自从神智文学在英国的出现,它已成为习惯称其教义“密教佛教。”而且,这已经成为一种习惯——正如一句基于日常经验的古老谚语所说的那样——“错误沿着斜面向下跑,而真理必须艰难地爬上山。”老生常谈往往是最明智的。人的思想很难完全不带偏见,往往在对一个问题的各个方面进行彻底的考察之前,就已经形成了决定性的意见。这是指普遍存在的双重错误(a)将神智学局限于佛教;以及(b)将佛陀乔达摩所宣讲的宗教哲学教义与密教广泛概述的教义混为一谈。比这更错误的事情是很难想象的。它使我们的敌人找到了对抗神智学的有效武器,因为,正如一位著名的Pâli学者非常尖锐地表示的那样,在那卷书中有“既不是密教,也不是佛教。”辛尼特作品中所呈现的深奥的真理,从公开的那一刻起就不再深奥了;这本书也没有包含佛陀的宗教信仰,而只是一些迄今为止隐藏的教义,这些教义现在被解释和补充了更多的内容。 And even the latter, though giving out many fundamental tenets from the Secret Doctrine of the East, raise but a small corner of the dark veil. For no one, not even the greatest living Adept, would be permitted to, or could—even if he would—give out promiscuously to a mocking, unbelieving world that which has been so effectually concealed from it for long æons and ages. Esoteric Buddhism was an excellent work with a very unfortunate title, though it meant no more than does the title of this work, The Secret Doctrine. It proved unfortunate, because people are always in the habit of judging things by their appearance rather than by their meaning, and because the error has now become so universal, that even most of the Fellows of the Theosophical Society have fallen victims to the same misconception. From the first, however, protests were raised by Brâhmans and others against the title; and, in justice to myself, I must add that Esoteric Buddhism was presented to me as a completed volume, and that I was entirely unaware of the manner in which the author intended to spell the word “Budh-ism.”