Morgan Freeman: The blues were born right here in
the Mississippi delta.
John Lee hooker, Muddy Waters, BB King, Jessie Mae Hemphill,
I can't see 'em anymore, but their spirit lives on,
right here.
I can lose myself in music.
Hear it?
I feel it, and it transports me to another time and place.
Some would call it a religious experience.
Can't say that I disagree.
Makes me think of the all the ways people around the world
connect to god.
Moses saw god in a bush.
Buddha found enlightenment under a tree.
Muhammad experienced Allah on a mountain.
Is there some universal concept of god that
all religions share?
Or, is god fundamentally different to people of
different faiths?
I'm setting out to discover who god is.
Joel osteen: God wants to be your best friend.
Morgan Freeman: To find out how believers around
the world see the divine.
Woman: The holy people are around us, right now.
Morgan Freeman: I'll explore how the identity of god
has changed over the millennia.
Woman 2: He thought that there were too many gods,
and not enough focus was on him.
Morgan Freeman: I'll learn how many gods merged into one.
Man: It's a single force that gives order into
our whole world.
Morgan Freeman: And, I'll search for the
presence of god...
So, you're looking for physical manifestations of god?
Dr. Andy newberg: Yes.
Morgan Freeman: Inside my brain.
I grew up with the Christian concept of god, a single,
divine being who created and governs the universe.
Of Jesus as god's earthly incarnation.
I know that's not the way everyone sees the divine.
I want to know how other religions see god.
So, I'm going to India.
To hindus, there's not one god, there are millions.
Busy little thoroughfare.
In the holy city of varanasi, I'm meeting historian,
binda paranjape, to find out how hindus see their gods.
Bhinda: At every corner of the Lane, and just you'll see
anywhere, and you'll see a shrine.
And no corner they can leave without having a god there.
So like, we have got this small little shrine here,
and it has got that elephant headed god, ganesha.
Morgan Freeman: Ganesha?
Bhinda: Yeah, it's a god who removes obstacles.
Morgan Freeman: Removes obstacles?
Bhinda: Yeah.
Morgan Freeman: Hindu deities come in many forms.
Some are male.
Some female.
Some are part human, part animal.
Each one has its specific powers.
Bhinda: So, she's the goddess of disease.
So we...
Morgan Freeman: Disease?
Bhinda: Yeah, so when you're diseased,
your body gets inflamed, then you invoke her and she
sends the cool breeze, and the body gets cool.
Morgan Freeman: All right, here's a question for you.
You've got a choice of how many?
Bhinda: Millions of them.
Morgan Freeman: Millions of gods.
How do you choose?
Bhinda: Usually, it's the family.
The family, each family has got one family deity,
and that is passed on to the next generation.
Or, sometimes, in the times of distress,
one goes to a god and say, or goddess, that,
"please take me out of this difficult time,
and forever I'll worship you as my personal god,
or goddess."
Morgan Freeman: I'm interested in finding out how
these statues become vessels for divine beings,
how hindus connect to their gods.
So, binda is taking me to an intimate prayer ritual.
[Group chanting].
Bhinda: Yeah, can you hear these chants,
which are going on?
Morgan Freeman: Uh-hm, yeah.
Bhinda: They're chanting the chants for
invoking the goddess.
So, now we are going to be blessed.
[Group chanting].
Morgan Freeman: This prayer ceremony is dedicated
to the goddess, lalitha.
[Group chanting].
And so, this is lalitha here,
this is her physical representation?
What kind of god is she?
Bhinda: She was created to kill a demon,
and that is the power of the virgin,
this 16 year old woman.
Morgan Freeman: She's a virgin?
Bhinda: Yeah, so all the potential is still in her,
so she has got the highest form of energy in her.
And she gives that power to others to fight
against their demon.
[Group chanting].
So, what they're doing is that they're invoking the
goddess' one thousand names and with every name,
they will offer her the flowers.
So, anything, any syllable that we'll pronounced goes
to the goddess so, we're saying these thousand words.
You have almost got all the possible syllables that
you could have uttered.
Morgan Freeman: So you can invoke her with just
about any syllable.
Bhinda: The goddess is any form a speech,
the human sound, and the world is supposed
to have been created out of these rhythms.
Morgan Freeman: For her devotees,
lalitha exists in the rhythmic energy of their chanting.
A divine energy that powers their lives.
Bhinda: Anyway, the goddess has blessed you,
that she has invited here, believe me.
Morgan Freeman: I believe you.
Seeing this ceremony really helps me understand
what god means to hindus.
Behind all the gods, binda tells me,
there is a single divine energy that believers
seek to tap into.
Bhinda: They say that it's just a principle,
it's like pure energy form, which is neither a male
or a female, or having any name.
So they are just given one name, brahman.
Morgan Freeman: So, in the western church,
in christianity, judaism, even islam, there is one god,
it's just, it's pure energy.
There is no name you could put to him.
There's no face you can put to him.
There's nothing you can touch.
Can we make a comparison there?
Bhinda: Yeah, it's like the tree having the trunk,
and then the branches and leaves also.
Morgan Freeman: We have the shade tree of brahma, right?
Okay.
Bhinda: Yeah, so beautiful,
that's really nicely described.
Morgan Freeman: Thank you, all right, how about some lunch?
You game for that?
Bhinda: Right, and we can invoke gods for
giving us good lunch.
[Laughs].
Morgan Freeman: I like the way believers here find gods
that best suit their own beliefs.
It's like a spiritual fingerprint,
unique to each person.
It's unlike the monotheism of the west.
But, maybe that's only on the surface.
On the surface,
hinduism looks like a religion of many gods.
But underneath the surface,
there is a single divine energy.
So, why do some cultures see many gods and some only one?
Where did the idea of worshiping a single god
first take root?
Perhaps it began here,
stonehenge, britain's iconic,
5,000 year old monument.
The culture that built stonehenge had to endure long,
cold winters.
Their survival depended on plentiful crops,
so it would make sense to focus on the single source
of energy that drove all of that, the sun.
An archaeological team is uncovering new evidence that
may reveal the beliefs of the people who once lived here.
Vince gaffney: We're going to look at the ditch
and the interior, here.
Morgan Freeman: Vince gaffney and Paul garwood have been
studying a giant, c-shaped enclosure,
less than two miles away from stonehenge.
The enclosure, called durrington walls,
was built around 4,500 years ago and appears to be
aligned so its opening faces the rising sun on the
mid-winter's day.
Paul garwood: This is a ground-penetrating radar device.
Morgan Freeman: But what interests Vince and Paul is
the remains of an older monument they found buried
underneath it.
Vince gaffney: The radar located a series of
very large features.
Paul garwood: There's a long arc of stones,
or large buried features underneath the bank.
Vince gaffney: So they've remained undetected,
effectively, for several thousand years.
Morgan Freeman: The hidden rocks are massive.
Each of them as tall as two men.
They also form part of a c-shaped monument,
but the direction this c faces is different from the
orientation of the mound that buries it.
Vince gaffney: There was an earlier monument of a very
different form on this site.
It was looking towards beacon hill and these dramatic line
of hills to the east, which is a dominant,
topographic feature in this area,
and certainly must have had significance at the time.
Morgan Freeman: Vince and Paul think the original monument
may be older than stonehenge.
They don't know what its alignment to the hills meant.
Perhaps the hills were revered as divine,
or were associated with ancestors.
But after the ancient britons built the iconic
stone circle at stonehenge...
They demolished the old stones at durrington walls,
and made a new mound, faced the same direction as
stonehenge, toward the rising, mid-winter sun.
Vince gaffney: They've been pushed over,
and the bank of the later henge monument has actually
been placed on top of them.
It moved in its orientation.
It's form changed, and presumably, to some extent,
its function.
Paul garwood: The creation of stonehenge itself,
and the building of the new architecture,
durrington walls, suggest a shift towards a greater
emphasis on the sun as the main focus of worship
and religious interest.
The builders were trying to establish a very particular
connection with summer.
Morgan Freeman: The people of stonehenge may have been the
first to worship the sun as a single, all-powerful god.
But in focusing on the sun, i wonder if they lost something.
When the gods were ancestors,
or rivers, or mountains,
they were much more accessible,
easier to connect to, to speak to.
How do you speak to a god that's so remote?
I hope to find the answer at my next destination, Egypt.
More than a thousand years after stonehenge was built,
an Egyptian man also decided to worship the sun.
His idea was considered so dangerous,
that his memory was nearly wiped from the face
of the earth.
Thank you very much.
Today, just a few mementos of his life remain at
the Cairo museum.
Salima ikram: Hey!
Morgan Freeman: Oh, there you are!
Salima ikram: Hello.
Morgan Freeman: Hello.
Amid the remains of dozens of pharaohs, egyptologist,
salima ikram is going to help me find one whose
name is akhenaten.
Salima ikram: There he is.
Morgan Freeman: Akhenaten.
Salima ikram: Yeah, he thought that there were too
many gods and not enough focus was on him.
"There were needs to be an important god,
whom only I can channel."
Morgan Freeman: So, he changed things.
Salima ikram: Radically.
He, basically, closed down most of the temples, said that,
"there is a special god, the sun god, the aten,"
and that, "you can worship the aten, through me."
Morgan Freeman: And that didn't go over too well
with a few people?
Salima ikram: No, no, that was not a very popular move,
because, of course,
all the priests of the other important gods were shut down.
Morgan Freeman: Around the year 1350bc,
akhenaten declared the sun would be Egypt's only god.
In doing so, he would found the first faith in recorded
history with a single deity.
But it would not last.
As soon as he died, the old priesthood struck back.
Salima ikram: This piece has been hacked away,
as you can tell.
You can see how the name of the king is hacked out.
The name of the aten is also attacked.
Everything there is chip, chip, chip, chip, chip,
chip chip, chip, and it's gone away, because of...
Morgan Freeman: Destroyed, they just destroyed
his memories...
The best they could.
Akhenaten hoped his son would continue this legacy,
but his son was only nine years old when he
took the throne.
His name was, tutankhamun.
Salima ikram: Here is the coffin of king tutankhamun.
Morgan Freeman: The most famous pharaoh.
Salima ikram: Absolutely.
Morgan Freeman: But he took the throne at aged nine?
Salima ikram: Nine to nineteen,
only ten short years.
Morgan Freeman: Ten short years?
I would imagine that a nine-year-old taking the
throne would be under the thumb of the old guys
who would say, "look, we can't keep this up,
we got to go back to what works."
Salima ikram: Yeah, absolutely.
He did what he was told, probably, and effectively,
his reign sort of knocked out akhenaten's reign,
and we have a return to the religion.
Morgan Freeman: Right, to the gods.
Salima ikram: The old gods are back in full force.
Morgan Freeman: Tutankhamun's priests erased
akhenaten's monotheistic religion and tried to
erase him from history.
Salima ikram: Here we go.
This is akhenaten's sarcophagus.
Morgan Freeman: This is his sarcophagus?
Salima ikram: Or, what's left of it,
because it's all smashed to pieces.
Morgan Freeman: Well, that's what you get,
trying to change the world.
Salima ikram: Well, the poor thing didn't manage
to change it for very long.
Morgan Freeman: Do not fool around with the gods.
Well, akhenaten's experiment in monotheism failed.
But I can't help wondering if what happened,
oh, around 1300bc,
didn't influence the beginning of another religion.
But it was here on the banks of the nile that
Jewish tradition says,
Moses was found among the bulrushes.
And from that period, belief in a single god began
to spread around the world.
How did the belief of a small band of israelites
spread so far and wide?
Today, almost 4 billion muslims,
christians and Jews worship the same, single god.
What was so special about this god?
Morgan Freeman: I'm traveling around the world to find out
how people of different faiths connect to the divine.
And uncovering how our ideas of who god is have
evolved over the millennia.
My quest brings me to Jerusalem,
because half the people on the planet can trace their
god to this ancient city.
It was here, around 3,000 years ago,
that beliein a single, all-powerful deity took root.
I meet Jewish philosopher, yoram hazony to find out how
one god won out over many.
This is the old city, old Jerusalem.
Yoram hazony: The old city of Jerusalem,
and stores like this have been lining these streets
for thousands of years.
Except, you know, that thousands of years ago,
they actually sold idols.
Like representations of gods, like little figurines.
In fact, there's an old rabbinic story from about the
time of the talmud, that Abraham's father was
a idol shop owner.
Morgan Freeman: So, these idols,
what were these gods for?
Yoram hazony: So, the gods, they represent,
in the old pagan religions, they represent anything
that a human being could want or need.
There's a god that brings the rain.
Morgan Freeman: Just a rain god.
Yoram hazony: You want victory on the battlefield,
so there's a god of war.
[Battle cries and shouting].
Morgan Freeman: But you would have to figure out
how you're gonna please all the different gods and
get what you wanted from them, wouldn't you?
Yoram hazony: Right, exactly.
So some of those gods, all they want is like,
you know, a party.
They want wine and song, and some good food.
That's not such a bad thing.
But, some of those gods demanded bloodshed.
So, "you want something from here, here it is,
I want something from you.
I want you to sacrifice your son," or something.
Morgan Freeman: Okay, all right, all right, all right.
How do I get now, from the rain god,
I got a god of fire, to one I can't see,
I can't touch, I don't know for sure is there?
Yoram hazony: Well, that's what this story about
Abraham is about.
Abraham looks around at all these different gods.
There's gotta be one set of rules.
One set of laws of nature,
one set of laws of morals that apply to all human beings.
Morgan Freeman: So, what does he do?
Where's he gonna go?
Yoram hazony: All right, let's take a walk and
I'll show you, come on.
Morgan Freeman: Okay, all right.
Yoram hazony: So, right here, we're looking at the absolute
centre of the religious world.
This is it.
This is the place.
We have, over there, the dome of the rock.
Over there, al-aqsa mosque.
The mount of olives.
And the valley of gethsemane.
And down below, the western wall,
the holiest prayer shrine of judaism.
Morgan Freeman: Why here?
Yoram hazony: For one reason exactly.
When Abraham almost sacrificed his son, Isaac,
it took place right up there on that spot.
Now, let's remember, Abraham's surrounded by
idolaters who were sacrificing their children.
Murdering their own children.
Morgan Freeman: Abraham thought that he was following
god's commandments by taking Isaac up there and...
Yoram hazony: But god says to him,
"you're not gonna touch your son.
Not this time, not for all time."
"There's one god," and he says,
"you are not gonna sacrifice another child ever again."
And commemorating that "never again" is the
reason that the Jews built the temple here,
and from there,
judaism and christianity make this the holiest place
in the history of the world.
Morgan Freeman: That brings up a question though.
This is an invisible god,
there's no way that you can make some approximation of him.
Yoram hazony: Right, there's no idols.
It's a single force that gives order,
the physical order and the moral order to all of mankind
and to our whole world.
There's no representation, 'cause he's not a local power.
Morgan Freeman: Temples to the single,
Jewish god stood on this spot for almost
a thousand years.
Until the romans destroyed the one that was standing
in 70ad.
But that destruction did not end this faith.
Yoram hazony: The one incredible thing about this is
that the one invisible god that's beyond all things,
it turns out that, you know, when you destroy the temple
to that one god...
Morgan Freeman: You don't destroy the god.
Yoram hazony: You don't destroy the god.
It turns out, he's just as much there as he was before.
Morgan Freeman: And that's well put.
It's understandable.
[Chanting prayers]
The god of Abraham was a god you could commune with
without any temples, without idols.
For Jews, and also for christians and muslims,
this invisible god is always with them,
no matter when or where they turn to him.
It's truly amazing that three of the world's great
faiths exist in such close proximity.
All worshipping one god, the same god,
a god who has survived calamities from the
destruction of the holy temple to religious violence.
But how do you connect with a god who has no physical form?
How do you know what's divine and what isn't?
I have decided to return to Cairo to try and
understand who god is to muslims.
Islam believes in the same god as Jews and christians,
but I wanna know if there are differences in how
they think about the divine.
Historian of islam, Ahmed ragab has brought me
to the al-Hussein mosque.
And you can just come in here,
just like a catholic church?
So it always open for prayer.
Ahmed ragab: Yeah, yeah.
Morgan Freeman: If you wanna come in here and just
hang out with yourself and Allah?
Ahmed ragab: Yeah, absolutely.
Morgan Freeman: I'm just in time to hear what muslims
believe is one of the most beautiful sounds in the world,
the call to prayer.
[Sings call to prayer].
For the faithful, the song of the muezzin is a
manifestation of god himself.
Ahmed ragab: So that the end of the prayer is by saying,
"as-salaam-alaikum"
much like you end an encounter with anybody.
And it is because the prayer is, essentially,
a meeting with god, the function is goodbye.
Morgan Freeman: Like, "hey," you know,
"see you later, nice talking to you."
Ahmed ragab: Exactly, see you the next time.
[Muezzin sings prayer].
Morgan Freeman: Prayer to Allah seems like a
conversation with a person.
But how do you speak to a person who has no human form?
To help me understand, Ahmed has arranged a meeting with
the mosque's spiritual leader, imam al-Amir mahfouz.
Thank you so much for speaking with us.
Imam: Welcome.
Morgan Freeman: In the Christian religion,
god is so manifested,
but there is no such thing in islam.
So, who am I talking to?
Do I envision anything?
[Foreign dialogue].
Imam: You cannot imagine god.
God is beyond imagination.
Whatever you would imagine with our human minds,
god would be different from it.
Morgan Freeman: One of the most haunting and beautiful
sounds in the world is the Muslim call to prayer.
What is the origin of that?
Ahmed ragab: It is said that one of Muhammad's
companions had a vision while he was asleep,
where he heard this call for prayer.
And then, when he woke up,
he went to Muhammad and told him about it.
And he's made it into this ritual of using it to
call for prayers every day, five times every day.
Morgan Freeman: The muezzin, how is he chosen?
Do you hold auditions?
[Foreign dialogue].
Imam: There are auditions where they would listen to
people and the one who has the best voice will
be given the position.
Morgan Freeman: Allahhhhhhhhhhu-aqbar.
How does that sound?
[Laughs].
[Foreign dialogue].
Imam: You have to work on it.
Morgan Freeman: I have to work on it.
Okay, I get it.
[Sings prayer].
Mosques are designed to be filled with beautiful sounds
and images that delight the senses,
from elaborate architecture, to versus of the quran,
written in the finest calligraphy.
Many muslims see this beauty as a manifestation
of god himself.
Islam sees god in all things that are beautiful,
because god has not physical form,
he can be experienced anywhere with any of the senses.
But these experiences only have an aspect of the divine,
god is always more than we can imagine.
Across so many faiths around the world,
and throughout time, people have emulated the divine in
the beauty of their temples, and glimpsed god in the
splendour of nature.
But some faiths believe god can take a physical form.
And that form is a person.
I'm in shiprock, new Mexico in the heart
of the navajo nation.
I'm about to witness something that few outsiders ever see,
a sacred ceremony where a god and a human become
one single being.
Woman: Welcome.
Morgan Freeman: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Woman: You're welcome.
Woman 2: Hi, Morgan.
Morgan Freeman: How are you?
Kayla: We have something for you too.
Morgan Freeman: Oh, you do?
Kayla: Yes.
Morgan Freeman: Look out!
Thank you.
Kayla: You're welcome.
Morgan Freeman: Now, where are we going now?
Woman: We're going inside.
Morgan Freeman: Are we?
Woman: Yes.
Morgan Freeman: All right, I'll follow.
Inside the traditional navajo ritual hut, or hogan,
the Peterson family has agreed to share with me the
ceremony that allows their youngest daughter,
maysun to pass from girlhood to womanhood.
By the end of the four day long ritual,
one of the navajo deities will be living inside her.
Woman: Yeah, just like that, and make a cone...
Woman 2: Oh, yeah.
Woman: Like a cone, like this.
Morgan Freeman: The core of the ceremony is the
making of a giant corn cake in honor of the sun.
How big is the cake gonna be?
Woman: It's gonna be huge.
Morgan Freeman: Huge.
Are you the fire tender?
Kayla: Yes.
Morgan Freeman: Okay.
Maysun's older sister, Kayla went through this same
ritual four years ago, and learned about her connection
to the navajo gods, or holy people.
Do me a favor, tell me about this ritual.
Kayla: So, it's referred to as, the kinaalda ceremony.
Morgan Freeman: Say that again.
Kayla: Kinaalda.
Morgan Freeman: Kinaalda.
Kayla: I had my ceremony when I was about 12.
And it's a puberty ceremony, so it actually originates from
changing woman who, we call her,
asdza'a' n�dleeh�.
Morgan Freeman: Asdza'a' n�dleeh�?
Kayla: Yes.
Morgan Freeman: Close though.
Kayla: Close for the first.
Morgan Freeman: Asdza'a' n�dleeh�.
Kayla: The story originated because they wanted changing
woman to bear children.
So, it all starts when first woman and first man see
a dark cloud come over gobernador knob and
they hear a baby crying.
[Baby crying].
Kayla: And him and first woman were instructed to care
for the baby by the holy people.
So, within 12 days, she grew from an infant into
a 12-year-old girl.
Morgan Freeman: In 12 days?
Kayla: Yes.
She was ready to become a woman.
Morgan Freeman: To grow into a woman,
maysun must connect with the divine spirit of
changing woman, which the navajo believe still
inhabits the landscape.
Each day, she has to run toward the rising sun.
Do the young ladies always run east in the morning?
Kayla: Yes.
So it goes back on the story with changing woman,
as she becomes a woman.
When she does bear children, it is with the sun.
Woman 2: The holy people are around us right now.
Woman: This is an opportunity for the ceremony
where these prayers come upon her and push on her.
And it's all about her.
Yes, yes, yes it is.
So she gets all the prayers,
and your hopes and your dreams...
Woman: And [Inaudible] whatever it is that you
want for her.
Just whatever positive you can push into the cake and
make sure that her life is strong and complete,
and that she knows that she has all these prayers
that will got with her.
Morgan Freeman: Go with her.
[Navajo medicine man sings].
Morgan Freeman: As the corn cake begins its slow overnight
bake maysun begins the final night of her kinaalda.
Tonight, she'll be joined with the spirit of the navajo
deity, changing woman.
[Navajo medicine man sings]
She and her family will stay in the hogan until dawn,
while the navajo medicine man sings sacred songs.
[Navajo medicine man sings].
Are all of these songs prayers and blessings for
the young girl?
Navajo medicine man: Yeah, these can help her
along the way,
that she's already changing into a young adult.
So I just sing for them at the kinaalda, okay,
to give them strength.
It's what the run is about, okay.
With an endorsement, build the muscles, and everything,
so they will be changed slowly into womanhood.
[Navajo medicine man sings].
Morgan Freeman: There are many more songs to be sung tonight,
but hearing them all is prohibited for
outsiders like me.
Thank you.
Woman: You're welcome.
Morgan Freeman: See you.
Woman: We'll see you in a bit.
Morgan Freeman: Okay.
[Navajo medicine man sings].
Morgan Freeman: At dawn, maysun makes the final and
longest run of her kinaalda.
[Female navajo shouts].
Morgan Freeman: How are you feeling?
Maysun: I think I'm gonna pass out.
Morgan Freeman: You're gonna pass out?
Maysun: Yes.
Morgan Freeman: She's hot, she's gonna pass out.
Woman: Yeah.
Mason: I'm glad it's cold out here.
Morgan Freeman: Okay, you're glad it's cold.
Otherwise you would pass out, right?
Maysun: No.
Morgan Freeman: On this morning,
the spirit of the navajo deity has moved inside maysun
and made her a holy person.
Be proud, your cake is good.
That means things are gonna work out just fine.
Right, right?
The cake can only be eaten once it's been
blessed by maysun.
I can take a bite of it?
Maysun: Yeah, yeah, don't burn your tongue.
Morgan Freeman: Now that it's over, how do you feel?
Maysun: I feel like, i say this, I'm just like,
"mom, I survived, it felt like boot camp!"
[Laughing].
Morgan Freeman: Great.
In the kinaalda, navajo girls have a personal experience
of the changing woman.
One that can only be gained through rare
moments of insight.
She is the spirit that infuses the entire navajo landscape.
If we believe that god not only surrounds us,
but also has the power to move inside us...
Can we, perhaps, discover what god is by
looking inside our minds?
Morgan Freeman: For thousands of years,
to many people, god has been invisible,
intangible, a presence believers can sense but
not see or touch.
But science may be about to change that.
I took a train to Philadelphia to meet a
neuroscientist who studies what happens in our brains when
we have religious experiences.
I'm about to see whether i can find the presence of god,
in my brain.
Doctor Andy newberg is pioneering an new field of
study he calls, neurotheology.
And I know that you have done a lot of research on the
brain, how the brain reacts to say, spiritual meditation.
Can you elaborate on that for me?
Dr. Andy newberg: Well, certainly, you know,
as we look at the brain, we can see very substantial
differences when people are either religious or spiritual
in their practices, when they're trying to pray,
meditate on god.
You know, we can see what's going on in us as
we think about god, experience god and pray to god,
whatever the person is doing.
Morgan Freeman: So, you're looking for physical
manifestations of god?
Dr. Andy newberg: Yes, you are looking for physical
manifestations of god.
Morgan Freeman: Okay.
So, I'm interested in find out if there is any
manifestation of god within me, in my brain.
Dr. Andy newberg: Right, we can take a look at that.
Morgan Freeman: Come on.
Dr. Andy newberg: See if we can find it.
Woman: Little pinch.
Morgan Freeman: Ow!
Woman: I'm sorry.
Morgan Freeman: No, I'm kidding.
The process begins with an injection of radioactive dye.
What happens if you drop that?
Woman: Well, if we spill it on the floor,
we have to close that room, and evacuate everybody.
Morgan Freeman: So, don't spill it, okay.
Woman: Don't spill it.
Morgan Freeman: With the radioactive tracer
in my bloodstream, Andy can measure how much blood flows
through the various parts of my brain.
The more I'm using a part of my brain,
the more radioactive dye it will accumulate.
I already did a baseline scan while I was just resting
with my eyes closed.
Now, I'm attempting to meditate on the divine
to see whether anything changes.
Dr. Andy newberg: It's time to start focusing
on your breath.
Morgan Freeman: All right.
Dr. Andy newberg: Now, just try to get in as good a
state as you can, focusing on the breath,
just trying to really bring really deep
concentration to it.
I think that'll be great.
Morgan Freeman: So shall I start now?
Dr. Andy newberg: You can go ahead and start now.
Morgan Freeman: Okay.
Dr. Andy newberg: Okay, you can finish the meditation.
How did it go?
Morgan Freeman: Fine, how long was that?
Dr. Andy newberg: It was about 11 or 12 minutes.
Morgan Freeman: Before the radioactive tracer flushes
out of my system...
Woman: So you'll be on your back.
Morgan Freeman: I have to quickly climb into this
3D scanner and see whether my brain has changed because
I mediated on god.
Dr. Andy newberg: All right.
Morgan Freeman: Well, look at that, two eyes,
a nose and the mouth.
Dr. Andy newberg: Well, but to me,
it looks like you're smiling a little bit.
[Laughter].
Morgan Freeman: What do you see or do you see anything?
Dr. Andy newberg: So these are your two scans side-by-side.
Here's your resting scan.
Here's the meditation scan.
And you can see, if you look at the frontal lobes here,
it's mostly yellow, just a little bit of red, whereas,
if you look during your meditation,
the whole frontal lobe just kind of has blossomed.
So, if you are concentrating on something,
if you're saying a prayer, or if you're focusing on god,
if you're trying to connect with god,
then you tend to increase the activity in the frontal lobes.
Morgan Freeman: How do I compare with say,
a nun praying, or, let's say, a Buddhist monk
who is meditating, do I compare at all?
Dr. Andy newberg: As with the nuns who were concentrating on
a prayer, the Buddhists who were focusing on an image,
they all activated their frontal lobes.
And that's exactly what you did too.
Morgan Freeman: And if i was contemplating the
image of god, could you tell the difference?
Dr. Andy newberg: We actually scanned an atheist,
who was a very good meditator, and we asked him
to concentrate on god, to meditate on god and he
wasn't able to activate his frontal lobes very much.
So, in fact, if anything, as you can see...
Morgan Freeman: It went down a bit.
Dr. Andy newberg: It's sort of decreased a little bit.
Yeah, so, even though they said,
"yeah, I'm concentrating;
I'm trying to contemplate god,"
they just were not able to do a very good job
of doing it,
'cause they didn't really believe it.
So, I think, part of what that told me is that
regardless of what our practice is,
the key is, "do you believe it?
Do you buy into it?
Is it important to you?"
Morgan Freeman: It's amazing that somebody came up with the
idea that you could shoot somebody full of radioactive
drugs and look at their brain.
Dr. Andy newberg: The brain is just so unbelievably
complex that it's not that there's one god spot,
or one god part of the brain,
but it seems to be the whole brain that gets involved.
And, ultimately, these change the way you think and
feel about the world.
Morgan Freeman: So, apparently,
it is possible to see physical manifestations of
god inside us.
Whether you're Christian, Buddhist,
or any kind of spiritual person,
experiencing the divine actually changes the brain,
changes the way we see the world.
That's really something.
The evidence that experiencing god changes us
on the inside will come as no surprise to believers,
including the people at lakewood church in Houston.
I've come to see how 10,000 christians can all
have a meaningful, personal experience with their god.
[Clapping and singing].
The pastors of this mega-church,
Joel and Victoria osteen, have agreed to meet with me
before the service begins,
and let me in on their philosophy.
[Clapping and singing].
Joel osteen: I wanna leave them something that
they can use this afternoon.
So, I don't do a lotta doctrine and, you know,
I go practical.
Today, I'm talking about, you know, using what
god's given you.
And so, when you leave, you'll say,
"you know what, it was worth me going to church today."
Let me ask you, can we pray?
We got about one minute, and we're gonna pop out there.
So, I'm just gonna pray, okay, yeah, look,
will you pray with us, Morgan?
Thank you for this day.
And lord, all the people that have come out and
many who are gonna watch on television and
listen on the radio, and we just ask you that you
give us the words to speak.
That every person would feel your presence,
your power, that they'd feel encouragement and hope,
and inspiration.
That you'd know that you have them in the palm
of your hand.
I just ask you, father for a great service
in Jesus' name...
Both: Amen.
Morgan Freeman: Amen.
Joel osteen: Thank you, very honored to have you.
Morgan Freeman: Thank you, I'm very honored to be here.
Joel osteen: We'll catch you afterwards.
Victoria osteen: You gotta watch it.
You'll be dancing before you know it.
Morgan Freeman: It doesn't much to get me started.
[Clapping].
[Cheers and applause].
Victoria osteen: Yes, it is good to be in the house of
the lord and I am excited to be here today, with you!
[Cheers and applause].
See, we were designed to function at our best when we
are connected to god.
You've got power on the inside, you can rely on.
[Cheers and applause].
Joel osteen: Don't live life in neutral, not passionate,
not intentional, not focused, stir up what god's given you.
Dare to take those steps of faith.
[Cheers and applause].
Morgan Freeman: I'm gonna ask a flat out question,
who is god?
Joel osteen: I believe god is our father, the creator,
somebody that gives us purpose and destiny.
Well, sometimes it's hard for people to say,
"how can I believe in something I can't see?"
But it's what you choose to believe through faith.
Morgan Freeman: It's what you choose to believe through faith.
Joel osteen: When Jesus came, he said,
"look, I want you to come to me."
So I tell people,
"you can talk to god all through the day,
like you talk to your friend.
In your thoughts, you can say,
"god, you know, thank you for this day."
I think, that god can be as involved in your life
as much as you want him to be.
So that's what we try to teach people,
to get god out of your Sunday morning box.
Morgan Freeman: God has been a lot of things to
a lot of people and now,
here, you're making god personal.
Joel osteen: Yes.
Morgan Freeman: Approachable...
And, helpful.
Joel osteen: Yes, that's right.
Victoria osteen: The life of god lives and dwells in us.
And it's a spiritual life.
It's your spiritual power on the inside of you.
And that is what we need to tap into.
Morgan Freeman: That was quite a show.
Maybe 10,000 people worshiping, celebrating,
each of them having his own personal experience with god.
This is clearly a faith in the god in you.
Your inspiration, your power.
God is so many things to so many people.
The warm light of the sun.
The sound of sweet music.
An inner voice that drives us forward.
A friend.
If you ask me who god is, I would say,
there's a bit of the divine in all of us.
There's god in you, there's god in me.
The god in me is who i really am, at my core.
The god in me is the best version of me.
The god in me is who I strive to be.
Who I was meant to be.