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A Series of Lessons on the Inner Teachings of the Philosophies and Religions of India1258
also condemned the practice of austerities and self-torture. He taught
Democracy and Universal Brotherly Love. All men were his brothers, Sudra
and Brahmin alike. Is it any wonder that he was considered “non-orthodox”
by the priestly caste, and denounced for “atheism”; and “denying the
existence of the soul”—even when he went no further in those directions
than did many others of “orthodox” tendencies?
Gautama has also been charged with “materialism,” and “earthliness,”
because he refused to encourage speculation regarding subjects outside of
the earth life and the duties concerning the same. This course he followed
because he saw that the Hindu people had lost sight of “works” by dwelling
too much upon doctrine, and he sought to awaken them to an activity Here
and Now. Not only did he teach them “to do things” in the direction of
attaining Freedom and Emancipation, but he inculcated new truths regarding
human duties toward one’s fellow men, comparable only to the teaching in
this direction of Jesus of Nazareth, who followed him six hundred years later.
Prof. Jackson says: “The element in Buddhism which more than any other,
perhaps, gave it an advantage over all surrounding religions, and led to its
surprising extension, was the spirit of universal charity and sympathy that it
breathed, as contrasted with the exclusiveness of caste. In this respect, it held
much the same relation to Brahminism that Christianity did to Judaism. It was,
in fact, a reaction against the exclusiveness and formalism of Brahminism—an
attempt to render it more catholic, and to throw off its intolerable burden
of ceremonies. Buddhism did not expressly abolish caste, but only declared
that all followers of the Buddha who embraced the religious life were
thereby released from its restrictions; in the bosom of a community who
had all equally renounced the world, high and low, the twice-born Brahmin
and the outcast were brethren. This was the very way that Christianity dealt
with the slavery of the ancient world.” And Max Müller says: “The Buddha
addressed himself to all castes and outcasts. He promised salvation to all;
and he commanded his disciples to preach his doctrine in all places and
to all men. A sense of duty, extending from the narrow limits of the house,