LIFE OF LORD BUDDHA BY SW. SIVANANDA, Yoganandaji’s Great Friend
Introduction
In the sixth century before the Christian era, religion was forgotten in India. The lofty teachings of the Vedas were thrown into the background. There was much priestcraft everywhere. The insincere priests traded on religion. They duped the people in a variety of ways and amassed wealth for themselves. They were quite irreligious. In the name of religion, people followed in the footsteps of the cruel priests and performed meaningless rituals. They killed innocent dumb animals and did various sacrifices. The country was in dire need of a reformer of Buddha’s type. At such a critical period, when there were cruelty, degeneration and unrighteousness everywhere, reformer Buddha was born to put down priestcraft and animal sacrifices, to save the people and disseminate the message of equality, unity and cosmic love everywhere. . .
Read the article: Lord Buddha by Swami Sivananda
See also ~ Paramahansaji’s and Sw. Sivananda’s Mutual Love ~ SRF magazine
Daya Mataji with Sw. Sivananda, Rishikesh
BRO. NAKULANANDA from “The True Meaning of Salvation”
It’s usually through some painful experiences in life, through some suffering or sorrow, through some loss, that we begin to question what life is all about.
The Christian writer, C.S. Lewis, said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
In that pain, in that suffering, God is trying to arouse us to seek Him, to love Him. He doesn’t want us to suffer. He wants us to be one with His omnipresence. . .
AN INSPIRING STORY FROM THE LIFE OF THE LORD BUDDHA
Lord Buddha didn’t start out as a saint, but he was Prince Siddhartha Gautama. He was living in his father’s Kingdom. And at his birth there were prophecies that he would either become a great ruler or king; or he would become a great ascetic, a great spiritual teacher.
And so Siddhartha’s father tried to protect him from every outside influence, didn’t allow him to go out of the compound of the Kingdom. And then one day, he escaped with his charioteer and he saw for the first time three dreads of life that he was protected from, that he didn’t know; he saw disease, old age, and death.
And he asked his charioteer, he said, “Do I have to go through these things too?” He said, “Yes, Sire. All human beings do. . . ”
So Siddhartha decided to renounce the Kingdom, and then he spent the rest of his life seeking that ultimate Spirit and became the Buddha.
from “The True Meaning of Salvation”
Bro. Sevananda, from “Seeing God in All People and in All Conditions”
Our Master once said, “All the various relationships of family, society, and nationality are but catalysts of life intended to purify and convert earthly love into divine love.” That is what all our experiences are for, and what creation, the story of creation, the love story of creation, is all about.
You might remember this utterly amazing footnote in Guruji’s Autobiography where it says how the LORD BUDDHA was once asked why man should love all persons equally. And it said,
“The great teacher replied, because in the very numerous and varied life-spans of each person, every other being has at one time or another been dear to him.’”
Every other being has been dear to us. We have been dear to every other being. Because there’s ultimately just one Being and we are all a part, a wondrous, infinite, eternal, immortal, related part of that, of that one and only universal family.
Our Master put it this way once when he said that God in essence is just masquerading as a multitude of beings, all of us a part of His infinite, divine, ultimately joyous and loving self.
And which is why our Master said on many occasions that he never considered anyone a stranger.
The Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya
site of Lord Buddha’s Enlightenment
Site of Sw. Sri Yuktesar’s formal initiation into the Swami Order
The Mahabodhi Temple is also sacred to YSS-SRF devotees because it was here that our revered paramaguru, Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, was formally initiated into the ancient Swami Order. Babaji first called Sri Yukteswar by the holy title of Swami, in 1894; but later our paramaguru formally received the Swami title from the Mahant (monastery head) of Bodh Gaya. (from Daya Mataji’s travel journal)
See also ~~
PILGRIMAGE to LORD BUDDHA’s Bodhi Tree and Temple at Bodh Gaya ~ Daya Mataji
INVOCATION to LORD BUDDHA, Whispers from Eternity, Paramahansaji
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