Buddha condemned superstitions, mystery, tradition and rituals while practising religion. He did not permit such issues to enter the domain of his own thought-process as long as he lived. His teachings were, basically, empirical and had a scientific appeal. They were definitely of remedial nature and also psychological as they appealed to human mind directly. He started with the human suffering, sought its solution and provided ways to cope with it.

So far most of the appeals made by the traditional religions were directed to the masses, but Buddha especially made his appeal to the individuals. Little before his death he advised his most ardent disciple, Ananda, to \\\'be a lamp unto yourself and not to take refuge in any external entity\\\'. He insisted that man should hold fast to the Truth and discover his own freedom with hard work coupled with wisdom. In the Dhammapada, he said that \\\'only those who are wise and follow the path of dharma suggested by him, reach the other shore leaving the darkness behind and follow the light’.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Ambika Prasad Sharma retired as a Professor of Educational Philosophy from the Faculty of Education, IASE Vidya Bhawan, University of Udaipur, Rajasthan, around fifteen years back. Since then he has been engaged in writing inspirational material that includes twenty-four books and nearly seventy-one articles published in the national and international journals. Some of his noted encouraging books are The Meaning to Know Thyself, Concept of Freedom, Seeking Right-Mindfulness, Meera, The Divine Incarnate, Language of Love, and Happiness is Divine. The Path of Dharma conveys his endless devotion and leaning towards the motivating thought-process and can facilitate transcending from day-to-day petty mindedness, which dissuades us from reaching a higher realm, implicit with happiness and peace of mind.


CONTENTS:

Introduction
The Dhammapada
The Existing Environment
Dharma as a Universal Standard
Chapter One : Birth of the Enlightened
Four Different Sights
A Unique Experience
Chapter Two : The Basic Concepts
The Vital Precepts
The Four Noble Truths
The Eightfold Path
The Middle Path
Chapter Three : The Path of Dharma
Cultivate Positive Thinking
On Being Wise
Promote Maturity of Mind
Follow the Path
Refrain from Anger
The Five Precepts
Divine Abiding
Discover Solutions
Follow Dharma Precisely
Conceive ‘the Self’ Correctly
Cleanse the Past Karma
Stay Awake
Cultivate Compassion
Destroy Ego to Attain Nirvana
Chapter Four : The Stages of Final Attainment
Experiences before Attaining Nirvana
Experience in Cosmic Consciousness
The Basic Difference
The Unparalleled Faith
Chapter Five : Last Visit to Kapilavastu
Visiting Yashodhara
Unbounded Love
Quits Kapilavastu for Good
Chapter Six : Entering Nirvana for the Last Time
The Impending Demise
Entering into Parinirvana
Incredible Contribution
Six Aspects of Religion
Positive Contribution
Index
The Bibliography


AN EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK
Conceive ‘the Self’ Correctly
Most parables and the ideas contained in the Dhammapada represent Buddha more than a philosopher. His main concern was to discover the way to human liberation and not merely philosophising about it. A Chinese scholar named Garma C.C. also reflects emphatically that Buddha’s primary mission in life was to discover a right path to help humans redeem and not merely philosophising.

His primary concern was to point out the way to liberation — liberation from the deep-rooted attachment to a delusory self which is the source of all passion-desires and their resultant pains and frustrations. Philosophical speculations were persistently rejected and denounced by Buddha as useless, foolish and un-salutary. Actually in Buddha’s teachings… what we find is a significant therapeutic device, the instruction on how to get rid of the deep ego-clinging attitude. (2: p.31)
He left his royal abode in the middle of the night to discover ‘a practical way’ to solve the problem of human sufferings. Though most holy people who came before him knew it well that suffering was there in this world, but none had much idea that it was caused mainly by human cravings and by misconceiving the self as a real entity. During his enlightenment, Buddha observed clearly that human longings caused most sufferings. Most people who visited him came primarily to discuss their problems and desired to know how to get redeemed from them. Buddha, in the state of enlightenment, had clearly understood the cause of most of those problems that constantly troubled human mind. He discovered that the suffering mind only required the destruction of that conceited ego through whose role the humans took the unreal as real and suffered as it led to create cravings and deep attachments.

He constantly insisted to oppose suffering whether it was real or imaginary. That could be possible only through the right understanding of the nature of ‘the self’ and wise interpretation of all human existence. He believed strongly that only an intelligent kind of mind (possessing right understanding) could bring the destruction of every kind of ego formations. It was something new which so far no one had conceived to redeem humans from suffering. The truth is that none had thought so far that the self was not a real entity. In Buddhist traditions, the idea of a separate self or an ego is taken to be merely a scholarly creation. Buddha thought that it was not correct to consider the ever-changing self as real. He concluded that most people did so (identified the self as ‘I’) because of their ignorance and because it was convenient for them to define the ever-changing combinations of attributes which he identified as skandhas.

What is this skandha from Buddha’s point of view? Skandha consists of forms, feelings, perceptions, ideas, wishes, dreams and consciousness. Since there is a constant interplay and connection among the skandhas, it provides the effect of giving a false sense of personal identity and continuity. But in reality there is no ‘I’ existing on its own separately. What it feels like a ‘self’ is the ever-changing relationship among psychic and physical forces. Buddha often used a simile to identify the self. He identified it with ‘a chariot’ to express it lucidly. The term ‘chariot’ does not indicate a simple single reality. It describes something which is constituted by so many small and big parts placed together to crystallise one whole, named a chariot. As no parts of this aggregate (chariot) can be separated off to be called a chariot, in the same manner no part of a human being can be taken apart and called ‘the self’ or ‘I’. The Western philosophers like Schopenhauer, William James, Russell and David Hume had similar views about the self. They considered the mind or the self as a bundle of different perceptions united together by particular relationship. But apart from that there exists a distinct disparity in the opinions of the Western thinkers and than that of Buddha. (12: p.28)

The Western thinkers kept their personal opinions away from their findings and concluded or discovered the truth as it stood true by itself. Buddha had conceived its meaning after attaining ‘awareness’ through a strict discipline and training. It was his personal experience during the state of enlightenment that provided him the right kind of understanding of the meaning of ‘the self’. He said that one’s personal ego that seemed so real was not all important to build up an image of ‘the self’; these were bundles of thoughts, desires, memories, fears, drives and anxieties that also built that idea of the ‘self’. Thus, a lot of mental events temporarily linked with a physical body, provide the meaning of a separate ‘self’. This is how Buddha describes personality (the self), which in his view is composed of five ingredients: form, feelings, perception, impulses, and consciousness. Then without referring to any individual self, he stated that, ‘birth is the result of these aggregates. When death takes place those aggregates break apart’. He added: Form is the body with which most of us identify ourselves. Thus, he concluded that it was absurd to consider ‘the self’ as a real entity.

Buddha always reminded his disciples that ‘the self does not have any material shape, nor the material body possesses any self’. He added that ‘feelings, perception, the impulses and even consciousness could be erroneously taken as the self. Each of these aggregates is impermanent and leads to suffering. Each of these is non-self and compounded. These aggregates must not mislead them (monks) so that they take them as the self’. He always repeated before his disciples that let no one should take the material shape of the body as real, so that when it changes, they don’t get hurt, lament and suffer on that account. (Adapted from Samyutta Nikaya)

In the same way, he also did not consider ‘the universe’ real. Like a modern physicist who now reckons that there is no ‘real’ universe (like the illusion that a stick looks bent when put in a glass of water), Buddha found ‘the universe’ made (created) of mind. What he meant by it was that there was no real universe existing apart from our mind or thinking. But this does not mean that the physical reality is not there. What we see in the world is caused by the structure of our consciousness. Besides, ‘his findings that all was transitory in the world’, was also an unusual discovery. It revolutionised the existing beliefs about the world. Such a discovery was quite alarming and unusual to anyone who listened to him. But he presented such arguments which seemed to be true and convincing, and consequently seemed to be working. Buddha did never like to throw ideas on the people. He always wanted them to realise the truth through their personal experience. Therefore, he always insisted to conceive things correctly.

Buddha candidly reflects in the Dhammapada that ‘We are what we think’. If someone claims to be a real sage, he has to be worthy of it by striving hard to attain ‘awareness’. After attaining awareness, he must act and live by what he has discovered. In fact, in the Dhammapada, he reflects emphatically that one who simply talks about his teachings, and does not act upon them is only like a cattleman who feels happy in counting other’s cattle. He also reflects in it that only he is worthy to wear a saffron robe who thinks and acts like a sage. Therefore, his claims about his discovery relating to human misery, and his interpretations about the nature of ‘the self’, and ‘the existence of the universe’ seemed to be true as what he said was based on his real experiences. He implored people that anyone who followed the path could also see the truth about his discovery.