excerpts from his blog:
https://www.intentblog.com/archives/
2008/06/a_new_world_or_2.html


A New World or No World? (Part 3)


"When people are asleep, the future is a repetition of the past, because inertia can do little else. Conservation, the party of inertia, represents the impulse in each of us not to wake up --it says "Leave me alone. I like the way I am." The growth of consciousness never happens until a person overcomes inertia first. All progress occurs first at the level of consciousness and then, as if by magic, a discovery appears in the outer world. A famous example is the discovery of penicillin. In the lab millions of petri dishes had been thrown out because common air-borne Penicillium mold had contaminated the bacteria that a researcher wanted to culture. The mold was a nuisance until Alexander Fleming saw instead that killing bacteria was a positive thing -- he was awake to a new possibility.

The key was a change of perception.

New discoveries don't occur because Nature suddenly reveals more of its potential. All of Nature is available all the time. We are the discoverers of hidden dimensions in ourselves, and a tiny flicker of waking up stimulates new revelations. Ultimately, science is a way for mind to speak to itself -- it's an inner exploration that leads to external findings. But at the present moment, with reactionary forces so dominant, there is no viable vision of tomorrow.

By definition reactionary forces want to freeze progress, usually by idealizing the past and grossly exaggerating the risk of moving forward.

Every wise teacher has declared that external comforts are unreliable and not to be trusted. Christ didn't say "The Kingdom of God is within a four-bedroom condo." He said it lies within us.

In India, turning inward became a powerful social force because people agreed that the inner path was real and desirable. To back up this conviction, most ancient people looked around and saw disease, poverty, and violence in all directions. The seductions of money and physical comfort weren't present.

Our situation now teeters on the rink of peril, too. We have reached a crossroads that appears only once or twice a century. Two roads aren't diverging in a yellow wood, however the divide exists in consciousness.

The world's wisdom traditions inform us which way to go. Only time will tell if waking up was the way we chose. If so, peril will turn into a creative opportunity. The other way surely leads into more inertia, reactionary values, dead habit, and worst of all, deeper and deeper sleep."

www.deepakchopra.com