I notice it all the time: sayings from great saints across religions often sound so similar. What is even stranger is that they even share similar examples. Recently, I was seeking to understand the teachings of the monk Nagarjuna from Buddhism. They sounded remarkably similar to those of Saint Adi Shankaracharya of Hindu philosophy.
After about 100 to 200 years since the Gautama Buddha passed away, Buddhism was falling apart with too many schools of practice and failing before the arguments of Hindu philosophers. This was the time when Nagarjuna arrived. He started winning intellectual arguments against Hindu scholars—not by taking a stand on what Buddhism was, but rather by not taking a position at all.
He falsified the positions that Hindu and even other Buddhist philosophers were taking. He argued not on how the world was, but rather on what it wasn't. This is strikingly similar to how Adi Shankara taught. Shankara, for example, did not explain what God was; instead, he negated everything one could think of (Neti Neti—not this, not that). By deduction, one could theoretically understand what God wasn't from the total. But the "total" was negated too. So, God is like nonexisting, yet encompassing everything. One cannot refute this because everything has already been negated. It is not possible to argue what was said from one way or the other.
For example, stating that the world was an illusion (Maya), Shankara said it was like a reflection in a mirror. It doesn't actually exist. If one asks the question of a real object and mirror being required for a reflection to appear, he adds that the mirror was only an analogy to explain the point; in ultimate reality, there was no object or mirror either.
Similarly, Nagarjuna said that just as a raft is used for crossing a river but must be left behind after crossing, so too must the Buddha’s teachings be left behind after understanding them. The concepts of dukkha (suffering) and impermanence, explained as cardinal principles by the Buddha, are meant to be tools. You don't hold onto them forever; to do so goes against the basic tenets of the teaching.
Nagarjuna also refuted the concept of the parallel existence of past, present, and future. He argued that if the past existed "now," it would be the present. If the future existed "now," it would also be the present. Therefore, the only thing possible is "now," the present. But then, he doesn't even propose that only the "now" exists; he suggests the entire concept of past, present, and future is impossible. In fact, this aligns with the latest understanding of time and existence in the universe by modern astronomers.
Many teachings from Buddhism are so similar to Jiddu Krishnamurti’s teachings, although he refuted all religions, including Buddhism famously maintaining that, "Truth is a pathless land". It is a strange and beautiful concept: to understand something deeply, and then to abandon (or transcend) that too!
Have you ever found that a truth you once held onto eventually became a 'raft' you had to leave behind? I’d love to hear about your own journey of understanding and letting go in the comments below.
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