Annotated Bibliography
Spirituality, the ancient crux
“You must travel that road by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.” — Walt Whitman
Our journeys are never truly our own. They’re riddled with clues from the past that shape our future. They’re a predetermined path, set by our family histories, that gives us our identities. It’s just our jobs to reach out and find them.
My journey started years before me with the immigration of my close relative Deepak Chopra. He left India in search of a self-identity, driven by ambition and spirituality to escape the struggles of Indian society at the time. Through my research into both my ancestral culture and Indian history, I found a unique connection between his story and my own. His experiences as an Indian-American immigrant serve as an allegory for my own story. As a result, the goal of my project is to learn more about the factors influencing my extended family’s life during 3 revolutionary decades in India. I know that history, values, and culture played an important role in my family in India, but when my parents immigrated most of the emphasis placed on those values was diluted by the change in experiences. Perhaps that same lack of exposure is what drove Deepak to focus his writings on spirituality and Indian culture as it relates to the lives of Indian immigrants.
In order to build upon this goal, I studied several key sources. Some were focused on the political or economic climates in India during this time period. Others covered societal changes and transformation in the religious relationships held by people over time. I also read books by Deepak himself to understand how his relationship with these conditions might have developed and how his views may have been shaped by his past.
I also wanted to further understand how these challenges and early characteristics had impacted Deepak’s life. Specifically, I wanted to understand how his reliance on spirituality and culture had shaped not only who he became, but also how he approached and dealt with those early challenges. I started by reading about the history of spirituality and how it had progressed in India. I also read excerpts about the value that spirituality had in determining self-identity. In fact, through Bloom’s The power of modern spirituality I was able to better evaluate how Deepak’s reliance on spirituality had impacted him as a person and understand his story as an allegory to my own journey as an Indian American immigrant.
Untouchables
Anand, Mulk Raj, and Ramachandra Guha. Untouchable. Penguin Classics, 2014.
In his novel “Untouchable,” author Mulk Anand highlights the unfettered effects of the caste system into the 20th century through a fictional story of Bakha, a janitor that is an “untouchable” because of his work. Anand investigates the effect that the caste system has both on Bakha, and on those around him. He also investigates the relationships and dynamic that the system creates between “superior” castes and the “lower” castes. He discusses dark themes such as inferiority, slavery, rape, murder, and violence. While this is a fictional writing, these motifs reflect the social and political climate of the time period.
Mulk Anand explores the inevitability of life based on your family history. Bakha lives the life of an “untouchable” because his family, for generations, has existed in that state. While Bakha tries to express free will and confront wrongdoings, he is limited by the position of his family and by his past experiences. Anand describes a scene where Bakha tells his friends about a wrongful slap given to him by a “higher” class gentleman and feels the need for revenge. Bakha, however, quickly realizes that revenge would be futile and dangerous and that he is stuck in this position with no opportunity to change. This inevitability only reiterates a lack of free will and a focus on culture and family that defines the future, during this time period.
I know that my family belongs to the Punjabi Khatri class, and that several of my grandfathers were well respected merchants with businesses across India. For context, it’s important to understand that the caste system is organized by region. Each specific “state” in India had their own hierarchy within the system. In Punjab, the Khatri were the highest caste, equivalent to the brahmins or the Rajput’s. Outside of this, my knowledge on the caste system is fairly limited. Growing up in the United States, I was isolated and shielded from the nuances of the modern caste system, and because it wasn’t a discussion I had with my parents, I assumed it was irrelevant in Indian society. In fact, the opposite is true. Although the Indian government outlawed the system in the 1950s, a large percentage of the Indian population still values the system in most decisions, especially in arranged marriage.
Anand’s novel stuck a chord. I wondered how the caste system had impacted my family in India. The novel, interestingly enough, distinguished the higher classes as “honorable characters” but went on to destroy that perception by highlighting their treatment of others, especially those in a lower class. I wanted to know if that arrogance had been consistent in my family. More specifically I wondered how these caste dynamics had impacted Deepak’s writing. It’s a topic that I hope to bring up in my interview, but I have to be careful with how I approach the subject. The caste system is a sensitive topic. While deeply ingrained in most people, modern semantics have made it taboo to talk about the role that the system played in Indian society.
A Fine Balance
Mistry, Rohinton. A Fine Balance. Faber & Faber, 2015.
Mistry, in his novel “A fine balance” describes the long-term effects that the English occupation had on the Indian political climate, especially during the 1970s and 1980s. The novel describes the life of a young student after he is uprooted from his family life and must escape the violence and corruption of the time period in order to survive. For me the book is incredibly important because it describes the corruption towards family values and spirituality that is faced post-British rule of India. The transitioning political climate and the dilution of values is important to understand the long-term relationships between family and importance of culture.
One area that the book that specifically stood out to me was the effects of colonial stratification on Indian society. While my other sources portray post-colonial India through the use of facts, Mistry uses his narrative to describe the long-term effects that colonial segregation and instigation had on Indian society. I found the narrative particularly interesting because it speaks to the need for immigration due to the upheaval in traditional Indian culture. Indian society thrives on spirituality, hospitality, and love for their neighbor, and colonial rule served to poison those values. In the story, that same destruction of values led to the protagonist need to travel and immigrate away from his home. Mistry points out that those values were grounded in an exaggerated national identity that served as the basis of post-colonial segregation and violence.
That exaggerated national identity still exists today and manifests itself both in my family and in Indian culture in the form of disapproval or even fear towards the other. However, in Deepak’s childhood and even portions of his adult life he was exposed to the hyper-nationalization present in the novel. I can’t help but wonder how that shift in culture impacted his decision to immigrate to the United States, and what his perception regarding the value and causes of the shifting societal dynamics at the time were.
India’s Political Economy: Governance and Reform
Lewis, John P. India’s political economy: governance and reform. Oxford University Press, 1995.
Post-colonial India was marked by countless celebrations, after all the country had just achieved independence. Yet, almost immediately, a weak government and rising nationalism created an environment of violence that was fueled by suspicion and fear. In his compiled research, India’s political economy, John Lewis describes the effect that ‘giantism,’ a concept he used to refer to the pro-reform foreign intervention faced by the Indian government, had on Indian society in the 1960s and 1970s. He argues that support in the form of donations served only as a vehicle to force reformation in Indian politics that ultimately galvanized domestic support and interest in western culture.
One point that stood out to me was that Lewis had actually had personal experience with the foreign interventionism, because he had served as one of the “arm-twisters” who worked at the time with president L.B. Johnson. He had seen first-hand how reforms were forced into the Indian government and how it had impacted development of Indian society, external to the west. Lewis used travel and immigration data that was particularly telling about the effects. He pointed out that mass-immigration had to the US and the UK had started after colonial rule rather than before, even though travel restrictions had actually become stricter post-independence.
Reading Lewis’s work sparked my curiosity about the long-term effects that forced reform had on Indian society. I had spent a lot of time as a child wondering how my family had decided to immigrate and, more importantly, why to the United States. I can see know, through this compilation of research, that even within modern Indian culture the subtext remains positive about western society. There’s an inferiority with regards to Indian tradition. I wonder what kind of effect this had Deepak’s childhood and his decisions to immigrate to the U.S. More importantly, I wonder how this affected me. Had it shaped my value for my family’s traditions? Had it impacted my identity as an Indian-American immigrant? My interview with Deepak will touch on how these reforms impacted his life because that insight can help me come to terms with questions I have about my own story.
The Power of Modern Spirituality
Bloom, William. The Power of the Modern Spirituality: How to Live a Life of Compassion and Personal Fulfillment. Quest Books. House, 2012.
The purpose of Bloom’s the power of modern spirituality is to articulate how spirituality and cultural values help shape our most fundamental identities. One section of the book I found particularly interesting was when Bloom responds to the notion that spiritual beings are inherently tied to religion, and that certain religions are consistently more open to spirituality (like Hinduism) than others. He argues that individuals always have the capacity for self-actualization and that the ability to approach their own values is a form of spirituality in of itself. According to Bloom, spirituality plays a role in finding one self-identity, and, at its most core function, is integral to that process.
Bloom specifically mentions the value of familial identity and heritage as an important part of spirituality. Those values help people create a foundation for the process of self-identity. He argues that reflecting on one’s ancestral past can help them reflect on one’s own future.
Bloom’s work reflects on spirituality not only in the traditional sense, such as what was practiced by ancient Tibetan monks, but also in a more modern conventional way, such as a new-age self-help book. As I read Bloom’s work, I realized that my family never really worried about ideas like “spirituality.” Outside of religion, my parents never mentioned spirituality. I have noticed that generations in my family (after my parent’s generation) have placed a greater value on self-actualization and spirituality. Specifically, Deepak Chopra (only a generation behind me) focused heavily on the role spirituality plays on modern medicine. Because of this vast difference in focus between my parents’ generations and the generations after, I plan to ask Deepak what he thinks shaped the difference in both focus and approach to spirituality between the younger and older generations in my family.
Indian Religions: A Historical Reader of Spiritual Expression and Experience
Heehs, Peter. Indian Religions: a Historical Reader of Spiritual Expression and Experience. New York University Press, 2002.
India has long been heralded as the birthplace of spirituality and self-actualization. In Indian Religions, Heehs created the largest compilation of written and oral texts by spiritual leaders in South Asia over the past 3500 years. Heehs looks at the texts in isolation and creates an opportunity to evaluate certain cultural changes over a larger period of time. For context, he defines spirituality as a method of self-knowledge grounded in ancestral history and familial culture. Personally, it was incredibly interesting to see the progression of spirituality, impacted by religion, conquest, and foreign intervention, throughout the ages in India.
One portion of the book that was particularly interesting was an analysis done by Heehs himself. He points out the duality in purpose of spirituality in Indian society. On one hand, it serves as a manifestation of religion. Spirituality extends religious values to non-religious members of society and served as a tool of early Indian kings and conquerors to control populations. On the other hand, it served as a “modicum of hope” for Indian peasants and the average worker. Heehs describes spirituality as an opportunity for those not in nobility to escape their daily lives. This grim concept, that spirituality was nothing more than a worthless metric of escape, remained a crucial center point of the reading.
The reading and compilation of texts serves as an interesting backdrop and a contrarian perspective to most of my other sources until this point. While spirituality and family culture has been important to my research, it’s important to understand the opposing viewpoint regarding its true value. As I read the works, I wondered if this contrarian perspective could explain the generational gap between my parents and the generations after. I would ask Deepak how he thought spirituality had progressed through the ages and whether there was any credibility, in his perspective, to the idea that modern spirituality serves no practical purpose.
Homecoming King
Minaj, Hasan. Homecoming King. Comedy Central. 2018.
In the short clip from the routine “Homecoming King,” comedian Hasan Minaj articulates what it truly means to be an Indian immigrant in America. During the peak of his comedic skit, Minaj introduces a short anecdote about his family’s experience through 9/11. His father is confronted on the phone by a group of kids driven by bigotry. They threaten Minaj’s family immediately after the 9/11 attacks, and then proceed to smash the windows of their family car. The most interesting portion of the clip, however, is the difference in reaction between Hasan and his father. Hasan reacts angrily, running up and down the street attempting to find the culprits of the attack. His father, on the other hand, reacts surprisingly. He quietly sweeps up the glass from the street and cleans the mess, then he proceeds back inside to nurse his bruised feet (from the glass).
The difference in reaction is particularly interesting because it highlights the generational gap within Indian society. Hasan’s father reacted much differently than Hasan did because there is a lack of self-worth and an ignorance of spirituality in 1st generation Indian immigrants. Hasan’s father reacted differently because he values simply “putting his head down” to escape the pains of immigration. Hasan, being a second generation Indian, felt the “audacity of equality,” having lived his life in America he believed in his equality and reacted accordingly.
This type of experience as an Indian immigrant is fairly common. As a child in our first home, I remember our family facing similar negativity from our neighbors when we first moved in, albeit not as serious. My parents chose simply to ignore and forgive the behavior, while I, still a young child, remained confused and angry at the exclusion and hostile treatment we received from those around us. As I watched this clip, I wondered how similar this experience had been, as an Indian immigrant, for Deepak. Had he faced similar treatment, or were these experiences isolated? I was also curious about how he had dealt with racism and how large of a role his family culture and focus on spirituality had played on his ability to rise above those situations.
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success
Chopra, Deepak. The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: a Pocketbook Guide to Fulfilling Your Dreams. Amber-Allen, 2007.
In the book The seven spiritual laws of success, Deepak analyzes certain fundamental principles that promotes happiness and a positive life that are grounded in his personal experiences. He focuses on traditional and contemporary ideas of self-worth and self-understanding and compares them to his own growth through the years as an Indian American immigrant. He argues that not only has his ability to achieve his definition of happiness changed, the definition itself has changed as well. He dives deep into how these ideas progressed both for him personally, and for others more generally over the past few decades. Through this exploration he identifies how his own personal values and cultural heritage shaped his relationship with the world and stresses the value of identifying these developmental factors and building on them.
One area of the book I found particularly interesting was Deepak’s focus on happiness as a flow within our lives. He argues that happiness can only be created or received if one gives to others with the same intentions. He explains that happiness operates in a flow and that in order to create space for happiness in one’s own life, one must give to others. This was especially interesting because it was a lesson described early in Deepak’s book, a section which correlated to his early life. Through research, I know that portion of his life was directly in the period of the violence between Hindu and Muslim Indians. I want to explore how that dynamic impacted both his life and his earl lessons in this book. I plan to ask about it in the interview.
Reading this source was heavily impactful in shaping my understanding of my cultural history. Getting an insight into Deepak’s perspective helped reinforce my understanding of his thought process and how social, political, and cultural dynamics in his time impacted his experiences as an Indian American immigrant. I spent a lot of time reflecting on the origins of my family and my own experiences, but reading this source seems like a documentation of the results of those experiences. It helped me not only understand how those cultural experiences have impacted the past and how they could potentially impact me, but also provided another lens to evaluate my research.
Quantum Healing
Chopra, Deepak. Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine. Bantam Books, 2015.
In the book Quantum Healing, Deepak Chopra evaluates modern medicine, neuroscience, and physics through a lens of traditional Ayurvedic theory, a historical medicinal practice popular in India. He used ancient Indian theory to explain gaps in concepts centered around consciousness in modern neuroscience. The most interesting aspect of the book was that it was inspired by unexplained recovery in Deepak’s own patients. Unable to find answers in medicine he returned to India to explore answers available in our culture. He wrote this book after that trip. It was a combination reflection on culture instead of immediate knowledge, in other words, he had to rethink and learn Indian values to achieve this success vs. being able to bring that knowledge directly. The book was heralded as revolutionary and brought Deepak national recognition in the American scientific community.
This source was valuable because it provided a unique insight into Deepak’s experience between 2 cultures as an immigrant. His focus on modern practices through a historical cultural lens serves as a tribute to Deepak’s ability to successfully combine both parts of his identity (Indian origin and American culture) into a coherent view of the world. Most importantly, however, is the notion that reflection brought about this success. Deepak had to go back to India to relearn these ideas. Coming directly out of India, he hadn’t placed enough value of these ideals to keep them memorized for his career related aspirations. This is a phenomenon I’ve personally had experience with. Displacing value from my own culture onto newer experiences, only to reflect and realized the values I had originally learned provided much deeper value. This is another area I hope to explore in the interview; the extent to which Deepak had to relearn cultural values he had originally had in India.
This source was one of my favorites to utilize because it served as a critical example of how Deepak took both American and Indian culture to internalize and achieve success with his identity (Indian American). Understanding Deepak’s development has been difficult due to the complexity of factors in his childhood (politics, culture, family, etc.) that have reflected in the nuances late into his career. However, seeing how he was able to specifically use those factors and combine it with his experiences after India provides an interesting way to evaluate the impact of those factors. Specifically, it helped me understand how our core values grow in value for Indian American immigrants as they grow older, and perhaps, more mature.
Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture
Harris, Marvin. Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: the Riddles of Culture. Vintage Books, 1989.
The Riddles of Culture by Marvin Harris was hands down one of my favorite reads as a part of my research process. The book was focused around understanding why people act in the ways that they do. Harris breaks down different situations by comparing and contrasting two alternative situations that help highlight the differences in action and the causes of those differences. An important part of Harris’s literary technique is by using large concepts like war and conflict and describing their causes with mundane everyday things like pigs. The technique is particularly helpful in isolating to the reader the true causes (in context).
One of the most interesting stories in the book compared the efficiency of Indian and American farmers. The book described an Indian farmer, relying on a zebu cattle and oxen to plow the fields, alongside an American farmer who uses a tractor to plow and a regular cow for milk. In a vacuum, the American farmer seems smarter and more efficient. He is using a regular cow, which produces more milk, than the zebu cattle. But on closer inspection it becomes clear that the Indian farmer uses the cattle for a reason. If the farmer’s oxen died then the Indian farmer would not be able to plow his fields. But with the zebu cattle the farmer can just produce more oxen through breeding. He can tolerate the lower milk to mitigate the risk of loss associated with his plowing tool, while the American farmer can opt for the cow because his tools (a tractor) are man-made. This spoke to me because it opened up the idea that perspective shapes reality, and that people’s actions can usually be traced to their existing conditions.
This source was interesting because it creates a tangible background in theory for the value of historical performance and existing conditions with relation to future growth. Specifically, it creates a unique perspective for me to explore deeper into the allegory between my story as an immigrant and that of my close relatives. Finally, it was interesting to see how each situation calls for a unique application of knowledge and value, similar to the Indian farmer’s application of risk management in his farming practices. I’m curious to see how the need for contextualization in culture impacted both Deepak’s spiritual writings, and his own personal development and growth as an immigrant.
A Cultural Story of India
Basham, A. L. A Cultural History of India. Oxford University Press, 2018.
In A Cultural History Basham views a comprehensive survey of Indian development through the lens of cultural, philosophical, and political frameworks. Although Indian development was mostly an isolated experience, Basham does focus heavily on the impact that Indian culture made on the rest of the world. He focuses on the impact of cultural exports like music and philosophy and identifies specific authors that have provided some of the greatest contributions to that exchange. Basham also discusses the effects that those authors had on local developments in India.
While my other sources focus on the 70s and 80s in India, Basham focuses heavily on how that period of development was exported and impacted foreign countries. I found his analysis of these exports especially interesting because he referenced many authors that I knew but opened them up to a new light. For example, he spoke about Radhakrishnan, a former Indian president and philosopher, and how his ideals shaped Indian growth. He also discusses how Radhakrishnan’s focus on Neo-Vedanta shaped modern philosophies understanding of metaphysics. Basham explains that these philosophers were able to make such a large impact on foreign development due to their prominence in India.
I was curious, could one only make a tangible impact if they had already achieved success. It seemed as though without their prior preeminence the philosophers that were so pivotal in the development of foreign countries would simply have never been known. I wondered how much Deepak’s own success played a role in his rise to prominence. Had his success as a doctor shaped his ability to influence others or was his success purely a reflection of his heritage and culture. I wanted to explore this topic during the interview and get his insight on the matter.
A Company of Kinsmen
Roy, Tirthankar. Company of Kinsmen: Enterprise and Community in South Asian History, 1700–1940. Oxford University Press, 2018.
In the Company of Kinsmen, Roy explores the act of economic organization to serve cooperative needs within Indian society. He describes the hierarchy between different merchant classes that creates the underlying social dynamic in Indian economic life. Roy articulates that across the different classes, each is dependent on the other, but as India’s economy progresses and is integrated into a globalized world economy, those historic relationships die out and are replaced with a new system of institutionalized change.
One of the most interesting aspects of the book is comparing the tangible impacts of the transition to a world economy. Roy argues that while the transition to an international economy destroyed the local relationships between distributors, vendors, and creators, the overall impact was a transition away from a hierarchical and, accordingly, segregated social order. Roy says that those relationships that existed prior to globalization served as a reinforcement to the “modern caste system,” and that a transition into the international order helped destroy that modern system.
That cultural dynamic plays an important role in understanding the extent to which a “modern caste system” exists. Most scholars agree, that in parts of India, the caste system still plays a pivotal role, but in this specific case I’m curious how much the caste system impacted the lives of my family during that transitionary period. Further, given that Deepak Chopra lived in India during the tail end of that period, I want to direct my interview to see if he experienced or noticed that transition within Indian society.
Handbook of Human Rights and Criminal Justice in India
Handbook of Human Rights and Criminal Justice in India: the System and Procedure. Oxford University Press, 2010.
One of the last areas of research that I focused on was the criminal justice system in India. I chose this area because I think understanding, in context, the background regarding character reform, growth, and punishment institutionalized in Indian culture was a good backdrop to understanding the importance of cultural value and achieving spirituality. Both speak to a level and type of guidance required to achieve the desired goal and justice helps provide an understanding about the value of reform. In the Handbook of Human Rights, there’s a large focus on the rights of both citizens and non-citizens in India. The book discusses both the specific offences classified under the Indian penal system and delves deeper into the procedures and roles of the police, courts, and justices in the system.
The role of the police and courts was particularly interesting to me and reflected heavily Indian culture, in the way I had experienced it. The book outlined that while the Indian enforcement systems were corrupt and failing (e.g. the police system), the punishment mechanism (the courts and justices) were consistently strict. Ultimately, crimes were rarely brought to trial, but if they were there was no mercy in judicial rulings, only strict punishments to match the crimes (under pretense of deterrence). Further, the book articulated that the court system knew of the corruption within the police force and other law enforcement mechanisms which also explained the harshness in decisions. The courts hoped to use the stricter punishments in order to prevent crimes from happening in the first place (deterrence) so that ineffective law enforcement was never in the picture.
This dynamic was interesting because it serves as almost a metaphor for the underlying methods of Indian culture and values. In my family, my parents weren’t great at enforcing spiritual or religious guidelines, in that when I was told and explained something (like not to eat meat on Tuesdays for religious purposes but also as an act of spiritual restraint) my parents would never really enforce it. However, when they did enforce it the punishment was always swift and severe (or it seemed at the time). That system and dynamic seems to be staple in the way I experienced growth and reform as a child. Further, I wonder how that system played a role in the rest of my family and had similar impacts on them in their childhood. I hope to discuss this during the interview alongside asking about Deepak’s personal beliefs on this method/dynamic.
