Deepak Chopra and the loss of human connection

A lot has been said and written online about the entanglement between spiritual teacher/medical doctor/new age guru Deepak Chopra and convicted felon Jeffrey Epstein. Mostly people who have either personally known him or have been following him and his teachings over the years, have expressed their feelings of disappointment, rage, anger, deep sadness and grief. As somebody who has been held and comforted by his words through Covid and has been practicing his guided meditations for years, I can relate to all of these feelings.

In fact, I arrived at Chopra’s teachings after I had to come to terms with the fact that my much-loved yoga teacher Yogi Bhajan, had been sexually exploiting and traumatizing many of his students. In the wake of this felt ‘loss’ – and this is exactly what it felt like, as if I had lost somebody close to me – I was looking for a new direction, somebody I could feel guided and inspired by in my daily yoga/meditation practice. I am aware that a lot of the current narrative is about the need to step away from individual guru-culture and false prophets, and to forego our blind reliance on a westernized spiritual industrial complex that catapults ego-driven individuals to god-like status. People are people and people are flawed. Even though I have always understood that, what I did expect and still expect from teachers and leaders in any space is a level of awareness and accountability.

And even though I did not idolize Bhajan or Chopra in any way or think of them as flawless human beings, I did in some way that I can’t quite find the words for, trust them with my heart. Or rather, I felt connected to both teachers in the same way my soul connects to beauty, love, authenticity and truth, be it in nature or human form. It is near impossible to not feel lost and disillusioned in a world where people in power and leadership positions, most of them white men, feel no longer bound by morals or accountability, where hatred, greed, exploitation and violence are normalized and even celebrated. Listening to Chopra’s words and his seemingly authentic message of love, wisdom and hope for humanity, felt like a light in the darkness, a message of hope, showing us a way forward in authentic connection, empathy and love to oneself and others. It gave me hope that even though we don’t see her yet, a different world is possible and we may even have the ability to call her in, by genuinely caring for one another, by showing up daily as our best selves. In short, knowing that there are good people in this world who have a platform, an audience, a relevant voice AND are genuine, good caring human beings felt like a counter-weight to all the f#$#@ery that is currently dominating our world.

To find out that this was only an illusion, that the very people I attached my hope to, are so deeply entangled in the current capitalist, ego-driven, abusive structures, feels like a deep loss, the loss of hope, the loss of trust, the loss of truth. I am still grieving, still trying to make sense.

And while I can relate to the grief, the sadness and the anger others were expressing I am slowly realizing that my feelings were not so much about Deepak Chopra falling from his pedestal and exposing himself as a deeply flawed human being – instead my anger and grief were coming from the way he responded, or rather didn’t respond.

All of us without exception have caused harm even to those we love most. If parenting taught me once thing it is exactly that: I have and I will mess up, but the love that I have for my children is always entangled with my human experiences, my blind spots, my capacity to mess up and cause harm. This makes me a ‘normal’ flawed person but it doesn’t mean I am incapable of showing up with deep, authentic love as long – and this is the important part – as long as I am willing to confront and deal with my shadows, to be honest, vulnerable and most of all accountable in my response.

By responding with dismissive defensiveness (‘unfortunate wording’, no involvement in criminal activity) to what clearly was an emotional entanglement with a known predator, Chopra aligned himself with a world where accountability is no longer expected of our teachers and leaders. He framed what he had done repeatedly and over years as an event separate from him-self– an unfortunate event – almost like an accident, he was involved in but did not cause, it simply ‘happened’ – and he is ‘deeply sorry’ for the ‘suffering of the victims.  He creates a deliberate distance between himself and what he did, and this is nothing but a cop out.

Until I saw his response online, I still had hope, not that what had come to light wasn’t true, but that he, Deepak Chopra, would stay true to who he proclaimed himself to be, that he would model to his friends and followers what it looks like to mess up, to be human, to confront your shadow and be accountable. By doing this in the same public spaces he had grown his spiritual empire in, he would in my view, have done more for humanity than with all his spiritual teachings so far. My grief and hopelessness were not so much about Chopra’s bromance with Epstein but more about realizing that with all his wisdom and knowledge even someone like him was not  able or willing to use this moment as a pivot into what the worlds needs most right now: accountability, course correction and guidance on how to live with complexity, with nuance, with shadow and light, how to be human and acknowledge the hurt you have caused,  stay in conversation, name what you did and then put genuine effort into repair.

As a white woman I had to learn this over many years in my relationship with black friends, whom I have harmed through ignorance, ego and the kind of arrogance that gets bred into us as white women from the moment we come into the world –inherently good and well intentioned – and always, always either innocent or the ‘victims’ of those we unintentionally harm. I am familiar with the instinct of framing something I did, the harm I caused as ‘not my fault’ and ‘unfortunate event’. For most of my life I had swallowed the narrative of ‘if I didn’t mean it can’t be my fault’ or ‘if I didn’t know something, I am innocent’. Until I was forced to realize what a copout this was. And even though I will never be able to shake my socialization into racist harm, my relationships have taught me the process of accountability, apology and repair.

This is what I would have needed to see from a revered spiritual leader, someone who made consciousness and awareness his brand, someone who said: all that there is in this world is love. To stand by these principles, to stand by what we know is true and not just preach it but to live it. To say for example: I was ego driven, seduced by this powerful white man’s image, his connections, his money, maybe the little boy in me who always felt ‘less than’ experienced a boost of confidence in being sought out by this successful white man, maybe my desires to prove my worth to this man got in the way…. All of these are possible explanations, all of them relatable, all of them human, all of them shadows to confront, and try to overcome or at least counteract.

This is where I have located my deep sadness:  at a world where the most influential and revered leaders and teachers refuse to be accountable. To Deepak Chopra I want to say: Listen to the people you have hurt, acknowledge their hurt, language what you did, do this over and over again until there emerges a space for silence. And in this silence, we can collectively listen for the whisper of new possibilities. Possibilities of reconciliation, of healing of finding a way forward together as people who have all messed up at times, who all have our shadows, and who all grapple with how to recognize, confront, and integrate those shadows. If anyone would have been equipped to model this, it could have been you Deepak Chopra. You had an opportunity to guide us once again towards being human and vulnerable together, to show the world how to re-connect to goodness and integrate shadows,  instead you deepened the divide.

Interracial Relationship Counselling for Individuals and Couples

I can’t be racist
(because am dating/am a friend/parent to a racialized person)

This is not so much a literal statement I hear in my Interracial Relationship Counselling practice but an internalized and unspoken assumption white clients oftentimes make when they are in sustained and meaningful relationships with racialized people. The reasoning being that if I truly love or care for a racialized person, I am beyond racist thoughts or feelings and even if I do or say something harmful, as long as I didn’t mean it, I can’t be accused of racism. Which is of course not true.  Intent doesn’t make the slightest difference for the ‘victims’ in the moment of harm. 

Unintentionality in a white mind also implies innocence or a ‘not knowing’ which in the case of deciding if something is racist or not automatically gives white people a free pass for any harm caused because ‘ I didn’t know’. Which ironically is of course also a strong incentive to stay ignorant, and avoid educating themselves because by that premise: the less we know the less we can be accused of racism.  

In this context the color-blind narrative, which is still upheld by teachers, parents and partners to people of color all over the world serves as a virtue signal to defend white innocence/ignorance. It says:

 If I don’t see color I can’t be racist.

Tineka Smith argues that the "love sees no color" statement is a harmful and deceptive phrase for interracial relationships. For a relationship to not only survive but have depth and meaning, the white person has to actively ‘see color’ in order to even begin to understand their partner's lived experience. However, seeing color is dangerous for white people as it robs us of our proclaimed innocence.

If unintentionality and ignorance would be a good enough reason to avoid accountability when it comes to racist harm, it should by that logic also apply to other areas of social life. Let me give you an example:

What if without intending any harm someone drives their car on the wrong side of the road because they are from a different country and unaware of the local traffic rules? When they cause an accident and someone gets hurt can they claim ignorance (I didn’t know I was supposed to drive on other side of the road) and unintentionality (I didn’t mean to hurt anybody, I am so sorry but it’s not my fault) to avoid accountability?  Would you spend time and energy reassuring them that they are good people, while gently educating them about the laws pointing out how it isn’t their fault while the victim lies bleeding in the road? Would you tell the victim to stop screaming and not make a fuss as the person who hurt them is a good person with no ill intend? ….surely not…

Yet white people often outright refuse to take responsibility for racial transgression for no other reason than ‘I didn’t know’ and ‘I didn’t mean to’. What follows is the burden of responsibility to educate the white partner in a relationship being placed on the shoulders of the racialized partner who is expected to not only contain and deal with their own feelings of hurt but to explain in a measured and reasonable way what about their partners actions or words was harmful. With no guarantee that they are even heard.

Black authors (see references below) frequently highlight the exhausting dynamics in which the racialised partner is expected to act as a "racial equality advocate" or teacher for their white partner. Reni Eddo-Lodge for example talks about the emotional impact it has on people of color as they struggle to convince defiant white people over and over again that something they did or said was enforcing or perpetuating  white racist stereotypes. The white person oftentimes reacts confused by the pain they caused, at best trivializing it, at worst ridiculing it. The result is an emotional disconnect from the very real pain of another. This is not really surprising, because white people will never know what racism feels like – they even invented ‘reverse’ racism in order to center themselves in a conversation where they for once would otherwise only be relevant as perpetrators (a subject for another day).

In interracial relationships a white person’s sense of safety and privilege within a racialized society can leave them "blind" to the systemic issues their partners or children or friends or colleagues face daily. This in itself doesn’t make them bad people or overt racists – and here we find another stumbling block on the road to racial education and building racial stamina for white people: many still believe that racism has to be overt, intentional and with full awareness in order to qualify as racism - by that definition only a bad white person would deserve this label (or a trump-infested diseased brain accepting it as a medal of honor). 

Many white people in interracial relationships truly want to do better but feel like their world is coming to an end when they are in any way associated with the “R” word. To be fair in a world where ‘cancel first and ask later’ is the norm and where nuanced conversations disappear in favor of insta-digestible one liners and tic-toc reels, publicly acknowledging one’s racism can be tricky to say the least. This unfortunately means that those difficult conversations barely happen in real life and many white people revert back to the innocence or intent-narrative, thereby placing the burden of their education on their racialized partners.

To sum it up:  with Couples Counselling in interracial relationships we cannot only focus on how conflicts arise and manifest within the privacy of the relationship, but have to be mindful of and include the racialized dynamics within the relationship as well as the wider society in which it exists.

If you want to dive deeper into the subject - here are some authors I have drawn from for this blog:

Ijeoma Oluo: 2019

So you want to talk about race. Seal Press

Tineka Smith (and Alex Court): 2021

Mixed Up: Confessions of an Interracial Couple. Hachette UK.

Reni Eddo-Lodge: 2020

Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race. Bloomsbury publishing.

Dear Potato: 2023 (A blog by a Jamaican SAHW)

Marya Mtshali: 2023

Here is a link to an article about Marya Mtshali’s research on interracial dating