Review
"A colorful and comprehensive chronicle of Siddhartha's life in India, this book documents the travels and experiences that led to the enlightenment of the young Buddha. It is filled with images of rural India--its animals, wilderness, people, and legends. The narrative has a sweetly formal simplicity, although it also possesses the ease and conversational quality of more modern styles. Rather than calling this book a channeled or written work, the publishers describe it as "received" knowledge. It was conceived by associates of Abd-ru-shin (Oskar Ernst Bernhardt, 1875-1941). This is a charming and devout recitation of the life of Buddha." --
NAPRA ReView, ABA, 1996
From the Inside Flap
In every culture heralds of Truth have appeared at times of critical development in order to help people on their spiritual path. The lives and work of many of these Truth-bringers is described in the Forerunner Book Series. The series came into being in the early 1930's in connection with In the Light of Truth: The Grail Message and its author, Abd-ru-shin (Oskar Ernst Bernhardt, 1875-1941). Among those associated with him, there were a few who, in his proximity, gained an insight into spiritual connections in historical events. They wrote down what they beheld, but did not consider themselves the authors of the volumes. For this reason, the books appeared and still appear without indication of author, and with the notation, "Received in the proximity of Abd-ru-shin through the special gift of one Called for the purpose." The Forerunner books do not present fanciful pictures of the past. Rather, they describe historical happenings in their imperishable form. Everything that has taken place is recorded in the annals of time, so that we of today may develop our perceptions from those events. What becomes apparent is that in the course of millennia mankind was repeatedly shown ways to find the Truth. But instead of accepting the Truth, people adapted It toward earthly objectives and deflected that which did not fit in with their personal world view. Had it been otherwise, writes Abd-ru-shin:
"...there would now be only one uniform teaching here on earth, issuing from the Will of God. There would not be so many kinds of denominations. All the teachings that have come to the earth in the past would, united, form a single flight of steps to the pedestal on which the Truth is to stand... There would be no differences in the interpretations, much less differences in the teachings themselves!--For all teachings were at one time willed by God, precisely adapted to the individual peoples and countries, and formed in complete accord with their actual spiritual maturity and receptivity... The bringers of all the individual teachings were Forerunners of the Word of Truth Itself..." The struggle between value systems and religions would be impossible if only the simple recognition that all religious wisdom, every proclamation of Truth came from one source. The Forerunner Book Series can (and should) pave a way for this recognition in that it depicts the Truth-bringers of past eras, their lives and their teachings, free of every-thing the human mind has concealed in the past. The complete Forerunner Series of nine books (see listing at the beginning of this volume) includes five monographs about:
Ephesus (Hjalfdar in prehistoric times)
Zoroaster (Zarathustra) in Iran
Lao-Tse in China
Buddha in India (this volume), and
Mohammed in Arabia
