Jesus versus Buddha … This is the epic battle of who’s who in the spiritual world. Few people, though, realize the true relationship of both of these to the Supreme God.
Many are aware that everything in this creation is expressed in duality. However, most don’t realize that wherever there are two or more, there is an order between them. This has nothing to do with equality: this simply has to do with the order of the Universe. Without order there is confusion, and God’s universe is not run in confusion. Besides, God is not hung up on “equality” issues.
God is also expressed in duality in this creation: there is the impersonal expression of God and the personal expression of God. And between these two expressions there is order, the personal expression being dominant over the impersonal.
The impersonal expression of God is the realm of spiritual knowledge: the realm of understanding God’s ONENESS in this universe. All the truths that mankind has realized about how God is and works in this creation belong here, as well as what we know about our being one with Him/her. The Eastern religions have made great strides in realizing the eternal truths that comprise the impersonal expression of God.
The personal expression of God is the expression of His INDIVIDUALITY. God is perfect oneness and perfect individuality at the same time. We are all “god,” but there is only one God the Father, just as each of us is an individual expression of being, an individual soul. It is in this personal realm that the story of Jesus gains stature. God the Father has identified Himself as an “individual,” the Creator of the Universe, the God of all men beside whom there is no other. He has laid out for mankind where to go when each soul has mastered the ways of oneness with the Spirit. When one has attained a high “union with God” (a state of purification, sainthood, the goal of both eastern and western religions) then one must needs pass through Jesus, God’s only Begotten Son, the Savior of the world: the door of rebirth from this earthly finite imperfection to Heavenly infinite perfection. God the Father has identified Jesus as that doorway, lest there be any confusion about it. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the light. Nobody comes to the Father except through me.”
The impersonal knowledge of God offers each soul a melting into the one great ocean of the ever-presence of God. The personal Knowledge of God offers each soul an individual expression of Godhood, the infinite experience of life as a Son or Daughter of God, an eternal life of physical perfection. Quite a difference!
It is the tendency of many Christians to condemn Buddha, the other Eastern saints, and their followers as lost because they don’t have Jesus. How little these Christians understand about the depth of holiness a life spent seeking a oneness with God can create!
It is the tendency of many Eastern practitioners to condemn the Christians because they can be lost in ego, so ignorant of the oneness of life and souls, so contemptuous of the beauty, wisdom, and truth found in other paths. How far short these seekers sell themselves to miss the promise of eternal salvation because it demands one accept a true, individual God the Father and God the Son!
Jesus is the savior of mankind. He is God’s Personal Individuality ultimately expressed. He came so that God’s promise of eternal life could be fulfilled for all: individiual physical perfection, no more sickness, old age, or death. Jesus came to pay the sin debt and create the doorway for mankind to enter into their eternal physical perfection. And his plan is for ALL mankind. That is the difference between Jesus and everyone else.