Buddha’s views on the pleasures
of the world too are not new but have been presented in a more contemporary
fashion. “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?
“When they have obtained all
the earth girdled by the sea, kings wish to conquer the other side of the great
ocean; mankind is never satiated with pleasures, as the ocean with the waters
that fall into it.”
It is worthwhile to note that
pleasure seems to be the evil that has plagued society at all times. Even
Krishna laments that people of the time were spending more time in pursuit of
entertainment. How true are these words even now!
Siddharth Gautama’s pursuit of
perfect knowledge made him learn all the existing forms of religion, albeit in
their deviated form, and only when he was dissatisfied with one, he moved to
the next. This shows that pursuit of the true knowledge has to be an endless
affair. But it can only be practiced when one discard attachment to existing
beliefs, ego and anger, which do not allow a person to accept truth.
* * * * *
The mortification of the body
in quest for heaven was something that was despised by Krishna in Gita. But we
find that the same continued to happen in the name of Krishna himself. Those
who called themselves as adherents to Krishna’s teachings continued to do all
that Krishna condemned so much so self-mortification and rituals that Krishna
had negated were still being seen as positive solutions to go to heaven, even
in the time of Buddha. Krishna had said that actions should not be performed in
love of heaven, as such persons care little for the well being of others and
yet people were doing the same in Buddha’s period. In fact, they continue to do
the same activities till this day while calling themselves as devout Krishna
bhakts. Likewise, we have mentioned how entertainment was looked down upon by
Krishna but when Buddha gave his teachings it was again the chief evil in the
society.
The purpose of writing this is
to bring home the point that the people at the time of these messengers’
arrival were not superior to us. In fact, arrival of messengers became
necessary only when religious values went to nadir. These were the people who
never understood the teachings of those very messengers they held in high
esteem. Unfortunately, scholars treat all those who were close or present in
the company of these messengers as pious and virtuous. They forget that in case
of all the messengers or avatars, the number of people opposing them has always
been higher than those on their side. They forget that Satan still kept working,
perhaps overtime, when the messengers were present in person to deliver the
teachings of truth. They forget also that human character is so frail that it
can get swayed under slightest brush with ego, lust, anger and other similar
ailments and one has to keep a firm control over oneself at all times to
prevent this from happening. Therefore, it becomes necessary that we keep in
mind that there is still a chance that teachings of these messengers have not
been understood truthfully. Just as Buddha found negativities in the practices
performed by the revered saints of the time, whereas they were of opinion
always that they were on the true path, it is still possible that our
understanding of the religion till date may have been based on false
foundations. After all, those very practices that Buddha found negative
continue to remain in practice till date with perhaps as equal dedication as
the saints of Buddha’s period had. We must remember that intelligence is the
biggest defense and we should apply our intelligence at all times, without
allowing it to get affected because of vagaries of organs of senses and action.
Another point is that there
has never been any fault in the teachings of God’s Messengers. They have always
tagged the same line and shown the same straight path, be it Rama or Krishna,
Buddha or Jesus, Abraham or Mohammad. Fault has always been in our inability to
comprehend the message.
As Buddha said: “Some undergo
misery for the sake of this world, others meet toil for the sake of heaven; all
living beings wretched through hope and always missing their aim, fall
certainly for the sake of happiness into misery.
“Has not something like this
happened to me?
“It is not the effort itself
which I blame, - which flinging aside the base pursues a high path of its own.
“What I ask is, ‘Can the
mortification of body be called religion?’
“Since it is only by the
mind’s authority that the body either acts or ceases to act, therefore, to
control the thought is alone befitting – without thought the body is like a
dog.” …
“New light cannot be attained
by him who has lost his strength and is wearied with hunger, thirst and fatigue
with his mind no longer self-possessed through fatigue.
“How could he who is not
absolutely calm, reach the end which is to be attained by his mind?
“True calm and the
self-possession of the mind is properly obtained by the constant satisfaction
of the body’s wants.”
This brings us to an important
conclusion. A great evil plaguing the period of Buddha’s time was the practice
of self-mortification, performed by the sages who were revered and looked upon
with esteem. This had led to the entire population of people getting deviated.
Buddha had to rectify this and to do so he decided to become one like them. The
idea was perhaps to remove the evils. To some extent he was successful. But the
overzealous adherents of his dhamma took it to other extreme, so much so that
we find history full of Buddhist bhikshus and mendicants roaming from place to
place or living in secluded places. Was it not because the Buddha they saw was
doing the same? They forgot that Buddha’s compulsions were altogether
different. Result was that all type of people, who had nothing to do with
spirituality or religion, adopted living in this manner, thereby leading to
degradation.
Krishna too said the same in
Gita though we must confess that Buddha elaborated a lot on this point. Krishna
said that it was possible for him to retire to solitude or start living the
life of a mendicant but that is not the solution and it is the duty of each of
us to continue to work for making this world a better place to live, even if we
had to give sacrifices of our pleasures, our leisure, etc. to accomplish this.
* * * * *
Mara (Kama) seems to be Satan,
which has been described by Buddha as “another name for evil passions.”
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