Waking Up to Reality Directly

 

By Deepak Chopra, MD

Many, perhaps most, people would like to change their lives. They’d like the good parts to get better and the bad parts to go away. How you define these good and bad parts are entirely individual, reflecting the infinite diversity of human life. But consider yourself and take stock of where you are now. No one can do this realistically without wanting something to change. Yet after a certain point most people realize that change is difficult, and the path to finding a better life is twisted and rocky. A certain percentage will simply decide that “people don’t change” is a fact of life. If you are a hard realist, you give up trying to change yourself, much less anyone else.

 

With this background, it seems strange that so many people hold out the goal of total transformation, and in fact every spiritual tradition supports this, whether through redemption, salvation, the promise of heaven, enlightenment, or Nirvana. Total transformation goes far beyond making some changes in your life. If limited change is difficult, isn’t it folly to hold out for complete change?

 

Yes and no. The way that people struggle to break bad habits, improve their relationships, stop feeling anxious and insecure, and hoping to stay afloat financially is where change often proves futile. The mind struggling with itself can’t help but wind up with more struggle. In the world’s wisdom traditions, there is also a deep analysis of the ego, the isolated individual “I,” which by its nature is constantly presenting demands that never get satisfied, not to mention that the isolated “I” is by its very nature small and insecure. So relying on your ego or the restless mind doesn’t lead to meaningful personal change.

 

Total transformation must be on a different basis, then. It isn’t something that happens to “I, me, or mine.” Instead, the level of change takes place in your experience of simply being here. Nothing is more fundamental, and if you trace your dissatisfaction, insecurity, fear, and lack of fulfillment to its root, you strip away layer after layer of built-up beliefs, memories, and old conditioning. That sounds like heavy work, but in fact everyone experiences moments of simply being here when life is satisfying because the mind is still and the ego isn’t rattling its cage. Babies and small children bring a wistful smile to our lips because they seem to exist in a simple, contented state much of the time.

 

Babies will grow up to face a more complicated life, of course, but even so, there is something about the simplicity of existence that can persist throughout life, except that in adults it must be found once more. Existence has become buried and obscured by all kinds of baggage. Again going back to the world’s wisdom traditions, “baggage” means the constructs of the mind, which navigates the world with mental constructs, ideas, assumptions, beliefs, etc. It’s as if we only feel real when surrounded by a cloud of mental stuff, including the ghosts from our past and the fantasy projections of the future.

 

Taking altogether this burden of mental baggage, life’s accumulated problems, demands, and duties, plus ingrained habits and beliefs, one can see why a small cadre of people throughout history have renounced everything, walked away, and taken up a lifelong project of trying to free themselves—they opt for total transformation like opting for radical surgery. Or to switch images, rather than trying to peel off a clinging octopus one tentacle at a time, which never works, they want a way to throw off the entire creature once and for all.

 

This tradition of renouncing and walking away isn’t practical for the multitude of people, nor is a lifelong pursuit of liberation. But there are guides and teachers who declare that getting free can happen another way, a way that is more direct and even immediate. This “direct path,” as it is sometimes called, is appealing because of its simplicity. The major insight of the direct path is that the condition of liberation is always available here and now; it doesn’t involve struggle but instead a shift of perception.

 

This shift involves existence itself. Each of us is aware that we exist, and this fact is something we know that we know. To use a popular metaphor in the direct path, existence is like a movie screen on which all the inner and outer events of life are projected. The images flicker and change, but the screen remains the same. However, in the case of human awareness, the “screen” and the “images” are made of the same stuff—pure consciousness endlessly modifying and transforming itself. This is a hard point to get across, because we assume several things about ourselves that aren’t true but which stubbornly persist.

 

We assume that the physical world “out there” is separate from the subjective world “in here.” We assume that the three-dimensional picture our brain is giving us is an actual, separately existing reality. We assume that “I” is a speck of awareness isolated and separate from the world and other people. Undoing these assumptions comes naturally once a person experientially steps out of them, not by arguing and persuading someone that they are unreal. So we can set aside for the moment the whole thorny business of the mind’s illusions.

 

Instead, the direct path goes to the things everyone can agree upon, with the proviso that reality is defined by what we experience and what we know, not by our habits of mind and ingrained beliefs. Here are somethings everyone agrees upon when presented with them.

 

  1. As already mentioned, we are aware of existing, and we know we exist.
  2. No one knows where thoughts come from, only that they rise and fall in awareness. In addition, no one can predict what their next thought will be.
  3. No one can predict what will happen to them with any certainty. The next moment could bring anything, large or small. Yes, we all live by routines, which give orderliness to or lives, but these routines are manmade. Step out of them and life becomes radically unpredictable.
  4. We cannot tell if the next thought or event will be trivial or momentous, a repetition of old thoughts or something new and insightful.
  5. Therefore, having a fixed viewpoint about how our mind works and how the world works is pointless and illusory. This is why struggling with the mind never works.
  6. If you stop trying to figure out your mind and the world and life itself, what is left is an open field of possibilities. The reason we envy childhood innocence and call it wise is that children naturally exist in this open field of possibilities.
  7. A possibility isn’t a thought, image, feeling, or sensation. It is existence unadorned by mental constructs. In an authentic way, this field is the only real thing.
  8. Because you are conscious, you are participating in the field of consciousness, even while doing nothing. Even in deep sleep your fundamental existence hasn’t gone away or turned to nothing. In fact, deep sleep is so enjoyable because we return to the most real thing in life, being immersed in the field of consciousness.
  9. It isn’t necessary to be aware of anything. The most authentic state is simply awareness, without any content, baggage, or constructs.
  10. To be open, aware, and present is an ordinary experience that everyone has every day, only we don’t give it much value because we identify with the contents of the mind and the baggage of our lives all the time.
  11. By making a shift toward the simple state of being aware, we reach the goal of a life that is fulfilling in and of itself. There is nothing to seek, no improvements to make. Awareness must first be secured, and from this starting point, all change is put into the proper perspective. The play of consciousness is witnessed and accepted as a natural thing. But instead of losing ourselves in change, we stand in a secure state of awareness, from which change is no longer threatening or enticing. Change is consciousness modifying itself in infinite ways; non-change is consciousness before it manifests into something we can see, hear, touch, taste, smell, or think about.

 

If you jump to the last point too fast, it seems like philosophy, and few people would agree with it. It is necessary, in the direct path, to go one step at a time, agreeing that the early points are part of your experience and only then moving on. The bigger picture is impossible to accept at first glance, because the bigger picture is that everything in existence consists of consciousness endlessly modifying itself. No one can accept this who stays with the assumption that the physical world “out there” is the basis of reality.

 

The bigger picture also says that you and I are consciousness and nothing else, our physical bodies being no more than generic experiences on the order of experiencing a mountain, tree, or cloud. No one will accept this who believes that the body, and especially the brain, is a special, unique creation existing apart from other objects.

 

Finally, the bigger picture holds that consciousness is inconceivable, even though everything we can think, feel, or know comes from it.  No one will accept this who believes that neuroscience will one day explain how consciousness arose from brain tissue. The reason consciousness is inconceivable is twofold: first, to “conceive” means to create a concept about something, a model or blueprint that shows clear outlines and contents. Consciousness cannot be reduced to a model or blueprint because it is everything, and everything has no limits, borders, or outlines.

 

Second, consciousness is inconceivable because the mind that tries to grasp it is made of nothing but consciousness. The individual mind pretends that it can stand somewhere apart from the infinite field of consciousness, but this is an illusion, like a wave pretending that it is standing apart from the ocean.

 

In the end, the direct path holds out the key to total transformation because there is no struggle to try and change. Instead, there is a shift of identity, away from the ego-personality that exists in the illusion of separation and toward the simplest state of awareness. The one is the end product of centuries of struggle and futility, the other is a return to the basis of reality. In that return lies the end of struggle. What unfolds next is known only to the infinite field of consciousness.

 

 

 

Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing and Jiyo.com, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology, and Metabolism. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, and Clinical Professor at UCSD School of Medicine. Chopra is the author of more than 85 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers along with You Are the Universe (February 2017, Harmony) co-written with leading physicist, Menas Kafatos. Other recent books include Super Genes co-authored with Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D., and Quantum Healing (Revised and Updated): Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicinewww.deepakchopra.com 

Creating Your Own Enlightenment

By Deepak Chopra, MD

To be enlightened has many positive connotations and no negative ones. Therefore, you’d think that more people would pursue it—but they don’t. The first obstacle is the lack of a clear definition. What does it actually mean to be enlightened? The simplest definition, which would clear away a lot of confusion is “waking up.” To become enlightened is to move out of a state of confusion and conflict, anxiety and depression, or simply dull routine—whatever you associate with “being asleep.”

Waking up is a metaphor, since most people already consider themselves awake in the ordinary sense of not being asleep in bed. But it’s a powerful metaphor, pointing toward a state of awareness better than what we usually experience. Also, the metaphor is simple. It implies that you don’t have to be a monk sitting in a Himalayan cave practicing intense spiritual practices. Waking up sounds a lot like enlightenment for all. This in fact is true.

Or potentially true. What stands in the way is the second obstacle, which can be called your story. Everyone has their own story, and a huge amount of time, effort, emotion, and commitment is spent defending it. Your story is the foundation of “I,” your identity. Since you were born, “I” has been acquiring all kinds of qualities and characteristics. Call them tags just to keep things simple. In my own case, the tags include the following; Indian, male, husband, father, grandfather, doctor, financially secure, writer, and so on.

These tags belong to my story and to my identity. By defending my story, I keep my identity intact. Take away some part of my story, and if it matters enough, my identity will be attacked or undermined. People fear this more than almost anything in their lives. When a story is disrupted by a major event such as divorce, serious illness, or bankruptcy, an inner crisis usually occurs. Because they fear disruption, people don’t look beyond their story, even when they know they should and deeply want to. A wife trapped in domestic violence, a kid being bullied, a worker terminally bored in a bad job. None is happy with how their story is going, but quite often it’s easier to play out a story than to attempt to disrupt and change it.

Enlightenment lies outside your story; it consists of waking up to new possibilities, including the possibility of an “I” that isn’t defined by your story. This sounds at once enticing and fearful. Think of the image of a wandering Buddhist monk begging for food and sleeping at night in a temple. Would you exchange your life for his if you were promised enlightenment? Very few westerners would, even if their personal story made them totally miserable. On the face of it, fearing enlightenment is totally irrational. It’s like being offered freedom and refusing because you are used to being in jail.

Yet in one way or another, almost everyone prefers defending their story in place of seeking a higher state of consciousness. They’d rather be trapped, burdened, unfulfilled, maybe anxious and depressed—all the marks of being asleep. Yet the world’s wisdom traditions teach that waking up is natural and nothing to fear. The process isn’t mystical. To be awake is simply to be real, to look around and accept reality as it is, and to trust that reality is better than illusion. So how does a person trigger the waking up process?

The path to enlightenment is so personal that there’s no fixed template. You can follow a map to Arizona or even a map to getting into college, becoming a success on Wall Street, or learning to win friends and influence people. But every map keeps you inside your story. At best you can upgrade your story, but ironically, the upgrade will only solidify the “I” defined by success on Wall Street or having a lot of friends. This tells us that enlightenment doesn’t’ consist of anything about your present story. Nothing you do to make your story better or worse matters in the end, not as it relates to waking up.

Instead, you shift your identity by aligning with the reality that shows the way to a new inner life, for “I” is being defended on the inside. What does reality say that will alter how you see the world, and yourself, from the inside? Here “reality” means the waking state as described by those who are already awake. For short, we can define “those who are awake” as the tradition of saints, sages, and spiritual guides, including poets and writers of scripture, in every culture. Winnow out the essence of what they say, and here’s how waking up worked for them.

  1. You discover that there is more to life than your limited story.
  2. You realize that stories are simply human constructs. As such, they are arbitrary, flimsy, insecure, and disconnected from reality.
  3. If you examine your story and allow its false constructs to fall away, you automatically become more real. When every manmade illusion is gone, you are completely real.
  4. To dismantle a story is the same as dismantling the “I” who is defending the story with all its might and main. Therefore, the dismantling must be accompanied by something that “I” considers better. Giving up something precious only happens if you are getting something more precious in return.
  5. There is nothing outward in the physical world that is precious enough to replace your story and the “I” that defends it. Only something “in here” could be more precious, not to mention permanent, since external things, people, and events all come and go. They are temporary and transient.
  6. At first glance, the inner world is even more temporary and transient, because the restless mind is continually filled with the rise and fall of sensations, images, feelings, and thoughts. The mind, in fact, would seem to be a worse place to find security than in externals like money, career, status, a happy family life, etc. This attitude helps to keep people trapped in their stories, hoping all the time that by upgrading the story, security and happiness will be achieved.
  7. Yet waking up doesn’t consist of conquering the restless mind, trying to force it into peace and quiet. Nothing about the restless mind or the movie of your life that emerges from your mental activity, makes a difference in the end. What makes a difference is to find a level of awareness that is already awake.
  8. Having found this level, you only need to identify with it, because you discover  that the “I” of being awake is actually more enjoyable, secure, peaceful, fulfilled, creative, loving, and evolved than the “I” which is struggling to defend its story year after year, a story it knows is jerry-rigged to begin with and not all that great to experience.
  9. To begin to identify with a deeper level of the mind, you must experience it. We all have, but on an irregular basis. Whenever you feel love, fulfillment, contentment, beauty, inspiration, or an expanded sense of self, you have stepped into a new identity by stepping into a new state of awareness. To maintain these moments of being awake isn’t possible—they come and go.
  10. However, it is possible to practice meditation, which takes you to the level of wakefulness without any distractions. In one way or another, the waking state and the meditative state must be the same. This is the only path to being awake all the time, completely free from your story and yet also free from the fearful need that without your story, you will wind up in deep trouble.

These steps indicate how to create your own enlightenment, and if they seem reasonable and clear to you, the last step, being awake and in a meditative state all the time, is possible to achieve. It may come as a shock to realize that you can only meditate by being awake 24 hours a day, but that’s the inevitable conclusion. In the next post we’ll discuss how to get there from here, which is the essence of the spiritual journey.

 

Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing and Jiyo.com, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism.  He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and Clinical Professor at UCSD School of Medicine. Chopra is the author of more than 85 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers along with You Are the Universe (February 2017, Harmony) co-written with leading physicist, Menas Kafatos.  Other recent  books  include Super Genes co-authored with Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D. and  Quantum Healing (Revised and Updated): Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicinewww.deepakchopra.com 

How to Manage Your Own Evolution

 


Human beings are the only living creatures who can manage their own evolution. We can decide to progress and grow or to devolve and ultimately destroy ourselves. This isn’t a Darwinian proposition. Darwin’s theory of evolution is based on the struggle for survival where two factors dominate: being able to mate and to find enough food. Homo sapiens escaped those factors (for the most part) in recent times. Our evolution moved from primitive survival needs into the realm of consciousness.

This turns out to be the most fascinating aspect of being human, and not just in the abstract. Current planetary crises, from climate change to famine, epidemic disease, and overpopulation, starkly inform us that we are not managing our evolution well. A rogue state like North Korea holds up a mirror to our propensity for irrational violence and self-destruction. In short, managing our evolution means that we must learn a new way to manage consciousness. How did we get here and what can the individual do about it?

One entry point is to look at consciousness a new way. In some form, all living things have evolved, not just physically, but in terms of consciousness. We are surrounded by other species of consciousness, and this fact is all-important when considering our own future. Take the presence of sunlight striking the Earth. Primitive one-celled creatures early on developed the ability to move toward the light, which holds true for both plants and animals. Finding the light is a function of life, and with every function, evolution invents new forms. Certain one-celled animals developed hair-like cilia, for example, that move rhythmically like oars to propel them to the light. Sunflowers adapted to face the sun as it moves across the sky. In tropical forests vines developed the ability to wind their way up trees to grab their ration of sunlight.

Evolutionists are physically minded, so they would assert that these ingenious forms are what is most important in carrying out the function of reaching the light. But the impulse that lies behind form and function is just as important. In an amazing way, this impulse can be turned upside down, so that blind cavefish need no light, and therefore they can dispense with functioning eyesight. Similarly, at the depths of the ocean are myriad creatures, including some species of shark that never see any light. Seeking the darkness can be an evolutionary impulse.

What this tells me is that without considering the species of consciousness, we will never fully understand evolution. It’s ironic that human beings claim a patent on higher consciousness. We feel singular and unique in our ability to reason, invent, discover, ponder, and create. But this has created a blind spot. We didn’t see, until very recently, the infinite diversity of mind that is part of all living things.

Other species of consciousness exist in a world totally unlike ours. We cannot conceive of what it is like to use a bat’s sonar or the signaling of humpback whales across hundreds of miles. We cannot orient ourselves in the ocean using sensitive depth sensors the way fish do, or migrate thousands of miles with unerring certainty the way birds and monarch butterflies do. Yes, we can observe the form and function that marks other species of consciousness by examining genes, brain tissue, and all manner of behavior in so-called lower creatures. But if you stand back, every species of consciousness is on its own evolutionary track and has evolved holistically.

The eagle has an eyeball larger than a human’s, and this enables it to see small prey from hundreds of feet in the air. A specific from (oversized eye) is linked to a specific function (hunting for food). But an eagle also constitutes the entire history of birds, the development of feathers, the appetite for meat or vegetation as food, and dozens of other adaptations that constitute its unique eagle-ness. Hummingbirds made completely different adaptations, following their own species of consciousness.

Let’s say that we can accept for the moment that the mental and physical side of evolution are totally necessary and complementary. This isn’t Darwinism, nor does it pretend to be. But several important ideas flow from giving consciousness a place at the evolutionary table (I would give it pride of place, but that’s an argument for another day). The first idea that flows from accepting consciousness is actually a question: What is consciousness trying to accomplish? If we can answer that, we’d know what the future holds, for if you see the goal in advance, you can manage the pace and direction of evolution.

The evidence, as we gaze around the Earth’s biosphere, is that consciousness possesses certain basic traits. It is creative. It works intimately with form and function, meaning that it is involved in how creatures develop their physical structure and behavior. Consciousness is also self-correcting. It knows how to experiment and use feedback to move away from useless adaptations. From these basic traits, which can found even in primitive one-celled organisms, a flood of other traits follow. In fact, being the only creatures (we assume) who can think about evolution, it’s fair to say that whatever makes us human is imbedded in the fabric of consciousness, not just creativity but intelligence, love, a desire to expand and grow, and self-reflection.

In a new book I am drafting now, called Meta-Human, I propose with complete conviction that the evolution of consciousness will determine the future of Homo sapiens. Everything this implies is crucial for each person, not just our species. Here the relevant points:

1. Finding a new story for ourselves and the planet. In this new story, cooperation, compassion, non-violence, and care for the environment will become totally necessary.

2. Relying on creativity over destructiveness.

3. Giving consciousness a primary place in education.

4. Developing a worldview that turns away from materialism and technology as the prime movers of society. Technology is a necessary part of the solution, but we must

minimize its destructive side and direct a future technology for a more just, sustainable, healthy and peaceful world.

5. In place of externals as the measure of progress (e.g., more money, more advanced weapons, power of the strong over the weak), inner values become the true mark of evolution (e.g., self-awareness, inner fulfilment, spirituality).

6. Higher consciousness must be accepted as real and desirable.

7. Fundamental reality must be couched in terms of consciousness creating and evolving within itself. In human terms, this means accepting that we live in a human universe entirely created by constructs and stories we project on to pure consciousness. Only by seeing our creative role in shaping reality can we become better, more evolved creators.

Long ago Homo sapiens developed an infinite capacity for managing the future, even though we are still subject to natural forces. Every flood, hurricane, drought, or earthquake can be made survivable if we place an emphasis on that. Potentially every disease is survivable, too. Modifications of genes are theoretically feasible. What we face isn’t a fixed limitation; instead, it’s our own self-destructive, anti-evolutionary impulses that have taken us into violence, crime, wars, famines, political strife, and us-versus-them thinking.

Those are not innate, fixed aspects of human nature. The truth is that we have been managing our evolution for centuries while also carrying the burden of outworn traits like anger and fear that we can no longer afford to indulge in. Having been granted evolutionary freedom, it’s time to use this incredible gift responsibly. In the next post we’ll look at what this means for the individual who wants to seize the opportunities opened up by our own species of consciousness.

Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing and Jiyo.com, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism.  He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and Clinical Professor at UCSD School of Medicine. Chopra is the author of more than 85 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers along with You Are the Universe (February 2017, Harmony) co-written with leading physicist, Menas Kafatos. Other recent books include Super Genes co-authored with Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D. and Quantum Healing (Revised and Updated): Exploring the Frontiers of  Mind/Body Medicine.  www.deepakchopra.com

The End of DACA Imperils America’s Economic Future

By Deepak Chopra, Kabir Sehgal, Jeff Oster

When President Trump signaled that he would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), he sent a mixed message to the world. America is getting tougher on immigrants, but it’s also turning its back on the very people who keep our nation competitive in the global marketplace. After Trump reversed himself in negotiations held at a White House dinner with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, only to do two more about-faces on Twitter and later in a public comment, the DACA program has become absurdist political theater. While Trump plays footsie, 800,000 “dreamers” are left in a state of anxiety about their future.

America needs workers. America has enjoyed a “demographic dividend” over the last several decades whereby the total work force represented a considerable amount of the total population. But with baby boomers leaving the workforce because of retirement, our country needs immigrants to pick up the slack and fill out the workforce. According to the Pew Research Center, without immigrants, by 2035 our working-age population will decline. In other words, immigrants and their children are key drivers of American economic growth. Without immigrants, our demographics are concerning.

Trump has a long history of hostility to immigrants, even though his casinos, golf resorts, and construction projects use—and sometimes misuse—their labor. By acting the tough guy, he is making America weaker in the long run. Immigrants the world over are rethinking whether they want to come here, and whether the American Dream can still be attained. Without a steady and ample supply of immigrants, this country’s economic growth will be at risk. America is in the midst of a decades-long slowdown of startups. Some 450,000 companies were founded in 2014, which is a drop-off from the 500,000 to 600,000 range of startups per year over the last thirty years. Moreover, millennials aren’t starting companies at the same rate as Baby Boomers. Our country has long been the global leader for entrepreneurs looking to disrupt incumbent industries, but these sagging numbers indicate that our reputation may be flickering, especially as other countries are investing in the industries that will be significant economic drivers in the future.

“Dreamers,” the young people who have received deportation relief and work permits due to DACA, are already helping to fill the gaps. There are more than 750,000 dreamers, and 223,000 or 30 percent reside in California alone. Some 95 percent of dreamers are either working or in school, which means they are either currently in or about-to-be joining the workforce. Many economists contend that dreamers boost the United States’ economic prospects.

By deporting nearly 800,000 or sending them into the shadows, the undocumented population in the United States will get ever larger. According to the CATO Institute, such a move will cost the US about $280 billion in future growth over the next ten years: “The evidence suggests that the mere presence of undocumented workers, especially non-criminals like those covered under DACA, is not nearly as detrimental to the economy as most people suppose, and may actually be a net benefit.” Of course, by welcoming dreamers as full citizens, the cost of enforcement will drop considerably, saving tax payers billions of dollars. Indeed, there are no major negative effects of dreamers on our economy. And there’s no surefire proof that shows dreamers taking away jobs from others. Dreamers pay taxes, serve in the military, work assiduously. They continue to abide by a social contract – helping their native country even in the face of great certainty. And yet their country has repaid them with a raw deal: Thanks for the hard work, see you later.

Lest we forget that all of us except Native Americans are the descendants of immigrants, we should demonstrate compassion and empathy for the dreamers. And if that’s not enough, we should invoke our good common sense to understand that these young people enrich our country with a vital source of energy and hard work. Many have already assimilated because America is the only country that they know. To turn a cold shoulder to our fellow brothers and sisters risks our economic and moral leadership in the world.

Deepak Chopra and Kabir Sehgal are authors of National Bestseller Home: Where Everyone Is Welcome, a book of poems and album of music inspired by immigrants.

Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing and Jiyo.com, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and Clinical Professor at UCSD School of Medicine. Chopra is the author of more than 85 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers along with You Are the Universe (February 2017, Harmony) co-written with leading physicist, Menas Kafatos. Other recent books include Super Genes co-authored with Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D. and Quantum Healing (Revised and Updated): Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine. www.deepakchopra.com

Kabir Sehgal is a New York Times bestselling author, multi-Grammy Award winner, and US Navy veteran.

Jeff Oster is an investment advisor, musician, and producer. He and Will Ackerman produced the new age album “Home.” Oster lives in the Bay Area.

Will the Gut-Brain Connection Revolutionize Wellness?

Deepak Chopra, MD and Naveen Jain

Three decades ago, the brain lost its sovereignty as the seat of thinking, feeling, and the operation of intelligence. In fact, those processes began to escape the confines of the nervous system itself. All of this occurred when it was discovered that various “messenger molecules” associated with the brain are in fact circulating throughout the body via the bloodstream. Every cell is eavesdropping on the brain’s activity, sending and receiving messages identical to those that the brain processes.

Over the next three decades, the realization that what we dub “intelligence” is a holistic feature of the body, the main difference being that outside the brain, this intelligence is nonverbal. The immune system’s incredible ability to identify and combat invading bacteria and viruses, in fact, has earned it the nickname of the floating brain. Everywhere researchers looked, new avenues were opening in a virtual information superhighway that reaches everywhere, and now it is possible to redefine wellness in terms of a “whole system” approach that has no need to recognize the artificial boundaries between brain and body, neurons and other cells, or even the distinction between human DNA and the countless other microbial genes that reside inside us.


Some of the most far-reaching research centers on the so-called brain-gut connection. Without realizing it, you are experiencing this connection during any of the following common experiences: Getting butterflies in your stomach when you feel nervous, overeating when you feel anxious, feeling dull and sluggish after taking an antibiotic, contracting stomach cramps before a competitive challenge, experiencing nausea or stomach upset from taking antidepressants. These are all evidence of the intimate connection between brain and gut that we ordinarily do not notice.

From before the time you exited the womb, your body was forming an intimate and unbreakable connection between your brain and your gut, including the liver, pancreas, stomach, intestines—in fact, every organ inside the body cavity. Collectively, your gut and all the organs it contains are referred to as the “enteric nervous system,” which actually contains 200-600 million neurons! The enteric nervous system is in essence a second brain because of its ability to operate on its own while communicating with the central nervous system. The main connection is through the vagus nerve, which leaves the brain, descends to the heart, and then weaves throughout the body.

But that’s not all. The gut-brain connection also includes trillions of living microorganisms called “microbiota” whose DNA forms a parallel genome—in fact, thousands of genomes—that are not invaders but an innate part of the body. Nearly four and a half pounds of bacteria and other microbes exist in your gut at any given time. Together, these microbiota, your enteric nervous system, and the vagus nerve are responsible for 80% of the signals sent from body to brain, and there is strong evidence that this second brain can drastically impact your mood, behavior, hunger level, and much more.

In new medical research that has developed over recent years, scientists made the striking discovery that people who suffer from such conditions as depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder show higher levels of inflammatory substances in their blood indicating that their bodies are in a state of chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation occurs when immune cells throughout the body release pro-inflammatory substances, including toxic molecules that can flood the brain. Chronic inflammation has a master controller, the second brain we’ve been discussing, including the microorganisms living in your digestive tract.

These vast colonies (dubbed the microbiome), which are unique to each person and exquisitely sensitive to diet and other lifestyle factors, communicate constantly with your immune system. This means that by caring for the gut microbiome, it is possible to stop chronic inflammation and potentially halt disturbing brain activity. Alternatively, brain problems can potentially be caused by not taking care of or paying close attention to the health of your microbiome. For example, specific gut microbes are involved in the production of many neurotransmitters–the chemicals your brain and nervous system use to communicate with the rest of your body, but also to regulate mood and behavior.

If you eat a poor diet of fast food and junk and processed food, avoid probiotics, consume minimal fiber, take too many antibiotics, don’t eat a wide variety of fermented foods (e.g., yogurt, kefir, kombucha and sauerkraut), and feel constantly stressed, beneficial gut microbes decrease in number or become overcrowded by bad bacteria. As a result, your risk significantly increases for developing anxiety, depression, and various mood disorders.

While there are a variety of blood, saliva, urine, and stool tests that can evaluate your gut and the various indicators we’ve been describing, most fail to give you a full picture of everything that’s going on inside your digestive tract. Fortunately, a technology originally designed for the national security at Los Alamos National Lab and recently licensed by Viome has allowed for a way to test your complete microbiome, allowing you to determine what type of foods to eat in order to support your microbiome. You can discover which bacteria, viruses, yeast, fungus or mold are present in too great quantities, which need to be replenished, and which markers of chronic inflammation are present in your gut. (Full disclosure, one of the authors, Naveen Jain, is founder of Viome.com, a company that provides complete insight and recommendations directly to you without any doctor’s prescription.)

As it becomes feasible to analyze the complex operation in the gut and its connection to the brain, a revolution is taking shape. With unprecedented data processing and the use of artificial intelligence, along with future price reductions, the science is reaching a tipping point. Knowing how your gut microbiome is doing will one day become as standard as taking your blood pressure. For the moment, addressing inflammation and returning to a healthy state of the gut-brain connection can be addressed with a sharper focus on stress reduction and consuming a natural whole-foods diet. Those factors will remain the same, even as medical research fine- tunes the best approach for personalizing how to care for our second brain.

Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing and Jiyo.com, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and Clinical Professor at UCSD School of Medicine. Chopra is the author of more than 85 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers along with You Are the Universe (February 2017, Harmony) co-written with leading physicist, Menas Kafatos. Other recent books include Super Genes co-authored with Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D. and Quantum Healing (Revised and Updated): Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine. www.deepakchopra.com

Naveen Jain is an entrepreneur driven to solve the world’s biggest challenges through innovation. He is the founder of several successful companies including Moon Express, Viome, Bluedot, TalentWise, Intelius and InfoSpace. Moon Express is the only company to have permission from the US government to leave earth orbit and land on the moon. Viome is focused on disrupting healthcare with the goal of “making illness elective” by identifying biomarkers that are predictive of chronic diseases and preventing them through personalized diet & nutrition. Naveen is a director of the board at the X PRIZE Foundation and Singularity University. He has been awarded many honors including “Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year”, “Albert Einstein Technology Medal” for pioneers in technology, “Humanitarian Innovation Award” at the United Nations, “Distinguished Global Thinker Award” by IILM, and “Top 20 Entrepreneurs” by Red Herring.