From Quora:

Was Gautama Buddha an atheist?

No, Gautama Buddha was not an atheist. This does not mean that Gautama Buddha was a theist or an agnostic. He was neither an atheist, nor a theist and not even an agnostic. We cannot really brand Gautama Buddha into any category. He belonged to none of these “camps”.

Unfortunately our lexicon has no fourth word to explain what the Buddha was except to say he was enlightened. Human intelligence doesn’t have the capacity to comprehend anything other than atheist, theist and agnostic.

Atheist is a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings. This is based on belief (emotional intelligence) and reasoning (intellectual intelligence), and not on “knowing” (intuitive intelligence).

Theist is a person who believes in one God as the creator and ruler of the universe, without rejection of revelation. He is a person who believes in the existence of a god or gods. This is based purely on belief (emotional intelligence), and not even intellectual intelligence, though theists often apply their intellectual intelligence quite miserably to justify their belief in God.

Agnostic is a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable. These are people who have gone to a state beyond emotional intelligence and use their intellectual intelligence.

The Buddha had an order of intelligence that was far higher or greater than either emotional intelligence or intellectual intelligence. He never needed to use these inferior forms of intelligence, even though they were at his disposal. His much higher intelligence (about which I will soon explain) had made his emotional intelligence as well his intellectual intelligence develop to their respective ultimate levels. But to understand the level of intelligence of a Buddha, we need to understand the hierarchy of intelligence and what it means.

Let us understand the hierarchy of intelligence, and before that, the context in which I have used the term “intelligence”.

There is life all around us, and we are a living being too. There is vegetable or plant life, animal life, human life, super human life and many other kinds of life about which we do not know. Life means consciousness and consciousness is associated with an intelligence of some kind. As there is a hierarchy of life. Vegetable life, animal life and human life are like three levels in the hierarchy of life. Vegetable life is at a low level, then animal life and human life is at a higher level in the hierarchy. Accordingly there is a hierarchy of consciousness and therefore a hierarchy of intelligence. It is in this context I speak of the hierarchy of intelligence. They are intelligence of different kinds.

The three types of intelligence we deal with in human life are physical intelligence, emotional intelligence and intellectual intelligence.

Physical intelligence covers the intelligence of inanimate or lifeless objects because of which they are able to respond to the laws of physics.

Emotional intelligence is that intelligence which results in things like feelings, faith, devotion, beliefs and things of that kind. This form of intelligence first comes into being in the vegetable kingdom and develops in the animal kingdom and develops much more in the human kingdom.

Intellectual intelligence is that intelligence which stands at a higher level than emotional intelligence. This type of intelligence is altogether missing in the vegetable kingdom, but begins in the animal kingdom and develops much more in the human kingdom.

So trees and plants have physical intelligence and emotional intelligence while animals have greater physical intelligence, greater emotional plus some intellectual intelligence. Human beings have even more of all three types of intelligence, a new type of intelligence which we can say is abstract intelligence. Abstract intelligence helps us to further intellectual intelligence and deal with abstraction. While animals can think logically too, what makes us quite different from animals is our capacity for abstraction, which in turn helps us to use all the other 3 types of intelligence quite optimally.

While we (human beings) have both emotional intelligence and also intellectual intelligence, it depends on how much we apply which type of intelligence for arriving at a conclusion. This is why the entire world is divided into different groups called atheists, theists and agnostics.

Spiritual evolution helps us to evolve new and higher types of intelligence. So animals are a result of spiritual evolution of plants and trees, and human beings are a result of spiritual evolution of animals. When we evolve spiritually and develop new and higher types of intelligence, the field of our awareness called consciousness increases tremendously at every stage. With the coming in of a new type of intelligence, our consciousness expands too. But someone (or a life) without the new type of intelligence cannot even recognise what the new type is and how very different and potent it is. For example, a tree (or any member in the vegetable kingdom), how hard it may try, just cannot comprehend what intellect is and how it can result in far greater awareness.

Beyond intellectual intelligence (and abstract intelligence), there is yet another type of intelligence at a higher rung in the hierarchy. It is called intuitive intelligence. This is not the intuition or hunch some of us have, but something of a far superior quality because of which we come into instant perception with hundred percent perfection. This results in “knowing”. This is the result of “enlightenment”. We become enlightened when we are able to develop intuitive intelligence in us. It is because of intuitive intelligence, we become free from the cycle of death and rebirth and become omniscient too. We understand things instantly without have to believe or think.

Gautama Buddha had this intelligence because of his enlightenment. So he did not need to use emotional intelligence or intellectual intelligence, and therefore he was neither an atheist nor a theist nor an agnostic. He simply “knew” it. Anyone who becomes enlightened will also have this intuitive intelligence.

Now let me say something more about Gautama Buddha in particular. His illumination was of such a kind he was not only enlightened or illuminated (in the sense we understand the word), he had gone to the next stage, and even to the stage beyond that! That’s what a Buddha is. In the stage after intuitive intelligence, there comes spiritual intelligence which is so very superior and exalted, we cannot imagine it. The stage after that, which actually makes a Buddha is known as monadic intelligence. This is something which even spiritual intelligence cannot understand. Incidentally, the enlightenment he got in his last earth-life was the Buddha level of illumination and not enlightenment or nirvana in the way we know if it. It is nirvana of a very exalted level. According to my study, he was also an enlightened or super enlightened being even when he was born, but attained his Buddhahood in this life. What Buddha is, none of us can really imagine. It is too, too, too exalted.

Gautama Buddha had monadic intelligence. It is so very superior, you can and I can look at him as nothing but God (though he isn’t a God). And for God, there is nothing known as atheist or theist or agnostic.

Please note: I have shared my personal understanding. These are my views only. What I have written here is right according to me and I can elaborate further if ever needed. It is not a cooked-up thing.





Shuvendu Patnaik, studied at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur


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If Buddha was an atheist, why is Buddhism a religion?

Kush Sareen,  on Quora

So many people today have assumed Buddha was an atheist and that buddhism is an atheistic religion. A man like Gautam Buddha does not answer questions, he answers questioners. Buddha denying god was said in a particular context, You must read the entire story to understand -

“Once it happened: In the morning a man asked Buddha, ‘Is there a God?’ and Buddha said, ‘No.’ And in the afternoon another person asked, ‘Is there a God?’ and Buddha said, ‘Yes.’ And by the evening a third person asked, ‘Is there a God?’ and Buddha kept quiet, didn’t answer, remained silent.

Ananda, who was Buddha’s chief disciple, was present on all three occasions. He was continuously behind Buddha like a shadow—serving him, taking care of his body, looking after his needs. He was very much puzzled: ‘In a single day Buddha has said there is no God, Buddha has said there is a God, and Buddha has kept silent too, he has not answered this way or that. These are the only three possibilities—all the possibilities exhausted, in a single day? All the answers given.’ He could not sleep; he tossed and turned, and Buddha asked, ‘What is the matter with you tonight? Are you not tired or something?’

He said, ‘I don’t want to disturb you, but unless you answer me this question I don’t think I will be able to sleep. In the morning you said no, in the afternoon you said yes, and by the evening you remained silent, you didn’t answer—and the question was exactly the same!’

Buddha laughed and he said, ‘The person who had come early in the morning and had asked ‘Is there a God?’ was a theist, was a believer. He wanted me to say yes so that his belief could become more strengthened—and I don’t strengthen people’s beliefs, because a believing mind is never a seeing mind. To believe is to remain in darkness. I wanted to shatter his belief. My answer had nothing to do with God; my answer had something to do with that man. He was there just to accumulate a little more evidence for his belief, so he could say to people that ‘Not only do I believe that there is a God, but even Buddha says there is a God!’ He had not come to understand. He simply wanted me to be a witness to HIS belief and his belief is just out of fear, a conditioning taught by others. His belief is nothing but a cover-up for his ignorance. I cannot be in any way a help to it. I had to shatter it. I had to shout no, emphatically. And it helped. ‘Buddha says no?’ Enquiry started in his being. Now he cannot be at rest with his belief. He will have to come—you will see.’

And one day he came again, and he said to Buddha, ‘You did it: since that time my worship has become empty. Since that time I go to the temple, but the temple no longer has any deity in it. Since that time I know it is only a belief. If you say God is not, then who am I to say God is? You are so godly, you must be true. I have come to enquire. Now I come to you without any belief. Now I come to you open—to seek, to search. Now my question is not rooted in my knowledge.’

And Buddha said to Ananda, ‘The second person was an atheist—he believed that there is no God. He had come in the same way as the first one: to have my support.’

His belief was as stupid as the first one’s, because to believe without knowing is to be stupid. Believe only when you have known, but then it is not a belief at all; it is a totally different experience. It is trust. It is not based on somebody else’s experience; it is your OWN experience. You are reborn in it. It is not Hindu, Christian, islamic—it is simply your experience. And even if the whole world says it is not so, you cannot deny it, your trust cannot be shaken.

‘The other person,’ Buddha said, ‘was an atheist, hence I had to say YES, and emphatically I had to say yes.’

Ananda said, ‘And what about the third?’
Buddha said, ‘He was neither a theist, nor an atheist, so neither was yes needed nor was no needed. He was really an innocent soul, a very pure heart. His question was not out of his a priori knowledge; his question was really innocent. His question was a quest, an enquiry. I had to remain silent—because that was my answer to him. And he understood it. Did you not watch: when I remained silent and closed my eyes, he also closed his eyes, and a great silence descended on him. And did you not observe?—when he went his eyes were shining, his eyes were like lit candles. And did you not observe?—when he left, he touched my feet, bowed down, thanked me, saying ‘You answered rightly,’ although I had not answered him at all. That man tasted something of my silence, imbibed something of my being. That man was the true seeker.’

A true seeker does not need a verbal answer: a true seeker needs something existential—a penetration of the heart into the heart, a penetration of the soul into the soul. The real seeker wants the Master to overlap him. The real seeker wants the Master to go into his innermost core and stir the sleeping soul.”

-OSHO

Edit: I just wanted to make it clear that this story is a story of Gautham Buddha being narrated by the Indian guru and mystic OSHO. OSHO adds his own commentary and thus the references to islam and christianity which came after the time of Buddha. I apologize for any confusion.

Source:  Quora

How could you describe exactly the primordial state in which Gautama Buddha was?

Catherine Suraya Prem, Awakening Guide, Spiritual Counsellor.

I think you are confusing The Primordial Buddha with the Buddha Gautama.

The Primordial Buddha is not as belonging to anyone specifically but it is the original, timeless and eternal dimension that can also be called Pure Awareness or Consciousness. It is the Ground of Being and is in essence what is realised upon enlightenment. Buddha Gautama realised this upon enlightenment as the Empty nature of self which is Buddha. But this realisation is not confined to Buddha Gautama, it is the same realisation that all who attain enlightenment realise.

The Primordial Buddha is the self-originating, self-emanating Buddha, who existed eternally before anything else...

 “I am the core of all that exists. I am the seed of all that exists. I am the cause of all that exists. I am the trunk of all that exists. I am the foundation of all that exists. I am the root of existence. I am ‘the core’ because I contain all phenomena. I am ‘the seed’ because I give birth to everything. I am ‘the cause’ because all comes from me. I am ‘the trunk’ because the ramifications of every event sprout from me. I am ‘the foundation’ because all abides in me. I am called ‘the root’ because I am everything” - Samantabhadra Buddha

This comes from the Dzogchen teachings.

Samantabhadra means always good or ultimate goodness which is the ground of our being.

Source:  Quora   12/29/2017