Deepak Chopra - Teens Ask Deepak. All the Right Questions

Introduction
Asking All the Right Questions

How Spirit Works
(And It Does Work)

Success
Whats the Secret of Being Really Successful?

Well-Being
How Do I Find True Happiness?

Relationships
How Do I Fit In? Where Will I Find Love?

God
Does God Really Exist? How Can I Be Sure?

Postscript
For Ever and Ever

Every child that is born is proof that God
has not yet given up on human beings.

Rabindranath Tagore

I was shuffling through a pile of questions that teenagers had asked, and one popped to the surface. Its so easy to answer, and yet its so important that I knew I had to begin with this one.

Dear Deepak,

If you could change one thing about the history of our Earth, what would it be?

That question came from a fourteen-year-old boy. Now, what if you asked it, not to me, but to yourself? Theres a lot of changes you might wish for. You might wish that nobody had discovered gunpowder, since that led to such an enormous increase in terrible wars. You might wish that medicine had discovered cures for diseases centuries ago, or that every baby who had ever been born survived to lead a productive life.

But my answer would be different. When it comes down to one and only one choice, here is mine: I wish everyone knew from birth that they had a soul.

You might not think thats much of a change. Doesnt everyone already know they have a soul? Certainly everyoneor nearly everyoneis told that they have a soul. But being told and knowing are two different things.

If you truly knew you had a soul, you could change the world. Which is what Im inviting you to do. The world is changed from the inside. All the greatest people you can think of became great from the inside. Albert Einstein became great by dreaming in a new way about time and space. Leonardo da Vinci became great by imagining inventions that did not come to pass for hundreds of years (did you know that he sketched a helicopter four hundred years before the Wright brothers learned to fly?) and by having a vision of a new way to paint.

Yet there is a kind of greatness open to you right now, even if you think you are a very ordinary, average person. Its the greatness of living from your soul. What does that mean?

Imagine that you could have a thought and it would come true.

Imagine that you could feel safe and at peace, no matter what happened around you.

Imagine that you could love yourself as much as you wanted others to love youand more.

Imagine that you could wake up every day to greet a new world.

Imagine that you could feel the presence of God.

Anyone who achieved these things would be considered a great success in life. Im pretty sure that, as a teenager, you worry about how to make a good life for yourself. It can seem like an incredibly difficult project. But if all those things I asked you to imagine came true, wouldnt that be real success? Living from the level of the soul isnt about being goody-goody and hoping that God notices and smiles down on you. Its about the best kind of life you can possibly lead.

One fifteen-year-old boy asked a really important, basic question:

Dear Deepak,

What is the difference between religion and spirituality?

To me, they dont have to be different at all. To be religious and spiritual can and should be the same thing. But we have to be real here, and religion almost always means a traditional faith like Christianity or Islam or Judaism. Its practiced in groups. It takes place in churches or mosques or synagogues. There is a given set of beliefs, along with priests, scriptures, and services.