"Conscious of danger in its depth, I would not preach the Law of Laws to men." Thus Buddha told his disciples of one of the reasons why he first refused to make public his discovery of ultimate truth. To whom was this danger? If to himself, he was above fear. It was to his own generation. He expressly declared, on another occasion, "I have seen these things before, yet I did not reveal them. I might have revealed it, and others would not have believed it. Now, had they not believed me, it would have been to their loss and sorrow." Buddha meant--and his meaning is further elucidated by other sayings--that those to whom he offers mystical truth and reject it, will bring hurt upon themselves by the very act of rejection. Such truth is accompanied by great power. It cannot be separated from its sayer. The sage doubted is the truth doubted. The sage rejected is the truth rejected. When this happens, the accompanying power--which would have blessed and helped if believed in--still affects those it touches but affects them adversely. It is like electricity, which is so useful a servant of man but so dangerous when not rightly treated, which may save life or destroy it altogether. The Prophet of an age or a continent knows these facts, as the law that brings him into birth knows it too. Consequently he appears when humanity has passed through such tremendous self-earned sufferings that the risk involved in saying the Word and thus showing them the only true way out, becomes an act of mercy by contrast.
-- Notebooks Category 11: The Negatives > Chapter 5 : Their Visible and Invisible Harm > # 25
