Deepak Chopra: Your First Kiss Lives On

The renowned doctor talks about what happens after death and why everything--even your first kiss--has an afterlife.

Interview by Laura Sheahen

In his 45th and most recent book, mind-body pioneer Deepak Chopra explores what's on the other side of the veil that separates life and death. Beliefnet editor Laura Sheahen recently talked to Chopra about what will happen to him after he dies, how it is that people can talk to their pets with their minds, and how every moment in your life has a lingering karma that will show up on the "Akashic record" of your soul.

What do you believe will happen to you the moment you die?

I think I will enter a realm of pure consciousness, and I am hoping that my death will be as conscious as my life. And at that moment, I will be able to make the choices that I want about where I want to evolve and how I want to evolve as I make them now.

What sort of choices do you think there might be in the afterlife? What would you hope for?

More creativity, more insight, more understanding from relationship, more evolution, a period of incubation, and then a choice of whether I want to make this journey again.

So you do have the choice about coming back to a human life?

Right.

There's a poem by Billy Collins that says everyone gets the afterlife they believe in.

Yeah, I totally believe that.