— Nasir Khan
The original teachings of the Buddha (The Enlightened One) had only one aim: To end human suffering. His thought expressed in the “Four Noble Truths” in his first sermon at Benares dealt with the problem. He did not ask people to search for any solution to their worldly problems in any outside source or any heavenly power but only in themselves.
There were too many gods in a society where he was born and lived. But he showed no interest to dabble into the mysteries of such supernatural beings. For him the cause of human suffering was in human desires, temptations and greed. Was a solution possible? Yes. There was a solution. That was the message of the Buddha to humanity.
Incidentally, what the Buddha had taught and how the coming generations of his followers transformed him and his teachings are two different things. The Enlightened One was made into a universal god, the Universal Buddha, towards whom his followers directed their prayers. In this way, a unique thinker in human history, a humanist par excellence, who had nothing to do with any supernatural beings at all, was himself made a god!
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A statue of Buddha from Gandhara, now in Pakistan
Peace and Justice Post 
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