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Buddha<br />
Siddhartha was born in northern central India, in the year of 567 B.C. He was born into the Kshatriya caste.<br />
His was birth preceded by a series of visions seen by his mother and prophecies made to his father.<br />
The prophecies made to his father stated that he wouldn't be a maharajah but a great religious leader.<br />
When he was born his father shielded him from the awareness of the worlds realities. His was trained in the Hindu<br />
faith. Something unusual that happened before his birth was when a sacred white elephant, which touched his mother's<br />
side with a lotus, impregnated her.<br />
Siddhartha grew up in luxury, securely protected from anything unpleasant. He later married beautiful princess<br />
Yasodarah, daughter of a neighboring maharajah. They had a son and named him prince Rahulah. His tutor was<br />
Channah, his fathers most trusted servant. He was advised to tutor and guard Siddhartha and to teach him to exercise<br />
constant vigilance so that Siddhartha may never experience the realities of life (the predictions).<br />
Siddhartha began taking trips to a near by city with a servant, and for the first time saw the reality of life. Three<br />
things that Siddhartha saw that deeply disturbed him was an old lady bent over with age, a man whose body was<br />
ravaged with leprosy and a funeral cart carrying a dead body. Siddhartha could not get the "meaning of life"<br />
question "why do people suffer" Out of his head. He spent many hours a day trying to find the answer in the Vedas<br />
but failed miserably.<br />
What we think, we become.<br />
To find the answers to his questions, he first tried to follow the path of asceticism, by denying him physical pleasures<br />
and by eating a single grain of rice a day. This failed when he collapsed from anemic exhaustion. He then tried to study.<br />
He spent many hours a day reading the Vedas, looking for clues on life's mysteries. During this period Siddhartha's life<br />
was very boring and simple. He was not successful in finding answers because he was looking in the wrong places.<br />
Siddhartha was almost about to give up when he decide to meditate under a tree for as long as it would take for him to<br />
become enlightened. He spent forty-nine days and forty-nine nights meditating, on the fiftieth day he awoke<br />
enlightened. He was now known as Buddha the enlightened one. This was the beginning of a new religion. He wanted<br />
to share his insight with everyone. The monks that abandoned him back in his ascetic period rejoined him. Buddha died<br />
when he was more than eighty years old, of food poisoning.<br />
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You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.<br />
Abhi Sharma