Conversation with

 

The Monthly Aspectarian: When we talked a few days ago, Dr. Chopra, I remarked that the flip answer to the title of your new book, How to Know God, was to get silent and listen. We laughed and you said I had just condensed 319 pages of your book into a single sentence. It is as simple as that, yet at the same time, it is incredibly complex.

Deepak Chopra: If you want to get in touch with God or God's mind, then you have to silence your own mind. Otherwise, you can't. If you want to eavesdrop on God's mind, you can't be interfering. So obviously, you have to go beyond the turbulence of your own mind--and then you have to listen. That's summed up very beautifully in the words of Christ when He said, "Seek and ye shall find. Ask and it shall be revealed. Knock and it shall be opened." That's basically it. Most people don't take the time to do it and don't understand how profound it is because they've never really tried.

TMA: Why don't we take a few minutes and work through the book.

DC: The basic, fundamental premise of the book is that God cannot be defined because as soon as you define God, you limit God to your definition of God. Therefore, it's ultimately futile to define what or who God is other than saying Infinite Mind, Eternal Being, Field of All Possibilities. We read in the Bible that God created humans in His image. It's not really true; it's the other way around. We've been constantly returning the favor by creating God in our image. As we evolve in our understanding of ourselves and our environment, our cosmos, then our understanding of God also begins to change.

Steven Hawking, being interviewed on Larry King's shows, said, "If by God you mean the source of all the mathematical laws of construction of the physical universe, then I do." That's a beautiful definition--which is also limiting. God is not just the source of mathematical laws. They are fundamentally beautiful. Truth and harmony and goodness and beauty defines those laws.

But God is also the experience of pure love. We can all have different experiences of God--and then we limit our definition to that experience.

What I've tried to do in the book is describe the three levels of reality, what the Greeks used to call the biosphere, the noosphere and the theosphere which is the physical world, the quantum world-the definition of physics-and the virtual domain from where it all comes. Or you can say physical, mental, spiritual. In the ancient Indian tradition, you can say material, subtle and causal.

You know, the three levels of reality have different laws. In the physical world of cause and effect relationships, everything has three dimensions, the world is experienced by the senses, organisms are born and die, time flows in a straight line, events are fixed and everything is predictable according to the laws.

And then the quantum world, which is more the level of uncertainty . . . and if you're living only in the physical world, things happen that are inexplicable. The rules of the quantum world are a little disconcerting: the sub-atomic particle can be at one place at one time and another place at another time without having to travel through the space in between. (This is called a quantum leap.) In the quantum world there is uncertainty and unpredictability. In the quantum world, objects are not objects, they're just waves of possibility that are superimposed on each other. In the quantum world, a sub-atomic particle is not a sub-atomic particle until you observe it. You know, these are very strange phenomena but yet mathematics always exists. We are now using our knowledge of quantum reality to create technology--like the internet and transistors and cell phones and all this. So here we are, really looking at the subtle world vibrations . . . and our thoughts and our emotions are part of that quantum world.

Then we go a little deeper into it and then you encounter something called pure potentiality, which is the source of all this. So you say, well, where are the mathematical laws of the universe written? Where are they? Where is E=mc2 written? Where is the second law of thermodynamics written? You say, well, it's not written anywhere but it still exists. That's the transcendent world. So--when you go beyond the quantum world, you've gone to the third level, the transcendent world.

That also has many depths to it. You have a soul, you have a collective soul, and then there's the universal level that also exists. So the first part of this book describes the different levels of reality. It also shows how our biological responses happen in these different levels of reality. Most people's biological responses are either reactive or in the fight-flight mode.

TMA: The reptile brain.

DC: Yes. And, once again, some people have the ability to ask the question and get an answer, which is the intuitive response. We have the ability to summon forth a new idea from the transcendent world. Where was E=mc2 before Einstein discovered it? It was there in the transcendent world. That's the creative response. We have the ability to tap into the consciousness of enlightened Masters. That's the visionary response, And then we have the ability to become one with God, which is the sacred response.

Through these responses, I explain in the book phenomena like telepathy, remembering other lifetimes, precognition and synchronicity and healings and the so-called miraculous. I think that's when there's a creative expression of the laws of nature that exist in God's mind.

TMA: Yes, on the visionary level these things are not miraculous at all.

What I think is interesting about trying to describe God, though, is that the human mind really can't encompass It.

DC: You're right. You can't describe it. You can know It, though; you can experience It.

TMA: It can be experienced but when the human mind tries to describe something that exists beyond the levels that it functions on, it has a problem.

DC: There's a sacrifice, yes. You limit Infinite Mind when you try to describe It.

Deepak Chopra, M.D., known as an international presenter and keynote speaker, is the author of more than 25 books and more than 100 audio, video and CD-ROM titles. He has been published on every continent and in dozens of languages. His newest book is How to Know God: the Soul's Journey into the Mystery of Mysteries. Ten million copies of Dr. Chopra's books have been sold in English alone. He is also known for his regular work with PBS, with whom he has produced a number of highly lauded television and video programs.

Through the Chopra Center for Well Being, Dr. Chopra is revolutionizing common wisdom about the crucial connection between body, mind, spirit and healing. He continues to chart new pathways to unleash the potential for optimum health in us all. His mission of "bridging the technological miracles of the west with the wisdom of the east" remains his thrust as he and his colleagues conduct public seminars and workshops and provide training for health care professionals around the world.