Who Was The Buddha?

Who am I? What is the Self? This is the most fundamental of questions.

Buddhism has the concept of anatta (no self) which is usually interpreted to mean that souls and selves do not exist. However, The Buddha may have meant that individual, discrete selves are an illusion, but there is a singular, undivided Self that can be realised by one who has awakened from the dream of separateness (ego). This interpretation makes The Buddha's teaching compatible with the Indian philosophy of Advaita (non-duality).

Buddhists believe in reincarnation, which suggests the existence of souls. It may be that The Buddha saw souls as merely subtler forms of the gross body, and not something one should identify with. Perhaps this is the intention of the anatta doctrine. Centuries later, the sage Shri Shankaracharya wrote his Tad Niskala, which states that who you are is not the body, or the sheaths of the subtle body (soul), but Shiva (the Self of all that exists). Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi has said that Shri Shankaracharya was a reincarnation of The Buddha. Shankara encouraged devotion for the Adi Shakti, the feminine aspect of Shiva, the Universal Self, who manifests in each of us as the Kundalini. This is because, without Kundalini awakening, Self-realisation is not possible.

One might ask why The Buddha bothered to try to liberate people if he did not believe in souls, or selves. What would be the point of mere matter trying to enlighten mere matter? It's a good question. According to tradition, The Buddha did initially consider that perhaps teaching people about enlightenment would be a futile task. The answer may be that the Self, like the sun, must shine, no matter that there are clouds of ignorance and illusion. Suffering is due to the illusion of separateness, and this illusion should be dispelled, even if there are ultimately no 'others' who suffer.

The Buddhist scholar Alexander Wynne considers this issue, and also questions the emphasis on therapy in the contemporary offshoot of Buddhism, Mindfulness Meditation, in contrast to the Buddha's emphasis on Self-realisation as the main aim. In his article Who Was The Buddha?, he also tries to separate the mythical and historical figure of Gotama Buddha.

Read the article. here

The Lotus of a Thousand Petals

The Sahasrara Chakra is the seventh and highest centre of the subtle body, and is located at the crown of the head.

In this antique diagram, it is depicted as a white lotus of many petals. (In yoga texts, the Sahasrara is described as having a thousand petals).
At the centre of the lotus are the feet of the Supreme Being/Self. One is shown white, representing Shri Shiva (the masculine, un-manifest half of the Self), and one red, representing Shri Shakti (the feminine, creative half of the Self).
The trikona, or triangle, may represent the three qualities that pervade the universe: the creative, sustaining and destructive powers, enclosed by the circle of time.

A beautiful image from Indian devotional poetry reveals the crown of the head as a pedestal on which the cool, fragrant, lotus feet of the Divine may rest. In India, the feet of the Divine are considered to pour out blessings and auspicious vibrations, just as in Hindu mythology, the sacred Ganges, source of all sustenance, is said to flow from the feet of Lord Vishnu.

When a person's sahasrara opens, they experience Self-realisation. After this happens, Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi recommends daily meditation with the attention lightly on the sahasrara. Some ancient yoga texts say to put the attention on the brow centre, but these were probably written with the assumption that the aspirant would not yet have had self-realisation - an achievement considered very rare and difficult in previous times. Placing the attention at the crown for meditation, means that the awareness is above the distractions of the mental level, as the lotus of sahasrara blooms above the turbulent or murky waters of the lake of mind, and its petals repel the droplets of thoughts.

In Jewish mysticism, the Sephirot centre known as Kether (literally 'crown'), is similar in it's qualities to the Sahasrara of yoga philosophy. Situated at the top of the Tree of Life within the body, it represents pure consciousness and union with the Divine.

The mystical Sufi strain of Islam has a system of subtle centres known as latifas. The highest latifa: Akfha (the 'most subtle') is also located at the crown of the head, and is the point of unity where beatific visions of Allah are directly revealed.

Modern, New Age interpretations often depict the Sahasrara as having a violet or purple colour, but this is not seen in traditional paintings and scriptures. This probably comes from the idea that the colours of the chakras follow the colours of the rainbow, starting with red at the first centre, orange yellow green blue and violet. Traditionally, however, the white colour represents the purity of this centre, and its integration of all the elements and colours. White contains all colours. 

Sometimes it is described as a lotus of multicoloured petals, and often depicted as an inverted lotus, with the petals opening downward to release divine nectar and fragrance into the brain.

This South Indian temple is crowned by an inverted sahasrara lotus.

Why not wake up?

You have slept for millions and millions of years.
Why not wake up this morning?

- Kabir (1440–1518)

Kabir is possibly the first Indian saint to have harmonised Hinduism and Islam by preaching a universal path which both Hindus and Muslims could tread together. He was a major influence on Sikhism.

Kabir lived in Varanasi, the sacred city on the Ganges.

Image used with kind permission of Azli Jamil
See more of his work here

Carl Jung on Self-realisation

"It is most important that you should be born; 
you ought to come into this world 
otherwise you cannot realise the Self 
and the purpose of this world has been missed."
- Carl Jung, 1932, lecture on The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga

Still from the film Baraka.

"Creation Delights in the Recognition of Itself"

At the end of Huston Smith's autobiography, Tales of Wonder, he describes an experience his friend Ann Jauregui had as a young girl in Michigan:

In summer she would lie on a wooden raft anchored in the bay, listening to the the waters lapping, drowsy in the warm sunshine. The warm day, the clear northern light, and the water's gentle motion together worked a semi-hypnotic effect.

Then suddenly Ann would snap alert and feel intensely alive, or rather that everything was alive and that she was part of it. The rocks, the water itself - everything seemed pulsating with a kind of energy. She found she put questions to the experience. 'What is my role in all this,' she whispered. 'Show me.'

The rocks, the trees, the water - all in silent chorus 'answered' - not in words, of course - that the wanting to know, just that, was her part in the pulsating landscape.

'Creation delights in the recognition of itself', is how she would later put it.

Inquiry (called vichara in Sanskrit, the language of yoga) is the posing of questions to the Self/Spirit. It is an initial step on the way into Self-realisation or Self-recognition. 

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi recommends asking the simple question: 'am I the Spirit?'

As meditation deepens, there is less need for Self-inquiry (atmavichara) - at least in words - and the thoughtless awareness state of nirvichara (without inquiry) is established.

Self-realisation is not an action

As soon as I say, 'You cannot put in any effort about it,' our ego gets challenged. How is it? It's difficult for a modern person to understand, that God's grace is going to work it out. Even Shankaracharya, you know Adi Shankaracharya, the one who propounded Hinduism in India, said that "Na yogena, na samkhyena," [Neither by observances nor by analysis] not by any of these things that it is going to happen, but by Mother's grace it's going to work out that you are going to be realized. There's no way out. No way thinking about it, writing about it, preaching about it, talking about it, it has to happen to you.
-Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, 1979

Inhere as the Self

"Therefore become dispassionate
and inhere as the Self.
Such inherence is spontaneous and effortless.
It is realised after thoughts are eliminated
and investigation ceases.
Return to your state after you break off from it,
and then you will know all,
and the significance of its being knowable
and unknowable at the same time.
Thus realising the unknowable,
one abides in immortality
for ever and ever.

-Tripura Rahasa, (The Mystery Beyond the Three States of Consciousness,
or The Secret of the Supreme Goddess)
Attributed to Shri Adi Guru Dattatreya

Service and Duty

Your own Self-Realisation
is the greatest service you can
render the world.

Your duty is to be, and not to be this or that. "I am that I am" sums up the whole truth...
"I-I" is the Self. "I am this" is the ego. When the "I" is kept up as the "I" only, it is the Self. When it flies off at a tangent and says "I am this or that, I am such and such," - it is the ego.

-The Sage of Arunchala

Enlightenment

Fabula, El Greco, ca. 1600

This wonderful painting is incredibly modern for 1600. The Self-realised painter El Greco depicts a youth blowing on an ember in order to light a candle, overlooked by a monkey and a fool. Perhaps the monkey on the youth's right side represents the quickness and agility, but waywardness, of rajas; while the fool on the youth's left represents the dullness of tamas.

Giving Self-realisation is like one candle lighting another.

The Self realises itself. There is no source of enlightenment beyond the Self. Indeed there is no thing beyond the Self. However, one Self-realised person may ignite Self-realisation in an "other".

In the Sufi tradition, Self-realisation is believed to be transmitted through generations of Sufi masters. This transmission is called Baraka.

Shri Shankaracharya on the importance of Self-realisation

"Let people quote the Scriptures and sacrifice to the gods,
let them perform rituals and worship the deities,
but there is no Liberation without the realisation of one’s identity with the Self,
no, not even in the lifetime of a hundred Brahmas put together."

- Shri Shankaracharya, Viveka Chudamani (8th Century CE but possibly 1000 years earlier)

Shri Shankaracharya's Viveka Chudamani (which translates as: The Crest Jewel of Discrimination) expounds the significance of Self-Realisation and the ways to attain it, methods of meditation (dhyana) and introspection of the Atman (Self). It concludes with the denial of Pluralism of Self, and the description of the state of Self-Realisation.

A jewel is symbolic of the Non-dual Self,
which is both single and at the same time multifaceted.