Deepak Chopra writes: “The Big Bang is as inconceivable as God. We can’t envision it, since it was invisible and silent and neither hot nor cold. (All these qualities require the five senses, which didn’t exist.) Time and space emerged from the Big Bang, so we can’t ask ‘where’ or ‘when’ it occurred; both concepts depend on time and space already being here. In short, science confronts the pre-created state with no trustworthy way to cross the gap.
“The transcendent world is a field of infinite possibilities. It is the starting point, the womb of creation. The subtle world brings a possibility to mind as an image. Something real is taking shape. The material world presents the result. A new thing or event is manifested.
“The cycle that carries everything from uncreated to created occurs constantly; it is the basic rhythm of nature. The brain also processes reality through a cycle that turns off and on thousands of times per second. The key is the synapse, the gap between two neural connections. A chemical reaction jumps the gap (this is the on switch), and then the synapse is cleared for the next signal (the off switch).
“The creator behind the scenes is consciousness. It is using the brain, just as a pianist uses a piano. Whatever consciousness wants comes into existence. The piano is an instrument to satisfy the mind’s desire for music. The human eye is an instrument to satisfy the mind’s desire to view the created world. Every other qualia follows the same pattern. Consciousness created the sense of touch in order to feel the created world, the sense of hearing to hear the created world, and so on. God entered his creation in order to enjoy it.
“God matters, more than anything in creation, because God is the word we apply to the source of creation. It isn’t necessary to worship the source, although reverence is certainly deserved if we want to give it. The necessary thing is to connect. Across the gap in the transcendent world are some totally necessary things that cannot be created, not by hand, by imagination, or by thought.
“No one is bound to the same creative path. As creator, you rise up from the ocean of consciousness to create your personal reality. When you go deep inside, however, you see that you belong to the ocean of consciousness. It is creating reality through you without ever leaving the transcendent world.
“Enter the realm of all possibilities. Making them come true is a great gift. It comes directly from God. When you fully remember who you are, you become one with God. An invisible grace permeates every aspect of your life. Providence will uphold you when you are totally aligned with God, as nature upholds all simpler life forms. Alignment is the natural way; nonalignment isn’t.
“If you find yourself fighting the world’s many evils, you are immersed in them. The system of evil has claimed you. It sounds shocking, but if you believe in evil, you have forgotten who you really are. Every time you fight evil, you are reinforcing the system of evil, which would shrink away unless people paid attention to it. [1]
“When you take a moment at night to revisit the good things that happened to you during the day, you reinforce every positive experience by consciously reminding yourself, you retrain your brain. A kind of filtering process is taking place. You select only the things you wish to reinforce, filtering out the mundane, irrelevant, and negative things. Once this becomes a habit, you will begin to experience a real shift in your personal reality. It will amaze you how much has been overlooked or taken for granted. Life isn’t good by itself; you must respond to it as good."[2]
“Once evil is exposed as an illusion, reality has a chance to convince us. Love can prove itself more powerful than fear. The greatest spiritual ideals, a world free of evil, will begin to actualize. On the other hand, if evil cannot be defeated, it will doom the spiritual path itself.
“A healthy ecosystem depends on one species eating another, which entails violence. Make all animals vegetarians, and in the absence of predators, nothing would stop insects from filling the world; they already outweigh all mammals many times over. But the need for pain applies to the mental world, too. Fear keeps you from putting your hand in the fire a second time. Guilt teaches children not to steal from the cookie jar even when their mothers aren’t watching. Mental pain is useful in all kinds of ways when it isn’t excessive.
“What we call evil is often something we can’t do without and don’t want to. Human beings thrive on contrast. Without pain there can be no pleasure, only a bland state of non-stimulation.
“Researchers into infant behavior have found that babies as young as four months old will try to pick up an object that their mothers dropped and hand it back. But the impulse to goodness is mixed in with contrary impulses. Other researchers have found that young children learn to act the way their parents tell them to; they know what ‘be good’ means in terms of getting approval at home. But when left alone without an adult in preschool, the same child may suddenly turn from Jekyll to Hyde, snatching toys from other children and showing no remorse when their victims cry.
“Pain and suffering weaken faith; God gets deposed with every new atrocity on the evening news. But what topples is only an image. God himself isn’t even touched by bad things; afflictions are part of the illusion. ‘Material existence is an illusion. Heaven is an upgrade of the illusion.’ God’s role isn’t to upgrade the illusion but to lead us out of it. Escaping evil is far more important than explaining it.
“Your real relationship with God emerges by eliminating everything that led to a false relationship. Evil is created in the misplaced desire to make ourselves worthy of God. Evil is like a vacuum, the emptiness of illusion. Fill the vacuum with reality, and evil vanishes. The fullness of God will steadily fill the vacuum. As consciousness grows, evil shrinks.
“Dharma comes down to one crucial thing: trusting Being to give you a course correction when you need it. Being provides hints about a higher reality. You feel subtly wrong when you veer into ego and selfishness. Being speaks silently, but existence is tilted in its favor.
“Consciousness naturally expands. The more you know yourself, the better your life becomes. Positive intentions are supported more than negative intentions.
“God is the place where the mind finds an answer beyond thought."[3]
1 Deepak Chopra, The Future of God: A Practical Approach to Spirituality for Our Times (Harmony Books, 2014), 148-232.
2 Deepak Chopra and Rudolph E. Tanzi, Super Genes: Unlock the Astonishing Power of Your DNA for Optimum Health and Well-Being (Harmony, 2015), 207.
3 Chopra, The Future of God, 233-250.
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