THE BUDDHA REVISITED

The vastness of his heart remains unmatched to this day. He never breathed for himself but lived every pulse of his life for the good of the many. His unblemished character, supreme sanity, rational approach to life's problems and his spiritual solutions thereof set him apart from not only the sages of the day but has carved for him a singular place in human history.

The democratiser of India's spiritual traditions, the Buddha threw open the doors of spiritual knowledge to the masses and thus ushered in a golden age in India's spiritual history before the ravages of time took their toll on his movement and cast it outside of the borders of India. But it continued to flourish throughout Asia and parts of Europe as wave after wave of his missionaries fertilised the soil of distant lands with the seeds of his Maitri (friendship) and Karuna (mercy) and thus advanced the spiritual civilisation of the world.

In India the Buddha was raised to the rank of the Avatar even as his religion was banished from the land of its birth for its denunciation of the inviolability of the Vedas and the horrendous sensual degeneracy that had set in the latter stages of the movement. Buddhism's principle features were absorbed into Hinduism as the newly emerged Vaishnavism, the Buddhist pilgrimages were converted into mighty centres of Vaishnav culture and many of the Buddhist places of worship became temples of Vishnu. Thus, Buddhism was assimilated into the Mother-faith of the Sanatana Dharma in typical Hindu style and Buddhism, as such, eliminated from India and the Indian psyche till only a handful of Buddhists survived in India to tell the tale of their grand conquest (Dharmavijaya) when the followers of the Buddha had converted two-thirds of India to their Master's faith.

Time now it is for a reconciliation of these two grand world religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, both of whom have sprung from the same source, the spiritual genius of the sages of India, so that the world may see a resurgence of spirituality and may be saved from self-annihilation in this perilous age when man seems to have thrown caution to the winds in his pursuit of material attainments with brutal competition between nations drawing the world, already stock-piled with nuclear armament, to the brink of a cataclysmic war. The Buddha's heart and the Hindu sage's spiritual intellect combined can be the formulation for the perfect future religion and that is what is being brewed up in the distillery of the Ancient Mother --- the renaissance of the Sanatan Dharma.

Buddhang sharanang gachhaami!
Om Shanti! Shanti! Shanti!