Author: M G Chitkara
Publisher: APH Publishing Corporation
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 700
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8176481823
Description
As part of a 21-volume set, this book stresses that the aim of life must be to transcend all suffering and it can be achieved by trading the path of Bodhisattva.
Bodhi means the understanding or wisdom of the ultimate nature of reality, and a sattva is someone who is motivated by universal compassion. The Bodhisattva ideal is thus the aspiration to practise infinite compassion with wisdom. However, compassion can be put into practice by one who recognizes every human being as a member of humanity and the human family regardless of differences in religion, creed, colour and region.
A Bodhisattva is one who is on the path to Buddhahood and dedicates himself entirely in helping all other sentient being towards release from suffering. The issue of suffering is as old as human existence and one of the major concerns of human thought all through history.
In the words of Swami Vivekananda, If China or Japan or Sri Lanka follow the teachings of the Great master, India worships him as God incarnate on earth.. Hinduism cannot live without Buddhism nor Buddhist does not accept an authority; he is free to examine, criticise and investigate for himself. Bodhisattva is a being who, having developed the awakening Mind, devotes his life to the task of achieving Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings.
The doctrine of the Bodhisattva, looks to the saint as a fully enlightened being who has deferred his final nirvana for the sake of all sentient beings. Like the lotus with its roots embedded in mud, the saint breeds on worldly attachments without being sullied by them. Through innumerable lives he assumes the character of a self in order to demonstrate, again and again, its final destruction. To achieve the full effect of that demonstration it has to be recorded as a model for future generations.
A new era always unfold itself with a re-statement in some form or other of convictions of the old. At the threshold of 21st century, the new statement selflessness will take humanity to great heights. And to understand the selflessness, one has to comprehend as to what we man by self. Then and then alone the path will be clear. In the Upanishads it had been finally declared that there is nothing subtler than the self, Atma. Atma or soul as distinguished from ordinary self, which is the ego or personality. The soul is the true and immortal nature of man, and of all living forms of life, it is cloaked only temporarily in the garments of casual, astral and physical bodies.
Yesterday it were Gautama and Gandhi, tomorrow it may be someone else amongst us. A Buddha is no different fundamentally from any of us. If a man perceives correctly, he is a Buddha. All human beings have the Buddha-nature, which is also known as mind pure in its very nature. It may also be referred to as Tathagata garbha-the womb of him the Buddha who has gone the same way as all others who have attained Enlightenment. Any human being, by perceiving this originally pure mind is, by that fact, a Buddha, If we could but perceive that the inner pure mind is one and the same with the Buddha and that the Buddha and the common man are at bottom no different, we should be Buddhas ourselves and have attained our freedom. In any case, every human being is to work out his own salvation.
Contents
The Month of Janus: January
The Month of Purification: February
The Month of Mars: March
The Month of Venus: April
The Month of Maia: May
The Month of Juno: June
The Month of Julius Caesar: July
The Month of Augustus: August
The Barley Month: September
The Winter full-moon month: October
The Wind, Blood Month: November
The Winter Month: December
Appraisal and Sum up
Bibliography
Index