Since quite long, I was in search of a book on Buddha. Luckily, a few weeks before, I found this book in one of my favorite bookstores and it has proved to be worth its price.
Buddhism is a faith that embraces over three hundred and fifty million followers throughout the world. Buddha stands with Socrates, Confucius and Lao Tzu as one who revolutionized the religious ideas of his time to advocate a new way of living. All that is known about Buddha comes from a collection of ancient writings that fuse history, biography and myth. Karen Armstrong distils from these sources, the chief events of Buddha’s life and introduces the key tenets of Buddhism. Folks! This book is a magnificent introduction to the life and thoughts of this most influential of religious thinkers.
Those interested in yoga will find this book extremely interesting because it tells that unlike the modern people who practice yoga in order to feel better and live a more normal life, the ancient yogins didn’t embark on this path too achieve these goals. They wanted to abolish normality and wipe out their mundane self. Many people think that Buddha started yoga. This book proves the concept wrong as yoga was being practiced centuries before Buddha was born. Buddha only modified it to make human beings more conscious of themselves and bring their dim intuition into the clear light of the day. The disciplines of yoga were designed to destroy the unconscious impediments to enlightenment and to decondition the human personality. Once that had been achieved, yogins believed that they could at last become one with their true self, which was Unconditioned, Absolute and Eternal.
And yes, many of you will come across a lot of familiar terms in this book like dhamma, yama, ahimsa, sukkha, dukkha, praktri, nibbana and parinibbana. ‘Buddha’ is a brief description of the tale of Buddha’s renunciation, quest, enlightenment, dhamma, mission and finally parinibbana. The way Armstrong depicts the spiritual conquest of the people of Gotama’s time is very interesting. Buddha was ‘The Happy Prince’ who lived in the palace of ‘Sans Souci’ yet the way he comes across the miseries of this world is thought provoking.
In short, it is a fascinating book and it is hard to imagine a more concise introduction to one of the word’s most influential yet shadowy spiritual figure.
Buddhism is a faith that embraces over three hundred and fifty million followers throughout the world. Buddha stands with Socrates, Confucius and Lao Tzu as one who revolutionized the religious ideas of his time to advocate a new way of living. All that is known about Buddha comes from a collection of ancient writings that fuse history, biography and myth. Karen Armstrong distils from these sources, the chief events of Buddha’s life and introduces the key tenets of Buddhism. Folks! This book is a magnificent introduction to the life and thoughts of this most influential of religious thinkers.
Those interested in yoga will find this book extremely interesting because it tells that unlike the modern people who practice yoga in order to feel better and live a more normal life, the ancient yogins didn’t embark on this path too achieve these goals. They wanted to abolish normality and wipe out their mundane self. Many people think that Buddha started yoga. This book proves the concept wrong as yoga was being practiced centuries before Buddha was born. Buddha only modified it to make human beings more conscious of themselves and bring their dim intuition into the clear light of the day. The disciplines of yoga were designed to destroy the unconscious impediments to enlightenment and to decondition the human personality. Once that had been achieved, yogins believed that they could at last become one with their true self, which was Unconditioned, Absolute and Eternal.
And yes, many of you will come across a lot of familiar terms in this book like dhamma, yama, ahimsa, sukkha, dukkha, praktri, nibbana and parinibbana. ‘Buddha’ is a brief description of the tale of Buddha’s renunciation, quest, enlightenment, dhamma, mission and finally parinibbana. The way Armstrong depicts the spiritual conquest of the people of Gotama’s time is very interesting. Buddha was ‘The Happy Prince’ who lived in the palace of ‘Sans Souci’ yet the way he comes across the miseries of this world is thought provoking.
In short, it is a fascinating book and it is hard to imagine a more concise introduction to one of the word’s most influential yet shadowy spiritual figure.
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