Deepak Chopra: Becoming Your Own Guru in the Digital Age

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It can't get you enlightened, but it can show you the maps. And there are many maps on spirituality, just like there are many maps in any terrain. But they all lead to the same destination, which is spiritual realization.

I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is the Remarkable People podcast. And I know I say this every episode, that we found some remarkable person to inspire you, but today, truly, we have a remarkable person. His name is Deepak Chopra. And I bet every one of you have heard of him. He's world renowned for his integrative medicine and personal transformation work. He's the founder of the Chopra foundation. And, I mean, how much do I have to introduce you? And he has touched millions of people's lives with his writing, his speaking, his podcasting. And I met him in Hawaii at an EO conference, which was a very special moment for me and Deepak. You were wearing, like, a really cool jacket that made a very big impression on me, and so I think we discussed it. Was it an Issey Miyake jacket?

It was Issey Miyake. Those are. They're cool. But also easy to travel in, right?

Yeah. So I came right home and I told my wife I met Deepak Chopra, and he was an Issey Miyake jacket. She was also impressed. So I want to dive right into your latest book. Okay? You've written 90 books, and you have podcasts and YouTube videos all over the place, so people will understand the basis. But I. I have to tell you that I read your latest book, and I was just. I guess the right word is astounded. Deepak, because of all the people in the world who have embraced AI, I would not have thought it would have been you. And so that was particularly enlightening to me. So I'm going to start off with a quote. Okay, the quote from the book quote. I believe that no technology in decades can equal AI for expanding your awareness in every area, including spiritual and personal growth. Can you Just explain to me how you came to have so much faith in AI. When I read that, I thought, next thing you know, Warren Buffett is going to tell me he's buying crypto, and Greta Thunberg is driving an suv, and Jane Goodall loves ribeye steaks. Deepak Chopra has embraced AI. So can you just explain this for me?

I have my own definition of what is called reality. So what we call the divine, or God, doesn't have a form and not having a form, and that every spiritual tradition says God doesn't have a form, the divine doesn't have a form. Then people say, well, what? All these pictures of God in the Vatican and this and that. The Hindus have hundreds of deities, as do the Buddhists, and those are symbolic representations of what we call divine. Divine is infinite, and being infinite doesn't have a border, is outside of space time, and has no cause. In the world of space time and causality, everything has a cause, but God transcends all causes and all concepts and all definitions. So I came up with a formula. God has a digital workshop outside of space time. And the formula is 0 is equal to infinity is equal to 1. So think of this workshop outside space time, which is divine, and it's spilling out zeros and ones in infinite combinations. And the only difference between you and a mountain or the earth and a star and this iPhone and AI is a different combination of zeros and ones. That's it. And it comes from one source. So that is God's language. It's not English with an Indian accent. I would have liked to believe that. But God's language is digital language. And once you get that understanding, then you see, how did we create the human experience? You and I create the human experience. And it all began 40,000 years ago when there were eight different kinds of human species. So we call ourselves homo sapiens. But then we gave ourselves that name. It means the wise ones. We were humble enough to do that, but we gave names to other humans. Homo habilis, homo erectus. We gave names to other species. Giraffes, elephants, this, that, the other. So all started with naming experience. And that created a language for stories. And that is how the human evolution began. Stories. To be human is to have a story. Right now, we're sharing a story. And then that way of telling stories evolved into what we call models. So models means giving reality a stamp through the human mind. Latitude, longitude, Greenwich Mean Time, North Pole, South Pole. We can't live without these concepts, even though we made them up. But then we created more languages. We created language of philosophy, science, anthropology, history, astronomy, biology, mathematics. These are all human languages. And we call AI a large language model because it has access to all these languages that humanity has created to look at what we call the human experience. And now there's no single human being that can compete with this kind of database. So in fact, we can't compete with it, but we have access to the entire database of knowledge and wisdom, from Jesus Christ to the Buddha to Plato to Socrates to Einstein to Tagore to the prophets of the Old Testament. AI is a tool for spiritual enlightenment. It can't get you enlightened, but it can show you the maps. There are many maps on spirituality, just like there are many maps in any terrain. If I want to go to Boston from New York, I can use an aerial route. I can use a contour map, a road map, go by the ship, take a helicopter, but they all lead to the same destination, which is spiritual realization. So I'm using AI as a tool. It's not just the book. I have my own AI. It's called Deepak Chopra AI. Try it out. Deepakchopra AI. Ask any spiritual question or any dilemma that you have spiritual or about health or about longevity, and you'll get information from 96 of my books, from every conversation I've had publicly, from every discussion I've had, from my meetings with spiritual luminaries. So yes, AI is a tool for enhancing spiritual well being, but also emotional well being and physical well being. And my aide, Deepak Chopra AI is the coach.

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So the irony is that this technology is really democratizing spirituality.

Right?

It represents all the knowledge as opposed to just whatever narrow slice you had access to before, depending on what book or what person you knew. Now you get everything.

Yeah. I'll send you a three short videos. Feel free. To show them on your program. My conversations with the Buddha on AI.

So this is better than the conversation in 1930 with Albert Einstein and God. I can't remember the other fellow's name. The.

Indian sage. Yeah.

Here's my next quote from the book because I found this also stunning in a sense. So this is the quote. The function of the guru needs to be overhauled in modern times. Getting rid of the cult of personality, stepping away from superstitious beliefs in the magical attributes of enlightened beings, AI can step in to renovate a time honored role almost immediately. Now Deepak, when I read that, I said, Deepak is the mother of all gurus. And he's telling us that the function of a guru is being overhauled by AI. Isn't that in a sense putting you out of business?

See, spell the word guru for me slowly. G U R U G U R U. So the ultimate guru is you. And AI is helping you to discover your own guru, which is the only real guru. The others are deep fakes like me.

And so the concept of guru means that you're like removing darkness, Right? So now you can remove darkness yourself with AI. And so what does that mean for all the other people who hold themselves out as gurus? Guru is a big industry.

I know it's going to slowly fade out. But you know, there are human beings who like to look up to other human beings and they will never get enlightened. If Jesus or the Buddha are pointing their finger at the moon, I shouldn't be worshiping the finger. I should be looking at the moon and saying, how can I get there? So a true guru is not into self adulation. A true guru allows you to become your own guru. And that happens only once in a few thousand years. The rest are all deep fakes. Wow.

You earlier mentioned the fact that there is. I forget the name you use, but let's just for my purposes, let's just call it Chopra GPT. Chopra AI the data in that is only your stuff. It doesn't go outside, so it cannot hallucinate. It's only your data, what you put into it. Or have you opened it up to the whole Internet?

It's only my data and it does not hallucinate. Although there are advantages to hallucinations because anytime you have a hallucination data, it gives you creative ideas. So I think hallucinations also have a role. But my AI doesn't hallucinate its databases. All my 96 books, every conversation I've had publicly, my YouTube videos, my discussions my talks with luminaries, etc. Yes.

Can I interrupt really quick? It sounds like there may be some construction going on. I can't tell if it's on your.

End or Deepak, send. Nothing happening on my side, but let's just do it. And then whatever happens, we leave it up to the Divine matrix.

Love it.

All right.

There's no construction on my side.

It's a hallucination.

Madison is making her own reality. I have to mention that maybe I'm flattering myself, but great minds think alike, because I also, with Madison's help, we created Kawasaki GPT. And Kawasaki GPT has all my writings, my podcasting, all that kind of stuff too. And I swear, Deepak, Kawasaki GPT is better at being me than I am. And I often use it to draft newsletters, to draft blurbs, to figure out what to do on my podcast. It's better at being me than me. Do you think your GPT is better at being you than you?

It is, because it's also something called a rag Model Retrieval Augmentation in a generation, which means anything that's obsolete, it automatically deletes it and upgrades it. Yes, it's more effective than I am. You could have easily done this interview with my Deepak Chopra AI.

It could have been Kawasaki GPT talking to your GPT and it would have been interesting. So, you know, have you thought that because you created this, you are in a sense now immortal, that for the rest of time people can ask you questions?

Yeah. Not only mortal, it can keep updating as the years go by. Whatever I've said can be upgraded to a new level of understanding.

And are lots of people asking and stuff and interacting with it a lot?

Yeah. Yeah. Now it's available in four languages. English, Hindi, Spanish and Arabic. And soon we're introducing it in China as well.

Wow. Wow. Okay, the next mind blowing quote from the book is this. To me, AI is a mirror to the user's consciousness. So can you please explain what that means? And you know how in a sense, what you ask AI reflects what you are?

Yeah. Because if you're going to ask what kind of shoes I should buy or candidate do I prefer Democratic or Republican, then my AI will not participate in that conversation. My AI will only participate in conversations about health, longevity, healthspan, emotional and spiritual well being. So the way you ask the question obviously reflects your own issues. Obviously. So then AI becomes a mirror, and depending on how much experience it has from your asking questions, it actually knows more about you than you know about yourself. I agree.

So from a technical standpoint, what you or your team has done is it has constricted the answers of your GPT so that it only answers stuff that, that you care about or that you feel you're relevant to. It won't answer a question about how do I become a better surfer. It will say, I cannot answer that question.

It will say, yeah, you can consult ChatGPT for that. I only want to offer to the world what I think I've spent my life doing, otherwise I would be a hypocrite.

And getting outside of your GPT or my GPT, are you not concerned about AI taking over the world?

It already has, and so you can't worry about that. Once a child is born, it can't return to the womb. So this child is born, it's not going to return to the womb. And so we have to decide now whether we use it to risk our extinction or we use it to create a more peaceful, just, sustainable, healthier and joyful world. And that was the goal. Every technology can be used for harmful purposes. A knife can be used to kill a person, but in the hands of a surgeon, it heals a person. And so too with every other technology, AI can be used for poisoning the food chain, cyber hacking, interfering with democracy, causing a nuclear. I don't want to give too many ideas, somebody is listening, but it can also be used for good purposes. But it's here, you can't stop it.

It also seems to me, Deepak, that you know, when you read these doomsday articles about AI, they are comparing a worst case of AI against the best case of humans. And to me that is an unfair comparison. If you compare best case AI, best case human, or worst case AI, worst case human. But you know in this doomsday scenario that what if two AIs get angry with each other and launch a nuclear war? I would say it's much higher probability that some fascist dictators will do that than in AI will do it.

You're correct. Correct. AI doesn't have emotions. AI doesn't have subjective experience. You can program it to simulate that, but it inherently does not have emotional experience. Therefore it cannot act out of emotions. Now you can, as a human being, program it in a way that it simulates that. And that's a danger because there are enough people who are crazy in the world.

I noticed in your book that sometimes you're citing chat and sometimes you are citing other LLMs. So you, you know, how do you pick, when do you use which one which is Your favorite? How do you decide which one to use?

Right now, my favorite is my own, which is Deepak Chopra. But Perplexity is a good one because it gives you references and data. And now this deep sea that has come from China, which came much after I wrote the book, is actually far superior to anything I've seen. And as we move into the future, we're going to have all these different AI companies competing with each other. And that's a good thing, because you're going to see something much more creative, and it's leapfrogging us into a new future.

So when I see in your book that sometimes you use one LLM and sometimes you use another, in the writing of the book, did you ask the same prompt of several LLMs and then pick the answer you like the best, or did you just ask one?

I asked you several LLMs, and then I would also see how I could corroborate the information with research. And that's how it happened.

Okay. And I never in a million years thought I would be asking Deepak Chopra this question, but how do you create great prompts? What's the art of a Deepak Chopra prompt?

You act as if you're speaking to a personal friend, number one to a coach, number two to a research assistant, number three, and number four to someone or an instrument that can access the minds of the greatest luminaries that humanity has had. So you assume those things, and then you go back and forth, back and forth. And actually, you can train your AI ultimately even chatgpt or perplexity, to actually have a reasonably good debate or even argument without any contentiousness, without any emotional engagement. Then you get to the right answers. It's called generative AI for a reason. It generates new information based on the context and the art of the prompt. So in my book, there's a whole chapter called the Art of the Prompt.

And basically, if I figure out this prompt and I embrace this is gonna put me on my path to Dharma.

Yes.

For people not familiar with the term, can you just quickly define Dharma?

Dharma means purpose in life. So there are many stages of Dharma. First is survival and safety. Second is material success. Third is maximizing the delight of the senses. Fourth is love and belongingness. Fifth is creative expression. Sixth is intuition and higher consciousness. And the seventh is self discovery or self realization. So these are stages of Dharma.

And how do I use AI to get myself down this path?

Ask my AI this question. Deepak Chopra AI say, how do I get on the path to Dharma? See what it comes up with, but ultimately it will resonate with you. What's my unique talent? How does it help the world? And how can use my unique talent to be of service and be in a state of gratitude? Then you're in. Dharma.

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Deepak, I took your spiritual intelligence test in your book. Okay.

Yeah.

And maybe with what I'm going to tell you is going to show that I haven't reached my dharma. But I have to say that I answered every question often or always. So does that mean that I'm doing pretty well spiritually?

It means you're on the right track, yes.

That's good to know. And then I asked Madison if I answered all these this way, Am I deluding myself? And she said I wasn't. But then I asked her if I was deluding myself, would you dare tell me that I wasn't? And she said she would tell me, so. Right, Madison? That's correct. I have a thought for you on the name of one of the chapters in the book. And let me be so bold as to offer this thought. Okay. I realize I'm talking to Deepak Chopra, but, you know, so you have a chapter called Trust the Process. And as I read that chapter, I think that it would be more accurate to call that chapter Trust the processing as opposed to the process. Because to me, a process is like a sequence of steps. And I think the point of that chapter is not so much to. To trust the documented steps, but to trust the processing of the steps to going through the processing, not the process steps itself.

Yeah, no, that's good. The process, though, is about self reflection and contemplative inquiry. That's the process. But processing is good.

Oh, So I can say that I made a good suggestion to next edition.

Okay.

My life is complete. My life is complete. So now next question for you, because a lot of people listen to my podcast, including people like Marc Benioff. They're really into meditation. And can you just explain to people how AI could possibly help with meditation? Because most people's initial reaction is, AI is the opposite of meditation. It's technical. It's staring at a screen. It's all this. So how can AI help meditation?

So there are many kinds of meditation. There is meditation that is called contemplative inquiry. There's awareness of the body, there's awareness of the mind. There's awareness of the ego, there's awareness of the intellect. There's awareness of what's happening inside your body. There's awareness of relationship. There's awareness with the divine, and there's awareness with your own self. So those are all the different disciplines of meditation. AI can help tailor meditation for you very precisely. So you might go to my AI and say, deepak, I have a lot of stress in relationship that is getting toxic. Can you help me with the meditation? And my AI will give you a guided meditation. You don't have to stare at the screen. You just have to listen to me guiding you through the meditation. So that's how it works. Okay.

Do you think that science and spirituality are opposing forces?

No. Science always asks what's happening out there, and spirituality asks who is asking and why. Science is about the objective world, and spirituality is about the subjective world, and they go together. You can't have an object without a subject, and you can't have a subject without an object. They go together, so they're complementary to each other.

So then you know, how does one find spirituality? Are you just going to say, use AI? But people are searching for spirituality. How do they do it?

You start with four questions. Who am I? What do I want? What is my purpose? And what am I grateful for? And then you sit in silence and listen to the Answers, who am I? What do I want? What is my purpose? What am I grateful for? And that's the first step.

Do you have any people that you would say this person really has integrated spirituality and leadership? And are there some shining examples that people should not necessarily worship, they should be inspired by what people have accomplished? Who are the people you hold up as they have their act together?

In recent times, I would say people like Martin Luther King Jr. Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Bishop Tutu. These were people who had integrated their lives in a very spiritual way and made a big impact on the world.

And is there anybody alive who would you put in that category?

I would have to think about that.

I would be interested based on my limited knowledge of your. I would say the only person who qualifies is Jane Goodall.

She does Good. I'm glad you mentioned. Yeah.

I would just like to know for you, at this point in your life, how do you define success?

Success is the progressive realization of worthy goals. It's the ability to love and have compassion and it's the ability to get in touch with your soul, the creative center from where everything happens.

By that definition of success, there are many people who are very rich and very famous and are failures.

Yeah. Some people are so poor all they have is money.

All right. There has been some skepticism about, you know, your work and from quote unquote, science in medicine and stuff. So how do you approach coach when you hear skepticism about your work and your alternative medicine and things like that? What goes through your brain when people conflict you this way?

I used to get very defensive, but now I ignore my critics and they can't stand it.

And do you think, are they flawed? Are they ignorant? Like what's going on with them?

They come from a different worldview, that's all. We all express our worldviews, how we were conditioned as children and then the schools we went to, the education we got. And right now the worldview in science is very physicalist. And so anything that's non physical is denigrated. But that's okay. You need all kinds of people because it makes for maximum diversity of opinion, leads to creativity.

And how do you figure out. Sometimes you ignore people, but sometimes they have valid feedback. So how do you separate the two? You can't ignore everybody who you don't get personally offended.

And you always are open to feedback. Don't take it personally.

Okay. And I have one last question for you. Okay. And that last question is, do you ever have moments of personal doubt too?

I live in the Wisdom of uncertainty at all times. And without uncertainty, there's no creativity. So, yes, doubt is a very important part of our creative process. The more doubt you have about your habitual certainties, the more room there is to grow spiritually.

And how do you keep pushing through that uncertainty?

I always ask, what's the creative opportunity here?

So you have these moments of uncertainty. You ask what the.

Moment of not knowing. Not knowing is the highest knowing. Because if you know everything, then there's nothing to know.

Wow. Okay. That is the way to end this podcast. So the highest knowing is. No, I'll let you say it again. Deepak, will you say that again? That was very inspiring.

Not knowing is the highest. Knowing is the window to infinite creativity.

I can't ask for a better end to a podcast than this. Thank you very much, Deepak.

Thank you, Guy. Pleasure to speak to you.

I hope we can speak at another event again soon. Maybe someday we can be on stage together. That would.

Thank you, guys. Guy.

I'm Guy Kawasaki. This has been the Remarkable People podcast, and truly, we have had a remarkable episode today with the one and only Deepak Chopra. And so I want to thank you again and thank you, Madison, for making this happen, and Tessa Knysmer, her sister, and ace researcher Jeff C. And Shannon Hernandez, our great sound design team. And above all, thank you, Deepak. Over. It's been a very special moment for us. Thank you very much. And I hope to see you again, and I hope you're wearing that Issey Miyake jacket, because I just love that jacket.

Thank you. God bless.

Oh, God bless you, too. This is remarkable, people.