Conversation with Deepak Chopra

[Mystic Power]

Conversation with Deepak Chopra

Interview: Uma Krishnaswami's telephone conversation with Deepak Chopra, author of Fire in the Heart: A Spiritual Guide for Teens (2004, Simon & Schuster)

UK: You say you wanted to write a book for teens that was spiritual, not religious. What do you see as the role of spirituality, as different from organized religion, in the lives of young people today?

DC: if we look at what organized religion has done to our world, we find that it has made it very quarrelsome, very divided. First of all, faith and religion have played a role in sparking war and conflict from ancient times right into the present. They have served to divide, not unite. As we move into a global culture and our understanding of the universe expands, some of the ideas we come across in religious literatures of all kinds can only be taken metaphorically. So much of religious dogma violates the principles of science as we know them today, that if we were to take it all literally, we would have to deny science altogether. And yet we have this yearning to know the answers to these questions, such as "Do I have a soul?" and "Will that soul survive death?" Kids are smart enough to see this discrepancy.

UK: What is the difference between soul and spirit? There are places where you use the terms almost interchangeably. Is spirit, God, essence, really all the same?

DC: In a sense yes. The soul is a personal construct, the individual behavior of the spirit, so I frequently link the two. As the ancient Hindu philosophers said, the soul is like a wave, and the spirit is the ocean. They are inseparable. The ground of your being is also the ground of all other beings-it is part of the ocean of consciousness.

UK: You talk about your father in the book--was he the adult in your life who most influenced you? Tell me about his role during your teenage years.

DC: My father was without doubt the most significant adult in my life. He was a cardiologist, trained in England. He continued to be a strong force in my life until the time he died, past the age of eighty. When India and China were at war, my father was the first doctor to go up into that conflict zone, 22,000 feet above sea level, and describe mountain sickness. He was a real pioneer.

UK: You were raised Hindu--do you still consider yourself a Hindu?

DC: It's the closest I can come to religion. Of course, when I go to India even now, I participate in rituals and visit ashrams. Yet when I see Hindus in general I realize that most take the ritual part far too literally. If they were able to look beyond the ritual to the philosophy underlying it, they would see that gods and goddesses are really a manifestation of something higher and larger. I would say that I am a Vedantist rather than a Hindu.

UK: We live in an increasingly troubled and troubling world. You have said that the immediately post-World War II generation is the last that can "indulge in the fantasy of becoming enlightened while the rest of the world suffers." So how do we teach kids to pursue their own spiritual paths and still stay engaged with the world, given the dreadful problems, from genocide to global warming, that they are going to inherit from us?

DC: It's a very big challenge. I am right now engaged in a project dealing with such things. It's called the Global Youth Forum for Social Responsibility and Conflict Resolution. It includes conflict resolution, social justice, environmental stewardship, all of that. A huge effort. We don't know if it will succeed but it's worth the try. Many groups are involved, and more are signing on. It's a collaboration with a nonprofit called Alliance for the New Humanity, and we are seeking to partner with Amnesty International and other groups.

I think in order to solve any of these problems you have to have an inner shift in consciousness. Activism is not enough, because it often creates angry activists. We need a deep change in how people perceive the world, and we need to create a critical mass of young people who have experienced that change. We also need to see that children and young people relate to the arts. So we are looking to the arts, media, entertainment, turning to MTV to create youth competitions throughout the world. Young people would turn in videos, music, dance, dramas, essays, to come up with transformative solutions. At the end of the year we could take the winners and bring them to say the Hague or to Stockholm to meet with the Nobel committee. Many people are interested in this, e.g. Nobel laureate Oscar Arias from Costa Rica, and philanthropists who are coming forward to fund the Global Youth Forum.

UK: Talk about the program for teens at the Chopra Center.

DC: We began with a course here for adults called "The Seduction of Spirit." When people came they'd frequently bring their children and teenagers along. So we had to find a way to keep them busy-that's all it was at first, mostly play and other activities. Then we got into storytelling. Now the adults are starting to realize some of the things kids do are more interesting than they thought at first.

UK: I understand Baba in the book is really a composite character, although the boy in the book is you. Talk about what made you use this device, essentially a device of fiction writing, to convey the ideas significant to you.

DC: My father had an assistant whose name was Baba, and I used to follow him around everywhere. I used to carry his shoes. Sometimes he took me and my brother to a graveyard, and he'd tell us stories about people long gone. Then there was my grandmother, who was an incredible storyteller, and finally there was a guru in a local ashram whom my mother used to visit. Baba in the book is a composite of all three. I used the same device once before in The Way of the Wizard (1995, Harmony Books), and it worked quite well. I also found out that what happens when you put a lesson and story together is that even complex ideas can be conveyed in a simple, accessible manner.

UK: The way of the heart, you say, isn't about words, but feelings. Is this why this seemed the right material to speak to teens about?

DC: Yes, teenage is a time of intense emotion. Adolescents easily fall in love, find it appealing to take risks, speak with a rebel's voice, begin to question the status quo. If you think about it, these are all spiritual traits. And yet, when we overwhelm our kids with technology and gadgets, we're suppressing their natural instincts for curiosity and wonder. We're not allowing them to grow the ability to form insights and intuitions.

UK: The teenage years are also a time of alienation. When you were a teen did you feel different from others your age?

DC: My father again--every birthday was a series of books. He was never one to instruct morally, but he always gave us great books to read. So I read Kipling's Kim, and later on Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, books by Sinclair Lewis, Lost Horizon (by James Hilton). They were books that also had lots of yearning and romance. And he'd take us to mushairas (poetry sessions that would last all night long) and we'd listen to these marvelous poets and be surrounded by people who really appreciated the music in language. He was also fond of theater. He took part in the (amateur) theatrical performances they'd have in army social circles. So the turbulence was there, but maybe it was nurtured.

UK: If the boy in the book is an allegorical representation of you, did you have any spiritual epiphanies in your youth?

DC: Many but they were all contradictory and confusing. Time magazine did a cover story back then, titled "Is God Dead?" It had a striking image on the cover, black letters against red. For a while I loved that idea, I even painted my room black! Then later I read Jean Paul Sartre, got into existentialism. An uncle gave me a book on the story of philosophy and I read it all. Each of these would last for awhile, but in the end they canceled each other out. Later in college and medical school I was totally materialist, completely gave up on any kind of spiritual seeking.

UK: You talk about evil as not being absolute, as existing in the eye of human beings. What would you say to people who would condemn this viewpoint as moral relativism?

DC: If you look at context you can see how evil behavior arises--what we're seeing right now in Iraq, for example. It turns out good people can do evil too. There are forces of creativity and forces of entropy in the world, and if there's an imbalance you create situations that elicit evil behavior. If you want to correct this you first have to get away from labels of good and evil. If you want to condemn someone as evil look at your own shadows. The Dalai Lama was asked if he thought the Chinese were bad people. He said, in effect, that he might think the things they do are bad, but he did not think they are bad people.

UK: Let's talk about the four questions--Do I have a soul? How do wishes come true? What is the Supreme Force in the Universe? and How can I change the world? Where did the questions come from?

DC: From going back in retrospect to my own experience as a physician. I was watching myself become a superb technician and a lousy healer, because I didn't look for the soul. They also come from my own strong yearning to understand the complexities of the natural world. More and more, I am coming to see that the only reality is the unmanifest, the things we can't see. I want to be able to explain that in simple terms, but first I have to make those understandings clear to myself. A natural second step is to make them understandable to a younger audience, so the questions are a starting place for that process.

UK: You refer to the connectedness in the Universe, the cosmic connection between the stars and us. How do recent advances in cosmology and quantum physics (such as string theory) relate to the spiritual concepts you discuss in your book? Are we getting to a point where science is going to bear out ancient wisdoms?

DC: I think the great advances in science are leading us to the brink of discovery, but we're not there yet. Quantum evolution, string theory, unified field theory-I was reading a lot of the research that has been coming out, and I suddenly realized these guys are so smart but they still don't get it. And that is because they always separate themselves from what they are observing. They forget that what they are seeing is happening in the consciousness of the observer. As long as we have this dualism we'll go nowhere. Vedanta scholars talk about two kinds of ignorance--innate ignorance, the inability to see beyond simple dualities; and cultural ignorance, which is freezing these beliefs into dogma. So we need to break down the boundaries in the sciences, and then we need to break down the boundaries in religions. This book is a beginning for young people, to give them ways to begin thinking in unbounded ways.

UK: Anything else you would want young readers, or parents/teacher/librarians to know?

DC: I think this book is just an introduction to spirituality. It's intended to make young people wonder, and ask questions. We are working on setting up a process to get young people to send me questions that they have--about life, love, sex, justice, right and wrong, anything that's an issue for them. Those questions will be the starting point for my next book.

UK: Thank you Dr. Chopra. All the best with this book and all your projects.
_________________
"We are the Ones we have been waiting for."
~Hopi Elder ~

"In Lak'ech"
~ Ancient Mayan: "I am another YOU." ~

[Mystic Power]

Conversation with Deepak Chopra

Interview: Uma Krishnaswami's telephone conversation with Deepak Chopra, author of Fire in the Heart: A Spiritual Guide for Teens (2004, Simon & Schuster)

UK: You say you wanted to write a book for teens that was spiritual, not religious. What do you see as the role of spirituality, as different from organized religion, in the lives of young people today?

DC: if we look at what organized religion has done to our world, we find that it has made it very quarrelsome, very divided. First of all, faith and religion have played a role in sparking war and conflict from ancient times right into the present. They have served to divide, not unite. As we move into a global culture and our understanding of the universe expands, some of the ideas we come across in religious literatures of all kinds can only be taken metaphorically. So much of religious dogma violates the principles of science as we know them today, that if we were to take it all literally, we would have to deny science altogether. And yet we have this yearning to know the answers to these questions, such as "Do I have a soul?" and "Will that soul survive death?" Kids are smart enough to see this discrepancy.

UK: What is the difference between soul and spirit? There are places where you use the terms almost interchangeably. Is spirit, God, essence, really all the same?

DC: In a sense yes. The soul is a personal construct, the individual behavior of the spirit, so I frequently link the two. As the ancient Hindu philosophers said, the soul is like a wave, and the spirit is the ocean. They are inseparable. The ground of your being is also the ground of all other beings-it is part of the ocean of consciousness.

UK: You talk about your father in the book--was he the adult in your life who most influenced you? Tell me about his role during your teenage years.

DC: My father was without doubt the most significant adult in my life. He was a cardiologist, trained in England. He continued to be a strong force in my life until the time he died, past the age of eighty. When India and China were at war, my father was the first doctor to go up into that conflict zone, 22,000 feet above sea level, and describe mountain sickness. He was a real pioneer.

UK: You were raised Hindu--do you still consider yourself a Hindu?

DC: It's the closest I can come to religion. Of course, when I go to India even now, I participate in rituals and visit ashrams. Yet when I see Hindus in general I realize that most take the ritual part far too literally. If they were able to look beyond the ritual to the philosophy underlying it, they would see that gods and goddesses are really a manifestation of something higher and larger. I would say that I am a Vedantist rather than a Hindu.

UK: We live in an increasingly troubled and troubling world. You have said that the immediately post-World War II generation is the last that can "indulge in the fantasy of becoming enlightened while the rest of the world suffers." So how do we teach kids to pursue their own spiritual paths and still stay engaged with the world, given the dreadful problems, from genocide to global warming, that they are going to inherit from us?

DC: It's a very big challenge. I am right now engaged in a project dealing with such things. It's called the Global Youth Forum for Social Responsibility and Conflict Resolution. It includes conflict resolution, social justice, environmental stewardship, all of that. A huge effort. We don't know if it will succeed but it's worth the try. Many groups are involved, and more are signing on. It's a collaboration with a nonprofit called Alliance for the New Humanity, and we are seeking to partner with Amnesty International and other groups.

I think in order to solve any of these problems you have to have an inner shift in consciousness. Activism is not enough, because it often creates angry activists. We need a deep change in how people perceive the world, and we need to create a critical mass of young people who have experienced that change. We also need to see that children and young people relate to the arts. So we are looking to the arts, media, entertainment, turning to MTV to create youth competitions throughout the world. Young people would turn in videos, music, dance, dramas, essays, to come up with transformative solutions. At the end of the year we could take the winners and bring them to say the Hague or to Stockholm to meet with the Nobel committee. Many people are interested in this, e.g. Nobel laureate Oscar Arias from Costa Rica, and philanthropists who are coming forward to fund the Global Youth Forum.

UK: Talk about the program for teens at the Chopra Center.

DC: We began with a course here for adults called "The Seduction of Spirit." When people came they'd frequently bring their children and teenagers along. So we had to find a way to keep them busy-that's all it was at first, mostly play and other activities. Then we got into storytelling. Now the adults are starting to realize some of the things kids do are more interesting than they thought at first.

UK: I understand Baba in the book is really a composite character, although the boy in the book is you. Talk about what made you use this device, essentially a device of fiction writing, to convey the ideas significant to you.

DC: My father had an assistant whose name was Baba, and I used to follow him around everywhere. I used to carry his shoes. Sometimes he took me and my brother to a graveyard, and he'd tell us stories about people long gone. Then there was my grandmother, who was an incredible storyteller, and finally there was a guru in a local ashram whom my mother used to visit. Baba in the book is a composite of all three. I used the same device once before in The Way of the Wizard (1995, Harmony Books), and it worked quite well. I also found out that what happens when you put a lesson and story together is that even complex ideas can be conveyed in a simple, accessible manner.

UK: The way of the heart, you say, isn't about words, but feelings. Is this why this seemed the right material to speak to teens about?

DC: Yes, teenage is a time of intense emotion. Adolescents easily fall in love, find it appealing to take risks, speak with a rebel's voice, begin to question the status quo. If you think about it, these are all spiritual traits. And yet, when we overwhelm our kids with technology and gadgets, we're suppressing their natural instincts for curiosity and wonder. We're not allowing them to grow the ability to form insights and intuitions.

UK: The teenage years are also a time of alienation. When you were a teen did you feel different from others your age?

DC: My father again--every birthday was a series of books. He was never one to instruct morally, but he always gave us great books to read. So I read Kipling's Kim, and later on Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, books by Sinclair Lewis, Lost Horizon (by James Hilton). They were books that also had lots of yearning and romance. And he'd take us to mushairas (poetry sessions that would last all night long) and we'd listen to these marvelous poets and be surrounded by people who really appreciated the music in language. He was also fond of theater. He took part in the (amateur) theatrical performances they'd have in army social circles. So the turbulence was there, but maybe it was nurtured.

UK: If the boy in the book is an allegorical representation of you, did you have any spiritual epiphanies in your youth?

DC: Many but they were all contradictory and confusing. Time magazine did a cover story back then, titled "Is God Dead?" It had a striking image on the cover, black letters against red. For a while I loved that idea, I even painted my room black! Then later I read Jean Paul Sartre, got into existentialism. An uncle gave me a book on the story of philosophy and I read it all. Each of these would last for awhile, but in the end they canceled each other out. Later in college and medical school I was totally materialist, completely gave up on any kind of spiritual seeking.

UK: You talk about evil as not being absolute, as existing in the eye of human beings. What would you say to people who would condemn this viewpoint as moral relativism?

DC: If you look at context you can see how evil behavior arises--what we're seeing right now in Iraq, for example. It turns out good people can do evil too. There are forces of creativity and forces of entropy in the world, and if there's an imbalance you create situations that elicit evil behavior. If you want to correct this you first have to get away from labels of good and evil. If you want to condemn someone as evil look at your own shadows. The Dalai Lama was asked if he thought the Chinese were bad people. He said, in effect, that he might think the things they do are bad, but he did not think they are bad people.

UK: Let's talk about the four questions--Do I have a soul? How do wishes come true? What is the Supreme Force in the Universe? and How can I change the world? Where did the questions come from?

DC: From going back in retrospect to my own experience as a physician. I was watching myself become a superb technician and a lousy healer, because I didn't look for the soul. They also come from my own strong yearning to understand the complexities of the natural world. More and more, I am coming to see that the only reality is the unmanifest, the things we can't see. I want to be able to explain that in simple terms, but first I have to make those understandings clear to myself. A natural second step is to make them understandable to a younger audience, so the questions are a starting place for that process.

UK: You refer to the connectedness in the Universe, the cosmic connection between the stars and us. How do recent advances in cosmology and quantum physics (such as string theory) relate to the spiritual concepts you discuss in your book? Are we getting to a point where science is going to bear out ancient wisdoms?

DC: I think the great advances in science are leading us to the brink of discovery, but we're not there yet. Quantum evolution, string theory, unified field theory-I was reading a lot of the research that has been coming out, and I suddenly realized these guys are so smart but they still don't get it. And that is because they always separate themselves from what they are observing. They forget that what they are seeing is happening in the consciousness of the observer. As long as we have this dualism we'll go nowhere. Vedanta scholars talk about two kinds of ignorance--innate ignorance, the inability to see beyond simple dualities; and cultural ignorance, which is freezing these beliefs into dogma. So we need to break down the boundaries in the sciences, and then we need to break down the boundaries in religions. This book is a beginning for young people, to give them ways to begin thinking in unbounded ways.

UK: Anything else you would want young readers, or parents/teacher/librarians to know?

DC: I think this book is just an introduction to spirituality. It's intended to make young people wonder, and ask questions. We are working on setting up a process to get young people to send me questions that they have--about life, love, sex, justice, right and wrong, anything that's an issue for them. Those questions will be the starting point for my next book.

UK: Thank you Dr. Chopra. All the best with this book and all your projects.
_________________
"We are the Ones we have been waiting for."
~Hopi Elder ~

"In Lak'ech"
~ Ancient Mayan: "I am another YOU." ~

[fire on the wind]

thank you very much. I've seen this author's name, but know I actually know something about him(?) . Sounds like a good one.

Peace and Cheers
_________________
Vexation of the soul is vanity -Peter Tosh

Love to will, will to love.
The secret was told to Mose through the bush which the lord who is like unto fire did burn but not consume, Moses came nigh unto the bush and the Lord spake: I Am, upon which Moses pondered and replied I am too, thus was the initiation given through the bush which in its blazing was not consumed but revealed.

[Stokes]

Deepak is one happenin' dude!
_________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Where love is, there God is also.

-Mahatma Gandhi