"How’s Life?" Deepak Chopra began as he took the stage in a vast room and looked out on a crowd of at least 1000 people. "What shall we talk about today?" he joked, the frames of his glasses all red and sparkly to match his sneakers.
Happiness
Neuro Encrinologist Dr Deepak Chopra began by defining happiness, for all questions, he says, lead to the search for happiness.
He explained that our ability to be optimistic is determined when we are children but drugs, meditation, cognitive therapy (going beyond limiting beliefs as taught by Bryon Katie,) the conditions of living and the choices we make on a daily basis can change our optimism-pessimism thermometer.
"Fulfillment," concluded the doctor, "comes through expressing creativity, having meaning and purpose in our lives and making other’s happy."
But it seems, according to Dr Chopra, that many of us live in existential unhappiness, regretting the past and worrying about the future. And being at a critical phase of evolution (e.g. global warming, risking our own extinction with lethal weapons) it is vital that we become conscious.
What does it mean to be conscious? Insight, intuition, inspiration, Deepak answered his own question and added, "we are moving away from the Darwinian principle of ‘survival of the fittest’ and moving towards survival of the wisest."
The focus of Chopra’s two day seminar was about the human spirit - that is the soul of each and every one of us; our personal consciousness.
At the first seminar he explained what he believed is the soul and on the second day, he explained how we can hear our souls and guided by them, not only better ourselves, but become great leaders.
We began the second day seminar with Deepak asking us all to find a partner - someone we didn’t know - and we played a game in which we took turns to close our eyes, focus on our hearts, and spontaneously say who we are and what we want, every fifteen seconds, prompted by our partners asking, "Who are you? What do you want?"
What Is The Soul?
"Any experience has three components," Deepak Chopra explained, "There is the observer, the process of observing and the object of observation. The observer is the soul, the process of observing is the mind and the material object of observation is the body. You can also name these three things: seer, process of seeing and scenery."
From scientific experiments, Deepak believes that the soul is a 'choicemaker,' able to override the commands of the brain and an 'interpreter' able to differiate between past and present, realtime experience and memories.
With the brain acting merely as an electrical component in the body, Chopra stated that all experience is in the soul. Which leads to the question: Where is the soul?
Where Does The Soul Live?
According to scientists this is the wrong question! For the soul does not exist in time-space. It is the space between our thoughts. It is, as Deepak repeatedly says, 'non-local.' And the window or corridor to this non local dimension is 'discontinuity' - another popular Chopra term. In the discontinuity, in the 'off' we can find our souls.
Anything Is Possible
The human soul, according to the eloquent Doctor, is a living, dynamic evolving system in consciousness. It is a field of infinite possibilities, where anything is possible.
The soul is comfortable with uncertainity and takes quantum leaps of creativity, cocreating with the mystery we call God. The soul is the way to communicate with the infinite. And the soul is the field of non local correlation - opening us to syncronicity and coincidences.
The 'software' of our souls is experience, memory and desire. Though infinite possibilities exist in our soul, there are certain probabilities determined by past experience.
"If you want to be truly creative," says Deepak, "you cannot be victimized by your past." And quoting the Hindu Vedanta, "I use memories but I don’t allow memories to use me."
Every time we have a thought, we create a story around it. Even at night the process doesn’t stop. The soul is creating thoughts but as the rational mind is asleep those thoughts are jumbled up - hence the nature of dreams.
Understanding this, we need to ask ourselves what story are we writing? Who are you in the story of your life? Are you the director and producer? Are you also the hero and heroine?
Soul Profiles
And to answer these questions, we can create a soul profile. As a C.V. says something about our ego and the self image that we present to the world, a soul profile reveals our highest potential and real values.
Here are the 7 questions to ask yourself in order to write your own soul profile. Try to answer in just a few words or phrases, taking a few minutes beforehand of silence and closed eyes in order to connect to your soul.
What is my life purpose?
What does a peak experience feel like?
What contribution would I like to make to the world?
Who are my heroes - in history, myth or religion?
What are my unique skills and talents?
What are qualities I look for in a best friend?
What are my best qualities I express in personal relationships?
Meditation
What really characterised the time I spent at Deepak’s lectures is how he would, especially before and during exercises, ask us to close our eyes, put our feet flat on the floor, our hands on our laps and focus on our hearts.
Meditation for him, it seems, is the doorway to the soul.
And his 'brand' of meditation involves using a mantra. After the audience contributed to a list of inspiring words, Deepak asked us all to decide together on one word that sounded pleasing to our ears. He wasn’t interested in the meaning of the word but the sound. We all agreed on the word 'abundance' and with our eyes closed, we were instructed to hear the sound of the word in the silence.
Someone was coughing, mobile phones rang, people fidgeted in their seats but Deepak said that it didn’t matter. When we listened to the sound of our collectively chosen mantra we were taking a 'taxi' from the local to the non local dimension. We were moving into the discontinuity which is our soul.
"How long do you think you meditated for?" he asked the audience afterwards and most people, like myself, thought 10 - 15 minutes. The truth was 23 minutes…
Finally Deepak wrapped up with this advice: spend 20 minutes a day to practice discontinuity. That is reflect on the questions - Who am I ? What do I want? And practice the soul profile questions. To help meditate, you can find a word and focus on its sound.
Time for reflection or meditation seems to be vital to Depak Chopra’s concept of a successful life. After all, he points out, don’t most people say they owe their successes to good luck, being in the right place at the right time, the mystery of life or God? And says the scientifically playful, spiritual profound Doctor, luck or syncronicity flows freely when we listen to our souls.
To watch a video interview with Dr Deepak Chopra, click here http://www.eolife.org/videos.php