Beautifull, Deepak,
have to contemplate on,
but nonetheless,
reading,
innerpeace..
innerchild..
;)
Love, Passion,

Thanks Deepak for a wonderful vision over time which shines through all your books :)

You have left me today with a good feeling, life isn´t complete without death and my father comforted me already when he was still alive. Don´t worry about it he said, it is the same as when you go to sleep at night.

And everyday i wake up i am so grateful for that extra second :)

Love,

mhmnn..;)
My dad, while smoking 2 packs a day, but, only after, he met my mother, ;) he said,
What! I'm going to live at least till 130!,
seriously,
Well, the X-rays of his lungs proved the miracle.

Life's a joke,
enjoy it,

with,
Love, passion,

In one of Deepak Chopra's books, he tells a story about a young boy who had actually changed some of his own DNA (I believe the boy accomplished this in response to his mother's urging that he get well.)

Which book was that? I'm desperately trying to find out! Thank you!

there was this other universe, in which she was persistant in asking Yama to take her life instead, 'Being' touched by her selflessness he grants her three wishes, anything except for the life of her husband.

Well being connected to the source and the inherit wisdom, she asked for three children by her husband.

Being that he had to grant her wish, her husband had to be granted his life.

I add one last bit to the story....

At that moment she woke up realizing that what she thought was reality was really a dream, or was it? Had she managed to change her past in the present moment?

Was the script changed by the writer?

Gulp

And in the end
the love you take
is equal to
the love you make
The Beatles

Namaste

Poems by Marion D. Cohen:

When I was even littler

When I was even littler
I stared
down a
hole.
It was not a death hole.
It was more like a birth hole.
Even the surface was dark.
It was brimming with ink.
A can of night.
Not slimy, not bubbling
only wet and dark.

Maybe death is a can
and you fall into it
and someone slams on the lid
and it's down a cellar
someone else's cellar.
Maybe million of years go by
then someone opens the can
someone with a fork.
Maybe death is being canned
or gradually, gradually
becoming un-fresh.

~~~~~~

Maybe dying is like being arrested

Maybe dying is like being arrested.
And they don't give you even a second of orientation.
Maybe they clap your feet, right off, onto the nails.
or they impale you on a skewer
half-a-second before
half-a-second after
two of the others.
On the other hand, maybe dying is like going to the doctor's.
Maybe there's even a receptionist and a waiting room.
And then maybe there's the assistant.
And she explains the procedure, holds your hand, shows you diagrams.
Yes, maybe she tells you first
what they're going to do.

~~~~~~

A month before my wedding I dreamt I died

A month before my wedding I dreamt I died.
Death was a woman and she wound up liking me best.
In fact, she fell in love with me, and I her.
The love felt warm and meaningful
the kind of love I approved of
the kind of love I liked.
We closed our eyes; we sand into the clouds.
She leaned on me and cried.

But then things soured.
For example, she caught me gazing
clapped her hands in my eyes.
("A penny for your thoughts.")
Then things actually spoiled.
There were quarrels at the dressing table.
"Why do you always have to be so morbid?"
"Can't we ever just go out for a good time?"

Death, even death, was not enough.
Death, even death, did not work out.

Dear Dr. Chopra, thanks for the mythological story of Savitri. I shall post here two real stories about reincarnation claims from India and how they were ‘proved’ to be false.

Here is how two such ‘accepted’ reincarnations were exposed on live TV:

BORN AGAIN! THE INDIAN WAY!

Sanal Edamaruku exposes reincarnation claims in live TV

The belief in reincarnation is widespread and deep-rooted in India. It is inspired by Hindu religious beliefs and fuelled by the wish that there should be some kind of escape route from pressing social realities into another, better life. Tales of rebirth are catching people's imagination and get fast currency, especially among the poor in rural India.

In cooperation with Star TV, one of the big channels in Hindi language with nation-wide outreach, Sanal Edamaruku exposed two reincarnation cases within a few weeks, encouraging and enabling millions of viewers all over India to confront this superstition with reality, wherever they meet it.

FIVE QUESTIONS TO A PARROTING BOY

In a live program on 30th March 2006, Star TV introduced a reincarnation case in Bagpat village in the north Indian state of Haryana. Villagers were thronging in a courtyard, where one of them, a man in his thirties, presented his four-year old son to the TV cameras. Some months ago, the boy expressed fear seeing a tractor, the father told the reporter. Strangely, he soon started insisting his name was Pavithra - the name of a well-off farmer in a neighboring village, who had been killed by robbers five years ago. They shot at him, when he was driving his tractor. The bullet hit his neck and he died on the spot.

To prove that his son was Pavithra's reincarnation, the father held the boy towards the cameras and quizzed him repeatedly: What is your name? What is your father's, mother's sister's name? And where did the bullet hit you? The boy answered in accordance with his father's tale. Without any hesitation, he gave his name as Pavitra and the names of his relatives as those of Pavitra's. When asked about the bullet, he pointed to his own neck: here! The villagers were impressed and completely convinced that the boy was Pavithra's reincarnation. And so was the dead man's family, who had already taken the child into their house and thought about adopting it.

Sanal Edamaruku pointed at some flaws and discrepancies of the case. The dates of Pavithra's death and the boy's birth, for example, did not match. There was a gap of two years between the two, where the "soul" wouldn't have had a body. Most disturbing, however, was that the boy's answers were obviously tutored. After he reacted several times "correctly" to his father's never changing sequence of five questions, the reporter put the same questions in a different order, and the child gave regardlessly his monotonous set of answers like a parrot: What is your father's name? - Here! (He pointed to his own neck.) Strangely, nobody was disturbed by this fact, before it was pointed out.

Since the farmer's fate had been on everyone's lips some years back, there was also nothing special or even miraculous about a child being aware of names and details. Reincarnation claims usually start as a child's fantasy in an age, when dream and reality are not yet distinguished, Sanal Edamaruku explained. By repeating their fantasies again and again, children use to grow and modify them according to the reactions of their surroundings into perfect stories and are convinced they are reality. In this case, the fantasy was obviously taken up by the boy's father, who became the operator of the claim.

Interestingly, nearly all reincarnation stories are - knowingly or unknowingly - suitable to serve social uplift. It is always a child from a poor family that claims - mostly supported by its parents and well-wishers - to be a re-born member of a comparatively richer family, never otherwise round. That explains that such stories use to be quite resistant. They offer benefits to all those involved. For the child and its parents, the story is a ticket into a better future; the other family finds consolation in the idea that their ill fated kin allegedly returns as a child. And the audience finds relief in the belief that there could be a better life waiting for them after death.

A HINDU WOMAN REBORN AS MUSLIM GIRL

In another program on Star TV, nine members of a family from a village in Punjab were brought to the TV studio in order to piece together the story of a three-year-old girl, who was believed to be a reincarnation. Sanal Edamaruku started his investigation before the beginning of the program in the visitor's waiting room by casually interviewing all family members. There was something special about this case: the little girl's family was Muslim, while the deceased, a young woman from a far off village near Delhi, had been Hindu. The woman had been deserted from her husband, when she was pregnant. She died, according to a medical certificate, of pneumonia. This happened some three years back, fitting with the time, when her "reincarnation" was born. The little girl claimed to bear the woman's name and would proudly show her earlobes to everybody, which allegedly showed pressing marks of the heavy earrings, the deceased used to wear.

Sole representative of the deceased woman's family in the TV studio was her fifteen-year-old niece, who had been very close to her. It was through this niece, who happened to live in the same Punjabi village as the child's family, that the "reincarnation" was identified. The niece's school was adjacent to the kindergarten, visited by the little girl, and the two befriended each other. It is easy to guess, how the child's knowledge about her friend's aunt and her earrings transpired. It was also obvious that the niece, who never overcame the death of her beloved and unlucky aunt, was extremely happy to see her living on as the friendly little girl. On inquiry another interesting aspect of the story came to light. There had been strong criticism in the village about the close friendship between the Hindu niece and the Muslim kindergarten girl. It was silenced at once, when the reincarnation story came up.

The suspect that the niece was the operator of this reincarnation claim proved correct. It turned out that she had successfully spread confusion about the woman's cause of death. According to the belief, only victims of a violent death - by murder or accident - are entitled to be reborn. Since the niece had a strong desire to establish the reincarnation, she fantasized a different death for her aunt. She insisted that the aunt had died of a bicycle accident and that she herself had seen bruises and wounds caused by the accident on the dead body. There were many contradictions in her tale, but still the girl's family and obviously also some (absent) members of her own family believed her. The medical certificate, however, exposed her.

Sanal Edamaruku's sensible and careful handling of both the cases called to mind that exposing superstitions without consideration for the individuals entangled in them can cause much damage. In a live TV program of one hour, it is hardly possible to help victims of superstition to resist the social and psychological drives behind their unreasonable thought and behavior. With tact and great skill Sanal Edamaruku succeeded, however, in exposing the absurd claims of reincarnation and their roots and mechanisms uncompromisingly for the audience to understand without inflicting pain and personal embarrassment on the victims that could disturb their mental balance.

Deepak,

Thanks for the story, it's a wonderful tale!
No fairies, so I shan't use that word.
Myths are learning tools, we have learned from them
for a long, long time, probably shortly after
Man put his mumblings into articulate sentences.

Yesterday I went to see if they had your book ready for me at the library. After giving me a funny look, the librarian checked the computer.
"Not yet...sorry, but you are the only one on the waiting list, so that's good!" But that's a surprise, and not really good. Perhaps everyone else is going ahead and buying it? And the funny look? Apparently, this librarian doesn't thrill himself by reading such non-sense, and I don't mean that in a bad way. Only the moral of the story makes sense in a story such as this.

That's why my question about adding time(1 minute) to eternity isn't necessary. Btw...do you add this minute at the end of eternity, or slip it in the middle somewhere, like slipping a card that's up your sleeve into the deck when no one is watching?

Oh, well...even the gods are allowed to "trick or cheat" once in a while of infinity, I suppose. And so then...that's where we humans learned it.

Good day, yawl! Keith~

BUDDHIST JUDGEMENT DAY

The enlightened universe lolls around.
It is big and fat and one and only.
It’s a little homesick.
It misses parties.
It misses babies.
It misses sweaters.
And it remembers math.
Points used to be blinking.
Lines used to be trembling.
Now it’s all homogeneous.
Also, one of its corners used to be you.
And another of its corners used to be me.
And there was time, time for things to happen in.
There was the first this and the last that.
Now it’s all middle.
The universe is bored.
Isn’t there another universe around somewhere?
Is this all there is?

~~~~~~

THE ZEN OF MATTER

You don’t like thrifting as much as I do.
You say you have enough sweaters.
But sweaters are like theorems.
There is no end to them.
And sweaters are like axioms.
No end to how many we need.
True, sweaters are not like poems.
But there can never be all of them.
And true, sweaters are not like orgasms.
Still, I always have room for more.

~~~~~~~

NOT RECOVERING CATHOLIC, NOT RECOVERING JEW

I’m a recovering atheist.
Or the kind of atheist my parents were.
Also recovering Marxist.
The kind of Marxist my parents were.
Are my kids recovering writers?
After we die, will we all be recovering human beings?
Is whatever we are something we’ll someday have to recover from?
And will we?

~~~~~~~~~

I CAN’T STAND GANDHI

the movie Gandhi or the man Gandhi.
He didn’t need love, he didn’t need sex, who did he think he was?

like Steve Hawking, like my first husband, so goddamned still
everything hadda provide the motion
who do they think they are?
what gave them the right?

~~~~~~

NOT FEAR OF DYING

Fear not of dying but of being reborn.
That first instant, the ping, the point.
Then the long first journey within a new mother
then the head-on crash, then the long suspension, then being locked in a room
precisely my size and shape.

And then the storm, the lightning, the thunder.
And being hoisted up, ‘way ‘way up
limbs forced to stretch, no more fetal position, yet no ground for my legs.
Like Christ on the cross.
Like anybody on the cross.
In pain and too far up.

~~~~~~~~

AFRAID OF REINCARNATION, OF GETTING A NEW MIND

Suppose I’m a nazi, or an ordinary bigot? Or someone who believes in the
death penalty? I wouldn’t know how to even want to try to want to stop believing
in the death penalty. I like the mind I’ve got now, I worked hard to get that mind,
can’t I keep it? This isn’t the time to give me a new mind. This isn’t a good time.

~~~~~~~

WANTING THEM TO DIE

“Death takes a holiday”.
A very long holiday.
Trips to the vet do not take a holiday.
Shit and pee on the counch do not take a holiday.
Does Death get homesick?
Does Death get vacation-itis?
Maybe Death DID go home.
HIS home, not MY home.
Certainly not my couch.

~Marion Cohen

http://www.marioncohen.com/

High-impact, stunning imagery; a full-octane straight to the heart/mind and center of one's senses kinda reads... enjoyed them all Deepak!

Our love affair with life and death... amazingly told!!

with loving kindness,
North

Thank you Dr Chopra for this story.

It must have been wonderful to hear it as a kid. It manages to be entertaining and contain a lot of wisdom at the same time.

Peace,

Lars

Dr Chopra,

I read in your writing in Time Asia that you are going to write a book 'The Buddha' Indian Goverment,many indian institutions and other agencies are decieving the readers that Gautam Buddha was born in india. As a student of Buddha Dharma I do not have any attachments to the birth place of Buddha that lies in either Nepal or India but is it a buddha nature to decieve the readers with false information?

I am seeing your Buddha nature in the coming book.

Wishing for your blissful moments.

Hi Deepak:
I sent you 2 Multicultural Calendars through a friend of mine who attended your lecture in Toronto on Friday. I hope you will give one to Mallika.
I've been doing Past Life Therapy for the past 18 years now (did Shekhar tell you about his session with me?) and I have seen the shapeshifts that have happened in people's lives after they've gone through a few sessions, sometimes after just one. It is a privilege to be doing this work besides the calendar and spiritual tours to india and tibet.
Now waiting for the Buddha movie. May I suggest Shekhar as the director. He wanted to do this more than anything else and his eyes would light up everytime he spoke about that project.
Wishing you and the family a Magical 2007!!