07/08/2012/ - 2012 and Deepak Chopra's Guru-Speak

“A man’s goodness is truly measured by what he is, not what he does.” – Deepak Chopra.

This nonsensical piffle is probably taken very seriously by resident  Chopraholics and it seems this guy is not afraid to say something incredibly silly and lack the insight necessary to be justifiably embarrassed. But just for the heck of it, let’s deconstruct this sagacious-sounding fiddle-faddle and explain why such utterances like this should be wholly avoided like the plague.

Apparently in Deepak-Land it is possible to “truly  measure” the “goodness” of someone by “what” a person “is”  rather by what a person does. Which begs an important question – how can anyone say anything about what another is without mentioning that one’s actions?

“You know, that Jimmy is such a great guy. A real good person.”

“Oh, yeah? What exactly does he do that makes him so great?”

“Hey, you can’t truly measure the goodness of what somebody does, only by what they are.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Dude, don’t you read Deepak Chopra?”

“Reading? Don’t have the time. Takes me away from playing my video games.”

Since, according to Chopra,  a man’s goodness can be truly measured by who he is and not what he does – we should ask whether Chopra’s New Age calculus equally extend and apply to the works of man’s evil? Is not evil that which causes harm, destruction or misfortune to others? Not for Chopra, apparently for him evil is simply “a matter of perception.” In that Huffpost article, Chopra insists that evil is a problem largely based on perception and that evil can broken down “ into smaller components that can be solved,” and then gives some incredibly dubious examples on how to achieve that. ” Abused children can be helped and loved.” Yeah, well the number of abused children that die from malnutrition each day is only 22,000. But I guess they are beyond all help and love. “ A church congregation hijacked by intolerance can be filled with new members who feel otherwise.” That would be nice, but even if every other church in the world accomplished this, we’d be no closer in ending the inequalities and suffering of the world, basically because religion is part of the problem. “Guilt and shame that you feel in yourself can be healed with therapy.”  Why? We’ve got a lot to be guilty and ashamed about – and therapy is no substitution for rectifying the problem.

But beyond that, Chopra also claims that if evil doesn’t directly affect you, then it doesn’t exist for you. This seems to be a rather curious takeaway – and unfortunately I have heard this echoed by many New Agers and spiritualists over the years. They seek to remove their responsibility for the existence of evil by claiming that it isn’t a part of “their reality,” or that those who suffer from the evil acts of others give their approval for their suffering as “lessons to be learned” from this life that will advance their spiritual development.

But let’s cleave to the matter at hand – this mangled, garbled aphorism of Chopra – it needs to be refuted, exposed and disregarded, over and over, until, hope against hope, he stops talking such bullshit and influencing others to become passive slaves of metaphysical nonsense. What a person does – and thinks –  whether it is known to others or not – is a very important measurement of who one really is.  And since the world at large is a true reflection of the inner essence of humanity as a whole, I’d say that Mr. Chopra needs to reconsider his scene and wake up to reality before it is too late.

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