How Gautama Became a Buddha

There are many aspects to his life- the most important aspect is that he is a Bu Dha, that’s not his name, His name is Gautama Siddhartha but he is a Buddha.

Buddha means- he transcended his intellect. Bu means buddhi, Dha means dhadha, Buddhi means the intellect; dhadha means one who is above. One who is above his intellect is a Buddha.

One who is in his intellect is a non-stop suffering human being (Laughter), something happens they suffer, nothing happens they suffer, whichever way (Laughs), that is if you are below the mind we call them buddhu (Laughter). You’re missing the point.

If you are above the mind, you are a Buddha, if you are below the mind you are a buddhu, if you are in the mind, you are non-stop suffering (Few laugh), so how did he become this? He tried many things in his life.

He was a prince of a small princely state, because some yogi predicted that this will either become a great emperor or become a great sage, when he made this prediction, the father got little excited.

He did not want him to become a great sage; he wanted to become a great emperor, So he decided he will not expose him to… because he thought by being exposed to some suffering or misery, he may turn into a sage so he kept him in utter pleasure- the best of food, best of clothes, best of pleasures, everything.

When he was eight… nineteen years of age, he got him married to a very pretty young woman, Kept him in a palace secluded form the rest of the society where he lives in pleasure, never exposed to any kind of suffering.

One day he thought he will just take a drive through the town. He asked his charioteer to take him across, so he was going and then he saw a man who was old, who was going like this (Gestures), So he had never seen a old man in his life, his father had protected him from all this.

He said, ‘what happened to him?’ So the charioteer, Oh! He is just a old man’, ‘How does it happen’ he asked, He said, ‘everybody gets old someday’, He looked at himself, he was a nice youth. ‘What! Me also?’ Said, ‘yes, everybody! Everybody gets old.

They live long enough, they get old.’ He… this was a realization for him.

I will become like this (Gestures), then he saw a man lying on the street who was ill with something, not able to get up, in great suffering, He said, ‘stop! What is this guy? What’s he doing?’ He said, ‘Oh! He is sick unfortunately’, ‘What does that mean?’ He said, ‘a body, sometimes it gets sick. It can happen to anybody.

It can happen to just anybody.’ ‘Me? A Prince! It can happen to me?’ ‘It can happen to anybody, and then he saw, oh! I can become like this, then they were going further, he was completely disturbed by this, then he saw a funeral, they were carrying a dead body of a man. ‘What happened to that guy?’ ‘Oh, he just died that’s all’, ‘what does that mean?’ ‘That happens to everybody without exception.’ Then he said, ‘what am I doing? Just eating, pleasures, nonsense, what am I doing with myself? And he struggled; he went into turmoil within himself.

This suddenly being a prince and these pleasures and all this palace sudd… suddenly broke apart for him and he started looking, what is the point of all this, This (Referring to Oneself) is going to get old, this may get sick, for sure this will be dead.

What am I investing my entire life in this? But by then he had an infant boy, Tch, he looked at his wife and his child, this loving wife and this lovely little baby, he could not leave. He struggled and struggled and struggled. By then a little over one-and-a-quarter years passed, When the boy was one-and-a-half years of age, he could not hold it anymore In the middle of the night, like a thief, without telling anybody he slipped out of the palace and left for good, He went in search; I want to know the truth about this life. He went from school to school-these are times when different schools were established in India, At one point there were over 1800 schools, I’m saying not just institutions, 1800 different ways of doing things, 1800 different varieties of yoga.

Not the kind that you are seeing in California, somebody doing like this (Gestures), somebody doing like this (Gestures), really intricate expressions.

It is like how the Medical Science is becoming today. Twenty-five years ago, you wanted a medical check-up; all you needed was your family doctor. Today (Laughs) for every part of your body, there is a doctor.

I was few years ago I had a, you know, I had a knee injury I was playing soccer and I broke something in the knee And I was all packed up and I was speaking, that’s how I got into golf because of this knee injury (Laughs), (Few laugh) Somebody told me… gifted me a golf kit and said, ‘guru you’re too old for any other game (Few laugh), you just play golf’, So I was sitting there in Atlanta and talking, speaking at a place. Then I was in pain, I couldn’t even move. So, after the… when this is over…

I mean once I accustomed be speaking, one person raised his hand; I believed he wants a matter, on the choice hand he said, ‘Guru I'd value more highly to look at your knee after this might be often over. I’m a knee doctor’.

I said, ‘come on, you're an orthopaedic.’ Said, ‘no, no, I’m a knee doctor.’ Then I said, ‘right or left (laughter)?

Which one are you?’ So specialization, specialization goes, a time will come probably in fifty years’ time, if you'd quite medical check-up, you would like 100 doctors to check you.

By the time you get these 100 appointments (Gestures) (Laughter), maybe you'd like an undertaker, and then it’ll become ridiculous. Okay you visited three doctors, alright. You visited five doctors, alright.

If it becomes fifty-hundred doctors for a medical check-up, it’s become ridiculous, isn't it? This happened to yogic system- people started specializing and specializing in an exceedingly similar way of small things.

Each specialization encompasses a unit by itself, someone just came and told me, there are dentist… okay, and I’m not speaking in any this thing, as example dentistry, just thirty-two teeth, alright? They study for nine years.

Thirty-two teeth, nine years of study still they don’t know everything about it. That’s the character of creation.

If you start studying one tooth at a time, you may see each of them has something specific about it, You… somebody can spend a lifetime of study just learning about one tooth, just see if you had thirty-two dentist to appear into your mouth (Few laugh), disaster you're, isn't it (Laughs)?, So as specialization, specialization happens, when it crosses a selected point, it’ll become ridiculous.

This happened to yoga. It crossed that point where 1800 schools, different specializations of yoga happened, So that is when Patanjali came and kind of assimilated everything into Yoga Sutras to minimize this expanse that was growing endlessly, So when Gautama came, it had been post-Patanjali but still there are many things, So he went from school to high school. He pursued eight differing kinds of Samadhi.

We are talking about Samadhi, okay (Laughs)?,He pursued eight differing kinds of Samadhi. He saw all of them were wonderful experiences but still it didn't liberate him. So during this condition he was walking as a Samana.

There is a particular system of practice called as Samanas, Their fundamental practice is this- they'll never evoke food. You’d opt to not be available pursuit of food because they have to beat the essential instinct of survival.

No matter what you're always getting in pursuit of food, please understand this, You may complicate it in numerous ways but fundamentally… you’re talking most about economy means you’re just wondering survival all the time, isn't it? Survival glorified, but still its survival, So one fundamental sadhana for them is, you never pursue your instinct of survival, you only keep going. So Samanas accustomed just walk, never requesting food, But the culture was sensitive, if they saw a spiritual person walking, people will cook reception and run behind him and serve him wherever he's because they know he won't elicit food.

Today if you become a Samana, you'll walk yourself to death (Laughter), those days’ people were sensitive to his sadhana and responded so there are thousands of Samanas walking the country, So Gautama became a Samana and whether or not you are not requesting food, you'll walk near a town Tch, so as that food will come. But Gautama took it too seriously and just walked!

He became all bones, just bones and a bag of skin, like that he became.

Then he came to a component where there was a river called Niranjana, unfortunately that river is gone now, no more river, nearly eighteen-to-twenty inches of water, maybe moving little rapidly, He stepped into it, halfway down into the river he failed to have the energy to cross.

There was a limb, a dead branch, he just held onto it, He doesn’t have the strength to wish the following step but he is not the kind of man to dropping, He held on, we don’t know for the way long, people say for a awfully very while. Maybe it absolutely was two minutes, when you are feeling so weak, those two minutes might need gave the planning of some years.

Then as he persisted, he just realized what's it that I'm striving for?, What is it I’m wandering the full country, going from school to high school, learning this, learning that, what is it that I’m looking for? Then he realized, there’s really nothing, this life is on.

All I've should attempt to to is solely remove the barriers which don't seem to be allowing me to experience this, When he realized that everything is within him, there's not any because of search, suddenly he had the energy to wish the next step and also the following step. He crossed the river, came and sat down thereunder now very famous Bodhi tree, which has become more famous than Buddha himself (Laughs).

A part of the tree, a remnant or a… a progeny of the tree still exists in Bodhgaya and he sat under the tree, it absolutely was this full-of-the-moon night which is coming now on 10th of May.

He sat there and he sat there with this determination- either I'd value more highly to work out the last word nature of my existence now or I'll sit here and die, I'll not open my eyes till I do know this.

Once he made that resolve, because the only real problem is there's not any resolve, every two minutes your intentions are changing, if you're totally on, to know what's within you, how long should it take? Hmm? It should happen during a flash, isn't it? Because there's not any distance to travel.

Time could be a quantity which is important only there's a distance to travel, isn't it?, If there's no distance to travel, if I ask you the way long does it hold you to sit down here?

You’re already siting, it’s already there. It doesn’t take any time, so you're already alive and on, it doesn’t take any time for realization because you don’t should do anything particular.

When he saw this, he was fully enlightened and therefore the moon was shining and he had not eaten for several months on end properly, years actually, four years he was a Samana and other people around him, he had gathered about five disciples I feel, these guys thought he’s real because he doesn’t eat, he’s really rigid and that they saw, he’s in some state, exuberant state and that they could see the sunshine on his face.

Then they were awaiting him to open his eyes and provide the teaching, He opened his eyes, checked out them, smiled and said, ‘cook something, let’s eat!’ (Laughter), they were totally disappointed, they thought he’s lost it.

They walked with him for four to eight years when he had nothing but torture, when he got enlightened, they left him (Few laugh) because they wanted to listen to something severe, He said, ‘cook something, let’s eat.’ We’ve been wasting our time (Few laugh).

There are many beautiful episodes in his life when he at some point walked upon the riverbank after he has become a Buddha and went and sat down under a tree, Tree not because tree is that the best place to sit down under, you recognize ants can get you.

Because that was the sole real estate of those times, there were no buildings and buildings and buildings everywhere, so tree was an honest place, a nice place to take a seat under instead of sitting in harsh sun, you sit under a tree.

An astrologer, who is of great proficiency in his trade saw the footprint on the riverbank, he had come to… In India people of any this thing means, bath means always river, Those rivers are departure, I will be able to tell you later, Bath means always river so, he came for a shower to the river then he saw the footprint there's a full science or rather observations through which by gazing the way one’s feet is somebody predicts exactly what he will do, So he saw the footprint and so he saw that this is often the footprint of an emperor, somebody who should rule the planet.

Then he wondered, why would such an individual be during this remote place near a jungle, Then he followed the footprint thinking he will meet an emperor, Then he saw this monk- Gautama sitting under a tree, Then he checked out this, this… he thought either my astrology is gone all wrong or I’m being fooled or I’m in some reasonably a hallucination, what’s happening here? Then he visited Gautama and asked, ‘who are you?’ Gautama was tch, during this quite, Jasjeet (Referring to a Participant) quite state (Few laugh), he said, ‘I’m nobody. I’m just a nobody.’ But you have got the feet of an emperor! You should conquer the globe. Gautama said, ‘that I will be able to but not by conquest’.

See, there are two ways you'll be able to have the globe, either by conquest or by inclusion. Yes? I can cause you to yours, either by capturing you; chaining you and making you are doing what I need or by including you as a component of myself, yes? Both ways something or somebody becomes yours, isn't it? But if you elapse conquest, it'll be a pain in your neck always.

If you include, this can become a good enhancement of life. He said, ‘I am the emperor of the globe.’

Then he said, ‘you are a monk! You own nothing’, I own nothing and that i am a nobody that's why everything is mine, Even mathematicians try to show you the zero and therefore the infinite are one and also the same, hmm? So you becoming a no-thing don’t mean you're no use.

 

You are a no-thing means you’ve become all inclusive, isn't it? You’re something means you'll only be that, you are a no-thing; you'll be any way you would like. This can be how this life is formed, if your ability to reply is not curtailed, you'll be able to be anything you would like at any given moment, isn't it? So Gautama said, ‘I’m anyway the emperor of the globe if that’s a word you wish but I’m actually a nobody because everything is anyway mine’.

If you see I’m to blame for everything, everything is yours, isn't it? How does somebody become yours? Hmm? Because you own them or take responsibility for them? Because you are taking responsibility for them, they become yours not otherwise, isn't it?

If you own them forcefully, they'll never be yours. Yes or no? Participants: Yes.

If you forcefully own somebody, will they ever be yours? They’ll never ever be yours. So this astrologer sat down, He said, ‘you are a monk, you've got nothing, on top of it you say you're Jasjeet (Referring to a Participant), I’m sorry (Few laugh), on top of it you say I'm a nobody and everything is yours’ what's this? Gautama said, ‘you come. I’ve got some way for you.

You are busy making predictions of life. I’ve got an idea.’ Why does one make predictions of life? You’re incapable of constructing an inspiration and executing an idea, that's why you fall back on a… prediction, isn't it? Yes or no? If you're capable of creating an idea and executing a concept, would you fall back on predictions? Participants: No! Guru: No, so, Gautama said, ‘you are busy making predictions. I am here, I’ve got an inspiration.

Come… become an element of my plan. We’ll make something else happen; you must become a component of this plan. We will make something wonderful happen, this same world, this same world is paradise if all of sus… all people go by a paradise plan, isn't it? Yes or no? Participants: Yes. The question is simply, do that… because between a chance and a reality there's a distance Are… can we have the courage and therefore the commitment to steer the distance? That’s all its. Yes? Participants: Yes.