Gautam Buddha's given name was Siddhartha. Gautama is his family name so his full name was Gautama Siddhartha. Buddha is not his name, it is his awakening. Buddha simply means "one who is awakened." Gautam Buddha is the most famous awakened person. There haven been many buddhas before him and there have been many buddhas after him-- and as long as every human being can become a buddha, new buddhas will go on springing up in the future. Everyone has the potentiality...it is only a matter of waiting for the right time. Some day, tortured by the outside reality, in despair of having seen everything and found nothing, you are bound to turn inward.
In Buddhist terminology, 'Buddha' is equivalent to 'truth'. Buddhists don't talk much about truth; they talk much more about the Buddha. When you become a Buddha, you become awakened, so why talk about truth? Just ask what awakening is. Just ask what awareness is, because when you are aware, truth is there; when you are not aware, truth is not there.
A Buddha is one who lives from moment to moment, who does not live in the past, who does not live in the future, who lives in the here and now. Buddhahood is a quality of being present - and it is not a goal, you need not wait, you can become a buddha just here and now.
Buddha says the greatest joy in life is freedom: freedom from all prejudices, freedom from all scriptures, freedom from all concepts and ideologies, freedom from all desires, freedom from all possessiveness and jealousy, freedom from all hatred, anger, rage, lust...
In short, freedom from everything, so that you are just a pure consciousness, unbounded, unlimited. That is the greatest joy, and it is possible -- it is within everybody's grasp. You just have to grope for it a little. The groping will be in the dark, but it is not far away. If you try, if you make an effort, you are bound to find it. It is your birthright.
- Osho
May the tranquility of this space still your mind, & facilitate the process in you to realize your own Buddha nature.
O(:-
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