Deepak Chopra - Spiritual Solutions: Answers to Lifes Greatest Challenges

A LSO BY D EEPAK C HOPRA

Creating Health

Return of the Rishi

Quantum Healing

Perfect Health

Unconditional Life

Journey into Healing

Creating Affluence

Perfect Weight

Restful Sleep

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

The Return of Merlin

Boundless Energy

Perfect Digestion

The Way of the Wizard

Overcoming Addictions

Raid on the Inarticulate

The Path to Love

The Seven Spiritual Laws for Parents

The Love Poems of Rumi (edited by Deepak Chopra; translated by Deepak Chopra and Fereydoun Kia)

Healing the Heart

Everyday Immortality

The Lords of the Light

On the Shores of Eternity

How to Know God

The Soul in Love

The Chopra Center Herbal Handbook (with coauthor David Simon)

Grow Younger, Live Longer (with coauthor David Simon)

The Deeper Wound

The Chopra Center Cookbook

(coauthored by David Simon and Leanne Backer)

The Angel Is Near

The Daughters of Joy

Gold for Enlightenment

Soulmate

The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire

Peace Is the Way

The Book of Secrets

Fire in the Heart

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga (with coauthor David Simon)

Magical Beginnings, Enchanted Lives

(coauthored by David Simon and Vicki Abrams)

Life After Death

Buddha

The Essential How to Know God

The Essential Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire

The Essential Ageless Body, Timeless Mind

The Third Jesus

Jesus

Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul

The Ultimate Happiness Prescription

Muhammed

The Soul of Leadership

War of the Worldviews (with Leonard Mlodinow)

Copyright 2012 by Deepak Chopra

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

Harmony Books is a registered trademark and the Harmony Books colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chopra, Deepak.
Spiritual solutions : answers to lifes greatest challenges / by Deepak Chopra.1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Spiritual life. I. Title. II. Title: Answers to lifes greatest challenges.
BL624.C47683 2012
204dc23 2011029750

eISBN: 978-0-307-71919-5

Jacket photograph by Jeremiah Sullivan

v3.1

To the hands that reach out,

and every hand that reaches back

E ver since my first days as a doctor, forty years ago, people have asked for answers. A medical treatment was what they wanted, but the reassurance and comfort that human contact could bring was just as valuable, perhaps even more so. Unless hes completely burned out, a physician sees himself as a rough-and-ready savior, yanking victims out of danger into a state of safety and well-being.

Im grateful for my years seeing patients, because I learned the difference between advice and solutions. People who are in trouble are rarely helped by advice. Crises dont wait; something very bad will happen if the right solution isnt found.

I kept the same standard in mind when writing this book. It began with people writing me with troubles on their minds. Their letters were sent from around the worldat one point I was answering questions daily or weekly from India, the United States, and many other locales, mostly through the Internet. Yet in a sense everyone was writing from the same place inside, where confusion and darkness had overwhelmed them. These people were hurt, betrayed, abused, misunderstood, ill, worried, anxious, and at times desperate. Sadly, that is the human condition, almost permanently for some people, but these feelings are always possible for people who are happy and contentedfor the moment.

I wanted to give answers that were lasting enough so that when for the moment changes, when crisis descends and a challenge must be faced, solid solutions were at hand. I call them spiritual solutions, but the term doesnt mean religious solutions, prayer, or surrender to God. Instead I envision a secular spirituality. This is the only way modern people will ever reconnect with their souls, or, to remove all religious overtones, their true selves.

What has a crisis done to you personally? Whatever the situation, you drew back, contracted inside, and felt the grip of anxiety. This state of contracted awareness is the enemy of finding a solution. Real solutions to a crisis come from expanded awareness. The inner feeling is no longer tight and fearful. Boundaries give way; fresh ideas have space to grow. If you are able to contact your true self, awareness has no boundaries. From that place, solutions emerge spontaneously, and they work. Often they work like magic, and obstacles that seemed immovable melt away. When that happens, the burden of anxiety and sorrow is lifted completely. Life was never meant to be a struggle. Life was meant to unfold from its source in pure awareness. If this book leaves only one lasting impression, thats the one Im hoping for.

Deepak Chopra

N o one will disagree that life brings challenges, but step back for a moment and ask the deeper question, which is why. Why is life so difficult? No matter what advantages you are born withmoney, intelligence, an appealing personality, a sunny outlook, or good social connectionsnone of these provides a magic key to an easy existence. Somehow life manages to bring difficult problems, the causes of untold suffering and struggle. How you meet your challenges makes all the difference between the promise of success and the specter of failure. Is there a reason for this, or is life simply a random series of events that keeps us off balance and barely able to cope?

Spirituality begins with a decisive answer to that question. It says that life isnt random. There is pattern and purpose inside every existence. The reason that challenges arise is simple: to make you more aware of your inner purpose.

If the spiritual answer is true, there should be a spiritual solution to every problemand there is. The answer doesnt lie at the level of the problem, even though most people focus all their energies at that level. The spiritual solution lies beyond. When you can take your awareness outside the place where struggle is ever-present, two things happen at the same time: your awareness expands, and with that, new answers begin to appear. When awareness expands, events that seem random actually arent. A larger purpose is trying to unfold through you. When you become aware of that purposewhich is unique for each personyou become like an architect who has been handed the blueprint. Instead of laying bricks and fitting pipes at random, the architect can now proceed with confidence that he knows what the building should look like and how to construct it.