When your awareness is contracted, the flow of energy and information throughout your bodymind is hampered. You tend to stay stuck in toxic emotions such as regret, resentment, and self-pity. Non-nurturing habits such as overeating and not exercising take hold. The feedback loop between your mind and your body turns negative, and stress can hit you instantaneously or grind away at you day after day.
Deepak ChopraAs a physician who was smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, getting drunk on weekends, stressed out about having 35 patients in the hospital, and not being able to help either them or myself, I had my existential crisis way before I met Maharishi. I did meet him and he was an influence, but I met many other people as well.
Deepak ChopraWhen we meditate, we go beyond the swirl of thoughts, memories and emotions that tend to keep us stuck in our ego's story of who we are. We enter an expanded state of awareness and discover our own inner fountain of joy, a source of happiness that isn't dependent on anyone or anything.
Deepak Chopra