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REPORT COPYRIGHT VIOLATION IN REPLY
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Message Subject
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Buried deep in the Taisho Tripitaka Buddhist Cannon, I found several ancient Christian texts
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Poster Handle
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OldChap |
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Post Content
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Thanks for the great response, friends. I'm a little tired out from all the flipping around the digital Cannon I did earlier, but I'll see if I can work up the energy for a little more translation later. In the meantime, its also interesting to look the other way: Did Buddhism influence Christianity? Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence in this direction is the so-called story of "Barlaam and Josephat." [ link to en.wikipedia.org (secure)] "Barlaam and Josaphat are legendary Christian martyrs and saints. Their life story is very likely to have been based on the life of the Gautama Buddha. It tells how an Indian king persecuted the Christian Church in his realm. When astrologers predicted that his own son would some day become a Christian, the king imprisoned the young prince Josaphat, who nevertheless met the hermit Saint Barlaam and converted to Christianity. After much tribulation the young prince's father accepted the Christian faith, turned over his throne to Josaphat, and retired to the desert to become a hermit. Josaphat himself later abdicated and went into seclusion with his old teacher Barlaam. The tale derives from a second to fourth century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist text, via a Manichaean version, then the Arabic Kitab Bilawhar wa-Būd̠asaf (Book of Bilawhar and Budhasaf), current in Baghdad in the eighth century, from where it entered into Middle Eastern Christian circles before appearing in European versions."The pure unaltered teachings of all higher consciousness beings who came into this low consciousness part of reality throughout the ages have one commonality, that is to teach us a way of living to be more kind, compassionate, and respectful to each other and all things. It is through our unaware human biases that those very similar teachings were fractured into many different religions and spiritual sects. And those biases were sometimes intentional for personal benefits, and sometimes unintentional through misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or mis-translation. All the pure teachings guide us to uncover and realize our true nature that is unconditional love, compassion, and joy. That is to guide us to evolve spiritually to higher consciousness having greater wisdom and maturity, being more able to make better and more benevolent choices. Then we could have "Heaven" on Earth. This long process of spiritual discovery and evolution is not exclusive to Earth. All higher consciousness worlds had gone through what we have been going through, and there are many. It is the fun but immensely challenging adventure we willingly signed up for with great passion. It is how love and light will forever spread and expand. All the best.
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