Currently, I'm reading two books: Buddha: A story of Enlightenment by Deepak Chopra and Walking the Bible: A journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses by Bruce Feiler. I noticed of couple of synchronicities between these books.
Both authors had literally traveled all the same places that the protagonist in each story had traveled. Deepak Chopra traveled all of the places that Buddha traveled. Bruce Feiler traveled all of the places that Moses traveled. Feiler explains why he traveled the land of Moses:
In the Middle East, I realized, the Bible is not some abstraction, nor some book gathering dust. It's a living, breathing entity unencumbered by the sterilization of time. If anything, it's an ongoing narrative: stories that begin in the sand, get entrenched in stone, pass down through families, and play themselves out in the lives of residents and visitors who travel its lines nearly five thousand years after they were first etched into memory. That was the Bible I wanted to know, and almost immediately I realized that the only way to find it was to walk along those lines myself. I would take this ancient book, the embodiment of old-fashioned knowledge, and approach it with contemporary methods of learning--traveling, talking experiencing. In other words, I would enter the Bible as if it were any other world and seek to become part of it.
Why did Deepak Chopra also travel all the places that Buddha traveled? ...For the same reasons Bruce Feiler traveled the land of Moses.
Feiler claims that he would "approach it with contemporary methods of learning--traveling, talking, experiencing. Are these really contemporary methods of learning? Is this how we learn? Let me rephrase that. Is this how we teach? Contemporary methods of teaching include e-learning software applications, computer-games, work-books, test-taking, lectures, PowerPoint and required reading. I certainly agree with Bruce that traveling, talking, experiencing are contemporary methods of learning; however, these same methods have always been the way we learn things. In other words, this is how we've always learned. We're "taught" with different methods. Can any method of teaching really substitute or improve learning than traveling, talking, and experiencing?
Both Feiler and Chopra are New York Times Bestsellers. They both learned their subject matter through the same methods. Neither one of them attended a lecture accompanied by PowerPoint. They did not use an e-learning application. It's also worth noting that they did not only read books on the subject to internalize the story.
Worthy of its own post, another common theme is the "ongoing narrative [of stories that] pass down... nearly five thousand years" (Felier). Realizing that the Bible is an on-going narrative, the deepest understanding of the Bible must not only include the study of historical interpretations. The words must be understood in context of the present reality. It's the five thousand years of ongoing narrative that make the Bible so significant. That the same story has been passed down five thousand years is amazing on its won, the Bible's treasures however are actually found in five thousand years of traveling, talking and experiencing.
Not only can the purest beauty of the Bible or Buddha's story be understood only as an ongoing narrative, but both narratives provide the learner with explicit caution about worshiping the stories in a physical sphere. There is an old saying, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him! Likewise, the 2nd Commandment found in the first five books of Moses in an English translation from Hebrew:
You shall not make a carved image nor any likeness of that which is in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the water beneath the earth. You shall not prostrate yourself before them nor worship them, for I am Hashem your God - a jealous God, Who visits the sin of fathers on children to the third and fourth generations, for My enemies; but Who shows kindness for thousands [of generations] to those who love Me and observe My commandments. (Shemot 20:4-6)
Neither God nor Buddha can be seen? Manifestations of Buddha nor God are to be worshiped.
Finally, over the years, my library has grown considerably. I have text books from school, many classic fiction books (I was an English major), and plenty of books on business. The books I really love, are the ones that I have had the opportunity to have signed because I met the authors. I have met Bruce Feiler and Deepak Chopra and I have signed copies of their books. These books are about an awakening of consciousness. Like learning the story of Buddha or about the Bible, consciousness is awakened by traveling, talking and experiencing. This last synchronicity is the most important. It reveals my passion.
