If you’re on my Facebook page then you may have seen the shock and horror expressed in a status update I made yesterday when I went looking at information on some workshops at The Chopra Center here in north country San Diego, CA. I actually didn’t know that this was where The Chopra Center was. I actually used to live right down the street from there when I lived in the La Costa part of Carlsbad a few years ago. So being in La Jolla now I’m only about 20 minutes or so away so I thought that if there was something interesting going on there I would be more than willing to go up there and check it out.
Now, in truth, as I looked a the list of possible classes and events, nothing really stood out to me as something I MUST go to. If you’ve ever read any of Deepak Chopra’s books you know it’s all very “new agey”, something I’m not at all opposed to, but not all of it appeals to me. In my opinion there is a good, healthy dose of bullshit in a lot of the New Age stuff out there. However having said that, I do often find that the stuff Deepak Chopra writes connects for me on some level which was why I was interested in checking out any classes that might be going on up there in Carlsbad.
On the site the events are broken out into three groups; physical healing, emotional wellbeing, and spiritual awakening. One thing that I noticed is that just about all of these events are full on retreats lasting 3-6 days. There is a daily meditation group that does 30 minute meditations twice a day, but it’s not a class, per se. There are also several events that are only open to those that have “graduated” from other events in the past. For example, the three day Secrets of Enlightenment course is only open to those that have taken and graduated from the SynchroDestiny class. The SynchroDestiny class is a four day self-empowerment workshop that costs $3,375 if you enroll six months in advance or $4,175 for “standard enrollment”, meaning you didn’t make any of the “early bird” dates. So if you’ve completed that and want to take the Secrets of Enlightenment course that’s going to be three days for another $4,575 6 months in advance or $4,775 any time you enroll thereafter.
Really?! I mean, I get it; these are classes taught by Deepak Chopra. So for close a little under $9,000 you will have taken two classes that will teach you how to harness creative power through coincidence and the world around you to achieve your goals and become more spiritually enlightened. Not that I’m trying to say this isn’t worthwhile, but I hope one of the things that you can learn is how to harness back that $9,000 in some way! Dear Gods! How much do we have to pay to feel “empowered”? Why do people pay these fees to take these classes to learn something that though personal meditation and journaling, and maybe spending $30 on a book by Deepak Chopra, you could learn on your own for far less money? I mean don’t get me wrong, their website alone offers many great free resources like meditations, some reading material etc, but for the most part if you wanted to really “learn”, apparently, it all boils down to these big ticket events.
I understand that some people don’t feel that they can study these things alone and that they feel they need to guidance of a teacher but that’s just insane! Now, if you don’t know the north country San Diego area, and especially if you don’t know the Carlsbad area, I can tell you, this makes a little bit of sense given where it’s located. There are a LOT of rich, bored housewives in that part of San Diego and I imagine this is a large part of the people that attend these things. I also imagine that many of these people are part of the “new age fluffy mid-life crisis” crowd. I also noticed that these prices just covered the classes.
But how much is too much? When it comes to classes and workshops or even retreats that are a week long, what are you willing to pay and what are you willing to pay for? What would it take to get you to spend thousands of dollars on a ritual retreat? How do you feel about paying for classes, training, etc? What is the price you can put on spiritual learning?
Mood: pensive 
