Deeppak chopra: We Exist In God's Mind

[Linux]

I don’t agree with all of his conclusions, however he has some interesting points on what is and what is not objective physical reality. And I would like to discuss the implications of his thought.

A fruitful discussion will require you to watch the video. Thanks.

huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/we-exist-in-gods-mind_b_604476.html

Also, in regards to the title of this thread, I would like to discuss the implications of existing in Gods mind as opposed to existing outside Gods mind. Which one makes more sense.

 

[Glomung]

I don’t have the time to waste watching anything Chopra coughed up, but without seeing the film, I can say that the main issue would be his defintion of “mind”. If you look at the world from a New Age point of view, where “all is one and one is all”, the yes, we are part of God’s mind.

But if your worldview is Christian, you would understand that we are very much seperate from God, and God’s mind is His own. I know that I am a distinct, created, very much alone in my mind, being. What Chopra might be, I’m not sure.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I don’t agree with all of his conclusions, however he has some interesting points on what is and what is not objective physical reality. And I would like to discuss the implications of his thought.

A fruitful discussion will require you to watch the video. Thanks.

huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/we-exist-in-gods-mind_b_604476.html

Also, in regards to the title of this thread, I would like to discuss the implications of existing in Gods mind as opposed to existing outside Gods mind. Which one makes more sense.

First of all Mr. Chopra’s concept of reality is indeed noble. Unfortunately it is wrong and of course contrary to Catholic Doctirne. Secondly, his idea of reality is purely speculative, it is his opinion but one that is shared by many others ( can’t say how many but a minority.)

It is true however that our knowledge of reality is known by the data given by things outside of ourselves. This is truely expressed, as he says, by various electrical impulses, waves, etc. However these " impulses of energy, etc. " come from really existing things. He ignores this point. But this fact is not ignored by our minds.

These " impulses " are received by our bodily sense perceptors and organized by our intellects into an idea or concept of reality. Our intellect judges that these organized concepts indicate a really existing thing or universe of really existing things. Then comparing one concept with others in communion with the wide universe of other intellects, concludes to a really existing universe more or less along the lines expressed by science ( genus, species, difference, particular entities, and various micro and nano, entities).

If this were not so, we could not function at all in our universe. If this were not so science could not exist.

Chopra confuses " consciousness " with intellect or mind and gratuitously assumes that all our consciousnesses are one and this one world consciousness is a " reality " existing in the mind of God or some higher power. We should be aware here that he is mixing certain Eastern religious or philosophical ideas with reality.

Catholic Doctrine and Catholic philosophers and theologians would agree that the Ideas of the created universe exist in the Wisdom of God’s Existence but not as really existing things. God knows our universe as an Idea existing in the Divine Intellect but he did in fact create a universe of physical reality corresponding to his Eternal Idea, and this physical universe exists OUTSIDE of God’s mind.

So essentially Chopra’s world is a purely spiritual world as opposed to a physical world, though he tries to have it both ways. But he cannot have it both ways. Either the world is truely physical or it is purely spiritual, nothing but a collection of ideas that exist in the mind of God. Chopra’s world is a kind of inverted Pantheism. It exists in God rather than God existing in the world.

Though his concept is very elevated, it is wrong.
You will get a lively debate on this one.

 

[Julia_Mae]

I don’t agree with all of his conclusions, however he has some interesting points on what is and what is not objective physical reality. And I would like to discuss the implications of his thought.

A fruitful discussion will require you to watch the video. Thanks.

huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/we-exist-in-gods-mind_b_604476.html

Also, in regards to the title of this thread, I would like to discuss the implications of existing in Gods mind as opposed to existing outside Gods mind. Which one makes more sense.

It does give a whole new meaning to the greeting, “Yo! What’s the haps?” Maybe it will come back into common use?..

Okay, maybe not. But what he is saying is what’s been said by so many for so long and science is now beginning to finally affirm: there’s nothing here. When we say “God created the universe from nothingness” … He did. So it shouldn’t surprise us when we are finally able to confirm that once you analyze all the stuff and things down to their most basic form you just get a lot of energy. What’s energy? Well, nothing, really, because energy always has an adjective attached to it like “mechanical” or “chemical” or “electrical.”

Energy is, in fact, potential. What initiates so that potential is realized? God. The mind of God is Divine Intent. Time/space exists and is maintained by God’s intent. Ergo: all that exists, exists in the Mind of God.

Reality, as we call it, is relative. The sun is a complex interaction of energy, just like you are. That bee he was speaking of may perceive it differently, but then, the bee doesn’t know he is perceiving it.

It’s true that what we call matter (which actually includes all forms of expressed energy) is a single mass, and if you analyze all things down, there are no boundaries. But what’s also true, is that only we know we perceive and only we are relative, in this state, to God as well as everything else. That means only we can choose Godliness.

Bees know God and do His will perfectly because they are bees and have no choice. If you think about it in these terms it becomes obvious that the only thing that actually exists in Time is our individual consciousnesses. (Say that word ten times fast!)

Padre Pio walked on air and Jesus walked on water because they understood the true nature of reality: there’s no difference between the air, the water and the floor.

 

[utunumsint]

I don’t agree with all of his conclusions, however he has some interesting points on what is and what is not objective physical reality. And I would like to discuss the implications of his thought.

A fruitful discussion will require you to watch the video. Thanks.

huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/we-exist-in-gods-mind_b_604476.html

Also, in regards to the title of this thread, I would like to discuss the implications of existing in Gods mind as opposed to existing outside Gods mind. Which one makes more sense.

I like the two previous responses.

I would point out that nothing exists eternally of itself, in the Catholic point of view (except God, of course). Everything ultimately depends on the will of God, both for its creation and its continued existence. So, to focus on your specific point, I would say that there is no “objective physical reality” if by this you mean an eternal uncreated reality apart or independent from God.

That said, Deeppak seems to be making some conflicting statements. On one side, he reduces all consciousness to neurons and electro-magenetic interactions in the brain. On the other side hand, he says there is really no physical world (although he seems to affirm some primal substance that the world is made up of sub-atomic events that physicists call happenings???). Perhaps, because we all ultimately partake in these same sub-atomic events, that is why he tries to collapse all consciousness into one “God consciousness”. But I think, like the Sufi mystic he quotes near the end, that this is a path to disintegration and insanity. To try to identify oneself with this “God consciousness” is to lose perspective on our createdness, our realness. I am not God. I cannot shape this reality to my will (except within the limitations proper to me, given to me by God), or, as Jesus said about the birds or flowers in the field, nothing happens to them without God willing it, or permitting it. None of us are in the position of God.

This really is a mystical question and touches on mystical experience. On the one hand, in Christian mystical experience, there are visions of God that so terrify and humble the mystics that they can only say, we are nothing. But on the other hand, usually from those same mystics, they have an all encompassing awareness of the love that God has for them that does not destroy their individuality, but completes and fulfills it. As Augustine said, our hearts are restless until they rest in God.

There is also the doctrine that Jesus himself had two wills. A divine will and a human will that was perfectly aligned with the divine will. Jesus the man, is not consumed by God. He truly is human. He is not collapsed into the divine as though the divine were some monstrous black hole sucking up everything in its path.

No, I believe that God made us individuals. We are ultimately dependent on God and one another, but that does not destroy our uniqueness.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough I think.
God bless,
Ut