Deepak Chopra on Ruthlessness, Cunning, Patience and Sweetness at The WIE Symposium

Ruthlessness, cunning, patience and sweetness. How many of these qualities do our leaders possess? How many do you possess?
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We ran up the stairs, our heels clicking over wooden floors and down again, clattering against the back metal stairs where we found Deepak Chopra climbing out of the Hertz rental hybrid supplied just for this occasion. The driver had taken Chopra to the wrong entrance so a colleague and I rushed to meet and welcome him to the WIE Symposium. Chopra had just gotten in from Boston where he'd met with 2,000 cardiologists.

"Completely different," he said laughing about switching gears from talking with heart doctors to talking with women about inspiration and power in the beautiful green room decorated with Urban Zen furnishings just for the WIE event. There was something a bit ironic about rushing to meet up with a legendary spiritual leader and pretending not to be out of breath as I asked him my first questions. There was also something very cool about Chopra talking to cardiologists in Boston about heart failure and then speaking to women in New York about wisdom, archetypes and transformation.

Chopra offered a meditation as part of his closing address at the Symposium. He traced through six primary archetypes of female power based on Greek mythology and applied them to contemporary women. He cited iconic figures such as Margaret Thatcher, Mother Theresa and Marilyn Monroe. He talked about "the different archetypal energies that represent the feminine and how we need to invoke them to move from survival of the fittest into survival of the wisest."

We also talked about leadership qualities. I'd seen a YouTube video with Chopra talking about President Obama and referencing four specific traits of a great leader. The traits listed struck me as unusual especially coming from a spiritual leader so I was happy to have the chance to ask Chopra for more information. He talked about his use of the following words and what they mean:

Ruthlessness, cunning, patience and sweetness. These words have spiritual connotations. Ruthlessness means to get rid of your ego or self-importance. Cunning comes in not revealing your plans to those who may adversely affect them. Patience is timing. And sweetness is not having the luxury to be angry.

A thought-provoking list of leadership qualities. How many of these qualities do our leaders possess? How many do you possess?

Having Chopra give the closing speech for the WIE Symposium gave us the opportunity to reflect on all the information we'd heard over the course of two days. He reminded us that there are many ways of knowing and not to limit ourselves.

Chopra has a new book coming out on October 4th. War of the Worldviews is a series of essays debating science and spirituality between Deepak Chopra and Leonard Mlodinow. Mlodinow co-wrote, The Grand Design with Stephen Hawking. Both authors will be in New York and traveling to other cities over the next weeks for readings and to keep the debate going. His Holiness the Dalai Lama describes the book this way:

"We need a worldview grounded in science that does not deny the richness of human nature and the validity of modes of knowing other than the scientific. ... This book points the way to such a collaborative endeavor."

Here is an excerpt of Chopra and Mlodinow speaking about their worldviews:

Leonard: The world faces many perils, such as global warming. Science is our best hope for overcoming them from a technical angle. Spiritual approaches are our best hope for changing people's behavior. If both were strong we wouldn't be in such a big mess.

Deepak: This sounds conciliatory, but how can science aid spirituality, or vice versa, if science denies the reality of spirit, God, the soul, or even purpose in the universe? Besides, expecting science to solve the world's perils is baseless optimism. Science did nothing to solve war, a peril as great as any. In fact, science made war ten times more horrifying. Perils are due to the failure of human consciousness, and solutions will come by raising our consciousness.

You can hear Chopra and Mlodinow carry on with their debate over science and spirituality at the Open Center in NYC on October 4th. The book goes on sale October 4th and is available through Amazon. Click here to find out more about Deepak Chopra, his upcoming book tour and other publications.

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