Power, Freedom, and Grace

by Deepak Chopra

  Over and over, people have tried to overcome their addictions through psychological and behavioral methods or through medication. None of these offers a permanent cure. The only cure for addiction is spiritual. We hunger for the ecstatic experience, which is a need as basic as the need for food, water, or shelter. Ecstasy, or ekstasis, literally means stepping out. True ecstasy is stepping out of the bondage of the time-bound, space-bound world of materialism. We long to step out of the limitations of the body. We long to be free of fear and limitation. We hunger for the oblivion of our ego so that we can experience our infinite Being.

  Start today to transcend your addictive behaviors by observing them without judgment. Wake every day with a prayer: “Thank you, God, for making me just as I am,” and then observe yourself. Be a witness to your thoughts, your moods, your reactions, your behaviors. They represent your memories of the past, and by witnessing them in the present, you liberate yourself of the past. By observing your addictive behaviors, you observe your conditioning. And when you observe your conditioning, you are free of it, because you are not your conditioning; you are the observer of your conditioning.

  Observe the silence between your thoughts, your actions, your reactions, and you will feel the presence of spirit in the stillness of those spaces. In the mere observation of yourself, you begin the process of healing and transformation. And if you keep practicing ever-present awareness of your own self, then insight, intuition, imagination, and intention begin to blossom.

  People have asked me, “If the universe is so elegantly organized and we are born with all this human potential and creativity, then why are we so ignorant?” Well, if we were already enlightened, there would be nothing to do. It’s a process. If you occasionally succumb to your addictive behavior, understand that this, too, is part of the process. You may keep falling, but you can always get up and continue on your journey.

  No matter how hysterical your environment appears to be, remain alert and sober in your ever-present witnessing awareness. Resolve not to get drawn into the melodrama around you. Remind yourself, I am neither superior nor inferior to anyone who exists. Saint or sinner, the spirit that resides within me is the divine spirit. It has taken on a certain role in this lifetime; it has taken on other roles in other lifetimes. I honor the divine spirit in myself and in all beings as holy and sacred no matter what role it is playing.

  None of us are the roles we play. Recognizing this truth, it is easier to forgive all perceived transgressions. We don’t feel compelled to label, evaluate, analyze, or judge ourselves or others. When we have no need to label or judge, it’s easier to relinquish the desire to control and manipulate others.

  By knowing the true nature of reality, it is possible to go beyond suffering. When you go beyond suffering, you help others to go beyond suffering. As you continue on your journey of healing, you help others to heal. And you can start to heal by observing your addictive behaviors without judgment. Once you find your true self, once you become whole, the only intoxication you have is the intoxication of pure consciousness, pure Being.

  Transcend Your Fear of the Unknown

  Within every moment, there lies a junction point between the unknown and the known. In that junction point the unknown transforms into the known. What is the known? The known is everything that has already happened. As soon as you say “known,” it’s in the past; it’s gone. The known is a memory. And what is the unknown? The unknown is the field of all possibilities in every successive moment of the present. The unknown is the unlimited and the free.

  You are in the unknown at this moment, and everything from this moment onward is the unknown. In fact, you live and breathe and function in the unknown all the time, while pretending that it’s the known. And by attaching yourself to a pretense, to an illusion, you lose touch with what is real and begin to fear the transient and unreal, including death.

  Most people fear the unknown, when they should really be afraid of the known. To live in the known is to live in the prison of the past, and therefore in the imagination. The known is an illusion. The real reality is the unknown, so why not live in what is actually real? When we step into the unknown, we are free of the past. When we step into the unknown, we are free of every limitation because fresh choices are available in every moment of our existence.

  Pure consciousness is infinitely flexible and unbounded; this is the nature of Being. Conditioned thinking is inflexible; it is bound by our attachment to ideas, notions, beliefs. Freedom is the experience of the unbounded. When you are truly free, you are infinitely flexible in any situation. This flexibility gives you an inner stability that no other experience can overshadow.

  Freedom implies acceptance, letting come what comes and letting go what goes. Freedom implies letting go of the known and having the willingness and confidence to step into the great unknown in every moment of your life. Even when it comes to death, do not think about death, do not fear death, but die to every moment. When St. Paul said, “Die unto death,” he meant die to the past in every moment. Step into what is happening right now, and you die to both the past and the future. If you can do this right now, you can even conquer the fear of death.

  Don’t let imagined fears of the future influence the present. And don’t let memories of the past influence the present. Be fresh. Every child who is born is the universe looking at itself with fresh eyes. When you look at the universe with fresh eyes, you are dying to the known. If you can step out of the river of memory and conditioning and see the world as if for the first time in this moment, then you can create a new world in this moment.

  This moment is a moment of power where the universe re-creates itself. To dive into this moment is to dive into the unknown becoming the known. The unknown is the fresh feel of infinite possibilities. It is Being becoming, transforming, evolving. Every moment that you live is a moment that is overflowing with possibilities.

  Once you have broken the shackles of your own bondage, you can impart your own reality to every event in your life. In this state of freedom, you are no longer mired in the tyranny of an imagined past or the fear of an anticipated future. In this state of freedom, you experience truth, beauty, goodness, harmony.

  The poet Rumi says, “We are tasting the taste, this moment, of eternity.” Transcend your fear of the unknown by keeping your attention on the present moment. Taste this moment as a moment of eternity, and you will taste the experience of freedom.

  KEY POINTS

  To experience and practice freedom:

  Practice life-centered, present-moment awareness.

  Observe your addictive behaviors without judgment.

  Transcend your fear of the unknown.

  11

  What is grace and how do I live it?

  Grace: The effortless flow of existence; love and favor freely bestowed on us.

  Grace is the effortless flow of existence that comes when you are living in harmony with life, when the rhythms of your body-mind are in synch with nature’s rhythms. To live in grace is to experience that state of consciousness where things flow and your desires are easily fulfilled. Grace is magical, synchronistic, coincidental, joyful. It’s that good-luck factor. And how do you live in grace? It’s simple. Just allow the universe to flow through you without interfering.

  In the speck of DNA that created your body is the intelligence that informs you that you are an ancient being. This intelligence has infinite organizing power because it’s the same intelligence that orchestrates the movement of the cosmos. One hundred trillion cells instantly communicate with one another in every moment. These one hundred trillion cells came out of one living cell born of information from two cells, and they only had to multiply fifty times to create all the cells of your body.

  You are a miracle of evolution, a biological organism delicate and fragile and yet tenacious because you have survived throughout eons of cosmic cycles. You are what you are because the universe is what it is. The universe is what it is because you are what
you are. The body you inhabit may seem to be your personal possession, but in truth it belongs to the universe.

  Your DNA encodes the experiences of your ancestors, both human and animal. It contains the knowledge that taught you as an amphibian how to fly and become a bird, and as a primate how to create language and art and science so you could be human. Your body recycles itself, bringing some of the old with every birth so that the knowledge encoded in the wisdom of the universe is never lost. At the same time, it brings a fresh perspective so you can build on the old and give yourself the opportunity for creativity.

  Moment by moment your body sculpts a neural landscape that records every experience of your life. In this very moment, the creative potential that you actualize in your neural networks is converting memory and purpose into biological response. In every breath you take, the universe is born anew. It looks at itself with new eyes, new perspective, and a freshly born sense of wonder.

  Knowing all this, treat your body with reverence and take care of it. Nurture your body with your loving attention. Nourish your body with healthy food and fresh water. Feed your body with the freshness of the earth, and the colors of the rainbow that the earth offers in the form of fruits and vegetables. Drink deeply of the Earth’s waters so that you open the lines of communication and intelligence that course through your tissues and blood vessels. Breathe deeply so that your lungs are fully expanded with air.

  Make a commitment to keep your body free of toxins, both physical and emotional. Don’t contaminate your body with dead food and drink, toxic chemicals, toxic relationships, or toxic emotions in the form of anger, fear, or guilt. Make sure that you nurture healthy relationships, and that you do not harbor resentments or grievances. The health of every cell directly contributes to your state of well-being, because every cell is a point of awareness within the field of awareness that is you.

  Let your body dance with the universe. Let go of all constriction and tightness in your consciousness so that your body can relax into the rhythms of the universe. Move your body, exercise your body, and keep it moving. The more you dance with the universe, the more joy, vitality, energy, creativity, synchronicity, and harmony you will experience. And when your body asks for rest and renewal, listen to its voice.

  Rabindranath Tagore summarizes the miracle of life more beautifully than science can explain it. He says, “The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass, and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow. I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.”

  The oceans and rivers of this biosphere are the lifeblood that circulates in your heart and in your body. The air is the sacred breath of life that gives energy to every cell in your body, so that it may live and breathe and participate in the dance of the cosmos. To have the experience of “the life-throb of ages dancing in your blood this moment” is to have the experience of joy, the experience of connectedness to the cosmos. This is the healing experience; it is the experience of being whole. And to be whole is to live in grace.

  THE EXPERIENCE AND PRACTICE OF GRACE

  Listen to Your Body’s Wisdom

  Can you experience this moment as the life-throb of ages dancing in every cell of your body? Can you realize with deep conviction that you are the earth, water, fire, air, and void of space? Can you feel this and know this in the depths of your being? If so, then listen to your body’s wisdom.

  Your body is constantly speaking to you through signals of comfort and discomfort, pleasure and pain, attraction and repulsion. When you listen to the subtle nuances of sensation in your body, you are accessing intuitive intelligence. This intelligence is contextual, relational, nurturing, holistic, and wise.

  Intuitive intelligence is more accurate and precise than anything that exists in the realm of rational thought. Intuition is not a thought; it is the nonlocal cosmic field of information that whispers to you in the silence between your thoughts. So when you listen to the inner intelligence of your body, which is the ultimate and supreme genius, you are eavesdropping on the universe and accessing information that most people don’t normally access.

  Science has shown that the cells of the body are holograms of the universe, which means that all the information that can possibly be known in the universe is encoded in the cellular structure of each cell. Every part of a hologram contains all the information of the whole — that’s why it’s called a hologram. Intuition is nothing but a heightened sense of awareness that comes from familiarity with the information fields in your own body. This information is encoded holographically in every cell of your body. And if you just access a little more information, you become, by common standards, intuitive.

  Listen to your body’s wisdom. Become aware of the sensations in your body, and you will know the whole cosmos, because the whole cosmos is experienced as sensations in your body. In reality, these sensations are the voice of spirit, which speaks to you at the finest level of feeling in your body. When you offer your body your deep listening, you will hear the voice of spirit, because your body is a biocomputer that is constantly plugged into the cosmic psyche. Your body has a computing ability that can instantly take into account the infinity of details that create every event in your life. It has a win-win orientation, and it solves all problems at a more expansive level of awareness than the one in which the problems arose.

  The next time you need to make a decision, rather than trying to understand it intellectually, pay attention to the sensations of comfort or discomfort in your body, and go with your intuitive feelings. Intellectual understanding is all right, but it’s not always the ultimate test of whether you’re making the right decision. Before making a choice, ask your body, How do you feel about this? If your body sends a signal of comfort and eagerness, proceed. If your body sends a signal of physical or emotional distress, watch out. When confronted with any situation, ask your body whether it feels comfortable or not. If the sensation in your body feels good when you do something, then that’s the right decision. If there’s an uncomfortable sensation in your body, then it’s not the right thing to do.

  When you are out of harmony with universal rhythms, the signal that will come to you is a sense of discomfort, whether it’s physical, mental, or emotional. When you are flowing in harmony with the universe, the signal that will come to you is a sense of comfort, ease, or joy. When you’re relaxed and you’re going with the flow of the universe, then from heartbeat to heartbeat there is something called variability, which is a natural variation that goes with the flexible nature of the universe. It’s easy, it’s flowing, and the autonomic nervous system dominates. But when you’re stressed, when you have too much adrenaline, the heart beats like soldiers marching in step.

  The heart is not just a pump; it’s an organ that feels and thinks. But unlike the rational mind, it feels and thinks intuitively and creatively with love, compassion, interconnectedness, and inseparability. Your heart beats because of something called a pacemaker. The pacemaker is not a single cell; it is one hundred cells firing at the same time, with the same frequency, to the same tune. Every cell has an electrical impulse, and one hundred cells have to fire coherently to create the pacemaker.

  The more flexibility and variability in your heart from beat to beat, the more you create a coherent electromagnetic field. When this happens, then the rest of the cells fall into that coherence, and you radiate a coherent field of electromagnetic energy, which is the aura. The aura is just the coherence or radiance of your heart. You radiate that energy field to the universe, and when that energy field is coherent, you align with the elements and forces of the universe. Once you join that flow, your every intention becomes aligned or in synch wit
h the activity of the universe. This is very powerful because the activity of the universe is your own inner self that is coming from a much deeper level of existence. So if you have a “heart’s desire,” allow your intention to come from the depths of your being, where your soul is localizing as your heart. Put your attention on your heart, even momentarily, and if you feel love, compassion, peace, harmony, or laughter, this will create a coherent electromagnetic field. Then just let your impulses emerge from your heart, from the depths of your being, and the desire will orchestrate its own fulfillment.

  Maintain Inner-Body Awareness at All Times

  The only way to know a person or anything else in the so-called external world is through feeling your body. Therefore, develop a sensual relationship with your body by maintaining inner-body awareness at all times. In any interaction with another person, pay attention to your body. When looking at others, feel your body. When listening to others, feel your body; listen with your whole body. Feel your whole body as a single energy field of intelligence: alive, vibrant, joyful.

  Inhabit your body fully by bringing your awareness into your body. Be alive in your body. Feel the presence of spirit in your body. Commune with the presence of spirit in your body. When you are centered in your body, when your spirit is fully inhabiting your body, then you are inhabiting the whole universe.