Saturday 26 January, 2008

Waking Up

It is said that when The Compassionate Buddha entered a town, he radiated such security and joy that crowds gathered around him just to gaze at his blissful face.
" Blessed One," they asked timidly, "are you God?"
" No, " he said.
" Are you an Angel? "
" No".
" Are you a Prophet? "
" No. "
" Then who are you? "

"I Am Awake. " he said.

This is the literal meaning of the word "Buddha", from the sanskrit root budh, " To Wake Up".
We all usually think we are fully conscious, fully awake. We all are quite certain that all our friends, aquaintances and near and dear ones too are awake.
We think we are fully active in what we normally call Living life: pursuing private satisfactions, trying to earn a living through respective careers, living out the dailyroutine, accumulating material possesions, trying to live in harmony and peace and playing our own parts in our relationships.

Such a life, The Buddha would say with compassion, is the life of a Somnambulist. We are sleep-walking and sleep living every single moment of our lives.
Today if we look around we can see that we live in a sleeping society- asleep and dreaming of wealth and pleasure and power even as the environmental foundations of our lives are being eroded by the unconscious forces of greed, ignorance, hostility and conditional love in all our relationships.
Its high time we wake up fully from our deep slumber of these vices and learn to give to life and our relationships rather than be ever ready to be at the receiving ends always.
Lets be " Awake ".

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Again you give a lesson and beautiful reminder of what it means to walk any spiritual path... to be awakened. May the journey from sleep to wakefulness be a short one for you, that the joy and bliss and radiance of your face becomes a beacon of love and hope to all who see it. Amen.

Peace, dear Sister :)

Krishna. N. C. said...

My Beloved Brother Irving,
Your blessings and prayers keep me going and Inshallah we all shall be awakened to follow His path and bask in His glory:)
My humble salaam and thank you to to brother for those beautiful words coming from a truly blessed soul:)
Love and hugs:)

Dipti said...

Dearest Sister Krishna ... This is such a beautiful and wonderful post....I thank you so much for sharing it with all of us .. Such a inspiring lesson and a reminder for us all ....