"Here he comes, here he comes..." the collective thought hovered in the air as hundreds of spiritual seekers filled the Marble Collegiate Church in NYC. We were all about to witness history, one of the greatest spiritual thinkers of our day was about to unpack The Future of God for the world to see. The Future of God... wow, heavy title. What would we discover? What does that even mean? Well, we were about to learn from Deepak Chopra.
Deepak who? Never heard of him? Deepak is the author of eighty books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers in both the fiction and nonfiction categories. Time magazine heralds Chopra as one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century and credits him as "the poet-prophet of alternative medicine." So yeah, pretty epic! Basically one of his major missions is teaching us all how to connect back to God. Great! But why do we need to be taught this at all? Because we've put up blocks that make it next to impossible to experience God. Chopra was about to unleash the formula to find the source again...
*Side note, let me tell you, I'm always been a little skeptical. I've always wondered what these "enlightened" people are like in real life. Do they really practice what they preach? It was time to find out...
"Here he comes, here he comes." Taping for the public television special (airing Thanksgiving weekend) was about to begin. Deepak takes the stage and immediately starts testing the microphone, seeming a little uncomfortable in front of a crowd full of people... seems pretty human to me. I was expecting a grand entrance with a sphere of radiant light bursting from his body that would blind us all! Nope, just a regular man who kept fidgeting with his tie. What would his first words be?
Finally, he spoke in a very soft voice, "I normally don't raise my voice. So please excuse the theatrics that you are about to witness, but this is show business. Also, please excuse the tie..." Laughter erupts from the church pews, he is human after all! He immediately won me over, because he hides nothing, he just is. He doesn't try to be enlightening, he just is. The cameras start rolling and Deepak begins the theatrics of the night... The Future of God.
*Another side note: realize that Deepak does not advocate any form of religion over another, instead he speaks about the fundamental truths of all religions which is love (God). There can be many negative connotations surrounding the word God because of what organized religion has done to the word. So when you read 'God', think about whatever makes sense to you, whether that be the universe, soul, cosmic consciousness, etc. It doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, this is about fundamental truths of spirituality supported by science, Deepak's specialty.
Without ruining the special that'll be airing for PBS, I'm going to give you a little sneak peek of what's to come and what The Future of God entails for all of us. In some ways this talk could be entitled The Future of You, because in the end, Deepak lays out the road to connect back with God, and it's through first uncovering the inner you. He lays out the framework for connecting back to God in four easy ways:
1. Expanding awareness
2. Meditation
3. Prayer
4. Self-awareness
So, I've decided to do a blog on each of these points (the next three coming soon). First up, expanding awareness...
To begin, the most important thing I got from this taping was a phrase he kept repeating over and over that I'll paraphrase:
Everything has a single source. That source is your innermost being and when your awareness is free, God is not hard to find.
Huh? A little confusing, I'll admit, but let's break it down so we can understand this; thereby, expanding our awareness of how God is within us...
Everything has a single source:
The brilliant thing about Deepak is how he blends science with spirituality. He's able to prove the existence of God through not only spiritual terms but also scientific terms. With the dawn of metaphysics, scientists now see that there is a godlike manifestation of the universe. Everything started with the Big Bang and we're all connected to it. Everything in the known universe is made up of atoms, different combinations of atoms coming together to form "physical reality." But if you look at atoms through a microscope you'll find there's nothing there, a phantom image, it's just empty space. Kind of weird to think about, but really everything you're looking at or seeing is all one thing at the end of the day. Science has proven that we are made up of the same cosmic dust as stars, we're interstellar dust. In other words, we all come from the same source, everything is one and everything is connected. We're like the offspring of the universe's dust bunnies, woven into the fabric of existence.
That source is your innermost being:
So, that source that you're made up of, i.e. star dust, atoms, etc. is inside you!
Source (Universe/God) = Your Inner being.
They are unterchangable because they come from the same place, we're the offspring of the universe (God); thus, whatever is true of the universe is also true of us. A little heavy, I know, but try and stay with me. The source of the universe is also your source. So God is a part of you, inside of you, because you're connected to that source, you have to be because you come from it.
"You are not just a drop in the ocean, you are a mighty ocean in the drop." -Rumi.
And when your awareness is free, God is not hard to find:
Deepak illustrates that once you're able to connect back to your inner being then it's impossible not to feel a connection to God. After all, you're already connected because you come from it...
Sweet! So then why do we have so much trouble experiencing our inner being or God? Again, it's because we put up blocks.
We've put up blocks that keep us from accessing our inner being. Our inner being is being suffocated by our past traumas, our neuroses, our fears, our doubts, and our mental models of the world. It would be like popping popcorn (inner being) but always keeping the lid (blocks) over the pot... The popcorn just keeps popping but it's never enjoyed. Does anyone still make popcorn that way? It's my roommate's specialty... Sorry, getting distracted, we were talking about really important stuff...
It's time to wake up to who we are, because there's infinite potential inside all of us... How do we do that?! Well, you just started the journey. You've now expanded your awareness (understanding where you come from) from one of the greatest minds of our generation, bringing scientific proof to the existence of God and existence of God within ourselves...
So to experience The Future of God, you must first experience The Future of You. You're standing at the doorway. In my next blog, we'll discover how to open the door through mediation from Deepak himself... Will you open it? I'd love to hear in the comments! 