January 29, 2008

• The Lotus and the Cross - Ravi Zacharias

  This book contains so many interesting thoughts!  First, it says that being respectful and sincere does not give us license to be wrong, and that truth demands investigation because lies only serve to imprison.

  The setting is one of Jesus and Buddha discussing the questions of Priya, a woman dying of disease picked up after being forced to labor for years in a brothel.  Priya asks how could people be so foolish as to allow such suffering in the world.  Jesus answers that the evil one lies to our imaginations and that each time we allow our will to succumb, it causes enslavement of the mind.  He tells her that we must not seek to satisfy our hungers in the wrong places, but according to the Word of God, which offers forgiveness and eternal life

  Buddha claims that only the naive and immature cling to such ideas, and that they are all mere illusions.  Buddha tells Priya that she was born with a cup already half full of misery, and that that she must pay for her cup and for her own miserable deeds as well.  She has been born bearing the debts of another previous life, and her choice is to reduce the debt or pay it.  Even when she is supposedly reborn, it will not be as herself, but as another consciousness who will bear her moral debt.  She is to live a moral life where the good deeds will outweigh the bad ones.

  Jesus points out that these demands are made by a phantom creditor who is not there.  How does one pay?  With what and to whom? 

  Buddha says that he was grieved by old age, death, and pain and disease; he wanted an explanation to these problems so badly that he left his wife, newborn son and parents because they became an encumbrance to his pursuit of peace.  During his meditations a "transcending memory of his thousands of previous lives" came upon him, and he lost all passion, craving and desire, no longer moved by joy or sorrow.

  Jesus asks if it is possible that ALL desires are wrong, and if the way of renunciation and living one's life alone meditation in a cave is really the right one.  Believing that renunciation is enough leads one into a moral trap of believing that one can be autonomous, that is, that one can do enough through one's own efforts to balance the moral scales in one's favor.  Morality as a badge of attainment mixes falsehood and truth, which is an even more dangerous lie.  It is actually the ultimate crowning of the individual when the individual claims to find truth and morality within one's self rather than in the Creator.

  Buddha says that suffering is caused by longing, desire and attachment, and that ignorance and craving are the prime dilemmas of humanity.  People try to please themselves.  If one denies one's self, then one can escape the dilemmas.  Buddha was going to keep this secret to himself, because his discovery was unique and he doubted that others would be able to comprehend it.  His followers convinced him to do otherwise and share his teachings. 

  Jesus points out other instances in which Buddha changed his mind on certain issues because an outside force called Buddha to change, and then states that God does not change his mind.  I thought the following was a beautiful point of this book:  "God has given His followers the privilege of prayer... God answers every prayer b y either giving what's is asked for or reminding the petitioner that God's provision is built on His wisdom and executed in His time.  But the answer is always for the instruction and nurture of the soul.  Never is any new knowledge added to the mind of God.  God doesn' t respond because someone opens up some new insight for Him.  No.  In persistent, fervent prayer, God prepares the soil of one's heart to make room for the seed of His answer, from which will flower an alignment with His will."  When a Buddhist meditates he looks within.  When a follower of Jesus prays, he grasps at the strength of the Spirit of God.

  Jesus then points out that Buddha postulates that there is a moral law which one must follow to pay one's debts, but that we must look within ourselves for the truth.  But Buddha also says that we must eliminate the self.  This is confusing indeed.  God is truly mindful of the "self" and loves each person individually.  He created each person with dignity and honor in His image.  Rather than being involved with an illusion of self, it is the self that would declare itself independent from God that keeps us from living up to all that God has for us.

  In looking for a solution to suffering, Buddha does not actually deal with it at all, he merely obliterates relationships.  By denying the self as illusion, what is lost is the essence of being rather than the problem of pain.  Buddha appears to encourage thought and contemplation, but the final destination is thoughtlessness.  The purpose of life is meaningful communion, not meaningless oblivion.  We cannot become righteous through meditation.  Only Jesus changes the hearts of those who come to Him.  Jesus wants a relationship with each of us personally.  He does not extinguish all desires in us, but does away with destructive hungers and puts new, healthy legitimate hungers in their place.

  Buddha tells us that we must drink the cup that we ourselves have inherited and also filled with our own choices.  Jesus says that He drank your cups at the cross, and that He offers us a fresh cup of eternal life from which to drink.

  • 23:17
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