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{{HPB- | {{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued |The Two Schools of Buddhism|12-86}} | ||
But Max Muller, Rhys-Davids, and others are of opinion that Gnostic Buddhism and the stories of Gautama’s miraculous birth, miracles, and transfiguration were ingrafted on Agnostic Buddhism by the very early Christian missionaries. | |||
This may be a subject beyond finding out; but this may be admitted—that if these early Christian missionaries were men of saintly lives, and with the corresponding gifts of Spirit power, they might have converted Agnostic Buddhists to a form of Christianity. | |||
This explanation, however, does not appear to me to be necessary, for if there be a Divine revelation possible, then it might come in all ages and to every race, to those who, seeking God in prayer and self-abnegation, rose into holy entrancement. | |||
If so, then all revelations in all ages and among all peoples, must have a verisimilitude, moulded or coloured more or less by the age and the local character of the human mind. | |||
My belief would be that Sakya-Muni was a pure, holy, and benevolent man, saturated with the subtle abstract Brahmanism of his race, and that he thus taught a perfect morality united with an abstract theology. | |||
I cannot believe he could have been an Atheist, for no great discovery and no great movement of mankind ever emanated from such a source or from any negation or abyss of emptiness; but that his teaching must have been ambiguous would seem to be proved from the fact that while some Buddhists believe in a personal God and in individual immortality, the bulk of the more educated Buddhists would seem to teach otherwise. | |||
The Hebrew Scriptures ever dogmatically assert the personality of God, although, strange to say, there does not exist one verse in the Old Testament dogmatically teaching the doctrine of a future life, and in the age of Christ there existed the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the one believing in a future life, the other denying the existence of the resurrection and of angels. | |||
Among Christians there are a hundred sects teaching variously as to the nature and teachings of Christ, but all Christians, without exception, believe in a personal God and in a personal immortality. | |||
Mr. Lillie says: “Viewed from the historical side, the following originalities may be accredited to Buddhism.” | |||
1. Enforced vegetarianism for the whole nation. | |||
2. Enforced national abstinence from wine. | |||
3. The abolition of slavery. | |||
4. The forgiveness of injuries. | |||
5. Antagonism to all national religious rites that were opposed to the spiritual development of the individual. | |||
Now, although no one should desire to lessen the merits of the great Gautama-Buddha, yet one may question his claim to originality in these five ideas as above. | |||
1 and 2. Moses, a thousand years before Gautama, enforced vegetarianism and abstinence from intoxicating drinks on the whole Israelitish people during the forty years they wandered in the desert, during which time he laid down and enforced the best hygienic laws and regulations, the merit of which has always been admitted, and the benefits derived from which laws are still visible in the sturdy Jewish race. | |||
3. Moses did not abolish slavery, but he enacted that every seventh year all slaves of the Hebrew race might be manumitted. | |||
4. The forgiveness of injuries was also taught by Moses when he said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” and Solomon, 500 years before Gautama, said, “If thine enemy hunger give him food, and if ho thirst give him drink, and thus heap coals of fire on his head.’’ | |||
5. Antagonism to all rites inimical to the spiritual development of the individual was most emphatically declared by King David 500 years before Gautama, when he says, “The sacrifices of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord,” and again, “The sacrifices of God are a broken and a contrite heart.” | |||
Still more emphatically, Isaiah, 200 years before Gautama, says: “Thus saith the Lord: Bring me no more oblations. Your incense is an abomination to me, your solemn feasts are an abomination. But wash you and make you clean. Cease to do evil, learn to do well, relieve the oppressed, plead the cause of the widow; then, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as wool” | |||
Pythagoras, Daniel, and Gautama would appeal- all to have lived about the same period, viz., about 500 years before Christ, and they would appear to have all three taught doctrines having a close similitude. | |||
In my first paper I made a mistake in saying that Sakya-Muni was the family name. Sakya was the family name, and Muni means the ''silent ''one. We know that the practice of silence was one of the chief teachings of Pythagoras, namely, the silence which leads to that contemplation of God which may result in Nirvana, or spiritual entrancement of the soul in God. | |||
Like Sakya-Muni and Pythagoras, Daniel was a man of contemplation and prayer, a vegetarian, and an abstainer from wine, and all these were, I believe, divine men, having dominion more or less over the lower creation. | |||
Why should these three men not each have drawn his inspiration direct from God, and each of its kind in his own land? Each reached Nirvana, or that divine illumination which is given to the man who, piercing the centre of his God-created being, finds the Divine Light. | |||
. | But while believing that Gautama the Buddha was a man who became a son of God, I yet see that Jesus the Christ was the ultimate revelation in whom is “all the fulness of wisdom and knowledge;” “the only begotten and well beloved Son;’’ “the Word made flesh, which dwelt among us;” “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” for man from henceforth and for ever more, and he by whom “''Immortality is brought to light.”'' | ||
{{HPB-SB-item | {{HPB-SB-item | ||
| volume =12 | | volume =12 | ||
| page =87 | | page =87 | ||
| item = | | item =1 | ||
| type = article | | type = article | ||
| status = | | status = proofread | ||
| continues = | | continues = | ||
| author =Didier, Adolphe | | author =Didier, Adolphe | ||
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| subtitle = | | subtitle = | ||
| untitled = | | untitled = | ||
| source title = | | source title = Light | ||
| source details = | | source details = v. 2, No. 56, January 28, 1882, p. 43 | ||
| publication date = | | publication date = 1882-01-28 | ||
| original date = | | original date = | ||
| notes = | | notes = | ||
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}} | }} | ||
... | A remarkable instance of a physiological effect from psychical cause is recorded in Paris’s “Life of Sir H. Davy.” Early in life Davy was assisting Dr. Beddoes in experiments on the inhalation of nitrous oxide gas. Dr. Beddoes having inferred that it was a specific for palsy, selected a patient for experiment, and put it under the management of Davy. Before administering the gas, he placed the bulb of a small thermometer under the patient’s tongue, wishing to know how the gas might affect his temperature. The paralytic man, ignorant of the process to which he was to submit, but impressed by Dr. Beddoes with the certainty of its success, no sooner felt the thermometer pass his teeth than he imagined the talisman in operation and declared that he felt its influence through his whole body. Davy thought he would then do nothing more, and desired him to return the next day. The thermometer was again applied with similar good result. At the end of a fortnight he was well. Here was a case of imagination excited and setting will into action upon the torpid part of the organisation. | ||
Dr. Gairdner in his work on “Gout’’ gives the case of a member of the Stock Exchange who was crippled by gout, and was seldom seen except wrapped in flannels in his chimney corner. Experiencing a great reverse of fortune he felt compelled to resume a very active attention to business, and his gout left him; a case of will causing reaction in the organism. | |||
A few years ago I had a patient who imagined he never would be able to walk again. I magnetised him, and then by the help of my arm, he walked a mile, saying all the while that he was sure he could not. Being in ''rapport ''with him my will kept him going; but his own will being dormant, the moment he drew his arm from mine his powerlessness returned. | |||
A short time ago I was magnetising a gentleman who, although tall and strongly-built, was very sensitive. He suddenly felt hot and feverish. I willed that my fluid should be cooling, when he said spontaneously that he felt a refreshing influence all down the spine. Next day he felt shivering and chilly. I willed that my fluid should be warm; and he said, without being questioned, that he felt hot where my hand passed; a case of magnetism, directed by will, operating upon an organisation. | |||
In 1850 I was attending a lady friend of Lady Hillyars at Torpoint, for asthma. I had to go to Torquay to lecture. The lady wished me to magnetise her ''a distance ''from that place. I did so at an hour arranged between us. She declared that she felt the magnetic effect, just as if I had been present with her. One day, I was so occupied at the hour arranged that I was obliged to omit my duty, and I wrote in excuse. She also wrote to me to say that she had not felt the influence that day. Our letters crossed. A case shewing that the operator’s magnetism acts psychically and substantively. | |||
{{Style P-Signature in capitals|Adolphe Didier}} | |||
10, Berkeley-gardens, Kensington. | |||
{{HPB-SB-item | {{HPB-SB-item | ||
| volume =12 | | volume =12 | ||
| page =87 | | page =87 | ||
| item = | | item =2 | ||
| type = anonce | | type = anonce | ||
| status = | | status = proofread | ||
| continues = | | continues = | ||
| author = | | author = | ||
| title =B.N.A.S. Discussion Meetings | | title =B.N.A.S. Discussion Meetings... | ||
| subtitle = | | subtitle = | ||
| untitled = | | untitled = yes | ||
| source title = | | source title = Light | ||
| source details = | | source details = v. 2, No. 56, January 28, 1882, p. 43 | ||
| publication date = | | publication date = 1882-01-28 | ||
| original date = | | original date = | ||
| notes = | | notes = | ||
| Line 67: | Line 110: | ||
}} | }} | ||
... | {{Style S-Small capitals|B. N. A. S. Discussion Meetings.}}—At the Fortnightly Discussion Meeting, at 38, Great Russell-street, on Monday evening last, Mrs. Anna Kingsford gave an address on “Sorcery in Science,” the report of which—in consequence of the pressure on our space—we are reluctantly compelled to defer until next week. The next Discussion Meeting will be held on Monday evening, February 6th, when Miss Arundale will read a paper on “The Religion of Humanity: Is it Positivism or Spiritualism?” | ||
{{HPB-SB-footer-footnotes}} | |||
{{HPB-SB-footer- | {{HPB-SB-footer-sources}} | ||
<gallery widths=300px heights=300px> | |||
Light_v.02_n.56_1882-01-28.pdf|page=7|Light, v. 2, No. 56, January 28, 1882, p. 43 | |||
</gallery> | |||
Latest revision as of 04:53, 16 November 2025
< The Two Schools of Buddhism (continued from page 12-86) >
But Max Muller, Rhys-Davids, and others are of opinion that Gnostic Buddhism and the stories of Gautama’s miraculous birth, miracles, and transfiguration were ingrafted on Agnostic Buddhism by the very early Christian missionaries.
This may be a subject beyond finding out; but this may be admitted—that if these early Christian missionaries were men of saintly lives, and with the corresponding gifts of Spirit power, they might have converted Agnostic Buddhists to a form of Christianity.
This explanation, however, does not appear to me to be necessary, for if there be a Divine revelation possible, then it might come in all ages and to every race, to those who, seeking God in prayer and self-abnegation, rose into holy entrancement.
If so, then all revelations in all ages and among all peoples, must have a verisimilitude, moulded or coloured more or less by the age and the local character of the human mind.
My belief would be that Sakya-Muni was a pure, holy, and benevolent man, saturated with the subtle abstract Brahmanism of his race, and that he thus taught a perfect morality united with an abstract theology.
I cannot believe he could have been an Atheist, for no great discovery and no great movement of mankind ever emanated from such a source or from any negation or abyss of emptiness; but that his teaching must have been ambiguous would seem to be proved from the fact that while some Buddhists believe in a personal God and in individual immortality, the bulk of the more educated Buddhists would seem to teach otherwise.
The Hebrew Scriptures ever dogmatically assert the personality of God, although, strange to say, there does not exist one verse in the Old Testament dogmatically teaching the doctrine of a future life, and in the age of Christ there existed the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the one believing in a future life, the other denying the existence of the resurrection and of angels.
Among Christians there are a hundred sects teaching variously as to the nature and teachings of Christ, but all Christians, without exception, believe in a personal God and in a personal immortality.
Mr. Lillie says: “Viewed from the historical side, the following originalities may be accredited to Buddhism.”
1. Enforced vegetarianism for the whole nation.
2. Enforced national abstinence from wine.
3. The abolition of slavery.
4. The forgiveness of injuries.
5. Antagonism to all national religious rites that were opposed to the spiritual development of the individual.
Now, although no one should desire to lessen the merits of the great Gautama-Buddha, yet one may question his claim to originality in these five ideas as above.
1 and 2. Moses, a thousand years before Gautama, enforced vegetarianism and abstinence from intoxicating drinks on the whole Israelitish people during the forty years they wandered in the desert, during which time he laid down and enforced the best hygienic laws and regulations, the merit of which has always been admitted, and the benefits derived from which laws are still visible in the sturdy Jewish race.
3. Moses did not abolish slavery, but he enacted that every seventh year all slaves of the Hebrew race might be manumitted.
4. The forgiveness of injuries was also taught by Moses when he said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” and Solomon, 500 years before Gautama, said, “If thine enemy hunger give him food, and if ho thirst give him drink, and thus heap coals of fire on his head.’’
5. Antagonism to all rites inimical to the spiritual development of the individual was most emphatically declared by King David 500 years before Gautama, when he says, “The sacrifices of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord,” and again, “The sacrifices of God are a broken and a contrite heart.”
Still more emphatically, Isaiah, 200 years before Gautama, says: “Thus saith the Lord: Bring me no more oblations. Your incense is an abomination to me, your solemn feasts are an abomination. But wash you and make you clean. Cease to do evil, learn to do well, relieve the oppressed, plead the cause of the widow; then, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as wool”
Pythagoras, Daniel, and Gautama would appeal- all to have lived about the same period, viz., about 500 years before Christ, and they would appear to have all three taught doctrines having a close similitude.
In my first paper I made a mistake in saying that Sakya-Muni was the family name. Sakya was the family name, and Muni means the silent one. We know that the practice of silence was one of the chief teachings of Pythagoras, namely, the silence which leads to that contemplation of God which may result in Nirvana, or spiritual entrancement of the soul in God.
Like Sakya-Muni and Pythagoras, Daniel was a man of contemplation and prayer, a vegetarian, and an abstainer from wine, and all these were, I believe, divine men, having dominion more or less over the lower creation.
Why should these three men not each have drawn his inspiration direct from God, and each of its kind in his own land? Each reached Nirvana, or that divine illumination which is given to the man who, piercing the centre of his God-created being, finds the Divine Light.
But while believing that Gautama the Buddha was a man who became a son of God, I yet see that Jesus the Christ was the ultimate revelation in whom is “all the fulness of wisdom and knowledge;” “the only begotten and well beloved Son;’’ “the Word made flesh, which dwelt among us;” “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” for man from henceforth and for ever more, and he by whom “Immortality is brought to light.”
The Power of Will in Curing
A remarkable instance of a physiological effect from psychical cause is recorded in Paris’s “Life of Sir H. Davy.” Early in life Davy was assisting Dr. Beddoes in experiments on the inhalation of nitrous oxide gas. Dr. Beddoes having inferred that it was a specific for palsy, selected a patient for experiment, and put it under the management of Davy. Before administering the gas, he placed the bulb of a small thermometer under the patient’s tongue, wishing to know how the gas might affect his temperature. The paralytic man, ignorant of the process to which he was to submit, but impressed by Dr. Beddoes with the certainty of its success, no sooner felt the thermometer pass his teeth than he imagined the talisman in operation and declared that he felt its influence through his whole body. Davy thought he would then do nothing more, and desired him to return the next day. The thermometer was again applied with similar good result. At the end of a fortnight he was well. Here was a case of imagination excited and setting will into action upon the torpid part of the organisation.
Dr. Gairdner in his work on “Gout’’ gives the case of a member of the Stock Exchange who was crippled by gout, and was seldom seen except wrapped in flannels in his chimney corner. Experiencing a great reverse of fortune he felt compelled to resume a very active attention to business, and his gout left him; a case of will causing reaction in the organism.
A few years ago I had a patient who imagined he never would be able to walk again. I magnetised him, and then by the help of my arm, he walked a mile, saying all the while that he was sure he could not. Being in rapport with him my will kept him going; but his own will being dormant, the moment he drew his arm from mine his powerlessness returned.
A short time ago I was magnetising a gentleman who, although tall and strongly-built, was very sensitive. He suddenly felt hot and feverish. I willed that my fluid should be cooling, when he said spontaneously that he felt a refreshing influence all down the spine. Next day he felt shivering and chilly. I willed that my fluid should be warm; and he said, without being questioned, that he felt hot where my hand passed; a case of magnetism, directed by will, operating upon an organisation.
In 1850 I was attending a lady friend of Lady Hillyars at Torpoint, for asthma. I had to go to Torquay to lecture. The lady wished me to magnetise her a distance from that place. I did so at an hour arranged between us. She declared that she felt the magnetic effect, just as if I had been present with her. One day, I was so occupied at the hour arranged that I was obliged to omit my duty, and I wrote in excuse. She also wrote to me to say that she had not felt the influence that day. Our letters crossed. A case shewing that the operator’s magnetism acts psychically and substantively.
10, Berkeley-gardens, Kensington.
<Untitled> (B.N.A.S. Discussion Meetings...)
B. N. A. S. Discussion Meetings.—At the Fortnightly Discussion Meeting, at 38, Great Russell-street, on Monday evening last, Mrs. Anna Kingsford gave an address on “Sorcery in Science,” the report of which—in consequence of the pressure on our space—we are reluctantly compelled to defer until next week. The next Discussion Meeting will be held on Monday evening, February 6th, when Miss Arundale will read a paper on “The Religion of Humanity: Is it Positivism or Spiritualism?”
Editor's notes
Sources
-
Light, v. 2, No. 56, January 28, 1882, p. 43