Henry Steel Olcott

The history of Sākya Muni's life is the strongest bulwark of his religion. As long as the human heart is capable of being touched by tales of heroic self-sacrifice, accompanied by purity and celestial benevolence of motive, it will cherish …

What he taught may be summed up in a few words, as the perfume of many roses may be distilled into a few drops of attar: Everything in the world of Matter is unreal; the only reality is in the world of Spirit.

The thoughtful student, in scanning the religious history of the race, has one fact continually forced upon his notice, viz., that there is an invariable tendency to deify whomsoever shows himself superior to the weakness of our common …

129. Q. And when this salvation or emancipation is attained, what do we reach? A. NIRVĀNA.

128. Q. Emancipation, then, from what? A. Emancipation from the miseries of earthly existence and of rebirths, all of which are due to ignorance and impure lusts and cravings.

127. Q. Can you give a better word for salvation? A. Yes, emancipation.

125. Q. How may we gain such a conquest? A. By following the Noble Eight-fold Path which the Buddha discovered and pointed out.

124. Q. How can we escape the sufferings which result from unsatisfied desires and ignorant cravings? A. By complete conquest over, and destruction of, this eager thirst for life and its pleasures, which causes sorrow.

123. Q. Do these differ with each individual? A. Yes: but all men suffer from them in degree.

122. Q. Tell me some things that cause sorrow? A. Birth, decay, illness, death, separation from objects we love, association with those who are repugnant, craving for what cannot be obtained.

120. Q. What is the light that can dispel this ignorance of ours and remove all sorrows? A. The knowledge of the "Four Noble Truths," as the Buddha called them.

119. Q. And what is that which is most valuable? A. To know the whole secret of man's existence and destiny, so that we may estimate at no more than their actual value this life and its relations; and so that we may live in a way to ensure …

118. Q. Why does ignorance cause suffering? A. Because it makes us prize what is not worth prizing, grieve when we should not grieve, consider real what is not real but only illusionary, and pass our lives in the pursuit of worthless …

116. Q. When our Bōdhisattva became Buddha, what did he see was the cause of human misery? Tell me in one word. A. Ignorance (Avidyā).

40. Q. And how did he expect to learn the cause of sorrow in the jungle? A. By removing far away from all that could prevent his thinking deeply of the causes of sorrow and the nature of man... He went away into the forest near Uruvela, …

33. Q. How old was he when he went to the jungle? A. He was in his twenty-ninth year.

29. Q. But how did he acquire this boundless love? A. Throughout numberless births and aeons of years he had been cultivating this love, with the unfaltering determination to become a Buddha.

27. Q. Why did he do this? A. To discover the cause of our sufferings and the way to escape from them.

26. Q. Did he become Buddha in his splendid palaces? A. No. He left all and went alone into the jungle.

19. Q. Tell me again when Prince Siddhārtha was born? A. Six hundred and twenty-three years before the Christian era.

13. Q. What is its meaning? A. Enlightened; or, he who has the all-perfect wisdom. The Pālī phrase is Sabbannu, the One of Boundless Knowledge. In Samskrt it is Sarvajña.

12. Q. Was Buddha his name? A. No. It is the name of a condition or state of mind, of the mind after it has reached the culmination of development.

10. Q. Was he a man? A. Yes; but the wisest, noblest and most holy being, who had developed himself in the course of countless births far beyond all other beings, the previous BUDDHAS alone excepted.

4. Q. Would you call a person a Buddhist who had merely been born of Buddha parents? A. Certainly not. A Buddhist is one who not only professes belief in the Buddha as the noblest of Teachers, in the Doctrine preached by Him, and in the …