The firm conviction of immortality—­released from the “wheel of life” as he expressed it.

The knowledge of when and where he was to pass out from the life of the body.

The love of solitude and meditation.  The intellectual power maintained even into old age.

The unselfish desire to help others.

Great and never-failing sympathy with suffering, a divine patience, and insight into the hearts of all forms of life, earned for this great soul the name “Buddha—­The Compassionate.”

CHAPTER IX

JESUS OF NAZARETH

Turning now to the next in order of the world’s great masters, or illumined ones, we come to a consideration of Jesus of Nazareth, in whose name the great moral system of religion, called “Christianity,” is promulgated.

It has been conclusively shown that the essential features of the present-day system of religion, known as Christianity, were instituted by Paul rather than by Jesus, and that the system itself, like Buddhism, is the work of the followers of the great teacher, rather than that of the Master.

Our present concern, however, is not with the system or method of the church, but with those historic facts which bear upon the question of the Illumination of Jesus, classifying Him, not as an incarnate son of God, in the accepted theological interpretation, but in the light of cosmic consciousness.

Jesus the Christ was born, according to the most reliable authorities, about six hundred years after Gautama, the Buddha.

Whether or not the Nazarene was familiar with the Buddhist doctrines or whether He spent the years of His life which are shrouded in mystery, in the inner temples of either Thibet, India, Persia, China, or other oriental country, will doubtless always be a disputed point among controversialists.

The fact does not matter, either way.

There is an encouraging similarity in the fundamentals of all religious precepts, arguing that when a teacher is really inspired, the truth makes friends with him or her.

Some writers on the subject of Illumination give exact dates when the flash of cosmic consciousness came to the various teachers of the world, but these dates are problematical, and they are also inconsequential.

That Jesus was among those historic characters who had attained cosmic consciousness, there can be no possible doubt, even though his exact words will be disputed.

Enough has come down to us through the ages to prove the fact that Jesus knew and taught the illusory character of external life (maya) and that he was himself absolutely certain of the “kingdom within,” which he admonished his hearers to seek, rather than to live so much in the external.  This he did because he well knew that constant dwelling in the external consciousness led not to liberation.

The light within, was the substance of his cry, and that light, when perceived, leads to illumination of everything, both the within and the without.