You Can Be a Buddha Too

You Can Be a Buddha Too (Part 2)

Written by Naren on November 28, 2008

Continued from Part 1

If Buddha can attain enlightenment, why cannot other human beings?

The Two Paths

There are two paths through which one can achieve Buddhahood. First path is by waiting. During the wait, you will never know when you will achieve Buddahood. You might have to wait millions of years and live through millions of lives. It is not in your hands. You cannot do anything about it. All you can do is wait. The second is by awakening or through the path of an inner revolution. Please read my articles on The Beginning of an Inner Revolution and My Inner Revolution to learn more. The path of Meditation and the path of an inner revolution are the same thing.

Now, it all depends on us to choose on which path we wish to embark. On the first path or the path of the waiting, we don’t have to do anything. We can just keep on doing what we are doing right now. Just keep on living the life of unawareness and be in deep sleep. But the price to pay is huge and costly. One hand we suffer in misery for millions of years and the other hand we also miss an opportunity to taste the eternal elixir of life and celebrate life in divine inebriation. Every life into which we are born, we don’t live, we only manage to survive somehow. Even an animal survives but that’s all they can do. They don’t have any intelligence or consciousness. However, human beings have been blessed with the greatest gift called consciousness. We have been bestowed with an immense intelligence. Why not utilize these priceless gifts? Why not make the maximum use of them and why not reach to the highest peaks. Buddha did it. Master Gurdjieff did it. Jesus, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Guru Nanak, Krishna, Muhammad, King Janak, Kabir, Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharishi as well as others reached to the highest peaks of consciousness and also fathomed the greatest depths of silence.

Why can’t we?

We can – because each one of us have been blessed with the tremendous potential to be a Buddha, to reach to the supreme height and shine like a star. The immense source of energy is lying dormant within us. Moreover, to be a Buddha is our intrinsic nature. There will be new Buddhas now and then, and we won’t even know. It is just the matter of time. One day the right time will come and you will be awakened too. Today you may think you are not worth it, or you may think that you don’t deserve it, or you are afraid to make a jump to meditation. May be you are too caught up in mundane desires. All the hesitations, all your fears and all your materialistic desires will be washed away by the wave of awareness which will sweep over you sooner or later. Your inner being is asleep and lost in a dark valley of night. It is because you haven’t allowed the sunlight to enter there. One day you will open the window and let the rays of the sun penetrate you.

You will. I have no doubt about it. Because how long can you go on like this. How long can you keep on hoarding these external things that will make no sense to you when one day the jaws of death come and grab you? This realization will descend on you. If not in this life, then in another; if not in another, then maybe in a million lives. Yes, eventually every human is bound to peek inside. You will be forced to search inside your own inner being. You will be so tortured by the pangs and despair of outer reality, you will head inward. After having done everything you could and have achieved only frustrations and failures everywhere, you are bound to be spiritual. You will come to this understanding that the outer reality will never quench your thirst. If the thirst is inside, how can it be satisfied by these outward sources?

In great despair, in great misery, you will begin your own inner revolution, because by then you will come to realize that what you are looking for outside, is in fact, already within you. Then you will be drawn to your own source. Having searched everywhere and experiencing the futility of the materialistic world, one day, one moment you will open your inner eye. That day, that moment, will be the most auspicious moment of your life. That very moment you could reach complete understanding, that very moment you could be enlightened, and that very moment you could be a Buddha.

But again, one thing to be understood is that the path of meditation or an inner revolution is difficult and risky. Also it is the most dangerous. Because when you are in meditation then you are no more. You will disappear and you will be attuned to the existence. Meditation will help you achieve Buddhahood in this very life. You don’t have to wait for another million years or another million lives. You don’t have to be at the mercy of nature. Right now, at this very moment you can be a Buddha. Meditation is the short cut that will help you to arrive at the innermost core of your being. It’s not the perimeter which is the long way around; it’s the shortest distance between you and your awakening. But again, you cannot force mediation to happen. It comes to you naturally. It requires hard work and great courage to be in meditation. I don’t want to delve too much into this as I will dedicate another article to share my own experiences regarding the greatest joy of being in meditation.

Final Words

This article is not about how to be a Buddha; it is simply a revelation that to be a Buddha is possible. This article may guide you to that direction. It may lead you from your inner darkness to the path of light and freedom. It may fill you with thirst to be a Buddha. Like I mentioned earlier, Buddhahood is our intrinsic nature, all we need is a few moments of awareness. And it is all up to you to create a milieu right here, right now in this life, so that you can turn the possibility into a reality. Buddhahood is not very far ahead, it’s just that your inner eyes are asleep.

Buddha himself said, “Wakefulness is the way to life.” Hence, wake up your inner eyes. Wake up your sleeping intelligence. Be aware of the wholesome reality around you. Understand and know yourself, instead of amassing knowledge from books or Upanishads. Remember what Socrates said, “Know Thyself.” Yes, know yourself. Enlighten yourself by dropping all the worries, stress, and unnecessary burdens you have been carrying for a long time. Finally venture into yourself. Penetrate into the deepest core of your inner being and remain in the bottomless depth of your inner silence.

Yes, you can be a Buddha too. Yes, we all can be a Buddha.

At the end, I would like to conclude by bowing down to every Buddha laying latent in every one of us.

Please go to Previous Page » for You Can Be a Buddha Too (Part 1)

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Spiritual Pub: The Beginning of an Inner Revolution