Commentary: On Deepak Chopra’s Message to #OccupyWallStreet

By Juliet Kapsis
Creativity + Social Change
University of Connecticut
12 October 2011

Commentary on "Deepak Chopra’s Message to Occupy Wall Street and Beyond," Washington Times, October 10, 2011

As Deepak said in the shared group meditation at #OccupyWallSt, “Go beyond anger as that comes from fear. Go towards compassion…. Ask yourself, how can I be the change that I want to see in the world?”

Humans have been creating concepts of greater beings for thousands of years.  The Greeks imbued their gods and goddesses with human traits such as anger, jealousy, and desire.  I thought of what I’ve read of the Trojan War, how when things were just about to fizzle out and the fighting stop, the gods and goddesses were able to get things going again.  They did this by inciting the emotions of the human chess pieces that were playing out the chess game on the battlefield, in the city strong-hold, and everywhere else.  Anthony Robbins, the motivational speaker, has said that if you can get yourself to experience the right emotion, you can get yourself to do anything.  And what if you – or a god/goddess or your parents or an advertisement – can make you feel the “wrong” emotion?  An emotion that brings up fear, anxiety, judgment or uneasiness is what I am referring to with the label of “wrong."

Managing our emotions is essential to remaining conscious, calm and aware.  This is a gift we give to ourselves and others.  It is not simply a small thing we do – because this practice imbues us with the strength, clarity and desire to tap into our full potential and discover what it is we were meant to do here in physical form.  Our emotions can be manipulated by societal memes as tradition, where we are told this is how things have always been done and that we are obligated to carry on.  These are not our bags to hold anymore.  If something is heavy, it is not meant to be brought forward.  Rikka Zimmerman, a transformational life coach, says that the truth will always make you feel light and a lie will always make you feel heavy.  Check in with yourself and see where your truth lays – one that is part of the recognition that we are all connected.

What we are experiencing here is not simply an economic revolution – this is only what is happening now.  We have been experiencing a spiritual revolution.  Here in the West, with the gifts of meditation, yoga, and other philosophies, we are blessed to receive these gifts.  Noam Chomsky, in a talk he gave to academics at Princeton University earlier this year, spoke of the responsibility that intellectuals have to humanity – to speak the truth.  I see that this speaking the truth is a responsibility of us all, specifically those in the West.  Speaking the truth is part of this spiritual revolution.  Susan Campbell, Ph.D. and self-transformation author wrote:  “Once we face our own true feelings and beliefs, we can start to act on them, bringing our behavior, relationships and professional lives into alignment.”

Take action in your own life by loving, accepting and forgiving yourself.  Practice waking up in the morning and saying, “Today is a judgment-free day”.  How free will that allow you to feel, to be judgment-free for just one day?  That experience will trickle over into another day and another – until you are filled with a knowing that you are loved, just as you are here and now.  The practice of releasing self-judgment allows you to see and be yourself with others in your life.  Facing your fears inspires them to face theirs – when we are not choosing fear, but love, we move towards healing and new frontiers. 
Question yourself and your thoughts.  Rikka Zimmerman recommends a three-day thought cleansing where for three days you ask yourself “Who does this thought belong to?” after each of your thoughts.  It is miraculously light feeling to realize that most of your thoughts do not belong to you, they were given.  Ask your friends what is new and good?  What is making them smile today?  Ask people what makes them deliciously happy?  What thrills them to their very core?  We can fall into a place of focusing on what is not going right – there’s always something to talk about in this realm.  And just as there’s never any lack of the negative stuff, as we are in an all-abundant Universe, there’s equally never a lack of the positive stuff.  Of this fact, I am positively positive about!

Thank you for sharing the meditation from Deepak!