Are you sleepwalking through life? In this groundbreaking guide to spiritual and personal wellness, Deepak Chopra unveils profound discoveries on how we can connect with our true self and construct a life free from fear. Building on decades of spiritual teachings, Chopra illustrates through enlightening sutras how to move from a state of simply surviving to leading an awakened life that unlocks the dormant potential within each of us. He also offers a Wellbeing Index by which we can track our progress on this journey towards awakening, helping increase intuition, access to insight, and a growing sense of ourselves as constantly changing beings which are part of a larger whole.; Chopra''s <Awakening< not only invites you to embrace a new way of being--conscious reality--where miracles are everyday occurrences, but also offers visionary guidance to access the boundless potential of your soul, realized here and now. Ultimately, through the practices in <Awakening<, Chopra aims to propel all humanity toward an epoch of unprecedented transformation.

Autorentext

Deepak Chopra, MD

Klappentext

Are you sleepwalking through life? New York Times bestselling author Deepak Chopra offers an accessible, powerful guide to personal transformation so you can unlock the power of awakened consciousness and grasp your limitless potential.

“Awakening is powerful, practical, and life-changing—it shows us how to move beyond fear and step into freedom, purpose, and possibility.”—Jay Shetty, #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of the On Purpose podcast

In this groundbreaking guide to spiritual and personal wellness, Deepak Chopra unveils profound discoveries on how we can connect with our true self and construct a life free from fear. Building on decades of spiritual teachings, Chopra illustrates through enlightening sutras how to move from a state of simply surviving to leading an awakened life that unlocks the dormant potential within each of us. He also offers a Wellbeing Index by which we can track our progress on this journey towards awakening, helping increase intuition, access to insight, and a growing sense of ourselves as constantly changing beings which are part of a larger whole.

Awakening offers the power to free you from the limitations of ego into a life marked by inner and outer peace, purpose, and boundless possibility. Featuring mental exercises, meditations, and personal stories from his own spiritual journey, Chopra shakes us from the nightmare of a limited self, where worry and anxiety reign. 

Chopra's Awakening not only invites you to embrace a new way of being—conscious reality—where miracles are everyday occurrences, but also offers visionary guidance to access the boundless potential of your soul, realized here and now. Ultimately, through the practices in Awakening, Chopra aims to propel all humanity toward an epoch of unprecedented transformation.

Leseprobe
1.

The Eternal Promise

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As a child, I grew up in a family that was ecumenical to a fault. At one extreme was my religious mother, who went to temple in New Delhi every morning for her devotions. At the other extreme was my father, a Western-­trained doctor who went to his cardiology practice every morning and whose only religion was science. For some reason, this contradiction didn’t confuse me. Our house was open to people of all faiths, of which India has more than any other country. Some people came to sing hymns to the music of a harmonium in the living room; others gathered outside for a free medical consultation—­my father turned no one away for being poor.

Such openness of heart made an indelible impression on me. I didn’t realize, as I matured and followed in my father’s footsteps, that my mother stood for something I now know as the eternal promise. It is the promise of full awakening to who we really are. And who are we? We are the expression of pure, infinite, unbounded awareness. To a religious person like my mother, awakening reveals the divine presence in everything. A rationalist like my father might have accepted what the physicist Freeman Dyson once wrote: “God is what mind becomes when it passes the threshold of our comprehension.”

Without awakening, no one can reach the full potential of being human. In fact, it becomes impossible to know why we are here in the first place. Only as expressions of unbounded awareness do we find a timeless footing and a place in the cosmos.

The eternal promise is open to everyone without their conscious awareness. If the promise could speak, we’d hear a voice in our heads whispering, “Don’t you want to wake up?” But the voice is silent. Hardly anyone, just the smallest sliver of humanity, gets the message. Therefore, the eternal promise goes unfulfilled.

If we don’t hear the message, how do we even know that awakening exists? There are clues, beginning with the words of those who have awakened.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: Infinite.” (William Blake)

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” (Rumi)

“I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.” (Hafiz)

Blake, Rumi, and Hafiz are often described as mystical poets, but they are more accurately called awakened poets. Their words reflect the profound truths that awareness revealed to them. Awakening is not merely a poetic or mystical concept; it has real, tangible effects on a person’s life. Those who wake up often describe a profound sense of well-­being that touches every aspect of life—­mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. This deep connection between awareness and well-­being has been observed for centuries, but today we can actually measure it. Later in this book, we’ll explore a framework for assessing this transformation, helping you understand where you are on the path to awakening.

When people first encounter the idea of awakening, they often find it mystifying. And being mystified keeps them from diving any deeper. Yet the process of waking up is natural, and the path is not difficult. In fact, a small percentage of people awaken spontaneously. Looking back, they can pinpoint the exact day it happened, though why they were chosen remains a mystery no one can explain.

A hidden choice

The opposite of waking up is being asleep, not physically but by living unconscious of your true nature, hidden behind everyday existence. To be awake is to break out of the limited state of awareness that each of us occupies.

Sheer inertia makes today feel much like yesterday. We are immersed in a reality where waking up isn’t a choice, practically speaking, because we fall back in every situation on a host of behaviors that screen “real” reality. Pause to consider how the following list applies to you, not with an attitude of self-­judgment but by taking an honest look in the mirror.

How Much Are You Influenced?

Routine: a pattern of familiar default activity during the day

Habit: automatic behavior that runs on its own inertia, even when you want to change

Old conditioning: secondhand responses you picked up during childhood from your family

Stubborn beliefs: ingrained opinions you accept without examining them

Groupthink: things you say and do to conform with society

Ego needs: the priorities you set that look out for number one

Desire: the force behind wanting, craving, envy, and jealousy

External demands and duties: the things you do for money or to satisfy other people

Personal fears and inse…