By Deepak Chopra Deepak Chopra and Annie Bond Annie Bond
The Simple State

There is a state of non-suffering inside you; it is simple and open to awareness. By contrast, the state of suffering is complicated because, in its attempts to wrestle with pain, the ego refuses to see that the answer could be as simple as simply learning to be. Any steps that get you to stop clinging to complications will bring you closer to the simple state of healing. Complications occur as thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and subtle energies, meaning hidden emotional debts and resistance. By working toward a simpler state every day, you are doing the best anyone can do to bring suffering to an end by cutting out the roots of unreality.

Adapted from The Book of Secrets, by Deepak Chopra (Three Rivers Press, 2004).
The Simple Choice
It starts with little things. You bite into an ear of corn grown by an heirloom seed, and a symphony of sweetness and flavor bursts forth in your mouth. The taste is new to you, but you realize it used to be commonplace. While visiting a friend, you sleep in an all-wool, nothing-synthetic bed, and you wake up more fully refreshed and rested than you’ve felt in months. You switch to nontoxic cleaning products, and your chronic headache disappears.
Bit by bit, the experiences add up, and you realize that you thrive when you are surrounded by nature–natural materials, nature’s sounds, and naturally produced food.
Adapted from, Home Enlightenment by Annie B. Bond (Rodale, 2005).