Deepak wrote a collection of short stories about spiritual leaders.

Of course I don’t remember a lot of it; there’s the Old and New Testament figures, and Socrates and his girl—there are a lot of women figures, including I think two of the ten with woman leads, including one with two women conversing; one oppressed early modern scientist; a post-biblical Jew; an ancient and a modern Indian; Rumi. Deepak has written other spiritual works of fiction, including novels about some of the religion founders like Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammad, so this book is built around that, avoiding overlap and filling in gaps. It’s of course very impressionistic, just taking a leader or thinker here and there, and then picking it up a few hundred years later in a different country. He’s very diverse.

I guess the one that sticks with me the most is Rumi. I guess a lot of people have heard the ‘beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing there is a field’ quote, or even read him superficially—I was one of these, but I can’t say I understood him. Reading about his life helped. The thing about Rumi is he was not polite. It all sounds very polite, hundreds of years later: revered dead trouble-makers. It sounds less polite, often, to trump up the living: it sounds like advertising. But those trouble makers of old, boy, they might have died young and violently like Shams of Tabriz, but boy, everybody loved them back then! They were elevated and pure, and against the greasy wheels of political and societal corruption, and they just loved people, and that’s a sure formula to develop a following—no! Universal acclaim!—in any century. Just look at the world, right. Just close your eyes, and, Really Look, and you’ll See.

Rumi is not polite. That’s exactly why he survives, and is worth something to history or whatever. Pure, but not polite.

Wisdom offered in bite-size pieces - palatable and digestible. ( )

Deeply philosophical, Deepak Chopra's book, God, explores 10 spiritual leaders / mystics across time. From Job to Rabinadrath Tagore, their stories are told in an engaging manner with commentary by Deepak Chopra at the end of each tale. Wonderful read, especially for the questioning person as to where does God fit in this world of ours today? ( )