Buddhism 499: Many roads lead to God. All paths lead back to Nature…
And there you have the transition from Brahministic Hinduism to a more evolved Buddhism. Because most Hindus don’t care about which God you believe in, as long as you believe in at least one. They have many. And they try to make a God of the Buddha, too, forever calling him ‘Lord Buddha’, as if he created the heaven and earth, while no other ‘real’ Buddhists in other countries would ever call him that. Maybe that’s why Buddhism ultimately failed in India. India is fundamentally nationalistic. So is Hinduism. Buddhism is not.
But, for people who want Buddhism, but also want a God for their religion, Nature can serve as a convenient substitute, and for good reason. Because dharma is often translated as ‘law’ and that’s every bit as good as a God with wings and fiery breath. And this can be proven with language, as I’ve speculated before. The Thai word for Nature, thammashart, is comprised of the two Sanskrit words dharma and jati, the one that we’re calling ‘law’ and the other which is maybe best translated as ‘life’ or something similar, so something like ‘the law of life’, sounds like Nature to me.
Still, many non-Indians want to make of the Buddha something LIKE a God, a manifestation or something such, so you can’t please everybody with flowers and trees when want they really want is a Superman, or Sky Father, like the Vedic dyaus pitra. You can try your best with prithvi mata, Mother Nature, but don’t hedge count your money just yet. People are stubborn about that Alpha Male cowboy on horseback in the sky, with hair flying and women crying. Nature works for me, a universal principle, details to be revealed eventually, as is the rule with Lord Science, wait a minute…
hardie karges and 
streaming consciousness... 
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