Deepak Chopra:  My guest is Duane Elgin, the author of the new book The Living Universe . Duane, who is also a good friend of mine, is an author, speaker, educator, consultant, and  a media activist. For more than three decades he has defined the cutting edge in consciousness research in the ecology movement and in future studies. He pioneered the voluntary simplicity movement with his now classic first book titled by the same name, published in the 1980s. The book provided an exploration of the practical and philosophical meaning of simplicity as well as the comprehensive overview of the precarious ecological predicament of our planet. His current activist agenda is to transform the media, particularly television, which he sees as our greatest environmental risk factor (more…)

Deepak Chopra:

My special guest today is Dr. Alva Noe, professor of philosophy and author. His most recent book is called Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness. Many times on this program we’ve discussed the mystery of consciousness. It’s the one unsolved mystery of our existence. What is consciousness? What are the origins of consciousness? We’ll ask Dr. Noe him what his definition of consciousness is. Until we can connect with him we can discuss the background ideas of consciousness.
In my definition of consciousness, consciousness is the same thing as life. What wisdom traditions also call spirit. And for me anyway, consciousness is three components: a personal component which for lack of a better word we can call the soul. A collective component which is more archetypal and a deeper level, and then a universal domain of consciousness. (more…)