NOTES ON BUDDHA AND HIS DHAMMA (PART - 4)

Another clear example which shows that Buddha very much believed in the presence of a soul can be seen in his conversation with Bimbisara – the king of Magadhas. In spite of such clear proofs, people went out of the way to prove that Buddha was against the presence of soul. This was perhaps because they were hell-bent on proving that Buddha’s religion was different from that of his predecessors, viz. Rama, Krishna, Mahavira.

Buddha said: “I am not so afraid even of serpents nor of thunderbolts falling from heaven, nor of flames blown together by the wind, as I am afraid of these worldly objects.

“These transient pleasures, - the robbers of our happiness and our wealth, and which float empty and like illusions through the world, - infatuate man’s minds even when they are only hoped for, - still more then they take up their abode in the soul.

“The victims of pleasure attain not to happiness even in the heaven of the gods (devas), still less in the world of mortals; he who is athirst is never satisfied with pleasures, as the fire, the friend of the wind, with fuel.

“There is no calamity in the world like pleasures, people are devoted to them through delusion; when he once knows the truth and so fears evil, what wise man would of his own choice desire evil?”

This is a long sermon and Buddha talks about various evils plaguing our society. Is it not evident that the pleasures and other evils that Buddha is talking about are the evils plaguing the society and are to be fought by the members of the society while living in the society itself.

There is another important point to be noted. Earlier we had seen that sage Asita had talked of the devas’ (wrongly translated as gods) happiness at the time of Buddha’s birth. Now Buddha is himself talking of the heaven of the devas (again wrongly translated as gods). It is interesting to note that Gita too has referred to the devas time and again and also talked of Indra’s heaven. Indra, we know from Vedas, is the chief of the devas. We have also seen that the entire Vedas are full of talk of devas, whose identity was a big secret till now until we set about to reveal the truth. The fact that both Krishna and Buddha have talked of them show the kind of importance these devas deserve to be given. Heaven, it seems, is attached only to these devas (not just in Buddhism and Hinduism but also in Islam). Instead of trying to know who the devas are, so that we can aspire to reach their Heaven, we made different religions based on the wrongly or partially understood teachings. Did Krishna say anywhere that his followers are to be called Hindus? Did Buddha say anywhere that his religion should be called Buddhism? Did Krishna say that Rama’s or Buddha’s teachings are to be ignored? Or did Buddha, particularly so because he was consequent to both Rama and Krishna, denied the importance of their teachings, denounced either Rama or Krishna, or even criticized the Vedas? No! Wrong understanding of the Vedas has been criticized, even Krishna did the same in Gita, but both Buddha and Krishna have did their entire best to uphold the importance of the personalities mentioned in the Vedas. Their presence, their role in our life and their importance in relation to religious pursuits are endorsed by both time and again. Truth is that both Krishna and Buddha belonged to the same chain of messengers.

Since both Buddha and Krishna endorsed the position of devas, they must be surely aware that Upanishads and Vedas say that they were the names of God’s visible power and it were they who controlled entire cosmos and directly supervised the work of the messengers sent by them from time to time to lead the mankind to the worship of the Absolute God. Devas have been talked about in Upanishads as the rulers of our organs of senses and action and a direct relationship of our lives, the consciousness within us, etc. with the devas has been cited.

Fact is that religions are man-made but the God’s path is truly one and only one. Deviations or misunderstandings created all the religions of the world while the core of these religions is still the God’s true path, which got obliterated with time.

Today, we are surely far more evolved intellectually than the man 2500 to 5000 years back. Yet, for unknown reasons, we accept the conclusions drawn by those semi-civilized men to be binding. Yes, the revealed scriptures need to be blindly followed as they have divinity or superhuman relationship attached to them. But how can we say the same about their interpretations or about books written by general people. A man who sets up a harem for his son or a sangh that draws plans to attack the other tribe for water cannot be our role models. Think for a while. It was these very men who became interpreters of Buddha’s teachings a little later. Will you still accept their inferences blindly?

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