Bright red-and-green sneakers and a jovial “What’s up?” aren’t what you’d expect from a spiritual guru, but that was how best-selling author, medical doctor and media darling Deepak Chopra greeted a full house on Monday, May 28. Chopra presented his new book, Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment, at the Macmillan Theatre.
“On the day that Mr. George W. Bush entered the White House for the first time, my father died,” began Deepak Chopra to a hushed audience. “I’m not saying there’s a connection,” he taunted the now laughing crowd, “but everything is connected to everything else.”
Chopra’s family anecdotes framed a sprawling metaphysical discourse on science, god, and the meaning of life, as well as helped him introduce his new book Buddha,. Time magazine has proclaimed him the “poet-prophet of alternative medicine,” an often-quoted designation that aptly describes his tendency to see figurative concepts as literal truths.
Buddha, Chopra writes in his new book, is “fictionalized in many of its externals but psychologically true.” The back cover of the novel classifies the book as “self help/spirituality,” a perfect embodiment of how Chopra blurs the lines between the profitable self-help industry, genuine spiritual experience, and spellbinding fiction.
Chopra expounded on the sublime quality of the universe and scoffed at the science’s inadequacy to solve nature’s vast mysteries, while acknowledging that it can help us better understand the universe.
It’s not hard to prove with math and radioactive isotopes, Chopra claimed, that one million atoms once in the body of Christ, Genghis Khan, or George W. Bush are now in us.
“We don’t have to learn anything, we simply have to remember,” he told the crowd-great news for university students with too much to study.
Chopra also referred to the so-called observer effect. "The physical universe," he began, "would not exist if unconscious beings could not observe it."
Anti-religion authors, such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, Chopra said, attack an old-fashioned god, a "white man in the sky." He offered instead a "synchronicity" where everyone is connected and capable of "spontaneous compassion and love."
Chopra’s influence over his gathered adherents was immense. At one point, Chopra asked the audience to close their eyes and picture a sunset.
“Let’s say I can see what’s inside your brain,” he said, “and we have machines that can do that now.
“Do you think I’d see the picture?”
“No!” responded the audience, passionately and with conviction.
When Chopra explained that thought vibrations existed in one’s brain and mental pictures existed in one’s soul (or consciousness), an “oh!” of understanding went around the room. The woman to my left, a nurse and self-professed follower of Chopra, nodded solemnly.
The true test, however, came after he exited to deafening applause. Fifteen minutes later, only three copies of his new book remained unsold. The line-up for (non-personalized) autographs snaked toward the doors, and some customers bought multiple copies.
