DEBORAH ROBERTS: The mysteries of the universe, in fact existence itself have always fascinated us.

Where did we come from?

How did we get here?

Who are we?

Exploring these eternal questions has been the goal of Dr. Deepak Chopra for his entire career.

Board-certified endocrinologist, Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and best-selling author of more than 90 books.

He's a trusted guide in the journey toward a greater understanding of ourselves.

DEEPAK CHOPRA: The great peak experience, the experience of transcendence, which means going beyond thought, to the source of thought and source of experience.

What is the source?

And it turns out the source is your own inner self beyond the conditioned mind.

That's metahuman.

ROBERTS: On this life-changing quest for higher consciousness and a more fulfilling existence, he is joined by luminaries from some of the most revered educational establishments in the fields of neuroscience, behavioral psychology, and public health - as well as with researchers who are on the cutting-edge of the science of cognition and consciousness.

I'm Deborah Roberts.

Join me on this journey toward new levels of awareness, life with more joy, and a more fulfilling existence in Deepak Chopra: Becoming MetaHuman.

[Music] I'm Deborah Roberts.

Metahuman... it's a curious word, isn't it?

Well in the next hour, we're going to explore its meaning and whether it is the key to greater calm, greater sense of purpose, greater joy and happiness.

Becoming Metahuman involves three phases of enlightenment - Number 1- Understanding Your Self; Number 2 - Mastering Reality, and Number 3: Going Beyond Existence.

With each phase, there are action steps that any of us can take to help them access these realms.

Unlike most destinations, though, the path to Becoming Metahuman doesn't exist on a map.

It's a path that travels deeply inward.

And begins fairly close to home - it starts with you.

PHASE ONE -- Understanding Your Self.

We begin with a deeper look at the biological machinery that drives us - the brain.

RICK HANSON: Seven major systems in the brain - one, the executive system, the para-sympathetic nervous system, third the memory systems, fourth the attentional systems, fifth the emotion systems.

The empathic attunement systems.

And then last the self-systems, the systems having to do with identity.

Each one of those systems has different qualities and by understanding a little bit about it through the new neuroscience, etcetera, you can intervene in it more effectively.

ROBERTS: Let's take a closer look at that last one -- the self-systems.

CHOPRA: The most common word we use in any language is "I."

I am Deepak Chopra.

I am a doctor.

I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a brother.

I'm a writer.

I was once a child; I was once a baby.

The body was different when you were a baby, the mind was different, the personality was different.

So you couldn't be the body-mind-personality because it's constantly shifting.

What remains is "I."

ROBERTS: Looking behind the curtain of identity, Dr. Chopra says, is the first action to Understanding Your Self.

In fact, understanding your self requires you to get outside of yourself.

Dr. Chopra offers a way to shift your perspective.

CHOPRA: Ask yourself right now, who is having this experience?

Now, I can't convince you that you don't exist.

No one can be convinced that they don't exist, okay?

So, the fact is, you exist, and you have an awareness of existence, but you can't be found in the body because you're not in the body.

You can't be squeezed into the volume of a body or the span of a lifetime.

That's just an experience.

ROBERTS: Understanding your SELF as an experience rather than a tangible object, Dr. Chopra says, is critical.

CHOPRA: The seer is the silent witnessing awareness that never changes like the bed of the ocean, which is silent, the surface of the ocean is changing.

The ground of existence never changes.

We call it I. MARTHA BECK: There's a wonderful quote from an Indian sage named Nisargadatta Maharaj.

I really like this because westerners really don't-- we don't have so much of a concept of being apart from the self and yet being the true self.

So, here's what Nisargadatta said: "“Mind is interested in what happens, while awareness is interested in the mind itself.

The child is after the toy, but the mother watches the child, not the toy.

"” So, the mind is after its thoughts, after its feelings, but the awareness watches the thoughts and feelings as a mother watches the child playing with his toys.

And the mother is always joyful.

MICHELLE WILLIAMS: I love the concept of consciousness, starting with the individual and rippling out like rings in a pond and what that does.

We all have a social contract.

Behavior not only impacts holistic health, but the health of others.

That consciousness and that awareness of one's impact on the health and wellness of community members.

It is an act of compassion.

And that compassion begins with self but goes outward to others.

ROBERTS: Dr. Chopra often says that "We are timeless beings having a time-bound experience."

Connecting to that experience, he says, requires a practice for our life.

Many spiritual practices are designed to bring you closer to understanding your true self.

ELISSA EPEL: We've evolved the ability to have metacognition, to actually watch our thoughts as they arise, we can realize that thoughts are just thoughts.

There's this development that we can lead ourselves through, by training the mind with different Mind Body techniques, in particular meditation, where we get to understand the mind RICHARD DAVIDSON: Buddhist psychology, Buddhist philosophy, Buddhist practices are very much designed to rid the mind of delusion and what delusion is referring to is inaccurate perceptions of reality, and distorted perceptions of reality, and I think that through various kinds of mental practices we can begin to see things more clearly, we can begin to perceive the world in ways that are less filtered by our emotional biases and expectations.

GRETCHEN RUBIN: Everything doesn't look the same to everyone.

Something that might seem perfectly obvious to you might look completely different to someone else.

Think about what other reasons they could have for what they do, ask direct questions, express direct desires, and question your own beliefs, because what seems to you to be perfectly obvious, might not be at all the way other people perceive a reality.

EPEL: We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.

And so when we can really understand that it does give us a sense of both humbleness, but also just curiosity for really being a better observer, and being a better scientist of ourselves and of the nature of reality.

ROBERTS: The source of your Self is often thought to be your identity.

But when we look closer at this concept, we can see that there is more to it than previously imagined.

This is also at the heart of Becoming Metahuman.

CHOPRA: Meta means beyond.

Metahuman means beyond the conditioned human mind.

As soon as you're born, you're given an identity.

And so, now you're boxed into that identity.

And you see the world through that filtered identity.

And basically, that identity is imposed on you.

It's a provisional identity.

What's behind that identity is what spiritual traditions call consciousness or awareness or soul or spirit, or the unknowable, they have different words for it.

Ein Sof, God, Brahmin, it doesn't matter what the word is.

EPEL: This sense that our thoughts are absolutely reflective of reality is based in our need to create a reality, like there's no uncertainty about our experience.

But the actual reality is that, whoa, this perceptual machinery that we have been given is both amazing and very limited.

CHOPRA: So who are we?

We are timeless beings having a time bound experience, we're infinite beings having a finite experience.

The finite experience cannot limit our capacity for infinite more experiences.

Just like a wave cannot limit the ocean.

The ocean is not bound by its production, a wave or a drop, or a river.

The ocean remains the ocean even though it expresses itself in all these forms.

ROBERTS: That essence of existence in time, Dr. Chopra says, is encapsulated in the concept of the "“Body-Mind.

"” CHOPRA: The body-mind is actually an instrument of observation, okay?

And this body-mind takes infinite possibilities and localizes experience in space and time depending on the biological organism.

So, everything you see in the world right now, all the turbulence we see, we are seeing it through the divided, fragmented, conditioned mind.

ROBERTS: Our conditioned mind can be impacted through our own interventions.

It's linked to our own neurology; therefore, we have a powerful tool where changing how we think can actually change our lives.

One of those tools, is step three - Creating a plan for stress.

This gives us better control over our body-mind.

And fortunately - it's something any of us can do.

[Music] SUSAN FOLKMAN: How do people get through very difficult time?

We did this large study in San Francisco of the care giving partners of men with AIDS.

At a time when there were no effective treatments.

It was a horrendous disease, but they found a way to stop the stress, take advantage of a positive moment that might ordinarily just go by without notice, infuse it with meaning, put the brakes on, and feel good for just a moment.

We hypothesized that positive emotions could provide respite, they could restore resources, and they could provide motivation for continuing with whatever it is that you're coping with.

All of us who participated in the research now have learned from them how to do many of these strategies ourselves.

We reframe things in a positive way.

We reframe the situation to see what the possibilities are rather than what the losses are.

You look at the outcomes in different ways and these are very teachable skills.

And I don't think it is difficult for anyone to learn how to do these kinds of strategies.

[Music] WILLIAMS: Deepak tells the story of trying to understand why young African American kids walking around neighborhoods would be so clenched would be so sort of aggressive.

And this question led him to work with others to bring meditation and yoga into the lives of young urban kids in New York City.

Turns out that meditation and yoga helps to de-stress people in an environment that is very stressful.

So, you know, I think green space is important but just being seen, being heard, being valued can bring change in people's lives.

ROBERTS: We can manage stress by thinking differently - and engaging our Body-Mind.

This helps connect us to our true self so that we can better understand where the self exists within the universe.

CHOPRA: There's a poem of Rumi he says, "“By God, when you see your beauty, you'll be in love with yourself.

"” He's talking about the spirit, the meta reality, which is eternal unfolding into what we call the universe, which includes our body mind as part of the process.

ROBERTS: According to Dr. Chopra, the body-mind and the universe are the scenery.

The YOU at the center of that is the observer, the seer.

CHOPRA: And that seer can't be found in space-time.

And because it can't be found in space-time, it's timeless, it's prior to space-time.

The person is a process in awareness.

ROBERTS: Awareness is the heart of the body-mind.

Removing obstacles toward your awareness actually gets you closer toward understanding Self.

Step four is about removing these obstacles by questioning limiting beliefs.

RUBIN: You're not even consciously aware of the fact that you even have this belief, but it limits your sense of possibility and opportunity, because you think that there's something that you just can't do or there's just something that's not possible, where in fact, it might be very possible.

EPEL: We all have a inner critic, and without awareness, it may go on and on and inhibit our life and make us limit what we can do and who we can be.

There is a different way to look at our thoughts and treat our thoughts and that is with self-compassion, with a compassionate attitude.

ROBERTS: How we think is critical to our self.

You might be surprised to know that the source of your thoughts can actually be harnessed when you know your true self.

CHOPRA: Most people when they have a thought, they're just recycling everybody else's thought.

So, no one has an original thought.

If they do, it's disruptive, E=MC2, the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, Beethoven, Van Gogh, the Mona Lisa, these are disruptive, creative experiences that come from a mode of knowing that goes right to the source of knowing.

ROBERTS: And that source of knowing, Dr. Chopra says, is predicated on existence.

Artists and innovators access disruptive and original thoughts by harnessing the power of awareness.

CHOPRA: So, the mystery of existence is twofold.

One, that there is existence.

Two, there is awareness and knowing of existence.

If you didn't know that there is existence, then for practical purposes, there isn't existence.

So, awareness and knowing of existence and existence go together, they're synonymous.

And what happens is when you get to the source of this existence.

you go beyond the sacred mind, go beyond the dark alleys and the conditioning, which is historical and imposed and provisional, you end up with an infinite field of possibilities.

ROBERTS: Creativity happens when you understand your true self.

The awareness of existence opens up the field of infinite possibilities which can give you the power to direct your mind positively.

It's called mindfulness.

[Music] ROBERTS: Harvard University researcher Ellen Langer did some of the breakthrough scientific studies on the impact of mindfulness on people.

ELLEN LANGER: The work that I've been doing is really mindfulness that comes from a western scientific perspective, it's not incompatible with anything from the east and ideas of meditation, but it's different, essentially all it is, is actively noticing new things.

ROBERTS: Fortunately for us all, mindfulness doesn't require any special equipment, but it can require changes in your awareness.

LANGER: The first thing is to recognize that the things you think you know you don't know at all because everything is changing, things look different from different perspectives, they change over time and so the things that you're most certain of you need to get a healthier respect for uncertainty and when you're uncertain then you naturally tune in.

WILLIAMS: Then you have the agency to overcome the everyday stress, and even the epic stressors that tend to define our lives as humans on this planet.

Mindfulness comes out of being conscious.

EPEL: There are a lot of benefits.

Number one is people feel better.

And what does that mean in the body, they're actually having more healthy stress responses, having a deeper quality of sleep.

And it can also improve the quality of our relationships.

We are actually slowing the aging process.

We know that from some of the telomere studies.

So, if we can be taking these restorative pauses, our body listens and responds.

LANGER: When you're actively noticing new things, you become fully engaged and that's, it doesn't get much better than that.

[Music] ROBERTS: Mindfulness is the ultimate awareness and greatest understanding of your true self.

Dr. Chopra says it's the first phase toward becoming metahuman.

By harnessing your awareness, and your awareness of self, you open up to the infinite world of possibilities.

When we come back, we'll continue to explore all these possibilities.

Stay with me for the second phase and to learn more of the secrets of consciousness -- when Deepak Chopra: Becoming Metahuman returns.

DEBORAH ROBERTS: Welcome back to Deepak Chopra: Becoming Metahuman.

Hi, I'm Deborah Roberts.

So far, we've learned the first phase toward Becoming Metahuman, Understanding Your Self.

This knowledge opens the doors toward awareness - but even more than that, it removes obstacles that prevent us from becoming metahuman.

In the time-bound experience that we are all having right now many of us are struggling with what it means to simply be human.

That struggle takes us to the second phase of Becoming Metahuman: Mastering Reality.

One of the keys to reality is understanding matter -- and consciousness.

DEEPAK CHOPRA: Based on this human concept called matter, we're trying to figure out how does this conglomeration of atoms and molecules produce the mind?

How does it produce insight, intuition, inspiration, self-reflection, creativity, vision, a desire to know the meaning of existence?

How do molecules dancing in the brain do that?

That's called the hard problem of consciousness.

All science begins with an assumption that the physical world is real, not realizing that it's a mental construct in human consciousness for modes of knowing and experience in human consciousness.

DON HOFFMAN: No theory can explain everything.

And so, there are these assumptions.

So they say, grant us that space-time and unconscious matter is the fundamental nature of reality.

Then we can explain a lot of other stuff.

We can explain the emergence of chemistry, biology, life, and eventually consciousness.

I assume consciousness is fundamental.

[Music] CHOPRA: Think of this, planet Earth is not even a speck of cosmic dust in an infinite void somewhere in what we have now created, the junkyard of infinity.

So, planet Earth is not even one grain of sand in all the beaches of the world in all the deserts of the world.

One grain of sand.

Two trillion galaxies, 700 sextillion stars, uncountable trillions of planets.

Here we are sitting on a speck of cosmic dust trying to figure out who we are, when 96% of the universe is invisible dark energy and dark matter.

So, what's the universe made of?

Nothing.

Why does it look like this?

Because consciousness is also made of nothing.

Why does mathematics work?

Because both mathematics and what we call the physical universe are human constructs, we made them up just like we made up latitude and longitude and Greenwich Mean Time, and the dollar, and Wall Street and kings and queens, and democracy.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: We invented mathematics with the remarkable fact that it is the language of the universe.

And we learn that our understanding of the universe can be mapped into mathematical formulation so that when you manipulate equations, you're manipulating the universe.

That's how you can make predictions.

If, if I have a theory of the universe and it's correct, but I don't know it's correct yet, I make a mathematical model of it.

Now I maneuver equations and in so doing, it's as though I'm maneuvering what is possible in the universe and I say, "“Hey, if I do this with the equations, this pops out.

This is new kind of object.

Let's look for this in the universe.

Hey, I just found it.

Oh my gosh.

"” So the math allows you to make logical deductions from a statement of what the universe is and that statement is the theory.

CHOPRA: We forget, these are human constructs, but even the physical universe, even the physical body, is a human construct for modes of knowing and experience in human consciousness that come from self-reflection and come from getting in touch with our own inner self.

But you ask yourself, How did the random movement or unpredictable movement of atoms end up creating a universe that is fine-tuned for life and mind, so precisely fine-tuned that if anything was mathematically off, even with a decimal point, the ratio of the gravitational force to the electromagnetic force, I wouldn't be having this conversation.

So, I think evolutionary biology is undergoing a little bit of existential crisis.

Francis Collins, the head of the NIH, who is in charge of the genome project, he coined a word, "theistic evolution," again basically that it's influenced by consciousness.

We can say very surely that at least human evolution right now is based on conscious choices.

Human evolution is based on the choices we make, this is the science of epigenetics.

ROBERTS: Epigenetics is a burgeoning field in scientific study that points to the ways that the actions we take can actually influence our own genetic past and future.

CHOPRA: The choices you make actually trigger the activity of certain genes into certain activity and decrease the activity.

Neuroplasticity.

If you can change the neural networks of your brain and change the activity of your genes just by choosing the experience consciously, you are basically now participating in your evolution.

It's driven by consciousness.

ROBERTS: Because human consciousness directly impacts our future - the way we think, in fact, our very patterns of thought can actually have tremendous effects -- both positive and negative.

SAM MAGLIO: We can absolutely get stuck in patterns of thought, or what a psychologist would call a mindset.

An experience at some earlier point locks us into seeing the world in a certain way and interpreting subsequent actions and events in the world through that lens.

ROBERTS: So, the narrative that we construct from these thoughts can actually influence our experience.

MARTHA BECK: Every life can be told either as the drama of the victim or the drama of the hero because, as Winston Churchill said about history, "“every life is just one damn thing after another.

"” Every life is problematic.

But you can receive that as the victim, or you can receive that as the hero and make it an adventure.

And the victim is totally miserable because of circumstances and the hero is excited and adventurous and wild because of exactly the same circumstances.

So, it's a choice about how we tell the story of our lives.

ELISSA EPEL: We choose where we want to direct our attention, and what we think affects our body and our stress response and our health.

So, our cells are listening to our thoughts.

They're listening.

So, what do you want to tell them?

It's this magic trick that you can do on yourself by recognizing the power of your thoughts.

ROBERTS: The first step toward mastering reality is practicing the conditions of happiness.

FRED LUSKIN: Compassion, tolerance, mercy, forgiveness, those are all practices of conditions of happiness so we orient this within that framework and simply say what you practice during your day will end up being how happy you are at the end of that day.

ROBERTS: What we practice - and how we perceive what we practice changes how we experience reality.

This process is called "“reframing.

"” GRETCHEN RUBIN: One thing that you hear a lot about talk of is reframing, that if you reframe a situation, it's going to feel very different to you.

Now, I thought, "Oh gosh, you know sure, reframing, "but the reality is the reality.

"And, like, what difference is it going to make?"

But actually, reframing can completely transform your experience of your life.

The idea of doing a project is a metaphor that really resonates for some people.

And some people absolutely turns them off.

So, people say to me, "Oh, doing a happiness project, that sounds like homework.

That doesn't sound like fun."

But to me, it's a very appealing metaphor.

Other people talk about the journey.

Happiness is a journey.

Well, the journey metaphor leaves me cold.

Even small differences in vocabulary.

So for instance, are you going to practice piano or are you going to play piano?

Which one sounds more fun to you?

The way that our imaginations shape our reality is extraordinarily important.

ROBERTS: In fact, listening to lessons from wisdom traditions helps us decouple our preconceived notions of reality as one thing, which can be its own limiting belief.

CHOPRA: There's a Sanskrit word, Sat Chit Ananda, in ancient wisdom traditions.

Sat means the truth that we exist, period.

Chit means knowing that we exist, awareness of existence.

Ananda is eternal bliss that comes from knowing that you are limitless, you have no limitations.

Every limitation you have is a human construct based on a narrow band of perceptual activity that we call reality.

What is reality to a snake that is navigating experience through infrared radiation?

What is reality to a bat that experiences the world through the echo of ultrasound.

What we are seeing is a very narrow band of perceptual activity and how we interpret it on planet Earth, this speck of dust in this infinite existence.

And we call it reality.

That by the way, in the philosophy of science is called naive realism.

And naive realism means that the picture of the world is exactly what it is.

It isn't.

The picture of the world depends on who's looking, what kind of brain they have, what kind of perceptual apparatus it is.

There's no one fixed picture of the world.

ROBERTS: In order to master reality, human beings have always used the power of stories.

It helps in the process of reframing, but it also shapes our past, present and future.

Stories are the building blocks of reality.

CHOPRA: Human beings are the only species at least on our planet that like to tell stories.

So the first stories were gossip.

The second stories were mythology.

The third stories were religion, which is cultural mythology.

Then we move to theology and philosophy and now science.

ROBERTS: It might seem that science has the best chance of assisting us in this investigation and mastery of reality.

But the truth is not so simple.

CHOPRA: Science is a story that we are telling about how we experience what we call reality.

But it's still a story.

Ask yourself what came first, consciousness or science?

Okay, obviously, the answer is, if you don't have consciousness, there's no science.

So, science is a particular story that is trying to interpret perceptual experiences as the physical world and it's a very useful story.

EPEL: Science is one of many tools that we can use to discover reality.

But we cannot understand our lives and ourselves and the nature of the world with just the scientific method.

We need to widen our perspective, and listen to other ways of knowing, other disciplines, other cultures, the expressive arts that humans have created.

It turns out that there is wisdom from all of these sources of ways of knowing.

CHOPRA: Now, science is the best story we have because it works.

It predicts experiments and what will happen in the future.

But science is not asking who or what is asking the question.

As long as we do not include the observer as part of the observation, our science is incomplete.

A holistic science will include consciousness and experience and interpretation of experience.

Then we will have a complete science.

And the day is coming.

ROBERTS: And the frontiers of science are continually expanding.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: There's a frontier of science.

That's why we have scientists, research scientists, to get to the edge of what is known.

So, there's always things we can't explain.

That doesn't mean it's unexplainable.

CHOPRA: We extend the range of our senses through telescopes and microscopes, but we still have to experience something and then figure out what it is.

My personal take on technology, smartphones, internet, so called distractions is that technology is part of human evolution and it's unstoppable.

You can't stop the progress and evolution of technology.

And we can rewire it through self-awareness for a more peaceful, just, sustainable, healthier and joyful world.

All you need is a critical mass of people waking up.

And technology will be our ally.

But science is not giving it a glimpse into fundamental reality.

Science is the interpretation of perceptual experiences in human beings with human brains.

And beyond that, by the way, is one consciousness.

Who or what is it that is the source of all experience, the source of thought, the source of perception, the source of any experience, feelings, sensations, images, imagination?

What is the source if not consciousness?

So, consciousness is the meta reality behind the conditioned human mind.

The real reality, as Rumi said, is behind the curtain, behind the conditioned mind, meta-reality, metahuman.

ROBERTS: According to Dr. Chopra mastering reality is the gateway toward Becoming Metahuman.

When we come back, we'll walk through that gateway, as we go even further down the path, and learn the third and final phase that takes us beyond existence.

Stay with us for more Deepak Chopra: Becoming Metahuman.

DEBORAH ROBERTS We're back with Deepak Chopra, Becoming Metahuman.

I'm Deborah Roberts.

So far, we've explored the importance of understanding your self and the second phase toward becoming metahuman, mastering reality.

Dr. Chopra says to truly become metahuman though, you need to master the final phase, which goes beyond existence.

That begins with consciousness.

MICHELLE WILLIAMS: The personal agency that one has in understanding how their way of living and engaging in the world, not only impacts their own health and well-being, but the ecosystem around them.

That for me is consciousness, awareness.

And with that awareness comes agency, and with that agency comes an understanding of the balance of self in the world.

DEEPAK CHOPRA: At some point, you're going to have an existential crisis, doesn't matter who you are.

Somebody dies in the family or you get diagnosed with an illness or you get old and you're looking at infirmity and death.

And at that point, you start to say, what's this all about?

Is it true as Wittgenstein said, "Life is a dream, we are asleep, but once in a while we wake up just enough to know we're dreaming."

So, if you're not prepared, you will suffer at some point.

All wisdom traditions say that human suffering comes not knowing your true self number one.

Number two, grasping and clinging at a constructed reality, which is a series of perceptual snapshots that are evanescent, ephemeral, ungraspable, uncatchable.

Number three, fear of impermanence.

Number four, identifying with your ego.

And number five, the fear of death.

ROBERTS: To alleviate suffering, Dr. Chopra says you should follow the path toward Becoming Metahuman.

First- know your true self.

Second, master reality.

And third, address impermanence and death by going beyond your own existence, going outside your own ego.

This leads to a process of self-inquiry.

CHOPRA: Who am I?

What do I want?

What's my purpose?

What am I grateful for?

What do I really want?

How do I get happiness?

ROBERTS: One step toward creating happiness is expressing gratitude.

GRETCHEN RUBIN: Research shows that people who regularly experience gratitude are happier, they're healthier.

There's just something about remembering everything that we have to be grateful for that really does boost our happiness.

ROBERTS: No surprise, social science research shows that this simple practice can have profound effects.

SONJA LYUBOMIRSKY: My laboratory did a number of experiments showing that when people count their blessings or especially.

When people write gratitude letters on a regular basis, in a genuine, sincere way that makes people feel happier, more connected.

When you express gratitude and you do acts of kindness, those foster connections with other people.

ELISSA EPEL: Gratitude is like a tonic.

It's like a shift in perspective, so that we don't feel so stress reactive, it actually reduces our stress reactivity, because it adds this different perspective.

And remember our thoughts are what creates the misery or the joy and appreciation.

So, what will you choose when you wake up?

ROBERTS: Expressing gratitude is the first half of the equation.

The second, creating a practice.

As with any behavior that you want to start in your life - whether it's reducing stress, or forgiveness, it's the habit forming that is critical.

Creating a practice has actually a neurological basis for success.

LOUISA JEWELL: What happens is when we replace habits with different habits, then that hardwiring starts to disappear and we see new wirings taking place in our brain.

I live in Canada.

We know the first person who goes down the toboggan on the hill in the snow, it's kind of hard to get down the hill because there's so much snow.

Once 100 kids have gone down that track, wow, it's like you're flying.

That's exactly what's happening in our brains.

So, when I'm going through a hard time now, it's very easy for me to use gratitude in that moment because I've been practicing it.

Often times, I don't even know I'm doing it.

It's just my perspective on the world.

I see the sun coming through the window, and I'm already feeling such tremendous gratitude.

ROBERTS: In the process of self-inquiry, scientists and philosophers are investigating the roots of thought.

DON HOFFMAN: We can take a unit called a transcranial magnetic stimulation device - TMS unit.

We can just touch it to what's called the temporal parietal junction in your right hemisphere.

Just literally just touch it to your skull, put it in inhibit mode and you will have an out of body experience.

ROBERTS: Experiments with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation devices have led most scientists to believe that the source of thought is within the brain.

But consciousness goes beyond that.

NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Now you can have a flash of insight one morning.

You tend to have more insight the more things you're exposed to.

So the more things are sort of dangling there.

And you get to put things together in the way no one else has put them together before and you know, genius is seeing what everyone else sees, but thinking what no one else has thought.

[Music] HOFFMAN: It turns out that consciousness, when you actually study it very, very carefully in the lab, it's structured.

You can write down mathematical equations that describe when, for example, you will go from seeing something that's two dimensional to three dimensional.

Godel's Theorem says there is in principle no limit to the range of consciousnesses there are out there to be explored and to be and so conscious-- because it's literally not just infinite.

It's unending.

ROBERTS: An effective - and incredibly simple -- practice toward harnessing consciousness and becoming metahuman is meditation.

It's like your own, personal transcranial magnetic stimulation.

CHOPRA: The last few decades and last 40 years since I've been speaking about fundamental reality, you've seen that there is now almost everybody talking about mindfulness and meditation.

And they started that because they were stressed, or they wanted to give up smoking or they wanted to lose weight or they had an addictive habit.

ROBERTS: Believe it or not, meditation actually works scientifically.

Based on functional imaging research, neuroscientists have observed that it acts upon brain circuits that are involved in emotion.

RICHARD DAVIDSON: We have found that the prefrontal cortex, and particularly the left prefrontal cortex, is particularly important.

ROBERTS: Since identifying those specific regions of importance, they've also discovered something: that a practice approach offers benefits.

The brain changes through consistent practice.

Dr. Davidson believed that meditation could be a simple and direct line for reshaping the brain.

So, he set out to investigate his hypothesis.

DAVIDSON: In 1992, I first met the Dalai Lama who encouraged me to initiate a program of research to investigate the brains of long-term Tibetan meditation practitioners.

We have flown them over here to Madison, Wisconsin, where they spend several days in my lab.

And these are individuals who spent literally tens of thousands of hours cultivating certain qualities of mind.

The most important of which is compassion and they engage in a daily practice to cultivate compassion that is said to prepare them for encountering suffering in the world and when suffering is encountered, they're utterly prepared to act to help relieve suffering.

And we have found that there are certain areas of the brain that are dramatically transformed when a practitioner engages in compassion meditation.

The insula is a part of the brain that literally maps the body and so it literally is the interface for mind- body interaction.

ROBERTS: In discussions with meditators, Dr. Davidson's team learned that the way the Tibetan monks see their practice is as a means toward preparing for action.

DAVIDSON: And it's just, I think, fascinating that their motor systems really get enhanced in their activation, which I think is a key part of this practice.

ROBERTS: And meditation, of course, can also have a major impact on mental well-being.

EPEL: Several years ago, Deepak and I and my colleagues planned a study where we examined his week-long meditation retreat.

ROBERTS: Dr. Epel randomized a trial between two groups of non-practicing meditators at the retreat.

One group spent the week relaxing, but the other practiced meditation techniques during their retreat week.

EPEL: At the end of the week, we found that the cells of those who had meditation actually had some additional changes.

They also had an improvement in their cell aging mechanisms.

We found that 10 months after this week-long retreat, those who learned the meditation skill, had significantly lower depressive symptoms.

They still felt better.

And so that was a very dramatic effect of my training of meditation that we can have long term benefits to our mental health.

ROBERTS: Probably the most amazing aspect of meditation is just how accessible it is.

Any of us can do it.

CHOPRA: The practice for me every day is a little bit of self-reflection, asking those important questions, quieting the mind through a mantra meditation.

You can even say something like, "“Thy will be done,"” or, "“I am that I am.

"” These are very good affirmations.

And you repeat them frequently.

ROBERTS: With just a little effort, you'll soon go beyond yourself, beyond existence.

CHOPRA: You end up in this little space between thoughts where all the action is taking place.

The action is not in the thought, it's in the space between thoughts, the space between perception, the space between us right now, the space between breath.

[Music] ROBERTS: The neurological evidence for significant change through meditation is really just beginning.

CHOPRA: This is a cultural phenomenon, meditation.

But now we need to go a little deeper.

It's the awareness of the mind and the awareness of experience.

So just stop once in a while and ask yourself, am I present?

Just that.

Am I present to this experience?

And instead of identifying with the experience ask who or what is having this experience?

And get in touch with that stillness that is always there.

The stillness is the background of all experience.

That happens automatically.

So we're moving from mindfulness of experience to who or what is having the experience.

ROBERTS: Going beyond existence, using tools like meditation, can actually lead people toward peak experiences.

CHOPRA: We are so dazzled, seduced by rationality.

And yet, we don't know what the source of thought is.

[Music] CHOPRA: Every scientist begins with an assumption, the world is material, because that's what the world looks like, physical.

But we never ask ourselves, how did we come to that conclusion?

Has any scientist ever proved the existence of an inert substance called matter?

Matter is a human construct for a human experience in human consciousness for hardness, for shape, for color, for everything that goes into an experience.

You know, if you eat a meal mindfully, you can solve the mystery of the universe.

Because instead of calling that a meal, call it an experience.

What's the experience?

Taste, smell?

Texture?

Sound as you swallow it?

And sensation.

What you're experiencing is qualities of awareness, which you call a meal.

The way we construct the meal is the same way we construct the idea of a body and the idea of a universe.

Raw experience is just sensations, images, feelings, thoughts.

This is the great peak experience that all religious institutions talk about and all religion is based on.

One, the experience of transcendence, which means going beyond all experience to the source of thought and source of experience.

Two, as a result of this experience, people feel the emergence of what they call platonic values, truth, goodness, beauty, harmony, love, compassion, joy, equanimity.

And then also, they lose the fear of death because they've touched that part of themselves that is not in time.

This is the essential religious experience.

It turns out the source is your own inner self beyond the conditioned mind.

That's metahuman.

We are non-local beings having a local experience.

We are the divine having a human experience.

ROBERTS: Finding your way to the path toward having this peak human experience -- toward becoming metahuman -- is a result of following those three phases and taking tangible steps toward establishing a practice.

Dr. Chopra calls them his 6 Keys Toward Starting Your Journey.

CHOPRA: Start with simple things.

Get good sleep, manage your stress through meditation.

Do some exercise and movement and deep breathing.

Cultivate healthy emotions like love, compassion, joy, equanimity.

Eat food that doesn't contain toxins, antibiotics, hormones, steroids, farm to table.

And be in touch with nature.

So, if you can do these six things that I just mentioned, you've started your journey.

[Music] WILLIAMS: With increased consciousness and increased awareness of the lessons that Deepak teaches us, is that self-care is a manifestation of our raised consciousness.

Taking care of how we sleep, how we eat, taking care of this magnificent hardware, our bodies, in ways that allows us to build resilience.

ROBERTS: Research in neuroscience has also shown us that it's never too late for any of us to make significant, positive changes.

DAVIDSON: One of the really cool things about neuroplasticity is that it's present for the entire life.

It never goes away.

And so, this fact provides the basis for our understanding that a person can start any time.

And they will see changes occur even within a short period of time.

Our own work indicates that just two weeks of meditation for a half hour a day can produce demonstrable changes in the brain and so I think this should give people a very hopeful message.

WILLIAMS: It's never too late to take on the small steps that you can take to build your consciousness and build your wellness.

Start with small things like meditating.

You know, I used to be intimidated.

Because how am I going to meditate?

I don't know meditating.

I don't have time to learn it.

Well start by just breathing simple breathing exercises.

You know, Deepak makes it seem so easy, but it is that easy.

Take a minute to breathe, to close your eyes and to reflect and build off of that.

[MUSIC] EPEL: Science will not transform human consciousness; it is only the bringing together of sources of knowledge so that we can understand our world and understand our interconnectivity.

We need thinkers who push the envelope.

What I love about Deepak is that he is so thirsty for understanding the world.

And he's fearless.

And he'll bring in the skeptics, and he'll bring in people who disagree with him, because he loves the dialogue.

And my God, that's what we need to do.

We need to have more dialogue.

[Music] CHOPRA: So, Rumi, the great Sufi poet that I love to quote, he says, "Exchange your cleverness for bewilderment."

If you're not bewildered by the mystery of your existence, then your humanity is incomplete.

Tagore, he said, "That I exist," this Indian poet, sage, seer, he said, "That I exist is a perpetual surprise."

And just that perpetual surprise, you see when children are surprised, they go into joy.

If you lived, every moment perpetually surprised that you exist, embrace the mystery because you can't solve it.

How can a little microbe on this speck of cosmic dust in an infinite void, solve the mystery of existence when reality is infinite?

So live the mystery.

[Music] ROBERTS: Becoming Metahuman is a way of life.

A way to thrive.

Something any of us can do.

I'm Deborah Roberts.

Thanks so much for joining me and Dr. Deepak Chopra on this journey.

[Music]