New age health guru not so zen after all New Age writer and entrepreneur, Deepak Chopra. (AP Photo/Diane Bondareff, file) Source: AP NEW age health guru Deepak Chopra is battling a former pal and business partner over a $US5 million donation for "consciousness" research. Medical researcher Jim Walsh is trying to wrest the millions away from the 66-year-old doctor and best-selling author for his own use even though it is earmarked for Chopra, a lawsuit filed Wednesday claims. Chopra, in a legal salvo he filed in a Los Angeles state court, claims he handed Walsh $US150,000 in recent months, in part to set up and run The Consciousness Project, a nonprofit that would study consciousness and spirituality. Walsh, instead of setting up a new nonprofit, simply papered over one of his own organisations, the suit claims. Around the same time, software giant SAP made a "tentative commitment" of $US5 million to study consciousness - and Walsh is now claiming the money for his charity, the lawsuit said. Chopra said he has a close relationship with SAP and that the money was donated for his work on consciousness - not Walsh's. The lawsuit demands that Walsh hand back the $US150,000 Chopra gave him and stop telling people that he has ties to The Chopra Foundation, a nonprofit run by the guru. The two men met last March and apparently hit it off instantly. One month later, Chopra put Walsh on the board of The Chopra Foundation, according to the suit. By September, Chopra had given Walsh $US80,000 to help set up the nonprofit, the suit alleges. Chopra also gave Walsh $US75,000 in exchange for a stake in Walsh's research-and-development company, HESA Institute, which lists major universities and partners in its work of finding computer-based cures for autism and other disorders. But the relationship soured almost as soon as it started. "In time, Dr. Chopra and the Chopra Foundation began to learn about Walsh, his business practice and his past," the lawsuit said. A look into Walsh revealed a trail of unsuccessful, abandoned or failed companies and projects, lawsuit judgments, liens and bankruptcies. One red flag came after Walsh proposed developing and selling a line of chocolates that would bear Chopra's name and potentially even his likeness, the lawsuit said. Walsh said he would do this through his LA-based Intentional Chocolate Co. Chopra since discovered that the company isn't registered to do business in California, the suit claims. Its offices appear to be the same as Walsh's HESA Institute and even the Consciousness Project, the lawsuit said. Walsh resigned as a director of the Chopra Foundation earlier this month citing "action that can only be interpreted as hostile and irreparable, taken against me personally" by Chopra and his foundation, the lawsuit said. Walsh didn't immediately return a request for comment.