Deepak Chopra, Robert Thurman - Vedanta and Buddha - Discussion
Regarding Deepak... I always tend to jump to his defense!
In musical circles, there's a certain group of people who believe that the more obscure and esoteric and unpopular the music, the better it is. But that's just because they themselves are obscure, esoteric and unpopular... and there's a need to validate the self this way. There's also a belief in rarity value: "the more rare I am, the more valuable. The harder I am to understand, the more intelligent". They fall into the trap of self-validation by praising something external that is "like me".... viz. obscure and unpopular.
Deepak is to western spirituality as The Beatles are to music. Maybe not as cool or as beatnik as the Venerable Bhukatamaniprjkfnnslwjkezxjkrd, but far more useful and down to earth. People, musicians, restaurants...they become popular for a reason. Deepak's work is straight-forward, no nonsense and complete. I don't mind that he's not enlightened. I am impressed by the fact that he doesn't wear saffron robes nor walk around like he's trying to keep his head from moving too much (have you seen these guys?
).
After all is said and done, it's just about finding a way to keep attention steady and quiet the mind, isn't it?
Thanks for the link.
In musical circles, there's a certain group of people who believe that the more obscure and esoteric and unpopular the music, the better it is. But that's just because they themselves are obscure, esoteric and unpopular... and there's a need to validate the self this way. There's also a belief in rarity value: "the more rare I am, the more valuable. The harder I am to understand, the more intelligent". They fall into the trap of self-validation by praising something external that is "like me".... viz. obscure and unpopular.
Deepak is to western spirituality as The Beatles are to music. Maybe not as cool or as beatnik as the Venerable Bhukatamaniprjkfnnslwjkezxjkrd, but far more useful and down to earth. People, musicians, restaurants...they become popular for a reason. Deepak's work is straight-forward, no nonsense and complete. I don't mind that he's not enlightened. I am impressed by the fact that he doesn't wear saffron robes nor walk around like he's trying to keep his head from moving too much (have you seen these guys?
).After all is said and done, it's just about finding a way to keep attention steady and quiet the mind, isn't it?
Thanks for the link.
