PR.com (Allison Kugel): I want to start by talking to you about meditation, because it’s pertinent to your new book, Buddha. I’ve heard you speak about what should be achieved during meditation. You speak a lot about how in the western world we consider the goal of meditation to be relaxation just because our lives are so crazy and busy. But you actually describe this space that exists in between our conscious thoughts. Can you elaborate on that?

Deepak Chopra: Yeah. The space between our conscious thoughts is referred to as a discontinuity. This is the ground of our existence and more and more it’s being recognized by a few scientists, that the essential nature of everything is a discontinuity. When you look at a table or a tree or a plant or a piece of rock, they too are made up of atoms. The atoms are subatomic particles and the subatomic particles emerge out of something and then disappear into the same place. So a few scientists are beginning to recognize that even though everything appears physical to us and our senses, at the most fundamental level of creation it’s a vibration. It’s something that is going on and off. The space between the two “ons” of every vibration is a discontinuity. That might be the ultimate ground of everything in the universe. So, that means that the discontinuity that exists between your thoughts is the ground of, not only your existence, but the ground of all existence. In other words, the consciousness that is at the background of your thoughts is the same consciousness which is at the background of all the intelligent activity of the whole universe.

PR.com: Does that mean that we’re all sharing the same consciousness?

Deepak Chopra: At the most fundamental level, yes. We’re all contained in a single consciousness. That consciousness has depth to it, so there’s a personal domain, there’s a collective domain and there’s a universal domain. Is the drop in the wave in the ocean the same thing? The answer is yes. They all share the same common bed.

PR.com: When we practice meditation, how can we reach that state?

Deepak Chopra: Well, there comes a moment, if you’re diligent with your meditation, there comes a moment where there are no thoughts and there is no device that is being used for meditation as well. In the eastern traditions, frequently the device that is used for mediation is called a mantra. Mantra is a sound that has no story attached to it. So if, for example, you mentally repeat the phrase, “Thy will be done,” that really has no story other then surrender. So if you keep mentally repeating something like that, it starts to compete with your thinking process. If you just stay with it very, very effortlessly, then there comes a time when the mantra and the thoughts kind of cancel each other out and your replacement is neither mantra nor thought.

PR.com: And then what is achieved in that state?

Deepak Chopra: Complete silence in the mind and therefore complete silence in the body as well; a state of unity consciousness. What separates you from others is your individual mind that manifests as your personal ego. So if you take that out of the way, there is nothing that separates you from anything else in existence. Now, we know from even fundamental particle physics that the space between subatomic particles or what you call the discontinuity is a field of possibilities. It’s a field where space, time, energy, information and matter all become one. It’s a field where there is uncertainty. It’s a field where there is creativity and it’s a field where there is something called observer effect. The means intention orchestrated fulfillment. It’s a state of consciousness. When consciousness is without thought content, then everything is unified.

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