Gautama and Buddhism

About the same time as Mahavira was teaching, Gautam Buddha also began to give teachings. I have talked about some of Gautam Buddha’s teachings in another series, Echoes of Gautam Buddha. So here I will focus on just one of those aspects of Buddhist teaching, the one that I feel to be the most significant. That is that Gautam Buddha put the entire focus of our spiritual energy on the search for enlightenment. He didn’t bother about gods, goddesses, about worship. He was not so concerned with ancient rituals, traditions. His entire teaching was focused on helping us to become enlightened for ourselves. Without this enlightenment, Gautam Buddha recognised that whatever we do, even with the best will in the world, will invariably cause chaos. There will be unforeseen side effects. So for Buddha, reaching enlightenment was the key and this was the focus of his teachings.

This is perhaps the most important spiritual teaching ever to have come through a human being, that without this endeavour we will have wasted our life and caused a lot of mayhem and anguish along the way. Conversely, if we diligently pursue our spiritual journey until we become enlightened ourself, thereafter whatever we do will be in harmony with nature. The right actions will come spontaneously without us even having to understand all the ramifications. So this focus on enlightenment is the greatest gift that Gautam Buddha gave us, possibly the greatest gift ever to be given by any human being on this planet. We would do well to pay heed to it.