DEEPAK CHOPRA™ MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation , a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global , a whole health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. 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 the author of over 90 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book and national bestseller, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential (Harmony Books), unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. For the last thirty years, Chopra has been at the forefront of the meditation revolution and his latest book, Total Meditation (Harmony Book, September 22, 2020) will help to achieve new dimensions of stress-free living and joyful living. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”
Wanting to live in the present is something many people find frustrating. They are told that life renews itself in the present moment, that the burden of the past disguises the joy that is always available in the present. The problem is that these lovely promises are hard to translate into personal experience. You need to probe a little deeper to see what is really needed. There is wisdom in the now that isn’t revealed to the mind.
The arrival of a new year gives everyone a motivation to seek positive changes in their lives, but the impulse is quite often temporary. We all know and regret how New Year's resolutions look a week later. Even so, almost everyone makes a resolution—in America, at least—only to tell pollsters that more than 95% are soon reneged upon.
Because the three doshas describe the nature, or Prakriti, of each individual, they help to make your life choices more conscious—this applies very powerfully in making your communication skills better. Many psychologists would affirm that it takes emotional intelligence (EQ) to get a feeling for any situation where two or more people are speaking, yet Ayurveda anticipated this notion by thousands of years.
After the traumatic experience of the pandemic lockdown, people felt relief at emerging into a more normal life, but during that time relationships had seriously frayed, and domestic violence rose. The result was a questioning about what relationships would look like in the future. Instead of a return to the status quo, there is room for renewing the inspiration that makes a loving permanent relationship so valuable in the first place.
One reason that Ayurveda is holistic is that the doshas permeate everything—every quality in Nature, including human nature. We need to look beyond physical health to apply the doshas to how our emotions work, particularly when it comes to relationships and love.
Loving yourself is considered a key part of being happy and contented, but getting there is puzzling. Who is the self doing the loving, and how is it different from the self you are supposed to love? Aren’t they the same person? Yes, of course. But the problem lies in the divided self. The divided self is what causes inner conflict.
If you were asked to name a major crisis facing humanity right now, most people would include the environment at the top or near the top of the list. Thinking about climate change, how do you feel personally? The range of responses for most people is dominated by anxiety, a fear that Nature is approaching a disaster that seems inevitable. You might also feel depressed, helpless, and fatigued.
Because you are unique, adapting to the world is different for you than for someone else. One environment is beneficial to some people but not to others. If you want to practice self-care, this is a critical aspect. Ayurveda has been a self-care system for thousands of years, and understanding how your doshas work remains one of the best ways to practice self-care.
Abundance is a baffling issue for most people because they approach it from a place of scarcity and lack. Changing your perspective is the first step is achieving genuine abundance. How much financial success you now enjoy, even if it is considerable, doesn’t necessarily improve an inner feeling that underlies a sense of lack: This is the feeling of “I am not enough.” As long as this is your baseline belief, abundance will be elusive.
The three doshas are naturally dynamic, which means that they constantly respond to changes in your life. The biggest changes occur seasonally, and summer is the season when Pitta dosha is strongly affected, because heat and humidity are two qualities that summer shares with Pitta, which is warm and moist. Summer heat can easily aggravate Pitta, so you want to pay special attention during this season.