CHAPTER VII
MOSES, THE LAW-GIVER
The salient feature of the law as given by Moses unto his people, the Jews,
is that of strict cleanliness of mind and body. In this we find a
similarity to the oft-repeated behest of Gautama, the Buddha, who
constantly admonished his followers to keep their hearts pure and their
minds and bodies clean.
This spirit of cleanliness finds also a counterpart in the saying ascribed
to Jesus, "blessed are the pure in heart."
The cleanliness here referred to is doubtless not so much physical neatness
as mental purity of thought--thought free from doubt and calumny and petty
deceits and hypocrisy and selfishness and debasing perversions of the life
forces; but during various stages of history we find that all teachings
have their esoteric and their exoteric application.
The law, as enunciated by Moses, according to the Jewish reports, laid much
stress upon physical cleanliness, as an attribute of godhood.
But Moses, if we may credit reports, was something far more inspired and
illumined than a mere physical culturist--commendable as is personal
cleanliness--and his admonitions were the result of that fine sense of
discrimination and enlightenment which comes from cosmic perception even if
he had not experienced the deeper, fuller realization of liberation, of
which Buddha is a shining example.
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