Imagine, if you will, that we are more than we think. More even than the universe itself, because the universe is only one expression of the fundamental, grounding, metahuman source that emanates, nurtures, and transcends us all. This is an idea from Deepak Chopra, who suggests there are secrets and techniques to moving beyond our present limitations. Some might disagree with Chopra. Perhaps he offends many traditionalists, both Eastern and Western, with his blending of common-sense wellness, medical intuition and Ayurvedic therapies.

Chopra unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. It means to move past the limitations constructed by the mind and to enter a new state of awareness in which we have deliberate and concrete access to peak experiences that can transform people’s lives from the inside out.

Sverre Knut Johansen has taken on many fantastic themes and notions with his electronic music, such as interstellar travel, secret extraterrestrial technologies, terrestrial time and natural history, evolution itself, dreaming, and with his newest album, Metahuman, he embraces Enlightenment, Awakening, and the Great Liberation, with music to inspire a new spiritual perspective on our life in the Universe with the infinite potential to remove the limiting belief systems and negativity of our personal reality, all in a musical form that brings light to the world.

Deepak Chopra is an Indian-American author and alternative medicine advocate. He has likened the universe to a “reality sandwich” which has three layers: the “material” world, a “quantum” zone of matter and energy, and a “virtual” zone outside of time and space, which is the domain of God, and from which God can direct the other layers. Chopra has frequently said that “aging is simply learned behavior” that can be slowed or prevented. Some of his ideas have caused various medical and scientific professionals to label his work as pseudoscience. Great changes are preceded by chaos, to move past the limitations constructed by the mind.

Humans do this naturally—to a point. For centuries the great artists, scientists, writers, and many ordinary people have gone beyond the everyday physical world. But if we could channel these bewildering experiences, what would happen? Chopra argues we would wake up to experiences that would blow open our bodies, minds, and souls. Metahuman invites the reader of Deepak to walk the path of here and now.

Chopra studied medicine in India before emigrating in 1970 to the United States, where he completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in endocrinology. As a licensed physician, by 1980 he became chief of staff at the New England Memorial Hospital (NEMH). In 1985, he met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and became involved in the Transcendental Meditation movement and eventually resigned from NEMH to pursue a new vision of healing, eventually establishing such enterprises as the Maharishi Ayurveda Health Center, the Chopra Center for Wellbeing, the Mind-Body Medical Group, the Chopra Foundation, and the American Association for Ayurvedic Medicine.

Chopra has also been described as America’s most prominent spokesman for Ayurveda. Ayurveda therapies include herbal medicines, yoga, massage, laxatives, special diets, meditation, enemas, and medical oils. Historical evidence for Ayurvedic texts, terminology and concepts appears from the middle of the first millennium BCE onwards, the main classical Ayurveda texts begin with accounts of the transmission of medical knowledge from the gods to sages, and then to human physicians.

In Ayurvedic texts, balance is emphasized, suppressing natural urges is considered unhealthy and claimed to lead to illness. Ayurvedic practitioners regard physical existence, mental existence, and personality each as their own unique units, with each element being able to influence the others. The political debate about the place of Ayurveda in contemporary India has continued to the present, Ayurveda is heavily practiced in India and Nepal, where perhaps around 80% of the population report using it.

I am not about to further summarize such a complexity, let us immediately turn to focus on the music. What I hear is a full electronic symphony, often with a space-rock form of higher consciousness guiding the way, in places light and sparkly, and in other places much more complex, deep and rich with textures, pulses and powerful melodic wonder. Sverre Knut Johansen mostly plays Sequential Prophet X and Pro 3, opening a portal to deep inner space, employing other instruments as noted in the track details. On three tracks Ståle Storløkken plays Haken Audio Continiuum. This album was mastered by the legendary Howard Givens at Spotted Peccary Studios NW in Portland, Oregon.

From the void comes form, in the shape of a new friend, who has been traveling for years collecting adventures and stories, and at last has arrived. From the form comes motion and dance, “METAHUMAN” (3:37) establishes the groove, a sense of wonderment is invoked, hypnotized by the brilliance of that pulsing core of light, swirling bright gas around the starlike, throbbing core. Storløkken plays Haken Audio Continuum on this track, reflecting the cosmos, including orderliness, balance, harmony, logic, and abstract beauty.

Darker themes emerge on the second track, building into a separate solid form, the power of energy, with cogent strings stretched under a brazen sky, beneath a stupendous Sun. There is a mild rumbling and tumbling off in deep space, some spooky distant synthesizers echoing and swirling in blackness. This is the prodigal otherworldly rover, feeling the kinetic power of the pulse, molding the universe’s chaos, arrayed with the intoxicating colors of coursing energy. This is the longest track, it builds to a powerful beat, the strings take over, and ultimately fades into mist in the end. Do we live in a mind-made fiction? The best use of imagination is creativity. The worst use of imagination is anxiety. “HUMAN (Path Of Destruction)” (10:34), the word destruction is probably more of a daredevil prophesy than a description of the sound. The musical feeling is positive and provides a strong uplifting groove, surely destruction would not have such honest beauty. This concept is different, perhaps the myth of the human as a machine is harmful. To free yourself, Chopra suggests that you open your mind, soul, and body, always to find that consciousness is the sole creator of self, mind, brain, body and the universe. Dig it.

Storløkken plays Haken Audio Continuum on the third track, “Unity Of Existence Through Evolution” (8:48), which is contemplative and gentle, the space rock beat operates within a slow inquisitive mood with changing elements. Lift up your eyes to the sky, on towards unknown worlds of distant stars beyond the wide, uncharted reaches of deep space, into the vastness of space-time, with its myriad stars and planets, the ceaseless drama of life. We are the authors of space-time, we must embrace our true role. The story never begins or ends – it merely ‘becomes,’ and you already possess this ultimate potential. Maybe.

The strength builds and broadens into a wide atmospheric dancing ground, a form that brings light to the world, wide circles, graceful glides, a solid neo-rock beat sustains, the pulse is strong, and rising. You might want to find your sturdy cosmic dancing shoes, much territory is spanned and then floats upwards, to fade into a pleasant extended psychedelic darkness. “Immortal” (5:44) allows life to make sense as never before, life becomes transformed as you explore the infinite potential, the miracle of our very existence. Chopra claims that one may attain “perfect health,” free from disease and never age or die. He suggests that human aging is fluid and changeable, it can speed up, slow down, stop for a time, and even reverse itself, yielding indestructible new dimensions of stress-free living and joyful living, positioning building blocks taking you stepping on a journey through this current Fairy Tale we call life, babe.

Sweet slow rising layers build into a powerful pulse with sparkles, then glides upwards, into “META (The Light Inside You)” (6:24). This touches on the forever spirit once again, consistent and nourishing as it wings upwards, repeating circles of light, perhaps an m’bira-core orbit, you might move past the limitation constructed by the mind to encounter a faint-glowing mass of vapor with a brighter core. Along with his collection of synths, electronic percussion, electric guitars, and sound design software, weaving melody, rhythm, and texture into a captivating musical tapestry that constantly evolves, revealing secret treasures from a distant place and bringing light to the world, Johansen plays the Haken ContinuuMini on this track. There is a hidden meaning behind all events, and this hidden meaning, an ancient philosophy Chopra calls The Direct Path, is hopefully serving your own evolution.

Now we are all dancing slowly. “METAHUMAN (Extended)” (9:51) expands the theme, allowing for a new message, explanation, and exploration. Only by going beyond everyday life can we change what it means to be human today. The destination is probably a little bit different because there is more time to establish the image or formation.

The universe has deep resources, a finger of light into the sky, amid wisps of smoke, clouds of silver, places of secrets, elegant and with wisdom hidden in it. There might be a science of dreaming, consciousness is much more than pure abstract reason, crossing the ancient chasm, cautiously emerging into percussive motion and pulse, a dance into the fullness of time and what lies hidden. Journey through echoes to find the sense of awe that astronomers might experience when observing outer space through telescopes, a mind-expanding view into our inner space. In fact it’s thousands of years old; and Storløkken plays the Haken Audio Continuum.

“Fluctuations Of Awareness” (7:55) is slow and thick in places, with textures and surprises that drift and fade in an atmosphere of gradual metamorphosis, I might somehow sense alternate bands of red, blue, yellow, and white strata, a fraction of light, not the violet glimmer which had illuminated the underground ways, but a ghostly radiance. Logistical obstacles are opportunities in disguise. Such openings allow for rhythm and pulses to lead the way up into the vast beyondscape. When you make a choice, you change the future. Sometimes I feel almost like I am looking into a star, looking into the glowing, pulsing core, seeing spatial starlight unfiltered by any atmosphere; and Johansen plays the Haken ContinuuMini on this track.

As we ponder a mind-expanding view into our inner sonic light show, we might veer into a tunnel, the corner turning into a night sky that goes forever, “Miracle Of Existence” (7:34) creates a new paradigm of health for humanity, essential positivity. Gradual deepening and layering, sustaining a slow exploration that is darker in places, always keeping a consistent pulse and life force, this is an inward spin. Imagine wind that sounds a bit like fields of dry whistles and synthesizers, developing into a beat that could be like a heartbeat, and it just keeps going and changing, sometimes a prisoner of the past, otherwise a pioneer of the future, our non-physical experience is a paradoxical journey beyond the physical and the deeply hidden.

On the final track, the always amazing David Helpling activates his electric guitar, synthesizers, and piano, while Johansen plays Steinberger bass guitar in addition to his basic studio wizardly contributions. “Infinity Being” (6:13) brings a haunting melodic atmosphere, full of subtle vistas, a cycling melody that returns to our dream castle. This is where the limitless lingers. The vastness of space-time sings, with its myriad stars and planets moving beyond our present limitations of the mind to access a field of infinite possibilities. We are more than we think.

Waking up, we learn, isn’t just about mindfulness or meditation. By going beyond, we can liberate ourselves from the conditioning and constructs that underlie anxiety, tension, and ego-driven demands. Waking up allows life to make sense as never before. To make this as practical as possible, Chopra rounds out the book with a 31-day guide to becoming Metahuman. Once you wake up, he writes, your life becomes transformed, because pure consciousness—which is the field of all possibilities– then dawns in your life. Only then does your infinite potential become your personal reality.

Sverre Knut Johansen has a master’s degree in music technology from NTNU in Trondheim, Norway (2009). His first commercially released collaborative musical adventure was an EP of space rock titled Void (not on a label, 1980). Using his amazing collection of synths, electronic percussion, electric guitars, and sound design software, Johansen creates his tracks with a creativity that stimulates the ears and sparks the imagination, weaving a captivating musical tapestry. His sound’s melodies, rhythms, and textures come together, constantly evolving throughout the entire journey. Johansen has at times invited his listeners to become Krononauts, providing a path to the extreme distances of time, sometimes to explore the creation of the universe, and other times just for the speculative wonderment.

In the beginning Johansen experimented with audio cassettes and then built his first music studio in 1983, where he composed and recorded his own symphonic rock through the 1980s, adding computers and midi technology in 1990. He got a record deal with the Origo Sound label in 1992. Some recording highlights include Distant Shore (Origo Sound, 1994); The Source Of Energy (Origo Sound, 1999); Av Jern (Orkana, 2008); Planets (Origo Sound, 2013); Hibernation (Origin Music, 2013); Life (Origin Music, 2013); Ancient Prophecies (Origin Music, 2013); Lights (Origin Music, 2013); Elements Of Light (Origin Music, 2014); Different Directions (White Horse, EP 2014); Nightshift (Origin Music, 2014); Earth From Above (Spotted Peccary, 2016); Secret Space Program (Spotted Peccary, 2017); Contact (Origin Music, 2017); with David Helpling The Vast Expanse (Spotted Peccary, 2018); with Robert Rich Precambrian (Spotted Peccary, 2019), and Dreams Beyond (Spotted Peccary, 2020).

Ståle Storløkken is a Norwegian jazz musician (keyboards, organ and piano) and composer, known for finding new sounds, finding new ways of playing, writing new music, and for his collaborations with artists like Terje Rypdal, BigBang, Supersilent and Motorpsycho. He is married to the Norwegian singer Tone Åse. Another one of his inspirations is the sound of free improvisation, specifically the intuitive freedom of Joe Zawinul of the jazz-rock group Weather Report.

David Helpling collaborated on the final track, “Infinity Being,” bringing his spirit of exploration, which is key to increasing our appreciation of the world of sound, the listening experience is about making discoveries, things that are unusual and unexpected. Chasing the ambient guitar dream, Helpling absolutely loves working with synthesizers and samplers, electric guitars and keyboards. You can hear it in his strange machines, magnifying and projecting the sound, gliding towards achieving the spiritual height and steadiness we are here for.

Perhaps knowledge cannot be defined through perception, because of the vastness of space-time, with its myriad stars and planets, and the ceaseless drama of life. We are the authors of space-time, we must embrace our true role. This album presents an opportunity for using your ears and inner theater of imagination to explore impossible and fantastic landscapes inside your own mind, considering the possibilities for healing and intentional positive growth that can be cultivated. The music might be a catalyst for new ideas, new interpretations of the evidence we have found so far, new ways of finding more evidence, and new lessons to apply for how we move forward. In the midst of movement and chaos, where nothing is impossible, be fearless for the people of today and the challenges we all face.

Available here: Spotted Peccary Music https://spottedpeccary.com/shop/metahuman/ and https://orcd.co/metahuman