“You are the Universe.” This is what we are all so eager to hear our significant other say to us. It is also the latest edition by Deepak Chopra in his seemingly boundary-less oeuvre – a canon of consciousness studies.
Cosmologist Menas Kafatos joins Chopra as co-author, as his audience expands beyond his traditional following by directing a message to his naysayers, many of whom, such as Richard Dawkins, are colleagues of Kafatos.
Devoting entire chapters to some of science’s unanswered questions, Chopra exposes the inadequacy of the current mainstream scientific approach in reconciling scientific facts with how we actually experience the world. Chopra and Kafatos grapple with such issues as: What happened before the Big Bang? Where did time come from? How did life first begin?
In You are the Universe, the authors’ conclusion on how to fill the gaps is to suggest that the universe is human – responsive to our thoughts and actions. In the book, they rely on such phenomena as the observer effect from quantum physics where light is both a particle and a wave and its state at any given moment is dependent on whether or not we are observing.
They make certain to remind us that some of the most ground breaking physics of the last two centuries came from Einstein, who led with his imagination first and allowed the empirical evidence to follow. Chopra and Kafatos show that Einstein’s imagination brought him to gravity waves – a fact that was not proven until 100 years later, in 2015.
Critiques about Chopra not being a physicist are myopic and more a condemnation of the silos of modern scientific inquiry. The great Renaissance thinkers of the past that grew humanity’s knowledge by leaps and bounds had their hands in multiple disciplines.
Whether Chopra is the Einstein of our century is beyond the scope of my computational and imaginative capabilities. He may be like the Aristarchus of Samos, who first posited that the Sun was the center of the universe. The Western world followed the Aristotleian and Ptolemaic view that the Earth was the center of the Universe until 1800 years passed and Copernicus had the calculations – or the influence co-mingled with decibels to change a world view.
Chopra deserves plaudits for asking the right questions and for his collaborations. If his answers provide comfort until evidence can prove otherwise, what is the harm? Some people may even feel empowered to know that the universe is not random, but rather participatory and can be sculpted by the choices we make. So, if your loved one doesn’t think you are the universe, you still have a shot at making it happen.
Aseem Giri is an avid yoga practitioner who is an active entrepreneur in the health and wellness space.