"Genuine Buddhism never seems to contemplate any measures of acceptance
with the deity; but, overleaping the barrier between finite and infinite
mind, urges its followers to aspire by their own efforts to that divine
perfectibility of which it teaches that man is capable, and by attaining
which man becomes God--and thus is explained both the quiescence of the
imaginary celestial, and the plenary omnipotence of the real Manushi
Buddhas--thus, too, we must account for the fact that genuine Buddhism
has no priesthood; the saint despises the priest; the saint scorns the
aid of mediators, whether on earth or in heaven; 'conquer (exclaims the
adept or Buddha to the novice or BodhiSattwa)--conquer the importunities
of the body, urge your mind to the meditation of abstraction, and you
shall, in time, discover the great secret (Sunyata) of nature: know
this, and you become, on the instant, whatever priests have feigned of
Godhead--you become identified with Prajna, the sum of all the power and
all the wisdom which sustain and govern the world, and which, as they
are manifested out of matter, must belong solely to matter; not indeed
in the gross and palpable state of pravritti, but in the archetypal and
pure state of nirvritti.
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