30. How does Buddha's Teaching Relate to Theosophy?

The answer to this question is partly given in what was said in the last issue in connection with Annie Besant's book “The Four Religions”. The original Brahman teaching, which is expressed in Hinduism and the Upanishads, was given a form in Buddha's teaching that was appropriate to the people's understanding. Buddhism was to turn a doctrine that was more focused on knowledge into one that served to elevate and purify moral strength and to lead a direct life. This is not to say that Buddhism taught something fundamentally new or even different from ancient Brahmanism. Rather, everything that Buddha taught was already present in Brahmanism. And anyone who understood Brahmanism correctly can be said to have been a Buddhist before the Buddha. It is as if someone were to describe a plant that many others had already described; the only difference is that he emphasizes certain characteristics that his predecessors did not feel the need to discuss in particular. Brahmanism is based on a world view. The Buddha showed how one should live in order to live in accordance with this world view. A person can live in accordance with a world view without fully understanding it. Indeed, he will understand it better later if he has already lived in accordance with it. This is what Buddha wanted to achieve in those who followed him. If he refused to speak about the supernatural, it was not because he considered it unknowable or even denied it; but because he wanted to first point people to a life that would then enable them to penetrate the supernatural. He did not deny the eternity of the soul; but he did not want his followers to engage in speculations about this eternity before they had arrived at the conclusion, through observing his rules of life, that their own lives fit into the spiritual order of the world. One could say that Buddha's teachings are Hinduism applied to practical life for people who are not yet able to grasp the connection between this life and the highest mysteries. Man has his destiny in the eternal; but only if he sees the temporal, the transitory, in the right light, is he also able to relate to the eternal in the right way. This is what characterizes Buddha's goal. That is why he refrained from teaching higher truths in his outer teachings, and taught the doctrine of the causes of earthly life and of its proper purification through the eightfold path.