T He R Eligion Of Q Uantum
THE RELIGION OF QUANTUM
A More Educated Icon
Deepak Chopra is in effect the spiritual counselor for and a household name to millions. He was born in Delhi in 1946 or 1947 (depending on the source). He is a graduate of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (1968) and a former leader of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation and Ayurvedic Medicine programs.
His own trek to his present position is quite interesting. His early love, first for literature and then for journalism, was replaced by the study of medicine. He moved to the United States around 1970, where he interned at a hospital in New Jersey before relocating to Boston and establishing his own practice in endocrinology. In 1985 he was appointed chief of staff at New England Memorial Hospital. As time went by he became disenchanted with traditional medicine, which he thought was too dependent on drugs, and having come under the influence of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s teaching, Chopra resigned his position at the hospital and co-founded Maharishi Ayur-Veda Products International, Inc. (MAPI), with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a powerful practitioner of Ayurveda.
MAPI offered a line of herbal supplements, teas, oils, and incense, as well as other products relevant to the business of wellness from the Ayurvedic perspective. As the Maharishi’s representative, Chopra became the head of a Lancaster, Massachusetts, Ayurveda Health Center, the first of four such centers in America. His Western education and career as a doctor in a respected Western medical facility gave legitimacy to Ayurveda (a Sanskrit word that means “knowledge of life”) for many who were initially skeptical, and the clinics grew quickly, especially once it was known that such celebrities as Elizabeth Taylor, fashion designer Donna Karan, and the investment banker Michael Milken were clients.
Though his first several books met with a mixed critical and popular reception, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, published in 1993, sold more than a million copies and suddenly, with his blend of medicine and spirituality enhanced with a sprinkling of scientific terms, Chopra was becoming the premier Eastern name in an increasing Western fascination with all things Eastern.
By the mid-1990s he founded the Chopra Center for Well Being in La Jolla, California. Now himself an international celebrity in demand for speaking and lecturing, his subsequent books were very well received by a public that had been expertly primed. And in spite of the many articles written by well-qualified medical practitioners and scientists who have questioned and even openly ridiculed Chopra’s statements, whatever he says continues to be accepted unquestioningly by his large following, to the extent that one cannot help but wonder at their gullibility.
But do not be deceived: Deepak Chopra is not just promoting Eastern medicines; he is a shrewd businessman who has profited greatly from the new spirituality combined with his brand of gimmickry. His following statement succinctly sums up his belief in wellness:
Quantum healing is healing the bodymind from a quantum level. That means from a level which is not manifest at a sensory level. Our bodies ultimately are fields of information, intelligence and energy. Quantum healing involves a shift in the fields of energy information, so as to bring about a correction in an idea that has gone wrong. So quantum healing involves healing one mode of consciousness, mind, to bring about changes in another mode of consciousness, body.1
I’m sure that was helpful. It was a medical doctor who once told me how upset he was with his doctor’s diagnosis of the strange pains and sensations he was having in his right leg. The treating doctor said to him, “It’s a seventy-year-old leg, you know.” After a moment of reflection my friend said, “I know. But the left leg is a seventy-year-old leg, too. Why is the right one hurting and the left one not?”
By changing the information on one level of consciousness, we can heal the other areas of consciousness. Each recipient mutters the same terms and concepts and assumes that the listener now fully understands this cure. While millions in his and my homeland live in huge deprivation, the center at La Jolla is here to promote quantum healing for the wealthy. But there is no reason to complain or to feel “taken.” Beneath all the trappings, what he is actually arguing for is very clear to anyone who is willing to see it. We shall get to that shortly, and I will raise my personal philosophical challenges to his system at that point.
Along the way of his association with TM (Transcendental Meditation) and then his own independent enterprise, there were reports of some issues of disagreement that signaled what the tensions were actually about. The origins of some of his teachings and writings were challenged in the law courts. I have provided links for those who wish to study this further. Frankly, I am more interested right now in the substance of what he is teaching than in who was right and who was wrong in court, or who promoted it first. But it does reveal the “not-so-pristine” reality that lies behind the scenes. All the talk of peaceful splendor and nirvanic pursuits masks the usual bouts of infighting, lawsuits, and competition. It is interesting, don’t you think, that a God who describes his sacrificial love for each of us as a jealous love merits rejection, but demagogues jealous of one another’s successes who engage in outrage and lawsuits are considered decent and peaceful.
More serious, for the moment at least, is the very purpose behind Chopra’s supposedly scientific terminology: to falsely assert a connection between quantum physics and “consciousness.” Among his claims are those stating that “quantum healing” can defeat the aging process, that the mind may be healed by harmonizing or balancing the “quantum mechanical body,” and that by localizing your awareness on the source of your pain, you can direct healing to begin because, according to him, the body naturally sends healing energy in the direction you are giving your attention. Or, as he also says, you make happy molecules by having happy thoughts. As one writer states, “This ‘quantum mysticism’ has no basis in physics or biology and represents a leap of the metaphysical imagination.”2
This same writer goes on to counter and challenge this supposed blend of science and mysticism. He traces Chopra’s teachings to the popular publication of Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism (1975), and describes Capra’s attempt in that book to connect ancient religions and modern physics as “an abysmal failure.”3 According to him, it is this that has influenced Chopra and other New Age energy medicine advocates to claim that quantum physics proves the reality of everything from chi and prana to ESP, despite the denial of most physicists. Notwithstanding the claims of Chopra and others that the mind can control diseases like cancer, the evidence from scientific studies says otherwise. It is true that there is scientific evidence that optimists live longer than pessimists, but it is not necessary to bring in quantum physics to explain why.
Chopra and others of his ilk claim that modern physics validates ancient Hindu metaphysics, a claim that is vehemently rejected by serious scientists who insist that there is no connection between the discoveries of modern physics and the metaphysical claims of Ayurveda. In fact, physicist Heinz R. Pagels, author of The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature, goes so far as to say, “No qualified physicist that I know would claim to find such a connection without knowingly committing fraud.”4
Physicists like Dr. Pagels deny any connection between modern physics and Chopra’s “field of consciousness,” asserting that his claim that large numbers of people meditating can reduce crime or avert war by creating a “unified field of consciousness”5 is pure foolishness and that the presentation of physics that so willfully distorts scientific truth in support of these ideas can only be seen as a deliberate intention to deceive those who don’t know better.
According to Chopra, the state of your health is a matter of personal choice: By taking your pulse, he can identify your dosha and whether or not it is out of balance. He can cure your allergies by addressing your digestive problems; reverse or prevent cataracts by rinsing your eyes with a mixture of spit from brushing your teeth, tongue scrapings, and water; and reverse or retard aging by redirecting the way your body “metabolizes” time. And, of course, he also promotes aroma therapy based on Ayurvedic metaphysical physiology and sells the oils and spices needed.
When it comes right down to it, what he and other “alternative” healers are really selling to the gullible is hope for healing and the hope of living forever. But it is a hope based on mysticism, imagination, and good marketing skills rather than on science.
Here, I cannot resist a personal word on two experiences within our own family that I have recounted elsewhere. When I was a young lad, I remember how much my father suffered from asthma. He was advised by an Ayurvedic doctor to go to the city of Hyderabad three years in a row at a certain time of the year. He would have to rise before dawn and stand in a line with others also waiting for treatment. At the first blush of dawn, a priest would place a small minnow with a concoction of spices into the mouth of the sick person and they would be cured of whichever disease was ailing them. Combining the astrological chart with nature’s herbs and the administration of a priest would bring about the cure.
It is important to know that my father was not some kind of gullible ignoramus. He had studied at Nottingham University in England and was a deputy secretary in the Home Ministry of the government of India. I remember him often saying, as he struggled to breathe in the midst of an asthma attack, that he would never wish his ailment on his worst enemy. The intensity of his respiratory struggle sent him to a city more than a thousand miles away for three years in a row. Did it cure him? It made not one whit of difference. When he came to Canada in his mid-fifties, the identification of his particular allergies and the cleaner air rid him of his asthmatic condition once and for all. I remember him saying that so simple a corrective for so deep a malady was denied him by years of other methods that did nothing for him.
My closest friend growing up in India was the son of a homeopathic doctor and the strictest vegetarian who often scolded me for not being likewise. In his early fifties, he suffered a massive heart attack and died. His father died young as well.
I tell these stories to warn people that medicine is multifaceted. To make either Ayurveda or homeopathic or Western-style medicine, often called allopathic medicine, the cure-all is ludicrous and just plain contrary to facts. Each has their distinctive place. What disservice these propagators of metaphysical medicine perform in an effort to peddle their philosophy! They play god and make gods while denying us our essential humanity. They take the pragmatic and make it the total view. They take the ancient and make it the better view. This comes perilously close to deception and distortion. Keep these philosophies for what they are and let the truth seeker discover whether the ideas behind them are coherent or incoherent.6
In fact, I can speak from the perspective of my own search for wellness as a result of serious back injuries that have left me living with an incredible degree of pain. On my travels to India I have tried numerous medicinal cures to relieve the pain. Nothing is so all-encompassing within the mind of a person who is in pain than the desire to alleviate it. I have been told by medical practitioners that the greater challenge in pain management is the emotional toll that the pain exacts. I have tried the noninvasive and therapeutic methods, which include an evaluation where they talk about the Vata, Pitta, Kapha, and so on, followed by a prescription for massage and diet. The meditative side of these treatments I do not need. My ancestors left those practices when they became followers of Jesus Christ. But I did undertake the massage treatments with the oils, just to mitigate the pain.
There is a dangerous half-truth to the claims of Ayurvedic medicine. Some of the Ayurvedic oils do work; some of it is just plain psychological game-playing. That is as kindly stated as I can afford. The real truth is that I have seen doctors who practice Eastern medicine desperate themselves to get to the West to be treated with Western medicine when faced by their own debilitating disease. I have seen massage therapists who spend their lives using those oils, only to find no relief themselves when they are injured or fatigued from overusing their muscles. This is the plain and simple truth.
There can sometimes be palliative benefits to several of these methods, without the invasiveness of some Western medicine. But any positive effect on my skeletal and genetic problems for me personally has just been a pipe dream. The same is true for many others I know. Without the care of doctors here in the West or those in the East who are highly trained in Western medicine, I would not be walking at this point. As with everything, there is a balance. By all means collect the wisdom of the ages, but there is far more to be gained from using the wisdom of the present, as well.
Unfortunately, the lure of money and power, the influence of the media, and the struggle of the human heart make us pursue these things and, in the end, quarrel over who has the rights to the cure while the heart and mind are severed from ultimate truth. What is the driving force behind these searches? The answer is in one word: pain. Whether it is the emotional pain of someone like Oprah or the physical pain that comes with illnesses, it is pain that stalks us and drives us in this search for spirituality. The simplistic solutions of Deepak Chopra cannot stand against the lofty and deep teachings of Jesus Christ. However well-intentioned people like Chopra may be, the claims that are made in those wellness centers and the costs incurred for whatever is offered there leave one incredulous. When one begins with a problematic induction, through an inescapable seduction, there is an inevitable reduction and ultimately a false deduction. Here is Chopra’s deduction about the who and what of humanity:
Success in life could be defined as the continued expansion of happiness and the progressive realization of worthy goals… Even with the experience of all these things, we will remain unfulfilled unless we nurture the seeds of divinity inside us. In reality, we are divinity in disguise, and the gods and goddesses in embryo that are contained within us seek to be fully materialized.7 (Italics mine)
Chopra says that he wrote part one of his thoughts on success in his book Creating Affluence: Wealth Consciousness in the Field of All Possibilities. Now in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success he is revealing the guidelines that underlie all success. Why do I think I have heard such language before? Is this not a different version of the prosperity gospel? Evidently, the prosperity gospel is not restricted to televangelists; rather, the same goal is now being offered in a different path. What does the old adage say? “Fool me once…” You know the rest of it. The only difference between the two is that the televangelists misrepresented divinity; this group goes one better and tells us we are divinity.
As I am writing this book, India has just won the world cup in cricket, a beautiful game. I love the game. But here is one writer commenting on the victorious Indian team: “These boys in blue are not just boys. They are men. They are not just demigods. They are Gods.” How fascinating that he has forgotten that some of the gods in the Pakistani cricket team were disqualified from playing because they were charged with match-fixing in other tournaments. So we have gods aplenty that are here today and gone tomorrow. Yet these are the same voices that during earthquakes and natural catastrophes want to know where God is.
It is easy to see how and why entertainment icons and these spiritual gurus and celebrities have come together. One thinks they are gods and the other tells them they are right; and what’s more, the rest of us are gods, as well. The words of Reinhold Niebuhr come to mind: “No amount of evidence to the contrary seems to shake man’s grand opinion of himself.”
I remember reading of a businessman who had gone to Las Vegas to find something there that would satisfy and fulfill him. He took his own life in his hotel room and left a one-line note that said, “Here, there are no answers.” For the ultimate hungers of the human heart, all the terminology, all the wellness claims, and all the supposedly scientific terminology only leave you with the deep conviction that “here, there are no answers.” I shall let Deepak Chopra have the last word:
I in fact don’t believe in the existence of time. That’s one thing I have to tell you, and the other is that I don’t take myself or what I am doing seriously.
I don’t believe in anything supernatural.
Hope is a sign of despair.
Cynicism is a risk factor for sudden death from premature heart disease.8
Clever… but what a way to build an empire.
It is something to watch a person in the making and see how they end up seeing themselves. It is equally fascinating that just because a person carries some credentials in the field of health, we accept as equally authoritative his pronouncements in philosophy. The successful marketing of a product is often mistaken as the substance of the product. Both health and philosophy deal with the spiritual, but, unwittingly, they make it evident that the greatest disease of life is of the heart, as Jesus described it.
Whether in competition in business dealings or in the big business that spirituality has become, Jesus’ words ring true. The heart of humanity is pride, greed, and lust… insisting on having our way. We do not have the seeds of divinity. That is the ultimate seduction. Apart from a Savior, we just play to the stands. Only in his answers will we find the ultimate hope for the human heart. That is the pursuit of this book.