Jesus Christ said:
And the Buddha said:

Is it possible that these two men were saying the same thing?

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A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe,
a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself,
his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest
a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. -- Albert Einstein

I think it's the same. What do you think the deepest meaning of this is?

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If I knew the answer to that I would be Buddha.

What I think I do know is that it does not mean that God has two arms and two legs, nor does it mean that the Dharma is a man who lived and died 2500 years ago in India. But more than that, I am still working on it. What do you think it means?

__________________
A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe,
a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself,
his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest
a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. -- Albert Einstein

The first thing that comes to mind is that they both appear to be contradictions. We are told we will never see God and Buddhism teaches that if you see Buddha on the road, kill him. In other words if you think you have found it you haven't.

Both Jesus and Buddha taught to look within. I think these sayings have to do with looking within. Look in the mirror, stop projecting you will see God or Dharma.

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The two sentences may sound the same, but we have to look at the sociological implications of each concept and how they are lived out. Basically what is generally understood as The Father, and what is generally understood as The Dharma. Since these things are conceived as totally different things. I doubt they are talking about the same thing. But I may be (and probably am) wrong, and I accept that possibility.

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The only constant in this universe is change. Are you ready to change??

It is true that what is generally understood as God is not Dharma
and what is generally understood as Dharma is not God.

But it is also true that what is generally understood as God is not God,
and what is generally understood as Dharma is not Dharma.

I guess I am asking about that which is not generally understood. And it goes without saying that I don’t understand what I am talking about. :confused:

__________________
A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe,
a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself,
his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest
a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. -- Albert Einstein

That was great, Bea! LOL

I think they are basically saying the same thing, not a literal "seeing" but a figurative one. We know Jesus to be part of the Holy Trinity, God's presence on earth. Buddah followed and enhanced the teaching of Dharma, thus was his presence on earth for a time. They saying, maybe, listen to me, for I am the representative of (God or Dharma), I stand in his place.

I understand what you are saying, but taking sentences and showing the similarities in sentence structure does not necessitate similarity in meaning. Words are just symbols, and symbols are just things representing something else. We must know what that something else is before we can discuss the similarities of the two sentences. Since we only know what is generally understood to be the "something elses", we can only speculate as to the relationship of the two statements. Perhaps they both understood the same thing, and cultural differences changed the initial meaning. I would love for that to be true. But I can't see how it can be validated.

__________________
The only constant in this universe is change. Are you ready to change??

I think that Buddha and Jesus were talking about the same thing. They both had the same goals, completeness, connection, wholeness, your true self, whatever you want to call it and Dharma and the Father would both be symbols for that state.

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At the risk of stating the obvious I must also point out that neither actually used these words, neither actually spoke English. These are the words of their respective translators.

But still I think that both men taught lessons of oneness, universal love and selflessness. In this way I do think their message was the same, even when they symbols they used were very different.

__________________
A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe,
a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself,
his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest
a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. -- Albert Einstein