Give to all flesh the baptism (river) of the kingdom of Righteousness,
Thou who once didst sacrifice thy feet, thy hands, thy precious body, and all thy riches for the world,
Thou whose life is pure, save flesh from its miseries!
In the presence of reviling be patient, O conqueror of self!
Lord of those who possess two feet, go forth on thy mission!
Conquer the evil one and his army."
In the end the Buddhas of the Past triumph. They persuade Buddha to flee away from his cloying pleasures and become a Yogi.
"THEN WAS JESUS LED UP BY THE SPIRIT INTO THE WILDERNESS, TO BE TEMPTED OF THE DEVIL."
Comfortable dowagers driving to church three times on Sunday would be astonished to learn that the essence of Christianity is in this passage. Its meaning has quite passed away from Protestantism, almost from Christendom. The "Lalita Vistara" fully shows what that meaning is. Without Buddhism it would be lost. Jesus was an Essene, and the Essene, like the Indian Yogi, sought to obtain divine union and the "gifts of the Spirit" by solitary reverie in retired spots. In what is called the "Monastery of our Lord" on the Quarantania, a cell is shown with rude frescoes of Jesus and Satan. There, according to tradition, the demoniac hauntings that all mystics speak of occurred.
"I HAVE NEED TO BE BAPTISED OF THEE."