The Buddha Rediscovered in the Light of J. Krishnamurti

Though The Buddha Rediscovered has all the marks of academic excellence, it is not, essentially, an academic enterprise. It is the outcome of insightful revelations the author had in the laboratory of Life, and not a dry discursive presentation resulting from the lifeless pedantry of a Library.

Behind the outer garb of academic .esearch, the earnest reader will find here a pristine creativity which no scholarship can confer. This book will offer the penetrating reader much more and much deeper than a mere scholarly comparison between the teaching of the Buddha and that of J. Krishnamurti. "Truth," says the author in his Introduction to the book, "is always the same, whether for Krishnamurti or for the Buddha. And if two persons have come upon that truth, their perceptions must be essentially identical.

So if one has a fairly clear understanding of the teaching of Krishnamurti, then that could be fruitfully utilized to discern the genuine teaching of the Buddha from a dubious mass of the misty Buddhist lore.

Krishnamurti's teaching can be used, I thought, as a swan's beak to segregate the pure milk of the Buddha's teaching from a mixture of pure milk and water in what has come down to us as his teaching.

The author, Professor Sudhakar G. Deshpande, has been a Professor of Philosophy, for whom Philosophy is not just an academic pursuit but a verbal exterior of an earnest inner search for Truth.

It is this search for Truth that drew him to the Teaching of the Buddha and that of J. Krishnamurti. Though Professor Deshpande holds these two Great Masters in the highest esteem, he neither regards them as gods to be worshipped nor gurus to be followed. His relationship with them is much more intimate than the shoddy sentiment of devotion.

They are, for him, well-wishing friends who, out of sheer love and compassion, are eager to share their deep perceptions with whoever is interested in and willing to listen to them. Against the backdrop of this essential core of an undaunted spiritual seeker, Professor Deshpande is a versatile personality of varied parts. He is a poet and a creative writer who has to his credit quite a few short stories and a novel, Kaikeyi (written in Marathi, his mother-tongue), which has been received with applause.He has been a journalist and a popular columnist. And, above all, he is a Music Composer with a creativity that is rare.

**Contents and Sample Pages**