Buddha (A Story of Enlighenment)

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Bestselling author Deepak Chopra Brings the Buddha back to life in his this gripping novel of the young prince who abandoned his inheritance to discover his true calling. This iconic journey changed the world forever, and the truths revealed continued to influence every corner of the globe today.

A young man in line for the throne is trapped in his father’s kingdom and yearns for the outside world. Betrayed by those closed to him, Siddhartha abandon his palace and princely title. Alone and face-to-face with his demons, he became a wandering monk and embarks on a spiritual fast that carries him to the brink of death. Ultimately, recognizing his inability to conquer his body and mind by sheer will, Siddhartha transcends his physical pain and achieves enlightenment.

Although we recognize Buddha today as an icon of peace and serenity, his life story was a tumultuous and spellbinding affair filled with love and passion, murder and loss, struggle and surrender. From the rocky terrain of the material world to the summit of the spiritual one, Buddha captives and inspires-ultimately leading us closer to understanding the true nature of life and our selves.

In writing this book, I took a deep breath and created new characters and incidents in the life of one of the most famous people who ever lived. Famous, but still very obscure. I wanted to bring Buddha out of the mists of time, to fill him out in flesh and blood while still preserving his mystery. Fact blended into fantasy centuries ago in the story of the prince who became a living god. Or is "god" the very thing he didn't want to be? Was his deepest wish to disappear from the material world, remembered only as an inspi- ration of perfection?

The Buddha story, as it gathered momentum for two millennia, became chock-full of miracles and gods that got stuck onto its surface. Speaking about himself, Buddha never mentioned mira- cles or gods. He held a doubtful view of both. He showed no in- terest in being revered as a personality; none of his many sermons mentions his family life or gives much personal information at all. Unlike Christ in the New Testament, he certainly didn't see him- self as divine.

Instead, he saw himself as "someone who is awake," which is what the word Buddha means. That's the person I've tried to cap- ture in this book. Here in all his mystery is the principal human being who ever gained enlightenment, who spent his long life trying to wake up the rest of us. Everything he knew, he knew from arduous, sometimes bitter experience. He went through ex- treme suffering-almost to the death-and emerged with some- thing incredibly precious. Buddha literally became the truth. "Whoever sees me sees the teaching," he said, "and whoever sees the teaching sees me."

I wrote this book as a sacred journey, fictionalized in many of its externals but psychologically true, I hope, to what the seeker's path feels like. In all three phases of his life-Siddhartha the prince, Gautama the monk, and Buddha the Compassionate One-he was as mortal as you and I, yet he attained enlighten- ment and was raised to the rank of an immortal. The miracle is that he got there following a heart as human as yours and mine, and just as vulnerable.