The History of Buddhist Thought c18.5

c18.5

The Buddhist view has rather a resemblance to the doctrine of the Upanishads in that release depends upon a certain kind of knowledge. But in the Upanishads it is the knowledge of an existing fact, the fact, expressed in the most varied ways that the self is identical with Brahma. The Brahma-knowers become “plunged in Brahma”, “the self enters the Brahma-abode”, or “enters the all”; “it becomes one in the imperishable,” and “goes to the divine Person”. When in Buddhism the doctrine that the world and the self are the same is touched upon, it is not rejected as false, but put aside as a useless view.