Jesus of India is a vivid account of Jesus' early years in Alexandria, Egypt, his teen years traveling the Silk Road, and in his twenties visiting the sages and saints of Kashmir, Tibet, and India.

Back Cover of Book - Author Bio

Maury Lee was raised on three continents. Deeply sensitive to cultural beliefs and myths, he absorbed the themes looking for the universals. Raised by Christian fundamentalists while living among Stone Age natives proved a daunting task. Hypocrisy stared him in the face from a very early age. His psyche was, as the saying goes, firmly "in the tigers' mouth."

With a degree in Creative Writing and a Masters in Counseling, his pen scripts a broad and bold stroke. He claims a triple PhD. in late night reading, and brings it all to hand in this immensely challenging novel. He has uniquely presented a deeply spiritual novel that transcends belief and exposes a universal mystical core.

This novel takes you on a journey with the young Jesus to Alexandria, Egypt, down the Silk Road to India and Tibet, and back to Israel. The Greatest Story has never been told like this.

Book Description - a longer version

Jesus of India (100K words). This work falls in the categories of religious or historical fiction. A deeply spiritual book, it breaks the taboos that were meant to keep Jesus locked in theological dogma. Two thousand years is long enough. This novel is an attempt to break all the locks on who and what Jesus was. It is not an attempt to denigrate Jesus, although many will proclaim otherwise.

The intention of the author is to open the gates of critical thinking outside theological boxes. First, Maury Lee insists Jesus needs to be taken out of the box, then perhaps, we will find where he fits in our lives. This is not just a biblical novel, though it may seem like one.

This is a spiritual journey taken by an author through the vehicle of a traveling Jesus. It is a serious work. If you cry, that's good. If you laugh, that's good. If Jesus takes on new meaning, he may yet get his prison break.

Jesus of India brings the religious philosophies of the East and the West together, through an account of Jesus' childhood and training in the Near and Far East. The final third of the novel is a loose rendering of the New Testament Gospel from a non dual perspective.

This new understanding of the life and teaching of Jesus shows that his message was at its core, essentially the same as that of the Buddha, the Sufi mystics, and the Eastern gurus. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and many other Indian sages claim and know Jesus as one of their own. The West has yet to step off its self indulging pedestal and recognize the great Eastern sages as One with Jesus.

Is the public ready for a work such as this? The October 13, 1998 issue of Time Magazine shows a blond white male in Indian garb with the title, AMERICA'S FASCINATION WITH BUDDHISM . Random House is still publishing, under their Value Press, The Greatest Story Ever Told.

A search online for Jesus in India brings up about 300,000 sites with the words "Jesus" and "India" mentioned. This subject is hot! A few years ago there were only two or three such sites. Isn't it time a new story of Jesus' life were told, where Jesus is a wandering student and teacher not all that different from the Buddha--a mystic, a real human?

Jesus of India takes the reader on this adventure, sharing Jesus' childhood in Alexandria Egypt. There he studies at the Great Library and learns meditation from Buddhist monks. We follow him along the Silk Road to Kashmir, India and China, where he studies further.

After becoming enlightened in India, Jesus vows to take spiritual enlightenment to his own people. Returning to Israel, he preaches the perennial philosophy, the great non dual message of enlightenment to all.

From the fullness of his heart, Jesus teaches in Israel. The message is not new to the Jews, but lost. The reader viscerally experiences Jesus' frustration at not being understood. The religious elite persecute him. By corrupting his message, the dry brained clergy, regain control. The rest is history.

But what is the real story of Christ's thirty unknown years? And what if everyone could see the non dual I Am message of Jesus. What if the "I Am" of the Hebrews, and the "I Am" of the Eastern sages is the same spirit? What if Jesus, and not the Buddha, was the greatest non dual teacher, the world has ever known? This story will take you there.

In this story, Jesus survives the crucifixion, and travels widely, teaching for many years. Does this make his teachings in the Gospel less valid? Perhaps not. Jesus of India paves a brave new path out of the crucifixion wilderness. There is a core of oneness behind all religions.

Knowing the gospels well and comparing them with the Hindu and Sufi texts of enlightened masters, it is obvious that Jesus? message was the same as theirs. Any great Eastern Guru readily acknowledges Jesus as one of their own, an enlightened master--with a similar understanding. In the West, Jewish Theocracy has held sway. Though Maury Lee respects the Christians' strong faith, it is not the understanding that Jesus taught. The common understanding in the West may be a corruption of Jesus' original message. The time has come to share the non dual insight Jesus actually taught.

Maury Lee has a BA in Creative Writing and an MA in Counseling. He hopes this novel brings a healing between East and West. As a professional writer, writing for a fortune 500 company, Maury Lee publishes online and off. He has written a well researched, entertaining, and believable book.

Author listing at Xlibris web site

Maury Lee was raised on three continents. Deeply sensitive to cultural beliefs and myths, he absorbed the themes, looking for the universals. With a Masters in Counseling and a triple Ph. D. in late night reading, he is uniquely qualified to present a deeply spiritual novel that transcends belief and exposes the hidden mystical core.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all on the spiritual path. My friends and family who have contributed their support, know well my indebtedness. I thank them all. To all living and dead, who by their struggles and willingness to share have taught me, I offer gratitude and praise. If the dead could talk, books would speak and I would answer, "Yes, you taught me that."

Note:
The heart, one's own heart, is the place where truth can be found. For some, it comes easily and is a great, profound source. For others, myself included, it is much more difficult to trust the inner Source.

A repressive home environment where I dared not show my feelings, caused me to cover my own inner wealth with external views. I have no guilt over this, it was simply a child's will to live, adapting to its surroundings.

However strong the repression of my environment, my heart's faint voice I could still hear, barely audible, but there. Lacking self-trust, I turned to books that spoke to that soft heart-voice. Many books were bought and read. My heart lead the way, but my intellect had to be convinced.

The old saying in spiritual circles about peeling the onion certainly applied to my case. I peeled and cried, and roared, and read some more. For most of my life, I read more than anyone else I knew. But it was my heart, calling out to be fed that lead the way.

I found Fritz Perls and Gestalt therapy through reading. Went to a Gestalt therapist who had to literally pry my heart open. I trusted my intellect so little, I would only work on my dreams. But, working on my dreams did break up a lot of barriers hiding my real self.

It became obvious that my heart was trying to pry my brain free from its moorings--a very scary thing. I got into Primals ( read Arthur Janov, The Primal Scream , etc. ). More layers of the personal onion came off.

I picked up You are the World, by the Indian,
J. Krishnamurti, and went to my bathroom to cry in the corner for hours. A book that brings one to tears is a good book. I read everything K. ever wrote.

And there was Joel Goldsmith, The Thunder of Silence. And recently, William Samuel. The point of this little note is that books can lead the way to your heart. I hope my book leads your heart to it's own deepest truth. And you know what?
I believe it will.

Maury Lee

Author Biography - The long version

Maury Lee was raised and educated on three continents. His parents were missionaries, teachers and educators. While they took the "good news" and Western Culture to the natives, Maury Lee was absorbing and integrating African legends, beliefs, and culture. Trying to integrate what he felt, saw, and heard from Stone Age natives, proved a daunting task.

Every year until the age of sixteen, his family moved. Sometimes it was from primitive mud huts to a big African city. Often it was to a different country, and a different language. There was no permanent home, no constant friends, no firm psychological base, except for the Gospel.

With all the moving, and a complete disregard of how the children faired, the Gospel just wasn't enough. Maury Lee saw revolution first hand, the killing, and disease. Psychological security, Gospel or not, was out of reach.

On the other hand, Maury Lee often felt the natives to be warmer, kinder and gentler than the missionaries raising him. How, he thought, could we, a minority be right, and all these natives wrong? As his cultural experiences expanded, his belief that any one culture was right, evaporated.

He was a child without a country. He graduated from high school in Europe, traveled alone at eighteen to the United States, and worked as a laborer, making his way to college in California. He arrived just in time for the hippie scene, drugs, and the Vietnam War.

He remembers those years as pure hell, though drugs were not part of the problem. Even his hippie friends thought he was already too far gone. They didn't want to be around him, nor be responsible for what would happen, if they gave him drugs. An outcast everywhere, he couldn't relate to anyone, especially the laid back Californians.

He had come to California to be as far away from his relatives as possible. But there was no one here he could relate to either. His hair grew long; he wore bell bottoms and sandals. Still, he didn't fit in--always on the outside looking in.

He became the observer. He was inside, looking out through the glass, at everyone else. Never caught up in the crowd, the herd mentality, his observations of self and others, became astute. Reading five times what his college courses required, he sought the peace that passes understanding.

After receiving a BA degree in Creative Writing, Maury Lee married and continued to move, buying and discarding books by the car load. At the age of twenty-seven he had studied every kind of psychology on the market. It was a crucial time, a turning point, for he had decided that he would find peace of mind or gladly die trying. There was nothing left to loose.

He found a Gestalt therapist and began group work. It proved very rewarding, intellectually, emotionally, and physically. He went back to school and got a Masters in Counseling. Meanwhile, he made his living doing every kind of odd job he could find, spending his evenings reading and writing. Over the years his psychological studies turned more and more to the spiritual. He began reading the Eastern gurus--all that he could find. Where was the universal core? That, and only that he knew, would satisfy.

Of course in the end, Maury Lee had to come to terms with the Christian Gospel. You don't loose something pounded into your head from birth. How could the Christian Gospel be reconciled with the other Gospels-- of other nations and other tribes? Maury Lee had learned one thing well-- no culture has a lock on the Truth-- no one culture's Gospel holds the key. They all do!

Jesus of India is the culmination of Maury Lee's struggle. Although this novel is historically based, historical accuracy takes a back seat to spiritual inquiry. As the Eastern philosopher and sage, J. Krishnamurti stated, "Truth is a pathless land." Journeys too, are pathless.

Maury Lee began to wonder, "What would a childhood Jesus have thought and done? How would he have experienced Alexandria, Egypt, Tibet, China, Kashmir and India?" Jesus, traveling the Silk Road at that time would have been able to visit all these places. What if he had?"

Truth is where you find it. Maury Lee makes no claim that it is here. Let the story tell its own tale. Let your own truth, if this book touches it, speak to you. Maury Lee firmly states, "Listen to your own truth. And let that be your only authority."

Maury Lee's Mission

Maury Lee believes the time has come to break open the mind lock the major Christian denominations have held on our Spirituality. He believes that entertainment has a place in deep spirituality. As such, he has written a deeply spiritual work in novel form. No need to read the esoteric works without plot, excitement and adventure. His novel will take you through the unknown life and travels of Jesus, along the Silk Road to Alexandria, Egypt, Kashmir, Tibet and India.

Ride with Mary and Joseph to Alexandria, toting the two year old Jesus to the Intellectual capital of the world at that time. Traipse through the desert with Jesus and his companions as he travels the ancient routes to the Far East. Be, see, and feel what Jesus might have been through, had he traveled to Hemis in Kashmir, and Gandipur in India. And while you're enjoying the great work, find your spirit soaring with the insight Jesus' travels had on him.

If you don't think spirituality has to be dry as bedrock, and you are genuinely curious about spiritual matters, this book my give you the spiritual trip of your life. But be warned! This is not a book for the faint of heart or those who don't wish to have their faith challenged. This book will challenge your faith! Maury Lee's intent is to upset the traditional apple cart of packaged belief.

World consciousness has gained much freedom in the last few years. Spirituality is groaning to cross over the last barricades of the old castle walls. Won't you take a leap of faith and challenge yourself to a new look at who Jesus might have been? Travel with him and see what he might have seen two thousand years ago, slogging across the trade routes of the ancient world. You just might be surprised at just how much fun you can have!

Jesus of India was published October 23,2000 by Xlibris, Inc. It is available directly from the publisher as a trade paperback or e-book. You may also purchase online from the major online book retailers.ENJOY!

You Can Order Jesus of India from:

The links below take you directly to the shopping cart purchase form for Jesus of India.

http://www.amazon.com

http://www.bn.com

http://www.borders.com

http://www.xlibris.com/jesusofindia.html

Xlibris is the publisher, and books ordered from them directly may ship faster. Click any link above to go directly to the purchase form for Jesus of India.

Jesus of India

by Maury Lee

Contact Information

Email: maurylee#swbell.net

(replace the # with an @ to email)

Return to Top