.
And so the thesis of my book is problems arise
in contracted awareness, solutions emerge
automatically in expanded awareness, and then
when you have pure awareness which is awareness
without boundaries, no conceptual boundaries,
then it's pure creativity.
That's the basis of this book and you can
apply these principles you don't even actually
have to read the book if you understand the
principles.
You can apply these principles whether you
want material success, want to improve the
quality of your relationships, want to have
an understanding of insight, intuition, imagination,
creativity, inspiration, which is spirituality,
higher consciousness, or whether you want
to solve mundane, easy problems.
Nobody's addressing the problems at a higher
state of awareness than the awareness that
created the problems.
And that quote of mine is from Einstein.
He said, "No problem can ever be solved at
the level of awareness at which it was created."
Long answer --
>>presenter: Fantastic.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: but it's the summary
of the book.
>>presenter: So now let me ask you, I find
it also easier to speak of awareness using
analogies because it's sometimes hard to speak
about directly.
But if I'm trying to understand whether I'm
approaching a problem from the perspective
of contracted or expanded awareness how can
I be sure, what objective signs do I have
to know that I'm in a place of expanded awareness
--
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Your body language, your
body language shows it.
A baby can read body language before a baby
learns language.
So if you're in contracted awareness your
posture first of all is depressed, your eyes
are shifty, you have a scowl on your face,
you're contracted in general, you're probably
constipated as well because you have tight
sphincters, [chuckles] everywhere.
>>presenter: [laughs]
[laughter]
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: your blood pressure's
up, your heart rate is speeded up, and everything's
a problem.
Your beliefs reflect that, expectations reflect
that, assumptions reflect that, perceptions
reflect that.
Everything is bleak.
So when a baby looks at its mother, if the
mother is in contracted awareness, the baby
immediately goes into contracted awareness
because her voice tone and all the things
that I mentioned, body language, reflect that
and baby has a, there's a phenomenon called
mirror neurons, that's how we learn even regular
language, but that's how we learn emotional
language as well.
If the mother smiles, let's say the baby falls
down, the mother screams and is getting upset
and contracted, the baby will look at that
situation with fear.
>>presenter: Sure.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: If the mother smiles
and says, "Oh you fell down," and her tone
reflects that, her body language reflects
that, she has a smile, the baby interprets
that same situation in a different way.
So you can read anyone's awareness just by
looking at them.
And even dogs can do it by the way, animals
can do it, they read your state of awareness
just by looking at you.
>>presenter: So if I wanted to expand my awareness.
So one way of doing it seems to be to take
spiritual problems and address the spiritual
solutions to those problems.
Is there a more direct way of doing it?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Here's the most direct
way: remember I said to every situation you
bring your awareness and that includes moods
and feelings, expectations, assumptions, perceptions,
and beliefs, those are the components of awareness.
So when you are seeing a problem, any problem,
just take my word for it, you're in contracted
awareness and you need to shift that.
And how do you shift that?
There are many ways to shift that.
First of all you can sit down, just stop at
that moment, recognize that you're in contracted
awareness and expand your awareness.
What do I mean expand your awareness?
Establish a connection with the web of relationships
around you.
One way to do is feel gratitude.
And what does that mean?
Just count the things that you're already
grateful for notwithstanding the problems
you're in.
Gratitude moves your ego out of the way, connects
you to the people and situations and circumstances
that you're grateful for.
Forgiveness is another way.
Forgiveness means letting go of resentments
and grievances because in every state of contracted
awareness that's an ingredient: resentment,
grievance.
Nelson Mandela said that having a grievance
is like drinking poison and hoping it'll kill
your enemy.
[laughter]
It doesn't work.
Hurting yourself is throwing you into contraction.
So those are the first two things and then
there are other things.
You can remember an experience of love.
Everyone's had that experience whether it's
instinctive love, protecting a child, or it's
emotional, romantic love, or what we call
spiritual love.
So remember an experience of love that evokes
feelings of compassion, empathy, joy, equanimity,
what we call platonic values: truth, goodness,
beauty, harmony, evolution.
So by remembering that or even imagining that
will shift your awareness.
Then what you can do is now see how immediately,
immediately that changes your mood, that changes
your beliefs, first the belief was everything's
a problem now you're seeing more context,
relationship, you're going beyond win/lose
orientation, you're seeing that the world
is relational and holistic and ultimately
an ecosystem where everything is interdependent.
And then you can go beyond that, you can go
beyond expanded awareness into what I call
pure awareness and that is going into the
silence.
This is a tough one but it's achievable.
Going into the silence between your thoughts.
Between every thought there's a little space
and that's where there is no thought.
So right now as you're listening to me just
turn your attention to who's listening.
[pause]
So as you're listening to me be aware of the
listener.
[pause]
That still presence that you feel that's pure
awareness.
[pause]
It's not your mind which might be saying,
"I wish I'd gone to the bathroom before I
came here," or "why didn't my girlfriend return
my call," or whatever.
That's the mind.
But between the spaces, the spaces between
thoughts is just pure awareness.
That's the place of infinite creativity, anything.
It's the feel of all possibilities: creativity,
intention.
It's also a place of ambiguity and uncertainty
because without ambiguity and uncertainty
there's no creativity.
So the space between our thoughts is a field
of possibilities, it's a field of creativity,
it's the place where our intentions come from,
and it's also the place of uncertainty.
You embrace uncertainty.
That's the place where you wanna be even more
than expanded awareness.
>>presenter: That's fantastic.
I know a lot of modern science, in particular
positive psychology, is definitely validating
a lot of these ideas and helping come up with
actual practices which have been known forever
but are finally being validated and there'll
be more talk of this during Personal Growth
Month, there'll be many more opportunities
to learn about it.
So I think that's fantastic.
I wanted to say also the final page of your
book really connected with me for a particular
reason.
In there you explain that one of the most
important reasons that you speak about spiritual
solutions is that it's a practical way to
incorporate spirituality into life and that
since we no longer live in an age of faith
we may risk losing touch with some of these
deep connections.
Can you speak more about that?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Yeah, the age of faith,
the age of religion all began with a spiritual
experience.
And what is a spiritual experience?
In short, I've outlined it from contracted
to expanded and to pure.
But when you look at all the religions they
all have a few principles.
The first principle is transcendence, which
is going beyond space time and causality,
getting in touch with something that is eternal.
Transcendent is almost inexplicable but you
feel that that's real.
Second, is that the emergence from that experience
of the interconnectedness of life as an ecosystem.
So from that truth, goodness, beauty, harmony,
love, compassion, joy, equanimity which the
Buddha calls divine attitudes, but they're
there in every religion.
And the third experience from all religion
is the experience of the loss of fear of death
because you've touched something that is beyond
both birth and death where you're being transcended.
That's the basis of all religion and faith.
But you know what people do is they institutionalize
this, they make it a dogma, an ideology, and
then it becomes a belief system which is another
word for a cover up for insecurity.
I believe that all belief is a cover up for
insecurity.
You only believe in things that you really
wanna be convinced of but are not.
If I told you, "Do you believe in electricity?"
you say, "It's obvious, right; we are using
it."
So belief is a cover up for insecurity.
So in today's age, we need a secular spirituality
that's based on understanding, that's based
on science, and that's based on experience.
And that was what I meant in that last sentence.
>>presenter: That makes a lot of sense --
that's what I took from that, too.
So I wanted to ask you also you already touched
on this earlier, but about the role of technology
with spirituality.
So this is kind of a two part thing: first,
since we're a technology company I think some
of us might be interested in understanding
how spirituality and technology may interface.
For example how may technological tools assist
in deepening spirituality and vise versa how
may spirituality inform technological progress?
And then the second part is how might it relate
to Google?
Are there specific Google products you see
that may help or can we do a better job?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: You can do a better job
and I'll tell you how.
>>presenter: Fantastic.
[laughter]
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: But --
>>presenter: That's what I wanted to hear.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: I'm the biggest fan of
technology.
I think God finally got, whatever that mystery
is that we call God, got frustrated and said,
"I better use technology."
[laughter]
>>presenter: [laughs]
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: So technology's the latest
incarnation of consciousness and as I said
I'm a big fan.
I have this little thing that, this little
gizmo that's right now monitoring everything
that's happening in my body.
I have another one here in my pocket that
does similar things.
I can USB these things and put them in a Cloud
and compare how my body is doing with, or
my state of awareness is doing with other
people that I'm in contact with in the Cloud.
>>presenter: [laughs]
[laughter]
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: And so here's the future:
all the things that we've spoken of in Eastern
wisdom traditions are now subject to technological
innovation.
I've been working here with someone right
in the audience and in a few months we'll
have a little gizmo that you can tune in if
you want into deep sleep, dream state, or
any other fantasy that you will.
>>presenter: Where can we learn more about
this?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Google it.
>>presenter: [laughs]
[laughter]
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: I'll post it on YouTube.
But here's the future, technology future is,
you should be able to regulate what's happening
in your body, in your mind, in your emotions,
by watching something on a monitor and then
shifting your state of awareness.
>>presenter: So biofeedback?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Biofeedback, I prefer
the word bioregulation.
>>presenter: Okay.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: So bioregulation because
not only biofeedback, biofeedback is getting
the information.
Now what do we do with it is bioregulation.
>>presenter: Okay.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: So so far Google is into
the age of information.
The next step for Google is the age of knowledge.
What's the difference between knowledge and
information?
Knowledge is information that can be put to
use, divine or diabolical.
We can use knowledge to cause a nuclear plant
to leak or interfere with traffic signals
with this or shut off a pacemaker or whatever
else you wanna do, you'll be able to do with
this little thing
>>presenter: Sure.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Cut off electricity in
New York.
So knowledge can be diabolical, destructive,
knowledge can be divine, constructive.
Create a peaceful, just, sustainable, and
healthy and happy world.
And you can do that.
That's what Google can do and move from the
information age into the age of knowledge
and move from the age of knowledge to the
age of wisdom.
A wisdom based civilization using social networks
as the neural networks of a global brain,
and ultimately a cosmic brain.
That's the future of technology.
>>presenter: Great.
So before we turn over the questions to the
audience I wanted to ask you just one final
question.
So I noticed in this book that in contrast
to some of your earlier works that you avoided
using some maybe quasi-scientific terminology
like quantum healing which may have appeared
in your previous books.
And I'm wondering is that based on feedback
that such terms may confuse some of your readership
or was it for a different reason?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: It's a very interesting
history.
When I used the word quantum healing and I
was in my mind using it very legitimately
and I got attacked by all the scientists.
In fact I got the Ignoble Prize.
[laughter]
Do you know about that?
[laughter]
The Nobel Prize for ignorance.
[laughter]
And I was attacked by scientists and so I
backed off a little bit because I was convinced
about the terminology I was using but I'm
not a quantum physicist.
>>presenter: Um.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: So I was being criticized
by quantum physicists so I said, "Back off
a little bit."
>>presenter: Okay.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: But then in the last
three years, I started holding a conference
at my center through our non-profit.
We call it Sages and Scientists.
So I'll bring in all the skeptics, I'll bring
in all the people who are interested in consciousness,
and I suddenly found that there was a bunch
of really high level scientists including
Nobel laureates, not Ignoble laureates, --
>>presenter: [laughs]
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: but Nobel laureates who
were closet spiritual, consciousness adherents.
>>presenter: Sure.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: And I said, "Let me bring
them out of the closet.
Let me out them."
>>presenter: Yeah.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: And so I started to do
that and so recently what I've started to
do is I started to post those conversations
with them on YouTube --
>>presenter: Fantastic.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: and we're getting a lot
of good feedback and still a lot of attack.
Last week in a physics journal, Nature Physics,
there was a scientific paper by the guy, Zellwinger
or Zell --
>>presenter: Zeilinger?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Zeilinger about retrograde
causation and I'd --
>>presenter: Um-hum.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: spoken about this 30
years from today --
>>presenter: Um-hum, um-hum.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: because it's all there
in the wisdom traditions.
So this time I said instead of me writing
a blog about it and posting it on the Chronicle
and Huffington and YouTube and all this --
>>presenter: Yeah.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: I'll get a computational
physicist to co-author it with me.
So I wrote the article, I got a computational
physicist in quantum physics to co-author
it.
He made a few changes technically --
>>presenter: Um-hum.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: and now it's the buzz,
it's in the physics community.
>>presenter: Zeilinger's quite popular --
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: so we've come back full
circle to quantum healing and I feel validated.
>>presenter: That's fantastic.
[laughter]
That's fantastic.
Well that's a great finish to my questions.
So now I think we have time for audience questions.
So there are two mics here and here and if
people have questions please feel free to
come on up.
[pause]
I think everyone's shy.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Do you want me to give
you the questions or not?
>>presenter: [laughs]
[pause]
Alternatively if there are things that I haven't
covered during my questions --
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: You've covered a lot.
>>presenter: feel like --
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: You know since time immemorial
people have asked these questions.
Who am I?
What do I really want?
What's my real identity?
Do I have a soul?
What happens to me after death?
Does God exist and if so what's He, She, It
doing about me personally?
These have been answered through religion
but as you recognize now that most of religion,
although based on experience and legitimate
experience, is still cultural mythology.
So we need a new framework and that framework
can only come through science and technology.
And I think for the first time we may be able
to address these same questions that human
beings have asked for a long time through
a new state of awareness.
Yes sir.
>>male #1: Hi.
When you were speaking about being in the
room in the dark with a candle and then moving
from there to having the room have glass walls
and glass ceiling, I was thinking of chicken
and egg problem.
I don't spend a lot of time sitting in the
cancer ward holding people's hands or going
and feeding the homeless.
Not because I don't care but because I find
it so overwhelming that I cannot fix those
problems.
And so the idea of suddenly having this global
awareness of everything that's going on is
rather terrifying.
And I don't think that that's what you're
talking about.
So I was wondering if you could kind of address
how those two things fit together.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Yes, it's a very important
question because in the last one year we've
hosted at our studio here, Deepak Homebase
which is a few blocks from here.
I've hosted people who speak about climate
chaos and the fact that in the last three
years there were 40 million climate refugees
in the world that most people don't even know
about.
That new epidemics like malaria are killing
a child per minute.
That 50 percent of the world lives on less
than two dollars a day, 20 percent are less
than one dollar a day.
That there's gonna be water wars in the next
10 years.
And every time you speak to one of these experts
they're correct when you look, I mean we've
got like 50 years to, at most hundred years,
to repair our ecosystem before we go extinct,
literally extinction.
If insects disappeared from our planet today
life would flourish in five years.
If human beings, sorry, if human beings disappeared
from our planet [chuckles] life would flourish.
If insects disappeared, life would disappear.
So as far as the ecosystem is concerned every
form of life is more nurturing to the planet
than us humans.
And your question, this becomes overwhelming.
I worry about my grandkids when they grow
up, what's gonna happen?
So either you can say, "Give up," or you can
say, "We have the technology right here,"
and Google is a good example of that to actually
not only expand awareness but to take that
feeling that we have of love and compassion
for the rest of life on our planet and take
action.
Because for every one of these problems there's
a solution, for every one of these problems
whether it's climate change, whether it's
the ecosystem, whether it's water shortage,
whether it's energy depletion or oil, there
are creative solutions.
There are special interest groups that'll
prevent that from happening.
Today if all war ceased in the world the U.S.
economy would sink.
If today we had a cure for cancer the medical,
industrial complex would have huge problems.
Cancer's a huge business with CAT scans and
technology and chemotherapy.
That's how we make money.
I'm a physician I know how we make money.
Every time you do something, even if it's
harmful, you get paid.
So the only solution to this is a critical
mass of humanity saying, "Enough."
Everyone to take action.
That's not going to come from institutions,
it's not even going to come from academia,
it's going to come through collective consciousness.
I don't know why in my mind I thought, "If
a hundred million people," and that's why
I'm here at Google, if a hundred million people
committed to personal transformation, not
even social transformation, personal transformation,
the world would be transformed because we
are the world.
What's happening out there is a projection
of our consciousness.
There's no social transformation in the absence
of personal transformation.
So that's where I'm hanging my bets and if
it doesn't happen I'll be gone anyway.
[laughter]
>>male #2: So your comment about quantum healing
reminded me of something that I read about,
a phenomena that I read about, that I wanted
to hear your thoughts on.
I read a book a couple years ago called Measuring
the Immeasurable and it was about how people
could influence each other through some phenomena
that's not measurable in current scientific
methods.
So what they had is they had people in different
rooms where if, especially if they knew each
other, if the person thought about the other
person during a given moment of time you could
actually measure response on the epidermis,
like you could measure nervous activity.
So humans were somehow influencing each other.
And so this was like one of the first pieces
of scientific evidence that there's some sort
of connection between humans that goes beyond
the physical or the verbal or whatever.
So I was wondering is this, first of all,
is this somehow related to what you mean when
you talk about quantum healing?
And also are you aware of this phenomena and
do you believe in it, do you know of more
evidence of this?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Okay so there are two
questions: first of all quantum healing.
No quantum healing is very simple idea it
means that when you get to your baseline status,
your pure awareness, your body goes into homeostasis
which is self regulation.
We were all born with self regulation as a
given and that's in medical language we call
that homeostasis.
It's a dynamic state of non-change within
the change.
So we all have that capacity.
That's quantum healing.
What you're talking about is something called
non-local correlation and it has a vast body
of literature on it and if you stay tuned
in the next two weeks on YouTube you'll find
actually my interview with a guy who used
to be a spy for the U.S.
Government, Russell Targ, who had the U.S.
Government including the CIA sponsored research
on this and on non-local remote viewing and
remote correlation.
But this is, here's an experiment we did at
our own center.
We did evoked responses.
So we have two people who are emotionally
connected, they're in love or they're mother
and daughter or whatever, they have a close
emotional bond.
We separate them and then we tell them that
we're going to take you into deep meditation
and in that meditation we'll introduce the
thought that will remain connected.
So we'll introduce and then we put them in
separate rooms and we surround them with what
is called a Faraday chamber.
Faraday chamber is a lead shield that does
not prevent a signal going in or out so your
cell phone won't work in the Faraday chamber.
Now we do something called an evoked potential.
We take a flashlight and we shine it in one
person's eyes and their brain shows the response
to the light.
It's called an evoked potential.
Low and behold the other brain in the other
room in a Faraday chamber shows the same response
at the same time as if those two brains were
the same brain.
Now because it's non-local, it's outside of
space time, it doesn't matter where these
two people are, one could be in New York,
on could be in Los Angeles or one could be
in New York the other could be on the moon,
it does not matter.
Distance and space time doesn't apply to non-local
reality.
That's what the Zell, Zelling --
>>presenter: Zeilinger
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Zeilinger experiment
is about right now.
That there's a domain in the universe that's
called non-local, outside of space time, where
everything is not only connected, because
connection means a signal, it's correlated
instantly and that correlation is unmitigated,
means the robustness of that correlation does
not diminish with distance and space time
or even past and future.
So it's unmitigated, it's unmediated, there's
no signal involved, and it's instantaneous.
This is what Einstein objected to and he called
this spooky action at a distance and he died
unhappy thinking about this because the mathematics
for this was already existent.
Now Zeilinger and others are actually proving
that this is true.
>>male #2: That's amazing.
Thank you.
>>presenter: So let's take one from this side.
>>female #1: Hi Deepak, it's such an honor
and privilege to have you here.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Nice to meet you.
>>female #1: And actually I spent a lot of
time in your center in Southern California
and especially working with Dr. Simon.
So my sincere condolences on his passing.
And I guess for me, with his passing, and
how much he personally helped me I was just
wondering on how you personally in terms of
spiritual solutions worked through everything
that happened with him and how did you come
to resolution?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Well there were lots
of things that went through my mind because
he lived an amazing life and so for him to
get brain cancer, and he was a neurologist
by the way.
So here's a neurologist who diagnoses his
own brain cancer and then dies from it in
less than 20 months.
And it was very difficult for me to reconcile
with this because of all the things we teach.
And so this is what I discovered, now I'm
not saying there's a direct causal relationship
but this is what I discovered and I'm glad
you asked the question.
When David was a child he received radiation
to his head and neck for tonsils.
This is what happens with our medical profession
we think something works.
Then I found out that in those days they were
treating asthma to burn out the mucous in
the lungs with radiation.
That if you went to get a shoe size you would
actually get an x-ray of your foot.
So I, in my mind, now have chosen to believe
that that radiation had a lot to do with it,
a misguided system that looks things in isolation.
For all these years we didn't know that but
now we do in hindsight and David was a victim
of that.
Secondly, I of course went through the grieving
process which I still am.
In the beginning there's denial and anger
but then you must grieve.
And then thirdly I learned so much from him
that those memories keep him in my awareness.
So there you are.
>>female #1: Thank you.
>>female #2: Hi there.
When you were speaking about contracted awareness
versus expanded awareness it just struck me
that maybe at a place like Google people,
that feeling of stress or the feeling of contracted
awareness is kind of what actually drives
us to be productive and efficient and to work
fast.
And I was just wondering if you had any words
of advice of how to try to kind of achieve
that more enhanced awareness but still be
kind of efficient and productive rather than
--
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: I'd say start your day,
and you're gonna do a meditation class anyway
right?
But start your day with five minutes of silence
asking very fundamental questions: Who am
I?
You don't need to know the answers.
What do I want?
How is this day going, what's the best way
this day would go for me?
And have a vision of how you want that day
to be.
And then ask yourself some deeper questions.
How can I create more joy for me and joy for
the rest of the world?
'Cause you have the technology to do it.
That should drive you and that will drive
business in the future.
The number one trend in the world is well
being right now, the number one trend.
But well being is not just physical well being
it's also spiritual well being, it's financial
well being, it's career well being, it is
social well being, it's community well being.
If you take the holistic picture of well being
you're in the best place to make that happen.
From all the statistics I have if you ask
people in the world how many people actually
enjoy what they do, only 20 percent, only
20 percent.
The rest of the 80 percent don't enjoy their
work.
That's a very dismal figure.
More people die in our civilization on Monday
morning at nine o'clock than any other time.
[laughter]
Of heart attacks which is an extraordinary
accomplishment for which only the human species
can take credit.
[laughter]
No other animal [chuckles] has this ability.
So knowing that how can we improve our career
well being?
How can we improve our financial well being?
These are very important things and that comes
from shifting awareness.
So happy to work with you on that.
Just letting you know.
[laughter]
>>presenter: [laughs]
It's fantastic, actually.
>>male #3: So Google's a company based on
search.
Made quite a lot of money and changed a lot
of lives by facilitating something where somebody
can go and search for something that they
are looking for, it's a choice.
And now I guess to all of us here today who
made a choice to be here for whatever reasons
based on your name, what we've seen of your
history, and I think that indicates a certain
I don't know collective consciousness about
a willingness to be open to messages, a willingness
to look at spirituality and things like that.
What about all of the people who would never
dream of doing that?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: We can't worry about
that.
There are people, everyone's at his particular
stage of development, spiritual or in their
awareness, and you can't worry about that.
What I like is that we have a relationship
now with YouTube, which is a Google offspring
I think now, and we're creating something
called the Chopra Well and we are going to
be offering techniques for well being, techniques
for improving your financial and career well
being.
As soon as I finish this I'm going to do a
Hangout in your YouTube office right here
in this building.
And I think that's a sign of the times.
This would not have happened 20 years ago.
So there's something happening and I think
whether it's the Arab Spring or the Occupy
Wall Street Movement or the Anti-Corruption
Movement with Anna Hazare in India.
This would not be happening in the absence
of the social networks that we have.
And so from search engine which you have a
big advantage of because you can access any
information, we need to move beyond that just
searching the engine and harnessing collective
creativity, collective intents.
There's a phrase, "Love without action is
meaningless and action without love is irrelevant."
But love in action, that's our series here
in New York, it can create miracles.
So maybe you should adopt that as your mantra,
love in action.
>>male #3: Thank you.
>>female #3: I'm understanding what you're
saying as expanded awareness.
It's just presence and presence with yourself
and connection with others, mindfulness.
And you talk a lot about how information and
awareness go hand in hand and how technology
can help us with our expanded awareness but
what are the limits of technology in expanded
awareness?
I mean for me sometimes I feel like the information
and the amount of information that technology
enables prevents me from being present and
mindful and leaves me more interested in the
social networks that you mention that can
help us be aware than actually being aware
of what I'm doing and the people I love are
doing.
So what are the limits?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Again this is a very
important question.
So here are the simple answers to your question:
number one technology's unstoppable.
It's like the next evolutionary impulse in
the evolution of human beings so you don't
even think about stopping it.
>>female #3: Yeah.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Okay?
It's unstoppable.
The capacity of technology is doubling almost
every year and information much more than
that.
So in 10 years the capacities that we have
will be a million times more than we have,
in 20 years maybe a billion times, you can't
even imagine.
So that's a fact.
Anybody who doesn't embrace technology they're
going to be not adapted and according to Darwinian
principles which says those that don't adapt
nature lets them go, natural selection.
>>female #3: Um-hum.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: So technology's unstoppable,
we need to embrace it.
Now here's the main thing to understand: technology's
neutral, it's neither divine nor [chuckles]
diabolical.
It depends on us how we wanna use it.
That means our state of awareness.
So I always keep in mind that technology for
me is a means to expand consciousness so I'm
very selective about how I use it.
And there are periods when you totally shut
it off.
So if you're having your meals, if you're
with your children or engaging in company
you put it away.
This is another thing we're learning through
neuroscience that your brain cannot multitask,
it can only do one thing at a time at least
consciously.
Unconsciously it's doing a lot of things:
regulating your body, etcetera.
So here's what I think and I owe Daniel Siegel
who is a great friend of mine in the neuroplasticity
business.
He says that there are different kinds of
time: there's sleep time, there's playtime
which is recreation time, there's relationship
time, there is exercise time, there's mindful
awareness time, and then there's focused work
time and you don't mix them.
So when you are engaging in technology just
engage in that, when you're not don't and
then you'll not be so overwhelmed.
>>female #3: Do you feel like through your
research and through your experience talking
about expanded awareness that like a major
hindrance to it now or are just people being
able to enter into being mindful?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: It's always selective.
One of the problems with my audiences they've
already decided that they [chuckles] want
to expand their awareness and if they haven't
they're not in the room.
>>female #3: Yeah.
Okay thank you.
>>presenter: And by the way Dr. Dan Siegel
actually did come and give a Tech Talk in
Seattle at Google a few months ago so his
talk is online if anyone wants to watch it
I --
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Yeah he's --
>>presenter: highly recommend it.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: I would say his works
The Mindful Brain and on mindfulness are very
brilliant and very contemporary.
>>presenter: I agree.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: He takes them out of
the religious --
>>presenter: Yes --
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: connotation.
>>presenter: very much.
So I think we have time for approximately
one more question.
>>female #4: Thank you.
You hear stories about people who kind of
experience death, they stop breathing and
for all intents and purposes they've died
and then they come back to life.
And you hear their stories of what that felt
like and the peace that they feel.
Is that kind of, I'm interested in hearing
your thoughts on that.
Is that like the pure awareness?
Is that kind of the next level?
Have you heard of stories of this?
What are your thoughts on kind of the next
level when people have these experiences?
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: First of all, there are
lots of very interesting videos on that on
YouTube so check them out.
Secondly, there are two schools of thought:
one school of thought is that's the experience
of pure awareness and that everyone actually
to some extent has that experience as a near
death or post death experience.
There are other schools of thought that say
that's brain damage.
Now I actually have had conversations regarding
this, some of them are also online, with skeptics
and with people who actually say, "No, that's
the real experience.
That's real consciousness."
And the problem is right now, and this called
the hard problem in sciences, and it's the
most unanswered question in science today,
how do you get an experience of, right now
you are experiencing yourself in your body
aren't you?
[pause]
Aren't you experiencing, is everyone here
experiencing themselves in their body?
[pause]
Well there's no proof that there is someone
there.
We cannot scientifically explain an in body
experience.
So try to debunk out of body experiences is
kind of, should be the next step when we can't
even explain an in body experience.
So the real research in science today, the
unanswered question in science is: where is
experience happening?
If I ask everyone right now to imagine a sunset
on the ocean, do it.
Can you see a picture?
[pause]
Where is that picture?
If I go inside your brain there are no pictures;
there are just electrochemical impulses.
So that in science is called the hard problem.
We cannot explain consciousness.
We're looking for it in the brain, we can't
find it.
We're looking for in the body, we can't find
it.
And maybe we can't because we're asking the
wrong question.
Consciousness is not in your body, it's outside
of space time where the real action is.
And so that picture you saw is in the transcendence
space, that's where we experience everything:
sensations, images, thoughts, feelings.
So my personal bias is that the near death
experiences are totally legitimate, there's
a multi-hospital center trial going on in
New York City right now in 19 hospitals, where
people are looking at what happens after death
or near death and they're coming up with the
same experiences: a white light, a tunnel,
feeling of peace, and all the other things
that religious traditions have spoken about.
[pause]
>>presenter: So we're just about out of time
but I wanted to give anyone offsite a chance
to ask questions.
I know we can't see you so if you unmute and
were to ask a question then maybe we have
time for an answer.
[pause]
Okay, sounds like nobody offsite has any questions.
So with that let's wrap up.
Next, Dr. Chopra will be signing books.
There is books being sold in the back, back
here.
And before you go I want to remind you once
again of the go/pgny site.
Check out all the fun things you could be
doing for personal growth this month in New
York.
Thank you Dr. Chopra for joining us.
>>Dr. Deepak Chopra: Thank you.
Thank you.
[applause]
