Deepak Chopra's assessment of the current state of affairs

Deepak Chopra views Sarah Palin as "The Shadow"

Religion was not a key part of the debate between Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Sarah Palin. The polls say most Americans believe Biden won the debate, even though many agreed Palin performed better than they had expected given her previous confused media interviews.

Nevertheless, the Alaska governor, who has long been connected to the Pentecostal movement, continues to galvanize white evangelical voters. For good or ill, McCain picked her for exactly that purpose. She has become a religious issue.

Even Deepak Chopra, arguably North America's most popular non-sectarian spiritual thinker, cannot stay out of the electoral campaign. The author of mega-selling spiritual books strongly writes, below, that Palin represents the dark Shadow side of North America... 

Obama and the Palin Effect
Deepak Chopra

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on Republicans. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin's pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.

She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and turning negativity into a cause for pride. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of "the other."


Deepak Chopra to discuss using creativity to find calm in turbulent world

These are very uncertain times we're living in, says Deepak Chopra, M.D. Yet, just because the world is far from peaceful doesn't mean one can't find inner peace.

"Either you can throw up your hands and say so be it, whatever comes, comes," said the renowned New Age author and lecturer in a recent phone interview. "Or, say, let's harness our creativity" for the better.

"Never underestimate human excellence and human creativity."

On Wednesday, the man Time magazine called "the poet-prophet of alternative medicine" will visit Lackawanna College's Mellow Theater. Dr. Chopra's lecture, which begins at 7:30 p.m., is being sponsored by WVIA and Inner Harmony Wellness Center.

Dr. Chopra said those who attend can expect an "in-depth discussion on the nature of human consciousness" that will address questions like, "What is our true nature?" "Where do we come from?" and "What is the meaning and purpose of our existence?"

Look within...

 
Saving the U.S. economy through "Trickle Up" economics

STATUS: The federal bailout plan (or "rescue plan" as it now is being called) did not solve any underlying fundamental weakness in the economy. All it did was buy us time, band-aid the bleeding if you will, so that we can rapidly address what is really wrong. Unless we use that expensively purchased time to change the fundamentals that created the meltdown in the first place, adding new layers of federal debt on top of layers of existing private and public debt will only further damage the economy. This is something the markets will soon discover if they don't already appreciate it.

The bad news: The economy as we have known it since World War II is so fundamentally broken that it can not be fixed by fine tuning it in its present form regardless of the level of government financial intervention. The good news: Once we develop a dramatically different approach to the economy ("trickle-up economics"), we will create a level of wealth in the U.S., and ultimately abroad, that will be at least 100 times greater than the level of economic wealth created since World War II under the old economic system.

THE FIX: An economic recovery will require the country to recognize that the financial crisis cannot be solved without changing the underlying culture of debt and replacing "trickle-down economics" with "trickle-up economics." We need, among other things, to immediately fund infrastructure projects on a massive ($50-100bn/year) annual basis to create good paying jobs in the various trades; radically slow down the rate of home foreclosures; freeze the Adjustable Rate Mortgage resets as well as all increases in variable interest rates on homeowner equity lines of credit; and help the average American worker attain affordable comprehensive health care, an affordable college education for their children, and a secure retirement through an intact and adequately funded Social Security system...