A few days ago I read about Siddhartha, the rich king who later in his life going through different and profound emotions turned out to be the Buddha. The story seemed so fascinating, what enthuses me about the Buddhism is the fact that it is a religion preached by a person who lived in the recent past. The transformation from Siddhartha into Buddha is so compelling that you will actually believe that, if one passes through a series of intense life changing ups and downs, its believable that you will attain this so called enlightenment. Buddha according to me is not a person; it’s a state of mind. In this state of mind, everything around you makes sense to you, even the most complex of human emotions, in simpler terms, it’s conquering your own self completely, a complete control on your emotions. According to what I read, Siddhartha was a king, he had everything he wanted in his life, he enjoyed music, lived in a palace, was entertained by women, he had every pleasure he could imagine of. He then married a beautiful princess and had a baby. He was never subjected to suffering for 28 years, which indeed was a very long time. It’s better than a fairy tale actually; even characters in a fairy tale had to fight or overcome problems to live happily ever after. So he found out that something wasn’t correct. He then went out of his palace to discover the pains and sufferings people are subjected to. He then leaves his palace and goes into the forest leaving two things behind, firstly the lifeless and temporary riches and comforts. Secondly, he left his wife, their month’s old kid, the love that existed between them and the love that would have existed if he stayed back. He then tried different methods to achieve enlightenment. He did not eat for months and just meditated, he approached different teachers and he was hurt physically as well as mentally. After going through all this, he was said to have attained enlightenment. In the present world, if we begin searching for another Buddha (as I began by saying that I understood Buddha as the state of mind but not a person) if looked carefully we might find them around us. These modern Buddha’s are not raised in palaces (considering that born and raised in a palace is an advantage, which I would like to call it as an “up”), but they are born in homes in which they ate healthy food, went to good schools, had parties, had friends (which Buddha lacked by the way, he was kept away from the outside world by his father). If all these were considered up’s. They might have a few downs in their lives too, breaking up of relationships, failing in school, problems managing money, again Buddha didn’t have these kind of low’s, which has its advantages and disadvantages equally shared. If thinking that going through a series of amazing ups and hard hitting downs, analyzing them and understanding them is a way to enlightenment, then many of us have reached there. Are we all Buddha’s then? The answer would be no. We cannot be Buddha. We do not live in solitaire, we do not and cannot meditate every day, we are the part and parcel of a fast moving world, a world more growing with technology and shrinking in value every passing day, we learn from our mistakes, we make new mistakes, we drink, we eat, we celebrate when we succeed, we lock ourselves away from others and cry when we lose. We, humans are a combination of various emotions. Buddha’s way of enlightenment is past; he was always looking for the reason behind human suffering. The new way to enlightenment is learning from your mistakes and making new ones, thereby learning more. Conquering emotions is what Buddha did to achieve enlightenment, it’s a way. But history would have changed very little if everyone chose the same path. Whoever looks for reasons which lead to their mistakes and generalizes them turn into philosophers, the very new breed of Modern Buddha’s.
