Deepak Chopra gives lectures all over the world. He's written dozens of books. But now he's trying a different medium to get his message across: video games. The spiritual leader and alternative medicine guru tells us about how he’ll teach meditation and wellness with his new game, Leela.
Whether they're raiding dungeons in World of Warcraft, gunning down foes in Call of Duty or flinging fowl in Angry Birds, many gamers often like to zone out with video games after a hard day at work or school.
But Deepak Chopra hopes that his upcoming game Leela, which means "play" in Sanskrit, can provide stress relief in a more peaceful manner. The new title for Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Kinect, the hands-free controller for Xbox 360, uses motion controls to teach players about meditation and the seven chakras based on Hindu and Buddhist teachings. Leela contains 43 interactive exercises and mini-games inspired by each chakra, as well as self-guided and guided meditation practices. The Kinect version can even measure players' breathing, showing users the proper way to breathe during meditation.
"I had been watching the whole video game culture for a while," explained Chopra in my recent interview with him at his New York office, "and one day it suddenly occurred to me that this was the perfect vehicle to express what I had been saying in 64 books, and that we can make it fun without getting people all wrapped up in the intellectual understanding of consciousness... not many people can relate to that."
During the demonstration session, Chopra also talked at length about his interest in neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain and nervous system's function and structure to fundamentally change when influenced by environmental stimuli.
"What we experience actually shapes the anatomy of our brain," he said, mentioning that he frequently speaks to his neuroscientist pals. "There's no experience that you have that doesn't influence what happens in your brain, obviously. But now we also know that by choosing the right experiences, we can rewire our brain... When I started watching video games, I realized that they can be an amazing tool to accelerate the development of the brain. And that, in fact, a video game can accelerate technologically the development and evolution [of the brain] in a few months that would take maybe 100 years of biological evolution. We don't recognize this yet, but we will."
In fact, Chopra hopes to eventually prove this with Leela, and he plans to show his neurological cohorts once the game is complete.
"My biggest, loftiest goal is to see how this game will actually accelerate neuro-development into adulthood," he said. "I want to speak to people who are doing research on things like Alzheimer's disease to see if we can do functional scans before and after people play this game. My hope is to be able to do a functional resonance scan on somebody's brain and show in six months how this brain is way more evolved than when it first started playing the game. So that's one end of the spectrum.”
He quickly added, "But if it stops being fun, then it won't work. Most importantly, it has to be fun."
As much fun as brain-scanning sounds, for now, Chopra ultimately wants people to learn the general practices of mind-body wellness. He also thinks that his game will benefit not only his followers, but people from all walks of life, even if they don't know anything about his teachings or the seven chakras. With video game systems now prevalent in a growing number of living rooms, he expects that children, and even their parents, will give Leela a go.
"I think lot of people will gravitate towards this game from being influenced by their kids [playing video games]," he said. "And mind-body awareness can get pretty addictive; those who practice yoga are very attached to it and enjoy it very much, so I hope that people will get the same result [with Leela]. "
"The implications of this game are huge," he continued. "This is the first game that actually uses your breath -- which can influence your emotions, your blood pressure, your heart rate -- and makes a game out of it. Here, spirituality and wellness meets technology."
Deepak Chopra's Leela will be released for Wii and Xbox 360 Kinect on November 11th.
(Photo Credit: Deepak Chopra in NYC, July 2011 © JesseAngelo.com)
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Tracey John is a veteran games, tech, comics and toy reporter based in Brooklyn, New York. You can find her on Twitter @TraceyJohn or at her website, www.traceyjohn.com. Got a tip? Send an e-mail.
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