Interview with Kabir Sehgal and Deepak Chopra

Here is a interview with Deepak Chopra and Kabir Sehgal on the deeper understanding of the relationship between money and humanity  They discuss Kabir’s book, Coin: The Rich Life of Money and How Its History Has Shaped Us.

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Deepak: Why did you write Coined?

I began working on Wall Street just a few months before the great financial crisis. I was alarmed with the damage that it caused with people losing their jobs and houses. I wanted to know why we act so irrationally when it comes to money. What’s going on in the brain when we think about money? I researched the topic of money over 4 years while traveling to over 25 countries.

Deepak: How does money have a physiological change on us?

Kabir: Just the idea of making money can increase your skin conductancy, meaning there’s a current of excitement. Money also numbs your senses. People who touched paper money and then placed their hands in hot burning water didn’t feel as much pain as those who hadn’t touched money.  Researchers have compared brain scans of those people who are making money to those high on cocaine and found that them to be almost identical. Money has a biological and psychological effect on us. 

Deepak: What did you learn about money that surprised you?

Kabir:  The oldest and most important currency is debt. And different cultures treat debt differently. For example, in Tokyo, I bought some delicious fruit as a gift for my friend. But he didn’t want to accept it because he said he wouldn’t be able to repay me, as I was leaving in a few days. The word for thank you “arigato” loosely translates into “this difficult thing.” When you go to a Japense wedding, make sure that you tie the ribbon on the present tightly because if you don’t, you may imply that you don’t think the marriage will last. 

Deepak: What is the future of money?

Kabir: Reputation will become an even more important currency in the future. I went to a restaurant, and they made a mistake with my reservation, so I took out my phone to text my friend that he could take his time. But the maitre d was alarmed, and said “please don’t write a negative review of us on Yelp. We’ll find you a table right away.” For him, a negative review could jeopardize future business. Social standing and reptuation has always mattered, but now it ‘s happening on a global basis. The number of twitter followers and Facebook likes really matter. For example, American Airlines gives VIP lounge perks to those who have higher Klout scores, which is a metric for someone’s social media influence. 

Deepak: How can spirituality teach us how to be better with money?coined photo 1

Kabir: I traveled to Kolkatta, India and visited Mother Theresa’s home for the dying and destitute. It’s there that I saw many lepers, and there was a European teenager who was serving as a volunteer.   He told me he was there because of what he learned in the scriptures. Jesus speaks about the importance of storing up treasures in heaven but not on earth. In Hinduism, one of the goals of life is artha, the accumulation of wealth. You are supposed to make money and take care of your family, but when you pursue artha you will awaken to moksha, or liberation. There will come a time in your life when you should renounce money and detach from it. Spirtuality teaches not to follow the evolutionary logic of “more is better” but to realize that “less is more.”

Learn more about Kabir Sehgal’s Coined: The Rich Life of Money And How Its History Has Shaped Us 

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The 13th Disciple: A Spiritual Adventure

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You can preorder your copy now.

 

Why Spirituality Matters More than Ever

By Deepak Chopra, MD

In troubled times, when the world seems to be on fire, people think about God and the religion they were raised in–a source of solace and hope matters more in a crisis. I don’t find myself thinking about spirituality in those terms, however. Like a winter coat that’s put away in spring, for many people spirituality, in the sense of going to church or praying to God, gets put away when the crisis has passed.

 

Crises by their nature, come and go, but the deeper need for spirituality remains. This need is rooted deeper than solace and hope. It’s the need for wisdom.  Wisdom is a word that’s open to cheap shots and automatic dismissal. It’s even alien to the kind of spirituality that’s about issues like self-esteem and love. Wisdom is much less personal and mysterious. It gets at the heart of why we exist and what our purpose is. Wisdom gives you a vision of possibilities that are found in consciousness, bridging all ages and circumstances.  It gets at the heart of reality. Ultimately the search for reality is what binds a loose coalition of people who want to reach beyond organized religion and its perceived drawbacks.

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OPRAH WINFREY & DEEPAK CHOPRA LAUNCH SEVENTH ALL-NEW MEDITATION EXPERIENCE ‘MANIFESTING TRUE SUCCESS

Registration is now open for the newest 21 Day Meditation Experience, Manifesting True Success.  The experience begins march 16.  Register now.

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Oprah and Deepak’s 21- Day Meditation Experience: Manifesting True Success: 

Week One-Starting Within

In week one, the aim is to begin creating success from the inside out.  Lessons include how to define your own success, align with your inspired path, make it an everyday reality, increase the feeling of love and creativity around your goal, and harness your emotions to work for you and open up infinite possibilities. 

Week Two- Making Every Decision A Success

In week two, the focus is on making dynamic choices.  Lessons include how to avoid static decisions, expand your comfort zone, measure your goals, record your progress, embrace your innate wisdom, identify what really matters the most, and pay attention to the gift of inspiration when it strikes.

Week Three- Putting It All Together

In week three, the intention is to establish order in our busy lives, move away from judgment and put all of these qualities together to manifest true success. Lessons include mastering how to map out your time, turn fear of unpredictability into a welcoming attitude, develop trust, fall into a non-judgmental state of self and others, and release defensiveness.

The Power of Desire—What Do You Want, Anyway?

By Deepak Chopra, MD

 

Desire is inescapable, and one could spend years trying to discover if human desire is a blessing of a curse. But right this minute a more practical question demands attention. How can you get what you want? Beyond the basic necessities for food, water, and shelter, which are enough to satisfy the desire to survive, human beings invent countless other desires. What we all experience is that some of our desires come true while others don’t. That seems clear enough, but in fact people approach this simple fact from very different angles. If asked, “How do you get what you want?” or an even bigger issue, “How do you make a dream come true?” people will offer answers that aren’t at all compatible:

–Desires are fulfilled and dreams come true if you work hard enough and never stop fighting for what you want.

–Dreams come true only if they are meant to. It hardly matters what you do; destiny or karma plays the major role.

–It’s pure luck which desires come true and which ones don’t.

–Making your dreams come true is a spiritual journey. Prayer, meditation, and good karma are critical.

–Dreams come true by the grace of God. To make your dream come true, you must surrender to divine will.

–Desire is self-fulfilling. Every intention includes a path to fulfillment within its structure, however remote fulfillment may seem to be.

–Getting what you want is inevitable, but you have to look deep enough. Fulfillment can occur on the level of fantasy, dream, or imagination. It doesn’t have to be physical. (more…)