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­­­­Deepak Chopra
by author Gail Johnson

Deepak Chopra isn’t exactly known for being a man of few words. The New Delhi-born, California-based health guru is notorious for giving talks that last three to four hours and for peppering his speeches with personal anecdotes and self-deprecating jokes.

The range of Chopra’s subject matter is vast; he quotes such luminaries as Rumi, Krishna, Mahatma Gandhi, and Albert Einstein, and covers everything from quantum healing and spirituality to personal relationships and success.

Yet despite his hours-long lectures and far-reaching knowledge, Chopra’s message is extraordinarily simple. In fact, his teachings all share a single mantra: Know yourself.

Expanding Consciousness

“For the last 30 years I have been talking about consciousness,” Chopra tells alive magazine on the line from the Phoenix, Arizona Ritz Carlton, in between interviews with CNN and Larry King. “It all boils down to one thing: our consciousness is the most important reality. Self-knowledge is the most important thing. Everything else is an illusion.”

Chopra is quick to explain that “consciousness” is just another word for “awareness,” “soul,” and “spirit.” “They all mean the same thing,” he says in his characteristic measured tone. “There are infinite possibilities if we expand our consciousness. It influences everything: cognition, thinking, relationships, personal behaviour, emotions, environment, biology, perception. All of this is an expression of consciousness. If you understand your consciousness, you will have health, personal evolution, and success.”

It certainly seems as though Chopra is speaking from experience. In 1999, Time magazine called him the “poet prophet of alternative medicine.” He’s written more than 40 books that have been translated into 35 languages, many of which have become best-sellers, and he has his own wellness program on Sirius Satellite Radio.

He heads the Chopra Center for Well-Being in Carlsbad, California, and maintains a busy blog (choprablog.com) that explores personal, social, environmental, and spiritual issues. To say that Chopra is in demand is an understatement.

Why, in an era when self-help books and self-proclaimed healers are as ubiquitous as Starbucks outlets, is Chopra so popular? “I think they like my Indian accent,” he deadpans.

Looking Inward

In all seriousness, Chopra explains that, despite modern medical advances, people continue to yearn for–and struggle with–the physical, emotional, and spiritual harmony he so fervently believes in.

“We’ve been taught that money and technology will make you happy, that weapons will make you secure,” he says. “In fact, some of the richest people in the world aren’t the happiest, and more weapons make you less secure. Look at America.

“People don’t go inward,” he continues. “We’re always looking to the outside for answers. Carl Jung said that looking outward is dreaming while looking inward is awakening.”

Chopra’s approach to well-being is rooted in Ayurveda, a millenniums-old holistic health-care system from India. One of its guiding principles is that health is a dynamic state of balance between the body, mind, and spirit. According to Ayurveda, we each have a unique combination of three doshas, or elements–vata, pitta, and kapha–that make up our constitution type.

Ayurveda maintains that the mind exerts a deep influence on the body, Chopra explains. People need to learn to see things through the eyes of the soul instead of the eyes of the mind or body, for the power of the soul leads to a higher state of consciousness. In fact, the soul’s resilience is what piqued Chopra’s interest in integrated medicine in the first place.

“Physicians are superb technicians,” says Chopra, who turned 60 in October. “They understand everything about the human body, but they are not great healers, because they know nothing about the human soul.”

Connecting Mind and Body

Chopra, a former endocrinologist, moved to the United States in 1970 and taught at Tufts University and Boston University medical schools and became chief of staff at the New England Memorial Hospital. He started exploring the mind-body connection in the early 1980s, when the notion was widely dismissed by the medical establishment.

In 1993 Chopra wrote Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old, which caught the attention of Oprah Winfrey. An appearance on her TV show propelled him to celebrity.

Gail Johnson is the health editor of Vancouver’s Georgia Straight newspaper.

Source: alive #293, March 2007