Page:The Master as I Saw Him.djvu/345

                NO COMPROMISE picture of the First Council, and the dispute as to the President. "One said it should be Ananda, because He had loved him most. But someone else stepped forward, and said no ! for Ananda had been guilty of weeping at the death-bed. And so he was passed over ! " " But Buddha, " he went on, " made the fatal mistake of thinking that the whole world could be lifted to the height of the Upani- shads. And self-interest spoiled all. Krishna was wiser, because He was more politic. But Buddha would have no compromise. The world before now has seen even the Avatar ruined by compromise, tortured to death for want of recognition, and lost. But Buddha would have been worshipped as God in his own lifetime, all over Asia, for a moment's compromise. And his reply was only 'Buddha- hood is an achievement, not a person ! * Verily was He the only man in the world who was ever quite sane, the only sane man ever born ! " 331