Abandon Intelligence All Who Enter Here: A Review of Deepak Chopra's The Third Jesus

By Brian Kelly

I was wrong. And I apologize for referring to Deepak Chopra as a "new age guru." I have read somewhere that he bristles at that, so I'll respect his objection. I don't know why it should bother him, though. Is it "new age" or "guru" that he considers pejorative? Nor do I still think any more that Deepak Chopra is a dress rehearsal, forerunner of the antichrist. The antichrist will have to be heralded by someone a lot sharper than the doctor when it comes to religion.

Prescinding from his theosophical meanderings, it is Dr. Chopra's theology that is inexcusably deficient — worse than deficient, it's imbecilic. Besides his own choir, I'd like to know whom Dr. Chopra thinks he is addressing in these condescending 234 pages? In any case, if you're the type that judges a book by its cover, be forewarned, because you don't often find jackets as slick as the one which wraps this finely manufactured production. A handsome book with no typos, The Third Jesus might satisfy curious folk looking for some feel good inspiration from a smiling ecumenical Jesus who favors spirituality over religion (as if they were mutually exclusive); but it is not for anyone who loves and respects the Logos as He has manifested Himself in sacred scripture, as He has manifested Himself in the Incarnation, and as He continues to manifest Himself in His Church and in His saints.

It is hard to figure out how to approach this book, or should I say its author. My reactions as I read through it switched from indignation to outrage to pity and even, at one point, to admiration. I'll explain all that later. I've decided, however, that, as a Catholic, I ought to expose the book for the ridiculous ideas to which that it gives expression. I won't bother calling it blasphemous, which it is, because I don't believe the author had any intention to blaspheme. He has a sincere esteem for this Jesus whom he concocted in his very fluid imagination. He even grants that his "cosmic Jesus" may be "perhaps" the greatest man who ever lived in the "western world." Then, again, in another place in his book he says that Jesus trumps any other religious figure, including Buddha.

It is the real Jesus that Deepak Chopra has problems with, the one who rose from the dead and split time in half; the one whose biography was written centuries before He was born; the one whose words we find in the four Gospels; the one who was worshipped by His Apostles, His disciples, His Church — "the only-begotten Son of God" (John 1:14). Being that Dr. Chopra finds the idea of a Messiah, or Christ, to be a personified aspiration of the downtrodden, and wishful illusion, he would no doubt find some way of dismissing the fact that "the Promised One" of the Old Testament, the "anointed," "he that is to come," "the Saint of saints," was foretold in greater and greater detail from Genesis to Abraham to Jacob to David to Malachias, the last of the Old Testament prophets. As the promised Savior of Genesis, to the "blessing of nations" of Abraham, to the "expectation of nations" of Jacob to the "Son of God" and "Suffering Savior" of David and the prophets, such a picture was drawn of the Christ that no Jew of good will who saw and heard Him could mistake Him when He came. The date of His birth (Daniel); the place of His birth (Micheas); His being conceived of a Virgin (Isaias); the mission of His precursor (Malachias); His Divinity (David, Isaias, Jeremias, Baruch, Zacharias, etc.); His omnipotent miracles (Isaias); His holiness (Daniel, Wisdom, etc.); His Passion in vivid detail and His betrayal (David, Isaias); and His resurrection (David, Job), were all recorded in the scriptures.

Having only a partial conception what salvation actually means, the author denies that Jesus is the only Savior on the grounds that if He came to save the world from sin then He did not succeed because sin (evil) is, and has been, quite present in every age after His coming. Chopra, however, doesn't see many things as sinful that are so, nor does he see certain things as virtuous that are so. Take tolerance, for example. Preachers of the new gospel never tire of saying how tolerant Jesus was. Chopra is no different. Jesus was not very tolerant with the scribes and Pharisees; nor was He tolerant with the traffickers in "[His Father's] house" (Matt. 21:13); nor was He very tolerant of Herod, whom He called in the Aramaic tongue, "that skunk"; nor, in the end, was He tolerant of Judas, of whom He said: "it were better for that man that he had never been born"; and He certainly was not tolerant of the demons whom he cast out of people, even asking their names on one occasion. Jesus was patient with sinners, but He never tolerated anything that opposed God's law, including above all, false religion.

As a doctor, Deepak Chopra ought to know how evil homosexual acts are for the health of the body and the soul. That is holistic, is it not? But he says nothing about that evil. Rather, he finds the teaching of the Catholic Church evil because it condemns such acts as contrary to natural law and gravely offensive to God. Same thing with abortion, which he does not oppose. Again, as a doctor, whose profession it is to try and save lives, he ought to know better.

With his first chapter provocatively titled "Redeeming the Redeemer," and a subtitled section of another chapter called "Redeem Yourself," where does one begin to explain to this pretentious author what redemption and salvation actually mean in Christian theology. All men, whether they believe it or not, have been redeemed, but all men are not saved. Redemption simply means that Christ has paid the price for all the sins of mankind in the shedding of His blood. He is our "reconciliation" with the Father (Romans 5:11). If we accept the gift of His mercy, believe in Him and obey His commandments, we begin to live the life of salvation in Faith even in this mortal life. Salvation is consummated and sealed in the next life. What are we saved from? Hell. What are we saved in? The vision of the eternal God and the joy that vision brings to the heart of the blessed forever. In saving men from sin and its punishment, no true Christian ever claimed that the Son of God could only have achieved this by destroying the freedom of the will. He created the will as a free faculty, and it is in this liberty that man shares in the image of his Creator. As St. Augustine said: "He who created us without our consent, will not save us without it."

How did Jesus save men from sin and death? He saves from sin by offering men a way out of sin by His grace, which must be freely accepted. The death that the faithful are saved from is the second death, which is the everlasting pain of separation from God. And, too, the first death is only temporary, because our bodies will rise again.

What I find throughout these pages is an amazing consistency of inconsistency. Man makes God in his own image, Chopra opines (by way of criticism of course), then he proceeds to do the same thing — and then some. Not only does he create his own god from his own head, he makes his own head, god. By "head" I mean mind, reason. Once a man reaches higher consciousness, "God-consciousness," says Chopra, he ceases to be himself, having annihilated his own ego, he becomes one with God — not by communion with God, but by identity. We can all achieve divine sonship, the doctor says, because we all have the divine nature. This is a dominant theme in the book. And Deepak doesn't wait long to spill this amazing revelation on his readers. Already on page twenty-three he writes: "This audacious claim that Jesus was the same as God infuriated the priests. They couldn't comprehend that ‘I am God' is the simplest statement in the world for someone in God-consciousness. (Simple as saying ‘I am awake' for someone who isn't asleep)." He repeats this in different ways again and again, concluding near the end of the book that when a person is in God-consciousness a "wholeness prevails. There is no more going in or out of God, coming to God and moving away. The experience of God turns into a constant for one reason alone: ‘I' and ‘God' become one and the same." Or, how about this gem: "The faith that works miracles is faith in your own divine nature."

Dr. Chopra's theology may be moronic, but he himself is no hypocrite. He really believes the stuff that he writes about — not that sincerity matters much when weighed against truth. Nor, as far as I can tell, is he inordinately interested in adulation or riches, even though he has issues with the teaching where Our Lord tells His Apostles to take the lowest place when invited to a banquet. The early Christians, you see, suffered from a "cult of humility" (gospel according to Deepak) on account of their being persecuted. So, he assumes that some writer invented this moralism and plugged it into the sacred text.

Chopra denies any religious labels. He is not a Christian, nor a Hindu, nor a Buddhist. What he is, as anyone can read, is a syncretic pantheist. [Although he prefers to identify his approach to invisible reality as "secular spirituality."] Whatever he can find in any religion to bolster his spiritual viewpoint — namely that God and creation are one — he will use.

Another old error he resurrects is the "one soul" universalism (monopsychism) of Buddhism, the neo-Platonists (Plotinus), and the Arabian philosopher, Averroes. There is no mention of either of the latter two in the book.

Here is a sagacious morsel to chew on: "The universe thinks and acts through you." Awesome! [There's a strange cult in Salt Lake City, headed by "Corky" Rex Nowell, singing the same exact song: Psychokenesis, as they call it. He's changed his name to Summum Bonum Amon Ra; and, yes, he was given this higher knowledge by extra terrestrials; and, yes, he has disciples.] Here's more Deepak: You are not the result of physical forces that have driven all of creation, with human intelligence being a late-stage by-product. [I fully agree.] Rather, a universal intelligence is experiencing itself through countless forms. [If I agreed with this middle premise, however, I might have to agree with the next sentence, which sort of gleefully follows like a conclusion.] You are one form of this intelligence, and yet you are also the whole. [How rational is that? The part is equal to the whole? Why not? If you deny the principle of contradiction anything goes.] Just as a cell in the body is experiencing the body's wholeness, you are expressing the wholeness of creation at this very minute. That's monopsychism, which is one of the many faces of pantheism.

The only way that a man can become one with God (not God, but one with God) is by union with the only-begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, and on His terms. It is enough to say here that in this communion with Christ man does not cease to be his own created person; he is, if in grace, elevated into the divine life, but he is, and remains always, a man — a creature infinitely inferior to God. In fact, compared to God, even the greatest saint is nothing.

That is the difference between Catholic Christianity and eastern religions. Without God's help, finite man has no power, no means, of achieving union with the infinite God. That is why, in the true religion, it is God who comes to man, even emptying Himself to become man, without losing His divinity, in order to lift man to taste God's own love and joy in eternal bliss. In all pantheistic religions, it is man who vainly attempts to reach God (or, I should say, be absorbed in the cosmic monad), even if it takes numerous lifetimes to do so. Since that quest is unattainable (the gap being infinite), despair is often the inevitable consequence for many devotees seeking whatever mirage their version of nirvana offers them. Sooner or later the delusion of emancipated illumination wears off. I pray that it wears off for Deepak Chopra and that he comes to see the true light which is Christ.

I assume that our author has achieved something of what he calls God-consciousness or he wouldn't be writing or speaking so much about it. He never actually affirms this in the book; therefore, he never actually says that he (the one known to the un-illumined as Deepak Chopra), and God are the same thing. Not the same person, but the same thing. He writes: "Today, people say ‘God the Father' as if they were referring to a real entity. I don't think Jesus would agree. He is referring to something much more mystical when he says that he and the Father are one . . ."

More mystical than one infinite and eternal God in Three divine Persons? I shouldn't ask because Deepak doesn't seem to have an inkling what the Church teaches about Christ's revelation of the Blessed Trinity of Persons in the One God. As with the Mohammedans, Dr. Chopra does not give serious reflection to the revealed mystery of the Holy Trinity. If he, or they, did, they would realize its reasonableness; indeed it is perfectly reasonable that in God there be a Trinity of Persons in one Divine Nature. What else could the inner Life in the Infinite Spirit be but knowing another and loving another in one eternal act?

Later on in the book our author waxes even more eloquent: "God's presence belongs to consciousness. [Huh?] Jesus confounded the priests when he said, ‘Before Abraham was I am.' Because they didn't understand that ‘I' was transcendent; it didn't refer to a person." They understood it well enough all right, and Jesus knew that they would get it right. Because "I am" in Hebrew was the actual unutterable Name of God, given to Moses from the burning bush. It is His Name because it is God essence "to exist." That is why they took up stones to cast at Him, because they judged that He had blasphemed, which would have been true had any one else said such. So, Dr. Chopra, don't blame the Pharisees for missing out on the ‘transcendent I.'

I admire the pioneering spirit, but not when it comes to revealed religion. Just imagine this for a farcical scenario: "Well, it took almost 2000 years, but, finally, at last, someone has figured out what Jesus meant by ‘Before Abraham was, I am.' That person is Dr. Deepak Chopra, who, by the way, doesn't really think that he is a person." That's right. Our author doesn't believe in person. He never defines the "controversial" term either, which any serious philosopher should be able to do. He just rejects the concept, yet I can't tell if he even understands what he is rejecting. Then, again, what do definitions count in the world of the subjectivists? What would "a complete and incommunicable substance of a rational nature" mean for someone who doesn't believe in substance or objective reality? Nevertheless, for purposes of communicating with his inferiors, our enlightened author is stuck using these un-personal personal pronouns to identity himself, whoever himself is. For the "self" must be shed, because the ego is a hindrance to the spirit arriving at reality, where everything is one. Man's essence, says Chopra, is spirit. And, the spirit is part of God. But since God has no parts, we can only conclude that the spirit is God. Once the spirit realizes this by experience, he [it?] is in God-consciousness. Do I have that right?

Doesn't matter. We create our own reality by our perceptions, says Deepak: "Perception creates reality, and all of Jesus's sayings have one thing in common: They try to make our perceptions shift . . . God-consciousness creates its own reality." Reminds me of George Berkely, the idealist philosopher, who famously said: "To be is to be perceived." (Our author is hardly original in his subjectivism, yet he often fails to credit the thinker whose erroneous ideas he is echoing.) Therefore, nothing exists outside of our own mind. Even you, my friend. Mothers, fathers, family, friends, God Himself, dissolve into nothingness in Chopra's world, nothing exists except what I project from my own mind. I am the source of all that is. Reality is what I project it to be. But then, there is no "I," really. I must divest the "I" to arrive at the un-obscured "light" of reality. That's a tough assignment. I wonder if any of Dr. Deepak's disciples have achieved it? But, even if they had, how would I know? Isn't this great stuff? Aren't you getting hungry for more?

I should not let this pass without a refutation of subjectivism, at least in its grossest form, which is what Chopra has opted for. The mind does not create reality. If it did there would be no such thing as truth. Truth is the conformity of mind with reality. The mind is a receptor, not a creator. It discovers. It reasons and, in doing so, correctly, logically, it discovers more truth. The senses start the process of knowledge off by receiving data from the objective world that exists outside the mind. The mind then receives this data through the organ of the brain. The brain does not reason, but the intellect (mind) uses the brain as its material organ of operation, just as the soul uses the eye to see. The soul does not create what it sees through the eye, it receives it, and abstracts knowledge, which is spiritual, from material reality. This is why true philosophy and the true religion have reverence for the body. Man is a composite of body and soul. He is not a spirit imprisoned by the flesh. It is in the Incarnation of the Son of God that the body, and all matter, were once again elevated to their proper place in the divine order of things.

Let me turn to Chopra's Jesus, because after all, the book is about this imaginary person. The two other "Jesuses" don't mean much to our author, except by way of his demonstrating that 1) legends don't materialize out of thin air and 2) that man has a propensity to invent illusionary figures for unworthy purposes.

The incredible audacity of Chopra is most manifest in his conflict with the "second" Jesus, the Son of God, who he says, was manufactured by the early Christians and the Catholic Church and whoever wrote the gospels, especially that fourth gospel with the name of St. John tagged to it. I assume that it was this "second" Jesus after whose Birth we count this the year of Our Lord 2008. The "first" Jesus is the one he calls the "historical" Jesus, whom we don't know all that much about. He was the person around whom the legends grew and whom Christian theology "exploited."

It is in his musing about the "third Jesus," the "cosmic Jesus" (as the author calls him), that Chopra betrays his ignorance about the real Jesus and the Catholic Church that He founded. This is why I said at the start that I pity the author. Why he decided to venture into territory beyond his competence and expose his ignorance of Catholic theology and holy scripture so shamelessly is rather pitiable. When he tries to analyze the gospels, for instance, and question who the authors were, or where the authors got their data, he writes as if he searched the web for piecemeal information to corroborate his patchwork portrayal of what he thinks took place in Palestine and Judaea 2000 years ago. And, as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, he totally misrepresents Church teaching and dismisses the holiest of all institutions that ever existed with sweeping statements to the contrary.

I will now highlight some of the worst errors and contradictions that are presented as serious reflections in this otherwise well organized compilation of nonsense.

Number One:

Dr. Chopra writes: "A Jesus who teaches us how to reach God-consciousness lays claims to being more authentic than any other [Jesus], for even the most basic facts to support the existence of Jesus as He was traditionally worshipped are non-existent. Facing this truth is difficult . . ." Doctor, this is not a "truth," so why would any one of good will want to face it? What exactly are you trying to say? That twelve men went out and duped the world? That the millions of martyrs that were slain for His Name in the first three centuries alone were ignorant fools who went to their deaths for a Man about whose existence there were not even "basic facts" to support it? How stupid do you think people are, O enlightened one? Do you think there would be believing Christians today if Christ and His apostles and His saints did not work miracles to confirm their Faith? This very existence of the Catholic Church throughout the centuries is your evidence. The fact that men like yourself have hurled insults at this Church or raised up persecutions against it is proof enough that its teachings are powerful enough to stir the hearts of men either for or against it. Take one man, Augustine, a brilliant man of his age. Next to Jesus Himself, there are more books written by or about him in libraries even today than any other thinker who ever lived. But, with whom am I arguing? If you want empirical evidence, you're a doctor, go and interview people whose cures have been affirmed as "no natural explanation." There are people alive today who can see with eyes that have no pupils. I myself have spoken to the brother of one such person. He lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and he has a boat, which he named the Padre Pio. Have you ever investigated Padre Pio? Maybe you can explain the Shroud of Turin, Doctor? I'm sure you've read something about that, even if it's from those attempting to disprove that it is the image of Christ. Or, can you explain the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which was scrutinized by a forensic team from the University of Florida and declared "unexplainable"? I have an article right here in my office that studies the image thoroughly from every perspective, every one of them miraculous.

When the doctor sets up on page 136 his five arguments about who Jesus is, he has one category, "the mystical argument," that he must have dreamed about in another life. "The real Jesus was never physical — he is the Holy Spirit." Whoever these "mystical" Christians are, the doctor says that they found their pneumatological Jesus in St. John's Gospel. Who are these "mystical" Christians? I am unaware of any such Christians. Does Chopra mean Pentecostals? Charismatics? Whatever errors these folks promote — and there are many — they don't teach that Jesus is the Holy Spirit.

In a book about Jesus, how could any serious author not discuss the Blessed Trinity? Chopra never speaks about the true teaching of the Catholic Church concerning the One God in Three divine Persons. He just dismisses the eternal life of the Second Person, the only-begotten of the Father, as a creation of St. John the Apostle. It wasn't John who recorded these explicit Trinitarian words of Christ: "Go ye, therefore into every nation, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." No, it was Matthew (28:19). The vast majority of scholars agree that Matthew's Gospel was the first written of the four. Written originally in Aramaic it was translated into Greek before the year 60. Point being: If Matthew introduced words into Christ's mouth (as Chopra alleges someone did in the early Church) then there were plenty of first-hand witnesses alive who would have exposed the mischief. But, then again, even among the first generation of Christians, other than the Gnostics, who is there who doesn't get the brush off from Dr. Deepak? He doesn't seem to trust anyone, but them, to tell the truth.

The main reason that St. John devoted his Gospel, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to "so much theology," as Chopra puts it, is because he was refuting the Gnostics that Chopra is so fond of. They were the first to deny that Jesus was God, their leader being one named Cerinthus. John was witness to Christ's divinity, miracles, and resurrection. He saw and recorded the raising of Lazarus from the dead. The other Evangelists recorded other raisings of the dead along with hundreds of other miracles. It was a well-known fact that all the Jews knew, Lazarus being a prominent man of his time. In fact, this was the miracle that prompted the Sanhedrin to pass sentence of death upon Christ. There were too many witnesses to it. When agents, spies, of the high priest reported what they had seen with their own eyes that day, the chief priests and Pharisees said: "What do we do, for this man doth many miracles. . . . From that day, therefore, they devised to put [Jesus] to death" (John 11:46,47,& 53).

Number Two:

Chopra takes what he finds useful from the Gospels, misinterprets it, and just tosses what doesn't measure up to his God-conscious view of reality. Worse than that, he accuses the evangelists of "putting words into Jesus's mouth" to suit their agendas. Now we all know that the devil inverts the order of things and despises the truth. Chopra does not put words into Jesus's mouth (although he twists the clear meaning of some of the ones he likes), he takes the words out of His mouth that he doesn't like and puts them into some one else's mouth. In essence Chopra is his own Jesus. He has made Jesus into his own image and likeness.

Of course, the Church is dogmatic and, in Chopra's view, dogma is repressive. I guess, as the bumper sticker has it, [His] karma trumps [my] dogma. What a lie! It would be hard to find a self-promoted teacher, master, instructor, who is more dogmatic than Dr. Chopra. What is he so dogmatic about? That there is no absolute truth. No certitudes. If our spirit creates its own reality, then it creates its own truth, according to Chopra: "The Kingdom of God is an inner state. Instead of pointing to anything in the outer world, Jesus points here, where reality is created and therefore where it can be fulfilled." (my emphasis) See how he deceives. He tells a truth only for the purpose of pinning a lie unto it.

Number Three:

On page three the author paints a picture of "chaos" among Christ's disciples. The Church was "rife with disputes and conflicts." Squabbles over doctrine, power, jealousies, even "sexual desire" fueled the dissolution. So, the early Christians were forced to compromise Jesus's vision. Nice try, Dr. Chopra, but you are wrong. You ought not exaggerate what innocent facts the sacred writers included under divine inspiration in order to demonstrate how the visible "organization" would operate in settling all conflicts. Clearly, as you read in Acts of the Apostles, there was a hierarchy of authority. There was no doctrinal dispute among the Apostles, there was a question about discipline regarding the law of Moses. It was settled in peace in a council held in Jerusalem. Paul and Barnabas parted ways as missioners, but there was no animosity between them. As far as factions having formed between Sts. Peter and Paul. How so? St. Paul came to St. Peter (and James and John) to get authority for his mission to the gentiles. And, when he confronted Peter about the latter's fear of being caught eating unclean food, it was done publicly, but with respect, and caused no resentment on Peter's part. If Dr. Chopra means the baptism issue, and the pride that was involved, that was a peculiar anomaly among the Corinthians. St. Paul corrected them and they accepted his admonition. Nor did the apostles "fight for power" among themselves. When some of them were lobbying for precedence (and we do not know, it may not have been for their own precedence, but another apostle's) when they thought Jesus wouldn't hear them, He used their weakness to instruct them in humility. So, why does Deepak Chopra exaggerate and make the situation of the early Church look hopeless from the beginning, which it wasn't? If Christ were a mere man, then, yes, His "movement" could have died with His own death. But it didn't. The Church is still here. And the fact that such a universal institution has survived triumphs and failures of colossal magnitude, as indeed it has, for two thousand years argues very strongly for that institution's divine indefectibility.

Number Four:

"A mythical Jesus has grown up over time. He has led to destructive wars in the name of religious fantasies." I assume that Mr. Chopra means the Jesus of the Catholic Church. What he freely affirms, I freely deny. The author seems to have in mind, primarily, the Crusades, the history of which he knows little. And if he imagines that the Crusades were an offensive war, then he knows nothing of Mohammedanism. Was the battle of Poitiers, in France, in 732, an offensive assault by Catholics, Mr. Chopra? Was Constantinople in 1453? Was Belgrade in 1456? Granada in 1492? Was Lepanto in 1571? Vienna in 1683? And how many defensive battles were fought by Christians in the East and in Africa against the religion of the sword? Ask the Arab Christians. They will instruct you. Or, ask the Sikhs among the Punjabi Indians. They know something about suffering at the hands of the Moslems.

There were two orders founded in the Catholic Church just for the purpose of redeeming Christian slaves from the Mohammedans, by exchanging members of the order for the freedom of a slave. And if you bring up the Inquisition, read the truth about it, not some Protestant fabrication written by promoters of the "Black Legend." Even BBC had a special documentary about six years ago vindicating the Inquisition of the myths that were conjured up about it. The author should read the accounts of the Catholic martyrs all over the world in every age, from the catacombs to the gulags and the laogai camps of our own time if he wants to know what Catholics have suffered from pagan and atheist regimes.

Number Five:

The author criticizes the Catholic Church for opposing abortion, among other things. Then, in the same breath, he criticizes the Church for upholding the traditional Catholic teaching that babies who die unbaptized go to Limbo, which is basically what most people imagine heaven to be like anyway. The Catholic Church defends what has always been the traditional Christian teaching in regard to the spiritual difference between the baptized and the unbaptized. It insists that if babies (or any one incapable of reason) dies unbaptized with only original sin on their soul that God will give them an everlasting life of perfect natural joy because they have not the capacity in grace to desire the supernatural beatific vision of eternal life. Chopra is hardly to be singled out for this opinion, however, because there is hardly a Catholic these days that believes in the necessity of baptism for the salvation of all, including babies. But, what hypocrisy we find early on in this book! The "merciful" Dr. Chopra, who objects to Limbo, thinks that it is just to kill pre-born children before they've even opened their little eyes.

There is not one sentence in this book that states what the Catholic doctrine is concerning eternal beatitude. He talks about the silliness of actual thrones and courts and all that, things that belong to "kingdoms" of this world, but he never mentions what Jesus revealed about the essence of eternal life: "Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3). It is this vision, in eternity, which is the beatitude of the saints. I shouldn't expect the author to know much about this. But, for someone who has had all the contact he has had with Catholics (priests and brothers included), to minimize salvation to the following anesthetic denominator is inexcusable: "When you step outside of your own suffering, you are saved."

Speaking of saints, Mr. Chopra gives kudos to the Christian saints, putting them in the same company as the wisdom traditions of the world, Buddhist masters, and the ancient Vedic teachers. The Christian saints deplored all heresy and false religion, firmly believing in every word of scripture and every doctrine of the Catholic Church. They all believed the defined doctrine that "there is no salvation outside the Church."

Number Six:

Dr. Chopra accuses the evangelists of concocting miracle stories in order to induce converts: "Conversion can be a tough sell," he writes, "and it helps if the story you are selling contains magic." On the other hand, when it comes to those who have achieved God-consciousness, the consistently inconsistent author says that "miracles come naturally." "You don't need faith in the Messiah or his mission," he writes. "Instead, you have faith in the vision of higher consciousness." Again, "But in the end, when miracles dawn, faith in God becomes the same as faith in yourself."

Number Seven:

As I said before when you deny the principle of contradiction, you can posit anything you want. There is no foundation of truth to base your reasoning on. So, you can come up with such pearls of wisdom as this Gnostic nonsense from Deepak's chapter on "Revelation and Redemption": "If anyone asks, ‘Where do you come from?' tell them, ‘We came from the light, from the place where the light came into being of its own accord.' If they ask, ‘Are you that light?' tell them, ‘We are its children, the chosen of the living Father.'" To whom does this Gnostic writer credit these words? Jesus. So, something can be and not be at the same time, according to Deepak's Gnostics. Not only that, something can actually bring itself into being. So, it wasn't the Almighty and Infinite Creator who brought light into being out of nothing, it was light that brought light into being. It was as if light said: "Let there be me. And there was me. And I saw that I was good."

Just a few more gems.

Deepak as scripture scholar. To demonstrate that the gospel writers put words into the mouth of Jesus, the author provides the example of Christ praying in the garden of Gethsemane. Now, if he really wanted to flaunt his brilliant erudition, he could have given his readers quite a few other problematic examples from the sacred book that would have been a bit more difficult to explain. But, I'm not going to give him ammunition. I don't remember who it was who said that there's enough rope in the Bible for any skeptic to hang himself. That's the difference between a Catholic Christian and a Protestant by the way. The Protestant has no religion without the Bible. The true Catholic had his religion passed on verbally from Adam to Christ and from Christ and His Apostles to today. That divine translation is called tradition. The matter that makes up the content of sacred dogmatic tradition is called the "deposit of faith." The deposit was complete by the death of St. John the Apostle in the year 100 A.D. Scripture is part of tradition, the inspired written part. Not the only written part, of course, but the only written part that is both inspired and inerrant. When Christ established the Church, He did not tell His apostles and disciples to sit down and write gospels. Two from each group did so later, after the Church was growing. And the Church authority eventually decided which books ought to be included as part of the universal and sacred texts. The Church authorized the Bible, not the other way around.

That being said, Dr. Chopra wonders how the gospel writers knew what Jesus said in the garden while at prayer. After all, the three Apostles who accompanied Him deep into the garden had fallen asleep. I guess Deepak has never been out on a still night and heard another person talking a stone's throw away, with no other noise around to muffle the speaker's voice. What is a stone's throw? About forty, maybe fifty yards, with a good toss from an average man. But the witnesses were all sleeping, he argues. The gospel writers, one of whom was there with Christ in the garden, give us no information as to how long Jesus prayed, just that He repeated the same prayer as it is recorded. Now assuming that the three Apostles did not immediately doze off as soon as they were told to "watch and pray" and assuming that all three did not fall asleep at the exact same time, is it not conceivable that one, two, more likely all three, heard this prayer of their Master, and heard Him keep repeating it, until they eventually, one by one, fell asleep?

And speaking of the word "master," Dr. Chopra consistently uses a false English translation of the texts that should read "servant," not "slave." The inspired language, Greek, has "servant" (doulos) in all the texts that Dr. Chopra's Bible renders "slave." Too, the Jews were not "enslaved" by the occupying Romans in Our Lord's day as the author alleges. I suppose this is not a major point, but we don't get a true picture of the history of Palestine 2000 years ago if we imagine the Jews were enslaved, or had slaves of their own. The Romans did have Jewish slaves, at least in Rome, but these were more "servants," whole families usually, who sold their services to a wealthy patron in return for food, shelter, and even education.

More contradictions:

Page 117 the author refers to the material world as "transient," but earlier on in the book he says that the earth had no beginning. How could something that had no beginning have an end? Philosophically, this is not possible. Nothing can be infinitely extended in existence on that starting end of the line and be finite on the other.

Deepak the theologian. "It's not as if the case [on Jesus] is settled. Skeptics continue to question Jesus's claim to be the Messiah, and faithful Christians harbor doubts about whether Jesus redeemed the world from sin, as he said he did." (my emphasis). The second clause is asserted gratis with no explanation of whom he is talking about and what he means by "faithful Christians." In the author's mind it obviously means something just the opposite of what everyone else thinks it means. No more comment necessary.

The quotes from the author's favorite Gnostic, Thomas, on page 123, are nothing but a paraphrased copy of Gospel text in one case and an almost verbatim copy of Isaias' prophecy in the other, as quoted by St. Paul to the Corinthians. Paul cites Isaias for his source, Thomas the Gnostic cites nobody. Maybe he just had a bad day when he composed these verses — an attack of writers' block.

Deepak doesn't think that religion should be organized. We've all heard that before. Smug agnostics will be quick to tell you that they don't believe in organized religion. I am sure the Chopra Center is very well organized. Why is it that when it comes to the most important thing, religion, that organization is a negative? When Jesus announced to His Apostles that he was going to build His Church upon the rock of St. Peter, He certainly intended that His Church be organized as every living organism is. All sin is the result of spiritual disorder. Schism is a rupture of order in the bond of communion. Heresy is disorder in doctrine. When the Gnostics, and the "Orthodox," and the Protestants, and the liberal "Catholics" severed themselves from the unity of the Catholic Church, they rebelled against obedience. All of them underwent the dissolution of dis-organization. Nothing can survive once it loses its organization.

Deepak gives his imprimatur to Jesus. "[G]ranting Jesus a high level of enlightenment doesn't necessarily demote him; it only makes him more accessible. It places him in the great tradition of wisdom pervading every major culture." What arrogance! Who's doing this pretentious "granting"? You, Dr. Chopra? The author goes on to say: "Anyone can devise a new interpretation of the New Testament. Unfortunately, this great text is ambiguous and confusing enough to support almost any thesis about its meaning." Including this next sentence? "The salvation Jesus offered was the same as Buddha's, release from suffering and a path to spiritual freedom, joy, and closeness to God." Buddha? Buddha rotted in the grave. He had no true "spiritual freedom" to give. All he or Confucius had to give were their own mostly ethical maxims. Jesus gives eternal life because He has it to give. He is Life Eternal. He doesn't contribute to the "great tradition of wisdom"; He is Wisdom.

Chopra writes about the priests in the temple as being "rigid and exclusionary." He ought to have said that about the Pharisees. The priests were Saduccees; they were the free-thinkers of Judaea. They were typical liberals, jealous of inherited power, secure in their guaranteed income, and happy to compromise with the Roman conquerors. For your own information, Doctor, the priests of the temple in Jesus' day had lost the Faith; they rejected most of the prophets, and they not only denied the resurrection, they did not even believe in an afterlife for the soul. The Pharisees affirmed all, but sold out on charity.

In his chapter called "Search for Higher Reality" the author informs his readers that "Jesus isn't reachable as a personality." He is as "reachable" as the nearest Catholic Church, Doctor. You cannot reach Him unless you speak to Him as a person. He is so much a "Person" that He made you a person. Once you do see Him as a Person, perhaps then you will accept Him as such and receive Him as such. But Deepak has problems with the reality that is this or that "person." It doesn't fit into his physics. In God-consciousness, you see, "You are in everyone else, and everyone else is in you. Instead of perceiving any human being as an individual person, you see him as essence, or pure Being." That's Being with a capital "B".

All this, of course, is in keeping with eastern monism. Then there's Chopra's use of quantum physics to negate any permanence, and a person is about as permanent a reality as there is after God. You see, according to the doctor "we are all blinking in and out of existence countless times per minute."

I admit that my knowledge of quantum physics is about as miniscule as Dr. Chopra's knowledge of scripture and Catholic doctrine. What I do know is that if everything is in "flux" as Chopra contends, then his ideas are worthless. I mean, if there is nothing permanent (my mind, for example) to register the doctor's teaching, and if the teaching has nothing permanent about it (his mind, for example), then cui bono? No mention of Heraclitus, by the way, where this idea of "flux" was first postulated. The original philosopher of flux was countered by Parmenides, who taught just the opposite: change is an illusion. Both were wrong, and proven so, by perennial philosophy, beginning with Plato and Aristotle. The latter proved that in all physical change, even substantial change, there is something permanent that continues throughout the process. Since nothing can come from nothing, in order for change to occur, when one substance is destroyed (as in a fire) and takes on a new form (ashes) it is the matter that provides the substratum, the permanence.

My mind is too saturated with all the falsehoods that fill every page of this book. The author just cannot contain his distaste for the truth of the Gospels. In his chapter on "How the Path Opens" he shuts the door on St. Matthew accusing him of "concocting" the dialogue of Christ's confrontation with the devil in the desert. Why? Because Matthew wanted to make a Messiah out of Jesus and, in order to do so, he had to demonstrate that Jesus fulfilled all the Old Testament prophecies. So, Matthew has the devil quote the Messianic Psalm (90) about the angels protecting Christ ("They shall bear thee up, etc.") in order to convince Him to cast Himself from the pinnacle of the temple. Deepak the biblical critic reasons that because Mark omitted the dialogue in his Gospel then Matthew had to have invented it. Is there any logic here? No! But what has logic to do with what Deepak feels emotionally? What the enlightened exegete is ignorant of is that Mark's Gospel was written after Matthew's original Aramaic text. Since Matthew wrote his Gospel for the Jews, and Mark was a very young Jewish man at the time, and well known to Matthew, the latter evangelist most probably wrote himself a copy of Matthew's Gospel. Mark's Gospel has little in it that was not already in Matthew, although abbreviated and written from his own perspective. Mark was the companion of St. Peter and wrote his short Gospel for the Greek speaking Jews in the diaspora. Mr. Chopra, what makes Mark more of an authority than Matthew?

I'll have to take a pass on Chopra's mockery of such things as "family values," "worship," "theology," "authority," and too many other things. I did, however, state at the start that there was one point in my reading of this book where I admired Dr. Chopra. I guess I had my own "shift in consciousness" for a moment. It came near the end of the book in the section when the author was discussing the temptation of Christ in the desert. He was relating a rather recent incident in his life when CNN invited him to comment on the sex abuse scandal that hit the papers in the archdiocese of Boston in 2001. As he was driving to the TV station for the interview, he realized that two worlds were conflicting here. Both the Christian world and the secular world agreed that pedophilia was a grave offense, a sin, and a crime. The former, however, offers forgiveness through Christ, because no sin is too grievous to be forgiven. The latter, however, is outraged by the notion of forgiveness because this offense is an outrageous crime and should be punished to the full extent of the law. "To accept the secular view," Dr. Chopra reasoned, "would be giving up on mercy . . . none of us could endure life without hope of forgiveness." "On the other hand," he thought, "the Catholic Church was being entirely unrealistic not to acknowledge the psychological dimension of child abuse." He then writes about the psychological turmoil in the mind of a young male with homosexual inclinations entering a seminary that would only provide more temptation because of the environment. In any event, when he went into the studio, he writes that the instant he "raised the possibility of two worlds being in conflict, the host's face turned ashen. He leaned into his microphone and said, ‘Of course, you're not condoning what these priests did in any way, right?' I could tell that he was trying to rescue me from a disastrous slipup. I replied, ‘No, I am not condoning them. The law must take its course,' after which the host switched to another, less explosive question."

I had to admire the way Dr. Chopra dealt with this dilemma. It was upright and noble. He took the high road. The hierarchy of the visible Catholic Church failed miserably in dealing with this abuse crisis, abuse mainly of teenage boys. Such perverse inclinations ought to have been discovered before any of these guilty priests made it through the seminary, and they should have been dismissed. The fact that only a small minority of clergy committed these crimes does not make the wound they inflicted on the Church any less painful. Other social service professions had their deviants as well, especially teachers and doctors, in larger percentages than priests as the statistics now available demonstrate. It is a crime that is indicative of the immoral age in which we live. Just look at the agenda of the LGBT lobby and what they intend to do, and are now doing, to the innocent children in our public schools. And all their pornographic propaganda is legal. These sick activists are abusing the minds of all the children and no one dares prosecute them.

My prayer is that this Book Review produces good results. No matter how saccharine the attack on the one and only Person of Jesus Christ, it must be repudiated. Dr. Chopra may feel he has every right to interpret the Gospel in any way he likes, and under the laws of this country he does, but I am not concerned about that. My only concern is to defend the truth about the one Jesus, the Jesus of the Gospels, the only Savior, the only Messiah, the only-begotten Son of God, and His Catholic Church.