z:\ ambedkar\vol 011\vol11 04.indd MK SJ+YS 5 10 2013/YS 18 11 2013 234
234 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Buddha felt was a gross wrong that can be done to a human being.
III
For the satisfaction of appetites can result only in creating more appetites. Such a way of life could bring no happiness, he thought. On the contrary, such happiness was sure to bring more unhappiness.
The Yogic conception of Nibbana was a purely temporary state. The happiness it brought was negative. It involved disassociation from the world. It avoided pain but gave no happiness. Whatever happiness it may be said to bring lasted as long as the yoga lasted. It was not permanent. It was temporary.
The Buddha’s conception of Nibbana is quite different from that of his predecessors.
There are three ideas which underlie his conception of Nibbana.
Of these the happiness of a sentient being as distinct from the salvation of the soul is one.
The second idea is the happiness of the sentient being in Samsara while he is alive. But the idea of a soul and the salvation of the soul after death are absolutely foreign to the Buddha’s conception of Nibbana.
The third idea which underlies his conception of Nibbana is the exercise of control over the flames of the passions which are always on fire.
That the passions are like burning fire was the text of a sermon which the Buddha delivered to the Bhikkus when he was staying in Gaya. This is what he said :
“All things, O Bhikkus, are on fire. And what, O Priests, are all these things which are on fire ?
“The eye, O Bhikkus, is on fire ; forms are on fire ; eye-consciousness is on fire ; impressions received by the eye are on fire ; and whatever sensation, pleasant, unpleasant, or indifferent, originates in dependence on impression received by the type, that also is on fire.”
“And with what are these on fire?”