Buddhism is a Hindu School of Philosophy Part 1 of 2

Many people don’t realize the fact that Buddhism is an off-shoot of Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma). Buddha was born as Siddhartha. He was a Kshatriya prince and belonged to the clan of Shakyas. He lived in the capital of Kapilavastu and was married to Yashodhara. He had a son called Rahula. He had led a protective life. His father believing in a prophecy shielded Siddhartha from knowing about death, sickness and old age. One day he happened to see a funeral procession, an old man bent with age and a man suffering from some disease. He was a compassionate person and couldn’t understand the cause for so much suffering. Thus he left his kingdom and lived with some Brahmins to learn the Vedantic principles. Unable to follow the severe vows the Brahmins followed, he left them and meditated under a pepal tree finally achieving enlightenment.

He prescribed eight paths to reach liberation. They are as follows; Right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

Buddha is considered to be an incarnation of Lord Vishnu. The life of Buddha was predicted and documented well ahead of his time in the ancient Bhavishya Purana. In the kali age Lord Vishnu made it very easy for everyone to reach Him and thus break the cycles of birth-death & re-birth. As rigorous meditations, rituals are not needed and one can attain Him simply by believing in Him and by chanting His holy names, to challenge people a little he incarnated as Buddha to confuse the masses. Those who would see through the screen of confusion would reach His abode. Thus as Buddha, he taught people atheism!

Buddhism is a branch of Hinduism. There are many schools of philosophy in Sanatana Dharma. The schools that follow the Vedas are Samkhya, Nyaya, Yoga, Vaisheshika, Purva-Mimamsha and Vedanta. Apart from these schools there are other shools of philosophy teaching atheism; they are, Caravaka, Buddhism and Jainism.

According to the ancient religion of Buddhism there is no God! They do not believe in the presence of souls. They believe that there was chaos or nothingness in the beginning from which appeared a giant lotus. Each petal of the lotus developed in to a universe. Now, if there is no God then who created the giant lotus? How can something appear from nothingness? If there is nothing then there is a void; and, if there is not even an atom then how can a lotus appear? We cannot say that God does not exist; we may say that the sub atomic particle is the basis of everything but where did the sub atomic particle come from? Thus we can see a big hole in Buddha’s proposal.

Next he said that there are no souls. Being a Hindu, he believed in the laws of karma. Thus he stated that people’s karmas’ manifested as living entities. When a person dies, the person’s karmas manifest as the next living entity but there is no actual connection between the two entities. The original entity ceases to exist. If this is the case then why should I worry about accumulating bad karmas? If I am going to cease to exist after death I need not worry about accumulating bad karmas! To complicate matters, Buddha taught people that they would go to either hell or heaven to reap the fruits of their karmas. We have to ask ourselves, how can people go to hell and heaven as well as cease to exist?

Buddhists believe in a myriad of Devas, demons etc. as well. The Devas live in seven heavens and the demons in seven hells.

The concept of Nirvana states that a person can reach Nirvana by not desiring for existence. He preached that the desire for existence is the result of ignorance. This is definitely not possible either; now that I know that I should not desire to exist , I am still here! I don’t cease to exist.He allowed women to join monasteries as nuns but they were told that they cannot hope to attain Nirvana unless they take birth as a man. In contrast, the original Vedic tradition offers salvation to everyone including animals, plants & demons. It does not make any distinction between men, women, animals, or plants as all are equal and eligible to obtain salvation.

To be continued.