Karnataka - Bidar   

Buddha demystified religion, says writer

By Our Staff Correspondent

BIDAR, MAY 4. If most saints decried human beings as sinners, Buddha elevated them by saying that each one of them can become noble beings by their own effort, said the Mumbai-based writer Goutam Buddha Morambe on Tuesday.

Speaking at the Buddha Poornima and Dhamma Deepa celebrations at Jai Bheem Nagar here, he said Buddha's greatest contribution was in demystifying religion and spirituality. Buddha had thrown open the doors of spirituality by insisting that one's salvation depended on oneself and middlemen such as priests and interpreters were not necessary for this. Each man was responsible for his own problems and for finding solutions to them. Buddha preached and practised this.

Quoting from Buddhist sutras, he said: "One is responsible for purity and defilement. No one defile another and no one purifies another.'' The principles of self-exertion and self-reliance were so simple that they could be realised and understood at home by oneself, he said.

Buddha was the only leader of the human race who had preached spirituality without referring to God or using the term anywhere in his scriptures. His simple and truthful preaching had been so appealing that nearly one-fifth of the world's population proclaimed him as their supreme leader today, he said.

According to Mr. Morambe, Buddhism was a religion that could be adopted by the followers of other faiths also. "A large section of Indian society which was out of the mainstream of Hindu religion was worried for centuries that they had no God or religion to fall back upon. Buddha has given them a better alternative path of deliverance,'' he added.

Our Gulbarga Special Correspondent reports:

Buddha Poornima was observed here by organising a blood donation camp at Prabhavati Telkar Layout in Nandikur Gram Panchayat limits.

Doctors and paramedical staff from the Government General Hospital and Basaveshwar Teaching and General Hospital participated in the camp.

The donors from different communities participated in the camp and the donated blood was handed over to the blood bank of the Basaveshwar hospital.

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