Buddha Gautama Buddha : (c.563-c.483 BC) Sri Aurobindo: “Buddhahood according to the doctrine of the Buddhists… is the soul awakened from its mundane individuality into an infinite super-consciousness.” ― “Krishna opened the possibility of Overmind with its two sides of realisation, static & dynamic. Buddha tried to shoot from mind to Nirvana in the Supreme, just as Shankara did in another way after him. Both agree in overleaping the other stages & trying to get at a nameless & featureless Absolute. Krishna on the other hand was leading by the normal course of evolution. The next normal step is not a featureless Absolute, but the Supermind.” [CWSA 13:153 & 28:488]
... tell you that it is to the Gautama Buddha of India they pray, but in fact, each one of these branches of Buddhism, and many more, has its own conception of the Buddha, and it is the conception of a godhead which is worshipped in statues, much more than a divine being, so... If you show me a statue and ask me, "In this statue is there the influence or the presence of the Buddha as you know him?", I could... for political ends, but that is not at all interesting. Page 199 × An English documentary on the Buddha: Gautama Buddha. × Prayers and Meditation , 20 and 21 December 1916 . ... you exactly as it is here. I am asked: "Is the real Buddha you know, whom you speak of in Prayers and Meditations, 2 the same as the one whose statues are worshipped?" Statues... there are thousands of statues of the Buddha. There is the Buddha as he is known in India, the Buddha known in Ceylon, the Buddha known in Tibet, the Buddha known in China, in Cambodia, Thailand, Japan and elsewhere ...
... Bodhisattvas. Only after Gautama Buddha appealed did we come to know that he was the thirty-second Bodhisattva, while Dipankar was the first. But all that depends on who has said it and whether there is any proof of it. DR. MANILAL (to Sri Aurobindo): Do you disbelieve it? SRI AUROBINDO: Disbeliefis easy. Beliefis difficult. But it does not matter at all whether Buddha and other Bodhisattvas existed... AUROBINDO: I don't know, I have never met one. DR. MANILAL: If these stories can't be believed, then Buddha's recounting of all his past lives is also not true, not correct. SRI AUROBINDO: How to know whether they were correct or not? PURANI: Besides, who reports those stories? Is it Buddha himself? DR. MANILAL: Then all that is said about Krishna and Arjuna and the Gita can't be believed... DR. MANILAL: Buddha says— NIRODBARAN: Where? DR. MANILAL: In the book. (Laughter) SRI AUROBINDO: You remind me of a British worker who said, "It must be true because I saw it in print." (Laughter) DR. MANILAL: In that case all Buddhism and jainism are false. NIRODBARAN: Not Buddhism! PURANI: Why false? There are records by which it could be proved that Buddha did exist whereas ...
... impermanent, fleeting, and the old motives of action are no longer sufficient. This may be the result of a spiritual development through one's actions in life. It is the mind turning to know things. Gautama Buddha saw human suffering and asked, "Why this suffering?" and then, "How is one to get out of it?" That is Sattwic Vairagya. Pure Sattwic Vairagya is when one gets the perception of the littleness of ...
... Has not Housman declared that pride and pageantry and power and passion Page 111 Walk the resounding way To the still dwelling? And what about the greater than these - Gautama Buddha? Has he not summed up all earth-existence in one word; dukkha, sorrow? Surely he did not mean that pleasures were not there; his vision cut through these pleasures and found in them that essence ...
... Psychologically the new leaven was brought in and injected by Gautama Buddha – the un-Vedic Buddha– the external invasion and penetration was possible because of this opening already made from within. This injection was necessary as an antidote to the decline and fall that had set in sometime between the passing of Sri Krishna and the advent of Buddha. But traditional India absorbed this new leaven and came ...
... them through, to resort to civil disobedience. Sri Aurobindo : But in that case again there may be another Chauri Chora ! Disciple : He also spoke at Bombay on the Anniversary of Gautama Buddha and said Buddhism was not given sufficient trial. Sri Aurobindo : Christianity and Buddhism, I am afraid, will ever remain without being given a trial. They make such a demand on human... all European thinkers : it is about the Indian Spirit. He traces the influence from Buddha and Mahavira to Gandhi; and for the Europeans that is the whole of the Indian Spirit ! Disciple : I believe Tagore is partly responsible -for that, as it is he who many times has insisted on the gospel of Buddha – whatever that may be, for various people have different ideas about it – as the only... only way for the salvation of humanity. Sri Aurobindo : I think partly at least it is Tagore who has Page 65 made the idea current on the continent that Buddha is the beginning and the end of the Indian Spirit. Formerly, Rolland never thought about Asia; he was busy with his European unity and European culture etc. Remain Rolland does not appear to be such a great intellect ...
... else existent. brahmarandhra — (in yoga) the opening at the top of the skull the Buddha —Gautama Buddha also known as Tathāgata (c. 563-c.483 BC), the renowned father of Buddhism. His personal name was Siddhartha. After realising the Truth, he became known as the "Buddha" ("the Enlightened"). buddeḥ paratastu saḥ — that which is supreme over the intelligent will ...
... giving the example of Gautama Buddha leaving his house at dead of night to relieve the suffering of mankind. It is an action which he did intuitively, instinctively or under an inspiration of his inner being. When he did it, even fifty square miles around they did not know anything about that action. It was an age when transport and communication were very primitive. Gautama Buddha's abandonment of his ...
... became the Enlightened One, Gautama, the Buddha. He had gained the haven of peace, and through the power of inward culture and of love over the human heart, had come to rest at last on a certitude that could never be shaken. 1. Mathuratha Vilasini, Journal of Bengal Asiatic Society, vii, 812, 813. Page 94 Transition to Teacherhood The Buddha had arrived at Nirvana, utter... some aspects of the Buddha's method of teaching. In the first story, the Buddha's teaching is addressed to a woman named Kisagautami whose child has just died and who wants the Buddha to bring him back to life. The fact that the Buddha teaches a woman is quite revolutionary at the time, because although in the old Vedic tradition women had a place of honour, when the Buddha came in the sixth century... mortals, a teacher of gods and men, a Buddha. Come, Bharadvaga, let us ask him and whatever he says, let us agree on it." "Very well", assented Bharadvaga. Then the young Brahmins went on to the place where the Buddha was staying. When they reached there, they exchanged greetings with the Buddha and sat down beside him. The young Brahmin Vasettha said to the Buddha: "As we were taking exercise, walking ...
... death are forms of misery, birth and being alike are in themselves wretchedness. To cease to exist, to withdraw from the field of Becoming is thus the ultimate goal of the aspirant. Did not Gautama, the Buddha or the Illumined, exclaim after his great Illumination: "Through countless births have I wandered, seeking but not discovering the maker of this mortal dwelling-house, and still, again... repugnance to all existence as the great Buddha who, according 1 The Life Divine, p. 823. 2 Ibid., pp. 738-39. Page 346 to tradition, felt sore at heart and went out on his Nirvanic quest when he, a young and happy prince, met for the first time with cases of destitution, decrepitude, disease and death. Buddha's contemplation led him to assert the un ...
... much to legislate as to harmonize and see that everything was going on all right. It was generally administered by a Raja; in cases it was also an elected head of the clan, as in the instance of Gautama Buddha's father. Each ruled over either a small State or a group of small States or republics. The king was not a law-maker and he was not at the head to put his hand over all organizations and keep them ...
... by Sri Aurobindo is unrivalled in the world of philosophy. He understood the problem of pain and explained it and also pointed out a way out of it. Why is his explanation different from that of Gautama Buddha ? No comparison or competition is implied; the Light in the past has served man and continues to do it. Our effort is not to go back to the past; we can't. What has been done has been assimilated ...
... Evolving India Was this the Enlightened One? Modern Misconceptions about Buddha The other day I came across an article on Buddha by an Indian writer. I took it up with keen interest, wondering how it would expound Buddha's Nirvana in lucid journalese. It made a good story, but to my disappointment I found that the author got over the Gordian... Neurotic", saying that Buddha dwelt overmuch and morbidly on life's miseries and evinced an extreme unbalanced recoil of the nerves from them. I do not argue that a great intellect or a keen moral sensibility is incompatible with neurosis. Yet to put Buddha in the same category as a man like Nietzsche is to shoot wide of the mark. The author did not actually lump Buddha and Nietzsche together... joy to last without end that Buddha looks on all living as a frustration of what life aims at, openly or in secret. That frustration is dukkha. Buddha is not a feverish fool irrationally refusing to acknowledge temporary joy and taking a jaundiced view of earth-existence. His philosophy is not a species of melancholic depression, A Freudian conception of Buddha will satisfy just as little ...
... Life of Buddha as Legend and History. London and New York: Routledge,1975. ¦ Way of the Buddha, The. Publication Division: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Gov. of I India. (Published on the occasion of the 2500th anniversary of the Mahaparanirvana of Buddha). ' Page 56 ...the adoration group of the mother and child before the Buddha, ... of the Buddha, known also as Gautama and Sakyamuni, has fascinated people throughout history. That he was born around 560 BC in the Himalayan town of Kapilavastu, into the Sakya clan, and given the name Siddhartha, which means "wish fulfilled", is part of what is agreed to be factual of the beginning of the Buddha's life. Later tradition recounts the appearance and early life of the Buddha through... Ananda K. Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism. New York: Verry, 1964. David-Neel, Alexandra. Buddhism : its Doctrines and its Methods. London: B.I. Publications, 1977. Dhammapada, The. Trs. Thera Narada. London: John Murray, 1972. Saddhatissa, H. Buddhist Ethics. London: Alien & Unwin, 1970. The Buddha s Way. London: Alien & Unwin, 1971 The Life of the Buddha. New York: ...
... The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 8 IV GENERAL Buddha and Shankara (I) To escape from life is a teaching based on the view that life is an illusion. The teaching began with Buddha. Buddha said that life or existence is the fruit of desire and that there was only one way of getting out of the misery, namely, to go out of existence. Shankara... one cannot realise the Divine. For him the Divine—the Supreme Divine—did not exist. I believe his view was something to that effect. In any case, for the Buddha there was no God. Both of them came in contact with something true and real. Buddha had surely an inner contact with something which, in relation to the outer life, appeared to him as non-existence and in this non-existence all the consequences... that in contact with the external world. Its presence and its action will bring changes inevitably, a total transformation, we hope, in the external world. (2) There is no doubt that Buddha had the first part of the experience; but he never thought of the second part, for it was contrary to his own theory. That theory was that one must escape. And it is obvious that there is only one ...
... a shoreless expanse in which generations rise and fall as helplessly and purposelessly as waves in mid-ocean; the individual is everywhere dwarfed and depreciated; one solitary great character, Gautama Buddha, who "perhaps never existed," is India's sole contribution to the world's pantheon, or for the rest a pale featureless Asoka. The characters of drama and poetry are lifeless exaggerations or puppets ...
... was quite unwilling to describe. The denial of anything beyond the world except a negative state of Nirvana was a later teaching, not Buddha's. If Buddha really combated and denied all Vedantic conceptions of the Self then it can be no longer true that Buddha refrained from all metaphysical speculations or distinct pronouncements as to the nature of the ultimate Reality. The view you take of... would be a great improvement in the world, but for Buddha's purpose that could be an incidental result and not at all part of his central object. You say, "Buddha himself urged the necessity to serve mankind: his ideal was to achieve a consciousness of inner eternity and then be a source of radiant influence and action." But where and when did Buddha say these things, use these terms or express these... is no individual existence. This is Nirvana. Buddha himself always refused to say what there was beyond cosmic existence; he spoke neither of God nor Self nor Brahman. He said there was no utility in Page 428 discussing that—all that was necessary was to know the causes of this unhappy temporal existence and the way to dissolve it. Buddha, it must be remembered, refused always to discuss ...
... Right Law; difficult indeed is the advent of the Enlightened One. [5] Never commit a sin, cultivate good, purify the mind – such is the teaching of the Buddhas. [6] The Buddhas declare that forbearance whose other name is patience is the supreme austerity, Nirvana the highest station. That one is no monk who harms others, oppresses others. ... wise one is born, all his people attain happiness. [16] Happy is the birth of the Buddha, happy the teaching of the True Law, happy the solidarity of the Commune, happy the united austerity of all. [17&18] He who adores the adorable Buddha or his disciples, such as those who have passed beyond the creation, transcended grief and falsehood, such as... [11] But these are not the sure refuge, these are not the best. To take refuge in them does not relieve you of grief. [12] Take refuge in the Buddha, in the Law, in the Cummune and observe with right knowledge the four High Truths that are: [13] Suffering, the Origin of suffering, the Transcendence of suffering and the ...
... effect. And Buddha showed it magnificently. And of course, Shankara too who followed in his footsteps. To abrogate the matter of fact, rational view of life in order to view it spiritually, to regard it wholly as an expression or embodiment or vibration of consciousness-delight was possible to the Vedic discipline which saw and adored the Immanent Godhead. It was not possible to Buddha and Buddhistic... did not matter; it was the product of illusion or wrong view of things; one was asked to ignore or turn away from this and look towards That. Such was not the Buddha's procedure. These are the two primary truths - arya sarya-which Buddha's illumination meant and for which he has become one of the great divine leaders of humanity. First, he has discovered man's rationality, and second, he has discovered... But the Age of Reason had to come, and man's maturer nature, perhaps some "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought". Such an age of Reason and Ratiocination and pure brain power was ushered in by Buddha in India, and almost contemporaneously by Socrates in Greece and Confucius in China. The rational, that is to say, the scientific or analytical attitude to things appeared in the human consciousness ...
... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4 Buddha and Shankara (1) To escape from life is a teaching based on the view that life is an illusion. The teaching began with Buddha. Buddha said that life or existence is the fruit of desire and that there was only one way of getting out of the misery, namely, to go out of existence. Shankara... cannot realise the Divine. For him the Divine – the Supreme Divine – did not exist. I believe his view was something to that effect. In any case, for the Buddha there was no God. Both of them came in contact with something true and real. Buddha had surely an inner contact with something which, in relation to the outer life, appeared to him as non-existence and in this non-existence all the consequences... put that in contact with the external world. Its presence and its action will bring changes inevitably, a total transformation, we hope, in the external world. (2) There is no doubt that Buddha had the first part of the experience; but he never thought of the second part, for it was contrary to his own theory. That theory was that one must escape. And it is obvious that there is only one ...
... conveyed by them? ...It is "presence" in or behind some body and behind some outer personality. Also "presence" in what part of the world? If the Mother were in Rome in the time of Buddha, how could Buddha know as he did not even know the existence of Rome? I did not mean that you or the Mother needed to cast off your veil. It is those Great Men who should have recognised you... power of the Divine. Some Vibhutis like Julius Caesar for instance have been atheists. Buddha himself did not believe in a personal God, only in some impersonal and indescribable Permanent. Still I can't understand one thing: even though you did not cast off your veil, how could people like Buddha or Christ not help casting off their veil (or ignorance) in order to recognise you? ... the past may not have recognised your presence amongst them, especially when outwardly both of you may have had personalities like those of ordinary human beings. But how is it that even Sri Krishna, Buddha or Christ could not detect your presence in this world? Page 282 Presence where and in whom? If they did not meet, they would not recognise, and even if they met there ...
... embrace, in Buddhism itself, it is not Buddha's humanism that is the living core: the heart of his message is Nirvana, the direct experience of an undifferentiated superhuman infinity and permanence beyond all phenomena - an experience, by the way, which is nothing essentially new to ancient Hinduism. "As the taste of water from all the seas is salt," said Buddha, "so too the taste of all my teachings... teachings is Nirvana." Remove Nirvana from Buddhism and you rob Buddha's own life of its central significance. Buddha did not come merely to state the equality of human beings: his chief mission was to inculcate and irradiate a spiritual realisation lifting us far beyond humanity and his very emphasis on human equality was born of his mystical perception of the limitless immutable Presence in which earth... Becoming which is the world. The primal facts to be reckoned with are, in Buddha's view, world and non-world. The splendours of mystical nomenclature, the sublime entities of spiritual scripture, the metaphysical ultimates of religious hymnody and liturgy are absent and in their place is a super-pragmatism. In reality, of course, Buddha under the Bo Tree or moving amidst his monks or preaching to the populace ...
... supreme importance upon the NOW. NOW is the hour for decision. Deluded is he who is always thinking 'tomorrow I will do better. Buddha once handled the problem of procrastination in a rather startling fashion. It is told that upon meeting King Pasenadi of Kosali, the Buddha asked him this seemingly casual question: 'What have you been doing recently?' The king replied: 'Lord, I am afraid I have been... filled with all kinds of things—none of them very serious or actually important, but I have been busy.' The Buddha however, seeing that 'busyness' tends to serve as an excuse for inaction in important matters, told King Pasenadi the story of the moving mountain. ‘Supposing’, said the Buddha, ‘that an overwhelming catastrophe were to strike the country, perhaps a violent breakup of the earth's crust... would accept the inevitable, have faith, make amends where he could for his past misdeeds and embrace death with a good heart while living righteously in the time he had left. ‘And yet’, said the Buddha, ‘surely all reliable messages carry the news that such a mountain is rolling remorselessly towards us for is not old-age and death approaching, and are not all barriers ineffective?’ Wide-awake ...
... nothing is said, but it would not be likely—many, of course. Buddha as an Avatar He [ Buddha ] affirmed practically something unknowable that was Permanent and Unmanifested. Adwaita does the same. Buddha never said he was an Avatar of a Personal God but that he was the Buddha. It is the Hindus who made him an Avatar. If Buddha had looked upon himself as an Avatar at all, it would have been as... theory of Avatarhood. As to whether one accepts Buddha as an Avatar or prefers to put others in his place (in some lists Balaram replaces Buddha), is a matter of individual feeling. The Buddhist Jatakas are legends about the past incarnations of the Buddha, often with a teaching implied in them, and are not a part of the Hindu system. To the Buddhists Buddha was not an Avatar at all, he was the soul climbing... impersonal Truth. If a Divine Consciousness and Force descended and through the personality we call Buddha did a great work for the world, then Buddha can be called an Avatar—the tapasya and arriving at knowledge are only an incident of the manifestation. If on the other hand Buddha was only a human being like many others who arrived at some knowledge and preached it, Page 500 ...
... "Presence in Thyself" means nothing. It is "presence" in or behind some body and behind some outer personality. Also "presence" in what part of the world? If Mother were in Rome at the time of Buddha, how could Buddha know as he did not even know the existence of Rome? I did not mean that you or the Mother needed to cast off your veil. It is those great men who should have recognised you in spite of... is a power of the Divine. Some Vibhutis, like Julius Caesar for instance, have been atheists. Buddha himself did not believe in a personal God, only in some impersonal and indescribable Permanent. Still I can't understand one thing: even though you did not cast off your veil, how could Krishna, Buddha and Christ not help casting off their veil in order to recognise you? Why should they? The... Page 88 I can understand how ordinary people in the past may not have recognised your presence, especially when you lived outwardly like human beings. But how is it that even Sri Krishna, Buddha or Christ could not recognise your presence in this world? Presence where and in whom? If they did not meet, they would not recognise, and even if they met there is no reason why the Mother and ...
... Aurobindo and the Mother Champaklal's Treasures - Edition-II The Buddha’s Smile Friend, sister of former days and always, In your letter of the 9th June which has just arrived, you write that the Buddha is smiling with gentle irony", but the Buddha's smile can only be a smile of perfect understanding before a luminous accomplishment. And in this state ...
... importance for us here because by means of the traditional hints at our disposal it is through him we reach the approximate time of Buddha and through that time the epoch of the Bhārata War. We have fixed the bracket 1248-1168 B.C. as the most probable length of Buddha's life of 80 years. With our point de depart there, we may follow Raychaudhuri in what obviously strikes him as the most credible... These facts enable us to identify him with Assalāyana of Savatthi (a city in Kosala) mentioned in the Majjhima Nikāya [11.147, et seq. ] as a famous Vedic scholar, and a contemporary of Gotama Buddha and, hence, of Kakuda or Pokudha Kachchayana." "Kachcha-yana" is the Pall for "Kātyāyana", and "Kabandhī" equates to "Kakuda": see The Indian Historical Quarterly, 1932, 603 ff. Apropos of this equation... of ketubha, i.e., kalpa or ritual, makes it exceedingly probable that he is to be identified with the famous Aśvalāyana of the Grihya Sūtras." Consequently the latter must have lived in Buddha's time, which for us is the 12th century B.C. "Gunākhya Śānkhāyana, whose teacher Kahola is honoured by the famous GrhyaSūtra-kāra, cannot be placed later than that century. That the upper limit of ...
... conveyed by them? ...It is "presence" in or behind some body and behind some outer personality. Also "presence" in what part of the world? If the Mother were in Rome in the time of Buddha, how could Buddha know as he did not even know the existence of Rome? Page 77 I did not mean that you or the Mother needed to cast off your veil. It is those Great Men who should... is a power of the Divine. Some Vibhutis like Julius Caesar for instance have been atheists. Buddha himself did not believe in a personal God, only in some impersonal and indescribable Permanent. Still I can't understand one thing; even though you did not cast off your veil, how could people like Buddha or Christ not help casting off their veil (or ignorance) in order to recognise you? ... the past may not have recognized your presence amongst them, especially when outwardly both of you may have had personalities like those of ordinary human beings. But how is it that even Sri Krishna, Buddha or Christ could not detect your presence in this world? Presence where and in whom? If they did not meet, they would not recognize, and even if they met there is no reason why the Mother and ...
... a Buddhist has come to see the Ashram. He says Buddha didn't teach that the world was full of evil. SRI AUROBINDO: Oh! PURANI: But I asked him whether or not Buddha said that the world is "full of sorrow" and that "one must escape from it"? SRI AUROBINDO: Not full of evil but that it is undesirable. PURANI: He also makes out that Buddha spoke of a divine consciousness. SRI AUROBINDO:... AUROBINDO: I see! DR. MANILAL: He meant Nirvana, probably. SRI AUROBINDO: Buddha didn't mean that by Nirvana. Of course he didn't say what Nirvana is. PURANI: This man doesn't believe in the Jataka stories of Buddha. NIRODBARAN: Tell it to Dr. Manilal. DR. MANILAL: Why? I believe in them. SRI AUROBINDO: That is just the point. DR. MANILAL: Are there no previous births. Sir? PURANI:... past and what is future becomes present. SRI AUROBINDO: So there is past and present. DR. MANILAL: How, Sir? What we call "just now" has already become past. So there is no present. Mahavira and Buddha were at one time present but they no longer exist. SRI AUROBINDO: If time were indivisible, they should exist now. You speak of from moment to moment. DR. MANILAL: Relatively, Sir. SRI AUROBINDO: ...
... of ignorance, sorrow, fear, evil in their many impersonations, the remedy the Buddha proposed was the triple blessing of enlightenment, liberation and peace. The maladies are still current in our midst, and hence the remedy, in its essentials, is no less broadly relevant our own fear-haunted age. According to the Buddha, the extremes of asceticism and self-indulgence are to be shunned in favour of... Christ; and although primarily addressed to Buddhists, it has a message for all, and will have always a freshness of its own. Whether or not the verses in the Dhammapada were actually uttered by the Buddha, they doubtless convey the general sense of his oft-repeated exhortations and admonitions to his followers. Comparing the Dhammapada with the Bhagavad Gita, N.K. Bhagawat writes: "Both purify the... II While giving readings from the Dhammapada and commentaries on them followed by meditations, the Mother was not only putting the children of the Ashram in rapport with the core of the Buddha's teaching, but she was also offering, when relevant, certain qualifications, amendments and additions to that ancient teaching in the light of Sri Aurobindo's and her own world-view. Once, indeed, ...
... according to this positive psychologist and philosophic critic the intuitions of Buddha and other Indian sages had no basis in any intellectual process of any kind or any verifiable experience. It is on the Page 257 contrary the simple fact, well-known to all who know anything of the subject, that the conclusions of Buddha and other Indian philosophers (I am not now speaking of the inspired thought... this day in danger of being upset by Einstein's "fantasies" in the same field. It is a minor matter that Mr. Archer happens to be wrong in his idea of Buddha's intuition when he says that he would have rejected a certain Vedantic intuition, since Buddha neither accepted nor rejected, but simply refused at all to speculate on the supreme cause. His intuition was confined to the cause of sorrow and the... immobile pose and an insipid, by which I suppose he means a calm passionless face. 1 He turns for comfort to the Hellenic nobility of expression of the Gandharan Buddha, or to the living Rabindranath Tagore more spiritual than any Buddha from Peshawar to Kamakura, an inept misuse of comparison against which I imagine the great poet himself would be the first to protest. There we have the total inc ...
... disciple of the Buddha, of the Perfectly Awakened One, rejoices only in the extinction of all desire. Impelled by fear, men seek refuge in many places, in the mountains, in the forests, in the groves, in sanctuaries. But this is not a safe refuge; this is not the supreme refuge. Coming to this refuge does not save a man from all sufferings. One who takes refuge in the Buddha, in the Dhamma... sage is born, those around him live in happiness. Happy is the birth of the Buddhas, happy the teaching of the true Law. Happy is the harmony of the Sangha, happy the discipline of the United. Page 247 One cannot measure the merit of the man who reveres those who are worthy of reverence, whether the Buddha or his disciples, those who are free from all desire and all error, those who... On the Dhammapada On the Dhammapada Questions and Answers (1929-1931) The Awakened One (The Buddha) He whose victory has never been surpassed nor even equalled—which path can lead to Him, the Pathless, the Awakened One who dwells within the Infinite? One in whom there is neither greed nor desire, how can he be led ...
... and devotion. They consider Buddha an Avatar. SRI AUROBINDO: It is the Mahayana path that goes through devotion. But isn't it a fact that all Buddhists utter: Buddham saranam gacchami, dharmam saranam gacchami, sangham saranam gacchami?5 Buddha himself couldn't have said it, for he said that one to do everything by one's own effort. SATYENDRA: It is said that Buddha turned back from the gate Nirvana... Nirvana. SRI AUROBINDO: I thought it was Amitabha Buddha who refused to enter Nirvana. He is venerated very deeply in Japan. Modern European scholars are now trying to prove that Budddha's life-story was a later invention. PURANI: The Tibetan Lamas are believed to be in a direct line from Buddha. But to find the true Dalai Lama is not easy at all. You know about the various signs by which he... bhuteshu, meaning all creatures, not men alone. SATYENDRA: But how is one to make a practical application of it? SRI AUROBINDO: That depends upon the individual and his temperament. SATYENDRA: Buddha wanted liberation not only for himself but for the whole of mankind. SRI AUROBINDO: It was not liberation he wanted; what he wanted was to be beyond the suffering of existence. SATYENDRA: Still ...
... against Buddhism and Advaitic Illusionism. They are, according to Sri Aurobindo, responsible for India’s deterioration because of their exclusive concentration on “the other world”. He esteemed Gautama the Buddha (563-483 BC) as gifted with a “penetrating rational intellect supported by an intuitive vision”, 11 and called Adi Shankara (788-820 AD) “easily the first of metaphysical thinkers, the greatest... converted whole peoples. Sri Aurobindo and Mirra took an outspoken stance against what the latter called a “supreme act of egoism” that escapism from the world and from life in all its aspects is. “Buddha and Shankara supposed the world to be radically false and miserable; therefore escape from the world was to them the only wisdom. But this world is Brahman, the world is God, the world is Satyam, the... course. But what seems to be little remembered about the latter is that he represents a totally new chapter in Indian philosophy and spirituality. We have already seen how he distanced himself from the Buddha and from Shankara. “I seek a text and a Shastra [scripture]”, he wrote, “that is not subject to interpolation, modification and replacement, that moth and white ant cannot destroy, that the earth ...
... horse of breed. [22] Full of happiness and delight in the pursuit of the Buddha's discipline, the Bhikkhu attains the state of perfect peace, the felicity that is cessation from all contingents. [23] The young Bhikkhu who yokes himself to the Buddha-discipline illumines the world even like the moon freed from the clouds. Page 247 ... One who has no attachment for any name and form and does not grieve at their disappearance, him they calla Bhikkhu. [9] One who moves as a friend, who is happy in Buddha's Laws, .attains that happy seat of existence where all contingencies cease. [10] O Bhikkhu, bailout your boat, thus it will become lighter. Even so, cast out your attachments ...
... some Power, and under the influence of education and tradition calls it Buddha or Christ or by any other familiar name. It is difficult to affirm that it was Buddha himself or the very Christ with whom there was the contact, but none can assert either that the inspiration did not come from that which inspired the Christ or the Buddha. These human vessels may very well have received the inspiration from... to be the only, the original, the undefiled doctrine of the Buddha. The same fate overtook the teaching of the Christ; that too came to be made in the same way into a set and organised religion. It is often said that, if Jesus came back, he would not be able to recognise what he taught in the forms that have been imposed on it, and if Buddha were to come back and see what has been made of his teaching... One." I knew one who affirmed that he was both Christ and Buddha! He had received something, had experienced a truth, had seen the Divine Presence in himself and in others. But the experience was too strong for him, the truth too great. He became half crazy and the next day went out into the streets, proclaiming that in him Christ and Buddha had become one. One Divine Consciousness is here working ...
... sculptors, painters, scientists, polymaths, rulers, statesmen, conquerors, administrators. Asoka, Chanakya, Chandragupta, Akbar, Shivaji, Guru Govind Singh, these are in the golden roll-call as much as Gautama Buddha, Mahavira, Sankara, Ramanuja, Chaitanya, Nanak: All this mass of action was not accomplished by men without mind and will and vital force, by pale shadows of humanity in whom the vigorous... out for particular comment the adoration group of the Mother and Child before the Buddha, "one of the most profound, tender and noble of the Ajanta masterpieces". The moment the painter has successfully caught is the child's awakening (as the mother has already awakened) to the spiritual joy of adoration of the Buddha: . ...the motive of the soul-moment the painting interprets is the dedication... Archer can recognise is a high Rajasic activity or the Homeric type of heroism and noble endurance, and hence he needs must belittle Indian life and literature: The calm and compassion of Buddha victorious over ignorance and suffering, the meditation of the thinker tranced in communion with the Eternal, lifted above the seekings of thought into identity with a supreme Light, the rapture of ...
... By acquiescing in Buddha's doctrine of the doom of the body we erroneously take a present condition for an everlasting one. It is quite obvious that the body as at present inhabited by us decays and dies. But Sri Aurobindo discerns no inevitability of decay and death. What is the doom Buddha speaks of? Who or what has fixed the doom? The doom, to Buddha, is consequent on the body's... in Nature as final? We must if our attitude is, like Buddha's, illusionist. Buddha's logic is binding only if our attitude argues no support or archetype of the body in the Spirit. Give up illusionism and the logic crumbles down. Declare that it is the Spirit that has become all things immediately we unchain ourselves from Buddha's dictum. For then there must be, unknown to us, a connection... used by sages like Krishna and Buddha." Two implications I read in your belief. One is indirect - namely, that reality has been "insighted" in past ages and that all we can do is to repeat their performance: the new faculty is in fact old and is new only for those who have not developed it. The other and direct implication is that Sri Krishna and Buddha had the same insight into reality ...
... NIRODBARAN: When Dilip saw that Krishnaprem makes Nirvana and Samsara equal according to Buddha, he revolted. That was too much because Buddha has always been against Samsara. SRI AUROBINDO: Of course, Buddha never said that. Krishnaprem speaks according to the Mahayana. Mahayana went much further. Buddha didn't say what Nirvana is and he did not say that Nirvana and Samsara are equal. PURANI: ...
... (Laughter) MULSHANKAR: Could Buddha be said to have a transformed nature? His actions and discourses don't seem to have been inspired from the human mind. SRI AUROBINDO: He used human reason and logic in his discourses. DR. MANILAL: Nirod won't agree that Buddha didn't have a transformed nature, being a Buddhist himself. He will take the side of Buddha. SRI AUROBINDO: Well? NIRODBARAN:... window and his cold would be cured. He did that. NIRODBARAN: He was quite childlike in many such matters. SRI AUROBINDO: But was it acting from the Divine Consciousness? DR. MANILAL: What about Buddha, Sir? Was he not transformed? SRI AUROBINDO: He had knowledge. Knowledge is not transformation. People are using the word in any sense just like the word supramental. It is I who have first used... NIRODBARAN: I didn't say that Buddha was transformed. But as for applying human reason and logic, you also do the same with us. SRI AUROBINDO: That is because I have to speak to the human mind, so I have to apply human logic. DR. MANILAL: By what tests or actions could one judge that one's nature is transformed? Is there no such criterion? SRI AUROBINDO: You are asking like Arjuna in the Gita, "How ...
... Siddhas crowded in Siddhasila come in? Like all religions it is fantastically illogical. Buddha also said the same thing, but the religion says: "Buddham Saranam Gachchhami." So also in Jainism. Disciple : In Jainism self-mortification persists. In Buddhism there is not. Buddha gave it up after a trial. Buddha and Mahavir were contemporaries but they don't seem to have met. Mahavir was born in ...
... practically transmuted or replaced Buddha's vague & undefined Nirvana by this actionless & peaceful Atman, the shanta akriya Sacchidananda, substituted for Buddha's false world of subjective sensations a false world of erroneous ideas starting from the original self-deception of duality, and accepting Buddha's law of karma as applicable only to this false world and Buddha's means of escape Page 498 ... substituted knowledge of real self for Buddha's knowledge of non-self as the essence of that act & the true culmination of inner experience & meditative reason. Shankara like Buddha refuses to explain or discuss how active consciousness came at all to exist on the surface of a sole Self-existence which is in its very being shanta and inactive; he drives, like Buddha, straight at the actual fact of our... actual teaching of the Buddha. He left the ultimate metaphysical question aside and fastened only on the practical fact of this bound & troubled sensational existence and that ineffable bliss of release & escape. To escape, that is the goal & end of man. But who escapes? Buddhism denies God, denies the existence of the Atman. There is no one who escapes, only the escape itself. Buddha avoided always the ...
... but that he was the Buddha. It is the Hindus who made him an Avatar. If Buddha had looked upon himself as an Avatar at all, it would have been as an Avatar of the impersonal Truth. You say Buddha achieved Illumined Mind and Ramakrishna the Intuitive. According to your explanation, Intuitive plane appears to be on a higher level than the Illumined. How is it then that Buddha's works and manifestation... with what happens in the universe. Buddha's Permanent is the same. People say that Buddha's Ahimsa was the main cause of India's falling an easy prey to foreign invasions, for it made her absolutely devitalised, inert, passive. Rather doubtful. Buddhist kings generally did not hesitate to fight or to take life. Though I don't believe in Ahimsa, Buddha's or Gandhi's, I feel a shrinking when... said or thought infallible? If Buddha was an Avatar, his denial of the existence of God amounts to the cutting of the very branch on which he was sitting; he makes man the sole arbiter of his destiny! Why so? On what branch or what tree was he sitting? He affirmed practically something unknowable that was Permanent and Unmanifested. Adwaita does the same. Buddha never said he was an Avatar of a ...
... of the Hindus. Kalki? Yes, Kalki. The description is very similar. And the Maitreya Buddha, too. Yes, but it seems we should be more cautious about him. According to Alexandra David-Neel, it's not a truly authentic text, it came afterwards, after Buddha's descendants: it isn't what Buddha himself is said to have preached. There is a controversy here. Of course, Alexandra belonged to... fancies of the Buddhism of the North with its innumerable bodhisattvas and all the stories (they've got so many stories! pulp novels). And she rejected all that, saying it wasn't part of Buddha's authentic teaching. Buddha said that the world, this terrestrial world (maybe the universe, I don't know, the point isn't very clear), in any case the terrestrial world is the result of Desire (but I know someone... and that when "Desire" disappears, the world will disappear and there will be Nirvana. In other words, once the desire to manifest has disappeared, there is no Manifestation anymore. I don't think Buddha was ignorant; I think he knew very well the existence of invisible beings, of immortal beings (what men call gods) and probably the existence of a supreme God, too—he very likely knew it. But he didn't ...
... both a movement in space and a movement in time; and it is the struggle between Light and Darkness for "the soul of the world called Satyavan". In the Buddha story and the Jesus story, there is a struggle, but the Buddha and Jesus are alike passive, and aim only at preserving the purity and calm of their inner paradise against the onslaughts of Mara and Satan respectively. In Savitri... forces of Good and Evil can be as exciting as, perhaps even more exciting than, a voyage, a quest, a climb, in search of the lost Grail or the veiled God. The traditional stories of Siddharta the Buddha mention a prolonged battle that the Enlightened One gave to the forces of Evil (Mara) under the Bodhi Tree. Mara tempts Gautama Siddharta in various ways, including the offer of a world-wide Kingdom;... Of evil faces peering, of vast fronts Terrible and majestic, Lords of Hell Who from a thousand Limbos led their troops To tempt the Master. But Buddha heeded not, Sitting serene, with perfect virtue walled As is a stronghold by its gates and ramps... 129 Page 332 Jesus too is likewise tempted in the wilderness ...
... within, make the endeavour. 2 September 1931 Ordinary Consciousness and Awakening Somebody writing a biography of Confucius in Bengali says: "Why do the Dharmagurus marry, we can't understand. Buddha did and his wife's tale is heart-rending [হৃদয়-বিদারক]." Why? What is there বিদারক in it? He goes on: "Aurobindo Ghose, not a Dharmaguru, though he may be called Dharma-mad [ধমর্পাগল]"—how... why this change comes soon after marriage." Perfectly natural—they marry before the change—then the change comes and the marriage belongs to the past self, not to the new one. "The wives of Buddha and Ramakrishna felt proud when they were deserted." Then what's the harm? "If married life is an obstacle to spirituality, then they might as well not marry." Page 228 No doubt... such an unmitigated ass, Confucius may be allowed to be unwise once or twice, I suppose. I touch upon a delicate subject, but it is a puzzle. Why delicate? and why a puzzle? Do you think that Buddha or Confucius or myself were born with a prevision that they or I would take to the spiritual life? So long as one is in the ordinary consciousness, one lives the ordinary life—when the awakening and ...
... use of the fist is necessary. If a ruffian comes, then you have to use the fist - your love and compassion will not have any effect. Buddha said: by love conquer anger, by honesty conquer dishonesty, and conquer the miser by generosity. So here too Buddha upholds non-violence in a way, but I may warn you that he's not an ordinary human being but a great yogi, so he does not fit into the category... ordinary men. What he does by his soul-force, we can't. Here is an example of it: his cousin was very jealous of him, always tried to harm him. Once he let loose a mad elephant when Buddha was coming with his disciples. Buddha was unperturbed, the elephant rushed towards him, but he remained calm and quiet, and the mad elephant became calm. Mahatma Gandhi was a great advocate of non-violence in ...
... speaking I saw Buddha —I saw him clearly, not above her head, but a little to the side. He was present." A slow smile spread across her face. "Well then, after the lecture, I was introduced to her. I didn't know the sort of woman she was! So I said to her, 'Oh, Madam, during your speech, I saw Buddha there.' "She answered me back," Mother took on an angry tone of voice, "'Impossible! Buddha went into... fight she was engaged against those who hold on to the idea that 'spiritual life' means abandoning the earth and going off to some faraway Nirvana. "But I," she said, "I always reply with the story of Buddha. Just as he was about to enter into Nirvana, all of a sudden he saw that the earth must be changed —and he stayed back." Then she described her first meeting with Alexandra David-Neel. "I remember ...
... The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 8 The Origin of Desire From where does desire come? Buddha said that it came from Ignorance. It is almost that. Desire is something in the being which imagines that it requires an object other than itself for its satisfaction. This is sheer ignorance, proved by the fact that in 99 cases out of a hundred when one has the thing... enjoy beauty, for the anguish of desire will pursue you. You lose true enjoyment but do not get anything in return. There is no happiness in desiring something. It only puts you in an unhappy state. Buddha also said that there was a greater joy in overcoming a desire than in satisfying it. Everybody can make this experiment and have the experience. It is-quite interesting to do so. When you give ...
... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4 The Origin of Desire FROM where does desire come? Buddha said that it came from Ignorance. It is almost that. Desire is something in the being which imagines that it requires an object other than itself for its satisfaction. This is sheer ignorance, proved by the fact that in ninety-nine cases out of... enjoy beauty, for the anguish of desire will pursue you. You lose true enjoyment but do not get anything in return. There is no happiness in desiring something. It only puts you in an unhappy state. Buddha also said that there was a greater joy in overcoming a desire than in satisfying it. Everybody can make this experiment and have the experience. It is quite interesting to do so. When you give up ...
... Chinese martial arts, although it is only recently that Taoist martial arts have spread beyond the bounds of Chinese Asia. Similarly, the philosophy of Buddhism, founded by the Prince Gautama Siddhartha Buddha who was born in north-eastern India around 560 BC, has profoundly affected the martial systems of all countries where the two have met, be it in China, Japan, India or South East Asia. ... invading religion. Meanwhile, Indian monks travelling to China to disseminate the Buddha's teachings passed on the road Chinese monks on their way to India. They were pilgrims visiting the holy places where the Buddha had passed parts of his life, and were searching for the sutras and sastras of the Buddha's teaching that had been written down in the traditional manner on palm leaves. Most... and even the Buddha was not needed. Ch'an Buddhist teachings say: 'you will find the Buddha if you look directly into your inner essence'. Ch'an Buddhism, a religion in which postulants seek sudden inner enlightenment, is without objects of veneration. A telling quotation from about 840 sustains this view. A Ch'an master, Hsuan-Chien, is recorded as having said 'There are no Buddhas, no Patriarches ...
... he has been taking birth always since the beginning. It is not that God is above somewhere else and has to come down. He is always here and everywhere. Only he has to manifest his Divinity. Did Buddha live in the Supermind? His aim was not to produce superman. His idea was to realise all this as the impermanent manifestation of the Permanent, to leave this and always remain in the permanent... Birth is a bondage so long as one is in the mental being. It only appears so. But if you look at the thing from above then there is no such thing, one is not affected by birth and death. Then Buddha did not achieve perfection of his nature? He may have entered the higher ignorance. You see there are infinite movements of the higher consciousness in Nature. Human mind can occupy itself with ...
... was not so much to legislate as to harmonise and see that everything was going on all right. It was administered by a Raja in cases, also, an elected head of the clan, as in the instance of Gautama Buddha. Each ruled over either a small State or a group of small States or republics. One was not at the head to put his hand over all organisations and keep them down. If he interfered with them he... inherent inborn nature. Profession then became the mark of the caste. Now, even this has broken down – what continues as caste is meaningless. Many meaningless things continue in humanity. Before Buddha there were Kshatriyas in Bengal. When Buddhism collapsed there remained two castes – Brahmins and Shudras – other castes rightly resented being called "Shudras". In old times the agriculturist ...
... Talks with Sri Aurobindo 22 JANUARY 1940 Purani showed Sri Aurobindo four pictures of Buddha's life by Nandalal Bose published in the Bombay Times . SRI AUROBINDO (after seeing them) : They are not realistic pictures. Buddha remains young till the end. His Nirvana doesn't look like Nirvana but like going to sleep, nor does it show that he had indigestion... dancing, in the usual modern style. SRI AUROBINDO: Ah, this is a masterpiece-bacchanal! (Laughter) PURANI: I didn't want you to see that. SRI AUROBINDO (after some time) : Why do they say that Buddha, after passing through four dhyanas, entered Nirvana? How do they know it? NIRODBARAN: That is the Pali text. All of them say that. SRI AUROBINDO: Now they are trying to prove that sukara khanda ...
... clear that the first period of the ancient history of India cannot be accurately dated, but it is supposed to have been extended from an uncertain date upto the birth of Buddha. It is true that even the date of the birth of Buddha is somewhat controversial, but still, it was not later than 550 or 560 B.C Thus the first period of the ancient Indian History may be said to extend from about 10,000... movements that took place in the succeeding periods of Indian history. The second period begins with the birth of the Buddha to the fall of the Mauryan empire. This covers the period from 560 B.C. to 200 B.C. This period witnesses the remarkable life and work of the Buddha, the invasion of Alexander the great, the establishment of the Mauryan empire under the lead of Chandragupta Maurya and ...
... in this illusion you cannot realise the Divine. For him there was not even the Divine, I think; for the Buddha, at least, there wasn't any. Then did they truly have experiences? That depends on what you call "experience". They certainly had an inner contact with something. The Buddha certainly had an inner contact with something which, in comparison with the external life, was a non-existence;... why do all the spiritual schools in India have as their doctrine escape from action? Yes, because all this is founded upon the teaching that life is an illusion. It began with the teaching of the Buddha who said that existence was the fruit of desire, and that there was only one way of coming out of misery and suffering and desire; it was to come out of existence. And then this continued with Shankara... put it into contact with the outer world. So its presence and action will produce inevitable changes and, let us hope, a total transformation in what this outer world is. So we could say that the Buddha quite certainly had the first part of the experience, but that he never dreamt of the second, because it was contrary to his own theory. His theory was that one had to run away; but it is obvious that ...
... the lecture, and while she was speaking, I saw Buddha—I saw him clearly: not above her head, a little to the side. He was present. So after the lecture, I was introduced to her (I didn't know the kind of woman she was!), and I said to her, "Oh, Madam, during your speech I saw Buddha present." She answered me ( in a furious tone ), "Impossible! Buddha is in Nirvana!" ( Mother laughs ) Oho!... "Better... want to get away, I want to get away." That's indeed the first movement: you climb up above, but it will be to come back down and change things HERE—it's not to abolish them, but to change them. Buddha represented the height of abolition. He led to abolition and represented the height of abolition. Very well, but... That's when the summit was reached, when the summit was seen. But we must come back... place!" But, you know, I am desperately struggling against all those who conceive of spiritual life as... brrt! you go off. That's just the beginning. As for me, I always answer with the story of Buddha: as he was about to enter Nirvana, he suddenly realized that the earth had to be changed... and stayed on. I remember, once, it was with Madame David-Neel. It's very interesting. She came to give ...
... tradition. SRI AUROBINDO: Apart from the subject, art has something which is extremely important, but the subject, too, has its value. If it is all mass and balance, why call in Buddha then? The image or figure of Buddha is supposed to express the calm of Nirvana. If you are not able to feel that or if the art hasn't been able to bring that out, then you don't appreciate the art. PURANI: It is... SRI AUROBINDO: But that is decorative, not aesthetic. PURANI: Yes, he takes the current modern view of art. He says one must see the balance and mass, etc., in a work of art, for instance in a Buddha seated in a triangle. SRI AUROBINDO: That is again scientific art, not aesthetic, and besides, has modern art no subject? PURANI: Agastya answers Sarkar by saying that by the Indianness of Indian ...
... of the Buddha. Wherein lies the difference? The goddess Venus is in no way superior to a human being. A finely modelled face, well-formed limbs, beautifully chiselled nose, eyes, ears, forehead – in one word, she is the paragon of beauty. Softness and loveliness are reflected in her every limb. The Greek goddess marks the highest human conception of beauty and love. But the image of the Buddha is not... not entirely flawless. No doubt, it is the figure of a human being, but an anatomist will certainly be able to point out many defects and flaws of composition in it. The image of the Buddha in the state of deep self-absorption does not represent a man in contemplation, but it is a symbol of concentration; it is meditation personified. This is the special character of Oriental Art. Oriental Art does... sentiment and emotion through an exact portrayal. Its object is to give an adequate form to the idea itself. The Buddhist sculptor gives an expression to the supernatural state of realisation which the Buddha attained when he was on the verge of losing himself in Nirvana. The sculptor is not concerned with the elegance or correctness of the bodily limbs; his only care is to see how far the abstract idea ...
... is supra-rational, hence it must be mysterious. Buddha in that way was most logical. He was concerned with how things started and got stuck together and how to unstick them and make oneself free. It is the Upanishad's standpoint—psychological. Shankara bringing in Maya created the difficulty. SATYENDRA: Isn't there some difference between Buddha's and Shankara's ultimate goals? SRI AUROBINDO:... AUROBINDO: Yes. Shankara speaks of the One and the One-in-Many. For Buddha there is no ultimate Self of all; each by his own effort attains separate liberation. Radhakrishnan is now trying to prove that Buddhism believes in the Self. But then illogicality will come in. SATYENDRA: The Tibetan Buddhists say that Nirvana is a half-way house. SRI AUROBINDO: What is beyond? SATYENDRA: That I didn't find ...
... further step and transmutes Ananda into Love, a terrestrial humanised love. An earlier form of this humanised love was given in Buddha's Compassion. The transcendent Delight (Ananda) Page 182 was made terrestrial and human in Buddha. But Buddha's compassion was a universal feeling and had no personal frame as it were. Vaishnavism gave it a personal frame and a human form. Radha ...
... Vaishnava takes a further step and transmutes Ananda into Love, a terrestrial humanised love. An earlier form of this humanised love was given in Buddha's Compassion. The transcendent Delight (Ananda) was made terrestrial and human in Buddha. But Buddha's compassion was a universal feeling and had no personal frame as it were. Vaishnavism gave it a personal frame and a human form. Radha and Krishna ...
... laughing ) on what He is driving at! We can very well conceive that He may be carrying on some very different experiments. And so you could go from one experiment to another, you see. It would be as Buddha said: it's attachment or desire that keeps you here, otherwise there's no reason for you to stay here. ( Satprem protests wordlessly ) Everything is possible to me, you know, absolutely everything... that possibility [of death as an exclusively earthly phenomenon] is what we could term "historically" correct, it would sort of legitimize the attitude of those who get away from it. How is it that Buddha, who undeniably was an Avatar, laid so much stress on Deliverance as the conclusion of Page 329 things? He who stayed behind only to help others... to get away faster. Then that means he... different modes, and if to be here is merely a matter of CHOICE... then the choice is free, of course—there are those who like conquest and victory, and those others who like doing nothing. But Buddha represented only one stage of consciousness. AT THAT TIME it was good to follow that path, therefore... We can conceive it was a particular necessity within the whole, of course. But these are ...
... Names of the Three Thousand Buddhas Practice. From December 31 to January 3 the names of the three thousand Buddhas are copied individually, accompanied by prostrations and chants. In the tenth month of 918, So-o sequestered himself in Myo-o-do, offered incense and flowers to the image of Fudo Myo-o, sat facing the west, and serenely repeated the name of Amida Buddha as he entered eternal meditation... to his transformation into a Buddha. This is why the emergence of a marathon monk from doiri is compared to Sakyamuni Buddha's descent from the Himalayas following his Great Awakening. As one of the gyoja's relatives remarked, "I always dismissed Buddhism as superstitious nonsense until I saw my brother step out of Myo-o-do after doiri. He was really a living Buddha." . . Around 3:30 A... Takagawa were sequestered at the twin temples of Jogyo-do and Hokke-do. The ceaseless nembutsu involves constant revolution around the hall while chanting endlessly, "Hail to Amida Buddha, Hail to Amida Buddha." In the beginning, Sakai felt as if he were walking on air gliding around the hall; later it was if he were traipsing through deep mud. He slept poorly in the two hours of rest-meditation ...
... The fourth phase of the fulfilment is an integral part of “the avataric field”. This may seem a matter of belief. A look back at the avataric mission of the Buddha and Christ, however, provides concrete evidence. At the time the Buddha left his body, little seemed to be left of his superhuman effort except the presence of some followers in a corner of what is now the Indian state of Bihar. The... Avatar is one who comes to open the Way for humanity to a higher consciousness – if nobody can follow the way, then either our conception of the thing, which is also that of Christ and Krishna and Buddha also, is all wrong or the whole life and action of the Avatar is quite futile. X seems to say that there is no way and no possibility of following, that the struggles and sufferings of the Avatar are... well have stayed above and done things from there.” 8 “An Avatar or Vibhuti have the knowledge that is necessary for their work, they need not have more. There was absolutely no reason why Buddha should know what was going on in Rome. An Avatar even does not manifest all the Divine omniscience and omnipotence; he has not come for any such unnecessary display; all that is behind him but not ...
... Page 276 raw and against the grain. Hinduism had to accept the corrections; in the process it had to absorb, however, many elements contrary to its nature, even antipathic to its soul. Buddha was accepted as an Avatar; he was given a divine status in the Hindu Pantheon. Divested, apparently, of all heterodoxical and controversial appendages, he was anointed with the sole sufficing aspect... creation has a fundamental basic reality. Behind the fleeting appearances there is a solid truth of Being. Everything else may pass away but That abides for ever. This is Hindu or Vedic tradition. The Buddha says, take off the elements that compose the creation one by one, nothing would remain in the end. Creation is only an agglomeration of discrete elements; there is nothing behind them or within them... (4) The Vedic Rishis declared with one voice that all existence is built upon delight, all things are born out of delight and move from delight to delight, and delight is their final culmination. Buddha said misery is the hallmark of things created; sorrow is the marrow and pith and the great secret of existence. Sabbe samkhara anichcha. Sabbe samkhara dukkha. Sabbe dhamma anatta.¹ ¹ ...
... that he lacks spiritual knowledge; "for Buddha too had much to say" and yet "experience-wise Buddha is like Ramana". Surely here Rajneesh refutes himself out of his own mouth? If Buddha, who said a great deal, could be equal to Ramana in knowledge, Sri Aurobindo with his abundant speech need not be devoid of knowledge and could be at least equal in it to Buddha and Ramana! In the matter of "descent ...
... comes. Disciple : The materialist and scientist say that Yogis have done nothing for human happiness. Buddhas and Avatars have come and gone but the sufferings of humanity are just the same. Sri Aurobindo : Did Avatar come to relieve the sufferings of humanity? It was only Buddha who showed the way of release from suffering. But his path was to get away from the world and enter into Nirvana... Nirvana. Does mankind follow him? And if they do not and cannot get rid of their suffering, it is not Buddha's fault!! Disciple : They say that by scientific inventions and medical discoveries they have been able to improve the condition of the world. e.g. by cholera injections, smallpox vaccinations the death rate is reduced Sri Aurobindo : And are they happy? Vaccination! Intellectual... spiritual man. When mental man or spiritual man appears the others do not disappear. So, the tiger and serpent do not become man. In this upward growth of the human consciousness you cannot say that Buddha, Christ etc. have played no part. I consider the Supramental the culmination of the Spiritual man. When the Supramental becomes established I expect that one will not be required to flee from life ...
... Avatars, leading the human development from the vital rajasic to the sattwic mental man and again the overmental superman. Krishna, Buddha and Kalki depict the last three stages, the stages of the spiritual development – Krishna opens the possibility of overmind, Buddha tries to shoot beyond to the supreme liberation but that liberation is still negative, not returning upon earth to complete positively... tradition, the evolution of life and consciousness on Earth has been supported by a succession of Avatars: the Fish, the Tortoise, the Boar, the Man-Lion, the Dwarf, Rama-with-the-Ax, Rama, Krishna, the Buddha, and the last one, Kalki, who according to the tradition is still to come. Question: If Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were Avatars, or an Avatar, what or which Avatars or Avatar were they? 1... most extensive documentation about the various interpretations of the Avatar-phenomenon is to be found in Christianity. (In Essays on the Gita , Sri Aurobindo repeatedly names as Avatars Krishna, Buddha and Christ.) In Christianity its founder is seen – mostly unawares – as an Avatar, for Christ is at the same time the Son of God and the Son of Man. The fundamental difference with Hinduism is that ...
... doubted everything, the evidence of the senses, the reality of the world, the reality of their own existence, and even the reality of God. This scepticism reached its culmination in the teachings of Buddha, who would admit nothing, presuppose nothing, declare nothing dogmatically, and insisted only on self-discipline, self-communion, self-realisation as the only way to escape from the entanglement of... and the ineffable beatitude of God. This is the work whose consummation Sri Page 977 Ramakrishna came to begin and all the development of the previous two thousand years and more since Buddha appeared has been a preparation for the harmonization of spiritual teaching and experience by the avatar of Dakshineshwar. The long ages of discipline which India underwent, are now drawing to ...
... 10 November 1934 Dear Mother, S is again badly disturbed. When I am frank, there is difficulty; when I remain silent, there is also difficulty. Give me a middle path, such as Buddha found. Do not worry—whatever you do will always be criticized. So the best is not to pay any attention to what people say and to go on one's own path according to the highest light one can get ...
... This implies that those who believed in "Soul" never achieved liberation. Was there no liberation before Buddha? Buddha said he was repeating an ancient knowledge that had existed before him and restoring its true form, so he evades this objection. At the same time, despite Buddha's idea that belief in soul fetters man, Buddhists are in some way compelled to believe something like it. ... there are different versions. I just read some where that the Buddhist One is a Superbuddha from whom all Buddhas come—but it seemed to me a rehash of Buddhism in Vedantic terms born of a modern mind. The Permanent of Buddhism has always been supposed to be Supracosmic and Ineffable—that is why Buddha never tried to explain what it was; for, logically, how can one talk about the Ineffable? It has really... is so, it is a most foolish and comically ridiculous attitude. As for the depreciation of all the old Yogas as something quite easy, unimportant and worthless, and the consequent depreciation of Buddha and Yajnavalkya and other great spiritual figures of the past, is it not evidently absurd on the face of it? When I asked, "What do they do?", I did not mean physical or mental action. Rather I ...
... of love I strain— A lonely traveller of transcendences. No rest until—beyond brief clay's control And past our mortal senses' flickering charms— The abysm of timelessness at Buddha's feet, Time's treasure of infinite truth in Krishna's arms! Page 360 ...
... Sankhyas perhaps, and in the great Buddhist illumination – Buddha being, we note with interest, almost a contemporary of Socrates and also of the Chinese philosopher or moralist Confucius – a triumvirate almost of mighty mental intelligence ruling over the whole globe and moulding for an entire cycle human culture and destiny. The very name Buddha is significant. It means, no doubt, the Awakened, but awakened... awakened in and through the intelligence, the mental Reason, buddhi. The Buddhist tradition is that the Buddhist cycle, the cycle over which Buddha reigns is for two thousand and five hundred years since his withdrawal which takes us, it seems, to about 1956 A.D. The Veda speaks of Indra who became later on the king of the gods. And Zeus too occupies the same place in Greek Pantheon. Indra ...
... itself in the figure of Krishna. Buddha's renunciation, his temptation by Mara, his enlightenment under the Bo-Tree are such symbols, so too the virgin birth, the temptation in the desert, the crucifixion of Christ are such symbols true by what they signify, even if they are not scrupulously recorded historical events. The outward facts as related of Christ or Buddha come to not much more than what... the Avatar is one who comes to open the Way for humanity to a higher consciousness—if nobody can follow the Way, then either our conception of the thing, which is also that of Christ and Krishna and Buddha, is all wrong or the whole life and action of the Avatar is quite futile. X seems to say that there is no way and no possibility of following, that the struggles and sufferings of the Avatar are... harp on greatness as if only the great can be spiritual. An Avatar or Vibhuti have the knowledge that is necessary for their work, they need not have more. There was absolutely no reason why Buddha should know what was going on in Rome. An Avatar even does not manifest all the Divine omniscience and omnipotence; he has not come for any such unnecessary display; all that is behind him but not ...
... the Buddha's tremendous effectuality. New also was the particular connection & interlinking of all these central ideas in the thought of the Buddha, the singular cast given to them by his unique, yet universal temperament & the formulation in the mould of that temperament of a system of Vedantic ethics. Still, in his fundamental method, in his approach to truth & his handling of truth, Buddha had not... its strenuous manner of justifying certain great assertions of Veda & high experiences of spiritual seekers by the reason and by logical disputation. The method of Darshana, the way of Shankara and Buddha, although it works round and upon certain grand psychological experiences, Maya, Nirvana, is essentially speculative and logical, not intuitive and experiential. How came this method to be substituted... approaches Page 558 these questions feels himself naturally impelled to be metaphysical in his method or his atmosphere and follow, with whatever modern variations, the path of Shankara, Buddha and the Sankhyas. The way of knowledge has become in India the way of metaphysical disquisition. Are we really bound to continue this tradition or is the more ancient method also the right method, ...
... decide. NIRODBARAN: The materialists and scientists say that Yogis have done nothing for human happiness. Buddhas and Avatars have come and gone, but the sufferings of humanity are just the same. SRI AUROBINDO: Did Avatars come to relieve the sufferings of humanity? It was only Buddha who showed the way to a release from suffering. But his path was to get away from this world and enter into Nirvana... Nirvana. Does mankind follow him? And if they don't and can't get rid of their sufferings, it is not Buddha's fault! NIRODBARAN: People say that scientific inventions and medical discoveries have been able to improve the conditions of the world: for instance, by cholera injections and small-pox vaccinations, the death rate has been reduced. SRI AUROBINDO: And are people happy? Vaccination? I... and spiritual man. When mental man or spiritual man appears, the others don't disappear. The tigers and serpents don't become men. In this upward growth of the human consciousness you can't say that Buddha, Christ and others have played no part. I consider the Supramental the culmination of the spiritual man. In the supramental evolution one is not required to flee from life. It is something dynamic ...
... one of the greatest enlighteners and minds which have Page 312 sought for the solution of the ills of humanity on the extreme opposite plane, has said the same thing—I am speaking of the Buddha. And both are at once right and wrong, in the sense that each of them sees only one side of the question. It is true that one can reduce the difficulty to a certain aspect and that this makes it easier... a precipice; he can no longer carry on his research in what is beyond, because the same methods don't suffice. But if we take the question from the other end, we shall see that the ignorance the Buddha was speaking about was not at all that which consists in not knowing that if one swallows poison one is poisoned, or that if one keeps his head under water without breathing, he is sure to be drowned;... sincerest, most honest, most unselfish scientists have ever shown. But I must say that the scientific method of work is a marvellous discipline; and what is curious is that the method recommended by the Buddha for getting rid of desires and the illusion of the world is also one of the most marvellous disciplines ever known on the earth. They are at the two ends, they are both excellent; those who follow ...
... there is a natural and inevitable faith and trust in the past, an extension of the past; there is only apprehension for the future, uncertainty in the Page 5 present. 1 It was Buddha's signal achievement to uncover this great illusion, the illusion of an inexhaustible and inexorably continuing past, continuing into the present and into the future. He saw that to be is not continuity... perhaps what the Upanishad indicated when it said: one has to traverse death through Ignorance (perception of ignorance) and then through Knowledge (perception of the Knowledge) to attain immortality. Buddha has led us across death, now we have to reach immortality. There is a higher line of Karma and a lower line running parallel as I said to each other—the lower (the iron chain) leads from death ... or impregnated with the new consciousness of Immortality; for the units of the normal or ignorant consciousness are themselves not wholly or essentially ignorant and mortal. They have in them what Buddha did not see or recognise—the immortal soul or self—as the Vedic Rishis said: that which is immortal in the mortal. What is mortal in the apparently mortal unit is the covering that hides the immortal ...
... The best of all paths is the Eightfold Path; the best of all truths is the Fourfold Truth; the best of all states is freedom from attachment; the best among men is the One who sees, the Buddha. Truly, this is the Path; there is no other which leads to purification of vision. Follow this Path and Mara will be confounded. By following this Path, you put an end to suffering. This... can live in light and joy, are you going to cling to shadow and suffering? 27 June 1958 Page 273 × The Buddha. ...
... Kartikeya the leader of the divine forces. Sanatkumar Sanatkumar is, I believe, one of the four mind-born sons of Brahma; he cannot therefore be identical with Skanda who is a son of Shiva. Buddha Buddha stands for the conquest over the Ignorance of the lower Nature. Apsaras Apsaras generally indicate sexual desire. Page 159 × ...
... which she wanted to exhibit on 15th August together with the paintings of other artists. The Mother explained to the artists how my paintings should be displayed, especially the three paintings (1) Buddha, (2) Kwannon—the Japanese Goddess of Mercy and (3) White Dahlia. She said: These three paintings must be kept separately from the rest of the paintings and underneath them must be written: "These ...
... efficacy. There is a higher, a diviner way—the way of the Spirit—for the cure of earthly ills, cure and not mere alleviation. That was the secret inspiration behind the message of the Christ and the Buddha. Page 37 It is not true that when one's wants are met, one always becomes or remains happy; all paupers are not unhappy, nor are the affluent invariably happy. Happiness is a quality... one; it is identification and identity. This again is what spiritual consciousness alone can do. Sympathy leads to philanthropy, empathy is the origin of true charity, the spiritual compassion of a Buddha or a Christ. Philanthropy is human, charity (caritas) is divine. Page 41 ...
... 15 January 1935 Ma! What is the "Dhammapada"? What does it mean? It was written by whom? The Dhammapada is the book containing the teachings of the Buddha (Cakya Muni). "Dhammapada" is a Pali word which means the foundation of the Law. Love and blessings to my dear faithful Baby 15 January 1935 ...
... be like the Theosophists' idea of Buddha and Shankara. You don't know what it is? PURANI: No. SRI AUROBINDO: They say that Shankara came as a disguised Buddha in order to correct what he said. Shankara, according to them, was born in the first century B.C. or A. D., I don't remember which, but in any case not long after Buddha's death. That means that Buddha realised he had committed some errors ...
... efficacy. There is a higher, a diviner way – the way of the Spirit – for the cure of earthly ills, cure and not mere alleviation. That was the secret inspiration behind the message of the Christ and the Buddha. It is not true that when one's wants are met, one always becomes or remains happy; all paupers are not unhappy, nor are the affluent invariably happy. Happiness is a quality that depends upon something... it is identification and identity. This again is what I spiritual consciousness alone can do. Sympathy leads to! philanthropy, empathy is the origin of true charity, the spiritual I compassion of a Buddha or a Christ. Philanthropy is human, I charity (caritas) is divine. Page 189 ...
... understand the Flute, you understand Vrindavan, You have not understood the killing of Kamsa, you have not understood the war of Kurukshetra. You are a perfect Vaishnava, you chant hymns to Buddha. But Vishnu and Rudra are one body, they are only different limbs ― Have you forgotten it? Have you forgotten that the very fount of kindness Page 188 And the cruel slayer... wields no sword of knowledge to cut down ignorance, Its humbleness makes it void of energy and its laziness empty of substance, Proud of its shaven pate and an inflated belly This is not Buddha's spirit. He is free from illusion, He is calm and tranquil, he is a supreme ascetic of iron will, he is a mighty hero; Trampling friendship and riches on his path, he is whollygiven to his mission ...
... that lower Tantrism. When that cleansing is over (with much damage, unfortunately), maybe they'll be free again? ( Mother nods her head ) He gave me this ( Mother shows a Tibetan Buddha in brass ). It's a Buddha. Is there something written there [under the statue]? Yes, Mother, there are some inscriptions. Page 351 I think it's Tibetan. Very nice. Yes, it has a good face ...
... the need for Immortality that drove the Vedic Rishis. It came back to me yesterday, and I noted it down: ( Mother reads a handwritten note ) The Vedic Rishis thirsted for Immortality, Buddha wanted Permanence.... Then I looked, wondering, "And what was Christ's path?"... Basically, he always said, "Love thy neighbor," in other words brotherhood (but that's a modern translation). For... Aurobindo says (time is an unbroken succession of "moments"), what exists at a given moment no longer exists the next, so there's no security. It's the same experience, seen from another angle, as that of Buddha, who said there was no "permanence." And basically, the Rishis saw only from the angle of human existence, that's why they were after Immortality. It all boils down to the same thing. ( Mother remains ...
... (Correspondence with Dyuman) Dyuman's Correspondence with The Mother 28 May 1934 O Lord Buddha, the forces of Mara attacked You, but You were unshaken, concentrated, calm, quiet, peaceful; then the Light descended, the hostile forces disappeared and there was peace on earth. O Mother, let us all remain consecrated to the Truth, always peaceful, calm ...
... is transformed into spiritualised energy (not merely mechanical energy as in Einstein) when its mass is multiplied by consciousness raised to the power of infinity. II Buddha's equation: D°=0 that is, Desire raised to the power zero is zero=Nirvana. Page 52 Shankara's equation: ...
... making himself manifest in the field of their own human mentality and corporeality so that they can grow into unity with that and be possessed by it. The divine manifestation of a Christ, Krishna, Buddha in external humanity has for its inner truth the same manifestation of the eternal Avatar within in our own inner humanity. That which has been done in the outer human life of earth, may be repeated... how that suffering may be a means of redemption,—as did Christ,—secondly, to show how, having been assumed by the divine soul in the human nature, it can also be overcome in the same nature,—as did Buddha. The rationalist who would have cried to Christ, "If thou art the Son of God, come down from the cross," or points out sagely that the Avatar was not divine because he died and died too by disease... Vishnu, first in animal forms, then in the animal man, then in the dwarf man-soul, Vamana, the violent Asuric man, Rama of the axe, the divinely-natured man, a greater Rama, the awakened spiritual man, Buddha, and, preceding him in time, but final in place, the complete divine manhood, Krishna,—for the last Avatar, Kalki, only accomplishes the work Krishna began,—he fulfils in power the great struggle which ...
... that is, Matter is transformed into spiritualised energy (not merely mechanical energy as in Einstein) when its mass is multiplied by consciousness raised to the power of infinity. II Buddha's equation: D°=O that is, Desire raised to the power zero is zero=Nirvana. Shankara's equation: Dº= I (Sachchidananda) Note: any quantity raised to the zero power is not ...
... the relations that are attained by the various practices we usually call Yoga. We may not know him as God, we may know him as Nature, our Higher Self, Infinity, some ineffable goal. It was so that Buddha approached Him; so approaches him the rigid Adwaitin. He is accessible even to the Atheist. To the materialist He disguises Himself in matter. For the Nihilist he waits ambushed in the bosom of An ...
... of Buddhism, derived its ethics and esoteric teaching at second-hand from the same source. Through Persia Vedanta put its stamp on Judaism, through Judaism, Christianity and Sufism on Islam, through Buddha on Confucianism, through Christ and mediaeval mysticism and Catholic ceremonial, through Greek and German philosophy, through Sanscrit learning and [ sentence left incomplete ] Page 413 ...
... has been able to restore, what it left no man has been able to destroy. As a matter of fact, the double cycle which India has described from the early Vedic times to India of Buddha and the philosophers and again from Buddha to the time of the European irruption was in its own way as vast in change religious, social, cultural, even political and administrative as the double cycle of Europe; but because... held and practised by his Aryan forefathers; he calls his creed the Aryan dharma, Page 135 the eternal religion. It is only when we look close that we see the magnitude of the illusion. Buddha has gone out of India indeed, but Buddhism remains; it has stamped its giant impress on the spirit of the national religion, leaving the forms to be determined by the Tantricism with which itself had ...
... the laboratory. As for the past seers, they don't trouble me. If going beyond the experiences of the past seers and sages is so shocking, each new seer and sage in turn has done that shocking thing—Buddha, Shankara, Chaitanya etc. all did that wicked act. If not, what was the necessity of their starting new philosophies, religions, schools of Yoga? If they were merely verifying and meekly repeating... overmental-spiritual cannot achieve. All whom you mention were spirituals, but in different ways. Krishna's mind, for instance, was overmentalised, Ramakrishna's intuitive, Chaitanya's spiritual-psychic, Buddha's illumined higher mental. I don't know about B. G. [ Bijoy Goswami ]—he seems to have been brilliant but rather chaotic. All that is different from the supramental. Then take the vital of the Paramhansas... fulfilled this time and here. Depreciation of the Old Yogas As for the depreciation of all the old Yogas as something quite easy, unimportant and worthless, and the consequent depreciation of Buddha and Yajnavalkya and other great spiritual figures of the past, is it not evidently absurd on the face of it? It [ self-realisation ] is not a long process? The whole life and several lives more ...
... our consciousness and nature: there is a natural and inevitable faith and trust in the past, an extension of the past; there is only apprehension for the future, uncertainty in the present.¹ It was Buddha's signal achievement to uncover this great illusion, the illusion of an inexhaustible and inexorably continuing past, continuing into the present and into the future. He saw that to be is not continuity... perhaps what the Upanishad indicated when it said: one has to traverse death through Ignorance (perception of ignorance) and then through Knowledge (perception of the Knowledge) to attain immortality. Buddha has led us across death, now we have to reach immortality. There is a higher line of Karma and a lower line running parallel, as I said, to each other – the lower (the iron chain) leads from death... or impregnated with the new consciousness of Immortality; for the units of the normal or ignorant. consciousness are themselves not wholly or essentially ignorant and mortal. They have in them what Buddha did not see or recognise – the immortal soul or self – as the Vedic Rishis said: that which is immortal in the mortal. What is mortal in the apparently mortal unit is the covering that hides the immortal ...
... thing is his individuality, I mean, his speciality. You will be a great personage, but that does not mean that you will grow into a Napoleon or a Buddha. And even if you could, I think, you must not try to be so. For to be a mere Napoleon or a mere Buddha is not the ideal of the world. Everybody must be his own self. Your whole greatness lies in what you should be. You have to recognise that you ...
... possession of existence, then the rajasic [Parasurama], sattwic [Rama], nirguna Avatars, leading the human development. . . . Krishna, Buddha and Kalki depict the last three stages, the stages of the spiritual development — Krishna opens the possibility of over mind, Buddha tries to shoot beyond to the supreme liberation but that liberation is still negative, not returning upon earth to complete positively ...
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