Two years ago, September 11 caused us to think a lot about the purpose of our lives...

> Every religion that I know of promises that
> you'll
> live forever in pair of dice. If you're a
> good (insert name of favorite coven here).

Buddhism takes a slightly different tact... instead of promising eternal life for being good, it promises enlightenment (and thus no more rebirth into this hellish world of pain).

For those who lived in the birthplace of Buddhism - India - it would have been very appealing.

Nothing in their life - due to the class system in that country - and no hope for anything better. A retched life ofpoverty.

What better belief system to instill in these people than to convince them: The EGO is bad. Remove the ego to help attain enlightenment. Thus, do NOT want anything better than you already have because that is an ego thing. And letting your ego take ahold will not see you achieve enlightenment. Without enlightenment you will be reborn - over and over again - into your pathetic poverty stricken life of Pain and yuckiness.

So Buddhism is basically... live a good life without wanting anything more than you already have, and you will escape your poverty and painful existence.

And to counter all of these there is Satanism (not to be confused with Devil worship). The Satanist does NOT believe in any diety whatsoever (no God or Devil). And thinks when you die, that is it. There is nothing more. No rebirth. No pair of dice. Just nothing. The big undreaming sleep. Of course, they also believe you are responsible for yourself so it's not something the socialist left would find appealing :o)

As for the 72 virgins awaiting you being something in Is-lam. I must have missed that bit in my copy of the Quaran. I believe that is just media BS. Something to help the Christians think odd things about Moslems. To generate support for any actions taken against Moslems.

Further to this line...

The media oft sites "Moslem Extremists" or "Moslem Fundamentalists" as causing chaos and death.

How come they NEVER call the IRA "Christian Terrorists"? Hmmm.

Yes. Religion is fine... in moderation. It's an interesting subject to study too.

Study them all. Then take what you can use from each one and discard the rest.

Michael Ross


The Gospel The Church Removed From The Bible- The Gospel According To Thomas

> For those who lived in the birthplace of
> Buddhism - India - it would have been very
> appealing.

> Nothing in their life - due to the class
> system in that country - and no hope for
> anything better. A retched life ofpoverty.

Actually Buddhism spread because KING Ashoka converted and became a Buddhist. And then he sent his children and his ministers to far away places - as far away as Japan and Africa to teach about Buddhism.

Buddhism is deeper than class system.

And actually Indians were the richest during that period. India was called the golden bird. Everyone from Alexander to the British were attracted to India due to its wealth.

It had classes and it had poor people - but during those days - people were comparitively happy and richer than they are now.

And even the founder of Buddhism - Gautam Buddha was the son of a king.

People didnt convert to Buddhism to get rid of the caste system. Atleast not till the 1930s. When Dr. Ambedkar - the person who wrote the Indian constitution - told all the dalit poor people to convert to Buddhism from Hinduism - so that they could be free of the class system.

But before 1930s - people converted to Buddhism to get rid of their wants - not to get rid of their poverty. It was completely opposite.

> And even the founder of Buddhism - Gautam
> Buddha was the son of a king.

My personal preference is to call him Siddhartha. But whatever floats your boat.

Some things I find interesting about Buddhism are

The "no worshiping idols" thing. And then we see loads of Buddha statues all over the place.

The assassins sent to kill Siddhartha (Buddha) only to end up converting to Buddhism instead.

And - no-one has been killed in the name of Buddhism.

Also, people who don't follow the Buddhism path don't walk around calling themselve's Buddhists. (Unlike some Christians for example only - priests for instance - who do the most UNChristian things while still calling themselves Christian.)

Is-lam is also an interesting religion, when you bother taking the time to look into it instead of buying the media hype.

Judaism... and they even argue amongst themselves about the nature of God. (Imagine the hierarchy of the Christian churches not agreeing on the nature of God ;o) Yet the Jews are prepared to discuss it.)

And, of course, let's not forget the religion of Jedi. Which, I believe, 300,000 Britons claimed to be in the last UK census.

Michael Ross

Some people believe that Siddhartha was influenced by Jain monks.

But Jainism in itself is a wonderful study. Unfortunately not much is written about it in English. Mostly everything is written in Gujarati (Indian language)

But Vardhaman Mahavir was the one who came up with Ahimsa (non violence). Atleast thats what many Indian historians believe.

But Jainism didn't spread much outside India. Buddhism did. Buddhism is a very small minority now in India though. Ironically there are more Buddhists in SriLanka or Tibet or Japan than in India.

Ankesh,

Thanks for the suggestion.

I've found some online info and began going over the info presented.

> Some people believe that Siddhartha was
> influenced by Jain monks.

With the brief bit I've seen, I can understand why some would believe this. Of course, the other reason for any similarity could be "plucking the concept out of the ether."

> But Vardhaman Mahavir was the one who came
> up with Ahimsa (non violence).

And what a job that is. With all those "prans" and any injury to them - no matter how small - considered violence. Makes my head spin just trying to get a grip on prans, let alone doing no harm to them.

One reason for a lack of spread of the religion could also be its basic "we are the masters of our own destiny of existence of life and we should not blame anyone or anything else for our destiny" aspect.

And it appears to me... if you are born as a Tiryancha you are pretty well going to stay as such until you somehow are born as a human and can thus do something about the situation.

So far I don't understand why the Heavenly Being can't doing anything about its situation. Why can't they adopt restraints? I'm sure I'll come across the answer.

Interesting.

Michael Ross

> And it appears to me... if you are born as a
> Tiryancha you are pretty well going to stay
> as such until you somehow are born as a
> human and can thus do something about the
> situation.

Yes - but when you are a Tiryancha - you dont have concept of time and space. You dont feel much.

The more I read the more Jains come across as Ascetics.

As SG did dabble in being an Ascetic... he was most likely influenced by Jains.

Which is in itself interesting because it probably means he would not have developed his "system" if he had not been living as an Ascetic.

Perhaps you can answer this conundrum...

If removal of the ego is part and parcel of "enlightenment"... why do people want to be "enlightened"? Isn't the pursuit of enlightenment in itself ego driven?

Michael Ross

> If removal of the ego is part and parcel of
> "enlightenment"... why do people
> want to be "enlightened"? Isn't
> the pursuit of enlightenment in itself ego
> driven?

The pursuit of enlightenment is most often ego driven. But until and unless you lose your ego - you wont get enlightenment.

I'll tell you a story. There was a person named Bahubali. He was the 2nd eldest son of Rishabh Dev (the first Jain tirthankar). He had a few other brothers and sisters.

2 of his brothers became monks before Bahubali. And due to deep meditation, they became enlightened.

Now Jainism says that you should respect the people who are enlightened - because they are superior to you - as in - they conquered all enemies.

But Bahubali was elder than his brothers. In India, at that time, youngsters had to show respect to their elders. So Bahubali thought that he would go to a jungle, meditate so that even he became enlightened. Then he would meet his brothers. So that he wouldn't have to show respect to them.

He went to a jungle and meditated for 6 months in standing position. He didn't sit down for 6 months. He didn't eat or drink for 6 months (maybe this is an exaguration). There were plants growing around his body.

But he didn't receive enlightenment. Lord Rishabdev came to know about this. He told Bahubalis sister to tell him "brother, get off the elephant. You can't receive complete knowledge sitting on an elephant"

Hearing this, Bahubali thought - he has been standing since 6 months, why are his sisters telling him to get off the elephant? And then he realized - he is sitting on the elephant of ego. He realized he should go and give respect to his younger brothers. Then only he would have given up his pride and ego completely.

As soon as he realized this, and took just one step, he received enlightenment.

Ankesh,

Thanks for the "message in a story".

A few years back there was a documentary on a guy who

1. Decided he was going to stand for a year (I think it was a year). So there he was, standing in the village square with what looked like a swing to support him. He leant on it during the day and slouched over it to sleep. Always with his feet on the ground. People brought his food to him.

2. After the year was up he decided to roll around the world. And he began. A year or so later he even made it to Australia. Got on the nightly news as he rolled through Sydney.

I recall, people would bring sick people to him to be healed as he traveled through villages. Just a word or touch from him is all they asked.

Do you know of this man. If so... what "religion" was he? Did he make it around the world?

Michael Ross