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At the Source: “I am That”
The Rippling Waves of
Deepak Chopra, M.D.

by Mary Grace McCord

When thinking back to early 2001, my thin thread of awareness still feels so tenuous in retrospect. After all, by then any shadows of Y2K fear had eclipsed, officially, in the bright dawning of The Age of Aquarius. Didn’t the lyrical prophecy that “…peace will guide our planet, and love will steer the stars…” sound like a truly embraceable anthem?

It was early 2001 when I first interviewed Dr. Deepak Chopra for Vibrations, during his trip to support our city’s Human Potential Foundation. A local university lobbied to bring him back for medical CEU classes—which came just before 9/11 rattled our collective psyche.

Fast-forward to late 2007, with the conscious intervention of much healing energy, plus several years to ponder what had happened and to pray for change.

Recently, several AIHT staff members enjoyed being in the presence, once again, of Deepak Chopra—this time, during the 10th annual Mind Body Spirit Expo in Valley Forge, PA.

For now, Vibrations has tapped into the brain trusts of two other expo partners—MBSE’s bimonthly New Visions magazine as well as the monthly Spirit Side publication of Body Mind Spirit Expos—for an abundance of newly-developing insights from metaphysician Deepak Chopra. We’ve also found interesting new dialogue with CNN’s one-hour Media Matters, hosted by Glenn Beck.

Deepak Chopra’s mid-1980’s metamorphosis, from a board-certified internist and endocrinologist to a world-renowned holistic healer and metaphysical author/guru, happened when the highly stressed young doctor discovered profound relaxation through transcendental meditation.

Meditation has only one reason, he soon realized: “to get in touch with your soul, and then go beyond that and get in touch with the infinite consciousness of which your soul is just one ripple.

“So meditation is a way of eavesdropping on the mind that is literally running the whole universe and at the same time, staying in touch with your own precious soul. It’s in the Bible, ‘what good does it do a mind to gain the whole world and to lose your soul?’”

An eloquent speaker who, in his native New Delhi, dreamed of becoming a journalist, Chopra is a lively yet soothing, charismatic voice for the ancient Ayurvedic healing traditions of his Hindu upbringing. He has written 49 books, with translations into 35 languages, and will soon complete another book, The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore. Next come two more compelling writings, The Missing Years of Christ and Dr. Buddha: The Alleviation of Human Suffering.

Somehow he always finds time for 90 minutes of daily meditation—typically beginning at 4:00 a.m. and later followed by an hour of aerobic exercise and then a weight-training regime. “I will not skip a single day with my workouts,” he adds.

	AIHT alumna Joanna Carmichael, D.D., Ph.D., recently completed Vedic Master training through the Chopra Center in La Jolla, CA. She is now certified in Primordial Sound Meditation, Ayurveda, and Yoga. Congratulations, Joanna!

Why Meditate?

When we do finally tap the inner streams of infinite wisdom, of infinite possibility, it’s clear that we’re inseparably connected. This is the space of spontaneous love, compassion, shared suffering. Within that shared suffering is the birth of compassion, in which is the birth of love, which is the possibility of healing.

“Take just five or ten minutes every day, close your eyes, put your attention on your heart, and ask yourself these very important questions: ‘Who am I? What do I want? What’s my purpose? What are my unique talents? How do I express them? What’s the meaning and purpose of my existence? How do I make a difference? What are the qualities I express in a good relationship?’”

Leave a little extra room for ambiguity, he adds, a little space for uncertainty. In abiding with uncertainty, creative processes will emerge. “This is how we use the principles of emotional intelligence, and learn to leave room for forgiveness. People seek material answers in the materialistic world, when the most powerful things are invisible and mysterious: your love, your compassion, your insight, your creativity. We can’t find it on the level of matter, and yet people are hypnotized by the superstition of materialism.

“My greatest joy is cultivating the hope of maximum creativity,” he adds.

Nature’s High Vibration

One of Dr. Chopra’s relatively new goals is to extend more of his teachings into the world’s danger zones—replacing the low energies of crime within inner cities and ghettos, liberating troubled teenagers from self-imposed concrete jungles by demonstrating higher energies through the healing magic of nature. Seeking out disenfranchised minority populations, Deepak Chopra wants all citizens of the world to resonate with the powerful knowledge that each individual is a river of energy.

“I like to remind young people that their mind is wired into every cell in their body. So I demonstrate nasal breathing techniques that can dramatically elevate brain activity, and also suggest Ayurvedic herbs that are at least equally as mood-enhancing as any street drug.

This is the space of spontaneous love, compassion, shared suffering. Within that shared suffering is the birth of compassion, in which is the birth of love, which is the possibility of healing.

“Ancient Ayurvedic texts identify and describe each individual herb as a packet of vibrational energy that specifically matches a resonance within the quantum mechanical body,” he explains. “All organ systems are bolstered by a specific vibrational sequence. With weakness or malfunction, some disruption of the proper sequence in these vibrations is at fault.

	Dr. Deepak Chopra joined two other AIHT curriculum authors who were honored recently at the Mind Body Spirit Expo—Marianne Williamson and Brian Weiss, M.D.

Applying the correct Ayurvedic herb can help restore and optimize organ health, nutritionally and energetically.”

In the leafy-green world of sun, wind, rain and wildlife, Chopra seeks to breathe fresh new life into young people’s understanding of “the inseparability of their own physical body from the physical body of the earth. Environmentalism needs to be spiritually-based in order to achieve the benefit of radical shifts in our consciousness—from the level of our personal experience.

“When you can sense and recognize in a tall, old tree or a tender young sapling that it is your lungs; when it becomes apparent that the ground with its grass, clay or rocks, is an extension of our feet and that our physical bodies are connected from fleshy skin to earthen skin; when you sense that rivers and oceans are flowing into and out of our own circulatory systems, back and forth, that’s when spirituality is elevated to an experiential understanding that the human host and the cosmic host are one and the same!

“It’s one thing to talk about environmentalism and it’s quite another to actually breathe it in, together, with our common nostrils.

“I am at the source of nature, and nature is at the source of me. The stream flows into me, and my own ripples flow back.

“I am that essence, and its essence is me.”

For more information: www.anhglobal.org

In Praise of Rumi, 1207–1273

Celebrating the 800th birth anniversary of Sufi poet Jalal-ud-Din Rumi, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognizes 2007 as “The International Year of Rumi.” In recent decades the New Thought brilliance of his esoteric writings has been revived, through media projects by Chopra and others.

Rumi created 70,000 verses of poetry within just 25 years—cherishing the divine sparks of human love, mystic passion and ecstatic illumination. His works show the path to God through relationship. According to Chopra, “Rumi’s legacy is freedom, self-knowledge, and self-expression. He wandered like a gypsy; slept under the stars. Since the world was his family, there was no place in his consciousness for want or lack.”

Affirming heaven in all earthly creatures, Rumi’s sense of humility furthered his devotion as an overcomer. He did not allow fear to overtake his spirit and, through the whirling flow of ecstatic dance, Rumi further embodied peaceful reconciliation over distrust.

You Worry Too Much

…You have seen your own strength.
You have seen your own beauty.
You have seen your golden wings.
Of anything less,
why do you worry?
You are in truth
the soul, of the soul, of the soul.
…Be silent, like a fish,
and go into that pleasant sea.
You are in deep waters now,
of life’s blazing fire.
Why do you worry?

(Excerpts: by Jalal-ud-Din Rumi)