These days I have been reading on Gautam Buddha, in his respective biographies. While reading about him, his life, and his doings I really found him an inspiring character.
Buddha means 'the enlightened one'. And Gautam Buddha was one of the greatest religious teachers that the world has seen. His teachings expounded in Buddhism, are immensely popular in Burma, China, Japan and other South Eastern Countries.
Talking about his early life……….Siddhartha was made to lead a very sheltered life as the astrologers had predicted that he would give up worldly pleasures to follow a different path. The King wanted to avoid this at all costs and so did not let him out of the palace. He hoped that Siddhartha would one day become king.
When Siddhartha had grown into an intelligent young man, he ventured out of his palace one day, and chanced on a few sights that changed the course of his life. He first saw a very old man who could barely walk, a sick man who was in a great deal of pain, and lastly a corpse. He had never been exposed to pain before, and so these sights had a deep effect on him. His servant explained that pain and death were inevitable.
All these sights disturbed him and he went out of his house, leaving all the amenities of life in the search of truth and the end of pain and misery. When he went through many people who were following the same path, he himself concluded that when one follows a midway between very easy or happy going life and very harsh and painful life, we can overcome all desires which are the root causes of grief and misery.
For 45 years, Buddha spread his message of a spiritual life. He did not believe in rituals but pointed to an 8 - fold path towards salvation - that of right speech, understanding, determination, deeds, efforts, awareness, thinking and living. Even in the contemporary world which we call modern, live on the discriminatory bases of rich or poor or castes etc. Whereas as he at those times taught us to live a life of equality where none was inferior or superior. He taught us to be non-violent and the path of peaceful life, he said the life is a gift of god to everyone and none has a right to take it away accept for god. Though being purely non-violent Buddhist path affected people of this religion with miserable happenings in their lives when they could not save themselves from the attackers especially in the areas at the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan which had a strong hold of Buddhism. Now these areas are totally Muslim and Buddhism is completely wiped out. What is left there is violent Taliban who recently broke the sacred old and preserved statue of Gautama Buddha.
