This much I know

Deepak Chopra: 'A cyborg future is coming'

The author and new-age guru, 66, on living with robots, being called a charlatan and what makes him happy
Deepak Chopra View larger picture
'I couldn’t think clearly if I didn’t salute the sun every day': Deepak Chopra. Photograph: Barry J Holmes for the Observer

Everything that's wrong with the world today is a gift from science. From nuclear and chemical weapons to global warming and the extinction of species, we have the capacity to cause our own extinction.

I'm on a visitor's pass on planet Earth. I operate outside the system and I am not part of the [scientific] establishment. All you have to do is look at the news every day – if you don't think you're in a mental asylum, then you're an inmate.

I don't consider myself a guru. The media has labelled me as such, but I just share my ideas with people and there seems to be a resonance.

A cyborg future is coming. Man's relationship with machine is merging and machines are an extension of our own intelligence. I'm so into it. I wear all kinds of bio-sensors to tell me what's going on inside me. It's the future.

The new-age movement is considered flaky. But I hang out with sages, psychotics and geniuses – and I love it.

Richard Dawkins is a waste of a brilliant biologist. I get sucked into his arrogance all the time, but find him difficult to debate with personally and publicly because he doesn't listen.

You won't catch me being chauffeured around in a Bentley. I travel economy and have a two-bedroom apartment in New York. Money doesn't buy me better sleep, but it means I'm able to afford to do more work in my field.

Michael Jackson was extraordinary. We became friends in the early 80s after he invited me to the Neverland ranch. He asked me to choose my favourite song from an old-fashioned jukebox and I picked "Saturday Night Fever". We both spent the evening dancing around the room.

Losing a parent isn't easier because you're older. My mother's death six years ago hit me very hard and I still miss her now.

I couldn't think clearly if I didn't salute the sun every day. Both meditation and yoga are so important. I spend two hours a day in complete silence.

I gave up alcohol in 1980. I enjoyed it far too much, to the point where I'd frequently get intoxicated. Everything in my life changed for the better when I stopped. It was the right decision.

Quite a lot of people think I'm a charlatan and a quack, but I know I'm not.

I realised I had become self-important a few years ago when an audience member at a seminar said: "You're not the person I read about in your books." It was the kick in the teeth that I needed to change.

I've looked death in the eye. I was held up by four men in Louisville, Kentucky, some years ago. One of them had a gun, which he held to my head. His finger was on the trigger and his hand was shaking. My only choice was to promise not to call the police and give them all the cash I had.

False hope is an oxymoron. You either have hope or you don't.

What Are You Hungry For? by Deepak Chopra is out now (Rider, £12.99). To order a copy for £10.39, with free UK p&p, go to or call 0330 333 6846. Chopra is appearing at indig02 on 11 May (

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