Everyday Immortality: A Concise Course in Spiritual Transformation - Hardcover

Chopra, Deepak

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517222485 ISBN 13: 9780517222485

Publisher: Gramercy, 2003

Synopsis

In this wonderful gift of insight and understanding, best-selling author Deepak Chopra provides a meditative guide to a higher awareness of ourselves and a greater love for life. Everyday Immortality contains a series of insights, light a string of pearls that, page by page, offer a flash of awareness. Only when one lesson is fully absorbed does the reader's thought patterns are literally transformed, causing a permanent shift in perception. These exercises are a modern version of an Indian wisdom tradition, Gyana Yoga, long considered the direct path to enlightenment and immortality. As a result of the process, the reader's awareness and experience of himself and of the world will begin to change, and he will begin to slowly experience a state of joyful carefreeness and love that will stay with him more and more.

About this title

About the Author

Deepak Chopra is the best-selling author of twenty-three books, including Ageless Body, Timeless Mind; The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success; and The Path to Love. He is director of educational programs at The Chopra Center for Well Being in La Jolla, California.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

For thousands of years human beings have asked the question "Who am I?" Aside from great spiritual masters the vast majority of humans have no knowledge of their true identity as spiritual beings with unbounded potential. As a result the history of so-called civilized man has been one of conflict and destruction.
        
Today the discoveries of modern science are giving us new insights into our true nature. We are on the threshold of a new era, and we stand equipped with a new kind of knowledge, a knowledge that could either be our savior or our destroyer. We have the choice to either jump into the abyss of illusion and ignorance or soar into the experience of reality and enlightenment. But to experience the new reality we must first encounter the death of our old identity as skin-encapsulated egos enmeshed in a bag of flesh and bones, confined to a prison of space, time, and causation, squeezed into the volume of a body and the span of a lifetime. We must escape the prison of the known and soar joyfully into the unknown. As the great Sufi poet Rumi said, "When I die I shall soar with angels and when I die to the angels what I shall become you cannot imagine."
        
What imprisons us in our old identity is an old kind of logic, a logic founded on the superstition of materialism. The new logic based on the insights of quantum physics and the experience of meditation liberates us to a new experience of ourselves. Elsewhere in my books and tapes I have dealt extensively with the concept of the quantum mechanical body, so I am not going to go into a theoretical discussion of this here. (For those interested in an in-depth discussion and theory of the quantum mechanical body, my book and tape series titled Quantum Healing is a good reference guide.)
        
In the following pages I want to give you an appreciation of the quantum mechanical body and of quantum reality so that you can actually experience what seers have called higher states of consciousness. In these higher states of consciousness, the highest of which is referred to as unity consciousness, conflicts resolve and one experiences a reverence and love for all life in the universe. As you go through the pages of this book you will find a series of sentences that will serve as primary statements or insights. Each statement also may be regarded as a sutra or a koan.
        
For best results I suggest that you read one sentence at a time and ponder the meaning of that one sentence. Sometimes it will be very obvious, and you will get immediate insight into the meaning of the koan. In some cases the insight will not be so immediate, and you may have to spend a number of hours or days or weeks with a particular sutra or statement. But ultimately, as you continue to ponder the meaning of the sentence and pay attention to it, a flash of insight will come into your awareness. As a result of that flash of insight, your awareness and your experience of yourself and of the world will begin to change, and you will begin to slowly experience a state of joyful carefreeness and love that will stay with you more and more.

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These exercises should be performed at your own pace. Each sentence must be fully understood and comprehended and give you a new insight before you move on to the next. As you progress through these exercises, understanding and insight unfold in sequence. Before you read a sentence it is best to sit down and take some time to relax either through meditation or through silently watching your breath, which could take about five to ten minutes. After reading a new page, sit silently for another five to ten minutes and ponder the meaning of that particular sentence. If the meaning and the insight are immediately obvious, you should move to the next sentence. Otherwise keep that sentence alive in your awareness for an extended period of time, coming back to it again and again, keeping your attention on it and examining it until the meaning is clear or until a flash of insight comes to you. If you do this on a daily basis, taking one sentence a day, or moving at whatever pace suits you, the knowledge in these pages  will progressively unfold. Metabolized in this regular, incremental way, the knowledge will automatically lead to a shift in consciousness.
        
These exercises are the modern version of Gyana Yoga, which is the yoga of knowledge. A sutra is a statement that can cause a shift in consciousness. Sometimes it may appear to be full of contradictions, and perhaps seem irrational. Yet at the same time it can provide a better framework for understanding the nature of our physical world, and our true nature. If some of these statements seem contrary to common sense, this is because they are coming into conflict with your everyday experience of the world through your senses. This is the world you experience in the ordinary waking state of consciousness. But once understood and incorporated into your awareness, the sutras can lead to new insights that open the gateway to higher states of consciousness. Gyana Yoga, the yoga of knowledge, has often been considered the most difficult but also the most gratifying road to enlightenment. By walking the path laid out in the pages ahead, we can gain a glimpse of this higher state of reality. So let's begin.

Edition details

• Publisher: Gramercy
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0517222485
• ISBN 13: 9780517222485
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208