The Melchizedek Teachings in the Orient

94:12.1The great weak­ness in the cos­mol­ogy of Bud­dhism was two­fold: its con­tam­i­na­tion with many of the su­per­sti­tions of In­dia and China and its sub­li­ma­tion of Gau­tama, first as the en­light­ened one, and then as the Eter­nal Bud­dha. Just as Chris­tian­ity has suf­fered from the ab­sorp­tion of much er­ro­neous hu­man phi­los­o­phy, so does Bud­dhism bear its hu­man birth­mark. But the teach­ings of Gau­tama have con­tin­ued to evolve dur­ing the past two and one-half mil­len­ni­ums. The con­cept of Bud­dha, to an en­light­ened Bud­dhist, is no more the hu­man per­son­al­ity of Gau­tama than the con­cept of Je­ho­vah is iden­ti­cal with the spirit de­mon of Ho­reb to an en­light­ened Chris­tian. Paucity of ter­mi­nol­ogy, to­gether with the sen­ti­men­tal re­ten­tion of olden nomen­cla­ture, is of­ten provoca­tive of the fail­ure to un­der­stand the true sig­nif­i­cance of the evo­lu­tion of re­li­gious con­cepts.

94:12.2Grad­u­ally the con­cept of God, as con­trasted with the Ab­so­lute, be­gan to ap­pear in Bud­dhism. Its sources are back in the early days of this dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion of the fol­low­ers of the Lesser Road and the Greater Road. It was among the lat­ter di­vi­sion of Bud­dhism that the dual con­cep­tion of God and the Ab­so­lute fi­nally ma­tured. Step by step, cen­tury by cen­tury, the God con­cept has evolved un­til, with the teach­ings of Ry­onin, Ho­nen Shonin, and Shin­ran in Japan, this con­cept fi­nally came to fruit in the be­lief in Amida Bud­dha.

94:12.3Among these be­liev­ers it is taught that the soul, upon ex­pe­ri­enc­ing death, may elect to en­joy a so­journ in Par­a­dise prior to en­ter­ing Nir­vana, the ul­ti­mate of ex­is­tence. It is pro­claimed that this new sal­va­tion is at­tained by faith in the di­vine mer­cies and lov­ing care of Amida, God of the Par­a­dise in the west. In their phi­los­o­phy, the Amidists hold to an In­fi­nite Re­al­ity which is be­yond all fi­nite mor­tal com­pre­hen­sion; in their re­li­gion, they cling to faith in the all-mer­ci­ful Amida, who so loves the world that he will not suf­fer one mor­tal who calls on his name in true faith and with a pure heart to fail in the at­tain­ment of the su­per­nal hap­pi­ness of Par­a­dise.

94:12.4The great strength of Bud­dhism is that its ad­her­ents are free to choose truth from all re­li­gions; such free­dom of choice has sel­dom char­ac­ter­ized a Uran­tian faith. In this re­spect the Shin sect of Japan has be­come one of the most pro­gres­sive re­li­gious groups in the world; it has re­vived the an­cient mis­sion­ary spirit of Gau­tama’s fol­low­ers and has be­gun to send teach­ers to other peo­ples. This will­ing­ness to ap­pro­pri­ate truth from any and all sources is in­deed a com­mend­able ten­dency to ap­pear among re­li­gious be­liev­ers dur­ing the first half of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury af­ter Christ.

94:12.5Bud­dhism it­self is un­der­go­ing a twen­ti­eth-cen­tury re­nais­sance. Through con­tact with Chris­tian­ity the so­cial as­pects of Bud­dhism have been greatly en­hanced. The de­sire to learn has been rekin­dled in the hearts of the monk priests of the broth­er­hood, and the spread of ed­u­ca­tion through­out this faith will be cer­tainly provoca­tive of new ad­vances in re­li­gious evo­lu­tion.

94:12.6At the time of this writ­ing, much of Asia rests its hope in Bud­dhism. Will this no­ble faith, that has so valiantly car­ried on through the dark ages of the past, once again re­ceive the truth of ex­panded cos­mic re­al­i­ties even as the dis­ci­ples of the great teacher in In­dia once lis­tened to his procla­ma­tion of new truth? Will this an­cient faith re­spond once more to the in­vig­o­rat­ing stim­u­lus of the pre­sen­ta­tion of new con­cepts of God and the Ab­so­lute for which it has so long searched?

94:12.7All Uran­tia is wait­ing for the procla­ma­tion of the en­nobling mes­sage of Mi­chael, un­en­cum­bered by the ac­cu­mu­lated doc­trines and dog­mas of nine­teen cen­turies of con­tact with the re­li­gions of evo­lu­tion­ary ori­gin. The hour is strik­ing for pre­sent­ing to Bud­dhism, to Chris­tian­ity, to Hin­duism, even to the peo­ples of all faiths, not the gospel about Je­sus, but the liv­ing, spir­i­tual re­al­ity of the gospel of Je­sus.

94:12.8[Pre­sented by a Mel­chiz­e­dek of Neb­a­don.]