Hindu Lord Vishnu (the Preserver), Narayana, Hari, the Supreme god of Vaishnavism. [This is a beautiful avatar so much so that the Buddha, the Christ, and the dark Lord Krishna (whose name means "black" Kānha, Sanskrit कान्हा, "The dark-complexioned beloved one" 108 Names of Shri Krishna) are said to be avatars and incarnations or emanations of this god. Of course, in the case of the historical Buddha, this can't be quite right. It is a beautiful sentiment, indeed, but the Buddha is not reborn here or elsewhere, is not a "god," and rises beyond the gods.
As for a historical Jesus, maybe, but surely most Christians (or perhaps they should more rightly be labelled Jesuits or Jesevites) would not like to think that their all-powerful, supreme controller, creator of the entire universe were an avatar of a neighboring faith, in spite of the fact that Jesus practiced Hinduism to some extent or was exposed to it in his 18 years of travel in Tibet and India (Nicolas Notovitch). However, the title avatar may well apply to Lord Krishna, the central object of veneration and faith in popular Hinduism today, sometimes rivaling Lord Shiva and the great Goddesses Lakshmi, Sarawati, Parvati, Kali, Ma Durga, and his consort Radha.]
Ishtadeva or Ishtadevata (Sanskrit इष्ट देव(ता), iṣṭa-deva(tā), literally the "cherished divinity" from iṣṭa, "personal, liked, preferred, cherished" and devatā, "deity, divinity, godhead, tutelary deity" or deva, "deity"), is a term used in Hinduism denoting a worshipper's favorite deity [1, 2] or favorite form of the deity if approached from a monotheistic or henotheistic point of view. More
[They sure have been treated as such by sexist and patriarchal monks trying to enhance and preserve their worldly power as abuse-prone clergyman. But these additional rules are NOT historical, as revealed by the scholarship of Ayya Tathālokā Bhikkhunī of California looking into the Theravada BhikkhuniVinaya, were not laid down or approved by the Buddha, and have been shown to be later additions. For instance, on one occasion, the Buddha's mother, the first Buddhist nun in history, comes to the Buddha seeking clarification on some matter or other, which would never have happened IF such additional rules had been laid down by him. The fact that she asks what she does, as documented in a vinaya backstory preserved among the ancient Buddhist texts, proves the Buddha didn't do it. And the fact that monks at later Buddhist councils added such sexist and oppressive stipulations is tantamount to crimes against humanity and the Sangha, maybe even a "defeat" (parajika) offense of a schism between monk and nun communities. Wisdom Quarterly stands firmly on the side of nuns, Natasha, and all future female-embodied persons (because we can all be reborn any gender whether we like it or not) seeking enlightenment and liberation. We have covered this topic many times in the past.]
Misogyny: literally "hatred of females," figuratively promoting separation of the sexes or normative sex role stereotyping [or saying there are only two genders]
Sid (the Buddha), Kris (Krishna), Mo, Josh (Jesus), Aquaman, Lao Tzu, Joe (Joseph Smith)
JESUS vs. the BUDDHA: Love vs. Non-Attachment
The Buddha and the Christ: friends
(Buddha's Wisdom) 🔍JESUS vs. BUDDHA: LOVE vs. DETACHMENT: TWO PATHS, ONE TRUTH. What happens when Jesus’s fearless [yogic] love [called agape in Greek] meets the Buddha’s wisdom of [boundless love called metta and] letting go*?
*“Attachment says, ‘Be mine,’ whereas love says, ‘Be well.’”
This video explores how two of history’s greatest spiritual teachers [the Buddha preceding Christ by at least 500 years], born five centuries and continents apart, answered the same human question: *How do we love without suffering*?
*Suffering: dukkha, disappointment, pain, unsatisfactoriness, misery, ill, woe, not getting what we want and getting what we don't want.
From Galilee to the Ganges, discover how their paths converge in a timeless lesson for the modern heart.
📿 DISCOVER:
The radical love of Jesus that defied tribal and political boundaries
The Buddha’s teaching on non-attachment and the end of desperate grasping and clinging
The hidden parallels between early Christian and Buddhist thought
The mystery of whether the Christ and the Buddha’s teachings ever crossed paths [in ancient India, Tibet, and Central Asia]
How to practice “love with open hands” in relationships today
🙏 Subscribe for more East-meets-West wisdom: Every week, we explore the meeting point of philosophy, history, and spirituality, from Buddhist cosmology to hidden wisdom in Western thought.
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS:0
00:00 The grip in our chest
01:14 The love paradox
02:44 The dangerous love of Jesus
07:24 The freedom love of Siddhartha the Buddha
11:19 When two truths collide
15:35 Love without the leash
21:21 The third path
24:50 Love fearlessly, LET GO freely
📚 SOURCES AND FURTHER READING:
The Metta Sutta (Sutta Nipata 1.8) – Teachings on Loving-Kindness
Sallatha Sutta (SN 36.6) – The Parable of the Second Arrow
The Gospel of Luke 10.25-37 – The Parable of the Good Samaritan
The Gospel of Matthew 5.44 – “Love thy enemies”
Comparative studies on Greco-Buddhist exchanges along the Silk Road
Historical scholarship on early Christian monasticism and Buddhist influence
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* Love fearlessly. Love freely. Stay curious. Stay wise.
Young Jesus (known in Buddhism as Saint Issa) in India and Tibet
Does curel, bloody black magic animal sacrifice really undergird all of modern Christianity?
.
The Church knew, buried truth
In 1887, Russian Christian war correspondent Nicolas Notovitch claimed that while traveling through the Himalayas with other Russian, he was thrown from a horse and broke his leg.
The others left him to recover over the winter at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery known as Hemis Gompa in Ladakh (now part of India), he was shown written documentation called the "Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men" (Isa being the Arabic name of Jesus in Islam) by the Buddhist abbot [30][31][32].
Notovitch's story, with a translated text of the "Life of Saint Issa," was published upon his return to the West in French in 1894 as La vie inconnue de Jesus Christ (Unknown Life of Jesus Christ) [5][32].
According to the Buddhist scrolls, Jesus (Issa) abandoned Jerusalem, Palestine/Israel, at the age of 13 and set out towards India, "intending to improve and perfect himself in the divine understanding and to studying the laws [the Dharma or Doctrine] of the great Buddha."
He crossed Punjab and reached Puri Jagannath, where he studied the Brahmin priests' Vedas (sacred text, lit. "Knowledge Books").
He spent six years in Puri and Rajgir (the famous Buddhist city Rajagriha, site of Vultures' Peak and Venuvana/Veluvana Vihara), near Nalanda (site of the world's first university, a Buddhist monastic learning center in India), an ancient seat of Brahminical/Vedic learning.
Then Issa/Jesus/Yeshua went up into the Himalayas and spent time in Tibetan lamaseries, studying Buddhism [30], and continued on through Persia (the Aryan Land of Iran), and returned to Jerusalem at the age of 29.
Notovitch's writings were immediately controversial, and German scholar Max Müller stated that either the Buddhist lamas at the lamasery had deceived Notovitch (or played a joke on him), or he had fabricated the evidence [30][33][34].
Müller then wrote to the Buddhist monastery at Hemis, and the [replacement] head lama replied that there had been no Western visitor at the monastery in the past 15 years and there were no documents related to Notovitch's story [35].
J. Archibald Douglas then visited Hemis Gompa and interviewed the [new] head lama, who stated that Notovitch had never been there [35].
Indologist Leopold von Schroeder called Notovitch's story a "big fat lie" [36]. Wilhelm Schneemelcher states that Notovich's accounts were soon exposed as fabrications and that to date no one has even had a glimpse at the manuscripts Notovitch claims to have had [5] [which is untrue since Swami Abhedananda traveled to Hemis and was allowed to see, touch, and confirm their existence].
Notovich defended himself by responding to these attacks and claims [37]. However, once his story was reexamined by historians – some even questioning his existence – they claimed Notovitch confessed to having fabricated the evidence [36].
American scholar Bart D. Ehrman states that, "Today there is not a single recognized scholar on the planet who has any doubts about the matter [other than German scholar Holger Kersten and his colleague German Indologist Gunter Gronbold, author of Jesus in Indien]. The entire story was invented by Notovitch, who earned a good deal of money and a substantial amount of notoriety for his hoax" [38].
However, others deny this. Notovich never accepted any accusations against him – that his account was a forgery or any such thing.
Although not impressed with his story, Sir Francis Younghusband recalls meeting Nicolas Notovitch near Skardu not long before Notovitch visited Hemis monastery [39].
In 1922, the President of the Vedanta Society of New York between 1897 and 1921 and the author of several books Swami Abhedananda went to the Himalayas on foot and reached Tibet, where he studied Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan Buddhism.
He traveled to Hemis Gompa and allegedly found the manuscript Notovitch claimed and translated, which was a Tibetan translation of the original scrolls written in the exclusively Buddhist language Pali.
One of the lamas said that it was a copy and that the original was in a monastery at Marbour near the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.
After Abhedananda's death in 1939, one of his disciples inquired about the documents at the Hemis Gompa but was told that they had disappeared [40][41] [which is to say moved for safety so that Westerners would not come kill everyone and steal them to hide the truth in accord with their sectarian religious views]. More
(Kashi Star) Rainbow Gathering 2024 was held in Northern California. It was a very unusual gathering. But I had a great time camping at the hippie festival because I enjoyed my week camping in the woods with the Rainbow Family.
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It rained in Los Angeles on Saturday morning, as it has 5 out of the 6 years this fest has existed. So most diehard yogis were undeterred. While it remained cold, cloudy, and drizzly with showers in some parts of the megalopolis that is LA County, which stretches for over 50 miles across as a basin, the sun came out over Torrance, the city (one of 88) hosting the festival.
Yogananda was a great Indian guru who is bigger than the organization that claims to be his exclusive promoter, the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF). There is a better albeit smaller organization that promotes the real guru, baby and all.
(Could the great Hindu-Christian syncretic-saint have had a baby with one of his American female disciples?) The Ananda Church of Self-Realization (Donate | Yogananda Fest) is a kind of schism that arose among Paramhansa Yogananda's followers.
One original disciple, Kriyananda, was a purist. He decided to publish the founder's autobiography in its ORIGINAL (unredacted, unabridged) form. It's better that way to read it, but SRF doesn't like it.
The larger, less orthodox SRF organization made changes to the classic book and will not settle a lawsuit that says the rightful owner of the religious organization is Yogananda's unacknowledged son. There's DNA evidence to back up Ananda's claim, but SRF will not acknowledge, as to do so would mean the loss of their ability to legally claim ownership of the book, its proceeds, the properties spread across LA and elsewhere, and the legacy of the great master. What to do? What to do? More lawyers are needed to settle the issue. Or the son should become a guru, claim his lineage, and speak out publicly rather than behind the Ananda organization. Until then, there are TWO versions of the book. Which have most people read?
After about 9:00 am, with clear skies and lots of enthusiastic participants from the Holy City of Lost Angels, events went on as planned: meditation, Kriya Yoga, Hatha Yoga, inspiring featured speakers and more.
That mansion became Yogananda's Self Realization Fellowship's Mother Center (older than the magnificent Lake Shrine in Malibu, currently closed due to the Palisades Fire), after the organization's founding in 1920, along with a big temple in Hollywood on Sunset Blvd. (next to an old hospital purchased by Scientology and made into big cult offices), whereas Vivekananda's Victorian style house is a small and easily missed blip on Figueroa Street. Not far from there, a devotee of Sri Anandamayi Ma named Swami Paramananda founded the beautiful and rustic monastery in Glendale/La Crescenta called Ananda Ashram (Ananda Ashrama, spiritual center for Vedanta) in 1923.
So Yogananda is a sort of latecomer but by far the most successful of Indian gurus in America, outshining even the Beatles' cultish Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder and promoter of Transcendental Meditation (TM), which was a fad from the 1960s though still some people swear by it, like a young Jeff Goldblum in his cameo in Annie Hall.
Why does any of this matter? Not only did Hinduism come to America, Buddhism came along as well (many centuries earlier, even before Columbus and Christianity, according to Rick Fields, Edward P. Vining, and other American historians), making an incredible splash that still reverberates and sends out rings of influence. Books have been written about it.]
Inside the world of Radhe Maa: India's 'Godwoman' | BBC
(BBC World Service)
BBC World Service is a British public broadcast service. March 18, 2025: Radhe Maa (named after beloved Hindu Goddess Radha, Krishna's beautiful consort and object of devotion or bhakti) is one of the few women in India's controversial phenomenon of "godmen," who command large followings and claim to do miracles.
The BBC has got rare and exclusive access inside this "godwoman" palace, to understand this world of faith and fear, where followers are told donations bring miracles and disobedience could lead them to harm. Click here to subscribe to our channel 👉🏽 bbc.in/3VyyriM
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BBC World Service, March 18, 2025; Omg Desi Kali Radhey Maa Gopi; Morgue Official (Gnostic Gospel Christianity clips); Ashley Wells and Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
"Amida Manifesting in the Dharma-body of Expedient Means," Japanese painting, at The Met.
"Self-power" (Chinese zìlì 自力, Japanese jiriki) and "other-power" (Chinese tālì 他力, Japanese tariki) are key terms used to explain and define Pure Land practice in East Asian Buddhism [179].
It was Shandao who first argued that Amitabha's power helped take people to the Pure Land after death (previous authors having held that Amitabha created the Pure Land and it was up to an individual's own effort to make it there).
This other-power relationship was compared to how a lowly man who is accompanied by a king can enter previously inaccessible places [180].
Did Christianity just steal this idea of tariki in whole, or is it a natural devolution of religion?
.
Whose power, my own or a magic Cosmic Buddha?
Chinese Pure Land Buddhism never denied the importance of self-power. Instead, according to Jones, Chinese Pure Land generally holds that "Rebirth in the Pure Land results when the two powers work together, an idea that the modern Taiwan Pure Land master Zhiyu (Zhìyù 智諭, 1924–2000) captured with the phrase "the two powers of self and other" (zì-tā èr lì 自他二力)" [179].
Thus, in Chinese Pure Land, rebirth in the Pure Land arises from a cooperation of the practitioner and the Buddha [179].
方便法身尊影: Amida's Dharma- body of Expedient Means (The Met)
Yúnqī Zhūhóng argues that the practitioner's efforts connect with the Buddha's power through "sympathetic resonance" (gǎnyìng 感應) which links them with the Buddha, attuning their mind with that of the Buddha, much like one plucked string in a lute can make another string nearby resonate in sympathy [181, 178].
According to this view, the more that one practiced nianfo, the stronger and more enduring this bond with Amitabha became [182].
However, Chinese Pure Land masters also argued that one certainly cannot rely on self-power alone, which they denigrated as a futile effort [183]. More
What the cartoonist (Dan Piraro) doesn't realize is that the Buddha did set down such a rule.
Great teachers of world's religions (Where's Mo?)
Christianity (particularly imperialist universalist Catholicism and hegemonical American Protestant Evangelism) is closer to Hinduism than Buddhism is, for all of their apparent similarities. The historical Buddha did not teach what Jesus or Krishna (avatars of a God like Vishnu), Brahma or Shiva taught.
All of these, we are told promoted devotional practices as the best that could be done by most humans during the Dark Age or Kali Yuga. Hinduism, to be more popular and tolerant, accepts other religions enough to swallow them and call them part of its own Eternal Teaching or Sanatan Dharma.
Hindu holy man, sadhu,sannyasin, ganja smoker
If Brahmin priests could not rid themselves of pesky wandering ascetic or shramanic traditions like Buddhism and Jainism, it simply dealt with them by incorporating them into its own structure and pantheon just as it did the ancient Vedas ("Knowledge Books") of proto-India and the Indus Valley Civilization, extending Hinduism (which was systematized and established by Adi Shankara a few centuries ago by coordinating and getting major points of agreement for many and diverse "religions" around the Indus River, thus resulting in the name of one conglomerate religion of Indus-ism where previously people did not live with the modern idea of being in a "religion" or doing anything more than practicing spiritual things as part and parcel of daily life).
The British imposed the idea that one must name "spiritual" practices and/or superstitions and beliefs a "religion" and that those practicing in accordance or adhering to such beliefs must be "members" of that religion. The ancients in India, proto-India, Egypt, and elsewhere simply did not have this belief but simply went along when told by the dominant and oppressive colonizing culture. One has to imagine that pre-Christian pagans in Europe did not think they had a "religion" but were just living their cultural life and holding popular beliefs about how the world (with its spirits and mysteries) works.
Amitabha Cosmic Buddha
While Early Buddhism, just like Jainism, rejected the Vedas and gods as ultimate sources of wisdom or liberation, later (Mahayana) Buddhism was co-opted by the Brahmin priests and turned into a kind of Hinduism by other names. While there are certainly many devotional practices in modern Theravada Buddhism, a back-to-basics movement to preserve the historical Buddha's Teachings, many Mahayana traditions and practices went overboard to devote themselves to anyone but the historical Buddha.
Kwan Yin (female Avalokiteshvara)
That Buddha is respected but then quickly disregarded, forgotten, or shunned for "better" Mahayana Buddhist figures like the Cosmic Buddhas Amitabha (and His promise of praying to Him to be reborn in His heavenly Western Paradise, the Pure Land, where one can make efforts to reach enlightenment and liberation without bothering to do anything toward that here other than praying and devoting oneself to Him here and now) and Vairocana, or the ever-popular Virgin Mary figure Kwan Yin (Guanyin, Kwannon, Chenrézik, or Avalokiteshvara, the Goddess of Compassion, who like many other Mahayana figures is actually a bodhisattva, a person striving for Buddhahood, not a buddha at all) and Kṣitigarbha, who saves beings from the hells, which they fall into on account of their own deeds and views.
Pals Jesus, Budai, and Krishna with a cow
This devotional bent of Mahayana Buddhism has gotten so severe that who "the Buddha" is is often blurred, with most of the world mistaking him for the Mahayana figure Budai/Putai/Hotei the "Fat Happy Bodhisattva," the obese guy revered in Chinese restaurants around the world. Moreover, a distinction at one point had to be made between what Western elucidator of Buddhism Alan Watts points out in the Japanese Buddhist terms jiriki versus tariki-- enlightenment by one's own efforts or by outside help.
Jiriki (自力, "one's own strength" [1]) is the Japanese Buddhist term for "self-power," the ability to achieve enlightenment and liberation (in other words, to reach bodhi and nirvana) through one's own efforts, whereas tariki (他力, "other power," "outside help") is the belief that it cannot be done on one's own. These two terms in Japanese Buddhist schools classify how one becomes spiritually awakened [2]. The first is commonly practiced in Zen Buddhism, whereas the much more popular Pure Land Buddhism refers to the power of Amitābha Buddha to "save" beings who merely have faith, believe, and worship an outside force like the mythological Amitabha [3].
Does Christianity teach Christians and Catholics that they can save themselves, awaken themselves, enlighten themselves, or even get into heaven (which is viewed as final salvation) by their own efforts? Certainly not. Most modern Christian schools teach that it is ONLY by "grace" (God's underserved gift or His whimsical feeling like it) and never by "works" (one's own efforts) that anyone can be saved.
All three religions (Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism) believe in karma (the power of deeds to bring about a result, but Christians insist everything is either God's will or not and nothing we can do can change that, other than perhaps groveling, begging, bargaining, self-abnegation, and absolute devotion and throwing ourselves on His mercy can save us.
For Christians killing isn't so bad compared to not loving the God enough because that God can erase that karmic debt and sin, wipe it away in an instant of devotion, obedience, adherence, and voluntary slavery, whereas not killing in the first, who cares? That's not a big deal to most Christians or apologists. Of course, Hinduism now talks about karma a lot, but it is said that the Buddha was the first sage to go around telling ordinary people about the importance of their deeds.
Up until then it was more or less a secret among Brahmin priests and preservers of the Vedas, who were not keen on telling anyone other than Brahmins. The Buddha, who was regarded as a Karmavadin (Teacher of the efficacy of actions) not as a Buddhist (which came later with the Western idea that things have to be a "religion"), went around telling everyone, emphasizing karma to everyone as a principle, a fixed law, an orderliness to the universe we live in, be it a simulation or a real place.
One has to eventually put forward the endeavor and effort to awaken oneself; it simply cannot be "given" or gained by devotion. It does not belong to anyone to give, not even "God," who Himself, Herself, Itself is not enlightened nor liberated but rapt in this samsara.
So while it is beautiful that we can all be Hindus now, all go back to a time when there was just one universal religion everyone had to follow, a worldwide belief system with an all-attractive cult figure like Krishna, Christ, Thor, Zeus, Sophia, Aphrodite, Brahma, Mithras, Ahura Mazda, Allah (or His Prophet), the Great Spaghetti Monster, Odin, or countless other astrotheological figures, Buddhism does not need the Buddha to be an "incarnation of Vishnu."
The great thing is, of course, that "Hinduism" is not really a religion even now when it is treated like one because it has always meant a collection of disparate views, practices, belief, and preferred central gods (one choice in picking any incarnation of an essential Brahman, or "reality behind all illusion") presenting itself as an avatar or aspect of the One True God(hood). The yogis have their way, as do the Shaivites and Vaishnavites, agnostics, atheists, Kali worshippers, devotees of the Goddess Saraswati, Ma Durga, Radha (Krishna's partner), Krishna, or 100,000 others.
In fact, it is insulting as it shows a severe lack of understanding by Brahmins and Hindus that such things could even happen. A buddha is an arhat (fully enlightened being), who therefore by that supreme enlightenment is never again reborn, does not incarnate, does not reappear or rearise. Of course, there will be other buddhas, like Mahayana Buddhism's second favorite buddha of all time, the Buddha-to-come, the Future Buddha, Maitreya.
But that being will not be the last one (Siddhartha Gautama Buddha) coming again. It will be a new one, just as there have been ones in the ancient past and in the distant future. It is never the same being returning to teach beings how to make an end of all suffering and all rebirth after realizing the too-subtle unique teachings of Dependent Origination and anatta (the impersonal nature of all existence) or egolessness.
The Lord's Prayer (Medieval English)
Text by Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly
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