Buddha's desire to escape from a continuous round of deaths and "leave-takings from kindred," does not necessarily imply an absorption into The Absolute; it may as logically be interpreted to mean, that liberation from the hypnotisms of externality (mukti) insures the possession and power of the gods—power over physical life and death, and this power need not mean a cessation from individual consciousness, but rather, a full realization of individual unity with the sum of all consciousness.
There is another mistaken interpretation of the means of attainment of that state of liberation, which has been alluded to in so many varied terms. The fact that Buddha, like many of the Oriental Masters, sought the seclusion of the forest; the isolation, and simplicity of the hermit,—has given rise to the belief, almost universally held among Oriental disciples, that liberation from maya, the delusions of the world, can not be attained save by these methods.
Monasteries are the result of this idea, and this Buddhistic practice was adopted by the first Christian church, since which time the real purpose and intention of the monastery and the nunnery have become lost in the concept of sacrifice or punishment. The Christian monk almost invariably retires to a monastery, not for the purpose of consciously attaining to that enlarged area of consciousness which insures liberation, mukti, but as an "outward and visible sign" that he is willing to undergo the sacrifice of worldly pleasures at the behest of the Lord Jesus. Thus, the real object of retirement is lost, and the sacrifice again becomes in the nature of a "bargain."
In the Bhagavad-Gita, we find these words:
"Renunciation and yoga by action both lead to the highest bliss; of the two, yoga by action is verily better than renunciation of action. He who is harmonized by yoga, the self-purified, self-ruled, the senses subdued, whose self is the self of all beings, although acting, yet is such an one not affected.
"He who acteth, placing all action in the eternal, abandoning attachment, is unaffected by sin as a lotus leaf by the waters."
This is interpreted according to the viewpoint of the translator, even as, among an audience of ten thousand persons, we may find almost as many interpretations, and shades of meaning of a musical composition.
True, the Oriental meaning seems to be the one that we shall cease to love friends, relatives, and lovers, abandoning them as one would abandon the furniture of one's household when outworn, and no longer of service.
We do not accept this interpretation.
To abandon one's friends, one's loved ones, yea, even one's would-be enemies is equivalent to leaving one's companions on a sinking raft and, without sentiment or remorse, save one's physical self from destruction.