His teachings are fully applied to this Age in the form of Baha’u’llah, who is the Maitreye Buddha.What do you mean, at the time? You believe Buddha to be a manifestation of God, the very reflection of who God is on earth and he left a way of being, namely an ascetic way of being for his followers to embrace. How is it then possible that such a method, as you describe it, of being detached from worldly things was (as you seem to imply) only suitable for the time?
Since you accept his asceticism as something fundamentally good, is it not a valid option for today’s Buddhists or even today’s Bahai?
Jimmy, one must consider that the Catholic Faith endorses a spiritual meaning to the book of Genesis.Genesis 2:16-17
Then Yahweh God gave the man this command, ‘You are free to eat of all the trees in the garden.
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat; for, the day you eat of that, you are doomed to die.’
So why would Adam/God brake his own law…and expel himself from the Garden of Eden…and Why would God let himself die?
So it seems the Baha’i faith has rewritten Gods word
I’m answering the questioning.You didn’t answer the question. Asceticism has similarities in various traditions, usually a renouncement of the world takes place, living isolated in a community takes place and one abstains from pleasures like sex and fine eating. Buddha addresses Monks most often it seems in his discourses and the traditions which survive. That would be one of Buddha’s most enduring legacies even you believe Buddhism as a whole has perverted the truth of the Buddha, surely that aspect must have been original to the Buddha?
So the question remains. Was the Buddha’s asceticism good?
TENTH LEAFThe story is capable of many explanations and is not to be taken literally.Genesis 2:16-17
Then Yahweh God gave the man this command, ‘You are free to eat of all the trees in the garden.
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat; for, the day you eat of that, you are doomed to die.’
So why would Adam/God brake his own law…and expel himself from the Garden of Eden…and Why would God let himself die?
So it seems the Baha’i faith has rewritten Gods word
Yet you reject asceticism a mode and being of life.His teachings are fully applied to this Age in the form of Baha’u’llah, who is the Maitreye Buddha.
The Buddha has spoken again and has fulfilled the teaching of ascetism
Just as Jesus fulfilled the meaning of circumcision…
.
The only ones claiming it to be a counterfeit Buddhism are the Bahai, certaintly not the millions of sincere Buddhists who trust in the teachings of the Buddha. In fact you quote the Buddha when you agree with what is left to us when you agree with him, yet I am sure there are many quotes you would simply dismiss as being false.I’m answering the questioning.
I don’t think it is a legacy of the original teachings because for example Buddha was also against statue worship yet now and for centuries there have been statues erected in Buddha’a name and worshipped which He would have been fuming about.
Why would there be need of a future Buddha if most of His teachings had not become corrupted??
Have you heard of the Five Disappearances? Or the Counterfeit Buddhism which Buddha spoke of? One needs to factor in these things which speak about the decline of Buddhism and the arising of a counterfeit Buddhism before posturing that asceticism was an integral part of His Teachings just because they are practised today.
Nothing could be more clear to me that the worshipping of statues and asceticism are part of the counterfeit teachings the Buddha spoke of, as idol worship is against God and asceticism is harmful to the body.
First of all the Buddha who is expected to come by the Buddhists is Maitreya and not Amitabha.It was clear that the Dhamma would decline and a counterfeit Dhamma arise.
What we must do now is be able to distinguish truth from falsehood which in my own heart and soul I have done and reached nirvana or heaven or contentment and once one reaches these shores of certitude truth is distinguishable from falsehood as night is from day.
That a Counterfeit Dhamma will arise and to some has arisen already these sources confirm
dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/CrossIndexed/Published/Meditations7/141129TheTrueDhammaHasDisappeared.pdf
accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn16/sn16.013.than.html
The Five Disappearances (disappearance of law and learning) After which a new Buddha is to appear.
sacred-texts.com/bud/bits/bits102.htm
Now Baha’is believe Baha’u’llah is the return of Buddha. What does Buddha say here? Read very carefully exactly what Buddha prophesies here…
And the Blessed One replied: “I am not the first Buddha who came upon earth, nor shall I be the last. In due time another Buddha will arise in the world, a Holy One, a supremely enlightened One, endowed with wisdom in conduct, auspicious, knowing the universe, an incomparable leader of men, a master of angels and mortals. **He will reveal to you the same eternal truths which I have taught you. **He will preach his religion, glorious in its origin, glorious at the climax, and glorious at the goal, in the spirit and in the letter. He will proclaim a religious life, wholly perfect and pure; such as I now proclaim.”
Now Buddha refers to Baha’u’llah by name 2,500 years ago!! AmitABHA is a derivative of BAHA.
“Amitābha, the unbounded light, is the source of wisdom, of virtue, of Buddhahood. The deeds of sorcerers and miracle-mongers are frauds, but what is more wondrous, more mysterious, more miraculous than Amitābha?”
So, Amitabha Buddha, or Baha’u’llah comfirms here that asceticism was NOT one of those ‘self same eternal truths’ taught by Buddha as He denounces it in this passage.
The Tenth Leaf
of the Most Exalted Paradise is the following: O people of the earth! Living in seclusion or practicing asceticism is not acceptable in the presence of God. It behooveth them that are endued with insight and understanding to observe that which will cause joy and radiance. Such practices as are sprung from the loins of idle fancy or are begotten of the womb of superstition ill beseem men of knowledge. In former times and more recently some people have been taking up their abodes in the caves of the mountains while others have repaired to graveyards at night. Say, give ear unto the counsels of this Wronged One. Abandon the things current amongst you and adopt that which the faithful Counselor biddeth you. Deprive not yourselves of the bounties which have been created for your sake.
This is very clear and in no need of any explanation.First of all the Buddha who is expected to come by the Buddhists is Maitreya and not Amitabha.
Amitabha is a celestial Buddha who is not expected to come to earth and saying Amitabha is same as Bahaullah sounds as funny as saying Brahma is same as Abraham - the names just sound similar, there is really no connection.
If Bahaullah is Jesus and Buddha and every other expected one (Moshaich too?), don’t you think it is strange that more than seven billion people have not heard of Bahaullah and fewer have heard of the Bab?
The celestial Reality of Baha’u’llah is called the Abha BeautyFirst of all the Buddha who is expected to come by the Buddhists is Maitreya and not Amitabha.
Amitabha is a celestial Buddha who is not expected to come to earth and saying Amitabha is same as Bahaullah sounds as funny as saying Brahma is same as Abraham - the names just sound similar, there is really no connection.
If Bahaullah is Jesus and Buddha and every other expected one (Moshaich too?), don’t you think it is strange that more than seven billion people have not heard of Bahaullah and fewer have heard of the Bab?
So in other words you and Servant don’t know. I want to know why would Adam/God be tempted by the devil and break his own law by eating the forbidden fruit…and causing himself and the human race to perish.The story is capable of many explanations and is not to be taken literally.
God never dies. The moral of the story is to teach us that if we disobey God we will fall into error and become materialistic and earthly instead of heavenly seeking only worldy ambitions and our spiritual life will die.
The death spoken of here so beautifully in this story is one of spiritual death if we disobey God and who today is spiritually alive with all this materialism and consumerism surrounding us and tempting us?
Everyone who has turned away from God and listened to the ‘snake’ within the insistent self, the ego, spiritually dies. Thank God you are not spiritually dead so we can speak of heavenly matters and eat of thr invisible manna that comes from heaven in the form of spiritual food to sustain our souls.
So to recapitulate. Even the most holy of men , if He were to disobey God would lose His spiritual,life. That is why it is said the devil tested Christ for if Christ were incapable of making a wrong choice He would never have been tested. The story is a kind of wake up call that no matter how much we pray or how pious we are we can fall. God just happened to want to use a Manifestation of God in this story to symbolise that ALL are His Servants even Manifestations and all must obey Him or lose spiritual life.
Who gave Jesus those names…and how names did Baha’u’llah give himself?This is very clear and in no need of any explanation.
Similar to Christ being called the
Messiah,
Saviour,
Redeemer,
Son of God
and Son of Man etc.
So Baha’u’llah too has many titles and two of them related to Buddhism are Maetrya and AmitAbha of which Abha is His name exactly as a derivative.
You are looking at it only from a Christian perspective Jimmy.So in other words you and Servant don’t know. I want to know why would Adam/God be tempted by the devil and break his own law by eating the forbidden fruit…and causing himself and the human race to perish.
Some of the manifestations of God had multiple wives. So who would be Gods favorite wife and is she a co-ruler?
Ignatius.Yet you reject asceticism a mode and being of life.
To compare it with Jesus fulfilling circumcision doesn’t quite fit, since circumcision was teh entrance into covenant relationship with God via the Mosaic covenant. Christ brought the new covenant in which there is something better, not rejecting what was in the Old but building on top of it.
Bahai imply an equality among the Manifestations and it seems to me one of the main things the Buddha brought was an ascetic movement. Something Bahai completely reject as something possible to live in. Progressive revelation being what it is that could work, yet it seems to me in rejecting the ascetic way you are rejecting the entire purpose for the manifestation of the Buddha. Buddha certainty didn’t seem concerned to preach God (though you may assert it you cannot prove that this was his focal point), he seemed rather to emphasize a life of detachment so as to receive something greater, namely a loss of self and gain enlightenment. In rejecting asceticism as a valid option, it seems you do away with the main thing he brought and you cannot argue that the Bahai totally embrace everything Buddha taught. Do you indulge ever? You believe celibacy something not worth embracing. You take pleasure in this world and the good things within it, you don’t fully detach yourself from it.
I can’t think of any name that Baha’u’llah gave to Himself.Who gave Jesus those names…and how names did Baha’u’llah give himself?
How many other Adams is their that God refers to? Isn’t odd that the things the Baha’i can’t really explain they say “Its not to be taken literally” or “from a Christian perspective”You are looking at it only from a Christian perspective Jimmy.
Firstly, I am not sure if the Adam of Genesis is the same Adam, the Manifestation of God.
The Adam of Genesis REPRESENTS each new Manifestation of God. It is for this reason that Jesus was termed the new Adam.
Please read:
bahai9.com/wiki/Adam
.
Good questions!Are all nine of the Manifestations of God (Abraham, Krishna, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Báb and Bahá’u’lláh) in Heaven as individual people ?
Everyone of them is a mirror of God... All else besides them are to be regarded as mirrors capable of reflecting the glory of these Manifestations Who are themselves the Primary Mirrors of the Divine Being...'. He writes moreover that the soul of the Manifestation of God is a pure and stainless Soul’99 and Abdu'l-Bahá explains that it is a perfect soul’, `like a mirror wherein the Sun of Reality is reflected… a perfect expression of the Sun’.[10]Abdu'l-Bahá says: … the individual reality of the Manifestation of God is a holy reality, and for that reason it is sanctified and, in that which concerns its nature and quality, is distinguished from all other things…’.[11]rational soul, which is the human reality', or human spirit’, says Abdu'l-Bahá, and they … share it with all mankind’. However, He explains that the degree of perception typical of the Manifestations of God is not the same rational perception which is typical of human souls, but a universal divine mind' transcending human knowledge, in that it is a conscious power, not a power of investigation and of research’. Such power `is the special attribute of the Holy Manifestations and of the Dawning-Places of Prophethood; a ray of this light falls upon the mirrors of the hearts of the righteous’.[13]the Divine Manifestations are so many different mirrors, because they have a special individuality... It is clear that the reality of Christ is different from that of Moses.' Nevertheless that which is reflected in the mirrors is the one sun’,[14] therefore it is easy to understand how, though the Manifestations of God differ from each other in many respects, yet they are essentially one and the same.... this third state is alone partaken of by the divine messengers, although great saints have attained extraordinary pre-eminence and reflect the splendour of the sun,'[15] says Abdu’l-Bahá.