Was Buddah the first "Enlighten" being ever?

[Classic]

Was buddah? Or was there another and he were the first how did he come know? From God? Or something else.

[LadyMay]

Everyone is enlightened. But I'm sure plenty more before him realised it. Where do you think Hinduism came from? That was around much earlier than Buddhism.

[Swami Chihuahuananda]

Alien Jesus Sperm Whale is the first documented enlightened being .
According to the ancient records , she lived in the 43 millionth century BC .

(on this very planet :D )

:hug3:

[Lucyan28]

Hello Classic.

Well in this world he has not been the first one, not the only one and certainly not the last one.

This universe with its billions of years is young, is just a little baby, compared with the ancient brothers of the stars, they are really old (if we try to measure their age with time). Probably among these beings, existed the first entity who was enlightened.

But that is beyond our human comprehension now, I mean no beginning and no ending, no time, no space, no laws, no existence and yet all true is something weird, isn't it? Even as I think of it I feel so ignorant about it, but I like it :D

Peace and cookies.

[tainamom]

it depends on what you mean by enlightened. do you mean someone who has reached yoga or someone who reached nirvana? i'm not sure if siddharta reached yoga yet. maybe by now he did. but there was another buddha that was an incarnation of the Creator.

[Amilius777]

I could name a few-

Elijah, Moses, Hermes Trismigertus, Lao Tzu, Abraham, and such.

Siddhartha in his tradition was called "Buddha", but it really refers to anyone who has evolved to a level of spirituality where they psychically perceive what is the Truth and what isn't.

In the Christian or "Catholic" tradition they are called "Saints". Usually have St. Joseph or St. Francis. These are not some special group of people who are in some special box. They are either very evolved souls or people who were saintly in their life. Mother Teresa was "enlightened" but her spiritual influence was not as great as Francis of Assisi (who was more highly evolved).

I kinda hate the word enlightenment because it carries such a smug connotation. "highly evolved", or "awakened" sounds better. People think- "Oh great! BANG! Now I am an Enlightened One! I am all done now! No harm can come to me! Woohoo!". A lot of people fall hypnotically to this with people like Eckhart Tolle, who I don't think he even thinks of himself as "enlightened", but so many sheeple are already creating a temple around this guy, and he is just this advanced soul who perceives Truths and can teach others about them. It doesn't make him Jesus or Buddha or Francis of Assisi.

Evolution goes on forever, there is no end point- "I am enlightened! I'm done!" is some person's fairy tale notion that they reached the finish line. Even after the need to incarnate is over, we are not finished. We continue to evolve in the Spirit realm.

[Gem]

Krishna was like 4000 years prior.

[Cmt12]

When it comes to Spiritual Development, there's Jesus and Krishna then everyone else. The whole point is to finish so everyone else is pretty much irrelevant in my mind. I agree that the term 'enlightened' needs to go.

[Swami Chihuahuananda]

When it comes to Spiritual Development, there's Jesus and Krishna then everyone else. The whole point is to finish so everyone else is pretty much irrelevant in my mind. I agree that the term 'enlightened' needs to go.

Irrelevant ? :smile: That's funny . I'm irreverent , and I do not share your opinion about Jesus and Buddha ....ooops, I mean Krishna .

But what about other world, with other sentient beings ? Are all of their
highly evolved spiritual beings irrelevant as well? Do beings on other worlds have to suffer in neglect from Jesus and Krishna, or maybe Jesus and Krishna travel the stars now , spreading their Christianity and Hinduism across the galaxy ? Because they could do that , you know ! . You know they could . And they need to, because everyone else is irrelevant . That's how cool they are ... but everyone else is irrelevant. Jesus and Krishna were men, walking on the Earthlike everyone else. It's their followers who turned them into gods .

I again quote the irrelevant Bill Nelson , from the song 'Rocket To Damascus' :

"Electricity made us angels
and money made us fools
But fear of future shackled us
with gods who ride the backs of mules
Wake up or leave the planet
Attenuate, goddammit "

[Dwerg]

I know one thing pretty surely, people naturally gravitate towards people who have reached enlightenment. Like insects to a light at night. People wandering around in the dark looking for the light, they find the people who has the light. What does the people who has the light tell you? The light is inside, don't worship me, find it in you.

The concept of self-help is exactly what this is. People looking for help, gravitating towards books that may contain answers. It's ironic to seek someones else's help to help oneself.

Was Buddha enlightened at all? I like to say that to be worthy of a title it comes not from self, but from others. Sort of why people sometimes points out “self-proclaimed“, being enlightened is as sketchy of a title as mathematician (yes, there is disagreement over it). Is a person nice by judging him/herself as such despite everyone else not agreeing? I say these things works the same way as how a country is defined sovereign, it does not have sovereignity without the acknowledgement of other countries. As such all countries are fictionally defined and it's existence dependent upon everyones continued confirmation of it.

Say we all defined Buddha as enlightened, was he first? Since titles are fictional and symbolic they are not real, so basically we can define whatever as being the first enlightened being. I find the word enlightened to be as empty as the word ball, except enlightened can potentially point to any living human being. There is a general tendency to point to some being enlightened and some certainly not, the same way some people are stupid while others are smart. Buddha didn't see the need for a God, so saying God was enlightened before Buddha goes against what Buddha taught. God is another word that doesn't function and is even less defined than enlightened.

I see the irony in my first name being Daniel, which means God is my judge. After some creative flipping things around in my mind I figured God is the people, because they are the ones who judge. Equality is a fact as I am of the people, thus I am as much of a God as anyone on this planet. It nulls out the concept entirely and deems it essentially void, which is why I don't attach to religions at all. I just live, learn and sometimes writes stuff like this knowing full well it's stuffed with inconsistencies. Only God knows why, this activity seems to be pretty human to me.

[Amilius777]

I hate to offend anyone but I can't imagine Krishna being an actual historical person.

I always figured Krishna was a characterization for "God" with an anthropomorphic form written by the author of the Bhagavad Gita.

Whereas Jesus, Buddha, Moses, and Mohammad actually have a lot of scholarly and historical evidence to having been real people despite whatever religious idea surrounds them.

[tainamom]

for amilius,

When God incarnates, he incarnates everywhere, including human form or whatever form. He lowers himself (I use He because of my Catholic upbringing, but there's no real gender except in areas where gender is needed) to our world, he must incarnate also. How is it that we get all these teachings? Jesus too. Sidartha, no. He was regular human like us, but was very blessed to reach Nirvana. You have to believe in a Creator to go beyond Nirvana.

[KevinO]

Einstein said "We are all traveling at the speed of light."

What he meant, I believe, is that however different our relative movement, the combination of all forces upon a particle brings it to light speed, if seen from outside this universe.

Inside the universe we are all equivalent, but we see things differently.

The only operational characteristic of enlightenment is it is easier to see from the outside.

[Lucyan28]

I hate to offend anyone but I can't imagine Krishna being an actual historical person.

I always figured Krishna was a characterization for "God" with an anthropomorphic form written by the author of the Bhagavad Gita.

Whereas Jesus, Buddha, Moses, and Mohammad actually have a lot of scholarly and historical evidence to having been real people despite whatever religious idea surrounds them.

Amilius I find this thought misguided.

Saying that Jesus was the only one that really existed and Krishna doesn't, it's kind of offensive for those who believe in Krishna :tongue:

[krishna]

With respect Buddha did not receive full enlightenment.
There were 1 or 2 others who did.
In pure light and truth.
Krishna.

[Classic]

With respect Buddha did not receive full enlightenment.
There were 1 or 2 others who did.
In pure light and truth.
Krishna.
Full enlightenment? So now there is levels to enlightenment? I just figured out recently that 'enlightenment' isn't anywhere close to what I had in mind. In fact it's nothing anyone should make a religion out of.