The Third Jesus: Book on the Way

It's been a little while since I've been excited about a new book that is being released. I don't tend to be ahead of the curve that much and only pick up books that have been out for a while. That said, I happened to open an email from Amazon.com about some new releases and found this. As a fan of Mr. Chopra's work (generally) and as someone who is always looking for fresh and ever-widening ways to understand my Christian faith, I'm very much excited to dive in. Watch for a review in the coming weeks.

The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore (Deepak Chopra)

From Amazon.com's book description:

"Who is Jesus Christ?

In The Third Jesus, bestselling author and spiritual leader Deepak Chopra provides an answer to this question that is both a challenge to current systems of belief and a fresh perspective on what Jesus can teach us all, regardless of our religious background. There is not one Jesus, Chopra writes, but three.

First, there is the historical Jesus, the man who lived more than two thousand years ago and whose teachings are the foundation of Christian theology and thought. Next there is Jesus the Son of God, who has come to embody an institutional religion with specific dogma, a priesthood, and devout believers. And finally, there is the third Jesus, the cosmic Christ, the spiritual guide whose teaching embraces all humanity, not just the church built in his name. He speaks to the individual who wants to find God as a personal experience, to attain what some might call grace, or God-consciousness, or enlightenment.

When we take Jesus literally, we are faced with the impossible. How can we truly “love thy neighbor as thyself”? But when we see the exhortations of Jesus as invitations to join him on a higher spiritual plane, his words suddenly make sense.

Ultimately, Chopra argues, Christianity needs to overcome its tendency to be exclusionary and refocus on being a religion of personal insight and spiritual growth. In this way Jesus can be seen for the universal teacher he truly is–someone whose teachings of compassion, tolerance, and understanding can embrace and be embraced by all of us."

On Life and Biscuits

►::STATUS:: Optimistic
♫::LISTENING TO:: "Physical Cities" by The Bad Plus

I am finally finishing up Jack Kornfield's book "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry." One of my favorite quotations from the book actually isn't from Mr. Kornfield, but rather a section from the writing of Zen teacher Edward Espe Brown:

"When I first started cooking at Tassajara, I had a problem. I couldn't get my biscuits to come out the way they were supposed to. I'd follow a recipe and try variations, but nothing worked. These biscuits just didn't measure up.

Growing up I had made two kinds of biscuits. One was from Bisquick and the other from Pillsbury. For the Bisquick you added milk in the mix and then blobbed the dough in spoonfuls onto the pan - you didn't even need to roll them out. The biscuits from Pillsbury came in kind of a cardboard can. You rapped the can on the corner of the counter and it popped open. Then you twisted the can open more, put the premade biscuits on a pan, and baked them. I really liked those Pillsbury biscuits. Isn't that what biscuits should taste like? Mine weren't coming out right.

It's wonderful and amazing the ideas we get about what biscuits should taste like, or what a life should look like. Compared to what? Canned biscuits from Pillsbury? Leave it to Beaver? People who ate my biscuits would extol their virtues, eating one after another, but to me these perfectly good biscuits just weren't right. Finally one day came a shifting-into-place, an awakening. "Not right" compared to what? Oh, my word, I'd been trying to make canned Pillsbury biscuits! Then came an exquisite moment of actually tasting my biscuits without comparing them to some previously hidden standard. They were wheaty, flaky, buttery, sunny, earthy, real. They were incomparably alive - in fact, much more satisfying than any in memory.

These occasions can be so stunning, so liberating, these moments when you realize your life is just fine as it is, thank you. Only the insidious comparison to a beautifully prepared, beautifully packaged product made it seem insufficient. Trying to produce a biscuit - a life - with no dirty bowls, no messy feelings, no depression, no anger, was frustrating. Then savoring, actually tasting the present moment of experience - how much more complex and multifaceted. How unfathomable.

As Zen students we spend years trying to make it look right, trying to cover the faults, conceal the messes. We knew what the Bisquick Zen student looked like: calm, buoyant, cheerful, energetic, deep, profound. Our motto, as one of my friends said, was, "looking good." We've all done it, trying to look good as a husband, a wife or parent. Trying to attain perfection. Trying to make Pillsbury biscuits.

Well, to heck with it, I say. Wake up and smell the coffee. How about some good old home cooking, the biscuits of today."

The Warrior's Approach

"If we hope to open our heart to all of the world, we must leave nothing out. Freedom and awakening are only found exactly where we are. If we wish to love God we must also learn to love each of His creations - including ourselves, in all our complexity and imperfection. " (Jack Kornfield in "After the Ecstacy, the Laundry")

"I am large, I contain multitudes." (Walt Whitman)

Lately, I've wanted things to go my way. I get frustrated - significantly and ridiculously frustrated - when this should be that, and this thing should go that way. In fact I've been pretty down for a while because I've had this image in my head of the way things should be (ie, "I really need more free time," "Why can't I keep on top of the things I need to do," etc.).

But it's starting to dawn on me (thanks in part to the Kornfield book mentioned above) - I've compartmentalized and segmented "what is." I'm playing favorites with all of "God's creations" when I choose a clean car over a messy car, a simple schedule over a busy schedule, happiness over sadness - actually anything over anything else. It is all part of, as Zorba the Greek put it, "the whole catastrophe." Failures, stresses, messes, and negativity are no less part of the whole that makes up LIFE.

Peace is seeing perfection in what is rather than what you/I think it should be. Peace is acceptance of messy emotions and unforeseen circumstances. Peace is seeing the divine in an unmowed yard or half-finished project. Peace is surfing on top of life's wave of up and downs, rather than drowning in it.

This isn't fatalism or an excuse to cease trying to do or change anything. But it is a mature response when your attempts are futile or when things don't go as planned. It is a surrender to let life unfold as it will.

"The warrior's approach is to say "yes"to life: "yea" to it all.” (Joseph Campbell)

"Unstuck in time" - but stuck in our hearts

My favorite fictional writer, Kurt Vonnegut, has died. Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle in particular are two of my favorite books that I still enjoy each time I read.

Time magazine did a very nice write-up on Mr. Vonnegut.

Thanks for the imaginative stories, Kurt!

Pronoia

I've struggled with deciding whether or not to make this a public recommendation**.

I've been blessed to start a new adventurous outlook on life - all summed up in a crazy, amazing book called "Pronoia" by Rob Brezsny.

Pronoia is the OPPOSITE of paranoia. Paranoia, of course, is thinking that the world is awful and out to get you. Pronoia is experiencing the universe as conspiring to shower you with blessings. This book is a call to see the world as good, to see evil as boring, to be a kick-ass bearer of divine love, to be a creator of beauty wherever you are.

Brezsny's huge workbook sized Pronoia is NOT a New Age-y, feel good, kittens and bubbles kind of book. This is a book you will need to take off of your coffee table when reading-age kids and conservative-types are likely to pick it up. It's raw, unashamed and even raunchy - but overflowing with truth, beauty and love. **If you (1) offend easily or have any aversion to (2) alternative expressions of spirituality or (3) ecstasy and joy, please don't bother. If, however, you're tired of doom-and-gloom news, mindless entertainment, and negative worldviews, please do yourself a favor and give Pronoia a chance.

Part of me wishes the writer would've toned things down a bit for the average reader. As one reviewer said on Amazon, "I don't always agree (or necessarily understand) every last suggestion in the book--some of it is really out there--but the more important thing is that it's all done in good spirits, and it sends you off thinking about what you can come up with on your own to make life a little bit better." Brezsny is simply trying to crack us open to see all of life - the profound and the profane - the outrageous and the ordinary - as very special, as exciting, as beautiful and electric with love.

Tommy, Jon, Andrew, Julie, Kevin(s), Darrell, Celeste... I'm calling you guys out in particular. Let me know if you get this and what you think!

New Reads

I got 3 new books from Amazon this week (although I promised I wouldn't start any of them until I finish Tolle's "A New Earth"... probably tonight)

1.) "Integral Spirituality" by Ken Wilber

2.) "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry" by Jack Kornfield

3.) "The Best Buddhist Writing 2006" by Various

I'm looking forward to diving in to some new reads in the new year. I'll try to do some reflections as I head through them.

You suck!

How does that post title make you feel?

I spent some time reading this morning from Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth" and this snippet in particular stood out:

"The ego is always on guard against any kind of perceived diminishment. Automatic ego-repair mechanisms come into effect to restore the mental form of 'me.' When someone blames or criticizes me, that to the ego is a diminishment of self, and it will immediately attempt to repair its diminished sense of self through self-justification, defense or blaming. Whether the other person is right or not is irrelevant to the ego. It is much more interested in self-preservation than in the truth..."

He then goes on to say that a powerful exercise is to do nothing when you feel diminished, deeply feel the burn (so to speak) and then realize that nothing, in fact, has been diminished:

"When you are seemingly diminished in some way and remain in absolute nonreaction, not just externally but also internally, you realize that nothing real has been diminished, that through becoming 'less,' you become more."

This sort of practice is central to Gandhi's satyagraha (non-resistance), Jesus' "turning the other cheek," and buddha's anatta (no-self). It's certainly not the way most people usually operate (myself included), but its something to experiment with and see if, in fact, it does lead to a more peaceful and insightful life.

Thoughts from a Christian Mystic

As I continue to read more from Catherine Doherty, I find myself continually blown away by what she has to say. In particular, I love how universally resonating her message is; how, stripped of its Christian phraseology, it actually sounds like it could belong to any tradition's mystical experience:

ONE: "When you enter the poustinia (inner desert) you enter the orbit of God. You hold on to his coat. A thousand hands try to pull his coat out of your hands. You are free to give in to the temptation, to flee from the poustinia, or to resist. It's because of this freedom that a poustinik has no rules. There is nothing to guide yourself by except what is within. This is where discernment comes in. Among the variety of things that people want you to do , you have to discern from your heart what to do. Your life ought to be a life of service to the community. There is only one thing you do not do: satisfy your own ego."

TWO: "Christianity moves into 'nothingness' and finds God. There comes a moment in this movement toward nothingness which seems to be a moment of nonexistence. It appears idiotic, positively idiotic to say such a thing. But it's true. It's a moment when you are nonexistent as far as being a person is concerned. Everything has disappeared. You are not even cognizant that 'you are.' You are only cognizant of darkness. Whether you are in depths or heights is unimportant; you are not even cognizant of that. But there is a moment of nonexistence out of which you come. And when you come out, prayer begins."

...and finally...

THREE: "The desert is an altar on which moment by moment you bring the offering of yourself. For self-will is the obstacle that eternaly stands between me and God. We decide that we are going to do such and such a thing. God comes along and says, 'No, do this.' It's a matter of doing what he wants us to do, not because we are afraid of him, or afraid of dying, but because we are in love with him, and because we enter the poustinia to really do his will and not ours. The poustinia is there to form that attitude in you. The poustinik must finally come to understand that he has to become as empty as God became for him."

[all selections from Catherine de Hueck Doherty's book POUSTINIA]

If you haven't yet read...

..."The Gods Drink Whiskey: Stumbling Toward Enlightment in the Land of the Tattered Buddha," you may want to pick it up.

It is a interesting blend of a book. On the back where it lists the book's genre, it says TRAVEL/BUDDHISM. And how accurate! That's exactly what it is: mix one part travel adventure, one part cultural study, and one part buddhist philosophy/theory and out pops a book that is a little diluted on all three fronts, but is nonetheless thought-provoking and enjoyable.

The author is Stephen Asma, a young professor from Chicago, who travels to Cambodia to teach buddhism in a local university and experience Theravada Buddhism firsthand. His purpose in the book, among other things, is to kill all our notions of some magical and exotic enlightened land and to clarify real buddhism from hippie / New Age / California buddhism - which bears little resemblence to the native kind.

It's a great page turner... fun to read, (mostly) deep in theory, and both profound and profane. Consider picking up a copy!

Osho

I picked up some OSHO on Friday... never knew much about him, except that he's known as being a rascal, troublemaking, rogue spiritual teacher. There are a handful of chapters and sections that I'm enjoying, however, I find much of it objectionable especially...

• He outright says that he's the only teacher to ever have the "courage" to marry the worldly w/ otherwordly, physical w/ spiritual, sensual w/ mystical. Uhm, sorry pal. You may be one of many, but don't flatter yourself.
• He speaks about accepting all of life, enjoying the lows as well as the highs, not rejecting anything, and then spends much of his time (a good 3/4 of the book) bitching about the various religions and wishing them a timely death. Seems pretty inconsistent.

That being said, there are a lot of good teachings in the book and I appreciate where he's coming from on his various topics. Iin particular his chapter on finding the beauty and joy in being absolutely ordinary (therefore not always striving to "be somebody") is especially noteworthy.