Power, Freedom, and Grace

by Deepak Chopra

  KEY POINTS

  You participate in creating your reality by interpreting your sensory experience. The world is a construct of your own interpretations.

  The human body is a field of ideas, and the body you experience is an expression of all the ideas you have about it.

  When the rhythms of your body-mind are in synch with nature’s rhythms, everything is effortless and the universe flows through you in joyful ecstasy.

  5

  Where do I go when I die?

  Discontinuity:

  Lack of continuity, a gap or break.

  So now we have answered that basic question we started out with: Who am I? And the answer is: I am pure consciousness, pure potentiality, a field of all possibilities. That’s who I am. I am not the body, nor am I the mind. I am the one who has the body and the one who has the mind. Spirit, the one Being, is becoming all of that, and that essence is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.

  So the next question is: Where did I come from? And the answer to that is: I did not come from anywhere, because I was always here. The body comes and goes, but “I” am always here. Where I come from is a place that has no beginning in time and no ending. Where I go is the same place. As we have seen, there are no particular locations in space or time. In a nonlocal universe, there is nowhere to go!

  And what is my purpose in life? To be happy, to joyfully participate in the creativity and evolution of the universe. Life is conceived and imagined by universal spirit, or consciousness, and all realms are imaginary forms of the spirit, which is doing its leela, or play. In the end, all is the play of consciousness, or leela.

  And what happens to me when I die? The answer: Nothing happens, because I do not die. Pure consciousness cannot be destroyed; it can only be expressed. Knowing this frees us from the fear of death because nothing in the universe is ever lost; it is only transformed. If you and I are speaking on the phone, and somebody cuts off the phone lines, what happens to us? Where do we go? Nothing happens to us, and we don’t go anywhere. So, too, when physical death occurs, nothing happens to us. Certain lines of communication that use a certain nervous system have temporarily been disrupted. But we are still here. The soul doesn’t go anywhere; it’s the body that dissolves and returns to the earth.

  Then where is the soul? One of the biggest misconceptions is that the soul resides in the body. People may say, “This person died, and the soul has left,” but it’s not true. The soul is not inside the body. The soul projects itself as the body and the mind. It finds a location in space-time, and broadcasts or telecasts itself through the body. But just as the characters in a movie are not inside my television set when I’m watching it, and Beethoven is not inside my radio when I’m listening to it, my soul is not inside my body. My soul is merely localizing or expressing itself through my body.

  If we go to a bookstore, we can find numerous books on so-called “out-of-body” experiences. The real mystery is how we get an “in-body” experience. To believe that our soul is “inside a body, looking out” is a convincing but socially induced hallucination.

  The soul doesn’t exist in space or time; it is beyond space and time. Yet everything we call physical seems to occupy some little place in space-time. The chair we sit on is localized in a particular spot, and for a period of time. Our body occupies different locations in space-time. Our thoughts occupy different locations in space-time, and all this is the localization of our soul, which has no location in space-time. We can therefore say that the soul is transcendent.

  So when we ask, Where is the soul?, we’re not asking the right question because where implies a location in space-time. The soul is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It’s everywhere in general, and nowhere in particular.

  If we go beyond the superstition of materialism, we can see that our body-mind is a field of intelligence, of unconditional life force. The life force expresses itself through infinite transformations into this or that form, into this or that phenomenon, now appearing, now disappearing. But the life force itself is eternal; it’s unchanging, it’s all-pervading, and we are that force.

  The most outstanding characteristic of this field of intelligence is its aliveness. It is the life force of the universe interacting with itself and manifesting as the exquisite dance of creation, maintenance, and dissolution, or renewal. These three forces are operating everywhere in nature.

  If we look at a quantum field, we see a particle emerge from the void. That’s the creative act. Then it becomes a wave in the field. That’s the moment of attention when it appears for a short period of time. Then it disappears back into the void. This is the dissolution, or renewal. Throughout nature, we see that things are created and renewed, but for renewal to take place, the old must go. And in fact we are constantly re-creating ourselves at the quantum mechanical level, the atomic level, the molecular level, the material level of the physical body.

  The universe, though it is timeless and eternal, functions through cycles of rest and activity — on and off. On and off means birth and death, and we are constantly dying in order to re-create ourselves. The atoms in our body go on and off. The molecules of our skin cells go on and off, dying once a month so we can make new ones. If our skin cells didn’t die once a month, we would have very leathery, unhealthy skin.

  Though the world appears to be continuous, in reality it’s going on and off like a flashing neon sign. Everything is vibrating, and vibration implies an on-off signal. That’s why it’s called a vibration. If we could see the world at the level of photons, it would be on-off, on-off. Even our thoughts are clusters of photons flickering in and out of the infinite void. Some things vibrate very fast, some a little more slowly. In a rock, the vibration is very slow; in a thought, it’s very fast; and at the level of photons, it’s at the speed of light. But it’s all an on-off vibration.

  When we go on, we are born; when we go off, we die. Without the off, there would be no on. In every off, the universe re-creates itself. The off is also called the discontinuity. In our consciousness, we create the experience of continuity out of something that is essentially a discontinuity. The reason the universe appears continuous is a trick of our senses. Our senses cannot process information that flickers in and out of the infinite void at the speed of light, so they create the illusion of continuity.

  Our experience of the world is like watching a movie. On the screen we see continuity, but when we visit the projection room, what do we see? We realize that the movie is a series of still frames with little spaces or gaps between the frames. If the reel of the film moves fast enough, our eyes don’t notice the gaps, the off between each frame; they only notice the on. We see a movie, and the movie is totally in our imagination. In reality, pictures are flashing in and out discontinuously on the screen.

  When we’re watching television and an actor appears to move from here to there, no image is actually moving across the screen. Electrons and photons are going on and off in a certain sequence. We can’t see the off; we can only see the on because it’s happening so fast that we create the continuity in our consciousness. Lights that seem to be moving around a Christmas tree, or a neon sign that appears to be moving, aren’t really moving; they are going on and off in a certain sequence. Our perception only notices the on and not the off, so in our consciousness we create the movement of light.

  The world is the vibration of the infinite, and this is how we imagine the universe into existence. Vedanta declares: “When the infinite vibrates, the worlds are born. When the infinite does not vibrate, the worlds appear to submerge. When a fiery torch is whirled fast, a circle of light appears; when it is held steady, the circle vanishes. Vibrating or not vibrating, the infinite consciousness is the same everywhere at all times. Not realizing it, one is subject to delusions; when it is realized, all delusions vanish.”

  Everything that we can think of — a chair, a color, a mountain, a thought, a rainbow — is just a different vibration of the same essence. Something is vibra
ting and creating everything, and that vibration is happening in the presence of the soul. The soul vibrates, and it creates thoughts. The soul vibrates, and it creates the body. The soul vibrates, and it creates the whole universe. Ancient people said this. Egyptian alchemists said this. So did the Greek philosophers, and so does anybody who has any idea of how creation occurs. They all say creation is a vibration.

  To create is to bring into being, or existence. And to create something new, we have to die to what is. If we don’t die to what is, there is no creativity. Something has to die for something new to emerge, and our soul is constantly taking quantum leaps of creativity. What is a quantum leap? It’s when a subatomic particle moves from here to there without going through the space in-between. So it’s here, then it’s there. In between where was it? Nowhere. How did it get from here to there? Don’t know. And not only did it get from here to there; it got from here to there instantly. There was no time for it to get from here to there. That’s a quantum leap.

  Every death is an opportunity for a quantum leap of creativity. Through death, we re-create ourselves at every level: the material level of the body-mind, the intellect, the personality. All of these have to die in order to re-create ourselves. With every death we store the wisdom of our experiences since the beginning of time and take quantum leaps of creativity so that we can look at ourselves again as if for the first time. Cycles of birth, transformation, and death keep us ever fresh so that we can imagine new realms for our own existence.

  In biology there’s a term called apoptosis, which means programmed cellular death. In the absence of apoptosis, cells forget to die, and this condition is called cancer. Cancer cells have lost the memory of death; they don’t know how to die, and in their quest for immortality, they kill the host body upon which they are dependent for their life.

  Death, therefore, is the ticket to life, and death is happening right now in our body-mind. Where is our two-year-old body? It’s dead. The body of the two-year-old is dead, the thoughts of the two-year-old are dead, the emotions of the two-year-old are dead, the personality of the two-year-old is dead. We traded all these in for the three-year-old by dying to the two-year-old. Birth and death are happening all the time at all of these levels.

  So when people ask if the soul lives on after death, the answer is yes. But does the personality survive death? In truth, the personality doesn’t even survive while we are alive. The individual we think of as “me” is different from hour to hour, day to day, week to week, year to year. When we say “me,” which person are we talking about — the child full of innocence and wonder, the young person full of romance and bursting with desire, or the elderly person bordering on senility? If the personality survives death, which one of these are we talking about?

  The caterpillar dies to become a chrysalis. In the slumber of the chrysalis, the energies incubate and rearrange themselves, and a butterfly is born. Is the caterpillar the same being as the chrysalis or the butterfly? It is the same intelligence that has become something else. And in that something else, every cell is different, every expression of the energy in its body is different. Nothing has really died; it has only transformed.

  The transformation after death is not a movement to some other place or time; it is just a change in the quality of attention in consciousness. It is a condition or state of vibrational quality of our own awareness. The world that we are experiencing with earth and sky, plants and people, sun and moon, is a particular expression of consciousness at one particular frequency. Heavens and hells and purgatories, the Earth and stars and galaxies, the elements and myriad life forms, are not locations in space-time; they are the projections of states of consciousness. These states of consciousness are vibratory expressions of the infinite consciousness, in which the cosmos moves and lives and has its existence. Infinite frequencies of consciousness coexist, and so there is the simultaneous presence of many planes of existence.

  If we listen to a symphony with a one hundred–piece orchestra, all of the instruments are vibrating at different frequencies, and yet the presence of one does not displace any of the others. If our ears could hear only one frequency, we would miss out on the rest of the symphony and perhaps hear only one instrument out of the hundred. Ninety-nine percent of the music would be unavailable to us because we were not tuned in to the other frequencies.

  Electromagnetic energy, which includes visible light, contains all the colors of the spectrum in the same beam of light. That same electromagnetic radiation, however, contains invisible light, such as x-rays, microwaves, radio waves, and radar. Visible and invisible light are part of the same spectrum, which is vibrating simultaneously at different frequencies. The whole spectrum coexists simultaneously, and yet we only experience what we call visible light.

  Every pinpoint of creation contains all of these different vibrating frequencies simultaneously, and one does not displace another from its location either in space or time. With the correct instrument for tuning in to a particular frequency, we can pick out any vibration we choose. Just consider all of the instruments we use every day, such as radios, televisions, and cellular phones, to tune in to different frequencies.

  At this very moment, you are surrounded by an infinity of planes; all of these vibratory realms exist right next to you. In the field of infinite possibilities, as pure potential, you exist on all of these levels simultaneously. But at the level of experience, you exist in only one — your own projected plane of existence at any one time. If you could shift your perception right now into a different vibratory frequency, you could experience another reality.

  When people have near-death experiences, they have for a moment vibrated at a higher frequency and then come back to their normal vibratory frequency. Frequently, in the final moments of death, people see their whole life flash before their eyes in a split second. This is because the experience is generated through photons, which move at the speed of light. Near-death experiences confirm that every second contains the information of the whole of eternity. They also demonstrate that the journey after death is into nonlocality, the domain of the soul.

  During material existence, our physical body is the expression of our soul at a lower frequency, giving us the appearance of being localized in space-time. We also have an astral body that accompanies the physical body and mirrors all of its informational and energy content. In death, the physical body disintegrates, leaving the astral body as the expression of our soul at a higher frequency.

  The essence of your being is a changeless reality that creates an energy pattern that comes and goes. This pattern, which is born and dies, and is constantly changing its name and shape, is the person you confuse yourself with. You may think that a personal “I am” is the cause and source of all that happens to you, but this is a hoax, a hallucination created out of a distorted perception. You must let go of the idea that you are a set personality fixed in space and time. The personality is just an illusion. What appears to be the personal “I am” is the universal “I am,” the Beingness in all beings. The real “I am” is the whole endless process of pure potentiality expressing itself in different disguises: I am pure potentiality. I am the universe. I am whatever is happening. If I look outside and see the stars and galaxies, that is what is happening, and that is me. I am the light, and I am the eyes that perceive it. I am the music, and I am the ears that hear it. I am the wind, and I am the bird’s wings that fly on it. There is no other “I am” than the one Being, the entire universe.

  That which you call yourself is constantly undergoing change and transformation. All is transforming, yet nothing ever dies. The drop of water becomes vapor, which forms a cloud that falls as rain or snow or ice. The cloud transforms into water, and the water transforms into the flowing river and the frozen lake, which melts and eventually returns to the ocean, where drops of water become vapor again.

  The ocean of infinite consciousness gives birth to the billions of souls in this world. It expresses itself as the infinite
diversity of life, and yet its nature remains the same. It’s always there. It never disappears; it only transforms. So, too, we do not lose our soul, our true essence, as we transform into all of these molecules, all of these minds, all of these bodies, all of these relationships. Just as in life, so beyond death there is continued transformation of that which we call the individual.

  As the poet Rumi said in one of his most memorable lines, “When I die, I shall soar with angels, and when I die to the angels, what I shall become you cannot imagine.” And why can’t we imagine this? Because when we die, we’ve got to be there to see what exists in the next realm of our imagination.

  So what does all of this mean? It all means simply one thing: Being manifests by becoming. Birth and death, and on and off, and pleasure and pain, and night and day, and the cycles of the seasons are just the cycles of Being and becoming. This universe would be dead, it would be static, it would be rhythmless, undancing, and mummified, if it weren’t for this play of veda, or pure knowledge, becoming vishwa, the universe, the eternal dance of creation. This eternal dance of creation is our essential Being, the field of pure potentiality.

  When you know your true essence, you get in touch with that part of yourself that is beyond time and space and the source of both. You no longer identify with the changing behavior of the ocean of consciousness in all its different forms; you identify with the unchanging essence of consciousness itself. If you know that your essence is the unity of one spirit, then everything else becomes known to you.

  Are you ready to take a quantum leap of creativity? Beyond the illusion of a material world is a world of power, freedom, and grace. Understand your true essence, and you begin a journey toward enlightenment. By and by on this journey, you shed your habitual and conditioned responses. As you do so, you become a spiritual master and transcend all suffering, including the fear of death. You realize that the real you was never born, and therefore can never die. Only that which has a beginning has an ending. That which never began is eternal and always, and it is you.