Deepak Chopra

Is Life's Mystery in Money? posted by Deepak Chopra Nov 3, 2008 5:00 am The basic problem with money seems obvious: It pulls the mind toward worldly things, it fills up one's hours with business and commerce, it distorts the true values of spirit by replacing them with pleasure and possessions. To me, this doesn't say that money is evil or non-spiritual. It says that money is a distraction, and sometimes so powerful a distraction that people fail to go beyond it. The failure here is to unite spiritual and material values, but I believe the way of peace shows us that this is not only desirable but totally necessary. Money serves to bring pleasure, security, social position, and the ability to raise a family. Those are good values, and there is no reason to suppose that they displease a God who loves his creation. God is not either/or in my view. It isn't that you either live for him or you don't. The process of integrating material life, with all the good it has to offer, and spiritual life, with all the good it has to offer, is a lifelong challenge. If you live as though money brings the only happiness, clearly something has gone wrong. You have neglected the entire world of spirit, with the implication that the surface of life is enough. We are here to discover who we are. We are here to transform our surroundings in keeping with who we really are. Great spiritual teachers have said that we are ultimately here to transcend matter, to worship our maker, to appreciate the infinite creation and learn humility before it. All those things may emerge once we know who we really are. That is life's central mystery, and money doesn't come close to answering it. Adapted from Peace is the Way, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2005)

Love Your Self posted by Deepak Chopra Nov 19, 2010 5:01 am If you want to feel love as God feels it, you must fill all your voids, for God can only love from the state of fullness. To be a perfect lover would mean to have no secret weakness or wound you want someone else to fix for you. Searching out your own voids is your first step, filling them with Being or essence is the second. This process is usually called learning to love yourself, but we must be careful with that term. Too often it is synonymous with learning to love your self-image. Self-image is simply ego; it is denial papering over the void of lack. If you honestly look at your past, which is now stored as thousands of memories inside you, you will always find a mixed bag–some experiences may have aroused love of self or others, many did not. Memories of shame, guilt, rejection, hatred, resentment, and other unloving feelings cannot be converted to love. These images are what they are. Accept them and move to a higher sense of Self, which is unconnected with memory. Memory can only lock you into a suffocating sense of your personal past. Beyond memory is the quiet experience of Being, simple awareness without content. This is the region of love, the region of yourself entered through meditation. Many kinds of mediation exist; their tradition in both East and West is guided by the principle that you have a core Being or essence that can be entered. Access comes not by thinking or feeling. Rather, to meditate is to go directly to the silent region within. Adapted from Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 1995)

The Hidden Nature of You posted by Deepak Chopra Nov 22, 2010 5:01 am You keep asking who you really are. If you want to know intellectually, then you are pure awareness, the changeless background against which all thoughts occur. This pure awareness is a continuum. It is not broken up by time or space–it just is, ever and always. When you witness yourself, what you are experiencing is your real nature. This is the key to freedom. Freedom is the experiential knowledge of one's own nature. You already have elements of this. Many times you definitely seem to be witnessing your body and your environment. You even stand aside from your own thoughts. Far from radiating silence, most of us radiate hysteria, reflecting the mental turmoil inside. When that inner turmoil subsides, it leaves a space for change to begin. Your mind is quiet by nature, but you have to settle down to realize this. Everything sorts itself out correctly and spontaneously once you become quiet. In the light of calm, steady self-awareness, a feeling of wholeness will wake up inside you. This wholeness is not a thought of any kind; it is simply your own mind, empty of thought but full of you. You do not have to do anything to reach this state; the process is effortless. You do not even have to consciously let go. A quiet mind is all you need. It takes repeated dips into silence, in and out every day, for a person to accept that this immense, motionless, eternal state of being is himself. Then the door is open for an experience that truly does transform oneself and the world. Adapted from Unconditional Life: Discovering the Power to Fulfill Your Dreams, by Deepak Chopra (A Bantam Book, 1991).

Is Reality What We Think It Is? posted by Deepak Chopra Nov 23, 2010 5:00 am A mystic and a materialist will both stub their toes if they kick a rock. But the mystic believes that the rock is a projection of a deeper reality, whilst a materialist believes that the rock is all there is–reality doesn't go deeper than things. To a materialist, clouds and mountains are no more than things, their beauty being beside the point. A newborn baby is a thing, too, its humanity being equally beside the point. In a world of things, there is no room for a loving intelligence known as God who presides over creation and gives it meaning. Yet on the path to joy you discover that meaning is the very basis of life. A baby is a thing only in the most superficial sense. In reality a baby is a field of infinite potential expressing the highest intelligence in Nature. I don't think of this as a mystical belief, but as a truth that lies deeper than the surface picture; where life looks like a stream of random physical events. Meaning is born deep within. Spiritual optimism is also an inner experience. It is based on the love, beauty, creativity, and truth that a person discovers at the level of the soul. When you explore yourself on the inner plane, you are working with intuition. It's a common misconception that intuition is at odds with science. In truth, science and spirituality both depend upon intuition, for the greatest scientific discoveries are made through creative leaps, rather than by following a linear trail of established facts. Adapted from Why Is God Laughing? The Path to Joy and Spiritual Optimism, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2008).

You Are the Light of the World

posted by Deepak Chopra Nov 24, 2010 4:00 am

Through second attention, you can perceive yourself as awareness itself, not as one of its products and creations. There are many ways to catch such glimpses: Meditating to reach inner silence; sensing the purity of nature; sudden flashes of innocence; an impulse of love; an intuitive connection to your muse; sensing inner guidance, a source of wisdom; a feeling that you belong in the larger scheme of life.

Consider if you have ever experienced such things; begin to notice them now, and be on the lookout for those moments when you can sense something lies behind the veil of appearances. Even though we all live by first attention and therefore lose our selves in constant activity, we are also equipped to perceive the world through second attention.

Whenever you have a flash of love, innocence, inspiration, awe, wonder, or joy, remind yourself: This is the real me. Don't let such moments simply pass you by. Stop and appreciate them, and ask that you receive more in the future. In this way you open a feedback loop between first and second attention.

You will continue to view the physical world as such, but its significance will change. You will start to see consciousness at work, Being in motion. In this way, the realms of change and non-change begin to merge. Light starts to enter the world, until the world is eventually seen as made of light and nothing else.

Adapted from The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2008).

Acquiring and Sustaining Wealth posted by Deepak Chopra Feb 19, 2009 4:49 am In order to acquire wealth–or for that matter anything in the physical universe–you must intend it, make a decision to go for it. The decision is unchangeable with fixity of purpose not countermanded by anything. The universe handles the details, organizes and orchestrates opportunities. You have simply to be alert to these opportunities. Helping others make money and helping other people to fulfill their desires is a sure way to ensure you'll make money for yourself as well as more easily fulfill your own dreams. The best way to motivate other people to help you fulfill your goals is to help them fulfill their goals. Money is like blood; it must flow. Hoarding and holding on to it causes sludging. In order to grow, it must flow. Otherwise it gets blocked and, like clotted blood, it can only cause damage. Money is life energy that we exchange and use as a result of the service we provide to the universe. And in order to keep it coming to us, we must keep it circulating. Tithing means giving away a certain portion of your income without conditions or strings attached. When you give, a vacuum is created that attracts even more of what you have given away. Love yourself. Love your customers. Love your family. Love everybody. Love the world. There is no power stronger than love. Also, adopt luxury as a lifestyle. Luxury is our natural state. Adopting luxury as a lifestyle sets the preamble, the preconditions for the flow of wealth. When we seek money, or a good relationship, or a great job, what we are really seeking is happiness. The mistake we make is not going for happiness first. If we did, everything else would follow. We must never pretend appreciation, but if we feel it, then we must express it. The expression of gratitude is a powerful force that generates even more of what we have already received.