I happened to visit Thailand twice. Once, when I taught at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana and the second time, when I happened to work at Jagannath International Management School, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi. On each visit, I was struck by the almost omnipresent reverence for The Buddha in Thailand.
The Master was every where. Imposing and yet compassionate. The soft-speaking Thais came in deep reverence, burnt incense sticks at the altar and then lay prostrate, seeking His Benediction. I watched all with the amused interest of a tourist the first time I visited Thailand.
My second visit happened almost a decade later. This time when I visited the Buddhist temples in Bangkok, I could feel Him tugging at my heart-strings. Though I am a deeply private person shunning all forms of outward religious expression, I could not but feel impelled to follow likewise. Was it my Ego that the Master had overcome or my introversion? Hard to say. Or may be both. As I stood in silent reverence at His Feet, I could feel Peace descend. A renewal, so to say. An epiphany. Was the Master cleansing me of my myriad contradictions? Perhaps, so. How else could I explain the feeling of re-newal?
And then a question began to take shape within me.
Wasn't it strange that the Land which gave The Master to the world should be blissfully ignorant of Him? True, The Buddha spoke of Timeless Truths. But then, He manifested and lived in the Great Landmass of India. He was not an Idea, but a Real Historical Person. His Teachings occurred in the continuum of the Great Indian Cultural Tradition. True, He was an Iconoclast, in the sense that He hit out at the deadwood of the then prevalent ritualism.
But, despite that He existed in the line of the Mystic Tradition of India, which believes in re-statement of the Truth, in all its pristine and unalloyed purity. Idioms of expression over the ages grow stultified and lose the sheen of their original meaning. It is essential that Truth be rescued from its outward formal statement from time to time, if it has to enthuse and inspire people to right action.
This is exactly what The Buddha did. So, it is indeed sad that this Great Mystic Master should have been forgotten in the Land of His Birth. Such were the thoughts that kept circulating in my mind, even long after I had come back to my hotel room.
On the last day of my sojourn in Bangkok, I visited the malls for buying memorabilia for friends and relations. As I surveyed the various curios stacked up daintily in the various shops, my eyes fell upon a sculpture of Him. As I looked at Him, I lost all sense of Time and Space. My heart was in a ferment. A cool voice whispered, 'Take me home.' I was charged with Energy, as if possessed. I enquired from the vendor the price of the sculpture. I fished out my wallet and took out the Bahts lying therein, handing them quietly over to her. Very reverently, she packed the sculpture and handed it over to me, along with the change. The commotion in my heart subsided only after I had received it to take it back to India.
Ever since then, I have witnessed a growing upsurge of interest in The Buddha and His Teachings in India. It is a matter of common knowledge that politics influences our lives in many ways. So, when the Prime Minister of a country invokes the name of a Mystic Master at different public fora, national and international, very often, his invocation cannot but touch the consciousness of the people of that country. This is precisely what has been happening in recent years in India. Prime Minister Modi has again and yet again been invoking the name of this Great Mystic Master of India in Nepal, India and the Far East, as the Apostle of Peace in a world riven along the fault lines of caste, class, creed and colour.
This is not a sheer coincidence nor is it an act of political stratagem, as one newspaper makes it out to be. It is a clear sign of the Homecoming of the Mystic Master, the sign of the Second Coming of The Buddha. At a time when the world stands perilously divided, with the forces of Disorder and Chaos out to wreck the gains of centuries of Order and Civilization, the Homecoming of The Buddha to the Land of His Birth holds far reaching significance.
www.ravikdhar.in
The Master was every where. Imposing and yet compassionate. The soft-speaking Thais came in deep reverence, burnt incense sticks at the altar and then lay prostrate, seeking His Benediction. I watched all with the amused interest of a tourist the first time I visited Thailand.
My second visit happened almost a decade later. This time when I visited the Buddhist temples in Bangkok, I could feel Him tugging at my heart-strings. Though I am a deeply private person shunning all forms of outward religious expression, I could not but feel impelled to follow likewise. Was it my Ego that the Master had overcome or my introversion? Hard to say. Or may be both. As I stood in silent reverence at His Feet, I could feel Peace descend. A renewal, so to say. An epiphany. Was the Master cleansing me of my myriad contradictions? Perhaps, so. How else could I explain the feeling of re-newal?
And then a question began to take shape within me.
Wasn't it strange that the Land which gave The Master to the world should be blissfully ignorant of Him? True, The Buddha spoke of Timeless Truths. But then, He manifested and lived in the Great Landmass of India. He was not an Idea, but a Real Historical Person. His Teachings occurred in the continuum of the Great Indian Cultural Tradition. True, He was an Iconoclast, in the sense that He hit out at the deadwood of the then prevalent ritualism.
But, despite that He existed in the line of the Mystic Tradition of India, which believes in re-statement of the Truth, in all its pristine and unalloyed purity. Idioms of expression over the ages grow stultified and lose the sheen of their original meaning. It is essential that Truth be rescued from its outward formal statement from time to time, if it has to enthuse and inspire people to right action.
This is exactly what The Buddha did. So, it is indeed sad that this Great Mystic Master should have been forgotten in the Land of His Birth. Such were the thoughts that kept circulating in my mind, even long after I had come back to my hotel room.
On the last day of my sojourn in Bangkok, I visited the malls for buying memorabilia for friends and relations. As I surveyed the various curios stacked up daintily in the various shops, my eyes fell upon a sculpture of Him. As I looked at Him, I lost all sense of Time and Space. My heart was in a ferment. A cool voice whispered, 'Take me home.' I was charged with Energy, as if possessed. I enquired from the vendor the price of the sculpture. I fished out my wallet and took out the Bahts lying therein, handing them quietly over to her. Very reverently, she packed the sculpture and handed it over to me, along with the change. The commotion in my heart subsided only after I had received it to take it back to India.
Ever since then, I have witnessed a growing upsurge of interest in The Buddha and His Teachings in India. It is a matter of common knowledge that politics influences our lives in many ways. So, when the Prime Minister of a country invokes the name of a Mystic Master at different public fora, national and international, very often, his invocation cannot but touch the consciousness of the people of that country. This is precisely what has been happening in recent years in India. Prime Minister Modi has again and yet again been invoking the name of this Great Mystic Master of India in Nepal, India and the Far East, as the Apostle of Peace in a world riven along the fault lines of caste, class, creed and colour.
This is not a sheer coincidence nor is it an act of political stratagem, as one newspaper makes it out to be. It is a clear sign of the Homecoming of the Mystic Master, the sign of the Second Coming of The Buddha. At a time when the world stands perilously divided, with the forces of Disorder and Chaos out to wreck the gains of centuries of Order and Civilization, the Homecoming of The Buddha to the Land of His Birth holds far reaching significance.
www.ravikdhar.in
