Far from discounting the providential "mythology" of the person of the Buddha, the author relates its historical and sometimes contradictory phenomena to its celestial roots in the Divine Qualities and to the human virtues that form the necessary framework for spiritual life. Notions crucial to Buddhism such as suffering and its cessation, void form, nirvana-samsara are elucidated in the light of the Vedantic distinction of Atma-Maya, providing an important key to understanding the differences between Western philosophical between Western philosophical "individualism" and the serenity of Eastern metaphysics. Here is a perspective that stands above sectarian factionalism while at the same time opening unique insights into the multifaceted spiritual universe that is Buddhism.
