" alt="Featured 468x60 Ad" />
Time To Think About Jesus
December 22, 2008 by Ray Baskerville
Jesus, the story of his life teaching, seem far removed from the jingle bells tinged commercializing of this holiday season. It’s interesting for me then to be reading at the moment Deepak Chopra’s ‘The Third Jesus’.
It makes very stimulating and thought-provoking reading. In the book Chopra looks at the life and teachings of Jesus through the lens of his own spiritual awareness. This view is stripped of all religious iconification. One of the things of this does is made clear exactly how far away from Jesus’s teachings the Church of his name so often is.
More importantly is the attention on the spiritual dimension of the teachings themselves, and the challenges we face in attempting to live them. A great example of this is a recuring point that Chopra returns to from many different angles. Rather than the church’s perpetuation of heaven as somewhere removed from the earth awaiting those who were were righteous, Chopra points over and over again to Jesus saying that heaven was within us. All of us.
Chopra references many different versions of the Bible, and other Scriptures which were left out in the Bibles construction over the years. To those with an open-minded interest this is both a valuable
and appropriate. Chopra also does his best to historically contextualize Jesus life and teachings, something it is all too easy to forget about.
More than ever it seems to me, the largest religion on earth that is Christianity needs to refresh itself and its relevance by freeing itself from dogmatic doctrine, and reconnecting with its source. I am sure that many of within the churches of contemporary times would find The Third Jesus a challenging read. However, for those with an open heart and mind, this book will be a source of great inspiration and will surely serve as an aid in their spiritual process regardless of their religious beliefs.
As someone who rejected the Christian church but feels a spiritual connection to Jesus this book has been a boon, and one that I will like it read many times.
Chopra approaches the life of Jesus in the form of a novel in his latest book ‘Jesus: a story of enlightenment.’ I am only at the beginning of reading this book and it is a perfect sequel to ‘The Third Jesus’ putting the insight from that book into dramatic form. The novel ventures into the ‘ lost years of Jesus’ and Jesus awakening to the Christ consciousness.
After this I will go onto Chopra’s ‘Buddah: A story of Enlightenment’.
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out more
Welcome back! Keep updated - Subscribe to my RSS feed & Scroll Down to leave a Comment
Related posts:
- Go See Amma – 6 Reasons Why On Thursday Amma begins her annual US summer tour....
Jesus, of course, has nothing to do with Yoga/Hinduism. Like so many Chopra is out to promote Chopra.
Swami Param-
Your comment seems pretty off base. There is no reference in this post connecting Jesus with Yoga.
You are entitled to your ‘opinion’ about Deepak Chopra, I wonder from where in yourself you make them. Can you see anything positive from Chopra’s work? Give it a go you might surprise yourself!