TCF 01.14.24 | Finding a Better Worldview
As we stand at the precipice of transformation, the Chopra Foundation continues to explore the expansive horizons of human potential and consciousness. In this week’s newsletter, we delve into the essence of our personal reality with Deepak Chopra MD’s insights from his latest book “Quantum Body”. Deepak challenges us to reconsider the fabric of our worldview, inviting us to reflect on how our deepest beliefs color and shape our experiences.
I also turn our gaze towards the digital future with the article, “Navigating the AI Archipelago: A Leader’s Guide to Essential Skills in the Age of Intelligence”. This piece is a compass for leaders sailing the dynamic seas of Artificial Intelligence, emphasizing the critical need for continuous learning and ethical application as we harness these tools for growth and innovation.
Furthermore, from our Chopra Foundation research team we explore the intriguing interplay between our biological mechanics and lifestyle choices, particularly focusing on telomerase’s role in longevity and how practices like meditation and yoga can influence it. We share profound insights into the extraordinary healing phenomena observed in individuals in altered states of consciousness, a stark contrast to conventional medical outcomes.
As always, our commitment to advancing health, wellness, and spiritual understanding is echoed in the thought provoking articles we share. This week’s articles challenge us to test the propositions that life is on our side, that invisible forces support our evolution, and that within consciousness lies the potential for infinite possibilities and healing. They urge us to re-examine the seemingly fixed narratives of random existence, struggle, and suffering, and instead, to embrace a conscious life filled with meaning and infinite worth.
In our continuous pursuit of knowledge, we’re excited to present breakthrough research and ideas that prompt us to reassess the status quo and invite transformation. From the mysteries of longevity and the power of mind-body practices to the frontiers of Artificial Intelligence and the deep healing possible in altered states of consciousness, we are at the forefront of a paradigm shift.
Join us as we journey through these diverse and enriching topics, seeking to enrich our understanding and enhance our collective wellbeing. Let us step forward with open minds and hearts, ready to test and apply these insights to our lives.
Warm regards,
Poonacha Machaiah – CEO
The Chopra Foundation
Finding a Better Worldview
By Deepak Chopra, MD, FACP, FRCP
The term “worldview” might sound abstract and rather high-flown, but in reality, it strikes close to home in everyone’s life. None of us perceive the same reality. We make it personal, mirroring our deeply held beliefs and assumptions. We all accept our personal reality as valid, even though it is an interpretation that is transient, erratic, unpredictable, and constantly shifting. What keeps the picture stable is that the constant bombardment of sights and sounds is anchored in something more permanent, your worldview.
In my latest book, Quantum Body, I contend that the time is ripe for a new worldview because the ones that most people take for granted have serious if not fatal flaws. This is a critical issue, so let me expand a bit on what is at stake. Your deepest beliefs act like a filter. They color, censor, select, and distort reality “out there.”
If you carry this insight far enough, you wind up with the Vedic position from ancient India that there is no independent reality “out there.” There is only a mirror of the self. In everyday life, East and West, this sounds preposterous. What if two people step off a curb at the same time and both are hit by the same bus? Person A believes that there is no independent reality “out there,” while person B accepts the physical world as it is. Does it matter when the bus hits them?
Here we arrive at the core belief that sustains reality or illusion. It is also what separates bondage from freedom. Set aside your immediate reaction, which almost certainly says that the bus doesn’t care who it hits — the experience will be the same. Instead, look at the situation as a clash of worldviews.
The materialist worldview accepts the physical world as it is (in recent decades, the word “physicalism” has come to replace “materialism” in this kind of discussion). The bus, the victim’s body, and everything else in the picture exists from the build-up of subatomic particles into atoms and molecules. No matter how complex any problem might be, these building blocks don’t change. They apply universally.
By contrast, there is another worldview based on consciousness. It holds that creation is based on a primal creative impulse that precedes anything material. In a religious society, this primal consciousness is God or the gods, but it doesn’t have to be. You can use any other favored term, such as pure awareness, cosmic consciousness, Brahman, and so on. What matters is the essence of reality residing in consciousness. In its creative unfolding, pure awareness transforms itself into an infinite array of appearances. The entire physical world down to the smallest subatomic particle is one appearance, but so is the human mind.
It is hard to deny that awareness is non-physical, as are its products, such as love, knowledge, insight, and understanding. It is equally hard to deny that consciousness is needed to create all experiences (including the experience of being a physicalist). If consciousness is inseparable from everything we call real, the worldview that places consciousness as our source and origin becomes very compelling.
Does a better, more convincing worldview change what happens if you are hit by a bus? If you have evolved to experience life as eternal bliss-consciousness, the harm done to your body is insignificant. You see yourself as a knower of consciousness. No matter how different a heart cell is from a cloud, a happy thought from a forest fire, or a distant galaxy from a bus, you see a common thread in each — consciousness has transformed itself into different modes that each require a unique mode of knowing.
If you hold, on the other hand, that harming your body is a source of profound pain and suffering, with the terrifying prospect of death hovering in the shadows, then being hit by a bus is catastrophic proof of your worldview. <Link to full article>
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