Finding Your Way to Enlightenment
Over 2,500 years ago, Prince Siddharta Gautama was born in what’s currently called Lumbini in Nepal. He was born a prince and his birth was received with many special signals that indicated a life of greatness. The prince’s father asked a wiseman that lived inside the kingdom for advice regarding his son. The sage man theorized that the prince, Siddharta Gautama, might either follow in his father’s footsteps and become a great king or he would become a spiritual leader.
Praying that his son should end up his successor, the king did his best to separate the prince from those things that could motivate him toward a spiritual life. The prince was surrounded by luxury and excess, all of the rewards that his royal status could offer. Siddharta Gautama proved to be a smart student and excellent sportsman. He married a beautiful woman whom he cherished and they bore a son.
At the age of 29, the prince determined that the world surrounding him was far more complex than what he encountered in the walls of his palace. Out amongst the citizens of the kingdom, he observed reality: sickness, old-age and death. The surprise of this discovery left the youthful prince shaken. He made the decision then to dedicate himself to ending the suffering. Leaving his wife and child, the prince forsaked his worldly possessions and set out on a spiritual quest.
Guatama started a course of study with numerous teachers to understand their methods. With the aid of Alara Kalama, he began to learn meditation and learned an exalted form called absorption. This allowed him to accomplish a state of nothingness where there was no moral or cognitive dimensions. While this was helpful it was apparent to the former prince that it wouldn’t eliminate the suffering he had seen. Guatama continued his search for other people who could possibly help him on his spiritual voyage. Udraka Ramputra, aided Gautama to perceive a state of neither perception or non-perception, but this to was not precisely what he was looking for. The next step in his quest led Gautama to Uruvilva in North India. It was there that he selected an ascetic way, surviving a life of deprivation for nearly 6 years. This only resulted in the destruction of his entire body, weakness and self-destruction. Although it cost him his five followers, Gautama ended this ascetic way of life.
The end of this spiritual quest seemed as far away as ever, so the Buddha sat down under a Bodhi tree and proclaimed that “flesh may wither, blood may dry up, but I shall not rise from the spot until Enlightenment has been one.” After forty days of thought and meditation, the Buddha finally realized Enlightenment.
It’s the Buddhist belief that at that time he received a state of being that surpasses anything else in the universe. Each of our normal experiences are based on preconceptions and circumstances: how we were raised, our encounters, flaws and shortcomings. Enlightenment is a state in which the complicated inner workings of existence become obvious and the reason for human suffering discovered.
For the next 45 years, the Buddha moved through much of what’s today northern India. He taught the way of Enlightenment to all or any that desired to comprehend. This particular teaching had become known as the dharma or “the teaching of the enlightened one.    The Buddha adopted many disciples that in turn attained their own Enlightenment and so they trained others.
Buddhists believe Buddha attained a state of existence that goes beyond everthing else in the world. If regular knowledge is founded on conditions – childhood, mindsets, opinions, awareness, and so on – Enlightenment is Unconditioned. It was a state in which the Buddha acquired insight into the deepest workings of existence and for that reason, into the reason for human suffering, the problem that had set Him on His spiritual quest originally.
The Buddha statue we often see doesn not represent a god and did not consider himself as a divine creature. He was simply a man that endeavored to transform himself through self reflection and meditation. Buddhists view him as an ideal and his journey as a guideline which will encourage them on the path to enlightenment. Most homes that practice Buddhism will display some type of Buddha decor like a statue of Buddha, but this is intended to remind them of their own spiritual journey.
