Free Buddha and Jesus: Could Solomon Be the Missing Link? by R. E. Sherman Page B

attain enlightenment).
Buddhism in Asia has incorporated much from the religions of the indigenous people, accepting a wide range of superstitions and occult beliefs and practices. These practices include worship of idols, magic, sorcery, witchcraft, divination, animism, making sacrifices and offerings to various spirits, and occult sexual practices to accelerate progress toward enlightenment.
A serious bias against women is deeply embedded in Asian Buddhism.
    These ten Eastern aspects of Buddhism head the list of things that westerners are most likely to feel uncomfortable adopting.
    Considering the Precautions of Jesus
    I would like to leave you with one final challenge. Imagine Jesus citing precautions similar to those of the Dalai Lama. His words might be something like this: “In the West, I do not think it advisable to mix the core of Western culture with Christianity. The result is grotesque and bears no resemblance to authentic Christianity. ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.’” 3
    Westerners have little concept of how to deny self. Our culture is saturated with “the pursuit of happiness” touted in the Declaration of Independence. Taking up a cross is also foreign to westerners, as is following the leadings of a personal God.
    Could it be that Buddhists monks who renounce all material possessions and worldly desires, preach nonviolence and compassion, and meditate long and habitually are behaving in a way that is more consistent with the teachings of Jesus than are the great majority of those who call themselves Christians? Some would argue that this is true. Nevertheless, if the content of the minds of most of these Buddhists were compared with the God-consciousness that is so key to real Christianity, we would still have to say that there were critical differences that could not be discounted.

 

    A Fictional Postscript:
    How It Might Have Happened
    When Buddha was a young man, he was a prince named Siddhartha. His father, a king, provided three palaces for Siddhartha to live in, but forbade him to leave the royal grounds. And so he was quite isolated from the suffering and challenges of the outside world and from religious teachings. When Siddhartha was twenty-nine years old, his father finally allowed him to tour the surrounding area to meet some of his future subjects. He came across an old man, a diseased man, a decaying corpse, and an ascetic. These encounters deeply disturbed and depressed him. This is Buddhist legend.
    In this chapter we will imagine that Siddhartha has wandered into a throbbing marketplace. It is choked with poor folk foraging among the stalls in shabby rags, haggling over subtropical produce such as mangoes, loquats, tamarind, and breadfruit. Siddhartha happens upon a thickly bearded older man wearing an unusual robe and a skull cap. Curious, he strikes up a conversation.
    S IDDHARTHA (bowing with his hands touching, fingers pointed upward): Namaste! My name is Siddhartha. What is yours?
    J EWISH MAN (nodding cautiously): Abram.
    S IDDHARTHA : Excuse me, sir. May I ask why are you dressed so . . . differently?
    A BRAM : I am a Jew. My people immigrated to many places far and wide after hordes of Babylonian soldiers invaded our land and drove us out.
    S IDDHARTHA (gasping): When did that happen?
    A BRAM : I was a child of age six when my family fled our homeland. That was fifty-four years ago. We first migrated to eastern Persia, then to Afghanistan—a very harsh, forbidding land—and finally here, northeast India, a much more pleasant place. We settled here twenty-eight years ago.
    S IDDHARTHA : So you arrived here a year after I was born . . .
    A BRAM : I suppose so. You are young and handsome. Are you a nobleman?
    S IDDHARTHA : I am a prince, though not a happy one. My father overprotects me. I am twenty-nine, yet only today has he allowed me to leave the royal grounds. I have been shocked by what I have encountered.