“Life Is … an Ocean …”: “Explore and Float!”

By Deepak Chopra

Observing an Ocean, one will notice that its waves rise and retreat regularly. Also, there are numerous people on its sandy beach, watching, playing, relaxing and enjoying.

A child is playing on the beach and a wave comes and takes back with it his toys or destroys his sand castle - he gets upset and writes on the sand "Ocean is bad".

A fisherman gets a good catch of fish from the sea, for his daily livelihood, he becomes happy and writes "Ocean is kind & my provider".

Seeing a young person drown in the sea, the sad mother writes "Ocean is a murderer".

A person walking on the beach on finding a precious pearl in the sea-shell, writes "Ocean is so benevolent".

All this time, the mighty ocean has been the same and is not bothered on how others are referring to its tides/waves. It continues unfazed by other’s expressions on its nature and behaviour.

Likewise, we humans need to be concentrating on our innate strengths/courage to carry on with our tasks/passion, undisturbed by external turbulence and deterrents. “Life is ... an Ocean…
Explore & Float!”

This book is an effort to provide worthwhile information on various common subjects, which regularly surface with varying complexities in our Life.

Our Life ahead will be a culmination of various Choices and Decisions we make today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Feb 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781543709063

Deepak Chopra

Deepak Chopra, MD, founder of the Chopra Foundation and Chopra Global, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a clinical professor of family medicine and public health at the University of California, San Diego, and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of more than ninety books, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. Time magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”

Book preview

Copyright © 2023 by Deepak Chopra.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/india

Life Is … an Ocean …

Contents

Preface

Background

Acknowledgments

About this book

1. Some Important Notes

a. Our Thoughts

b. Affirmations

c. Use our Strengths

d. Understand Emotions

e. Love Ourselves

f. Be Grateful & Express Gratitude

g. Our Destiny

h. Count our Blessings

i. Be Compassionate

j. Develop Patience

k. Self-Discipline

l. Practice Mindfulness

m. Maintain Humility

n. Our Needs and Wants

o. A new day everyday

p. Adopt Kindness & Promote Goodwill

q. Learning from our experiences

r. Be courageous to take Decisions, supported by our mind

s. Repair our damaged mind

2. Become A Happy Person

3. Well Brought up ?

4. Handling Our Frustrations

5. Forgiveness

6. Love & Compassion

7. Happiness & Fulfilment

8. Death Cleaning...

9. Changing Ourselves Will Change Our World

10. Optimism Leads To Happiness And Success

11. See Things The Way They Are

12. Modern Day Stress And Its Management

13. Basic Tips To Manage Our Anxiety

14. Some Effective Strategies To Take Care Of Anxiety

15. When To Drop Our Burdens…Letting Go…

16. The Science Behind Our Belief Systems

17. Our Survival Mechanisms

18. Our 2 Minds - Conscious And The Subconscious

19. Our Thoughts Make Our Life

20. Overcoming Our Fears To Live Life!

21. Power Of Our Beliefs

22. Declutter Our Mind Space To Let In Happiness

23. Grief & Loneliness Due To Death

24. Coping Mechanisms For Overcoming Grief

25. Psychological Counsellor’s Role As A Health Coach

26. Saying ‘No’ To Children!

27. The Fine Art of Empathy & Compassion

28. Positive Parenting

29. Good Parenting Principles

30. How To Avoid Mealtime Battle With Children

31. My Beliefs

32. Mobile Phone Addiction

33. Digital Detox

34. Positive Ways To Start And Have A Great Day

35. Positive Ways To End Our Day

36. We Can Always Enjoy Our Successes

37. Experiment Leaving Our Comfort Zone

38. Social Responsibility During These Times

39. Address Our Overwhelming Feelings

40. Bring Calmness To Self

41. The Need To Listen

42. Emotional Intelligence

43. Balancing Emotions And Reasoning

44. Hopeless To Hopefulness – Languishing To Flourishing

45. Our Hands

46. Wither Our Storms By Energy Vibrations

47. What Is A Prayer?

48. New Challenges Of Our Times (Sexual Abuse Related)

49. Mental Hygiene

50. Play Therapy Activities For Children

51. Being Enough?

52. Some Meaningful Quotations >>>

53. Laying Foundations for Beginning a New Life…

Life is …

all about making ‘Choices’,

specially the difficult ones!

Wishing the readers all the best

in their individual endeavour of

defining, creating and living their Life;

And hope to join them as a fellow traveller

on this magnificent journey

towards the ultimate destination.

The best way

to know your future

is to

create it !!

I most sincerely, and with deep gratitude,

dedicate this humble work to all who

encouraged and provided me,

during the last few years of my life,

with wonderful opportunities and

understandings that have helped me

successfully face the challenges

that my Life offered.

Needless to say, all this helped me immensely to

learn, develop and grow into the

individual I am today.

Following the tradition of my earlier 2 books,

I dedicate this book also, most

lovingly, to my grand children

Nabhya, Aysha and Khush

and all other youngsters of today,

in whose hands lies the future of this world.

I sincerely wish that

Life Is ... an Ocean ... Explore and Float!

also guides and helps the future

generations in their endeavours to

become Better, Positive minded &

Compassionate human beings

such that their life journey becomes

wonderfully rewarding,

one which is full of positive thoughts,

empathy, gratitude, compassion

and positivity.

Our mind is

like a parachute…

It works

only when it is open!

Preface

I t is my absolute duty and privilege to start this book by repeating the ‘SERENITY PRAYER’ which gives me the needed strength, solace, peace of mind and encouragement - every single time I say it:

God grant me:

Serenity to accept the things

that I can’t change,

Courage to change the things that I can, and

Wisdom to know the difference

between them.

The marvellous effect of this prayer on your success too can be assured when you say the same, as many times as you think you need to, and actually can. I am confident of this.

As with water of the river,

it runs and runs,

runs incessantly,

is nevertheless always there,

was always at all times the same,

and

yet is new, in every moment…

(From Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse)

Background

I had concluded in my 1 st book - " Life’s Little Learnings " (2015) that:

"During our difficult times, most of us are often unable to face the present, as also to look at our future optimistically. We instead think about it pessimistically. We normally forget that these tough times cannot last forever, and will pass soon. We also forget that we need to muster all our inner strengths to boldly face the current challenges, and look at the possibilities of a better tomorrow, instead of overly concentrating on today’s problems.

We need to remember, that our ultimate success can come through only when we make a beginning somewhere, instead of waiting for it to happen on its own. We need to make a choice on that now. In fact, even the today that we are living is a collection of results of the choices we made in the past. In the same way, our today’s decisions will be the base of our tomorrow’s reality.

Our life ahead will be a culmination of various choices and decisions we make today, based on our experiences of yesterdays, and thereby opening up our tomorrows – the choice is all ours. Always…"

"Life’s Little Learnings" laid emphasis on effects of Compassion, Gratitude, Positivity and Mindfulness on our body, mind, intellect and life. I had all hope, faith, belief, and confidence that its practical suggestions would help the readers get enough motivation to recognize their problems as challenges, convert them into opportunities, and finally to tap their inner resources to live life well.

Following it, my 2nd book Unlimited Learnings (2017) was also my further attempt to encourage the readers to make a difference through self-growth. It has always been my endeavour that the readers get enough motivation to help themselves become a better person - as part of their spiritual growth, to acknowledge their abilities & capabilities, to remain positive & grateful, and continue to attempt passing on this wonderful infection to their entire social environment.

As I strongly believe and promote, we need to briefly relook at our individual past and its specific experiences before committing to ourselves to live our present, in order to have a wonderful future and a fulfilling life with abundance of happiness & satisfaction.

All human beings have an innate ability to make the best of adverse circumstances, in order to create a victorious life, by overcoming - not escaping - our suffering, and thus creating a life worth its value. Our so-called limitations are nothing more than our own decision to limit ourselves. And, we can definitely tear down these limitations.

I now present "Life Is ... an Ocean ... Explore and Float!", for your self-growth and conscious progress.

Deepak Chopra

New Delhi

Reach me at >> [e-mail]

What is the meaning of Life?

Life itself has no meaning –

It is an opportunity to create a meaning…

Acknowledgments

I express my sincere & heartfelt thanks, and gratitude to all my teachers, motivators, authors, columnists, spiritual leaders, and most importantly my counselees who have inspired me immensely during the last about 30 years of my life. I humbly extend my sincere gratitude to all of them. Every family member, friend, colleague, and casual acquaintance has made significant contribution in shaping my opinions and views besides teaching me invaluable lessons, and moulding my personal life. Discipline during my early years has taught me the virtues of hard work, honesty, practice and perseverance.

In my Life, I’ve lived, I’ve loved, I’ve lost, I’ve gained, I’ve missed, I’ve achieved, I’ve trusted, I’ve made mistakes, but most of all, I’ve Learned from every situation.

Life is a continuous platform of learning through series of lessons. It is truly a never-ending activity, and by the grace of Almighty I am happy to continue to learn today in the same way as I have been in the past. I have gone through my share of turbulences, challenges and had my lows of life at various times.

Perhaps, I faulted many times in personal relationships, and possibly even hurt some, though unknowingly. I, with the strength now gained through the new revelations and learnings, offer my earnest apologies to all those and believe that I will be forgiven by them.

In anticipation, I say a big ‘Thank you’ for all their benevolence and acceptance of me as a person I am.

‘Thank You’ is a very powerful, and my sincere prayer!

By Almighty’s grace, I have developed discipline, sincerity, empathy, kindness, self-control, and listening abilities, which regularly help me in facing challenges of my own life, and to continue practicing these significant values in my counselling career.

I, undoubtedly, fall short of words to express my special & heartfelt thanks to my loving wife Geeta - for all her sharing, understanding, guidance, tolerance, support and continued encouragements. She deserves my deep gratitude, and countless repetitions of ‘I love you’.

I also owe my very special thanks, deep love and gratitude to my family – Geeta, Deepta & Mark, Aloke & Avantika - for their affections, love, sharing and understanding, in these regularly changing trends of the modern world, and finally enabling me to humbly change things which I could, and gracefully accept those which I couldn’t. My very sincere thanks dears, for your encouragements, continuous and positive support, patience, accepting my different recommendations from time to time, while shouldering your family responsibilities and professional commitments, and also for promoting my humble writings.

My grateful thanks to all my counselees also, for accepting me in that role, and increasing my confidence by meeting their expectations.

By developing & practicing positive mental attitude, I can claim to be a much happier and confident person today, to consciously spread compassion and positive vibrations around my family, my friends & my social environment.

I further seek continued blessings and guidance of The Almighty on the path ahead in my life so that I can complete my life journey with as much gratitude, compassion and faith as possible.

"Life Is…an Ocean…Explore and Float!" is my latest attempt to spread awareness, clarity, happiness, positivity, empathy, and compassionate support to all those who are in need of it.

"Life Is ... an Ocean ... Explore and Float!" is in continuation of my earlier titles - "Life’s Little Learnings and Unlimited Learnings".

I am deeply indebted to various readers of those 2 books, who have been very generous in providing positive feedback, and encouragingly pointing out the utility of such motivational books needed in today’s world. Once again, my very sincere gratitude to all of them.

About this book

"L ife Is ... an Ocean ... Explore and Float! " is an accumulated outcome of various choices and decisions made over a time period for any individual. These choices were initially the responsibility of parents during the early years of a child, moving on to schooling, upbringing, teaching & inculcating values, discipline etc, which turned into guidance & beliefs during the adolescence years, before becoming responsibility of the individual - by the time adulthood took over. Then came the higher education, selection of career and relationship choices.

During this process, Life turned out to be a matter of managing our thoughts, emotions, schedules, social environment and how we deal with the various issues and concerns that we face. We also had the opportunities of developing our awareness and adopting important ‘essentials’ during our interaction with our immediate surroundings. These were co-operation & togetherness, kindness & compassion, love & care, sympathy & empathy, gratitude & thankfulness, respect & regard, reasoning & acceptance, physical & mental health, successes & failures, achievements & setbacks, demands & frustrations, pleasures & hardships, stresses & coping mechanisms, calmness & tolerance, hopefulness, self-esteem, forgiveness, positive living etc etc. The list is unending.

We learnt to face our adversities, hold up against pressures and meet challenges head on. We succeeded. We failed. We laughed. We cried. We sought support. We provided support. We fell. We rose up. We were sad. We were happy. We were jealous. We were proud. We had doubts. We believed. We sought forgiveness. We forgave. We had our low days. We had our good days. We faced dejections & dissatisfactions. We felt disgruntled & unhappy. We experienced hopelessness & helplessness. And, so on. In the entire process, we developed our strengths. We overcame our weaknesses. We learnt to convert our obstacles into challenges.

Then came the real test of all this learning.

A wave of change dawned on us. We started to change - most of us willingly, others unwillingly. But change, yes. We changed our jobs, our places/locations, our careers, and even our friends. We changed our opinions, our perspective, our attitude. We adjusted to the demands of the time and sometimes even compromised, to quite an extent. We then agreed on the age-old idiom that ‘Change is the only constant’.

Responsibilities came on our head, and despite possessing the basic knowledge and awareness, we felt that we were incompetent or incapable of shouldering these, all by ourselves. We lost our psychological balance, our perspective, and even our emotional well-being got affected.

It left us wanting to have the right support and correct handling of the situations. At such a stage in one’s Life, each one of us again felt the need to be hand-held and guided appropriately.

I have humbly tried through various write-ups in this "Life Is ... an Ocean ... Explore and Float!" book, to be of some help and guidance to the readers, in order to understand and evaluate how to be able to handle their current scenarios, and come out victorious, not a victim. My role as a practicing counsellor is to provide stimulation, initiative, and encouragement to instil in everyone the confidence - in pursuit of their individual knowledge and growth.

Various write-ups within the book will bring out, in some form or another, most of the aforesaid ‘essentials’, which have been perhaps forgotten in the mad race of our present-day materialistic world.

Finally, I seek blessings from the readers, and wish ‘Happy Reading’ to all, with a strong belief that your today’s efforts and awareness will help your tomorrow to be a better version of your yesterday, thereby impacting your social surroundings, and finally making this world a better place to live in - for our next generations.

Life was not, Life will not be,

Life Is ... an Ocean ... Explore and Float!

Love it, Live it. Always, and in all ways.

Reader’s comments on Unlimited Learnings (author’s 2nd book)

Mark Sheerin, Brighton, UK: "Unlimited Learnings is a valuable toolkit of analogies, maxims, instructions and reflections – all with the potential to change your life for the better. Deepak Chopra writes with patience, authority and insight about the challenges we all face.

Whether you suffer from anxiety, or stress, or depression, this book will lift you. And for those fortunate enough to enjoy good mental health, this book will affirm your life in ways you may not have thought possible."

Satinder Khurana, New Delhi: "Unlimited Learnings is a complete guide for all age groups. A wonderful book - all chapters are connected with our daily life. Writer has expressed about every feeling of human mind, with deep study and great wisdom. Though life is tough and full of challenges…one has to grow from inside out. There is no other teacher but our own soul.

He teaches us - no need to look behind, but look forward. Above all purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success and power of love. Finally, one should always arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached.

S D Pandey, Kolkata: This is the 2nd book by Deepak Chopra. I had read his first book also, and liked the anecdotes therein relating to normal human behaviours which made me re-organise my own way of life. When I got his 2nd book - Unlimited Learnings in 2017, I went through it without wasting any time. I found it to be the follow up of his first book. This book goes into cause & effect of issues in our life and suggests practical solutions how to deal with them in right earnest. Its main focus is on mental and emotional well-being of our younger generation whose fast life, performance based competitive career growth and lack of positive emotional support are making them lose hope. Increasing numbers of suicide, not only by poor but also well to do & well settled young people is really worrisome.

This book, starting from chapter one which is the central theme, describes need and ways to lead an authentic life, besides providing hope for people struggling with their life. All other chapters deal with one or other aspects, which make us to worry in our daily life. Writer has taken enough pains to explain various issues in our life, such as self-awareness, positivity, calmness, confidence, time-management, insecurities & support system etc, and also suggests practical solutions to deal with them positively. In nut shell, it may safely entice that it is the ‘must read book’ for youth who are in search of solutions for their struggles in life.

Naveen Bhatt, Kathgodam, Uttranchal: