Deepak Chopra has written a provocative
"reimagining" of what life really might have been like for the young Siddhartha on his journey to becoming the Buddha.
This is a racy, insightful, fictionalised account with evocative cinematic images and juxtapositions....
Contemporary Buddhists are at pains to emphasise that the Buddha was a human being like any of us. Despite a life of luxury and comfort, driven by the need to find a way out of suffering, not for just himself but for others, he set out to find the insights and techniques that would liberate him and all of us from the inevitable pain of birth, sickness and death. His was a human effort that any of us can replicate. We learn from the Buddha, we are inspired by him, but the effort must be our own. We need to verify the Buddha's teachings by our own experience and understanding. We are encouraged to evolve our own unique paths if our insights appear at odds with those of the great teacher. The Buddha gave diverse teachings that often appeared contradictory, positioned as they were to response to the diverse capacities and mental dispositions of those who he taught.
...
The book nudges us into going beyond traditional hagiographic accounts, stimulating us into a better, deeper understanding of the psychological processes and motivations that lead a young aspirant born into a life of privilege and opportunity to give it up for an uncertain spiritual quest. His story could be ours.
Excerpts from Review of the book by Rajiv Mehrotra in INDIA TODAY, October 15, 2007
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