by Karon Brandt

Created on: November 20, 2009   Last Updated: November 22, 2009

Why do we age? Do we have to?

Two of the greatest, most-respected proponents of mind-body connections are Deepak Chopra, M.D., and Wayne Dyer, Ph.D. These great academics and good friends have a lively discussion on audio cassette tapes in front of a live audience about "Living without Limits."

Chopra has written over 50 books and heads the Chopra Center in California, in which natural mind-body healing techniques are used. Dyer has written over 30 books and is a psychologist who emphasizes our spiritual natures along with physicality.

In this tape, Deepak talks about a study done by Ellen Lambert in the 1980's of elderly people in their 70s and older, who agreed to live in a monastery under "experimentally controlled conditions" in Boston for 3 weeks. The point was to see if living as though they were in the Fifties again would influence aging.

By inducing fiction as reality, the group was exposed to only the "reality" of the 50's: the TV only played old movies and daytime shows of the 50's; only music and songs from the 50's was played; only period magazines were available. The people were told to think and act and talk like they did back in the 50's.

After three weeks, the biological markers of aging were re-tested. Amazingly, the people appeared to be three years younger: they had better hearing and vision; stronger bones; reduced blood pressure, etc.

Within a few weeks of returning to their former environments, they regressed back to their former biological ages.

The experiment concluded that our thoughts become the collective thoughts of the people which become the group's reality.

Deepak tells of cultures in which people think of time as circular and ongoing - as summer, fall, winter and spring, rather than linear - as birth, adolescence, middle-aged and elderly; people age differently.

In cultures where becoming older means becoming wiser and revered, people are still very productive in their eighties and nineties and hundreds. They can swim naked in cold mountain streams and walk for miles daily and continue life as though they were many years younger.

Dyer asks if we align ourselves with the consciousness of others of like beliefs, could we change the world? And the men discuss several stories that say, "Yes." We can alter our reality to fit the common belief system, and we can change that belief system.

Chopra tells the story of a mining accident in Germany in which 7 men were buried underground for 6 days awaiting rescue. Only one man had a watch. To

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