Topics Include: 1) The Buddha’s early life, the four visions and his decision to commit himself to the homeless life. 2) The Buddha’s true motivation for leaving his wife and child. 3) Understanding the Buddha’s life within the context of the Axial Age. 4) Characteristics of the Axial Age: the fall from grace in a time when men and Gods were as one. The struggle for resurrection and transcendence. 5) The causes of the Axial Age: the collapse of the great Bronze Age civilizations and the invasion of the nomadic Indo-European tribes of Central Asia. 6) The difference between pre-Axial religion and Axial Age religion. 7) The Buddha himself as an expression of the Axial ethos. 8) The role of Mara or our shadow self in hindering the path of the Buddha. 9) The significance of the Axial Age in rooting all the great religions of the world in one historical period and the common motivation and aspiration that drove their development and evolution. 10) The basis for understanding the common connection between all the great faith traditions of the world.
15 April, 2023
56 min.