Can you guess how old is this idea and the origin? A person who is not disturbed by the incessant flow of desires - that enter loke rivers into the ocean which is ever being filled but is always still - can alone achieve peace, and not the man who strives to satisfy such desires. A person who has given up all desires for sense gratification, who lives free from desires, who has given up all sense of proprietorship and is devoid of false ego - he alone can attain real peace.
urmmmm.....1,500 years ago, somewhere around China Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
You are good. Did you sneak peek at Google? I was reading the book to get some quotes for a posting in another forum. What I found surprised me...that is Gita talks stuff that is Buddhism too and yet people who practice Buddhism do not credit the philosophy to Gita. Here is another. Considering your specific duty as a ksatriya, you should know that there is no better engagement for you than fighting on religious principles; and so there is no need for hesitation.....O partha, happy are the ksatriyas to whom such fighting opportunities come unsought, opening for them the doors of the heaven. Interesting to say the least.... Here is another... Although I am unborn and My transcendental body never deteriorates, and although I am the Lord of all sentient beings, I still appear in every millennium in My original transcendental form. Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious (Dharma) practices, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion - at that time I descend Myself....In order to deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to establish the principles of religion (Dharma), I advent Myself millennium after millennium. One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna. [4:9] I wonder if there is a similar thought in Christianity?...Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
A Zen Story Christian Buddha One of master Gasan's monks visited the university in Tokyo. When he returned, he asked the master if he had ever read the Christian Bible. "No," Gasan replied, "Please read some of it to me." The monk opened the Bible to the Sermon on the Mount in St. Matthew, and began reading. After reading Christ's words about the lilies in the field, he paused. Master Gasan was silent for a long time. "Yes," he finally said, "Whoever uttered these words is an enlightened being. What you have read to me is the essence of everything I have been trying to teach you here!"
Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism would all follow that quote... of course the religions are very similar in a lot of basic ways. So, the Gita is failing to credit ancient Jains just as Buddhists fail to credit the Gita. It would certainly be reasonable to say the idea is more ancient than our ability to track history. Wherever people are concerned with the problem of suffering -- and suffering has been around a while -- this sort of solution tends to emerge.
