Deepak Chopra: You Are the Universe

"When you know your true essence, you get in touch with that part of yourself that is beyond time and space and the source of both. You no longer identify with the changing behavior of the ocean of consciousness in all its different forms; you identify with the unchanging essence of consciousness itself. If you know that your essence is the unity of one spirit, then everything else becomes known to you."

"Are you ready to take a quantum leap of creativity? Beyond the illusion of a material world is a world of power, freedom, and grace. Understand your true essence, and you begin a journey towards enlightenment. By and by on this journey, you shed your habitual and conditioned responses. As you do so, you become a spiritual master and transcend all suffering, including the fear of death. You realize that the real you was never born, and therefore can never die. Only that which has a beginning has an ending. That which never began is eternal and always, and it is you."

-- Deepak Chopra --
("Power, Freedom, and Grace," p. 78.)

Deepak Chopra, M.D.
Author of "Power, Freedom and Grace"

It is difficult to describe Deepak Chopra's teachings, due in large part to the sheer volume and breadth of his work. Trained as a medical doctor, Chopra expresses a profoundly non-dualistic view of the universe and its beings. Perhaps, the best description of his positions on life, the universe, and our place in it, is that of a strictly non-dualistic "neo-Vedantist."

"In the deeper reality," says Chopra in the attached video, "there is no such thing as a person. There is only the universal manifesting as a person. What is a person? Your body is recycled dust. Your breath is recycled air. Your thoughts are recycled information, Your emotions are recycled energy. And what you call your personality is just the mirror of relationship, because in order to define yourself you need to define everyone around you and what they are doing."

"In the real deepest reality," he notes, "what we call a 'person' is a dynamic bundle of consciousness that is constantly transforming. Where is the person when you were fourteen years of age? Where is the person you were when you were five years of age? Actually, in every moment of existence the old person dies and a new one is born. So, the person you were yesterday is not the person you are now, in any way. Your thoughts are not the same, though they may appear to be the same. But your body is not the same, your emotions are transforming. So, if you really look at how the universe functions, the 'observer,' which we call the person, and the 'observed,' which we call the world, are recreated every moment of existence. The reason why you have this illusion of being the same person is 'continuity of memory' which gives you this false belief that you are the same person you were an hour ago, or ten years ago."

"The universe continues to evolve as observers and observed," Chopra points out. "In reality you are the Infinite Being with a localized perspective, and that localized perspective is impermanent and transient. You are the universe."

 "The essential you, your real essence," observes Chopra in his book, "Power, Freedom and Grace," is a field of awareness that interacts with its own self and then becomes both mind and body. In other words," he notes, "you are consciousness or spirit, which then conceives, constructs, governs and then becomes the mind and the body. The real you is inseparable from the patterns of intelligence that permeate every fiber of creation."

"At the deepest level of existence," he points out, "you are Being, and you are nowhere and everywhere at the same time. There is no other "you" than the entire cosmos. The cosmic mind creates the physical universe, and the personal mind experiences the physical universe."

[Chopra, "Power, Freedom, and Grace," p. 19.]