Chatting with Chopra

Deepak Chopra

What: Workshop with Deepak Chopra.

Where: Artemus Ham Hall at UNLV.

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

Cost: $35, $45 and $55, including tax.

Information: Call 895-3535.

"God's most cherished secrets are hidden inside the human brain," reads the opening line from Deepak Chopra's new book, "How to Know God."

Unlocking those mysteries has become Chopra's lifelong passion.

Chopra is a leading author, speaker and doctor in the field of mind-body medicine and has written best sellers on aging and understanding your soul. This time he explores the great unknown: death. Each of Chopra's books has been the Indian-born doctor's quest to find a deeper spirituality.

Chopra's most recent endeavor tackles mortality with a scientific approach.

"I always write books on subjects that are personal to me," Chopra said in a recent telephone interview. "I'm growing older and one day, like everybody else, I'm going to die. I found that it's time for me to start looking at questions that have to do with my mortality."

Others on a quest for a more spiritual life can spend an enlightened evening with Chopra during a workshop Thursday night at UNLV's Artemus Ham Hall.

Chopra combines the science of Western medicine with the spiritual tradition of Ayurveda techniques of ancient holistic healing in India.

The Chopra Center For Well Being was founded five years ago in the hills of La Jolla, Calif. It provides the teaching of Chopra through yoga, diet, massage and healing workshops.

"It's a center for people who want to take courses in health and spiritual well-being," Chopra said. "We (aid) in the treatment of chronic illness, heart disease cancer. We work with (patients') doctors and offer options. For chemotherapy, we minimize side effects. We improve research on aging. In one sentence, we have a lot of fun."

In 1985 Chopra left a Boston hospital, where he was an endocrinologist, to co-found an organization centering around Indian-herbal remedies. Patients were prescribed daily enemas and sesame oil massages, which are still practiced at his center.

Chopra has been described as an insightful Indian guru with a Hollywood following. Celebrities Blythe Danner, Demi Moore, Madonna and Martin Sheen contribute to his new CD, "A Gift Of Love," a spoken-word collaboration based on the poetry of the ancient scribe Rumi. But being a celebrity doesn't go to Chopra's head, he said. Instead, it's a mere fraction of who he is.

"Right now what is really important to me is, where did I come from, why am I here, what happens to me after I die, does God exist and, if she does, does she care about me?" Chopra said. "So I'm looking at those questions from a scientific perspective."

Chopra uses "she" when describing God because "the Western (philosophy's) biggest nonsense is that God is a dead white male in the sky and he punishes us. We can burn in hell for eternity or we can go to paradise.

"It's a primitive (view) but a lot of people hold it, you know?"

But not Chopra. Consciousness evolves, he said, just as the world continues to evolve from the roots of its past.

"I believe there is a lot we can learn from the wisdom of tradition, East and West," Chopra said. "But we have to continue our exploration. All traditional religions come out of wisdom but unfortunately, so does a lot of nonsense."

Although the Bible says that God created man in his own image, the opposite is true, Chopra said, because God's characteristics have been created by man.

"We created God in our own image and therefore most versions of God are based on our image of God, which (was) totally the most important thing for us at that particular time," Chopra said.

For instance, when humans were hunter-gatherers, God was as important as an authoritative parent who controlled their often harsh and unpredictable world. As the human species evolves, Chopra said, so must its understanding of its soul, spirit and connection to God.

"As we evolve in our consciousness we create a limited version of God," Chopra said. "As we evolve, that consciousness expands."

But any view of God, no matter how expanded the human mind becomes, is limited, Chopra added. "By definition God is infinite and our mind is finite," Chopra said. "No matter what we conceptualize it's going to be a limitation on God."

It's not humans' fault, Chopra said, it's the way of the universe. Humans are only bits of spirit connecting through mystical channels beyond our mortal perception. "We impose the limitation on God because our minds cannot think outside space and time," Chopra said.

In Chopra's view, as soon as humankind conceptualizes God, the deity disappears from true form and into one of our own making. The seven stages of understanding God, according to Chopra, evolve from primitive (God as a punishing parent) to understanding that God is a part of every soul and circumstance.

"God is not ultimately to be understood or known through ideas, concepts and images stories," Chopra said. Instead, Chopra noted, God is to be understood in the sense of spirit all people have within themselves.

"What I call myself is a moment-by-moment fabrication and if I go into the core of my being I find there is an intelligence there and it is orchestrating my mind and my body," Chopra said. "As I become intimate with this intelligence, I find that it is the same intelligence that, to me, is God.

"If you can become intimate with this intelligence you will realize there is nothing other than God."

And, Chopra teaches, anyone can reach God. God is everywhere, in all things.

"God is not difficult to find, God is impossible to avoid," Chopra said. "There is nothing, nowhere, that God is not there. It really strikes at the heart of the great founders of religion, like Christ, who says to treat your neighbor as yourself. The reason he is saying that is because your neighbor is yourself. ... There is only the same being in different disguises.

"I understand nothing is me or mine so nothing should be clung to."

Then what's the point of sacrifice, love and hard work if it's all to be lost into the great unknown of death?

"It is in the unknown that we live, move and breathe all the time," Chopra said. "The known doesn't exist except in the past. ... The fact of existence is that it is unpredictable, uncertain. It is in that unknown unpredictability that we live every moment of our lives."

Instead of fear, Chopra said, this should instill passion and great freedom.

"If you can detach from the known, relinquish your attachment and step into the unknown every moment of your life, then you are free, you will not fear death because it is the big unknown. The unknown becomes a great mystery that you look forward to in every moment."

Although we may not be consciously aware of it, our time on Earth is dwindling with every moment. Chopra says that every moment is precious.

"Death is stalking us and if we were constantly aware of her stalking us every second of our lives, our lives would be magical," Chopra said. "We wouldn't waste our time on trivial things, mundane things, fighting, and all the crap that goes on. We would make love and compassion and being with each other the most precious things in our lives."

Being completely in the moment to experience the love and pleasure of life is what feeds the soul and what seemingly counts in the long run, Chopra said.

"The whole question is, who are we? " Chopra said. "We think of ourselves as a person but we aren't. We are constantly evolving pieces of intelligence, wisps of memory and threads of desire that find bodies."

Recently on a nightly news program, Chopra watched former President Ronald Reagan's biographer describe a telling scene of Reagan's deteriorating Alzheimer's disease.

Someone had given the former president a miniature toy replica of the White House, which he clutched in his hand, unable to let go. Nancy Reagan asked him if he knew what it was he held onto so tightly. Reagan responded that, although he didn't know what it was, he knew it had something to do with him.

"We all have spiritual Alzheimer's," Chopra said. "We know that there is a soul here, we don't know what it is, we know it has something to do with me. The soul is our memory."

And how to get a clearer vision of your own soul?

"The one thing I've found in my life is to take a week of silence," Chopra said, adding that he is not suggesting it for everyone. "Have nothing to do with anybody, totally go into yourself for a whole week. Don't read a book, or watch television."

No new news? Updates on scandals? The latest lewdness?

"Go into the world and just be alone. It's amazing how everything starts to unfold," Chopra said. "We spend so much time with everybody else, we don't have time to know ourselves."

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