Reading and Discussion Guide for Deepak Chopras
GOD: A STORY OF REVELATION
Discuss these questions and more LIVE with Deepak on Twitter!
Follow @DeepakChopra and #God
Tuesday | October 2, 2012 | 34 pm pst
1. In this book, Deepak Chopra uses fiction to dramatize the lives of great visionaries from
around the world to tell the story of God. Has this expanded your own view of God?
2. Which of the ten visionaries profiled in this book speak most directly to you? Did any of
them contradict your spiritual beliefs? Why or why not?
3. The path of the seeker can be a difficult road. Often the mystic comes up against religious, political, and societal opposition. Is it possible to engage in a mystical path without sacrificing everything in the material world? Is the mystical path easier today or more
difficult?
4. The story of Job presents a timeless question: When bad things happen, how do you
keep believing in God? There are no easy answers, as Job discovers. Have you experienced such doubts in your own life? How do you handle them?
5. All faiths have their mystics. Mysticism in itself qualifies as a leap of faith because it is
ultimately based on revelation, not reason. Is a leap of faith justifiable in your mind?
How can we judge whether someone has had a genuine spiritual revelation?
6. Chopra writes in the commentary to Chapter 2, Socrates believed that creation had a
divine origin and therefore so did humans. But there was a journey to take
before a person could experience this truth personally. What would it
mean to truly follow Socrates teaching to know thyself ? How would you
know that you were connected to God?
7. As Chopra points out, Saint Paul confronted profound skepticism from
other early Christians who doubted his dramatic conversion story and newfound faith. How does Pauls transformation relate to your own life? Have
youor someone close to youbeen reborn the way Paul says that he was?
How do you interpret that experience now?
8. Shankaras awakening to God is a three-fold process: I am divine, followed by you are
divine, finally leading to all is divine (p. 109). In this light, can every human qualify as
a potential mystic?
9. Rumis ecstatic path of devotion celebrates his love for God. As Chopra writes, The
divine is a feeling in the heart that expands into all-consuming bliss. Do you feel God
in a way that inspires love? How does that compare to the love you feel in your personal
relationships?
10. The medieval Christian mystic Julian of Norwich believed that sin was something to
be valued rather than deemed a source of shame. Chopra explains her view in this way:
God is sending you pain to show you where the truth lies. Therefore sin is ultimately a
way to find bliss through divine love (p. 161). Do you agree?
11. Giordano Bruno saw the presence of God everywhere in Nature, a view that goes back
hundreds of years before Christianity. For this, he was condemned as a heretic by church
authorities and put to death. If Bruno were alive today, how do you think he would be
received?
12. In his chapter on the Baal Shem Tov, Chopra discusses the origins of Hasidic beliefs. He
writes that in Hasidism, Nature constantly delivers messages from God. No event is outside his gaze, nothing should be considered an accident. Do you believe that everything
happens for a reason? What about modern science, which describes a random universe
ruled by probabilities? Can these two viewpoints, the spiritual and the scientific, ever
mesh?
13. Chapter 10 describes the legendary meeting between the physicist Albert Einstein and
the renowned Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore. What can we learn from this dialogue
between these two great men, one a scientist and the other a novelist, poet, and mystic? Is
Tagore right when he says that we live in a human universe?
14. In the epilogue, Chopra maintains that the seekers described in the book follow four
roads to enlightenment: the path of devotion, the path of understanding, the path of
service and the path of meditation. Which of these approaches, if any, appeals to you?
15. Are there any people today who qualify as visionaries in your eyes? If so, what makes you
think they are revealing Gods truth? If not, why do you think God would cease to continue speaking to us in this way?
Guide Written by David Ian Miller | Author Photo Credit: Todd MacMillan, Not Far Now Studios
