Ancient Wisdom in Modern Times - Deepak Chopra and Sadhguru, moderated by Ms. Chandrika Tandon

it's a real privilege to be here and what's interesting is that both these amazing people I'm not I hesitated for a moment before calling them people because they have such dimensions to them but both of them have come to this whole topic of wisdom from very different perspectives dr. Chopra comes at this as a doctor as a scientist and a very eloquent seeker and has sort of given us so much to think about coming at it from a scientific basis and then moving into many more theories and an thoughts Satguru comes at it as a mystic and somebody who has been who has sort of seen some of the unknowable and has come to us with a whole bunch of knowledge from that angle but essentially the three broad perspectives they say and then that's just to set a context then we can get into the questions there's number one they say look you have to look at the world through a different prism you have to change your whole prism through which you view your own life is a broad theme the second broad theme if you like and it ties all right back into modern wisdom the second broad theme is that if you were able to do that you would have unimaginable benefits for the body and doctor has been the expert in talking about the body and and Sadhguru as well for the mind because how you experience life is who you are and then that creates a ripple effect because it makes you better people and then you could create a better planet so that's theme number two and then theme number three is to do that you have to do a whole lot of things this is not something that just happens easily you have to go through a lot of rigorous discipline and you need a science and technology to get there essentially and that science and technology comes in the form of yoga and different forms of yoga different forms of inner engineering and and self inquiry self knowledge self discipline and so on that dr. Chopra talks about so there's many many techniques so these are three broad themes have has your own thinking changed over the last I mean you both have been talking about variations of this topic for a very long time could you just tell us has that changed a lot can you both take that question first of all thank you for that amazing invocation you really created the atmosphere here and it's a great honor to meet you again Sadhguru after all these years I remember playing frisbee with you in body and of course dr. Jay Roman one day I will be like you so yeah my thinking has changed in the sense that when I started moving out of mainstream so-called scientific thinking I was trying to establish in my mind the connection between mind and body and over the last four decades I realized which has been obvious to great sages throughout the year throughout the centuries that there's no system of thought that can access truth or reality whether it's a scientific system of thought or mathematical system of thought or these days we talk about quantum physics none of these systems of thought can give us the experience of reality because reality is beyond thought reality is inconceivable to the mind these systems of thought even scientific systems of thought create models of reality not reality but models of reality and we have faith in them because once we understand the model we can create technology so we can create jet planes and bombs and mechanized death and Internet and all the wonderful things so we think science gives us access to reality but even science is an activity in something that is not mind that is not matter for lack of a better word it's a field of awareness what the great sage is called Brahman and the universe is a modified form of that your mind your body and the universe out there is all conceived constructed governed and the becoming of a non-local inconceivable dimensionless reality which is not in space and time now this is very difficult for the modern person to grasp okay but it's actually part of the reasons we're talking about ancient wisdom traditions if you read the yoga vasishta it says that which cannot be seen but without which there is no saying that which cannot be perceived but without which there is no perception cannot be imagined but without that which there is no imagination creativity insight intuition choice everything that we call reality comes from an inconceivable dimensionless non-local domain which is not in space-time so you know when lord krishna talks about it water cannot wet it when cannot write weapons cannot shatter it fire cannot burn it it's ancient its unborn it's not subject to death now that's inconceivable to the mind but it's experiential when you settle into awareness when you settle into being when you settle into existence what is called such at Ananda or thought to amasi and you saw the video where he expressed experience that's not an intellectual experience that is a transcendent experience I'll stop there sorry you come at it from knowing tell us how your own thinking has changed how your own knowledge has changed I mean I cannot say much about thought because I don't have much thought this maybe this may sound like an oxymoron for people but the fact of the matter is most of the time I don't have any thought in me for me the phenomena of life that's happening within me always overwhelms everything else thought occurs to me only when I want to physically do something arrange something around me otherwise days on end will pass for me without a single thought so maybe I never grew up in a way yes because when it comes to people ask me what is been your sadhana my only sadhana has been that that from my childhood I never got identified with anything either the family or the culture or the religion or the society or various other things happening around you including your parent age your siblings I was involved with them but never identified with anything if human intelligence does not tie itself down with identity every human being will realize the nature of life human intelligence is capable of figuring this when I say intelligence has deep pointed out it's beyond the thought process unfortunately because of the type of education systems we have today we are completely committed to one dimension of our intelligence which we call as the in which is just the thought process thought can only happen with the data that you have gathered through five senses which is very limited one thing another thing is the nature of data that the senses gather are only useful for survival process the very nature of how you see things how you hear smell and taste and touch life is only relevant for survival process if you wanting to know the life itself then these instruments of perception are no good even what is light and darkness is a debate between you and another creature which sees darkness is light isn't it if you sit within an owl and start an argument as to which is light and which is darkness it's an endless argument but who do you think is right hello if you're saying both you're either in the diplomatic corps or or you have a successful marriage you are learn to say both both but which is the truth what I see is the truth or what the owl sees is the truth that's not the point it is just that nature is opened up our sense perception as it is necessary for our survival accordingly it is opened up sense perceptions for different creatures as it is necessary for their survival but if survival is all you're seeking this is good enough the five senses but once you have come as a human being somehow survival is not good enough if your stomach is empty there's only one issue about food but once the stomach becomes full you have a hundred issues going on so the nature of the human being is such no matter what you do you want to be something more than what you are right now and if that's something more happens something more something or it's an endless pursuit so somewhere a human being is seeking a limitless expansion but trying to do it with physical means the very nature of physicality is a defined boundary if there is no defined boundary there is no possibility of physical happening in the universe but now a human being is longing for the boundless that - in installments and through physical means through the boundary you're trying to become boundless the desire is fantastic the method is hopeless because the moment you identify yourself with something your intellects work is just to protect that identity if you whatever the identities of nation or family or gender or race religion whatever the moment you identify yourself with something your intellect will only function around that to protect that so it is a certain type of prejudice the moment you are identified so the only thing I did with my life is I never identified myself with anything and life just exploded within me in ways that thought seems so puny that I do not indulge in thought most of the time you know what you're saying for all of us here in some way shape or form we all pride ourselves on thinking human beings this is this is a thank you recycling of the data that you already gathered so what is what is the leap of faith that you go from this from this perspective of thinking and thoughts to we don't belong to anyone you know we are not identified with with any instrument with with with any sort of localness and I know both of you have spoken the thing is this is not something that people will not get they will get this this is not some great teaching I am telling you if you get it right now in your life your life will transform in ways that you can't imagine possible otherwise someday you will get it from the maggots you will understand you don't belong to anything so you're the entire culture of what is what your calling is Bharath is about where ugh the word where Aggie means raagh means color where rock means beyond color but if you say colorless in English language it is a very negative connotation of being colorless let's put it as transparent because it's transparent it can take on the color of anything right now right now if my background is red I am red if it is Li Mello I am taking it picking the colors from you okay well blue and gold on fat either do something to add to that just to elaborate on what he said you're listening to us here now just for a moment turn your attention to who or what is listening what he experiences being right another word for awareness or existence it's not a thought thought is what creates the subject object split being is all there is and being is not a thought so as even now if I ask you are you aware that's been now everything else is just a modulation of that it's a feeling or a thought or a sensation or a perception we call that the mind we call that the body we call that the universe but all there is is being and it's modulations because what you experiences sensations images feelings and thoughts and then you say oh that's a tree that's a body that's a universe that's a rock there are just different combinations of being and it's modulations you all understand that terrassa some it's a very and I think this is part of the complexity I think we all struggle with because you try to explain it in words but again as you're listening turn to who is listening and I think dr. Chopra the interesting question is and and Satguru this is for you as well essentially what we are doing in this whole process of asking all of us to change the prism is you're essentially asking us to experience it in some way he said the mistake of the intellect is think of the intellect yes that there is separation between observer and observed I'm going up the observer and observed as mind and body are a single holistic activity of the total universe and if you go back I think in the earlier session there was quotes from the Gita and I know you all and you've spoken about that as a South clue about until the road not not now but basically but but the I'm sorry then it was dr. Chopra you had spoken about the different forms of the on the different forms of yoga that has been you know the Roger yoga the bhakti yoga the path of devotion and we know that it's been spoken about in the Gita so what's so difficult what is the barrier if people haven't seen it yet it seems in a way it's an experience it seems you know it seems obvious that's one level and it's yet very difficult to grasp on the other could you just talk to us about what were some of us who Bravo brought up educated in a scientific worldview or in a worldview that emphasizes recycled information as he said or all of that it's very difficult to intellectually get to being because we identify as he said with our perceptual experience with our intellect with our mind with our ego identity so it always seems a struggle till one day you stop struggling and you're there and as he said he never identified with anything once you identify with the thought or with the perception or with what you think is annoying or a sensation or an emotion then you're in time thought is in time but being is not in time I mean I'm completely spiritually uneducated I don't know from where I have quoted I have not quoted generally except the grandmother Gita that's around us I have to admit that I have needed the Gita nor the way does not open ish heads not even the yoga Sutra and nervous did anything the most profound in the torture that I read I read English literature just for fun because I like the language otherwise the most profound stuff that I read is a Strix Asterix comics yeah because why I am saying this is I'm this is the this is what it is for example a modern scientist is trying to deduce mathematically deduce the reality everything has to fit in to his math and he will deduct everything and say the entire universe is one but it's not in his experience a religious person will say God is everywhere so everything is one but it's not yet in his experience he believes one is deducting with the making deductions another is believing a yogi is a hard nut who doesn't believe anything who doesn't want to reduce anything unless it becomes real within him it's not real for him so because of this approach I I never found the need to read anything spiritual if I read something it may be a news magazine or literature or something else but never anything spiritual because I never wanted to clutter my own clarity with anything outside and the only thing the only and only thing I know is I know this piece of life from its origin to its ultimate and that's all because you know this piece of life by inference you seem to know everything else today there is a certain theory coming out which is called the constructional theory what they are trying to say is whether you take an amoeba or a human being whether you take the atomic or the cosmic the fundamental design is saying it is just the sophistication and the complexity is multiplying so if the fundamental design is same if you want to know the entire universe you just have to know this and this is the only thing that's available to you accessible to you when I say this is the only thing available and accessible to you see right now you believe that you can see me sitting here but that's not the fact of the matter the fact is light is falling upon me reflecting going through your lenses inverted image in the retina you know the entire story so if you see me you see me only within you if you hear me you hear me only within you what ever ever happened to you light and darkness happens within you pain and pleasure happens within you joy and misery happens within you agony and ecstasy happens within you right now if I touch your hand you think you're experiencing my hand no you're only experiencing the sensations in your hand or in other words the entire human experience is happening within you the very seat of your experience is within you what is happening within you at least you must be able to determine what is happening within you must happen the way you want it if what happens within you happens the way you want it suddenly your ability to create what you want to happen in the world also is tremendously enhanced not because you know the world because you know this this is why realization as was held as the biggest thing you must understand it's realization it's not an achievement it is not an attainment it's a realization realization means it is always there I was stupid enough not to see it suddenly one day I saw it that's what realization means never we said any inner things our accomplishments or achievements they are not any kind of peak climbing it's just a realization it's always been there it was always been there to see so everybody is quoting either let me on support at some point it seems Arjuna asked I don't know it's been better made up by somebody it's really in Gita please correct me if it is so it seems Arjuna asked that where is this truth that you're talking about this are intangible and perceivable truth where is it it seems Krishna laughed and said it's at the tip of your nose now there are many schools of yoga which are intensely focusing on the tips of their noses and getting headache try and see what what he is trying to say is it is the most obvious thing the most obvious thing if you pay attention to your existence not to your thought not to your emotion not to the arrangements of life that you are made around you if you pay attention to the nature of your existence it is the most obvious thing it's at the tip of your nose is a metaphor in India that it is the most obvious thing but by focusing on the tip of the nose enlightenment will not happen headache is guaranteed so picking up on satoru's point dr. Chopra so what is scientific inquiry in this with this construct which is he its realization it is knowing and what what is one of the few lucky ones unknown to other people who said what he said that I thank God I never read anything one was my regime initially he was to always say thank God I never read anything because it would have cluttered my mind and the other was Krishnamurti he would say the same thing that you know the more you read the more you clutter your mind and he also would say I've never read anything so that's that's unusual we happens to have fallen into existence because he fell into existence okay or awareness or whatever you want to call it being I was not I struggled okay I I'd read all the scientific literature medical literature psychology Jungian psychology I read the bhagavad-gita every single translation I read Rig Veda I read yoga vasishta I read Kashmir Shaivism countrywe danta all of that no you shouldn't you'll mind we'll get cluttered so this phase in my life I also want to know what they said in the past yeah well they said what you're saying I mean they said exactly what you're saying but for me as a person who had been trained to look at things scientifically it was both a struggle and a need you know because reality is not a map and yet science gives us maps yoga vasishta gives us a map but Anjali gives us a map the bhagavad-gita gives up a member map some of us need maps okay if I am going from here to Boston and you give me a map a road map or of contour map or a see map or an air map and I take the road map and I get to Rhode Island and it works now now I get this I think the reason why I didn't read the maps is I met someone who are the GPS that's good but but GPS is also map right what should what you said GPS is the Guru positioning system your tongue so what you use a map and it works for the map seems valid from here to Rhode Island then I assume for me who's not had this experience of falling into the place of no thought they say you know if the map is working up to here maybe it works from here to there as well so it's a kind of a psychological validation and I'll just stop in a moment but for the last ten years at our Center when we teach people to sit in reflection contemplative self inquiry or transcendence or take them through what we call the wheel of awareness of a persona or body awareness or awareness inside the body or awareness of mental space we've been doing it now for 25 years but last five 10 years we've been able to look at the brain we've been able to look at gene expression we've been able to look at cell markers of aging telomerase telomere length we've been able to look at what are called inflammatory markers in other words everything that's happening in the body at a biological cell level 23,000 genes 3.3 million bacterial genes actually a body is more bacteria than it is human cells and microbiome so we're looking at those genes and then we're looking at what is called the epigenome which is the shell of proteins outside the genome and how these work together and what we are finding is remember workable you know in the beginning nobody would believe us but now we have collaborations with the Harvard UCSF UCSD Scripps with digital technology with Duke University with Mount Sinai we can look at a blood sample and we can tell you just by looking at the blood sample and the gene expression if you are experiencing samadhi occasionally or not if your mind is quiet or not if you are falling into the place where he you had our parents experiences parents so in fact the epigenetic shows that your experiences your experiences now which are not in your brain by the way everybody says my experiences in my brain you know it's not in your brain your experiences are not in your body your experiences are in a non-local consciousness which is not in space-time but whatever that's a whole different discussion but we can now in fact our collaborate and this is a joke actually but it's tell you how we're Sciences one of our collaborators was Eric Schadt here at Mount Sinai he does genomic expression he does RNA transcription he looks at what is called the transcriptome he showed a slide he says this is a genetic signature of people who are experiencing Samadhi and these are people that he had studied at our Center so somebody asked him in the audience this is dr. Shar do you meditate you know this is are you going to learn he said no is it what you just showed us the signature the genetic signature of somebody who does this yeah but I'll figure out how to make a drug out of this so what Rick is saying is if you if you are children are brats it's you yes it is you it is you seven generations you know in Hawaii they have these temples and cow farms if a cow has been zapped electrically the next generation of cows will not go to the fence they already know it's electrical and they might get chopped okay then the following generation now people have done experiments right here where you take mice and you have them smell wintergreen which is very pleasant smell then they get mild electrical shocks the next seven generations of mice will be scared by smelling wintergreen so this is the first window that's opening into what we call samskaras or vasanas you know we have two identical twins and they have the same genome in fact exactly the same genome but they're not the same people right they have different mother will tell you that they have different personalities where is the seat of this personality where is it coming from this is why science opens the window to what people already knew actually in our tradition and it's interesting that even if science opens the window and I think both of you have said it in different ways that in it's just a very small you know it's the still like they you know boiling the ocean in ass kerosene stove because science can only go so far because there's so many forms of knowing and so many forms of seeing as as we have said so it's a challenge I imagine even science is a series of realizations okay I mean science is not outside of this science has evolved because of series of realizations but happening in small spurts not grasping the entirety of it but in bits and pieces realization and realization and realization this what it is we say he discovered something but what it is is he observed something he realized that this the way it works some aspect of it and knowing the physical dimension of how it functions allows you to do many thing to the physical world which you see in the form of technology today very important thing though but science has now brought us to what we call the portal or the door of the sub empirical and the sub empirical is less than point zero one percent of the unmanifest which is scientifically unknowable not unknown unknowable because how do you measure something that is totally unmanifest it's not in space-time okay so once you get beyond you know I think if I can elaborate on this for just one minute the two most open questions in science today there are 150 open questions but the two most up open questions number one is what is the universe made of and the answer is we don't know because 96% of the universe is invisible what they call dark energy dark matter but it's not you know those are words they don't know exactly what it is one is expanding the universe one is contracting the universe darker ninety-six percent that leaves 4% of the universe which is atomic of that four percent 99.99% is invisible interstellar dust which hasn't become stars and galaxies so the visible universe which is all the galaxies the billions of stars the trillions of planets is point zero one percent now that point zero one percent which is made of atoms is made of particles but particles when you're not looking at particles or when they're not interacting with other particles they disappear they become waves so what's the universe made of nothing and this is a scientific fact the second open question is where does consciousness come from and scientists are struggling because they think consciousness is a production of the brain just like you know bile is a production of your gallbladder or acid is a production of your stomach pancreatic juice is made by your pancreas oh so consciousness made by the brain so they keep struggling this is called the hard problem of consciousness Sadhguru mentioned photons okay this is the hard problem this I'll just stop in one second but right now you're looking at this this is blue this red you see in this beautiful shirt what's coming to your eyes are colorless photons what's going to your brain is an electrical current what's happening in your brain is chemistry you're not experiencing chemistry or electrical currents you're experiencing a three-dimensional reality in space-time no one knows how that happens so they keep struggling and struggling if I ask you to imagine a beautiful sunset on the ocean do it right now you see a picture there's no picture in your brain so you know the fact that the brain produces consciousness is just an idea nobody has ever proved that consciousness is not in the brain the brain is in consciousness the body is in consciousness the mind is in consciousness the whole universe is in consciousness and you cannot get at it through a system of thought what to further you know make it into an experience you'll process what Deepak said is now you obviously cannot access it with thought process because thought is an accumulation accumulated information which you're recycling according to your convenience right now our ideas of who we are or what I am and what I am NOT is determined by this if you just do this simple experiment right now take your right hand and touch your left hand please all of you can you do this is that you is it you yes just touch the chair in which you're sitting is that you Oh see you wonderful now in your experience this is me and this is not me the basis of this experience is coming from this where there is a sensation you think it's me where there is no sensation you think it's not me right now the water in the glass is not you but if you consume it it becomes you and these whatever number of kilograms you carry right now all this was all over the planet and today it's me the air that you breathe what is not you is becoming you the food on your table what is not you is becoming you right now this moment what is not you in a couple of hours it becomes you so your experience of myself is basically the boundaries of your sensation the nature of the boundaries of sensation are such if you allow your life energies to be in a certain level of exuberance you will see the boundaries of your sensation will expand you can just know this just by rubbing your hands and holding it like this you will see something begins to happen between your hands there are sensations transmitting between the two hands or if you have been very joyful or ecstatic at a certain moment you will see sensations seem to be all over the place if you create a certain system within you where your life energies are kept in a certain level of excellence then the sensory body will expand if the sensory body let us say became as big as this Hall then you will experience everything in this Hall and everybody in this hall as a part of yourself like you experience the five fingers of your hand as yourself right now so what is referred to as yoga is the word yoga means union that means you experience the entire universe as yourself this is happening because you are in a such a state of you have found a mechanism by working with the body by working with the mind by working with the emotion and energy you have set up a step-by-step system within yourself where your energies are kept at such a level of exuberance that your sensory bodies as large as the universe so if you sit here you experience the entire universes myself once you experience everybody around you as yourself then I don't have to tell you don't kill this person don't drop that person don't harm this all morality will be useless for you because you have experienced everything as myself you don't have to try to be good your goodness is a consequence your goodness is not an effort what what'd he say he's saying it experientially okay but the fact is if you ask scientists are there any boundaries in the universe they'll tell you there isn't every boundaries notional or perceptual and we don't know how perception occurs anyway so boundaries are conceptual ideas there are no boundaries in the universe and there are no boundaries to your skin in fact you're what he said is your body is the entire ecosystem it's not only the entire ecosystem of the planet the carbon the hydrogen the oxygen the nitrogen came from galaxies so the carbon in your fingernails and the hydrogen in your eyes or the oxygen in your blood could have come from different galaxies you are the total universe at this moment a pattern of behavior in space time and before I say Jack Robinson you're a different activity anyway there is no permanent activity as a noun you are not a noun you're a verb and the verb is the activity of the total universe I you know the most the most frequent word we use is I so I said where are you you say I'm here okay and so I then I can ask you okay you're here but where am i you say you're there you said where is the I in you experiencing seeing me I do this with neuroscientists and they say in my eyes they say your eyes are this big the nine centimeters apart the retina is curved by the time let get light gets into your retina it's inverted you should be seeing two of me about this size upside down nine centimeters apart you're not doing having that experience then they point to the brain and you know say how do I fit inside your brain how does this room fit inside your brain how does the whole world fit inside your brain there's no answer for this in science by the way you mean there is a beautiful point we'll look at your eyes they're so small they see enormous things so where is the eye that is experiencing this conversation right now where is it it's an it's the wrong question it has no location in space or time that is who I is and the whole universe is in I so just let's wrap up this segment of the discussion if you had 10 billion dollars to spend on scientific exploration or giving experiences to people to better to get their own path of realization where would you spend it both of you I want to know gelatos beyond 7 10 12 otherwise the answers obvious experience but I would have a problem with that because I work with scientists I'm going from here to a conference on science I need to be able to talk to my peers okay so while the answer is experience and experience doesn't cost ten billion dollars I would probably go science just because I'm still struggling with my scientific peers Satguru the experience has not become widespread because there is no infrastructure neither physical infrastructure nor humanum structure for example in this country hundred 50 years ago they tell me over 94% of the people who are illiterate today 100% literacy how does it happen because they have somebody built the schoolroom somebody trained the teachers that infrastructure for inner experience is being wiped out through in the last few centuries so how do you expect it to happen one guy talking here one guy talking there is not going to make it happen what should be a part of our life from the day we start because the nature of human intelligence is such that if you don't mess it up with belief systems every human being will find it too many concepts too many ideas too many belief systems human intelligence is corrupt from the beginning if you do not corrupt human intelligence just leave it every human being is capable of knowing this it is not some super human thing the most important thing to remain is remember is this yoga this spiritual process is not about becoming superhuman it is about knowing that being human itself is super what's your definition of success success is the ability to love and have compassion success is to some people the progressive realization of worthy goals success ultimately is knowing who you are not group if you can be blissed-out no matter what's happening around you if you can be involved and still not be affected by what's happening around you not by renewing yourself you're absolutely involved but untouched by the process of life I think that's success second question where we'll go a little bit into the world world aspies if what advice would you give Angela Merkel today compassion or sovereignty it's obvious compassion there's no such thing as sovereignty I think all nationalism is a sophisticated form of tribalism I think you're essential being has no religion or race no gender no assumed identity it's pure consciousness so obviously I would say compassion let them all in the vibrancy being a very big economic force what she is managing right now I would say they do not invest in conflict we won't even need their compassion people will be fine by themselves you should stop investing in conflict people I have heard people going to Sudan and trying to stop conflict their conflict you leave all this you know who is supplying the guns you know who is supplying the ammunition every day you see these terrorists or whatever shooting in the sky obviously there is no dearth for ammunition isn't it they're not even shooting other people they have lots of it they're shooting the sky so obviously someone is continuously supplying we know where it is manufactured I will give you the addresses if you want just stop it stop the supply of ammunition you can't take away the guns all right you can take away the ammunition at least hacking down people they will get tired at least right now there is powerful mechanisms to do this so if you do not invest in conflict if you do not invest in creating problems in the world we will not need your compassion and as a final question if there are there is a saying or an affirmation that we could all use in our everyday lives as we all progress in our quest whatever that quest is what would that be what would you advise to each one more part of each one hold would you really like to share with us I seem very banal take it easy easy come easy go that's my epitaph there is no need to believe or disbelieve anything what you know you know what you do not know you do not know if this one thing comes into every human being everything will run smoothly around us thank you both ladies and gentlemen let's give a very big hand to Sadhguru and Deepak Chopra you

Channel: Inner Engineering

Views: 6,226,707

Rating: 4.7555828 out of 5

Keywords: Deepak Chopra (Organization Leader), Yoga, Jaggi Vasudev (Organization Founder), Meditation, chopra center, meditation, chopra meditation, Chandrika Tandon

Id: WMhJgdpj1d0

Length: 48min 9sec (2889 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 21 2015