Deepak Chopra visits Ashland with a message on the potential to feel positives through pain

Deepak Chopra was selected in 1999 by Time magazine as one of the 100 "icons and heroes" of the century, describing him as "the poet-prophet of alternative medicine."

It is that approach to healing he’ll bring to Ashland next week, when he appears at Southern Oregon University’s Raider Stadium as one of two keynote speakers for the World Wellness Weekend Sept. 11 and 12.

"We picked those dates specifically," says event producer Jud Schwartz of Beach Avenue Productions in Ashland. "We want to make this 9-11 a call for healing, not just help."

Chopra and alternative medicine physician Bernie Siegel will headline the weekend devoted to healing on the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks. A religious observance of the anniversary also is planned.

For Chopra, the disturbing events in the daily news are very much on his mind. But in his view, terrorism’s effects don’t have to be entirely negative.

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"Terrorism, economic problems and social injustice are the chaos providing the birthing of the next quantum leap in human creativity," he says. "It is the nutritive soup.

"A lot of people today are more conscious than ever before. In contrast, there are people who don’t want to look at themselves. What is happening in the world is a mirror of what is happening inside them. We are polarized: people who want to change and people who don’t want to and don’t want you to. There are forces that hold one back. A divine discontent to encourage growth. In the face of those forces, we need to be accepting, tolerant, compassionate."

Chopra adds that without resistance, there is no experience. "Without opposition and contrast the experience can’t happen. It’s the nature of evolution. Experience is through contrast. Creativity and chaos. You can’t have up without down. You can’t have hot without cold."

If Chopra doesn’t always sound like the doctor next door, his ideas are firmly grounded in medicine. Born in India in 1947, he became chief of staff at Boston Regional Medical Center, built a practice as an endocrinologist and taught at Tufts University and Boston University Schools of Medicine.

Most people, however, know his name from elsewhere. He has written more than 45 books, which have been translated into 35 languages. He is also the author of more than 100 audio and videotape series, including five programs on public television.

He also is CEO and founder of the Chopra Center for Well Being, which he started with Dr. David Simon in 1966 in Carlsbad, Calif. The center brings together western medicine and natural healing traditions in an approach Chopra calls "integrative medicine."

"There is more integration between many holistic approaches," Chopra says. "We have American Medical Association physicians taking certified courses at the Chopra Center. They love it. We’ve trained thousands over the past 10 years."

It’s an approach that makes sense, says one Ashland family physician.

"I’m actually encouraged by having alternative things brought into contemporary medicine and hopefully getting mainstream medical people looking for other directions," says Dr. Andrew Kuzmitz, who describes himself as a pragmatist when it comes to medicine. "Chopra is a good influence. He’s getting people aware of health and talking about it. If nobody was interested in this type of thing, he wouldn’t be as famous as he is."

As a physician who speaks regularly to both lay audiences and the medical profession, Chopra says he is acutely aware of the deep hunger and yearning among the general population and the medical profession for a rational and logical model that explains the process of healing. He has found in the world of quantum physics a fitting description of the nature of reality and the nature of being human.

By exploring the arcane world of subatomic physics, he is discovering how our relationship to this world can help us understand the mechanics of non-material aspects of ourselves: the intuitive, creative, sacred and visionary.

"That is the contribution of science," Chopra says. "For the first time we glimpse that realm of soul or spirit. Science calls it non-locality."

Non-locality is a characteristic behavior observed in quantum mechanics in which subatomic particles, called quanta, have the uncanny ability to affect one another even if they are not nearby. Another mainstay of quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, states that it is impossible to measure or predict precisely where a subatomic particle is or will be at the same time you are determining how fast it is moving.

Hence, quanta — and by extension, we humans — exist in a world of infinite possibilities. But simply knowing that about ourselves does not necessarily imply that we live consciously with that in mind.

Chopra would like us to change that.

"We need to open our life to a field of infinite possibilities," he says. "Every human being is a domain of pure potential."

"The brain is an instrument. The soul is the user of that instrument. Mind is the expression of soul. It is unbound, unlocal, omniscient and can’t be squeezed into a body and a lifetime. Mind localizes through the brain and body. It is virtual thought which collapses as a wave function in the brain. The body is a sensitive instrument. We need the body; otherwise, the spirit remains non-local."

In a press release for "The Soul of Healing," a Public Broadcasting Service special he is producing, Chopra says: "I have realized that the understanding of complementary approaches to healing is fragmented. There is no integrated model that bridges and connects science, healing, biology, and spirituality." Part of his goal, Chopra says, is to make sure people who are not familiar with science easily grasp his concepts.

That goal is shared by the organizers of the World Wellness Weekend, which hopes to attract a diverse crowd.

But if what he does is seen as only preaching to the choir, Chopra is not deterred. Instead he recommends resetting the goal to: "Increase the size of choir. Do what you have to do. Be a good example." Or, he adds, quoting another motivational figure from India, Mahatma Gandhi, "be the change you wish to see in the world."

World Wellness Weekend calendar

The event, organized by Southern Oregon Women’s Access to Credit, will include talks by physicians Deepak Chopra and Bernie Siegel, both known for their work in integrative medicine, as well as a observance of the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

It also will include 87 booths representing a wide range of healing approaches. Talks and workshops conducted by 63 presenters will be offered at locations around the grounds and in classrooms. Lecturers will alternate with performers on a main stage throughout both days.

The third annual Havurah 9/11 Memorial Celebration, featuring Southern Oregon religious leaders and poets and hosted by Rabbi David Zaslow, will take place from 11 a.m. to noon Saturday.

Siegel will give a keynote address from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and Chopra will give a keynote address from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Both talks take place on the main stage at Raider Stadium.

Ashland Family YMCA will host children’s activities both days and provide child care.

Tickets are $50 in advance for a weekend pass and $60 at the door. Single-day passes are $30 in advance and $35 at the door, if available.

Tickets are on sale in Ashland at The Music Coop, Paddington Station and the Ashland Racquet Club; in Medford at Bad Ass Coffee and in Grants Pass at The Music Shop. For online tickets, see www.ticketswest.com or call 800-992-TIXX.

VIP tickets to the event, which include admission to a reception with Chopra at 11:30 a.m. Sunday at the Ashland Hills Windmill Inn, also are available for $95 per person. Light refreshments will be served at the event. VIP tickets also provide admission to World Wellness Weekend and VIP seating for the weekend’s events. VIP tickets are $175 for two people.

For more information, call 779-3992.

Reach Tempo editor Richard Moeschl at 776-4486, or e-mail rmoeschl@mailtribune.com