You and the Power of One
By Deepak Chopra, MD, FACP, FRCP
Have you ever imagined what lies outside the universe, beyond the reaches of outer space? If not, pause for a moment, because the answer could determine your future, especially if you are on a spiritual path. Even if you aren’t, the answer has a huge bearing on who you think you are.
The English word “universe” is one version of a concept thousands of years old, the concept of the One. The One is everything that exists. It is the wholeness that is subdivided into parts, and nothing exists outside it or beyond it.
In an age of faith, the One was divine, identified with an all-knowing God that existed everywhere in creation. The One defined by the universe isn’t divine but material. The universe had comfortably held everything in existence until suddenly it didn’t, and what brought about this radical change was the Big Bang and the concept of an expanding universe. Every galaxy is rushing away from every other galaxy at tremendous speed.
The big bang didn’t simply create the physical “stuff” of creation in terms of matter and energy. It also created time and space. So as the galaxies rush apart, space itself is expanding. If you blow up a party balloon, it expands inside the space of a room. The universe isn’t like that. There is no space around it. If you can imagine being at the very edge of outer space, nothing lies outside it.
Or to be accurate, what lies outside it is inconceivable. The same applies to time. There was nothing before time began and nothing after time ends. Nothing, that is, that the human mind can conceive. If you take this a step further, the human mind can’t conceive of what came before matter and energy. Modern cosmology has attempted to remedy this problem by coming up with constructs like superstrings and the multiverse to fill in the unknown with something the human mind can grasp.
But that’s not where I’m heading. Somewhere in human evolution, the need for a conceivable world arose. Unlike animals that inhabit time and space without measuring it, that seek shelter from cold and heat instinctively without thinking, Homo sapiens couldn’t do without a world that was understandable. Words came bout for time and space, heat and cold, and thousands of other things.
This seems so natural that we don’t see how arbitrary the whole process was, and is. First of all, it became an ingrained habit to navigate through life using opposites: happy and sad, right and wrong, dark and light. Humans imposed either/or on reality, even though Nature doesn’t. Only humans ask about what lies outside the universe because we think that we are inside, and where there’s an inside, there has to be an outside, as far as your habit of thinking is concerned.
We also fell into the habit of assigning cause and effect to everything, which once again seems only natural. A ball doesn’t fly through the air unless somebody throws it; wood doesn’t burn unless it is set on fire. But this habit of thinking overlooks the fact that nothing causes the mind to obey cause and effect. Thoughts, emotions, insights, sensations, impulses, fears, wishes, dreams, and imagination come out of nowhere.
Once you look at it, the human need to live in a knowable world has overridden everything since history began to be recorded. Some concepts took hold only to be abandoned, such as the religious concept that God was the source of geometry, making it sacrilegious to claim that the stars and planets didn’t move in perfect circles. Einstein believed in the steady state universe, which had to be discarded once an expanding universe offered an explanation closer to reality.
But as we correct our outworn ideas, the biggest mistake has barely been addressed, the mistake of forcing reality to be conceivable. If we can’t think about something, we wrongly assume it can’t exist. In actuality, Nature has always been comfortable with the inconceivable. In whatever mysterious way that universes are born, it doesn’t make the slightest difference that human beings need it to be understandable.
We have forced reality to conform to what we want, which makes no sense. Leaving aside accusations of arrogance and solipsism, the simple fact is that we ourselves are inconceivable. We have infinite capacity for new thoughts, for example, even though infinity cannot be grasped by the mind, only turned into mathematical code. We are conscious, even though the brain, the physical instrument of consciousness, is constructed of the same common atoms and molecules that exist in clouds, trees, rocks, and other objects we don’t call conscious.
Now you can see the point of asking what lies outside the universe, because in reality, nothing lies outside human consciousness. “Outside” isn’t a concept that applies. Stop for a moment and ask yourself, “What lies outside the color blue? What lies outside happiness? What lies outside mathematics?” In all these cases, inside and outside are nothing more than concepts we have imposed mostly to keep things simple.
Because inside and outside are basic opposites in a setup where we are always thinking in opposites, people think that thoughts and feelings occur “in here” while the physical world is “out there.” For the sake of convenience, I’ve used this notion many times because it is simple and understandable. But there is no proof that the subjective world is “in here” while the objective world is “out there.”
The only way you experience reality is through your consciousness. This is obviously true about the subjective domain of sensations, thoughts, feelings, and images. But the same is true of the so-called physical world. Everything the five senses report — the brightness of light, the roar of thunder, the wetness of water — doesn’t exist without someone to experience it in consciousness.
It’s not a huge leap, therefore, to posit that consciousness is basic in creation, as innate as gravity yet far more fundamental. One cannot say that the universe is conscious, because this implies, mistakenly, that there is a cosmic mind inside creation. Consciousness isn’t inside or outside — it just is. In the same way, existence just is. If you want to reduce reality to its inconceivable truth, here it is. Existence and consciousness are inconceivable in the purest sense, having no end or beginning, no boundaries, no laws, no fixed properties, and no changing properties.
Then how did we get to the human need for a knowable world? What motivated us, among all living creatures? You might shrug your shoulders and say that we are just peculiar creatures, or point to the higher brain. But if you take seriously that there is no inside or outside to awareness, no inside or outside to the human mind, and therefore no inside or outside to you, a new world dawns. In this new world, humans are co-creators working from the same source, the field of consciousness that Nature works from. Then the phrase “You are the universe” begins to make sense as the only explanation anyone needs to understand the meaning of life and our purpose for being here.
DEEPAK CHOPRA, MD, FACP, FRCP, is a Consciousness Explorer and a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is the co-founder of DeepakChopra.ai, his AI twin and well-being advisor. He also co-founded Cyberhuman, a transformative suite of personalized health and well-being solutions. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego, and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is also an Honorary Fellow in Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. He is the author of over 95 books, translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers.
For the last thirty years, Chopra has been at the forefront of the meditation revolution. His mission is to create a more balanced, peaceful, joyful, and healthier world. Through his teachings, he guides individuals to embrace their inherent strength, wisdom, and potential for personal and societal transformation.
In his latest book, “Digital Dharma” (Harmony/Rodale), Chopra navigates the balance between technology and expanded awareness, explaining that while AI cannot duplicate human intelligence, it can vastly enhance personal and spiritual growth. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of their top 100 most influential people.” www.deepakchopra.com.
