Brain Top Off!

More than 2,500 years ago, Prince Siddharta Gautama was born in what’s now called Lumbini in Nepal. He was born a prince and his birth was received all sorts of uncommon signals that suggested a life of greatness. The prince’s father went to a wiseman that lived in the kingdom for guidance concerning his son.  The sage man believed that the prince, Siddharta Gautama, would either follow in his father’s  footsteps and become a great king or he might become a spiritual leader.

Praying that his son should develop into his heir, the king managed his best to separate the prince from those things that might encourage him in the direction of a spiritual existence.  The prince was bombarded by comfort  and excess, all of the advantages that his royal placement could offer.  Siddharta Gautama proved to be a smart scholar and excellent sportsman.  He wed a lovely woman whom he loved and  they  bore a son.

At the age of 29, the prince learned that the world around him was a great deal more complex than he experienced in the walls of his palace.  Out and about amidst the people of the kingdom, he  observed reality: sickness, old-age and death. The surprise of this finding left the youthful prince shaken. He made the decision then to dedicate himself to ending the suffering. Leaving his wife and child, the prince forsaked his worldly belongings and embarked on a spiritual quest.

Guatama started a course of study under several teachers to master their methods. With the aid of Alara Kalama, he began to comprehend meditation and discovered an exalted form termed absorption.  This permitted him to accomplish a state of nothingness where there is no moral or cognitive dimensions. While this was helpful it was obvious to the former prince that it wouldn’t solve the suffering he  had observed.  Guatama carried on his hunt for other people who could guide him on his spiritual quest.  Udraka Ramputra, aided Gautama to comprehend a state of neither perception or non-perception,  but this to was not precisely what he was looking for. The next step in his journey led Gautama to Uruvilva in Northern India.  It was there he chose an ascetic path, living a life of deprivation for nearly 6 years. This only led to the degradation of his entire body, weakness and self-destruction. Even though it cost him his five followers, Gautama rejected this ascetic lifestyle.

The end of this spiritual quest looked as far away as ever, so the Buddha sat down under a Bodhi tree and proclaimed that “flesh may wither, blood may dry up, but I shall not rise from the spot until Enlightenment has been one.”  After forty days and nights of thought and meditation, the Buddha at long last achieved Enlightenment.

It is the Buddhist belief that at that moment he achieved a state of being that exceeds anything else in the world. Our normal experiences are based on preconceptions and circumstances: how we were raised, our ordeals, faults and mistakes. Enlightenment is a state when the complicated internal workings of life become obvious and the cause of man’s suffering discovered.

For the next 45 years, the Buddha journeyed through much of what is now northern India. He taught the way of Enlightenment to any or all that wanted to understand. This teaching had become referred to as the dharma or “the teaching of the enlightened one.     The Buddha took numerous disciples who in turn achieved their own Enlightenment and so they trained others.

Buddhists believe Buddha achieved a state of being that flows beyond anything else in the world. If regular knowledge is based on conditions – childhood, mindsets, viewpoints, perceptions, and so forth – Enlightenment is Unconditioned. It was a state when the Buddha gained insight into the deepest workings of living and for that reason, into the reason for human suffering, the problem that had set Him on His spiritual journey in the first place.

The Buddha statue we often see doesn not represent a god and didn’t consider himself as a divine person. He was simply a man who endeavored to transform himself through self reflection and meditation. Buddhists see him as an ideal and his journey as a guideline that can lead them on the path to enlightenment.  Most homes that practice Buddhism will display some type of Buddha decor like a statue of Buddha, but this is intended to remind them of their own spiritual journey.