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A Brief History of Humankind by Dr. Yuval Noah Harari.
Meditations of Buddhism (CREDIT – INDIANETZONE.COM)
Great Gods can send us love, they can send us rain. Social institutions can provide us with justice, with good health care. Lucky coincidences can turn us into millionaires. None of these things can change the basic patterns of the mind. Even the wealthiest and the most powerful people are never satisfied, they are constantly fleeing from unpleasant experiences. Gautama found that there was one way to escape this vicious circle in which humans are all caught. If, when the mind experiences something, pleasant or unpleasant it simply understands and accepts things as they are then there is no suffering. If you experience sadness without craving it to go away, you continue to feel sadness but you don’t suffer from it. There can actually be much richness, much insight in the sadness. If, on the other hand, you experience joy without craving that this joy should linger and intensify then you continue to feel joy but without losing your piece of mind. You can be completely satisfied with the joy that you have, whatever amount it is.  THE SURE WAY TO NIRVANA (CREDIT – EXOTICINDIAART.COM)
Gautama developed a set of meditation techniques that trained the mind to experience reality as it is without craving for something different or something more. These meditative practices train the mind to focus all its attention on the question what am I really experiencing right now? and not on the question what would I rather be experiencing instead? It is very difficult to achieve this state of mind, but it is not impossible. Gautama grounded these meditation techniques in a set of ethical rules to make it easier for people to focus on the experience of the present while avoiding falling into fantasies, cravings and fears. Gautama instructed his followers to avoid killing, promiscuous sex and theft. Not because some great god forbade it but because such acts necessarily increase the fires of craving for power, sensual pleasure and wealth. When the flames of craving are completely extinguished craving is replaced by a state of perfect contentment and serenity, which is known in Buddhism as nirvana. The literal meaning of ‘nirvana’ is the extinguishing of the fire. Extinguishing the fire of craving that all the time burns in the mind and creates dissatisfaction and misery. According to Buddhist ideas those who have managed to obtain nirvana are fully liberated from all suffering. They experience reality with the utmost clarity without any fantasies or delusions. They might still encounter a lot of unpleasantness, even pain in their lives, but such experiences do not cause them misery, because they have no craving for the pain or unpleasantness to go away. A person who does not crave cannot suffer.  GAUTAMA BUDDHA (CREDIT – UTILITARIANISM.ORG)
According to Buddhist tradition, Gautama managed to attain nirvana and was fully liberated from all suffering and henceforth he was known as Buddha. The meaning of the word Buddha is the enlightened one. Buddha, after freeing himself from all suffering spent the rest of his life explaining his discoveries to others so that everyone could also be free from suffering. He encapsulated his teaching, in a single law which says that suffering arises from craving. The only way to be fully liberated from suffering is to be fully liberated from craving. The only way to be liberated from craving is to train the mind to experience reality as it is without craving for reality to be something else. This law which is known in Buddhism as dharma or dhamma is seen by Buddhists as a universal law of nature that suffering always arises from craving is true everywhere for everybody, just as in modern physics E always equals mc squared. This is a law of nature and Buddhists are people who believe it and make it the centre of all their activities. Belief in gods is of minor importance to Buddhism. Whereas the first principle of monotheist religions says, god exists, what does he want from me? The first principle of Buddhism says, suffering exists, how do I get out of it? Buddhism does not deny the existence of gods, they are often described in Buddhist philosophy and stories as powerful beings who can do such things as bring rain or victory in war, but they have no influence on the law of nature. Suffering and happiness are an outcome of a natural law which works in complete independence of the gods. If the mind of a particular person is free of all craving no god in the universe can make this person miserable. Conversely, once craving arises all the gods in the universe combined cannot save this person from suffering, because craving inevitably leads to suffering. This at least is the Buddhist theory.  BRAHMA, VISHNU AND SHIVA WITH THEIR CONSORTS. (CREDIT – WIKIMEDIA)
Yet, much like the monotheist religions, the pre-modern natural law religions, such as Buddhism, never really managed to rid themselves completely of the worship of various gods. Buddhism acknowledged the existence of the gods and their efficacy in bringing rain, victory, cure for disease and so forth. Buddhism told people that they should aim for the ultimate goal of complete liberation from suffering and not settle for lesser aims like economic prosperity or political power. However, 99% of Buddhists did not obtain nirvana, and even if they hope that someday, maybe in a future lifetime, to be completely liberated from suffering, they devoted most of their present life to the pursuit of mundane achievements, like economic prosperity or political power. Most Buddhists continued to worship gods, such as the Hindu gods in India, the Bon godsin Tibet, the Shinto gods in Japan, and numerous new Buddhist gods and saints. This is something that has characterized all the traditional natural law religions not just Buddhism, but also Daoism and Jainism and others. Even though, in theory, they gave little importance to gods, in practice, the worship of different gods continued to be of considerable importance.
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