WHO ARE THE PERSONALITIES AT
TEMPLE UNIVERSAL?
BUDDHA
The Enlightened and
Compassionate One
The Buddha was born as the prince, Siddhartha Gautama
in approximately 566 BC.
His father, Suddhodana, was ruler of the Sakya people.
History has it that his father feared he might leave
and become a religious wanderer. So Suddhodana arranged
that Siddhartha be sheltered from the painful realities
of life. When sixteen, Siddhartha was married.
One day, however, Siddartha ventured out into the
world and was confronted with aging, illness, and
death.
At twenty-nine, he left his kingdom and newborn son
and entered the wilderness.
After six years of austerities, he abandoned the way
of self-mortification and instead sat in meditation
beneath a bodhi tree, and meditated until dawn. With
that, he attained awakening at the age of thirty-five,
thus earning the title Buddha, the "Awakened
One."
For the remainder of his life, the Buddha taught
the dharma to people from all walks of life.
He established a community of monks and nuns, to maintain
his teachings after his death. Then, at the age of
eighty, he gave up his mortal frame and entered total
nirvana.
Swami Vivekananda
speaking
ON LORD BUDDHA
(Delivered in Detroit )
“In every religion we find one type of self-devotion
particularly developed.
The type of working without a motive is most highly
developed in Buddhism. Buddhism was founded by a great
man called Gautama, who became disgusted at the eternal
metaphysical discussions of his day, and the cumbrous
rituals, and more especially with the caste system.
Some people say, "we're born to a certain state,
and therefore we're superior to others who are not
thus born."
HE WAS FOR THE PEOPLE
He was against the tremendous priestcraft.
He preached a religion in which there was no motive
power, and was perfectly agnostic about metaphysics
or theories about God. He was often asked if there
was a God, and he answered, he didn't know. When asked
about right conduct, he would reply, "Do good
and be good." There came five Brahmins, who asked
him to settle their discussion. One said, "Sir,
my book says God is such and such, and this is the
way to come to God." Another said, "That's
wrong, for my book says such and such, and this is
the way to come to God," and so the others. He
listened calmly, and then asked them one by one, "Does
any one of your books say that God becomes angry,
that He ever injures anyone, that He's impure?"
"No, Sir, they all teach that God is pure and
good." "Then, my friends, why don't you
become pure and good first, that you may know what
God is?"
THE BUDDHA HAD NO HIDDEN AGENDA
He was the only man who was bereft of all motive
power.
There were other great men who said they were the
Incarnations of God, and those who'd believe in them
would go to heaven. But what did Buddha say with his
dying breath? "None can help you; help yourself;
work out your own salvation."
He said about himself, "Buddha is the name of
infinite knowledge, infinite as the sky; I, Gautama,
have reached that state; you will all reach that too
if you struggle for it."
Bereft of all motive power, he didn't want to go to
heaven, didn't want money; he gave up his throne and
everything else and went about begging his bread through
the streets of India, preaching for the good of men
and animals with a heart as wide as the ocean.
He was the only man who was ever ready to give up
his life for animals to stop a sacrifice.
He once said to a king, "If the sacrifice of
a lamb helps you to go to heaven, sacrificing a man
will help you better; so sacrifice me." The king
was astonished. And yet this man was without any motive
power.
THE PERFECT MAN OF ACTION
He stands as the perfection of the active type, and
the very height to which he attained shows that through
the power of work we can also attain to the highest
spirituality.
To many the path becomes easier if they believe in
God. But the life of Buddha shows that even a man
who doesn't believe in God, has no metaphysics, belongs
to no sect, and doesn't go to any church, or temple,
and is a confessed materialist, even he can attain
to the highest.
I wish I had one infinitesimal part of Buddha's heart.
Buddha may or may not have believed in God; that doesn't
matter to me.
He reached the same state of perfection to which others
come by Bhakti-(love of God) -Yoga (meditation), or
Jnana (knowledge). Perfection doesn't come from belief
or faith. Talk doesn't count for anything. Parrots
can do that. Perfection comes through the disinterested
performance of action.
