…hi Deepak. Interesting, your name crossed my mind out of the blue and here I see you writing a book about Jesus’ early days.
I can appreciate your attitude, but it bothers me many miss the purpose of Jesus being the Son of God and not an enlightened teacher.
Jesus knew who He was, because He always was.
But back to the childhood – remember the part about turning wine into water or discussing the law with the leaders in the temple? This was way before the river Jordan.
Making Jesus and enlightened teacher removes the very fact He had to die. For our sins. No one, nothing else could have done it.
I know you might get a lot of negative feedback from Christians, but just take it from a no-name like me, Jesus is THE Son of God and He loved you enough to die for you. Enlightened or not, the fact remains He did it for you.
cheers
tom

Hi Tom,
I think it is important, for one who is interested in what is true, to look into why they believe what they believe. From where do my personal beliefs – for example, that Jesus is the son of God and died for my sins – come. For that a simple look into historical facts about the birth of modern Christianity and its beliefs will offer some answers. You could perhaps read Elaine Pagels ‘Beyond Belief’, which investigates the Council of Nicaea and Emperor Constantine in his desire to galvanize the floundering and persecuted Christian sects into a unified whole. It sheds very interesting light, in an historically documented way, into why you, Tom, believe what you do today. But that is only for someone who might be interested in truth, instead of unquestioned belief. Truth is true. Belief is not necessarily true at all. Deepak Chopra is interested in a deeper truth than the beliefs offered by unquestioned words and doctrine. That is what his book is trying to share. But again I say, investigation like this is only for those who want to know, for themselves, with their own light, what is true, even if it may not agree with the beliefs have we blinded accepted from our parents and culture. Of course I don’t at all expect you to agree with this. It is a very big thing to truly question our beliefs, because if we do, we may lose them. But in return we may come to know what is true.

CS Lewis said it best, with the claims that Jesus made about himself He was not a good teacher; a good teacher would not say He is the only way to the Father, a good teacher would not tell people to eat His flesh or drink His blood, a good teacher would not proclaim to forgive sins or that they were One with God. The list of claims go on and on…..
Liar Lunatic or Lord….Good teacher was never an option.

“Your Name” maybe you should quote the whole statement in context. CS Lewis was saying Jesus is the ONLY way to God for HE is the Son of God.
———————
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher”.He would be either a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.
You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
- C.S. Lewis

…point being made, even if Jesus wasn’t the greatest orator or teacher, what He said was truth. The whole truth.
Smoke and mirrors, the topic isn’t about Jesus’s teaching skills, but whether or not He is the way, the truth, and life as He said.
If He is, then it must mean other paths to God, humanistic, works, religion, well, all fall short.
Whether or not God judges pygmies because they don’t know Jesus, I leave that up to Him, but you now have heard and therefore have the choice.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” — John 14:6

Jesus was conceieved by the HolySpirit but took birth through a virgin’s womb.
Jesus become Christ, He was complete God and true man. He was God became man and He became life giving Spirt so that he can enter into man’s spirit. The Gospel proclaim with all his works He was having the highest standard of morality.
God’s chosen pepople only can understand this with human spirit which cannot be explained by the human mind.
Abraham

In answer to Abraham.. once one begins to chant or meditate, using the Right Brain (letting go of all ego), the opportunity to connect with The Divine is totally possible. We are all here to make this connection.. if not in this life time, then in a future one. We all return to The Oneness. Eventually. And it depends on how much time we devote ourselves to being Grateful, Obedient, Loving, Loyal & Devoted.
If you read Ekhart Tolle’s book A New Earth it will give you some insight to this. Due to my own persistence with this I have been able to raise my own vibrational energies considerably quickly.
Wishing you all, Love, Light, Peace & Harmony

buddha is an enlightened being, he is a “light of asia”, jesus followed same footsteps and mastered suffering more than buddha did and he endured not just mental torture but as well as physical. He became a “light of the world”. He is an enlightened being.

You missed the most important ingredient of the idea, Deepak. Let me ask you this question: When you happened to be famous, and the crowds in India started to wonder each other, “Isn’t he the son of dr. Chopra our physician?”, what initial knowledge do you think this wonder was based on?
When Jesus became famous, the crowds wondered, “Isn’t he the son of Joseph, the carpenter?” On what previous knowledge about Jesus do you think they questioned, Deepak? On the knowledge that Jesus was around his father all the time, helping his father making your wardrobe!
Jesus didn’t have the lost years as the world speculated. He’s there, helping his father making furnitures. He’s not lost to India or Tibet or everywhere. Such thing is a mind-wandering of people who don’t read bible. Lost in mind-wandering, like you Deepak.
Why I dare to tell you this? Because this is the truth Jesus spoke in my heart when I asked him: “Where were you, Lord, during those unwritten years?” So, Deepak, why don’t you start having conversations with Jesus and confirms with him what you have discovered in your mind-wandering, a habit we inherited from Cain as a punishment to his murdering sin.

To the guy above me, you didn’t hear Jesus speak in your heart. That’s called Schizophrenia or one HELL of an LSD trip.