How Can You Wake Up To Your Highest Intelligence? with Deepak Chopra

Coming up on this week's episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy. When you're not experiencing synchronicity, you're not.

In touch with yourself. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark Hyman. I'm willing to bet that most of you are like me and love starting the day with coffee. And despite what a lot of people think, coffee can actually be good for you. Researchers found that coffee can be protective against Parkinson's disease, against type 2 diabetes, liver disease, and even can help improve your cognitive function and decrease the risk of depression. But there's a catch. You can't put crap in your coffee, like loads of sugar and processed dairy, and then expect your health to be good. And that's why I want to tell you about one of my favorite new products called Nut Pods. Nut Pods is a really tasty plant-based creamer. They have the original one, which is to replace your classic creamer, or you like the flavored ones. I like those, like hazelnut, French vanilla, and caramel. They're all dairy-free, they're unsweetened, They're certified non-GMO. They have zero sugar and zero sweeteners, which is awesome. I love mixing the hazelnut one into my creamy cashew butter coffee, which is so awesome for my new cookbook. I love that. I even made this for a friend recently. They could not believe it was dairy-free. You can also use Nut Pods in tea or recipes that call for cream. Right now, Nut Pods want you to try their products free. So just head over to nutpods.com/try forward slash Hyman. That's nutpods.com forward slash Hyman for a chance to win a free variety four pack and find out which nut pod flavor is your favorite. So just be sure to keep an eye on your email after entering because even if you don't win the free variety pack, nut pods is offering a special discount only for my listeners to the doctor's pharmacy. You can spruce up your coffee without the junk. Just check out nut pods and you'll see why I love them. You've probably seen in the headlines that eco anxiety is rising and really Just anxiety in general. Everywhere we turn it feels like bad news. That the future is bleak, the climate is warming, the oceans are rising, the economy is unstable, chronic diseases like diabetes and dementia are skyrocketing. But I'm here to tell you that the future is much brighter than you might think. There's actually a lot of good news because we can solve these big issues through our own actions, especially in how we choose to eat. That's why I created a manifesto to transform the food system. my newest book, Food Fix. It's amazing how much control we do have in changing the most urgent issues of our time. In Food Fix, I walk you through realistic steps that take the overwhelm out of these large scale problems. We can stop the spread of preventable illnesses. We can reduce the burden of chronic disease on our economy, reverse climate change and heal the environment, and even create social justice. It all starts with fixing our food system. And the best part of it is it also means taking care of your health on a whole new level and passing that down to future generations and it's not even hard. So for more information, I encourage you to head over to foodfixbook.com to pre-order the book right now and you'll get a whole bunch of amazing bonuses that will help you reclaim your health. So just head over to foodfixbook.com and join me in creating a brighter future and a food revolution. Now let's get back to this week's episode. Welcome to the Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman, and that's Pharmacy with an F, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, a place for conversations that matter. And if you care about your happiness, if you care about ending suffering for yourself and the world, you're gonna love this conversation with Deepak Chopra, who I've known for a long time and has become a good friend. And the first memory I have of sitting with you, we were really connected, was we were sitting at TEDMED about 10 years ago. and we're with Andy Wild, Donna Karen, you, me, and a few others, and we're sitting outside in this beautiful San Diego weather, and this bird flies over and craps on my head and hit me right in the forehead. And I'm like, what does that mean? And you're like, it's a good sign. I'm like, okay, God, thank God you were there. So you helped me. Now I feel so bad about getting on, but that was good. He's the founder of the Chopra Foundation, which is a nonprofit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality. He's a pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. His books were my inspiration way back when in the early 90s when I started reading about his work. Now he's written 90 books. Oh my God, I feel like a slacker. I'm only at 18. I got a long ways to go. He's a clinical professor of family medicine and public health at the University of California in San Diego. and his books are in 43 languages, many New York Times best sellers, I think 22 and maybe 23 now, I don't know. Who stops counting? He doesn't really care. That's what's amazing about Deepak. He's probably one of the most well-known figures in the world and he's humble. He doesn't quite understand who he is. He just kind of hangs out and just as a chill guy. He's always been incredibly supportive of me and my work and really doesn't walk around with a big ego, which is unlike a lot of people in this field. I really appreciate that about you, Deepak. He's been described by Time Magazine as one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century, not just the year or the decade. So I would agree with that. You've done a lot to bring our awareness about how we can think differently about our place here on the planet, our role as humans. And your new book, I really want to get into, is this interesting book called Meta Unleashing youg Infinite Potential. And it's about moving beyond the boundaries and limitations of everyday realities that limit our levels of success and happiness. So most of us don't quite think about what we're here doing, why we're here, about our minds, about our thoughts. We sort of just go along merrily in this unconscious state and you're challenging us to think differently about how to look at life and how to look at being human. So how did you come up with this concept of metahuman and what's the difference between what we think we are and who we really are?

So, if you go on the internet and you Google the following question, what are the 125 open questions in science? The first question that will come up is, what is the universe made of? The second question that will come up is, what's the biological basis of consciousness? And then there are 123 others.

But those are the biological basis of consciousness.

Those are the two open questions at the top of the list. What's the universe made of and what's the biological basis of consciousness? Now, that's what led me to write the book, Metahuman. So let's address those two questions. What's the universe made of? The short answer is it's made of nothing. The long answer is, how do we know? And so here we go.

That's counterintuitive. It's made of nothing. It seems like it's something, right? We've got this table here, right?

If you can see it and touch it, it doesn't exist. So what is the universe made of? 70% of the universe is mysterious dark energy, which is a mathematical concept first proposed by Einstein. called the cosmological constant and dark energy is supposedly expanding the universe faster than the speed of light.

Wow.

So what is it? We don't know what it is, but the universe, the space between galaxies, not the galaxies themselves, but the space between galaxies is expanding and it's expanding faster than the light speed of light. Einstein actually once called it the biggest blunder of his life. making that statement about the cosmological constant. Now there are many problems with that theory, but as it turns out, the observation is correct. The space between galaxies is expanding faster than the speed of light and we have no idea why. Scientists call this dark energy, but it's not the usual kind of energy that you and I know. E is equal to mc squared. It's not that. It's something Totally different and we have no idea.

And the implications of that, the universe keeps expanding into.

Ultimately, ultimately, no, the implication of that, it's as it expands, space expands. So ultimately galaxies will disappear at some point in the future. But let's not worry about that. Main thing is we don't know what it is. That leaves 30% of the universe remaining. Of that 26% is another mysterious entity called dark matter. Why is it called dark matter? It's invisible. What is it made of? We don't know. One thing we do know is it's not atomic. So you and I are made of atoms. The stable is made of atoms. The galaxies are made of atoms. But whatever dark matter is, it's not atomic. So you can't interact with it. It doesn't absorb light, reflect light, emit light, or do anything with light.

How do we know it exists? How do we know it exists?

It accounts for most of the gravity in a galaxy.

So.

Most of the gravity in a galaxy, the scaffolding of a galaxy, is this supposed dark matter, mathematical constant to fit the equations of modern physics. So now you're left with 4% of the universe, of which 99.999% is invisible interstellar dust. We can't see it either. So the visible universe, which is 2 trillion galaxies, 706 trillion stars, and you know, you can Google this information, don't have to believe me.

I believe you.

Okay. Two trillion galaxies. We live in the Milky Way galaxy, which has a hundred billion stars. So now imagine 706 trillion stars. I don't know how to write that, but it's seven- Lot of zeros. Lot of zeros. Then uncountable trillions of planets, trillions of planets. In fact, according to current science, there could be 40 billion habitable planets in just our own Milky Way galaxy. So how do we know that? They put these telescopes up there, James Watson telescope, they look for biospheres. A biosphere has to sustain life. So if a planet is too close to its sun, No life, too hot, far away, too cold, no life. It has to be within a specific zone. It's called the Goldilocks zone. And so we happen to be lucky. Planet Earth is in the Goldilocks zone. But there could be 40 billion others. And therefore there are uncountable trillions of planets. And that's 0.01% of the universe. That's atomic. Now, of course, as we know, atoms are made of particles and particles have this schizophrenic nature, wave or particle. A particle has units of mass and energy, you can see it. A wave has no units of mass and energy. In fact, when a particle is not interacting with other particles or when it's not being observed or measured, it doesn't exist. Where is it? What's it made of? And the best answer you'll get is it's made of possibilities. Then you say, where are these possibilities? Because otherwise, waves, ocean waves are made of water, airwaves are made of vibration of air molecules. What are the waves that create the visible universe made of? And the only answer you'll get is they're made of possibilities. And then you say, where do they exist? The best answer you'll get is in something called Hilbert space. So you say, what is Hilbert space? And Hilbert is the name of a mathematician. And Hilbert space is a zero dimensional space or an infinite dimensional space. Take your pick. It's mathematical and it describes the wave function, which means all the atoms in the universe, Schrodinger's wave equation. Yeah. You still keep persisting. Where is this happening?

Yeah.

And the answer you'll get from physicists today is shut up and calculate. Bottom line is we have no idea what the universe is made of. The visible and the invisible, of course, we can't comment on. because we can't interact with it. So that's the first open question. The second open question, which pertains to.

This, is- yeah, I knew you were getting to that. Consciousness and dark matter and empty space.

Yeah, but consciousness is what makes any experience possible, including the knowledge of the universe.

Yeah.

Okay, how do you know that anything exists? How do you know you exist? How do you know this microphone exists? How do you know the galaxies exist? because you're a conscious being and furthermore you're a human conscious being. A mosquito doesn't have these issues. Okay, an insect with a hundred eyes doesn't have these issues. Even the great apes don't have these issues. Only human beings ask these questions. So what's the basis of consciousness? And as you and I know, having trained in biology and medicine, the brain can't explain consciousness. It can only explain neural correlates of consciousness. So brain does explain conscious experience, but not what consciousness or awareness is. And so we have a problem. We don't know what the universe is made of. Secondly, we don't know how we know that anything exists, including the universe, including you and I. Or New York City or a physical body or a microphone.

So how do those theories or thoughts affect our way of being or what are the implications for how to be?

It affects our identity. If you really understood your identity and you understood today's identities based on physicality, right? the world is physical made of matter. What I'm saying in Metahuman is matter is a superstition. There's no such thing. You know, matter is a human interpretation of human perceptual activity. And perceptual, this is the hard problem of consciousness in science. The hard problem of consciousness only exists if you assume that the universe and you are physical. But what we call physical reality, including our body, is actually a perceptual activity. If I substituted- so it's sort of.

Like what Einstein said, reality is an illusion, however persistent, right?

Correct. I don't think he knew what he was saying because Einstein was a naive realist. A naive realist means somebody who believes that the physical universe is exactly the way it looks. as perceived by the five human senses. Obviously, that's wrong, right? Because every species has its own experiences, right? Senses, sonar, sensing, right? The principle of naive realism is gone, right? The universe doesn't exist as perceived as we see it. There are multiple ways of seeing it, depending on the nervous system you're using. Yeah, which is species specific. Okay?

Yeah.

The second principle, of naive realism. And I'm reinstating Einstein was a naive realist. He was wrong about reality. The second principle.

Got a few things right.

You've got a few things right. Few models right, not reality.

Yeah.

Models of reality. Okay. So the second principle of naive realism is that the universe as we see it would exist if we were not there. An unobserved universe would still exist in the same way. as you perceive it.

That's the whole thing of the Zen cone is a tree falling in the forest, making noise if there's no one there.

Correct. Correct.

Yeah.

So both principles are out. So what I'm saying in metahuman is there's no such thing as physical reality. It's an interpretation of the five human senses.

If somebody hits you in the head with a baseball bat, that's real, right?

No, the baseball bat is a perceptual experience. The head is a perceptual experience and the pain is a perceptual experience.

True.

Okay. Where is it happening?

I don't know. In your head.

No, the head is a perceptual experience. How do you know that there's a head?

Uh oh, I see. I'm not getting far with this one.

Okay. So it's happening in consciousness.

Yeah.

Everything is happening in consciousness. Just substitute the word object with the word experience. So instead of calling this a glass, which a baby wouldn't know this is a glass. Okay, a baby would see this as a shape or color.

Yeah.

Without interpretation, just an experience. Then substitute the word experience for perception. Then substitute the word perception for perceptual activity.

Yes.

And they say, where is this activity happening? In consciousness. So consciousness is modifying itself into perceptual activity and then human consciousness is interpreting that as a physical world.

And what you're saying in your book is fascinating because you're saying the perception of matter and the universe that we have is wrong.

We are living in a virtual reality.

It's an illusion.

Yes.

And.

It'S a learned phenomenon. So if you take, I'll give you a simple example, if you take kittens and you put them in a room which has only horizontal stripes, When they grow up, they'll only see a horizontal world. If you take another group of kittens, you bring them up in a room that has only vertical stripes, they'll only see a vertical world. So they won't be able to see furniture legs or anything like that.

So clearly our perceptions are conditioned by our five senses and by our beliefs and our thinking and our thoughts about things.

They're learned.

They're learned, right. Well, so then that brings up, you know, why we have suffering and why we are not happy and full of joy, like a three-year-old.

And then- I'm full of joy.

You are. I know you are, because I hang out with you. But most people are stuck in the illusion that their thoughts are real, that their ego world is all there is.

They made them all up.

They made them all up.

And it's not even their fault. It's been recycled this idea for thousands of years. And it gets stronger. It started with Plato and Aristotle. As you know, Plato was an idealist. He thought the world was made of ideas. Aristotle, his student, was a physicalist, was the first scientist, I would say, in the world. But that argument has persisted throughout the ages as the so-called mind-brain, mind-body problem.

And the thing is we put our meaning on everything. So we put our meaning on everything we're seeing, meaning on emotions, meaning on experiences, meaning on- In other words, you.

Are the creator of your mind, your body, and the universe.

Which is both terrifying and actually powerful.

You're God in drag.

Right.

So- You're God pretending to be a human being.

Yeah, I've often heard you say we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

That is triste de charme, but yeah.

Close enough. You quote him, I quote you and all, this all goes around. So I think that the message that I am really hearing from you is that if we get our perceptions right.

And we- There is no such thing as right or wrong perception.

Well, if our view of like- if.

You understand that consciousness is not physical, has no form because you can't see it, right? You can see everything, but without consciousness there's no seeing. Without consciousness there's no hearing. Without consciousness there's no experience of anything.

Yeah.

Mental, physical, emotional, whatever. Okay? If you understand that consciousness is... doesn't have any dimensionality. It can't be seen, doesn't have form, then it must be infinite. Yeah. And therefore you're an infinite being and this solves every problem that humans have had, including the problem of what we call physical death. You are talking about the death of something that doesn't exist. Okay, death is another human construct. So, you know, if you go to the great wisdom traditions of the world, they say there are five reasons humans suffer. One is they don't know who they are. They confuse themselves with a changing experience that they call a body. You know, if you say, I'm a body, then which body are you? Fertilized egg, zygote, embryo, baby, toddler, young adult, teenager, this one and the one that will disappear. So, you know, which body are you? You can't hang on to it, okay? It's a verb. like it's not a noun. The body is a verb. Okay, so you can't hang on to a verb, number one. So the first cause of human suffering is you are identifying yourself as a physical body. The second is you're holding on to experience which is evanescent and transient and ephemeral and uncatchable. If I asked you what happened to your childhood, it's gone. What happened to yesterday, it's gone. What happened five minutes ago, it's gone. What happens to these words by the time you hear them, they don't exist. so all experience is actually a perceptual snapshot. We string these perceptual snapshots together on the thread of consciousness and we project a movie and we call that the universe and the physical world. But we have created that movie and the physical world. So experience by itself is ungraspable. You know, Wittgenstein, the great German philosopher, Philosophy said, We are asleep. Our life is a dream, but once in a while we wake up enough to know that we are dreaming.

Yes.

Lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming in the vivid now. Yes. Buddha said the same thing. Our lifetime is transient as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky, rushing by. like a torrent down the steep mountain. So that's the second reason, grasping, clinging at that which is ungraspable.

So the Buddhist notion of impermanence.

Impermanence. The third is exactly that, from that notion of impermanence that we get afraid of impermanence because it's ungraspable. The fourth is identifying with your ego, which is a socially induced hallucination. And the fifth is the fear of death. And they're all connected.

So wait, the socially induced hallucination of your ego, you got to unpack that.

Ego is a socially induced hallucination. There's no identity. I mean, Deepak Chopra, my mother could have called me Paul Smith. It's provisional, it's nominal. Okay, but on that thread, that name hangs everything I do in my life. and that's, I'm a doctor, I'm a writer, I'm a father, I'm a husband, I'm a child, whatever. It's my destiny to play these roles, but am I the roles I'm playing? I am the alert witness in which I can play infinite roles. Once I know I can play infinite roles, I'm free of the roles.

It's actually true. My experience of you is that you don't identify with anything that you seem to be on the outside, right? You don't identify with Deepak Chopra. No, no, that's- Like a superstar. Spiritual Leader, Dr. Deepak Chopra.

It is a hallucination. It has no reality. And then the final thing is the fear of death, which comes from these false constructs. So, the solution, be a metahuman.

So, the way I understand metahuman is that it is unpacking those false...

But then repackaging it to the reality that you want to create, okay? The perceived reality. So here's the thing. All experience is only four things. All experience, including this experience, sensations, which include sense perceptions, because sense perceptions are sensations. You hear a sound, that's a sensation in consciousness. You look at an object, that's an image in consciousness. So one sensations, two images. I ask you, close your eyes and imagine a red sunset. Or imagine the Empire State Building or imagine the Milky Way galaxies, you suddenly see a picture. There's no picture in the brain. Even when you look at the red sunset, there's nothing that corresponds to the sunset other than what they call a neural correlate, an electrochemical activity which in turn is a human construct. So all experiences, sensations, images, Imagination, feelings, emotions and thoughts. Period. If you can think of another experience outside of what I call SIFT, S-I-F-T, sensations, images, feelings and thoughts, then take over. There's no experience out. The rest is a story. We made it up.

So that's what causes suffering is the stories we tell ourselves about how we feel.

And some stories we like, we feel happy, some stories we don't like, we feel unhappy. But we actually are, we are independent of all stories. So people when they say, Do you have hope for the future? My answer is hope is a false oxymoron. You only have hope when you have despair. So your true self is independent of hope and despair, of suffering and pain, of pleasure, of aging, of birth or death. It's infinite. formless can morph itself into any form. Now I'm taking a risk here by telling you that you can morph yourself into any form. You've been doing it since the beginning of time. You know, Rumi says, I was a mineral, then I was unconscious, then I was a plant, I started to dream, I was an animal, I started to have some awareness, and then suddenly as a human I said, Who am I? What am I?

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. It's almost like you said, we're in a dream. My wife's really been studying lucid dreaming.

And I've been doing a little lucid dreaming. We are lucid dreaming right now. This is a lucid dream in a vivid now.

How do I know that? It'll be over as soon as this podcast is over. But most people aren't aware that this is an illusion and that we're in a dream while we're awake.

When you're dreaming, you get sometimes the experience that, oh, I'm in a dream.

And I have infinite power and infinite potential.

I have that feeling right now that I'm in a dream and the dream is a conglomeration or a confederation of sensations, images, feelings and thoughts. And furthermore, they're entangled. You know, these days we hear about quantum entanglement. Forget about that. Talk about experience entanglement. Thoughts, sensations, images, feelings are all entangled. So if you think of John Lennon, you suddenly hear Imagine the song in your head. Okay? You might see a picture, you might have an emotion. So thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations are the confederation of experience. And by shifting one, you shift all the others.

So how do people get out of this stuck place? Because what you're saying makes complete sense, and I think most people listening will get it. The challenge is we're also conditioned. So the Buddha talks about our conditioned mind.

You can live your entire life in this waking dream or this sleep, or you can begin by asking, who am I? Who wants to know? Who wants to know?

Who is the who that's asking?

Who is the who that's asking? What do I really want from my life? Do I just want a Mercedes or a big house, or do I want to know the source of my existence? If I want to know that, what is that? Finite or infinite? Just ask these questions. What is my purpose? Even more important, what am I grateful for? If you start asking these four questions, consciousness, because it is infinite, infinite, it has infinite organizing power. You know, what are you doing right now to regulate your blood pressure or your heartbeat or your immune system?

Hanging out with you. No, you do nothing.

What did you do to get to where you are from being a fertilized egg?

Yeah.

Okay.

Pretty much just happened.

It's all happening. And it's happening perfectly with self-regulation, self-correlation with self-organization Evolution.

People are so stuck in their ego and their mind and their narcissistic view of themselves and their world. And it seems so tangible and real. How do you break that?

Because. Because of what you're saying, Mark, we have created a world where there's climate change, extinctions of species.

Yeah.

Poison in our food chain. I know you'll relate to that.

A little bit. Okay.

We've created mechanized weapons of. death, nuclear weapons, biological warfare, now internet information warfare, and on and on, we are risking our own extinction. So if we continue to sleep, I guarantee you we'll go extinct. Yes, the human species will no longer exist as this entity and nature will have said it was an interesting experiment, didn't work.

Yeah.

So, that's the only solution. Is a collective awakening.

Spurred by what? Created by how? I mean, I think each person going.

Beyond their conditioned mind.

But you need a plan.

Centuries, well, in the book I outlined 31 exercises, but now I've created a digital version of myself, which is actually learning with other luminaries, I don't want to call myself a luminary, but it is interacting with other luminaries. To get the latest understanding on consciousness, science, evolution, biology, you can go to digitaldeepak.ai and you can get a course on Metahuman, even if you haven't read the book. And if you have read the book, you can ask it questions. But if he doesn't know the answer, he'll say, I'll check with my creator, which is me. And if I don't have the answer, It will check with all the experts in these domains of fundamental reality, physics, cosmology, science. You have to be able to break that perception lock.

We've had Michael Pollan and Daniel Goleman on, and Daniel talks about meditators, we're limbic meditators, we're able to shut down the default mode network where their ego stops for a moment and they can see the interconnection between everything. And Michael Pollan talks about the psychedelics and magic mushrooms are also doing the same thing. So those are like shortcuts, or maybe meditation is a shortcut. But there are pathways to help people actually have that experience. But if you say to the average person, your perception is an illusion, your illusion, your consciousness is something that is-.

If you made the movie, you can make any movie you want. Right? But you are recycling movies of 5000 years. We are recycling the movies that were created in the Bronze Age. So every religion goes back to the Bronze Age. and we are recycling those scenarios.

That's really true.

I mean, I remember recycling those concepts.

When I was a kid, I had my 60th birthday last week and I had congratulations. Thank you. Another human concept. True. But I had one of my friends from third grade and when he wrote me an email, he said, Mark, you know, when you were like 14, you were giving me books on Alan Watts and the artist, local motorcycle maintenance. And I majored in Buddhism and studied Asian religions and the Vedas and Upanishads. And it sort of was really clear to me that our perceptions were the problem, and that we had to figure out a way to undo that. And so we're not our ego, we're not our thoughts, we're not our body, we're not our mind. All that's true. But it's taken me a lifetime to actually work through to get to a place where I really feel...

Here's a clue.

That's true.

The space between your thoughts, the space between your thoughts, the space between every snapshot of perception, the space between volition, the space between any experience, and the space between you and me right now, is the same space and it's infinite and it's imbued with consciousness and it transcends all of space-time. So the first thing you can do is put the pause button, ask that question, who am I? And then instead of listening to me, be aware of that which is listening. And you'll feel the presence of being, which people call spirit or soul or consciousness or Allah or Ein Sof or whatever else you want to call it. Mark Hyman.

And there's an incredible consequence of doing that, which I've experienced in my life. When you get your ego in park, right, and you realize that what you're saying is true, that there's this phenomenon of synchronicity, which is magic that happens in the unfolding of your life that you couldn't plan, design or create, but that happens as a result of you realizing that you're not all your ego.

And in fact when you're not experiencing synchronicity, you're not in touch with yourself. Yeah. Okay. Synchronicity is what today people call entanglement or non-local correlation. Yeah. You know, going back again to Einstein, he objected to it, but he also wrote the equation for it. Einstein Podolski rose an equation, then he kind of backtracked. Einstein in the end was a little muddled in whether he couldn't decide whether he would go with you know, Niels Bohr and the pioneers of quantum physics or he'd go with general relativity, which was his own issue. But there's a joke about synchronicity or non-local correlation. Since he and Niels Bohr were fighting about it all the time, they say that when Einstein turns in his grave, Niels Bohr turns the other way simultaneously. But that is a good metaphor for everything in the universe is correlated. synchronistic. How does a human body think, thoughts, play a piano, kill germs, remove toxins, make a baby all at the same time? That can't be linear, right? It has to be synchronistic, therefore it's non-local right there. Okay? A human body can do all the things and track the movement of stars, your biological rhythms, circadian rhythms, seasonal rhythms.

Lunar rhythms, gravitational rhythms, they're all part of the symphony of the universe, which is synchronicity. Yeah, and it is very true. I have experienced that so much in my life when my intentions are clear, when I am sort of working from place of service, which is not in my ego, magic happens. And someone once said to me that coincidence is God's way of staying anonymous. Yes.

Co-incidence, co-insiding, synchronicity, chronos and synchronized in time.

Yes.

This is the fundamental nature of the universe. If something appears linear, It's an illusion.

Yeah, and we've all noticed that in moments in our life, but what you said is really true. If we're not in a place of clear awareness, that actually doesn't really happen.

But now people are getting to it. You know, when they talk about synchronicity, they talk about flow, they talk about transcendence, they talk about extreme joy, spontaneous right actions, spontaneous creativity, disruptive technologies. These don't come from linear thinking.

No, no. And in the quantum computing is even a whole another phenomenon.

Very so.

It's not a binary.

But you know where it's happening, quantum computing, in your body right now.

Yeah.

There's no way you can explain what is happening in your body by classical physics.

No, I mean, you know, you probably know this, but every second there are 37 billion billion chemical reactions happening.

Yeah.

Which is mind.

And they're all correlated with each other.

Yes.

You know, every action in your cardiac cells is correlated with your neurons, with your gastric cells, with your immune system, with your endocrine system, with your blood pressure, with your emotions, with your feelings, with your personal relationships, your personal interactions and your identity. Yeah. You know, if you ask me, what is your identity? I said, the only identity I have is infinite.

Yeah.

Everything else is bamboozled into it.

I remember, you know, we had, it's true, we had lunch recently and you're, it's like, what are you planning next for your life?

Deepak, he's like, well, I just want to meditate five hours a day. I live in that space now, but, yeah, there's nothing to do.

It unfolds. And, and yet, you know, you're really acutely aware of all the challenges we're facing, you know, the climate change, the environmental degradation.

I don't think about that. A lot of sadness right now about that, you know, the whole situation in the world where national leaders have become gangsters and thugs and all their interest is in cronyism and corruption and influence peddling and power mongering and bipartisan politics. Nobody wants to even know the truth.

It's like the level of consciousness is going down.

I hope it's just a reaction to the next quantum leap. You know, whenever there's a phase turbulence, like when water turns to steam, there's a lot of turbulence. So maybe that's what it is.

So you think we're just in a steamy period in this?

Yeah, steamy period of transition.

Because you think it's the lack of consciousness that's driving these levels of destruction, anxiety, depression, suicide, illness.

It is, you know, all of this comes from that hallucination of the isolated separate self. And, you know, our media perpetuates it, Instagram, whatever. I use Instagram, but I don't, use it other than to give information or, you know, ask people a question or give them a tool. But, you know, otherwise it's all about.

The selfies on your vacation.

You know, I don't know how to take a selfie.

I love your Instagram because it's so, like, authentic and, like, it's so great. And I think, you know, the, the, the idea that, that our.

You know.

That where our body and our perceptions are real is pretty ingrained. And I remember a couple years ago I got very sick. I had mold in my house. I had Clindamycin for a bad tooth. I got C. diff. I lost 30 pounds from my skinny self. I was in bed for five months. I literally couldn't answer an email. I couldn't talk on the phone. I was in pain, nauseous 24/7. severe colitis, gastritis, I mean just not functioning. And I didn't really have any emotional life. I didn't have any, couldn't really have any intellectual life. My body was not working at all. And I realized, you know, I wasn't my body, I wasn't my thoughts, I wasn't my emotions, I wasn't my mind. And what was left was just this deep spiritual sense of peace. And I remember feeling like, it's okay.

It'S all okay, like it doesn't matter. And by the way, as soon as you lose that concern, self-regulation kicks in. The perfect state of homeostasis is when you transcend to pure consciousness, number one, deep sleep, number two, and death, number three. Those are perfect homeostasis. Death is the opportunity to recreate yourself.

I feel like I died, but when I came back with was a sense of wow, Yeah. I mean, all the stuff I worry about just doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. What is it going to matter when this, you know, everything that we do is going to be nothing at the moment of death? It's the only thing that remains is infinite. But with the seeds, with the seeds of experience and memory and desire. This is another big problem of the hard problem of consciousness. Ask a scientist, good neuroscientist. Where in the brain is memory? So if I ask you right now to think of your childhood, think of your childhood, think of the house you lived in, you can see it in your imagination. You can see your parents, you can see your classmates. Where was that before I asked you the question?

It was in the left side of my brain, the back.

No, this is the whole way we are bamboozled by our education, by experts. Rudy Tanzi, the best neuroscientist, that I work with, that I know, an expert in Alzheimer's. I asked him, ask all your neuroscientist friends the cellular basis of memory. And he said all of them, 100% of them, they said, we don't know.

Oh, we don't know.

We don't know. Yeah. There's no cellular basis of memory. Memory is again in consciousness, like everything else.

Yeah, and it's fascinating.

I mean, till I asked you the question about your childhood, the answer didn't exist in the brain. Well, the lucid dreaming thing is really.

Fascinating because it seems like a shortcut to understanding exactly what you're saying.

Yeah, yeah.

And remember, Carlos Castaneda had lots of.

His exercises on lucid dreaming. And for those of you who don't.

Know what it is, you've all probably experienced it because it's when you, in your dream, go, oh, I'm dreaming.

Yes. This is a dream.

Right. I remember I had one.

It has real consequences. People ejaculate in their dreams. their blood pressure goes up, if their dream is scary. All kinds of biological reactions happen in the dream state, right? So the same thing is happening in this perceptual experience right now. Yeah, and we just need to wake.

Up that we're actually in this dream. We are the dreamers.

And then we have not the dream.

And the beautiful thing about a lucid dream is you have infinite possibilities. I was in this really rushing river going over a waterfall. I'm like, I'm going to die.

I'm like, no, I'm dreaming. And I just took off and started flying all over.

You could have been a dolphin and underwater playing a piano. Yeah, exactly. Right. And this is...

Anything is possible.

But, you know, at the same time, in some ways it feels like a nihilistic view where, you know, it all is nothing, it's all perception, it all doesn't matter. But at the same time, I see you, Deepak, really committing your life to bringing consciousness to the world, to doing things like creating Never Alone, which is a non-profit that helps address loneliness and anxiety and depression and suicide and creating movies and creating your AI course on how to, you know, be a metahuman. I mean, you're not giving up on the human race.

I'm entertaining myself.

So you're doing it without attachment to whatever happens.

Zero. I hope some people like the movie. That's all.

The offering.

The offering. Yeah. Well, that's the movie associated with Never Alone campaign, but we've changed the title to I Am Never Alone. the movie is going to be called that.

That's better.

Yeah.

Yeah. I am never alone. Yeah. But I think, you know, when you do feel that loss of Separation, as you, I realize that your, your small ego is not your big self that's connected to everything. It's really freeing. And you do feel never alone.

Yeah.

And I think getting people there, it just seems like a challenge in our society, especially with digital media and everything that's happening on where people are sort of more distracted, more disconnected, more isolated than ever, more alone than ever.

And sad. Yes, very sad because it's unnecessary. You know, in the wisdom traditions of the world, there are three levels of realities. The first, which we call physical reality, but that's a perceptual activity in consciousness. The second, which we call mental reality, thoughts, emotions, imagination. which is also an activity in consciousness. And the third is the level of soul, spirit or pure consciousness, which is the source of these activities, mental and perceptual. Now, when you look at the world objectively, if you want to buy the objective model, same thing. There's a physical level, there's a level of energy, there's a level of information, and then there's a level of consciousness. Because consciousness is what is modifying itself to information, energy and matter, if you want to believe that model. But I'm saying that model itself is structured in consciousness, human consciousness.

So, just taking to an extreme, if someone's in severe poverty in some place in the world where there's just real lack, or even in this country where there's third world countries in this country, how do you talk to someone like that who's, stuck in the cycle of poverty and lack. I mean, I just had a woman on the podcast talking about environmental racism where, you know, these children are being poisoned by lead, environmental toxins. We've lost, you know, millions and millions of IQ points and cognitive function. How do you, how do you talk to those folks?

There's a way of responding to that question out of deep empathy and compassion, which is you help them alleviate they're suffering from where they are. Yeah. There's another level which says this is a state of ignorance of yourself. Okay. Now I'll show you, give you an example of something that I experienced approximately 20 years ago. So there's a friend of mine who's about 10 years older than me. So I'm now 73. He's 83. 20 years ago, he said, do you want to visit my grandfather, who now has become an ascetic and he lives in the Himalayas and he's taken sanyas. He's detached from the world. They were a very rich family and I said, I'm very curious. I would like to go and visit him. So we took this rickety ambassador car to visit grandfather of, you know, middle-aged man. He's 83 now, so he was 63 then.

Yeah.

Grandfather. So he was in his 90s. Now because they came from a wealthy family, he had a little cottage by the Ganges. He had a servant who used to cook food for them, but otherwise he had no contact with the world. Zero. And while we were there, this Swami dropped in, you know, this guy who was a ascetic and he, the only clothing he had was a coconut shell. covering his genitalia. Otherwise he was naked. And he was lit and he was strong and he had a good body, looked like an athlete. And as soon as he walked into the room, apparently these guys had never seen him for a long time. So, you know, they touched his feet out of reverence and all because he was their spiritual master. So I asked my friend, then 63, how old is this guy? He says, I don't know. Ever since I was a child, he's been like this. He shows up every few years for a meal. So then I asked the grandfather, How old is this guy? He said, I don't know. Ever since I've been a child, he's been like this.

Really?

Okay. So now the meal was served. So he takes out his coconut shell from his genitalia. He washes it with the water. If he was in the forest, he'd probably wash it with rain or the Ganges, which is dirty to begin with. For sure. And good for the microbiome. And then He puts the food in this coconut shell and he slurps from it. And when it rains, he puts it on his head so his head doesn't get wet. But that's his only possession. And he was very curious about me. Where do you live? I said, in America. Is that the other side of the world? I said, yes it is. I believe they have all kinds of suffering over there and violence. I said, yeah, that's true. Then he told me about his experience when the India and China went to war. in 1959, and he got caught in the war, you know, because he's a wandering monk goes from place to place, and he got caught in the fire, crossfire. So he sought refuge with the Tibetan monks in Tibetan monasteries. And he regaled us with amazing stories of monkhood and transforming the body, tumo meditations and all of that.

Tumo meditations where you can literally dry your sheets and heat your body up.

I even talked about the rainbow body, if you know about that, you know, with these Tibetan rituals. When the enlightened master dies, the body incinerates within 24 hours and all that's left is nails and hair follicles and bones, few bones, not even most of the bones are also incinerated. Consciously get rid of the rain and assume the body of a rainbow. Anyway, that's all part of the legend and the literature. So ultimately we left fascinated by this guy. And we were going down the winding road in the Himalayas in our car at about 10 miles, 10 miles an hour. And suddenly I look behind and this guy is running like an antelope and he's keeping up with the car and he's full of joy. He's waving at us like we were he's a kid. Finally, of course, the car picked up speed and we lost him. But I have never forgotten that guy. He had nothing except a coconut shell.

Wow.

And he must have had a string to attach it. Yeah, he had a string. The string served when you used a hat, it served as a harness for his hat. But I have never met a more joyful person in my life. And then I look at billionaires. and they're suffering.

Yes, yes. You and I know a bunch of them.

We know a lot of them, some of them running the world.

Yeah, yeah, it's true. It's very true. We think money success is all about happiness. It's just, it's not. And I think, you know, what I'm very curious about for you to learn is what are those 31 steps becoming a metahuman? Because you can't go through all of them, but what are some of the nuggets that...

The nuggets begin with reflection. Then you begin with body awareness. And if you close your eyes, by the way, the only experience of your body is sensations. Right? The body is made of sensations. If you close your eyes, if you open your eyes, then you look at it as an image. But you slowly start to become aware of the fundamental nature of your body. You can go deeper. Now, these days, the neuroscience is talking about introception, which means you can be aware of the internal organs of your body and regulate their activity. So, you know, in yoga traditions, that's called Pratyahara, Pratyahara, withdrawal of the senses, and then taking over the autonomic nervous system. So you can control your vagal activity, your sympathetic activity, you can speed up your heart rate, lower your heart rate. I can do that, by the way. So I'm very aware of what's happening inside my body. Then you get into mental space. I'm very aware. that thoughts are appearing and emotions are appearing on the screen of consciousness in the same way as sensations and images and everything else I'm experiencing. So slowly what I start to become is the witnessing awareness in which thought is an appearance, mind is an appearance, emotion is an appearance, images are an appearance and perceptual activity is also the appearance that I call the physical world. I then now know how to shift that by changing any of those four things, sensations, images, feelings, thoughts. And immediately I can walk out of New York City. It's a magic show.

Yeah, it's true. We live in a magic show. It sort of reminds me of one of the great wisdom teachers of all time, Dr. Seuss.

Yes.

Who said, you know, you're the watcher, watch, watching the watcher, watching the watcher. And it's really about that.

It is about that. Watch the watcher.

Yeah, and you are the watcher, the conscious is the watcher and the rest is all story.

Every experience has three components: observer, process of observation, and that which is observed. Now you can rephrase that, say, no process of knowing that which is known, but the observer is yourself. The process of observation is the activity we call the mind. And then that which we observe is the activity that we call the body. and the physical world.

But the witness is different than the mind, right? The witness is different than the mind.

The witness is the observer of the mind. Yeah.

Like who's the one who's thinking the thoughts?

Yes. And who's watching them?

Who's aware? Who's watching you watching and thinking your thoughts, right?

You go deep into that and you find yourself as the infinite being.

And that's really the exciting part of this story, is that we all have the possibility to transform our lives if we we shift the way we think about our children.

I wish we could teach this to our children. They would have joyful lives and creative lives. Right now, every child is educated in the rush to conform. Today we talk about disruptive technologies, disruptive healthcare, disruptive everything, disruptive imagination, creativity. that can only come when you refuse to buy into everybody's constructs. You know, you're not rushing to conform.

Yeah, yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty interesting. So, so part of, part of what you talk about is this concept of choiceless awareness, which then derives from.

Yeah. Again, that's not my phrase. That's Krishnamurti, the great Indian philosopher who said the highest Intelligence is the ability to observe yourself without judging yourself. That is choiceless awareness.

Well, Instagram is not good for that. It's like comparing themselves to everybody else.

And judging the highest intelligence is to observe yourself with in that mere observation is transformation and Evolution and self-regulation and self-organization and creativity and vision.

And love and compassion and everything.

Love as the ultimate truth at the heart of the universe, not just a sentiment, but the truth.

So talk more about this choiceless awareness. What does that mean exactly? And how do people get to that?

Just being aware of being aware. Are you aware right now of yourself or only of your experiences? So as you're listening to me and our audience could do this right now as they're watching us, as they are listening to us, they just turn their attention to that which is watching. It's very simple. Or if you find that too difficult, because people find non-doing very difficult.

Yes.

They don't know how to be, except when they are babies. You see, if you find that difficult, put your attention on the space between your breath. Start with that. Or feel the sensations in your body and see what's happening in the space between them.

Yeah, I mean if you practice meditation and over time you really get to be in that space of suspended.

Yeah, my new book is called Total Meditation. It's how to be there all the time.

Okay, tell me. Spill the beans. I'll have you back on the show.

But knowing that awareness precedes every experience. Awareness precedes the experience of the five senses. It precedes the experience of the body. It precedes the knowing of anything happening inside your body. Anything that's happening in mental space, anything that's happening in the web of relationship. You can train yourself to go there. And you know the Buddhists call this and your friend Dan Siegel calls this the Wheel of Awareness. Yeah. hub of the wheel is pure awareness and the rim of the wheel is the four quadrants: perceptual activity, body, visura, mental space and relationship. That's it. That's total reality.

Wow. This is quite a conversation. I think for me, when I think about my own life, the more I step out of my little ego and my wants and needs and preferences, the happier I am. The more I just act in service, in other words, not for my own gain or profit, but just the act of service and helping and giving is when I'm the happiest.

That's the first shift. Instead of ask yourself next time you're stressed, who am I thinking about? Yeah. Right. Right. The easiest way to get out of stress is not to think about yourself.

Yeah.

To make somebody else happy. And I'm, you know, I'd like to summarize these in short formulas or whatever. I call these the four A's: attention, deep listening, affection, deep caring, appreciation, being grateful for all that exists, and acceptance. Don't try to fix things.

Yeah.

You know, don't try to fix people. It's hard enough to fix yourself.

I'm going to have to quit then. I want to heal the world.

No, heal yourself and you'll heal the world.

Yeah, I think that's exactly the thing. I mean, you know, there's a Jewish concept called Tikkun Olam, which means to repair the world.

Absolutely. It starts with self-repair.

Yeah, it does.

And compassion, and empathy, and love. and joy. It's true.

I mean, it really all is about letting go of all that. That mental construct that's causing us to suffer. Performance anxiety, basically. Yeah.

People have performance anxiety about everything, whether it's an erection or making money. It's true.

I mean, people ask me, are you getting nervous? I'm like, I'm never really nervous. Like, I just, you know, if I'm speaking to 10, 000 people or two.

People or a fear in the mood to give. what's the anxiety about?

Yeah. And what's really freeing is sort of having that moment where I really could see that my little ego isn't real. And that insight I got in college around the Buddhist sort of framework, which is sort of what you're talking about, which is that everything is about the meaning we attach to things and the perceptions we have that that give us those meanings, but you realize they're just your story. And they're your stories. And by the way, for every story.

You have, there are infinite versions of that story. Yeah.

And it's like, I said to my wife the other day, we were doing like a podcast interview and they talked about happiness. I'm like, I said something that I think bothered her. I said, well, you know, I realize that my preferences aren't really that important. Your happiness is more important. And she thought, well, I don't want to not have you get what you want.

I'm like, well, It doesn't really matter most time. Like, we- yeah, but again, the question is based on a very fundamental, very fundamental misrepresentation. And that is, who or what is I? When I say I, what do I mean by that?

Right.

Because once you ask that self question, then there is only giving.

Yeah. So, so we, you know, we had these two little drinks, almost like a tangerine lemon grass, and there was like a blood orange, you know, ginger or something. And, like, we tried each one. I said, which one do you like? So I like this. I'm like, okay, you have it. She's like, well, what about you?

Don't you like?

I'm like, yeah, I like it, but I like you to be happy better. Like, it makes me happy. Makes me happy. I'm like, that's where I don't care, you know? Like. And I feel like that. That's a. A place where I think if we all worked on, like you said, if we worked on ourselves, the divisiveness, the conflict, the fear, the isolation, all that. goes away. Yeah. So, Deepak for president.

Oh, no, no, no. That would be the ultimate. The ultimate destruction of everything I've sought.

Maybe. Maybe. But maybe what? Imagine if there was someone who was awake in the Oval Office or in Halls of Power. I mean, that. That would be great.

There have been people, Martin Luther King Jr. And Mahatma Gandhi and. Nelson Mandela and many others across the ages.

It's true. Yeah, but most of them were in prison as a poet.

They didn't care.

Yeah, no, it's true. It's really true. So I just think that everybody should check out Metahuman. It's an incredible story of how to break free from our small human with a small H and get to our Metahuman.

If you wanted to take a workshop on that, It's free. You can go to digitaldeepak.ai.

DigitalDeepak.ai. And of course, follow Deepak on Instagram and his social media. He's really great. He's so generous with his information. He's the real deal. I've known him for a long time and there's a lot of bullshitters out there, but he's not one of them. Thank you, man. And Deepak, thank you for all the support you've given me over the years and help. And I think your work is sort of a light on the darkness we have today because we we are in a dark place and hopefully with a little bit of nudging here and there, we can wake up a few more people that can then sort of begin to change things. Thank you, Mark. It's a dark time and I think we're ready for some backlash against the darkness to the light. Thank you. Well, thank you for listening to Doctor's Pharmacy. Thank you for being on the show, Deepak. And if you love this conversation, please share with your friends and family on social media. Subscribe wherever your podcasts and leave a comment. We'd love to hear from you and we'll see you next week on the Doctor's Pharmacy.

Thank you.

Hey, it's Dr. Hyman. Do you have FLC? Well, it's a problem that so many people suffer from and often have no idea that it's not normal or that you can fix it. So, what's FLC? Well, it's when you feel like crap and you know the feeling. It's when you're super sluggish and achy and tired, your digestion's off, you can't think clearly, you have brain fog, or you just feel kind of run down. Can you relate? I know most people can. In my experience as a practicing physician over the last 30 years, I've identified four main causes that lead to FLC. The first cause is too much sugar in the diet. Surprise. Don't think you eat that much sugar? Think again. Processed carbs from bread, pasta, and cereal turn into sugar in the body. In fact, whole wheat bread spikes your blood sugar more than plain old table sugar. A diet that's high in processed carbs and sugars is the number one culprit for FLC. Okay, the second cause of FLC is not enough nutrient-dense whole foods. It's not just about avoiding sugar and processed carbs. It's also about what you do eat. Most of us don't eat enough of the right kinds of foods. This means healthy fats, clean protein, and loads of colorful plant foods. if I look at your plate, I should be able to see a rainbow, the rainbow that comes from Mother Nature, not from candy. All right, the next cause of FLC is eating too late and at the wrong time. The research shows that eating too late disrupts the quality of sleep we get at night, which can make us sluggish the next day. It also makes us hungry and crave carbs and sugar. Research also seems to show that eating too frequently and not giving your body break from food for 12 to 14 hours negatively impacts the body's circadian rhythms and the repair processes in the body. That's why when we eat is just as important as what we eat. Now, the final cause of FLC is not prioritizing sleep. This is the number one mistake I see people make, even those of us who think we're healthy. You see, sleep is when our bodies naturally detoxify and reset and heal. Can you imagine what happens when you don't get enough sleep? You guessed it. You feel like crap. So now that we know what causes FLC, the real question is, what the heck can we do about it? Well, I hate to break the news, but there is no magic bullet solution. FLC isn't caused by one single thing, so there's not one single solution. However, there is a systems-based approach, a way to tackle the multiple root factors that contribute to FLC. And that systems-based approach involves three pillars: eating the right food, incorporating two key lifestyle habits, and a few targeted supplements. I've combined all three of these key pillars into my new 10-day reset system. It's a protocol that I've used with thousands of community members over the last few years to help them break free of FLC and reclaim their health. The 10-day reset combines food, key lifestyle habits, and targeted evidence-based supplements. each of these areas supports our health. But when combined together, they can address the root causes that contribute to FLC. Together, they're a system. And that's why I call my 10-day reset a systems approach. Now, FLC is a diagnosis. It's not a medical condition. It's just something we fall into when life gets busy or when we indulge a little too much around the holidays or don't listen to our body's messages. It's our body out of balance. Now, everyone gets off track here and there, and the 10-day reset was designed to help you get back on track. Now, it's not a magic bullet. It's not a quick fix. It's a system that works. If you want to learn more and get your health back on track, just visit getpharmacy.com that's getpharmacy with an F, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y.com hi, everyone.

I hope you enjoyed this week's episode.

Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only.

This podcast is not a substitute for.

Professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding.

That it does not constitute medical or.

Other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your.

Journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner.

If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search.

Their find a practitioner database.

It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. Don't forget, there's a way to listen completely ad free with Hyman plus on Apple podcasts. You can enjoy every episode without any any breaks. Just open Apple Podcasts and tap Try Free to start your seven-day free trial.