The Story Of Buddha

Hello friends.

My name is Doug and I'd love to share a story with you of one of the greatest men who ever lived on this planet.

They called him Gautamada Buddha and I consider him to be one of the greatest teachers and one of the greatest inspirations of all men.

But before Buddha was born,

His father,

The king,

Sought out advice from astrologers,

Something that was commonly done in those days before a child was born,

Especially the child of the king.

So one day the king went to the astrologer and the astrologer told him that his son,

He knew he would be a boy too,

Would grow up to be either one of the greatest kings of all time or he would be one of the greatest mystics of all time.

It was going to be one or the other.

There was no in between.

So this king was worried about his son's future and the future of his kingdom too.

Siddhartha was his only son,

His only offspring.

So our king was very distressed and troubled.

He didn't want his son to grow up to be a mystic because he wanted him to carry on his legacy and care for the kingdom.

So what to do?

The king decided the best thing to do was to try to keep any sign of aging,

Any sign of anything getting old or dying,

All signs of death,

All had to be eliminated so Siddhartha would never see or ever desire or wonder about any afterlife happening after this life.

So as our prince grew up in the kingdom,

The king made arrangements so that Siddhartha would never see anything dying or see anything ever getting old.

Everything was just young and fresh and beautiful.

So our young prince grew up not knowing death or anything about death.

Till one day when Siddhartha was getting much older,

In his young twenties,

Siddhartha was taking a chariot ride in his chariot.

And then one day along the side of the road Siddhartha saw a man lying on the side of the road and he was wrinkled and he didn't look well.

He didn't know what was wrong with the man.

So he had the chariot driver stop and say,

Hey,

What chariot driver,

What's wrong with this guy?

What's wrong with him?

And the chariot driver said,

He's just old,

He's dying.

And Siddhartha didn't understand because he had never experienced that before.

So Siddhartha said to the chariot driver,

You know,

Is this common?

Has this happened to everyone?

And the chariot driver said,

Well,

I'm not supposed to tell you this,

But yes,

It does happen to everyone.

Everyone grows old and everyone dies.

Our young prince was completely bewildered and didn't know what to do.

He was very distressed and realized that he one day would grow old too and would die.

And this scared him very much.

And not long after that fateful day on the side of the road,

Siddhartha set out on his journey to study the mysticism and to study and know more about death and know why this has to happen to people.

I mean,

Why do people have to die?

Siddhartha was very articulate and very knowledgeable and very wise for a young prince.

And he studied mysticism from several different teachers and learned everything he could from every single teacher he went to.

And he was more meticulous than any of the students had ever been before.

He wanted to know everything.

He wanted to know the truth.

He wanted it now.

So after years of studying with mystic after mystic,

Wise man after wise man,

He drew no closer to the truth.

He still didn't know what death was and how it evaded him for so long.

Siddhartha spent years studying,

Practicing asanas,

Being dedicated,

Being devoted to everything.

He did everything he could possibly could to try to figure this puzzle out.

What was death?

How can we avoid it?

There came a point where he said to himself,

I've done everything I can.

I still don't understand.

I still don't know.

So one night,

One fateful night,

Late in the evening,

Buddha sat down and meditated.

But at this time when he sat down to meditate,

He said to himself,

You know,

I don't care about any of that stuff anymore.

I don't care about what happens to this and what happens to that.

I just want to sit and meditate for meditation's sake and just enjoy that peaceful serenity that happens while you meditate.

So Buddha sat under this tree.

They call it now the Bodhi tree.

I think it was the actual fig tree is what type of tree it was.

But the Bodhi tree is what it was called because Buddha,

When he sat down under this tree late at night and started meditating,

He sat there with his eyes closed for most of the night,

Just letting things go and forgetting about all his training,

Forgetting about all his austerities and everything he's done to try to conquer the truth.

He just got in a state of let go,

In a receptive mood.

And that's when the miracle happened.

They say as the last star started to fade away in the morning sky is when the light hit Buddha.

He became enlightened in that moment.

The heavens opened up.

And that's when Buddha became one with existence.

He became one with what we call God or godliness.

Because Buddha said there is no God,

But he experienced more was that everything was God.

Because it was not just him that was enlightened.

He realized everything.

The light surrounded and encompassed everything.

Our young king took in something that rarely ever happens,

Like once in a million people or a billion people.

It just doesn't happen very often.

But he remained silent.

He didn't know how to express what happened to him.

He thought everyone would be crazy if he told them what happened to them.

So he remained silent for seven days.

And after seven days,

The gods in heaven basically came down to Buddha and said,

You got to tell your story.

It's rare that a man ever becomes a Buddha.

And now you have done it.

You've you've done the impossible.

So you have to share.

You must share your story.

And Buddha said to the gods,

I don't even know how to begin to share it.

Because words could never describe what happened to me.

But Buddha said the gods were right.

And he decided to share his story and share his experience with as many people as he could.

And thus was born Gautama the Buddha.

Siddhartha was now Gautama the Buddha.

Buddha means the awakened one.

So Gautama the Buddha traveled throughout India,

Spreading the words of love and compassion and meditation to anyone that would listen.

And he had many thousands of followers that followed him from land to land.

But eventually he had to go back and see his father because his father was getting much older and was about to die and he wanted to see see and say goodbye to his father.

So he had to return to the kingdom from which he came.

I didn't mention it earlier,

But Siddhartha,

Before he was Gautama the Buddha,

Was also married to a young princess.

And he had a child that was still in the womb when he set off on his journey.

So yeah,

He basically set out and left his kingdom completely and gave up all riches and anything that had value to it.

So Gautama the Buddha did return to the kingdom and said goodbye to his dying father.

And he also came and saw his wife and his child that is now almost a young man himself.

And his wife was upset,

Extremely upset as you can imagine,

These things that had value to them.

Buddha felt that they were the hindrance,

They were the blockage stopping him from becoming enlightened.

But that wasn't the case because he,

Buddha's wife said to him,

Could you have not accomplished,

I can see something happened to you,

I can see there's something about you that's different than when you left me,

But could you not have accomplished this and done this with us?

Could you not have done that with the kingdom here,

With me as your wife and your son?

Buddha answered his wife by saying,

Maybe possibly you were right.

Maybe I could have been enlightened here with you as my wife and everything,

But I can't change the past.

What was done was done.

I felt it was the only way at the time,

So that's what I had to do and I knew I had to do it.

Siddhartha's wife said,

And what about your father's kingdom?

What will happen to my son now,

To our son?

And Buddha's only response was here,

He can have my begging bowl.

That's all I own is this one bowl.

And he can,

That is,

He can follow me and follow my legacy.

So Buddha left his kingdom and went back to teaching and helping spread the word of enlightenment to many people.

Buddha also had an elder brother cousin,

Who his name was Ananda.

And Ananda had basically a photographic memory.

When Ananda started to follow Buddha,

He said to Buddha,

Look,

I'm your elder cousin brother,

And that I must be with you at all times.

You must make these rules and make these commitments to me before I decide to follow you.

That is,

One,

You can never send me away when there's a discussion.

I must be included in every discussion ever made.

And two,

You must never send me away.

Even if I ever become enlightened,

I must be able to stay at your side at all times and be your caregiver.

It was said that Buddha was enlightened when he was about 40 years old,

And he traveled the land spreading the word for about another 40 years.

So when he was about 80 years old is when he left this body.

But before he left this body,

Ananda said to him,

What do I do?

Buddha,

What do I do?

I don't know if I can live without you,

But how to go on and how to become enlightened.

I don't have a clue how to do it,

Even though I know everything you said could be said to me,

I don't know.

So Buddha said to Ananda before he died,

He said,

Be a light unto your own self.

Be true to your own self.

So the day after Buddha died,

Ananda became enlightened.

He understood what Buddha said,

Be a light unto your own self.

So there were several enlightened people from Buddha's lineage that wanted to take over Buddhism and be the leader.

But Ananda was the only one that basically was at Buddha's side for these 40 years.

The only problem was Ananda was not enlightened yet,

So they were worried.

But he solved that the very next day when he became enlightened.

I must add one more thing,

And that is that Gautama Buddha tried everything before he became enlightened.

He gave everything a try and did it as hard as he could and dove into it as deep as he could and did his best,

But he realized that all the effort was the blockage.

All that effort was stopping him because that was a masculine energy.

And to be enlightened you have to have a feminine energy,

You have to be receptive.

And you can't be receptive and masculine at the same time.

So Buddha is seen as having a very soft face,

Almost like a feminine face.

And Buddha told Ananda that basically he did not want any statues made of him after he died.

That was one thing.

And the other thing is he did not want to be worshipped.

He didn't want people to think that he was a god,

Because he realized that god is everywhere and god is everything.

We are not separate from god.

We are god.

We are just god in different forms.

There's god as a bird,

There's god as an elephant,

There's god as a fish.

God takes every form,

In any form,

He takes all forms.

But Buddha realized that if people worshipped god that that would be like there was a separation between themselves and god.

And Buddha's whole message was that no,

You're not separate from god.

You are god,

But you're just sleeping.

You're not awake yet.

And the only difference between me and you is that I have awakened and you are still asleep.

It is very subtle difference,

Very subtle indeed.

Well I hope you enjoyed this message of Buddha,

One of the greatest men that ever walked this earth.

Please hit like and subscribe if you liked this video and you'd like to hear more.

Please let me know and I'll keep sharing the love and the messages as I've learned them and spread that love on to you guys.

Thank you for joining me.

I'll take care now.