Esther Dhanraj and Robin Abraham made a startling statement, Jesus came to India. He visited Kashmir. He was trained in Hinduism and Buddhism. There is nothing special about Jesus. There is nothing special about Christianity. So, the question is, Did Jesus copy Buddha in Kashmir?
That’s an excellent question. Did Jesus copy Buddha after visiting Kashmir in India? I would like to give you 4 things:
Absence of humility
Absence of logic
Absence of evidence
Absence of message
- Absence of humility:
I am visiting Chicago today. You can see the beautiful in my background. September 11, 1893
Swami Vivekananda visited this city in 1893. That was 130 years ago. He spoke at the First World Parliament of Religions. He starts his famous speech with the words: I thank you in the name of the mother of religions.
Notice how Vivekanda introduced Hinduism to the world: the mother of religions.For him, Hinduism is not one of the religions of the world. It is the mother of all religions. All religions of the world born out of Hinduism!
The spirit of Vivekananda is so prevalent among today’s Hindu gurus and leaders. We can see how it is ruining India in our time. In February 2020, both Narendra Modi and Donald Trump were in Delhi. Covid Pandemic started to wreak havoc in India and the United States. How did these two leaders respond to Covid? Both initiated the efforts to create the vaccine. How are we doing on vaccinations? In America, over 150 million got at least one dose. That is half of American population. If you take senior citizens, over 70 percent got fully vaccinated. In India, only 1.8 percent of people got vaccinated. It is the vaccine powerhouse. Yet, it exported most of the vaccines to other countries to look good on the world stage. Modi ragged in World Economic Forum: we saved humanity from Covid. Now we don’t have enough oxygen, or hospital beds or vaccines or even crematoria. Modi’s favorite guru Vivekananda bragged before the world and Modi continues the same spiritual tradition. Even Jesus Christ must learn learn from us, we invented airplane lone before the Wright brothers, we invented the computer long before Charles Babbage. The list is endless. So, the first problem is absence of humility.
I would say, Hinduism is the mother of all false religions of the world. It is the first religion of the world. It was born in the Garden of Eden. Remember what Satan told Eve in the Garden. ‘You don’t have to listen to God. Just eat this fruit. You will become a god on your own.’ That is the central premise of Hinduism. God is in every one of us, everyone can become like god.
This same spirit we see to this day in the words of Esther and Robin. Vivekananda said like all religions finally reach the ocean, all religions reach god. On the surface, it looks like pluralism. But it is actually Hindu supremacism masquerading as pluralism. All religions are like rivers and canals. Hinduism is the ocean. All religions are like kids and grandkids. Hinduism is the mother and grandmother. So, Dr.Robin says that Christianity is childish. Such statements come from a superciliary attitude Hindu gurus show towards Christians.
Secondly, the absence of logic:
Then Vivekananda said, We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true.”
We accept all religions as true? That is nonsense. All religions cannot be true. They can all be false. They cannot all be true. The law of non-contradiction kicks in. Hinduism teaches reincarnation. Christianity does not. They both cannot be true. Hinduism teaches the doctrine of karma. Christianity does not. They both cannot be true. Islam teaches Muhammad is the final prophet from God. Christianity teaches Jesus is the final prophet from God. So, both Islam and Christianity cannot be true.
Absence of Evidence
Esther and Robin talked about how Jesus learnt from Buddha’s teachings. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is absolutely no evidence Jesus ever visited Kashmir. This myth was propagated by Muslim teachers and adopted by Hindu gurus. Quran teaches that Jesus did not die on the cross. Allah made it look like Jesus died on the cross. In reality, Jesus escaped death and went some people. Muslim teachers from our subcontinent thought, ‘Jesus escaped death from the cross. Now, where should we take him? Let us take him to Kashmir, have him die and have a burial in our beautiful Kashmir.’ Then Hindu gurus said, ‘Jesus came here all the way from Israel. Let us make him a guru and a disciple of Buddha.’
But there is no historical evidence in Christian sources or non-Christian sources to corroborate this claim.
Absence of message
Secondly, there is nothing remotely close to Hinduism or Buddhism in the message of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He said, ‘I and the Father are one’. ‘Before Abraham was I am’. ‘If you see me, you have seen the Father.’ Jesus clearly equated himself. He made mind-boggling, earth-shaking claims about himself. For his Jewish audience, that would be a dizzying experience. They have seen prophets from God who claimed that they were sent by God with a message. But Jesus was different. He said, I am God myself. They immediately took stones to kill him because they thought it was blasphemous for Jesus to make such a claim.
If Jesus were to make such a claim in India, no one would take stones to kill him because Hinduism is a pantheistic religion. Universe itself is a divine manifestation. Everything in this universe is a divine manifestation. Every human, every animal, every plant, every inanimate object can be a divine manifestation.
So, if anyTom, Dick or Harry say, ‘I am divine’ Hindus would be ready with their coconuts, flowers and incense sticks to worship him or her as a god or goddess. There is a bhagavan in every town in India. Bhagwan literally means the manifestation of the divine. It has been said that there are over 330 million gods in India. In contrast, Jesus made exclusive claims to divinity in a Jewish context. That is unprecedented.
While in Hinduism, anyone can be a god, in Buddhism, anyone or anything can be a Buddha.
In contrast to Jesus, Buddha never claimed to be a god. He told us how to achieve Nirvana through the 8 fold Noble Path. He gave us a recipe for enlightenment. He got it first and now we can get it following the steps. Buddha made himself irrelevant to the path of enlightenment he taught humanity. It’s like you gave me a recipe for chicken curry. It’s not about you. It’s all about your recipe. Anyone can cook a nice chicken curry using that recipe.
In contrast Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can go to God the Father except through me. Without Christ, you can’t make one step forward in Christianity. He is the creator, sustainer, Lord, Savior and Redeemer. One famous Buddhist monk recently said,
“Other the devil, there is no Buddha; other than Buddha there is no devil”
Buddhism makes no distinctions even between Buddha and devil. Christ is distinct from the devil. He came to save us from our sins. When you receive Christ you save your soul. In Buddhism, soul is an illusion. Only a fool thinks he or she has an independent soul. The goal of Nirvana is to lose your soul and to disappear. In Christ, you save your soul, in Buddha, you lose it. Christ’s message of salvation radically contradicts the basic precepts of Buddhism. So, to suggest that Christ got his teachings from Buddha is disingenuous.
So, in Esther and Robin Abraham’s analysis, I saw those four things:
Absence of humility
Absence of logic
Absence of evidence
Absence of message.