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tics of a person, with feeling and thoughts like a person, they wonder how a God like that can be
called winyan or chit.    And when they hear the word 'Holy Ghost' used for God, they cannot under
stand at all.     It becomes all the more difficult for them to understand God.       Therefore, all such
word should clearly and precisely be defined or interpreted according to religious language.    This is
imperative so that Buddhists can understand Christainity and work together without friction or persecution for the common good. According to Buddhists God cannot be, or have, a personality
or individuality because God is no person and has no characteristic by which we may say that God
is like this or like that.       Even the conceptions of monotheism or polytheism cannot be applied to
God.     Such a thing which is devoid od any chacteristics is designated as Dhamma or nature by
Buddhists.     It is the common noun which, unlike chit or winyan, can be universally used for any-
thing whatsoever.    So in my opinion the usual connotation of the word 'winyan' is a barrier for undestanding of God.    Spirit can be taken as God, but it would be God in the language of common
man.    It think that God as spoken of everywhere in the Bible can always be understood in religious
or Dharmic langauge.
           GOD ALWAYS CONVERS A HIDDEN DHAMIC SENSE.   THE IDEA IS THAT GOD, AS SPOKEN OF IN THE
LAYMAN,S LANGUAGE, WHEREEVER FOUND IN THE SCRIPTURES OF ANY RELIGION, COULD BE TURNED
USUALLY INTO THE SENSE OF THE DHARMIC GOD.
       To save time, I shall quote an example from Genesis dealing with God,s creation.      God,s
creation as described from Chapter I to Chapter 3, was creation with with regard to the spiritual
(Dharmic) side, as known to Buddhists. THis implies that man, in the process of evolution, developed his mental faculty, from the stage of a low animal to a higher stage whereby he was no
more considered an animal.       That is to say, he became a real man both in the physical and spiri-
tual sense.    Human civilization established itself in the mind of an animal whose body, srior to that
time, assumed human shape but whose mentality was still on a level with that of a beast. According
to scientific theery, man in physical structure is believed to have appeared approximately two hun-
dred thousand years age, whereas the age of our physical is not less than a billion years. Calculating
from what has been said in the Bible, the creation of the world could have taken place in roughly
eight to ten thousand years.     Hence, the created "world" referred to in Genesis could not possibly
be applied to the material or physical world but must necessarily point out the meta -physical world
or the Dharmic world which pertains to the spirit or the soul.

   What seems strange, is that some authorities in Christianity
still do not allow their members to believe that man came from an ape-man which again evolved
from an ape.      This has certainly led to confusion.     Such a belief is, perhaps, quite correct, but it
applies towhat happened millions and millions of years in the past and not to man who appeared
about ten thousand years ago.     The "created world" therefore could have only meant the spiritual
world, or, in the Dharmic language, a well-developed world in the mind of a person who was so defined as to set himself apart from and animal.     This idea fits in with the sense of theword "man",
(manusya in Thai and Sanskrit) which, whether it is to be translated as a desendant of the Lord Ma-
nu or even as a well-cultured animal, will be found acceptable to the Buddhists, bt virtue of this saying of Lord Buddha:     "The world, its cause, its annihilation, the path towards its annihilation-
all these are decleared by the Tathagata as being complete in this fathom long body, inclusive of
perception and mind."   (Rhitassa Sutta Catukka-Nipata, Anguttara- Nikaya). This clearly explains
that the Dharmic or religious "world" is applied to the " world within the mind of man" and not to
the world of physical matter which is the world in the ordinary sense, or the world outside man.   A
true God should be concerned with the creation of the inner world within human consciousness to
deserve the title of God.     Had he been busy with the creation of the material world or a world of
the flesh.      He would have degraded Himself down to an absolutely meaningless God.      Even in
His concern with the creation of animal and matter, He would have had to be more particular with
the part of the spirit such as consciousness, and the law of Karma, ( cause and effect) which are also
latent in these things.     We may call it the spirit or the soul of such things, no matter what they are
may it be only a small particle like gravel or a stone.      God is so mysterious a Power, beyond the
description of the human tongue, able to create and control everything definitively; how-be-it, the
text dealing with the creation of man as appearing in Genesis, still directly refers to the creation of
human spirit which is Dharmic in sense and may be seen from the following details.
       In Genesis 3/24, we are told how God failed in forbidding man to take the fruit of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil and how He succeeded in preventing him from taking the fruit of the tree of life.    This means that, prior to that time, man had lacked human consciousness in so mush
as being unable to distinguish good from evil, mals from female, the clothed from the naked, and
husband from wife.   We know that such knowledge was also not possessed by an ape - man.   Even
in normal sexual intercourse between the male and female, the attitude of being husband and wife did not creep in as it did with man in the age of "taking the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil".
Because of the every discreation man owned as a result of his being so developed in mind, he has
prided himself as a perfect man, which has consequently raised in him still more conflicts concerning
good and evil, so much so that it has given rise to another kind of suffering which is solely with man
and is not found in animal. This is exactly the death penalty which man deserved from God as a
result of his taking the forbidden fruit.    Man has burdened himself with the task of having to tackle
his life-problem regarding birth, growth, decay and death. which is due to his failing to take the fruit
of another tree known as the tree of life whose fruit of Im mortality would have given man an ever-
lasting life - as everlasting as God Himself.

In the Thai version version of the Bible, the "tree of life"
is translated as "the tree of prosperous life", which, in my opinion, falls short of the original sense.
It should be translated precisely as "life" which in itself means "not dying", for life is what does not
die.         The moment man has taken the fruit of this tree, he will not die, that is, he will secure the wisdomknown in Buddhism as " Amata -Dhamma " -the deathless State, or the seeing of Non-self.
Thus, there is nothing which can die, be born, grow old and get sick.    In a way, he is said to attain
the Arahantship in Buddhism, which is characterized by certain expressions such as Gaining the
Deathless or Entering the Great Immortal City, that is, attaining Nirvana within this very life - time
as consciously felt by an individual.    The Genesis also contains what we call inbuddhism the Lokut
tara - Dhamma or Amata -Dhamma.     If the translation of the Bible is done correctly i n Thai, the
Buddhists will surely hold as great a love and high reverence for the Bible as they do for their Tripi-
taka. For this reason, a new and careful revision of the Bible in the Thai language is recommended.
The tern "prosperous life" according to Buddhist concepts involves a never -ending series of still more refined and more subtle forms of suffering.      To put it precisely, "life" would refer to another kind of life known in Dhamma as the Eternal life which Christ often talked of in his discourses and which is known in Buddhism as "Amata -Dhamma" or as Eternity or Immortality.
      What I have so far said, is sufficient to show that whether it is the word "God" or "the World",
or "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil", or "the tree of life" -all these can be given a Dhar-
mic sense apart from the literal meaning.    Such a rendering is necessary to enable one to get into the substantial meaning of these words.      Then one will see that Christainity has also presented a
sublime form of Truth on the Ultramundane plane as Buddhism and as other religions of like Dhar -
mic principles, and is not a mere "ancient Hebrew tale" as it is called by some.    Further details that
deserve our attention (rendered into the Dharmic language) can be seen from the following extracts.
      Genesis 1/26, reads:   "And God said, Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness ------".
These words have brought another deriding factor.       Some Christian text books, even competent
ones, have asserted, with all available reasons, that God formless.    Those children to whom I have
given these books do not believe this, for the Bible has clearly said that God and man have the same
likeness, this "by the will of God."     This results from the wrong interpretation of the word in the
Dharmic language.     That man was created after God,s own likeness should be taken to mean that
man,s vast capability can be in the same state as God or be in unity with Him; that is, if man has taken the fruit of the tree of life he will become a God.       God has only postponed that chance for
the time being, as was made known in Genesis 3/24.     He gave special protection to that tree in order to term man away from it.     To argue about God in respect of His bodily form or His physical
aspect is senseless.