An Interview with David Simon, M.D.

David Simon, MD, is CEO, medical director, and cofounder of the Chopra Center and author of Free to Love, Free to Heal: Heal Your Body by Healing Your Emotions

Knowing the importance of creating a more compassionate, therefore effective, health-care system we wanted to hear from David, who is an expert navigator of the mind and spirit as well as the physical body.

Integrating ancient wisdom healing traditions with modern scientific principles, David has forged a model of health that integrates the multiple dimensions of a human being―environmental, physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. As a board-certified neurologist and expert in ayurvedic medicine and other traditional healing arts, he brings a unique perspective to the relationship between mind, emotions, and health.

Lotus Guide: One of the commitments in your book is: “I commit to honor the natural cycle of activity and rest.” Do you think we are in the “rest” part of our cycle now? And if so, how do we honor that at this time during what appears to be a financial and global collapse within many global societies?

Dr. David Simon: Well, I think first of all we have to realize that whether or not we are personally honoring those cycles of rest and activity, nature honors them. In every aspect of life there is a phase of expansion and a phase of contraction. There’re phases of activity and phases of inactivity and so I think that we have to recognize that even on this global economic level that that expansion phase was unsustainable. The world has been encouraging humanity to fulfill its deeper needs by consumption so that the kind of predominant principle which is now really global is if you’re not feeling that good about yourself, if you’re feeling somewhat empty, if your relationships are not so nurturing, you can overcome that sense of emptiness by consuming, by acquiring. I think that the opportunity that this global financial contraction is offering us is to remind us first of all, that although we all like materialism, by itself it doesn’t make us happy. And that there are lots of things that we can do for ourselves that don’t require consumption or expenditure and that can be rewarding, like taking time to quiet the mind in meditation, like reengaging in a healthy conversation with our bodies in terms of what are we eating and are we exercising and enhancing flexibility, like looking at our core relationships and seeing what we can do to improve the quality of our communication, like taking some time to do things that are purely creative, such as painting or writing or learning a musical instrument.

LG: Someone recently asked me, “When do you think things will get back to normal?” I thought about it and realized that I hope they never do because what we call “normal” is what created this mess we are in financially. It seems that what is happening is that we are truly the change we have been waiting for and we just need to recognize that. Part of that change is that we are realizing that we simply cannot keep consuming, overpopulating, and overgrazing the way we have been doing. It simply isn’t sustainable.

DS: I think that we in the West have been really afraid of emptiness. You know, in Eastern traditions, certainly in ayurveda, you know, it’s said that the first element, that the first manifestation of consciousness into the world of form and phenomena is akaya, which really means “empty space.” And if we can embrace emptiness as a field of possibility and not engage in almost this addictive obsession with filling every empty space within us by consuming, it actually gives us tremendous freedom. And hopefully out of that potential emptiness is going to come creativity: creativity that means more harmony with our ecosystem, creativity that’s more about the quality of our relationships rather than the demonstration of our wealth. So I think there’s a real opportunity here for people personally and collectively to set a new trajectory that is more sustainable and that ultimately is more fulfilling.

LG: I totally agree. I know your focus is to embrace the positive and not dwell on the negative, but in light of world events that seem to center around the conflict generated by divisive beliefs, how important do you think it is to reevaluate our previously held beliefs, especially our religious beliefs that seem to generate so much endless conflict?

DS: You know, Sigmund Freud once said that neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambivalence. And so I think that the entire human species is neurotic because we are obsessed with dividing the world into good and bad, right and wrong and then owning all those beliefs that we have been conditioned to believe are good or right and ultimately trying to destroy everything that we put on the opposite side of the equation.

There is a joke that says that God gave humanity spirituality, and then the devil said, “Let’s organize it in the form of a religion.” I think there is some truth to that point. A religion becomes a divisive set of beliefs rather than what I think every great religious founder really taught us, which is that the purpose of a religious life is to bring about wholeness, not separation. So, I think it’s very important that we start to experiment with a new mind-set, which is less about right and wrong and more about finding creative solutions to our world challenges.

LG: So, in a neurological sense, how important do you think meditation is to our mental health and perhaps gaining some clarity and courage to evolve spiritually and consciously?

DS: I think that in order to get clarity on our lives and on our world we have to bring our awareness out of the constricted mind-set into a more expanded view. When we’re engaged in the day-to-day challenges and day-to-day conflicts we tend to resort to our more primitive patterns, the fight-or-flight responses or other psychological reactive responses, and we basically become very reflexive in our response. We act in ways that have more to do with our biological and social conditioning than really what’s going to lead to the highest outcomes, to outcomes that create the maximum happiness for the maximum number of people.

In my experience, both personally and professionally, the most powerful way that we can move from a reflexive mode into a more reflective mode where creativity can begin to flow is by taking time to go within, quiet the mind, and allow our more ego-dominated awareness to become less localized, more expanded. And it’s good for our physiology because it reduces the stress in our bodies. It’s good for our mind, for our psychology, because it quiets down some of the repetitive thought processes. It’s good for our soul because it gives us at least a glimpse of what it means to be less ego based and more universal based. And I think it’s ultimately good for our world because it awakens that awareness of our underlying unity rather than reinforcing the fear that comes from seeing the differences that are between us.

LG: This next question is one that I think we could have a little bit of fun with although it’s a semiserious question, but I’m sure you’ve heard of the term “spiritual evolution” as used by people like Teilhard Pierre de Chardin and others, where it seems we are evolving toward a oneness that would be difficult to define, but the basic premise is that whatever consciousness is, it appears that it has this underlying intention to constantly evolve, expand, and connect forming higher and more complex manifestations of itself. In other words, atoms come together to form molecules, molecules come together to form cells, cells form organisms, which we are one of right now. Now, if this process is still happening, then the next step will be for organisms like you and me to come together to form an even larger and more complex being; in this case it would be a planetary consciousness of an even higher complexity, in which we are all one. And it seems clear that we are mirroring this in our outer world through the Internet and a variety of connecting services like the post office, the coming together of the European Union, and more recently the social networking. I am curious as to what your thoughts are on this. Do you see us at a point of transformation where we’re actually getting ready to transform into another, not more consciousness, but a totally different level of conscious being? Much the same way as if you and I were each cells within one of our bodies, and if we somehow connected and realized, “Oh, my gosh! We’re part of a consciousness of a larger extended body which we are part of.” In this case, our planetary consciousness.

DS: You know, the evolutionary process is an experimental one in that in a sense nature throws the dice and then sees if that particular combination is supported by its ecosystem. And so the human being is the latest experiment on this planet and the question really, from the natural perspective, is ultimately do we make a contribution to the ecological system that we’re in or are we disruptive? And like many other species, if we’re unable to adapt in a way that ultimately creates harmony, then we’ll go the way of other species that were good tries but didn’t quite work. Since I have chosen to incarnate as a human being, and since I have children, my hope would be that we can create a world that deserves our children, and that allows for this human experiment to continue and evolve toward higher levels of happiness and awareness. But, you know, we tend to be fairly species-centric, egocentric, and geocentric. If you look at us we’re like a little tiny recent experiment on Planet Earth. My hope is that just as we came out of undifferentiated oneness, that we carry that memory of unity at a deep cellular level as well as at a deep level of our human psyche and that there is this call in us to remember our unity even as we celebrate our diversity. You know it’s not that we all want to be exactly the same. Just like every cell in the body has its own unique purpose, its own dharma, you know the liver cell does something different than the heart cell, which does something different than the kidney cell. But within a healthy physiology, even as every cell is performing its individuated task there is some awareness that it’s also serving the whole. My hope is that as a human species we evolve and as we strive to meet our personal needs of taking care of our family and paying our mortgage and driving our car, that there will be this increasing awareness that our choices have an influence on our collective body and collective mind. This is the only way we can continue to evolve and be an expression of conscious evolution on this planet and ultimately on other planets. I think we are at a crossroads for human evolution. We simply cannot allow those primitive patterns that may have served us while we were in the jungle to be brought into a society with the technology we have today. So I think that nature is giving us choice. And if our choice is to recognize at every moment that we are part of this broad ecosystem where there is no rigid separation between self and not-self and we begin to behave that way, then I think we can create an amazing planet, because most of the real problems on Earth are created by our human-to-human interactions. Not that there isn’t the occasional earthquake or tsunami or hurricane, but most of the day-to-day struggle and suffering is because as human beings we haven’t treated each other as sacred and therefore most of the solutions are within our power if we begin to exercise our creativity. So the answer to your question is yes. I do think we at least have the potential of moving into states that recognize our expanding awareness of unity, but there are no guarantees. We’ve been given the gift of free will and both personally and collectively we have the ability to exercise that free will in a way that ultimately allows for evolutionary outcomes, but we also have the possibility of exercising those choices in ways that can be self-destructive. Like any creative entity, you can create health or you can create cancer. And I think we’re at a junction point to make a decision.

LG: Your last point is something that is often overlooked; what has been the “evolution of consciousness” is now “conscious evolution” because of our participation in the process with our self-awareness.

DS: I agree. Realizing that small choices, when made by lots of people, become big choices. That means everything from recycling your plastic bottles, or eliminating your plastic bottles all together, to stop using pesticides and herbicides in your garden, to choosing fuel-efficient cars, to just the day-to-day experiences that we all have can make the difference. And by taking time every day to quiet down and realize that we are an expression of that underlying field of awareness, that we are ultimately spirit taking on disguise. Then we will start treating all the sentient beings on this planet with that greater sense of reverence and I think that’s what’s going to help us create the world that is worthy of our children.

LG: It’s not only the only option we have for creating a durable and sustainable world, it’s the only world worth living in.

DS: Let’s hope enough people understand this, thanks for those great questions.