I do not wish to make Deepak Chopra my mortal enemy. After all, he appears to be a friendly enough guy. I can see that he has a genuine desire to help people make sense of their place in the universe, to see them healthy and happy, in touch with their spirituality and one with all. I can dig all that. The neighborhood teens even call me Deepak, or "D-Pac", or something like that - for reasons that have nothing to do with any similarities between me and the guru himself. I actually kind of get a kick out of it. So I would love to be at peace with him.
But I find everything that he says maddening.
I made a couple of comments on Facebook about this recently. I am reading the book that Chopra co-authored with Leonard Mlodinow, "War of the Worldviews: Science vs. Spirituality". I would not normally read anything written by Chopra, but in the spirit of having an open mind I thought it would be fair to read this book. The book is in a debate format, where each chapter is started by one author with a response by the other. Since each chapter is half written by Mlodinow, I was hoping that this would keep Chopra honest.
Chopra claims to be a champion of spirituality, standing in opposition to religion. And he tries to make his case that spirituality has something to offer that science does not.
Now, I am neither a spiritual leader nor a scientist, but I do consider myself a philosopher and a poet (my degree is in English Literature with a minor in Philosophy). So when Chopra writes, every once in a while I start to feel like where he is going it, because he is using metaphors and figurative language to state his claim.
But wait - you mean he was serious about that?
He constantly make statements that seem to be poetic, but then uses them as fact. He draws analogies, but then seems to forget that an analogy is not the thing itself. In logic and critical argumentation, we call these "non sequiturs", "category errors" and "strawmen". In Chopra's world, these are talking points.
The danger is that when the figurative is taken literally, and you leave room for the supernatural, you are in fact creating a religion! This is what Chopra says he does not want, yet he walks straight down this path - yet this path is fraught with danger.
The Bible is a book of stories and poetry that has had the misfortune of being taken literally by some modern readers (possibly this was the intent of the authors - possibly not). Over the years, we have learned all kinds of things about our world that show the Bible to be in error if interpreted in this way. If I were Deepak Chopra, I would state emphatically that my theory of consciousness is a philosophical outlook, romantic and poetic. Otherwise, when (and not if) if is shown by science to contain errors he will not look like a fool. Perhaps he is banking on science taking a long time to disprove his "universal consciousness"? I wouldn't be so hopeful.
Even worse is his habit of co-opting meaningful words from other fields; "quantum", and "evolution", even "life" and "death. He re-purposes them to describe concepts in his own worldview. This has become a bit of a joke, as there is even a Deepak Chopra quote generator. But this is honestly confusing to readers that do not have a firm grasp on the concepts described by these words (as used by any other knowledgeable person). I find this technique to be wholly dishonest. What happens when a reader does some additional research, and learns what quantum fluctuation really means? They will feel abused by Chopra.
There are long passages of Chopra's writing that simply means nothing. Filled with lots of language, but no logical content. Why do I care? Because I love the truth, and Chopra tries to obscure the truth in favor of soothing people with language. Because Deepak Chopra loves his ideas more than the truth, but I love the truth.
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