Last Saturday I was dabbling around with fundamental philosophies of different religions with my friends. What I believe is god itself is a creation of human mind. Concept stimulated by the deep seated sense of insecurity and catalyzed by the sense of defeat against thousands of unsolved questions. God has been a perfect scapegoat. Most of the religions are based on superstition. They actually promote sin. Someone will come and protect you from your sin if you worship him. Isn’t that …
a ……violation of the entire cause and effect construct? What I like most about Buddhism is it reminds you to be good. That is all. Faith on ourselves is what it teaches us not to depend on the Someone special. If you cause a sin then prepare for its effect and the repercussion.
One man from behind, questioned me about the source of information, whether it was Tripitak or Veda. He ridiculously started to claim that Buddhism is just a branch of Hinduism. Buddha is the 5th incarnation of Vishnu etc.
Maybe I had generalized things too much but I’m not ready to accept that Buddhism as a branch of Hinduism.
First of Buddhism is not actually a religion at all. It’s a system of education. Shakyamuni Buddha can’t be the incarnation of Visnu as he is not a so called God at all. He was not able to perform amazing magic’s like god/goddess, Christ or Sai baba. He was unable to conjure up life into dead man. He didn’t claim any divine status for himself. He is merely a teacher who was enlightened.
Today people visit the Hall of Dharma Protectors to burn incense, prostrate and offer flowers and fruit praying for protection and safety. This is superstition, directly influenced by Hindu rituals. Images and statue of Buddha and Bodhisattvas were teaching tools designed to inspire our mind and wisdom not to worship them. There is academic Buddhism taught in universities where Buddhism is treated purely as philosophy, especially in Japan. Its truths are so distinct from the primary concerns of other faiths that some western observers see Buddhism not only as philosophy but even psychology. We can see this aspect in Wachobsky brothers The Matrix or hear it in Sandman’s house trance lyrics fills between euphoric upliftings. This is not exactly Buddha’s education either.
I liked the true Buddhism. It doesn’t impose blind beliefs, rather it teaches us and let us experiment the truth for ourselves. This is probably the most scientific aspect of Buddhism, the cosmic religion as Einstein said.
Unfortunately the reality is that we all age as we get older which gives way to fine lines, wrinkles, age spots, loose skin and skin that does not have the same youthful glow that it once did. Other factors also contribute to the skin looking older such as sun exposure, smoking, illnesses, stress etc.
‘Interest is god’
You may believe or not -God is not interest. In fact, interest is God. Interest is the desire, your ‘will’, your wish towards things. For example, if you don’t have interest over things do not do them at all ! You rather develop the habit of ‘rejoicing’ things.
If you have interest on anything, that very thing will be changed into God. God is not God in fact. God should be ‘Godly’ because God is not gaining things, God is doing things. Interest upon work has different quality. Interest on work is like a pray, like your hearty worship….
Ravi, Everythin is subjective hai.
What the word ‘knowledge’ means to a mathematician may be entirely different from what it means to an ascetic monk or to some scientists working in AI. How our inner mind sees the color green since our birth may be entirely different among us. Meaning of ‘god’ is no exception. Einstein believed mathematics should be the language of god while others believe god is beyond the explanatory power of our rational knowledge and we will never reach there with our inductive reasoning.
The argument can go on – therefore I hate definitions – they always try to steal the freedom of the meaning. I won’t dare to define a universal god here but I find the earth and human centric stories regarding god so un-proportional regarding the huge possibilities their exist in the entire majestic universe. Strength of the definitions of god from generation to generation has always been influenced by the contemporary human knowledge. Image of god in the medieval age was something different. When people were able to split atoms to unravel the immense energy stored inside a tiny mass, they started searching god in there.
For me god is nature and nature’s nature. I believe, nothing and no one can be un-natural or supernatural that violates nature’s laws – it’s our preconceived ideas – that tells us so. All the stories from big bang to big crunch are written with the ink of nature’s nature.
well i like the post (forgot to talk about it 😉 ) … and i like the pholosophies of Buddha, though i don’t know much..
ahh.. these blind beliefs!!! Buddha is of course not god!
and i believe neither are Ram, Krishna, Hanuman…they are just some historical figures, with some myth added to their story… “well i just heard that a man could walk over water”. should i consider him god? no.. i agree with Ravi.. God is a mere presence…
The first one — God is not an object or anything like we believe
Second — God is everywhere, whatever we do whatsoever we speak its god.
God is a presence, significance,
once it happened that a fish hear the word ‘ocean’ and he went on searching and asking all… about what really is ocean. nobody was able to answer it..
so wat is needed here is a gap between ocean n the fish so only then the fish cud realize what ocean really is……. The same way to know god we just need a gap, a distance between us and the universe, between life and death, between inhale and exhale. The very moment u can experience the real silence from inner self … ‘THE SILENCE WE HEAR FROM WITHIN, GIVES US THE PRESENCE OF GOD’
About buddha.. buddha never used the word god or anything in his entire life..
one thing about buddha .. Before Siddhartha Gautam transformed to The Buddha there were lots of enlightened persons ‘the buddha’.. , kashyapa buddha, maha kashyappa buddha and so on… What we people believe in is that Siddhartha Gautam is the only buddha…. thats wrong.. (one who has enlightened, who has reached the state of nirvana, or the kingdom of gods are the Buddhas).
He was actually the prince tired of $ex, alcoh_l and all kinds of physical stuffs. Had he been the son of a commoner, he would not get the kind of attention and follower he got. Good for him. He did not release anything new.
Ism is: A distinctive doctrine, system, or theory: “Formalism, by being an ‘ism,’ kills form by hugging it to death” (Peter Viereck).
Global free liberal world tells there is on “ism” of any sort. “ism” is fraction, breaking away:marxism, communism, capitalism, buddhism, hinduism,jewism, muslism, shikhism, racism, geneism,feminism, maleism..to name a few ism.
But world order has changed. No “ism” is gonna rule.
Through the conviction that the Gods created all men, we created the Gods.
Relgion is of the finest creation of Human mind.Inteded to fullfill intended purposes of then.
Buddhism is philosophy;self seeking procedure of being out from ignorance.
You are a buddha! Are you not?
I am surprise how you forgot your budda hood!
I reminded you this 2500 years ago and again you forgot this. Be aware an know you are the budda.
I agree with Dhilung in the opinion that true
teachings of Buddha has been confined to only few sects and followers..
But however wrong we may think, we should be glad that at least it is influencing people one way or the other..its been about 25oo years but still he is in head of many people..The buddism became Tantric when it went to Tibet, in certain parts of India it merged with Hinduism, and wherever it went the people moulded it to fit in their society and culture .It may be shocking but many westeners think even think monastaries as “religious spas”!
And there is nothing we can do..If we know what is truth,”follow it in life and others will follow”..By giving logics and reasonigs ,what is right and wrong is useless unless we practice ourself..
And let me remind that Iron Rusts..but he is not
Iron, he is a GOLD (needs polishing!)
I dont know who is going to shine and clean the few particles of dust(all those years and so many orthodox beliefs!) “the valuable treasure”Buddha has given to the human civilizaion…
I do not regard going to temple as a superstition nor that I expect god to appear in a physical form and grant me a wish. All religions, when we look at them deeply, its all the same thing taken from various perspectives, from various ways to the ultimate truth. Experiencing the god thats within us and surrendering things that takes us away from our true nature, from our self is what I think visiting a temple would do. Every time I go to a temple, I feel pure. My thoughts get cleared.
I would accept that in some way that a religion is a philosophy not just Buddhism but all of them in some form is a philosophy but there are things added to it. Things that just philosophies will not describe, things that is difficult to express and has to be experienced. Its the nature of Buddha that we call God not the body that he possessed. Idols are made so that its easy for us to understand the nature of the Gods. When we go to a Buddhist temple we experience peace within us. It happens automatically because we see the idol of Buddha and we know and we have accepted that he spread peace, he gave answers to the unanswered questions about life, sorrow and joy and the path towards satisfaction.
Well the idol of buddha was created in the time of alexander.It was mostly created in Afghanstain of which the Taleban destoryed the big ones in Bamiyan and other small ones in their regime.And the Buddha-Bishnu concept was because of the Aadi Sankaracharya who revived Hinduism in the then ‘Bharatvarsa’.
little buddha, good. nobody can reach the source although oracle is there. buddha was there but he was made god by godless people. human cannot be god. without human there is no god. the cat, goat, tiger lion, none worship god. humans wanted to threaten their children, so cultivated GOD. Every religion promotes sin: you can take other’s wifes. you can have illegal trades. you can have polygamy. you can lie.you can mistrust. nothing and nobody is clean. even buddha was not clean as such when he had the lady visitor who gave him the porridge to keep him alive. it was a sin too. Jesus himself was sacked to death in the final supper. If he ahd not taken that supper with the 13th man? books say, Krisna had 33 million girlfriends and he helped to kill a lot of bad people. Killing in any form is non- godly. do not take meat goat or sheep , because you kill. do not kill insects, animals, snakes. To reach God’s status which humans can’t because there is noone who saw GOD’s manifestations, his omnipotence, and power, coz, whoever doeth that shall be killed immediately by intolerable power.
little buddha, good. nobody can reach the source although oracle is there. buddha was there but he was made god by godless people. human cannot be god. without human there is no god. the cat, goat, tiger lion, none worship god. humans wanted to threaten their children, so cultivated GOD. Every religion promotes sin: you can take other’s wifes. you can have illegal trades. you can have polygamy. you can lie.you can mistrust. nothing and nobody is clean. even buddha was not clean as such when he had the lady visitor who gave him the porridge to keep him alive. it was a sin too. Jesus himself was sacked to death in the final supper. If he ahd not taken that supper with the 13th man? books say, Krisna had 33 million girlfriends and he helped to kill a lot of bad people. Killing in any form is non- godly. do not take meat goat or sheep , because you kill. do not kill insects, animals, snakes. To reach God’s status which humans can’t because there is noone who saw GOD’s manifestations, his omnipotence, and power, coz, whoever doeth that shall be killed immediately by intolerable power.
It’s quite ironic! Buddha was against idol worship and today they worship his idol!! It’s so ridiculous it’s actually funny…. a related article of mine on the topic can be found in EU … it’s called “Let us set God free”.