Be the Buddha, not the Buddhist
I had this thought for a while, so now i get to share it with the world. Be the Buddha, not the Buddhist. Now what do i mean by this. Well, The word Buddha is a Sanskrit word which means “The Awakened One”, one who is awakened to Reality, who understands true nature of the mind, the world, and all sentient beings.
The Buddha lived approximately 3000 years ago (some say 2500). He was an Indian prince named Siddhartha, who gave up his throne in order to search for the Truth, to find a way to bring relief to the sufferings of humanity. After many years of diligent practice, he reached Supreme Enlightenment while sitting under a bodhi tree. He then exclaimed, “Wonder of wonders! All sentient beings are inherently complete and perfect! But they do not realize it because of their delusions and cravings.”
There upon He was known as Sakyamuni (or Gautama) Buddha, and embarked on an endless, compassionate journey to teach living beings how to see Reality, how to gain true wisdom, how to free themselves, and how to achieve true peace and joy. His teaching is known as the Dharma. The Buddha taught for 49 years until he entered nirvana at the age of 80.
Now what I mean when I say be the Buddha, be the Buddhist it can also be applied to be the Christ, not the christian, same could be said about Confucius, Epicurus, and all the other enlightened souls of the past. They all found their enlightenment, their own paths. I never read anything about the Buddha before, I walked onto the current path on my own. A path to better myself to better the world, a path to enlighten others and share any wisdom I might have with others that might be useful for their enlightenment.
But I don’t want any followers, I would like for the enlightened souls to walk their own path, to find their true selves, to go beyond their infinite minds. Go on your own paths in this world, but let’s walk it together as brothers and sisters side by side in unity. I always say it’s not about you thinking like me or following my ideas and ideals, but to take those ideas and make them your own by making it work for you.
“I shall no longer be instructed by the Yoga Veda or the Aharva Veda, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine whatsoever. I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha.” He looked around as if he were seeing the world for the first time.”
― Hermann Hesse
The same could be said about the Buddha or the words of any of the great thinkers of our time. Don’t follow in their footprints, take the good from everything and make your own footprints in this world. Just like SOME words from the bible. Take the good words out, apply it to your own spirituality. The words are the seeds that should blossom, encourage and grow your own thoughts, to make you think. To look at their perspectives and create your own.
“One thing: you have to walk, and create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path. It is not so cheap, to reach to the ultimate realization of truth. You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you. It is just like the sky: the birds fly, but they don’t leave any footprints. You cannot follow them; there are no footprints left behind.”
― Osho
We often confine our infinite minds to doctrines, we say we are this or that and we only want to listen to one perspective. I think that is one of the problems with religions, we just stay confined with those thoughts and we don’t want to hear anything else and so we stay constrained to this constant frame of thought. Never expanding the limitlessness of our minds.
Our minds are like sponges and we should feed it with all the good it could take in. We could learn from those from the past and expand our consciousness further, we can be enlightened to the reality around us if we choose to broaden our horizons. We can enlighten others by our own true words that grows inside us like the majestic trees that surround us.
“All over the world, people are struggling with these new conditions and have been forced to reassess their religious traditions, which were designed for a very different type of society. They are finding that the old forms of faith no longer work for them; they cannot provide the enlightenment and consolation that human beings seem to need. As a result, men and women are trying to find new ways of being religious. Like the reformers and prophets of the first Axial Age, they are attempting to build upon the insights of the past in a way that will take human beings forward into the new world they have created for themselves.”- Karen Armstrong
I always had a notion that we are all telepathically connected in such a way where our thoughts are shared with one another from different parts of the world as many souls are becoming enlightened all over this world. Just like in that era where you had all these great thinkers, maybe we are telepathically connected or maybe we are awakening up to this illusion we continue to live in. Waking up to the suffering that goes on in this world. Awakening to the yearning for a better world.
What is taking place now is a revolution of the mind and has been brewing for a while since the age of Aquarius in the 60’s up onto now and it has arisen by the turmoil this world faces. But it seems like every time we are in the brink of the edge of pushing humanity forward to a better tomorrow, we continue to hit a plateau. We have had our creativeness and our potentials to unleash our mind tapped by this artificial world, masked by our selfishness, greed and our own ego. Masked by flags and borders.
One of the key elements missing from moving forward is unity. We will never move forward as brothers and sisters when we can’t see that we are all one. One of the problems we can’t see that have kept us divided and has tapped our true potentials are the governments that control us. They have and continue to control our minds. They have kept us away from each other. They have created racial tension among us when there should not be one.
“It isn’t by getting out of the world that we become enlightened, but by getting into the world…by getting so tuned in that we can ride the waves of our existence and never get tossed because we become the waves.”
― Ken Kesey
Religion is another tool to control our minds and a very outdated concept. If you choose to believe in a deity or a “god” then believe in whatever you want as I wrote about in this blog entitled the definition of god, I say god is what you make it. God could be the universe to me and our translation of what god is, should be respected as long as you harm no one into believing what god is and what we should or should not worship.
But what we have in this world is people who want to shove their god in people’s throat and that is no way of progression. It’s the hypocrisy of religion, where people want to worship a god and act all godly, but are the total opposite. We need a revolution of the mind and spirit. We need to get rid of outdated concepts and start to evolve instead of being stuck in time.
“Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! ‘Have courage to use your own reason!’- that is the motto of enlightenment.”
― Immanuel Kant
Ideas and shared thoughts are what we need more of. We have become afraid of new thoughts and ideas, we have become afraid of change. We have become afraid of our own shadows that often reveal who we truly are. We fear the unknown and we have sat comfortably in the box of conformity for far too long passing this world over to the next generations as we want no part in the change, as we wipe our hands clean.
When we must embrace change, embrace thoughts and ideas as they are the perspectives to see things in a new light. We must open up ourselves to these ideas even if you don’t agree with them, we are often looking to dispute other people’s ideas, so we create turmoil, these divisions with one another. Just open your mind, your ears and yourself and as I said before you take those ideas and thoughts and take pieces that might or might work for you, just look at it as another perception to our reality.
Instead of bickering among each other, we can offer other ideas. It’s not all about following each others idea, that is what makes each and every one of us unique, to live according to your beliefs. Although in this world we have become a flock conforming to how society lives that we have lost our individual uniqueness.
So be the Buddha, not the Buddhist. Let’s push the boundaries of our minds and unleash the true potential of our minds. Let’s change ourselves, rethink our principles everyday, the same perspective I once had yesterday, can change today and that’s how we must keep evolving. Constantly thinking and rethinking and questioning everything including your own stubborn thoughts that dwell deep inside the abyss of our minds.
Change every aspect of our lives to change this world around us. Ultimately we are the ones who shape this world and we have shaped this world into a square box. It’s time to shape it into the paradise it could become instead of the hell we continue to make it!
Though you may travel the world to find the beautiful, you must have it within you or you will find it not.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson