Book excerpt: Gautama’s unintentional mistake of promulgating the dead body of Esoteric Teaching without its vivifying soul, had disastrous effects. But Karma little heeds intentions, whether good or bad, if they remain fruitless. Today, though Gautama is in Nirvana, His subtle body is still present among the Initiates. He will not leave the realm of conscious being, so long as suffering mankind needs His divine help. The middle principles of Gautama Buddha, which did not go to Nirvana, formed the middle principles of Shankara, the earthly Entity. It is therefore nearer the truth to say that the “astral” Gautama, or Nirmanakaya, was the upadhi of Shankara’s spirit and not a reincarnation of Gautama. Shankara was born in 510 BC, 51 years and 2 months after the date of Buddha’s Nirvana. He had nothing to do with Buddhist persecution. Then the “astral” Gautama entered the outward Shankara, whose Atman was, nevertheless, His own divine prototype. Shankara was a Buddha, an enlightened one, but not a typical reincarnation of Gautama Buddha. He was direct incarnation of Logos, one of the Primordial Seven Rays, an Avatara in the full sense of the term. The Nazarene Sage was a Bodhisattva with the spirit of Buddha in Him. Jesus had promised His disciples the power of producing “miracles” far greater than He had ever produced, but died leaving but a few disciples, men only half-way to knowledge. The unequal favour of Karma between Gautama and Jesus can be explained by the necessity of a sacrificial Nirmanakaya, ready to suffer for the misdeeds or mistakes of the new body in its earth-pilgrimage, without any future reward on the plane of progression and rebirth. The Higher Self is not in such a case attached to the lower Ego; its connection is only temporary, and in most cases it acts through decrees of Karma. When the Shruti reached the ear of Gautama, He accepted the revelation while rejecting the later overgrowth of Brahmanical thought and fancy. As in the case of His Western Successor, Gautama was the first of the Eastern Hierarchy of Adepts, who was moved by that generous feeling which locks the whole of mankind within one embrace, with no petty differences of race, birth, or caste. He desired to atone for the sin of His enemies. Then only was He willing to become a full Dharmakaya, a Jivanmukta “without remains.” Shankara, the Great Dravidian Guru, the Adept of adepts, lives to this day in His spiritual entity as a mysterious, unseen, yet overpowering presence among the Brotherhood of Shambhala.