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  THE QUESTION:  Some scholars proposed that you had possibly visited India because much of what you taught seemed similar to the teachings of Buddha.  What is the connection, if any?  

 

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  THE ANSWER:  I can certainly understand what might be behind this question particularly since even Lamah had once entertained these obvious similarities as well as these same conscious comparisons during the initiation of his own university studies of the differing religions of the world.  Having thus far already accounted for nearly the entirety of my life, I would hope that you would accept my apologies for having never actually visited India. There are certainly many similarities, and I can only assume that Buddha, being the great teacher that he was in his own land and tradition had simply come to many of the same wonderful and obvious conclusions about how we ought to treat one another as well as ourselves.  We certainly both seemed to have arrived at the same understanding and agreed that there was nothing gained by the baring of false witness against our neighbors or judging another human without first understanding exactly where that other person to be judged possibly stood in his own life and experience.  I will also confess that I had had some contact with Eastern philosophies while studying in Egypt, as there were a few noted scholars that were even then vary intrigued with the teachings that had reached us from the Eastern parts of our known world.  There just weren’t the expected welcomed numbers of books except some limited writings by some of the local scholars as to what they had learned from an oral translation.  The name Buddha certainly prevailed amongst those teachers and philosophers that were most often mentioned of an Eastern origin or tradition.  It is sad to report that many of the original Eastern transcripts that were reported to have existed in the library at Alexandria were amongst those that were more likely passed over in favor of the most traditional Greek and Arab transcripts when the great library was about to be destroyed by those rampaging whores of Rome.  This all happened before I ever reached Alexandria in my youth.  Fortunately there still remained some scarce remnants of these books existence and certainly some scholarly remembrances of these intriguing Eastern thoughts, as many of Eastern traditions were quite respected for their then unique differences from that of classical Greek ideals.  I find it interesting and even a bit flattering that so many wish to associate me and my own teachings with those of Buddha, which is certainly a reasonable association considering our similarities.  But what intrigues me even more is the uncanny sense of an almost deliberate absence of any recognition of my actual intellectual association with and often-expressed ideals and ideas that are so permeated with the philosophy of the Greek stoics.  After all, the fundamental foundation of my entire education was indeed Greek in its origin.  I had certainly and most deliberately expanded my horizons as far as they could reach beyond this basic Greek education, but it still remains that the greatest influence on my own personal philosophy was stoicism.  I probably shouldn’t fault modern scholars for any oversights on their parts since they only had those distorted Gospels upon which to base their educated propositions.  It seems that nothing that I actually said or did even remotely survived beyond my ultimate death in Egypt.  From what Matthew had shared with me about the disparities that were already being generated even while I was still alive and well in Egypt, I'm not a bit surprised at the subsequent ignorance that was later perpetrated by the influence of the Rome, particularly since so many of these Romans had this thing about not respecting the Greeks at all.  From all I knew and now know of Buddha, I would be honored to be considered as one of his disciples or he one of mine, and I have no doubt that he and I would fully agree on just how important it is to love and respect this earth and most importantly the love of all mankind.  And that includes both men and women equally.