THE METAPHYSIC
OF
CHRISTIANITY
AND
BUDDHISM.

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CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM.

Chapter I.

JESUS AND GOTAMA.

"For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?"—Bible.

In any attempt to appreciate the relationship of Christianity to Buddhism it is important to bear in mind, not only the differences which have characterized the process of their evolution, but also to recognize that the two religions are, in their origin, distinct as to time and locale; that they developed on different soils, and have borne fruit of very different kinds; and that the races which subsequently appropriated them as religious systems were in many respects dissimilar, and lived under widely divergent conditions. Only by regarding these religions as growing apart, and in no manner connected in this sense, can we ultimately arrive at a just and logical estimate of the character of the founders.

It is not by confounding their sources at the start, or by attempting to prove that the one system is a product of the other, that we can in the end draw closer the bonds which seem to unite them. A consideration of almost equal weight is that of the dual nature of the great personalities of Jesus and Gotama. We must not confuse the significance of the term "God" with the man Jesus, nor the mystical principle embodied in the title "Buddha" with the personal and[Pg 2] human Gotama. Both Jesus as God and Gotama as Buddha are dual personalities, and combine in themselves tangible and intangible realities. The former is to be regarded as man and God, the latter as Gotama and Buddha.

But, while wishing to emphasize the fact of the independent origin of Christianity and Buddhism, I have no intention of combating the fact that a spurious Buddhism had, in the garb of Essenism, established a footing in Palestine at a date anterior to the Christian era, and that, under the influence of St. John the Baptist, the recognized leader of the Essenes, a way was prepared and made ready for the great light which was to shine forth afresh in the majestic humanity of Jesus. The presence of Essene Buddhists in Palestine at that date is a matter of history, and has been clearly established by prominent Oriental scholars. Moreover, the Church of England itself has, through the medium of some of its most reliable authorities, openly acquiesced in the fact.

The Essenes, who were, from the second century before Christ onwards, domiciled in the Holy Land, although virtually Buddhists, do not seem to have preserved intact the tenets of Gotama, though the ethics remained unadulterated. They retained many of the qualities of the monastic Buddhists, such as asceticism, brotherly love, a rare benevolence towards mankind in general, and the still rarer consideration for animal life. Nor was any departure made from the vows of chastity, the belief in the transitory nature of things, and in their attitude of non-resistance to evil. It was rather with regard to metaphysical obscurities that they wandered from the strict teaching of Gotama; and we cannot wonder that such was the case when we remember the doubts, difficulties, and uncertainties that must have beset the paths of these followers of Gotama when they had no longer the Enlightened One to point to them the way of truth.

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Especially do they seem to have gone astray in the matter of the doctrine of the soul. This they described "as coming from the subtlest ether, and as lured by the sorcery of nature into the prison-house of the body." The Essenes derived their Buddhistic tenets and practices directly from Gnosticism, which is said to have prevailed in Alexandria two centuries before the birth of Christ, and its existence in that city owed its origin to the importation of Buddhism from India, constant communication having been established in those days between Egypt and the West Coast of India as far north as the mouths of the Indus.

Further, the edicts of King Asoka go to prove that at about this time he was on intimate terms and in frequent correspondence with the Greeks; also, that during his reign and under his royal patronage Buddhist missionaries found their way to Egypt, and there scattered the seed from which arose the Gnostics, or Therapeuts, and the kindred sect of the Essenes.

Mr. Arthur Lillie, in his Buddhism in Christendom, p. 75, writes: "The most subtle thinker of the modern English Church, the late Dean Mansel, boldly maintained that the philosophy and rites of the Therapeuts of Alexandria were due to Buddhist missionaries who visited Egypt within two centuries of the time of Alexander the Great. In this he has been supported by philosophers of the calibre of Schelling and Schopenhauer and the great Sanscrit authority Lassen. Renan, in his work Les Langues Sémétiques, also sees traces of this Buddhist propagandism in Palestine before the Christian era. Hilgenfeld, Mutter, Bohlen, King, all admit the Buddhist influence. Colebrooke saw a striking similarity between the Buddhist philosophy and that of the Pythagoreans. Dean Milman was convinced that the Therapeuts sprung from the 'contemplative and indolent fraternities' of India."

When we travel back from Essenism to Gnosticism we approach nearer geographically and conceptionally to the[Pg 4] source from which they both originated. Gnosticism, however, presumes to tell us more than Gotama chose to reveal as to the beginnings of things, and enters into details about various spiritual emanations which are at variance with any inferences that can be legitimately drawn from early Buddhism.

In the Encyclopædia Britannica, under "Gnosticism," we read: "The Supreme Being, according to Gnosticism, was regarded as wholly inconceivable and indescribable; as the Unfathomable Abyss; the Unnameable. From this transcendant source existence sprang by emanation in a series of spiritual powers. It was only through these several powers that the Infinite passed into life and activity, and became capable of representation. To this higher world was given the name of Pleroma, and the divine powers composing it in their ever-expanding procession from the Highest were called Æons."

Jesus, according to the Gnostic conception, was one of these higher Æons or Buddhas "proceeding from the Kingdom of Light for the redemption of this lower Kingdom of Darkness."

If the above was whittled down to the bare statement that the Boundless, to be made perceptible, had to become active and creative, and that thus it happened that the Boundless was manifested by and in the universe, Gnosticism, on this point, would not greatly differ from what was probably in the mind of Gotama when he pointed out that the Uncreated or Unproduced must have existence, otherwise the created, the produced, could not be.

In face of the historically-established fact that Buddhism had reached Palestine before the Christian era had commenced, and that Buddhistic influences were widely disseminated throughout the Holy Land when Jesus arose upon the scene, I wish to maintain that Jesus, although nurtured in the mixed society of ceremonial and Essenic Jews, cannot be claimed as belonging to the Essenes or[Pg 5] any other sect after he emerged from his long retirement and commenced his ministry. During the time of his withdrawal from publicity it must be assumed that he was growing in wisdom, and continued to do so until the perfect enlightenment came to him, when the Holy Ghost descended upon him, and he knew himself to be the Son and symbol of God, and, as such, capable of revealing the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven to those who had ears to hear and eyes to see. This view, or reading, of the Scriptures was the cardinal tenet of the adoptionist Christology of the Paulician school in Armenia.

Jesus, as human, was undoubtedly begotten, not made, and died. Jesus, as divine, became so, not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into God—first the natural, after that the spiritual, as St. Paul says. Jesus, as God, was immortal.

Jesus, as a perfected soul on earth, was a presentation of the Logos, in the sense given to this term by Dr. Paul Carus, "as forms of speech," which, containing in words eternal truth, is the most important part of the human soul, when soul is regarded as the formative factors of the various forms and their relations that have been evolving, and are constantly evolving and re-evolving. Jesus was, in this respect, altogether independent of his entourage, although a part of it in all other relations. He utilized what was good and answered his purpose in the tenets of the several sections of the society in which he moved. He was an eclectic, and stood midway between mystical and anti-mystical Israel.

The Essenes, as already stated, derived their doctrines and customs chiefly from the Gnostics of Egypt, and the origin of the latter has been traced to the propagation of Buddhism by Indian missionaries sent to Egypt in the time of King Asoka.

Now, Gotama Buddha was, in point of time, an earlier presentation of Logos; and, as Gotama's influences were[Pg 6] at work in Palestine when Jesus appeared, it follows in the natural course of things that Jesus, as a presentation of this same Logos, or Bodhi, would have shown a stronger leaning towards the tenets and practices of the Essenes than towards those of the ceremonial Jews.

The position of Jesus in Palestine closely corresponded with that of Gotama in Hindustan. Gotama was isolated between the ceremonial Brahmin class and the extreme mystical party. He also assimilated, as Jesus did, in furtherance of his mission, some of the tenets of each party, with certain modifications. He shocked the ceremonialists by showing disdain for rites as rites, and estranged himself from the extreme mystical party by refusing to give his imprimatur to factitious asceticism. In the same manner Jesus ignored some of the Essenic restrictions by partaking of wine and animal food.

Brahmanism suffered corruption through the acquisition by the priests of wealth and power. To the endowment of the Christian Church, and the elevation of its priests to temporal sway by the Emperor Constantine, has been attributed the beginning of the decadence of the Christian ideal. The decline of true Buddhism in India was due in a great measure to the munificence of King Asoka, who erected and enriched monasteries and other religious institutions. This led ultimately to many serious abuses, as well as to deviations from the precepts which Gotama had endeavoured to inculcate.

In Palestine, at the commencement of the Christian era, the ceremonial Jews or Pharisees,[D] though a numerically small section, were the dominant party of Judaism, and were represented by dignitaries of an overbearingly proud[Pg 7] demeanour. Suppressed by them, the spirituality of the Essene Buddhists was thrown into the shade, and, when the voice crying in the wilderness was no longer to be heard and the commanding personality of St. John the Essene disappeared from the scene, Essenism as an organization came to an end.

To contend with these ceremonialists of Palestine and the corrupt Brahmanism of India, and to further the success of their respective missions in the face of these formidable forces, both Jesus in the one case and Gotama in the other realized the expediency of initiating a mode of proselytism which, by the humble bearing and unworldly aspect of its agents, would differentiate it from the arrogant and exclusive methods of the priestly classes. The missionaries whom these new lights sent forth into the world to propagate the doctrine of salvation received explicit instructions not to provide themselves with gold or silver, or change of raiment and shoes; in fact, they were to pose as examples of that humility and forbearance which was the keynote, in their ethical significance, of the two systems as formulated for the redemption of humanity. In both cases the spell of this evangelism was soon to be lost in a resurgence of the very evils it was intended to suppress—the pride of ecclesiasticism and the ascendancy of ritual—under the widening shadows of which the underlying truths of symbolism became obscured.

As told in the story of the Great Renunciation, Gotama goes into retirement at an early age; Jesus also becomes a recluse. It is probable that he spent the years elapsing between his adolescence and the commencement of his ministry among the Essenes, who dwelt in caves in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, where he would have found ample opportunity for meditation, as well as genial companionship at hand, if desired.

Jesus and Gotama both issued from their retreats and mystic communions, impregnated with a deep sympathy[Pg 8] for a suffering world, for the weary and heavy laden. They both accentuated with the same fervour of conviction the futility of laying up treasure upon earth, and pointed to the same mysterious heaven where true joy alone was to be found. But none of the dicta of Gotama have approached, either in a doctrinal sense or in uncompromising severity, the declaration of the Prophet of Nazareth as to the absolute necessity of renouncing the most sacred family ties before acceptance could be possible as a true and faithful disciple: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple."

The use of vehement declamations of this nature was probably forced upon the speaker by the condition of those days, when it was more than ever necessary to draw a sharp line and to emphasize the depth of the chasm that must divide followers of the ideal from those in thrall to the material. It has been remarked by Mr. Lillie that, if Jesus had had to deal with people in a later or more advanced state of civilization, other methods and other language would in all probability have been used to suit the altered conditions.

The attitude towards relations which Jesus, in the above-quoted passage, seems to have expected a disciple to assume may receive some elucidation from a story told in Visuddhi-Maga, which is headed by the translator, Mr. H. C. Warren,[E] "And Hate Not his Father and Mother." The story, briefly related, is to this effect:—

A young man left his father's house, and, having joined the Buddhist order of mendicants, was lost sight of by his parents. The mother sorrowed for the long absence of her son.

Meanwhile the young monk had been allotted a cell in a certain monastery. But it so happened that this cell had[Pg 9] been provided at the expense of his father, who was a devout layman. When the father heard that the cell had been occupied, he set forth to visit the occupant, and, as was customary, to beg him to seek his alms at his house for a space of three months. The young monk appeared at the door of the cell, in his yellow robe and with shaven head, and, unrecognized by his father, accepted the invitation to receive alms at the house of the layman.

Day after day he attended at the threshold of his father's house, and took food from the hands of his parents. Still the mother continued to grieve for her long-absent son, accounting him dead.

One day, as the monk was returning towards the monastery, after parting on the road with his mother, the latter's brother, an elder, overtook her. She fell at her brother's feet, weeping and lamenting for her son.

"Then thought the elder: 'Surely this lad, through the moderateness of his passions, must have gone away without announcing himself.' And he comforted her, and told her the whole story. The lay woman was pleased, and, lying prostrate, with her face in the direction in which her son had gone, she worshipped, saying: 'Methinks the Blessed One must have had in mind a body of priests like my son when he preached the course of conduct customary with the great saints, showing how to take delight in the cultivation of content.... This man ate for three months in the house of the mother who bore him, and never said, 'I am thy son, and thou art my mother.'... For such a one mother and father are no hindrances, much less any other lay devotees."

On one occasion, when I was privileged to attend an ordination service at Kandy, I was much struck with an incident which occurred at this time-old ceremony. At the conclusion of the service, when the melodious intoning of the celebrants had ceased to reverberate in the solemn ruins of the dimly-lighted aisle, the young initiate was placed at[Pg 10] the bottom of the row of monks, who were seated, cross-legged, in the nave of the temple. During the service the lay spectators had been railed off at the entrance, which faced the shrine, beneath which the chief abbot presided. But, when the newly-ordained monk had assumed a sitting posture in the place assigned to him, the railing was removed, and his female relations—perhaps his "beloved one" among them—came forward and prostrated themselves at his feet. The initiate sat with downcast eyes, unmoved by the demonstration, recalling to mind one of those statues of Buddha in which the countenance is represented with that abstracted yet compassionate expression so characteristic of the Perfect One. Then also was brought to my recollection that saying of Jesus recorded in the Gospel when he turned towards his mother and exclaimed: "Woman, what have I to do with thee?"

It may, I think, be indisputably affirmed that the deep insight of these great reformers into the problems of life, the profound impression they made upon a vain world, their sublimated ideas, their superhuman influences, their stainless lives—that all these proclaim them to have been veritable embodiments of the mystic Sophia and one with God. Separated only by the time appointed for their appearance in the world, they were both presentations of the same Logos, called in Buddhistic terminology "Bodhi" or Intelligence. Whether there was a difference between the quality of presentation in the cases of Jesus and Gotama, whether the one produced a more flamboyant light than the other, and in what respects and how the media differed, are questions that can only be answered by Christians and Buddhists themselves, according to the light that is in them.

In the person of Jesus the human became divine. It was not a case of the conversion of the godhead into the flesh.

The whole of the so-called Athanasian Creed, read in the light of positive psychology, appears to be a statement of[Pg 11] many important truths, and, for all we know, it may be literally true that, unless a man makes this creed his own and acts up to it, he cannot be saved in the sense indicated. The creed is applicable to the needs of the whole world, and, therefore, is rightly called the Catholic faith. Unfortunately its patristic terminology has led the unenlightened to conclude that it is exclusive and sectarian; consequently, many earnest Christians have evinced an inclination to reject it, and efforts have been made to have it expunged from the Liturgy of the Church of England.

Although it may be accepted as a true statement that the typical Hindu mind, which ranges over such a vast area of speculation, will never be induced by missionary zeal to confine itself within the apparently limited formulæ of Christian doctrine, it must not be overlooked that even the symbolism of Christianity represents and covers a shoreless ocean in which thought can disport itself without ever coming into contact with the limitations of the concrete. The Hindu mind binds itself, as it has been said of Art, to no creeds, no articles of faith, no schemes of salvation, no confessions. It cannot by its very nature. The unconditioned is its country, its native land, its home.

Christ rose from the dead, as the purified soul of man will at last be detached from the conditioned, though still remaining a quality of the conditioned. The Christ principle, the Comforter, or the Holy Ghost, does not, with the ascension of Christ, leave us comfortless, but stays with us to the end.

With regard to the posthumous appearance of Jesus and all phenomena of a like nature, it is not easy to find room in positive psychology for such a thing as a docetic body; yet it would seem absolutely needful for the logical expansion of such a science to include, as a speculative possibility, the seeming existence of loose integrations of matter with apparent form and outline, of vaporous counterparts of animal organisms, of aspects of matter not familiar to mankind,[Pg 12] having a place in the general scheme of the apparitional world.[F]

Further, unless we doggedly refuse to rely on the published experiences of eminent and trustworthy men, such as Mr. Myers and his associates, the case of Mrs. Piper must be taken au sérieux. Those who accept an animistic solution have undoubtedly cleared a fence, but there still remains an obstacle before them in the shape of the definition of "spirit."

In seeking for an interpretation that will harmonize with the general tenor of Buddhistic philosophy and positive psychology, it is incumbent that the irrefragable "Law of Causation," à l'œuvre in the phenomenal world, should be taken into account, and any attempted effort of explanation of unfamiliar powers, such as those exhibited by mediums, demands that a place should be found for them in the mosaic of cause and effect. Mediumistic powers, it seems to me, are merely an extension of the faculty of expression-reading. Efferent nerves discharge impressions which can be read. Everyone, more or less, can read the expressions of a face, and learn thereby, to a limited and imperfect extent, the thoughts of an individual. In the case of the medium, the terminal organs of the afferent nerves being hyper-sensitive, the medium is able to do more than read in a general way the thought of a person by the impression conveyed through the discharge of the efferent nerves of a person. A medium, therefore, receives, in proportion to the degree of hyper-sensitiveness possessed by the terminal organs of the afferent nerves, the intimate knowledge harboured in the brain-cells of another person, which is constantly being discharged by the efferent nerves of that person. These powers, which I relegate to the realm of[Pg 13] causation, must not be confounded with "Bodhi," or "Logos," which is not subject to any phenomenal law.

The founder of the Brahmo Somaj, Keshub Chunder Sen, idealized Christ as a universal principle in these striking sentences:—

"As the sleeping Logos did Christ live potentially in the Father's bosom, long, long before he came into this world of ours.... Wherever there is intelligence, in all stages of life, where there is the least spark of instinct, there dwells Christ, if Christ is the Logos. In this right and rational view do not the Fathers all agree? Do they not speak of an all-pervading Christ? Do not they bear unequivocal testimony to Christ in Socrates? Even in barbarian philosophy and in all Hellenic literature they saw and adored their Logos, Christ.... I deny and repudiate the little Christ of popular theology, and stand up for a greater Christ, a fuller Christ, a more eternal Christ, a more universal Christ.

"I plead for the eternal Logos of the Fathers, and I challenge the world's assent.

"This is the Christ who was in Greece and Rome, in Egypt and in India. In the bards and the poets of the Rig-Veda was he. He dwelt in Confucius and in Sakya Muni (Gotama Buddha). This is the true Christ, whom I can see everywhere, in all lands and in all times, in Europe and in Asia, in Africa, in America, in ancient and modern times. He is not the monopoly of any nation or creed. All literature, all science, all philosophy, every doctrine that is true, every form of righteousness, every virtue that belongs to the Son, is the true subjective Christ, whom all ages glorify. He is pure intelligence (Bodhi), the word of God, mighty Logos. Scattered in all schools of philosophy and in all religious sects, scattered in all men and women of the East and the West, are multitudinous Christ-principles and fragments of Christ-life, one vast and identical Sonship diversely manifested."

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The writer of an article in a review[G] says that the expression, Logos, is introduced "with startling suddenness by St. John in the exordium of his Gospel, and that there is nothing in the Old Testament or in the Synoptic Gospels to prepare the way for it, or to explain it." He inclines, the writer says, to attribute the introduction of the idea by St. John to the influence of Philo-Judæus, who elaborated it from the account of the Creation given in Genesis, to such an extent that he came to call the Logos, or intermediary power, the Son of God. Philo, after profound meditation, to quote his own words, "heard even a more solemn voice from my soul, accustomed often to be possessed by God and to discourse of things which it knew not, which, if I can, I will recall." Philo, the writer says, must have "observed that the Mosaic cosmogony leaves the modus operandi of creation in obscurity. The account given is 'God said, Let there be light,' and so on. Thus the spoken word of God is represented as the efficient cause of creation. But to attribute speech to the Most High was manifestly a concession to the frailty of the human intellect."

Mr. W. E. Ball concedes that the Logos-idea was prevalent in the East long before the time of the Evangelist, and in this connection he refers to the Vedic vach or speech. This notion also possibly emanated from a cosmogony similar to that found in Genesis. He proceeds to say "that the editors of the Septuagint deliberately set themselves to soften down those passages in the earlier books of the Bible which were conceived to be most open to the charge of anthropomorphism. A single example will suffice. In Exodus xxiv. 9-11 it is related that Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders, ascended Mount Sinai 'and saw the God of Israel.' The Hebrew text is[Pg 15] clear beyond dispute; but in the Septuagint the passage reads, 'and saw the place where the God of Israel stood.'" Then we are referred to the "one living and true God, who, according to the Christian articles of faith, is without body, parts, or passions." As, however, in the Christian Scriptures it was recorded that he had been seen and conversed with, it became necessary to assume an emanation or intermediary power for this speaking and visible phase of God; hence, first, the unpersonified Logos of Philo, and afterwards the Logos made flesh in the person of Jesus according to St. John. The writer thinks that, however much the conception of Philo in the direction of a Logos as the Son of God may be minimized in its importance (on account of Philo's silence on the divine human as a Messiah) with reference to its bearing upon the writings of St. John, there is no doubt that Philo supplied "a theological vocabulary for the expression of Johannine and Pauline doctrine." "St. John grasped Philo's conception of the word as not only the revelation of the silent God, but also as a reflection of the invisible God." "Jesus never described himself as the son of God." Such endeavours, however, as the above to fix the genesis and growth of an idea from a concrete statement in a book, and to hypothecate its translation from one leader of thought to another, leaves out of reckoning the possibility of ideas finding a place in individual minds by means of a mystical faculty, or what is commonly called revelation. This mystical faculty is the power of sublimating ideas, a power, evolved from materialities, that, at a certain stage of thought, produces a capacity for abnormal insight into the nature of things, a capacity that can be developed by training; that is to say, when the faculty of knowledge becomes so far removed from the mechanical influences of the brain that its connection with the nervous system may be considered to be on the verge of absolute severance. This faculty is due to no individualized external power, but is simply a development from the[Pg 16] totality of things, their inherent qualities, their relationship and interactions.

Both Philo and St. John may be credited with the possession of a certain amount of this abnormal power, and considered as presentations of Logos, but not in the same perfection as Jesus and Gotama. "Bôdhi," Dr. Paul Carus says, "is that which conditions the cosmic order of the world and the uniformities of reality. Bôdhi is the everlasting prototype of truth, partial aspects of which are formulated by scientists in the various laws of nature. Above all, Bôdhi is the basis of the Dharma; it is the foundation of religion; it is the objective reality in the constitution of being from which the good law of righteousness is derived; it is the ultimate authority for moral conduct."

It is evident from historical sources that there were many Buddhists living at and after the time of Gotama, when traditions and legends accumulated, who had not assimilated his doctrines in their entirety and purity. So it was in the case of Jesus, whose followers and interpreters arrived at various conclusions in respect of his teaching.

Some who have emancipated themselves from the "letter that kills," and have acquired the power of grasping realities, have conceived the true position of Jesus and Gotama to have been that of clairvoyants, and, consequently, it is not to be expected that a complete mastery of the meaning of their communications would ever be attainable by ordinary human knowledge. This latter conclusion, in respect of Jesus, is most clearly established by passages to be found in the New Testament.

Jesus and Gotama laboured under the same difficulty: they knew more than was translatable into language, or communicable to their followers. Parables were attempted as media for imparting a glimmering of this knowledge to the ignorant and obtuse. Professor Oldenberg says: "When we try to resuscitate, in our own way and our own language, the thoughts that are embedded in the Buddhist teaching, we[Pg 17] can scarcely help forming the impression that it was not a mere idle statement which the sacred texts present to us, that the Perfect One knew much more which he thought inadvisable to say than what he esteemed it profitable to say."

Jesus withheld all explanation as to how evil came into the world. He dealt with it as a fact. He did not even theorize about the origin of evil. He taught, on the principle of his well-known saying, "He that hath ears to hear let him hear." "A careful regard to audience is traceable in his use of apocalyptic language about his second coming; it is to Jews only—the Twelve, or the high priest, or the Sanhedrin, or Nathaniel, the 'Israelite indeed'—that he speaks of cleft heavens, cloud chariots, and attendant troops of angels. With the Roman governor he avoids Jewish metaphors" (Encyclopædia Britannica, "Eschatology").

Both Jesus and Gotama must have realized the hopelessness of imprinting their so-called esoteric teaching (which underlay and intertwined with the ethical) upon the understanding of those who had not cultivated noumenal instincts. Gotama had need, even on his death-bed, to explain everything all over again to his closest companion, the beloved disciple Ananda. In how many ways Jesus endeavoured to convey the meaning of the kingdom of God to his hearers! Yet to this day how few have grasped a fraction of its import. The meaning must be felt rather than understood by the intellect. In fact, it is necessary to become a Parsifal to do so ("for not many wise men after the flesh are called"). Also, one must get as far as possible away from the bondage of the intellect, which handicaps one in the attempt. A full knowledge of such mysteries cannot be attained until the machinery of the brain is left a considerable distance behind; until ideas are no longer in positive connection with the neural vibrations of the brain. The clock cannot hear what is going on around it for the[Pg 18] noise of its ticking. Plotinus says: "To reach the ultimate goal, thought itself must be left behind; for thought is a form of motion, and the desire of the soul is for motionless rest, which belongs to the One."

Neither Jesus nor Gotama committed themselves to writing; hence we are entirely dependent, in our judgment of the purport of their mission, upon the general tenour of communications vouchsafed to us by the special correspondents of their era. It is upon these synoptists and other recorders that people build their theories, and pile up interpretations in various very restricted senses.

But defining is truly dethroning in the cases of Jesus and Gotama. Like the dove in the Song of Solomon, they abide in the clefts of the rocks, in the secret places of the stairs. The suppliant can only satisfy his thirsty soul with an invocation: "Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely!" Theism, Atheism, Deism, and many other 'isms must be cast out of our minds into the bottomless pit before we can hope to place our trembling feet within even the threshold of their presence. There, perforce, we must arrest our progress, lost in transcendent wonder. This, as Carlyle says, is worship in its highest sense.

No allusion was made either by Jesus or Gotama to the miraculous circumstances said to have attended their nativity; and, although there exist no data for the assumption that the historians of the latter were inspired writers like those of the New Testament, the messianic halo with which Buddhist tradition has encircled the figure of Gotama tends to bring together the personalities of the two reformers into closer pictorial relationship. But this blending of the portraiture cannot be taken in any sense as a help towards wheeling into line the psychological forces in the field of inquiry. Nevertheless, the interest attaching to these traditions as coincidental, and the consideration that the date of the Buddhist chronicles is[Pg 19] anterior to that of the New Testament, render them worthy of brief notice.

M. Ernest de Bunsen[H] says: "Among a circle of Indians prophecies were accredited which announced the incarnation of an angel, called the Anointed or Messiah, who should bring to earth the Wisdom or Bôdhi from above, and establish the kingdom of heavenly truth and justice. He would be of royal descent, and genealogies would connect him with his ancestors. The 'Blessed One,' the 'God among Gods,' and the 'Saviour of the World' was, according to Buddhistic records, incarnate by the Holy Ghost, of the royal Virgin Maya, and he was born on Christmas Day, the birthday of the Sun, for which reason the Sun became the symbol of Gotama Buddha. To be like Gotama is to reach the ideal[I] which has been set to humanity, and to be like God. Salvation does not depend on any outward act, but on a change or renewal of the mind, or a reform of the inner nature, or faith in the innate guiding power of God, of which the celestial Buddha, incarnated in Gotama, was held to be the highest organ. The saving faith, therefore, was brought by, and centred in, the incarnate Angel-Messiah, the Saviour of the World. Salvation is by faith, and faith comes by the Maya, the Spirit or Word of God, of which Gotama, the Angel-Messiah, was regarded as the divinely-chosen and incarnate messenger, the Vicar of God, and God himself on earth. According to Chinese-Buddhistic writings, it was the Holy Ghost, or Shing-Su, which descended on the Virgin Maya. The effect produced by this miracle is thus summed up in the most ancient Chinese life of Buddha which we at present possess, translated between A.D. 25 and 190: 'If the child born from this conception be induced to lead a[Pg 20] secular life, he shall become a universal monarch; but if he leaves his home, and becomes a religious person, then he shall become Buddha, and shall save the world.'"

Dr. Paul Carus, in his Buddhism and its Christian Critics, pp. 150-51, says: "According to the orthodox Buddhist conception, there is no doubt about it that the incarnation of Buddha, in the person of Gotama Siddharta, has passed away. Gotama has died, and his body will not be resurrected. But Buddha continues to live in the body of the Dharma—i.e., the law or religion of Buddha; and, in so far as he is the truth, he is immortal and eternal."

"The whole world may break to pieces, but Buddha will not die. The words of Buddha are imperishable."

The idea of the appearance of a periodical Messiah was extant throughout the Jaino-Buddhist times, thousands of years before Gotama Buddha entered upon his mission in the field of religious reformation. "Millions of Buddhists still believe that their Lord will come again to redeem his people, appearing as Maitri."[J] The twenty-three Buddhas who preceded Gotama—"the immortal saints universally acknowledged by the Jains as coming to earth in divers ages to aid and bless mankind"—have been recorded, with their names, fathers' names, and symbols, reaching as far back, it has been calculated, as 6,000 B.C. "The Blessed One said: 'The Buddha that will come after me will be known as Maitrâiya, which means he whose name is Kindness.'"

The conception of a mystical Trinity was introduced into both the Christian and Buddhist systems of belief at a late stage of their development. In the case of Buddhism it arose from the simple formula:—

[Pg 21]

that is, in the Prophet, the Law, and the Church. These afterwards were interpreted to stand for the Self-Existent, the Son (Logos) or Sophia (Wisdom), and the Holy Ghost (or uniting principle).

Gotama has also been said to possess three personalities, and every one of them is of equal importance.[K] "There is the Dhârma Kâya; there is the Nirmâna Kâya; there is the Sambhôga Kâya. Buddha is the all-excellent truth, eternal, omnipresent, and immutable; this is the Sambhôga Kâya, which is in a perfect state of bliss. Buddha is the all-loving teacher, assuming the shape of the beings whom he teaches; this is the Nirmâna Kâya, his apparitional body. Buddha is the all-blessed dispensation of religion; he is the spirit of the Sangha and the meaning of the commands which he has left us in his sacred word, the Dhârma; this is the Dhârma Kâya, the body of the most excellent law."

"It was proclaimed," says Mr. Lillie, "that Gotama possessed a superfluity of good Karma, or Righteousness, which was available for all men to partake of, whereby salvation might be had." He quotes from the Bible as a parallel to this idea: "By the righteousness of one the free gifts came upon all men unto justification of life"; also: "By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."

To be saved by "the blood" in a realistic sense is another way very much accentuated by St. Paul. To be saved through "faith in the blood" has been taken to mean, by some interpreters, through faith in the genealogy, or divine stock, from which Jesus traced his descent, as well as through "faith in the life" (which is the blood)—that is, by following the life-example of the Son, in contradistinction to the idea of salvation through a materialistic reliance on the details of a violent death.

The doctrine of Predestination, which holds such a prominent position in Christian theology, cannot be excluded[Pg 22] altogether from a consideration of Buddhistic philosophy, in which, however, it bears a somewhat different signification. Although both Jesus and Gotama made use of the language of "free-will" as we talk of to-morrow, which never is, one is forced to conclude that, by virtue of their position as manifestations of the Logos, they were both aware of the scientific certainty of the non-existence of what is commonly understood as "free-will." The very fact of the law of causation being the pivot around which Buddhist philosophy revolves seems to assure us that this was, in the knowledge of Gotama, the central law of the Kosmos, and such that it could not be affected by the will of an individual who was not an independent individual, but simply part and parcel of the molecular contents of the apparitional world.

As Gotama recognized that the mind and sense of humanity were so deeply ingrained with the notion of free-will, he was constrained to use the argumentum ad hominem, and outwardly base his ethical system on a free-will which seemed natural to humanity to believe in, but which was nevertheless a delusion.

The several passages in the New Testament in which the doctrine of Predestination is plainly set forth are too well known to necessitate their quotation here. St. Augustine says: "What happens of thee he himself [God] works in thee. Never anything happens of thee which he himself does not work in thee.... Never is anything done by thee unless he works it in thee."[L]

The universal feeling that we possess "free-will" is no proof of its reality, and only on the basis of the axiom that nothing is too unscientific or extraordinary to be possible (which is sound enough) can it be accepted as a possibility. Even Locke could not, for the life of him, reconcile omniscience and free-will, although he believed in both.

[Pg 23]

Taking free-will as a sensation, we must pronounce it to be just as illusory as any other sensation, except as a sensation. On the other hand, the Determinist view cannot be classified as a sensation, but is rather a product of reason. Professor James says: "Genuine Determinism affirms, not the impotence of free-will, but the unthinkability of free-will."

St. Paul writes, with reference to sin: "It is no more I that do it, but sin (or evil Karma) that dwelleth in me." And we are instructed in some parts of the Christian Scripture that all good is of God, and not of ourselves. Here, then, there appears to be a complete obliteration of the idea of free-will in respect of actions either good, bad, or indifferent; and in confirmation of this view it is necessary to remember that the language of free-will was used for convenience sake, that God is distinctly said "to have called those things which be not as though they were." St. Paul says: "The creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly." Possibly he may have had in mind when he delivered this dictum the vanity, or vain conceit, of assuming free-will.

If it be permissible to assert that we exercise no control, in the sense of free-will, over the functions of our digestive organs, which perform their work without our being sensibly conscious of it (except in the case of abnormal disturbance), one would think the assertion might be extended in regard to cerebral functions also. We conceive thought to precede many of our actions, but if thought is the non-spatial accompaniment of cerebral cell-action, and the latter is no more amenable to the control of free-will than our digestive organs are, then those actions which are the sequences of thought cannot be "free-will" actions.

It is generally admitted that there are occasions when an individual acts without exercising free-will; when, for instance, a man loses his head, as the expression goes, in a sudden catastrophe. There are also distinctly involuntary[Pg 24] actions, such as blushing, turning pale, perspiring, etc. It seems, then, that an individual only exercises his will, according to general belief, under certain conditions. But if free-will is acknowledged to be absent under some conditions, may we not reasonably conclude that it may be absent altogether, and only exists as an illusion of the senses?

Anyhow, circumstances—or, in other words, the molecular activities of the universe—appear to be the dominant factor in determining our actions. These activities, when working through cerebral cells, turn out thoughts; when operating through the skin pores, they produce perspiration.

Locke, in his chapter on "Power" (human understanding), seems to draw very near to an admission of Determinism, but then flies away from it, evidently alarmed by the spectre of irresponsibility. He labours to demonstrate that uneasiness or desire determines the will to the successive (so-called) voluntary actions whereof the greatest part of our lives is made up, and by which we are conducted through different causes to different ends. This is, as far as it goes, unadulterated Determinism.

Dr. Paul Carus defines freedom of will as the power to do that which one wills, not as the freedom of a man to will what he wills. Indeterminism he declares to be based upon error, because it attributes to man an exceptional place in the universe. Man is supposed to be exempt from the uniform and inexorable law of cause and effect which rules in the universe. He says: "The decision of a free man depends upon his character"; but character is only the result of innumerable causes, which has become a cause upon which other effects follow, according to the cosmic law of causation, which must include in its impartial sway man as well as all other integrations of matter.

Determinism is morally safe, because man cannot escape from the feeling that he possesses free-will, which, nevertheless, is an illusion, in the sense that "illusions are[Pg 25] ideas that have not originated from the data of experience."

In Light (April 18th, 1898) there is quoted the following, as part of a discourse on "The Evolution of Mind," delivered by Professor Jordan: "The plant searches for food by a movement of the feeding parts alone.... The tender tip is the plant's brain. If locomotion were in question, the plant would need to be differently constructed. It would demand the mechanism of the animal. The nerve, brain, and muscle of the plant are all represented by the tender growing cells of the moving tips. The plant is touched by moisture or sunlight. It 'thinks' of them, and in so doing the cells that are touched and 'think' are turned towards the source of the stimulus. The function of the brain, therefore, in some sense exists in the tree, but there is no need in the tree for a special sensorium."

A comment in Light on this discourse runs as follows: "In higher organisms the mind becomes more and more localized, until in the higher animals it has a special organ—the brain, which, however, is shut up in darkness and 'has no knowledge except such as comes to it from the sense-organs through the ingoing or sensory nerves.' Being filled with these impressions, some of which are actual sensations, while others are memories of past sensations, the brain must make a choice among them by fixation of attention, if it is to act properly. To find data for such a choice is the function of the intellect. This, Dr. Jordan tells us, is the difference between mind and mere instinct, or inherited habits. Mind chooses, instinct cannot, for it is but an automatic mind-process inherited from generation to generation."

It must be remembered, however, that this faculty of choosing, said to be possessed by the brain and acquired by a process of development, is not free, but conditioned. The terminal organs of the afferent nerves also may be said to possess this faculty of choice, yet limited by their qualities and the nature of the external influences to which they are submitted.

[Pg 26]

The admission of a faculty of choice does not involve the idea of absolute freedom, nor need it disturb the Buddhist conception that there exists nothing behind the organism in the shape of an ego-entity, or soul, which chooses or remembers, and that there is no hidden agent which prompts the conveyance of impressions.

If we admit this faculty of choice to be possessed by the brain and terminal organs of the afferent and efferent nerves, it simply involves the concession that the stored-up memories in the brain, and the habits acquired by the muscular organism, as results of past external influences, act in the manner of choice; and in this sense only, it would seem, can the notion of "freedom" be scientifically and logically entertained.

If the faculty of choice, in this restricted sense, as the possession of a pluricellular organism such as man, is accepted in confirmation of the existence of "freedom," then we must accord the possession of "freedom" to the simplest form of life. The cellule composed only of protoplasm and a nucleus possesses the very same faculty.

M. Alfred Binet tells us of the highly-developed psychical functions of the spermatozoid; how it searches out the locality of the ovule situated at a distance; how, with a sense of direction, it traverses the whole length of the intervening space, overcoming all obstacles—which are many—in its path, to attain the desired object; and he maintains that such actions cannot be explained by simple irritability, nor by chemical affinity. The brain may possess this faculty, and the power to carry into effect the choice, as qualities of its mechanism; but there is no discrete entity behind the brain as agent.

"Is it quite certain that, when consciousness seems to affirm that 'I can choose so and so,' it means more than 'it is possible such and such a choice will take place in my mind'? If it does not mean more than this, its affirmation is not against Determinism" (Mind, April, 1898, p. 191).[Pg 27] Even if the faculty of choice is granted, it is limited in the sense that choice does not always produce the effect chosen.

"Locke and Hume say 'Liberty is a power to act as we choose.' But can we choose? Are we the original causes of our choice? And what is the power to which action is subjected? Must it not be subject to some other power, and, therefore, not free, unless it is a self-existent power?"

Enough has been said, perhaps, on this subject to explain the author's position in assuming that both Jesus and Gotama must have been, by necessity of their omniscience, well aware of the truth of Determinism. Yet, having to deal with phenomenal beings, they were constrained to treat them as such, and address them in phenomenal terms, and to lower themselves to the level of those sensations from which the illusive and unconquerable feeling of responsibility arises.

The fact of occult powers having been attributed to Jesus and Gotama makes it necessary to include in this chapter a brief reference to the subject of magic,[M] and to consider in what light we should regard this art in connection with these two characters.

It has been remarked that the opposition to magic has seldom been connected with sceptical doubts as to its reality, and that the distinction drawn between white and black magic was due to the assumption by the priestly class of the sole right to the exercise of magic in their rites, and "hence magicians who were outside the pale of priesthood were called sorcerers, or dealers in black magic." The pages of the Christian Bible are aflame with magic, and, on opening the Old Testament, one seems to stand on the threshold of an unmeasurable cavern, where dreams the Great Magician that inhabiteth Eternity.

No one who has not made of magic, in its several[Pg 28] branches, a close study—who has not literally soaked in mysticism (that "powerful solvent of definite dogma")—or who is not gnomic, intuitionally "in the know" without study, can possibly pose as an authoritative interpreter of God's Holy Word.

An authority on the Hermetic Philosophy says that astrology is to be found "throughout the Bible, from the very first chapter of Genesis, when the stars were set for signs and seasons and days and years, on to the Book of Revelation, where the wonder was seen in heaven, the woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and all the great astrological problems in that book; and the great truth, the Incarnation itself, announced by the star of the Epiphany.... All the occult methods of divination more or less find their place in the Bible and in the scheme of religion. The divination by Urim and Thummin is a well-known form of clairvoyance which is practised now. Joseph's divining-cup was merely a species of magic mirror, the form of which is well known now, and is used by some clairvoyant seers. The use of music by the prophet Elisha, when the kings of Israel and Judah went out against Moab, is precisely the same as is now used by many Spiritualist mediums and seers, though not with the same effect ordinarily. And so one might go on with all the forms of divination. It can be clearly proved that divination by cards was known and practised in Biblical times by the Biblical prophets; all this showing that during the times of the Old Testament, and with commendation from the prophets, and in use by the prophets, were modes of divination which postulated the truth of the Hermetic science."

It stands to reason that Jesus as God, and Gotama as Buddha, must have been acquainted with all the laws of nature, and, consequently, were in full possession of so-called occult powers. The manifestations of these powers enter more largely and distinctly, as true records, into the life of Jesus than into that of Gotama. The acts of Jesus[Pg 29] were one continuous demonstration of occult power, and his disciples were, in a lesser degree, gifted with the same powers.

That which is known as ceremonial magic was not made use of to any extent by Jesus and Gotama as a method or means for the production of these powers. This was not requisite with them, as it is in the case of ordinary individuals, who must have recourse to those aids which have been found by occultists, after long experience, to be the most efficient means of attaining their object.

Clumsier methods have been used with a minimum amount of success; but, if the operator desires to arrive at any degree of perfection in the art, it is just as necessary for him to observe closely the rules laid down by the ceremonialists of magic as it is for a gamekeeper to make use of the accepted symbolism in the training of a retriever—that is, if the object is to accomplish the undertaking with the least trouble and the best results. Jesus and Gotama,[N] on account of their unique position as being en rapport with this power, had no occasion, therefore, to resort to ceremonial magic.

The Indian saint Mozoomdar (whose acquaintance I had the privilege of making in India), in his introductory remarks to The Oriental Christ, a book published by him in 1883, points out how estimates of character vary if viewed from different standpoints, and how, when the singularity of a nature happens to lie in its manysidedness, representations of it may be conflicting, but quite genuine and correct. The whole of the introduction to this work shows such remarkable and original insight into the character of Jesus, as judged from an Oriental point of view, that I cannot forbear to give a few quotations, more especially as they may tend[Pg 30] to help forward the purpose of this chapter by demonstrating how the personalities of Jesus and Gotama are interchangeable under certain aspects in respect of their mystic significance.

Early in the introduction the writer says: "It is held that the celestial figure of the sweet Prophet of Nazareth is illumined with strange and unknown radiance when the light of Oriental faith and mystic devotion is allowed to fall upon it. It is a fact that the greatest religions of the world have sprung from Asia. It has, with some accuracy, been said, therefore, that it is an Asiatic only who can teach religion to Asiatics. In Christ we see not only the exaltedness of humanity, but also the grandeur of which Asiatic nature is susceptible."

In the following very plain terms he distinguishes Christ as the Logos of the Gospel of St. John, with which may be classified the "Bodhi," or Intelligence of the Buddhists: "He was the thought and energy of God. He was the plan of God. He was the light of divine reason and love, as yet involved within the great impenetrable. In that sense the whole universe was at one time merely the thought of the Infinite Being. And every one of us has sprung from the formless ocean of divinity that spread through all."

"John the Baptist," he writes, "had announced the kingdom of heaven. Jesus pointed to it. Pointed where?... He pointed to the kingdom of heaven in his own heart. He pointed to the inner sphere where his disembodied spirit communed with the eternal spirit of life; and, beholding God in him and himself in God, he exclaimed: 'I and my Father are one.'... He also beheld his brethren in him, and cried: 'Abide in me, and I in you.'"

This, the writer says, is pure Idealism, and Christ even idealized his flesh and blood, and administered them to his disciples as a sacrament.

Finally, this enraptured saint of Hindustan places [Pg 31] before the reader two characters in illustration of the distinctions which may be said to exist between Eastern and Western conceptions of Jesus: "One of them is an elaborately learned man, versed in all the principles of theology. His doctrine is historical, exclusive, and arbitrary.... He insists upon plenary inspiration, becomes stern over forms, continually descants on miracles ... condemns men to eternal darkness and death. He continually talks of blood and fire and hell ... he hurls invectives at other men's faith.... All scriptures are false which have grown up outside of his dispensation, climate, and authority.... He is tolerated only because he carries with him the imperial prestige of a conquering race. Can this be the Christ that will save India?

"By his side another figure. He is simple, natural. He is a stranger to the learning of books. Out of the profound, untaught impulses of his soul he speaks.... His doctrines are the simple utterances of a fatherhood which embosoms all the children of men, and a brotherhood which makes all the races of the world one great family.... All nations respond to his mystical utterances about heaven and earth.... His self-immersed air, absent eyes ... which show that his spirit is far, far away, point him out to be the Prophet of the East, the sweet Jesus of the Galilean lake.

"Throughout the whole Eastern world the perfume of his faith and devotion has spread. The wild genius of Mohammed knew and adored him amid the sands of Arabia. The tender, love-intoxicated soul of Hafiz revelled in the sweetness of Christ's piety amid the rosebuds and nightingales of Persia. Look at this picture and upon that.... When we speak of an Eastern Christ we speak of the incarnation of unbounded love and grace; and when we speak of a Western Christ, we speak of the incarnation of theology, formalism, ethical, and physical force. Christ, we know, is neither of the East nor of the West; but men have localized what God meant to make universal."

[Pg 32]

Happily there is no need to substantiate the fact of the immense consolations derived by humanity from the Christian mode of regarding the past, the present, and the future, with all its dazzling possibilities, in the direction of a New Jerusalem; but it must, indeed, seem strange to those nurtured amid Christian influences that a religious system such as Buddhism, which does not recognize a God or Soul or Immortality in the Occidental sense of these terms, should claim to have as its product that cœur léger temperament which is said to be, and to have been, the distinctive characteristic of its countless adherents.

When the mind wanders afar from the dogmatic of the scholiast, the life of Jesus presents itself with a dramatic force of loveliness and grandeur which, of its kind, cannot be surpassed; and the poetic pathos of the New Testament, though not so resonant as that to be found in the pages of such works as Job and the Prophets, possesses a pastoral charm of its own at once soothing and stimulating.

In Buddhistic literature, and in the intensity of Buddhistic thoughts, there are extraordinary and unrivalled beauties which are emphasized in a remarkable manner, in the sympathetic rendering accorded to them by such exponents as Professor Oldenberg and Mr. Lafcadio Hearn. One must be insensitive to a degree if such writers and interpreters of Buddhism do not succeed in striking a chord of overwhelming harmony throughout the system.

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