From: radams@cerritos.edu
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Buddha's Mystery--response to Erik
Date: 4 Sep 92 02:39:53 GMT
Article-I.D.: qiclab.1992Sep4.054813.1675
Organization: Cerritos College, Norwalk CA

In article <1992Sep3.084143.22793@qiclab.scn.rain.com>, 
jdavis@netlink.cts.com (James Davis) writes:

> I think the "No Soul" idea in Buddhism is a misunderstanding of the concept
> of unity or non-duality.  When the average personality starts thinking about
> "my soul," "your soul," "your salvation," "my salvation," etc., then unity
> disappears.   Some Teachers, realizing this, sought to offset the problem by
> rejection of any concepts and words that might feed the little ego or sense
> of separateness.  So we have some traditions that seem to affirm unity to the
> exclusion of any concept of individuality.  The intent was to lead people
> away from selfishness toward unity.  "No soul," "entering the stream," etc.
> are attempts to direct toward unity. 

I think this is probably true. In Christianity, the doctrine of reincarnation
was widely accepted from the time of Christ until around 540 a.d. when it was
thrown out by a council of fools. They threw it out because they felt that if
people believed in future lives, they would not obey church authority so as
to attain salvation (or rather empower the church leaders and their political 
influence) because they could always be saved in some future incarnation. The 
church wanted to scare people into obedience by telling them that there are no 
future lives and that this life is it, so you better act the way we tell you 
and come to church (not to mention giving us your property). So this is 
another example of twisting and modifying doctrine to try to get the desired 
response from the masses although far worse then the seemingly good intentions 
of leading people away from egoism as James states in his post as a possible 
reason for the rejection of the concept of a soul. Whenever you monkey around 
with the truth (or relative truth) however, you can create more problems and 
misunderstandings.

> Words like "No Soul," "entering the Stream," should not actually be taken as
> a denial of the soul or individuality.  The negation idea is "a real bone" in
> your throat and the throats of many because of an intuition or spiritual
> sense about identity and the knowledge that negation cannot express reality. 
> Read between the lines of all traditions with your own intuition.  Accept
> only what rings true for you.

Excellent advice. I have followed this advice all my life. The real guide
is intuition or the inner guru in reading between the lines. Take what is
good and true to you and throw the rest out. Later you may find that much of 
what you previously rejected was simply misunderstood from lack of facility to
read between the lines.

> Buddhism is not what Buddha thought; Christianity is not what Christ thought.
> 
> This is self-evident and common sense.  When we talk about Buddhism or any
> other religion we should not be so naive as to believe that we have actually
> taken hold of what was taught by the real Buddha and his immediate followers.
> 

Fundamentalists will be irritated with these remarks but I believe you are
right. Scriptures might be divinely inspired but that does not mean they are
divinely accurate.

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	Roger Adams
	radams@cerritos.edu               To those in whom love dwells,
	Cerritos College                  the whole world is one family.
	11110 Alondra Blvd                             A Hindu Proverb
        Norwalk, California 90650
	USA        		          292 Dwapara :-)
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