While sectarian Christianity is, at great expense, with much ado,
making a few hundred converts in Asia among the ignorant, Buddhism is
spreading rapidly in the United States, and is reaching our most
intelligent people, without any propaganda of missionaries or force.
There are already thousands of Buddhists in this country, and their
number is augmenting more rapidly perhaps than that of any other
faith, but of these probably comparatively few know that they are
following the Buddhistic lines of thought and have adopted the
principles of Buddhistic faith. Theosophy, mental science (sometimes
called "Christian science"), esoteric Christianity and Buddhistic
metaphysics are, we believe, substantially one and the same thing, and
we may also include their intimate relative, known here as Modern
Spiritualism, the difference between them being no greater than that
which invariably arises from different interpretations of the same
idea by different individuals under differing environment. To compare
these differences with the differences of the Protestant sects would
be exalting the sects, for sectarian Christianity is hardly worthy of
association with the exalted teachings of Buddha, the theosophists,
and the finer conceptions of our modern metaphysicians and
Spiritualists, yet we make the comparison for the sake of
illustration.
Counting the philosophical modern Spiritualists we may say that the
number of people in this country who, without knowing it, perhaps, are
reasoning themselves into acceptance of Buddhistic teachings, may be
placed in the hundreds of thousands. A modified, spiritualized, and
improved form of Buddhism is, we suppose, likely to unite the
liberalized minds of this country (normal Christians and Infidels
alike) into a common and highly intellectual and spiritual faith,
opposed to which will be the less advanced people under the leadership
of the Roman Catholic church, representing the temporal power of
Christian priestcraft and the mythological superstitions which have
attached themselves to the precepts and teachings of the Christ man of
1800 years ago.
Certainly no intelligent observer can look out upon the tremendous
upheaval of religious thought which is now taking place in this
country, without seeing that a new era has dawned in the spiritual
life of the American people and foreseeing a readjustment of religious
lines on a more elevated, less dogmatic and less antagonistic plane.
We have been passing through the very same experiences that preceded a
downfall of the polytheistic mythology, followed by the new era of
Christian mythology in one part of the world and Buddhistic mythology
in another. Jesus and Buddha both came to deliver exalted teachings
which would lift the world out of bondage to an older faith and its
more cruel superstitions and the corruptions of priestcraft and gross
ceremonials; both were reformers of substantially the same abuses;
both suffered for humanity, both lived humble and inspired lives, both
were interpreters of the same truths to different peoples, both were
good men, and both have come down to us with their greatness
exaggerated by their followers beyond anything they claimed for
themselves, while the personal existence of each is shrouded in the
same mystery and covered with the same doubt. That these two men did
exist as men we may well believe, but that as personages they were
incarnated on earth is a matter of small importance compared with the
consequences which have followed their supposed embodiment.
The decline of faith in the old theology and the silent acceptance of
new ideas by the church people of America, the rapid spread of
infidelity and aggressive agnosticism, and the hold which Modern
Spiritualism under various disguises now has upon the people, premise
tremendous changes, and indicate a new era of spiritual thought--an
era of better and sweeter life for mankind we trust.
Men and women who think alike will act together when prejudices born
of old names, partisan rivalries and personal animosities are
outgrown. A new philosophy with a new name, made up of the old truths
with new refinements and elaborations, will unite the liberal-minded
in a fraternity of thought based on a better understanding of
spiritual truths, and clearer comprehension of the importance to
humanity, of liberty, justice and love.
This new religion, if we mistake not the signs of the times, will or
does partake largely of theosophic and Buddhistic metaphysics and is
not, therefore, to be despised by our best thinkers. Buddhism
corrupted by Brahmic theocracy--as Christianity by Mosaic rites, by
papistic theology and sectarian piety--has come to us as a morbid
asceticism or worse, delighting in self-inflicted individual tortures
and revelling in unthinkable contradictions. This conception of it is
probably false and due more to deficiencies of language and
unreceptive habit of metaphysical thought than to perversity of ideas.
A system of highest ethics, and a religion without a personal God,
Buddhism deifies the soul of man and exalts the individual through
countless experiences of physical embodiment into a position of
apparently infinite wisdom--a condition beyond phenomenal existence
and of course indescribable. It neither annihilates life in nirvana
nor admits immortal existence as we understand existence--i.e., in a
perpetually objective form of some sort. It is better in some
respects, though older, than Christism. Buddhas and Christs alike, we
are taught, are only men sent from celestial congress to direct their
fellow men into higher paths leading to incomprehensible perfections,
and they are not more "gods" than other men, save in their greater
experience.
Theosophy is to Buddhism what Modern Spiritualism is to
Christianity--an acceptance of fundamental truths and rejection of
priestly ceremonials; an adoption of the spirit and denial of the
letter; an application of principles and ideas to real life and
claiming not only to have new light but to be ever progressive. It is
highly and intensely spiritual, and develops in some most marvellous
powers over natural forces. Its spirituality, however, does not leave
the earth untouched and mortal needs unrecognized. It is an advance
movement in the East, bringing substance and actuality to much that in
Buddhism is but vaporous ideality and bewildering prefiguration. It
claims that intervening land or water is no barrier to close personal
association of its brotherhood, and that they are confined to no land
or clime. Here in America it has followers who walk by its light, we
are told, without knowing it, and many students trying to encompass
the mysteries of the occult science, which claims only to be like
other science, the fruit of study and discovery, giving mastery over
subtle forces of nature which physical scientists fail to recognize.
Its ethics are the highest conceivable, and the individual existence
of the soul apart from the body a matter of commonest demonstration
among the adepts.
Mental science so closely resembles theosophy, as we understand it,
that we hardly know the difference, save that of immaturity. It is
theosophy in its infancy, adapted to the status of American thought in
the psychological direction. Confined though it is at present chiefly
to the curing of the sick it is by no means admitted that this is the
limit or more than the beginning of its adaptation to human needs. It
is spending in this country with amazing rapidity, and though yet a
child is certain to bring about a great change in the ideas of many
regarding mind, its power over and priority to matter. So far as its
students devote their attention to other than such comprehension of
its postulates as is necessary to become healers, they are Buddhistic
in thought and expression, and some even accept a modified theory of
metempsychosis known as reincarnation. Still they reject the
philosophy of Spiritualism respecting spirit life, and appear to be
all at sea as regards the immediate future of the individual. In their
utterances on this they are more Buddhist than Christian, as in other
respects. They doubt or deny individual existence of the soul. The
Spiritualist believes that his soul will have for all time a body of
some sort, spiritual or physical, and his spirit-world and life are
filled with very human occupations, thoughts and desires, carried on
amid familiar scenery in a very substantial and earth-like manner. He
believes in progress eternal, and the possibility of final mergement
of his individual self into the All-Self is so remote as to give him
no concern. But the mental scientist, as near as we can express his
notion, rejects the idea of spiritual embodiment, regards his
personality as purely mortal and his soul one with indivisible God,
now and forever. Personality is not an attribute of his soul; spirit
or astral body he does not understand as ever existing to preserve
individuality after physical dissolution--in this differing as much
from the theosophist as from the Spiritualist.
When these modernized Buddhists, Spiritualists and Christians, and
liberal thinkers, generally, unite--as they easily may, for they have
now no irreconcilable disagreement--they will form a powerful body of
thinking and progressive religionists. And their religion will be a
better Buddhism than Buddha taught, a broader Christianity than Christ
revealed, a deeper Spiritual philosophy than Swedenborg or Davis
heralded. Of course we welcome the opening day and its new light and
promise, for the old theologies are wearisome emptiness and humbug,
and the new isms cold and repellant or insufficient in their
testimony. We do not expect that a new church will arise and a new
sectarianism follow. But a new conception of life, its origin, purpose
and destiny may come to lift the people of America out of the old
religious rut. And in consequence the old depressing question, "Is
life worth living?" answered once by Buddha's No, may be answered anew
by Humanity's Yes.
* * * * *
The observations of this writer refer more to certain progressive and
restless classes in this Northeastern region than to the United States
generally. The churches are not diminishing in the number of their
members, but steadily gaining in numbers and also in liberality. The
new religion and philosophy of the future will be luminous, scientific
and philanthropic--not a conglomeration of vague speculations. True,
reverential religion is not a dreamy or speculative impulse, but an
earnest love of mankind and of duty, which does not waste itself in
unprofitable speculations, but eagerly pursues the positive knowledge
of this life and the next, which gives practical wisdom and diffuses
happiness. All systems of religion talk about love and recommend it,
but their followers seldom realize it in their lives. The religion of
the future will _realize_ it. Apropos to this subject, Col. Van Horn,
of the _Kansas City Journal_, says:
"And as another result of missionary work, there are now in the
United States, in England and on the continent, missionaries of
Buddhism sent by the schools of the East, to convert us to the
philosophy of Gautama. This may sound startling to the general
reader, but it is not only a fact, but they have made converts
and are making them with a rapidity that is remarkable, making
more from us than we are from them. And they are from the very
best and brightest intellects among us--not the illiterate, but
the most cultured of the educated classes. It will not do to
suppress this fact in the discussion--for this is an age when
facts must be looked in the face."