Very DEEPak Chopra

Hearing Deepak Chopra speak Monday night at Trinity University made my brain hurt. Or at least the brain I had that night, which according to Dr. Chopra is now gone since we are in a constant state of physically and biologically replacing ourselves, including our brains. Ouch.

I bought the tickets for Deepak Chopra for three reasons:

1.  The event was a fundraiser for the Battered Women’s Shelter of San Antonio, which I like to support;

2.  My daughter JoLene is sort of into “spiritual exploration," and this was a good excuse for us to spend a little adult time together; and

3. I thought I might learn something.

The evening started off nicely as JoLene and I joined Linda Benjamin and her hubby, Butch Miles, Linda’s son from Indiana, Eric Bippen, and Linda's San Antonio friend, Hope Drake, for dinner at Cappy’s on Broadway. Linda is former VP for the Texas Council on Family Violence/National Domestic Violence Hotline, and Butch is a Jazz Studies professor at Texas University and played with The Count Basie Orchestra for 14 years.

(Pictured l-r, JoLene, Butch, Hope, Eric and Linda)

When Linda asked Hope for what type of cuisine Cappy’s was famous and she said “seafood.” I silently gasped, leaned to my daughter and whispered “Anthony Bourdain said in his book Kitchen Confidential to never order seafood on a Monday because fish aren’t delivered on Sunday or Monday, so the fish aren't fresh.” JoLene ordered a petit fillet of beef, I ordered lamb, everyone else ordered seafood, and no one died of ptomaine!

When Dr. Chopra stepped from behind the curtain (I cannot tell you how ashamed I am to admit this), all I could think was, oh my gaud, he has a potbelly! How could someone that is such an icon of “wellness” have a potbelly? Then he began talking about his medical background and how that led him to a quest for deeper answers to, as Guy Noir from Prairie Home Companion would say, “life’s perplexing questions.”

Chopra believes, as do I, that by ridding oneself of negative emotions and listening to signals from the body, health can be improved. He also has an enormous following and has written 65 books. The man is obviously an intellectual, but honestly I’m more of a Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens kind of gal - we’re born; we live as well as possible; our body gives out; we die.  If that sounds empty, I’m sorry, but my life is full, full, full, and if this is all there is, OK by me!

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve faced horrific issues, but as a therapist told me one time, your black hole of despair doesn’t help your children. Give them the gift of showing them how to rise like a phoenix from the ashes, and live a happy, healthy, full life. Click on Read More Below...

Unfortunately, just about the time Dr. Chopra was getting down to the nitty gritty, we had to leave so that JoLene could get home to put her three school-aged children to bed. So I wasn’t there to find out the “meaning of life.” Sorry!

As my daughter and I were leaving the auditorium I said I just don’t seem to have questions about my existence that preclude an interest in Deepak Chopra and his ilk. However, I did learn something! I learned that the Battered Women’s Shelter of San Antonio recently sheltered 193 women and children, which in my positive way of thinking means that more women and children are seeking help and being protected.

I learned that my Very Smart gal-friend Linda and her photographer son Erica are visiting, photographing and documenting very obscure Texas bars; something that Linda has wanted to do for some time. Just the few stories she told were so colorful and interesting (biker bars and scary parking lots); I feel something anthropologically significant is going to come out of their work.

I also learned that my daughter, who makes me incredibly proud, is more physically, mentally and spiritually beautiful every day. She and my other family members and my friends, are the residue of my life, and my eternity, and that’s all I need to understand.