Gautam Buddha and teachings
One must be able to distinguish between the reflection, the meditation and the thoughts of Siddhartha, born in the family of Gautam, the thoughts which he came to express after enlightenment and and the thoughts which came to be recorded by his immediate disciples after Gautm Buddha left this world of Appearances and the the thoughts which to be intellectually systematised as his teachings, philosophy and finally becoming crystallised as a religion named as his philosophy.
As a young prince he was not uneducated and was schooled in secular and spiritual disciplines, was equipped in marshal arts and statecraft, in moral and ethical cultures, so that when he ascends the throne he will be able to rule the lands wisely and well. Therefore, it is not that he spent his time in leisure and pleasures. If he was sensitive then it was because in his life, he was not yet exposed the vagaries of the world or the suffering of the masses.
Therefore, when he was out of the closed environment of the palace and was exposed to the suffering of the people in samsara. It is not that when he was in the close environment of the palace he did not know what sickness was, what old age was, what death was; but surely when once out of the environment of the palace he was exposed to the facts of life as Wisdom experienced by himself what he knew as theoretical Knowledge known from others. Therefore he was shocked by what he saw and was disturbed to see that life was not bed of roses as he thought but the roses were in the middle of many painful thorns.
He was immensely pained and disturbed by the sufferrings in Samdara. He resolved to search the causes for the Sufferrings and suggest solutions to terminate the very root that gives rise. He searched from all the knowledge he had gathered from scriptures, practiced all the rites and rituals recommended, performed all the austerities and perfected all the penances. Then he gave up all and restrained his senses, concentrated on his mind, listened to the vibration coming from sides, reflected and meditated on them.
Then even as he was sitting under a bodhi tree and meditating all the shackles that bound his heart were shattered and all the doubts from his mind were resolved. And then even as lightening strikes and shows the landscape clearly and all at one, he saw the solution for the Sufferring all at once and in all clarity.
Desire, he said, was the root cause of all Sufferring. The desire to possess what one does not have, to be some thing what one is not, and most difficult of them all, the desire to renounce what one has possessed or what one has become. Once the desires are terminated then sensations cease from mind even as ripples cease in a lake.
For this one need no gods, no mantras, no sacrifices, no austerities, no penance. You have go no where, neither to the temples nor to heavens. One needs to be here and now, bound by neither the memories of the past nor expectation in future, with purity of heart and clarity of on mind. One should observe within one's own self, being independent of all external influences, not dependent on the organs of sense or organs of action, being a mirror unto oneself
In such such mind thoughts cease to rise, all doubts are resolved, desires terminate, attachments becomes shattered, peace descends with no sensation in mind. That verily is deliverance from the sufferrings in Samsara.
Gautam Buddha was concerned with Sufferring in samsara, therefore, he sought solutions for them. He was concerned with neither knowing about the self not about the self after death. He was neither concerned with how creation came to be or how the creation will meet its end. He was not concerned with the Supreme Being or the intermediate divinities. Therefore he spoke about none about these, because common massess in samsara were more concerned with Sufferring and with divinities seeking some assistance from them.
Therefore it would be an error to treat him as avaidik, since he did not question the Vedic concepts but used to substantiate his views. What he questioned was the brahmannical practice of passing over the Vedic wisdom as one would pass a basket, misinterpret the institution as the instrument for attaining pleasures of heaven for individual good and not as performance of one's action for the good of the world and it's inhabitants. Therefore he did not reply but kept quiet when asked about self, gods, heavens and life after death. He spoke of the life here and now, the suffering, what cause Sufferring and to end the same.
It is only in the hands of brahmannical members who influenced by Gautam Buddha joined his Sangh and gave intellectual face to an otherwise straight and simple ethical and moral teaching. There lay the rub and Buddha being called heretical. But for those who had clarity of mind, Gautam Buddha was a descent of supreme Being, come to resolve ignorance from mind, attaining palace as one of the descent of the Supreme Being.
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