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Deepak Chopra, Interviewee 
David Applefield, Interviewer
Interview with Deepak Chopra
 Frank: As one of the most widely read and influential spiritual thinkers in the world today, doesn´t the speed in which technology has overcome human life, at least in developed countries, frighten you?
Deepak Chopra: Science and technology are unstoppable. It´s part of the evolution of the human role. Science and technology are neutral. What we do with them has to do with our psychological and spiritual development. If we look at the Genome Project, in the next decade we´ll be able to replace any organ we want to with the cells of our own body. On the other hand, if we´re immature and adolescent about it, we´ll create monsters and we´ll have genetic and germ warfare and we´ll wipe out the human race. It´s the same thing with nuclear technology. We could have done wondrous things but we made bombs. And the same thing with information technology. We can and will have information wars. If people are not psychologically stable there will be wars like we´ve never seen before--energy and information wars that will be horrendous. Done correctly, that same technology has the hope of wiping out racism, ethnocentrism, bigotry, nationalism. Personally, I think nationalism is a form of tribalism. We take so much pride in our nationalism, we´re no better than being a tribal people. Information technology can do what religion and other things could never do, but it all depends on how we educate our children. Having said that, I´m neither optimistic nor pessimistic. I see possibilities on both sides. Personally, I would like to see an information technology society move to a knowledge-based society and ultimately a wisdom-based society. In my mind, I see hunters and gatherers to begin with, then the age of agriculture, age of industry, and the age of information, followed by knowledge-based and wisdom-based. And a wisdom-based society has to take information and knowledge and nurture the eco-system and the biosphere, because we are part of it. Information technology taken to the level I´m talking about can eliminate poverty in the world. In fact I´ve developed a plan for it, but I´m not going to tell it just now.
Frank: That sounds kind of utopian. Do you believe in immortality?
 Chopra: No, we would all be doomed to eternal senility and boredom. Death is a creative response of our souls. It´s a creative act. Without death there would be no magic in our lives.
Frank: Much of your work consists of sharing ideas on spirituality with people around the world. What differences have you observed in the receptivity of individuals from different cultures?
Chopra: The British and Scandinavians are the most receptive to spiritual thinking. India and the Eastern countries are the least receptive because they are so obsessed right now with Western success and the seductive way it has been marketed. California is up there. The rest of Europe is catching on. Eastern Europe and Asia are way behind. I find India, which is supposed to be spiritual, the most material country in the world, as well as China, which has such great traditions. Things go in cycles. I´ll tell you a short story...I used to lecture in the Soviet Union to a group called The Knowledge Society, which I later discovered was a euphemistic term for the KGB. They were very interested in the so-called para-normal and extrasensory perception and all that stuff. Then, the Soviet Union came down and I stopped getting invited to these conferences. About two years ago I was in London and I suddenly recognized the voice of this fellow who used to come to my lectures, a top KGB official. He was now in the export-import business, of course. He and some East Germans were all saying what brought down the Soviet Union was not Star Wars technology, not Western military power, but a soap opera called Dallas. They were serious, not facetious. According to KGB statistics, when a critical mass of people in the Eastern bloc countries started watching Dallas--JR and the car he was driving and the woman in the beautiful dress--they didn´t want communism anymore. So, what the West couldn´t do with all their military power, they did through Hollywood. Right now, America controls the world, including all of Asia, through its music, Hollywood productions, and soap operas. You can go to the remotest parts of India where you don´t have clean water but you can watch Baywatch and The Bold and the Beautiful. On the one hand, it´s terrible what America is doing to the world--and no wonder countries resent this--no wonder the Middle East resents being invaded and not being able to do anything about it. But on the other hand, this also tells us the power of information technology and media. If we just used it to bring self-awareness to people!
 Frank: Don´t you think a lot of people are above crass television reality today?
Chopra: If you get enough of what you didn´t want in the first place, you start going back to basics. And it is happening. In spite of all you hear about this decadence of Hollywood and California, it´s the healthiest place on the planet right now.
Frank: Many people are sensitive to the skewered depiction of gender models in mass media programming and popular culture. Does this concern you?
Chopra: The future of fiction in general is great. It is moving towards the archetypes. Star Wars, for example, represents all the archetypes. They are very empowering. They are very spiritual. The role models we have for powerful women aren´t really powerful women. They´re masculine women. Indira Gandhi. Mrs. Thatcher. Golda Meir. Madeleine Albright. Every woman I can name represents a male archetype. The place we need to go for powerful women is mythology. Athena, Aphrodite, Persephone. These are the archetypes that really represent feminine power. It´s also important for young women to look up to women who represent them. Another great confusion thanks to media is that our society has replaced heroes with celebrities. Kids don´t have heroes; they have celebrities as their heroes.
 Frank: There are strong indications that the dumbing of America deepens. Serious concerns about the nature of our leadership abound. How do you cope living in the United States?
Chopra: I find it a very fresh, creative, adventurous, innovative environment to be in. It´s like being in puberty. There´s excitement, confusion, there are lots of mistakes, there are problems, but it´s fun. 
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