We find that we are a conglomeration of ambiguities and a glutination of different archetypal energies that are stoking the fire of life in the basement of our soul. Look inside. There are sinners and saints there. There is the divine and the diabolical at the same time. There is the sacred and the profane. There is the dark night of the soul. There is the beatitude of grace, there is forbidden lust, and yet there is the ecstasy and exaltation of unconditional love. There is the simultaneous coexistence of all these opposite values.

And as we begin to go through these secret passages, these dark alleys, these ghost-filled filled attics of our mind. And beyond all that is a world of pure spirit, of pure joy, of infinite flexibility, of unbounded possibility. It is here that we discover the secrets of the wizard that knows everything about everything when it needs to know. It is here that we find the evolution of our own consciousness through the change of the quality of our own attention. So as we walk through this way of the wizard, I'm going to take you through the different steps that we will encounter as we go past these secret passages of our own mind to find this world of pure creativity, pure knowledge, and pure wisdom. And as we look at these different aspects of our own self, we will also discover that these are the qualities of consciousness that are not really necessarily sequential.

That although they may unfold along the path in sometimes a seemingly sequential manner, they simultaneously coexist at the same time. Like the different facets of a diamond that shine differently depending on where the light is coming from. So, even though the stages of metabiological evolution, using that phrase borrowed from Jonas Salk, because that's what it's all about, the phases of metabiological evolution are not just merely sequential, they are simultaneous. They are the qualities of attention of the self to itself as it discovers itself. The self to itself as it discovers itself. That's the journey we'll take today as we embark on this way of doing it. Please stay tuned. We'll be right back with more of Deepak Chopra and the Way of the Wizard. After this opportunity for you to pledge your financial support. the the the the the the As we go on this path, which has frequently been called the pathless path, because there there are some things that we all experience. I have, as I look through the perennial philosophy and the great spiritual traditions of the world that gave rise to all the great religions of the world, it became obvious to me that no one country or no one culture or no one religion for that matter had the prerogative on the truth.

That the truth had been discovered in a sense everywhere simultaneously. Because just like science is a methodology for exploring the truth through objective means, the subjective experiences of sages and seers are methodologies, literally methodologies for exploring the truth in the realm of consciousness. And therefore it's equally scientific. If you want to learn to become a physicist, what do you do? You take training in physics. If you want to learn the way of the wizard, then you have to explore your own consciousness. And that's as scientific as any other scientific methodology. Those who have gone this path before us have said to us that there are probably at least seven stages through which human consciousness evolves. The stage of innocence, which is the first stage. The second is called the birth of the ego. The third is the birth of the Achiever, the fourth is the birth of the Giver, the fifth is the birth of the Seeker, the sixth is the birth of the Seer, and the seventh is the birth of the Spirit.

We will go through all of these in a sequential manner and also see at the same time how these different components of Being exist within us all simultaneously. They all exist within us simultaneously. So the birth of innocence is the first stage. Examine any newborn baby and you will encounter that in its purity. A newborn baby is full of innocence and self-acceptance and trust and love. It's the embodiment of pure awareness. If you want to look at the characteristics of the innocent in you, examine those times when you have that experience. The innocent is alert like any baby, full of curiosity and wonder for life. That sense of wonder is there. There is a feeling of security that you are wanted on this earth. and then inarticulate knowingness that beyond the tumult of time lies the peace of the timeless.

There is self-acceptance, there is trust, there is love. And all of us have experienced that, not only as babies, as children, but in fact even as adults. to look at a baby to remind us that that innocence really never dies. You want to get in touch with the source of creation? Look at a baby because it is coming from the womb of creation and you will immediately be transformed into a being of love. Just that simple encounter with a baby will awaken the innocent inside you. Throughout this program I'm going to read to you poetic wisdom of those who have walked away of the wizard because a lot can be said through poetry that cannot be articulated through prose. T.S.

Eliot once said, poetry is a raid on the inarticulate. take up this process right now and read to you the encounter with innocence that Tagore talks about. Where have I come from? Where did you pick me up? The baby asked its mother. She answered half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to her breast. You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling. You were in the dolls of my childhood games. And when with clay I made the image of my God every morning, I made and unmade you then. You were enshrined with our household deity. In his worship, I worshiped you. In all my hopes In my life, in the life of my mother, you have lived.

In the lap of the deathless spirit who rules our home, you have been nursed for ages. And when in girlhood my heart was opening its petals, you hovered as a fragrance about it. Your tender softness blossomed in my youthful limbs like a glow in the sky before the sunrise. Heaven's first darling, twin born with the morning light, you have floated down the stream of the world's life and at last you have stranded on my heart. As I gaze on your face, mystery overwhelms me. You who belong to all have become mine. For fear of losing you, I hold you tight to my breast. What magic has snared the world's treasure in these tender arms of mine? When you read that, you are suddenly overcome by something that is sacred, that is pure, that takes you immediately into the world of innocence. that yourself anytime you encounter that innocence from the womb of creation. But innocence ultimately falls and gives rise to the second stage on the way of the wizard and this is the birth of the ego.

Even though innocence is never lost, it gets overshadowed by the ego. This is the birth of duality. The birth of the ego is the separation of me from you. The ego becomes the internal reference point. And as soon as that happens it gives rise to fear, to attachment, to a need for approval, to a need to possess, self-importance, separation anxiety. These are the characteristics of the birth of the ego. And here too, time is born. The birth of time is when the self is sacrificed for the self-image. When the self is sacrificed for the self-image, time is born. Because time is nothing other than the continuity of memory which uses the ego as an internal reference point. So in the state of the ego we have fear and anxiety and as we look within ourselves we find that this is simultaneously present with the innocent as well. But we also recognize, if you pay attention to this fact, that this is not our real self. That the self-image is not the self. The self-image is just the social mask that we have put on for the time being. We get caught up in it. A time comes though that we begin to recognize that the ego is really a prison. A necessary stage because it is necessary because it gives us individuality, it gives us a sense of identity, it ensures our survival as an individual, but it's a lonely existence. It needs to control. It is not the true self. Again, the poet Chagor, when he had this insight, says it very elegantly. I'm going to resort again to a read on the inarticulate by quoting you what Chagor said when he recognized that the ego was not the true self.

He says, he who I enclose with my name is weeping in this dungeon. I'm ever busy building this wall all around, and as this wall goes up into the sky day by day, I lose sight of my true being in its dark shadow. I take pride in this great wall, and I cluster it with dust and sand, lest a hole should be left in this name and for all the care that I take I lose sight of my true being. Another place the same realization and he says I I came out alone on my way to my tryst but who is this that follows me in the silent dark I move aside to avoid his presence but I escaped him not he makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger. He adds his loud voice to every word that I utter.

He's my own little self, my Lord. He knows no shame, but I'm ashamed to come to your door in this company. So, hopefully, one day the ego also dies, and gives birth to the next stage that we're going to talk about. And that stage is the birth of the Achiever. The ego is giving rise to the birth of the Achiever in that it's getting more confident, it's getting more self-sufficient, it's going out there to seek fame and fortune, it feels unique. And the Achiever is born. The gods of the Achiever are toys of all kinds, material things, approval, sex, money, power. Toys, approval, sex, money and power, the toys are the gods of the Achiever and we shouldn't belittle these gods because they are still gods. Gods for manifestation, a necessary component. They are part of the infinite masks that the eternal self assumes.

We have at some level an awareness that this is not all. And yet, we hold on to it. Saint Augustine himself said once, Lord, give me chastity, give me continence, but not now. I'm going to lose weight, not now. In any case, this birth of the Achiever, which is a necessary part of our existence, and leads to yet another phase of transition, because a time comes when the achiever is not satisfied with all the achievements. There's a desire to connect, a desire for meaningful relationship, a desire to give, even though the giving is out of ego gratification. The giving is because I feel good. It pleases my self-image. See an average philanthropist is giving so that his name or her name can be on the block in the plaque in the front lobby of the hospital. It's part of the facets of the diamond. The facets, different phases of transition that simultaneously coexist within us. The giver is still though giving out of a sense of ego gratification. The ego is still the internal reference point. So up until this stage we are talking about the first three levels of awareness. Sleeping, dreaming, waking. Those who have gone before us, the seers, the prophets, the sages, the shamans, the healers, the merlins, the wizards, they say there's more to life. There are stages of consciousness that are far more miraculous and magical.

But most people remain in this circle for their entire life. We will talk about the further evolution of consciousness as we go beyond the giver and for the first time connect with the next phase of our evolution which is taking us away from waking state and waking us to yet another state of consciousness that comes with the birth of the next stage. Right now we are all in waking state presumably and everything appears very real to us. But it's real only for the waking state. Just like when you're in the dream state everything appears very real to you. It's only valid for the dream state though. In the dream state you're experiencing dreams and they're very real. It's only after you wake up from the dream that in hindsight you say, aha! That was a dream, how interesting, now I'm awake. Well, the wizards before us say this is true of the waking state as well. It's real because you're in it just like you were in the dream.

And the day shall come when you will wake up from this and look back and say, aha, the waking state, how interesting. We tend to think that the dream is not real because it's manufactured in our brain. But we don't realize that this reality, with its stars and galaxies and trees and rainbows and you and me, is also manufactured in the brain. The brain and our senses are transducers that take that radically ambiguous and ceaselessly flowing quantum soup and convert it into material reality. The magic is inside consciousness which conceives and governs and creates and becomes the world of form and phenomenon. We take an energy soup, an information soup and we convert it into material reality here in a certain state of consciousness that we call waking state of consciousness.

But as we go beyond this waking state of consciousness, we start to glimpse our own soul and get in touch with that, we will realize that there is a state of transcendence where this world of form and phenomenon becomes valid only for this state of physiology and this state of consciousness. Consciousness creates its own physiology and each state of physiology has a certain style of functioning, the brain waves function in a certain way, your heart rate, breathing, patterns of information and energy in the body are relevant only to that state. So the dream state has its own metabolic rate, its own physiology, the sleeping state has its own metabolic rate, its own physiology, the waking state has its own and in each of these we construct different realities. Let us see, as we go along the way of the wizard, what the next stage is, and what happens when the seeker is born. On the way of the wizard, we have encountered ourselves first as innocents and then as those that are seeking ego gratification and trying to control and manipulate and seek approval.

We have seen that giving birth to the giver and now we have also seen that giving birth to the achiever. The order in fact was innocence, ego, achiever, giver. We've seen these different facets of ourselves and we recognize that there is still a hunger, a thirst for something more. The toys and approval and sex and power and money and giving are not complete gods. They were gods, part of the infinity of expressions that the eternal cosmic mind takes, the roles we play. But yet, there is an eagerness for spiritual experience. Material joys no longer bring total fulfillment. And there is this insight somewhere that everything that is material is transient. It's enjoyable, but it's transient. There is the confrontation for the first time that all our experiences have a beginning and a middle and an end. There is the possibility of knowing that in fact one day life itself as we know it might end. The transient nature of things is grasped. Gautama Buddha, when he first encountered the seeker within him, he said, this lifetime of ours is as transient as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of beings is like a flash of lightning in the sky, rushing by like a torrent down the steep mountains.

Emily Dickinson, when she pierced the veil of maya, the veil of illusion that matter manifests as, she picks up a little bit of dirt, a little bit of dust, a handful of dust in her hand, pierces the veil of Maya or illusion, recognizes that dust is more than dirt, it is the calling card of the past. Listen to her. Emily Dickinson. This quiet dust was gentlemen and ladies and lads and girls, was laughter and ability and sign and frocks and curls. This passive place, summer's nimble passion, where bloom and bees fulfill their oriental circuit, then ceased, then ceased like bees. So, the seeker is recognizing for the first time the reality of mortality and as we recognize the reality of mortality life becomes magical. Castaneda once said in one of his books he said when you know that death is stalking you in every moment of your life your life will become magical because your priorities will change. Your priorities will change. You will no longer have the same priorities. You will still enjoy the world, but no longer will you need that approval, that control. You may become less immune to criticism. You will no longer be fearful of challenges. You will begin to seek solitude. Your ego will still be there, but it's not the loneliness of the ego that will dominate your awareness but the solitude of the seeker. Loneliness is a terrible thing. It's full of fear. It's the fear-based identity of the ego. But solitude is the knowingness of our awareness where you find that there's an all-embracing connection.

And this is the connection of you with everything that exists. So the characteristics of the seeker begin to emerge. There's a desire to escape the boundaries of time and space. There's a desire to discover one's essence as timeless. The giving now takes on a new texture. The giving is more out of love and compassion. Love has no other purpose anymore than loving. Again Saint Augustine said once, I am in love with loving. Saint Bernard says, discovering the seeker in himself, love seeks no cause and no fruit. It is its own fruit and its own enjoyment. I love because I love. And this experience comes through the experience of solitude. It comes through the need for solitude. St. John of the Cross, St. Juan de la Cruz, says of solitude, says, The first, that it flies to the highest point.

The second, that it does not suffer for company, not even of its own kind. The third, that it aims its beak to the skies. The fourth, that it does not have any definite color. The color was from the ego. And the fifth, that it sings very softly. The ego has surrendered its needs to control, to defend, to predict. The ego is now aware that death is stalking it and that priorities are changing. Let me read to you the discovery of this seeker through Tagore's poetic wisdom, through his insights when he first confronted death, the reality of death and when his priorities change. I know that the day will come when my sight of this earth shall be lost and life will take its leave in silence drawing the last curtain over my eyes. Yet stars will watch at night and morning rise as before and hours heave like sea waves casting up pleasures and pains. When I think of this end of my moments, the barrier of the moments breaks and I see by the light of death your world with its careless treasures. Rare is its lowliest seat, rare is its meanest of lights, things that I long for in vain and things that I got, let them pass.

Let me but truly possess the things that I ever spurned and overlooked. This then is the birth of the seeker, where there is self-reliance, a willingness to trust. Addictions begin to wane off in this stage, giving is more out of love and compassion, not expecting anything in return, not even gratitude. There are glimpses of the soul, and as one glimpses the soul and recognizes that this soul is something that cannot be squeezed into the volume of this body, or even the style of this lifetime, there is a comfort with the knowledge of physical mortality. And so the seeker is born and now there is a little bit of insight into this fourth state of consciousness. The fourth state of consciousness is that the seeker is beginning to find the one that he's looking for, she's looking for, is the one that is doing the looking. And as one encounters this aspect of oneself and because this self, this soul, this glimpse of the soul, which is the fourth state of consciousness, the seeker begins to experience meaningful coincidence and synchronicity.

Begins to notice that intentions spontaneously orchestrate space-time events in order to bring about the outcome that was intended. You're thinking of somebody and they call you on the phone. You go to New York City and you say, I'm going to meet so and so. You step out of the elevator and there they are. These are the characteristics of the seeker. The seeker is beginning to understand, literally, the mechanics of creation. He's beginning to know that established in being, when action and thought are performed then that brings about the world of the magical and the miraculous. In normal waking state our attitude to life is when I get this then I'll do this then I'll think this and then I'll be like this. But the seeker reverses that says I'll be like this and then the spontaneously dynamism of thought will come that will fulfill my desires and then I'll do the things that are necessary and then I'll have everything I want. The whole attitude is reversed. Instead of having, doing, thinking and being, the seeker is being, thinking, doing and having.

Reversed and finds that it's much more joyful that way and a lot more is there. This beginning of the world of the magical and miraculous. I'd like to read to you an insight from the great poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge when he discovered meaningful coincidence and synchronicity. As I said earlier, this is not a path that is being discovered for the first time by us. This has been called the perennial philosophy for a reason. Many people all over the world have traveled this path before. So here's what Samuel Taylor Coleridge says as he discovers the seeker and the world of the magical and the miraculous and synchronicity and meaningful coincidence. And what if in your sleep you dreamed and what if in your dream you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower and what if when you awoke you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?

Deepak Chopra will return with the conclusion of The Way of the Wizard. The seeker has been glimpsing the soul and has been encountering meaningful coincidence and synchronicity. But now a stage comes when the seeker. And having sought the seeker, it has become the seer. The seer and the scenery and the process of seeing are beginning to merge in the world of the seer. And the seer is never overshadowed now by the scenery. What does that mean? It means that there is an alert witnessing of the roles that are being played out by the ego. I'd like to try something with you right now. As you're listening to me, you're listening to me? Okay, as you're listening to me, just turn your attention now to the one who's listening.

And there's a silent presence there. It's not your mind. Your mind is thinking and evaluating and judging and defining and interpreting and all that. This one is just silent. You pay a little attention to this silent presence, you'll recognize that it's always been there. It was there before you came in, it's there now, it'll be there when you go, it was there when you were an adolescent, it was there when you were a child, it was there when you were a baby. And if you pay attention to this presence, you will become aware without anyone trying to explain to you that this presence has always been there, before birth, after death. In fact, birth and death are just interruptions in the continuum of this eternal presence. This is the presence that about when it says this real you water cannot wet, wind cannot dry, weapons cannot please, fire cannot burn, it's ancient, it's unborn, it never dies and birth and death are just parentheses in the eternal continuum of this presence.

If you could carry that consciousness of that presence wherever you go, you would be with the seer within you. Because the seer is the timeless factor in the midst of time-bound experience. All experience is time-bound. It has a beginning, a middle and an ending. So the seer is ever the same. The same seer in the midst of different experiences. To carry the consciousness of the seer is to carry the consciousness of eternity in the field of time. It is to carry the consciousness of infinity in the field of matter and energy. It is to carry the consciousness of your spirit wherever you go. It is to carry the consciousness of the timeless factor in every And this experience of this year gives birth also a transformation of what we called earlier was magical thinking you might say, meaningful coincidence, synchronicity, magical thinking because your thinking now acquires this magical quality that whatever you intend it begins to happen.

When that accelerates, that process is part of the experience of what is called cosmic consciousness. Cosmic consciousness because your awareness is local and non-local at the same time. The scenery which is local and the seer which is unbounded, free, immortal, eternal, timeless. In this world, but not of it. Now here and nowhere at the same time. Now the miracles begin to come. You begin to experience the miraculous which is the acceleration of meaningful coincidences. It's the acceleration. You begin to experience miracles. Cosmic consciousness therefore is the fifth state of consciousness. The first three were deep sleep, dreams, waking and then the fourth was glimpsing the soul. Now we're talking about the fifth state of consciousness, cosmic consciousness, which is the simultaneity of spirit, form, matter, information, energy, local, non-local, simultaneous, all of that. That's called cosmic consciousness. In cosmic consciousness, your intentions acquire awesome power.

You begin to recognize what real power is. Not power that comes from a title or from a good job or lots of money. Because that power is transient. It goes to the job with the money and the title. This is real power because it magnetizes things, events, people, circumstances around your intention. This happens with the birth of the seer. But Cosmic Consciousness is not the final expression of the seer. The seer moves from Cosmic Consciousness into Divine Consciousness. What is the difference between Cosmic Consciousness and Divine Consciousness? Which are both aspects of the seer.

In Cosmic Consciousness, you were carrying the consciousness of the Spirit in the field of matter. You were carrying the consciousness of eternity in the field of time. But now in Divine Consciousness, even the objects of your perception are cognized as having the same divine force. And the seer says, if you cannot find God in a blade of grass, if you cannot find God in a flower, if you cannot find God in a rainbow, if you cannot find God in the eyes of another being, you're not going to find it in a book of religion because this is a state of awareness, divine consciousness. It's a state of being. It's an aspect of the seer. Now, there is not only comfort with death but there is the psychological conquest of death. In fact, there is rejoicing in the knowledge that birth and death are simply ideas of the spirit. And the spirit has the idea, I have a body, that's birth. And the spirit has the idea, I no longer have this body, that's death.

They're just ideas in the consciousness of the spirit. Psychological conquest of mortality. Let me read to you what Tagore says about this experience. Because it is only through the poetic wisdom of those who have been seers before us that we can even understand this experience. It resonates with us. At some level of being we recognize it to be true. So here's the psychological conquest of death through the eyes of a seer. At this time of my parting wish me good luck my friends. The sky is flushed with the dawn and my path lies beautiful. Ask not what I have with me to take there. I start my journey with empty hands and an expectant heart. I shall put on my wedding garland." Rumi says the same thing.

He says, my debt is my wedding with eternity. Mine is not the red-brown dress of the traveler and though there are dangers on the way, I have no fear in my mind. The evening star will come out when my voyage is done and the plaintive notes of the twilight melodies will be struck up from the king's eyelids." And here again he says, I was not aware of the moment when I first crossed the threshold of this life. What was the power that made me open up into this vast mystery like a bud, like a flower in the forest at midnight? When in the morning I looked upon the light I felt in a moment that I was no stranger in this world. That the inscrutable without name and form had taken me in its arms in the form of my own mother. Even so, in death, the same unknown will appear as ever known to me. And because I love this life, I know I shall love death as well.