Ageless Body, Timeless Mind by Deepak Chopra

Book Review

Ageless Body, Timeless Mind by Deepak Chopra

‘Why did grandmother die?’ you might have asked your mother when you were five.

‘Because she was old, my dear.’ You still didn’t get it.

‘So?’ you asked your mom again. ‘She was old yesterday too, wasn’t she?’

‘All old people die some day or the other, kid. I will die, you will die, your little pup will die when he grows old too,’ said your dad, rather sternly.

And if dad said it, it had to be right. And then you saw other relatives dying, most were old and sick, and now your mind has accepted it as truth. People grow old, they get feeble, they stop having fun, and finally we are all going to die.

What if someone told you that death is a concept? A concept being, something two people can have different opinions about? A concept is not the final truth.

Would you believe it if a reputed doctor practicing medicine in the US, told you that you can live forever? This is the claim made by Deepak Chopra, the bestselling new age guru. In Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, Deepak Chopra presents a quantum perspective, a theory which defies whatever we believe about our bodies. We do not have to age, and we do not have to die.

Deepak treats death and aging as myths, to be questioned, to be researched. He talks about a qualitative shift in consciousness that will make us take a quantum jump into good health.

That mind is superior to matter is a given with Deepak, him being an ayurvedic physician. But intelligence, as stated in the book, is far more powerful and proactive in a baby’s body as compared to a grown up. A baby has no sense of time, no worries, and it is superbly defended against time’s ravages. If a baby could preserve its nearly invulnerable immune status, we could all live at least two hundred years, according to Deepak’s estimate. If a baby could preserve its glistening smooth arteries, supple as silk, cholesterol would not find anywhere to lodge, and heart disease would be unknown.

Aging is a mask for the loss of this inherent intelligence. Day-old bread goes stale because it just sits there, prey to humidity, fungus, oxidation, and various destructive chemical processes. A chalk cliff crumbles over time because wind and rain beat it down, and it has no power to rebuild itself. Our bodies also undergo this process of oxidation and are attacked by fungi and various germs, they are exposed to the same wind and rain. But unlike a loaf of bread or a chalk cliff, we can renew ourselves. Our bones don’t just store calcium the way chalk does –they circulate it. Understanding these facts is the first step towards re-interpreting your body.

There is a land where no one is old. India, China, Japan and to a lesser extent the Christian west have given birth to sages who realized their essential nature as the flow of intelligence. By preserving and nurturing that flow, they are able to overcome entropy. In India, this flow is called ‘prana’, meaning life force, and it can be increased or decreased at will, moved here and there, and manipulated to keep the body orderly and young.

Giving a clear scientific basis for his research, Deepak illustrates how awareness is the power behind defeating entropy. Breaking the spell of immortality is a simple step from time-bound towards time-less awareness.