This talks was recorded at IONS' Consciousness and Healing Forum on 3/23/2005 in San Francisco, where Deepak and Marilyn deepened the dialogue initiated in the newly-released book Consciousness and Healing.

Deepak begins the discussion by observing that the Western medical paradigm is based on a premise that is fundamentally wrong: that consciousness is an epiphenomenon, a byproduct of material elements and processes. Just as the gall bladder secretes bile and the stomach secretes acid, the brain somehow secretes thoughts. But how does an organ composed mostly of fat, water, and minerals, encased in a skull that deprives it of a direct experience of the world, do such a thing? Deepak argues that consciousness is the phenomenon, and all else is the epiphenomenon. Just as our DNA differentiates skin, bone, and organs, our consciousness differentiates perceptions, cognition, moods, behavior, biology, social interaction, personal relations, the environment, and forces of nature. They are all different expressions of a single reality.