Deepak Chopra on the Soul

When we are beginning to understand the soul,
The ocean provides a wonderful analogy.
Imagine the ocean as non-local reality,
The field of infinite possibilities,
The virtual level of existence
That synchronizes everything.

Each of us is like a wave in that ocean.
We are created from it, and it makes up
The very core of who we are.
Just as a wave takes on a specific shape,
We, too, take on intricate patterns of non-local reality.
This vast, unending ocean of possibility
Is the essence of everything in the physical world.
The ocean represents the non-local,
And the wave represents the local.
The two are intimately connected.

Once we define the soul
As deriving from the non-local, or virtual realm,
Then our place in the universe
Becomes remarkably clear:
We are both local and non-local,
An individual pattern emerging from
Non-local intelligence,
Which is also part of everyone and everything else.
We can think of the soul, then, as having two parts.
The vast, non-local soul exists
At the virtual or spirit level.
It is powerful, pure, and capable of anything.
The personal, local part of the soul
Exists at the quantum level.
This is what reaches into our daily lives
And holds the essence of who we are.
It, too, is powerful, pure, and capable of anything.
The same unbounded potential of the infinite spirit
Also resides in each and every one of us.
Our personal soul, which we think of
When we think of our “selves,”
Is an outcropping of the eternal soul.
If we could learn to live from the level of the soul,
We would see that the best,
Most luminous part of ourselves
Is connected to all the rhythms of the universe.
We would truly know ourselves
As the miracle-makers we are capable of being.

We would lose fear, and longing, and hatred,
And anxiety, and hesitation.
Living from the level of the soul means
Diving past the ego,
Past the limitations of the mind that harness us
To events and outcomes in the physical world.

Dogen, "Actualizing the Fundamental Point"

 

Eiheiji Temple, founded by Dogen

As all things are buddha-dharma,
There is delusion and realization,
Practice, and birth and death,
And there are buddhas and sentient beings.
As the myriad things are without an abiding self,
There is no delusion, no realization, no buddha,
No sentient being, no birth and death.
The buddha way is, basically, leaping clear
Of the many and the one; thus
There are birth and death,
Delusion and realization,
Sentient beings and buddhas.
Yet in attachment blossoms fall,
And in aversion weeds spread.

Maharamayana

Self-knowledge cannot be gained
Until everything is renounced.
When all points of view are abandoned,
What remains is the Self.
Even in the world you do not get
What you desire
Until all obstacles are removed.
This is even more true of self-knowledge.

Deepak Chopra on Uncertainty

Scientists recognize the unpredictability of nature,
And have been trying to make sense of it.
Even the most seemingly simple events
Are governed by this unpredictability.

When and where will bubbles appear
In a pot of boiling water? What patterns will be made
By the smoke of a lit cigarette?
How does the position of water molecules
At the top of a waterfall relate
To their eventual position at the bottom?
God might just as well have taken all
Those water molecules under the table
And shuffled them personally.

The new science of chaos is attempting
To predict the unpredictable
Through intricate mathematical models.
In the classic example,
A butterfly flutters its wings in Texas
And there is a typhoon in Tokyo six days later.
The connection may not seem obvious, but it exists.
That little change of air pressure
Caused by the butterfly
Can get multiplied and magnified,
Resulting in a tornado.
But it can never be entirely predicted.
That’s why weather forecasters seem to be wrong
So often, and why any forecast longer
Than about forty-eight hours away is unreliable.
Yet among all the possible occurrences in the world,
Weather is more predictable
Than just about anything else.

What this says on a spiritual level is that
We can never really know
What direction life will take,
What changes those small butterfly-flutters
Of intention and action might cause in our destiny.
At the same time, it also tells us
That we can never really truly know the mind of God.
We can never fully understand
The how, where, and when of anything,
Even something as simple as boiling water.

We have to surrender to uncertainty,
While appreciating its intricate beauty.

Drinking the Mountain Stream: Milarepa

In the face of reality's illumination

There is neither self nor other,

No duality, no division-void of identity

And yet neither void
Nor not void.

There is no perceiver at all. Eh Ma!

Until a mountain yogi

Has realized well the meaning of this,

He should not disparage cause and result!

D. Chopra on the Shadow

When you have been treated unjustly or personally harmed,
The natural emotion is anger. If this anger can’t get out,
It festers and grows in the shadow.
Lashing out when holding it back no longer works;
This anger leads to a cycle of violence.

Guilt can make you feel like a bad person
Simply for having an impulse or entertaining a thought.
This is a kind of double blind:
If you lash out and return the harm done to you,
You have done something evil,
But if you keep the anger inside and harbor it,
You can feel just as evil.

Yet violence can be tamed by breaking it down
Into manageable bits.
Negative emotions feed off certain aspects
Of the shadow that are very manageable.

The shadow is dark.
Everyone has a shadow because of the natural contrast
Between darkness and the light.

The shadow is secret.
We store impulses and feelings there
That we wish to keep private.

The shadow is dangerous.
Repressed feelings have the power to convince us
That they can kill us or make us go insane.

The shadow is shrouded in myth.
For generations, people have seen it
As the lair of dragons and monsters.

The shadow is irrational.
Its impulses fight against reason;
They are explosive and totally willful.

The shadow is primitive.
It’s beneath the dignity of a civilized person
To explore this domain.

A secret, dark, primitive, irrational, dangerous, mythical evil
Is much less convincing if you break it down
Into one quality at a time. But this process of bringing evil down
To scale won’t be convincing until you apply it to yourself.

Shankaracharya

It is a fool who blames the sun for his own blindness.

The scriptures even proclaim aloud:

There is in truth no creation and no destruction;

No one is bound, no one is seeking Liberation,

No one is on the way to Deliverance.

There are none Liberated.

This is the absolute truth.

My dear disciple, this, the sum and substance

Of all the Upanishads, the secret of secrets,

Is my instruction to you.