And he said: 'let there be enlightenment'

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Chopra's latest role as a political commentator has led some critics to label him anti-American. (DIANE BONDAREFF / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

DEEPAK Chopra has been called many things during his decades-long quest to integrate cutting-edge Western science with ancient Eastern spiritual wisdom to heal the world -- one ageless body and enlightened mind at a time.

Often the labels, laudatory and otherwise, will play off his Indian roots, making him the guru of this or the swami of that.

Mike Myers has openly admitted that he modelled the The Love Guru's titular fame-seeking spiritualist, Pitka -- who even trademarked his mantra -- after Chopra.

The real New Age celebrity guru not only played along by lampooning himself in a cameo, he publicly defended the 2008 film, which sparked protests from Hindu groups who accused it of ridiculing their faith.

"No one is more thoroughly skewered in Love Guru than I am -- you could say that I am even made to seem preposterous," Chopra wrote in an online essay.

"...If I don't take offence and some Hindus do, that doesn't make me superior or more mature or even innately tolerant. I just know the difference between a belly laugh and a diatribe."

Chopra's latest role, political commentator, has elicited more of the former than the latter. And it has attracted a new label -- anti-American.

Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News and the Wall Street Journal lambasted Chopra over his comments on CNN that the U.S.-led war on terrorism is turning more moderate Muslims into religious extremists.

In a December op-ed piece, WSJ editorial writer Dorothy Rabinowitz called Chopra a "digestion guru" and "advocate of aromatherapy and regular enemas" who naively "blames America" for the Mumbai terrorist attacks last July.

Chopra, who will be at the Centennial Concert Hall Sunday, says he has become more political in recent years to address the deeper causes of global instability -- namely the "radical poverty" that has half the world's population living on less than $2 a day, and 35 global wars that are mostly being fought "in the name of God."

"The outside world is always a reflection of our inner world," the New Delhi-born physician turned spiritual teacher and one-man publishing empire said during a recent phone interview from New York.

"God is as we are," said the Hindu-raised Chopra, 62, author of more than 50 books on everything from mind-body medicine and quantum physics to world peace and fictionalized biographies of Jesus, the Buddha and (coming soon) Mohammed.

"If we are in fear mode, then God is judgmental and punishes us like a dysfunctional parent. If we are in control mode, God is the ultimate control freak. If we reach our highest self, then God becomes the archetypal God of miracles."

And if we're in greed mode?

"We created the world economic collapse," he says. "It started with the United States, but because everything is so global, it spread very fast. It had to.

"We had $2.9 trillion circulating in the world's market, only two per cent of which was actually providing goods and services. The rest was derivatives, which became the toxic assets that caused the collapse of Wall Street and now this great global economic meltdown."

Chopra, who writes weekly columns for the Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle and is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post news website, says it's time to "forget the bad guys" and move on.

"They brought us here, but it was a culture of greed, cronyism, power-mongering, influence-peddling, corruption and bureaucracy to some extent. Now we have to move on and we have to say 'how can we create a new economy?'"

People have to stop creating a climate of fear -- fed by the news media and our "collective conversations" -- and realize this is an opportunity for personal and collective transformation, says the man Time magazine named one of the top 100 heroes or icons of the 20th century.

"I think we are gradually reaching a critical mass of people seeking self-awareness who want to translate it into action in the arenas that are troubling the world," says Chopra, who spearheads the campaign itakethevow.com, which has a goal of getting 100 million people around the world to take an anti-violence vow.

"If we reached the tipping point, we'd actually have peace."

Chopra, who last visited Winnipeg in 2005, says his Sunday appearance, sponsored by the Victoria General Hospital Foundation, will cover the basics of mind-body connection -- the nature of the human soul, how to go beyond fear of old age, disease and death, etc. But he wants to move to a "deeper level" this time.

He says, "I'm going to talk about what I see as the future potential of our personal and collective consciousness and discuss how we can begin to turn this world into a more peaceful, sustainable place."

carolin.vesely@freepress.mb.ca

Lecture preview

An Afternoon with Deepak Chopra

Sunday, 3 p.m., Centennial Concert Hall

Tickets, $35 to $150, available at Ticketmaster

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 21, 2009 C3