Budha dev

Fore-word

SIDDHARTH-GOUTAM-BUDDHA

(Copy right protected by Dr. G.S. Tripathy)

Siddharth_Goutam_Buddha was a man - not a God as it is depicted by many. He was an able teacher, a great reformer but not a savior like God.

In his life there are two different sides - social and individual. Lost in the joy of his inner meditation, the familiar Buddha image is of a meditating sage both withdrawn and absorbed.

When he is concerned with the sorrow of humanity, there is other side of Gautama’s life. A second tradition matured in the then north India, based on this compassion for humanity which developed as the ideal of salvation with the discipline of devotion for the way of universal services under the kusans and Guptas.

The former tradition prevails in Thailand, Burma and Ceylon where as the latter appeared in Japan, China, Korea, Tibet & Nepal.

That Gautam strove and attained transcendental wisdom by sitting under the Bodhi tree; he pointed a path for liberation from the world of suffering. That Buddha was the founder of Buddhism had been agreed upon by all forms of Buddhism in the world. The essential unity underlying many differences in outlook is the root of the matter whose expression came to characterize Buddhism as it spread from India to other parts of the world.

Gautam Buddha was born, grew up and died as a Hindu only. He did not feel that he was preaching a new religion. With a new emphasis, the ancient ideals of Indo Aryan civilization were being restated by him only. For the incomparable safety, fearlessness, abhaya, moksa, nirvana, he had his quest for religious India through and through.

A spiritual experience was aimed at by Buddha where all selfish craving is extinct with every fear & passion. Accompanied by the conviction of having attained spiritual freedom, it is a state of perfect inward peace which can’t be described by words. It knows what it is only he who has experienced fully.

It has been pointed out by Buddha that God belong to the world of manifestation. Hence he can’t be called absolutely unconditioned. Non-existences have its co-relative existence. The unconditional is beyond both existence and non-existence.

Buddha can’t be higher than that of Brahma even though his followers do believe in their own ways differently.

About the inexpressible, when the educated indulged in vain speculations the uneducated treated God as a being who could be manipulated by magic rite or sorcery. It makes little difference how we live if Almighty forgives us any way at the discretion. Against the ignorance and superstition the dread and the horror the Buddha had revolted, which accompanied popular religion. With dogmatism theistic views generally fill the minds of men and their hearts with intolerance. The world has been filled with doctrinal orthodoxy mingled with strife unhappiness, unjustice, crime and hatred.

A stream without an end is the conception of the world as SAMSARA. To all Indian systems like Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Sikh the law of KARMA that functions is common. Everything is temporary including Gods who took their birth in this SAMSARA. Even death is not permanent for it must turn to new life.

Buddha does not say that man has no control over his future. An “Arhat” attains Nirvana that a man can work out his future. A fatalistic view is not accepted by Buddha. The everlasting destiny cannot be determined by the conduct of the individual during his life time, according to him.

For the strenuous life, the Buddha was not an ardent exponent. He was following the middle path. According to Buddha man is to conquer time, overcome samsara and he is to follow the moral path which results in illumination. The reality of an unchangeable self for the self could not be conceded by Buddha which is something that can be guilt up by good thoughts and deeds.

Nirvana assumes freedom of the subject of inwardness while karma relates to the world of objects of existence in time. Man can standout their existential limits. The void of the world to get beyond it can be experienced through nothingness only.

There must come upon the individual a sense of agonizing annihilation, a sense of certification, a sense of bitter nothingness of all the empirical existence which is subject to the law of change in order to standout of objective existence.

There is something which survives death, though it cannot be described if death is not all, if nothingness not all. Feeling perception formations, thoughts which are the impermanent, changeable and non-substantial. That ‘I’ is the unconditioned, something which has nothing to do with the body. He becomes detached from them and becomes free when the individual knows that what is impermanent is painful.

If an ‘I’ is something like it the indispensable prerequisite of this is a higher consciousness. This ‘I’ is the primordial essential self. This is unconditioned; the realization of this gives us liberty and power.

That there is no self at all, from this it does not follow. Though it is the only content that can be known objectively, the ego is not the only content of the self. To attain “Nirvana” there is another side to our self which of course helps us.

To strive for salvation, Buddha asks us to be diligent. In this connection he is referring to the inward principle which is not swept away by the current of events not controlled by outward circumstances. From the usurpations of society, this protects itself. This does not submit to human opinion where jealousy guards it rights.

Having broken all bonds the enlightened is free. The ascetic has gained mastery over himself.

When he attained “Nirvana” Buddha was far from being dissolved into nonbeing. By the erroneous notions, Buddha was no longer conditioned. To be free from the characteristics Buddha realized himself that constituted an individual subject. From the sphere of dualities he had vanished.

He would be unjust to himself if any one looks with disgust of any fellow being who is sick or dead. We must not find fault with any human being who limps or stumbles on the road.

We will become brother of all if we learn what pain is. Buddha was an offshoot of the more ancient faith of Hindus. It is perhaps a schism or a heresy. As a new and independent religion Buddhism had not been started, Buddha inherited on the fundamentals of metaphysics and ethics while he agreed with the faith. Against certain practices, he protested which were in vogue at that point of time. In the Vedic ceremonialism, he refused to acquiesce.

To bring about a reformation in religious practices was the main object of Buddha, with a return to the basic principles. Hindus did not attack it in the way in which Buddha did.

Our Geet Govind described Buddha as the ninth, Avatar of visnu which is totally and basically wrong. Of course it is an accepted view of many who blindly look him as an Avatar knowing fully well the he was the son of Sudhodan, a zamidar of Kapilavashu is the then Kalinga. In a sense the Buddha is a maker of modern Hinduism in his own way. Free from prejudices, Buddha aimed at the development of a new type of free man intent on working out his own future.

Whether we like it or not, inspite of political divisions, the world is one. With those of others, the fortunes of every one are linked up.

Humanism of Buddha crossed the real and national barriers. But in the souls of mankind, the chaos had been reflected with the chaotic condition of the world affairs. In spirit, history has become universal.

In spite of all its blunders and follies what we need today is a spiritual view of the universe for which this country has stood. This may blow through life again bursting the doors and flinging open the shutters of man’s life.

The lost ideal of spiritual freedom must be recovered. We must maintain inner peace if we wish to achieve peace and tranquility, which are essential elements of peace. To its love, the free spirit sets no bounds. It recognizes in all human beings a spark of the divine.

Except that of wrong doing, it casts off the fear and passes the bound of time and death.