Jesus and Buddha.

[Tony]

Jesus and Buddha.

It could be seen that the Buddha and Jesus say the same things. Firstly, I have to say that, as a Buddhist, I do not believe in God – but I believe in the very nature of God. Not God as an external, but within.


Jesus said, “I and my father are one.”
Buddha said, “The two truths are a unity.”

Of course, these may be seen as totally different statements if you are A Buddhist! or A Christian! but to me, they do look the same. Maybe something got changed in the translation, or they are meant to appear different.

As sentient beings, we have two aspects: one is our absolute true nature and the other is a mental fabrication. An absolute truth and a relative truth. These are inseparable – by virtue of one the other is known. So the “I” is our relative truth, and “Father” is our absolute truth. I am that, which I seek.

This is not only logical, but provable. We are awareness – pure awareness. Without awareness nothing would be known, and you wouldn’t be reading this! So that is proof in itself.

Now, this awareness can either be aware of something ‘out there’ – which is relative, conventional truth – or it can be aware of the awareness itself – pure awareness/absolute truth, empty of any fabrications.

Jesus and Buddha are of the same Essence Love: they just express that love slightly differently…as we all do.


Jesus said, “Love thy neighbour as thy self.”
Buddha said, “Love others more than yourself.”


Taking ourselves out of the picture is exchanging negative energy for positive energy,
“Thy will be done” is natural expression of spontaneous pure awareness, expressing Essence Love.

“My will be done” is the devil-game we play now. There is no devil out there. The devil is 'me', playing with a mentally acquired image of myself.

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

Very nice. :)

[greybeard]

Eckhart Tolle in "The power of now" did much to bridge the gap (non existent) between the teaching of Jesus and The Buddha.
Eckhart explained his reluctance to use the word god as it took away from the truth of what is.
It also helpful to look at the different culture.
Buddha came from a culture of ancient spiritual tradition of belief in enlightenment.
The culture of Jesus was not as advanced spiritually, they looked for God in heaven ie out with themselves.
Jesus taught the direct opposite of that---Find the kingdom/God within.
The essence of the teaching would seem to be similar at its root---the methodology different.
Jesus very much taught surrender,forgiveness and love.
I would not attempt to sum up the Buddhist way as I am ignorant of it.

Chris

[Tony]

Exchanging negative energy for positive energy.

To combat negative energy with more negative energy is foolish: this just makes a bad situation worse. Fighting a concept with another concept results in the the mind never breaking free. Rather, it merely goes into turmoil, justifying itself with many after-thoughts. One may even find one cannot sleep that night due to the residue of circling thoughts!

Positive energy is seeing through the games being played (kindly), and bringing the negative energies back to normal – and that's all! Positive energy is not used as a weapon to win an argument: it is there for the sake of clarity and kindness. This is compassion, and not something sentimental. Once the situation is freed, we can then drop the positive energy, otherwise it smothers. Holding on to it creates pride. Positive action produces no justifying thoughts – as everything is dropped.

Compassion has power. It can neutralise a situation, support a situation, add knowledge to a situation, or destroy a situation. Remember that negativity is all to do with ego's games (ego is our consciousness clinging to ideas, which ends up creating suffering).

Compassion works on many levels. This depends on the depth of one's understanding...which can always do with a little improvement ;-)-! We all over-do it, get too involved, want everything to work out nicely – but it doesn't happen that way. As soon as we have done our bit for a situation, upon walking away, it all seems to collapse! That is just part of the process.

The individuals involved in each situation have their own evolving to do. All we can do is sow a “compassion seed” by merely creating space. Maybe sometime in the future, that seed will grow... when enough manure has done its job!

[161803398]

I intuit my own religion as I go along. I assume there is a basic story or basic knowledge that goes back in history much father than we can imagine and that, from time to time, different people who are, perhaps, called upon to do so, re-enact this story to revive it in each new age. So, to me, it would be logical that Buddhism and Christianity say the same thing. Christianity, however, as we all know, got badly messed up when it was taken on by...I supposed one could say...the west...although I don't know if it was "the west" so much as it was that gang of people who hate the message and who seem to plaque us incessantly with only too short periods of relief. We have suffered with them for a very long time...me, a bit less..but any exposure is unpleasant. I heard a Native Indian poet today, John Trudell, who said the Native North Americans had suffered at the hands of these people for 500 years. But then he said something you don't often hear, an acknowledgment, for which I am very grateful, that the white people had suffered at the same hands for a thousand years...and its true. It's nice to hear it from him. Personally, I think because my family was Northern European, in some cases, very far North, I have no genetic memory or sense of relationship with most of the world. But I always found Buddhism and Jesus very interesting.

[161803398]

On a somewhat different note: I have a guess...not a prediction but this is my guess: a friend of mine today was saying why don't the UFOs land? She thinks they are concerned about being shot by red necks who will think they are the devil. Maybe, but I think it is because we would worship them and that is not wanted. So I told her....they never land...they always send someone. One will show up in America... the New Jerusalem... and that will be the one created for us by those assholes...a phoney one and we might think we will see history repeat itself. The real one will come from Asia or Africa. I'm pretty sure of this because I've been watching.

[Tony]

Dealing with our own shadows.

When we caste a shadow on a situation,
we add to the darkness of ignorance.
There is evil everywhere, this is just the mind.
By recognition minds game, clarity dawns.
Clarity is Light.

May our minds follow truth.
May truth become our guide.
May this guide dispel confusion.
May confusion dawn as clarity.

[Anchor]

This thread has for me put into focus and helped me recall one of the earliest moments of clarity I experienced when it became clear that the core gist of all the religions I had ever looked at were the same - the truth is within.

Later that refined to an actual grasping of the idea that the truth is within and sooner or later that which is within, is in fact the same as what is on the outside - the difference being illusory.

At that time (nearly 28 years ago) I did not quite get the layers of lies and control - though it was obvious to me at that time that many religions had been used and distorted as an instrument of social control.

[161803398]

Ah, well, I tend to be a little bit of a finger pointer. But, I believe that most people are good and only need someone to state the obvious...love the world and everyone else and you will be happy. I am pretty sure however, there are those in the world who for some reason I can't imagine, hate that message. I was exposed to it, very briefly, once, and found it amazing.

[Beren]

At the core of every great teaching is Love. Outer shell is different as everybody outer shell is different but the core is always the same-Love.

Being Love is far from romantic. It includes romantic but it surpasses it big time.
Being Love requires you to be Love. To understand , to see, to hear, to live all emotions so you can BE. Fear is a second in greatness but even fear is in ultimate form - a part of Love. That's why being Love releases you from any second handed emotions because you can live them all , in the same time being conscious of the fact that you are Love and that nothing can harm you.

I and Father are one. Jesus said that and called others to be one with them.

[truthseekerdan]

Personally I would encourage all folks to look "inside and outside" religions to find "God". Religions and spiritual teachings tend to limit "God" to certain mental concepts, etc...

God simply is. God is, period. The children are doing; God is. The concept of God is the sum of all, of everything. We are God. We are collectively God. We are individual pieces of God. God is not one, but God is all.

Below is an excerpt from the book "Between Death and Life (http://www.dolorescannon.com/index.php?page=view-book&book_id=16)" by Dolores Cannon about Jesus:


Dolores: Are we to believe that the man, Jesus, was the Son of God!

Subject: This is a very gross simplification, for God is not human. How can He have a son? This was couched in these termsfor people to understand on a very basic level. The term "son" was not meant to be taken literally. If you wish for a clarification, Jesus was an emissary from another level of spiritual reality which is much closer to God than we are. His level was not directly below God. In other words, there are levels which are more complete than Jesus. However, He was from a level which no man before had ever been from. The human mind has trouble comprehending many of these concepts. Therefore they must be couched and phrased in terms which human comprehension will accept.

Love and Blessings

[Youniverse]

Jesus and Buddha.

It could be seen that the Buddha and Jesus say the same things. Firstly, I have to say that, as a Buddhist, I do not believe in God – but I believe in the very nature of God. Not God as an external, but within.


Jesus said, “I and my father are one.”
Buddha said, “The two truths are a unity.”

Of course, these may be seen as totally different statements if you are A Buddhist! or A Christian! but to me, they do look the same. Maybe something got changed in the translation, or they are meant to appear different.

As sentient beings, we have two aspects: one is our absolute true nature and the other is a mental fabrication. An absolute truth and a relative truth. These are inseparable – by virtue of one the other is known. So the “I” is our relative truth, and “Father” is our absolute truth. I am that, which I seek.

This is not only logical, but provable. We are awareness – pure awareness. Without awareness nothing would be known, and you wouldn’t be reading this! So that is proof in itself.

Now, this awareness can either be aware of something ‘out there’ – which is relative, conventional truth – or it can be aware of the awareness itself – pure awareness/absolute truth, empty of any fabrications.

Jesus and Buddha are of the same Essence Love: they just express that love slightly differently…as we all do.


Jesus said, “Love thy neighbour as thy self.”
Buddha said, “Love others more than yourself.”


Taking ourselves out of the picture is exchanging negative energy for positive energy,
“Thy will be done” is natural expression of spontaneous pure awareness, expressing Essence Love.

“My will be done” is the devil-game we play now. There is no devil out there. The devil is 'me', playing with a mentally acquired image of myself.


I mean this with a great deal of respect and humility, pie'n'eal, but I find it kind of puzzling when I hear Buddhists "don't believe in God." I understand the resentment and problems with the word "God," and the baggage attached to it. However, isn't this just word choices or semantics? So Buddhists are saying, if I'm not mistaken, that there is no God outside ourselves, though essentially God/the divine is within us or we are God! I know Buddhists believe in some sort of divine nature of things so that in a sense IS God or whatever word best represents the divine for you, the observer of your world.

I would pose a question regarding a possible difference(not that it matters) between Jesus and Buddha, is that Jesus was born fully liberated and Buddha became so later in his incarnation? And yes I would agree that there are many similarities in their message. I would also agree with what you said about the "devil-in-me." The devil never existed as a seperate malevolent entity, IMO, only as a creation that possibly was even done consciously, of the ego. In "Conversations With God" it is said that some of our ancestors(male ancestors to be exact) created the devil, and many of us still believe in the devil because we can't accept the greater glory of God. I would add to that, that we often do not want to accept responsibility for our negative actions so we dish it off on the devil or his minions. Although, this kind of dilemma loses its steam when we enter a non-dualist dimension.

[Youniverse]

Personally I would encourage all folks to look "inside and outside" religions to find "God". Religions and spiritual teachings tend to limit "God" to certain mental concepts, etc...

God simply is. God is, period. The children are doing; God is. The concept of God is the sum of all, of everything. We are God. We are collectively God. We are individual pieces of God. God is not one, but God is all.

Below is an excerpt from the book "Between Death and Life (http://www.dolorescannon.com/index.php?page=view-book&book_id=16)" by Dolores Cannon about Jesus:


Dolores: Are we to believe that the man, Jesus, was the Son of God!

Subject: This is a very gross simplification, for God is not human. How can He have a son? This was couched in these termsfor people to understand on a very basic level. The term "son" was not meant to be taken literally. If you wish for a clarification, Jesus was an emissary from another level of spiritual reality which is much closer to God than we are. His level was not directly below God. In other words, there are levels which are more complete than Jesus. However, He was from a level which no man before had ever been from. The human mind has trouble comprehending many of these concepts. Therefore they must be couched and phrased in terms which human comprehension will accept.

Love and Blessings

Yes! But I would add that we are individual manifestations of God with the totality of what God is, hidden deep within us as a fractal of God so to speak. :)

[Youniverse]

Or the unlimited viewing a world of limitations through limited eyes. And the limitations only exist as tight as we make them or put them there.

¤=[Post Update]=¤


Personally I would encourage all folks to look "inside and outside" religions to find "God". Religions and spiritual teachings tend to limit "God" to certain mental concepts, etc...

God simply is. God is, period. The children are doing; God is. The concept of God is the sum of all, of everything. We are God. We are collectively God. We are individual pieces of God. God is not one, but God is all.

Below is an excerpt from the book "Between Death and Life (http://www.dolorescannon.com/index.php?page=view-book&book_id=16)" by Dolores Cannon about Jesus:


Dolores: Are we to believe that the man, Jesus, was the Son of God!

Subject: This is a very gross simplification, for God is not human. How can He have a son? This was couched in these termsfor people to understand on a very basic level. The term "son" was not meant to be taken literally. If you wish for a clarification, Jesus was an emissary from another level of spiritual reality which is much closer to God than we are. His level was not directly below God. In other words, there are levels which are more complete than Jesus. However, He was from a level which no man before had ever been from. The human mind has trouble comprehending many of these concepts. Therefore they must be couched and phrased in terms which human comprehension will accept.

Love and Blessings

Yup. And Jesus was no more the "son of God" than you and I are the sons or daughters of God. Many of us just don't see that.

[Tony]

If we look for unity and harmony we will find it.
"All beings wish to be happy."

n6XNO6Jv3q0

[truthseekerdan]

Yes! But I would add that we are individual manifestations of God with the totality of what God is, hidden deep within us as a fractal of God so to speak. :)

Yes, that could be another concept... ;)

[greybeard]

Heres another. (Concept)
People can accept that they are within God --the wave of the ocean--- but that the ocean is within them is a stretch far.
Nasargadatta said that he rented the earth to God.
He was joking ---I think.
Good to see you posting again Dan.
Chris

[Tony]

We all have different approaches...
This video is very instructive.

qg0-yK5dJNE

[truthseekerdan]

One of the truths that many are not aware of, is that at the base of any major religion is embedded metaphorically the astrology/ astro-theology that once was the only "sacred religion" that humanity was using. If one desires to know more about, please check Santos Bonacci's work. For anyone with fast internet, I suggest saving the videos below. Enjoy!

Ots28KAOMYY

_Cg7rWSWRl8

[GarethBKK]

I like David R. Hawkin's (yes, I do read a lot of Hawkins) distinction that Buddha taught enlightenment whereas, due to cultural and social contraints, Jesus taught salvation. Hawkins points out that these are somewhat different goals. He writes: "Salvation requires purification of the ego; enlightenment requires its total dissolution. The goal of enlightenment is more demanding and radical." There is no difference in the understanding of God, but there is a different methodology in finding God.

[Youniverse]

I like David R. Hawkin's (yes, I do read a lot of Hawkins) distinction that Buddha taught enlightenment whereas, due to cultural and social contraints, Jesus taught salvation. Hawkins points out that these are somewhat different goals. He writes: "Salvation requires purification of the ego; enlightenment requires its total dissolution. The goal of enlightenment is more demanding and radical." There is no difference in the understanding of God, but there is a different methodology in finding God.

Is the ego really being totally dissolved? Is it not still there, just totally controlled and kept out of the way at all times? Just wondering.

[greybeard]

I like David R. Hawkin's (yes, I do read a lot of Hawkins) distinction that Buddha taught enlightenment whereas, due to cultural and social contraints, Jesus taught salvation. Hawkins points out that these are somewhat different goals. He writes: "Salvation requires purification of the ego; enlightenment requires its total dissolution. The goal of enlightenment is more demanding and radical." There is no difference in the understanding of God, but there is a different methodology in finding God.




Is the ego really being totally dissolved? Is it not still there, just totally controlled and kept out of the way at all times? Just wondering.

Hi
On the way to enlightenment the ego is "tamed" however the state of enlightenment is ego less.
There is no individual left to have an ego.
Persona is still there in order for the seeming other to relate to the sage.
There is no "me" centre stage left.
Hawkins jokes a lot. He said "People talk to the body because that's the way it is here."
The true state of enlightenment is omnipresent--non-locational amongst other things---yet an ordinary and natural state.

Its good to see Hawkins promoted Gareth--thanks.
This thread was influenced greatly by his work--in fact it was inspired by it.
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?860-Enlightenment-The-Ego-what-is-it-How-to-transcend-it.

Chris

[Tony]

Ego.

Ego is just our mind desperately clinging to a self identity, that’s all.

It’s shouts and screams,

obscuring pure perception.


Pure perception sees through ego’s games.

“There I go again!”

Little devil.

[Tony]

When our ego is less dominating then everything becomes better.
The bigger our ego is, the worse everything else becomes.
Anything that will make your ego transform is a good thing...
and that is compassion.

[Tony]

I like David R. Hawkin's (yes, I do read a lot of Hawkins) distinction that Buddha taught enlightenment whereas, due to cultural and social contraints, Jesus taught salvation. Hawkins points out that these are somewhat different goals. He writes: "Salvation requires purification of the ego; enlightenment requires its total dissolution. The goal of enlightenment is more demanding and radical." There is no difference in the understanding of God, but there is a different methodology in finding God.

Is the ego really being totally dissolved? Is it not still there, just totally controlled and kept out of the way at all times? Just wondering.


Hello,
Ego serves as a beautiful reminder.

[Tony]

Sri Ramana Maharshi talks about ego, the true self and God.

weXKuURMgMs

[truthseekerdan]

...
On the way to enlightenment the ego is "tamed" however the state of enlightenment is ego less.
There is no individual left to have an ego.
...


I would rather say that enlightenment is awakening self to one's true Self. It means opening "eyes" to see what is in "reality" and making oneself realize.
As long as one has a physical body, there is an "ego", but one can learn how to control it rather than being controlled by it.
Knowledge and experience are also necessary to gain wisdom and growth…

On a lighter note:

"Wisdom is putting the trash out the night before the scheduled pick-up.
Enlightenment is getting your wife to do it."

:-D

[Tony]

Although there are many paths (methods) that use the same words,
at some point one has to make a decision.
Then having having confidence in that decision
tread that path, which suits your temperament.
Otherwise it is like sewing with a two headed needle.

There are many path (methods) in buddhism...and they do not all mix!
Therefore silence is golden.

[Youniverse]

Yeah I think what you're saying here, was also said in that video of Krishnamurti you put in the thread? It doesn't matter which form of practice and discipline we choose, as long as we choose one and set aside all others.