How to Know God by Deepak Chopra
Review by: michael1975

In How to Know God, Dr. Chopra, M.D., examines getting closer to God in a seven step process. This process starts by knowing God as a protector in the most basic evolutionary sense, and ends with the seventh step, where one truely "knows" God in the sense that God reflects existance itself, transcending all boundaries "in a world of infinate possibilities."

Dr. Chopra rejects all religions, as religion has simply "been the cause of more pain and death than all other diseases combined." Thus, he makes a case for a spirituality, rather than a religion.

Dr. Chopra tries to to lay out the seven steps as steps in personal growth. As one becomes more reflective, presumably one becomes more peaceful, loving, and in essence, relective of a God that defines an existance of peace and love. Dr. Chopra also tries to make his case, at times, from a scientific standpoint, citing examples from quantum physics, as well as brain neurology.

I was very excited to read this book, as I have great respect for Dr. Chopra, consider myself to be spiritual and not religious, and have a great interest and science and medicine (which is Dr. Chopra's background). I found his seven steps to be very interesting and reflective of a psychological process many go through to "find themselves." Although I found these steps to be interesting, Dr. Chopra did not convince me that these were steps to know God, but rather simply, steps in personal growth. I also found his writing to be interesting, as he refers to a lot of anecdotal stories, which are indeed interesting, but may or may not be founded. He freely admits that skeptics would not be moved by these stories, sometimes referring to "miracles," and, as a skeptic, I was not moved by these stories. Unfortunately, he does not even make an attempt to convince me otherwise.

Finally, I found the writing style to be very good. Having come from a middle east background, he is now writing a book intended for western culture. I feel most within this culture can benefit from this book by being able to achieve a high level of personal growth and introspection that is often lacking in our society. However, his case that this was more than just personal growth, and actually a way to become one with God, was unconvincing. Ultimately, this is a good book, with many positive things that can be taken from it, but one of those things is not his ultimate goal.

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