Deepak Chopra - on Vision TV's Test of Faith

Last night I was watching Vision TV, which is the “spirituality” cable channel in Canada. There is a weekly round table program called Test of Faith, hosted by Valerie Pringle.

Special invitee on this program was Deepak Chopra. His theme, according to the program notes was: “Chopra believes that human beings have a yearning for more than what traditional/organized religion offers. He believes that our spiritual evolution needs to progress and attaches material wants to spiritual beliefs.” Rather poorly expressed, I am afraid.

The other panelists were a Protestant Christian, a Roman Catholic layperson, and a Sufi. When I flipped to that program, it was Barry Whitney, a professor of Protestant theology, who was speaking in terms that sounded so like a Hare Krishna of the old days that I was positively mesmerized: “If you accept that God is a person, then the monistic or pantheistic God is nothing but ‘selfism.’ You insult the three million people who believe in a personal God when you relativize Him.”

The program notes actually summarize quite well his position: “Whitney believes that New Age Spirituality is selfish and shallow. He thinks that it is a danger for society because its selfish, its relativistic and its practitioners don’t care about what they do in the physical realm because it is just a temporary shell for your soul that will be released.” [Those guys at Vision TV need an editor.]

Deepak Chopra was unbelievably smug in his response. “How can we have selfism when we don’t believe in the self.” He said Buddhistically. “God gave man the truth. The Devil came along and said, ‘Let’s organize it.’” The poor Protestant barely managed to find an answer, and every time he tried to speak, Dipak Chopra shot him down for being dogmatic, for forcing religion down other people’s throats and for trying to convert everyone, all with insouciant superiority!

The Sufi seemed to mostly side with the Protestant, and was thus tarred with the same brush by Chopra, but then Chopra realized that he (Sohrawardy) was a Sufi and he suddenly got all condescending and eloquent about Rumi and “being intoxicated with love.” Not that he let the other fellow speak, but he managed to leave him there, smiling foolishly, as one often is in such situations. Chopra also showed the same benevolence to the Catholic, for he had been educated by the Irish Brethren and found Catholic rituals to be quite marvellous.

The Catholic, an author named Robert Fritz, whom I have heard interviewed about his book “Your Life as Art” was hardly allowed a word in edgewise (nor for that matter was anyone else, as Chopra just went imperiously on and on), but what he did say came across well, following a kind of generous theism that feels one needs to be anchored in a tradition while open to learning from others.

Now, why did I bring this up? Well, it reminded me to some extent of the conversations that we have been having on this forum of late. The Protestant and New Age/Hindu extremes of the religious spectrum seem to be unbridgeable. Yet, though we Vaishnavas accept the fundamental theistic premises of the Western religions, we nevertheless, in great majority, score 100% or close to it in terms of Hindu values. Why do most of us empathize more deeply with New Age values rather than with those of Christianity of Islam?

Certainly Chopra-style diatribes against dogmatism and shallow theisms resonate with us, i.e., specifically those of us who have been through the fundamentalist experience of Iskcon and are in a reactionary mode. They resonate with the New Age crowd and the Buddhists, too, for they are to a great extent growing in the residue of faith after two centuries of atheistic onslaught and deconstruction of religion.

At the same time, I found the absolute relativism of Chopra-style Hinduism to be off-putting, and there was something heroic in the theism of the Christian fundamentalist, even though I am certainly no less wary of the fundamentalists' arrogant exclusivism, if just given the chance.

Deepak Chopra is typical. The eclectic, 'broad'-minded folk I know, either politically or spiritually, are mostly the greatest tyrants.

Yesterday Jagat started a thread about Deepak Chopra and his stifling of all opposition in the name of broad mindedness, to which I commented that often the eclectics behave like tyrants. I see this thread has been deleted. Why? Does anybody here still have a backup of this thread? If it was deleted because my comments were deemed politically incorrect, could the moderator and/or the webmaster publish a list of words that are banned on this site? If the word 'tyrant' is not allowed then perhaps 'dictator' will be soothing enough?

Chopra is the ultimate Americanized Indian, a TM exponent (TM could stand for Trade Mark, which is really all he is interested in, namely Trade, money making, but it means transcendental meditation here). He sells himself and whatever he could americanize away out of the Indian heritage at top price. It is Veda going Disneyland. Some texts are interesting, no doubt. He has good ideas. He is extremely smart, this guy. TM lures Indian ayurvedic doctors into their lukewarm piss of what they sell as Veda to an ignorant world. No indian doctor with some dignity left has anything to do with it. How they can use the names of Triguna and others I do not know. I am sure they do not have their real backing. But Chopra represents the dream of every Indian cheat wishing to go West to make money, nothing but money.

It has been moved, not removed. Read this thread for more information.

For the record, I think this is silly.

If you have better ideas, I am all ears. Set up a separate board? Judging by the reactions we've seen both in the forums and in correspondence, there seems to be a definitive need to split strictly conventional content from that which some may find objectionable and indeed even averse to what they hold true gauDIyaism.

I think we cannot separate these two things. If we were to adhere strictly to traditional Gaudiyaism, we could only communicate with Sanskrt and Bengali shlokas, because English is a mleccha language (as opposed to divine Sanskrt and divine Bengali) as a popular Indian sannyasi said to his Western disciples.

I agree with the opinion that subjects like discussing the questionable benefits of drugs may not be proper topics for this forum, but I do not see why anyone should object if during a thread one mentions philosophers, teachers or teachings outside the Gaudiya circles.

No this is dragging it a bit too far. Pure Gaudiya does not mean it has to be in Sanskrit, of course not. I am in favor of separation between intellectual stuff and pure Gaudiyaism, and I have translated 4000 a4 pages of Gaudiya material into English. So purity in this does not mean purity in language. There is no mleccha language and in 26 years I have only met ONE Gaudiya Acarya who has called English or any other language a mleccha language. Pure Gaudiya means in content, not in language.

This is really wonderful Madhava! I wonder who came up with this far out title, shorelesseclecticarmchairblabla.com?
Thumbs up!

Sorry I must make that two.....

d-puck came from TM but he has has changed the TM formula somewhat to his own liking. He calls his brand of TM meditation 'Primordial Sound Meditation'

LOL

from a d-puck website;

What are "Primordial Sounds"?
Primordial Sounds are the basic, most essential sounds of nature. The specific Primordial Sounds which are used in meditation are mantras. These mantras are personal for each participant. They are chosen on the basis of Vedic mathematics which determines a specific sound or vibration of the Universe at the time and place of our birth. When we silently repeat Primordial Sounds as part of the mantra, they help to take our awareness away from the frenzy of daily activity of the mind to the stillness of our spirit. The effect soothes our entire physiology - mind, body and soul..

whatever

One obvious observation I felt was in place here: This talk-show must have been hosted very unprofessionally, since the time was not divided justly among the participants. Every one should have had the same time (or approximately) to make his point.