that he had been deeply influenced by the ideas of the ancient seers can scarcely be doubted; and the serious and sympathetic study of their teaching should therefore be the first stage in the attempt to lift the veil of his silence and interpret his unformulated creed. The student who has gone through this preliminary process of initiation will find that he has begun to fit himself for other tasks than that of communing with the soul of Buddha: and he will also find that those other tasks will in due season claim his devotion. When he has solved the problem of the indebtedness of Buddha to the philosophy of the Upanishads, he will be confronted by another problem which for us of the West is of even greater importance, the problem of the indebtedness of Western thought--of Pythagoras, of Xenophanes and Parmenides, of Plato, of Plotinus, of Christ himself and those who caught the spirit of his teaching--to the same sacred source. That problem, too, will have to be grappled with, if the West is ever to discover the secret of its own hidden strength, and if Christendom is ever to understand Christianity.

Footnotes

^v:1 Whenever I use the word "East" or "Eastern," I am thinking of the Far East, i.e. of Eastern Asia.

CONTENTS

I

EAST AND WEST

II

THE WISDOM OF THE EAST

III

THE PATH OF LIFE

IV

THE TEACHING OF BUDDHA

V

A MISREADING OF BUDDHA

VI

THE SILENCE OF BUDDHA

VII

THE SECRET OF BUDDHA

VIII

THE BANKRUPTCY OF WESTERN THOUGHT

IX

LIGHT FROM THE EAST

THE CREED OF BUDDHA