The man, Siddhartha Gotama, known as Buddha, 'The Enlightened One", never claimed to be anything more than a teacher. Teaching only what he had learned by direct experience. He encouraged others to only believe what we experience directly from within. "Each of you make truth your island, make truth your refuge; there is no other refuge."
All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become.
- Buddha
So Siddhartha was teaching us to have a pure mind in order to end suffering and reach enlightenment. (in my words, Ra)
Since a Pure Mind is the goal of Dharma (The Path, The Law of Nature) that is the result of the end of suffering (enlightenment) and a Pure Mind is full of Love, Peace & Joy, isn't that the same as "God" in most religions? The "Great I AM"?
Sai Sharma: Osho can't be compared to Buddha at all. I don't believe in 0sho's concept of no God...in fact every atom in the universe is God, its our duality nature which makes us feel that we are different from God. People say Buddha was atheist but this is sheer misunderstanding as he did believe in light which can be said as one power we give different names. Budhha was against religious rituals but not againt the omipotent or omnipresent power. He didn't believe in fasting or praying through flowers or other items, that's absolutely truth as God is not looking for offerings or your fasting, all that we do for our satisfaction. God looks only for pure heart and that can be attained through various paths, Buddha chose the highest path of meditation.
The Dalai Lama, whose strategy for nonviolence begins with a Buddhist approach of transcending inner conflict, urges his followers to let go of anger and achieve tranquility.
"Like children, a little quarrel here takes place, a fight," the exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhism said. "But to keep ill feeling is very bad."
Generally speaking, I have found peace activists and peace rallies to not be very peaceful... to the contrary; they are usually angry and focused on the object of their anger - not on inner peace - which comes from within, or it will not ex...ist anywhere. But it does not just show up one day and take up residence in your heart, kicking out anger and turmoil. No, we must invite it, nurture it and get to know it through direct experience. If our focus is the lack of peace, we will not find it. If our focus is war, we will not find it. One peace activist I know of learned all about military weapons - became an expert - yet did not learn about or pursue inner peace with the same seriousness. I think about the old "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" - cuz when you are doing those things, you become them.
Thanks Jeeni, Mother Teresa said "I will not be antiwar, however I will be proPeace." I went to a big peace rally against Iraq war, and I found some very effective pro-peace activists there - mostly the elderly yet alot of the young people. There were some gov. thugs there trying to bait the peace activists, yet out of tens of thousands people there, there were only a few dozen taking the bait from these pro-war activist - only a couple of hundred of them yet where did our "liberal press" go? To that small conflict - we were only covered by the foreign press, and when I watched the news - all of the press went to the small conflict, and the couple of hundred pro-war got most of the publicity.
Happiness Will Follow You
We are what we think
All that we are arises
with our thought
with our thoughts
we make the world.
Speak and act with
an impure mind
and trouble will
follow you.
As the wheel that
follows the ox
that draws the cart.
We are what we think
All that arises with
our thought
with our thoughts we
make our world.
Speak or act with
a pure mind
and happiness will follow you
as your shadow, unshakable.
THE DHAMMAPADA
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