Self-Improvement Spiritual Guru Deepak Chopra

Self-Improvement

Spiritual guru Deepak Chopra discusses the realities of love in his 1997 book "The Path to Love." Although he does not necessarily outline a plan of how to get out of a failed relationship, he does however point the reader in the right direction concerning how to recognize a meaningful one.

The first chapter, "Reviving a Love Story," Chopra states that few people can look at themselves and say "I am completely loved...I am completely lovable" (Chopra 1). This, according to Chopra, is because people tend to see the flaws and thus believe that since they are less than perfect, they could not possibly completely loved and lovable, yet, what are called flaws are actually just the scars of hurts and wounds accumulated over a lifetime. However, underneath innocence is still intact, "time cannot blemish your essence, your portion of spirit," says Chopra (Chopra 2). Yet, he cautions that if one loses sight of this essence, "you will mistake yourself for your experiences, and these is no doubt that experience can do much to obliterate love" (Chopra 2). The world is hostile and often brutal, so maintaining innocence seems impossible, therefore "you find yourself experiencing only so much love and only so much lovability" (Chopra 2). This, according to Chopra, is because people do not identify with their spiritual nature and their sense of love has lost its higher dimension.

The spiritual meaning of love can heal, renew, inspire, make one safe and closer to God, " everything love is meant to do is possible" (Chopra 3). Most people experience love as "pleasure, sex, security, having someone else fulfill their daily needs...the normal cycle of love is simply to find a suitable partner, marry, and raise a family," but this social pattern is not truly a path (Chopra 4).

In most lifelong relationships, love fades or evolves into companionship without growing in its inner dimension and a spiritual path has only one reason to exist, to show "the way for the soul to grow...and when you find your path, you will find your love story" (Chopra 4).

Although at first this may not appear to be a book about relationships, Chopra does go into depth regarding how most people choose partners and then end up realizing the relationship is not really fulfilling and often detrimental. And he is correct when he states that most people are consumed by doubts and fears about their relationships, asking themselves whether they have really found the right partner or whether they are being true to themselves. This results in a type of consumer shopping for partners, as if the right one can be found by "toting up a potential mate's pluses and minuses until the number of pluses matches some mythical standard" Chopra 4). Everyone is guilty of this check-list. In fact, that is really what the whole bar scene is about, sizing people up as perspective mates, especially the new speed dating where people actually spend the evening interviewing and then grading potential partners - by the clock no less. Chopra definitely hit the nail on the head when he stated that people today are caught up in the consumerism of love and relationships. Could this perhaps be the reason for such a high divorce rate today? After all, people do seem to end relationships and/or switch partners quite often today - the husband who 'trades in' his wife of twenty years for a younger one or the wife who feels she has to leave her marriage to 'find herself.' Were these couples ever truly bonded? it's fairly safe to say that they were not. And this is what Chopra means by the deeper level, the spiritual level of relationships.

What he discusses next though is a little more difficult to appreciate. According to Chopra, no matter how one feels about the relationship they are in, whether good or bad, "the person you are with at this moment is the 'right' person, because he or she is a mirror of who you are inside...and when you struggle with your partner, you are struggling with yourself" (Chopra 4). This is definitely reaching to the deeper levels of relationships and apparently spiritualism is inseparable from a true relationship. Chopra says that every fault you see in a partner "touches a denied weakness in yourself...every conflict you wage is an excuse not to face a conflict within," therefore it is a mistake to believe that "someone 'out there' is going to give (or take) something that is not already yours...thus, when you truly find love, you find yourself" (Chopra 4).

Although Chopra says, "when you truly find love, you find yourself," it seems that what he is really saying is that any love or relationship, whether true or not, good or bad, is yourself. This is the same theory that is found in virtually every self-help or self-realization book - that people attract what they project. Negative people attract negative people, circumstances and events, positive people attract positive people, circumstances and events. This is a very difficult concept to accept and appreciate on a daily level. In fact this theory could easy drive one to distraction if each negative relationship in one's life is analyzed as an inner piece of the soul - a lesson to be learned. However, according to Chopra, this is exactly what one must accept and is the only way to find true love and quell the need to keep searching for something or someone better and different.

Next, Chopra discusses the four phases of romance: attraction, infatuation, courtship, and intimacy. Attraction begins when a person becomes smitten with someone, followed by infatuation when that person becomes all-desirable (Chopra 64). Then, courtship, which is basically trying to woo the other person to create the same attraction and infatuation in the other person. If courtship is successful, then intimacy follows, sexual excitement (Chopra 64). According to Chopra, the first three phases are rooted in fantasy of the psyche, while the last phase, intimacy, is played out in the real world. "Reality dawns as the lovers' rosy images get tested against a real person. For better of worse, there is an unmasking of fantasy, and the way is cleared for the next stage of love's journey, relationship" (Chopra 64).

And of course, "falling in love isn't accidental - there are no accidents in the spiritual life, only patterns we haven't yet recognized" (Chopra 65).

This all sounds wonderful in print, however, it seems truly difficult to apply to everyday life, such as women in abusive relationships, men controlled by guilt from neurotic women. Does this mean that women and men are drawn to abusive relationships to discover an inner piece of their soul and spirit? It would be interesting to see Chopra tour a shelter and confront the women and children who are there seeking refuge and often medical treatment and hear him describe to them that there are no accidents, that everything happens for a reason. Or perhaps tour a children's hospital cancer ward or visit a veterans hospital. For although, Chopra is applying this philosophy to relationships, what he is really saying is that nothing happens in life that is not controlled at some spiritual level.

According to spiritual masters, "we were born in bliss, but this condition gets obscured by the chaotic activity of everyday life"...and "our hunger to return to bliss is one reason why falling in love is never accidental" (Chopra 67).

Again this sound ideal, however, I question whether 'crack babies' are truly born in bliss, even at the exact moment of birth.

Chopra writes that as the emotions of infatuation begin to cool, ego, the main component of the false self, replaces them. During the courtship phase is when doubts about the other person begins to surface and according to Chopra, "Your doubt and mistrust toward someone you love is a mirror of your own belief that fear is necessary, that survival isn't possible without defenses" (Chopra 110). This statement does seem to ring true because it is during the courtship or dating phase that people tend to start tearing down the qualities of the other person and become suspicious, wondering and worrying about ulterior motives of the other, such as why didn't he call or why did she say she had to work late, etc. And it is true that people begin to feel as if possibly the other person is beginning to dominate the other or is depends too much on the other. Often women give up other friendships when they begin to date, sometimes out of jealousy, sometimes from losing perspective of their own lives. And men often find themselves with a clinging vine, sometimes from their own creation due to their own inner fears, and sometimes from mistaking the other's insecurity as love.

According to Chopra, "If you examine any negative trait you insist is present in another person, you will find the same trait hiding in yourself" (Chopra 121). He suggests to make a list of three people whom "you intensely dislike, disapprove of, or have had conflicts with...then put down four qualities for each that you find most offensive" (Chopra 121). He now says to look at the list and for each trait say, "I acted like this when I..." And cautions that this is not to wallow in self-criticism but to reclaim feelings rather than projecting them onto others (Chopra 122). Says Chopra, "when you are able to see yourself in what you hate, you come closer to realizing that you contain everything, as befits a child of spirit" (Chopra 122).

This is certainly easier said than done. What of an abusive parent, an abusive mate, an arrogant boss, or Hitler? Are we to list the qualities that we despise in Hitler and then compare ourselves to that list? True, most self-help books and psychology do claim that people most often project their own flaws and fears onto the people around them, however, it seems that "relative" plays a large part here. How would you compare someone who is assertive and at times aggressive to Hitler? True if one analyzes and condenses the essence there is a correlation, but it is certainly "relative" to the degree to which these qualities are expressed.

When Chopra discusses attachment and karma, there is again a ring of truth. He gives an example: