What is Nirvana? It is a state of Ananda, eternal bliss, and joy. It is overcoming the ignorance that we live in and being enlightened with the Truth. It is a state of self-realization, a state that liberates us from misery and sorrow while we are alive. Not only that, it also liberates us from the cycle of death and rebirth.
Unlike Moksha which has no author, Nirvana is the brainchild of Prince Siddhartha Gautama who went on to be known as the Buddha or the awakened one. Tired of the inhumane practices during his time, he renounced his kingdom, all the wealth and luxury and went in pursuit of the truth. He saw so much suffering, so much cruelty that his heart was torn into pieces. Being full of compassion, he went from sage to sage, monk to monk, from one ashram to another monastery searching for the truth. To him, nothing else mattered. Being a Hindu Kshatriya, the royal class, he was tired of the inuence of the Brahmins, the priestly class who had manipulated theology to suppress the lower castes. He questioned every ritual and superstition until he nally awakened to the truth.
Let us try to understand how Nirvana came about. Around 1000 BC, the Hindu Faith also known as Sanatana Dharma, that prescribed Moksha to be the Ultimate Goal of life started getting diluted into Hinduism. Earlier, God was considered to be a power that was omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient but by now, Hinduism had become a religion of rituals and superstitions. It became a religion of innumerable Gods with name and form.
The priestly caste or the Brahmins became very powerful, even more powerful than the kings themselves. To keep their power supreme, they created several rituals and superstitions that started making Hinduism unpopular. These included the caste system, which made life for the poor people miserable.
Nirvana became a solution to all the ills that developed in the Hindu belief system. When the Hindu Prince of Kapilvastu, Siddhartha Gautama who later became the Buddha, grew up to be a young man, he questioned the supremacy of the Brahmins just as he wondered why so many illogical rituals and superstitions were being followed. While he grew up in a palace and was protected from all the signs of suffering, it is said when he was born, he was destined to become a world conqueror, either he would be king of kings or he would be the most realized spiritual leader who would win over humanity with his love and compassion. This was a matter of great concern to the king and queen.
Since a noble sage prophesied that the prince Siddhartha Gautama could become the biggest saint humanity has ever seen, his father, the king was disturbed and made all-out efforts for the prince to live in the lap of luxury so that his mind never entered into the realm of spirituality, but as destiny would have it, what the sages had proclaimed became true.
The king did everything he could to keep his son away from the thoughts of suffering. He even made a new city where the sick and the old were shifted so his son would never see the dawn of suffering in life. But eventually, the prince came face to face with suffering and death.
What were the various realizations of the prince before he was enlightened to be the Buddha? The Prince had a very kind and compassionate heart. Although he was a very happy person, he felt saddened by the suffering that he saw. He is said to have observed 'four signs' which led him to his quest. First, he saw an old man, which made him realize that life on earth is not permanent. We will not remain young and healthy forever. None of us can escape old age. He realized that the body will become weak and this will ultimately lead to suffering.
He then saw a sick person and was distraught to see the suffering in this world due to disease. As a prince, he had been sheltered from seeing such pain. He realized that most of us will suffer as our bodies will face disease and decay.
He went on to see a corpse that made him realize that life is not a continuous process. We all have to die one day and with death, we will lose all our pleasures and possessions that we believe belong to us.
While he saw these three signs of suffering, he also saw a monk sitting in meditation peacefully beneath a tree. The peace and bliss on the face of the monk inspired him to realize that it was possible to live with joy and tranquillity. Unfortunately, he had not been exposed to these realities of life.
The prince did not become the Buddha overnight. His quest led him from being a seeker to a master. The prince Siddharth did unusual things, quite unlike a king. He refused to go to war as it would lead to a loss of so many lives. He was compassionate and for him winning a kingdom was not as important as saving lives was. The turning point in his life was when he saw a war, in which hundreds of people lay dead on the battleeld. He was shocked to see the suffering and bloodshed and wondered why. He realized the futility of war and the need for peace. Seeing the horror, the prince said, “I don't want this wealth, this kingdom, I don't want war, I don't want power. I want peace, I want Liberation from this misery, this pain.”
Once, the prince was asked by saints to kill an animal as a sacrice as per the scriptures but he refused to do it. Not just this, he refused to do anything that was inhuman and lacked compassion. He was against rituals, superstitions and gave utmost importance to kindness and fairness as he looked at each issue practically and with human eyes.
In his quest for the Truth, Siddhartha went on to become a Sanyasi, a renunciate and went deep into meditation. As the future king of Kapilvastu, Prince Siddhartha Gautama was not attracted by the kingdom and the wealth that he possessed. Even though he had a beautiful wife and a lovely son, he left his family, mother and father included, one night to go into the forest in search of the truth. The prince realized that to be peaceful, one must live with Ahimsa or non-violence, a philosophy that believed that we must not cause any injury to anybody in thought, word or deed. He advocated that we must forgive unconditionally. Every human being makes mistakes in life but the moment we realize our wrongdoings, we are forgiven by the Divine.
After that, Siddhartha Gautama became a Tapasvi, living a life of sacrice and deprivation. He even gave up eating fruits and drinking water to deprive the senses of the body, he gave up all desires, for the purpose of achieving Liberation. In his quest for the Truth, Siddhartha Gautama happened to meet some of the followers of Mahavira, a sect that followed the Jain Tirthankaras. To them, life was all about Tapasya, letting the body suffer physical pain and living with deep austerities. He himself went into such a practice till it is said that he nearly died as he deprived his body of food and water. A young maiden exclaimed, “You have become like a stick where your front and your back have become one. What is the use of such a life?” She asked the prince who was in search of the truth, “How would such deep Tapasya and austerity help in realization and Liberation? If you make the string of the sitar very loose, you cannot extract music from it, just as tightening too much will snap it." The Buddha realized that such extreme austerities would not help us to achieve the goal of life. He realized that one cannot realize the Truth by making the body suffer. It is through the body that one achieves Liberation. He then coined a new way known as the 'Middle Path' philosophy for people to live a balanced life.
The way to realization is through self-effort. Realization is intuitive. A Guru can guide but cannot give Mukti. Siddharth was called the Buddha because he realized the Truth by his own experience, going within. He told his fellow monks, “ There is no need of doing sacrices and Tapasya. We must not torture the body. This is Avidya or ignorance. We must live with the realization of the truth. We need to realize ourselves.” “Our biggest problem is our ego. Due to our ignorance, our ego creates worry, fear, and misery by believing in illusions following rituals and superstitions which make no sense. Ignorance creates arrogance, it makes us angry, we worry, live with fear and anxiety all due to our ignorance.”
The Buddha called his realizations the Four Noble Truths of Life. What were the four noble truths?
Let us understand what the four noble truths are. The rst was the existence of suffering or Dukkha. The sights that the Buddha saw as a prince shocked him, just as they made him realize that one cannot escape from suffering. As long as the universe exists, misery will follow us like our shadow.
When he went on a quest to understand why we humans suffer, he realized the second Truth of the origin of suffering Samudāya. He advocated that suffering was mostly caused by desire or craving or Trishna. The cause of this misery is attachment or craving and desire for somebody or something. It is important to activate our intellect and realize the truth, not to react to any joy or sorrow with too much passion. If we follow the right path, we will be peaceful, blissful and we will be liberated from this world of misery and from suffering.
The Buddha taught that the way to extinguish desire, which causes suffering, is to liberate oneself from attachment. This is the third Noble Truth - the possibility of liberation, the cessation of suffering or Nirodha.
Was there a way to overcome this suffering? Yes. One could live a life of bliss or Nirvana. The nal Noble Truth is the Buddha's prescription for the end of suffering, the path to the cessation of suffering or Magga. However, he taught us that we cannot achieve Nirvana unless we follow a particular path, which he later called the Eight-fold Path. What was this Eight-fold Path?
The Buddha described the Eight-fold Path as a means to Nirvana, like a raft that is needed for crossing a river. It was by following this path, said the Buddha, that we can cross the river of Samsara. After becoming the Buddha and being blessed to realize the Truth, being the 'Awakened One,' the Buddha dedicated his life to helping people live a life of peace because all around him, he saw people suffering and living a life of ignorance with stress, worry, and anxiety.
He created 'the Sangha' and welcomed people to join it by shaving off their hair, wearing orange robes and following the rules of the Sangha. While he made certain rules to join 'the Sangha', he did not expect everybody who followed his teachings to do so. He went from city to city, kingdom to kingdom, teaching people to live a life of peace and nonviolence. Whether it was the richest king, a religious priest, a rich businessman or a low caste scavenger, to him all were equal. In those days, women were not allowed to evolve spiritually or take important positions, but the Buddha changed even this belief because he believed in the concept of equality. He welcomed everybody to join his 'Sangha' including women.
In the times when the Buddha lived, there was so much disparity in the society because of the caste system. Society was divided into four castes – the Brahmins or priestly people, the Kshatriyas also called Rajanyas who were the rulers, administrators, and warriors, the Vaishyas or artisans, merchants, tradesmen, and farmers, and Shudras or labouring classes, the poorest of the castes. The poor and the weak in society were tormented and tortured. He questioned why this should be so because all humans are equal. He opposed the concept of 'untouchables' that existed in the Hindu society then, just as he questioned the supremacy of the kings and the Brahmins. According to the Buddha, to look down upon another human being based on caste and creed is a shame. Although the scriptures and the society in those days strongly followed the caste system, the Buddha openly opposed it and gave importance to the equality of all humanity.
Buddha's teachings and thoughts destroyed this caste system with the logic that all human beings are the same, our tears are the same just as our blood is. The skies and the clouds, the mountains and the streams, do not differentiate in the way they treat humanity. If nature doesn't differentiate, then why should a man do so? Buddha said all humanity is equal. We must not divide people into high caste and low caste. The Buddha, thus, accepted untouchables as a part of his following. Although he knew there would be great opposition from the priests and the kings, he boldly renounced all divisions of society as per caste. This was one major change in society at that time.
As the prince, the Buddha was very friendly with king Bimbisar, king of Magadha, and the king continued to be his friend even after Sidharth Gautama became Buddha. King Bimbisar changed his entire style of ruling the kingdom and implemented the teachings of the Buddha setting aside the advocacies of the priests, even at the cost of antagonizing them.
One can follow the Buddha's path by living with the ve virtues that the Buddha advocated. All the religions of the world are based on the fundamental principles of good conduct and prohibit their followers to indulge in the misconduct and misbehaviour that may harm society at large. So, the Panchshila of Buddha comprises the basic teachings of conduct which are as under:
When the Buddha was asked how one should live, he said that we should follow the ve rules of life. Buddha also said that not everyone needs to become a Bhikshu or monk to realize the Truth. Somebody asked Buddha, “Why do you beg. Why can't you farm your own food? He replied, “ I'm also farming my soul and with the grains, I will feed Souls.” It's not that Bhikshus do nothing. They do far more important work than just farming or other work. They save people from misery. Helping people to be liberated is more important.
The Buddha was very practical and prescribed a lifestyle that would make one blissful and peaceful. The Buddha lived a life that set an example for his followers. He chose humility and non-violence over victory and power. He transcended the body, mind, and ego with his compassion and love. Through his sacrice and renunciation, he inspired people to embark on a journey of ultimate peace and joy. He showed sympathy even to his biggest enemy because he realized the true meaning of life.
The Buddha explained how anger burns our peace and happiness. We spend time in unnecessary arguments and then, create poison within our own hearts and become miserable. When we get angry, we throw burning coal at others to destroy them, but before that, the burning coal burns our own hands. The Buddha said: Hatred can not be defeated by hatred, it can only be overcome by means of compassion. It is the rm and unchangeable Law of Nature.
He gave a lot of importance to contemplation and realization of the Truth. In his life, there were several instances where he transformed people, sinners, and criminals by his spiritual wisdom.
The Buddha was very clear that all our suffering was due to ignorance. We experience suffering from birth to death. To be happy, we desire, we crave, we have expectations from others, and ultimately, we are disappointed. This distances us from the bliss that is within. He advocated that we must nd peace and happiness by going within. Why do we chase money and pleasure in the journey of life that is so short? Instead, we can live with love, compassion, kindness and create a blissful heaven wherever we are. We create our own fears, worries, and miseries by our own mind. One who transcends their mind, said the Buddha, has conquered the whole world. It is most unfortunate, he said, that we do not understand what the true and Ultimate Goal of life is. He termed that state as 'Nirvana'. The only way to achieve Nirvana is through the realization of the Truth, contemplating spiritual wisdom that will liberate us, and living with soulful love for one and all.
We think we are everything when in reality, we are nothing. This is nothing but ignorance. What does ignorance do? It makes us live a life of illusion. It creates worry, stress, and anxiety which is the cause of all our misery. What is ego? The ego gives birth to wild sensual desires of the body, just as it permits the mind to create miserable thoughts. When we realize the Truth of the cosmic illusion, we experience a state of everlasting peace. We live with compassion and love, despite all circumstances and evil-doing of those around us. Nothing affects a realized soul, explained the Buddha. We must activate our intellect to overcome miseries - that is the way to escape from fear and worry. We must live in the present moment. The way to freedom from misery is to live a life of Divine acceptance and surrender. We all want to be happy, just as we want to be liberated from misery. But we choose actions that take us in the opposite direction. How can we achieve our goal? We become slaves, prisoners to our own desires and expectations. Although we may look peaceful on the outside, we experience violent turbulence in the inside, with our own thoughts destroying our peace.
What did the Buddha have to say about death? He accepted it as a reality of life. It should be accepted without expression of sorrow. All those who are born are certain to die. Nobody can escape death. Then why should we become unhappy when somebody dies? This is the law of nature. Our life is like the moon – it appears as a new moon and then becomes a full moon, after which there is complete darkness. Then the moon reappears, so is our life. Death is not the end. Only the body dies. We will be reborn as per our Karma until we are liberated. Buddha made people realize that death is certain. Let us learn to accept the reality of death.
Because we become attached to people and things not realizing that nothing is permanent, we live in misery. How does one escape from this misery and achieve Liberation? The only way is to live by our intellect and not by our mind. We must learn to discriminate the illusion from the Truth, and thus live a life of Realization. As long as we don't accumulate the wisdom that makes us realize the Truth, we will continue to suffer. Suffering is a reality, we cannot escape from it. But the truth is that suffering is caused by desire and craving. If we eliminate the cause of suffering, then how can suffering continue?
The Buddha taught that prayer by itself can achieve nothing. Of course, prayers are magical, but they must be accompanied by Divine action, meditation, and education that leads to realization. Just following certain rituals and superstitions can get us nowhere. It is possible to achieve Ananda or bliss and be liberated or achieve Nirvana. However, this needs our effort. It needs discrimination and a quest for Realization. We must light our own lamp to illuminate the darkness within, just as the lamp will create a path to move forward. We must be conscious of the power that is within us. We don't have to search outside. Everything is within. We must be steady in our discipline and thought, and this must be our persistent effort until we achieve Nirvana.
Buddha advocated that the world is a Cosmic Illusion or Maya. It robs us of the present. We don't live in the past, nor in the future. We should be conscious of the present moment following the 'middle path.' We should not torture the body, nor give it scope to crave and desire. The moment we realize the illusion of Maya, we end our worry, fear, and anxiety. We live peacefully and blissfully. As we realize the Truth, we don't feel hatred against anybody. Even a person who is cruel to us is responded with compassion and kindness. That is true realization.
Realization makes us live with love and Divine Acceptance. We get calm and peaceful with a steady intellect. It is our ignorance that has separated us from each other and has created a division. Thus, we desire, we crave and we are lost in the ignorance, in the illusion. When we realize the Truth, ignorance is overcome. The Buddha said: The biggest enemy of a man is his own mind which makes him do inappropriate tasks. What we think, we become. A good thought brings in good results while a bad thought brings in bad results. This is the Law of Nature.
The Buddha said, “We are living in utter ignorance. We perform rituals and follow superstitions, we sacrice the lives of innocent animals but ourselves continue to live with sin, how can we achieve Liberation?” He said that we are the cause of our own Liberation or our own misery. It's for us to realize the truth by living a life that leads to Nirvana. The Buddha stated: Ignorance is the root cause of all suffering. Ignorance cannot be overcome by worshipping, fasting or offering. It can only be eradicated through meditation, which will result in wisdom and realization of the Truth.
The Buddha said, “We are spoiling the present moment with what happened in the past and worrying about the future losing the present moment.” To be liberated one must not overreact to misery or to joy. Accept both equally.
People think the Buddha said, “There is no God.” But he never said that there is no God nor did he say there is God. Buddha said that prayer without efforts will not work. If you want to cross a river and you sit down on the bank of the river and pray, would you be able to cross the river? Of course not. If the water is shallow, you can walk. If the water is deep, you can take a boat or even swim. The Buddha said that if one doesn't want to walk across, doesn't want to swim, or doesn't want to use the boat, will the other side of the riverbank come to him? Similarly, if we don't use our intellect to overcome ignorance, how will we achieve a life of peace and bliss? How much ever we pray, do rituals, follow superstitions, we cannot achieve the objective that we seek without using our intellect. This is not difcult to understand but we don't understand it because of our ignorance. Prayer is good but without knowledge, one cannot realize the truth and be liberated. He said that we don't have to have blind faith. We should use our intellect to discriminate.
Somebody asked Buddha, “What did you get out of Meditation?” He said, “Nothing! Just that I lost worry, fear, anger, sorrow, insecurity, the anxiety of old age, and death.” Human beings get attached to their possessions. They are never satised. They crave for more and are fearful of losing what they have. But if we cut away all attachments then we are free.
The Buddha always said that one should become one's own lamp and light one's own light. Which means, one should try to seek the reality oneself and realize the truth by making self-efforts. Instead of accepting anything blindly, one should try to question everything and then accept what is right. The Buddha was a very practical person. He told people not to believe anything, not even him. He said that we should question everything with our intellect and use our logic to realize the Truth. While he refused to follow any ritual or superstition, he encouraged people to question their religion and idol worship. His objective was simple, to be liberated from misery and to live a life of eternal peace and joy, attain a state he called Nirvana, our Ultimate Goal. According to him, we must live a life that ultimately liberates us, a life of salvation and enlightenment.
What was the key difference between Moksha and Nirvana? The Buddha might have called it Nirvana but it was no different from Moksha. The destination was the same, the means to reach it was different. During the Buddha's time, Hindu Faith had lost its original principles and declined to a religion of Gods and Goddesses, of rituals and superstitions, of caste systems and division of society. The Buddha opposed all this and prescribed a simple path to the same goal of Liberation which he called Nirvana, the Ultimate Goal of life. It was all about living in bliss, peace, and joy, liberated from misery and sorrow. This was no different from Moksha.
The Buddha's logic was very simple: Why should we worry about things which are beyond our comprehension? Why don't we focus on our Ultimate Goal of life, peace, joy, and bliss? We want to create Gods and Goddesses to pray and instead of understanding the Creator who created us, we spend our life in rituals and superstitions. Instead of overcoming our ignorance, we are creating more reasons to become more ignorant by complicating our life. What do we human beings seek? Our Ultimate Goal is happiness and peace. Why not achieve that? Why are we submitting to the world of illusions and becoming miserable? Why are we complicating our life with desires and expectations and becoming miserable? The Buddha was against all this. He had a simple solution. He called it Nirvana - ultimate joy and peace, a life that is liberated from misery and sorrow.
While the Buddha found a solution to the ills of the Hindu society and delivered the doctrine of Nirvana which after his life became Buddhism, this doctrine too slowly got diluted over time. The Buddha gave us a solution on how to overcome suffering. He taught us the importance of meditation, introspection, and contemplation. However, Buddhism, just like Hinduism, slowly drifted away from the Truth. While Buddhism became very popular and spread all over the world, not just in India and Asia where it originated, the diluted Buddhism drifted away from the teachings of the Buddha, which laid focus on liberation from suffering, the realization of the Truth about life and death. People continued chanting and following other rituals, but the essence of Nirvana got lost. Just like there were Brahmins who led to the downfall of the Hindu Faith as it got concocted into Hinduism, many Buddhist monks and masters, who considered themselves to be the Buddha led to the downfall of Nirvana, a practical concept initiated by the Buddha. Buddhism got divided into Hinayana and Mahayana and further branched into Zen Buddhism as it spread its inuence over several countries.
People all over the world got disillusioned with religion and faith. In the East, not only were Hinduism and Buddhism propagating the power of their religion, but Jainism, Sikhism, and many other religions emerged, each presenting their God or Guru to be the true God. In the western civilizations, Judaism branched into Christianity and Islam, but it did not stop there. Each of these got divided and subdivided. The result was innumerable scriptures and countless Gods that confused all of humanity.
There was darkness that spread all over the world, and ignorance about the Truth only increased. The Ultimate Goal of humanity – happiness, bliss, and peace, remained a distant dream. This continued for several centuries, with a few fortunate people continuing to believe in the original teachings of self-Realization and God-Realization. Some called it Moksha, some called it Nirvana. In the western world too, people were seeking Liberation from misery and sorrow. The world evolved, and so did communication that led to a revolution in education. There was growth and change in lifestyle, just as the entire world was discovered and colonies and countries established.
While people started living life with healthier bodies, better food to eat, clothes to wear and gadgets to live with, their relationship with God found no progress. Material pleasures may have increased over the centuries, but there was no progress in spirituality.
After many centuries of spiritual turmoil, one major movement that appeared in the world was the movement to eradicate ignorance and the darkness that was born due to rituals and superstitions. The movement was beyond religion. It was a spiritual revolution that started over 700 to 1000 years ago and continues till date. What was the movement?
Siddhartha Gautama was a Hindu Prince,
Whom the King and the priest could not
convince! Renouncing all the pleasures
of the world and fun, He became Buddha,
the Awakened One. 