Speaker 1: You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma May I acknowledges the traditional owners of the land
Speaker 2: and waters that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 1: A knife can be used to kill a person, but
Speaker 1: in the surgeon's hands, a knife heels. A hammer can
Speaker 1: be used to also knock somebody on the head, but
Speaker 1: in a carpenter's hands. It's an amazing too.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to but are you happy? The podcast
Speaker 2: that asks the questions you've always wanted to know from
Speaker 2: the people who appear to have it all. I'm Claire
Speaker 2: Stevens and today's episode is a particularly special one. We
Speaker 2: have the Australian exclusive for a long form podcast interview
Speaker 2: with New York Times best selling author an internationally acclaimed guru,
Speaker 2: Deepak Chopra. I can almost guarantee that, so where deep
Speaker 2: in the abyss of your phone photos you have a
Speaker 2: screenshot of a Deepak Chopper quote, or there is some
Speaker 2: piece of wisdom of his that you have tried to
Speaker 2: pass off as your own, thinking that you're actually quite
Speaker 2: clever and profound when you really just heard his words
Speaker 2: at some point. Over the last few decades, he has
Speaker 2: long been known as a pioneer of New Age spirituality,
Speaker 2: and he has long advocated for the benefits of meditation.
Speaker 2: He encourages people to expand their awareness and their consciousness,
Speaker 2: to really feel the awe of the mystery of our existence,
Speaker 2: to see obstacles as opportunities in disguise, and to pursue
Speaker 2: above anything, including happiness a sense of inner peace. Now,
Speaker 2: I am very much on the record as not being
Speaker 2: a very woo woo person, and I often flinch at
Speaker 2: anything that isn't based in hard science. I can think
Speaker 2: that it's a bit flimsy, a bit silly. I sometimes
Speaker 2: look at ideas like manifestation and I think that they
Speaker 2: haven't been interrogated enough. I have a bit of a
Speaker 2: visceral reaction to it. And some of Chopper's ideas about
Speaker 2: alternative medicine are quite controversial, but this interview wasn't about
Speaker 2: discussing them. The truth is, I opened Deepak Chopper's most
Speaker 2: recent book, which is called Digital Drama, How AI Can
Speaker 2: Elevate Spiritual intelligence and Personal well Being, and I could
Speaker 2: not stop reading. Maybe this book and these ideas came
Speaker 2: to me at the exact right time, which I'm sure
Speaker 2: is a sentiment that Deepak Chopper would agree with. He's
Speaker 2: a big propose in their being meaning in these sorts
Speaker 2: of things. But his ideas about purpose and having a
Speaker 2: path and his optimism about AI, which is the thing
Speaker 2: that is just going to change the future of humanity
Speaker 2: in the immediate future, those ideas were utterly compelling and
Speaker 2: I just kept reading. So here is my conversation with
Speaker 2: the man who's written over eighty books that have been
Speaker 2: translated into over forty languages, so his ideas are just
Speaker 2: known all throughout the world. He's been interviewed by Oprah,
Speaker 2: so maybe that was the second best interview that he's
Speaker 2: ever had after me Ah. He has taught Madonna how
Speaker 2: to meditate, and he has informed how so many of
Speaker 2: us have come to think about our own well being,
Speaker 2: satisfaction and happiness. He is deepact Chopra Deepak. I always
Speaker 2: begin this show by asking our guests the same question,
Speaker 2: which is did you grow up in a happy family
Speaker 2: and was happiness prioritized?
Speaker 1: I did grow up in a very happy family. My
Speaker 1: father was an army doctor, my mother was a storyteller,
Speaker 1: and they were always celebrative about everything, looked at every
Speaker 1: challenge as an opportunity, and enjoyed life basically, do.
Speaker 2: You remember as a kid or an adolescent having any
Speaker 2: challenges to happiness. Do you remember was there anything that
Speaker 2: you found you contended with in terms of well being
Speaker 2: or satisfaction or finding meaning.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned, my mother was a storyteller, and every
Speaker 1: time before she put me to bed, she would actually
Speaker 1: sometimes sing or read a story and then stop it
Speaker 1: at what we call a cliffhanger. Everything was going wrong,
Speaker 1: and then she would say, I wanted to dream up
Speaker 1: the rest of the story, make sure it has a
Speaker 1: happy ending, and also make sure it's a love story.
Speaker 1: So I got to reframe every challenge as a love
Speaker 1: story with a happy ending. So the answer is short
Speaker 1: answer is no, Oh.
Speaker 2: That's beautiful. That gives me. I've got a ten month
Speaker 2: old daughter, and that gives me a good idea for
Speaker 2: what to do before she goes to better she grows up.
Speaker 2: You've recently released a book called Digital Dama, How AI
Speaker 2: can Elevate spiritual intelligence and personal well being, and it
Speaker 2: is perhaps the most hopeful exploration of AI that I
Speaker 2: have read, and it essentially presents a case of how
Speaker 2: AI I can help us live happier lives. You write
Speaker 2: in the book Human happiness cannot be reduced to a formula,
Speaker 2: and happiness is as dynamic as life itself, which is
Speaker 2: exactly what this podcast is kind of based on and
Speaker 2: what we've seen through every interview we've ever done. You
Speaker 2: turn to the idea of a personal dama instead of
Speaker 2: kind of focusing on the term happiness. Can you explain
Speaker 2: what personal dama is and how it works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the closest equivalent of the herma in the West,
Speaker 1: because there's no such term in the West. It's a
Speaker 1: very Eastern. Going back to Yogic philosophy, So think of
Speaker 1: the If you've ever heard of the seven chakras, you
Speaker 1: know in yoga they represent seven levels of human need
Speaker 1: and expression. So the first one that has to do
Speaker 1: with security, safety, the second has to do with sensual delight,
Speaker 1: including sexual delight, The third has to do with transformation,
Speaker 1: the fourth has to do with love and belonging, the
Speaker 1: fifth has to do with creative expression, the sixth has
Speaker 1: to do with insight and intuition and imagination and heart consciousness,
Speaker 1: and the seventh has to do with enlightenment or transcendence.
Speaker 1: So dharma would mean literally fulfilling all these human aspirations
Speaker 1: and needs. The closest summary of that would be Joseph
Speaker 1: Campbell's phrase, follow your bliss. When you're following your bliss,
Speaker 1: then you're in dharmah it how you fit into the
Speaker 1: whole scheme of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and when you look at Western culture, do you
Speaker 2: think you can see that people aren't following their personal dharma.
Speaker 1: Western culture has mostly focused on material success and the
Speaker 1: idea that if you have lots of money, then you
Speaker 1: will be a happy person and you'll also be fulfilled,
Speaker 1: so that becomes the defining purpose of life. Now, when
Speaker 1: you look at that data, only ten percent to twelve
Speaker 1: percent of your daily happiness experience comes from money or
Speaker 1: what we call material success prestige. And you know, people
Speaker 1: confuse their self esteem with the net worth. They think
Speaker 1: net worth is self worth. But if you look at
Speaker 1: the data, about ten to twelve percent of our daily
Speaker 1: happiness experience comes from that. If someone wins the lottery,
Speaker 1: for example, they'll be ecstatic in the beginning, but then
Speaker 1: in six months they begin to plateau, and in one
Speaker 1: year they're back to where they were before they won
Speaker 1: the lottery. Five years that are actually more unhappy than
Speaker 1: they were before because that becomes their identity. Money becomes
Speaker 1: their identity, or material success becomes their identity, and all
Speaker 1: the other things I mentioned are in the background. So
Speaker 1: there's no fulfillment. There's temporary pleasure and happiness, and that's
Speaker 1: a big difference between pleasure, happiness, joy, peace. These are
Speaker 1: different levels of fulfillment. So ultimately, if you don't have peace,
Speaker 1: then what good is pleasure? Or if you have happiness,
Speaker 1: But it's always around the corner. If I get this,
Speaker 1: I'll be happier. If I have the right relationship, the
Speaker 1: right amount of money, the right job, I'll be happier.
Speaker 1: The answer is yeah, probably to a little extent, but
Speaker 1: then you'll be asking yourself what's next, or you'll be
Speaker 1: concerned that you might lose what you have. So ultimately,
Speaker 1: through happiness or joy only comes from getting in touch
Speaker 1: with their spiritual identity.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like, through all your decades of learning
Speaker 2: about this and writing about it and speaking to people
Speaker 2: about it, do you think you can tell when somebody
Speaker 2: is or is not in their personal DAMA from the outside.
Speaker 1: I think nineteen nine percent or not, so I don't
Speaker 1: have to guess. Yeah, everybody's walking around like a biological robot.
Speaker 1: They take their existence for granted, and they recycle their
Speaker 1: cultural and social and family conditioning. So every generation is
Speaker 1: recycling the previous generation, and the conditioning is deep. It's economic,
Speaker 1: it's cultural, it's social, it's religious, it's ethnic. So very
Speaker 1: few people even have the idea of what's my purpose?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, I think you're right, But I was
Speaker 2: gonna ask, do you think I'm in my personal dumbit
Speaker 2: The answer is no, so you don't even have to
Speaker 2: try and answer yes. Great, great point. I like that answer.
Speaker 2: You're essentially asking in this book, can AI act as
Speaker 2: a guru or a guide? And in Indian tradition, spiritual
Speaker 2: journeys required a guide. But you point out in the
Speaker 2: book that there's a modern problem with this idea in
Speaker 2: that being a guru comes with the cult of personality.
Speaker 2: I think we've also seen that there are so many
Speaker 2: times when being a guru corrupts a person with power.
Speaker 2: You know, it gives them all this power and they
Speaker 2: don't necessarily use it in a good way. So your
Speaker 2: suggestion is that AI can fill this role with kind
Speaker 2: of no ego in this context, can you explain what
Speaker 2: AI is and how you think of it in this
Speaker 2: optimistic way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you really want to understand what area is,
Speaker 1: you've got to go back to what it means to
Speaker 1: be human. So if you look at deep history, then
Speaker 1: there's some very interesting things that differentiate human beings, so
Speaker 1: Homo sapiens from other species. The first is that we
Speaker 1: are tool makers. The other thing that distinguishes us, of course,
Speaker 1: is that we walk upright. We are upright primates, and
Speaker 1: we have opposable thumbs that allow us to have the stoolmaking.
Speaker 1: But forty thousand years ago, there was another huge revolution
Speaker 1: in human evolution, and it's referred to as the cognitive revolution.
Speaker 1: And all these humans, like other species, had a language
Speaker 1: for survival and safety. And basically the language was mating calls,
Speaker 1: sex calls because we survived through reproduction. Food calls we
Speaker 1: need that for survival, and danger calls we need to
Speaker 1: avoid danger. But then Homo sapiens created a language for stories, gossip.
Speaker 1: But then they created other stories. Money is a story.
Speaker 1: There was not I think we said, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: i'll cut your hair, you fix my shoes, but that's
Speaker 1: not convenient. I'll give you a shell. That's not convenient.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a coin, paper money. Now we have
Speaker 1: digital money. Okay, So we created models of experience and
Speaker 1: stories latitude longitude Greenwich meantime, these are all human stories.
Speaker 1: But we didn't stop there. We created stories for biology.
Speaker 1: We created stories for physics. That's a language, okay, language.
Speaker 1: Physics is a language. Biology is a language. Anthropology is
Speaker 1: a language. Philosophy is a language. Religion is language. Science
Speaker 1: is language. Technology is a language. And we never stopped,
Speaker 1: you know, we keptally be embarked on the agricultural age,
Speaker 1: the industrial age, the technology age, the digital age, and
Speaker 1: now the Internet as we know it is a large
Speaker 1: language model. It accesses all human languages. The language of
Speaker 1: physics is that, yeah, all the languages I mentioned to you.
Speaker 1: So AI as a large language model has been only
Speaker 1: around only the last fifteen years. I guarantee you that
Speaker 1: if you disappeared today on a remote island and you
Speaker 1: came back twenty years, you wouldn't recognize is the world
Speaker 1: you would be in. You would have leapfrogged into a
Speaker 1: new culture, a new civilization. But even your biological organism
Speaker 1: would be different. You wouldn't be a human anymore. You
Speaker 1: would be something like a meta human or a cyber human. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, the primate said the same thing when
Speaker 1: humans emerged and started to walk upright, Okay, monkeys said
Speaker 1: that's scary, right, But we don't think it's scary. So
Speaker 1: in twenty years you'll leapfrog into a new biological species.
Speaker 1: Because every time you learn something, your neural network changes,
Speaker 1: the landscape of your brain changes, your gene activity changes,
Speaker 1: called epigenetics. So now we have access to the language
Speaker 1: of you mentioned gurus, but go beyond that. You have
Speaker 1: access to the stages of the unashas, you have access
Speaker 1: to the luminaries of the Old Testament. You have access
Speaker 1: to all the Western philosophers, you have access to thought leaders,
Speaker 1: you have access actually to every luminary that has existed
Speaker 1: on this planet. And being a thought leader not only
Speaker 1: in science but in spirituality. With AI, you can access
Speaker 1: all that and then you can choose what you feel
Speaker 1: as a guide to your spiritual enlightenment. Having said that,
Speaker 1: AI is not even intelligent, it's just a large language model,
Speaker 1: a huge database, a huge base of knowledge. But it's
Speaker 1: a guide post for your self exploration. The key to this,
Speaker 1: as I point out in the book, is the art
Speaker 1: of the prompt. You have to know what you're looking
Speaker 1: for most people don't know what they're looking for. They
Speaker 1: don't even know who they are, they don't even know
Speaker 1: that they should be grateful for the fact that they exist,
Speaker 1: because existence is a great mystery. Now, with the right prompts,
Speaker 1: AI can lead you to the answers to these questions.
Speaker 1: That's why it's a spiritual guide, or you can use
Speaker 1: it as a spiritual guide.
Speaker 2: I love the idea that AI is just a tool
Speaker 2: and it's our choice of how we use it. And
Speaker 2: I think we have such a pessimistic view of it.
Speaker 2: We just seem so certain that it's going to mean
Speaker 2: the end of times, the end of It's.
Speaker 1: Going to happen with every invention. Okay, yeah, a knife
Speaker 1: can be used to kill a person, but in a
Speaker 1: surgeon's hands, a knife heels, a hammer can be used
Speaker 1: to also knock somebody on the head. But in a
Speaker 1: carpenter's hands it's an amazing tool. So also, once the
Speaker 1: technology comes, it's irreversible. It's like a child that cannot
Speaker 1: return to the womb. Or it's like once you walk
Speaker 1: up right stop crawling, you can't go back to it.
Speaker 1: So either you adapt to it or help. I actually
Speaker 1: believe that given shared vision and maximum diversity of storytellers
Speaker 1: and talent and shared vision. We could use AI to
Speaker 1: create a more peaceful, just sustainable, healthier and joyful world
Speaker 1: because all the challenges we have right now, but like
Speaker 1: climate change, social and economic injustice, like chronic disease, and
Speaker 1: unsustainable biology, all these are reversible and AI has the
Speaker 1: ability to tell us how to do it. We just
Speaker 1: have to have the collective.
Speaker 2: Will coming up. Why dpak Chopra doesn't think you should
Speaker 2: be scared of AI and why he thinks it might
Speaker 2: actually be an important tool for those of us who
Speaker 2: want to pursue meaning, purpose and happiness. I think I
Speaker 2: when I've thought about happiness, and sometimes I think about
Speaker 2: when I would be at my happiest, and I often
Speaker 2: picture myself untethered technology. That's kind of like the default
Speaker 2: place that I go. And maybe it's because my childhood
Speaker 2: was less dominated by technology and it's kind of a
Speaker 2: purer emotional experience. But I think you're right that in
Speaker 2: this day and age, you can't put the genie back
Speaker 2: in the bottle. I'm not going to live on a
Speaker 2: deserted island with no technology if I want to live
Speaker 2: in the world with people and I want to connect
Speaker 2: with others. What is this idea about a meta human?
Speaker 2: Where do you think AI is going to take us?
Speaker 2: In that sense?
Speaker 1: New frontiers of creativity and imagination and insight and new experiences. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is just beginning. Soon you'll have what is called ambient computing,
Speaker 1: which means you will be able to use any surface
Speaker 1: as a computer, your wall, your tabletop, the floor, even
Speaker 1: your hand. So that's coming soon, ambient computing. Then you
Speaker 1: have virtual reality. Then you have augmented reality, which means
Speaker 1: you take this reality we're in, but you augment it
Speaker 1: with technology. Then you have extended reality or immersive experiences.
Speaker 1: And then you have holography as an immersive experience. And
Speaker 1: all these technologies will extend the range of human experience
Speaker 1: in a way that is beyond your imagination right now. Okay,
Speaker 1: Also there'll be therapeutic jewels, because if you understand what
Speaker 1: is called the heart problem of consciousness, many people now
Speaker 1: believe that the universe would live in and your body
Speaker 1: and your mind is part of that universe. Is in
Speaker 1: fact a virtual reality. It's not fundamental reality, and it's
Speaker 1: a human reality. So when you look at a tree,
Speaker 1: you look at a tree through the human eyes and
Speaker 1: human brain. It's not the same tree to an insect
Speaker 1: to the one hundred eyes. It's not the same tree
Speaker 1: to a bat that it sees the tree through the
Speaker 1: echo of ultrasound. It's not the same tree to a
Speaker 1: snake that moves through navigates through infrared. So there's no
Speaker 1: objective world. The world that we call the objective world
Speaker 1: is a simulation. It's a virtual reality. With these extended realities,
Speaker 1: I'm speaking of augmented reality, extended reality we are, and
Speaker 1: immersive experiences. Right now, Actually, I've created my own digital twin.
Speaker 1: It's called digitallypark dot ai. You don't need to download
Speaker 1: an app. Just download it from Go to Google or
Speaker 1: any Chrome or any device on your computer or handheld phone,
Speaker 1: and you can speak to my digital twin in four
Speaker 1: languages and answer will be given in four languages, English,
Speaker 1: in the Arabic and Spanish, and soon in Chinese and
Speaker 1: Russian and all other languages. And you can ask it
Speaker 1: any question about health or relationships, or well being, or
Speaker 1: sleep or stress management or spirituality. It will instantly give
Speaker 1: you an answer, but it also give you the resources
Speaker 1: where the answer came from. And then I'm looking at
Speaker 1: these weariables now right that you can see them wearing
Speaker 1: an eyebotch and aura which looks at my sleep, which
Speaker 1: my looks at my exercise, and that will be matched
Speaker 1: to your lifestyle, your sleep, wake patterns, your nutrition. Then
Speaker 1: this technology, all the things I mentioned will become your
Speaker 1: personal health coach and will guide you to health longevity.
Speaker 1: And because it will know you, it'll do what time
Speaker 1: you went to slap, if you had an argument with
Speaker 1: your spouse and your blood pressure went up or your
Speaker 1: blood sugar went up, it'll know that, and it'll be
Speaker 1: your personal health coach with no intervention. Uh. And it
Speaker 1: will be what we call a distributed autonomous agent, which
Speaker 1: means you don't really need d Park. You need a
Speaker 1: version of the park that you like and is personal
Speaker 1: to you, rather than say John or whoever else. So
Speaker 1: you know the future is beyond your imagination right now?
Speaker 2: Do you worry that?
Speaker 1: I never worry about anything.
Speaker 2: I know. I know you're you're incredibly faithful. But in
Speaker 2: terms of II and all of those developments you were
Speaker 2: talking about, a crucial part of happiness and kind of
Speaker 2: meaning appears to be human connection. That it's human connection
Speaker 2: and it's our relationships with each other that are the
Speaker 2: basis for a fulfilling life. Do you think that those
Speaker 2: kind of technological leaning towards technology might erode that human connection.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, if you look at what makes people happy,
Speaker 1: there are several things that are involved. One is your attitude.
Speaker 1: Do you look at the world as a problem or
Speaker 1: do you look at the world as an opportunity? And
Speaker 1: that's based on your childhood conditioning. If you've got lots
Speaker 1: of attention, affection, appreciation, and acceptance, you'll grow up to
Speaker 1: be a happy person. Or else if you don't, you
Speaker 1: can run for office or president or something. You know,
Speaker 1: there's always an opportunity for unhappy people. That's called politics. Yeah, okay, So,
Speaker 1: but if you want to be happy, it's your attitude
Speaker 1: number one. Number two is what we call fulfillment, whether
Speaker 1: you have meaning a purpose in life. And number three
Speaker 1: it's your relationships. In fact, the fastest way to be
Speaker 1: happy is to make other people happy. That's all well researched.
Speaker 1: So looking at that actually a can help you because
Speaker 1: you know, during the pandemic COVID pandemic, I created an
Speaker 1: emotional chat pot which was an AI, which is talking
Speaker 1: to teens and suicide is the second most common cause
Speaker 1: of death among teens. But these teens were very happy
Speaker 1: to talk to this machine because they weren't judged. We
Speaker 1: intervened in five thousand suicide ideations. And then also so
Speaker 1: there were twenty million text messages that the AIR was
Speaker 1: having with teenagers who didn't feel judged. The AIR would
Speaker 1: ask them what did you have for dinner last time?
Speaker 1: Did your boyfriend return your call? Etc. And then I
Speaker 1: stopped using it because I realized that there were experts
Speaker 1: better than me in this intervention, but we actually saw
Speaker 1: the benefits of AI in mental well being. Also, I
Speaker 1: believe you can use AI to create global online and
Speaker 1: offline communities where people serve each other, where people engage
Speaker 1: in community work, and where people are there for each other,
Speaker 1: listening to each other, caring for each other. And this
Speaker 1: can be both online and offline. It depends on us
Speaker 1: our creativity. It doesn't need to take away the human
Speaker 1: connection at all. In fact, it can enhance it.
Speaker 2: I think that's a really interesting way to look at it,
Speaker 2: because I think a lot of the thinking about this
Speaker 2: seems to seems to posit that we will almost go backwards,
Speaker 2: that people will turn away from their phones and turn
Speaker 2: back to each other.
Speaker 1: Will yeah, yeah, yeah, it's their choice, you know, because
Speaker 1: as I said, you know, every technology comes with the hazard,
Speaker 1: whether it's the automobile or aviation or crossing the road
Speaker 1: these days, you know, on the streets. So you know,
Speaker 1: that's how life is. It contains opposing forces. It's up
Speaker 1: to you where you put your attention.
Speaker 2: When you think about this spiritual journey. And you write
Speaker 2: in the book about AI being an aide for that
Speaker 2: spiritual journey, you talk about how spiritual experiences carry you
Speaker 2: outside your story. Can you explain that idea because that
Speaker 2: blew my mind.
Speaker 1: You are born into a world of stories and it's
Speaker 1: been interpreted for you when you're born. So oh, now,
Speaker 1: this baby, let's call it Deepark, and it's an Indian baby.
Speaker 1: It has a Hindu religion and this is its economic background.
Speaker 1: And then you are just in that story. Your options
Speaker 1: for creativity and experience are limited by the ecosystem of
Speaker 1: the stories that you're born into. Inherently, there's no creativity
Speaker 1: in that because you know, you're just recycling what happened
Speaker 1: to your parents, and there happened. So you'll go to
Speaker 1: kindergarten then you go to high, middle school, high school,
Speaker 1: then you go to college, then you get a job,
Speaker 1: you get children, then you grow old, and then you die,
Speaker 1: and then the next generation recycles that. And of course,
Speaker 1: all the conflicts in the world are conflicts about stories.
Speaker 1: Whether they're religious stories, or ethnic stories, or national stories
Speaker 1: or cultural stories. They're all ideological conflicts, including economic stories.
Speaker 1: All the conflicts in the world, all the war is
Speaker 1: about my story is better than yours, and you know
Speaker 1: you better buy into my story. I am right and
Speaker 1: you're wrong. Once you break out of your story, you
Speaker 1: find that you're not tethered to any one version of reality.
Speaker 1: And that's called spirituality. It's called being in touch with
Speaker 1: that part of you which is in the realm of
Speaker 1: infinite freedom, infinite possibilities for experience, and infinite creativity. As
Speaker 1: I said to you, ninety nine point nine percent of
Speaker 1: people are not there. Spirituality just means breaking out of
Speaker 1: your story into the field of infinite possibilities called self
Speaker 1: realize it's not your ego identity, but the bigger identity,
Speaker 1: which is more universal and in the domain of the sacred.
Speaker 2: And you have an example in the book about how
Speaker 2: that kind of spiritual journey or you know, that idea
Speaker 2: of living in your personal drama, that love is an
Speaker 2: example of being in your personal dama case.
Speaker 1: But love is not just sentimental romance or emotional melodrama.
Speaker 1: That's not really love. That's self importance. Love to be
Speaker 1: truly love is the understanding that what you call the
Speaker 1: other is just like you in a different uniform. That's
Speaker 1: all you know. The body looks different, the mind is
Speaker 1: a different story, but it's still the same essence. That's love,
Speaker 1: and it's without conditions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I like that idea because when I thought
Speaker 2: about love, I thought, yeah, love doesn't follow whatever story
Speaker 2: you put on it.
Speaker 1: No, it's like a mother's love for a baby is
Speaker 1: unconditioner till the baby gets an ego and then there's.
Speaker 2: It's not finding you right. Your story is the life
Speaker 2: you are leading. Your dama is the life you're supposed
Speaker 2: to lead. And then you say, that's such an idealistic
Speaker 2: statement that most people would bulk at it or at
Speaker 2: least hesitate before embracing it. Is it really credible that
Speaker 2: everyone has a life they are supposed to lead? If so,
Speaker 2: who or what determines what such a life is? The
Speaker 2: answer is you it feels better to make a dharmic
Speaker 2: choice than a choice that puts you out of your dama.
Speaker 2: What is an example in your own life of a
Speaker 2: darmic choice, like day to day, what's a choice that
Speaker 2: you make that you know is in your darma?
Speaker 1: It feels joyous, spontaneous, effortless and flow. So you know,
Speaker 1: the scale of human well being is survival, adaptation, thriving, flourishing, flowing,
Speaker 1: and awakening. And most people learn the survival mode or
Speaker 1: they're adapting, and therefore there's resistance to every experience you
Speaker 1: have in dharma, there's no resistance to existence. It's just flow.
Speaker 2: And you say in the book, you've got this idea
Speaker 2: of how in Western philosophy we have a bit of
Speaker 2: a concept that if we look inside ourselves deep enough,
Speaker 2: Sigmund Freud said, you find like a death wish, whereas
Speaker 2: an Eastern philosophy you find goodness. There's nothing to fear
Speaker 2: about going there.
Speaker 1: Everyone is the fear of their losing their story. They're
Speaker 1: hanging on or clutching or grasping the ungraspable. So if
Speaker 1: I asked you what happened to your childhood, you'd say
Speaker 1: it's a dream. If I asked you, what happened to yesterday?
Speaker 1: It's a dream? What about this morning? It's a dream?
Speaker 1: What about five minutes ago? It's a dream? What about
Speaker 1: the words that I'm using right now. By the time
Speaker 1: you hear them, they don't exist. So you know. Mityen Stein,
Speaker 1: the Western philosopher, said, our life is a dream. We
Speaker 1: are asleep, but once in a while we wake up
Speaker 1: enough to know that we're dreaming. The Buddha said the
Speaker 1: same thing. He said, this lifetime of ours is transient
Speaker 1: as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of
Speaker 1: beings is like looking at the movements of a dance.
Speaker 1: A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the
Speaker 1: sky and rushing by like a torrent down a steep.
Speaker 1: So we're clutching at a dream which is unclutchable. You're
Speaker 1: grasping at something that is ungraspable. You can't return to
Speaker 1: your childhood, you can't return to five minutes ago, you
Speaker 1: can't return to yesterday. And yet all our anxieties by
Speaker 1: holding on to a dream. What's behind the dream is
Speaker 1: the infinite possibilities of experience. That is called the spirit
Speaker 1: or the self or the soul or you don't have
Speaker 1: to use fancy words. You say, what is life without
Speaker 1: a story? It's infinite stories for you to create your
Speaker 1: the protagonist, the director, the hero, and the villain of
Speaker 1: your own story. Once you realize that, then that's freedom.
Speaker 2: The other thing about AI as well is that it
Speaker 2: kind of crosses that boundary in that it doesn't have
Speaker 2: to because AI is not a person. It doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be religious. It can transcend all those things.
Speaker 1: Well, spirituality. Once you engage in spirituality, you realize there's
Speaker 1: no such thing as a person. The person is part
Speaker 1: of the dream. It's all there is is the spirit.
Speaker 2: And is that what transcendency is?
Speaker 1: That's what transcendences. Yes, when people transcend their three components,
Speaker 1: there are actually originally we what the called the religious experience.
Speaker 1: These days, it's kind of cool to say I'm spiritual,
Speaker 1: but I'm not religious. But the religious experience and the
Speaker 1: spiritual experience is the same thing. One is transcendence, second
Speaker 1: is spontaneous emergence of platonic values like truth, goodness, beauty, harmony, love, compassion, joy, equanimity, happiness.
Speaker 1: And the third is the loss of the fear of death,
Speaker 1: because only the story dies, not the entity that's appearing
Speaker 1: as a particular story. So that's the religious and spiritual experience.
Speaker 1: And I think I can point the way because it
Speaker 1: learns from others who have gone that way.
Speaker 2: After the break, I asked Deepak Chopra about how to
Speaker 2: get into meditation if it's not something you've done a
Speaker 2: lot in the past, and I get his thoughts on
Speaker 2: fame and social media. You have for a long time
Speaker 2: talked about meditation and your practice of meditation. What does
Speaker 2: your practice of meditation look like now?
Speaker 1: Like in your days, it's a lot of self reflection,
Speaker 1: self inquiry, mindful awareness in the present moment, of perceptual experience,
Speaker 1: of relationships of the body of the mind, and transcendence.
Speaker 1: And actually, my digital twin now can teach you any
Speaker 1: kind of meditation that you want. So if you go
Speaker 1: to digitally parked, I say I want a meditation for sleep,
Speaker 1: there it is and I'll be your guide. Or I
Speaker 1: want a meditation for repairing my traumatic relationship with whoever,
Speaker 1: there's a meditation for that. So now meditation, give me
Speaker 1: personalized What.
Speaker 2: Do you think is kind of the best way for
Speaker 2: somebody to get into meditation if they've never done it before, Just.
Speaker 1: A few minutes, even five minutes of observing your breath
Speaker 1: without judgment, or observing your bodily sensations, or sitting with
Speaker 1: your eyes closed and doing nothing for five minutes is
Speaker 1: a good start.
Speaker 2: And when you started your kind of spiritual journey, as
Speaker 2: as it's kind of ended up now in terms of
Speaker 2: career path and that kind of thing, what did meditation
Speaker 2: provide you? Like, what can you remember about when you
Speaker 2: really started to meditate? How did your life change?
Speaker 1: Well, the first thing meditation does is the ordinary stresses
Speaker 1: of daily existence. Don't perceive threats as other people perceive them.
Speaker 1: But it's much more than that. It enhances your insight
Speaker 1: into your own self, into your own motivations. It enhances
Speaker 1: the barer of intention, intuition, creativity, insight, higher consciousness, transcendence,
Speaker 1: all of that.
Speaker 2: And as your career has grown, it's interesting because you
Speaker 2: have stayed so grounded in these principles of spirituality, but
Speaker 2: you've experienced so much of what usually corrupts people in
Speaker 2: terms of fame and having a profile and having such
Speaker 2: a prolific and achievement filled life. How have you avoided
Speaker 2: the trappings of fame? Have you ever felt like you
Speaker 2: could succumb to how fame can corrupt human beings.
Speaker 1: It does, always does, and fame has driven by insecurity.
Speaker 1: So I've never met a famous person who's not insecure
Speaker 1: because they are concerned about losing their fame. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like having a lot of money and waking up
Speaker 1: in a nightmare that you don't have any et cetera.
Speaker 1: But when you don't attach yourself to it, it keeps
Speaker 1: you grounded, and it keeps you creative, and it keeps
Speaker 1: you secure. You know that there are three addictions that
Speaker 1: human beings have. One is the addiction to sensation, which
Speaker 1: is any sensation, food, text, whatever. The second is the
Speaker 1: addiction to power and corruption, and the third is the
Speaker 1: addiction to security. The addiction to security is the biggest
Speaker 1: cause insecurity. If actually you realize that addiction and fame
Speaker 1: and power are all actually impediments to your true fulfillment,
Speaker 1: then you let go of it. It's not there.
Speaker 2: Do you conceive of when you look back on your life?
Speaker 2: Do you think about things like failure or regret? Or
Speaker 2: do those concepts simply not exist to you?
Speaker 1: Not? For me?
Speaker 2: No, is there anything that if you looked back you
Speaker 2: wish you'd done differently or no idea.
Speaker 1: Everything I did with samely when it happened, you know,
Speaker 1: as a teenager experiment with cigarettes and psychedelics and all
Speaker 1: of that alcohol, realized it wasn't worth it.
Speaker 2: And when you've met other because you've you know, you've
Speaker 2: done so much in this world of fame. What have
Speaker 2: you seen in famous people? Do you think they have
Speaker 2: a craving for this deeper spiritual meaning because they're like
Speaker 2: some do.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, people like Montin Luther King Junior,
Speaker 1: or Nelson Mandela or Mongandhi or the great luminaries of
Speaker 1: spiritual and traditions and religious traditions. But for the last
Speaker 1: majority of famous people, they're mostly very insecure people, the
Speaker 1: more attached to power, influence, speddling, cronyism, corruption and money.
Speaker 2: That's it, which I think is a really interesting thing
Speaker 2: for people to know in this day and age where
Speaker 2: fame is so valorized, and so many people look at
Speaker 2: fame and think that that's a goal and that's what
Speaker 2: I should work towards. But there's this other path of
Speaker 2: meaning and transcendence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you see, this is the hypnosis of our conditioning.
Speaker 1: People are looking at their at their social media to
Speaker 1: see how many likes theiket or how many dislikes theiket,
Speaker 1: and it influences they stay to wellbeing and the number
Speaker 1: of likes. They've confused themselves with their selfies? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: self has been sacrificed for a selfie.
Speaker 2: And do you ever get confused by no deepak and
Speaker 2: social media dapa, No, I use.
Speaker 1: Social media only to contribute Yeah, well being, that's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you have such a huge reach through it.
Speaker 2: You write in the book that it's amazing how technology
Speaker 2: has been a vehicle for you to be able to
Speaker 2: feed people's spiritual hunger.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it gives me enjoy to do that, and
Speaker 1: technologies enhance my ability to reach what we call critical mass.
Speaker 2: We often end this show by asking people whether they're
Speaker 2: genuinely happy, because we speak to people who have reached
Speaker 2: all kinds of markers of success that we really value culturally.
Speaker 2: Is it even worth asking depac drop right?
Speaker 1: I think happiness is overrated. I'm at peace, I'm fulfilled. Happiness,
Speaker 1: like every other experience, is transient. You know, happiness is
Speaker 1: because you've experienced sadness. You can't have both with one
Speaker 1: without the other, just like you can't have an up
Speaker 1: without a down, or hot without a cold, or any
Speaker 1: experiences by contrast. So happiness is a contrast to the
Speaker 1: experience of sadness, and life is both sadness is and happiness.
Speaker 1: But peace transcends both happiness and sadness, and that's called fulfillment.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love that. That's a beautiful way to end.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time today. That's all
Speaker 2: we've got time for on this very special episode of
Speaker 2: But Are You Happy? I hope you learnt a bit
Speaker 2: about how artificial intelligence might actually be a force for
Speaker 2: good when it comes to our mental health and our
Speaker 2: well being. And I hope you also liked hearing about
Speaker 2: the concept of dharma and Chopra's broad ideas about finding
Speaker 2: meaning and purpose in a world where we're often pushed
Speaker 2: in the direction of valuing quite shallow things. We often
Speaker 2: talk about that on this show, that there's a bit
Speaker 2: of an assumption that money or fame or adoration or
Speaker 2: success is going to make you happy. And I think
Speaker 2: Deepak Chopra is completely right that we've been a little
Speaker 2: bit tricked in the Western world into thinking those things
Speaker 2: will bring us something that they just don't. I am
Speaker 2: tempted to lean into the idea of a spiritual journey,
Speaker 2: except that every time I go to meditate, I end
Speaker 2: up on TikTok. So if anyone's got any hacks or
Speaker 2: tips about how to not do that, that'd be great.
Speaker 2: But Deepak says, I'm on the right path, so that's
Speaker 2: the main thing. The executive producer of But Are You Happy?
Speaker 2: Is Nama Brown. The producer is Charlie Blackman, with audio
Speaker 2: editing by Jacob ROWNT. Now I'm your host. Claire Stevens
Speaker 2: will be back in your ears soon