Part 17 (1/2)

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 s.p.a.ce 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 att.i.tude toward the Divine Being. Jesus was preeminently a G.o.d-intoxicated Being, while the most manifest mental att.i.tude 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d, of His living unto G.o.d, and of His drawing His daily strength from G.o.d, 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 G.o.d whose soul was in harmony with the Father.

How different the words and experiences of Gautama Ris.h.i.+! Many have spoken of him as an atheist. I do not believe that he denied the existence of G.o.d. 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 mult.i.tudinous pantheon which repelled this man of stern mind. It was to him only a short step from a disbelief in the _many_ G.o.ds to a doubt as to the existence of _any_ G.o.d. 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 G.o.d, a sacrifice, a priest, or a prayer, is certainly a dreary wilderness to a G.o.d-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 G.o.dless religious system its votaries should react from this fundamental error and deify and wors.h.i.+p that very Buddha who had not a place for G.o.d 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 G.o.d, was made for G.o.d, and that G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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. G.o.d 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. G.o.d will not leave man to himself. He will bring all the resources of heaven and of earth to the work of saving him. ”G.o.d 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 Ris.h.i.+'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 compa.s.s; he must battle alone with the waves of circ.u.mstances 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d's work and man's effort const.i.tute 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 G.o.d, man can overthrow every enemy to his progress and achieve the best and highest in G.o.d'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 n.o.ble 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, and thus denied himself the least hope of external aid in his own emanc.i.p.ation; 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.ses through the gate of death prepared for an immortality of joy in G.o.d'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 h.e.l.l.

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 pa.s.sing through the world G.o.d 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 pa.s.s hence to you may not be able to pa.s.s 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 apprentices.h.i.+p 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 Ris.h.i.+ 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 a.s.sumption that in some unexplained and unintelligible way the soul is improved by this mult.i.tudinous process of reincarnation. And yet I fail to see any reason for expecting such a development. Philosophically and morally, the _raison d'etre_ 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, a.s.sumed 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 _atma_, 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 pa.s.sed from one birth to another; and thus there became the oneness of _Karma_ without an ident.i.ty of soul pa.s.sing through and uniting the myriad incarnations of the person involved. How can one subst.i.tute here a sameness of _Karma_ for ident.i.ty 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.