The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest
statement of it is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut,
while the Christian saint always has them very wide open.
The Buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes
are heavy and sealed with sleep. The mediaeval saint's body is
wasted to its crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive.
There cannot be any real community of spirit between forces that
produced symbols so different as that. Granted that both images
are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it must be
a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances.
The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards.
The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards. If we
follow that clue steadily we shall find some interesting things.

A short time ago Mrs. Besant, in an interesting essay,
announced that there was only one religion in the world, that all
faiths were only versions or perversions of it, and that she was
quite prepared to say what it was. According to Mrs. Besant this
universal Church is simply the universal self. It is the doctrine
that we are really all one person; that there are no real walls of
individuality between man and man. If I may put it so, she does not
tell us to love our neighbours; she tells us to be our neighbours.
That is Mrs. Besant's thoughtful and suggestive description of
the religion in which all men must find themselves in agreement.
And I never heard of any suggestion in my life with which I more
violently disagree. I want to love my neighbour not because he is I,
but precisely because he is not I. I want to adore the world,
not as one likes a looking-glass, because it is one's self,
but as one loves a woman, because she is entirely different.
If souls are separate love is possible. If souls are united love