BUDDHA STRESSED ON MAIN ASPECT OF JOURNEY KEEPING ASIDE GOAL

Shri Pavan asked: I heard some scholars saying that Buddha mentioned in the list of incarnations as per Bhagavatam is totally different from the present Gautama Buddha, whom we are referring as Buddha. Can you please clear this point?

Shri Swami replied: After the incarnation of Krishna, the Dwapara age ended and a few years only passed over since Kali age started. In this short span of time there is no necessity of establishing a separate Buddha apart from this Gautama Buddha. Of course, there are two reasons for such misunderstanding of our scholars:

1. Gautama Buddha negated God as an atheist and
2. Gautama Buddha said that the Vedas were written by human beings only (Paurusheya)

Both these points are only misunderstandings of our scholars due to lack of correct interpretations of intentions of Gautama Buddha. Both these clarifications are:

1. Gautama Buddha never said like an atheist that God does never exist. He only kept silent about God, which is the correct explanation of unimaginable God. Even Shankara stated the same that the nature of unimaginable God (Parabrahma) can be best expressed through silence only (Mounavyaakhyaaprakatita parabrahma tattvam…). Buddhists, the followers of Buddha, have misunderstood this silence as negation. Even though preachers shouted vehemently stating that God exists, some souls have become atheists! If silence is expressed, what will be the fate of souls?
2. The unimaginable God never dictated the Vedas or any scripture in the world directly to any human being here. God, beyond imagination is not having facial mouth to dictate the scripture. The unimaginable God entered the sages, who became human incarnations to express the scriptures containing unimaginable knowledge. God is the speaker and the sage is the recorder. The name of each sage is mentioned in the beginning of every part of the Veda (suktam) as the recorder of the dictation of God, the author. What Gautama Buddha said is not negation of God as the author, but adding the name of the recorder also as an addition. Since, the unimaginable God became one with the sage, there is nothing wrong even to say that the sage is the author.

Due to these two misunderstandings of Buddha, our great scholars have separated Gautama Buddha from Buddha, the incarnation of God. In this short span of time, if Gautama Buddha, a non-incarnation of God became so much famous, why the real incarnation of God, Buddha, was not even heard by anybody so far? Till you say this point now, everybody is unaware of this foolish point. If you don’t like somebody, you are changing his address itself! If there are certain doubts, you must take the trouble of applying sharp deep analysis to get clarifications for such doubts. Without taking such serious trouble, the easiest way for you is just to change the total address of the preacher labelling Him as an ordinary human being or even an atheist! If you observe the life history of Gautama Buddha, the divine miracles of Lord Vishnu were clearly shown. In the mi4dnight when Buddha was leaving the palace by the chariot, neither sound of chariot nor sound of running horses was heard at all! In the forest, the saffron cloths fell on Him dropping down from the sky!

If you come to the preaching side of Gautama Buddha, it is the excellent knowledge. God comes in human form only to preach the humanity. Buddha sat under the tree and got enlightened indicating that one should do the deep sharp analysis sitting alone in perfect silence for self-realization. Shiva also is seen in meditation always indicating that devotees should sit in meditation doing self-analysis. Buddha declared that the root hurdle of entire spiritual journey is the worldly desire or attraction to worldly bonds. Everybody approaches and worships God seriously for the sake of selfish desires here and for the sake of selfish protection from hell there after death. Shankara said that both these types of desire should be avoided (Ihaamutra phala viraagah…). One becomes cheap in the eyes of God if worship is done to fulfill selfish desires. This is true even in this worldly domain. If the son serves the father with a desire to get his property, son also becomes very cheap in the eyes of father. The son may hide his desire in his mind and the ignorant father cannot notice it. But the omniscient God knows everything hidden in you. Therefore, avoiding this desire is the main aspect of this spiritual journey. If you spend all your life time in thinking about the goal only, you will not take up the journey at all. Hence, Gautama Buddha kept God outside the immediate context of journey and stressed on the main aspect of the journey. Setting the goal aside is not negation, though it looks like negation. Negation of goal is not His intention at all, but, concentration of journey is the immediate practical need. Similarly, giving importance to the recorder is not neglecting the real author. Even the receiver, Arjuna, was said to be equal to God and sage Vyasa, the recorder is considered to be human incarnation of God like Krishna. Lord Dattatreya is dictating all this exceptional knowledge through this Datta Swami (Myself) and Pavan (yourself) is typing through the computer for the world wide propagation. God gives lot of importance to the practical service rendered by servants like myself and yourself. He is so generous that He treats the devotee involved in practical service even as His master and feels Himself as a servant of such devotee. Hence, all these clarifications clearly establish that Gautama Buddha was the Buddha, who is the incarnation of God Narayana. There is no single negative point by which you can reject Gautama Buddha as incarnation of God.

Similar play was played in the case of sage Kapila, who is the incarnation of God Narayana. Kapila was said to be the author of atheistic philosophy, Nireeshwara Sankhya. Kapila explains a lot to His mother regarding the devotion to God. In Sankhya philosophy, God was not mentioned separately but the word ‘Purusha’ is mentioned as neither cause nor effect (Naprakrutih navikrutih) remaining neutral. Krishna in the Gita also said that He is neutral (Naadatte kasyachit…). God is said not to be the cause because the cause is unimaginable. In general worldly logic, the imaginable cause alone is recognized as cause. Hence ‘not cause’ means not the imaginable cause. Actually, here, God is said not to be the cause of merits and defects of the deeds of the souls. Since God has no cause, God cannot be the effect. Without such clarifications, Kapila is simply labelled as an atheist differing from the Sage Kapila, the human incarnation of God. The word ‘Purusha’ stands for the human incarnation of God as per the Purushasuktam of the Veda. You take Purusha as God in the Veda and take Purusha as soul in Sankhya philosophy! Of course, followers of Sankhya of Kapila also became atheists just like Buddhists.

However, if you are rigid in establishing the difference between Gautama Buddha as atheist and Buddha as incarnation of God and similarly Kapila as atheist and Sage Kapila as incarnation of God, we have no objection to your rigidity. In such case, we reject the atheists and accept the human incarnations of God only. But this is not wise in view of the above mentioned concepts of analysis. The incarnations of God are not limited as mentioned in the Bhagavatam since the same Bhagavatam says that the incarnations of God are infinite in number (Avataaraahyasankhyeyaah…). From this point of view, Shri Shirdi Sai Baba is also the human incarnation of God based on the next statement of the Bhagavatam itself. It is the greatest surprise to hear that somebody recently commented that Shri Shirdi Sai Baba is not incarnation of God as per the list given in the Bhagavatam! What about the next statement of the same Bhagavatam that the number of incarnations of God is infinite!! It is a self-contradiction of two statements in the same Bhagavatam indicating the climax of the ignorance of such person commenting like this!!!

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