Somewhere in the 1980′s I had lunch with Deepak Chopra: Deepak was at the height of his creative career and touring the world as the great speaker he is.
A lot of people today see him as tangled up in the Matrix. Maybe he is – I don’t feel like going judgmental because he would never be that to me or you. Anyhow, what Deepak writes either in his context as a doctor or self-development there is always great inspiration to be picked up. So either way, that’s a gift.
Deepak talked a bit about the Yoga Sutra, which is very much the philosophical and spiritual background for his early writings and it still is.
Then we went on to discuss synchronicity and he told me this story. It obviously made an impact since I still remember it. If he has mentioned it in his work later I don’t know.
The story illustrates my point in: The Undistorted Power of Attention
One morning Deepak was on his way to the airport. He told that he usually ordered at limousine to take him there. Or rather: a service from his publisher. The limousines were usually black; this morning the car was Yellow.
“I was puzzled about that,” he said, and “I had doubt whether to call the service and hear if there had been some kind of mistake, but then I found out that I wanted to explore, since there must be a reason for it.”
Deepak continued: “What is the message here? It can be multiple, comfort zone, habit breaking or an important message from the Universe. I decided to go with the message and the message is ‘Yellow’ since it is the only thing that stands out. So I decided to pay attention to ‘Yellow’.”
So on the way to the airport Deepak noticed a billboard for credit card in which the $ sign was highlighted in yellow. Aha, Deepak thought: Yellow = Money. Further along the road he noticed another billboard. This time for morning cereals. The package was yellow. Aha – Deepak thought: Yellow is: Money and Food.
“I didn’t see any more yellow the rest of the drive so I thought, until now: Not much to go on.”
Entering the airport there was no significant yellow he would notice as a clue.
“‘Then I went on the airplane, found my seat, and this man sat down in the seat next to me – he was wearing a yellow shirt. Not many did,” Deepak said, “So I waited.”
Then the man asked him:
“Are you Deepak Chopra?” Deepak said yes, and the man continued: “I have been trying to get in touch with you but I think my letters maybe have not made it to you. I have been following your writing on health. I produce morning cereals and I wanted to hear if we maybe could work together on providing very healthy and nutritious food for the children in this country.”
Deepak said to me: “You see Soren, that year I made some money working with this. I think that Yellow opened my mind to it. Had I not been aware of the signs, which basically is the manifestation of synchronicity, I think I would have had to decline because I am very busy and I get a lot of these requests.”
