Deepak Chopra has an app. And that's about the least of the famed spiritual guru/physician/alternative-medicine advocate/friend of Oprah's technological ambitions.

Chopra, who's written over 80 books to date and runs the Chopra Center for Wellbeing in Carlsbad, California, also has a wearable in the works, and is building a wellness site he hopes will become "the largest social network in the world." It is all, by Chopra's own admission, a rather naked play for reaching a younger demographic. He's done with the baby boomers, or as he cheekily explains: "It's my focus these days because my generation, people are so fixed in their habits that, you know as they say, we're changing things one funeral at a time. I gave up on my generation."

Unsurprisingly, Chopra's first foray into the mobile-app space, The Non Local, combines the meditative poetry of 13th century mystic Rumi with relaxing music to foster a transcendent state of well-being in the listener. The app's even named after a controversial concept of quantum physics, a favorite of Chopra's. Nonlocality, in simple terms, refers to the ability of two particles to communicate outside of space and time; it's what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance."

It's also why Chopra chose to partner with audio-solutions company DTS to bring its Headphone:X surround sound to the 12 tracks of poetry (voiced by Chopra) and soothing music contained within The Non Local. The idea behind this, he says, is that the immersive audio of Headphone:X "very accurately recreates the original sound environment." And thus it should mirror the meditative feeling of existing beyond the perceived constraints of space and time.

It's part of a larger research initiative into the effects of sound on the human brain that's underway at the Chopra Center in conjunction with various scientists at the University of California, San Diego; University of California, San Francisco; Harvard University; Mount Sinai Hospital; Duke University; and the Scripps Translational Science Institute.

"We look at brainwaves, but now we are correlating that with other things that we are doing as I said at the center: gene expression," he says. "We are looking at the microbiome. We have a program going on right now called Self-directed biological transformation initiative (SBTI). We are looking at a combination of technologies, including vibrational medicine, music and mantras, and binaural beats in combination with massage and other techniques."

Though the iOS app (an Android version is coming soon) is free and comes bundled with two tracks, it does support in-app purchases for any additional meditations, all priced at $1.99. Chopra says he could release up to 50 new tracks (some free) this year, each set to his own healing meditations and backed by binaural beats or ultrasound, with plans to amass "a big library." It might seem like a blatant cash grab. After all, it's quite a common business practice for a boldface name like Chopra to profit from endorsements. Just look at Kim Kardashian's incredibly popular mobile game and its addictive mini-transactions. But unlike that transparent ploy for consumers' dollars, Chopra's The Non Local has a simple goal: "to explore music and sound therapy as a modality of healing."

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Deepak Chopra: the spiritualist as technologist