The evolution of spiritual understanding

With the start of Kali-yuga, the essence of the Vedic knowledge compiled by Vyāsadeva was gradually lost. This was the start of a renaissance culminating with Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

« Vedānta-sūtra: The Govinda-bhāṣya of Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa

Introduction: The evolution of spiritual understanding

Once, six blind men started touching an elephant. The first bumped against its belly and concluded that the elephant was like a wall. The second touched its tusk and concluded that the elephant was like a spear. The third touched his trunk and concluded that the elephant was similar to a snake. The fourth touched one of his legs and concluded the elephant was like a tree. The fifth, who touched its ear, concluded the elephant was like a fan, while the last touched its tail and concluded the elephant was just like a rope. The six blind men thus started arguing about who was correct.

Similarly, there are many different philosophical systems in India, starting with the six classical philosophical schools and continuing with the systems propounded by Lord Buddha, Śaṅkarācārya, and the four great Vaishnava ācāryas. These different systems represent an evolution of philosophical thinking, in which each ācārya has built on top of the philosophy propounded by the previous, creating a chain that ultimately brings us to the teachings of Sri Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who revealed the science of the eternal relationship of the soul with the Supreme Lord in its totality.

Lord Buddha - Śūnyavāda (nihilism)

With the start of Kali-yuga, the essence of the Vedic knowledge compiled by Vyāsadeva was gradually lost. About 2,500 years later, ritualism and hedonism had become prevalent in India, and people were mostly using passages in the Vedas that mentioned animal sacrifices as an excuse to kill animals and eat their flesh. Nārada Muni had alerted Vyāsadeva about this at the end of Dvāpara Yuga, and as time progressed, this prediction became factual: "The people in general are naturally inclined to enjoy, and you have encouraged them in that way in the name of religion. This is verily condemned and is quite unreasonable. Because they are guided under your instructions, they will accept such activities in the name of religion and will hardly care for prohibitions." (SB 1.5.15)

Observing the sad situation, the Lord advent as Lord Buddha to teach ahiṁsā or non-violence, the most basic of spiritual principles. He taught the path of Nirvana, attracting people's attention to something superior to mere materialistic life.

Lord Buddha appeared as Siddhartha, a prince born in the province of Gayā, in what is now the state of Bihar, in the north of India. This was also predicted in the Srimad Bhagavatam: "Then, in the beginning of Kali-yuga, the Lord will appear as Lord Buddha, the son of Añjanā, in the province of Gayā, just for the purpose of deluding those who are envious of the faithful theist." (SB 1.3.24)

When the prince was just five days old, astrologers predicted that he would renounce worldly life and seek the path of enlightenment after seeing four signs: an old man, a sick man, a dead body, and a mendicant. The king, anxious to keep his son tied to materialistic life, became very careful in hiding all of these from the prince's view. Only young, beautiful, healthy, and well-dressed people were allowed to appear in front of him.

Once, however, the prince decided to visit the royal gardens. Despite all the preparations made by the father, on the way, he met with an old man, a leper, a funeral procession, and a mendicant. Understanding that everyone is attacked by disease, becomes old, and eventually dies, Siddhartha suddenly understood the nature of this material world. On the same night, he left the palace to become a mendicant and seek spiritual perfection, becoming known as Buddha, the enlightened.

Buddhism spread quickly over India, replacing the Vedic ritualism that was practiced at the time. Nowadays, there are many different branches of Buddhism and great philosophical variety in their teachings, but the original philosophy propounded by Siddhartha is based on four fundamental truths:

a) Duḥkha (the existence of suffering).

b) Samudaya (the cause of suffering).

c) Nirodha (the idea that suffering can be extinguished).

d) Mārga (the path to attain freedom from suffering).

He pointed to birth, death, disease, and old age as the symptoms of suffering, and to lust, material desires, and thirst for power and wealth as the causes of suffering. He taught that extinguishing suffering means freeing oneself from lust, and the path to attain such freedom was pointed out as maintaining the right beliefs, aspirations, effort, speech, and meditation.

He explained that only the ones who followed the path of non-violence, restraining from committing all sorts of violence (both physical and mental) against other living entities, could understand the truth, and that Nirvana—the ultimate extinction of all suffering—could be attained only by the pure.

Rejecting the Vedas

Sometimes it's easier to build a new house than to fix an old and rotten one. Instead of arguing based on the Vedas, trying to correct people's misconceptions, Buddha just rejected the Vedas and propounded a new path. In this way, he successfully taught atheists basic religious principles. People became attracted to his philosophy and thus abandoned the hedonism and animal killing that was prevalent, adopting instead a path of moral life, cultivation of knowledge, and meditation.

Although Buddha hinted at the existence of the soul by accepting the concept of saṁsāra, he didn't directly speak about God. Since he rejected the Vedas, there was no possibility of introducing high truths on these topics. Instead, his approach was mainly empirical, focusing on what could be experienced, instead of abstract ideas. Extinction of suffering was the main interest of people, and that's what he focused upon, elaborating on the nature of material misery and how it can be extinguished.

The Nirvana propounded by Buddha can be understood as the form of liberation where the soul attains pradhāna (or Causal Ocean), the unmanifested mass of material energy. In this position, the soul becomes free from the influence of material modes and all kinds of material anxiety and can exist in a state of complete peace, without, however, awakening one's original spiritual consciousness. Just like liberation in the brahmajyoti, existence in the pradhāna is thus a form of temporary liberation, from where one can eventually fall back into the material ocean. However, compared to a hedonistic life, that's a huge improvement.

As Prabhupada mentions on SB 2.2.31: “Similarly, when the materialist becomes frustrated in his attempts to enjoy himself in the limited material world, he may seek impersonal liberation by merging either with the Causal Ocean or with the impersonal brahmajyoti effulgence. However, as neither the Causal Ocean nor the impersonal brahmajyoti effulgence affords any superior substitute for association and engagement of the senses, the impersonalist will fall again into the limited material world to become entangled once more in the wheel of births and deaths, drawn on by the inextinguishable desire for sensual engagement.”

In the Srimad Bhagavatam, Lord Buddha is counted as one of the 22 avatars of Viṣṇu. His philosophy is thus not accidental, but part of a superior plan to gradually restore the proper religious principles, which were lost with the advent of Kali-yuga. From the same Srimad Bhagavatam, we receive the information that Buddha appears in every Kali-yuga to teach the principles of non-violence. These are considered sub-religious principles because they simply teach people to have a moral and meditative life, without directly speaking about devotional service to God. However, they are still valuable, helping people in times when even the most basic, common-sense principles are lost.

In the Srimad Bhagavatam, there is a description of another advent of Lord Buddha, in a different Kali-yuga, when human beings develop spaceships capable of attacking other planets: "When the atheists, after being well versed in the Vedic scientific knowledge, annihilate inhabitants of different planets, flying unseen in the sky on well-built rockets prepared by the great scientist Maya, the Lord will bewilder their minds by dressing Himself attractively as Buddha and will preach on subreligious principles." (SB 2.7.37)

This verse was spoken by Lord Brahma to Nārada Muni at the beginning of his current day. It is spoken in the future tense because it describes events that will happen later in his day. By this description, it appears that Lord Buddha appears in different Kali-yugas to propagate his philosophy of non-violence. In the current Kali-yuga, he appeared as prince Siddhartha in the Mahajanapada period in India, but in other Kali-yugas, he can appear in different circumstances.

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