Speaker 1: A folks, today's guest is very very well known. This
Speaker 1: is a much different guest than I normally have one.
Speaker 1: And if you had told me that I would be
Speaker 1: sitting down with one of the leading thought leaders of
Speaker 1: our time, I wouldn't have believed you. It's just definitely
Speaker 1: not my john. The Deepak Chopra is a global leader
Speaker 1: and pioneer in the field of mind body medicine. It's
Speaker 1: got so much insight into the spiritual, the physical, mental worlds.
Speaker 1: Turn up the volume a bit. I'm glad you're here. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm very excited to today welcome my guest, Deepak Chopra.
Speaker 1: These are words that I never really thought would be
Speaker 1: leaving my mouth here on a podcast. First off, I
Speaker 1: never even imagined that I would be doing a podcast
Speaker 1: when I got into this line of work, and certainly
Speaker 1: that I would have such an esteemed guest with me today.
Speaker 1: It's very nice to meet you, sir. I know that
Speaker 1: a lot of people, you know, there's a silly six
Speaker 1: degrees of Kevin Bacon thing that has been going on
Speaker 1: for a lot of years, and we actually believed or
Speaker 1: not have a connection through the film business because of
Speaker 1: the love Guru. So my first question for you is
Speaker 1: how was how did you feel about acting? What was
Speaker 1: what was your experience with being a performer.
Speaker 2: You know, Mike has been a very good friend to me,
Speaker 2: and when he came out with this idea, I wanted
Speaker 2: to support the idea, but you know, it's not my
Speaker 2: kind of humor and spend filming it was quite tiring
Speaker 2: to daddy the truth and I'm not you know, I
Speaker 2: like to speak on stage, but I'm not really an actor.
Speaker 2: But it was an interesting experience.
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting that you say that because I think
Speaker 1: that you know, I have listened to you, you know,
Speaker 1: quite a bit speaking, uh, and and and seeing you
Speaker 1: also not in person but online speaking and while you're
Speaker 1: not an actor, uh, there is something about your full persona,
Speaker 1: your voice where it is placed, all those elements of
Speaker 1: what you put out in the world that have a
Speaker 1: very very powerful effect. I guess my point is that
Speaker 1: you know, beyond the words that that you say, there's
Speaker 1: also a there is an element of that's just you
Speaker 1: that is powerful. Are you Are you kind of aware
Speaker 1: of that that it's, for lack of a better word, charismatic.
Speaker 2: I kind of became a flure through comments from people
Speaker 2: like yourselves, you know. But I was not aware of
Speaker 2: that growing up. Although in high school I was a
Speaker 2: professional debater, and I you know, I did a lot
Speaker 2: of that in college and in medical school too, so
Speaker 2: I do have that background of engaging in dialogue and
Speaker 2: debate as a student in school and medical school and
Speaker 2: even thereafter.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of background, where are you from? Where were
Speaker 1: you born?
Speaker 2: I was born in New Delhi. I went to high
Speaker 2: school in New Delhi, and then I went to the
Speaker 2: medical school that at that time and even now is
Speaker 2: considered very prestigious in India. They take only fifty students
Speaker 2: a year from all over India. It's called the All
Speaker 2: India Institute of Medical Sciences. And then as soon as
Speaker 2: I finished my school, I was only twenty two, I
Speaker 2: came to the United States and worked in community hospital
Speaker 2: in New Jersey. But fortunately the next year I got
Speaker 2: fellowships and residencies in Boston at various institutions associated with
Speaker 2: Harvard and Boston University and Tufts, and so I did
Speaker 2: my training in Boston, four years of residency and three
Speaker 2: years of fellowship, so that was seven years. And then
Speaker 2: I started teaching at at the three universities medical schools,
Speaker 2: mainly endochronology and neuroindochronology, which is the study of brain chemistry.
Speaker 2: So this was in seventies when people didn't know much
Speaker 2: about neurochemicals like serotonin and dopamine and oxytocin and opiates.
Speaker 2: But we were right in the frontier. My mentor was
Speaker 2: Simour Reichlan, who was the number one endochronologist in the
Speaker 2: world at that time.
Speaker 3: He was the.
Speaker 2: President of the Endocrine Society. He's now ninety seven, by
Speaker 2: the way, and if he catches a snake in his garden,
Speaker 2: he still dissects the brain looking for neurochemicals. But it
Speaker 2: was my insight as a result of my training with
Speaker 2: these molecules, was that one day one of my colleagues,
Speaker 2: Can Despert, who later became the head of brain chemistry
Speaker 2: at the NIH, She said, these are the molecules of emotion,
Speaker 2: and you know that kind of hit me. I said,
Speaker 2: you should write a book about them. She said, I
Speaker 2: will if you write the forwards. So she wrote this book,
Speaker 2: Molecules of Emotion, and I actually did the forward. It
Speaker 2: became a best seller that got me into my book
Speaker 2: Quantum Healing nineteen eighty eight. And even though it was
Speaker 2: vilified by my colleagues and medical schools, which they felt
Speaker 2: it was totally outlandish or whatever. It also was very
Speaker 2: popular with the public. So that was my forain into
Speaker 2: mind body medicine, which then became integrated medicine, and then
Speaker 2: deeper understanding of what we call consciousness and spirit. And
Speaker 2: this year or thirty five years later, I along with
Speaker 2: a couple of colleagues, including a quantum biologist who's at
Speaker 2: the University of Calgary also in Poland in Europe, and
Speaker 2: another colleague, Brian Fertig, who's neuroindochronologists like myself, we published
Speaker 2: last week Quantum Body, which now brings the science into
Speaker 2: what I was saying in nineteen eighty eight. So since
Speaker 2: ninety eight, in eighty eight, there's a lot of science
Speaker 2: on what we call epigenetics, neuroplasticity, and even you know,
Speaker 2: the quantum effects in our body as a result of
Speaker 2: a more fundamental experience of existence, which is going beyond
Speaker 2: the mind into what we call the spiritual consciousness. Somehow
Speaker 2: that begins to kick in self regulation and homeostasis in
Speaker 2: the body. And so we have a science, you know,
Speaker 2: and now the science is easy to check because anybody objects.
Speaker 2: We say, go to AI or go to Google Bard
Speaker 2: or whatever and check out the science yourself. I don't
Speaker 2: have to defend what I was saying thirty five years ago.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean that brings up so many thoughts for me.
Speaker 1: But I'll just speak from a personal level. I mean,
Speaker 1: I am someone who kind of goes. I'm sort of
Speaker 1: open to all different ways to stay healthy and to
Speaker 1: fix things.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: If I use traditional medicine. I have a traditional medicine doctor. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I will if if I feel sick or
Speaker 1: something's going on. I'm I'm very good about showing up
Speaker 1: and taking blood work and you know, doing all those things.
Speaker 1: I'm not in any way anti it, but I also
Speaker 1: sometimes go to alternative sources whatever they happen to be different,
Speaker 1: you know what some people would call, you know, insane
Speaker 1: kind of methods, meditation, you know, whatever it happens to be.
Speaker 1: In the course of my life, there's been like, you know,
Speaker 1: herbal kind of things and acupuncture, all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: But what I find a lot of times is that
Speaker 1: both of these sides of this particular issue are sort
Speaker 1: of at odds with each other or disdainful of the
Speaker 1: different kind of practices on both sides that there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people that who are in you know, alternative
Speaker 1: medicines that really you know, pooh pooh are disdained you know,
Speaker 1: traditional medicine. And and you know, on the flip side,
Speaker 1: you go to the doctor and you say, hey, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, i have this, you know, pain in my throat.
Speaker 1: I've been taking you know, you know whatever, zinc or something,
Speaker 1: and he goes, yeah, yeah, great whatever, you know it
Speaker 1: doesn't want to hear about it. So I'm wondering, as
Speaker 1: someone who comes from you were trained and you know
Speaker 1: clearly very successful as a as a doctor in internal
Speaker 1: medicine and the chronology, and then you've discovered this kind
Speaker 1: of other connection, how do you balance those two types
Speaker 1: of things? And which world is it that or do
Speaker 1: you feel yourself on a bridge between two worlds?
Speaker 2: Not really, Kevin, So, just to put things in perspective,
Speaker 2: I currently have a professorship in three medical schools, University
Speaker 2: of California, San Diego, Mount Sinai in New York, and
Speaker 2: University of Central Florida in Orlando. So I teach, and
Speaker 2: right now it's very popular this what is called integrated
Speaker 2: medicine with medical students that they are offered electives and
Speaker 2: there's always a waiting list. So I no longer say
Speaker 2: this is alternative, but this is an integrative.
Speaker 3: It's old list.
Speaker 2: Say I think good medicine is that which works. Spirit
Speaker 2: So medicine that works is good medicine. It doesn't matter
Speaker 2: where it comes from. If it's you know, if it's
Speaker 2: Eastern Western to me, doesn't matter. Having said that, what
Speaker 2: we call traditional medicine as taught in medical schools for
Speaker 2: the most part, although now medical schools are getting into
Speaker 2: what they call integrated medicine. But in general, it's very
Speaker 2: clear that mainstream medical intervention, which includes antibiotics, includes chemotherapy, radiation, surgery,
Speaker 2: now immunotherapy, and many other things. Mainstream medicine is extremely
Speaker 2: effective in acute illness. So if you have pneumonia, you
Speaker 2: better take an antibiotic. If you break your leg, you
Speaker 2: should see an orthopedic surgeon, et cetera. If you have appendicitis,
Speaker 2: that's an acute situation which needs intervention. So what we
Speaker 2: call reductionist medicine Western medicine is based on understanding the
Speaker 2: mechanisms of illness at a very precise level. So you
Speaker 2: know how bacteria multiplied. Then you have a precision medicine
Speaker 2: to interfere with that, whatever it is antibiotics, etc. Now immunotherapy.
Speaker 2: There are major breakthroughs.
Speaker 3: In medicine right now.
Speaker 2: The first one is AI, which can put together every
Speaker 2: biomarker and link it to everything that's happening in your life,
Speaker 2: your sleep patterns, your stress, et cetera. So AI is
Speaker 2: a breakthrough in modern medicine. Gene editing is a breakthrough
Speaker 2: in modern medicine. You'll be able to cut and paste
Speaker 2: genes the same way you cutt and based emails. You
Speaker 2: metaphorically speaking, you'll be able to read the barcode of
Speaker 2: a gene and delete the gene that's causing say, baraka
Speaker 2: gene cancer. You replace it with a normal gene Wallah.
Speaker 2: So that's second major breakthrough. The third major breakthrough in
Speaker 2: modern medicine is what we call messenger RNA, where you
Speaker 2: can create, hopefully in the near future, vaccines for chronic
Speaker 2: illness everything from heart disease to cancer, to diabetes to Alzheimer's.
Speaker 2: So that's another major breakthrough. The fourth major breakthrough is
Speaker 2: what we call the microbiome, which is the two million
Speaker 2: extra genes you have in addition to human genes. We
Speaker 2: can change the population of the genes through diet and
Speaker 2: many other interventions. So that's a breakthrough. And the fifth
Speaker 2: breakthrough is psychedelics, and you know that's happening in the
Speaker 2: consciousness research. Those are very important breakthroughs in modern medicine. However,
Speaker 2: when you look at the spectrum of disease, ninety five
Speaker 2: percent or more disease is not due to what we
Speaker 2: call fully penetrent genes. They are only less than five
Speaker 2: percent of all disease, which includes cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, diabetes,
Speaker 2: you name it. Ninety five percent or more is not
Speaker 2: due to what we call fully penetrent genes, for which
Speaker 2: you will have this gene editing and so forth. Ninety
Speaker 2: percent of disease is epigenetically or strated epigenetic. Above the genes,
Speaker 2: there's a sheet of proteins called his stones, and so
Speaker 2: imagine my fist as this his stone protein DNA is
Speaker 2: wrapped around this, and every experience you have doesn't matter
Speaker 2: what the experience is. Right now, we are having an
Speaker 2: intellectual conversation. Your genes in your brain frontal godix are
Speaker 2: being activated. Sure, not only those genes, but anyone who's
Speaker 2: listening to us. Their genes are being activated, which means
Speaker 2: our minds are affecting energy information, genetic activity in different
Speaker 2: parts of our body depending on the experience. So if
Speaker 2: this was an emotional experience, you know, then you know
Speaker 2: you're in love, then some other part of your brain
Speaker 2: would be activated, and gene activity would be activated and
Speaker 2: neural networks would change. This is something we did not
Speaker 2: know twenty years ago. You know, intuitively, these Eastern tick
Speaker 2: niques have tapped into it, you know, and Iveda and
Speaker 2: Chinese medicine even and indigenous medical practices. They tapped into
Speaker 2: the idea that when you change experience, you change biology.
Speaker 2: And so you know, Western medicine's being dismissive of this
Speaker 2: because they say, oh, you're not it's place ebo. But
Speaker 2: that's a term that we use when you don't know
Speaker 2: what's happening. Now we know what's happening. Genes are being
Speaker 2: activated precisely. So when you sleep, certain genes get activated.
Speaker 2: When you have an emotional experience, certain genes get activated.
Speaker 2: When you manage your stress. Either way, it stress causes
Speaker 2: genes to activate that cause inflammation. But when you have joy.
Speaker 2: Other genes are activated. Every experience modulates the activity of
Speaker 2: the change. What happens is these proteins they move around,
Speaker 2: and then certain genes get closer to each other, certain
Speaker 2: genes get far from each other. They're literally genetic switches.
Speaker 2: Like the lights in my room. Now you know, I
Speaker 2: have a computer, I have a light, I have a microwave,
Speaker 2: let's say, and depending on what I need, the appropriate
Speaker 2: appliances will get activated. There's a computer in consciousness, call
Speaker 2: it a cosmic computer whatever, that is constantly monitoring your
Speaker 2: experience in trying to regulate your body, you know. But
Speaker 2: we kind of sometimes interfare with that through lack of sleep,
Speaker 2: for example, or a dysfunctional relationship or an improper diet.
Speaker 2: And now we not only know the gene activity, but
Speaker 2: also the part of the autonomic nervous system, which we
Speaker 2: call the parasympathetic nervous system, which is activated by all
Speaker 2: these techniques, whether it's yoga or breathing, or chanting or
Speaker 2: singing or meditation or mind body coordination or tai chi
Speaker 2: or chigong or what you call you know, acuper pressure.
Speaker 2: So looking at the new era where we can combine
Speaker 2: everything that we know in Western medicine, with everything that
Speaker 2: we know in these healing traditions, and there's a science.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: That's that's I love the book.
Speaker 2: Now want to body.
Speaker 3: I love that. You know.
Speaker 1: I had a experience many years ago where I was
Speaker 1: a young man, uh and I was, you know, suffering
Speaker 1: from a tremendous amount of back pain, low back pain,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, to the point where like I'd
Speaker 1: be driving down the road, I had to pull the
Speaker 1: car over and lie on the ground that it was
Speaker 1: but just it would literally like make me cry. And
Speaker 1: I heard about this book, the Sarno Book, and I
Speaker 1: remember I was on vacation. My back was killing me,
Speaker 1: and I started reading this book and literally as I'm
Speaker 1: reading it, my backstart stopped hurting.
Speaker 3: And you know, back book.
Speaker 2: Was a good friend of mine, do it was?
Speaker 1: He yeah, yeah, I mean it changed my life, honestly,
Speaker 1: and I've I've continued to you know, share that book
Speaker 1: with with people, you know, because especially with backs.
Speaker 3: You know, he talked about.
Speaker 1: The you know, the fear that we have around and
Speaker 1: we always think that it's there's something wrong with your
Speaker 1: spine or you know, whatever it is, and this is
Speaker 1: not the ascount people that have true spin as you've
Speaker 1: pointed out, true things that need to be fixed, you know,
Speaker 1: true spinal injuries. But once I started to think about
Speaker 1: it and to think about, you know, what was actually
Speaker 1: going on in my life that that I wasn't quite
Speaker 1: dealing with, things got a lot better. I mean, my
Speaker 1: back got better. I don't know, I don't know my
Speaker 1: life necessarily got better, but my back back got better
Speaker 1: for that time. And I think about that, you know,
Speaker 1: quite a bit now. But I have to ask you,
Speaker 1: you know, I I sometimes when i'm I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not what I would call a spiritual person, right, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't have a religion. I don't have a religious practice.
Speaker 1: I don't I do things, for instance, like meditate, and
Speaker 1: sometimes I'll use you know, apps or or or you know,
Speaker 1: you know, voices or things that I've subscribed to to
Speaker 1: kind of walk me through it. But when it starts
Speaker 1: to dip a little too far into some spirituality, I
Speaker 1: kind of find myself pulling back from that. So I'm wondering, what, what,
Speaker 1: what kind of advice you would have for somebody like me.
Speaker 4: Let me.
Speaker 2: Actually take you a little deeper on this, Okay, because
Speaker 2: you shouldn't be afraid of exploring spirituality for the following reasons.
Speaker 2: This is going in to the heart of two very
Speaker 2: big scientific conundrums that we have today. If you go
Speaker 2: on the Internet and you type out the following question,
Speaker 2: what are the one hundred and twenty five open questions
Speaker 2: and science today?
Speaker 3: There are one hundred and twenty five open questions and science.
Speaker 3: By the way, you know, how did life begin?
Speaker 2: E said, But the first thing that comes up is
Speaker 2: what is the universe made of? And I won't go
Speaker 2: detailed into it. You would think that, you know, most
Speaker 2: of the universe is gravity and particles and force fields,
Speaker 2: and you know what we call atoms and molecules. Well,
Speaker 2: that's point zero one percent of the universe, which is atomic.
Speaker 2: The rest is dark energy doc matter, non atomic. We
Speaker 2: can't even interact with it, so we have no idea
Speaker 2: what it is point zero one percent of the visible universe,
Speaker 2: which is two trillion galaxies one hundred you know, seven
Speaker 2: hundred sixtillions. That's seven hundred followed by twenty one zeros.
Speaker 2: And now they say uncountable trillions of probably habitable planets,
Speaker 2: including sixty billion habitable planets just in the Milky Way
Speaker 2: galaxy atomic. But the problem with atoms is or particles,
Speaker 2: when you're not observing them, they disappear. They're not physical anymore.
Speaker 2: They disappear into mathematical space, and they're called wave functions.
Speaker 2: That's therefore the first question in size today's what's the
Speaker 2: universe made of? And nobody knows what it's made of?
Speaker 2: Zero They say it's made of nothing, which leads to
Speaker 2: our second question in science, Then why does it.
Speaker 3: Look like this?
Speaker 2: You know, like you and me and the computer and
Speaker 2: the Milky Way galaxy and stars and trees and rocks
Speaker 2: and animals. That's called the hard problem of consciousness. Now,
Speaker 2: in the short time we have right now, we can't
Speaker 2: go into detail, but there's an emerging science which we
Speaker 2: call consciousness, which might be fundamental reality. Conscious not the mind,
Speaker 2: it's not the body. It's that in which we experience
Speaker 2: the mind and body. So if I ask you where
Speaker 2: are you having this experience right now listening? You probably
Speaker 2: point to your ears or your brain, But there's no
Speaker 2: sound in your ears or your brain either. If I say,
Speaker 2: where are you seeing my image the park on your screen?
Speaker 2: Where is this experience happening? You might point to your eyes,
Speaker 2: your brain, but there's no experience in your eyes in
Speaker 2: your brain either, there are only chemical activities eellectual So
Speaker 2: there's a growing body of evidence that experience happens, for
Speaker 2: lack of a better word, in what we call awareness
Speaker 2: or consciousness. Without awareness or consciousness, there's no experience. There's
Speaker 2: no sound, there's no touch, no sight, no say it tastes,
Speaker 2: no smell, no thought, no feeling, no emotion, no no ideas,
Speaker 2: no creativity, no any no experience. So consciousness is that
Speaker 2: which makes experience happen, and we don't know where it is.
Speaker 2: So the spiritual traditions have said, if you go really
Speaker 2: deep beyond your mind, you do encounter and experience where
Speaker 2: you feel connected to everything ineffable, You lose the fear
Speaker 2: of death, you have spontaneous emergence of what is called
Speaker 2: platonic values like truth, goodness, beauty, harmony, and you actually
Speaker 2: find your identity beyond space and time. Now this was
Speaker 2: very difficult for people to explain in the past, because
Speaker 2: you know, it did sounds so esoteric and so vague.
Speaker 2: But now with all that we're learning from psychedelics and
Speaker 2: so on, it looks like your brain is not the
Speaker 2: orchestrator of experience. It's like it's like a radio set
Speaker 2: which receives experience from another domain beyond space and time.
Speaker 2: You don't have to call it God, you don't have
Speaker 2: to call it spirit. Just call it it whatever it is.
Speaker 2: But we are on a little planet, little planet in
Speaker 2: the junkyard of infinity, and we think we figured it out.
Speaker 3: We have it.
Speaker 2: So the biggest experience you can have is a spiritual being.
Speaker 2: Is astonishment, is wonder, is curiosity, and it's almost bewilderment.
Speaker 2: Those are spiritual experiences because we don't know why there
Speaker 2: is existence, or why there's awareness of existence. Because if
Speaker 2: you weren't aware that you exist, then what's the point.
Speaker 2: So these are very big questions and I think they
Speaker 2: deserve exploring in every which way possible, whether it's through
Speaker 2: Web three or artificial intelligence, or psychedelics or meditation, or
Speaker 2: even the rituals that go with religion. Because those people
Speaker 2: had an experience which was ineffable and they couldn't explain it,
Speaker 2: and you know, the followers just were believing in the experience,
Speaker 2: not having that experience on their own. If Buddha had
Speaker 2: an experience, I don't want to worship the Buddha. I
Speaker 2: want to know what that experience was or Jesus so well,
Speaker 2: you know. So that's my take on spirituality. I would say,
Speaker 2: take the plunge and explore it.
Speaker 3: You'll be surprised.
Speaker 5: If you are inspired by today's episode. Please join us
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Speaker 1: Hey want to bring on Punacha Machaya.
Speaker 3: I love this name.
Speaker 1: He is the CEO of the Chopra Foundation, and I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the work that you are doing
Speaker 1: and that relates to everything that we're talking about here.
Speaker 3: No, thank you Kevin for the opportunity.
Speaker 4: I think Deepak when he started the foundation, Yeah, in
Speaker 4: one vision he said, I want to reach a billion
Speaker 4: plus people or a more peaceful, just sustainable, healthier and
Speaker 4: joyful world as the sign me up. And so the
Speaker 4: purpose of the Triple Foundation is to really make this
Speaker 4: vision a reality. But where we really focused on right
Speaker 4: now is in three areas as we speak in this
Speaker 4: one hour podcast, more than sixty plus people would have died.
Speaker 4: Mental health is one of the silent pandemics every forty
Speaker 4: seconds blue some of the suicide globally in this great
Speaker 4: country every eleven minutes every day below twenty two veterans
Speaker 4: you know, to suicide. So one of the big movements
Speaker 4: what we are looking at at the Foundation is how
Speaker 4: do we really address this mental health And that's really
Speaker 4: we've started a movement called Never Alone with our co
Speaker 4: founders also Gabrielle right with Deepak, truly look at mental health,
Speaker 4: but really look at this consciousness based approach. Like Deepak
Speaker 4: always says, don't confuse yourself with your selfie and.
Speaker 3: I know who you are.
Speaker 4: And in the deep dark, when you know the deep
Speaker 4: in the dark night of the soul, how do you
Speaker 4: going to reach into that part of you to find
Speaker 4: the resilience to transcend whatever you're going through at that point.
Speaker 4: So that's really a big focus for us mental health
Speaker 4: and the reason for that is also if you can
Speaker 4: think about the second leading cause of death for my
Speaker 4: young adults is dead by suicide?
Speaker 3: Isn't that a tragedy? Right? As we talk.
Speaker 4: Sending people to Mars and we talk about all the
Speaker 4: innovation and AI, a younger generation saying take me out
Speaker 4: of here.
Speaker 3: I don't want to be part of this.
Speaker 4: So when you look at that, we realize that, Okay,
Speaker 4: how do we talk to them?
Speaker 3: As you look at meditations, we believe.
Speaker 4: We need to talk through them gaming. How do you
Speaker 4: look at gaming as a platform to talk to young adults.
Speaker 4: So we're doing a lot of interesting work in gaming. Example,
Speaker 4: let's say playing Fortnite or Call of Duty or Legal
Speaker 4: Legends or Roadblocks. Don't tell kids not to play the game,
Speaker 4: because obviously they're connecting with that. How do you change
Speaker 4: the mechanics in between games? How can we teach them
Speaker 4: focus attention, so mini games between games. So that's a
Speaker 4: focus for us and Deepark touched on this. On psychedelics,
Speaker 4: we really believe that if medication's not working, but there's
Speaker 4: an entire domain of psychedelics which is really creating a
Speaker 4: profound effect on mental health, how do they kind of
Speaker 4: bring these education in awareness. So that's part of mental health.
Speaker 4: The second area which we have focused on is Deepark's
Speaker 4: bodio work over the last four decades, is how do
Speaker 4: you transform human well being? And very specifically, if we're
Speaker 4: looking at health span, people are obviously doing a lot
Speaker 4: of work and longevity. People will live longer, that's modern science,
Speaker 4: live better. How do we improve health span quality of life?
Speaker 4: So we say we want the wisdom of age and
Speaker 4: the biology of youth. So as people live longer, how
Speaker 4: do you talk about purpose, your relationship with time, and
Speaker 4: how do you kind of give these knowledge and information.
Speaker 4: So that's a big focus for us in the Foundation.
Speaker 4: And the third area of focus for us is.
Speaker 3: How can we in these times.
Speaker 4: Have a leadership crisis globally and globally we believe there's
Speaker 4: a lack of trust. People don't trust anything these days
Speaker 4: and that really did ritic correlation to leadership, personal and
Speaker 4: professional leadership.
Speaker 3: So we have a program.
Speaker 4: Which they Parkash to teach at calag and Columbia over
Speaker 4: the last fifteen years and we are already taking that
Speaker 4: to the global caordiance.
Speaker 3: Called the Soul of Leadership.
Speaker 4: So connecting with not your LinkedIn profile, we can always
Speaker 4: google that, sure, but what do we look at the
Speaker 4: soul profile? Who are you as a person, how do
Speaker 4: you lead from that? So these are the three areas
Speaker 4: which we are broadly focused on in the foundation.
Speaker 1: And then how do you in in the day to
Speaker 1: day work? How how do how are you implementing these
Speaker 1: ideas and how are you spreading spreading this these these
Speaker 1: these ideas.
Speaker 4: So then we say it takes a village to you know,
Speaker 4: bring up a child. So what we're doing is creating
Speaker 4: global collaborations.
Speaker 3: So we have the content be of the knowledge. That's
Speaker 3: what we are very good at.
Speaker 4: So example, so we're taking the knowledge on mental health
Speaker 4: and we're taking it to Africa. We're raising awareness for
Speaker 4: something called FGM, female genital mutilation. But how now when
Speaker 4: somebody has gone through that trauma, how can we use
Speaker 4: our programs, our meditation, our content and enable people in
Speaker 4: those communities to use it. So that's one example example.
Speaker 4: On leadership, we have actually uh op on on our website.
Speaker 4: We go to c FI dot Chopra Foundation dot org.
Speaker 4: CFI dot Choprofoundation dot org.
Speaker 3: You will see two courses.
Speaker 4: One of the courses is called the Soul of Leadership.
Speaker 4: We we're offering it free and this is through a
Speaker 4: grant from Robert Smith's Foundation. We believe everybody needs to
Speaker 4: be their own leader, so that's a free program we
Speaker 4: are offering. We also have a program called Peace is
Speaker 4: the Way. Our goal is to really create global peace facilitators.
Speaker 4: If you can work in your community and then really
Speaker 4: work through your community, become a facilitator. So our goal
Speaker 4: is to enable those programs and content, and that's really
Speaker 4: how we are building alliances. We're working in India through
Speaker 4: our collaborations over there, in Australia, in Spain, in Majorca,
Speaker 4: obviously doing a lot.
Speaker 3: Of work in London.
Speaker 4: A good example of this would be announced a collaboration
Speaker 4: with Stella McCartney on equine therapy, right, and equint therapy
Speaker 4: is something, but as as you look at mental health,
Speaker 4: everybody has a different way. Like you said, people find
Speaker 4: what they want, what resonates with them. But if you
Speaker 4: be a young adult, you know you could don't have
Speaker 4: access to psychedelics. Maybe we want to look at VR therapy.
Speaker 4: We're working with that too. We're working with the leading
Speaker 4: anxiety expert from Harvard to look at anxiety and VR
Speaker 4: in the brain.
Speaker 3: But maybe it's just easing equin So yeah, I would
Speaker 3: say a.
Speaker 4: Platora of tools, products and services which you're enabling other
Speaker 4: third parties to use.
Speaker 3: I love that you are.
Speaker 1: I mean when you mentioned the gaming and the psychedelics,
Speaker 1: I love that you're You're you're not drawing a line
Speaker 1: in the sand in terms of these things, because you know,
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways with this stuff, the horses
Speaker 1: out of the barn and both of you have mentioned
Speaker 1: AI and it makes me think about, you know, this
Speaker 1: is not exactly AI, but I'm the intersection of this
Speaker 1: incredible technology tsunami that we've experienced in the last you
Speaker 1: know whatever, fifteen twenty years. It's it's it's I'm not
Speaker 1: the first to say that it can be completely overwhelming,
Speaker 1: but just to share a story for me that I
Speaker 1: was thinking about. You know, a lot of times, if
Speaker 1: I am going to meditate in the middle of the day,
Speaker 1: I have a.
Speaker 3: Sound which is a.
Speaker 1: Light a light rain falling in a rainforest that I
Speaker 1: that I like. And I was listening to it, and
Speaker 1: there's there's some birds kind of like you know, kind
Speaker 1: of tropical birds. They're overlaid on this sound, and I
Speaker 1: go back to it all the time just because it's
Speaker 1: a good one for me. Whatever, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I realized that I put in my headset and I
Speaker 1: turned my phone on, and I realized that there was
Speaker 1: a light rain falling where I was, and there were birds,
Speaker 1: and I didn't need this thing in my hand, this
Speaker 1: piece of machinery, and these things in my ears. So
Speaker 1: and it was such a simple moment, but it kind
Speaker 1: of made me go, why am I so wrapped up in.
Speaker 3: Trying to.
Speaker 1: Stay somehow technologically connected to something? Is it keeping me
Speaker 1: from you know, being pride, from hearing, from seeing nature,
Speaker 1: from experiencing people and people's faces and their eyes and
Speaker 1: their voices and all this other stuff. So I'm wondering
Speaker 1: about the kind of the intersection. Maybe you could speak
Speaker 1: on this deep ok between you know, technology and spiritualism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, you know when we were growing up,
Speaker 2: when I was growing up, you know, by fourteen fifteen,
Speaker 2: there were no computers. In fact, when I came to
Speaker 2: the country, I had never to the United States nineteen seventy.
Speaker 2: I had never seen a television set in my life.
Speaker 2: And then, you know, while it was in color, I
Speaker 2: was totally bewildered by the technology. Then came fax machines,
Speaker 2: Then came the Internet, all, you know, in my lifetime.
Speaker 1: There I miss a good facts machine. I miss a
Speaker 1: good fax machine, or a.
Speaker 2: Kid who grew up in India with no access to this.
Speaker 2: My teenage years were full of adventure, you know, going
Speaker 2: to the jungle with my father to look at tigers
Speaker 2: and even go tiger hunts, going to the Himalias in
Speaker 2: the summer in this and climbing mountains. There was total
Speaker 2: exposure to nature.
Speaker 3: From then.
Speaker 2: I see these poor kids now in this country, especially
Speaker 2: COVID and post after, who think that the world exists
Speaker 2: on a computer.
Speaker 3: They're not nowhere there.
Speaker 2: So I think giving them these tools, a little bit
Speaker 2: like gaming, like we are experiences actually can make them
Speaker 2: more interested in actually going for the real thing too,
Speaker 2: you know. And there is when I was educated as
Speaker 2: a child, even in India, there was poetry, there was music,
Speaker 2: there was dance, there was ballet, there was storytelling, there
Speaker 2: was theater, There was adventures in nature. And yes there
Speaker 2: was sport too, but it wasn't the kind of sport
Speaker 2: where you will you get a scholarships and make a
Speaker 2: lot of money and that becomes the motivation. It was
Speaker 2: sport for the joy of sport, music for the joy
Speaker 2: of music. You know poetry, Well, how many kids these
Speaker 2: days listen to poetry or even can quote Shakespeare or
Speaker 2: ts Eliot. So you know, our education with all emphasis
Speaker 2: or technology, engineering, science, mathematics. While it's good it makes
Speaker 2: people nerds and experts to get a Nobel prize, it
Speaker 2: deprives them of their humanity. We are actually a society
Speaker 2: that has deprived our kids of their humanity.
Speaker 3: They don't even know what it means to be human.
Speaker 4: Also, Deepog's point came, and I think it's conscious use
Speaker 4: of technology. So what we're saying is that you're playing
Speaker 4: a game. Yes, what I cannot get the kid playing
Speaker 4: Fortnite play Fortnite, but imagine I could teach you how
Speaker 4: to breathe. So when you get short in Fortnite, imagine
Speaker 4: that the tip it tells you this is how you
Speaker 4: activate your breathwork so you can get to the next level.
Speaker 4: So between games, we can make them more conscious. So
Speaker 4: don't change the game. But while you design the game,
Speaker 4: let's be more conscious. Because I'm the generation which came
Speaker 4: with fast internet and mobile phones, we trought addiction. Maybe
Speaker 4: in this age of AI, we can create more conscious AI.
Speaker 4: And I think we had a very interesting intersection because,
Speaker 4: like Deepug always says, we have medieval mindset but very
Speaker 4: godlike technologies at our disposal. So we better be conscious
Speaker 4: as a global community how we.
Speaker 3: Leverage but also put it to good use.
Speaker 4: I think today just think about it, every forty seconds
Speaker 4: we lose someone to suicide globally. The are not enough
Speaker 4: therapists in this country. It takes six weeks to get appointment.
Speaker 3: That's based on statistics. We have to use technology during
Speaker 3: the pandemic.
Speaker 4: The foundation we deployed any being a technology di chatbot,
Speaker 4: we thought maybe left twenty thousand users. Maybe, you know,
Speaker 4: we had more than twenty six million messages exchanged on
Speaker 4: the platform, sixteen million minutes of conversation and four eight
Speaker 4: hundred suicidal ideation interventions.
Speaker 3: Right, this is on a simple chatbot.
Speaker 4: But now that can be used for good. How do
Speaker 4: we use it as an intervention? Because I think there
Speaker 4: is a certain amount of use of technolo. This is
Speaker 4: the use of technology using zoom, right, but we shouldn't
Speaker 4: be dependent on that as the only means of communication.
Speaker 2: Share shared with Kevin whatfit did with the mayor of Mammy.
Speaker 2: You know, yes, he and this have bonded it now
Speaker 2: because we created a game for them on roadblocks.
Speaker 3: So we're basically thinking, you know, when you think.
Speaker 4: About gaming, he said, okay, it's this and that, right,
Speaker 4: you cannot game. So we said, we go to roadblocks.
Speaker 4: Everybody is on roadblocks. Why don't we create yoga and
Speaker 4: meditation on zuo roadblocks And we said, let's kind of
Speaker 4: use that as a platform. And now the father and
Speaker 4: son can both play together. Right, and those are things
Speaker 4: experiences like father and son used to go camping. Maybe
Speaker 4: now we go to go a little bit of a
Speaker 4: given take father and son player game together and then
Speaker 4: they go camping.
Speaker 3: Right, I think this.
Speaker 4: Bonding, we have to also meet in the middle. It's
Speaker 4: not this or that. I think that train has left
Speaker 4: the station. Like we are doing a lot of things
Speaker 4: in immersive meditations these days. With the technology is brain
Speaker 4: and trainment. Right when you go, when you use light,
Speaker 4: photoic stimulation, sound by neuural beats, we can shift change
Speaker 4: your reality. So when meditation used to be an ice
Speaker 4: closed experience one on one, we worked with a company
Speaker 4: to create this immersive experiences, which we believe now it's
Speaker 4: going to be the collective shared experience.
Speaker 3: As we go to the future amazing.
Speaker 1: What would you say is the most pressing need that
Speaker 1: the organization has. Now you've spoken a lot about mental health.
Speaker 1: I suppose it's it's mental health and mostly or partly
Speaker 1: amongst young people.
Speaker 4: I would say it's both ends of the spectrum. I
Speaker 4: think the younger suffering and the older suffering. Right, I
Speaker 4: think it's both ends of the spectrum. So one ENVI
Speaker 4: have mental health among young adults. We also have a
Speaker 4: very big issue with cognitive decline arkinsas Alzeiber's design dementia.
Speaker 4: So our goal of the foundation look at both. I
Speaker 4: look at this end of the spectrum. It's loneliness, right,
Speaker 4: How do we create community? And I think, Deepuk, we
Speaker 4: have a program called Love and Action where we want
Speaker 4: to create love as the operating system of communities. We
Speaker 4: really be separated the young and the old right when
Speaker 4: they actually maybe it should be together. And so when
Speaker 4: we want to kind of this the other program go
Speaker 4: Love and Action. When Deepuk, maybe you want to share
Speaker 4: this is the four tenants of how communities can come together?
Speaker 3: Deepug? Do you want to share that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, you know in Eastern wisdom traditions they say
Speaker 2: when you have shared vision, when you have maximum diversity participants,
Speaker 2: ethnic diversity, racial diversity, diversity in education, storytelling, humanity, science experts.
Speaker 2: So shared vision maximum diversity, leveraging each other's strengths because
Speaker 2: we all have different strengths and a spiritual and emotional
Speaker 2: bond of some kind, then you can solve any problem.
Speaker 2: So I took that seriously and we created this thing
Speaker 2: called Never Alone dot Love and basically we connect people
Speaker 2: with each other and we have four things that we
Speaker 2: talk about. Attention deep listening to each other, Affection, deep
Speaker 2: caring for each other, appreciation, noticing everyone's uniqueness, and radical
Speaker 2: acceptance doesn't matter who you are, you know, binary, non bordinary, black, white, yellow, whatever.
Speaker 2: Radical acceptance of everyone. And so you know, this is
Speaker 2: part of our attempt now to create both global online
Speaker 2: and offline communities of support for each other. Attention, affection,
Speaker 2: appreciation and acceptance. And they also combine it with leadership.
Speaker 2: So you know, recently I was in Sweden and I
Speaker 2: had no idea that in Sweden there's an African Swedish
Speaker 2: population much like African American population, which is very marginalized,
Speaker 2: where crime rate is high, unemployment is high, illness is high,
Speaker 2: depression is high. So you know, I started to work
Speaker 2: with them, and it turned out that the Obama former
Speaker 2: President Obama, has a forum called Global leaders and we
Speaker 2: worked with them in Sweden to actually create a new
Speaker 2: leadership for the Swedish American community. We've done the same
Speaker 2: here in Queens in New York, where the crime rate
Speaker 2: actually went down by ninety nine percent, so much so
Speaker 2: that you know, Ponacha and I have now worked are
Speaker 2: working with the school system in New York and in
Speaker 2: corporate leadership training for young people, because I think you
Speaker 2: give them purpose, you give them passion, you give them connectivity,
Speaker 2: and you create an emotional bond. The best example is
Speaker 2: sports teams. They have shared vision. You know, at least
Speaker 2: in sports like we say baseball or not baseball, football
Speaker 2: and other sports soccer.
Speaker 3: You have those elements.
Speaker 2: You know, everybody's supporting each other, they're emotionally connected, they
Speaker 2: want to win all they're not even competing with each other.
Speaker 2: They're leveraging each other's strengths. That's a great model for leadership.
Speaker 1: I gotta say, I think this is all great, great
Speaker 1: work that you guys are doing, and it's been an
Speaker 1: absolutely fascinating conversation. I'm going to be mentally tuning on
Speaker 1: this for some time. What is the This is a
Speaker 1: call to action now, I mean how can.
Speaker 3: People get involved?
Speaker 1: Could be pitch the websites and and and and let's
Speaker 1: let's hear how how people can check out this great work.
Speaker 4: I think we have a website with Schoprofoundation dot org,
Speaker 4: which I did to share in the link.
Speaker 3: Okay, that are We also.
Speaker 4: Have a platform called CFI CFI dot Chopra Foundation dot org.
Speaker 3: Courses.
Speaker 4: We have the Soul of Leadership course and Piece of
Speaker 4: the Way course if people can go on sign up
Speaker 4: and roll and we also everybody updated on our website
Speaker 4: on a newsletter, subscribe and.
Speaker 3: We will keep them updated.
Speaker 4: And also right back to us, I think it's co creation,
Speaker 4: right we as we co create together for more peaceful,
Speaker 4: just sustainable, healthy and joyful world. And your platform with
Speaker 4: what you are doing, is also a great enabler for
Speaker 4: us to share this message.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to thank you both so much for
Speaker 1: being here today, and I, like I said, it's been
Speaker 1: a fascinating conversation and I think I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to listen back to this one to kind of reabsorb
Speaker 1: some of the things that we spoke about. And so
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you so much for being here and
Speaker 1: keep up the great work you know we need it.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Kevin.
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, thank you so much for listening to another
Speaker 1: episode of Six Degrees with Kevin Bacon. And if you
Speaker 1: want to learn more about the Deep Pop Chopra Foundation
Speaker 1: and all the work that they are up to, head
Speaker 1: to their website, the Chopra Foundation dot org. You can
Speaker 1: find all the links in our show notes, and if
Speaker 1: you like what you hear, please make sure you subscribe
Speaker 1: to the show tune into the rest of our episodes.
Speaker 1: You can find Six Degrees with Kevin Bacon on iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I see
Speaker 1: you next time.