If It Could Happen to Buddha, Why not You?, Vasant Joshi, Wisdom Tree, Pp 149, Rs 145.00 (PB)
IN this book the author, an academician and an Osho sannyasi, shares with the readers what he has leaned on the spiritual path and what has helped him in his growth. He shares these insights which have worked for him in the hope that they may work for his readers too. The text is interspersed liberally with quotes from various masters like Osho to convey that the seed of consciousness is already sown. It is the responsibility of the reader to make himself available for adopting practices like meditation to let the true being sprout. For this the only path to adopt is one of awareness, discovery and transformation.
Besides teaching various meditation techniques as taught by the enlightened mystic and prolific author Osho, this book shows that on the spiritual path, information can be new or old, but truth is not information. Truth “comes as an experience which springs forth from one’s innermost core. It certainly is not a mind-product.”
While reflecting upon Buddha’s life story, the author tries to answer questions like-Can experiences of truth, love, compassion be ‘new’ and ‘original’? Can love be new or old? Can comparison be ancient or modern? Truth can be both old and new or neither but love and compassion are “fresh and novel and alive experiences, regardless of time and space. Truth simply is, love is, compassion is- their is-ness never goes through any mutation.” They mature but never mutate.
The author tells how Prince Siddhartha became Gautama Buddha and this is a story of self-transformation and not a chronicle of how transformation was refined further and disseminated.
In the story of Buddha, the author has found significant pointers which, if understood and made instrumental in one’s search and lived, can help in the evolution of one’s consciousness and in the realisation of one’s Buddha-hood. The message of the book is that the path that Buddha adopted may not be possible for all of us to follow, but the process of awareness, discovery and transformation that he went through is intrinsically relevant and valuable for achieving enlightenment.
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