Yogi Seven (Wisdom Quarterly)
Shiva, the master yogi of ShavitesBuddhism teaches the Noble Eightfold Path to liberation (enlightenment and nirvana). It was so popular in India that centuries later the seer (
rishi)
Patanjali collected
yoga sutras (aphorisms or pithy sayings) to explain the higher purpose of the path of yoga ("union" with the ultimate).
He composed them as one unit, following the popular example of the Buddha, as an eight-limbed teaching. Patanjali did not invent these, we are told, and there was no "Hinduism" at that time. He assembled them as a summary of dormant Vedic ideas.
The Buddha had done much to revivify the Vedic knowledge, but he himself rejected ancient India's sacred texts as sacrosanct and authoritative. The Buddha did not promote
Vedic Brahmanism but promoted a rebellion against the corrupt temple priest practices of the old establishment.
The Sage Patanjali, a great Indian luminary (cortona-india.org)
The ideas are good, and the truth lives on in Buddhism, but the new
Shraman-ism was about direct personal experience of truth, not dependent on priests. Think of Martin Luther and the
Protestant Movement against a corrupt European Catholic establishment.
But the more obvious comparison is to Christianity's relation to Judaism. Judaism is not as old as we taught to imagine. But because it reaches back to Egyptian (Moses, etc.) and Sumerian (Gilgamesh and the Flood) and Mesopotamian sources, blending with proto-Judaism makes it seem very ancient. Jesus (St. Issa) comes along, the popular story goes, and rejects the establishment as corrupt. The old ideas are good, but they are grown over with moss and their real meaning is lost. This wandering rebel (not part of the temple establishment) revivifies them.
- If reaching back to the proto-origins and counting that as part of the age of the tradition, then Buddhism is aeons and aeons old because of previous buddhas who taught this liberating Dharma that is here to be rediscovered.
Then modern Judaism, like Hinduism before it, says of the much more widespread teachings that emerged: "Oh, yeah, we knew that! It's all in our ancient texts." The Buddha gets called a great "reformer" of Indian spirituality when he was really an
innovator who rejected the authority of the sacred, infallible, handed-down-heaven
Vedas as handed down knowledge. Buddhism and Hinduism do not lead to the same thing. They do not have the same goal -- even if that goal generally gets called by the same name,
moksha ("liberation").
For Hindus (and Christians/Catholics) the end of rebirth and suffering (
samsara) is one more rebirth in heaven with Brahma (God) also thought of impersonally as merging and becoming one with Brahman (GOD, the ultimate reality). That is not the Buddha or Buddhism's goal. (But one would never know that to hear some Mahayana Buddhists speak). The Buddha explicitly points out that
that rebirth is not the end of rebirth; it is not the end of disappointment (
dukkha, every shade of "suffering"), not liberation.
Birth, even in the highest heavens, is impermanent-imperfect-impersonal, and it is lower than the greatest super-mundane accomplishment, nirvana. [What is nirvana? Read Wisdom Quarterly to find out; suffice it to say that it is not a "heaven," even if it gets called that and yet, as hard as it is for happy nihilists to believe, it is definitely
not nothingness.]
The Buddha taught the paths to many kinds of heavenly (
sagga) rebirth. But he did not advocate them. Of course, such rebirths are better than rebirths elsewhere. But they are still flawed, even rebirth at the right hand of Brahma, or an insensate Jain ideal, or life in the Pure Abodes. The Buddha in fact taught the paths to all destinations. But he did not recommend them.
Many Buddhists want to be reborn as rich, beautiful, healthy humans. That's possible. And from there it might be possible to gain enlightenment (
bodhi) and experience nirvana, to be cooled by the end of suffering and the end of rebirth. Or it might not be possible, not available.
The liberating-Dharma will very likely not be available, and most humans never get to hear it. But it's available now. However bad the world seems, it still offers the availability of liberation, right here right now. And the path to nirvana is in harmony with the way to heaven; just keep going further on. So it is famously said in later Buddhism,
"Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O, what an awakening, so it is!"
The eight limbs of yoga are wonderful. But they are not the same eight limbs as the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path. Confusing them means practicing neither. For often even when the exact same term is used, it is defined differently by the Buddha.
Understanding the two paths reveals that they are different but in harmony. And much in the world's treasury of sacred traditions can also be practiced as complementary. It's not either/or, it's understanding clearly.
NEXT: Following in the footsteps of Yogacharya Goswami and others, Wisdom Quarterly demystifies Royal Yoga's eight factors (ashtanga) described by the Great Seer Patanjali.
This revealing and touching film asks, What happens when a generation's ultimate anti-authoritarians -- punk rockers -- become society's ultimate authorities: dads?
