The character arc of Deepak Chopra
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 22 October 1946 in India. Between then and now sit a medical education in India, emigration to the United States in 1970, a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in endocrinology, the post of chief of staff at a Massachusetts hospital in 1980, a meeting in 1985 with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a resignation to found a health centre, a television interview in 1993 that brought a very large following, an executive directorship at a hospital group's mind body centre, a centre cofounded in 1996, and a long running argument with the scientific establishment. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Deepak Chopra?
Chief of staff at thirty four. He resigned after one meeting.
He studied medicine in India and emigrated to the United States in 1970, which at that time meant arriving as a foreign trained doctor and starting again at the bottom of a system that did not have to make room for him. He completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in endocrinology, became a licensed physician, and in 1980, at thirty four, became chief of staff at the New England Memorial Hospital. That is a conventional American medical career, and a fast one.
In 1985 he met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and became involved in the Transcendental Meditation movement. Shortly afterwards he resigned the hospital post to establish an ayurvedic health centre. Whatever anybody thinks of what came next, that is a man giving up a hospital chief of staff job in his late thirties to start something with no institution behind it.
In 1993 he was interviewed about his books on a major American television programme and gained an enormous following almost immediately. He left the movement he had joined to become executive director of a hospital group's centre for mind body medicine, and in 1996 cofounded a wellbeing centre of his own. His books and videos made him one of the best known and wealthiest figures in alternative medicine, and a prominent figure in the New Age movement.
What he claims is specific and he states it plainly: that a person may attain what he calls perfect health, free from disease and pain, which he says cannot age or die; that the body is undergirded by what he calls a quantum mechanical body composed not of matter but of energy and information; that human ageing is fluid and changeable, able to speed up, slow down, stop and even reverse, according to a person's state of mind; and that his practices can treat chronic disease.
Those ideas have been regularly criticised by medical and scientific professionals as pseudoscience, and that criticism is long running and well documented. This page does not settle it. It records a doctor who trained in two countries, reached the top of a hospital in one of them, gave it up, and built one of the largest audiences in the world for the idea that what you think has something to do with how you are.
The moments
Deepak Chopra's timeline.
The 1960s
Medicine in India
Milestone. A medical education, in the country he was born in.
The 1970s
He emigrates
Milestone, and it changed everything. A foreign trained doctor, starting again in another country's system.
A fellowship in endocrinology
Milestone, and it changed his direction. The long specialist training, finished.
The 1980s
Chief of staff at thirty four
Milestone, and it changed everything. Thirty four years old, and running the medical staff of an American hospital.
One meeting
Milestone, and it changed everything. One meeting in 1985, and the medical career was over.
Keep the hospital job
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: resign and start the centre, taken, or stay chief of staff. He founded the centre, and after a 1993 television interview reached an audience of millions.
He resigns the hospital
Milestone, and it changed everything. He gave up the chief of staff job to open a health centre.
The 1990s
One television interview
Milestone, and it changed everything. One interview, and the audience arrived all at once.
Mind body medicine
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Out of the movement, and back inside a hospital group.
The Chopra Center
Milestone, and it changed everything. A centre with his own name on it, and an audience in the millions.
What he claims
Milestone, and it changed everything. His claims, in his own words, stated here as his claims.
The 2000s
The scientists object
Setback, and it changed everything. The criticism is long running, and the record states it plainly.
The books keep selling and the argument keeps running, and neither shows any sign of stopping. What he set moving is a conversation that a great many people were not having before he started it, about whether the state of a mind has anything to do with the state of a body, which is a question medicine itself has since had to take more seriously.
Your turn
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His had a hospital chief of staff post given up at thirty eight for something with no institution behind it. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Deepak Chopra: frequently asked questions
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More character arcs
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Sources
- Deepak Chopra, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- His own stated claims about health, ageing and the body, as that biography quotes them.
- The criticism of those ideas by medical and scientific professionals, as that biography records it.
- This page reports both and adjudicates neither.