CHOPRA'S DISCOVERY OF JESUS THE "BUDDHA"

[GSC] CHOPRA'S DISCOVERY OF JESUS THE "BUDDHA" -- Fr. K. M. George
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GOD - CONSCIOUSNESS: CHOPRA'S DISCOVERY OF JESUS THE "BUDDHA"
(Fr. Dr. K. M. George)

Deepak Chopra's latest book The Third Jesus (Harmony Books, 2008, New
York) will certainly be read by millions like his earlier popular
writings. Chopra appears to many Americans with the halo of a modern
guru who prescribes spiritual remedies for a world-weary generation.
He is generously sustained by the formidable marketing and media
machinery of the US. (Just look at the gold-embossed opulent cover of
his book on Jesus. There is a hidden message). It is the first time
that the Indian-born, American-settled Hindu physician writes about
Jesus. The book challenges some of the age-old assumptions of Western
Christianity. He says many people are intrigued by his new venture to
foray into the domain of Christianity.

Chopra says he has a personal attachment to Jesus ever since the
Irish Christian Brothers who taught him at school in India introduced
Jesus to him. The present book is dedicated to them. Obviously his
familiarity is with Western Catholic and Protestant traditions.
Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition is not apparently known to him.
Chopra distinguishes 3 Jesuses.

The first is the historical figure, a Jewish rabbi called `Yeshua'
(the Hebrew name of Jesus), who lived in Palestine some 2000 years
ago. The man Jesus is lost to history.

The second Jesus is the Christ of the institutional Church whom
doctrinal theology made God and the unique saviour of humankind. He
was created by the Church to fulfil its agenda.

The third Jesus, according to Chopra, is a saviour, essentially an
Eastern guru who enlightens the self, and redeems you.
Chopra wants to offer the possibility that "Jesus was truly a
saviour, but not the saviour, not the one and only Son of God."
Interpreting Jesus in terms of the Indian tradition of great gurus
like the Buddha, Chopra says that "Jesus intended to save the world
by showing others the path to God-consciousness."

Chopra begins the first chapter with the title "Redeeming the
Redeemer". He says "Jesus is in trouble", because the legacy of love
that he left in the New Testament has been tainted with the worst
kind of intolerance and prejudices in the Christian religion. So
Jesus has to be liberated from the clutches of the institutional
religion like Catholicism. Chopra wants to project our wish for a
perfectly humble and perfectly human and perfectly enlightened person
to Jesus. `His name might be Buddha in the East', says Chopra.
According to Chopra, Jesus is the enlightener, and enlightenment is
what is needed most for our contemporaries. So he sets out to show us
in a selective way how the words and actions of Jesus can lead us to
the true spiritual enlightenment, which as he conceives is salvation.
The essence of enlightenment is God-consciousness. Jesus realized it
to a very great degree, and the path is now open to all. The Church
has postponed redemption until some far-off Judgment Day. But we can
realize the shift in awareness right now, and Chopra provides some 15
steps to God-consciousness: Lessons and Exercises."

Every step begins with a saying of Jesus like, for example, "the
Kingdom of God is within you", "My yoke is easy and my burden is
light", "Resist not evil" and "Forgive us our trespasses as we
forgive those who trespass against us". However, the 6th step starts
with a verse from the Psalms "Be still and know that I am God".
Every step is essentially a meditation exercise with the aim of
removing all negative energies within you, and helping you advance in
God-consciousness.

I would like to make the following comments.

1. Some Western theologians and biblical scholars in the 19th
and 20th centuries made big attempts to distinguish historical Jesus
from the Christ of faith. But they did not succeed as they wished. It
was the same Jesus of Nazareth who was proclaimed by the Apostolic
community as the Christ (Messiah) of faith. On this point the
Christian tradition will not compromise. Chopra's attempt to
distinguish the Jesus of history from the Jesus of the
institutionalized Church may provide a critique of how the
institution of the Church has ignored or distorted the true message
of Jesus. Concerned Christians have always made this criticism from
within the Church. But a distinction between first Jesus and second
Jesus as Chopra makes looks rather simplistic. If one says that there
is a radical separation between Gautama and the Buddha it is imposing
an artificial chasm within the person of the Buddha. It is Gautama
who becomes the Buddha, the Enlightened. Christianity is even more
assertive. It is Jesus of Nazareth who is the incarnate Son of God
and the Anointed of God (Christ from Greek, Messiah from Hebrew).

2. Obviously, Chopra's book is not an academic, theological
work. In fact, he rejects the conventional Christian theology as the
source of all distortion of the person of Jesus and the redemption
promised by him. So there is probably no point in saying that he
either totally ignores or is not aware of all the tremendous
interpretative attempts of Christian theologians and spiritual
figures in the 2000 year history to bring out the many spiritual
dimensions of Christ. Chopra selects Gnostic texts like the gospel of
Thomas as well on a par with Christian canonical gospels in order to
make his point about Jesus as enlightener.

3. Chopra says Jesus was advocating the tenets of Karma theory
though the word is not used in the gospels. He simply bases his
argument on the `sowing-reaping' image by Jesus in his teaching. Of
course, Chopra knows that Karma theory in India is integrally
connected to the cycle of rebirth which he does not attribute to
Jesus. His interpretation here is too naïve and superficial.
Chopra hardly says anything about repentance – a theme central to the
teaching of Christ, and an essential prelude to the Christian
understanding of enlightenment.

4. The major positive aspect of Chopra's book is his reminder to
traditional Christianity, especially in the West and its Roman
Catholic and Protestant offspring in the East, that they have almost
totally forgotten about the theme of `enlightenment' in early
Christianity. One should recall to mind that a prominent synonym
of `baptism' in the early Church was photisma or enlightenment.
(This, however, cannot be equated with the enlightenment the Buddha
received). Photisma meant a complete conversion of mind, a turning to
God, a radical shift of awareness and becoming a new creation in
Christ. It included as essential elements repentance, forgiveness,
reconciliation and above all, love. This conversion of mind and
change of consciousness were to be accompanied by the quality of
compassion, integrity, holiness and truthfulness in inter-personal
relations and ethical social conduct. The gospel message was to
transfigure the world of injustice and falsehood, hatred and
violence, despair and death into a realm of life and light, of
justice, truth, love, peace and joy. This realm was symbolized by the
metaphor of the Kingdom of God. So Christian enlightenment did not
advocate an other-worldliness at the expense of our human
responsibility and the mandate to love. Still the passing and
ephemeral character of this world was very important in authentic
Christian spirituality.

Having said this, one can appreciate the attempts to discover the
hidden dimensions of Jesus the Christ in our contemporary world.
Christianity seems to have forgotten the many methods of meditation
practiced by its own monks and ascetics. Meditation techniques are
not alien to Christianity. Christ himself spent 40 days in total
silence and contemplation in the desert just before his public
ministry, and as the gospels tell us, he spent most of his night time
alone in deserted places in prayer and meditation during the public
ministry.

We need to revive the meditation practices still used in Orthodox
monastic settlements. The mantra of `Jesus prayer' for example has
become very popular in Kerala, the home of ancient apostolic
Christianity in India, with the publication in Malayalam of the
Russian Orthodox spiritual classic the Way of a Pilgrim and the
recent monumental publication of 4 volumes of Philokalia. Orthodox
Christianity can very well explore the enlightenment dimension of
Jesus on the basis of its own venerable spiritual heritage of
Hesychasm and other contemplative practices and in view of the
spiritual thirst of our contemporaries. The flourishing of many
Indian "gurus" in response to the spiritual quest of many rather well
off middle class western people has probably made many Christians
suspicious. Their suspicions are not without ground. But that should
not deter us from seeking the infinite openness of the gospel of
Christ to the wisdom of the Spirit of God in many reliably sound ways.

Deepak Chopra's book, in spite of its evident commercial aura and
simplistic interpretation of Christianity, is a reminder to
Christians who rigidly confine themselves to verbal-conceptual
definitions of faith, sterile creedal statements, aggressive
missionary strategies, and imperial triumphalism. We need to return
to the compassionate and prophetic Jesus who invites us to the
infinitely multi-dimensional reality of his "many mansions", a Jesus
who would probably give the "grand inquisitor" of the ecclesiastical
super-structure a kindly kiss on his cheek and simply walk away.