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The Seventh Lesson: Buddhism.1259
the village, and the country, to the widest circle of mankind, a feeling of
sympathy and brotherhood to all men, the idea, in fact, of humanity, were
first pronounced by Buddha.”
Gautama held that the Fundamental Cause of Suffering and Unhappiness
in Samsara was the Sense of Separateness by which the “I” was deluded
or hypnotized. This sense of Separateness brought in its train Selfishness,
Greed, Strife, Conflict, and all the other evil manifestations that make of
life in Samsara a nightmare of suffering. In other words Separateness is the
Root of Evil, and all manifestations of evil may be traced back to its common
source. And therefore all of Gautama’s teachings were directed toward
escape from this illusion of Separateness, by means of killing out the Desire
which was its very life energy. And all of the vague longing that possesses the
human soul arises from an intuitive realization that it belongs to a Larger Life,
and that Separateness prevents it from realizing Itself. The essence of the
doctrine seems to be the following conception, although its original purity
has been clouded by the additions of the “church” which has arisen from the
teachings, and which has covered over the light of the true teachings by the
coloured shade of ecclesiasticism. But this seems to be the original teaching:
That, from Not-Being, or that, emerged a portion, or aspect of Itself which
manifested as Being, which in turn manifesting the “Chain of Consequences,”
evolved the Lust-of-Life, the moving principle of which is Kama or Desire,
and from which arose Samsara, or the Cycle of Existences—the Wheel of
Life. The Avidya, or Ignorance, from which arose the Lust-of-Life and Desire,
had as its essence the illusion of personality, or separateness—the breaking
up of the Cosmic Consciousness into countless “personalities” or centres of
consciousness of qualities which men call “souls.” The “souls” are not entities
but merely aggregates of qualities and attributes, composing “characters,”
which are illumined and energized by the One Spirit of that, which appears
as the Many Spirits of the “souls,” by reason of the illusion.
Intuitively every “soul” feels that it is really identical with the universal
life and soul, and experiences unhappiness and uneasiness by reason of its