As I post this it is just becoming April 8th in Japan because they are many hours ahead of us in the sunrise department. This is the date on which the birthday of the Lord Buddha is celebrated there. It is appropriate in the land of the Rising Sun that the solar calendar is used and the date celebrated is always April 8th.

In other places the date of his enlightenment is celebrated during the Full Moon in May, when he became the Buddha and is treated as his birthday or anniversary. This day varies according to the lunar calendar. It is a festival called Wesak, the name of the month in which it happened.

Changing somebody’s name is not unusual in occult practice. In occult societies the day of the initiation of the candidate is the day the name is often changed to demonstrate the rebirthing of the initiate into a new life. Wiccans do it too. I have several birthdays every year, each with a different name depending on the group I was with, but only one natal day.

The benevolent influence of this astonishing, historically verified, man of peace has spread throughout the world for centuries without force of arms or militant, bigoted missionaries eager to destroy local religions or enslave the natives.

He was born as a royal prince in 624 BC in Lumbini, which in those days was in northern India but is now part of Nepal. His mother's name was Queen Mayadevi and his father's name was King Shuddhodana. India in those days was full of kings ruling over small kingdoms as absolute monarchs.

Here is a summary of some stories from his life as I told it to my Quaker students in the Quaker boarding school where I taught many years ago. I will add a few quotes so that you can grasp the immensity and power of the mind of this man. For he was an enlightened man, not a god. He is for millions the great example, not like Jesus, the great exception, according to the Church that is, not to those who understand his message at the level at which it was given.

The story is told in hundreds of books by people who are impressed by the awesome power and compassion of that personality as it has filtered through history, no matter the source. The one that I first read which gave me my life-long respect, even awe of the Buddha and his teachings was The Light of Asia by Sir Edwin Arnold. It is still available today from booksellers. The publishers are Quest Books of the Theosophical Society.

Arnold was a civil servant in British India, and like all British civil servants in those days was a formidably well educated man in the Classics. The British had the idea that anyone who could master ancient Greek and Latin was smart enough, and knew enough about human nature, to rule a country for their Queen Victoria.

Arnold went further than usual in his scholarship. He could read the Indian scriptures in the original Pali and Sanskrit and loved and respected them. The story of Buddha in his words is an inspiring poem in blank verse. I have always had a copy of it wherever I ended up in my travels. It is much more interesting and valuable to me than any of the thirty or so translations of the standard New Testament that I have used. So here goes with some of the stories that have accumulated around this awesome seeker after truth:

One night, Queen Mayadevi dreamed that a white elephant descended from heaven and entered into her. The dream readers all agreed that this meant she had conceived a child of extraordinary power and purity. The queen gave birth to the baby without pain and the child had the thirty two accepted signs of a holy being on his body.

The king checked with the wise men of the kingdom and they all agreed that this child could either become a chakravatin king, a ruler of the entire world, (India) or a fully enlightened Buddha. They added that the time for rulers of the entire world was pretty much over, so it was more likely that he would become a Buddha, an enlightened being whose influence would spread all over the worlds visible and invisible, by peace, not conquest.

This news did not please the king, who wanted his royal house to have the honor of being ruler over all of India. But in any case he realized that the prince, named Siddhartha, needed a thorough education whatever his destiny. So the wisest of the Rishis was appointed to teach the child when he was old enough to be a student.

To the Rishi’s surprise the young student already knew all the traditionally taught arts and sciences. He knew all the languages involved, more than sixty of them, and their different alphabets, and was a genius at mathematical computations. It became clear that he did not need to study at all, so great was the knowledge that he had brought over, but as a dutiful son he attended at the feet of the Rishi every day, though the Rishi and his other teachers learned more from him than the other way around.

As a prince it was necessary that he learned the royal martial arts of the day, including horsemanship, archery and swordsmanship. So he did, but in such a way that none of the other princes who vied with him in their contests had, what to their fiercely competitive natures, was the ignominy of losing.

The king made sure that Siddhartha was surrounded by sensual pleasures and without any experience of the ordinary lives around him. Dead leaves, birds and animals were removed daily from the gardens of the palace, and he never knew or heard anything about sickness or suffering. Any of his female attendants or dancing girls who fell sick was removed from the palace, as was anyone showing such signs of aging as a single grey hair. Nobody was allowed to gossip about anything negative in the palace without immediate and severe retribution.

When Siddhartha was eighteen years old the king called the Rishis together and pointed out that pretty soon his son was due to make the decision to rule the world or become a Buddha, and that he didn’t see any way to divert him from one purpose and point him towards the other. The Rishis said that the best diversion for such a serious and accomplished young man was to have a beautiful woman in his life. Maybe a few pretty wives would help him to avoid the life of a Buddha.

The king wisely pointed out that love has its own ways, and that merely giving his son a bevy of pretty women would not ensure that he would like any of them. So one very clever Rishi suggested a nation wide beauty contest for the best looking, marriageable daughters of noble families, in which Siddhartha would award the prizes, and that psychically sensitive people would watch and see if he was attracted to any one of them.

And so it happened. I have met many extraordinarily beautiful Indian women in my life and can hardly imagine what a beauty contest of the cream of the crop could look like. The most beautiful princesses and girls of noble birth of the whole area were assembled before Siddhartha who had a gift for each of the number expected.

But the extraordinary power of his presence and charisma awed most of them so that they just stood before him, with downcast eyes as he gave them their prize. But last of all came the princess Yasodhara, of a beauty quite beyond compare, and she stood before the prince without awe, as an equal, and requested her gift.

He had just run out of gifts and took the bejeweled necklace from his neck and fastened it around her waist. That fact indicates the kind of figure she had, and the look they gave each other was the clue the old king wanted.

But Yasodhara was of high noble birth herself, and the custom of the day was that any suitors had to prove their worth in competition at the three kingly arts, horsemanship, archery and swordplay. And there were three other royal princes who wanted Yasodhara and each was considered unbeatable in their own specialty. One was paramount with horse riding, another with the sword and another with the bow.

Siddhartha had not shown himself to be outstanding in any of these and Yasodhara was worried about it when the competition for her hand was announced because she would have to marry the winner, whoever he was. Siddhartha merely said, “I will not lose my love for such as these.”

The three other princes set their target drums far away from the line and Siddhartha set his twice as far away as the furthest one, nearly out of sight. The three princes fired in turn and each one hit their target, the best one driving an arrow right through the drum set furthest away of the three.

Then Siddhartha took the sinew reinforced cane and silver wire bow they used, and drew the string until the ends met and the bow snapped. He ordered that a stronger bow be brought to him, and the only one that could be found was the legendary bow of an ancient hero, kept in the temple, and made of black spring steel.

He invited the princes to string it, as Odysseus did with the suitors of Penelope, and none of them could bend it enough to string it. Siddhartha strung it with ease and drove his arrow through the almost invisible target and beyond.

Then they had the sword trial, which involved cutting trees down with a single stroke. The first prince cut through a tree six fingers thick, the second a tree seven fingers thick and the great swordsman swept through a tree nine fingers thick. Siddhartha chose a pair of such trees that grew together and his sword cut through so fast that the trees didn’t fall until a gentle breeze blew on them and they crashed to the ground.

The last contest was horsemanship. Siddhartha had an amazing white horse named Kantaka who could run twenty spear’s lengths before the foam fell from his bit to the ground. He won easily. Everyone agreed that anybody could win if they owned Kantaka, so they brought out an untamed, fierce black stallion, and agreed that the one who could ride him was the winner in horsemanship.

The horse was led into the arena by three attendants with three chains and no saddle, never having been broken. The first two princes tried to mount and were thrown off each time. The master horseman managed to stay on and rode the stallion half way round the arena before it reached back and gripped the prince by the foot and dragged him off and would have trampled him but for the speed of the attendants. Everyone shouted out that Siddhartha should not have to deal with such a savage animal now that it was aroused.

He had the horse brought to him and ordered the attendants to let go the chains. Holding the horse only by the forelock he brought his hand down the face and spoke gently to it. He stroked the neck and flanks with the palm of his hand and the horse calmed down and allowed Siddhartha to mount him and ride him round the arena using only his knees and voice. Then everybody, even the other suitors, agreed that he was best. He and Yasodhara were married and lived in bliss for quite a while, even producing a fine son.

Then Siddhartha one day went to see his father and asked that he be allowed to tour the city outside the palace, to see the people he would one day rule. This request could not be denied, but the king gave orders that nothing sick or unpleasant was to be allowed on the route through the city. Lepers, beggars and the sick were to be moved, and sub standard buildings renovated or destroyed. Rather like what happens now when a V.I.P. tours an area of a city. The people who live there can hardly recognize it until it regains its usual look after the visit.

But in spite of all precautions Siddhartha saw a sick man on the verge of dying and asked his charioteer what it was. He was told that this was the end of all humans, that eventually they grew sick and died. Later he saw a corpse being carried to the ghats for burning and again realized that he had been kept away from what really went on in the world.

With his new perception he saw how animals hunted one another, how the whole of life was an eat or be eaten affair, full of suffering and ending in death, and he became very despondent about the misery that was an integral part of human existence. He realized that it was his job to find out how to end the suffering that is part of every human and animal life, and that he wasn’t going to be able to do it in the artificial environment of the palace.

When his father heard what had happened he gave orders that the prince was not to be allowed again beyond the newly reinforced bronze palace gates on pain of death to the guards. Then Siddhartha had a vision at age twenty nine, a kind of waking dream, in which ten previous Buddhas appeared and told him it was time he got on with his real destiny.

The Buddha is a title, more than a name, rather like the Merlin, which was an official office of advisor and magician at court and the Merlin varied according to the time and place.

Siddhartha asked his father for permission to go into the forest and meditate and become a boon to all of humanity. Since this meant that he would be living the life of a beggar his father refused point blank, strengthened the gates and increased the guards.

Siddhartha was straight with his father and said that if the king could give him permanent freedom from the sufferings involved in birth, sickness, growing old and dying, then he would stay in the palace, otherwise he would have to leave to fulfill his destiny.

The king tried everything he could think of to make Siddhartha change his mind. He kept him amused and entertained day and night by beautiful women, dancers, singers, and musicians, and strengthened the guards at the gate and round the palace walls.

But eventually the destiny night came for Siddhartha to leave, and he very reluctantly left the side of his beautiful sleeping princess and son, for their sakes, and awoke Kantaka and his faithful groom.

The guards fell into a deep sleep when they approached and the huge bronze gates opened without a sound. After a few miles the prince changed clothes with his weeping aide, cut off his long hair and moved off into the forest on his search. Some stories have a god giving the prince the saffron colored robes of a religious seeker and accepting the royal robes of the prince in exchange. In either case he became a monk.

He traveled all over India trying teacher after teacher for years, fasting almost to death, and meditating day and night. Finally he realized that he was on the verge of attaining but was now too weak physically to do it.

At that very moment a young woman appeared with an offering of food to the god of the grove where he was meditating. She was carrying the son that she had prayed for, and as she had promised the best offering she could if her prayer was answered, she brought a dish made of milk and curds that she had made from the best milk of the best of her herds.

Siddhartha was radiant with light to her psychic vision and she took him to be the god of the grove. He realized that this food, just when it was needed was not a coincidence. He told the woman what he was trying to do and that what she had made would give him the strength to do it. Then he sat under the Bodhi tree and vowed not to get up until he was enlightened.

As he went deeper and deeper into meditation the powers that produce delusion and ego in humanity became frightened and their king Maya produced armies of frightful creatures to Siddhartha’s inner vision and tried to intimidate or distract him from the goal.

Temptation after temptation was thrown at him without effect until even the phantom of Yasodhara, apparently real and solid and crying for her lord, failed to distract him from his task. Then the king of illusion gave up and Siddhartha entered into the ultimate human state of enlightenment, as a Buddha, which literally means ‘one who is awake.’

There is always a temptation or a severe trial totally resonant with the initiate before the final attainment. This is standard knowledge in occult circles and is probably the reason for the story of the temptations of Jesus. In more than one historically known society, anyone failing the test died or was killed. No failed initiate was allowed to live with the powerful knowledge that had been gained during his studies.

For a long moment the new Buddha toyed with the option of leaving the earth plane and enjoying the bliss of total consciousness as Nirvana. The stories say that Earth and all its creatures held their breath because their salvation depended on his decision.

He determined to stay in human form and teach the Noble Truths of how to go beyond suffering. The dawn of that day was a very special one on the astral, and many seers and psychics all over the world realized that some fantastic thing had occurred. And so it had.
That amazing century saw the lives of Zoroaster and Lao Tzu as well as the Buddha. Every one of them changed the course of humanity and threw light onto the spiritual realms that is still shining and available to the seeker.

Siddhartha, now the Buddha, retraced his journey and taught all his previous teachers the Middle Way to end suffering. It is still the basis of Buddhist teachings. He had been given the clue when he was nearly dead with his ascetic practices of getting control over his body. A young woman passed by him singing about tuning a musical instrument, and about how it would not play harmoniously if the strings were too slack or too tight. He took the hint, gave up torturing his body as so many ascetics did, and ended up with accepting the gift of ritually prepared food from the woman with the baby son.

On one occasion later, he was confronted by a young woman whose baby had died, but she was in total denial, still carrying the dead child and claiming it was sick. She asked Siddhartha to cure the baby. He told her to go around her village and ask for a handful of black mustard seed and he would help her. But the seed had to come from a house where nobody connected with the inhabitants had ever died. She rushed off happily to obey the sage.

When she caught up with Siddhartha again she told him how everywhere she went the poor were willing to give her the mustard seed, but she found no place where nobody had died. He taught her that everyone suffers from the transitory nature of life, that everyone understood her grief, and that he was dedicated to find a way to cure that suffering. She was comforted by knowing that the world shared her sorrow and went to bury her child.

Eventually word came to the palace that Siddhartha, now no longer Siddhartha, was coming to visit. The king had the city prepared as if for a royal visitor and was surprised to see a monk dressed in saffron robes, holding a begging bowl, and with a crowd that stretched to the horizon, following the charismatic figure.

The king was not too pleased to see his son approaching as a religious mendicant but Buddha calmed him down and he and Yasodhara both entered into the knowledge of how to break the chain of continuous incarnations and their resultant sufferings.

The Buddha spread his message of peace and compassion for many decades and it is particularly appropriate today in the welter of power grabbing and ego dancing that is currently destroying the earth’s resources and millions of humans, and the species of animals and plants that they depend on for life, not to mention the air and the water that even very rich people need in order to live.

Look up the teachings of the Buddha on the web. Check the Noble Truths and the Middle Way. Realize why the greatest grief of the poor was that they had nothing to put into his bowl when he came to their door. The phrase ‘grieved to be poor’ in the poem hit me hard in my teens when I realized that if the Buddha came to our door there wasn’t much available for him.

Get a glimpse of the amazing presence of one who could walk into a ritual sacrifice and just by being there could stop the whole process. Sense how compelling were the eyes that met those of a distraught woman, mad with grief at losing every member of her family and suffering incredible misfortunes.

She screamed out her story of woe to him and he leaned over, looked at her with eyes that are the background of the Buddhist scriptures, and said, “But sister, none of these things are happening to YOU. And so great was his presence that what he said penetrated all her identification with external circumstances and her physical form. She got it. And lived from then on as a nun, in pure witness consciousness.

When or if you read Indian scriptures it may surprise you that there are volumes and volumes that never, ever mention God. They focus on the mind. When the mind is clear and not hypnotized by the mundane, then the person concerned can know for sure, by experience, what they really are. And to attain that knowledge and experience by the path of the Buddha a god is not necessary, though there are also many ways in which the god or goddess concept can be used to lead to the same attainment.

And Buddha found that out by experience and taught others how to do the same for many decades, before leaving this realm at around the age of 80. He was the great example, not the great exception as I said before. Check him out on the Web. Here are a few quotes from Buddhist scriptures to give you a view of how penetrating this man’s mind was, when used as an instrument to see things as they are.

You will see how so many of these sayings have been reflected or echoed in the current metaphysical, self-help and New Age literature. And that is not a coincidence. These words ring with authority, even if God is never mentioned, nor dogma suggested:

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it. ”