[INTERPOSING VOICES]
JANET COOPER NELSON:
Good evening, everyone.
I'm Janet Cooper Nelson, the
chaplain of the university,
and this is really a profound
evening of good karma for me.
And that's not
something I often say.
I mean by that, on this
night, every year--
we have no strict pattern, in
terms of what season it is.
It is often this time of
year-- spring or almost spring.
Because of the generosity that
grew out of a great grief,
the Interlandi family came to
us after their daughter, Mary,
died much too young.
She'd had but two
years at Brown.
She'd already met Hal Roth
and contemplative studies.
She'd already traveled in Nepal.
She was open in
ways that we pray
all our students will be, to
service to others, to the arts,
to creativity.
She came from a wonderful family
whose granddad was a philosophy
professor at Vanderbilt,
who had a dear
friendship with the
chaplain at Vanderbilt.
And Beth and John Interlandi,
who are not here with us
tonight but who are often
here, turned to Bev Asbury
when they were to
marry and, in fact,
wove their family
together in that place.
So a chaplain was
part of their life.
Higher education was
part of their life.
And then a great almost
mind-searing grief,
the loss of a daughter,
was part of their life.
And rather than that breaking
them, they broke open.
And in that breaking open
came a great gift to Brown
in the form of the
Interlandi Endowment, which
every year enables us
to call to the campus
a scholar and a practitioner
of contemplative studies, who
comes both to teach us
to meditate and to think
about those disciplines
but also to teach us
about those disciplines.
And I can never stand here
to introduce this lecture
without thinking how rare it
is that, when sorrow comes that
hard, that instead of people
closing in and feeling somehow
just undone.
In Beth and John's case
and that of their family,
the Comptons, Beth's
parents, there
was an openness, an
openness toward learning,
an openness toward the things
their daughter was already
teaching them and a hope to make
of this lecture, which is now
endowed presumably will be
here long after all of us
even, to make of this evening
a time that would really
gather us and enable
us to take forward
the disciplines of compassion,
engagement, meditation,
service, an outward look at
the globe and its communities,
to places that are ancient in
their practice of meditation
and places that are modern and
scientific and contemporary.
So tonight I have a
number of thank-you's.
They begin with Hal Roth, who's
been the genius behind this
for a very long time and
has picked our speakers
and brought us people from
all different disciplines.
Back at the back, Anne
Heyrman-Hart does so much
of the detail.
My colleague, Leigh
Kendall, who's here.
Tonight we welcome
a new colleague
to this fold as the
School of Public Health--
Bess Marcus is our dean--
have come in to join us.
But I'm going to let Hal do
the official introduction.
But to have Mallika Chopra back
with us back at her alma mater
and back with a daughter
in the applicant pool
is really a very
exciting thing for me.
I came to Brown in 1990.
She graduated in '93.
What an honor and a joy and just
such a proud thing for Brown
that you are back
and able to teach us.
We are you're willing students.
So Hal will introduce
Mallika, but I
do want to welcome
you in that spirit
that I feel John and Beth
Interlandi put together
for us in a moment when they
might have done so much less.
[APPLAUSE]
HAL ROTH: Good
evening, everybody.
Thank you so much for coming
out on such a beautiful evening.
I want to begin by giving
thanks to the Interlandi family.
Mary was a sophomore
here at Brown
and was in the
Great Contemplative
Traditions of Asia class.
When we started back in
the 2002-2003 academic year
to talk about the possibility
of contemplative studies
and after her very
sudden passing,
her parents decided
that they wanted
to create a memorial to
something that was really
a passion of hers and, really,
she would have been more
actively engaged in had she
been able to stay with us.
So I want to give
thanks to John and Beth
Interlandi and the Comptons,
her grandparents, for setting up
this endowed lecture series.
I also want to thank the Office
of the Chaplains and Religious
Life for taking in and
developing and administering
this fund, because contemplative
studies didn't really
exist as anything more than
something we talked about,
a bunch of us had talked about,
back at that point in time.
And there was no administrative
home for this memorial
lectureship fund.
And so ever since--
I think our first one
was in the spring of 2005
when we had Alan Wallace come.
And one of the characteristics
of this particular lectureship
series is that it's
never only a lecture.
It's a lecture, and
there's a workshop,
some sort of
contemplative-practice retreat.
Over the years, we've had
some really wonderful,
wonderful speakers, and
I'm very pleased that we
have yet another in our
series of incredibly profound
contemplatives who
are speaking to us
and have spoken to
us in the series.
When we started out, basically,
I did most of the work
but with help from some
student volunteers.
But there's one
person who's here
tonight who's in the
audience, and I really
want to recognize
her, because I don't
think I've ever had the
chance to recognize her.
She was the office manager for
the Department of Religious
Studies, and she
voluntarily helped out
with a lot of the
details of organization
that were just a little
overwhelming for me.
So I'm going to ask, Gail
Tetra, would you please stand
so we can thank you?
[APPLAUSE]
And then, of course,
as Janet already
said, thanks to Leigh Kendall.
And thanks to my partner
in crime for many years,
Anne Heyrman-Hart.
Anne was my first
teaching assistant
when I started teaching Intro
to Asian Religions at Brown.
And they assigned
her to me because she
was the one graduate student who
had taken a course in something
Asian.
And we worked together as a TA
and instructor for many years.
It was very enjoyable.
And Anne pursued a different
path, but we said at one point,
you know, someday we're
going to work together again.
We're going to create a lot
of mischief around here.
And we have.
So how many of you are new
to contemplative studies?
So a few of you.
So, really, what we--
we tend to think of
universities as places--
and I think that's what you'll
see in literature at Brown
and other places--
that help students develop
critical-thinking skills.
But, really, in contemplative
studies what we're all about
is, of course, critical-thinking
skills but also
critical-being skills.
We study and teach the
practices of focusing
the attention in a
sustained fashion,
both intentional and
non-intentional, that
have led people from all
cultures and across time
to deeper insights into the
nature of human existence
and to realize more fully who
they are and who they can be.
We approach this from
scientific, humanistic, and
artistic perspectives,
and we hope
that our students-- we
are developing something
that I've come to think of as
contemplative intelligence,
the ability to know what
contemplative practices will
do, where they come from,
what the research is that
supports them, and how
they might be used as tools
throughout their lives.
Our speaker this
evening, Mallika Chopra,
has explored and developed
critical-being skills
throughout her life, first here
at Brown in political science
and through a number
of possible careers
that she had started to
explore, then decided not to,
including MTV in India,
which was very interesting,
and through deep engagement with
transcendental meditation being
taught by the Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi himself.
Many young people today
haven't heard of TM,
but it really was a
very, very important part
of the cultural influences
that I grew up with
and that brought me to the study
of meditation more seriously.
Throughout her life,
in addition to that,
she's also developed her
own very creative path
devoted to family,
society, and bringing
a contemplative
dimension to both.
She will be talking
tonight about her teachings
on intention and
intent and to bring
the contemplative
dimensions we normally
think of as being
cultivated away
from society and monasteries
and special-practice centers,
but to help us realize that
those contemplative dimensions
are with us in everyday life.
So without further
ado, please join me
in welcoming Mallika Chopra.
[APPLAUSE]
MALLIKA CHOPRA: Hello.
Can you hear this?
OK.
Thank you, everyone,
for being here.
I graduated from Brown in 1993.
And I came back for the
first time after 19 years,
and now recently I've been
coming back more and more.
And I want to thank Harold, who
has been there since I started
coming back, and Bess Marcus
at the School of Public
Health, where I've
done a few things now.
I love coming back
here in Providence.
I live in Santa
Monica, California,
so went from being a
Boston kid, came to Brown,
and now strangely find
myself very California,
which my family, especially
for my brother, who's
like a Boston Red Sox, New
England Patriots fanatic,
had a really hard time
voting for the Lakers
but then got close
to Kobe, so we
feel like we have this weird
dynamic in our family of being
on both coasts.
I am going to--
I'm just debating.
I'm actually not going
to use the slides.
So I'm here to talk
about my journey.
I call it my somewhat
messy journey
to purpose, peace, and joy.
And what I'll be doing, really--
some of you were
there yesterday.
We did more practice.
Today I'm going to first
share a bunch of stories,
and my goal in
sharing these stories
is really actually for you
to think about your story.
And, you know, many
of you probably
have gone through
different points
in your life that have
made you stop and reflect.
And for some of the
younger people in the room,
I guarantee you will go
through these phases.
And, you know, that's
part of the journey.
It is a messy journey.
So I'll begin with just
sharing a little bit
about my background,
because when I open it up
for questions, inevitably
the first question
I get is, what is it like
being Deepak Chopra's daughter?
So I figure I'll just answer
that up front and save time.
So I grew up in
Boston, as I said.
My parents came here in 1970 for
my dad to do medical training.
At that time, they
were recruiting
a lot of doctors from India.
So he came here with
his new bride, my mom.
They had just got married.
And when they got
here, they were
allowed only eight dollars.
So they arrived here.
And the first day
when they got here,
they discovered the
concept of credit.
And so they got a television.
They had never seen
a color TV before.
They rented a car.
They were thrilled.
He'd go anywhere and people
would say, what do you do,
and he said, I'm a doctor.
That's when they were like,
oh, here take this, take this,
take this.
When my mother got pregnant
a few months later,
they didn't have enough
money to have me in the US,
and they didn't have
health insurance.
So it was easier for my
mother to take her return
ticket to India, and I
was actually born in India
and then came back here
when I was three months old.
And so, from my family, we are
very cognizant that my parents
really are the poster children
of the American dream realized.
And we're very grateful for
all of the opportunities
that they had.
But it wasn't easy
for my parents.
So our early memories
of childhood,
when my brother and I
think about childhood,
we remember being
with my mom, who
was a stay-at-home mom, and
my dad never being around.
When my dad was around,
which was very rarely,
he basically drank to go to
sleep, he smoked incessantly,
and he was just a
miserable person.
And so, you know, he
obviously was working 24/7
to try to take care of us,
but he was just unhappy.
And so for my
brother and I, it was
much nicer when my
dad wasn't around
than when my dad was around.
And we both have
very clear memories
when something changed, and it
changed pretty much overnight.
So my father, who
had grown up in India
and had very much focused
on Western medicine
and Western science, had
always been intrigued
by Indian philosophy,
but there was nothing
really religious or
spiritual about our family.
We were very
Western-focused as a family.
And so my father had
gone to a lecture
with Krishnamurti, who was
a great Indian philosopher.
And in that lecture,
Krishnamurti
talked about meditation,
and it kind of
sparked interest in my dad.
And so he one day was
walking in Cambridge,
and he just happened to walk
by a TM center, and he decided,
let me try this.
So he went into that TM
center, and this was probably
in 1980 or so,
and for my father,
that first meditation
was very dramatic.
For the first time in his
life, he felt a sense of peace,
a sense of connection,
and sense of bliss,
and he was so excited
that he ran back home,
and he made my mother
come to the TM center
to learn how to meditate.
My mom is a very
grounded prison,
so for her, there were
no fireworks or, like,
life-changing transformation,
but for her meditating became
like coming home.
The next day, my
dad made my brother
and I learn how to meditate.
The day after that, he
made his brother, who
is a doctor in Boston,
learn how to meditate
with their entire family.
Same with my mom's sister,
who had just moved to the US,
had to learn, and by
the end of the week,
the entire Indian
community of Boston
had to learn how to meditate.
And so my dad,
from the beginning,
was one of those
people who just felt
like everyone has to
come along for the ride
whether they like it or not.
We all started to meditate.
But what happened
for us as family was,
suddenly, it went from a
really stressful situation
when my dad was around to
him being a happier person.
He quit drinking
overnight, smoking.
He changed his
lifestyle, and obviously
that began to change his
career and what he worked on.
But he was home more.
My parents didn't
fight all the time.
Suddenly, my dad would
notice me and my brother
and be like, what
grade are you in?
[LAUGHTER]
He was interested.
And so for our family,
our family life
really transitioned.
And that happened
when I was nine.
And so that was obviously
a very important part.
And I will say that, for my
brother and I, my parents
never-- so the second
question I always get
is, what about for kids?
Would do you recommend for kids?
And I am a big believer, based
on my own experience, that
for my brother and
I, what happened
is our parents found a practice.
Our parents, their
lives changed,
and in turn, our lives changed.
And because they
had this practice,
my brother and I were
intrigued, but they never
forced us to meditate ever.
It was always, they
gave us a practice,
and if we choose to
do it, we did it.
If we didn't, we didn't,
and it wasn't a big deal.
And so I sometimes
joke like my rebellion
was not meditating and trying
to upset my mother that I
wasn't going to meditate.
But I found-- now I'm--
like I said, I'm approaching 50.
And I've been meditating
since I was nine.
So I can look at
four decades of times
when I've meditated regularly,
years and years where
I haven't, sometimes when
i'm doing it twice a day,
other times when I can
just find five minutes.
And so, you know, I think
I have a lot of perspective
on the fact that we don't
always stay committed to it,
and that's OK.
And that's one of my
goals when I'm talking.
This is a very mindful audience.
But often when I'm
out talking to people
who are intimidated by the idea
of a mindfulness or meditation
practice, I'm a big believer
you find what works for you,
and you go from there.
So my brother and I were
basically the guinea pigs
of all of my dad's experiments.
So it began with meditation.
He was really into,
for a while, hypnosis,
so I have a chocolate addiction,
and I used to love Coke,
and he tried to kind of get me
over my chocolate addiction.
It was a total failure.
I had a chocolate-chip cookie
right before getting here.
We used to play with the Ouija
board, and we'd try to, like,
get in touch with our
old dog, Nicholas--
Samoyed.
It was a Samoyed.
We would do memory
tricks, and then he'd
try to get us to perform
in front of people
to do our memory tricks.
So we really kind
of learned a lot.
We also-- and this ties
into the instruction--
a lot of people started
coming to my father for help.
And I think what
my brother and I
saw is that most of people who
came were across the spectrum.
But some of the most
famous people in the world
were often in our house--
politicians, musicians,
business people.
But the people who
often came to our house
were people who were
in a lot of pain.
They had lost
someone they loved.
They had just been
diagnosed with a disease.
They were going
through a divorce.
Or they were just, you know,
at loss of who they were.
And so my brother and
I were able to see
how my father was able to work
with people to really heal
at a deep level, and that
obviously stuck with us as we
both developed our own careers.
So one of the other things
that my dad taught us about
was this concept of intention.
So after our meditations,
he would often ask us--
and maybe I will
pull the slide up--
to repeat a phrase.
And I'm just going
to pull that up,
because otherwise people asked
me to repeat it all the time.
So excuse me for one second.
I'm sorry.
Oh.
You know what, I'll just do it.
So-- oh, it is right there.
Sorry.
So he would ask us
to say a phrase.
And this phrase I think is
from the Course in Miracles.
It says, "I am responsible
for what I see.
I choose the feelings
I experience and set
the goals I will achieve.
And everything that
seems to happen to me
I ask for and receive
as I have asked."
So as kids my dad would ask us,
after we would say this, well,
would did you ask for?
We'd ask for tickets to the
Celtics, a trip to Hawaii,
new Atari games,
many material things.
And he'd listen patiently,
and then he's say, OK, OK,
we'll work on that,
but what about
asking for love,
connection, inspiration,
a sense of purpose?
And so we were taught
on a daily basis
to ask for the qualities in
our life that would make us
healthier, happier,
more connected,
and have a sense of purpose.
And we were taught at a very
young age to ask questions.
And this is something I love
that we have people here,
both from the School
of Public Health,
but very much from
contemplative studies,
because the spiritual path
wasn't a path originally
of stress management.
The spiritual path
and those sages
who were meditating,
whether it was
in the caves of the
Himalayas or, you
know, in Israel or in
Native American traditions,
they were meditating
to contemplate
the nature of existence
of who we are,
how we may serve, why
are we on this planet.
And so, you know, my dad always
encouraged my brother and I
to think deeper after
our meditation practice
about the questions about our
existence and what we want
and how we can serve.
So we're going to do that later
on when we end today as well.
So that being said, I grew
up in that environment.
I came to Brown.
I had an amazing time at Brown.
My friends from Brown remain
my best friends to this day.
We text all day long on the
group text chat, these days
about the election.
And when I graduated
from Brown, I
decided that I wanted
to get a cool job.
I actually had grown up
knowing Michael Jackson.
In fact, when I
was here at Brown--
I don't share this otherwise--
but when I was here at Brown,
there were a few times
that Michael called me
in my dorm room.
And all of my
friends would, like,
dive to try to answer the phone
to be able to talk to him.
So I first worked
for Michael Jackson
to launch his foundation, the
Heal the World Foundation.
But from there, I saw
the power of music
to affect change in the world.
And so for me, at that
time, MTV was just
launching internationally.
They hadn't launched.
And so I decided that the
coolest job I could get
would be if I could
go work for MTV.
And so I had this very clear,
direct goal of going to MTV.
Took me nine months
to get this job.
I started as an assistant in New
York, but within three months,
I convinced my boss that
they should launch in India,
and to launch in India, I
would be the perfect person
to launch them in India.
So this was like a year
and a half after Brown.
I was 22 years
old, 23 years old.
And I said, you know, I
know all these musicians.
They knew I knew Michael, but
I didn't really know others.
I knew all these musicians.
I could speak Hindi, which I
took a little Hindi at Brown,
but I cannot speak
Hindi to save my life.
And I said I'm majorly connected
there, which I wasn't, but I
was also a good storyteller.
So they actually-- I got
a job at the age of 23
where I was the first
person for MTV in India
to launch a channel.
And my job was
literally everything
from business
development to marketing
to satellite distribution
to doing videos
in the streets of Bombay.
I did a video with Gwen
Stefani and No Doubt.
It was an incredible experience.
So at 23, you know,
I had the dream job.
I was flying between India,
Singapore, London, New York.
I met my husband at
the first-ever rave
in New Delhi, a very
non-Chopra-esque type
of meeting, and I was
living the high life.
And what happened
is, one day, we
had just sold our first-ever
sponsorship package for MTV.
We were driving from our
kind of corporate office
where we had made
our presentation back
to our five-star hotel.
And we were in a limousine,
we had a bottle of champagne,
and we were celebrating
a huge success.
We had a very
successful day that day.
And as we were driving
through the streets of Bombay,
we found ourselves
stuck in traffic,
something that's very normal
for anyone who's gone to India.
Now in India, at
that time, when you
were driving through
Bombay, you had
to go through a lot of slums.
Now what they do is they
have these flyovers--
I'm sure you know-- so you don't
really go through the slums
anymore.
But in those days, you had
to drive through the slums.
So we found ourselves
stuck in traffic.
And what should have
taken 10 minutes
had already taken an hour.
And we were just
inching along, and we
were wondering what's going on.
And as we inched
along, we finally
saw the source of this
traffic, which was, in a slum,
a group of about 50 kids.
These kids were in torn
clothing, shoeless.
You could see the
malnutrition in their stomach.
And they were all
blocking the streets
because they were
mesmerized by something
on the side of the road.
And as we approached,
we saw that there
was a shack with a tin
roof and kind of obviously
in a very poor area.
And these kids were staring
at something in the shack.
And as we approached,
we saw that there
was a television hanging
by wires in the shack,
and on the television
flashing in and out
were images of American kids
grinding to hip-hop music
on the beaches of Santa
Monica, where I live now.
And there was the MTV logo.
And everyone in my
car began to cheer,
because this was a huge success.
We had just sold our
first-ever sponsorship,
and here, look, MTV
had literally reached
every corner of the planet.
While everyone in my car
cheered, my heart stopped.
And I thought, oh, my
god, what am I doing?
What am I doing?
I had the dream job.
But I had been brought up
thinking about deeper questions
and how can I serve.
And I realized that, while this
was an incredible experience
and I'll always
be grateful for it
because it launched so many
other things in my life,
I wasn't serving
aligned with my values.
And so, at 23, 24, I
gave up this dream job.
I was engaged.
And that really
began this journey.
And, you know, I speak to a
lot of students just generally,
and often people will ask
me about what kind of a job
they should take and things
like that, and, you know,
I'm always very grateful
for the experience I had,
because I learned
a lot about it.
But that's part of
the messy journey,
which is you do things.
Sometimes you're feeling
aligned, whether it's
in your relationships or
your job or your purpose,
and then something happens, and
you pause, and you think, OK,
am I on the right path?
And so, for me, that was the
first time this happened.
And, you know, I
decided that I knew now
what I didn't want to do.
I had no idea what
I did want to do.
And so, for me,
that's what life has
been about is kind of
constantly figuring out
in that journey
what's right for now.
So when my husband
and I got married,
we went back to business school.
We went to Kellogg
at Northwestern.
And I did lots of consulting.
I've been very lucky.
I've had a very good career.
I launched a company--
there's a whole nother
business side of this,
but I launched a company
where I raised $12 million
from venture capital in
the heyday of the internet
and dropped out of
business school.
That company completely
failed, and I went back
to business school.
Then I had another
company, which this time I
did from the grassroots
up, which is called Intent,
and that's had its own journey.
And so, you know, work
for me has been work.
But what happened is my
husband and I kind of
were building our careers, and
my first company had failed.
And I found, as I
was packing up boxes
going through bankruptcy--
I was literally by myself
after raising $15 million,
closing down the company.
And I had this
experience where I
sensed something was
different, and it turned out
I was pregnant.
So I was 30 years old.
And for me, I had always
wanted to be a mom.
In fact, when I was
at Brown, I had a wall
full of all these kids,
because kids had inspired me,
just the joy and
innocence of kids.
So at 30 years old,
I was pregnant.
I was super-excited,
because this really, for me,
felt like--
OK, I had just gone
through a bankruptcy,
so there was new life again.
Birth and rebirth.
And was pregnant.
Five months later, I got a
phone call from my father
one morning.
It was about 5:00 in the
morning, 6:00 in the morning,
when he called.
And my father was
sobbing hysterically
on the other end of the line.
My husband had
answered the phone.
My father was crying so
hard that we couldn't even
understand what he was saying.
And so he gave me the phone,
and it was the morning of 9/11.
And the first plane had crashed
into the first building.
And as I was speaking to my
father and we put the phone on,
the second building crashed
into the second building.
And my dad was
obviously upset, but he
thought my brother was on
the plane, because that was
the first news that came out.
And so my mom was in
the air, and it was
a morning of complete chaos.
We finally tracked
my brother down,
who was a war journalist at
the time and turned around
and went back to Ground Zero.
And my sister-in-law, who's
a doctor, was at the morgue.
And what happened is,
a few hours after that,
I was going for a
walk by the beach
just to get some fresh air.
I ended up just fainting
from the stress.
And so the next thing, I found
myself in a hospital room
monitored just for
them to kind of check
the status of the baby.
And I remember another
momentous time in my life,
being in this place
where I had been
so excited about the
magic and the mystery
and the excitement of becoming
a mom to suddenly being really
fearful and guilty
about bringing
an innocent soul into a planet
that's full of suffering
and just having a lot of fear.
And so, for me, I
would say, until I
became a mom, all the
work that my dad did
was frankly my dad's thing.
My brother and I really weren't
interested in any of it.
But it was in becoming
a mother that my journey
of self-discovery began.
And in that journey, it was
going back to really thinking
about intention and meditation.
And I wrote-- my first
book is called 100 Promises
to My Baby, which was basically
the intentions that I was
making as a mom to my self and
my children about this journey
together.
And so I'm going to talk a
little bit about intent right
now, which is that, you
know, what an intention is,
it's a seed of desire.
And so 100 Promises was
really the initial path
that I began to
explore intention.
And those seeds of
desire really represent
when we're in a deep,
honest place of connection,
of connecting to
consciousness, when
we ask ourselves questions about
what our deepest desires are.
And an intent is like a seed.
We put it in the ground.
We put the dirt on it.
We let the sun and the rains
take time to nurture it,
not knowing often the tree
or the flower that it's
going to blossom into.
And so intents are very
different from goals.
You know, in our society, we
are very good at goal-setting.
Goals come from the mind.
Goals are very task-oriented.
In fact, I would claim--
I know we have a lot of people
from the School of Public
Health here.
Research is very goal-oriented
and task-oriented.
But intents come from the soul.
They come from a
really deep place
when we are often more
intuitive and more connected.
And so for me, in
becoming a mom,
that was really the place
that I began exploring
this concept of intent.
And so, out of that, you
know, I wrote two books.
I started the speaking circuit.
I started teaching
meditation more.
That was much of my 30s.
It's funny now.
I can think of my
life in decades.
So a lot of my 30s was going
out and teaching, teaching
meditation, teaching people
about health and wellness
imbalance, long before
a lot of, you know,
the fads of
mindfulness came about.
I always joke,
when we were young,
my father was considered
the East-Asian witch
doctor who sold snake oil.
Of course, he was
called East Asian, too,
which was fascinating.
And, you know, by
the time I kind of
got out there teaching
meditation, and just
the fact that,
here at Brown now,
we have so many
people that are doing
this is kind of
mind-boggling to a family
where my dad was kind of
always the crazy person.
So I started getting
out into the field.
I had two kids.
My kids were about 10
and eight years old.
And, you know, life
again was pretty good.
I was having a lot of
success in my career.
I was out speaking.
I have a family.
I have a new company.
And I remember one
day standing in front
of an audience of
about 50 people
talking about all the
benefits of meditation
and being present.
Some of you heard
this yesterday.
And I was speaking about all
the benefits of meditation,
I was having a parallel
conversation in my head.
And that went, I can't believe
I had that double macchiato
and chocolate-chip
cookie before getting
on stage, which is
funny because today
I just had a
chocolate-chip cookie.
I have to send that
note to my investors.
I have to go pick
up the dry cleaning.
I forgot to send the permission
slip for my daughter's field
trip to school.
And I found that I was
having this conversation
with this audience
about being present,
but I was having a
completely different panic
situation going on in my head.
And I literally almost
witnessed this double situation
where I was kind of having two
experiences at the same time.
So I kind of realized
that, and I decided,
you know what, I'm going to
ask the audience to meditate.
It's a great tip.
If you ever don't know
what to do onstage,
just ask everyone to close
their eyes and meditate.
And while everyone
sat there meditating,
they all had smiling,
happy faces on their face.
I kind of had a panic attack
on stage, where I was like,
what am I doing?
Like I am-- I realize
I'm exhausted.
I'm so busy that, you
know, I can't even
call my mom to check in.
If you asked me at the
end of the day, what
have you accomplished, I've
been running all day long,
but I don't even know
what I was doing.
And so I kind of
really looked at that
onstage while everyone
else was happy,
and I kind of made a
decision onstage that day
that I am going
to really explore
once again these
practices, because it's
great to talk about them, but
it's another thing to really
explore and live them as well.
And so that became the seeds
of my book Living with Intent.
And what I did,
because I'm lucky,
I went and reached
out to great teachers.
So I thought, OK, if I
have this sugar addiction,
maybe Andrew Weil can
help me with that.
And so I reached out to him.
Actually, I reached out
to Marianne Williamson,
who, of course, has become
so much more well-known
through her presidential run.
I reached out to
Eckhart Tolle, which
I'll tell that story later.
And then, in my head, I thought,
OK, who to me represents,
like, the epitome of service,
because that's really,
for me, a big question.
And in my head, it
actually is a woman
named Caryl Stern, who I
told you about earlier today.
Caryl Stern is
the CEO of UNICEF.
And I thought, here is a woman
who every single day wakes up
and is out saving the world.
So I randomly
emailed Caryl Stern,
and she replied back,
yeah, come meet me.
So I remember very clearly
flying to New York.
I had prepared to meet her.
This was one of my heroes
that I was so looking forward
to hearing from.
Sitting outside of
her office, preparing
to go ahead and talk to her.
And when I went
into her office, she
had a suitcase, open
suitcase, next to her,
very messy desk full
of papers, and she
was about to fly to Darfur
right after meeting with me.
But she was freaking out
because her 14-year-old son had
forgotten to take his
homework to school,
and so she was coordinating
with her husband
how to get him the homework.
And I remember just being
like, oh, my god, she's
a mess just like me.
It's perfect.
[LAUGHTER]
And so I had this
amazing journey
where I got to meet all
of these luminary people
but really saw a
different side to them.
In fact, in my book,
Living with Intent,
I go in to talk to Andrew
Weil about sugar addiction,
and he ends up talking
to me about synchronicity
and an owl in his neighborhood.
We never even got to nutrition.
But each conversation was such
an enlightening experience.
So I'm going to quickly
through the path to intent.
Again, some of you
were there yesterday.
I didn't have the
slides, so maybe you'll
get something new today.
But what I decided to do is
kind of take all of these
conversations and concepts and
wrap them around the acronym,
I-N-T-E-N-T. So for any of
you who are looking to become
authors or speakers,
acronyms are really good.
Seven Spiritual Laws,
Four Agreements,
structuring it in that
way is just a good tip.
So I-N-T-E-N-T. I
is for incubate.
Now, incubate is not
the sexiest of words,
but I feel like incubate
really represents
the first and most
important aspect
of living with intention.
And incubate is
finding that practice
that brings you silence,
that brings you connection.
So for me, it's a
meditation practice.
Recently, only in
the last year, I've
become more and more involved
in yoga, in a yoga practice.
I once wrote an article
for Huffington Post
about how embarrassing it is
to be a Chopra in a yoga class
because I can't even
do downward dog.
People always used to
assume that I was a yogi,
and I literally can't do
any yoga, because meditation
has been my practice.
But the most important
thing is, incubate is
about finding that quiet space.
So when we plant the
seed like I said,
we plant the seed
deep in the ground.
It's often-- it's a quiet--
it's a dark place.
It's consciousness.
It's being connected to spirit.
And so when we have a practice,
we feel more comfortable
with that space.
Incubate also recognizes that
there are no quick solutions.
You know, when we have
a baby, it takes time.
It takes time when
we plant the seed.
And often we don't even know
what it's going to become.
But we-- the process
itself trusts
that, in planting that
seed in that place
and connection, that it
will manifest into something
beautiful.
And so for me, when I talk
to novices in this field,
I really stress
finding that practice.
And you know, it
may take a while.
It may be different practices.
It may shift at different
times in your life.
But really it begins
with incubation.
Notice is another
interesting one.
So when we were young,
one of the other games
that my father would make
my brother and I play,
was to go through a day without
criticizing, condemning,
or complaining.
So he called it the three C's.
And he would challenge us.
And of course, he would make it
a game, so one of us could win.
And my brother was an
annoying little brother
and would try to make
me lose all the time.
But we were not allowed to
verbally criticize, complain,
or condemn.
And mentally, of
course, if we did,
we had to shift our dialogue.
And it's really powerful,
and I encourage all of you
today when you leave this
lecture to go, between now
and bedtime, try to shift your
internal and external dialogue.
So for me, what happened
is, at this time,
I realized that my dialogue
was, I'm exhausted.
I'm overwhelmed.
I'm stressed.
I'm frustrated.
And as I consciously started to
shift my dialogue externally,
I also began to shift
my internal dialogue.
The other thing is, I talk a
lot about my sugar addiction.
I've become so LA
that every week I'm
either on a soup
cleanse or a juice
cleanse or an
intermittent fasting
or whatever the latest thing is.
And I made a shift
where I decided,
you know what, I'm just
going to pay attention
to how my body feels.
And obviously if I have
two chocolate-chip cookies
and a double macchiato,
I'm going to feel sick.
And so maybe I can just have
one cookie or make tea instead.
And so I really just
made this shift,
instead of trying to
force myself to do things,
to really just pay
attention to my body.
So notice is noticing
what you're thinking,
your mental dialogue.
It's noticing your
physical body but also
noticing, just noticing what's
happening around you all
the time.
So often we're so goal-oriented
that we don't even
notice the person
sitting next to us
who may be about to open a
new part of a magical journey
for us.
We may not notice why the prison
we were thinking about suddenly
called us or why we ran
into someone in an elevator.
So yesterday in our workshop,
I spent a lot of time
on introductions,
because sometimes we
just need to hear what someone
says to spark a new idea.
Or that's really the seeds of
synchronicity, when, you know,
magical things happen.
They seem like they
happen by chance,
but they actually
happen on purpose.
So the third thing.
I'm not going to go
through that exercise
because we are running out of
time, but we did it yesterday,
it's a balance-wheel exercise.
So soon after I kind of
had this moment onstage,
I was going home.
My parents have a
place in San Diego.
And when my kids
were young, I used
to just go there so that my
mom take care of everything.
She could cook the food
and take care of my kids,
and I could just sleep and rest.
And so this was one of those
weekends where we went down.
And in typical fashion,
my mom was cooking dinner.
My kids were watching a show.
My husband had gone for a run.
And my dad was
sitting on Twitter.
And so I was sitting in
the room, and I thought,
you know what, I should talk to
my dad about what's going on.
Now, in my family we go to my
mom when we have a problem.
The rest of the world may
go to my dad, but none of us
go to my dad.
We go to my mom.
So I went and I sat
by my dad, and I said,
you know, papa, I
want to talk to you.
I think I'm feeling
stressed and overwhelmed.
And I remember my dad was typing
on the computer mid-tweet,
and he kind of looks at me.
And I see suddenly in his
face utter and complete panic,
as he tries to find my
mom to come and deal
with my situation.
[LAUGHTER]
And so I saw this
panic in my dad's face,
and I said, papa, no, no.
It's OK.
I am feeling overwhelmed.
I don't even know why.
There's nothing urgent,
but there's just
this feeling of not feeling
balanced and connected.
And I literally watched my dad
go from like utter-panic father
mode to taking a deep breath
and going to Deepak Chopra mode
and being like, OK,
we can handle this.
And so what we
did is we took out
the work of Dr. Dan
Siegel, which many of you
may be familiar with.
Dan has written numerous books
and is one of my mentors.
And we looked at the
mind-body platter
that Dan, based on
his research, looks
at in terms of what we need in
our lives for healthy living.
And so based on Dan's work--
and this is what
we did yesterday,
and I have it in my book--
is we came up with
this balance wheel,
which really looked
at the whole of life,
not just the physical,
mental aspects of life,
but also healthy
relationships, whether it's
family or workplace.
Financial security.
Or do you like what
you do every day?
Whatever it may be.
Intellectual stimulation.
Do you laugh?
Do you play?
And of course,
spiritual connection
or a sense of purpose.
And so this exercise--
and we did it yesterday,
and I'm not going
to do it today,
because I want to have
some time for Q and A.
But what this exercise does
is and what we did yesterday
is just sitting and
asking yourself questions.
Do I feel rested?
Do I get enough sleep at night?
Do I eat healthy food?
Do I move?
How are my relationship to
my family and my community?
And on and on.
And what you do is
you kind of do it
from struggling to thriving.
And what it did for
me is it broke down
this feeling of just
feeling overwhelmed to say,
OK, I'm actually
pretty OK when it
comes to moving and sleeping.
I'm OK when it comes
to relationships.
For me, I realized I have a bad
time in my life between work
and my family.
I had zero intellectual
stimulation, zero creativity.
I had stopped reading books
and poetry, the things that
had fed my soul,
because I was too busy.
But of course I had enough time
to surf Facebook at the time.
And it just gave me insight
in terms of my behavior
and how I was feeding my soul.
And this is, again,
the beginning of--
someone asked a great
question yesterday,
because when people were
sharing their experiences,
not many people were, like,
talking about solutions.
And, again, I think
that goes back
to the difference between
intention and goal-setting.
It begins with first
knowing where you are.
And just by asking
questions, you
begin to plant the seeds of
seeing where you need shifts.
And so that's the thing.
Intention to action
starts to naturally happen
as you ask these
deeper questions.
The next letter is T, trust.
This is a hard one for me,
which is trusting my intuition.
Trusting that, when I ask
myself certain things,
trusting the answer.
So for me, the big struggle
at this time in my life,
at that time, was should
I be working and launching
a company, or should I
be at home with my kids?
And obviously there was
some balance in between,
but I felt so much pressure in
terms of investors and what I
was doing on a corporate--
in my own company level--
and then just wanting to
be a mom, which, you know,
had been my lifelong dream.
And, again, I feel like
when I asked this question,
I'd always be kind of
feeling a lot of guilt
about not being there for
my daughter's, you know,
second-grade
whatever musical play
or not being there to
present to my investors.
And so, for me, this part of
the trust, trusting that when
you ask yourself a question
that you're not intellectually
trying to justify the question,
but you're really listening
to the whispers of your soul.
And I believe that
trust comes again
when we feel more
connected to spirit.
So it goes back to the
incubation and the noticing
and just kind of
learning how to listen.
E is for express.
So I am a very big
believer that there
comes a time when
you need to say
what you want, to express it.
So my company, Intent, started
out as Twitter with a purpose,
where people would just state
their intents all day long.
And others would support
them and like them,
and we built community
around intention.
But what expression
does, an expression
you can be writing it down, it
can be sharing it with someone.
But what expression
does, it's actually
the step of planting the seed.
It's saying, you know what,
this is important to me.
I take responsibility for it.
And I'm going to put
energy into it as well.
So, you know, intention
and attention.
And so expression
is really the time
when we start to really
express our intents.
We may want to share them with
someone that we love or just
with random people.
Because when we start
to share our intentions,
then we also get validation.
We get help.
And this was an exercise--
I think we did a little
bit of it yesterday.
But this part of like
mind maps and things
to really express what we want.
N, the next N, is nurture.
So nurture is, again,
being gentle with yourself.
It's part of the messy journey.
So it's letting go of
guilt. The big one here
is asking for help, because a
lot of people don't reach out.
They don't ask for help.
It's also about self-care.
I speak at many
women's conferences,
and usually many
women are taking
care of elders and
younger people,
and they're not taking
care of themselves.
And if we don't
care of ourselves,
we can't take care of others.
So nurturing is not just about
nurturing spirit and intention.
It's actually practically
taking care of yourself
and asking for help.
Now here is when we
get to taking action.
So I do believe very
strongly that, at some point,
it's a time for goal-setting.
But when we set goals,
knowing why we have set them,
what they're feeding us,
going through the process
of incubation and noticing and,
you know, all of the steps.
Then when we set
the goals, they're
really aligned with our
values and our dream.
And so, for me, I take action.
And I talk in one of the
books about smart goals.
I mean, there's lots of
research on goal-setting,
but I'm not a believer in, oh,
you just state what you want,
and it happens.
And I think it's a process,
and it's an active process.
And that really is what
living with intent is about.
And so I'll just share
this, and then we'll
go into a meditation.
But, you know, yesterday we
did the "what makes me happy"
exercise, and this, for
me, are some of the things
that I put in there.
But the reason I
share it is, you think
about what makes you happy.
But then what I did in
this exercise-- again,
luckily guided by my father--
is I started connecting
random things.
So I connected good food,
travel, family, and music.
And I planned a
trip to Vancouver
with my family to go hear Adele.
It was a totally random thing.
I connected reading
good books and friends,
because, again, I had
really lost connection
with my friends, and
we started a book club,
where we try to meet
every once or two months.
We pick a book.
Basically, when
we meet, nobody's
had time to read
the book, but we
feel really good that we
made the intention to.
We get a bottle of wine, we sit,
and we chat, and we catch up.
And it's been such an
amazing experience,
and I have read a few
books along the way.
So what I'd like to
do now is actually
do a meditation together.
For some of you, this will
be the same meditation
that we did yesterday.
And I think that that's OK,
and I want to stress that,
because I was
telling Bess that we
did the meditation in the
morning and the afternoon.
And I was like, should
I do the same thing?
But part of it is habit-making.
And so we'll do a
short meditation.
It won't be a long
one, but I'm going
to teach you a basic
mantra-based meditation.
We'll do this meditation.
I'll explain what we're doing.
At the end of the
meditation, I'm
going to ask some questions.
So really this
meditation incorporates
kind of the mindfulness,
the mantra-based meditation,
and then self-reflection.
And so after we
do that, I'll just
share another quick
story about my meeting
with Eckhart Tolle, which
I did as a TEDx Talk.
And then maybe we'll have
some time for questions, OK?
So-- and maybe before I put
this off, I'll just read this.
Because in the Upanishads,
it says, "You are
what your deepest desire is.
As is your desire,
so is your intent.
As is your intent,
so is your will--"
what you're willing to do.
"As is your will,
so is your deed."
That's what you act upon.
And then, "As is your
deed, so is your destiny."
So we have, of course, a concept
of dharma and purpose in life,
and I'll talk about that
in the Eckhart Tolle story.
But it really begins with being
very honest about your deepest
desires.
So and these, by the
way, are my kids books.
So I'm going to put this off.
And I'm going to just explain
this very simple meditation
that we're doing.
It's a mantra-based meditation.
So mantra is a Sanskrit word.
"Man" is the root for mind.
"Tra" is the root
for instrument.
So a mantra in Sanskrit means
and an instrument of the mind.
So in this meditation, we
use a primordial sound--
mantra.
Now, a primordial sound you
can think of as the sounds
of the universe.
So think of the sound
of a wave hitting
the beach, the breeze going
through the trees, the sound
of children's laughter.
There are sounds that
stimulate our physiology
in different ways.
So there is a rich tradition
of mantras, some mantras which
have specific intention
but other mantras
where really the use of the
mantra is to settle the mind.
So we are going to use the
mantra, "I am. " Simple.
"I am."
And "I am" is similar to "om."
"I am" is the infinite
to the finite.
So I am.
Om.
Um.
Mama.
Amen.
Abraham.
You find similar sounds across
cultures around the world.
And so we're just
going to use "I am."
For some people,
if you want to use
"uh hum" or your own mantra,
go ahead and do that.
But "I am" is an easy
mantra to remember.
So in primordial-sound
meditation,
what we're going to do
is, in your head mentally,
you will just repeat the
words "I am," "I am," "I am."
What will happen after saying
it five, maybe 10 times,
your mind will begin to wander.
And so you'll think I have
to go to the bathroom, what
are we going to do for dinner.
And that's how our
mind works, and it's
completely normal and natural.
So one thought usually triggers
another thought triggers
another thought triggers
another thought,
and that's how our mind works.
And there's a whole
mechanics by which, you know,
that memory leads
to desire which
leads to action which leads to
kind of this thought process.
So, you know, I think
I'm feeling tired.
Maybe I'll have a cup of coffee.
Maybe I'll have a cookie.
I shouldn't have a cookie.
You know, I have to go and
make something when I go home.
And so, you know, one thought
triggers another thought.
What we're doing in
this meditation is,
we're introducing the
sound to just break
the cycle of thoughts.
So it will be thought, thought,
thought, thought, mantra,
I am, I am, I am.
And then thought, thought,
thought again, distraction,
I am, I am, I am.
And what happens is, as
we introduce the thought,
we slow down thoughts,
but more importantly, we
start to experience the
space between thought.
We start to experience the
one who is having the thought.
So even as you're
listening to me,
just pay attention to
the one who's listening.
There is a silent
awareness there
that is different from
your racing thoughts,
from your discrimination of do
I understand what she is saying,
do I agree with it, do I not,
from all the other thoughts
that you have.
There is that presence there.
And so what we're just
doing in this meditation
is we're starting to expand
the space between thoughts.
OK?
For those who fall asleep
regularly, no rocket science.
You're not getting
enough sleep, so you
look at your sleep patterns.
And, you know, that's
often a question
I get is, like, every time I
try to meditate, I fall asleep.
My point is, then you need
sleep more, basically.
So in this, it's really a
state of restful awareness.
So what we're going
to do is, I'm first
going to take you through a
very quick body awareness.
Then we'll shift into
the "I am" meditation
just for a few minutes,
just to get quiet.
And then what I'm going to
do is ask you four questions.
When I ask the questions,
don't feel the urgent need
to intellectually answer
or justify the questions.
Just experience the answers.
Just experience it.
Thoughts may come up.
Random ideas may come up.
But this is the
process of listening
to the whispers of your soul.
So when I ask the questions,
just experience the answers,
and then I'll bring us
out of the meditation.
OK?
So first of all sit comfortably
if you have pens, papers,
computers, just put them away.
And the first thing in a
mantra-based meditation
is just to be comfortable,
because if you're not
physically comfortable,
you're going
to be thinking the whole
time about how you're not
comfortable.
And so if during the
meditation, you also
feel like you need
move, go ahead and move.
You know, that's OK,
because that will just
take away that distraction.
So be physically comfortable.
We recommend closing your eyes.
And, again, especially
when working with kids,
we always give kids
permission to close their eyes
or not close their eyes.
You only close your eyes if
you feel safe and comfortable.
So if you feel safe and
comfortable, close your eyes.
And what closing
our eyes does is,
it just takes away
another distraction
from the environment.
So close your eyes.
And to begin, just
take a deep breath.
In and out.
And another breath.
In and out.
Now we'll just begin by putting
our attention on our feet,
thinking about the
grounding earth beneath us
and just honoring that space,
that earth that nurtures us.
Now you can put your attention
on your feet, on your ankles,
and just shift your
attention to that area,
taking a deep breath in and out.
We're going to just shift
up your legs to basically
your seated position.
Noticing the power of
just shifting attention
from one part of the
body and that choice
that you can make, the real you.
So focusing on how
you're sitting,
your posture, just
take a deep breath.
In and out.
Now move to your stomach.
And another breath.
In and out.
Recognizing that it's
often in our stomach
and our digestion
where we posses
a lot of stress and emotion.
Move up to your heart.
And again a breath.
In and out.
We'll now just move
up to the senses.
So as you breathe in
through your nostrils,
just feeling the power of
bringing oxygen in and out.
Even with your eyes closed,
the power of seeing,
the power of sound
and hearing, taste.
You can shift your attention now
to your third eye, that space
in between your eyebrows.
And again take a deep breath.
In and out.
Move up to the top of your head.
And as we take another
breath or two in and out,
I want you to pay attention
to the space between your head
and the roof above.
So take a breath in and out.
And now with this next
breath, shift your attention
to the infinite space above the
roof in the building above up
into the skies and the
infinity of the universe.
Now keeping your
eyes closed, we're
going to shift to the mantra
part of the meditation.
So in your head mentally
repeat the words, I am.
I am.
I am.
And as you repeat
the words, they
mean come at a different place
or sound louder or slower.
Whatever happens is natural.
And when your
attention drifts away
from the sound, which
it probably will, just
come back to the words, I am.
I am.
And just going to sit
quietly for a minute or so.
Now keeping your
eyes closed, you
can stop repeating the
words, I am, and just take
another breath.
In and out.
And with your eyes closed, I
want you to just experience
whatever answers may bubble
up as I ask the next four
questions.
Who am I?
Who am I?
What do I want?
What do I want?
How can I serve?
How can I serve?
Shift your attention to
your heart and think,
what am I grateful for today?
What am I grateful for today?
So with your eyes closed,
take a deep breath.
In and out.
Letting go of any
sensations, images,
feelings, thoughts
that may have arisen.
And with the last
breath, in and out.
Whenever you are ready,
gently open your eyes.
So as people come out
of the meditation,
I'm going to end with a
really quick story, which
is about my meeting with
Eckhart Tolle for my book.
So I had-- when I decided
to write this book,
I thought Eckhart Tolle would
be an amazing person to talk to.
For those of you who are
not familiar with him,
he is a great teacher.
He wrote a book called
The Power of Now.
Oprah became his big champion.
And so-- and he talks
about intention,
so it would be an honor
to reach out to him.
And so I think it
was around June,
and I reached out to his office.
And they said, oh, sure.
He doesn't do personal
meetings, but he
is a fan of your dad's,
so he'll meet you.
And so they said, let's meet
in February in San Francisco.
So this is June, and
I had till February
to prepare for this meeting.
And so I ended up
reading all of his books,
watching his YouTube
videos, really
preparing for this very
important anchor interview
for my book.
The day in February
finally came,
and I woke up that morning
with the worst allergies
I've ever had in my life.
I was sneezing,
my throat was dry.
If it was the virus right
now, I wouldn't have traveled.
But at that time, I decided,
you know what, I can either
cancel the meeting, which
would be a disaster,
or I'm just going to stuff
myself up with cold medicine
and drink a lot of coffee,
so that's what I did.
So it's about 5:00
in the morning.
I was catching an
early-morning flight.
And when I checked
my phone, there
was a text message
from my father,
and the text message said,
good luck with that interview.
Remember he is
always in the now.
So I was like, what
does that mean?
So I was like, OK, whatever.
And I got ready, and I went to
the airport, got on my flight.
You know, by now, the
medicine had kicked in,
and I landed in San Francisco.
And, again, the first text
message from the phone
was my father, in the
now with a smiley face.
[LAUGHTER]
Whatever.
I went to the hotel.
In the lobby was
Eckhart's assistant.
And you know, at this point,
the medicine had kicked in,
so I was feeling pretty
good and confident.
And so I met his
assistant, and he said,
thank you so much for coming.
Eckhart's such a believer
in the power of intention.
He's such a big
fan of your dad's.
I just need to let you know,
though, that his schedule has
changed, and so
he's just gonna have
15 minutes to meet with you.
So for me, who
had been preparing
for nine months for this
anchor interview for my book,
suddenly my heart
started beating,
my hands started sweating.
I started feeling
fuzzy in the head,
and again my allergies
started acting up
because the stress response.
And so I started to freak out,
but I didn't show him that.
And I said, oh,
thank you so much.
That's so sweet of you.
We're going up in the elevator,
and another text message
from my dad, in the now.
And at this point,
I'm like, shut up,
and I put the phone off.
[LAUGHTER]
And go up the elevator,
we reach Eckhart's room.
Knock on the door.
And so I'm kind of freaking
out physically again.
And as Eckhart
opens the door, he
has the most beautiful presence.
He actually reminded
me of my grandfather.
So suddenly I'm totally
relaxed, and I'm like,
you know what, this is fine.
I am so lucky just
to have this time.
We go in.
And you know, I'm very
cognizant of the time,
so I have my phone by me.
And I try to make the
intro as quick as possible.
So honored to be here.
Thank you for
meeting, et cetera.
And, you know, it takes
about five minutes
for the formalities
to go back and forth.
And then, finally, I say,
I'm writing this book.
And he says, you know, the power
of intention-- or intention
is the most powerful
force in the universe.
And so I am sitting there with
my notebook, my pen in hand,
leaning forward, ready for
the secrets of the universe
to finally be revealed to me.
And then he stops.
And I'm like, uh, OK.
And he says, do you
hear those bells?
So I was like, what?
And I hear there are some
church bells in the distance.
So I'm like, yeah.
And he says, you
know, those bells
remind me of when I was
young and I lived in--
I think it was Germany--
and I had an office,
and the bells
would ring in the
background, and those bells
are reminding me of that time.
So I was like, OK.
So what?
Tell me about intention.
And he says, you know what,
let's just listen to the bells.
So of course, I
was like, oh, OK.
And we were sitting there, and
these church bells are ringing.
And I'm sitting with
Eckhart Tolle in a hotel
room in San Francisco.
And the bells are
ringing and ringing,
and I peek at my phone.
We're at 9 minutes, 10 minutes.
And these bells,
it must have been
12 o'clock, because the bells
just wouldn't stop ringing.
And so, finally, I
remember very clearly
having this very
goal-oriented mission
and sitting with Eckhart
Tolle, listening to bells,
and suddenly being like,
you know what, I've got
to let go and just be here now.
And I had this real transition
from a physical, fight-flight
sphere reaction to just
being present and suddenly
being really clear and
happy and connected
and listening to the
bells with Eckhart Tolle.
And the next thing I knew,
there was a knock on the door.
Our 15 minutes were up.
I hadn't even got one
answer to the question.
I put my hands together
to thank him and leave.
And he said, no,
no, no, Mallika.
Sit down.
And he spent an hour and
a half with me talking
about intention and
purpose and egoic intents
and non-egoic intents
and really gave me
his full time and attention.
It was beautiful.
And at one point-- and that's
what I'll end with here.
I said to him, you know,
I grew up in a family
where we were asked
constantly, how can I serve,
and that this concept of
dharma and our unique purpose
and our unique talents.
And, honestly, that
stresses me out,
because I don't know, like--
I don't know what my purpose is.
I said, I've been able to
write, but ultimately I'm
a soccer mom.
I'm driving my kids from
one after-school activity
to another.
And I just feel like
I'm not good enough,
like I'm not serving enough.
And Eckhart said something
to me which was so beautiful.
He said, you know, Mallika,
never underestimate the role
that you are playing.
So if you are a soccer
mom, do that with love,
with kindness, with
gratitude, with presence.
It's the frequency holders in
this world who are increasing
the frequency of this planet.
And so in being a soccer
mom, do that with intention,
and then you will truly
be living with intent.
So with that, I'd like to
thank everyone for being here.
And thank you for letting me
return to Brown, basically.
[APPLAUSE]
So I know Harold's
looking at the time.
I decided to fly back
to Boston tonight,
so I do have a car that's going
to take me to the airport,
but if anyone has
a few questions,
I'm happy for the
next few minutes
if there are any kind
of pressing questions
that anyone wants to ask.
I went a little over, but I
wanted to do the meditation.
Yeah.
Here you can just.
AUDIENCE: I mean, there's
just so many thoughts.
It's so fruitful, et cetera.
I think part of connecting
and with the discernment
and quieting is to get
into the synchronicity
and see what the
universe is telling us.
I'm just a big believer
that it's there
if we can just quiet down.
And one of the things
recently I'm realizing,
too, is it's not always what
we think of as positive.
We want to always--
like sometimes we say,
no, universe, you're
not putting me through that.
But you went through
it, and then you go--
you're just absolutely
flabbergasted.
I had to go through that to get
to get to higher consciousness.
So, I mean, what are your
thoughts just on discernment,
and how do we stop the chatter
and see where the universe "I
am" is leading us?
MALLIKA CHOPRA: It's
such a good question.
And especially in times of
extreme suffering, you know,
we can't--
just the basis of this lecture
of someone losing a child.
And, sadly, in our community,
we lost a child a week ago.
And so, you know,
there is no kind
of intellectual, even
spiritual solution
to why did that happen.
I think my only--
my only-- the way in which I
get through that is the trust.
So just trusting the practice,
trusting the connection
to silence, and trusting
that those seeds that come up
will lead to something.
And then, of course--
because it's the
meaningful coincidences,
which is the universe
telling you what to do next.
But I think we go
through dark times.
That's why it's my
messy journey, you know.
And that's why the
second book that I
wrote for kids is on just feel.
And so much of that
is about accepting
the difficult emotions and how
do we get through those times,
because we need resilience
and grit to just survive.
Anything else?
All right.
Well, I know it's,
what, Monday evening.
So thank you again
for just coming out,
and I'm so grateful to be here.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
