The issue of suffering has overwhelmed many people in the world. Humans are born for trouble or suffering as sparks fly upward. (Job 5:7) Buddha was one among them, who wanted to find the root cause of suffering and annihilate it. Protected from seeing any unpleasant thing by his father, Buddha lived in the palace. One day, he sneaked out, saw an old man, sick man and a corpse taken for cremation and an ascetic doing meditation. He did not want to become old, sick and die and instead search like ascetic to find cause of suffering. In his pursuit of knowledge, he found ‘desire’ or ‘attachment’ as the root cause of all human suffering. Then he propounded a philosophy to destroy all ‘desires,’ to attain salvation (moksha). In essence, that process leads to annihilation of a person, his soul which could be termed as nihilism. Extreme pessimism and radical scepticism are the basis for nihilism. When desire is killed, a person is killed. A human being without desire will become like robot or Artificial Intelligence. Freedom, dignity and Freewill are denied. There are good desires which is not considered.
Paul gives us the insight. Humans want to do right, choose good, but their desire cannot be executed because of sin that indwells in all. (Romans 7:17) As Buddha infer if all desires are evil; godly desires, to do good, right and holy also are evil and should be destroyed. In contrast, Paul writes with a triumphant note: “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2) Yes, sin and its consequence are root and not desires. Wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23) Lord Jesus died and rose again thus defeating death and giving us the ‘Law of Spirit of Life.’
Self-salvation is impossible. There is only one way for Salvation: Lord Jesus Christ.
Have I received the gift of Salvation from Lord Jesus Christ?