How To Be Your Own Light?
The Buddha’s final lesson: Be your own light
According to legend, the Buddha was nearing Nirvana, the final journey. It was insufferable for his pupils to envision existence without their Lord, with whom they had spent a very long while. They were concerned about their ability to survive without the Buddha. The Master called Anand, the chief disciple, and inquired about their grief as they were all weeping at the mere thought of Buddha leaving. Anand broke down and said that the disciples were expecting darkness to descend on them because the Master would not be around to lead and guide them. It was the reason for incredible agony and hopelessness. Who will now provide them with life’s light? Without the Buddha, what would they do? He was heard by the Buddha, who grinned and then spoke in a deep voice, “ Be your own light or aatm deepo bhav’
The Buddha is said to have given this as his final and possibly most profound teaching. This was the focal subject of the Buddha’s lessons. Choose your own path and use your own light to lead you. On his own, the Buddha attained enlightenment. Self-realization is what psychologists may refer to as self-awareness or introspection. You can’t learn from within by anyone. In point of fact, the essence of all teachings is being one’s own light. Rather, the very reason. However, in light of the gloom and gloominess all around, how can this be achieved?
This might be the most difficult obstacle for the majority of us. However, it is essential to comprehend that a Master can only point the way. The excursion must be taken without help from anyone else. The fact that those who lived with the Buddha for four decades were in the same predicament and had to be told to go it alone shows how crucial it is to find one’s own path. The Buddha emphasized this point. Self-edification through Self-acknowledgment. This is what will assist in realizing the indestructible nature of Maya, our surreal world. This Maya disguises the truth and unendingly occupies us from seeing the light that is inside.
The Buddha emphasized the transience of the surreal world we believe to exist. The ephemeral nature of this world is well-described by Heraclitus’ analogy that you can’t bathe in the same river twice. It is constantly shifting at the most insignificant of moments. Nothing has changed over time. Our obliviousness is liable for this misleading discernment. Adi Shankara calls this obliviousness ‘avidya’, and to eliminate this we really want that light, the light from the inside. This was the very thing Buddha implied when he said to his devotees be your own light. Every person possesses this light, but very few are capable of awakening it through realization.
“Like oil in the sesame seed, and fire in the flintstone, your enlightenment is inside you,” the mystic poet Kabir says in one of his couplets.
D.G.Shastri