(17)

So if, today, scientific and technological development. Man feels that he has come to a Point where his own intellect makes him superior to anybody else or makes him able to solve any Problem that he has, whether physical or ethical or political or whatever, would not the principle that man is the master of himself _ that he has to be responsible to himself because whatever he does he inherits _ become one of the most important ways  of looking at himself?

(16)

So when the Buddha days that each Person is his own Master , he promulgates a principle whose applicabiliy becomes stronger as Man begins to get more and more confidence in the control of himself and the environment.

(15)
What are These Elements that make Buddhismus timeless? Let me take just a few of them. First of 
these would bei the recognition of the responibility of the Individual. The Buddha is One of the most remarkable religious teachers who emancipated man from all bonds - bonds of supernaturl ties. A Godhead, a creation , sin or any other charactereristic that you inherit from anyone else ( other than what ever you yourself have done .)

(14)

The characteristic oftimelessness comes from the fact that it had understood that everything continues, but continues in a flux , in a process of continuing change and evolution.

Thus Buddhism was able to adjust to different times and civilizations. We can therefore without any hesitation  approach any aspect of Buddhism as something relevant and applicable to us today.

(13)

So if Buddhism has an application today and if Buddhism has a place in modern life, it is because of that timeless applicability, emanating from a set of eternal values. To talk of a characteristic of being eternal is a very paredoxical way of presenting or describing a religion which has the principle doctrine of impermanence at the bottom of it.

(12)
Part four
A Timeless Doctrine

I have often wondered how Buddhism came to be called ``Akalika`` which means ``timeless`` - that it exists for all time. The more I see the changes that have taken place in Buddhist culture or religion, the more I see how it keeps on adjusting to the needs of different eras, populations, individuals, the more I see that it has been possible for the Buddha to evolve a message that would remain eternally fresh.

(11)

During the days of the Buddha himself he used to emphasize this point. One need not be a scholar and learn everything. Buddhism is not like studying a subject like mathematics where you have to learn all your theorems and different methods of working out the various types of problems. If you know the fundamentals, the basics, a scholarly detailed study is not an important precursor to pratice.

So out of this vast Buddhist culture, religion , or literature, or the vast body of experiences that come to us as Buddhism, each one of us would find that which is relevant to our life, to our type of problems.

(10)

To me Buddhism is all this. It is the Buddha and his life ,the doctrine, the culture that evolves around it, and the ritual that is connected with it.

Once we take this to be one large body of human experiences, distilled in the finest form and presented to us in such a manner that each one of us could select that part which appeals to us, we begin to see the remarkable uniqueness of Buddhism.

(9)

If one were to take each of these aspects separately, and try to examine the impact of what he would call Buddhism on modern life. It would certainly be an enormous task.

To me Buddhism is all this. It is the Buddha and his life, the doctrine, the culture that evolves around it, and the ritural that is connected with it.

Once we take this to be one large body of human experiences, distilled in the finest form and presented to us in such a manner that each one of us could select that part which appeals to us, we begin to see the remarkable uniqueness of Buddhism.

(8)

A large number of sects or schools or philosophical systems have evolved and all of them, quite rightly, go under the name of Buddhism.

Then comes another defination of Buddhism and that is the kind of ritual that has grown around the doctrine of the Buddhism as a result of his teachings and the way of life preached by him, becoming a religion. Whether the Buddhism intended it or not, his teaching became a religion, a religion to which people were prepared to hold allegiance and which has its own ritual, organization, and ways or criteria for deciding what is properly done or what is improperly done. now that is another kind of Buddhism.

(7)

To another, Buddhism would mean the massive doctrine as recorded in the Buddhist literature, which indeed is voluminous and contains several thousand pages recording the words of the Buddha. And in it is described a very lofty, abstruse, complex and learned philosophy of life.

Then based on whatever the Buddha taught, whatever the practices current at the time of the Buddha, there has grown a very rich culture, a culture which has extended to all parts of Asia for over 2500 years, and to which people from various walks of life with various backgrounds from all these countries have made a lasting contribution.