Deepak Chopra is an inspiration. He is also a fully licensed endocrinologist MD as well as an extremely prolific author. For my money, his writings can be eye-opening and inspirational. I have read several of his books and both "The Return of the Rishi" and "The Higher Self" have been motivating. The Higher Self is the work that got me practicing meditation regularly since 1994.
Julia Sweeney is a graduate of The Second City comedy group and a very good thinker and speaker. Her routine "Letting Go of God" is sensitive and funny as well as intelligent. In the piece, available in audio form at Audible.com and elsewhere, she describes her spiritual path from a Catholic girlhood to her current atheist position. She describes finding the work of Deepak Chopra and being inspired and satisfied with his ideas. Her curiosity took her from some of his comments to a class in advanced physics and quantum theory which led to her conclusion that Dr. Chopra was full of it.
Richard Dawkins, a British scientist and writer, is one of a group of militant atheists who sometimes deride Chopra on the Twitter feed for his ideas and his language. Militancy aside, the sometimes exaggerated language Chopra uses is misleading about facts but for me, it has sometimes been very inspiring.
His audiobook The Higher Self gives the listener Chopra's melodic accent and his beguiling voice. At one point, he says that Hindu and ancient thinkers strove to do more and more with less and less effort until they reached the point of accomplishing everything with no effort at all. The other day, I realized that older people are like those ancients. Since they have had many experiences of note many times over, they sometimes develop the ability to sit in their rocking chair and enjoy the satisfaction of a fine dinner without eating. Sure, they eat at times but they may experience the afterglow of a fine meal, or a fine trip, or a fine concert without the effort of cooking and eating or traveling or sitting and listening. They may be able to recall the satisfied feeling clearly and rather completely at will and on demand.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
