The Buddhism founder and his teaching on the oneness of the Universe
There is a beautiful parable about the Buddhism founder, Siddhartha Gautama Buddha.
Gautama Buddha arrived at the gates of heaven and all was prepared with great fanfare to receive him. The gates were flung open, music was playing and angels were present to greet him with garlands. But he refused to enter heaven.
He said, "I will not enter until all the being in the Universe enter Heaven. Only after that will I enter.
The angels said, "But that will take an eternity. Just think, for all the Humans, elephants, lions, and ants to enter heaven will take forever."
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha said, "That is not a problem. I am prepared to wait. I have learned patience. In any case I am eternally blissful already so what can Heaven give me. Until all the beings in the Universe enter Heaven I will wait here."
And it is said that the Buddha is still waiting. The angels keep coming with ever-new arguments to persuade him to enter Heaven and then close the gates. But the Buddha refuses to budge. He is still waiting at the gates and the doors of Heaven are open.
It is a beautiful parable and it carries a message. Osho Rajneesh says that even if the Buddha, the Buddhism founder, wants to enter Heaven he cannot. Can your hand, Osho asks, enter Heaven without you? If it does it will be a dead hand, it will have no life in it. Can your eye enter Heaven leaving you behind? You are one organism – the body is not separate from itself. In the same manner the whole Universe is one organism; we are not separate from each other or the rest of the Universe.
This is the conclusion not only of the founder of Buddhism, the Buddhism holy book and the like but also of modern Physics as well. The conclusions of Quantum Physics as regards the nature of the Universe are explained in my special report available at this website. Please subscribe to the free newsletter to get the report.
Then why is it that we do not experience our oneness with the Universe? Why do we feel ourselves separate from the rest of existence? A major reason is our own rational discriminating intellect. We need our rational, reasoning, thinking faculty to function in the marketplace, in society and in the world. Our intellect is utilitarian; it has its uses. But this same intellect stands in the way of out understanding our own true nature and that of the Universe. It stands in the way of our being awakened and gaining mystical insights.
Our intellect and the languages we use to think and communicate function in the world of duality. In this world, day and night is considered opposed to each other and separate. I am separate to you, subject from object, life to death, male to female up to down and so on. Yet when we use language and our intellects we are dealing with concepts and not with reality directly. According to the Buddha, the Buddhism founder, and Eastern Philosophy generally speaking, we are imprisoned by this thinking intellect.
Consider the experience of drinking a cup of tea. You sip the tea, taste and swallow it. At the moment of tasting the tea, you and the tea are not separate – it is one unified experience.
Now suppose I ask you to describe the taste of the tea. At that point you will use the intellect and language to describe concepts that will communicate your experience. Yet this conceptualization, this description is not the experience itself (of drinking tea). When you were drinking the tea you were one with the tea, the tea and you were not separate. It is only when you use concepts to think about and communicate the experience to others that the separation occurs.
We are too much identified with the mind, all of us. This excessive thinking and conceptualization hides from us our own true nature and that of the Universe. We miss the experiencing by taking excessive thought.
The way out of this difficulty according to the Buddhism founder, Gautama Buddha, is to be mindful and to do meditation so that we are available to the experience of life instead of being identified with our thoughts.
The Buddhism founder, Gautama Buddha's teaching is a practical way to lead us from suffering to peace and the bliss of enlightenment.
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