No 869 of Living Life Series 1
The Bodhisattva the Buddha-to-be was born on Wesak the full moon day of the fifth lunar month in 624 BC as the crown prince of a kingdom in northern India. He had come down from the luxury of being a heavenly being to be born as man not to be an ordinary man but to be enlightened as the Buddha.
But somehow he was born as a prince and not among the spiritual class. His reason to be born was to be the Buddha but he was born as a prince amid luxuries which would otherwise distract others from religious life.
Though the reason of his being man for the last birth in his cycle of rebirths was for him to be the Buddha, he was born as a prince instead. Wasn't this for the wrong reason? Indeed it was in a way, wasn't it?
Well, despite that he overcame all odds to renounce princely life to be an ascetic which was like the vagrant or beggar of modern days of 2015 and beyond. This was a complete drastic turn around from what was his worldly fate to be a prince and later emperor.
Vagrancy was the direct opposite of being a prince lapping in luxury. But it was from knowing that asceticism and princely life are both not correct that he realized the Middle Way and attained enlightenment under the fig tree to be the Buddha - the latest but not the last of all Buddhas.
Like the Buddha, we may have spiritual lives in past rebirths but by virtue of the good merits of past lives as a result of spirituality, we may be born in lives where we will have luxury or potential for luxury instead of simple lives which will be more congenial to spirituality. Is this an instance of our residual bad karma rearing its ugly head? Learned monks will know better.
We may thus end up here for the wrong reasons. Are we here for all the wrong reasons? This we must reflect time and time again. God and saints bless us if we don't seem to know and end up living lives for all the wrong reasons.
We end up serving the worldly callings instead of the higher callings. We are so tied down to all the worldly trappings and needs that we have no time to reflect and make good why we are born in this life as human beings. We want to keep up with the Jones and if possible surpass them.
Instead of harnessing life and good karma or fate for spirituality, we end up depleting life and our store of karma or fate for worldly pursuits to satisfy the bottomless pit of the stomach of the ego. Instead of renouncing the ego with its ill-will and clinging, we enhance it and may well end up worse off than in previous lives.
So please be mindful and wake up to know what we want from present life and don't end up being here for the wrong reason. Do make sure we are not here for all the wrong reasons.
It is not that worldly life is not good. It is still good but must serve to meet our worldly calling to enable a reasonable life as stepping stone for a higher calling. If we fail to flow into the higher calling, we will end up here all for the wrong reasons when the means become the ends instead.
Some may even end up as wolves in shepherds clothing to tend to the sheep in a house of God and end up serving their own ends instead of serving others as well as God and saints. They and what comes out from their mouths are more attractive and magnetizing than what God and saints say in the scriptures.
Scriptures pale in comparison to what they utter. They become the stand-in for God and saints. The congregation may well end up putting aside the written Word and go for what comes out from their mouths.
Aren't they at the helm of religious institutions for all the wrong reasons? Well, it is not as simple as that. Judge not lest ye be judged.