(mindbodygreen) This month, Deepak Chopra M.D., FACP, is releasing what might be—in a way—his most practical book yet: A 31-day guide to unleashing your full potential, or in other words, "becoming metahuman."
"Nothing is more transformative, which is why this book feels so urgent to me," he says of Metahuman. Chopra, a preeminent voice and thought leader in alternative medicine, wrote this book to show how it's possible to reach and experience heightened states of awareness. According to Chopra, it's all about expanding our consciousness. Intrigued about what it takes to tap into this state? He explains more in this Q&A below.
What has been your biggest surprise in writing Metahuman?
Deepak Chopra: Who would think that consciousness, which we all employ every day, is actually the gate to meta-reality, where existence, or simply being here, opens infinite possibilities. It's mind-blowing when you really think about it.
You say that anything you can count, measure, calculate, and reduce to data is part of an all-encompassing illusion and anything we perceive, imagine, or think about in words inhabits the same illusion.
DC: The stories we live are ego stories. The world we inhabit has been reduced to fit the ego's limited perspective. So that's the illusion, which can also be called a dream or spell that we are under.
When you wake up to the possibility of being metahuman, you abandon all of the limitations imposed by the ego, including your story. Instead you experience your life directly, totally immersed in the present moment. This direct experience requires no thinking, just as you don't need to think to recognize a friend's face or the color blue.
Direct experience is so profound that it leads to total awakening, and yet the whole thing is ridiculously simple. You just rest in your own being. Existence isn't empty. It is filled with infinite possibilities—that's the reality beyond the illusion.
What is the nature of reality?
DC: The nature of reality, as defined by modern science and the five senses, is physical. Everything in the universe exists in material form. The problem with this definition is that quantum physics overturned physical reality over a century ago. In its place, five or six of the greatest physicists declared that reality was consciousness. To repeat a famous quote from Sir James Jeans, "the universe is looking more like a great thought than a great machine."
That's the opening, verified by science, for meta-reality being primary, the source of everything— because meta-reality is pure consciousness. The trick is to get people to absorb that their own personal reality is pure consciousness.
In Metahuman, you mention that "pain and suffering are not essential. They are part of the drama we've constructed." How does someone transcend that suffering, especially if they are sick or experiencing a challenging period in their lives?
DC: We all know someone who inspires us by their courage and grace even when there is sickness or life difficulties. That's a form of "going beyond" that begins and increases in becoming metahuman, until even pain cannot interrupt the flow of bliss.
You discuss that there are three different types of self: the ego-personality, the unconscious self, and the true self. How can we tell them apart?
DC: The true self is something we glimpse during experiences of joy, freedom, love, bliss, and creativity. Metahuman allows you to identify these states and make them continuous. Then you don't have to listen to the social self, which is the face we show the world, or the unconscious self, which obeys pure impulse.
Explain the term "choiceless awareness." How can a person achieve this state of consciousness when we are constantly bombarded with decisions we need to make and endless options?
DC: It's an evolving process. You learn to trust what it is to be spontaneous, and in time, you learn to completely trust what your consciousness tells you. On the healing side, you become aware of your self-defeating and negative choices and stop repeating them.
You have authored more than 86 books. What's been the common thread in all of your writings? What is your next book?
DC: The common thread also happens to be the title of the next book, The Awakened Life. No matter what subject I tackle, everything is about how to become conscious, to wake up and achieve the joy that is the birthright of being human.
