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Buddhism: Path to Nirvana - A Perspective by KN Upahyaya
This book "Buddhism :Path to Nirvana" by K.N. Upadhyaya examines the ancient most original sanskrit and Pali texts of the teachings of Buddhism to show that Truth and the way to it as taught by Gautama Buddha are the same Truth and same way as given by a long succession of Buddhas (Enlightened Ones) ) who came . All Buddhas are wise and compassionate luminaries who have been coming to this world in succession since times immemorial and will continue to do so for all time to come .On page 168 of Majjhima Nikaya , Buddha Gautama speaks of himself as one of many enlightened ones who came before him all of whom have seen and known the same Truth and the same way to it as he is preaching now.
The word Buddha means "Enlightened One" in Sanskrit. Buddha was born Siddhartha Gautama. He taught the philosophy and practice commonly referred to as " Buddhism" ( way to Enlightenment) .
The common message of Buddha Gautama and all other Spiritual Giants (Enlightened Ones ) of all times and cultures is that Buddhas keep coming to this world with the same teachings . All indicate one truth for the whole world. All say the our creator is Compassionate Love and is non-violent and can be fully realized by all humans by regular spiritual practice thus going beyond intellect and words to fully experience this Being's reality and become one with it thus gaining immortality and becoming a happy Buddha oneself .
The Author , Professor K.N. Upadhyaya has studied ancient languages of sanskrit and Pali . The Buddha spoke in a language called Magadhi Prakrit. Since Buddha was a prince, he would have spoken Sanskrit, the language of Brahmins and aristocrats, and used in formal religious texts. But many of his followers were common people who would not have been educated in Sanskrit.
Immediately after his death, under the sponsorship of king Ajatashatru, his elder student Mahakassapa organized the “First Buddhist council” during which Ananda, the Buddha’s cousin and long time aide, with prodigious memory, was asked to recite his teachings, which were carefully memorized.
When the teachings started to be written down, around three or four hundred years after the death of the Buddha, there already existed several different, carefully memorized, versions in different languages and dialects -the most complete of which is the Pali version. For this book Upadhyaya has used the earliest buddhist texts in this original languages( Sanskrit and Pali) .
The authors specializes in philosophies of India and is also a long time practitioner of surat shabd yoga having been initiated into this scientific technique of inner realisation by Maharaj Charan Singh Ji .
Among all living beings only human beings are endowed with the faculty of reasoning and discrimination . Therefore we have a natural inclination , whether mild or strong, to know the truth about our selves and why we are here . So we turn to the words of the great sages , saints and Enlightened Ones regarding the ultimate truth and the way to realize it.
Rulers of this world live to increase their power, wealth and importance where as the Enlightened Ones (Buddhas) efface their self and live to show the way to immortality to a multitude of people lost in ignorance. The purpose of this book is to make clear this universal way that belongs to all Buddhas of all times and cultures
The word Buddha means "Enlightened One" in Sanskrit. Buddha was born Siddhartha Gautama. He taught the philosophy and practice commonly referred to as " Buddhism" ( way to Enlightenment) .
The common message of Buddha Gautama and all other Spiritual Giants (Enlightened Ones ) of all times and cultures is that Buddhas keep coming to this world with the same teachings . All indicate one truth for the whole world. All say the our creator is Compassionate Love and is non-violent and can be fully realized by all humans by regular spiritual practice thus going beyond intellect and words to fully experience this Being's reality and become one with it thus gaining immortality and becoming a happy Buddha oneself .
The Author , Professor K.N. Upadhyaya has studied ancient languages of sanskrit and Pali . The Buddha spoke in a language called Magadhi Prakrit. Since Buddha was a prince, he would have spoken Sanskrit, the language of Brahmins and aristocrats, and used in formal religious texts. But many of his followers were common people who would not have been educated in Sanskrit.
Immediately after his death, under the sponsorship of king Ajatashatru, his elder student Mahakassapa organized the “First Buddhist council” during which Ananda, the Buddha’s cousin and long time aide, with prodigious memory, was asked to recite his teachings, which were carefully memorized.
When the teachings started to be written down, around three or four hundred years after the death of the Buddha, there already existed several different, carefully memorized, versions in different languages and dialects -the most complete of which is the Pali version. For this book Upadhyaya has used the earliest buddhist texts in this original languages( Sanskrit and Pali) .
The authors specializes in philosophies of India and is also a long time practitioner of surat shabd yoga having been initiated into this scientific technique of inner realisation by Maharaj Charan Singh Ji .
Among all living beings only human beings are endowed with the faculty of reasoning and discrimination . Therefore we have a natural inclination , whether mild or strong, to know the truth about our selves and why we are here . So we turn to the words of the great sages , saints and Enlightened Ones regarding the ultimate truth and the way to realize it.
Rulers of this world live to increase their power, wealth and importance where as the Enlightened Ones (Buddhas) efface their self and live to show the way to immortality to a multitude of people lost in ignorance. The purpose of this book is to make clear this universal way that belongs to all Buddhas of all times and cultures
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First published January 1, 2010
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August 8, 2021
Hell no. I have not finished, Im only on page 6 ,but I've got something to say now :
Everyone believes in something which is superior to our ordinary state of consciousness even atheists . They just don't call it God . They may call it Ultimate reality , Enlightenment, Truth , Spirit , energy , the super force , the law, Love , Light , Peace , Bliss , Serenity , that which is beyond reason , the infinite , the subtle, Mojo etc . Buddhists generally reject the word God and the concept of such a being because whatever that ultimate reality is it can not be described by words nor understood by reason .They say it is only when
the part of us -our consciousness - that wants to directly perceive that ultimate reality and experience that supreme bliss and know that profound truth wants to force its way to the surface of our consciousness our thought prevent it from doing so . It can only rise and be known in a thoughtless environment. The whole purpose of meditation therefore is to empty the mind of all thoughts so as to let this consciousness -which is beyond all thought rise up to the ultimate reality and gain direct perception of it. So why waste time thinking about "God" why not empty the mind of thoughts and let ones consciousness rise and see what it is that is there -the superior thing that is beyond all words and reason and enjoy it . Thoughts about God are a hindrance in realizing the reality that the thoughts point towards . Progress towards that level of consciousness can be made only while our faculty of reasoning is dormant, empty of ideas . So they say God is only an idea that we must go beyond to experience ultimate reality and enjoy its excellence and bliss .
When our consciousness is profoundly emptied of all thought it is called nirvana
Buddha had a rigorously practical outlook : Putting aside metaphysical speculation and mental constructs he exhorted people to strive to attain enlightenment .
Now Im on page 10 :
I want to Quote : " Buddha's teachings were not committed to writing until at least 400 years after his death . Buddha wrote nothing himself saying that he did not want his followers to chant his words/reciting his words ( as some people recited the vedas without grasping their meaning and acting on them ) as a substitute for meditation and that one should care for meanings and acting on his teachings rather than being right about his exact words ....Thus by intellectually interpreting his utterances in diverse ways and by emphasizing one aspect of his teachings rather than another, different schools of Buddhism formed. Truth is profoundly simple when experienced but when a highly intellectual philosopher or logicain analyses simple words uttered by Buddha about that experience their writings become unintelligible to the less intellectual. The buddha's simple statement about the impermanence of all things thus was turned into the complex doctrine of momentariness( ksanikavada) and finally into that of emptiness ( shunyavada) in some later schools. Yet all these schools contain certain common elements that suggests a common origin. It is universally recognized that Buddha's teachings are based on an enlightenment experience achieved by using meditation to go beyond thought to direct experience but how to meditate differs from schools to school."
My comments : There is a very popular school of buddhism today that emphasizes focussing one's attention on one's breathing as a means to detach ones attention from ones thoughts .
Every time the mind runs after thoughts the practitioners of this school bring it back from the thought to the flow of breath. They say that by focussing attention on something that is "real" in the here and now they are isolating the consciousness from the thoughts freeing so the consciousness can experience itself a separate from the thoughts and that the SELF is full of love, bliss and positive energy . However I would like to point out that by focussing on their body's breathing they are attaching their attention to something in the physical world. The whole physical world and this body are impermanent and unreal . To get to ultimate permanent reality (our own real true ultimate state of being that Buddha attained ) our consciousness must transcend not only thoughts of the world outside our body but must transcend our body as well. The portal to the next higher plane of consciousness is behind our eyes in the brain our entire consciousness must be focusses there before we can cross through it on our way to enlightenment. We will then be unconscious of the body below the eye but superconscious within our higher brain which spiritual centers in it that correspond to even higher planes of consciousness all the way up to the ultimate but to get there we must forget teh outer world and the body below the eyes .
Any meditation that diverts our attention (consciousness) from our thoughts to breathing or our heart beat is obstructive to the rise of our consciousness because it binds our attention to our body which at a lower level of consciousness (an illusion or dream that we have to wake up from ) . We want to TRANSCEND all illusion . YES ! to stop thinking have to merge our attention into something else but we have to be very careful what we choose to merge it into because whatever we merge our attention into we bind to the same level of consciousness that it belongs to .
Therefore higher schools of meditation reject focussing on breathing or heart beat and say that we should merge our attention into a mantra that we repeat. ( those who advise focussing on breathing will object that mentally repeating a mantra is not fully emptying the mind of thought since the mantra is thought but breathing is also an idea . Breathing is an illusion of our 5 senses. In reality there is no breathing . There is no body . There is no solid matter . There is only energy. So neither the breathing nor the mantra are real but breathing is of the physical world and the mantra is of the thought plane that we have to cross to see what is beyond . The mantra is like a boat to cross the ocean of the thought plane with out drowning in it .Focussing breathing is like remaining on the shore --you escape drowning all right --but you never get across to the other shore. Buddha's intent was help us get free from to escape all suffering and attain Bliss for all time . Those who attach themselves to bodily functions will suffer at death when these functions cease then be pulled back into physical body (rebirth on this low plane of suffering no better off than before.)
If we dont change our mantra but go on repeating it for a few hours each day we will find that after a few months it goes on at all times in our mind -like breathing or our heart beat -and all we have to do is focus on it when we want to meditate and still our mind . The mantra can be any thing . It can be "one-two-three-four -five" or it can be "Consciousness - Energy( spirit ) - Reality(Truth) - Enlightenment(bliss) " " or " My soul longs for you nothing else will do " or " I want to merge in infinite consciousness " etc etc it can be anything you are comfortable with and can stick to without provoking thoughts (hint: your mantra should have nothing to do with thus physical world but be associated with the highest reality and truth and express a yearning for it )
The important thing is not to change it but stick with it so it becomes automatic like a song that is always in your head. As a general rule I suggest repeating it at the rate you normally think when you are solving a problem that requires concentration or when conversing with some one you love and respect . It is to be thought in the mind not outloud but in the beginning it can be spoken very softly but without opening then lips for 10 minutes at the start of your 1-2 hour daily meditation period.
Yes, it must be done every day like any habit . Yes, its a big struggle but its worth it .
Better yet find an enlightened master who will give you a mantra composed of words that are associated with the actual Truth he has seen and merged into. Such master's can be distinguished by some signs 1) they charge no money 2) they teach a method of listening to a sound that comes from the highest state of reality every day after your have sat repeating you mantra they advise you to sit a while longer and listen to this very sweet , invigorating , refreshing sound and merge you consciousness into it and go with it back to the highest eternal reality. The sound isn't heard with physical ears but with the same faculty that you hear your thoughts with . The enlightened teacher will give you a mantra associated with this inner sound( which is pure consciousness that radiates light and sound that are so blissful all thought is stilled and one crosses to reality .This sound is the intelligent creative energy that forms the universe ( Physicists call it the super force ) . Like a current of energy, it flows from the highest level of consciousness keeps this creation intact and returns to the highest level . All humans have the capacity to hear it our consciousness. ( many of us can hear it now when we plug our hears ) as we meditate keeping mind's thoughtless by repeating the mantra in the center of our head our gradually -day by day - consciousness leaves the world and concentrates at teh center in our head where this sound becomes more distinct and pulling .
Buddha proclaimed that he had a way to cross the ocean of existence( from a shaky time existence to to a stable eternal existence. -the termination of the cycle of birth and death )
It has a good bio on buddha which I'm really enjoying . (p 20)
Buddha left his life in the palace where he had a dozen beautiful female attendants with him all 24 hours and many adoring relatives and subjects and refused to come back until he had found an answer by which humans could put and end to disease ,only and death and all suffering .
P 30 " The sun may fall to earth , the Himalayan mountains may lose their firmness , but I will not return to my family with limited to my 5 sense with my consciousness turned only towards worldly objects and with no realization of ultimate truth . I would rather enter a blazing fire than enter my ( earthly) home with my GOAL is attained "
Everyone believes in something which is superior to our ordinary state of consciousness even atheists . They just don't call it God . They may call it Ultimate reality , Enlightenment, Truth , Spirit , energy , the super force , the law, Love , Light , Peace , Bliss , Serenity , that which is beyond reason , the infinite , the subtle, Mojo etc . Buddhists generally reject the word God and the concept of such a being because whatever that ultimate reality is it can not be described by words nor understood by reason .They say it is only when
the part of us -our consciousness - that wants to directly perceive that ultimate reality and experience that supreme bliss and know that profound truth wants to force its way to the surface of our consciousness our thought prevent it from doing so . It can only rise and be known in a thoughtless environment. The whole purpose of meditation therefore is to empty the mind of all thoughts so as to let this consciousness -which is beyond all thought rise up to the ultimate reality and gain direct perception of it. So why waste time thinking about "God" why not empty the mind of thoughts and let ones consciousness rise and see what it is that is there -the superior thing that is beyond all words and reason and enjoy it . Thoughts about God are a hindrance in realizing the reality that the thoughts point towards . Progress towards that level of consciousness can be made only while our faculty of reasoning is dormant, empty of ideas . So they say God is only an idea that we must go beyond to experience ultimate reality and enjoy its excellence and bliss .
When our consciousness is profoundly emptied of all thought it is called nirvana
Buddha had a rigorously practical outlook : Putting aside metaphysical speculation and mental constructs he exhorted people to strive to attain enlightenment .
Now Im on page 10 :
I want to Quote : " Buddha's teachings were not committed to writing until at least 400 years after his death . Buddha wrote nothing himself saying that he did not want his followers to chant his words/reciting his words ( as some people recited the vedas without grasping their meaning and acting on them ) as a substitute for meditation and that one should care for meanings and acting on his teachings rather than being right about his exact words ....Thus by intellectually interpreting his utterances in diverse ways and by emphasizing one aspect of his teachings rather than another, different schools of Buddhism formed. Truth is profoundly simple when experienced but when a highly intellectual philosopher or logicain analyses simple words uttered by Buddha about that experience their writings become unintelligible to the less intellectual. The buddha's simple statement about the impermanence of all things thus was turned into the complex doctrine of momentariness( ksanikavada) and finally into that of emptiness ( shunyavada) in some later schools. Yet all these schools contain certain common elements that suggests a common origin. It is universally recognized that Buddha's teachings are based on an enlightenment experience achieved by using meditation to go beyond thought to direct experience but how to meditate differs from schools to school."
My comments : There is a very popular school of buddhism today that emphasizes focussing one's attention on one's breathing as a means to detach ones attention from ones thoughts .
Every time the mind runs after thoughts the practitioners of this school bring it back from the thought to the flow of breath. They say that by focussing attention on something that is "real" in the here and now they are isolating the consciousness from the thoughts freeing so the consciousness can experience itself a separate from the thoughts and that the SELF is full of love, bliss and positive energy . However I would like to point out that by focussing on their body's breathing they are attaching their attention to something in the physical world. The whole physical world and this body are impermanent and unreal . To get to ultimate permanent reality (our own real true ultimate state of being that Buddha attained ) our consciousness must transcend not only thoughts of the world outside our body but must transcend our body as well. The portal to the next higher plane of consciousness is behind our eyes in the brain our entire consciousness must be focusses there before we can cross through it on our way to enlightenment. We will then be unconscious of the body below the eye but superconscious within our higher brain which spiritual centers in it that correspond to even higher planes of consciousness all the way up to the ultimate but to get there we must forget teh outer world and the body below the eyes .
Any meditation that diverts our attention (consciousness) from our thoughts to breathing or our heart beat is obstructive to the rise of our consciousness because it binds our attention to our body which at a lower level of consciousness (an illusion or dream that we have to wake up from ) . We want to TRANSCEND all illusion . YES ! to stop thinking have to merge our attention into something else but we have to be very careful what we choose to merge it into because whatever we merge our attention into we bind to the same level of consciousness that it belongs to .
Therefore higher schools of meditation reject focussing on breathing or heart beat and say that we should merge our attention into a mantra that we repeat. ( those who advise focussing on breathing will object that mentally repeating a mantra is not fully emptying the mind of thought since the mantra is thought but breathing is also an idea . Breathing is an illusion of our 5 senses. In reality there is no breathing . There is no body . There is no solid matter . There is only energy. So neither the breathing nor the mantra are real but breathing is of the physical world and the mantra is of the thought plane that we have to cross to see what is beyond . The mantra is like a boat to cross the ocean of the thought plane with out drowning in it .Focussing breathing is like remaining on the shore --you escape drowning all right --but you never get across to the other shore. Buddha's intent was help us get free from to escape all suffering and attain Bliss for all time . Those who attach themselves to bodily functions will suffer at death when these functions cease then be pulled back into physical body (rebirth on this low plane of suffering no better off than before.)
If we dont change our mantra but go on repeating it for a few hours each day we will find that after a few months it goes on at all times in our mind -like breathing or our heart beat -and all we have to do is focus on it when we want to meditate and still our mind . The mantra can be any thing . It can be "one-two-three-four -five" or it can be "Consciousness - Energy( spirit ) - Reality(Truth) - Enlightenment(bliss) " " or " My soul longs for you nothing else will do " or " I want to merge in infinite consciousness " etc etc it can be anything you are comfortable with and can stick to without provoking thoughts (hint: your mantra should have nothing to do with thus physical world but be associated with the highest reality and truth and express a yearning for it )
The important thing is not to change it but stick with it so it becomes automatic like a song that is always in your head. As a general rule I suggest repeating it at the rate you normally think when you are solving a problem that requires concentration or when conversing with some one you love and respect . It is to be thought in the mind not outloud but in the beginning it can be spoken very softly but without opening then lips for 10 minutes at the start of your 1-2 hour daily meditation period.
Yes, it must be done every day like any habit . Yes, its a big struggle but its worth it .
Better yet find an enlightened master who will give you a mantra composed of words that are associated with the actual Truth he has seen and merged into. Such master's can be distinguished by some signs 1) they charge no money 2) they teach a method of listening to a sound that comes from the highest state of reality every day after your have sat repeating you mantra they advise you to sit a while longer and listen to this very sweet , invigorating , refreshing sound and merge you consciousness into it and go with it back to the highest eternal reality. The sound isn't heard with physical ears but with the same faculty that you hear your thoughts with . The enlightened teacher will give you a mantra associated with this inner sound( which is pure consciousness that radiates light and sound that are so blissful all thought is stilled and one crosses to reality .This sound is the intelligent creative energy that forms the universe ( Physicists call it the super force ) . Like a current of energy, it flows from the highest level of consciousness keeps this creation intact and returns to the highest level . All humans have the capacity to hear it our consciousness. ( many of us can hear it now when we plug our hears ) as we meditate keeping mind's thoughtless by repeating the mantra in the center of our head our gradually -day by day - consciousness leaves the world and concentrates at teh center in our head where this sound becomes more distinct and pulling .
Buddha proclaimed that he had a way to cross the ocean of existence( from a shaky time existence to to a stable eternal existence. -the termination of the cycle of birth and death )
It has a good bio on buddha which I'm really enjoying . (p 20)
Buddha left his life in the palace where he had a dozen beautiful female attendants with him all 24 hours and many adoring relatives and subjects and refused to come back until he had found an answer by which humans could put and end to disease ,only and death and all suffering .
P 30 " The sun may fall to earth , the Himalayan mountains may lose their firmness , but I will not return to my family with limited to my 5 sense with my consciousness turned only towards worldly objects and with no realization of ultimate truth . I would rather enter a blazing fire than enter my ( earthly) home with my GOAL is attained "
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