Fake Buddha Quote: “You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself.”

Just spotted in the wild:

“You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself”
–Buddha

There’s nothing wrong with this — it just isn’t something the Buddha said.


10 Responses to “Fake Buddha Quote: “You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself.””

  1. katinka says:

    That’s a Blavatsky paraphrase actually. ‘Thou canst not travel on the Path before thou hast become that Path itself.’ Voice of the Silence.

  2. Fascinating! The American pacifist (and revolutionary socialist, and Christian preacher) A.J. Muste is credited with being the first to say “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.” (Although that is often wrongly credited to Gandhi or MLK.) But now it looks as if Muste was paraphrasing Blavatsky!! I wonder if he was aware of this?

  3. Faramroze says:

    We cannot “become the Path” until we overcome the false belief in a separate Self, with the destructive thoughts and actions that flow from it. In this connection, the Buddha did say, “The only heresy is separateness.”

    The Path is Soul Consciousness attained by the three-legged routine of meditation, study and service.

  4. “an even faker Fake Buddha Quote than the one above!”

    Maybe that person thought it was some kind of contest to see who could come up with the most fake Buddhist quote?

    Actually that would be kind of an interesting contest.

  5. Faramroze says:

    Just saying, ” That would seem to be another Blavatskyism”, does not make it so. Kindly identify the quote with chapter and verse, if it was not said by the Buddha.

    Thank you.

    • bodhipaksa says:

      Sorry, the phrase “the heresy of separateness” seems to be of theosophical origins, judging by the results of that Google search I linked to, but I’m not much interested in finding the exact source of the quote.

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You’re currently reading “Fake Buddha Quote: “You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself.”,” an entry on Bodhipaksa's blog, bodhi tree swaying

Published: Dec 16 2009

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