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Following
The Enlightened One
May
30, 2010
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Swami Yogatmananda
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Summary of this Lecture:
Buddha was an extremely rational and yet compassionate teacher. He
attainted enlightenment by analyzing the experiences- rejecting the
objects (however pleasant they may be) that bring suffering and bondage
and accepting that which bring freedom and ultimate bliss. He taught
that 'Buddha' (enlightenment) is a state and each and everyone
has the potential to attain to it. Once his disciple Ananda with other
assembled disciples, asked him - why, even after intellectually understanding
the things, do we fall in the ignorance that binds us to the cycles
of birth and death and how to get emancipation from it? Buddha replied
that this world is as unreal as the 'blossoms seen in the sky' and
is conjured by the sense organs and mind. The existence of 'I' and
existence of 'world' depend upon each other. Thus the way is to remove
the attachment to sense organs and the world conjured up by them and
merge in the essence of both. To further elaborate the concept in
a concrete way, Buddha took out a handkerchief and tied six knots
to it - each one corresponding to the five sense organs and mind.
Then he asked 'what is the knot? - nothing but handkerchief.' Then
he said that if you untie these knots what remains is the handkerchief,
which was there all the time. So also the reality is One; we tie the
knots of separate existence onto it and further number those knots
in a consecutive order to create an illusion of connectedness. However,
in truth, these knots come and go; they do not have any existence
at all. Vedanta calls this the knot of existence and nonexistence
(chit-jada granthi). When delusion of sense conceptions is
destroyed, what remains is the true essence of mind (i.e. the handkerchief
in the above example). As the untying of the knots has to be done
in a reverse order one after another, similarly first untangle the
misconception of ego-personality and next - the attachment to personal
attainments. When these two entanglements are utterly destroyed and
never again permitted to rise to defile the true essential mind, then
one attains enlightenment. The false 'I' tied with body and mind and
hence tied to the world through ego is not real. Sri Ramkrishna says
that 'I' and 'mine' is the bondage that makes us suffer. By following
the teachings of the enlightened one, we ourselves become enlightened.
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