Take Deepak Chopra With a 'Universal' Grain of Salt

Renowned for his advocation of living a more spiritual life emphasizing meditation to embrace our interconnectedness with the universe, Deepak Chopra has taken a more decidely political stance recently. 

Admittedly, I never really paid too much attention to Deepak because he was on Oprah's show so much. That alone was off-putting. Oprah Winfrey has enough pretension to fill the universe, never mind leaving any space for the unlightened hoi polloi like you and me to find a small corner to interconnect with.

Besides, she brought us that insufferable, loudmouth Dr. Phil and was the pied piper of misinformation in her slavering endorsement of James Frey's fraudulent 'A Million Little Pieces,' facts and reality be damned. For all her bullshit talk, she still can't see past colour.  Her behaviour during the recent US election was embarrassing and it was evident to me this woman actually thought American voters would actually care about, never mind be influenced by, which candidate she endorsed. 

And it burns her ass to no end that she isn't the First Lady. She's still a catty bitch for all her high-falutin' talk of fostering sisterhood, compassion and a broader human understanding. 

Ho, sit down.  Bitch please. Talk to the hand. You're out of order. Kindly refrain, etc. and so-forth. I'll rein myself back here because I wanted to talk about Chopra's recent opine on the current economic and political climate.  

While I agree in principle with much of what he is saying overall, he speaks in quotables. He answers questions with questions.  Any time I've heard him speak he generalizes and doesn't propose, or even speculate on, any tangible action. Unfortunately in a day and age of miniscule attention spans and when too many people don't pick up a newspaper or crack a book, the soundbite has its place in getting the message across. Chopra understands this and it works to his advantage. He's popular, without question.

He's also transparently anti-American and there's no question where one of his latest quotables "the mechanization of death," is directed. Sorry, flying two airliners full of people into buildings, similarly full of people, isn't mechanized death? The modality is, even if the formal political and economic framework doesn't exist to support actual state-funded mechanized aggression or warfare.  Chopra makes no mention of the tribalistic, medieval-minded maniacs who seek the annihilation of the very societies who give him the forum to spread his message of sweetness and light in.  

The guru calls the United States a casino that led the world to economic rack and ruin. Maybe it did, its official  foreign policies and covert operations  since the end of the Second World War certainly haven't helped.  In fact, it could be said that US foreign policy authored a large part of the quagmire that is international relations as they stand today. 

That being said, are we all supposed to just cut or stop military spending, join hands and sing 'Kumbaya' while the Eastern world revels in our weakness and surrender (because that is exactly how they would see it) and we're all either dead or our nations turned into giant prison camps as a result?  I thought Chopra understood the Eastern mind, being Indian he should. I do, at least to some degree. The degree that I do understand makes it apparent to me that the Eastern and Western worlds think very differently and it's a grievous mistake to many any assumption to the contrary. 

Democracy is no more welcome to them as their fundamentalist religion, caste systems, abuse of human rights or communist totalitarianism is to us. Even though they may immigrate by the thousands to Western countries, many show open disdain for our societal ideals and try to dictate the terms of their inclusion: what they require of us so that they will participate in our societies. The concept of "When in Rome..."is lost on more than just a few. The more socially liberal nations like Canada, Britain, Holland and the countries of Scandinavia are finding this out the hard way. 

What the Western nations have to wake up and realize is that the Near and Far Eastern world doesn't  want the theory we're advocating: what they want is our conversion or annihilation as is the case with the Islamic neo-crusaders or; our economic markets and most importantly, our natural resources - both of which China is currently enjoying on what I'm sure is a smaller scale than it would like. North Korea? Who the hell knows what it wants but we can't forget about Japan and Australia floating out there all by themselves, nevermind South Korea. 

Deepak Chopra is peddling the politically correct America-bashing that I find repugnant.  The current state of the world is a sum of its parts, the US being only one. There's lots of blame to go around so by all means, spread the manure. Things grow best that way, maybe peace can too.

I'll leave you with an excerpt of the Chopra interview article from the Toronto Star:

STUART LAIDLAW 
FAITH AND ETHICS REPORTER

In these troubled times, prosperity won't be found in bailout plans or economic stimulus packages, renowned spiritualist Deepak Chopra says.

It will be found in a much more personal commitment to building a better world, he says.

In fact, it all starts with a little quiet, reflective time.

"There will be a new economy," Chopra says in a telephone interview from Halifax, "but the old one has to die first."

Chopra, who speaks in Toronto tonight at Roy Thomson Hall, says the old economy was fuelled by greed and hubris, and could not survive.

"We spent money we did not have on things we did not need to impress people who did not matter," he says.

Bailout plans, he says, aim to revive that old economy, and that's a mistake.

"It was a casino. The U.S.A. led it, and the rest followed."

Better, Chopra says, to focus our spending and production on things that society really needs.

Deciding what that is, he says, begins with some personal reflection on what matters most to us, and dropping whatever we don't need or whatever we buy simply to impress – or keep up with – others.

"We have to change within to change the world outside," says Chopra. "The world mirrors what is in us."

Chopra says he would like see money directed away from defence and armaments, pointing out that the United States alone has the ability to destroy the world several times over.

"Once is enough," he deadpans.

Better, he says, to shift our creative energy away from building new weapons or complicated financial products that few can understand – and that many blame for the current economic downturn – and channel it toward finding new sources of energy and medical breakthroughs.

"We have so much creativity and it's not being harnessed," he says. "What kind of mind harnesses mechanized death?"

The comments mark part of Chopra's recent shift to be more political in his public statements.