Shrek was one of the first 10,000 followers of Siddhartha Gautama, later known as The Buddha, in a past life. He felt the grace and witnessed Buddha’s glory firsthand! Before he become a follower he was living as a traveling salesman aka a merchant (in other words, a member of the Vaishya caste) who probably hailed either from Southern Bactria in Afghanistan, the area of Punjab, or even somewhere in the region of Sindh, which is now part of Pakistan. for some time he was a layman among the Sangha. Then, while in his mid-40s, he went and entered into the initiation of a Theravada Monastery in Eastern Gujarat. He came close to achieving the full state of Nirvana, but one day was poisoned. Legend has it that he is in another part of the universe on the way to Nirvana.