Gautama (1)
On the Website of circleofbeauty.org I have published some books and stories of prophets, dark and radiant,
from a radiant perspective, Whether the people want to believe them or not is their choice. As said many
times, the blind acceptance of any discourse is not faith, and faith is awarded
to one at the peak of rationality,
But people should keep those stories in the back of their minds, evidence will
be revealed in the future ...
How past events are remembered is an art that I explained on a number of
occasions ...
The process of convincing one’s own intellect of their verity is the main
hurdle, before one can say this is or was an actuality.
Gautama was the son of a prince, and
his mother had a dream about giving birth to him,
His mother and her sister looked after him and raised him as a child,
Being his father’s beloved child he was wedded at an early age to a young
woman, so he could have his own descendents,
He had a brother, whose name was Siddhartha, although I’m not sure who was
older,
There was contention between Gautama
and Siddhartha over the inheritance of their father’s principality,
Their aunt believed that Siddhartha was more fit to rule, because he was more
beloved by his people and closer to them,
Gautama wasn’t sure if being a ruling prince was his ambition. He never showed
any interest in it, he didn’t mix with his people to understand their passions
... and was dreamy and loved his solitudes ...
But he did feel that his brother Siddhartha was not a wise man, and unfit to
rule his people, who were surrounded by danger from neighbouring kingdoms ruled
by tyrants ...
The arguments between the two were
heated sometimes, the father was becoming too old to make a decision himself,
the mother wasn’t sure whose side to take, and the aunt was the main driver of
Siddhartha’s campaign to become the ruling prince
Gautama (2)
Gautama’s decision to leave his
father’s estate and his newborn and his beloved wife ... was a sad moment for
him ...
Torn between his love for them and the temptations of life: and his insatiable
desire to find answers to this total absurdity ...: he quit, hoping to gain
total control of himself, and wisdom and power to come back with the true power
to rule ... and set his people on a straight path ...
The schools of ascetics were too many, and their promises were as fancy
as today’s gurus’,
Feeling like an unwanted stranger at
home was the straw which broke the camel’s back,
His brother’s and aunt’s plans were accepted by the dignitaries of their
community, they all wanted him out of the scene,
While war was an imminent and a real threat, he was suggesting making peace
deals with the enemies ... his plans sounded unrealistic to everyone,
The state of that part of the world
was not unlike the Middle East today, except that the weapons weren’t as lethal
and destructive,
But tribal hatred, blessed by the local gods, and an ambition to expand and
subdue smaller kingdoms ...: was everyone’s agenda,
Harbouring those sentiments was the best strategy of self-defence any ruler
could think of ...
Except Gautama, he felt that the peoples and their rulers had to rid themselves
of their passions in order for those conflicts to subside ...
The vicious cycle of offence and self-defence: could be broken only if people
started stepping outside it, but will accelerate and become more violent if
they didn’t ...
But war was only one aspect of human
and indeed all living beings’ misery,
The sight of a pregnant woman or animal, which people celebrated and took as a
blessing from the heavens: to him was a reminder of the suffering of the soul
bound by the physical laws of multiplication and degeneration,
The food and beverages that people enjoyed ... were none but a distraction from
the true aliment of knowledge,
The pleasure of love and physical union which resulted in conception and often
illness ... was none but a bait which had people hooked ...
And none of this came from nothing ... as a matter of fact this was all a dense
manifestation of a spirit ... but this had to be proven
Gautama (3)
At such a young age: the choice to
live an ascetic life is not an easy one,
It is often aided by difficult circumstances,
Such as the case of Prophet Joseph and later John the Baptist,
The pain of leaving loved ones and the comfort of a
good life and a circle of friends: can be heartbreaking ...
But these men had a cause to dare what they dared
...
Perhaps today’s psychologists can see symptoms of manic depression in
such behaviour,
And if examined by them, those men would almost certainly fall in this category
...
However: if you think for a moment that the idea of mental illness didn’t cross
their minds, and doubt in their own thoughts didn’t make its presence obvious
to them ...: you’re wrong,
It is this walk on a knife’s edge: between insanity and certitude: that makes
these men very special,
It is often the case that vision aids
them ...
But how reliable are visions ...?
They are unlike holding a solid rock, that can be shown to others, so that the
doubt about its presence can be shred ...
But then ... there’s something inside everyone’s head that is stronger than
tangible data ...
The will and the courage to embrace it ... is true faith,
And the certainty that this is universal ... renders common beliefs and
convictions fallacious ...
I say this so that the supernatural
wrapping of messengers’ stories is discarded,
If you want to believe that a spirit was guiding them, well yes, but this same
spirit guides everything and everyone else ...
If you want to believe that it is a condition of mind that requires further
study and scientific investigation, again yes,
But in this latter case, the studier has to have an idea about what they’re
about to study:
Can anyone write a book about swimming, analysing its techniques and working
...: if they’ve never ever jumped in the water?
Also, can they write such a book: if they did jump, but panicked ... and came
out of it,
And worse than the self-proclaimed
experts are those who have a strong wish to do the same ...
This is when the case of manic depression or some other condition is present,
The more is known about the working of man’s mind: the more there are
candidates for megalomania:
Those who will go to any end to become famous ...
There’s no way they can be stopped: except if one has the right security gates
and guards: in one’s own mind
Gautama (4)
Gautama had been frequently visiting
a monastery nearby, where the practice of the Eightfold yoga was being taught
...
So he joined, and asked his brother Siddhartha and his aunt to send food on a
regular basis to that monastery,
It has been a tradition in the Far East, since ancient times, that
people donate basic supplies of food to the monks, and it was in the Judaic and
Aramaic tradition too,
The Qur’an’s telling of the story of the House of the Imran’s, of which Mary
the mother of the Messiah was member, says that Zachariah (Abraham) took charge
of looking after her in the monastery where she took seclusion,
The tradition persisted in Christianity ... before it turned into a big
business,
And the commandment in the Qur’an to feed the “orphans” has been taken as a
commandment to feed the children who have lost their parents ...!
If you need a god to tell you to feed needy children, I can tell you there’s no
god in your heart, but only flesh and blood ...
You’re feeding to be seen, and to buy a piece of paradise,
The “orphans” mentioned in the Qur’an refers to the people who have opted for a
life of isolation on the road of salvation ...
Those concepts are now totally forgotten in Abrahamic religions ...
Although the Far East has kept them ... what needs to be done there is a new
adaptation of them for today’s world.
Sadly, Gautama’s request wasn’t
fulfilled, he felt he had been abandoned, and the food for him and his fellow
monks didn’t arrive ...
This put him deeper in despair ... and the determination to rid himself of
self-pity and the suffering of the ego: grew stronger in him ...
He started to see that those difficult circumstances were ... his karma: pointing
him in the right direction,
So he used to sit down for long periods of time ... organising his thoughts ...
and emotions, so that none of them went unnoticed, and each one of them was
dealt with,
The then disciplines of meditation
didn’t answer these questions, in his opinion,
So, there was no point in trying to reach an enlightened state of mind simply
by concentration ... he noted,
If the ego is still alive and well, it will keep nagging for attention,
This is fog ... fog that obscures the Light ... Gautama saw ...
Gautama (5)
Lay down the burden of your ego,
don’t let her rule your mind with her passions: his rational mind spoke to him:
Let me be in control, I know better, I can think better and act better,
But the ego doesn’t give up quickly, like a child spoilt by his loving
parent ... knows that persistent nagging pays off ...
But you don’t have to dislike your ego and curse her as a source of evil, you
just have to tell her that you’re the boss,
After not so long, the right vision,
resolve, action, non-attachment ... however many virtues you can count, and
without using measuring tapes and scales ... the ego is finally is subdued ...
without being resentful of her master ...
Visions of victory over her have been
described in ancient and new discourses ...
Awkward as it may sound, the dead body of oneself can be seen ...
Equally, a baby in one’s arms, happy to be helpless and under the full
administration of one’s mind ...
The confusion of life and death is now redundant ...
So when Gautama said I have seen life, I have seen death, I have direct
knowledge ... he was not referring to physical life and death ...
Why would anyone have to spend so much time and effort to learn what people
know naturally ...?
This is natural knowledge ... even the animal has it ... it does not take a
Buddha to discover it ...
Of course, some might believe that death can be overcome by some magic ...
But people do know right in the core of their consciousness that life begins,
peaks and terminates ...
The culmination of direct knowledge
is the “interview” with one’s soul, the repository of one’s existence ... of
lives from the beginning ... a mirror image of the Cosmos, with his beauty and
majesty ...
Tears of joy might twinkle in his eyes ... an encounter after such long
separation ...
The known techniques then had no idea
what they were looking for, it appeared to him,
They had concepts in their minds, however lofty: they were born in
consciousness ...
Therefore Gautama said: I know the way leading to the cessation of consciousness,
Where there’s truth, “nothing” ceases to exist, and one is now at the doorsteps
of Existence,
But words are bound by concepts,
Hence the many layers of directions
Gautama (6)
Gautama was not the first messenger
to speak about the reality of karma and reincarnation,
Before him and after him, he among others has pointed to it,
The belief in it is one of the tenets of Abrahamic religions, if the religious
authorities read correctly ...
The Ghita talks in a bit of detail about it,
The belief that once a human being becomes enlightened he/she is set
free from the cycle of death and rebirth ... is an oversimplification of the
teaching of Gautama’s or any other messenger’s for that matter,
And the belief that once free: the soul vanishes in nothing ... is a distortion
that can best be described as turning his teaching upside-down,
And the belief that enlightenment is a transition from one state to another ...
and that’s it ... however this state is described and whatever the means to
reaching it ...: misses the whole point of being enlightened ...
It is perhaps the need to supply the
masses with codes of conduct and a cause of inspiration ... that drove
religious authorities in the past to set such religious beliefs and practices
...
The fact that the masses require such beliefs says a lot about their level of
self-knowledge ...
But when self-knowledge is lacking: the worst instruction is that which focuses
on rules of activity and inertia,
It takes over man’s mind ..., and becomes the purpose of life ...
This is attachment,
Attachment to non-attachment ... is also attachment ...
The practice of a ritual for the purpose of wiping out attachment to activity,
and the cessation of activity for the purpose of avoidance of attachment ... :
both are attachment,
Any concept can cause attachment ... whether by fear or desire of it ...
True non-attachment is when there’s awareness of Brahma: the cause of all
causes,
Because when this awareness is present: activity or inertia return to Brahma,
and their karma is absorbed ...
Not by magic or supernatural control,
But because the awareness removes self-interest,
Of course this is not an easy state
of mind to achieve, and certainly not something that can be taught to pagan
people for the purpose of guiding them ...
Those have a lot to learn before ... such as being rational and being human ...
But this is the dilemma of any good teaching ...: it should not be made
exclusive, but neither can it be the subject of a frivolous discussion
Gautama (7)
One of the main philosophical
differences between Hinduism and Buddhism is their opposing perspectives of the
“atman”, referring to “self” in Hinduism, and the “anatman”, referring to
non-self, in Buddhism,
So in his teaching, Gautama mentions that the nature of the physical world is
“anatman” or anata, that is non-self,
Well, yes this can be seen as the
breakdown of the self in a physical expression,
Hence the physical world is seen only as an expression of it, hence impermanent
and ever changing ...
Because not one expression and not
all the expressions combined together is atman,
And similarly with the “soul” of a human being: not a single life, and nor its
lives combined are an integral expression of it,
So if Gautama denied the existence of
the self completely: why would he teach reincarnation as a reality?
Whether you say this self is changing or unchanging, and even if you say its
existence is tied up to material manifestation: at this point is immaterial:
The reality of reincarnation requires
that there’s a soul, energy, self ... whatever you would like to name it ...
which is deposited in a body in consecutive lives ...
Buddhists scholars and monks have to answer this basic logical question,
otherwise their rationality becomes questionable,
To say that this is an accidental
occurrence which will vanish in nothing, upon following meditation techniques:
calls upon the understanding of existence and non-existence:
It is easy to say “nothing”, before actually saying what nothing is,
Inexistence or nothing is an intellectual concept that the intellect envisages
upon examining the different sources of knowledge: sensory data, intellect,
memory, emotions and impressions ... visions ... and the list can go on ...
So in the midst of this the intellect can envisage nothing ... as in emptiness
...
But emptiness is not nothing, if they could go a bit further in their mindful
inquiry:
It depends from which perspective you look at emptiness:
If emptiness is the annulment of image and motion - and hence the annulment of
consciousness: because this one is associated with observation - : this indeed
can be viewed as “all-thing” rather than nothing,
If emptiness is the emptiness of dark space ... well, this is capable of being
lit up, and can host observable “things”: therefore it is not nothing ...
Human thought is fascinated by such
concepts because they are unprovable mentally or experimentally ...
An unprovable concept cannot be taken as a basis of building an entire
philosophical edifice ... this falls short even of modern materialism, in which
all existence is reduced to a “ball” of energy which exploded 14 billion earth
years ago! At least this one sees energy as the source of existence ...
An unprovable concept can only be a
basis of belief and religions: the very frame of mind the teaching of Gautama
is meant to override ...
What people see upon practising
meditation techniques, which silence the mind and the senses: depends on a
preconceived idea ...
This is a fact that all prescribers of meditation techniques have to admit ...
Before getting involved in meditation, practitioners are given an idea of what
they want to achieve,
The straight way is
to be prepared for knowledge that has not been preconceived ...: this one is
direct knowledge
Gautama (8)
Yes, he did deny repeatedly the
existence of the unperceivable non-material spirit, which has to be assumed for
belief to be effected, and whose nature and existence are indemonstrable ...
This is false spirit,
This is the spirit of false faiths and false beliefs,
The reason for being so forward about this matter is too obvious:
As soon as you say that there’s an invisible spirit: there will be an oversupply
of volunteers: dressed up to impress and frighten, armed with wizardry,
well-prepared verbosity and theatricality ... all claiming to be experts in
spirit, and being agents of it ...
Abrahamic and Hindu religions are an illustrative example, and one not to
follow ...
But the belief in emptiness has
barred Buddhists from witnessing any spirit ...
Have they ever wondered where do the virtues of compassion, right resolve,
right action, right speech ...: come from?
Perhaps this is the Atman they should’ve looked at. For this is indeed a
demonstrable atman,
Virtue cannot come from emptiness ...
As a matter of fact: emptiness can be seen as the absence of virtue/atman:
That is anata: that is spiritless existence: which can be conquered by
atman/virtue ...
Their interpretation of his discourse
has gone in a multitude of directions, not unlike Abrahamic religions ...
The thing they can be praised for is their unpreparedness to wage wars against
one another to sort out their ideological differences ...
I find it a total waste of time to study their voluminous philosophic
literature, which has taken the joy of Nirvana out completely, and replaced it
with nihilism,
Their ideology is conducive to depression, self-hate and defeatism ...
And as if all those qualities are signs of wisdom which should be fostered and
fed to grow bigger ...
I don’t care how much endorphin and
other pacifying chemicals their meditation techniques can make the brain
excrete ...
Can these chemicals turn an ignorant man wise and truly happy: if injected in
him?
Don’t be surprised if in the future the chemical composition of self-appointed
enlightened gurus is analysed, and accordingly an artificial potion is
manufactured, packaged and sold ... as a quick recipe for enlightenment ...
Gautama (9)
Gautama didn’t have to discover that
people aged, got sick and died ... those facts couldn’t have been concealed
from him,
But the sight of suffering people, and indeed all beings, ... even the healthy
and wealthy ones, they suffer and cling to phantom hope: was his own suffering
...
The known spiritual disciplines then offered an escape, and promised
salvation,
They seemed to him more like self-torture ... and he wondered where could they
take one to ...
So he would sit cross-legged in meditation ... hoping to see the light, and as
if a switch was going to be switched on ... and many still harbour such beliefs
...
Until one day he was so hungry, and he felt that his mental energy was fading,
and even if a jump into Existence was achieved: he wasn’t going to be able to
reflect it onto his conscious body ...
The connection between body and mind had to be maintained ... for any state of
enlightenment to be “useful” ...
So he took a break, and had a meal, and socialised with friends ... and saw
that ... things were joined together ... as if that ocean of “nothingness” is
now the medium in which image and activity are cast ...
Enlightenment is indeed a state of awareness ... and euphoria of Existence,
When senses are a steering wheel in the hands of one’s mind ...
Even desire ... of any kind: is superfluous now,
It is like fire that is never given a chance to shimmer, to flare and smoke,
because there’s plenty of water to turn it to water ... immediately ...
At that point he saw that he had
jumped into enlightenment ... and a new journey had begun
Gautama (10)
What happens to "souls"
after death is reincarnation, have no doubt about this, and if you have another
theory: there are numerous ideological and political reasons why authorities
would prefer to have this fact hidden,
If you take the Books as your source of such knowledge: have no doubt that all
the Books have told this unequivocally, if the authorities read and interpret
correctly,
The morality that reincarnation inspires puts the onus on the individual,
and whether one is a believer in free will or predeterminism: becomes
irrelevant and self-contradicting,
Well, free will points to consequences and predeterminism points to
consequences: the two are views of the karmic law from opposite directions,
Any belief that denies this truth is more like sticking one’s head in the sand.
If you take reason as your source of
knowledge: just be open minded about it,
Your belief that consciousness vanishes as soon as the chemistry disintegrates
is no more and no less provable than any other theory, hence it is better for
the sake of your own peace of mind to have an open mind: this is precisely what
reasonableness requires ...
Many TV shows have been made: whose
theme is to have the spiritists and the materialists debate this matter: for
the purpose of entertainment, and because it is a major question on people’s
minds: however clever and well-informed they believe they are ...
Neither of them have proof that their theory is correct ...
Reincarnation is a reality that one
knows deep inside one’s head: while materialism falls short of proving its
theories experimentally, and religions stipulate that you assume the existence
of a spirit.
On the other hand: what happens to
the soul after having been enlightened: can only be speculative, and should be
our least interest or concern,
Religions and political ideologies want you to believe that if the entire world
adopts their beliefs everything will be fine,
Fanciful thinking ...
It is therefore best if people sought the universal values of justice,
cooperation and compassion on which all agree: this guarantees the freedom of
belief: as a two-way street: so that one’s rights are preserved, and others’
rights are respected
Gautama (11)
Although enlightened, Gautama told
his friends that he was going to be reborn soon to resume his mission ...
This time not as the son of a prince, and without the fanfare,
As a poor and ordinary man he came in contact with the local monks,
He was fascinated by the Mahabharata, the work of
Ganesha in one of his incarnations,
The history and events featured in the Mahabharata
were a true account ...
Inspired by the beauty of heavenly poetry, he wrote
what is now known as the Bhagavad Ghita,
The supposedly educated monks and experts in
Sanskrit had no interest in it, and read nothing in it ...
The man was no one to them, and could not have
spoken any truth ..., they thought,
With help from friends who had essence, read and
believed it, the Ghita was calligraphed and inserted in one available text of
the Mahabharata,
It went unnoticed for tens of years, and wasn’t
fully recognised as a work of an Avatar until centuries later ...
The people who adopted it took a different
philosophical and religious path,
The Buddhist monks rejected it, and still do,
People who notice the lightening, and are elated to
the music of the thunder,
People whose breaths are taken by the sight of a
glorious sunrise or sunset ...:
Don’t keep on foraging with cattle, unable to look
above the rubbish of the soil,
Those are very blessed ones ...
They come to this world enlightened, and
enlightened they leave
Gautama (12)
Many self-appointed
Buddha’s have come and gone, claiming to be incarnations of Gautama or other
Avatars ...
The system of recognising them: using objects which they wore or possessed ...
is not foolproof,
Recollection can easily be staged or fed into children’s minds ...
The person currently sitting in the Dali Lama’s seat is not a Buddha, judging
by his teaching and his political bias ...
His attempt to popularise Buddhism is perhaps well-intent, but yields little
... in the present, when the foundations of false beliefs of warring religions
need to be exposed, so people understand why karma has brought so much
suffering to all ...
The Buddhism he has preached has been a good escape for Westerners from the
fallacies of Abrahamic religions, but fails to expose their philosophic errors
...
A Buddha should act according to the currents of the ocean of the truth, not
those of politics and power play,
And the rituals he practises should reflect perennial realities ..., rather
than being a tool for advertising and an emotional numbing exercise ...
On our website: critique of his behaviour and the statements he has made has
been said,
He was in the past the founder of the school of thought which confuses nihilism
with happiness, and therefore cannot see any truth ..., and a denier of the
incarnations of the Buddha,
It’s about time he abdicated ...
At his old age he is owed dignity and respect, but his popular teaching has no
value outside its popularity,
As for the one who calls himself Sai Baba, the rabbits that he pulled out of
the hats are an old trick,
If he had any truth to deliver he would know that magic is not one of them ...
It’s only a ploy for dazzling people’s minds ...
And I see that the system of confirming the incarnations of Buddha’s by their
paraphernalia needs to be scrapped altogether, so that charlatans and their
servants are given less chance to make their way to top spiritual positions ...
Of course this will make it harder for the true Buddha’s ... but that’s the way
it should be,
There’s only one criterion for recognising Buddha’s: and that’s by the
knowledge they bring forth,
And knowledge is something that cannot be defined ...
And with the abundance of information today: it has been easy for any clever
person to gather enough of it: to sound like a wise guy ...
The process of identifying Buddha’s can never be a precise science ...
This is the nature of this world now, and has been for some time,
Will the heavens in the future make the separation between the agents of
darkness and the agents of the Light easy: is a different theory for every
group of beliefs,
Perhaps they all can see now that their theories have been blown away, as most
of them have dishonoured their covenants and broken their oaths ...
The prophecies told in the Books will not materialise to any particular group’s
hopes and wishes ...
There’s no point at this point in time to say that a particular belief is the
true one ...
And most of the heads of religious institutes have fallen in the traps of
self-righteousness ..., they are enjoying their final karmic payments: in
luxury and fame
Gautama (13)
When Karma installs someone in a
position of authority: they have to carry out what their position entails ...
In the last half-a-century we’ve seen personalities take up religious
positions, and every time there was a new installment hope was rekindled in our
minds: that this was a fresh start in religious understanding and religious
inter-relations,
Many of them, however, have failed to live up to expectations, with the
exception of a very few ... that we have mentioned on
this Page and on our website ...
The religious figure who stands out nowadays is the
Karmapa Ogyen, and COB has expressed its view about his spiritual rank and
authority,
At the early age in his early twenties the Karmapa
has demonstrated his witness of truth, and spoke by inspiration, and not by
reciting text straight from the Books, and without a premeditated plan ...
If some people can’t see this it’s OK, but barriers
should never be built in one’s mind because of preconceived beliefs ...
One can argue: so how come this Page has rejected
some teachers?
The reasons for rejecting those teachers have been
expounded,
And there comes a point when things can be put
behind forever, and equally trust can be put somewhere forever ...
In any case, people should never follow any
teaching blindly,
If they feel emotionally attracted to an idea or a
personality: that’s fine, but the pursuit of seeking knowledge never stops: and
if sufficient effort is invested: truths continue to become lucid: and dust can
be sifted from the jewels: with open-mindedness and self-assuredness,
This is a joyful and continuous journey ... and any
belief that is built on: once you’ve accepted this argument and rejected that
one you have been initiated: is illogical, and doesn’t make people “better”
except by their own definitions,
And worse are the beliefs which say if you were
born to this group of people you are a chosen one ... because this is our god’s
irreversible will ...
It is about time that faith is put where it
belongs: in people’s minds,
Not in stones, statues, people or books ... or
supernatural gods ...
It is time that the “worship of god” be understood
correctly: to be the pursuit of knowledge and the refinement of character, in
whichever way this is expressed ...
The Middle Way is the way between opposing theses,
which by their nature of oppositeness are anata,
If you have to use them: do so without being
attached to them, so you can discard them as soon as their purpose has been
exhausted, because you are aware of the spirit above them
