Chopra’s book is currently #56 on Amazon. A couple of articles to put it in context, in Chopra’s own words:
From the Huffington Post, a report on an appearance in New York at St. Mary the Virgin Church (very high church Episcopal, right off Times Square. I did a tragically never-aired DVC-related Dateline interview there.)
“When Jesus said, ‘I’m the son of God,'” Chopra tells the audience, “His meaning wasn’t ‘I’m the son of the Boss,’ or I’m his son and you’re not.'” Instead, in Chopra’s view, that declaration invites us all to realize our own divinity. While Chopra honors what he calls the first two Jesus: Jesus, the real man, and the Jesus, “built up over thousands of years by theologians and …scholars,” Deepak focuses attention on the third Jesus, a model/teacher of universal/Christ consciousness.
Chopra’s definition of consciousness reaches beyond the confines of biochemisty, which defines it as a brain secretion, to physic, in which consciousness is seen as a “field of uncertainty containing all potentialities that collapse via space-time events into consensual reality.”
snip
Without a doubt, Chopra knows his bible, although he contends that the many contributors to the New Testament have sometimes confused Jesus’ core view. In particular, he takes issue with notions of sin and retribution, as well as with sexism, homophobia, and other forms of exclusion. “It’s not healthy to seek divinity while coming from a place of guilt and shame,” Chopra the doctor reminds us.
Chopra recommends translates the teachings into self-inquiry, not condemnation of others. “Is my behavior consistent with my beliefs? What is the quality of my intention?” he offers as examples of his own process.
Belief is less important than experience and behavior, Chopra implies, since all too often “belief can be a cover up for insecurity. Once you actually experience the reality of Christ consciousness, you don’t have to profess belief in it.”
He said he began searching for the third Jesus as a child attending a Catholic Irish missionary school in India after being fascinated by what he described at the “most interesting, romantic, passionate, spiritual story of all time.”
“Yet I was struck by the fact that my friends, who were part of the Church, had been indoctrinated into a belief system where guilt was actually a virtue and I couldn’t quite come to terms with that,” Chopra told Reuters in an interview.
“I said to myself there must be a third Jesus, a state of consciousness that I can actually relate to, and I started to really study the New Testament and the Bible,” he said.
Chopra paints this third Jesus as one of both Eastern and Western spirituality.
“Leave aside the differences in the language of it — they are all talking about the same thing,” he said. “So I hope in the very least it will contribute to some healing of the rift in our collective soul, which is the cause of all the wars and all the problems we’re having today.”
Chopra said the Jesus created by the Catholic Church was confusing because although the religion had done a lot of good in the world, it had also taken part “in the Crusades, in witch hunts, in burning people on the stake, homophobia, depriving women of their rights, all kinds of things.”
“The present day crisis in Christianity is it’s bogged down in issues like — what would Jesus do? They make pronouncements on things like abortion, women’s rights, homophobia, stem cell research — nothing to do with Christ,” he said.
So yeah, I say, have Chopra on programs in Catholic media, sure. Just as long as the interviewer is ready and willing to say, many times, “What in the world are you talking about?”
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