Life After Death: The Burden of Proof
by Deepak Chopra
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Book Summary Information
Author: Deepak ChopraEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-10-17
ISBN: 0307345785
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Harmony
Book Reviews of Life After Death: The Burden of Proof
Book Review: Silly Westerner! Convert to Hinduism and Accept Chopra As Your Guru!
Summary: 2 Stars
A better title: "Silly Westerner! Convert to Hinduism and Accept Deepak Chopra As Your Guru!"
Five problems:
1.) the book misrepresents the Western, Judeo-Christian tradition,
2.) it whitewashes Hinduism,
3.) it fudges near death experiences,
4.) its intellectual foundation is a mishmash of cherry-picked anecdotes and factoids, and
5.) Chopra's ego.
According to Chopra, you should convert to Hinduism from the Christian / Western worldview because that worldview makes an enemy of death (17), The Christian God spends his time as an accountant adding and subtracting good and bad human deeds (71), Christians refuse to take responsibility (75), Christians make Satan real by believing in Satan (75), Christianity is just another version of Akasha, a Hindu concept (88), and, most ironic of all, people in the West are too driven by ego needs (262).
Chopra's take on Christianity is contemptuous, but more importantly, it is distorted.
Let's just take one falsehood. Christianity, like all cultures, Chopra says, "believes that bad deeds are inescapable." This is such a whopper, one wonders about the editors who passed it. The foundational, and well-known, promise of Christianity is that Christ offers redemption to all from all sin.
Chopra pits superior Hinduism against inferior Christianity like a promoter urging on his champion at a cockfight. Chopra's take on Hinduism includes the following:
* our lives are, most importantly, illusions, comparable to dreams or theatrical plays,
* we create our own reality by what we think. We can operate light switches or bring on world peace by thinking the right thoughts,
* focus on the self is central to the highest good, since the self is one with God. "The highest form of human intelligence is to observe yourself without judgment" (231).
In 282 pages, Chopra never so much as alludes to the inarguable downside to the above beliefs.
I have great respect for the best in Hinduism, having spent years in the Indian subcontinent. Hindus were my neighbors, coworkers, and friends, and I honor them. At the same time, if you read penetrating cultural critics like V. S. Naipaul, you have to admit that, at their worst, these beliefs have included the following downsides:
* a conviction that life is just a theatrical play or dream with no reality has often lead to a lack of compassion and rejection of responsible action.
Chopra presents an image of war-ravaged villagers. With a wave of his hand, Chopra dismisses those villagers as a mere show (119-120). The villagers' suffering does not matter, because they are not, in any important sense, real; they exist only for the edification of the observer.
Even atheist historians argue for the Judeo-Christian tradition's centrality in introducing and cultivating the concept of the individual. When you see those villagers as individuals important in the eyes of God, their slaughter, so cavalierly dismissed by Chopra, becomes an issue of note; when you see yourself as an individual capable of agency, that can inspire compassionate, engaged action.
Chopra argues for the Hindu concept of karma. Karma has been used to justify, indeed, to sacralize, the world's longest-running human rights atrocity: the treatment of Untouchables and women in Hindu societies. As long as you believe that all suffering in this life is sacred punishment for immorality in a previous life, the horrific mistreatment of Untouchables and women becomes, not just acceptable, but holy. Chopra doesn't touch this with a ten-foot pole.
Again and again, Chopra advises his reader that one must focus on the self. If you believe that everything is a manifestation of the divine human mind - thought alone can operate a light switch, or cause or cure cancer - this focus on the self becomes understandable. If you don't believe that, by thinking, you can operate a light switch, this focus on the self is obnoxious, egotistical, poison. But advising followers that indulging their own narcissism sells books.
Yes, other faith traditions, like Hinduism, have downsides - the difference is that anyone urging you to convert to Christianity would have to own up to, and answer for, the dark side of the Christian tradition. Chopra doesn't even acknowledge a dark side to the Hindu tradition.
Chopra's summation of Near Death experiences is inaccurate. One small example: to support his own belief that the mind creates everything it encounters, Chopra argues that people always have NDEs representing their own tradition. That's simply not true. Jews have seen Jesus. Christians have seen the Bab. People have seen visions that do not correspond to any known tradition. Children report visions that do not correspond to their parents' beliefs.
Chopra's intellectual scaffold is a hodgepodge of scholarly and non-scholarly sources and anecdotes. He cites scholars, like Richard Dawkins, who certainly disagree with him; he tries to harness physics to support what he says. A physicist friend of mine reported to me how sick physicists are of non-physicists trying to lasso their work into saying something it does not.
What's perhaps most obvious, and most indigestible, in this book is Deepak Chopra's ego. Before you can even get to the text you have to wade through *thirteen pages* of embarrassing encomiums, wherein hosannas declare Chopra the best thing since sliced bread. A person with a normal-sized ego would never let those pages go to press.
Chopra's alter ego in the book is an all-knowing guru named Ramana who educates a nubile princess, Savitri. "I am deeply grateful for all you have taught me," Savitri coos. His great love for humanity causes Ramana to incarnate to educate us. Deepak Chopra dismisses Christianity, one guesses, because its central truth interferes with his own Messiah complex.
PS: I just read, at the Skeptic website, Deepak Chopra's full response to Michael Shermer's critique of this book.
I thought Chopra's response was very good, very worth reading, and very different from this book.
In his response to Shermer, Chopra avoided all the pitfalls of this book -- Chopra didn't misrepresent Christianity or Hinduism, and he didn't lead with his ego.
Rather, in his debate with Shermer, Chopra focused on presenting his best evidence to refute Shermer, and ruthlessly pointed out the weaknesses in Shermer's argument. Chopra was often sharp, even sarcastic, and that worked better for me than the mushiness of the folktales in his book. He wasn't the compassionate guru. He was the impatient seeker of truth who does not suffer fools. I liked that.
So, I'd give Chopra's response to Shermer, on the same topic as this book, four stars. I wish his book had revealed the same focus.
Summary of Life After Death: The Burden of Proof
Deepak Chopra has touched millions of readers by demystifying our deepest spiritual concerns while retaining their poetry and wonder. Now he turns to the most profound mystery: What happens after we die? Is this one question we were not meant to answer, a riddle whose solution the universe keeps to itself? Chopra tells us there is abundant evidence that ?the world beyond? is not separated from this world by an impassable wall; in fact, a single reality embraces all worlds, all times and places. At the end of our lives we ?cross over? into a new phase of the same soul journey we are on right this minute.In Life After Death, Chopra draws on cutting-edge scientific discoveries and the great wisdom traditions to provide a map of the afterlife. It?s a fascinating journey into many levels of consciousness. But far more important is his urgent message: Who you meet in the afterlife and what you experience there reflect your present beliefs, expectations, and level of awareness. In the here and now you can shape what happens after you die.
By bringing the afterlife into the present moment, Life After Death opens up an immense new area of creativity. Ultimately there is no division between life and death?there is only one continuous creative project. Chopra invites us to become cocreators in this subtle realm, and as we come to understand the one reality, we shed our irrational fears and step into a numinous sense of wonder and personal power.
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