Doctor Feelgood
New age guru Deepak Chopra has a voice Hitler would have envied sonorous, calm, measured. It washes over you like a Gregorian chant, it swamps you like a warm benediction, a reassurance that all is well with the world. As Aldous Huxley said, this is the sort of voice that bypasses the logic circuits of the brain and appeals directly to your subconscious, filling you with the sensation that you are part of a cosmic order of Good. It also helps to put Chopra on Esquires list of the Top Ten Motivational Speakers with monotonous regularity.
The story of a St. Columbus Delhi boy who made good in the US of A is the stuff of inspirational biography. Chopra is a walking advertisement for the nostrum that with the right blend of new consciousness, modern science, ancient wisdom and huge dollops of chutzpah, anybody can make it in the land of the free market. He even has the right pedigree he was once a spokesman of sorts for Maharishi Mahesh Yogi but left when he felt the Maharishi was displaying all the signs of becoming a fanatic.
Chopras achievements need to be taken seriously. With 14 books running into over three million copies, translated in 25 languages (no Indian ones, however, we have to make do with English), a personal niche on the best-seller lists, seminars, Infinite Possibilities Products, talk shows, and even a music cassette in the making, Chopra is a one-man mega-corporation.
So how exactly does he manage to fit 48 hours worth of work into a 24 hour day? I am having fun, not working, he says over a clear transatlantic line. I do not take all this seriously, nor do I take myself seriously. That is how it is all possible. That would explain why his mega-best seller Ageless Folly, Timeless Bind sorry, thats Ageless Body, Timeless Mind is written without benefit of footnotes and has references that are sketchy at the best. It has a breezy self assurance instead, for when aging is to be reversed by the appreciation of true consciousness, why clutter up the text with irrelevancies? As the rude Sun-Sentinel put it, Chopras constituency is the group of people who are approaching 50, but they dont look 50, they dont feel 50 and they dont ever want to. Deepak Chopra says they dont have to.
Chopra went to the US as a young 23-year-old doctor at a time when Vietnam was still an issue. Even in 1970, hospitals were a high-pressure environment, and the future health guru was smoking up to two packs of cancer sticks a day. He was also beginning to feel that medicine had a very mechanical view of the human body, and that the patient as a person was overlooked. That such a view was not stumbled upon in India at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences is odd, but then revelation takes time. His new awareness did not interfere with his prowess in the fields of internal medicine and endocrinology. Those gave him the crisp masthead he used before his celebrity status rendered it unnecessary Deepak Chopra, MD.
There's a strong temptation to indulge in pop psychology and view his fascination with aging as a result of a traumatic childhood experience. As he remembers it, his grandfather took him to see a film one day; the next morning he was gone, leaving behind ashes and a sense of awe. Hmm. Get rid of toxic relations, emotions and foods, and you can influence your life-span by 30 years does that statement point to a desire to push death away rather than an evolution of consciousness?
The guru himself is worrying about more important things, like labels. He refuses to be classified as a guru since it stifles him; and dont call him Dr. Chopra either, since he does not practice anymore. Labels restrict the domain of a persons actions. I never asked to be dubbed a new age guru, points out Chopra. Helping people lead a more enriched life is certainly one of my roles but that does not mean I am confined to that. One must have freedom to grow ,to evolve, and the person called the guru needs that as much as the other person. Maybe more. Then he laughs, a deep rumble of joy, the prophet at rest.
An essential cornerstone of Chopras holistic doctrine of natural healing comes from an era with a lineage that makes the New Age look like an upstart parvenu. The doctors championing of Ayurveda goes beyond a vague knowledge of herb lore, though: he has the texts at his fingertips, and has worked with ayurvedic physicians from Baroda, Benaras and the famous Kottakkal school in Kerala. Chopra has even founded the American Association of Ayurvedic Medicine to further the cause of his favourite healing science.
But Ayurveda is just a part of the whole, merging with his formal medical training in programmes that are meant to increase longevity, enhance ones potential for success, and build up self-reliance and self-awareness. Distilled, Chopras way of life lets you hang on to material comforts and worldly positions both considered integral aspects of your spiritual progress. Suggest gently that his notion of spiritual evolution is in sharp contrast to traditional beliefs held in India, though, and Chopra lets fly.
As long as India takes the attitude that material prosperity is antithetical to spirituality, we will remain a poor country. It is ridiculous. There seems to be a mass delusion. If you make money by selling drugs, weapons or pornography, that is acceptable. If you make money by selling the highest knowledge that raises people to other levels of consciousness through self-exploration, that is a great sin. Elsewhere, he has said that the traditional wisdom which inspires the West is so taken for granted in India that it does nothing to enhance the life of the people, who merely repeat a cycle of discovery, enlightenment, senility and discovery again.
The way out of the impasse lies in the humble idiot box. Far from being the opium of the masses, television as interpreted by Chopra is the panacea for all ills. The doctor tells the story of a former KGB hotshot he met when he visited the former Soviet Union. He said that it was not glasnost or perestroika that brought down the communist system, it was the TV serial Dallas. When people saw the fancy cars, and beautiful women, they wanted that too. Rising expectations of a better quality of life can, and is, fueled by the television. We are at a stage where any idea that appeals to the better instincts of the people will be communicated. The hope for the world is precisely this power of instant communication provided Rupert Murdoch is not in control of the process.
Murdoch is probably the one man in the world who has managed to get under the doctors usually serene epidermis. It started when a Murdoch paper, the Weekly Standard, carried allegations by a lady to the effect that the new-ager was focused more on financial than spiritual matters.
Chopras counterattack had the publication on the ropes. The star witness has recanted and stated that she has never seen or spoken to Chopra. Even so, the guru of calm loses it rapidly when the M word comes up in conversation. The Murdoch papers? The sale of sleaze on which Murdoch has built his career. And thats just for starters. During his tirade, Chopra accuses the Weekly Standard of fostering ethnocentrism, bigotry, prejudice and racism under the guise of ultra-right conservatism.
Then the healing process takes over, sort of: My determination to continue my lawsuit against the Weekly Standard is an act of love meant to lift them to a higher state of awareness, accountability and respectability. One gets the impression that the quality of mercy as practised by the father of the seven spiritual laws of success has just slipped to eighth place.
Murdoch wasnt the first of the faithless, though. There was the time a leukemia patient treated through Ayurveda was pronounced cured. Unfortunately, the man died soon after. His widow sued; Chopra was involved in a marginal way, but the suit was eventually dismissed. Critics pointed out a curious inconsistency: Though the attending physician had been described by Chopra as perhaps the greatest Ayurvedic physician alive today, the doctor made no attempt to defend him in any of the letters he wrote to New York magazine about the case.
To be fair, its possible that Chopra was merely acknowledging the Mordred aspects of his life. Mordred, King Arthurs illegitimate son and murderer, stands for the darker aspects of the soul. He plays cameo roles in Chopras two books of fiction on his favorite mythological character, Merlin The Return of Merlin and The Way of the Wizard. Chopra readily admits that Mordred is the Jungian Shadow in Middle Ages disguise, personified to make it accessible much like Darth Vader in Star Wars. Mordred stands for our conflicts, our moral self righteousness, and the fear and rage and impotence that follows such negative emotions. Naturally, sexuality is a positive hotbed of frustration.
To combat that, Chopra wrote an essay called, Does God have Orgasms? in which he drew heavily on Tantric psychology. It contains the interesting remark that men are now responsible for two peoples orgasms. To his relief, there was no feminist backlash. In fact, the only people who took offence were the extreme religious right,and they objected chiefly to the title of the essay.
Meanwhile, Chopras busy with The Seduction of Spirit. It sounds like a perfume launch, but its actually a spiritual development seminar, coming soon to Goa. Ah, the coming of age of New Age. Finally yoga and tantra can be packaged, placed on velvet and shot in soft focus as the glamour items they are. Chopra defends the concept since its targeted at the very elite category, the pitch has to be in a style they can appreciate. But naturally.
In the future, the Peter Pan of pop psychology plans to move into multimedia in a big way, though its too early to get down to specifics. He does, however, have a recording deal with Quincy Jones, better known as the man with the million Grammys. The next decade could also see the martial arts becoming the TM of the 21st century. Chopra believes that the martial arts are a great way to reach new levels of awareness: besides, the mother of all martial arts, Kalaripayattu, is closely allied with his beloved ayur veda.
But ultimately, Chopra confesses, everything he does is for a good cause he wants to make people aware of the little miracles that crowd our days. We are talking to each other across continents while the world hurtles through space, says The Voice, persuasive, relentless, soothing. Isnt that a miracle? The very fact that you can breathe is a miracle that never ceases to astound me. Dont get stuck in the mundane, the trivial, the pettiness of every day. People have their opinions, thats their business. Dont let it affect you.
The real miracle is that Chopras magic mantra for the 20th century works filter out the esoteric from the tradition and make it appear contemporary. So the humble beeja-mantra becomes Primordial Sound Meditation, and a computer helps you choose the sound you will meditate on: To hear it would be association of thought with thought and would ultimately take you into the gap, which is the source.
Enlightenment finally dawns. The speech might be Esquire, the jet might be the Lear, the people around you might be celebs, and the suit Armani, but its still the guru game.
I do not take all this seriously, nor do I take myself seriously that is how it is all possible, says Chopra