Deepak Chopra is a used snake-oil salesman that would try to sell stolen ice to eskimos

[DrunkenArse]

Anyone wanna try to defend him?

[Sivason]

I am sure he started as a fairly wise person, but now he must make more and more books. At some point anyone would have to start making things up. Look at Carlos Castanada. His first book seems real and like the kind of stuff some poor indian with peyote may share with a white man. His following books are made up, because people wanted to hear more, and he liked getting rich.

[Supernova]

I have three words: Cherokee hair tampons. Anyone who gets the reference is rolling right now. The rest surely think I'm insane.

[DrunkenArse]

Glad we're all in agreement.

[Robo]

Also, He has a game on the Xbox live marketplace, something about meditation, I almost got it when I first saw it because I didn't know who this guy was, but I decided to do some research into it first. It was so nice of him to put his name on the game to make looking him up so much easier.

[juroara]

Gotta admit I haven't picked up any of his books yet

[Descensus]

One of my favorite YouTubers has started a sort of business relationship with him. I cringed.

[Original Poster]

I pity he who blasphemes against the Chopra. Do you not know what wrath you invite? Not Hell. Not Darkness. Not cold, nor spite, not fire or cenobite. No, my poor, pitiful man. You have called upon the anger of the cruelest god ever mentioned. You, who have opposed the will of Deepak Chopra face the wrath of Oprah.

[Universal Mind]

Deepak Chopra was a big wig in Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's scam organization for a while. I think that's what put him on the map. Maharishi started out telling people he could show them how to have daily meditation benefits and eventually reach the seventh state of consciousness, and he used the Beatles and other celebrities to make himself famous. Lennon and McCartney ended up denouncing him and calling him a fraud. They said they believed in meditation but not him. Maharishi, the Transcendental Mediation (TM) guru, started charging people hundreds of dollars to learn his technique that can be explained in a paragraph, and he used the lie that every person has a special mantra that only TM teachers can determine. He even has people being "checked" by teachers who are supposed to determine if the pupils are meditating the right way. WTF? He ended up being exposed by somebody who posted the twelve mantras the organization uses. I was one of the suckers at one time. I checked the twelve mantras a few years ago, and mine was one of them. Maharishi started a university in Fairfield, Iowa called Maharishi International University (MIU), which is a center of major indoctrination. It is now called the Maharishi University of Management. I was sent a video about the place in 1993, right after I denounced the whole thing as a scam because of their major crock of shit catalogue that looks like comedy. In the video, Deepak Chopra is one of the speakers. He was one of Maharishi's right hand men at the time. That is how I first came across him. Ever since my introduction to Chopra, I have rolled my eyes at him. He is a straight up con man.

[shadowofwind]

I think gurus and other evangelists come in different flavors, and what one person can see through immediately looks legit for a while to someone else. But in the end, looking for an honest one misunderstands the nature of their shtick.

[saltyseedog]

I don't believe anything anymore

[EbbTide000]

Anyone wanna try to defend him? I was thinking lastnight how sinchronicity happens in the most mysterious ways. Sinchronicities (coincidinces) happen a lot to those who have a strong (well built) belief system like that of a active and very sincere catholic priest for incidence. There was a priest who vowed to pray one hour a day over and above all his other prayer duties. He would get remarkable coincidences. A journalist asked him if he thought praying caused divine coincidences. The priest said I don't know about that I only know that the more I pray the more coincidences I get. As a 12 to 21 year old I got involved with many friends from many different "cults" etc. These people shared many dreams and experiences and amazing sinchronicities with me. Each felt their leader (Jesus, Buddha, Swami, Carlos Castanada, me ...) was the spiritual source of the spiritual experience (dream or coincidence or vision and so on). Because some were convinced I was the cause, and I knew I wasn't, I knew that none of the others were the source either. I think it will be 300 years before folks will have synchronicity sussed. And my experiment will help us get there. I think everyone who claims to be the source of off-the-scale synchronicities are either confused or deliberatly decieving (lying) and we 2012ers will be dead and gone long before folks will fully understand how it happens. If you get friendly enough to followers of "spiritual snake oil merchents" for those followers to open up and confide in you, you will discover it is powerfull synchronicities that convinced them of the divinity of the one they follow. So Look at my avatar, (one of Henry Reeds thousands of Daily Mandala's) sleep, wake, record any hipnagogic image, non-lucid dream snippet, hipnapopic image and tune in your head. Post on my thread called "Synchronicity game reloaded" Then I will wait for the sync to appear here where the mandala is anchored. then I will post it with your quote. This will help towards unravelling the mystery of synchronicity... Eventually.

[nina]

I listened to some of his audiobooks several years ago, they really helped me at the time. What has he done to make people so angry? I haven't been keeping up with this sort of thing for awhile, and haven't heard about any "scams"...are they specific ones? Or are people just getting sick of the books he is putting out there?

[Taosaur]

I don't know that his stuff is snake oil so much as spiritual junk food, like most New Agery. The fluff he's peddling seems legitimate enough for as far as it goes, but I mostly only know him from talk shows.

[shadowofwind]

I listened to some of his audiobooks several years ago, they really helped me at the time. What has he done to make people so angry? I think its like you bought a computer, and you're happy because it got you on the internet, which is what you wanted it for. But somebody else bought the same model for gaming and took it apart and found that it has a cheaper video card and less RAM than it said on the box. Suppose furthermore that they had sunk many years of their lives into trying to get the computer to work as advertized, never suspecting that they'd been lied to. Or suppose that they're trying to sell a computer that has what they think is a good video card and a lot of RAM, which they spent years building, but everybody is buying the cheaper imitation that doesn't do what it says it will. Its the would-be gurus that get the most pissed off about other would-be gurus. But people who bought into something can also be bitter from the betrayal. Catholicism is an example of this. Some people think it has helped them. Other people think it has brought them guilt issues that they seem never to overcome. I don't think either group is entirely wrong.

[DrunkenArse]

I listened to some of his audiobooks several years ago, they really helped me at the time. What has he done to make people so angry? I haven't been keeping up with this sort of thing for awhile, and haven't heard about any "scams"...are they specific ones? Or are people just getting sick of the books he is putting out there? He's basically won the ignoble prize more than any other living human being. That's quite an accomplishment. He consistantly misrepresents quantum physics and then claims that he's making an analogy. The purpose of an analogy is help somebody transport knowledge that they have about domain A to domain B. If I don't know about domain A then an analogy isn't going to do any good. So unless he's writing for physicists (which he most manifestly isn't), then it's kinda stupid to use quantum physics as an analogy. In fact, it's downright confusing. Because quantum physics has nothing more to do with spirituality than it does with fish mongering. No, if you want a true synthesis of science and spirituality, look to evolution. I mean real, cruel and suffering laden evolution, not the "nature is full of happy bunnies" new age version of evolution. Then figure out how evolution wired you to be a stupid hairy monkey and do the necessary work to (at least) mostly rewire your brain. That's where mindfulness meditation comes in. But nobody wants to hear that shit. That's real work. It's so much nicer to just believe that your some sort of god incarnate and shit rainbows. edit: Of course by the time you do what I'm talking about, you'll basically have rediscovered the core of Buddhism.

[shadowofwind]

Because quantum physics has nothing more to do with spirituality than it does with fish mongering. Straying a bit from your main point....Its true that pretty much everything in the New Age section of the bookstore about physics is largely nonsense. (Though I'd go further and say that most of what's in the 'popular' science press about quantum mechanics is wrong or misleading also, to a lesser degree.) I'll take your word for it that Chopra is worse than most. I agree that physics does not 'explain' spiritual experience. Understanding something about natural selection has been very important to me also. That said, studying modern physics has been at least as important to me, and I think that some of the concepts are probably metaphorically important to other people as well, even if they're usually butchered in translation. And I don't think it hurts to relate those concepts to physics theory, because that theory has been established with a remarkable degree of rigor, as far as it goes. Summarizing why natural selection is important to me: When transforming yourself via meditative practice, its useful to have some appreciation of the implications for the physical world, and how nature limits or qualifies your progress. Otherwise, you may choose an approach that doesn't accomplish what you hope in the long run. Also, its worthwhile to understand something of the condition that nature is really in when making choices about what changes are desirable. I find the popular science version of evolution to be misleading also though. A lot of what's taught is based on hand waving, and a lot of the freedom we do have is left out because its not easy to establish in a lab experiment. Summarizing why quantum mechanics is important: Reality is imprecisely defined, but in a partially definite manner that is equally important. Much of my psychological condition seems to boil down to misunderstanding this, trying to force truth to be overly concrete, or being afraid to take a concrete stand when necessary. Tempering this some has been important I think. Also understanding where physics stops, what it doesn't say, makes me better able to make sense of what I feel beyond it. In that regard its much the same as understanding natural history. The dualities of physics, for instance the way things are discrete and also not discrete, also seem to have parallels in my experience of identity. Although my experience is limited by the limitations of those parallels, its much less limited than it would be otherwise, if I was still working with the "I", "you", and "we" ideas of language. It's so much nicer to just believe that your some sort of god incarnate and shit rainbows. If I believe I'm the devil incarnate and shit rainbow-in-the-dark, does that count?

[EbbTide000]

(...) He ( Deepak Chopra)*consistantly misrepresents quantum physics and then claims that he's making an analogy. The purpose of an analogy is help somebody transport knowledge that they have about domain A to domain B. If I don't know about domain A then an analogy isn't going to do any good. So unless he's writing for physicists (which he most manifestly isn't), then it's kinda stupid to use quantum physics as an analogy. In fact, it's downright confusing. Because quantum physics has nothing more to do with spirituality than it does with fish mongering. (...) Hi PhilosopherStoned Dale Graff is into quantum physics. And he Remote Viewed the space shuttle blowing up in a dream that he purposefully incubated. So, maybe his stuff would satisfy you more than Depaak Chopra. He'll be on-line to argue with on Monday, October 1 after he posts his presentation titled: Dale Graff –*When Fields Expand Here is Dales abstract: Dale Graff*- When Fields Expand I review the findings of the Princeton, NJ based Global Conscious Project (GCP) that examines the effects of intentions or emotions on the output of quantum physics components in Random Event Generators (REGs). Other topics include: (1) Independent research with REGs at haunted house locations, with healers and in other environments; (2) the consciousness field concept link with precognitive dreams as informational time travel and holographic resonance, and (3) the 11th dimension theme link with precognitive dreams 11 years ago prior to 9/11. I suggest that events and discoveries over the past 10 years have expanded our “field” concepts of reality and dreamtime connections. Dale E. Graff, B.S., M.S., (USA) is an internationally recognized lecturer, writer and researcher in psi topics. He is a former director of project Stargate, the government program for research and applications of remote viewing. His books, Tracks in the Psychic Wilderness and RIVER DREAMS discuss: remote viewing, psi dreaming/precognition and synchronicities. Link to register: Registration | Psiberdreaming2012 That dream rv thingy is in my thread: http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/powerf...e-dream-94073/ Chech-out post #16. I also got a thread where I'm transcribing a Coast to Coast interview with Dale Graff. Here is that link: http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/dale-g...dreams-133746/ Enjoy