Pencatutan Nama Albert Einstein Untuk Mendukung Buddhisme

"Jika ada agama yang sejalan dengan kebutuhan ilmu pengetahuan modern, agama itu adalah agama Buddha" ~ Albert Einstein.

Kutipan ini ada di buku terkenal yang termasuk International Best Seller yaitu "The Joy of Living" oleh Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche dan Eric Swanson, dalam bahasa Indonesia diterjemahkan menjadi "Keceriaan Hidup", kutipan itu ada di halaman 17.

Lagi-lagi ini adalah salah kaprah, main comot seenaknya tanpa sumber yang jelas, kenyataannya hanya buku dan website buddhis yang menuliskan dan memperbanyak kutipan palsu ini. Buddhisme adalah salah satu agama yang sedikit hoax dan memang seharusnya tidak gemar membuat hoax karena bertentangan dengan sila 4 dari Pancasila yang berbunyi "Aku bertekad untuk melatih diri menghindari ucapan yang tidak benar /berbohong, berdusta, fitnah, omongkosong (nilai kejujuran)guna mencapai samadi.".

Para penyebar kutipan ini juga gagal menjalankan Kalama Sutta: jangan begitu saja mengikuti tradisi lisan, ajaran turun-temurun, kata orang, dan seterusnya. Padahal apa sulitnya mencari sumber otentik di zaman Internet ini, jika tidak ketemu sumber yang otentik, maka jangan dipaksakan ada. Jika ketemu sumber otentik yang menolak hal itu, maka akui bahwa kutipan itu palsu dan sebarkan apa yang benar, Buddhisme tidak membutuhkan dukungan fiktif.

Sumber

Pada link ini http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ABuddhism_and_science , bagian Einstein and Buddhism: a widely-cited but spurious quotation (artinya: Einstein dan Buddhisme: banyak dikutip tetapi merupakan kutipan palsu), dikatakan bahwa tidak ada bukti Einstein mengatakan hal berikut:

1) Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: It transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural and the spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. and 2) Buddhism is the only religion able to cope with modern scientific needs – Einstein

Tetapi benar bahwa Einstein mengatakan Buddhisme mengandung elemen kosmik yang kuat (sumber: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_science), Albert Einstein mengatakan:

...there is found a third level of religious experience, even if it is seldom found in a pure form. I will call it the cosmic religious sense. This is hard to make clear to those who do not experience it, since it does not involve an anthropomorphic idea of God; the individual feels the vanity of human desires and aims, and the nobility and marvelous order which are revealed in nature and in the world of thought. He feels the individual destiny as an imprisonment and seeks to experience the totality of existence as a unity full of significance. Indications of this cosmic religious sense can be found even on earlier levels of development—for example, in the Psalms of David and in the Prophets. The cosmic element is much stronger in Buddhism, as, in particular, Schopenhauer's magnificent essays have shown us. The religious geniuses of all times have been distinguished by this cosmic religious sense, which recognizes neither dogmas nor God made in man's image. Consequently there cannot be a church whose chief doctrines are based on the cosmic religious experience. It comes about, therefore, that we find precisely among the heretics of all ages men who were inspired by this highest religious experience; often they appeared to their contemporaries as atheists, but sometimes also as saints.

Barangkali inilah asal kalimat yang kemudian diubah menjadi kutipan yang lebih "kasar". Sebenarnya cukup mudah melihat pandangan Einstein mengenai agama, ia sendiri mengaku agnostik dan tidak mempercayai Tuhan sebagai sosok personal yang sering dikritiknya. Tetapi walaupun dalam hal ini cocok dengan Buddhisme, tetapi bukan hanya Buddhisme yang menolak sosok Tuhan personal, paham Spinozism juga menolak Tuhan personal.

Pada link ini: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein%27s_religious_views Einstein menyebut Buddha dan Spinoza:

a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value. It seems to me that what is important is the force of this superpersonal content ... regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation ... In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be..

Jadi, kutiplah hal yang benar tanpa ditambah-tambahkan dan dikurang-kurangi.