“No man can save his neighbor. The evil committed by man stains only the man himself. The evil avoided by him concerns him alone. Everyone is pure or impure for himself only. No man can purify another.” 8 Recovery is possible only through an inner process of work upon oneself. Therefore Buddha did not acknowledge any active power behind formulas transmitted from generation to generation, “like a basket transmitted from hand to hand.” 4 —————— Buddha, denying the conventional concept of God and affirming the possibility of liberation entirely by personal efforts and assiduous labor upon oneself, by this alone refuted outer worship. From the very beginning, he censured all rituals and other outer actions, which only help the recrudescence of spiritual blindness and clinging to lifeless forms. Nowhere in his Teaching is there even a hint of personal worship. He said: “The Teaching is salvation not because it was given by Buddha but because it liberates. The pupil who follows me, clinging to the edge of my garment, is far from me and I from him. Why? Because this disciple does not see me. Another one may live hundreds of miles distant from me and in spite of this be close to me and I to him. Why? Because this disciple understands the Teaching; understanding the Teaching, he understands me.” 15 “If you understood and perceived the truth as it is, would you say: ‘We owe respect to our Teacher, and out of respect for him, we shall speak as the Teacher spoke’? “ ‘No, Blessed One.’ “That which you affirm is it not that which you perceived and realized yourself?” “ ‘Yes, Blessed One.’ “ 4 Foreseeing the future, Buddha said: “The Teaching is like the flame of a torch, kindling innumerable fires. Those fires may be used for the cooking of food or to disperse the darkness, but the flame of the first torch remains invariably luminous.” 18 Being an enemy of all ritual, Buddha denied the purifying power of bathing. “A man will not become morally pure through cleansing himself lengthily in water. A pure man, a Brahmin, is one in whom abide truth and virtue.” 17 “The Gayā is the same sort of reservoir as any other reservoir.” 4 “All your rules,” said Buddha to the fanatics, “are base and ridiculous. Some of you walk naked, covering yourselves only with your hands; some will not eat out of a jug or a plate, will not sit at the table between two speakers, between two knives, or two plates; some will not sit at the common table and will not accept alms in a house where there is a pregnant woman, or where you notice many flies or meet a dog. “One nurtures himself only on vegetables, with a brew of rice, with cow or deer dung, roots of trees, branches, leaves, forest fruit or seeds. One wears his robe thrown only over the shoulder, or covers himself only with moss, the bark of a tree, plants or reindeer skin, wears his
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