Mind, Body, Spirit:

(An attempt to understand some lectures by Dr. Depok Chopra, with apologies to him and to any person whom I have misquoted or whose name I have misspelled)

Part 1:


The body and mind are networks of energy within an abstract field. Mind and body are inseparable. Mankind has a turbulent evolutionary history. We have been ruled by Darwin's survival of the fittest. To survive as a species and as a planet, we need new ideas. Jonas Salk speaks of a meta-biological evolution...the evolution of consciousness of consciousness. He calls it survival of the wisest.


What is consciousness, mind, matter?


There was a scientific experiment in psycho-neural-emunology. In this experiment scientists injected one group of mice with an immune system stimulant while simultaneously having them smell camphor. Another group of mice were injected with the destructive chemical sacharine, which destroys the immune system, while they also smelled the camphor. After a time, if the smell of camphor was introduced to the first group of mice, they would automatically experience a boost of immune system biochemicals without being injected. The second group would likewise automatically experience a destructive boost of biochemicals when they smelled camphor. Interpretation of a memory was only difference between what was occurring to the two groups.


We are bundles of conditioned reflexes...predictable responses. Therefore we are victims of our own memory. We torment ourselves with our old memories. How is it possible to change biochemical, psychological experiential events?


Transformations in the body are the result of the exchange of energy and information. They are the result of the interpretation of thought, feeling, and emotion. We can witness this process and influence the expressions of these feelings...these states of energy and information. We replace 98% of the atoms in the body every year. We generate the same conditions in the body by conditioned responses... impulses of energy and information. We have the same behavior, the same diet, the same sensory experiences, the same states of energy, therefore the same behavior and response and the same physical conditions. The Veda says, "I use memories, but I do not allow memories to use me." We let ourselves be the victims instead of the creators. When we respond in reaction, memories use us. We are in bondage to the memories. When we are creative, then we have freedom.


The mind and body are inseparable. There was another scientific experiment that had to do with metabolizing cholesterol in rabbits. The rabbits were fed some food that was extremely high in cholesterol causing additives. Most of the rabbits were producing the symptoms of high cholesterol, but one group of rabbits was not responding as badly. In fact, this particular group had 60% less response than the other rabbits. When the researchers looked into the conditions affecting these rabbits to account for the difference, they discovered that these rabbits were being petted and loved by the scientist who was feeding them. That was the only difference in conditions that they could find. Love and affection, as the flow of information and energy, metabolized completely differently. This suggests to us that our states of awareness when we are eating affect our metabolism. Consciousness, therefore, is a great factor in nutrition and metabolism.


There was another experiment involving premature babies. (This was many years ago now.) The hospital wanted to determine if "tactile stimulation" would have an affect on growth rate and swiftness of general improvement in "preemies". So the nurses began to stroke some of the babies, and touch them in affectionate, loving ways. The babies being stoked gained 49% more weight than those not stroked. There has been lots of research done in this area since then, and we now know that touch stimulates the growth factor hormone. This is an anti-aging hormone which automatically releases when we are touched in an affectionate way. More research has been done involving patients with a condition called "psycho-social dwarfism". This is a condition where the growth hormone doesn't affect growth properly. When these children are given love and touching, then frequently receptors that were preventing proper functioning begin to work and growth assumes a normal process. A transformation in consciousness causes a rush of healing chemicals through the sensory experience of love.


There are many well known risk factors for sudden death through cardiovascular disease (smoking, obesity, poor diet, lack of exercise, alcohol). Research is continuous on the subject, and there was an interesting discovery when a group of researchers looked at a sample group of case histories of patients who had died from heart attack. It seemed that more than 50% of the sample group did not exhibit the regularly assumed factors, but they all did have something in common. They all hated their jobs.


The Law of Dharma says that we are here for a reason. Three parts of this law suggest that we are here to:

1. Pierce through the nature of reality
2. Serve our fellow human beings
3. Express our unique talents...the things that we can do better than anyone else...those things that have the ability to cause us to lose time bound awareness.

If we took a self happiness rating, what would we find? Interestingly enough, more people die at 9:00 Monday morning than at any other time of the week. The idea, or what is associated with that time, is the only difference between it and other times of the week. Ideas can be the harbingers of death and war and misery. But they can also be used for healing as well.


The perception of time and space is self engendered. The flow of linear time is created by the nervous system. It is just natures way of not having us experience everything all at once. We lose track of time when we are having fun. We all experience cycles and rhythms that affect our bodies changes. People who feel that they are running out of time have a speeded up biological clock. People who feel that they have all the time in the world have a slower biological clock. When we slip out of time bound awareness, for example when we look at a mountain or a sunset, then time stands still.


Maslow's peak experience involves the consciousness of unity...the observer and the observed become one. Love can be experienced not as sentiment but as the ultimate truth at the heart of creation.


An Indian poet made the statement that "the same stream of life that runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measure runs through my veins night and day. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth into numerous blades of grass and tumultuous waves of flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean cradle of birth and death, ebb and flow, and my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life and I feel the life through the ages dancing in my blood this moment."