Close to 2,500 years in the past, Prince Siddharta Gautama was given birth in what is currently called Lumbini in Nepal. He was born a prince and his birth had been received with many distinct signs that indicated a life of greatness. The prince's father asked a wiseman who lived in the kingdom for guidance concerning his boy. The sage man theorized that the prince, Siddharta Gautama, would likely either follow in his father's footsteps and become a great king or he would become a spiritual leader.
In hopes that his son should become his successor, the king did his best to separate the prince from those things that might encourage him toward a spiritual existence. The prince was surrounded by luxury and excess, so many advantages that his royal placement could offer. Siddharta Gautama proved to be a brilliant scholar and outstanding sportsman. He married a beautiful woman whom he cherished and they bore a child.
At the age of 29, the prince determined that the world around him was much more complicated than he encountered in the walls of his palace. Out among the people of the kingdom, he observed actuality: sickness, old-age and death. The surprise of this discovery left the youthful prince shaken. He made the decision then to dedicate himself to ending the suffering. Leaving his wife and child, the prince forsaked his worldly possessions and embarked on a spiritual journey.
Guatama commenced a course of study under several instructors to understand their methods. With the aid of Alara Kalama, he began to comprehend meditation and discovered an exalted form referred to as absorption. This allowed him to achieve a state of nothingness where there was no moral or cognitive dimension. Although this was useful it was clear to the past prince that it would not eliminate the suffering he had seen. Guatama continued his search for other people who could help him on his spiritual journey. Udraka Ramputra, helped Gautama to comprehend a state of neither perception or non-perception, but this to was not what he was looking for. The next step in the quest led Gautama to Uruvilva in North India. It was there that he selected an ascetic way, surviving a life of deprival for nearly 6 years. This only resulted in the degradation of his body, weakness and self-destruction. Although it cost him his five followers, Gautama ended this ascetic lifestyle.
The end of this spiritual journey seemed as far away as ever, so the Buddha sat down under a Bodhi tree and proclaimed that “flesh may wither, blood may dry up, but I shall not rise from the spot until Enlightenment has been one.” After forty days of thought and meditation, the Buddha at last attained Enlightenment.
It is the Buddhist understanding that at that moment he accomplished a state of being that surpasses anything else in the universe. Each of our normal experiences are based on preconceptions and conditions: how we were raised, our encounters, faults and mistakes. Enlightenment is a state in which the convoluted internal workings of existence become clear and the source of man's suffering discovered.
For the next 45 years, the Buddha journeyed through much of what is now northern India. He taught the way of Enlightenment to all who desired to understand. This teaching had become known as the dharma or “the teaching of the enlightened one.    The Buddha adopted a number of disciples that in turn attained their own Enlightenment and so they taught others.
Buddhists believe that Buddha achieved a state of existence that goes out beyond anything else in the world. If regular experience is based on conditions – childhood, mindsets, opinions, awareness, and so forth – Enlightenment is Unconditioned. It was a state in which the Buddha obtained insight into the deepest workings of living and for that reason, into the reason for human suffering, the challenge that had set Him on His spiritual journey in the first place.
The Buddha statue we often see doesn not represent a god and didn't look at himself as a divine person. He was just a human who endeavored to transform himself by means of self reflection and meditation. Buddhists see him as an ideal and his quest as a guide that could lead them on the path to enlightenment. Most homes that practice Buddhism will display some type of Buddha decor like a statue of Buddha, but this is intended to remind them of their own spiritual journey.
