​​​​If religion is meant to love God what about Buddhism which doesn’t refer to God?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So if the purpose of religion is to develop love of God, then what about religions where there is no conception of God? You see, every religion has an eternal element to it and it has a historical element to it. Historical element means that every religion emerges in a particular historical context.
And in that historical context, what is spoken is for that audience. And within that, there is something which is eternal, which is beyond that context. So if you look at the historical context in which Buddhism emerged, it emerged around 2500 years ago, when Hinduism, in whatever form it was existing at that time, that had become very ritual bound.
And in that ritual bound form of Hinduism, there was discrimination based on caste, there was indiscriminate killing of animals in the form of animal sacrifices. And in the performance of rituals, the purpose from ritual to spiritual, that’s the purpose. Ritual is meant to make us spiritual.
But sometimes people get so caught in the ritual that they forget that I have to become spiritual. So this is what happened at the time of Jesus also. The Jews had become so legalistic, the priests at that time, many of them had become so legalistic and so ritualistic.
They say, you know the letter of… Jesus told them, you know the letter of the law but not the spirit. This is what had happened with the mainstream expressions of Hinduism at that time. So Buddha, he came and told, can’t you see that by discriminating against people, by killing animals indiscriminately, you are causing pain.
So people at that time told him that, but this is what the Vedas, the sacred books of Hinduism teach. Now, Buddha did not want to get into a whole intellectual debate. That was his strategy.
Different manifestations of God adopt different strategies. So he said that, okay, use your common sense. Can’t you see that animal suffers? Can’t you see that when people are discriminated, they suffer? If any sacred book tells you to do things which cause suffering to others, use your intelligence, reject the sacred book.
And what should you do? He said, act in a way that is right. The right thinking, right thought, right speech, right action. That is central to Buddhism.
So Buddhism, if we see, is more of an ethical religion than a philosophical religion. That means Buddhism focuses more on ethics, focus on right action, and not on a philosophical religion. That means Buddha really doesn’t talk philosophy much.
And Buddha was once asked that, so is the soul the same as the body? He remained silent. Is the soul different from the body? He remained silent. So what is the nature of the relationship between the soul and the body? Buddha remained silent.
And that questioner just walked away in exasperation. One of Buddha’s disciples, Ananda, asked him, why didn’t you answer the question? He said, he was not at a level where he could understand the answer. Whatever answer I would have given, that would have only reinforced the misconception.
So Buddha basically did not teach a philosophical religion. He focused on ethical religion, on right action. And by right action, gradual elevation will come.
So at that time when he rejected the Vedas, and he basically… Buddha did not himself directly reject God or reject the soul. The focus was primarily that don’t bother about these things. It’s not that there is no God.
It’s rather that, okay, if this is your conception of God and it’s bound with so much rituals, and the rituals rather than raising you up are dragging you down, making you do cruel things, then forget about all those old things. Live in a way that your consciousness rises. And the idea is that when people live rightly, then gradually they rise upwards in their consciousness and then right knowledge awakens within the heart.
So Buddhism itself may not talk about love of God, but if you look at its central core, that is talking about living in a way that will raise our consciousness and make us more receptive to understanding spiritual reality. So the essential purpose of spiritual evolution that is very powerfully served through Buddhism also, of raising one’s consciousness. Now the historical context was rejection of the existing forms of ritualistic religion and thought systems associated with them.
But the eternal essence of Buddhism is that we act in a way that we elevate our consciousness. Does that answer your question?