Deepak Chopra takes on a one-on-one interview with his son, Gotham, and gets to the bottom of youth culture in India, China and the Middle East.
Deepak Chopra takes on a one-on-one interview with his son, Gotham, and gets to the bottom of youth culture in India, China and the Middle East.
An article in the Washingtion Post On Faith section in response to their question: Hamas leaders claim that their understanding of Islam makes Israel's survival a theological and moral impossibility. What's your response to that? How should Israel respond? How should other Muslims respond?
To some extent we have all fallen prey to the overblown, semi-hysterical notion of a war on terror. As soon as ideology entered into the picture, truth suffered at the hands of the right-wing agenda. In the same vein, Hamas has become part of the competing agendas of Israel and the Arab world. The oil-producing countries could have alleviated the grinding poverty in Gaza and the West Bank using a fraction of their oil profits annually. Instead, the Palestinian conflict has been cynically used as a tool of anti-Semitism and a sop to the Arab street, which likes nothing better than an enemy to be inflamed against. For its part, Israel plays the card of being a beleaguered state threatened by remorseless enemies -- many commentators notice how well timed Israel's actions are with upcoming elections. A weak government in Tel Aviv likes nothing more than a show of force against the enemy to bring the nation to its side.
Several truths have been buried beneath these crisscrossing agendas.
1. Hamas has no power to destroy Israel.
2. Moderate Arabs and almost all Sunnis are opposed to Hamas's politics.
3. The deeper issue is about Iran and its desire to become a dominant force in the Middle East by backing Shia extremists.
4. The Palestinian question will ultimately be solved through politics and economics, not war.
5. Tolerating the intolerant is a chronic problem in every society and every age. It must be managed as best as society can, the way it deals with crime and drugs, the other chronic ills.
Making Hamas into a unique demon is pure propaganda. They owe their slim power to two things: the untold misery of life in the Palestinian territories, which fans rebellion at its most extreme, and the sufferance of Israel and the Arab world, together who could bypass Hamas and reach meaningful accords without them. If both parties, with the help of the U.S., went on with the business of peace, Hamas would prove manageable in the short run and would disappear in the long run.
But no form of Islamic extremism will end until moderate Muslims stand up for their religion. The rich Arab countries feel that they can afford to bribe the terrorists to leave them alone, or to suppress them with secret police and the army should they get out of hand. Poor Muslim countries have little ability to cure the endemic poverty and ignorance that is the seedbed of terrorism. The only solution is long-term and self-generated. No one can extirpate extremism from without. The U.S. and its global allies can only police the problem for the foreseeable future.
It's a sobering development in our own society that the religious right was able for almost thirty years to leverage its intolerance into power -- and a deep shame that so-called moderate Republicans enabled them. So we cannot afford to be self-righteous in this matter. The burden of a civilized society is to tolerate the intolerant. There are limits, of course, and Hamas pushes against those limits outrageously. The undeniable fact is that Israel is seen by the entire Arab world as an extension of European imperialism. The West created Israel by fiat in 1948 without consulting the Arabs. That insult fuels long-held resentments about their own colonial past in many countries. For this there is no outside cure, either. Islam is being used to justify eternal grudges, and not just by the extremists.
In the end, every religion must tend to its own beliefs. Thirty years ago the West was caught off guard when the Shah of Iran, a symbol of modernized, Western-facing progress, was overwhelmed by the tide of anti-modernist, Western-hating reactionaries. We have never recovered from that shock, nor have we remotely solved the problem. The West marches on. India and China join in. But Islam massively holds out for an anti-future, and it can back up its medieval delusions with oil riches and suicide martyrs. This is the prevailing situation that's being handled globally while we wait for Muslims to find their own tipping point in favor of a realistic tomorrow instead of fatal nostalgia for the past.
Israel's massive assault on Gaza is the worst sort of déjà vu all over again. As news commentators wearily point out that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a never-ending story, there are shifts in that story. The most important was George Bush's decision to studiously ignore the whole problem. For eight years the U.S. has abandoned its responsibility to broker peace. The result has been an ongoing catastrophe. No one needs reminding of that.
Read the rest of the article here at the San Francisco Chronicle
Deepak Chopra, MD Andrew Weil, MD and Rustum Roy, PhD
On December 26, 2008, the Wall Street Journal published "The Touch that Doesn't Heal," an article by Steve Salerno. Without discernible professional credentials in health reportage, the writer opened his piece by pledging allegiance to "scientifically proven, evidence-based medicine." He next declared opposition to integrative medicine, and characterized as "gurus" two proponents of integrative medicine, Deepak Chopra and Andrew Weil, choosing to overlook that we both are highly trained MDs with almost 40 years of clinical-experience. Joining us in our response is Rustum Roy, an internationally known scientist, and member of five major National Academies of Science Engineering, who has spent ten years researching a wide range of health technologies, both ancient and modern. We predict that while they may try to dismiss us, the Wall Street Journal writer and editors will find they can't dismiss a burgeoning field of medicine currently saving and improving millions of lives worldwide.
We believe that Salerno's piece is the opening salvo from the right aiming to influence the incoming administration as it strategically allocates resources for improving the U.S. health and wellness system. Fortunately, Tom Daschle, the upcoming Health and Human Services Secretary is better informed than either the WSJ writer or those who dictate WSJ editorial policy. The co-author (along with Jeanne Lambrew) of "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crises," Daschle names the principal challenge to true reform, "[S]pecial interests are especially numerous and influential in the health-care system. Health care comprises one-sixth of our economy...since cutting costs is tantamount to cutting profits for many of these special interests, it is reasonable to expect (an) all-out war to defeat reform."
As in Mr. Salerno's article, this war extends to advancing ill-informed pseudo-scientific arguments to discredit effective low-cost health care options precisely because they compete with the current high-cost system.
"There are many factors driving up health care costs," writes Daschle. "One problem is that 'supply side' forces exist in our health-care system. Physicians both diagnose and treat illness - in economic terms, they create and satisfy demand. . . . Conditions such as 'restless leg syndrome' weren't conditions until drugs were developed to treat them."
In his article Mr. Salerno acknowledged several factors in America's present health care crisis: "disenchantment" over spiraling costs, a bloated bureaucracy, and ''possible drug side effects."
While these clearly demand attention, he overlooks the crisis' principal cause: The poor results of the present health care system. Numerous surveys show that for all its bank-breaking expense, the American medical system lags behind the rest of the developed world in most health indicators.
Nor does it sustain a doctor's sworn duty to "first do no harm." Abundant evidence uncovers high-tech medicine, with its powerful drugs, as a major, possibly the leading, cause of death in this country. The National Academy's data attributes 100,000 deaths per year to physicians' errors, added to well over 100,000 deaths due to severe drug interactions and another 100,000 fatalities from hospital-based-infections. (For a detailed analysis, see Death By Medicine, by Gary S. Null, et al.)
Why is the allegedly "scientifically proven" health care that the WSJ writer champions so dangerous to health? The blind allegiance to "evidence-based medicine" overlooks how readily this form of research can be manipulated. It was first developed to isolate patentable agents for drug formulations. In scientific arenas outside of mainstream medicine, this "statistics-based medicine" is regarded as dubious science at best. Narrowly confining itself to costly, selectively published, industry-sponsored clinical trials, to promote pharmaceutical products, "evidence based medicine" is the marketing "icon" used by the current system to squelch lower cost competitors.
Science's only gold standard are facts derived from reproducible results, however unpalatable those facts are to current theory. When theories fail to explain the facts, they lose viability. The spectacular failures of "evidence based" medical theories include the millions spent on ineffective AIDS vaccines, the collapse of interferon as the wonder drug for cancer, and the marginal decrease in cancer deaths despite billions wasted during decades of fruitless research. Many once-standard treatments devised via this theoretical model now stand discredited, like the use of Thalidomide and Thorazine.
As Mr. Salerno and his editors stand bullish on the persistent investment of health care dollars into a model with runaway costs, poor results, lack of available personnel, and questionable science, we are convinced America can do better. Over the last three decades, millions of Americans, and a dedicated group of physicians and practitioners have front-line, hands-on experience with integrative health care. Via concerted research and clinical practice, international scientists and practitioners, have progressively uncovered the root causes and the most effective treatments for health maintenance and restoration. This is science's cutting edge.
Yet like both the mainstream medicine and media, Salerno remains stubbornly ignorant of this vast field, which Daschle and the Obama Administration will undoubtedly consider before allocating billions more to the present, failed, high-cost medical system.
One sine qua non for any future sustainable U.S. health system is the necessity to empower, rather than undercut each citizen's right to choose health care and take responsibility for his/her own wellness. Countless chronic diseases result from the neglect of basic wellness measures. The blame for underutilizing such proactive, cost-saving approaches lies directly with the official policy of blind reliance on drugs and surgery, whatever the cost. The public has been lulled into medical apathy on the false assumption that if something goes wrong, fix-it mechanics will tune up your body the way a garage tunes up your car.
A new integrative medicine system would marry the superb options of high tech emergency care, its brilliant surgical achievements, the tried and least harmful pharmaceuticals, by empowering and educating its citizens to maintain wellness and prevent disease, through improved nutrition, exercise, stress-management, and a wide range of other proven integrative approaches. Sadly, mainstream medicine largely ignores these viable health approaches, because they're not financially lucrative.
To increase competition, reduce costs, and improve outcomes, we recommend that Daschle and his team move toward a more humane, sustainable, and effective health system through the wider adoption of integrative health options. And we invite the Wall Street Journal and its staff writers to board the lifeboat of integrative health, rather than go down with the Titanic, in yet another failing business sector--healthcare.
From an early age we are told forgiveness is an important virtue we should practice, but we are only told to forgive, we are not shown how to forgive and mean it. In the Lord's Prayer we ask God to "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us," But I don't think forgiveness should be regarded as prescriptive morality. Prescriptive morality never works and is frequently a form a self- righteousness in disguise--a mask for the ego.
The best way to understand forgiveness is to realize that to forgive and to ask for forgiveness is the best use of one's energy and also one of the most important paths to self-healing. The absence of forgiveness is holding a grievance or resentment and also a subtle desire to seek vengeance. In short it is hostility. Many studies have shown that although anger can be a healthy release of pent up energy, hostility is not healthy, and it is the number one emotional risk factor for premature death from cardiovascular accident (stroke and heat attack).
Hostility is an inflammatory emotion and causes physical inflammations as well, which can result in inflammatory cardiovascular episodes and is also linked to autoimmune disorders. It is more than remembered pain; it is also rumination over a past hurt. If you kick a dog and hurt it, it will remember that and if you encounter the dog many years later it may attack you in the interest of self-preservation. However, unlike a human being, the dog will not plan for years on how to get even. Because human beings ruminate over past hurts and have the ability to imagine and plan the future they are capable of enormous violence against themselves and their fellow beings. This is one good reason to learn to forgive.
Learning how to let go of toxic emotions such as hostility is the essence of learning how to forgive, because forgiveness is basically releasing your attachment or identification with the conditioned response. There are a few well-developed psychological techniques for releasing a toxic emotions that are based on the premise of gaining objectivity and clarity on the emotion before one can release and forgive.
Here is a 7-step process that is known to work:
1 Taking responsibility for your emotion
2 Witnessing the emotion
3 Defining or labeling the emotion
4 Expressing the emotion
5 Sharing the emotion
6 Releasing the emotion through ritual
7 Celebrating the release and moving on
If you are holding on to a grievance or resentment and feel hostility toward someone, here's what you can do.
Close your eyes and recall the episodes that caused you to feel this way. Recall the experience in full sensory mode, noting the voices , gestures and setting. As you visualize it, feel the sensations accompanying the experience. You will usually feel a tightness or discomfort in the area of your stomach or your heart. At this point remind yourself that these are your emotions but they are not you. You are responsible for creating them and you have the power to heal them.
Once you have located the discomfort in your body, feel it for several minutes. Ask yourself, Who is most damaged by holding on to this toxic energy?
The answer of course is obvious--you are hurting yourself more than you are hurting another. Nelson Mandela once said, " Holding a resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your enemy." Having located and experienced the discomfort for several minutes, and having realized its damaging effect on you, give it a label. Define it. Is it hostility, anger, sadness, guilt, fear or a combination of all of the above?
These are the first 3 steps, taking responsibility, physically feeling it and then defining it. The fourth step is to express what you are feeling in writing. It is suggested that you do this from three different perspectives. First, as you recall the experience, express in writing what you are feeling in the first person. Having done that, express it in the second person, pretending you are the other person in the conflict. And finally, express it in the third person as a neutral observer. When you express the conflict or emotion accompanying the conflict from three different perspectives you will find the toxic energy accompanying the emotion will begin to dissipate. In fact there are studies that show that when you express your emotions in writing in this way, your immune system gets an immediate boost. Immunoglobulins or IgE levels in the saliva show an immediate rise. The fifth step is to share this experience with a loved one. It could even be the person with whom you had the conflict. During the sharing you could also say that you feel ready to forgive and be forgiven. The sixth step is to release the emotion through a ritual. You could burn the paper on which you have written these feelings and offer the ashes to the winds, to the Virgin Mary or to any deity. Ritual action is a way of trapping energy and releasing it effectively and bringing things to closure.
Having released the emotion, celebrate and do something fun, Go out exercise, see a movie, go dancing, whatever makes you happy. Although this seems like an elaborate procedure once you get in the habit of feeling your body, identifying what's going on, seeing it from different perspectives and releasing it, it becomes quite a natural process. It doesn't mean you will never feel resentful or angry, but over time, you will start to feel energy flowing freely through your body as the time period of your holding on to resentments will decrease. The lingering effects of the emotions will be no more than a line drawn in water, instead of a line etched into stone as before. As you become adept at releasing toxic emotions in the moment, some people find they can locate their silent witness within and easily go through the release and forgiveness process with a few conscious breaths.
If you look at what's happing in the world right now, we see it is our inability to forgive and ask for forgiveness that is the cause of all conflicts, personal, social and even international.
Ultimately forgiving another is forgiving oneself. In forgiving we release the false sense of identity with which we have attached to a story about an event. When we release an attachment to a toxic emotion, we are freeing ourself from that false sense of self. As we free ourself from the illusion, we are really forgiving ourself in the deepest sense. What we think we are forgiving in another is an act of freedom for our own soul. Every situation that calls for forgiveness is a step in our own evolution to higher consciousness.
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