Buddhism, Vedanta Advaita, and Advaitayana Buddhism

Spiritual life can be described thus—as an ordeal of
purification and Divine “Brightening”.

Each of the various Spiritual traditions has proposed
a particular approach to this ordeal, depending on its
fundamental point of view. But the entire collective Great
Tradition of humankind forms a single great and coherent
process, with the unified (although variously expressed)
purpose of Realizing the Truth, or the Divine “Brightness”.

This is the message of Avatar Adi Da’s extraordinary
book The Basket of Tolerance. In The Basket of Tolerance,
Avatar Adi Da Samraj “maps” the entire spectrum of potential
Spiritual “points of view” (as exemplified by all the
known Spiritual traditions of human history) through a
precisely outlined and extensively annotated bibliography
of over 8,000 items—including books, articles, video
recordings, and audio recordings. (For a list of Basket of
Tolerance bibliography books related to the essay in this
booklet, see p. 21.)

In ancient India, the earliest Buddhist manuscripts
were written on palm leaves, and the collections of leaves were
stored in baskets. There were three baskets altogether—one
basket for the disciplinary rules of the monastic community
(vinaya), one for Gotama’s collected discourses (dharma),
and one for the special texts analyzing the nature of human
mental operations (abhidharma). Thus, the canon of Buddhist
literature came to be known as “the three baskets” (or, in
Sanskrit, “tripitaka”).

In our time, the “basket” of Spiritual literature includes
the scriptures of all of the world’s traditions. People in all
parts of the world can now read the literature of any of the
Spiritual traditions of past and present. Therefore, it is
essential that human beings study this literature in the disposition
of tolerance and with intelligent discrimination—
appreciating the particular importance and significance of
each branch of the Great Tradition. It is in order to help all
come to a right and full understanding of the collective
Great Tradition of humankind that Avatar Adi Da Samraj
has created The Basket of Tolerance, as well as His other writings
on the Great Tradition. Each of the booklets in the
“Basket of Tolerance” series contains a single essay or a
group of essays—either from The Basket of Tolerance itself or
from another book on the Great Tradition—in which Avatar
Adi Da Samraj elucidates a particular aspect of (or point of
view within) the Great Tradition.

Many who have come to know Avatar Adi Da Samraj—
through studying His books and experiencing His direct
Transmission of the Divine Reality—recognize Him as
uniquely qualified to Reveal the significance of humanity’s
collective Spiritual search. This is because they recognize
Him to be the Completion, or Fulfillment, of the Great
Tradition—the Living Incarnation of Reality Itself—the
Very One that human beings throughout the ages have,
in their various ways, worshipped and sought to “Know”
or Realize.