[APPLAUSE]
Jody Kohner: All right,
good morning Dreamforce.
Good morning, thank you LT, thank you.
All right, you did it.
You made it to day four, whoooo!
[APPLAUSE]
Jody Kohner: All right,
did you get inspired this week?
Did you have fun this week?
Are you completely and totally exhausted?
Yes, you have landed in the right spot,
my friends.
My name is Jody Kohner.
I am the Senior Vice President
of Employee Engagement.
This is my ninth Dreamforce.
Yes, thank you.
And I have to say that every year,
this is truly my very favorite day.
This day is our gift to you.
All week you've been running around trying
to revolutionize your industries and
move your companies forward and
connect with your customers and
advance your careers and
solve the Sustainable Development Goals.
And today, this is just an oasis of calm.
This is just for you.
So I'm going to give you permission right
now to go ahead and turn off your phones.
You do not want to be the person whose
phone goes off in the monastic meditation,
not at all.
No, whatever's waiting for
you out there in the interwebs,
it can wait because you cannot take care
of that big to do list you now have.
If you do not irst to take
care of yourself, okay?
So we're going to be present,
we're going to breathe.
Would anyone like to breathe right now?
Let's do that.
Let's all just take a deep breath, okay?
I've been doing enough of that this week.
Okay, so when it comes to well being,
I think we often default to narratives
around nutrition or
sleep or physical activity.
But quite frankly,
if you do not have good brain health,
all of the rest of that
is sort of a luxury item.
And so, today, what we've done is gathered
a few luminaries to speak with you about
brain health and resiliency.
We have Deepak Chopra,
we have Kat Graham, yes, it's okay,
you can, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Bring it, bring it!
They love you!
We have Dr. Bennet Omalu,
we have Emilia Clarke.
Yeah, and we of course have
the monastics from Plum Village.
So are you ready for this?
Yes!
Okay, so let me introduce you to your
first speaker, Dr. Deepak Chopra.
[APPLAUSE]
Jody Kohner: Okay, so Dr. Deepak Chopra,
he started exploring the intersection of
mind, body, and spirit when he was six
years old, that took him into a career
in medicine, a career as a monk.
He has been regarded as one of the most
influential speakers in the world.
He is a 25 time New York Times bestselling
author, and he is here with us today
to discuss his new book, Metahuman:
Unlocking The Infinite Potential.
A little bit further
into his presentation,
he is going to be joined on stage
by Kat Graham, Kat Graham fans.
Yes, you know her from
the Vampire Diaries.
So she is a friend of Dr. Chopra's and
they are collaborating on a new initiative
together, a podcast called
a Conscious Collective.
So let's give a warm welcome
to Dreamforce veteran and
Salesforce friend, Deepak Chopra.
[APPLAUSE]
Jody Kohner: Thank you, thank you.
Deepak Chopra: Thank you, Jody, thank you.
Thank you, Mark, wherever you are,
and thank you Salesforce Dreamforce,
all of you.
It's a great pleasure for
me to share some ideas.
So we have, with Kat's participation,
about one hour to solve
the mystery of our existence,
so I [LAUGH] won't waste any time.
Your journey into what we call present
existence began about at
the moment of conception,
when you were a fertilized egg.
And at that moment,
you acquired 25,000 genes.
But gene is a stretch of DNA that for
a protein.
So you got half your genes from
your father, half from your mother.
And that 1ncell then
multiplied about 50 times
approximately to create the 50 to
100 trillion cells that it
takes to make a human baby.
DNA, as I said, stands for
deoxyribonucleic acid,
which is four chemicals.
And they're usually abbreviated as the
letters of the alphabet adenine, A-T-C-G.
You don't have to remember this, but
these are the four letters of life.
DNA is the letter of life and genes
are like words and your body is a story.
And your body is a story of the universe.
Why do I say that?
Well, those scare me, because ATCG,
the alphabet of life,
they're of course made of atoms,
like carbon, hydrogen,
oxygen, nitrogen, and
these four, carbon, hydrogen,
oxygen, and nitrogen,
if you want the acronym, it's CHON,
these four atoms are about 96%
of all the atoms in your body.
The remaining 4% are other things like
iron which is your hemoglobin and
on and on.
Everything in the periodic table.
So where did these atoms come from?
These atoms that are now in your
body were forged in the crucible
of burning stars called supernova.
So when a giant star exhausts its
thermonuclear energy and starts to burn
itself into the heat death of absolute
zero which we call the singularity or
now we know black holes,
you've seen pictures of black holes.
At that moment, there's a process called
nuclear fusion, and hydrogen and helium
which were first created at the moment
of the Big Bang 14 billion years ago.
They start to fuse making the heavier
elements that are now present
in your body.
We now know that there are 2
trillion galaxies in the universe.
There are 706 trillion stars which is 700,
with so many zeroes added on,
it would take you a lifetime to just
write down the number of zeroes,
if you actually had to write
them down individually.
And there are uncountable
trillions of planets.
In fact, scientists now believe that
there might be 40 billion habitable
planets in just the Milky Way galaxy,
but remember,
they're now saying that there
are 2 trillion galaxies.
Why am I saying this to you right now?
It took the whole universe to actually
have you come here right now.
14 billion years journey, so
that you're here this moment.
In fact, 50% of the atoms in your body
don't even belong to our Milky Way galaxy,
they're sucked from
the other galaxies through
a phenomenon called galactic wind which
is basically gravitational forces.
So, you are, right this moment,
a conspiracy of the total universe.
And if you're not totally wonder struck by
that, then your humanity is incomplete.
We should be perpetually surprised
that we exist and yet we're not.
And this is the because we get distracted.
Today my talk is on how the brain and
the mind are actually both
experiences in consciousness.
Consciousness is awareness.
It's prior to any experience and
I'll give you a little taste for
that before I finish and your brain and
your mind are complimentary activities,
of you, a soul, a spirit,
a consciousness, a being and brain,
mind go together in the same
way as space time go together.
In the same way as mass and
energy go together.
In the same way as everything
that we know in existence
goes together space time,
mass energy, mind, brain.
These are complimentary activities
of a more fundamental reality,
which today I'm calling consciousness.
So, before we get into
the dynamics of how to create
a brain and I'm being literal.
You can sculpt your brain in a way that
helps you reach higher consciousness.
And by higher consciousness, I mean,
ultimately, everything that is important.
Intuition, insight, imagination,
creativity, a higher vision,
and ultimately transcendence and
the loss of the fear of death.
These are all attributes of higher
consciousness and today I'm
going to show you how you can do that
actually and how we are already doing it.
Unfortunately, mindlessly instead of
mindfully, which is today's theme.
So here we go.
I always like to start out with
this particular slide because it
shows us the Seven Pillars of well being.
And I'm not going to concentrate
too much on that except for
the last one, which is self awareness.
In any case, it's important for
you to know that
only 5% of disease related gene mutations,
are fully penetrant.
In that they guarantee a disease.
I'll repeat that only 5%, of disease
related gene mutations are fully penetrant
in that they guarantee the disease,
a gene mutation.
[COUGH] A gene mutation
is a genetic error.
A mistake like a typo.
If DNA is the alphabet and genes
are the words in your body is a story.
Then sometimes there are mistakes made,
and those are called mutations,
but only 5% of them
guarantee that disease.
Doesn't matter what the disease is chronic
disease like cancer, heart disease,
autoimmune diseases.
Degenerative disorders,
Alzheimer's disease,
only 5% of gene mutations
actually guarantee it.
The rest are controlled by these
factors that you see on the on
the screen right now.
[COUGH] So if somebody has a Baraka gene,
for example, for
breast cancer,
then that's a fully penetrant gene.
The most famous story about
that gene is Angelina Jolie
who had that mutation she had
to have a preventive mastectomy,
the right thing to do in
a fully penetrant gene.
And for those kinds of disorders soon we
have new technologies like Crisper, which
is the ability to cut and paste a gene
just the way you cut and paste an email.
So in the next few years, you'll be
able to read the bar code, of a gene,
you'll be able to delete
the defective gene and
insert the healthy gene, which is
an amazing testimony to technology.
But I want to remind you that only 5%
of diseases are affected by
those kinds of mutations.
The rest depend on these seven pillars of
well being that I'm talking to you about.
Sleep, which includes dreams,
which includes deep sleep,
which includes light sleep.
But we now know that lack of sleep
is the number one risk factor,
for premature deaths from cardiovascular
disease and other diseases as well.
So it's important that you get eight hours
of sleep and that you have restful sleep.
During restful sleep your heart
rate goes below baseline and
many wonderful things happen.
Toxins are removed from your brain
including amyloid which is flushed out.
And during dream sleep, we actually
have emotional toxicity is released.
So pour these are very
important aspects of sleep.
The second thing over there
that you see is meditation and
stress management and thanks to
Marc Benioff, and other supporters.
We have done now studies with
prestigious institutions including US,
University of California
here in San Francisco.
Where we have shown that even
short practice of meditation
I show you something this morning,
can upregulate your genes so
all the genes that are responsible for
well being they go up.
All the genes that are responsible for
inflammation which is a chronic factor
in all chronic diseases they go down.
And this has never been shown before.
Also, it's known that mindfulness and
self reflection and
meditation changes the activity
of an enzyme called telomerase
which controls the genetic clock
which means how long we live.
So this project which was five
years now in the making and
were originally funded
amongst others by Mark and
University of California
has now been replicated.
Meditation is very helpful
in prolonging life,
managing stress,
changing your genetic clock.
Exercise, in particular yoga and
breathing practices also stimulate
a part of our body called the vagus nerve,
which is the healing of in our body.
So this nerve goes is the cranial
nerve it goes from your brain and
regulates the tone of your voice,
your facial expressions,
your heart rate variability,
it pierces the diaphragm and
it regulates the activity of
every organ in our bodies.
So yoga Tai Chi, Chi Gong, martial arts,
these have specific benefit,
which is way beyond exercise in that you
stimulate the healing nerve in your body.
Emotions like love,
compassion, joy, empathy.
They're all equanimity peace of mind.
They all regulate your biology in
a direction of self regulation or
homeostasis or healing.
But when you're experiencing anger or
hostility or guilt or
shame, or depression,
then the other thing happens.
Inflammation in your body goes up,
leading,
To likelihood of chronic illness as well.
The fourth thing you see on
this light is the nourishment,
because we now know that even
though you have 25,000 human genes,
you have approximately two million
bacterial genes and this are in your gut.
So when you put food in your
body the first thing that
the food interacts with is
bacterial genes in your gut.
And if your food is inflamed,
which means if it's manufactured, refined,
processed has chemicals, antibiotics,
steroids, petroleum products,
which happens to be unfortunately,
all factory produced food, then it will
cause inflammation in your body as well.
So you can dramatically change that
by looking at your microbiome,
the gene expressions
of your microbiome but
also introducing food that comes
to you directly from the farm.
To the table to the body without
the intervention of a factory and
you now know that there are these
farmers markets all over the place
because we are recognizing
that food can immediately
change the gene expression of your
body including the microbiome.
The fifth pillar that you see
there is biological rhythms.
So we have four rhythms in our body.
Circadian rhythm,
which is as the Earth spins on its axis.
If you have jet lag,
that's a disruption of circadian rhythm.
We also have seasonal rhythms in our
body as the Earth goes around the sun.
We have gravitational rhythms
as the tides move up and
down because 75% of your body is water and
it is exactly the same as the ocean.
So we have gravitational rhythms, tidal
rhythms, lunar rhythms, circadian rhythms.
In other words,
our body is part of a cosmic symphony.
And it's constantly trying to dance
with that constant symphony and
music that the universe is producing
even though you can't hear the tune,
your body is dancing to it.
So when you connect with nature,
when you walk barefoot on the ground or
on the beach or even hug a tree or
you are in nature then negative ions
come from the earth into your body.
They neutralize the excess free radicals.
They decrease inflammation and
they reset your biological rhythms.
So you're once again,
tuned in to the cosmic symphony.
And so being in nature is
an aspect of healing as well.
For the last part of this presentation,
I have
this seventh item,
which is what I'm going to talk about.
The neuroscience of what
we call self-awareness.
So today, after I finish you're
going to hear about neuroplasticity,
you're going to hear about mindfulness.
And you probably have already heard
a lot about this mark is a big fan of
mindful living.
I'm going to show you some data [COUGH]
of how mindfulness, self reflection,
self inquiry, awareness of your body,
awareness of your mental space which
is your feelings and thoughts.
But also awareness of your body what's
happening inside your body awareness of
your breath, awareness of your heart.
Awareness of the web of relationship, and
ultimately awareness of our
relationship with the universe,
how that can dramatically change
the activity of our brain.
And how that can actually take
us to higher consciousness.
So for the remainder of my talk,
I'm going to talk about this only
how do we rewire the brain for
higher consciousness and ultimately for
transcendence and self actualization.
The mind and the brain are complementary
activities which means they go together.
So when people ask does
the brain create the mind or
does the mind create the brain,
I think the best answer is
that they co-create each other and they
are complimentary aspects of a deeper and
more fundamental reality, which in
spiritual traditions we call the soul.
But in today's contemporary
environment cognitive science,
neuroscience, the word soul is not used.
The word conscious agent is used.
But it means the same thing.
It means the fundamental aspect of
your existence which is awareness.
Awareness makes the experience both
of the brain and the mind possible.
And so today,
we have this new science where we can look
at everything that happens in
the brain as a result of experience.
This is very technical.
You don't have to go into this but
right now as I'm speaking to you,
this part of your brain is activated.
[COUGH] Because this part of your brain,
which is the frontal cortex,
the frontal lobe that you see there.
This is the intellectual aspect of our
brain which is trying to comprehend and
understand my lecture at the moment.
And then there are other parts of
the brain that are listed there.
The emotional brain is
called the limbic brain.
The survival brain is
called the reptilian brain,
which is the brainstem here in this chart.
So, if you were to look at my
hand like this in profile,
this is a handy model of the brain.
Okay, this is the cerebral cerebral cortex
which we call the intellectual brain.
When I open my hand where you see my
thumb, that is the emotional brain and
the brainstem here is the reptilian
brain which is responsible for
protecting us for survival.
So once again, intellectual brain,
emotional brain, survival brain.
And then there's the brain is
divided into many other parts that
correspond to these three
aspects of our brain.
The prefrontal cortex right now,
you're using your prefrontal cortex.
And neuroplasticity is the understanding
that mindful awareness and
meditation are a form of internal
experience that change the brain
and activate the brain.
And particularly right now we're
seeing the prefrontal cortex.
The insula is a little island
of tissue between the two
separate lobes of the brain.
It is what records many things
including things like disgust,
pride, lust, humiliation, but
also it is responsible for
sensing and regulating activity
of our internal organs,
including our heart, and lung and gut.
If you're a practitioner of
yoga then you may have heard
the word pratyahara means going within.
And this is now in neuroscience
called interoception.
Perception is the outside world, and
interoception is the inside world and
we can learn to navigate
our inside world as well.
And then we have the reptilian brain,
which evolved about 300 million years,
which is already always functioning
even when the patient is brain dead.
This part of our brain can function and
if somebody is on a ventilator or
has a pacemaker but
they are unconscious This part of
the brain is all already functioning.
And this part of our brain has
something called the startle center.
In a reptile, if you go very close to
a reptile, you make a sudden noise or
a sudden movement,
then the reptile will attack you or
slither away, and
this is called the startle response.
And then, in our bodies, this is
called the fight or flight response.
So when we are in threatening situation,
we either fight, or we run.
Unfortunately, [COUGH] that has now
evolved to what we call stress,
because there's no longer
the dangerous situation that we had
millions of years ago when we
were being stalked by a tiger or
by a lion who wanted to eat us up for
breakfast, or lunch, or whatever.
The limbic brain, as I mentioned,
is the emotional brain.
It's found only in mammals.
Mammal, the word mammal, is derived
from the word mamma, which means mother,
which also means mammary,
breast, mother, mater.
These are all words that
come from the word mother.
And the limbic brain is
found in all mammals.
And all mammals sing to each other.
They play with each other.
They make emotional bonds through
touch and facial expression,
tone of voice, eye contact,
body language, and play.
And finally,
these are different aspects of the limbic
brain that I'm not going to go through,
but here are some parts of the brain
that we can learn to actually grow.
Neurogenesis means you create new neurons.
Synaptogenesis means you
create new connections.
And we can all do this and improve
our ability to learn, to have memory,
to increase the experience of compassion,
introspection.
And actually, this part of the brain,
which is called the amygdala,
cools down when you listen
to somebody with compassion,
when you listen to somebody
without giving them advice.
If you just are present for
somebody with compassion and empathy,
you will actually begin to cool down
the amygdala, which means decreased fear.
And when fear is decreased,
then healing kicks in as well,
because healing is interfered
with through fear.
And then this is the final part of the
brain that I wanted to talk to you about,
the neocortex,
which is the bulk of our brain,
evolved only 4 million years ago,
only 4 million years ago.
And it evolved very fast when
we started to use language.
So written language is about 15,000,
20,000 years, sorry,
oral language is 15,000 to
20,000 years in human evolution.
And written language is only 5000 years.
But as soon as we started to
communicate through language, and
today through artificial intelligence,
and robots, and VR, and
augmented reality, and all the new
technologies, these are rewiring,
these new technologies
are rewiring our cortical and
intellectual brain for
higher realms of creativity.
So this is the brain that
we can rewire instantly
through conscious intent,
through consciousness of our body,
through the monitoring and
regulation of our emotions.
Through being flexible in our
responses to the environment.
Over here,
you'll see something called STOP, S-T-O-P.
It's something that we don't do,
pressing the pause button in our lives.
So, next time you're confronted
by a threatening situation,
before you react to it,
use this formula, STOP.
STOP stands for four things.
S, stop.
T, take three deep breaths and smile.
O, observe the sensations in your body and
observe the environment.
And P, proceed with awareness and
compassion.
If you do that, you're starting
to rewire both your emotional and
your cortical brains.
And of course, then there's empathy,
interoception, ultimately leading to
insight, intuition, and deep ways of
learning from the wisdom of the body.
Learning from your heart,
learning from your gut.
Learning not only from your brain, but
using your entire body,
because your entire body is a brain.
Every cell In your body is innervated
by nerves that come from your brain.
And there's traffic that goes both
from your brain to your body and
your brain, from your body to the brain.
And by being conscious of
actually your choices and
experiences in the present moment,
you can start to rewire your brain
Deepak Chopra: So
these are the three brains that we have.
It's called triune brain, reptilian
brain for survival, emotional brain for
regulation of relationships, and
cortical brain for insight, intuition,
creativity, and higher consciousness.
And Charles Darwin was actually
the first one to speak about
the evolution of the brain.
And he said, our emotions are the way we
regulate our bodies and
are also the way we enhance survival.
So, this is the first actually explanation
scientifically for why we have emotions,
in order to not only survive, but also to
enhance the quality of our relationships.
And all emotions,
including what we call negative emotions,
have survival value if
they are handled properly.
Anger, readies the animal for comeback.
Disgust is the nauseous
revulsion that mammals have when
they take contaminated food,
and on and on.
I'm not going to go into details, because
we want to just now see that every emotion
that we have has some value,
if it is regulated.
Contempt, pride, guilt,
shame, humiliation inform
social mammals with increasing precision
about their status in a group.
They are part of our culture.
But when they get magnified,
then they destroy us.
On the other hand, love, compassion,
empathy are emotions that
foster our inter-being-ness.
After I finish later today,
you're going to have an experience
with Vietnamese monks.
And they have a very favorite expression,
especially the Vietnamese monks of
the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition, that we
are actually a set of relationships.
We are interbeings, that interrise in
the inter-isness which is
the ecosystem of relationship.
And as we magnify the aspects of
relationship that we call love,
empathy, joy, compassion, equanimity and
peace, that leads to spiritual exaltation,
peak experiences,
the thrill of scientific discovery.
And this involves every
aspect of our brain.
Love, compassion, and
empathy also enhance survival and
homeostasis through the regulation
of our emotional brain.
And as we expand our awareness,
they give rise to intuition,
to creativity, to vision,
to a sense of the sacred.
This is what Jonas Salk,
the great evolutionary biologist,
whom you probably know as the discoverer
or inventor of the polio vaccine.
He said the next stage of human evolution
is not survival of the fittest,
it's survival of the wisest.
And survival of the wisest
will become the new criterion for
human evolution.
By wisdom we mean a new evolution,
a meta-biological
evolution which means our biology will
follow the evolution of our brain,
which in turn follows the evolution
of our consciousness and
our capacity for self awareness.
So again, very brief summary.
We are 14 billion years in the making.
Our planet is 4 billion years.
Life began about 3.8 billion years ago.
And today, we humans,
stand at the pinnacle of evolution.
And this is a very short history
of our evolution in cosmic time.
So now let's get to the heart of why we
are here today, or at least this morning.
Through emotional bonds and
through expansion of our consciousness,
we can consciously regulate our moods,
our brain networks,
rewire our neurophysiology,
shift our hormone levels,
change our heart rate,
modify our immune function,
biological rhythms, blood pressure,
sleep wake cycles, dreams,
digestive processes and
everything that we call experience.
And we can learn to do this very
consciously through modifying
the activity both of our emotional
brain and our cortical brain.
So this is what we mean by mindfulness.
You've heard this word so many times
it's become part of our culture.
It's almost like a cultural
meme these days.
But what does it mean?
It means being aware of experiences, both
those that we call external experiences.
So external experiences that we have
raw experiences the five senses,
sound, touch, sight, taste, smell.
When you put your attention to
any of those experiences and
I'll take you through a process slowly
at the end of this talk, then you're
actually practicing mindful awareness or
what we call the external environment.
But you can also have mindful awareness so
what we call our internal environment.
When you're aware of your body, or
when you're aware of your breath, or
when you're aware of your heart,
which is quite easy to do.
Or you can learn to be aware of what's
happening inside your body in the viscera,
or when you're aware of sensations,
images, feelings, thoughts.
This process is called metacognition.
Metacognition means to be aware,
consciously,
mindfully of experience in the present
moment without judging it,
and also to be aware of yourself
as having that process,
while you're having that process and
to be aware of the conscious choices
that you're making in every moment.
So this is the pinnacle of
what we call mindful living,
observing ourselves having
a sensory experience.
The great Indian philosopher
J Krishnamurti said the highest human
intelligence is the ability to observe
yourself without judging yourself.
So we'll go through that.
But metacognition, as I said,
is the pinnacle of mindful living.
And this leads ultimately to what
the great spiritual traditions call
enlightenment, enlightenment or
transcendence, or self actualization.
Abraham Maslow, the great transpersonal
psychologists spoke about this.
And these are the very elements of that
experience that we call enlightenment.
So the first element is non reactivity,
which means before you react to anything,
you observe your reaction to react.
You use the stop formula.
You stop, you take three deep breaths,
you observe,
you proceed with awareness,
love, kindness.
The next aspect of this whole process
is what we call activation of divine
emotions.
And I mentioned these, gratitude, loving,
kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity,
because they connect us with each other
and they foster emotional well being.
Introspection is being aware of
what's happening inside your body.
Transcendence is going to
the source of thought ultimately.
Not thought but the source of thought.
If you look at the literature on yoga,
it says yoga is the ability
to go to the source of all experience and
knowing, which is your own being, okay?
And yoga is frequently translated as radha
yoga, which includes the practices of
meditation and self-reflection.
Hatha yoga, the postures,
which are seats of awareness,
breathing exercises, and self-reflection.
These all ultimately lead to
what is called transcendence,
which leads to the awareness of our soul,
soul consciousness.
And when we become aware of
this aspect of our being,
it ultimately leads to something
called cosmic consciousness.
So I'll give you an experience of
self consciousness in a few moments.
But from that, we embark on a bigger
journey called cosmic consciousness,
which is the activity
of our collective soul.
And ultimately divine consciousness,
the connection to the source of all
existence and ultimately unity
consciousness, knowing ourselves
has the awareness in which all
experiences arises and subsides.
Mental experience, emotional experience,
experience of the physical body,
experience of the universe, are all
happening in our own consciousness.
So this is what great spiritual
traditions mean when they say,
we are spiritual beings
having a human experience.
Or we are non local beings
having a local experience.
So this is what I actually wanted to
share with you because as we move
into these higher states of consciousness,
our experience of reality changes.
Reality is different in different
states of consciousness.
And thanks to all the friendships we
have in these academic institutions,
for the first time we have the ability
to explore this scientifically.
So what happens, when you move to
higher states of consciousness?
There's a shift in our
identity from personal
Self in the direction of cosmic self.
There's a shift in our
cognitive mechanisms,
which means our ability to access
intuition, and creativity, and
knowledge, and imagination,
and ultimately higher vision.
There's a shift in our perception.
It is more in the present moment,
and it is more luminous and lively.
There is a better use in our memory.
And then we start to experience what
is called synchronicity, meaningful
coincidences, lucky encounters, being
at the right place at the right time.
Because we begin to access
that domain of experience
where we are inseparably connected
to everything that is happening,
creativity and the organizing
power of our own intentions.
So these are some of the experiences
that people are already
beginning to happen as they
access what I call meta-reality,
which is awareness prior
to social conditioning.
Awareness prior to social
conditioning is infinite.
It's a field of infinite possibilities,
and that's our fundamental identity.
Awareness prior to
conditioning is without form.
It is irreducible, it is infinite,
and it is who you are.
Awareness is unpredictable,
and therefore it is creative.
Awareness unfolds through synchronicity,
or meaningful coincidences.
Awareness is the source of
our attention and intention.
Awareness is self-organizing,
self-regulating,
self-evolving, and it is rooted
in this feeling, I exist, I am.
And our early research is
showing some of these milestones
of people who are embarking on the journey
of self-awareness are metahuman.
There's a shift in sense of self from
mind-body to the awareness in which
mind and body are an experience.
There's a shift in our emotions,
in the direction of divine emotions,
a shift in our perception to being
fully present in the present moment,
and it becomes luminous as a result.
As a result, there's insight,
a shift in memory, a shift in vision,
a shift in creativity, an experience of
what we call flow, ecstasy, transcendence,
peak experiences that people are talking
about these days, especially in sports.
And through even deep learning
through VR and augmented reality.
And ultimately, it's the loss
of the fear of death, because
this part of our being, and it's not mind,
it's not brain, it's not body.
It's the awareness in which body-mind and
the world are an experience.
This part of our being,
as you'll see very shortly when we do
a little meditation, is not in time,
it is not subject to birth or death.
And so it is ultimate liberation,
which is the ability to create our
reality and
experience the loss of the fear of death,
because death happens to ongoing
experiences, and not to you.
So with that,
in the remaining six minutes we have,
I'm going to invite Kat Graham to join me.
She's going to ask me a few questions, and
then we are going to do a little
bit of experience, if you're ready.
Is that good?
[APPLAUSE]
Deepak Chopra: Okay, Kat, please join me.
[APPLAUSE]
Kat Graham: Hi, everyone, good morning.
[APPLAUSE]
Kat Graham: Thank you, Deepak.
Deepak Chopra: So she's taking this
conversation to a whole new demographic,
people that we call millennials,
and I see a lot of you here.
Somebody has to take the torch and
spread this idea of awakening.
Kat Graham: Right, well, my generation,
I know that we do have an obsession about
the unknown, more than maybe we
feel comfortable talking about.
And what the consciousness collective is,
is the exploration of consciousness from
every point of view, from a musician's
point of view to a cosmologist's point of
view to astrophysicist,
to your point of view, my point of view.
But what's been so amazing about being
here is meeting all the trailblazers.
Are you guys all?
[APPLAUSE]
Kat Graham: And what I want to ask you,
Dr. Deepak, is what you just spoke about,
how does that relate to
manifestation of reality?
Deepak Chopra: So
we are constantly manifesting reality,
and what we call everyday reality,
like this experience you're having.
This is everyday reality.
You manifested it by being here, right?
So we are constantly projecting our mind
as the experience of everyday reality.
But our mind is conditioned.
It's conditioned by culture,
it's conditioned by religion,
it's conditioned by philosophy,
it's conditioned by economics.
It's conditioned by our parents,
it's conditioned by our childhood,
it's conditioned by history.
And this reality is a projection of that.
But what we're talking
about is a meta-reality,
which is modifying itself
into the conditioned mind.
So once we recognize we should
give everyone an experience that,
in the deeper reality,
we are neither body, nor mind, nor
the experience of the world,
but the creator of that.
That is manifestation.
Kat Graham: Now give them the exercise
of are you here right now.
Deepak Chopra: So she wants me
to give you a little experience.
We'll do that right now,
she reminded me, and
then we'll do a short
meditation after that.
Is that okay?
So let me ask you a question right now.
Are you present right now?
Audience: Yes.
Deepak Chopra: A little more enthusiasm,
please.
So are you present right now?
Audience: Yes!
Deepak Chopra: Cheers,
who did you consult?
See, you had to answer that question,
who did you consult?
And somebody said, me.
Correct, so
who is the me that you consulted?
Let's explore that.
I'm going to ask you the same question,
but don't answer it til I raise my hand.
Is everybody clear on that instruction?
Okay, so same question,
are you present right now?
Answer is yes, but
don't answer it til I raise my hand.
Are you present right now?
Audience: Yes.
Deepak Chopra: So are you present?
The question is a thought.
The answer, yes, is a thought.
You're not the thought,
you're the awareness
in which the thought comes,
is experienced, and then it disappears.
And that's true of every experience.
You look here, you look there.
In between is you,
who decides to look here or to look there.
Okay, so between every experience, between
every sensation, between every image,
between every feeling, between every
emotion, between every choice,
between Every experience
that we call thought is you.
Somebody said me, yes, so
now I'm going to ask you the same
question, but don't answer it at all.
As I ask you the question be
aware of that which is listening.
Okay, so instead of listening to me,
just slip into that which
is listening right now.
You can keep your eyes open,
are you present right now?
Deepak Chopra: This
presence is your soul okay,
it's not difficult to find,
it's always there.
Without this presence there
is no experience, okay?
So hold onto this for a moment okay as I'm
speaking to you, as I'm saying are you
present hold on to this presence
Deepak Chopra: This
presence was there when you were a baby,
different body, different mind,
different experience of the world.
This presence was there
when you were a teenager
is there now it'll be there
when you're an old person.
And the most important thing to realize
is, this presence is not in time.
Your body is in time,
your mind is in time.
The experience of the world is in time,
but you the real you is not in time.
Therefore, it is not subject,
To birth or death, right?
This is what spiritual
traditions called the soul, or
presence or being or
awareness, or conscious agent.
And this is the real
purpose of mindfulness
because you're not human thinking,
you're not a human doing.
You're a human being and
this human being is eternal.
In the great spiritual traditions of
the East they say, water cannot wet it,
wind cannot dry it, weapons cannot
shatter it, fire cannot burn it.
Its unborn and it is not subject to death.
This presence is also
the source of your insight,
of your imagination,
of your creativity, and your vision.
To not only transform yourself, but
ultimately transform the world.
And this is what they say
in spiritual traditions,
what good does it do a man to gain
the whole world but lose his soul?
And this is what is happening in our
world today, we have lost our soul.
So hold on to this presence,
it's the only thing that is permanent.
Kat Graham: You spoke briefly
[APPLAUSE]
Kat Graham: So grateful for
you and everything you've
contributed to this generation.
So you spoke briefly about meta and
you have a book called Metahuman.
And as a young person who's
obsessed with manifestation and
visualization and you know the journey
to our individual successes.
Can you go into what it
means to be metahuman and
what your book talks about a bit?
Deepak Chopra: Metahuman simply
means waking up to your true self,
the human mind is
a conditioned mind we agree.
It's conditioned by education by,-
Kat Graham: Religion, upbringing.
Deepak Chopra: Religion,
by even science, okay, by technology.
But meta human is before
the conditioned mind.
It's what I showed in the last two slides.
It's what they experienced right now
when they became aware of themselves.
But if we want and
we have still seven minutes and
35 seconds left, we can even though,
by the way, time does not exist.
That's another human construct.
[LAUGH] [INAUDIBLE]
Deepak Chopra: It's a human construct.
We can actually give you a little
experience or more if you want,
should we do that?, do you want that?
[APPLAUSE]
Deepak Chopra: Okay, so put your feet
firmly in the ground, on the ground.
Keep your hands open,
on your lap, use the backrest so
you can keep your body relatively erect.
Close your eyes and for
the next couple of, a few seconds,
we'll just observe the breath.
Please observe the breath
without manipulating it.
Deepak Chopra: So breath is like any other
experience, it's like a it's a sensation.
It arises,
you experience it then it subsides.
But you are present even before
you become aware of the breath
in the arising in the knowing and
the subsiding.
Just be aware of breath.
Deepak Chopra: Now,
be aware of sound the sound of my voice
the occasional cough maybe
the humming of the air conditioner.
Deepak Chopra: And
notice just like the breath,
sound is an intermittent
experience it arises.
It's known its upsides, but you're present
before the arising in the knowing and
after,
it subsides
Deepak Chopra: Now,
we'll go a little deeper, but I'm sure
you'll be able to have this experience.
Become aware of your heartbeat right now,
by putting your attention on your heart.
See if you can experience your
heartbeat either as a sound or
a sensation or a throbbing or something.
Deepak Chopra: And now move your
awareness to your fingertips.
Open hands,
fingertips pointing upwards and
feel your heartbeat in your fingertips.
And you should be able to feel something,
some sensations,
some throbbing, something.
You should be able to feel your
heartbeat in your fingertips.
Deepak Chopra: Now, bring your awareness
to your whole body all at once.
Just with the knowing that
the same throbbing of life,
which we call the heartbeat.
It's the throbbing of our consciousness,
as life is happening in every
cell of your body right now.
Deepak Chopra: So
be aware of your body all at once.
But just that knowing that life
is throbbing in every cell.
Deepak Chopra: And
now we'll go a little deeper.
So bring your awareness
back to your heart.
And mentally ask the question, who am I?
Am I the changing body?
Or am I the awareness in which
the body is a changing experience?
Am I the changing mind?
Or am I the awareness in which
the mind is a changing experience?
Just ask that question.
Don't worry about the answer.
You know the answer.
Deepak Chopra: Who am I?
What am I?
Deepak Chopra: Am I
a changing experience or
am I the awareness in which
there is changing experience?
Including that which I call body,
mind, and the physical world.
Deepak Chopra: And
now ask yourself, what do I want?
What do I want from my life?
Just that simple question and let it go.
What do I want?
Allowing any sensation,
any image, any feeling,
any thought to spontaneously come to you.
Or not come, don't worry.
Ask and receive, what do I want?
Deepak Chopra: Third question,
what is my purpose?
What is my calling?
Deepak Chopra: What is my vision for
myself and the world?
Deepak Chopra: Allowing any sensation,
any image, any feeling,
any thought to spontaneously come to you.
Deepak Chopra: Final question,
what am I grateful for?
Gratitude will open the door to your soul.
What am I grateful for?
Allowing any sensation,
any image, any feeling,
any thought to spontaneously come to you.
Deepak Chopra: What am I grateful for?
Deepak Chopra: When we ask these
questions, and we live these questions,
and we settle into
the presence of our soul,
Deepak Chopra: Then life spontaneously
moves us into the answers.
So before we come out,
just be aware of being aware.
Just be aware of your own self.
As a being, not as a thought,
not as a perception, but as a being.
Be present.
Deepak Chopra: Here and now
Deepak Chopra: And
now, please open your eyes.
So to conclude, God's language is silence.
Everything else is poor translation.
Thank you for
listening to this poor translation.
[APPLAUSE]
Deepak Chopra: And thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
