In our final episode of Season 1, we come back to the most fundamental questions: who are we and what are we capable of. My guest today, Dr. Jean Houston, sees us as heroes in our own mythic journeys, here to realize our great calling. Jean Houston has worked with Joseph Campbell, Margaret Mead and even Hilary Clinton, and she now joins us to explore our roles in this time of profound shift. Today, we tap into our full human potential. And it truly is, infinite.
By Deepak Chopra, MD
Questions of life and death, including the existence of life after death, seem to resist any firm conclusion. Most people tell pollsters that they believe in God, the soul, and the afterlife, but for all practical purposes we live in a secular society. The reassurances of organized religion no longer persuade millions of modern people, while on the other hand, there is a sharp rise in skepticism, doubt, and atheism.
Living as if we are mortal is the choice most people now make—for practical purposes, they live as if nothing existed before birth and nothing is likely to exist after death. Yet there is another choice rarely discussed, which one might call practical immortality. It rests upon a simple but life-changing decision anyone can make, the decision to identify with consciousness.
Right now everyone’s allegiance is split. We identify with our bodies some of the time and with our minds the rest of the time. If you run a marathon, go to the doctor for a checkup, feel attracted to someone else physically, or drag through the day for lack of sleep, you are identifying with your body. When you feel sad, have a bright idea, or argue about politics, you identify with your mind.
These may seem like obvious things, but it is due to split allegiances that death poses so much fear. If you think that life ends when the physical body ends, the prospect is rarely pleasant, and no matter how much spiritual literature you read, a mental conviction that physical death isn’t the end won’t resolve your fear. Everyone seems to agree that nothing can be known about the existence of the afterlife until we get there—or not.
By the same token, going beyond our divided allegiance offers a solution that dispels all doubt and fear, through the simple step of seeing consciousness as the foundation of life. In such a framework, here are the basic points:
It’s not necessary to dwell on the details of every point on the list. The gist of practical immortality is actually quite simple. If consciousness exists—and we know it does—living with it as a permanent feature of life is the most logical way to live. We don’t fear going to sleep at night, because the continuity of consciousness has been part and parcel of every life without exception. It would defy everything we know—and experience—about consciousness for it simply to cease because the physical body comes to an end. Everything about creation and destruction has been regulated by consciousness, and it will never cease doing this in a timeless way.
We humans remember things on a uniquely grand scale. From the pyramids to the Washington Monument, we build memorials so we won’t forget our past. Today, I try to understand why with Michael Arad, the visionary architect behind the 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero, in New York City. When an act of terrorism changed the world forever, how could we do justice to physical and emotional destruction that occurred? Michael answered that question the only way he knew: by creating a memory space. Join me for this powerful conversation about history, truth, healing and how the spaces we live in and pass through can change our story, both personal and global.
By Deepak Chopra, MD
Modern medicine has triumphed on many fronts in conquering diseases and extending life, but its greatest advance is almost totally unsung. Health and longevity have made it possible to see the body as our greatest ally.
If you can step outside the accepted image of your body as a machine, you will discover that it is actually not a separate physical object but united with your mind as one consciousness—call it the bodymind. This step alone rids you of many damaging attitudes. As a thing separate from ourselves, the body is an obsessive source of worry over sickness, aging, and death. Equally obsessive is whether someone’s body is beautiful enough, strong enough, appealing enough to the opposite sex.
To escape all of these damaging attitudes, realize a few basic principles about the bodymind:
(For a detailed discussion of this concept, see the eye-opening video by Judith Blackstone, “Can We Embody Nonduality?”)
In religion and spirituality generally there has been strong judgment against the body, with a corresponding celebration of the soul. But in reality this separation was totally artificial. You cannot have any experience, however earthly or divine, without your brain registering it and passing the message to every cell in the body. You cannot hide your thoughts from your body. If you look in the mirror and feel bad about your body, you are simultaneously judging against yourself.
What’s so liberating about the bodymind is both short-term and long-term. In the short term, the elusive goal of living in the present moment is radically turned around, because your body, including your brain, has no choice but to live in the now. In fact, so confident are your cells about living in the present moment that they store only about 3 seconds of oxygen and nutrients. It is completely natural to be in the present for the bodymind.
As to the long term, the bodymind opens a path to become whole. Because you are already whole, as far as your cells are concerned, there is no doubt that the state of separation, which began by separating mind form body, is artificial. Any step you take toward higher consciousness is supported—indeed is made possible—by your body.
Saying these things will disturb someone who feels that the body is not an ally but a fragile container of life that threatens to break down, betray us, grow weaker over time, and eventually condemn us to helpless infirmity. Fortunately, this truism from the past is steadily being invalidated. Futurists, if they are in an optimistic mood, foresee the day when all diseases have been eradicated, genetic anomalies can be rectified, and even physical immortality isn’t preposterous.
But that perspective misses the most important aspect of the bodymind revolution, because such visions remain physical, rooted in the misconception of the body-as-machine. When you absorb the truth of wholeness as your most natural state, then your body contributes to the highest values of being human: intelligence, creativity, love, curiosity, and evolution. Your cells are imprinted at the genetic level by every vivid experience, both positive and negative, that you have had since birth and are still having.
Therefore, you can imprint your genetic activity in such a way that you become, as a bodymind, more conscious and evolved every year. This is a vision worth pursuing, far beyond anything medical technology envisions. That technology will bring more advances, no doubt, but the real challenge in our lives—how to raise the status of human consciousness—is intimate and personal.
It is time to stop judging against the body, demoting it to a machine, and fearing the possibilities of sickness, aging, and death. Everything you cherish about yourself as a person is embodied in you, which means that your body deserves to be equally cherished. Only in that spirit can all our higher aspirations be reached.
