Decoding Deepak: A Review

My parents were visiting us this past week for Thanksgiving. We had a great time working on the house and eating traditional Thanksgiving food like pumpkin pie, green beans, bread stuffing, and mashed potatoes. Unfortunately I also got sick just as family arrived! I tend to pick up anything that’s going around and now that my husband is an elementary school teacher it’s even worse! So I had a fever for part of their visit and we took it easy and looked for things on TV to watch.

One thing that caught our attention was a documentary on Netflix called Decoding Deepak, which is a film made by Deepak Chopra’s son about him. Since everyone at my house had an interest in Indian philosophy we decided to give that one a try.

In my life I know people who have very different feelings about Deepak Chopra. On one side there’s people who appreciate his easy to understand explanations and inspiration to live better. On the other there are people who feel that he exploits the philosophy of his native land to sell bite sized chunks to westerners.

So I was looking forward to seeing another perspective on this dichotomy.

Unfortunately the documentary was disjointed and meandering. It was hard to tell what point Gotham Chopra was trying to make. I think he was setting out to show that while the world sees a great spiritual leader in Deepak Chopra, the reality of him as a father and a person is different.

However that translated into a lot of what seemed like Gotham trying to stage “gotcha” moments to show his father’s weaknesses. Which would have been okay except then there was all the goading and tricking Deepak into thinking he had some say in what the movie was about. There was a lot of narration from Gotham because he wasn’t effectively showing with the camera what was going on.

We gave up on it. Stopped about half way through.

Here’s what I think:

It’s not surprising that Deepak Chopra has some weaknesses. He’s human. I don’t think he’s enlightened and I don’t think he has ever claimed to be. He may be arrogant. I haven’t met him but he comes across that way, which I think would not be surprising for someone who has so many people telling him how awesome he is. Few people can resist that call of ego. Gotham thinks that he is addicted to his following and needs to always have an audience. And that may very well be true.

The thing is, Deepak Chopra doesn’t claim to be a guru. He claims to be an explorer sharing his experiences and thoughts as he goes on a journey. Which, as my mom pointed out, is pretty much exactly what I do!

As far as his writing and the “digesting” (as Mr. Malhotra would say) of Indian philosophy, I can’t speak to that because I’ve never read his work. I think distilling philosophy into bite sized pieces that people can easily understand can be a good thing at times. As long as it includes a reference to say where the ideas come from and where one can go to learn more deeply. And it’s strange that his focus has been so much on the west and not in helping native Hindus come to a deeper understanding of their faith. In that way it’s possible that he may be taking advantage of the westerner’s tendency to see him as “exotic” and “special.”

I do think it’s a problem when people believe Deepak Chopra is the height of eastern philosophy and thought! What he can be is a stepping stone towards something more.