The Principles and Teachings which differentiate and separate Christ and Buddha

Thus far we have seen these two great leaders of men standing side by side and revealing the same traits and principles.

But they also revealed fundamental differences which it were well for us to consider.

Though much united them, and that when more than five centuries and thousands of miles held them apart, we also discover that a gulf wider than that of time or space opened between them.

Their lives and their doctrines and the faiths which they promulgated reveal strangely diverse contentions and tendencies.

(1) First of all, and at the root of all, lies their attitude toward the Divine Being. Jesus was preËminently a God-intoxicated Being, while the most manifest mental attitude of Gautama was his agnosticism. Christ never ceased speaking of and communing with His Father in heaven. He was wont to retire regularly from human society in order that He might enjoy the Heavenly Presence whose very radiance shone in and upon Him daily. He declared that He did nothing without consulting with and receiving direction from God. And this was natural enough when we remember His declaration that He came into the world to reveal the Father unto men. Listen to His words, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me and to finish His work." "The Father that dwelleth in me doeth the work." "The Father is glorified in the Son." "I love the Father and go unto Him." "Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in me?" "Oh, righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee, but I have known Thee." In all His expressions of oneness with God, of His living unto God, and of His drawing His daily strength from God, His experience was eminently unique. He lived more in heaven than on earth in those days of His incarnation. Apart from any consideration of His Divinity, He can truly be said to be a man of God whose soul was in harmony with the Father.

How different the words and experiences of Gautama Rishi! Many have spoken of him as an atheist. I do not believe that he denied the existence of God. Yet it is evidently true that he has no use in his philosophy, any more than in his religion, for a Divine Being. There was doubtless reason for this in the conditions of his time; for it may be regarded as the reaction of a strong mind against the extreme spiritualism and polytheism of the day. For, in those days, the deep spirituality of the Brahman had overflowed its banks and had created a multitudinous pantheon which repelled this man of stern mind. It was to him only a short step from a disbelief in the many gods to a doubt as to the existence of any god. And in this agnosticism he was doubtless aided by his fondness for the Sankya school of thought, which is Indian Agnosticism. In any case, his deliverances and his established religion, if such it really can be called, are such a reaction from the Theosophy of India as to lead one to wonder how, even with all its other excellences, it could have become in India a State Religion for any length of time. A religion without a God, a sacrifice, a priest, or a prayer, is certainly a dreary wilderness to a God-seeking soul. And yet, this is what the Buddha conceived and promulgated among his disciples. Under the stress of a growing consciousness of the ills of this life his mind did not, like that of others, rise to heaven for relief; but his salvation was to be a self-wrought one. With his own right arm of virtue he wished to carve his way into eternal life—or, shall I say, eternal death? Is it strange that under such a godless religious system its votaries should react from this fundamental error and deify and worship that very Buddha who had not a place for God in his whole scheme of life?

At any rate, Christ and Buddha stand before us in striking contrast in this matter; the glory of the teaching of the one was that He caused His adoring disciple to fall upon his knees with uplifted eye and to say in filial reverence and trust, "Our Father who art in heaven." While the other taught his followers to lean only upon self, and to seek speedy relief from life itself, declaring that heaven returned only an empty, mocking echo to the helpless wail of the human soul.

(2) Corresponding to this difference was another difference in their conception of human life. Jesus maintained that the human soul came from God, was made for God, and that God Himself was forever seeking to bring it unto Himself. According to His theory of life, man is not left alone at any stage in his career. He may decline to entertain God in his life. He may lead a life of rebellion against his Maker and Saviour; he may even deny the very existence of the Father of his being. But God, in the riches of His infinite patience, does not desert him to his own base thought and life. He follows him like a shepherd searching for his lost sheep. He longs for his return like a tender, forgiving father for the return of his prodigal son. Human life, according to this view, may be mean and sordid and may be spent in the grossest sin; but there is hope. All is not lost while there is a spark of life left. God is still seeking and trying to bring the soul to new life. The million agents of His loving will conspire to help man; and so the possibilities of his life are still great. Thus, to our Lord Christ, the vision of human life was a bright and optimistic one. God will not leave man to himself. He will bring all the resources of heaven and of earth to the work of saving him. "God is in His heaven, All's right with the world." Yes, all is hopeful for man because the Father is still seeking him.

How different from this was Gautama Rishi's view of human life. According to him, man is a lone, helpless creature tossed on the sea of destiny. He is the only captain and steersman of his barque, and his own reason is his only compass; he must battle alone with the waves of circumstances and find for himself the unknown harbour of peace. There is no heaven above to hear his cry, no help or redemption outside of self. Is it a wonder that life is a weariness, and existence itself an unspeakable burden to such a man?

Thus the Buddha sought in vain for light and cheer in life, and pessimism became to him, as it continues to be to his followers, the very atmosphere of life. Even as in Dante's vision of the Inferno, so in the Temple of Buddha's scheme of life there is inscribed above its portals the words: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here."

I care not who the man may be, I humbly maintain that his scheme of life is seriously wrong if it be a cheerless, uninspiring one; and it is perfectly natural that men should prefer to follow a confident, buoyant leader rather than a heartless, despondent one. If God rules over the destinies of man, we have a right to expect that success and blessing will crown the efforts of the sincere seeker after a better life. Man has received life not that he may destroy it, but that he may cultivate it and find in it life abundant.

A young mother whose child had died carried the dead body to Buddha, and, doing homage to him, said, "Lord and Master, do you know any medicine that will be good for my child?" "Yes," said the teacher, "I know of some. Get me a handful of mustard seed." But when the poor girl was hurrying away to procure it, he added, "I require mustard seed from a house where no son, husband, parent, or slave has died." "Very good," said the girl, and went to ask for it, carrying still the dead child astride on her hip. The people said, "Here is mustard seed;" but when she asked, "Has there died a son, a husband, a parent, or a slave in this house?" they replied: "Lady, what is this that you ask? The living are few, but the dead are many!" Then she went to other homes, but one said, "I have lost my son;" another, "I have lost my parents;" another, "I have lost my slave." At last, not being able to find a single house where no one had died, she began to think, "This is a heavy task that I am on." And as her mind cleared she summoned up her resolution, left the dead child in a house, and returned to Buddha. "Have you procured the mustard seed?" he asked. "I have not," she replied. "The people of the village told me, 'The living are few, but the dead are many.'" Then Buddha said, "You thought you alone had lost a son; the law of death is that among all living creatures there is no permanence." Little comfort in these words!

Of course, we can see how these two conflicting views of life found acceptance and expression in these two great leaders of mankind. For, to Jesus, the keyword of life was divine grace or atonement, while to Gautama it was Karma—that word which has for so many centuries been to all India the truest expression of its philosophy and of its life.

Christ taught that the grace of God was at the service of every man for his success in this life and for his redemption in the world to come. He ever emphasized the inspiring message that God's work and man's effort constitute the warp and woof of the life of every man. In His whole scheme of salvation there is no place for discouragement; for, walking through the path of life hand in hand with God, man can overthrow every enemy to his progress and achieve the best and highest in God's purposes for him.

But when the Buddha adopted the doctrine of Karma as the foundation of life, he and his system were doomed to despondency, gloom, and discouragement. It is indeed a noble truth that every man must drink, to its last dregs, the fruit of his own action—that the law of Karma works with relentless force in every life in the world. Only let us understand that God may enter into each life to enable man to face successfully that law, and it is all right. But condemn man to everlasting isolation; cut away from him every ray of Divine help, and the working out of his Karma becomes a terrible and an almost unending tragedy—a Sisyphean task with no hope of release save in the wiping out of life itself. And this is what the great Soul of the East believed and taught. He faced boldly the problem. He had, at the beginning, ignored the very existence of God, and thus denied himself the least hope of external aid in his own emancipation; and thus he held that stern, cruel, relentless Karma became the all-controlling and universal law of life.

To a Christian, among the most pathetic words ever spoken are those spoken by Buddha to his beloved cousin and disciple as death drew near—"O! Anantha,... My journey is drawing to its close. I have reached eighty years, and just as a worn-out cart can only with much care be made to move along, so my body can only be kept going with difficulty.... In future be ye to yourselves your own light, your own refuge; seek no other refuge.... Look not to any one but yourselves as a refuge."

And that which farther, and very naturally, widens the gulf which separates them is their view of the adequacy or inadequacy of the present human life to satisfy the laws of their being.

The law which Jesus believed to prevail, and which He constantly promulgated and emphasized, was that of the finality of the human life—that man has once only to pass through this earthly life and that then comes death, which introduces him to an eternal future corresponding with the character of his choices and life on earth. According to Him, this brief earthly existence, which will not be repeated, is a training school for the glorious life beyond. Blessed is he who faithfully submits himself to this training and passes through the gate of death prepared for an immortality of joy in God's presence beyond.

Indeed, Jesus never gives the first intimation of any future birth or life, save that which would be permanent and eternal in heaven or hell.

He felt the adequacy of this life as a determiner of the eternal destiny of all men. And He felt that the salvation which He wrought and offered to all was able to carry man through the single portal of death into unending bliss. Why another entrance into this world, if by passing through the world God could bring into the life the seed and power of His own grace and life which would blossom and bear fruit in the soul throughout eternity? "Marvel not," He sayeth, "the hour cometh in which all that are dead shall hear his voice and shall come forth; they that have done good into the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil into the resurrection of judgment." And as He described the final judgment upon all men after one earthly life He says that "these shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Moreover, in describing the condition of the dead He makes the faithful Abraham say to the soul of a dead sinner, "Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed that they who would pass hence to you may not be able to pass and that you may not cross from thence to us." That is, He claimed that the life which we live here so fixes the destiny of men that eternity will carry its impress. Hence the urgency and the supreme importance of this one life to all men. The universal succession, according to His teaching, is life, death, resurrection, judgment, and eternal reward.

To the Buddha, who, as we have seen, held that man is the only architect of his own destiny and that he must therefore abide the working of his Karma, a single brief apprenticeship in the school of life seemed altogether inadequate as a test of character and as a reliable foundation for the edifice of one's eternal destiny, or as a basis for the one irrevocable judgment. It is but natural, therefore, that this great Indian Rishi should have adopted as his own the doctrine of metempsychosis, or transmigration, and that he should add great emphasis to it. To him, life was a penitentiary rather than a school, a place, or an occasion, for eating the fruits of past action rather than a training for the future eternity which awaits every one.

It is true that Gautama must have had some idea of the corrective influence and disciplinary character of this earthly existence; for there is a quiet assumption that in some unexplained and unintelligible way the soul is improved by this multitudinous process of reincarnation. And yet I fail to see any reason for expecting such a development. Philosophically and morally, the raison d'Être of the doctrine of reincarnation is to explain the inequalities of life; and it does it not, as Jesus would do it, by means of the doctrine of heredity, but by the retributive power of Karma, or actions pursuing the soul through successive births and compelling it to reveal by its conditions and reflect by its experiences in each birth the experiences of the previous birth. The moral influence of such a doctrine is rendered all but impossible by the fact that there is no consciousness (the true basis of moral continuity) to connect one birth with another. I know of no one but Mrs. Besant who claims to know what his previous, assumed birth was, and I have not yet met any one who believes her claim in this matter. There is no moral discipline for one in his being punished for a thing of which he has absolutely no conscious knowledge.

We must further consider the character of Gautama's philosophy. It was, as is well known, thoroughly materialistic—the antipodes of the orthodox Hindu philosophy, which is highly spiritual. To Buddha, there was no such thing as a soul apart from the body. What was there, then, to connect one birth with another, according to his teaching? In Brahmanism the doctrine of transmigration is at this point very clear, for there is the eternal Âtma, or self, to connect and unify all its incarnations. But Gautama, who denied the separate existence of the soul, maintained that it was not the self, but the Karma, which passed from one birth to another; and thus there became the oneness of Karma without an identity of soul passing through and uniting the myriad incarnations of the person involved. How can one substitute here a sameness of Karma for identity of soul? Behold, then, the insuperable difficulties which such a materialism interposes to a belief either in the possibility or in the wisdom of the doctrine of reincarnation.

And yet let it be remembered here that so long as one accepts the doctrine of Karma he cannot evade the sister doctrine of reincarnation. They belong to the same system, and must be accepted or rejected together.

If, however, we emphasize divine grace as an element in the solution of human problems and in the salvation of man, then it is natural to conclude that one earthly life will suffice for God and man together to prepare the soul for the consummation and beatification which awaits it beyond death. But if the whole problem is to be solved and the whole work of redemption achieved by man himself, apart from God, then Buddha must have been justified in believing that an inconceivable number of births and human lives are necessary in order to accomplish this.

It was just at this point that Christ and Buddha faced the opposite poles. And it is just here, for this very reason, that the faiths which they promulgated represent, the one the perpetual buoyancy and cheer of youth, and the other the weariness of discouraged age.

Christianity claims to do its work for the soul, so far as settling its destiny is concerned, in the brief life of a few years; and under the inspiring influence of this conviction the pulse quickens, youthful hope and energy multiply, and the whole soul is kindled by a close vision of its speedy triumph and release. The Buddhist, on the other hand, knows that it is a long, lonely conflict—the interminably long processions of births weary him and the dim vision of a release which is far away brings no inspiration. Life palls upon him, courage fails him, his steps grow shorter and his pace slackens.

(3) This brings us to the ideals which these two world-leaders entertained. Often men's ideals are a better revelation of their life and character than are their achievements. These ideals which I wish to point out are two—that of inner attainment and that of final consummation.

And what was the chief ambition for personal achievement sought by Jesus and Gautama? I believe that the very names which they acquired and which are at the head of this chapter answer this question for us. "Christ" and "Buddha" are not the personal names given in infancy, nor are they tribal designations. They primarily represent their official titles. "Christ" means "the Anointed One," and "Buddha" signifies "the Enlightened One"—the one is a term expressive of spiritual powers for service, while the other means intellectual enlightenment for communion. One sought and found the baptism of the spirit of God which touched and transfigured His character; the other was seeking more light on the problems of life; and for that light he sought with a wonderful longing and perseverance until the dawn broke on that remarkable day under the sacred Boh tree and he found the light and was hence called "the Enlightened One."

Thus, in the Christ-life, the emphasis was upon ethical and spiritual attainment, while, in Buddha, the thing sought was the clear vision and transcendent illumination.

Let me not be misunderstood. There is a sense in which the consecration and the vision are in the same line. It was Christ Himself that said, "This is eternal life, to know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." Spiritual knowledge is the pathway to the highest life—it is life itself. It must be, in large part, acquired through spiritual experience.

At the same time, it is an interesting fact that Buddha laid, as India has always laid, emphasis—undue emphasis—upon knowledge as the consummation to be sought. Brahma Gnana is the summun bonum of life. To rightly know myself in my relationship, this, they say, is the only qualification for beatification. On the other hand, Jesus insisted always upon a right moral and spiritual attitude and relationship to God as the highest point of human attainment in life. Listen to the beatitudes which he uttered: "Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

These are the beatitudes of His Kingdom, and all refer to the spiritual graces which He Himself exemplified and inculcated, and none refer to enlightenment.

Thus in both we have, if not a contrast, a different outlook, which has not only impressed the student with a sense of divergence; but that which is more important—it has given to the devotees of these two faiths widely different aspirations, and has given to the two types of lives produced very dissimilar traits.

But, that which is of more consequence, in these ideals, is their conception of what life tends to and must ultimately attain unto. The final consummation of life meant nought else to Jesus than God-likeness, which He called "Eternal Life." To have grown to the perfection of those moral and spiritual characteristics which adorn God Himself; to have the human will so subdued and directed until it runs parallel with the Divine will; to have the soul consumed with a love of all that He loves and with an abhorrence of all that He hates,—this is life indeed and the highest realization of the human soul. Yea, more, to pass out of this life into the conscious bliss and eternal felicity of the life to come, to dwell with God—one with Him in purpose and character, and yet living a separate conscious existence, basking in the eternal sunshine of His Presence and favour,—this is the fulness of blessing which Christ presented before His own as the end to be sought and the consummation which God placed within their reach.

On the other hand, Nirvana is the word which holds condensed the whole realm of Buddha's ideals. It is not my purpose to discuss the original meaning of this word. I gladly concede that it meant a state of moral achievement when the powers of the soul were at equilibrium and when resultant peace pervaded the life. But we also know that it meant, preËminently, that state in which the soul had passed beyond contact with body, in which contact alone it found consciousness and sensation and human activity; when the soul, freed from births, had returned to its elemental condition of semi-nothingness, with neither thought, emotion, nor volition. This was a condition in which was found only the negative blessing of release from the turbulence and surging distresses of life. Without calling it non-existence, we claim that it is wanting in every element that we connect, or can conceive connected, with human existence.

There is nothing in it to inspire hope nor to invite cheer. All we can do in its presence is to ask—is this all that man, the flower of God's universe, is to arrive at? Is there nothing better for him than to end his long, dreary existence in such an abject failure? Must he descend from the plain of even a wretched human life to this the lowest reach of existence, if such we must call it?

In the eyes of Christ, there issues out of the mighty conflict of life a purified, glorified human being fit to dwell forever in the presence of His Father and adopted to enjoy that presence for evermore. To Buddha, this same human life ends in failure and must rest forever under the dark pall of oblivion, and robbed by Nirvana of all the possibilities of good and of joy that were implanted in it.

In the absence of higher satisfaction, all that Buddha could do was to glory in his achievements, because of their pervasive influence upon the lives of others during all future time. We might imagine him joining with George Eliot in her noble aspiration:—

But Christ gave us a larger hope and a loftier purpose than this, even the conscious possession of abundant life ourselves and the growing knowledge of the boundless good which our earthly life has done for others. To live in men is joy indeed; but that involves an ability to feel that joy; and this, again, is a part only of the Eternal Life which He gives to all who believe in Him.

It is His disciple only who can say:—

"Beloved, now are we the Sons of God. But we know not what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."