Buddhism as an Utterly Failed Religious Trainwreck

It cannot be disputed that anything popular cannot be true, even if the original article, long lost to the winds of time a buried under unenlightened commentary, was in fact a true and Aryan teaching regarding either metaphysics or the liberation from existential selfhood. For, all things popular are by the very definition of same, profane and ignoble; that the common man is a senseless brute who does not, cannot cleave his mind to things deep, abstruse, mystical and endowed with Aryan virtues regarding things hidden and sublime. Nothing true or noble has ever been obtained by or thru consensus, least of which being metaphysics, or its secular bastard-child, religion. The so-called ‘secret’ teachings as conventionally called today; rooted in the Aryan metaphysics of Platonism (Pythagorean Emanationism), pre-sectarian Buddhism (deemed Brahmayana, path to the Absolute, by its founder), Advaita and the like are only so deemed secret or hidden such that the overwhelming majority of peoples are devoid of any mentality to grasp the immaterial and subjective nature of the ministries left by those greats who understood and related the nature of the Absolute, of souls, and the kosmos noetos; the only secret in the ‘secret’ teachings is that sufficient wisdom is required to understand them, not that their message has been purposefully obscured.

Advaita has remained nearly 100% intact in its message over these many centuries, whereas Buddhism is entirely dead. Books such as “The Rise and Decline of Buddhism in India” and likewise have attempted to answer this question, giving correct reasoning for its decline such as 1. the creation of countless schisms and myriad short-lived sects 2. the explosive expansion of ritualized fetishism in the form of Mahayanism 3. Brahmanical hostility and campaigns against Buddhism 4. Pessimistic nihilism on the part of later-day Buddhism which over emphasized suffering alone 5. Royal persecution 6. Muslim massive destruction of temples and killing off of Buddhist monastics 7. Decline in patronage 8. No genuine decline of true, or earliest Buddhist metaphysics but its gradual reassimilation back into Vedanta of which Buddhism was merely a reestablishment thereof. All of these however pale collectively, as the reasoning behind Buddhism’s utter demise in time as compared its missionary nature and its utter lack of metaphysics.

Before getting to the main reason for Buddhism’s complete death it should be noted that none have made note that, in the Nikayas Buddhism does in fact espouse and instruct a “spread the word” missionary position by its founder Gotama. Anytime an Aryan metaphysics has given into this position it is short order for its message’s utter corruption and dissolution. However Buddhism’s current popularity is such that this very same perverted missionary faith was spread far beyond the Ganges valley into Afghanistan, Iran, China, and the Ashokan pillar edicts mention Buddhist missionaries as far west at the lands of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt; fools instructing even more unintelligent fools in the ‘message of Gotama’. That Advaita specifically was always a relatively small and close-to-the-master (upa-ni-shad, to sit up close [to the master]) faith and therefore there was little room for misunderstanding and corruption of the teachings, is only a portion of the reason for Advaita’s intact nature after all these centuries. The Advaitins, rightly so, were called Mayavadins by their peers for the sensible reason that Advaita was highly keen on debating the nature of maya, of avidya (agnosis, or rightly meant Brahman’s attribute) in a highly detailed and specific manner, i.e. the philosophical and metaphysical werks of the Absolute, as to how things material and immaterial have come to be in the system of Advaita’s model of the cosmos, just as the Neoplatonists themselves became notorious for.

Buddhism’s coffin nail came directly from Gotama himself both in primarily refusing repeated requests to establish the metaphysics of his system and secondarily for being a poor teacher. Unfortunately Gotama suffered the same fate he makes mention of regarding others in the Anguttara Nikaya where he declared that though a man may be fully illuminated he is not therefore so endowed with the mental prowess to pass along the methodology to achieve same amongst others. Such notable positions as when Gotama is asked to elaborate upon the meaning of avijja (paticcasamuppada #1, i.e. the cause of the descent of Being into embodiment) Gotama merely declares “avijja to mean not knowing the four noble truths”. Pathetically the only approach to a pseudo-metaphysical explanation in the entirety of the Nikayas by Gotama regarding avijja is [AN 5.113] Followers, the beginning of ignorance can never be discerned (beginningless) such that it cannot be said “Here is the First where ignorance is not, here is the contingency which generated it.” Such that it should be discerned, followers, “ignorance is a condition”.

That in Monism, the most important metaphysical principle requiring explanation, the cause of descent of Being, receives one obscure sentence from Gotama and same receives endless volumes from, initially Samkara, and far more still from his immediate disciples, cannot be ignored as anything less than the primary factor for Buddhism’s death and Advaita’s survival. Metaphysical systems are not survived in numbers (of followers) but in the expanse and accuracy its metaphysics. As mentioned 1-9 earlier, as grounds for Buddhism’s decline, Buddhism has survived, but in name only, its message is completely and irrefutably deceased. Buddhism alas could have easily withstood 1 thru 9, but not its founders myopic ignorance in refusing to establish the metaphysics of his system. It is a truism of philosophical history that nothing true is popular and nothing popular is true. Gotama’s refusal to establish a metaphysics has left a pathetic religious façade of Mahayanists, oriental and farcical Zen, and far worse the survival since its inception in the early centuries C.E., Theravada materialism, or properly physicalism. Rightly so in Gotama’s time, life was both short and harsh, and his position to teach a crash course in, firstly, disobjectification by becoming disgusted with formerly desired after objective phenomena and lastly assimilation (samadhi), was worthwhile and noble, but only so long as he remained around to direct others towards same. Without an expansive and solid metaphysics, which precedes the methodology, sans the teacher there is right quick dissolution and intent of the methodology as well.

In Buddhism’s instance, the failure to establish elaborately the nature of the atman, of avidya specifically, as Advaita had so carefully constructed, it became quickly apparent that the extensive via negativa approach of Buddhism without an accompanying metaphysics for same, lead its heirs to acquisition anatman as implied reality rather than an objective qualifier (A,B,C,D are anatman, are not-atman, are na me so atta ‘not my Soul’). In so taking anatman, incorrectly, subjectively, Buddhism’s heirs have to wit negated the endgoal of the very methodology which Gotama spelled out in full “atman as light and refuge” [DN 2.100 etc.]. In teaching this quick and expedient means of liberation sans a detailed metaphysics, Buddhism had from the start doomed itself to failure. It might be asked by the unintelligent that since Buddhism is a popular (= profane, common, base, unaryan) religion (secular mirage of metaphysics) how could it be said that Buddhism is at all dead? This question loaded brim with ignorance however presumes that quantity outstretches even miniscule quality. Plato, and his heir Plotinus, the two most brilliant metaphysicians and true philosophers who have ever lived are, today, possessed of far less than a handful of those who would be rightly deemed and self-professed ‘Platonists’, however these few are genuine metaphysicians and philosophers endowed with nobility and worth.

Gotama, while an illumined sage and knower of the Absolute did not possess the mentality, the intellectual prowess to transfer his revelation across the ages. His unwilling attitude towards illuminating his metaphysics and instead focusing in upon his expeditious methodology ultimately doomed his methodology in the end. Philosophical and metaphysical systems in great detail are not required to ‘reach the far shore’, however time and logic have shown irrefutably that those same metaphysical systems are required to alay sectarian divisions, squabbles over the endgoal if any, and the premise of the methodology itself. Gotamas vehicle (yana) sped along with its followers, but after his passing, his lack of illuminating the metaphysical works of his vehicle to liberation left his heirs with a vehicle to which they were and are clueless as to the hows, whats, wheres, and whys of its operation, akin to a stranded driver along the road with a broken vehicle of which he himself is utterly ignorant to know how to repair.

Buddhism is today a successful failure, not much apart from Creationism or Atheism however its in profane standing as apart from nobility; is little more than a Humanistic affirmation of mundane ethical things irrelevant to the original article, or as Dr. A.K. Coomaraswamy had said “Buddhism is most famous today for everything it originally never taught”. Gotama was a miserable failure in the most important fashion, that in which he failed to see or to realize that without a metaphysics, his ministry was forever doomed from the outset. In this point there can be no contention; Gotama was not wise enough to ever realize the magnificent error he made which has evolved into a successful and dismal failure we call ‘Buddhism’ today, but which should be shown nothing but contempt by the wise few.