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In his recently published book Buddha - A Story of Enlightenment, Dr. Deepak Chopra carefully describes the life and trials and eventual enlightenment of the historical Buddha, who lived in India around 300 B.C. or around three-hundred years before Christ. At the end of this great work is a section that I wish to share with you - it is called the art of non-doing (a practical guide to Buddhism). In this section are several questions and answers. This post will reveal several of these interesting questions and answers, and reveal the great wisdom that Deepak Chopra has not only as a doctor, but also as a spiritual mentor. Indeed, he learned alot from his guru, the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Here goes…

How am I supposed to follow someone who constantly insisted that he was no longer a person and didn’t have a self?
Ideally, you follow him by losing your own self. Which seems impossible, since it is your self that is fascinated by him. It is your self that is suffering and wants to be rid of suffering. The primary message of Buddhism is that this self cannot accomplish anything real. It must find a way to disappear, just as Buddha did.

The self reaches its goal by not being the self. This sounds like a paradox, right?
Yes, but Buddhists found three ways the live the wisdom that their teacher left behind. The first way was social, forming groups of disciples into a Sangha, like the group of monks and nuns that Buddha gathered during his lifetime. The second way to follow Buddha is through ethical living. Buddha was known as the Compassionate One because he loved all of humanity without judgment. The third way to follow Buddha is mystical. You take to the message of non-self. You do everything possible to break the bonds of attachment and live with non-attachment.

So, enlightenment is the same as having no desires?
You have to understand “no desires” in a positive sense, as fulfillment. At the moment a musician is performing, there is a state of no-desire because he feels fulfilled. At the moment you are eating a great meal, hunger is fulfilled, too. Buddha taught that everything desire is trying to achieve exists in Nirvana already. You must go to the source of being to be totally fulfilled and enlightened.

What is Nirvana, then?
Ordinarily, silence and thought are considered opposites, but when you go beyond opposites, they merge. You identify with the timeless source of thought rather than the thoughts emerging from it.

What advantage does merging with our Source have?
You gain peace and you no longer suffer. Death no longer holds any fear. You stand unshakably on your Own Being. In your own way, you walk the path to peace, non-suffering, fearlessness, and everything else Buddha exemplified.

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