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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Y2K" data-source="post: 10835142" data-attributes="member: 35049">Buddha: Well, I gave my disciples no written word as an abiding authority.Jesus: Now we're getting somewhere, Gautama. Why didn't you give them an abiding authority?Buddha: Because ... everything is impermanent.Jesus: Even that statement? Is that impermanent too?Buddha: I think ...I'll have to think on that. I have a terrible feeling I'm backing myself into a corner here.Jesus: That's what I'm saying to you. Your followers have no final word to rely on. If there's no final word, how does one accuse another of "perversion"? In fact, some of your followers say that even if you had remained silent there would've been no loss of insight, as far as they're concerned.There is no permanent truth if everything is impermanent. And even the statement that everything is impermanent is only impermanently true. Which means the absolute you posit becomes only relatively true. If it's only relatively true, it can no longer be stated as an absolute.You see, you inadvertently proved that truth is asserted principally by words and can be tested by reason. How, then, do we know what is true if nothing is ever said or thought in assertions? And you have no eternally binding word.Buddha: But everything else I have taught hangs on that statement of impermanence.Jesus: I'll leave you to draw the inevitable conclusion. You did say that we ought to follow the truth wherever it leads?Buddha: I did.Jesus: May I finish by saying that when my people cast aside the Word, the absolute is lost? Pollution in worship is the result. Life's ultimate purpose is desecrated.Buddha: Suppose I were to grant that, Jesus. Why on earth should we take your word to be the truth?Jesus: I promised Priya that I would personalize the answer for her at the end. Maybe the time has come.Priya, if there's any consolation, you're not alone in your situation. In my Word I tell the story of a woman who came to drink some water from a well. She had all kinds of questions about worship. But her real problem was that she had squandered the special person God made her to be. Numerous marriages had come and gone. She was a lonely woman. When I gave her my message of love and eternal life, she ran back to her village to tell the people that she had found the one who knew her frailties, yet loved her for who she was. For the first time she found worth. I disclose the heart of every person who comes to me. You, too, are special to me, Priya. I see your heart better than you can.Priya: Can I read that story somewhere, Sir?Jesus: Yes, it's in the Gospel of John.Boat Driver: May I ask you, Sir, if it's available in my language?Jesus: It is. Did you hear that, Gautama? The story. . .language. . .the Word again ... that which is permanently true. But let me continue.Another woman was caught in adultery and brought to me. Her accusers wanted to set a trap for me, asserting that the law of Moses said she should be stoned. Strange that the one who committed adultery with her was not there.Priya: Can I ever identify with that! That's the way our hearts cheat. Then, after we have hurt others, we run.Jesus: That's it, Priya! The heart is desperately wicked. Who can understand it? This has nothing to do with ignorance. It has everything to do with one's rebellion against God. I change the heart of everyone who comes to me.There was a third woman. She had lived a life of prostitution. She once came into a room full of self-righteous people, and they were horrified that I would even let her near me, let alone touch me.You see, that's what legalism does. What do you think would happen to you, Priya, if you hugged that monk or even put your hand on his shoulder?Priya: Oh my! That would be the end of me ... and, for that matter, of him!Jesus: I told the woman that her pouring the alabaster ointment on me was an expression of worship, and I received it. I fill the heart of everyone who comes to me. Her heart was full of the joy of communing with God.Do you see the sequence, Priya? I disclose; I change; I fill.Buddha: Before she answers that, isn't that because they were all clearly in need, and they came to you because of their need?Jesus: There was a teacher by the name of Nicodemus who was a learned man. He came under the cover of darkness to ask how to enter the kingdom of God. I gave him the same answer that I'd given to these others.You see, Gautama, knowledge and righteousness cannot carry you into the kingdom. You can never truly be righteous until you are redeemed. This is the heart of the difference between you and me. You cannot become righteous by looking deep inside yourself and by meditating.</blockquote>

Verification: Awruddata maasa keeyada?

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