5 Rules for Timeless Living
By Deepak Chopra
First Rule: Where the Mind Goes, the Body Must Follow
Almost everyone has heard of the mind-body connection. But they often reduce it to simple notions about positive thinking or “You’re only as old as you think you are.” In reality, everywhere your mind goes, your body must follow. It’s not a choice. Through a flood of chemical messengers, every thought you have is sent to your body. Therefore, your mind is playing the major role in aging. The good news is that it can play the major role in reversing aging.
Second Rule: Memory Freezes Time
Memory is how we hold on to the past. This means that a toxic memory is the same as a toxic experience being repeated over and over. Regret, hostility, anxiety, insecurity all depend upon trying to relive the past and change it. Therefore, memory blocks the flow of life in the present. If you are fully alive, you will remain young. The past is dead. There is no life there, even when you dwell on a happy past. Your body wants to be alive here and now. To give it that gift, bring your awareness to the here and now.
Third Rule: Aging Is Rooted in Stuckness
Every experience leaves a residue in your cells. That’s because your body’s version of being happy or sad, angry or loving, agitated or at peace comes down to chemistry. It takes a chemical reaction in your brain before you can register any experience. Every cell can clear out old experiences as easily as breathing. If you let the old be breathed out, you will be fresh and open to new experiences, which is a perfect definition of being young. Stuckness brings fatigue, staleness, habit, ritual and the repetition of outworn beliefs. When you get unstuck, life flows like water.
Fourth Rule: A River Never Ages
Flow is why a river never ages. Your body is also a river, constantly changing. The direction of change is up to you. As long as you keep growing, change will move forward. As long as there is forward motion, stagnation is impossible. The key is entirely in your awareness. One person can faithfully attend the gym but be miserable inside. Another can take a stroll in the sunshine in a happy frame of mind. Which one do you think is remaining youthful?
Fifth Rule: Beyond Time, the Experience of Youth Can Be Eternal
Ultimately, an ageless body depends on a timeless mind (I think somebody once said that). The mystery of immortality can be solved this very minute if you decide to. All it takes is a willingness to find the part of you that is timeless already. That part is the still, silent realm of meditation. In meditation, you allow your mind to find its truth, and that truth is beyond time. By truth I mean what is truly real.
