When the Buddhists exclaim: “Put away your egoism, for the ego is an empty notion, a mere word without reality,” some of our Christian readers may think that if there is no ego, what will become of our personality or individuality? Though this point will become clearer as we proceed, let us remark here that what Buddhism understands by ego or âtman may be considered to correspond in many respects to the Christian notion of “flesh” or the {166} “old man,” which is the source of all our sinful acts. Says Paul: “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I live now in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. ii, 20.) When this passage is interpreted by the Buddhists, the “I” that was annihilated through crucifixion, is our false notion of an ego-soul (_âtman_); and the “I” that is living through the grace of God is the Bodhi, a reflex in us of the Dharmakâya. When Christians put the spirit and the flesh in contrast and advise us to “walk in the spirit” and not to “fulfil the lust of the flesh,” it must be said that they understand by the flesh our concrete, material existence whose characteristic is predominantly individual, and by the spirit, that which transcends particularity and egoism; for “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, faith, meekness, temperance,” and suchlike virtues are possible only when our egocentric, âtman-made desires are utterly abnegated. Buddhism is more intellectual than Christianity or Judaism and prefers philosophical terms which are better understood than popular language which leads often to confusion. Compared with the Buddhists’ conception of âtman, the “flesh” lacks in perspicuity and exactitude, not to speak of its dualistic tendency which is extremely offensive to the Buddhists. {167} _The Vedantic Conception._ Though the doctrine of non-âtman is pre-eminently Buddhistic, other Hindu philosophers did not neglect to acknowledge its importance in our religious life. Having grown in the same soil under similar circumstances, the following passage which is taken from the _Yogavâsistha_ (which is supposed to be a Vedantic work, Upaçama P., ch. LII, 31, 44) sounds almost like Buddhistic: “I am absolute, I am the light of intelligence, I am free from the defilement of egoism. O thou that art unreal! I am not bound by thee, the seed of egoism.”[76]