PLAYBOY INTERVIEW: DEEPAK CHOPRA A candid conversation with the leading New Age thinker about living in the pres- ent, reversing aging, battling with skeptics and who’s really twisted on Fox News The proverbial mountaintop looks a lot like a true purpose in life. Skeptics scoff at his fuzzy “a little man with a bit of a paunch who didn’t suburban golf resort. On the lush grounds of language and poke holes in the quantum the- look up from his BlackBerry.” But he soon La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Califor- ories he invokes, yet Chopra’s message of hope had Chopra’s unwavering attention, in a wide- nia guys in Dockers and windbreakers practice spreads like galactic dust via book, blog, e-mail ranging chat in the Chopra Center offices that their chip shots, oblivious to the procession of and Twitter feed. touched on life’s biggest questions. Says Hoch- starry-eyed minions heading toward the Chopra Born 64 years ago in New Delhi, India to a man, “Once he put down his phone, Deepak got Center for Wellbeing. Today is the final session prominent heart surgeon, Chopra thought he down to business. ‘What is life? What are its of a weeklong Seduction of Spirit workshop full might write novels (as he now does) but ended secrets and mysteries?’ It was riveting.” of meditation instruction, grinning silences up in medical school instead. Like so many and cosmic conversations with the man whose ambitious Indians of his generation, he sought PLAYBOY: People have looked to you for inspiration and words have brought the faith- his fortune in America and was soon chief of guidance on spirituality, health and hap- ful together. Attendees paid $2,775 each for staff at a prominent Boston hospital. Working piness for 40 years. Don’t you get tired of the privilege of sitting at his feet. too much, he numbed himself with cigarettes, having to have all the answers? Deepak Chopra has arguably been the most coffee and alcohol but couldn’t ignore the feel- CHOPRA: First of all, I don’t think I public face of the New Age movement in Amer- ing that Big Medicine was only making patients have all the answers, but I enjoy con- ica. A physician, public speaker and spiritual sicker. His early writings on incorporating age- templating and living the questions. advisor to celebrities like Michael Jackson, he old practices such as ayurvedic medicine and I live, breathe and even think in my is the author of 57 books, including the number meditation caught fire with readers looking sleep about these ideas: the connec- one best-sellers Ageless Body, Timeless Mind for fresh answers on everything from insom- tion between mind, body and spirit, the and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, nia and cancer to aging. Celebrities liked him, true meaning of consciousness. I’m not which have sold more than 30 million copies. too: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Jackie Onassis, alone in thinking about these concepts. Drawing on elements of Eastern and Western George Harrison, Oprah Winfrey and Barack I see a great longing in the world for spirituality, metaphysics, medicine and science, Obama all came calling. self- knowledge and self-awareness. The with dashes of self-help and happiness psychol- These days Chopra, married to Rita, his wife only way to deepen understanding and ogy, Chopra has become a sort of Lao-tzu for of more than 40 years, has two grown children deepen one’s self-identity is to engage in the iPod generation. His “simple yet power- and roams the globe as a highly paid ambas- reflective self- inquiry. Ask yourself, Who ful” principles mostly involve ridding oneself sador for wellness and mindful living. Yet the am I really? What is my true purpose? of negative emotions to transcend the obstacles first impression he made on Contributing Editor How can I live the best life imaginable? that afflict body and mind. Strip away selfish David Hochman, who last interviewed Cornel That type of self-reflection is the key to conditioning, he says, and we can discover our West and Michael Savage for p l a y b o y , was as global transformation. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIZUNO “Drugs are not part of my life, but I have “I don’t invest and I don’t save. I carry maybe “India is getting a false sense of pride because tried them all. I’ve done LSD. I’ve done mush- $200 and a credit card in my pocket. If you ask it made a nuclear bomb. Globally, yes, it’s an rooms…everything. But all at a young age. I me to read a bank statement, I can’t. I believe economic superpower, but Indians are totally certainly don’t regret it. I’d go so far as to say that when I die there won’t be anything for any- ignoring the fact that 30 percent of their chil- that drugs were a source of great joy to me.” one. I don’t have that kind of mind.” dren go to bed hungry—starving.” 1 PLAYBOY: Isn’t that New Age mind-set I think he’s ineffective at the moment. I that 30 percent of their children go to just a recipe for narcissism? Every town mean, with all the support and the major- bed hungry—starving. They are ignoring in America now has a yoga studio and a ity in Congress that he had, he couldn’t the fact that 300 million people still live place to buy scented candles for medita- get the health care bill passed comfort- in abysmal poverty and there’s still a lot tion. But has any of that actually made ably! It’s that way with all the things he of communal tension and violence. India us more compassionate or more peace- said he would do. He can’t get rolling, has huge problems. ful as a society? he can’t get the support. I think Obama PLAYBOY: Let’s come back to America for CHOPRA: Our culture has become self- should be just a one-term president. a minute. Why do you think there are so absorbed, and meditation, yoga and all PLAYBOY: Is there anything Obama can do many broken, psychologically damaged that have played a part. To have per- to save himself? people out there? Many of them pick up m fect bodies and peaceful minds requires CHOPRA: Well, I was with President Clin- your books for comfort and guidance. In a good deal of self-focus. For the most ton at a private function a little while that way, is your success somehow a sign part, people who follow this type of life- ago. He mentioned there are more job we’ve failed as a society? style are idealists. They want to bring postings in the postrecession era in Amer- CHOPRA: I’ve wondered about that so peace to the world, they want to make war ica today than at any other time in the much. It’s something that has both- obsolete, they are committed to repairing history of the United States. But our ered me all these years. Why are there the ecology and supporting racial equal- workers don’t have the skills. The jobs so many unhappy people? As I said, ity, feminism and gay rights. The roots of are in technology and other fields that America has everything to offer. There’s that idealism surfaced in the 1960s with require a high degree of education and so much opportunity. It’s still the land us baby boomers, of course, but it always training. One of the saddest commentar- everybody criticizes but wants to come to, had a shadow of narcissism. ies on our time is that Americans have and I believe the American dream still I think we’re always evolving, not just lost the kind of skills they had because exists. But unless you’re lucky, maybe like as individuals but as a society, as a human we became complacent about everything. I lucked out, people are set up for disap- species. My sincere hope is that at some We no longer manufacture anything sig- pointment because we are a dysfunctional point we’ll go beyond personal gratifica- nificant, notwithstanding GM’s recent society. I’ve wondered about this a lot and tion and realize the true value of quieting recovery. America’s two biggest exports I have a radical theory about it. My theory the mind, of being good to the body, of right now are Hollywood and weapons of is that for more than a century, Amer- relieving ourselves of stress and of paying mass destruction. Obama would do well ica has been at war. First it was the Civil attention to others and recognizing our War, then World War I, World War II, the inseparability from the rest of the world. Korean War, the Vietnam war, the Iraq We’re in a time when half the world’s war and then the Afghanistan war. We are population lives in radical poverty, which Being in the moment a country at war with the world and at means less than $2 a day, when conflict, war with itself. People will say, “Oh, that war and terrorism abound everywhere in means not being distracted by was the great American thing, to save the the world, when there is extreme social whole world.” What has resulted is a lot of injustice and extreme economic dispari- the melodrama and hysteria men being absent, dysfunctional families ties. If we’re truly mindful we can begin to and children growing up with insecuri- recognize and address these inequities.