Big Think

Question: How do you reconcile your medical training with spirituality?

Deepak Chopra: My medical training was in the field of internal medicine, and then in the field of endocrinology and neuron endocrinology.

Neuro endocrinology is the study of brain chemicals, and brain chemicals are the mechanics through which our thoughts express themselves. So when you have a thought, or a feeling, or an emotion, or an idea, you make a very specific chemical. It’s called a neuron peptide. And these neuron peptides are messenger molecules that then go to the rest of the body and influence the activity of the immune system and actually almost every biological activity in the body. So your body, which is very physical, is under the influence of your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, your dreams, your fantasies, your desires, your instincts, your drives, your imagination. All these things orchestrate themselves – all these internal activities that are in the invisible domain that we call consciousness actually have very precise physical effects both in our biology, but they also influence our perception of the world.

Recorded on: Aug 17, 2007