Creating a new world reality.

this is where we were yesterday going over the seven different responses that human beings have to situations circumstances people events relationships this is how we navigate experience in the world that is right now in a lot of chaos and I also mentioned that 99% of people of more than 99 percent of people are stuck in the first two responses and even if you can move to the third level just being aware or centered in awareness and now we have a new phrases John Culbertson explained yesterday stop and drop in okay that is beautiful stop and drop in and you're already there in the rest for the awareness response so I'm gonna go over these others a little more detail and then we'll see how that helps us to understand who we are and what we mean when we refer to the experience that we call God so this is basically fight/flight response and this is true for any animal that's threatened most animals are not threatened psychologically but they're definitely threatened in the predator-prey relationship in in the original ecosystem that we are all part of so when an animal is threatened it freezes it runs or it flies or it takes off you know a few years ago I was with my family in in Kenya and also in in Tanzania and we were going through the Safari and it's very interesting we would often see a cheetah scanning the horizon where there were gazelles and it would wait till it actually spotted the weakest gazelle and as soon as it took off you know from a distance the gazelles took off - and even though they couldn't see the cheetah they sensed it and then the cheetah would just go for the weakest snap its neck bring it to the family and they would all have a feast and then the hyenas would come and they would eat up the bones and the nails and then the gazelles and the cheetah would hang out together because the gazelles knew that the cheetah wasn't hungry anymore so there's a some level of intuition in every life-form okay we mentioned yesterday the reactive response and I already discussed this how we play control dramas through manipulation and when those control dramas are not working then we resort to an addictive behavior addictive behavior is just a escape mechanism when we can't get what we want and these are fundamentally exists since addictions the addiction to sensation in any form so food alcohol sex drugs all addictions to sensation the addiction to security which is the biggest cause for insecurity right the biggest cause of insecurity is the search for security and the addiction to power addiction simply means you no longer enjoy the experience you had in the beginning so every sensation that you're addicted to or somebody is addicted to at some point was a pleasurable experience but then because it get exhausting its energy you know the more you do anything ultimately it exhausts its energy and so addiction becomes you're wanting to get more of what you don't want anymore literally but now you're within its grip and so addictions are an outcome how it's a an escape mechanism for in the first two responses reactive response recalling restful awareness you know all about it now but here's what the Vedanta says about restful awareness inner calm in the midst of danger inner silence in the midst of turbulence inner peace in the midst of chaos conflict conclusion fusion inner experience of being centered and simultaneously alert in the midst of threat in inner stillness in the midst of dynamic action so yoga by the way is also aspect of that because yoga you're in movement but you're also in awareness and I'll explain tomorrow how that relates to our consciousness so this is called chitta Shakti the Shakti is the is the Sanskrit word for the feminine face of God and so this is the power of that divine feminine as understood in yoga treasure traditions okay so now we go a little bit beyond being restfully alert into what is called the intuitive response so let me explain what intuition is intuition is a form of intelligence that is contextual it takes context into account its relational it takes all the relationships into account it is holistic it does not have a win-lose orientation its eavesdropping on a deeper reality and it's not a mysterious thing intuition is just having a question and then going back into restful awareness so we're doing it when you know when we ask ourselves Who am I what do I what is my purpose what am i grateful for you are harnessing the power of intuition to give you the answer that is appropriate for you in this stage of life in your spiritual development so there's no right or wrong answer but it's right for you whatever it is and that answer may not come as an idea or a thought or an epiphany it may come as a situation as the circumstance as an event as a relationship through what we call synchronicity so when that answer comes you have this moment oh that's what it was okay so why is that why does that happen well when you take a question into restful awareness that ground of being that ground of awareness it is the ground of creativity it's also the ground of unpredictability we went through those five points it's the ground of being is the ground of synchronicity a non-local correlation entanglement and it's where intention is born so when you take a question there then the right response occurs to you when it's needed okay so this is another form of Shakti it's called echar Shakti it's as the Sanskrit word for desire the spontaneous fulfillment of desire and it's also in a way the law of least effort you're not putting in the effort into this asking a question diving deep into awareness and letting it be and then the right response to every situation as it occurs that's called each Shakti and then there's another word that you might want to understand in this context it's called Kriya Shakti so kriya is the right action as it is needed so that right action is not chemically bound chemically bound means influenced by the past or in anticipation of the future so we call it spontaneous right action Kriya Shakti the Divine Feminine spontaneously making the right choices that are not bound by karma so it's a Shakti Kriya Shakti and Yan Shakti ganas knowledge so we can combine all of that Gianna's modern knowledge its wisdom and so these are the three shuttles that are triggered and in English we say spontaneous fulfillment of desire spontaneous right action and inner knowingness and the experience of synchronicity synchronously means as you know the word synchronous means synchronized in time and in English we often say meaningful coincidences so coincident it's actually a very interesting word coincident many incidents aligning together in order to fulfill your desire so meaningful coincidences the incidents that are several coalesce around a meaning or an intention so this has been known for thousands of years you know but of course this became very popular about a century ago in the writings of Carl Jung who also by the way wrote a book with Wolfgang Pauli who was one of the pioneers in quantum physics because they were kind trying to relate synchronicity with entanglement and it's it's a very remarkable thing when you look at people who had extraordinary impact on the world as part of my work is looking at what I call the soul of leadership training leaders and corporate world and in the business world on what we call the soul of leadership coming from a deeper level as part of that when I studied the lives of great leaders extraordinary leaders not just great but absolutely extraordinary leaders without fail they all say one of the following things God was on my side or I was supported by a state of grace or there were many meaningful coincidences or if they know a little bit about what we're talking about they might say there were a lot of synchronicities and even if they are not religious they will at least say I happen to be in the right place at the right time and if they say even if they don't know that and have that understanding they'll say I was lucky okay so it's all the same thing what people call good luck being supported by the laws of nature being supported by God the state of grace meaningful coincidences being in the right place at the right time synchronously all mean the same thing it's basically this Shakti that allows you to harness as we have just said the Divine Feminine creative response so now we are going a little bit beyond intuition intuition is knowing knowing it's also as I said spontaneous right action spontaneous thinking without anticipation without regrets arising as is needed but creativity is a little bit beyond that it means that you are actually participating in some form of death and resurrection the old context the old meanings the old relationships the old archetypal stories are basically being destroyed and a new context new meaning new relationship and a new story is arising and yet nothing has changed you know situation circumstances events or what we call karma has is the seeds of karma as sanskaras which are seeds of memory and vasanas which are seeds of desire that that's still there it's just that you are taking that whole raw material and creating a new reality and I mentioned to you yesterday that in this deeper understanding of creativity in the Vedanta this is physical death is the same thing when we have what is called physical death you have to remember that life and death are playing a dance all the time every thought is born it dies every sensation is born it dies every perception is born its dies I've said that so many times but this morning is dead okay and whatever happened is over so birth and death are the continuum of life birth is not the opposite of life birth is the opposite of death and death is the opposite of life but that which is born is the result of that rigid ice life is the continuum of birth net life by itself is therefore timeless beyond time appearing as Burton death appearing as birth in death but there is something called physical death as we see it as we see people or those that we call people at some point they exhaust the energy that was there to express that karma the energy is exhausted and so death occurs and then what the resurrection or what we commonly call reincarnation is the birth again of that which died in a slightly improved form most of the time little improvement remember you know in 1970 when I bought a Volkswagen that doesn't look like the Volkswagen you buy today every year there's a new model right slightly improved so that which is expressed is always slightly improved but physical death is also a process of the quiet sense of all excitations of consciousness the body is an excitation of consciousness the mind is an excitation they are called with ease and the world that we experience is an excitation of consciousness the closest example to that is what we call deep sleep so when we go in to sleep every night what happens is first the excitations assume a finer frequency which we experience this dream and then finally that quiets down and there's deep sleep so in deep sleep there is no experience but there is awareness and I mentioned that yesterday to you the awareness of a mother with a baby or even if somebody screams at you or you somebody pinches you and that comes back as an experience because you still have the excitations are subdued but not enough that subdued that the body disappears it disappears for you but it doesn't disappear for other people because they still have the excitations of awareness okay so that's the closest to physical death if we actually understand and this is I'll talk to you about this tomorrow how to wake up to awareness in spirit then there's you will never be afraid of death because you'll already have experienced it while alive so that is that is a spiritual experience that you can experience the absence of form and yet be in touch with your formless being awareness is formless if it had a form you'd be able to see it but it's formless so when you learn to experience your formless being and also learn to slightly decide enta fie with that which is inform knowing that it's an evanescent experience that's arising and subsiding then you can die unto death as st. Paul says in the Apostles one of the Apostles okay so this these ideas have existed forever but therefore death is ultimate creativity this is something from taken from a combination of Vedic texts but particularly from the teachings in the Shiva sutras Lord Shiva by the way some of the most amazing insights are in the Shiva sutras or what is called Kashmir Shaivism with Lord Shiva and Parvati the shakti goddess they're having a conversation and it's not here but one of the teachings he gives he gives to the goddess he says meditate on your body as the universe and having the nature of awareness if you could just understand that one Sutra everything is there meditate on your body as the universe and having the nature of awareness because everything we call the universe is a sensation in our body right it's a perception it's a sensation it's a thought it's a feeling it's an image so this is meditate on your body as the universe and having the nature of awareness we should do that meditation sometime but are from the same tradition relinquished the known why do we relinquish the known because the known is the prison of the past the known is the prison of karma it's over learning for mistakes again this is from Lord Shiva I use memories but I do not allow memories to use me you have to use memories otherwise you won't find how to get home but when you allow memories to use you you didn't being victimized by memory or Karma memory has a purpose but definitely the purpose is not to victimize us when you embrace uncertainty paradox and ambiguity but why do you embrace that because the nest chair of awareness of being it dwells in the uncertain and there's paradox and ambiguity because without that there would be no creativity so that's why these days of course there's lot of talk about artificial intelligence artificial intelligence can simulate human intelligence but it's based on algorithms on mathematical logic where as your consciousness is not based on mathematical logic in fact your consciousness creates mathematical logic it's not an algorithm and true creativity cannot come if you are addicted to certainty as long as you're addicted to certain teeth and you'll be like algorithm there's no creativity so dwelling in uncertainty being comfortable with paradox being comfortable with with ambiguity Rumi has a beautiful poem he says exchange your cleverness for bewilderment we will DeMint is the most spiritual experience you can have seeing the universal in the particular and the particular in the universal I gave you the example of the story of the buddha the silent sermon went on and i solved the whole universe in a flower that's seeing the universal in the particular right and the particular in the universal so when you look at a person that is the universe in disguise you can say god in drag full awakening of the tan mattress that that mattress are the subtle senses we did the sutras yesterday for that subtle sound subtle touch subtle sight subtle taste subtle smell so the refinement of those subtle senses mind body coordination yoga physical fitness poise grace and understanding that every relationship that you have is karmic the good or the bad those are terms we use by relationship I mean that every relationship that there's an emotional energy attached to you'd meet a lot of people every day but there's no emotional exchange it's that they're their encounters but anytime there's an emotional exchange that is a karmic relationship and the purpose of that is to elevate you to a higher level of consciousness which we'll talk about tomorrow so what can you learn from every relationship whether you qualify it as good or bad so a while ago I put this together based on everything I've told you as the nine steps to creativity nine stages to creativity this is formula can be applied to any creative process so first there's an intention which is what do I want then there's the process called information gathering around that intention because intention is could be anything should I marry this person or should I invent in the stock market or her should I embark on this business any question okay that's intention but then the information you gather has to be pertinent to that particular intention whatever it is unconsciously I may have intended that what's the garment significance of that okay so in information gathering and then information analysis sometimes to the point of exhaustion that's the hard work and then a letting go the letting go is called incubation sleep is a good incubation meditation is a good incubation yoga's good incubation breathing exercise pranayama Scotland Commission listening to music is good incubation being in nature as good incubation poetry Jon kabat-zinn resurrected my interest is Rinpoche which I have a lot of interest in so that's all incubation but during incubation there are certain things that happen there's a letting go there's a detachment there is a render to uncertainty there's the proliferation of unconscious what is called unconscious processing there's of all kinds of entanglement and then at a certain time there's a sudden flash of insight there you are which is very interesting the word insight inner vision today I think this afternoon we'll be doing the sutra father and if the insight is authentic it leads to inspiration not motivation motivation is of the mind inspiration is of the spirit how do we know what is motivation and what is inspiration motivation is what people do every day I'm going to lose 30 pounds I'm going to join the club I'm going to change my diet do smoking but tomorrow and then even when they bark on it after six weeks it's over motivation never works stressful in fact it causes more stress but inspiration is a much deeper experience you've had that flash of truth where there is no going back it's like a child that is born cannot return to the womb inspiration leads to implementation that leads to integration that leads to we can say death of the old and incarnation of the new new story new context new meaning new reality so creatively this is the process no matter what you're trying to create a new product a new service and your business a new relationship that's why also a part of the information gathering in relationships is frequently dotasia a Vedic Astrology this part at least in this system it is part of the information gathering and so it doesn't matter what you're trying to create but what I would like to suggest to you that you know your life should be a creative process healing should be a creative process no matter what we would be living in this realm of creativity all the time Healing is nothing other than the return of the memory of wholeness that's why it's called healing Holi wholeness health is the same word but healing is the incarnation of a new experience okay so now we're moving to the sixth response which we are calling the visionary response of the higher guidance response this is the ability to not only predict the future in a sense the probabilities of the future it's also to participate in the creation of that future based on choices in the present when we have this experience we have a total shift in our cognitive and perceptual mechanisms cognitive refers to how we know what we know and perception is what we see tomorrow when I go over this material we'll go over how our perception changes has been moving to more expanded states of consciousness so reality changes perception changes how we think changes everything changes reality is different in different stages of consciousness so as knowledge so is perception so is actually the structure of our brain to some extent yesterday John Culbertson was talking about the brains that are totally different okay there's Rene remind me I should do the neuroscience slides too on the Enlightenment neurosis some time so this this is also a level that in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is called cities and Radice see these are called super normal powers read these are control of the elements and forces of the universe what is changing though is your experience of the universe because the universe is always an experience in the realm of possibilities and at this level there's also the manifestation of archetypal patterns or energies that already exist in what we would say collective consciousness finally there's what we call the sacred response the sacred response is you've gone beyond all these activities of consciousness into consciousness itself remember the activities of consciousness are experiences consciousness itself is the ground of all experience so here you have what is called your being is the embodiment of love love that is not necessarily directed at anyone but love that radiates from you like light from a bonfire directed to none denied to none like the light from a lamp you radiate love it's also called Ananda Shakti the Shakti again as the Divine Feminine but in bliss a transformation of person self to the experience of universal self seeing the whole universe in one's own being loss of the fear of death and the experiential knowledge of immortality of existence now tomorrow I will expand on this map but it's an amazing map that actually has a basis in our biology because as we are moving to these levels even our biology is changing let's spend only two minutes or three minutes on this idea of myths and icons and I've already told you about this but people who do extraordinary things they almost achieve a mythical expression and these myths are stories that are very primordial they're found in all the world's religious literature whether it's the Bible or the Quran or anywhere they're stories of compelling characters who are extraordinary they have eternal themes which are listed here sacred profane divine bollocky angels fallen angels unconditional love forbidden lusts triumph tragedy suffering redemption mystery magic and these then appear in popular culture as icons I'm not going to spend time on this write down because it's not really what we're here for but this is what I do with with my training of leadership and corporate leadership particularly the most successful brands are those that tell a great story people don't buy a product people don't buy a service they buy a story this is cultural anthropologists call this ritual action of course the the brand or the service or the product has to live up to that story if it is going to be successful but see these are this guide Marlboro Man is down a respirator but when I was when I was in medical school and in my training he was the most popular character there smoking cigarettes on a horse and and doctors my colleagues were doing advertisements for cigarettes for Lucky Strike and Marlboro cigarettes and that the ads were in medical journals so we've come a long way so these are mythical beings because they're representing the highest aspirations of humanity I put in Marilyn Monroe because only because she represents Aphrodite the mythical goddess of love and sexuality and of course sports figures and many other people represent what we call archetypes so archetypes are concentrations of psychic energy the states of information energy manifestations of awareness they manifest as stories themes motifs that become popular in not in a culture the gods and goddesses of the way that Vedic Hindu religion saraswati lakshmi durga they're archetypes patterns of aspiration as are the Greek goddesses okay so as I started yesterday and will will complete this model this morning remember this is a map this is a map for experience if I'm going driving from Boston to New York are usually in the beginning you need a map and if the map works till Rhode Island and you assume that it'll work from Rhode Island to New York as well so the map and experience go together God is the highest aspiration in sync to know ourselves the experience of God depends on our state of awareness so when we are in the fight flight response then we are scared God is the protector bench full and capricious God this God is found in every religion because religion is nothing other than that which was revealed to people and people were in a certain state of awareness so all the different aspects of God that I am discussing are found in all religions so God is the protector and God experience of God is he he usually he right because that also the he goes back to historical times of predators hunter-gatherers tribes etc so God is like the tribal leader quick to anger jealous unfathomable judgmental and the world that is experienced in this state of consciousness is the world of basic survival this is unfortunately most of the world right now you know our inner cities and all the places of strife and Syrian refugees were still experiencing the first stage of spiritual evolution as we get to the reactive response then God is all-powerful sovereign omnipotent but also God is just it's like a good judge Supreme Court judge even that these days he is the nation it okay so God is just answers prayers rational and impartial goes by the rules and this is the God that also creates the world of comp or the experience of the world of competition and ambition the ego world as we settle in awareness then we experience the God of peace God is detached and calm God offers consolation God is silent meditative undermining and the world that is created by this ecosystem of consciousness is the world of solitude and self-sufficiency so here's another principle when people are in the same frequency of consciousness then obviously they find themselves in the company of people who are in the same frequency of consciousness right here for example we are beginning to experience this together the ultimate experience of this is called the the peace that passes understanding anybody here familiar with the Course in Miracles good so you know one of the most important things in the Course in Miracles is the unreal cannot be threatened and the real never sorry the real cannot be threatened the real cannot be threatened and the unreal never exists Darren is the peace of God okay that is what we are talking about here just being in awareness as we get to the intuitive response then God becomes the Redeemer the Buddha ah the Jesus because God has come to redeem but it's a state of awareness right redeem means that God understands contradiction ambiguity therefore is tolerant forgiving non-judgmental inclusive accepting and the world that people find themselves in who are in this response is the world of insight and personal growth as we move to the next stage then because we have found our own creativity we project that on an infinite creator unlimited creative potential abundance control over space and time open willing to be known inspired generous this is the god of the or god of genesis in the bible okay so all these stages are found in the bible - they found everywhere and all the religions because humans wrote them down and then we also find ourselves in the world of art in mentioned unlimited discovery her guidance is when we start experiencing the so-called miraculous where there's transformation the mystical God which is enlightened beyond all causes healing magical cosmic alchemist you might say and the world we find ourselves is in the company of mythical world of prophets and seers and finally this sacred response God of pure being totally invisible formless unborn infinite undying intangible unchanging and the world is the transcendent world of all possibilities infinite possibilities so now we come to the questions we've been struggling with to some extent Who am I how do I fit in how do I find God what is the nature of good and evil the experience of good and evil the experience of that which we call God the experience of that which we call I in the fight flight response we experience ourselves as survivors remember these states of consciousness are also an expression of the ecosystem in which they are born so right now I'm mentioning Syrian refugees and refugees all over the world this is all you know a stage of experience that is born in an entire ecosystem it's not one person even you and I are products of an ecosystem that has brought us here but that ecosystem is so powerful as part of our collective conditioning and centuries of conditioning that unless we question it we will not be able to escape it the first thing is to question our own conditioning if you don't then it's the prison with no walls so in the first stage Who am I is a survivor how do I fit in I do my best to cope how do I find that which humans call God through fear and loving devotion it's like a relationship with the dysfunctional parent it's literally a relationship with the abusive parent you when you look at kids who've been abused they love their parents and they're scared of them so it's both love and hate go together what is the nature of good and evil well good is interpreted as physical safety what gets kind of survivor do except one physical safety food shelter and family and what is evil it's a threat to that in the reactive response our identity becomes our ego personality how do we fit in always trying to win are you aware of any leader who's always right okay has to win doesn't matter what the situation is how do I find God through our obedience what is the nature of good and evil good is getting what you want fulfilling your ego desires mainly evil is a threat to getting what you want to URI go to your values to your needs restful awareness Who am I is the Silent Witness of mind body and world so here's something I'm going to add on now as a practice tonight when you go to bed just to a two three minute meditation with your mantra and then on the screen of your consciousness just without judging observe everything that happened today morning afternoon evening don't obsess with details just a little two-minute video of whatever happened today you got up you went to the bathroom you came here you went for lunch just witness that okay and then tell yourself even as I witnessed my day which is already a dream by tonight this will be a dream so I will witness my night and the dream that comes to me and in the morning if you have time or just take one minute to see if you can recall the dream and then let it go just like tonight let today go if you do that every day by the way then you will have the awakening of that witnessing awareness which is all-important because your identity will shift from ego to the witnessing awareness this is called taking a stand you take a stand as the witness of all that is witness of your mind witness of your body witness of the world what Krishnamurti we mentioned yesterday is the highest intelligence is the ability to observe yourself without judging yourself in observing yourself you observe the other because the other is a projection of yourself so the more you take that stand you will start to experience the witnessing awareness in which all comes and goes and then how do you fit in you remain who you are how do you find God through the practices we are learning meditation contemplation contemplation is self inquiry what is the nature of good and evil good is clarity restfulness inner sense of order evil is inner turmoil and chaos so our interpretation of good and evil is changing intuitive response we are not just the silent witness the Sanskrit word by the way for the silent witness is Sakshi just witnessing awareness but in the intuitive response we begin to know that not only is the silent witness a witness but the silent witness has a knowing quality that is always there it knows one of the ways actually to define awareness is the knowing element in every experience it never goes away it's always there it's just been ignored ignored because we're distracted by other things so how do I fit in I begin to understand what's going on I find total second self accept acceptance what is the nature of good and evil good is receiving answers spontaneous knowingness evil is threat to our own intuition intuition self-betrayal creative response Who am I I'm the co-creator with that which we call God how do I fit in I participate in creation how do I find God in through inspiration what is the nature of good and evil God is inspiration evil is a threat to that creativity inspiration higher guidance I find through enlightened awareness which is beyond the ego how do I fit in I love love not in this case a sentiment or an emotion but the ultimate truth at the heart of creation that we are one being how do I find God through grace what is the nature of good and evil there's a deep understanding that good is the cosmic force of evolution truth beauty and harmony which is called sattva it's quality of the universe is the creative impulse of the universe and we also realized that evil is a cosmic force like any other not seen as a threat but as Thomas Thomas is the Sanskrit word for inertia so there's inertia and there's creativity and then there's the interaction between the two and both are necessary for the creation of the universe if there was only creativity then the universe would expand itself and rapidly and burn itself into the heat death of absolute zero and then if there was only inertia intense gravity the universe would disappear into a black hole it's the it's the dance between the two does this mean that we don't fight for evil fight against evil and fight for good and the word is fight is the wrong word word we align ourselves with the forces of creation creativity and evolution not fight so even though the bhagwat gita is a book of war it's the book of the fight wes is good and evil when you read it krishna the great yogi is teaching in 18 chapters the four forms of yoga so the first form of yoga is raja yoga the practices that we're doing in the second form of yoga is the yoga of love the third form of yoga is the yoga of the intellect or understanding and the third and the fourth is the yoga of action so these are called raja yoga bhakti yoga and yoga and karma yoga we are doing in a sense Raja yoga here this week and to some extent the yoga of the intellect trying to figure it out and the rest is up to you how much you love and how you transform that love into action because love without action is meaningless and action without love is irrelevant but when they come together that's yoga sacred response Who am I becomes the source how do I fit in I am how do I find God transcendence what is the nature of good and evil good is the union of all opposites evil doesn't exist there's a deep understanding that Maya the veil is needed to keep the world relative world going so now in this deeper understanding the humanity goes through stages where good prevails and there's a balance between good and evil or what we call good and evil then evil prevails and then again it's like a circle okay we are in a very interesting time right now which could be a death and a resurrection at the same time all based on our collective consciousness collective awakening however we want to phrase it how to go further what is my life challenge life challenge means what's the next thing I need to do what is my greatest strength what is my biggest hurdle and what is my greatest temptation the word thin is not there sin is just called in the Vedanta it's called ignorance the word ignorant is also very interesting it means to ignore when we ignore who we really are then we are in the world of limited awareness which is ignorant ok so what is my life challenge in the first stage is to protect to survive to maintain what is my greatest strength in the first-stage courage what is my biggest hurdle fear fear and courage go together what is my greatest temptation tyranny so all the tyrants today that you see in the world you read about I'm not gonna name them but they're all over the world right all over the world they are mind body experts in the first stage of evolution or we would say they are stuck in the first chakra but we have to know that otherwise we can't ourselves move collectively to through these different stages in the reactive response my life challenge is maximum achievement my greatest strength is accomplishment when that doesn't happen by biggest hurdle is victimization and my greatest temptation is addiction in the restful awareness responds by life challenges how to be engaged but at the same time detached passionate about what I am doing but at the same time not moving away from the center of being greater strength is autonomy because hurdle is fatalism it's a misrepresentation of karma unfortunately very common in the land from where this knowledge game it's all Karma so why bother greatest temptation is apathy intuitive response the life changer challenges to go beyond duality because we are why are we going beyond the duality because we are understanding context everything that happens has a context doesn't matter what it is you know that what happened New York two days ago with that person driving there's a context you go back there's always a x2 whatever happens whether it happened in Las Vegas or whatever happens so to understand context is the life challenge and this is very difficult for a lot of people because we have frozen into rigid frames of good and bad right and wrong that keep getting recycled greatest strength is in sight biggest hurdle is delusion we delude our own self and biggest temptation is deception you know a lot of people ask me do you believe in psychics and the answer is I've seen some very good psychics extraordinary psychics in many ways Joe Tisha's is science of that and you are in fact learning the sutras if you cultivate them you will awaken that but psychics tend to be always exaggerate their abilities right they're good even the good ones want you to believe they're better why because we are human in the creative response the life challenge is to align with the Creator our greatest strength is imagination because the universe is the imagination of the infinite being you are the imagination of the infinite being as is these flowers and then we extend that through all that constructs we create microphones internet artificial intelligence virtual reality augmented reality you name it okay so what we are taking is the raw material of imagination of the infinite being and extending it and if we become really good at it some of us get self-absorbed creative people are also a little narcissistic and the greatest temptation is solipsism solipsism means you actually believe that the world would not exist if it weren't for you now it's technically correct the world only exists in awareness but solipsism is ego awareness higher guidance your life challenges to attain liberation your greatest strength is holiness holiness does not mean self-righteous morality which is just jealousy with a halo holiness means all inclusiveness you include everybody and your biggest hurdle is martyrdom all the great Saints and from Martin Luther King to Jesus Christ Mahatma Gandhi were martyrs okay because at some point the framework says this understanding says they took on the Karma of the world so when Christians say God Jesus took on your sins technically that's what it means okay taking on the Karma in order to bring Redemption temptation is you promise more than you can deliver why do you do that well because you can see what others cannot see so you you want to it's not like you do it willingly you so desperately want others to see what you're seeing sacred response to be myself greater strength universality biggest hurdle Noelle's greatest temptation no temptation okay so now in our meditation we have the second question the first question is Who am I section question is what do I want so at each stage what we want changes in the first response we want family community sense of belonging material comforts now here's a very important thing to understand if you don't get what you want you will be frustrated so the key is not to give up your desires the key is to fulfill your desires and ultimately transcend them if you give up your desires then you'll only be thinking of that which you give up you're familiar with there are many good stories in the Eastern traditions as to monk's going on a pilgrimage they are sworn to celibacy there's a younger monk and older monk and they're crossing a river and they see a beautiful young girl and she wants she can't swim so the young monk says you can come on my shoulders I'll carry you and then they drop her off at the other side of the river and after a while the old monk says how could you do that he says do what is you were not supposed to carry that young girl on your shoulder because you would be tempted he says well I dropped her six hours ago you're still carrying her so you cannot suppress it comes spontaneously once you fulfill your desires so each level of desire has to be transcended and at the same time fulfilled second level success power status ego satisfaction everything we call I Me Mine so people say it is wrong to have ego desires of course not it's a stage of our development third-level he said well I have everything but I don't have peace I want to be more connected I want self-acceptance I want the peace of inner silence third-level I have all that but I also want insight empathy tolerance forgiveness I have that but I also want see we are greedy very greedy as human beings no other animal would say all these things but that's how we were made right so I want creativity we want inspiration co-creator we want to enjoy life as an adventurer of unlimited creativity as we move to the sixth level reverence compassion service Universal love and then finally unity with the divine and wholeness okay so now as we go through every religion by the way so religions let me just say that all religious experience is only three things only three things all religious and then after that it's ideology the first thing is transcendence that you go beyond subject object split that's the religious experience the second religious experience is the spontaneous emergence of love compassion joy peace equanimity and the third religious experience is the loss of the fear of death because there's both experience and knowledge that awareness which is your fundamental reality is not subject to birth and death after that it's all translation but having said that every religious doctrine or script talks about miracles so let's say that the miracle is the highest achievement of a level of awareness so at the first level miracles involves surviving great danger impossible rescues a sense of divine protection these are every day on the evening news you know a while back we had over here and drew Harvey he's a very flamboyant gay spiritual teacher very articulate at that time he was living in Las Vegas and so I said Andrew why do you live in Las Vegas he says it's the most spiritual city in the world I said what do you mean he said it doesn't pretend to be what it's not and that was a very good statement for me to hear because we judge right so easily and then he told me that day and evening news there was the story of a cat that had run into a burning house nine times to rescue her kittens that's a miracle at the first level second level reactor response incredible achievements and success control of a body and mind even yogic control is from frequently from the level of the ego I can slow my heart rate I can stop breathing I can do this posture which you can't etc third level miracles involve synchronously yogic powers the higher yogic prowess that the cities and the Radice premonitions feeling the presence of God fourth level miracles involve telepathy extrasensory perception knowledge of past or future lifetimes prophecy creative response miracles involve divine inspiration artistic genius spontaneous fulfillment of desire and wishes come true I want to share with you a very interesting story last year I was invited to be part of a panel at the Vatican by the Vatican to to to join a board for technology and how spirituality and technology can can be used together Pope Francis is a amazing person so as part of that I did a meditation in the in the Sistine Chapel and also got to see the records you know the the sealed records it's a favor that they give to special guests so here's the story behind the Sistine Chapel anybody been in the Sistine Chapel okay so the story is you know Michelangelo and Pope were discussing the creation of that chapel and the Pope asked him the then Pope he said how are you going to charge me and Michelangelo said you can't afford me so the Pope said yes I can he said so my clans just said make me an offer and so the Pope said I will absolve you of past future and present sins so you can do anything you want in the future you're already absorbed Michelangelo had an interesting life which we weren't going to at the moment he accepted the offer and he said on one condition and that was that Raphael his competitor would not be allowed inside the chapel he could paint the outside but that's a miracle the Sistine Chapel is a miracle of art hi guidance miracle on was the healing physical transformations holy apparitions the apparitions are projections of the archetypal self highest degree of supernatural feats and in the sacred response there is no need for miracles everything becomes a miracle existence is America okay so this is where we will stop today and what I'd like to do in the next 10 minutes I want to invite Lena Nasser to the stage so I just want to introduce her to you Lena is a neuroscientist her degree from Harvard is on how stories changed the brain and she's the new CEO of a new initiative which is called the mind brain initiative of the Chopra foundation tomorrow you'll hear a lot about the nonprofit foundation Lena's from Saudi Arabia but she is leading this effort and I thought she should tell you what it's about Thank You Deepak hello everyone I'm very happy to be here today and in this week with you all and I'd love to share a little bit about this Institute that we're building together and and tell you a little bit about myself so you know something we've been learning throughout this week is how our mind our emotions our thoughts the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and our behavior and actions are all impacting our well-being and therefore our full potential of who we can be and how we can show up and how we can feel and so it became very interesting when we were looking at the data and the numbers and we saw that over 60% of deaths worldwide today are actually due to tell them your story yes I will get to my story in a second yes I love storytelling so I will I will get to that but it became very interesting for us that over 60% of deaths worldwide are due to non communicable diseases so mental mental illness you know obesity diabetes and more and so you know that number is really stark and it's only increasing and so we've decided we need to do something about it and it's prevention prevention of these diseases which is very similar to what you're doing this week but imagine magnifying that and really sharing it with the rest of the world and so what we want to start is an entity in an institute that would be really designed to think about how we can achieve the full potential of the human being through science entrepreneurship innovation and all of all of the sorts and so I I'll share with you my story about how this full potential kind of became really important to me personally and what brought us to the place where we are now building an entity designed to look at the full potential and prevent chronic illness so I grew up in Saudi Arabia and I had a I have a Syrian mother and so it was very interesting space to grow up in and Saudi Arabia as you can imagine it's different more closed how I grew up all-girls school it's very segregated and I my mother was a really empowering figure in my life and I remember when I was about 7 years old it was around 1997 I they asked me what do you want to be when you grow up in school today all kids I think in many countries and you know you take a picture with what you want to be and I wanted to be a babysitter when I was when I was seven and you know I grew up I grew up in this community where you know questions weren't really allowed in school we were always told you know we should not ask questions because it wasn't you know what God wanted and I was the person who always asked all the questions and got into trouble getting kicked out of class right and left and my mother was the person who really told me that you know they called her in the principal's office every year and so she would leave crying oftentimes because they compared me to my sister who was more obedient and she came to me and said Lena if they ever stopped you from asking questions you write them down on a paper never stop asking them and so I became very inquisitive as a result and got into more and more trouble until I decided I was gonna come to the United States and study political science and education and change you know make a difference and you know as I was you know in the library one day I picked up this book very coincidentally or maybe synchronistically by an author named Muhammad Sahib and it's called how to teach math to black students and it was a very interesting book because it was this African American teacher who realized that his african-american students were performing so poorly in math until he introduced the African contribution to the math discipline and when he introduced that their grades skyrocketed and I looked at this book and you can order it actually from Amazon and I thought where where did that idea to be a babysitter come from you know I I started to question I was very intrigued now to go back to Saudi Arabia and look at the children's stories to see what did they tell girls about who they couldn't become you know what are what were the options laid there and so when I went back home you know I packed my suitcase with all these books from all the curriculum you know from second grade to sixth grade and I found it very startling because I didn't you know record or where this but you know is in my subconscious obviously all these stories where girls were almost invisible and if they were visible they were usually either wives daughters and if they had a job it would be just a teacher but you couldn't see them in any career is really in the stories and for boys they were limited to the roles they had but I was focused on girls and and and you know learning about that and so I you know upon doing this research I graduate and now I'm interested in neuroscience and the brain because I'm thinking is there a relationship between your thoughts your emotions your feelings in your mind to what you can produce in the world who you show up as and what you can do so your potential so I you know I graduate I go to a program at Harvard that's actually looking at mind brain and education which is exactly what I want to study and that's when I begin my research on storytelling in the brain and I see you know when you're looking at research and fMRI scans there is if a story transports you so I kind this term identity stories gender identity stories so if these stories transport you mentally you actually you can see in the prefrontal cortex a change and so I decided to go to Saudi Arabia again and with little girls give them an alternative story and this story would be something that they've never read before that would transport them and take them to a potential of something they could become and how I wanted to test the change is through math because I wanted to see would a story change how little fourth grade girls performed in math and so so III first I interviewed the little fourth grade girls and the the one of the girls was very into the poorest performance so the ones really doing bad in math I wanted to pick a good story so I need to get to know them a little and this one girl I and I asked her how do you feel about math and she said I don't like math and I said well can you tell me a little more she said well I'm a logical girl and as a logical girl you know I really value being being logical and I don't think that it is logical that I spend my time memorizing the pluses and - --is when you know I can use my calculator in the supermarket and so this is a very clever girl who is not doing well and so I thought what story can I find for her that could unlock a potential in her and how she's performing so I find this incredible story of zubeida bin Jaffa who is a queen in the 8th century who not many people know about she's in them in the Mediterranean and the name in Arabic translates to English - little butterball so I called her little butterball and she actually ends up being she's not only the queen with you know her name on the local currency in the Middle East but she also builds the most complicated hydro-engineering project of her period and it's Canal made to transport water from Baghdad to Mecca and it's because the pilgrims were dying from thirst that she built this canal and mind you she's walking it's about one month walk I just she's a hiker too and so I share this story with these little girls about a woman that they can relate to that's a queen that that is using math to do this amazing project and you know you can see the light in their eyes and prior to the story I gave them the math questions to test their baseline story and then math questions again and I went home to look at the results to see did the story have an impact on who they showed up as and the second math questions that I give them and the results were startling there was a 21 percent jump from pre story to post story for the lowest performers it was 23% and this was with just one intervention just one story about someone who they could become and so this really this this experience that I had really made me a strong believer an advocate of the possibility to to really hone in on the potential that we can be and become through through understanding understanding ourselves and the opportunities and the possibilities and this we through this Institute that we're building we want to create a new story for humanity or hope is to reach 1 billion people and the story is that we really are capable through choices our decisions our emotions how we choose to show up we can really change our potential and this is the Institute that's going to be dedicated to to achieving that you can learn more information on on the new Chopra website actually I will be launching and revealing the name and our next step soon so stay tuned if you're interested we'd love to involve you all on a person level yeah so if I if you have I'd love to share with you a little bit more also I know some of the things we're looking at so you know when you're thinking about potential achieving potential you want to look at the root causes of why are people getting sick or why are people not achieving therefore a potential and this is what the Institute is going to be look at looking at and the tip actually of the iceberg when you look at all diseases that are killing us there's a commonality between them which is inflammation and so we as an entity are going to be bringing the brightest minds together to look at what are all the root causes that are leading to this inflammation in the body that's common across all of these diseases and if we understand these root causes how can we actually prevent inflammation and develop a common language that allows us all to to talk about when we are getting inflamed so that we can bring that down and we have developing the biological markers of that but anyway this is part of the Chopra foundation and if you go to the Chopra foundation.org we'll keep up with all this information and tomorrow Sarah will be talking about the other activities but Lena has to go back tomorrow morning to New York to continue her work with this I thought she should speak to you about thank you thank you [Applause]

Channel: The Chopra Well

Views: 28,988

Keywords: yoga, meditation, biological responses, brain, heart, intellect

Id: 4DpSd0EZIPI

Length: 88min 3sec (5283 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 11 2017