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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Y2K" data-source="post: 10835151" data-attributes="member: 35049">Priya: So ... I cannot bring salvation to myself?Jesus: No, Priya. Salvation is from above.Buddha talked to you about being reborn in another consciousness and in a different person. The transformation I bring is not to think oneself into a different person, but to yield to the transcending power of the Holy Spirit of God. He works like the wind ... you cannot see it, but you can surely see the effects. The person is the same, but the hunger is new, and that new hunger is for the kingdom of God and His righteousness. That's what my work is when one trusts in me as his Lord and Savior. It begins, as I said, with poverty of spirit and leads to purity in heart.Boat Driver: May I say something here? This conversation is getting uncomfortable. I respect the Buddha. How can he be wrong?Jesus: Listen to his own words, War. He respected the Brahman priests, but he believed they were wrong. One cannot sacrifice truth at the altar of respect. To be sure, truth doesn't eliminate respect. But respect should not be an end in itself. And as you well know, truth is no respecter of persons. That's why I said to the keepers of the Law, "You have heard it said... But Isay to you..." Respect for the right of another to be wrong does not mean that the wrong is right.Buddha: The thought is deep ... and troublesome. But I have to agree with it.Priya: May I... may I ask about myself, here? What then happens to all the evil that I lived with in the past, if I cannot do anything about it?Jesus: I have paid for it, Priya. I have paid for it. Old things can pass away and I can make all things new. I took the evil and suffering of this world. I bore it on my body. I carried your heartaches and your sorrows so that you can remove the weight of wrong and put it on my shoulders. I came into the world to bear those very sins. You may be like a lotus seedling still submerged under the water; someone else may be a full-grown plant. It makes no difference. The Cross is for everyone who thirsts for forgiveness and for eternal life. A child can come to me, as can the most learned. There is only one way.Buddha: This "suffering that you have borne for my sin..." I almost see it, Jesus. But somehow I don't see how it is just.Jesus: If justice is what one wants, untempered by merry, then where is there any recourse for Priya? Justice is fulfilled when one offers to pay the full price of restitution on behalf of another who cannot pay. Karma will never pay, Gautama. Go and ask anyone here if they expect to attain nirvana this time around. They never know if it's paid.Priya: So you're telling me that as I place my trust in you, I can go back to my room knowing that I've been completely forgiven?Jesus: I'm telling you more than that. Though this body of yours will die, you will rise again and live forever, because I rose from the dead and offer eternal life to everyone who believes in me.Buddha: Well, I have listened, Jesus. There are superficial similarities to our thoughts but foundational differences. Our messages are worlds apart. The origin and the destiny have no common ground. I tell people that they are born in debt and that they either add to or subtract from that debt by the way they live. You tell people to find their inheritance in God.Jesus: We come to the end of our discussion, Gautama. What would you offer Priya?Buddha: She knows, I am sure. We call it the Triple Gem. The Buddha-enlightenment; the Dhamma-the teaching; and the Sangha-the community.Jesus: Look at them one at a time, GautamoFirst, the Buddha. According to your teaching, you personally no longer exist, nor will she. Nonexistence is the first gem.The Dhamma. The teaching has no eternal Word to preserve, no absolute to be guided by. That's the second gem.The Sangha. The community consists of those who believe no self exists and move toward not desiring anything, including the friendship of others. That's the third gem.You know, Gautama, one day a man looking for precious pearls came upon a pearl of great price. He traded everything he had to obtain this pearl.I am that Pearl of great price. Through me, Priya can bring the rule of God into her heart. That's what I mean when I say that the kingdom of God is within a person and not imposed by any rule from without. I will give her the purity that she thinks she can never recover. I will bring her into the presence of God.Priya: My choice, then, is the Triple Gem or the Pearl of great price?Jesus: Your choice is either to obliterate your self or to find your self. Desolation or communion. Let me tell you, finally, what this communion with God means. But first, let's get back to the boat.</blockquote>

Verification: Winadiyakata thappara keeyak tibeda?

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