Deepak Chopra

Deepak Chopra is considered one of the world’s great leaders in the field of mind body medicine. He founded The Chopra Center for Wellbeing in California in 1995, which is his formal vehicle for the expansion of his healing approach using the integration of the best of western medicine with the natural healing traditions of the east. Chopra is Director of Education for the center, which offers programs in yoga, self discovery, emotional wellness, meditation and personal empowerment, as well as training programs in mind body medicine. At the center, Chopra partners with numerous Western medical professionals in conventional and alternative medicine, chief among them the co-founder of Chopra Center, Dr. David Simon, to change the way healing is viewed in this country. He is also known for melding modern theories of quantum physics with ancient wisdom teachings, particularly Vedanta and the Bhagavad Gita, from his native India.

He was born on October 22, 1946, in New Delhi and educated in India. Chopra immigrated to the US in 1970 and resided in Boston, where he was chief of staff at Boston Regional Medical Center. He also built a very successful endocrinology practice in that city in the eighties, and taught at Tufts and Boston University Schools of Medicine. Chopra was assuredly at the pinnacle of his career, and yet he felt there was so much more he wanted to do. Chopra was interested in establishing a new paradigm for Western medicine. He was interested in looking beyond the viewpoint that medicine is more than the absence of disease, and to view it as a life-enhancing force for good.

He is the prolific author of over 49 titles, the most recent of which are Life After Death: The Burden of Proof and Power, Freedom and Grace: Living From the Source of Lasting Happiness. Many of his books have been bestsellers. Some of the best-known are Peace is the Way, The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire, and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. He also appears regularly on PBS and his program, Body, Mind and Soul: The Mystery and the Magic was one of the most highly viewed ever on that station. In Perfect Health, written in 1991, he wrote the first widely read book on Ayurveda.

He is popular internationally as a speaker and keynote presenter and has won many awards and honors, including the Einstein Award and the Toastmasters International Top Five Speakers Award and numerous others. His extensive affiliations include being an adjunct professor at Kellogg School of Management and University of Nebraska, founding director and president of the Alliance for a New Humanity, and he joined The Gallup Organization as Senior Scientist in 2005.

The Chopra Center is currently located at La Costa Spa and Resort in Carlsbad, California, and has location in New York City and elsewhere. Some of his other activities include writing a screenplay about Siddhartha, contributing regularly to a blog of family and friends, dedicated to bringing voices of Southeast Asia to the world, and starting a comic book company with Richard Branson to promote Southeast Asian themes.