Rowdy Buddha: The First Sapiens: Neurotheology Series
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About this ebook
“Sapiens doesn't mean being smart - it means being smart enough to know the most suitable, productive and progressive combination of intellect and emotions in a certain situation and to make that combination manifest most graciously through behavior.”
Abhijit Naskar, a globally acclaimed author delves deep into the neuronal realm of one of humanity’s most glorious teachers—Buddha. Naskar unravels the neuropsychological processes underneath the divine enlightenment of Buddha and thereafter the rise of the religion known as Buddhism.
In his captivating explanatory ways, Naskar takes us inside the protoplasmic realm of the mind of Siddhartha Gautama, more popularly known as Buddha and reveals to us how the rowdy attitude and actions of this conscientious man shook the very foundation of religious orthodoxy in the fifth century BC.
“Rowdy Buddha” is the work of a twenty-first century humanitarian thinker about one of his earliest predecessors from the fifth century BC.
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Rowdy Buddha - Abhijit Naskar
ROWDY BUDDHA
Abhijit Naskar, a famous Neuroscientist and an untiring advocate of global harmony and peace, became a beloved best-selling author all over the world with his very first book The Art of Neuroscience in Everything
, that heralded the advent of a rejuvenating scientific philosophy. With various of his pioneering ventures into the Neuropsychology of religious sentiments, he has hugely contributed to humanity’s attempt of breaking down the citadels of religious conflicts, for which he is popularly hailed as a humanitarian who incessantly works towards taking the human civilization in the path of sweet general harmony.
ROWDY
BUDDHA
THE FIRST SAPIENS
––––––––
ABHIJIT
NASKAR
Rowdy Buddha: The First Sapiens
Copyright © 2017 Abhijit Naskar
This is a work of non-fiction
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Neuro Cookies Edition, 2017
Also by Abhijit Naskar
The Art of Neuroscience in Everything
Your Own Neuron: A Tour of Your Psychic Brain
The God Parasite: Revelation of Neuroscience
The Spirituality Engine
Love Sutra: The Neuroscientific Manual of Love
Homo: A Brief History of Consciousness
Neurosutra: The Abhijit Naskar Collection
Autobiography of God: Biopsy of A Cognitive Reality
Biopsy of Religions: Neuroanalysis towards Universal Tolerance
Prescription: Treating India’s Soul
What is Mind?
In Search of Divinity: Journey to The Kingdom of Conscience
Love, God & Neurons: Memoir of a scientist who found himself by getting lost
The Islamophobic Civilization: Voyage of Acceptance
Neurons of Jesus: Mind of A Teacher, Spouse & Thinker
Neurons, Oxygen & Nanak
The Education Decree
Principia Humanitas
The Krishna Cancer
For all the Buddhas to be
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PART 1 Siddhartha Gautama
PART 2 Buddhahood
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION
Buddha - is it a name of a person, or something else? Technically yes - by the general population it is used to refer to a human being, however philosophically, it is much broader than just a name. It is a state of mind, quite literally, unlike what Christians perceive when they say Christianity is a way of living
. The term Buddha literally means an awakened being, or as I have mentioned in the subtitle of this book, a Sapiens.
All humans may hail themselves as Homo sapiens because we scientists have gloriously termed our own species as such, but mere title of a species does not necessarily define the character of all members of that species. Sapiens means wise. Are we wise? Do you really believe that every single person in the society is genuinely wise? The slightest bit of doubt in your mind appearing right now on this matter may inadvertently prove the fallacy of the generalized title Sapiens for a whole species. We may be intelligent - Yes. But are we wise?
If intelligence were the same as wisdom, the computers would be the wisest beings on earth. Now one might wonder, why on earth have I termed one person - Siddhartha Gautama, as the First Sapiens? The answer is - because in a society that was exponentially infected by all sorts of primitive poisons, such as authoritarianism, bigotry, superstitions and fundamentalism, this man quite uniquely admitted that he could be wrong in his teachings. In a society where the priestly maniacs were most proud to shove into the minds of feeble worshippers elements of weakness and undisputed obedience, Gautama, quite heretically taught people to bring their own reasoning skills into action in the pursuit of knowledge instead of meekly accepting the words from the upper class of the society simply on their authority.
Gautama, like a real human, as can be defined by Principia Humanitas
, and as the earliest representative of modern conscientious society, aided the people to clean the dust off their long-garaged brains and bring them into action. This, my friend, is what being a Sapiens means. Sapiens doesn't mean being smart - it means being smart enough to know the most suitable, productive and progressive combination of intellect and emotions in a certain situation and to make that combination manifest most graciously through behavior.
Gautama recognized this combination through conscientious contemplation and thereafter realized it in his heart, by the attainment of Nirvana. So did Christ, almost five hundred years later. But while Christ emphasized on showing his people directly, what was right, and what was wrong, Gautama on the other hand, emphasized on enabling people to do that distinction between right and wrong, between good and evil, themselves. Gautama’s focus was on knowledge through experience – his focus was on learning through as much objective observation as possible – the same technique which is the bed-rock of modern scientific analysis. And that is the reason, why almost every conscientious being of modern society, can’t help but love this man.
His is loved because he was a thousand miles away from the ruthless element of indoctrination. He is loved because, he was no founder of religion, rather he was basically a good guy with an excellent rational mind, who said - 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 common sense.
. Indeed, wise is the person, who can entertain the possibility of being wrong, and fool is the one, who thinks, he or she is always right.
PART 1
Siddhartha Gautama
Think of the priestly oppression in the Jewish orthodox society and think of what a man named Jesus from Nazareth did to that orthodoxy. Now turn that into Hindu orthodoxy and replace Jesus with a man named Siddhartha. Basically, this man, Siddhartha Gautama, or more popularly Buddha, was the occidental counterpart of Christ. However, supposedly Christ did not enter the stage of world history until about five hundred years after Buddha. So, in the context of present times, we should rather say that, Christ was the Western counterpart of Buddha. And if it was not for his authoritarian pupils, Christ would have attained the same amount of affection from the modern civilized society of thinking humans, that Buddha has received.
The Church that was erected upon the principles taught by Christ, eventually, in the hands of authoritarian, blood-sucking monsters, became the most un-Christian institution in human history, while Buddha on the other hand, had comparatively much better and calmer pupils. Christ did not carry out the Inquisition, the Church did – and the Church and Christ are not synonymous, despite the fact that the general population hails these two words as one.
The Inquisition was one of the greatest stains in the history of Christianity. It was one of the darkest episodes of the entire human history. No other group of institutions in the history of the Christian Church was so horrible, so unjust and so un-Christian. When it was finally brought to a halt in 1834, thousands of lives had been lost, and tens of thousands of lives ruined through imprisonment and confiscation of property. Whole populations were driven from their homelands, and the Roman Church had earned a blight against its name that still resonates to this day.
The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the government system of the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy (Greek hairesis – "an opinion