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    The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons
    The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons
    The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons
    Ebook41 pages24 minutes

    The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons

    By Henry Steel Olcott

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateDec 1, 2005
    The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons

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    • 2/5
      Very, and I do mean very, basic.
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      This was a nice, small sort of introduction.

    Book preview

    The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons - Henry Steel Olcott

    Project Gutenberg's The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons, by H.S. Olcott

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons

    Author: H.S. Olcott

    Release Date: April 17, 2006 [EBook #18194]

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF BUDDHA AND ITS LESSONS ***

    Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Sankar Viswanathan,

    and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at

    http://www.pgdp.net

    ADYAR PAMPHLETS

    No. 15

    The Life of Buddha and Its

    Lessons

    BY

    H. S. OLCOTT

    THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE

    Adyar, Madras, India

    First Edition: May 1912

    Second Edition: Sept. 1919

    The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons

    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 humanity. Look where we will, we find the saint-like man exalted into a divine personage and worshipped for a god. Though perhaps misunderstood, reviled and even persecuted while living, the apotheosis is almost sure to come after death: and the victim of yesterday's mob, raised to the state of an Intercessor in Heaven, is besought with prayer and tears, and placatory penances, to mediate with God for the pardon of human sin. This is a mean and vile trait of human nature, the proof of ignorance, selfishness, brutal cowardice, and a superstitious materialism. It shows the base instinct to put down and destroy whatever or whoever makes men feel their own imperfections; with the alternative of ignoring and denying these very imperfections by turning into gods men who have merely spiritualised their natures, so that it may be supposed that they were heavenly incarnations and not mortal like other men.

    This process of euhemerisation, as

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