Buddhism

94:8.1To be­come a Bud­dhist, one merely made pub­lic pro­fes­sion of the faith by recit­ing the Refuge: “I take my refuge in the Bud­dha; I take my refuge in the Doc­trine; I take my refuge in the Broth­er­hood.”

94:8.2Bud­dhism took ori­gin in a his­toric per­son, not in a myth. Gau­tama’s fol­low­ers called him Sasta, mean­ing mas­ter or teacher. While he made no super­hu­man claims for ei­ther him­self or his teach­ings, his dis­ci­ples early be­gan to call him the en­light­ened one, the Bud­dha; later on, Sakya­muni Bud­dha.

94:8.3The orig­i­nal gospel of Gau­tama was based on the four no­ble truths:

94:8.41. The no­ble truths of suf­fer­ing.

94:8.52. The ori­gins of suf­fer­ing.

94:8.63. The de­struc­tion of suf­fer­ing.

94:8.74. The way to the de­struc­tion of suf­fer­ing.

94:8.8Closely linked to the doc­trine of suf­fer­ing and the es­cape there­from was the phi­los­o­phy of the Eight­fold Path: right views, as­pi­ra­tions, speech, con­duct, liveli­hood, ef­fort, mind­ful­ness, and con­tem­pla­tion. It was not Gau­tama’s in­ten­tion to at­tempt to de­stroy all ef­fort, de­sire, and af­fec­tion in the es­cape from suf­fer­ing; rather was his teach­ing de­signed to pic­ture to mor­tal man the fu­til­ity of pin­ning all hope and as­pi­ra­tions en­tirely on tem­po­ral goals and ma­te­rial ob­jec­tives. It was not so much that love of one’s fel­lows should be shunned as that the true be­liever should also look be­yond the as­so­ci­a­tions of this ma­te­rial world to the re­al­i­ties of the eter­nal fu­ture.

94:8.9The moral com­mand­ments of Gau­tama’s preach­ment were five in num­ber:

94:8.101. You shall not kill.

94:8.112. You shall not steal.

94:8.123. You shall not be un­chaste.

94:8.134. You shall not lie.

94:8.145. You shall not drink in­tox­i­cat­ing liq­uors.

94:8.15There were sev­eral ad­di­tional or sec­ondary com­mand­ments, whose ob­ser­vance was op­tional with be­liev­ers.

94:8.16Sid­dhartha hardly be­lieved in the im­mor­tal­ity of the hu­man per­son­al­ity; his phi­los­o­phy only pro­vided for a sort of func­tional con­ti­nu­ity. He never clearly de­fined what he meant to in­clude in the doc­trine of Nir­vana. The fact that it could the­o­ret­i­cally be ex­pe­ri­enced dur­ing mor­tal ex­is­tence would in­di­cate that it was not viewed as a state of com­plete an­ni­hi­la­tion. It im­plied a con­di­tion of su­preme en­light­en­ment and su­per­nal bliss wherein all fet­ters bind­ing man to the ma­te­rial world had been bro­ken; there was free­dom from the de­sires of mor­tal life and de­liv­er­ance from all dan­ger of ever again ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in­car­na­tion.

94:8.17Ac­cord­ing to the orig­i­nal teach­ings of Gau­tama, sal­va­tion is achieved by hu­man ef­fort, apart from di­vine help; there is no place for sav­ing faith or prayers to super­hu­man pow­ers. Gau­tama, in his at­tempt to min­i­mize the su­per­sti­tions of In­dia, en­deav­ored to turn men away from the bla­tant claims of mag­i­cal sal­va­tion. And in mak­ing this ef­fort, he left the door wide open for his suc­ces­sors to mis­in­ter­pret his teach­ing and to pro­claim that all hu­man striv­ing for at­tain­ment is dis­taste­ful and painful. His fol­low­ers over­looked the fact that the high­est hap­pi­ness is linked with the in­tel­li­gent and en­thu­si­as­tic pur­suit of wor­thy goals, and that such achieve­ments con­sti­tute true prog­ress in cos­mic self-re­al­iza­tion.

94:8.18The great truth of Sid­dhartha’s teach­ing was his procla­ma­tion of a uni­verse of ab­so­lute jus­tice. He taught the best god­less phi­los­o­phy ever in­vented by mor­tal man; it was the ideal hu­man­ism and most ef­fec­tively re­moved all grounds for su­per­sti­tion, mag­i­cal rit­u­als, and fear of ghosts or demons.

94:8.19The great weak­ness in the orig­i­nal gospel of Bud­dhism was that it did not pro­duce a re­li­gion of un­selfish so­cial ser­vice. The Bud­dhis­tic broth­er­hood was, for a long time, not a fra­ter­nity of be­liev­ers but rather a com­mu­nity of stu­dent teach­ers. Gau­tama for­bade their re­ceiv­ing money and thereby sought to pre­vent the growth of hi­er­ar­chal ten­den­cies. Gau­tama him­self was highly so­cial; in­deed, his life was much greater than his preach­ment.

92:6.16The great in­ter­na­tional, in­ter­ra­cial faiths are the He­braic, Bud­dhist, Chris­tian, and Is­lamic. Bud­dhism stretches from Cey­lon and Burma through Ti­bet and China to Japan. It has shown an adapt­abil­ity to the mores of many peo­ples that has been equaled only by Chris­tian­ity.

94:7.8Sid­dhartha taught far more truth than has sur­vived in the mod­ern cults bear­ing his name. Mod­ern Bud­dhism is no more the teach­ings of Gau­tama Sid­dhartha than is Chris­tian­ity the teach­ings of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth.

94:9.3Bud­dhism, later on, was much af­fected by Tao­ism in China, Shinto in Japan, and Chris­tian­ity in Ti­bet. Af­ter a thou­sand years, in In­dia Bud­dhism sim­ply with­ered and ex­pired. It be­came Brah­man­ized and later ab­jectly sur­ren­dered to Is­lam, while through­out much of the rest of the Ori­ent it de­gen­er­ated into a rit­ual which Gau­tama Sid­dhartha would never have rec­og­nized.

• salvation from suffering

5:4.5All re­li­gions teach the wor­ship of De­ity and some doc­trine of hu­man sal­va­tion. The Bud­dhist re­li­gion promises sal­va­tion from suf­fer­ing, un­end­ing peace; the Jew­ish re­li­gion promises sal­va­tion from dif­fi­cul­ties, pros­per­ity pred­i­cated on righ­teous­ness; the Greek re­li­gion prom­ised sal­va­tion from dishar­mony, ug­li­ness, by the re­al­iza­tion of beauty; Chris­tian­ity promises sal­va­tion from sin, sanc­tity; Mo­hammedanism pro­vides de­liv­er­ance from the rig­or­ous moral stan­dards of Ju­daism and Chris­tian­ity. The re­li­gion of Je­sus is sal­va­tion from self, de­liv­er­ance from the evils of crea­ture iso­la­tion in time and in eter­nity.

• belief in physical humiliation

89:3.4These olden ideas of self-dis­ci­pline em­braced flog­ging and all sorts of phys­i­cal tor­ture. The priests of the mother cult were es­pe­cially ac­tive in teach­ing the virtue of phys­i­cal suf­fer­ing, set­ting the ex­am­ple by sub­mit­ting them­selves to cas­tra­tion. The He­brews, Hin­dus, and Bud­dhists were earnest devo­tees of this doc­trine of phys­i­cal hu­mil­i­a­tion.

• higher morality but less defined portrayal of God than Hinduism

94:2.8It was dur­ing the times of the writ­ing of the Up­an­ishads that Bud­dhism arose in In­dia. But de­spite its suc­cesses of a thou­sand years, it could not com­pete with later Hin­duism; de­spite a higher moral­ity, its early por­trayal of God was even less well-de­fined than was that of Hin­duism, which pro­vided for lesser and per­sonal de­i­ties. Bud­dhism fi­nally gave way in north­ern In­dia be­fore the on­slaught of a mil­i­tant Is­lam with its clear-cut con­cept of Al­lah as the su­preme God of the uni­verse.

• salvation through belief in Buddha

94:9.1Bud­dhism pros­pered be­cause it of­fered sal­va­tion through be­lief in the Bud­dha, the en­light­ened one. It was more rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Mel­chiz­e­dek truths than any other re­li­gious sys­tem to be found through­out east­ern Asia. But Bud­dhism did not be­come wide­spread as a re­li­gion un­til it was es­poused in self-pro­tec­tion by the low-caste monarch Asoka, who, next to Ikh­na­ton in Egypt, was one of the most re­mark­able civil rulers be­tween Mel­chiz­e­dek and Mi­chael. Asoka built a great In­dian em­pire through the pro­pa­ganda of his Bud­dhist mis­sion­ar­ies. Dur­ing a pe­riod of twenty-five years he trained and sent forth more than sev­en­teen thou­sand mis­sion­ar­ies to the far­thest fron­tiers of all the known world. In one gen­er­a­tion he made Bud­dhism the dom­i­nant re­li­gion of one half the world. It soon be­came es­tab­lished in Ti­bet, Kash­mir, Cey­lon, Burma, Java, Siam, Ko­rea, China, and Japan. And gen­er­ally speak­ing, it was a re­li­gion vastly su­pe­rior to those which it sup­planted or up­stepped.

• return of Buddha’s spirit

94:11.3Some of his later fol­low­ers taught that Sakya­muni Bud­dha’s spirit re­turned pe­ri­od­i­cally to earth as a liv­ing Bud­dha, thus open­ing the way for an in­def­i­nite per­pet­u­a­tion of Bud­dha im­ages, tem­ples, rit­u­als, and im­pos­tor “liv­ing Bud­dhas.” Thus did the re­li­gion of the great In­dian protes­tant even­tu­ally find it­self shack­led with those very cer­e­mo­nial prac­tices and rit­u­al­is­tic in­can­ta­tions against which he had so fear­lessly fought, and which he had so valiantly de­nounced.

• relativity of all truth

94:11.4The great ad­vance made in Bud­dhist phi­los­o­phy con­sisted in its com­pre­hen­sion of the rel­a­tiv­ity of all truth. Through the mech­a­nism of this hy­poth­e­sis Bud­dhists have been able to rec­on­cile and cor­re­late the di­ver­gen­cies within their own re­li­gious scrip­tures as well as the dif­fer­ences be­tween their own and many oth­ers. It was taught that the small truth was for lit­tle minds, the large truth for great minds.

• clear presentation of Adjusters

94:11.5This phi­los­o­phy also held that the Bud­dha (di­vine) na­ture resided in all men; that man, through his own en­deav­ors, could at­tain to the re­al­iza­tion of this in­ner di­vin­ity. And this teach­ing is one of the clear­est pre­sen­ta­tions of the truth of the in­dwelling Ad­justers ever to be made by a Uran­tian re­li­gion.

• isolating self from objective reality

94:11.6But a great lim­i­ta­tion in the orig­i­nal gospel of Sid­dhartha, as it was in­ter­preted by his fol­low­ers, was that it at­tempted the com­plete lib­er­a­tion of the hu­man self from all the lim­i­ta­tions of the mor­tal na­ture by the tech­nique of iso­lat­ing the self from ob­jec­tive re­al­ity. True cos­mic self-re­al­iza­tion re­sults from iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with cos­mic re­al­ity and with the fi­nite cos­mos of en­ergy, mind, and spirit, bounded by space and con­di­tioned by time.

• “many Buddhas” teaching; anyone could aspire to become a Buddha

94:11.102. The many Bud­dhas. It was rea­soned that, if Gau­tama had come to the peo­ples of In­dia, then, in the re­mote past and in the re­mote fu­ture, the races of man­kind must have been, and un­doubt­edly would be, blessed with other teach­ers of truth. This gave rise to the teach­ing that there were many Bud­dhas, an un­lim­ited and in­fi­nite num­ber, even that any­one could as­pire to be­come one—to at­tain the di­vin­ity of a Bud­dha.

• all Buddhas manifest Absolute Buddha

94:11.113. The Ab­so­lute Bud­dha. By the time the num­ber of Bud­dhas was ap­proach­ing in­fin­ity, it be­came nec­es­sary for the minds of those days to re­unify this un­wieldy con­cept. Ac­cord­ingly it be­gan to be taught that all Bud­dhas were but the man­i­fes­ta­tion of some higher essence, some Eter­nal One of in­fi­nite and un­qual­i­fied ex­is­tence, some Ab­so­lute Source of all re­al­ity. From here on, the De­ity con­cept of Bud­dhism, in its high­est form, be­comes di­vorced from the hu­man per­son of Gau­tama Sid­dhartha and casts off from the an­thro­po­mor­phic lim­i­ta­tions which have held it in leash. This fi­nal con­cep­tion of the Bud­dha Eter­nal can well be iden­ti­fied as the Ab­so­lute, some­times even as the in­fi­nite I AM.

94:11.12While this idea of Ab­so­lute De­ity never found great pop­u­lar fa­vor with the peo­ples of Asia, it did en­able the in­tel­lec­tu­als of these lands to unify their phi­los­o­phy and to har­mo­nize their cos­mol­ogy. The con­cept of the Bud­dha Ab­so­lute is at times quasi-per­sonal, at times wholly im­per­sonal—even an in­fi­nite cre­ative force. Such con­cepts, though help­ful to phi­los­o­phy, are not vi­tal to re­li­gious de­vel­op­ment. Even an an­thro­po­mor­phic Yah­weh is of greater re­li­gious value than an in­finitely re­mote Ab­so­lute of Bud­dhism or Brah­man­ism.

94:11.13At times the Ab­so­lute was even thought of as con­tained within the in­fi­nite I AM. But these spec­u­la­tions were chill com­fort to the hun­gry mul­ti­tudes who craved to hear words of prom­ise, to hear the sim­ple gospel of Salem, that faith in God would as­sure di­vine fa­vor and eter­nal sur­vival.

• all Buddhas manifest Absolute Buddha
• contaminated by superstition and sublimation of Gautama as Eternal Buddha

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.

• adherents free to choose truth from all religions

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.]

• great and beautiful philosophy without God

103:9.3Bud­dhism in its orig­i­nal form is one of the best re­li­gions with­out a God which has arisen through­out all the evo­lu­tion­ary his­tory of Uran­tia, al­though, as this faith de­vel­oped, it did not re­main god­less. Re­li­gion with­out faith is a con­tra­dic­tion; with­out God, a philo­sophic in­con­sis­tency and an in­tel­lec­tual ab­sur­dity.

• trinitarian doctrine

104:1.6The Bud­dhist faith de­vel­oped two doc­trines of a trini­tar­ian na­ture: The ear­lier was Teacher, Law, and Broth­er­hood; that was the pre­sen­ta­tion made by Gau­tama Sid­dhartha. The later idea, de­vel­op­ing among the north­ern branch of the fol­low­ers of Bud­dha, em­braced Su­preme Lord, Holy Spirit, and In­car­nate Sav­ior.

• great and beautiful philosophy without God

131:3.1Ga­nid was shocked to dis­cover how near Bud­dhism came to be­ing a great and beau­ti­ful re­li­gion with­out God, with­out a per­sonal and uni­ver­sal De­ity. How­ever, he did find some rec­ord of cer­tain ear­lier be­liefs which re­flected some­thing of the in­flu­ence of the teach­ings of the Mel­chiz­e­dek mis­sion­ar­ies who con­tin­ued their work in In­dia even to the times of Bud­dha. Je­sus and Ga­nid col­lected the fol­low­ing state­ments from the Bud­dhist lit­er­a­ture:

• great and beautiful philosophy without God

132:7.5“You see, Gonod, Bud­dha knew God in spirit but failed clearly to dis­cover him in mind; the Jews dis­cov­ered God in mind but largely failed to know him in spirit. To­day, the Bud­dhists floun­der about in a phi­los­o­phy with­out God, while my peo­ple are piteously en­slaved to the fear of a God with­out a sav­ing phi­los­o­phy of life and lib­erty. You have a phi­los­o­phy with­out a God; the Jews have a God but are largely with­out a phi­los­o­phy of liv­ing as re­lated thereto. Bud­dha, fail­ing to en­vi­sion God as a spirit and as a Fa­ther, failed to pro­vide in his teach­ing the moral en­ergy and the spir­i­tual driv­ing power which a re­li­gion must pos­sess if it is to change a race and ex­alt a na­tion.”

131:3.2“Out of a pure heart shall glad­ness spring forth to the In­fi­nite; all my be­ing shall be at peace with this super­mor­tal re­joic­ing. My soul is filled with con­tent, and my heart over­flows with the bliss of peace­ful trust. I have no fear; I am free from anx­i­ety. I dwell in se­cu­rity, and my en­e­mies can­not alarm me. I am sat­is­fied with the fruits of my con­fi­dence. I have found the ap­proach to the Im­mor­tal easy of ac­cess. I pray for faith to sus­tain me on the long jour­ney; I know that faith from be­yond will not fail me. I know my breth­ren will pros­per if they be­come im­bued with the faith of the Im­mor­tal, even the faith that cre­ates mod­esty, up­right­ness, wis­dom, cour­age, knowl­edge, and per­se­ver­ance. Let us for­sake sor­row and dis­own fear. By faith let us lay hold upon true righ­teous­ness and gen­uine man­li­ness. Let us learn to med­i­tate on jus­tice and mercy. Faith is man’s true wealth; it is the en­dow­ment of virtue and glory.

131:3.3“Un­righ­teous­ness is con­temptible; sin is de­spi­ca­ble. Evil is de­grad­ing, whether held in thought or wrought out in deeds. Pain and sor­row fol­low in the path of evil as the dust fol­lows the wind. Hap­pi­ness and peace of mind fol­low pure think­ing and vir­tu­ous liv­ing as the shadow fol­lows the sub­stance of ma­te­rial things. Evil is the fruit of wrongly di­rected think­ing. It is evil to see sin where there is no sin; to see no sin where there is sin. Evil is the path of false doc­trines. Those who avoid evil by see­ing things as they are gain joy by thus em­brac­ing the truth. Make an end of your mis­ery by loathing sin. When you look up to the No­ble One, turn away from sin with a whole heart. Make no apol­ogy for evil; make no ex­cuse for sin. By your ef­forts to make amends for past sins you ac­quire strength to re­sist fu­ture ten­den­cies thereto. Re­straint is born of re­pen­tance. Leave no fault un­con­fessed to the No­ble One.

131:3.4“Cheer­ful­ness and glad­ness are the re­wards of deeds well done and to the glory of the Im­mor­tal. No man can rob you of the lib­erty of your own mind. When the faith of your re­li­gion has eman­ci­pated your heart, when the mind, like a moun­tain, is set­tled and im­mov­able, then shall the peace of the soul flow tran­quilly like a river of wa­ters. Those who are sure of sal­va­tion are for­ever free from lust, envy, ha­tred, and the delu­sions of wealth. While faith is the en­ergy of the bet­ter life, nev­er­the­less, must you work out your own sal­va­tion with per­se­ver­ance. If you would be cer­tain of your fi­nal sal­va­tion, then make sure that you sin­cerely seek to ful­fill all righ­teous­ness. Cul­ti­vate the as­sur­ance of the heart which springs from within and thus come to en­joy the ec­stasy of eter­nal sal­va­tion.

131:3.5“No re­li­gion­ist may hope to at­tain the en­light­en­ment of im­mor­tal wis­dom who per­sists in be­ing sloth­ful, in­do­lent, fee­ble, idle, shame­less, and self­ish. But whoso is thought­ful, pru­dent, re­flec­tive, fer­vent, and earnest—even while he yet lives on earth—may at­tain the su­preme en­light­en­ment of the peace and lib­erty of di­vine wis­dom. Re­mem­ber, ev­ery act shall re­ceive its re­ward. Evil re­sults in sor­row and sin ends in pain. Joy and hap­pi­ness are the out­come of a good life. Even the evil­doer en­joys a sea­son of grace be­fore the time of the full ripen­ing of his evil deeds, but in­evitably there must come the full har­vest of evil-do­ing. Let no man think lightly of sin, say­ing in his heart: ‘The penalty of wrong­do­ing shall not come near me.’ What you do shall be done to you, in the judg­ment of wis­dom. In­jus­tice done to your fel­lows shall come back upon you. The crea­ture can­not es­cape the des­tiny of his deeds.

131:3.6“The fool has said in his heart, ‘Evil shall not over­take me’; but safety is found only when the soul craves re­proof and the mind seeks wis­dom. The wise man is a no­ble soul who is friendly in the midst of his en­e­mies, tran­quil among the tur­bu­lent, and gen­er­ous among the grasp­ing. Love of self is like weeds in a goodly field. Self­ish­ness leads to grief; per­pet­ual care kills. The tamed mind yields hap­pi­ness. He is the great­est of war­riors who over­comes and sub­dues him­self. Re­straint in all things is good. He alone is a su­pe­rior per­son who es­teems virtue and is ob­ser­vant of his duty. Let not anger and hate mas­ter you. Speak harshly of no one. Con­tent­ment is the great­est wealth. What is given wisely is well saved. Do not to oth­ers those things you would not wish done to you. Pay good for evil; over­come evil with the good.

131:3.7“A righ­teous soul is more to be de­sired than the sov­er­eignty of all the earth. Im­mor­tal­ity is the goal of sin­cer­ity; death, the end of thought­less liv­ing. Those who are earnest die not; the thought­less are dead al­ready. Blessed are they who have in­sight into the death­less state. Those who tor­ture the liv­ing will hardly find hap­pi­ness af­ter death. The un­selfish go to heaven, where they re­joice in the bliss of in­fi­nite lib­er­al­ity and con­tinue to in­crease in no­ble gen­eros­ity. Ev­ery mor­tal who thinks righ­teously, speaks nobly, and acts un­selfishly shall not only en­joy virtue here dur­ing this brief life but shall also, af­ter the dis­so­lu­tion of the body, con­tinue to en­joy the de­lights of heaven.”

92:6.53. Bud­dhism.

• Nanak incorporated into Sikhism

92:5.157. The fif­teenth cen­tury af­ter Christ. This pe­riod wit­nessed two re­li­gious move­ments: the dis­rup­tion of the unity of Chris­tian­ity in the Oc­ci­dent and the syn­the­sis of a new re­li­gion in the Ori­ent. In Eu­rope in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized Chris­tian­ity had at­tained that de­gree of in­elas­tic­ity which ren­dered fur­ther growth in­com­pat­i­ble with unity. In the Ori­ent the com­bined teach­ings of Is­lam, Hin­duism, and Bud­dhism were syn­the­sized by Nanak and his fol­low­ers into Sikhism, one of the most ad­vanced re­li­gions of Asia.

• Nanak incorporated into Sikhism

92:7.2New re­li­gions can­not be in­vented; they are ei­ther evolved, or else they are sud­denly re­vealed. All new evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gions are merely ad­vanc­ing ex­pres­sions of the old be­liefs, new adap­ta­tions and ad­just­ments. The old does not cease to ex­ist; it is merged with the new, even as Sikhism bud­ded and blos­somed out of the soil and forms of Hin­duism, Bud­dhism, Is­lam, and other con­tem­po­rary cults. Prim­i­tive re­li­gion was very demo­cratic; the sav­age was quick to bor­row or lend. Only with re­vealed re­li­gion did au­to­cratic and in­tol­er­ant the­o­logic ego­tism ap­pear.

• Gautama formulated philosophy of

94:7.2Gau­tama for­mu­lated those the­o­ries which grew into the phi­los­o­phy of Bud­dhism af­ter six years of the fu­tile prac­tice of Yoga. Sid­dhartha made a de­ter­mined but un­avail­ing fight against the grow­ing caste sys­tem. There was a lofty sin­cer­ity and a unique un­selfish­ness about this young prophet prince that greatly ap­pealed to the men of those days. He de­tracted from the prac­tice of seek­ing in­di­vid­ual sal­va­tion through phys­i­cal af­flic­tion and per­sonal pain. And he ex­horted his fol­low­ers to carry his gospel to all the world.

94:9.2The spread of Bud­dhism from its home­land in In­dia to all of Asia is one of the thrilling sto­ries of the spir­i­tual de­vo­tion and mis­sion­ary per­sis­tence of sin­cere re­li­gion­ists. The teach­ers of Gau­tama’s gospel not only braved the per­ils of the over­land car­a­van routes but faced the dan­gers of the China Seas as they pur­sued their mis­sion over the Asi­atic con­ti­nent, bring­ing to all peo­ples the mes­sage of their faith. But this Bud­dhism was no longer the sim­ple doc­trine of Gau­tama; it was the mira­c­ulized gospel which made him a god. And the far­ther Bud­dhism spread from its high­land home in In­dia, the more un­like the teach­ings of Gau­tama it be­came, and the more like the re­li­gions it sup­planted, it grew to be.

94:9.4In the south the fun­da­men­tal­ist stereo­type of the teach­ings of Sid­dhartha per­sisted in Cey­lon, Burma, and the Indo-China penin­sula. This is the Hi­nayana di­vi­sion of Bud­dhism which clings to the early or aso­cial doc­trine.

94:9.5But even be­fore the col­lapse in In­dia, the Chi­nese and north In­dian groups of Gau­tama’s fol­low­ers had be­gun the de­vel­op­ment of the Ma­hayana teach­ing of the “Great Road” to sal­va­tion in con­trast with the purists of the south who held to the Hi­nayana, or “Lesser Road.” And these Ma­hayanists cast loose from the so­cial lim­i­ta­tions in­her­ent in the Bud­dhist doc­trine, and ever since has this north­ern di­vi­sion of Bud­dhism con­tin­ued to evolve in China and Japan.

94:9.6Bud­dhism is a liv­ing, grow­ing re­li­gion to­day be­cause it suc­ceeds in con­serv­ing many of the high­est moral val­ues of its ad­her­ents. It pro­motes calm­ness and self-con­trol, aug­ments seren­ity and hap­pi­ness, and does much to pre­vent sor­row and mourn­ing. Those who be­lieve this phi­los­o­phy live bet­ter lives than many who do not.

• amalgamated with disintegrating Taoism
• fitted well into religious customs of yellow race

94:11.1Bud­dhism en­tered China in the first mil­len­nium af­ter Christ, and it fit­ted well into the re­li­gious cus­toms of the yel­low race. In an­ces­tor wor­ship they had long prayed to the dead; now they could also pray for them. Bud­dhism soon amal­ga­mated with the lin­ger­ing rit­u­al­is­tic prac­tices of dis­in­te­grat­ing Tao­ism. This new syn­thetic re­li­gion with its tem­ples of wor­ship and def­i­nite re­li­gious cer­e­mo­nial soon be­came the gen­er­ally ac­cepted cult of the peo­ples of China, Ko­rea, and Japan.

132:7.3It was on the visit to Switzer­land, up in the moun­tains, that Je­sus had an all-day talk with both fa­ther and son about Bud­dhism. Many times Ga­nid had asked Je­sus di­rect ques­tions about Bud­dha, but he had al­ways re­ceived more or less eva­sive replies. Now, in the pres­ence of the son, the fa­ther asked Je­sus a di­rect ques­tion about Bud­dha, and he re­ceived a di­rect re­ply. Said Gonod: “I would re­ally like to know what you think of Bud­dha.” And Je­sus an­swered:

132:7.4“Your Bud­dha was much bet­ter than your Bud­dhism. Bud­dha was a great man, even a prophet to his peo­ple, but he was an or­phan prophet; by that I mean that he early lost sight of his spir­i­tual Fa­ther, the Fa­ther in heaven. His ex­pe­ri­ence was tragic. He tried to live and teach as a mes­sen­ger of God, but with­out God. Bud­dha guided his ship of sal­va­tion right up to the safe har­bor, right up to the en­trance to the haven of mor­tal sal­va­tion, and there, be­cause of faulty charts of nav­i­ga­tion, the good ship ran aground. There it has rested these many gen­er­a­tions, mo­tion­less and al­most hope­lessly stranded. And thereon have many of your peo­ple re­mained all these years. They live within hail­ing dis­tance of the safe wa­ters of rest, but they refuse to en­ter be­cause the no­ble craft of the good Bud­dha met the mis­for­tune of ground­ing just out­side the har­bor. And the Bud­dhist peo­ples never will en­ter this har­bor un­less they aban­don the philo­sophic craft of their prophet and seize upon his no­ble spirit. Had your peo­ple re­mained true to the spirit of Bud­dha, you would have long since en­tered your haven of spirit tran­quil­lity, soul rest, and as­sur­ance of sal­va­tion.

• Mahayana › myth of divine Gautama

94:11.2While in some re­spects it is un­for­tu­nate that Bud­dhism was not car­ried to the world un­til af­ter Gau­tama’s fol­low­ers had so per­verted the tra­di­tions and teach­ings of the cult as to make of him a di­vine be­ing, nonethe­less this myth of his hu­man life, em­bel­lished as it was with a mul­ti­tude of mir­a­cles, proved very ap­peal­ing to the au­di­tors of the north­ern or Ma­hayana gospel of Bud­dhism.