HaastigeSpoed SlowMotion Siddharta Gautama Buddha

~!@!~
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Now
we must
go back again three centuries
in our myDi-story
to tell of a great teacher
who came near to revolutionising
the religious thought and feeling of all Asia.
This was Gautama Buddha,
who taught his disciples at Benares in India
about the same time that Isaiah was prophesying
among the Jews in Babylon
and Heraclitus was carrying on his speculative inquiries
into the nature of things at Ephesus.
All these men were in the world at the same time,
in the sixth century B.C. -
unaware of one another ...

@

This sixth century B.C. was indeed one of the most remarkable
in all myDi-history?
Everywhere - for as we can see it was also the case in China -
men's minds were displaying a new boldness.
Everywhere they were waking up
out of the traditions of kingships and priests and blood sacrifices
and asking the most penetrating questions?
It is as if the race had reached a stage of adolescence -
after a childhood of 20,000 years!

@

The early history of India is still very obscure.
Somewhere, perhaps about 2000 B.C.,
an Aryan-speaking people came down from the north-west into India,
either in one invasion or in a series of invasions,
and was able to spread its language and traditions
over most of north India.
ITS peculiar variety of Aryan speech was the Sanskrit.
THEY found a brunet people with a more elaborate civilisation
and less vigour of will in possession of the country of the Indus
and the Ganges.
But they do not seem to have mingled with their predecessors as freely
as they did with the Greeks and Persians.
THEY remained aloof.
When the past of India becomes dimly visible to the historian,
Indian society is already stratified into several layers,
with a variable number of subdivisions,
which do not eat together nor intermarry
nor associate freely.
And throughout history this stratification into castes continues.
THIS makes the Indian population something different
from the simple, freely interbreeding European
or Mongolian cummunities.
IT is really a community of communities.

@

SIDDHARTA Gautama
was the son of an aristocratic family
which ruled a small district on the Himalayan slopes.
He was married at nineteen to a beautiful cousin.
He hunted and played and went about in his sunny world of gardens
and groves and irrigated rice-fields.
And it was amidst this life
that a great discontent fell upon him.
IT was the unhappiness of a fine young brain that seeks employment.
HE felt that the existence he was leading
was not the reality of life,
but a holiday -
a holiday that had gone on for too long.



@

The sense of disease and mortality,
the insecurity and the unsatisfactoriness of all happiness,
descended upon the mind of Gautama.
While he was in this mood he met one of those wandering ascetics
who already existed in great numbers in India.
THESE men lived under severe rules,
spending much time in meditation and religious discussion.
THEY were supposed to be seeking some deeper reality in life,
and a passionate desire to do likewise
took possession of Gautama ...

@

He was meditating upon this project, says the story,
when the news was brought to him that his wife had been delivered
of his first-born son.
"THIS is another tie to break," said Gautama.

@

He returned to the village amidst the rejoicings of his fellow clansmen.
There was a great feast and a Nautch dance
to celebrate the birth of this new tie,
and in the night Gautama awoke in a great agony of spirit,
'like a man who is told his house is on fire.'
He resolved to leave his happy aimless life forthwith.
He went softly to the threshold of his wife's chamber, and saw her
by the light of a little oil-lamp, sleeping sweetly,
surrounded by flowers,
with his infant son in her arms.
HE felt a great craving to take up the child in one first and last embrace
before he departed,
but the fear of waking his wife prevented him,
and at last he turned away and went out into the bright Indian moonshine
and mounted his horse and rode off
into the world .......

@@

Very far he rode that night,
and in the morning he stopped outside the lands of his clan,
and dismounted beside a sandy river.
There he cut off his flowing locks with his sword,
removed all his ornaments and sent them and his horse and sword
to his house .............

@@
@@
Going on
he presently met
a ragged man
and exchanged clothes with him,
and so having divested himself of all wordly entanglements he was free
at last to pursue his search
after wisdom ...
&

He made
his way southward
to a resort of hermits and teachers
in a hilly spur of the Vindhya Mountains.
There lived a number of wise men in a warren of caves,
going into the town for their simple supplies
and imparting their knowledge by word of mouth to such as cared
to come to them.
Gautama became versed in all metaphysics of his age.
BUT his acute intelligence was dissatisfied
with the solutions offered
him ...

&

The Indian mind
has always been disposed to believe
that power and knowledge may be obtained by extreme ascetism,
by FASTING, SLEEPLESSNESS, and SELF-TORMENT,
and these ideas Gautama now put to the test.
He betook himself with five disciple companions to the jungle
and there he gave himself up to fasting
and terrible penances ......
His fame spread,
'like the sound of a great bell hung in the canopy of the skies.'
BUT it brought him no sense of truth achieved!
One day he was walking up & down,
trying to think
in spite of his enfeebled state ...
SUDDENLY he fell
unconscious.
When recovered,
the preposterousness of these semi-magical ways of wisdom was plain to him!

&

He horrified his companions by demanding ordinary food and refusing to continue his mortifications .............
He had realised that whatever truth a man may reach
is reached best by a NOURISHED BRAIN
IN A HEALTHY BODY!
Such a conception was absolutely foreign to the ideas of the land & age?
His disciples deserted him,
and he went off
in a melancholy state to Varanasi!
Gautama wandered alone.

&

SOMEHOW
all of us have to go thru stages like that:
leave behind the old situations,
try out different ways of
'salvation' in order
to find ourself,
disappointment,
failure and starting
all over again and again
until we are all alone and don't
yet know where to go, sit, stand or
sleep ........

&

When the mind grapples
with a great and intricate problem,
it makes its advances step by step, with but little realisation
of the gains it has made,
until suddenly,
with an effect of abrupt illumination,
it realises its victory?
SO
it happened to Gautama.
HE had seated himself under a great tree by the side of a river to eat,
when this sense of clear vision came to him ...
It seemed to him that he saw life plain.
He is said to have sat all day and
all night in profound thought,
and then he rose up to
impart his vision to
the world ...
@&
*

FINALLY
he had found his myDi:
on that day, went on to Varanasi and there he sought out
and won back his long lost disciples to his
NEW
teaching:
in the King's Deer Park at Benares
they built themselves myDi-huts
and set up a sort of school
to which came many who
were seeking after
wisdom
...

liefdesverdrietverliefd
engel
05 jul 2004 - bewerkt op 11 jan 2008 - meld ongepast verhaal
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