Buddhism is one of the four great international and interracial faiths. [1] Buddhism has shown an adaptability to the mores of many peoples that has been equaled only by Christianity. [2] The great weakness in the original gospel of Buddhism was that it did not produce a religion of unselfish social service. [3]
Buddhism 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. [4]
The 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. [5]
It teaches 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. This final conception of the Buddha Eternal can well be identified as the Absolute, sometimes even as the infinite I AM. [6] Buddhists were earnest devotees of the doctrine of physical humiliation. [7] It held that the Buddha divine nature resided in all men, which is one of the clearest presentations of the truth of the indwelling Adjusters. [8]
The great weakness in the cosmology of Buddhism is 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. [9]
Gradually the concept of God, as contrasted with the Absolute, began to appear in Buddhism, and finally came to fruit in the belief in Amida Buddha. It is proclaimed that salvation is attained by faith in the divine mercies and loving care of Amida, God of the Paradise in the west. [10] Buddhism is a great and beautiful philosophy, but without God. [11]
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. [12]
A great limitation in the original gospel of Siddhartha was that it attempted liberation of the human self from all the limitations of the mortal nature by the technique of isolating the self from objective reality. [13]
It teaches that there are “many Buddhas”, an unlimited and infinite number, even that anyone can aspire to become one—to attain the divinity of a Buddha. [14] The great advance made in Buddhist philosophy consisted in its comprehension of the relativity of all truth. [15] Some of his later followers taught that Sakyamuni Buddha’s spirit returns periodically to earth as a living Buddha. [16] The Buddhist religion promises salvation from suffering, unending peace. [17] Buddhism prospered because it offered salvation through belief in the Buddha, the enlightened one. [18] The Buddhist faith developed two doctrines of a trinitarian nature. [19]
Gautama formulated those theories which grew into the philosophy of Buddhism after six years of the futile practice of Yoga. [20]
The 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. [21] It was much affected by Taoism in China, Shinto in Japan, Christianity in Tibet. It became Brahmanized and later abjectly surrendered to Islam. [22] Buddhism soon amalgamated with the lingering ritualistic practices of disintegrating Taoism. [23] Fitted well into religious customs of yellow race. [24]
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. [25]
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. [26]
It ended shackled with those very ceremonial practices and ritualistic incantations against which the founder had so fearlessly fought, and which he had so valiantly denounced. [27]
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. [28] Buddhism is undergoing a twentieth-century renaissance. [29]
While Jesus and Ganid were at Alexandria Ganid wrote an abstract of Buddhism. [30]
It was on the visit to Switzerland, up in the mountains, that Jesus had an all-day talk with both Gonod and his son Ganid about Buddhism. Jesus started saying: “Your Buddha was much better than your Buddhism”. [31]
See also: UB 94:8.