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Buddhism originated in India approximately 500 years before the
coming of Jesus Christ to the Earth. The founder of Buddhism was the prince
Siddhartha from the Gautama family, called Gautama Buddha.
Siddhartha Gautama was born into a royal family in ancient India
about five centuries B.C.
During the celebration of His birth, a sage prophesized that the
boy will become either a great king of a great holy man. His father desiring to
make Siddhartha a king, shielded Him from religious education and from the
knowledge about human suffering.
For a long time, prince Siddhartha lived a luxury life in the
royal palace, until one day, during a trip outside the palace, He learned about
the poverty and suffering of people.
After this discovery, He decided to leave the royal palace and
dedicate Himself to seeking the cause of human suffering and the way to
liberation from it.
After many years of spiritual search and meditation, He achieved
the state of Nirvana (full Self-realization). Since that time He began to preach
His Teachings to people.
As all other Great Teachers, Gautama Buddha preached first of
all LOVE, which one can achieve in calm and lowliness of mind by developing
oneself as a spiritual heart.
He taught also the true simplicity in life (including
abandonment of material attachments), loving and compassionate attitude toward
other living beings, and attainment of the highest Self-realization in Mergence
with the Primordial Consciousness.
Yet… with time these Teachings also became degraded among a
large number of people who called themselves Buddhists.
This degradation started with refusal of the main ethical
postulate of the Teachings of Gautama Buddha — the principle of LOVE-COMPASSION.
Namely, the gluttonous nutrition based eating bodies of killed animal became
widespread…
The refusal of the basic spiritual morality made impossible the
achievement of success on the spiritual Path. And then… numerous fantasies
arose, for example, that the Perfection can be achieved through the “art”… of
fighting, that “instant enlightenment” can be gained through a stroke of a dirty
shoe against the face… True spiritual efforts were superseded with the rituals
of protective magic… And some pseudo-Buddhist “gurus” began to teach… to plug
the posterior opening of the body with a special cork — on the grounds that one
can fall into hell through this opening… All this was taught as Buddhism in the
countries of Europe and America…
To continue listing such absurdities is not a pleasant thing.
Therefore, let us get back to considering the foundation of the true methodology
of Buddhism, which is one, by the way, with the fundamental principles of all
Teachings imparted to people from the Primordial Consciousness.
First, let us consider some important quotations from the homilies of the
Founder of Buddhism, and then — sayings of some Teachers of Buddhism, Who
attained the Perfection in the past and are willing now to provide Their
spiritual help to everyone who wants to walk Their Path.
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