Become a Buddha

A person who grows on the spiritual path cannot ignore Gautama because his presence has become so dominant. In his own silent way, he changed the world forever. This Purnima has always been significant in the yogic culture and was a very auspicious day in any spiritual aspirant's life, but today, in commemoration of Gautama we named it Buddha Purnima. On that full moon evening over 2,500 years ago, a man blossomed into a being.

Though people associate the word Buddha with Gautama, he is not the only Buddha. There have been thousands of Buddhas on this planet and there still are. "Bu" means Buddhi or intellect. One who is above his intellect, one who is no longer part of his mind, is a Buddha.

Most people are just a bundle of thoughts, emotions, opinions and prejudices. What you consider "myself" is just a jumble of things you gathered from outside. Whichever kind of situations you were exposed to, that is the kind of nonsense you gathered in your mind. Your mind is society's garbage bin because you have no choice about what to take and what not to. Whoever goes that way throws something into your head. There is another way to experience life and go beyond the process that you call as mind. To do this, you need to shut the garbage bin and keep it aside.

The mind is a phenomenal thing, but if you get stuck to it, it takes you for a ride endlessly. If you are in the mind, suffering is inevitable. Maybe when you are watching the sunset, it is so beautiful that you forget everything, but your suffering is sitting right behind you like a tail. Excessive eating, alcohol, excessive indulgence in physical pleasures, these are all ways to go below the mind. People use them and for a few moments, they forget the torture.

But the nature of the evolutionary process is such that this being which was below the mind has right now evolved into the mind. If it wants to become free, it has to go beyond the mind. There is no such thing as going back. The process of yoga is to see how to go beyond the mind. Only when you are beyond the mind can you really be yourself.