Deepak Chopra Calls All World Leaders 'Gangsters' 

Deepak Chopra doesn't have a high opinion of elected officials. In fact, he told Newsweek during a recent interview that he thinks all the leaders of the world are "gangsters" who are mainly interested in "power-mongering, cronyism, influence-peddling, corruption, bureaucracy and amplifying their own personal wealth."

However, the world-renowned spiritual teacher does have hope. Along with the belief that humans could make the world a more joyful place through their use of creativity, Chopra feels the use of technology will improve society in a variety of ways.

"But please don't depend on politicians or gangsters or leaders. They're all the same," he said.

During the course of the interview, Chopra—whose work as a self-help guru and alternative-medicine expert has made him a bona fide celebrity—touches on all the subjects above, as well as COVID-19 and the possible extinction of the human race.

Chopra also discusses his new book on yoga, Living in the Light [available January 3], and his own yoga and meditation practice.

Read Newsweek's conversation with Chopra below. This interview, conducted virtually, has been edited and condensed for the sake of length and clarity.

How are you doing in a general sense? How is Mr. Deepak Chopra today?

You know, my mind is quiet. I'm always in a state of equanimity, so I don't have highs and lows. I'm at peace.

The past few years have been incredibly hard on many people, especially in regards to the pandemic. Do you have any thoughts on the general state of the world as COVID-19 outbreaks are ongoing in many countries? And do you have tips for people that might be feeling especially stressed out about the coronavirus?

In general, I feel that most people think that what's happening right now is unique to their generation. But when I used to speak to my father, he talked about the Holocaust, about the atomic bomb and about the economic crisis then. My grandfather would talk about the World War I and the Great Depression. And my great-grandfather, whom I didn't know but I heard about from my grandfather, used to talk about what was called the Indian Mutiny during the British Empire.

Every generation has had a crisis. We are not unique. What is unique, though, is right now there is not only the pandemic, but climate change. It's economic disasters. It's extinction of species. It's war. it's terrorism. It's nuclear weapons. It's cyber warfare. It's polarization between the right and the left, between religious groups. So what we have right now is a very dangerous situation. We're all sleepwalking to extinction. If we don't wake up, we're going to have a big issue as a species.

The last extinction was 65 million years ago, when a meteorite fell on this earth. Dinosaurs were wiped out in a matter of few days or weeks. And had they not been wiped out? The human species would not have emerged. We are here because of that extinction. So, worst-case scenario, if we disappeared, maybe a new species will evolve. And nature will say, 'The human experiment was a good evolutionary experiment, but it did not work.'

If you consider that our planet is a speck of dust in what is now the junkyard of infinity—even space is contaminated by us—then our planet is not even one grain of sand in all the beaches of the world, considering there are 2 trillion galaxies and uncountable possibly habitable planets in just the Milky Way galaxy.

If you put things in perspective, and you expand your awareness, you can settle for two things: We change what we can change, and we accept what we cannot change.

Do you feel humans had a good run?

The evolution of the universe is 13.8 billion years, and 200,000 years of that with homosapiens. Only 15,000 years had oral language, or maybe longer—30,000 years. Written language is only 5,000 years old, and since then, we've created all these issues. We've created electricity, good housing, but we also created problems.

You touched on the current state of politics earlier. This country is so divided politically. Do you have any thoughts on like this divisive nature of politics and what people could do to help subside anger and anxiety around it?

I think every current leader nationally—almost every current leader globally—without exception is a gangster. They're interested in power, power-mongering, cronyism, influence-peddling, corruption, bureaucracy and amplifying their own personal wealth.

So, I have zero faith in political leaders. I think as a global community, we need to be the change we want to see in the world. As long as you're on either side of the political divide, you're going to increase the polarization.

You want a more peaceful, just, sustainable, healthier and joyful world? You have to be more peaceful, just, sustainable, joyful and healthy. And if there are enough people doing that, this will be a different world. But please don't depend on politicians or gangsters or leaders. They're all the same.

You've made some comments in the past that are particularly critical of former President Donald Trump. Do you believe his influence is waning?

I think he's losing power. It's not because he's any different from before, but it's because the Republicans may soon decide that he's not an asset but a liability. Again, they're also looking out for themselves. If you understand the law of karma, karma never loses an address.

I think some people may be surprised that you've so fully embraced technology. You've created a successful app and an AI twin of yourself. Could you talk about how technology relates to your overall holistic practice?

One thing is for sure: Technology is part of our evolution. Otherwise, it wouldn't be there. Secondly, you can't stop it. You can use it for diabolical purposes, but you can use it for sacred purposes.

Right now, I'm very involved in creating what I think will be the future of well-being. Artificial intelligence will make monitoring well-being very precise, very personalized, very predictive and participatory through deep-learning systems. We are looking at a new era where technology can be used for everything—create conflict resolution, reverse climate change—we have to have the will to do it. And we have to have the creativity to do it.

We as humans have created things like the atomic bomb. We've landed men on the moon and deciphered the genome. Why can't we have the creativity to create a more peaceful, just, sustainable, healthier and joyful world? It's a shame on our imagination. It's also a kind of a sign that humans in general have been bamboozled by special- interest groups.

The world is insane right now. We are electing gangsters to be our leaders, and we're doing everything to destroy ourselves. And yet, everything that we have done to damage this planet is reversible, and technology is a boon.

I've heard you speak very eloquently about the importance of connections between people. Sometimes this gets lost in the internet age. Do you have any recommendations for people who may be feeling lonely?

Right now, the situation is very strange. People are connected, but they're lonely. They feel they're connected, but they still feel anxiety about being lonely. That's because we have sacrificed ourselves for our selfies.

We [The Chopra Foundation] created a website called NeverAlone.Love, which has been very successful in helping people overcome loneliness, depression and even suicidal ideation. We have an emotional AI chatbot called PIWI on the site. PIWI stands for "Personalized Interaction With Intention." Teenagers and young people are more comfortable talking to her than to a human being, because she doesn't judge them. And so far, we've had 6,000 suicidal ideations where we intervened. We are talking to 20 million people simultaneously.

What was your inspiration behind the Never Alone Initiative?

I met an actress Gabriella Wright, who was already doing work for suicide prevention, because her sister died from suicide. We decided to join forces, because she's in the entertainment world and recording-artists world; I'm in a different world. That was the impetus, and we've been very successful in just the short span of two years.

Your new book, Living in the Light, is about yoga. Was there anything in particular that compelled you to write a book about yoga right now?

I've been practicing yoga for the last 30 years. I have two yoga teachers, one is Sarah Platt-Finger, who co-wrote this book. Both teachers are masters of the physical aspects of yoga, which is called Hatha Yoga and what you go to a yoga class for.

I realized that even the physical postures [of yoga] are a deeper understanding of ourselves, because we use the physical postures to expand our awareness and understand our body as a modified form of awareness. And those physical postures stimulate the vagus nerve, which is the healing nerve in our body. So it [yoga] decreases inflammation, increases heart rate variability, [and] it brings brings down stress and even repairs the microbiome, the 2 million extra genes we have in our gut.

In the yogic tradition, there are eight different limbs of yoga that most people are not familiar with because they have archaic names and Sanskrit names. This book is a complete instruction manual for the entire aspects of yoga that we call Royal Yoga, which is also called Raja Yoga. So this book is a complete 30-day program for the Royal Yoga.

Was there a reason behind making it a 30-day program?

As a physician, I realize people like prescriptions. I'm good at writing prescriptions: 30-day program for yoga, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success [his 1994 bestseller], etc., etc.

Can you share some of the details about your personal relationship with yoga? What does your typical yoga practice look like on a daily basis?

I practice about three hours of meditation and yoga every day, first thing in the morning between 6 [o'clock] and 9 or 10 [o'clock]. Then in the evening before I sleep, I do a little meditation on the meaning of life and the meaning of death. I'm 76 years old—I'm very healthy—but the final chapters are coming soon.

I decided that this is a period in my life where I want to devote my attention and intention to figuring out what is beyond this body mind, what people call soul or spirit.

How do you think this book in particular fits in with your healing work?

I think that if people really understand what's in this book, they will be very confident in what we call self-regulation or self-healing. Because healing is real. As a medical doctor, I was taught to never use the word healing. You practice or you treat people, but you never heal them. But the body has the capacity to heal itself. So this book is actually about self-healing.

You've written over 90 books.

Yes.

How do you find the time?

I write every day—three hours of yoga practice, then one hour of writing. Then the rest of the day, I shoot the breeze, which I'm doing with you right now. There's no stress in my life. I write two or three books at the same time, without the intention actually of writing the books. I'm just writing my ideas.

Do you partake in the tradition of New Year's resolutions? If so, did you have any this year?

No, I think New Year's is an artificial construct like birthdays or funerals. I don't believe in all these things. If this moment is all we have, there's nothing to resolve in this moment, because it's already perfect. All the things that are not perfect are in our imagination, either the past or the future.