Similarities and differences of Buddhism compared to Hinduism, Jainism, Ajivika...

[yrreg]

There are only so many patterns of human behavior.

Take this analogy: converting to a religion that is already old by thousand of years is like buying a used car also known as a second-hand car,

What I do is if I have the financial resources, get designers and engineers to fashion my new car.

When it comes to religion, that is what people with good mental resources should be doing, make up their own religion.

In my case I have established my own religion, I call it Yrregism; it is based on what I know about life and the universe as life and universe is known today, and my aspirations on what I hope to contribute to make life and the world better and better for all men and all life forms.

For my purpose I read about various extant religions, the old ones and the more later ones, and appropriate what I think could enrich my own religion, namely, Yrregism. But actually there are really very few things useful in old religions and also newer ones when you discount what wisdom they promote which is common to mankind even outside religion, since the dawn of consciousness and intelligence.

They have very little of value to me because they all keep to old ways of thinking and knowing; not with me [what hubris, smile here], I make it a very strict point of finding out the latest in knowledge of life and the universe as experts tell us from their investigations by observation and experimentation and speculation on and from the findings of observation and experimentation, and also on flashes of creative genius which later they have confirmed by testing in the laboratory of their shop or in the laboratory of nature and man.

Enough with these preliminary comments, what I want to do in this thread is to find out what Gautama borrowed from his contemporaries in order to compose his own religion which Westerners, some of them, today think most highly of as though everything is original with him, as to resolve to follow him.

You see, no one not even Gautama gets born in a tabula rasa* society, though in fact with in effect a tabula rasa brain. Everyone comes into this world in a society that is already old with traditions, customs, usages, practices, biases, beliefs, knowledge of facts and knowledge from superstition.

Westerners converted to Buddhism and even Buddhists from the Far East usually and sad to say thereby deficiently portray Buddhism to themselves, without bringing up the religions and religious entrepreneurs or self-acclaimed enlightened truthseekers of his days, in order to fully know and understand Buddhism -- because they wrongly proceed as though everything from Gautama is original with him. Impossible.

What I will do here is first set out the similarities in the teachings of Gautama bearing semblance with the knowledge or speculations already common to contemporary religions of his days: Hinduism the religion already old on Gautama's birthday, then Jainism, Ajivika, and what other religions or religious beliefs and practices available to Gautama during his time and in his clime.

Then I will seek to show how Gautama redesign them by deduction, addition, or abolition, or mutation.

Thereby producing his kind of a religion which Buddhist elites of the Far East and Buddhist converts of the West are convinced you will miss the most transcendental of life's meaning and destiny if you don't follow Gautama -- hahaha.


Yrreg

[yrreg]

Sorry for the re-intrusion; I forgot to define tabula rasa.


Yrreg

[Ryokan]

When it comes to religion, that is what people with good mental resources should be doing, make up their own religion.

I guess your hero is L.Ron Hubbard then?

Oh, and by the way, the major religion of Gautama's time was Bramhanism.

[Dancing David]

Great question, I hope to see the results of your effort. The buddha practised ascesticism before he renounced that, and condems the 'fire-worship', but I feel that i know little of his contemporaries except the vauge little bits I retain from casual reading.

[yrreg]

I guess your hero is L.Ron Hubbard then?

Oh, and by the way, the major religion of Gautama's time was Bramhanism.

I like to address this question to you, Ryokan Resident Buddhist here in JREF Forum, who has more entitlement to found a religion, Gautama or L. Ron Hubbard, or Yrreg, or anyone with a functioning brain and exercising free will and wanting to do good to others and earn whatever he can earn in the way of feeling good and also even material returns.

In my case, I am the founder of Yrregism for my own religion and I am not preaching it to anyone but they are welcome to ask me about it, if for no other reasons than curiosity, which is the mother of inventions and discoveries -- hahaha. And Yrregism makes me feel so good with myself.

I will tell you this from my stock knowledge, L. Ron Hubbard also wants to help people with their suffering, and I think some people are getting help in actual life for their suffering in the way of relief like headache, which cannot be said of Gautama and his Buddhism -- otherwise they would not be taking him, Hubbard, seriously; please don't imagine that they are so stupid as to disburse hard earned cash and get nothing concrete of any benefit to their body and mind which is not founded on emptiness.


About Hinduism and Brahmanism, what I know from stock knowledge is that they refer to the same religion, and Hinduism is the better known of the two words to refer to the same religion antedating Gautama and still prevailing among the Indians of contemporary India.


Yrreg

PSBrahmanism, also Brahminism, is the name given to Hinduism by some authors in the 19th century CE.[1] The term is considered derogatory by many Hindus.[2] Today's practice in most scholarly works is to use the term Hinduism. Some anti-Hindus (e.g. neo-Buddhists) also use the term to denigrate Hinduism by making it refer to a rigid but hypothetical adherence to caste and untouchability.

History...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmanism

[bluess]

yrreg, is there a reason that your knickers are in a twist over Buddhism? Are you similarly snarly about other religions?

[Ryokan]

yrreg, is there a reason that your knickers are in a twist over Buddhism? Are you similarly snarly about other religions?

Nope, seems he's quite okay with Scientology.

I will tell you this from my stock knowledge, L. Ron Hubbard also wants to help people with their suffering, and I think some people are getting help in actual life for their suffering in the way of relief like headache, which cannot be said of Gautama and his Buddhism -- otherwise they would not be taking him, Hubbard, seriously; please don't imagine that they are so stupid as to disburse hard earned cash and get nothing concrete of any benefit to their body and mind which is not founded on emptiness.

.....and Christianity. (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=103865)

(pachomius2000 = Yrreg)

[bluess]

Ah. I see. Thanks, Ryokan.

[yrreg]

yrreg, is there a reason that your knickers are in a twist over Buddhism? Are you similarly snarly about other religions?

Some people swallow Buddhism hook, line, and sinker.

I am a most demanding critical Buddhologist -- for the pleasure of intellectual curiosity; and I like to take the role of a contrarian.

When everyone is praising Buddhism to the sky, there I will be a most unremitting faultfinder; but if everyone is bashing Buddhism, there I will defend Buddhism and Buddhists, at least on the basis of freedom of religion, and on the wider right of people to believe weird things.

13th February 2006, 07:14 AM

Title of post: I am not a bandwagon skeptic.

Originally Posted by Dancing David
Cool Yrreg, that is the santa claus buddha, who predates santa, allegedly he used his alms to purchase toys for children that he carried in his sack!(The toys were is the sack, not the children.)

I am glad, D David, that you also have an appreciation for FL Bude (Fat Laughing Buddha) as I have.

I am now busy playing the script of defendant for acupuncture and Chinese medicine generally, contrary to self-appointed prosecutors of these non-conventional healing, shall we say, arts.

Know of any Buddhist literature on the side for acupuncture and Chinese medicine?


I now realize that I am somewhat a super skeptic (self-pedestal-ism), so that where there is a bandwagon, then that is where I like to dwell on, to examine how and for what psychological or material gains people jump into the bandwagon.


You know, I can see many things in Buddhism which is good and I mean good, except for its to my impression gloomy over-emphasis [hahahaha] on suffering, and also its in effect nihilism and negativism mind-set on the non-self and the non-world.

I still think that Buddha and his early followers were not really into non-self and non-world, but more for practical emphasis on not taking the material and temporal world so addictively.


Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Butai.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

I invite you, bluess, to join me in the labor of love for the advancement of critically useful knowledge and freedom of inquiry, thought, and speech, including of course the right to believe weird things.

Com'on, write something more substantial and original.


Yrreg

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

[Kopji]

I think that many people want to do something else with their life than create an entire religion from scratch. Gimme that ol timey religion bandwagon if it means I can move on to something else.

Certainly there seem like enough religions for me, but maybe people come along once in a while who are just dissatisfied with the selection. There are probably many stories that tell of a young child going into the woods to pray about which bandwagon to jump on, and hearing a heavenly voice saying "hey let's start from scratch!". And whoosh! off we go with another one.

Is that bad? Heck I dunno. Religion seems like a property that goes along with being human. If there weren't Buddhists there would be something else.

[yrreg]

That is one instructive post for me, thanks, Kopji, the one you contribute above.

-------------------------------

I think the learned and well-exposed people who still take Buddhism seriously do not truly believe that it will get them to the Nirvana end target -- already problematic because it's been never specified what it exactly amounts to, if anything it seems to bring Buddhists to the point prior to the Big Bang. That is one terminal I would not want to find myself in, if the self is still possible at that point of the universe; but orthodox Buddhists don't believe in the existence of the self.

Do you notice that people with a religion not devised by themselves, unlike Yrreg with his Yrregism, but evolving as an essential component of an ethnic culture, for example, Hinduism and Judaism and Shinto, or formulated by some controverted historical person, for example, Gautama for Buddhism, at the back of their heads they must know that with all the varieties of religions conflicting among themselves, there is no probability if the possibility exists of a true religion, of their having the true one.

I am absolutely certain that our Buddhist confreres here know that. That is the intellective realization; but in their psychology they still behave and actuate themselves in accordance with their religion so as to arrive at the for them true destiny beyond the grave, that destiny peculiar with their kind of religion, Buddhism. So intellectively they know that Buddhism cannot be the true religion, but affectively they work at it on the basis of its being the true religion, in order namely to bring them to the true destiny for them and for mankind, Nirvana.

Am I saying anything comprehensible? Anyway I will continue.

I mean that at this point in time we know that there is no true religion, yet people like ourselves who convert for example to Buddhism, still in their heart take Buddhism to be the true religion, and Nirvana already problematic as I said at the start, as the true destiny of mankind and all life forms, including those deities in the Buddhist realms of the gods.

That goes also for other peoples otherwise smart and knowledgeable like ourselves, who take to other religions as the true one, and the end times preached by them to be the true one destiny of man and the universe.

My conclusion is that it is time for mankind to realize that religion is for this life, not for the attainment of any destiny post this biological existence; why? because we cannot know as yet what comes after death if anything for man, for mankind, how then can we work for a destiny that we cannot know, that's being absurd, also in actuality acting insane; but we can map out what we want to achieve for man, mankind, in this life: since we can determine what we can achieve in this life, then we do have knowledge of what we want to achieve.

So many words for a simple idea which I guess everyone knows. My apologies.


Yrreg

[Dancing David]

Nirvana is not nessecarily a state to be attained in death, but interpretations will vary. many teachers state it is something attained by the living when they are unattached and unconditioned.

But given the nature of Amida Rock Candy Mountain, some people are distracted.

As the Dao De Ching says "The path is wide and straight but people are easily distracted".

I think that if gautama was influenced it was most by Hindu-ism, that is what the myth states.

[yrreg]

Karma, rebirth, moshka/nirvana, right behavior, they are all old hats in the days of Gautama.

What exactly then is original with Gautama?

Calling Buddhists of this forum.

Why don't you convert to Hinduism instead of Buddhism, because in Hinduism you have all the precedents of Buddhism plus the greater antiquity, if antiquity is what you are after because it gives you a sense of deeper link into the wisdom of the ancient past?

Or is it because Buddhist meditation is what you find useful in Buddhism?

Can a Buddhist be a critical examiner of the doctrinal sources of his religion and still be enamored of his religion?

Enamored, as in being infatuated but not being rational, and shall we say skeptical for members of this forum, which is dedicated to skeptical inquiry on anything and everything.

That is what I am always curious about, the religious attachment of people, who for being attached do not just the same really know their religion -- read this carefully, no one knows either.

You see, teachers of a religion are very solemn and serious telling their followers that their religion is a matter of eternal doom or boon; but they themselves are aware that among experts who are supposed to be in the know about their religion, there is a maze of contradictions among themselves of what their religion truly advocates, as to project a consistent unison in doctrines among themselves, witness the differing schools and sects of Buddhism.

Okay, Buddhists here in this JREF forum, tell us what you think or more correctly what has been taught to you and you accepted, to be the eternal boon that you will obtain in following your religion faithfully to your last breath, and what doom awaits you otherwise?

All this seems like digression from the topic of the thread: Similarities and differences of Buddhism compared to Hinduism, Jainism, Ajivika...

But what I am heading toward is that since religion does not in fact exactly provides us with an absolutely certain boon we are going to attain post the grave, or doom we will fall into, because we can't know from evidence and logic what comes after death; then it seems reasonably practical to search the origins of religion in mankind, like examining the doctrinal sources of Buddhism, to find out what are the earliest longings moving mankind toward religion, common to all peoples.

Then set up objectives that can be concretely described, which can be realized by mankind on this side of the grave, and that should be the essence of religion for modern man who can no longer take on faith the speculations of other men like unto themselves, on the boon or doom that would come to a man upon his earthly demise.

So, what do we have in karma, rebirth, moshka/nirvana, and right behavior, propounded in Hinduism and also in its derivative Buddhism? that is actually the longing of man even prior to his departure to the world beyond the grave, which is unknowable if it does exist for man demised.

Here:

karma means justice,

rebirth means long even unending duration of life,

moshka/nirvana means peace and happiness,

right behavior means everyone working for an ideal society.
Can we today with our knowledge of life and what the universe is all about map out objectives for mankind to achieve with his current knowledge and control of life and nature? Yes, I believe we can, and that is my religion which I call Yrregism.


Yrreg

[Dancing David]

Blah, blah blah.

Karma, rebirth, moshka/nirvana, right behavior, they are all old hats in the days of Gautama.

What exactly then is original with Gautama?

It would seem annatta.


Calling Buddhists of this forum.

Why don't you convert to Hinduism instead of Buddhism, because in Hinduism you have all the precedents of Buddhism plus the greater antiquity, if antiquity is what you are after because it gives you a sense of deeper link into the wisdom of the ancient past?

I don't care for the antiquity of the dharma, but the dharma itself. Were it created yesterday, I would still most likely study it.


Or is it because Buddhist meditation is what you find useful in Buddhism?

Can a Buddhist be a critical examiner of the doctrinal sources of his religion and still be enamored of his religion?

i wouldn't say that i am enamored of buddhism, I save that for my wife and kids, and pets, and friends.


Enamored, as in being infatuated but not being rational, and shall we say skeptical for members of this forum, which is dedicated to skeptical inquiry on anything and everything.

I am sceptical of buddhism and all things.


That is what I am always curious about, the religious attachment of people, who for being attached do not just the same really know their religion -- read this carefully, no one knows either.
Well or in your case, you don't know something that is not religion.


You see, teachers of a religion are very solemn and serious telling their followers that their religion is a matter of eternal doom or boon;

Not the teachers of the dharma by and large, now the amida do over the property at Rock candy Mountain, same as the Xians.

but they themselves are aware that among experts who are supposed to be in the know about their religion, there is a maze of contradictions among themselves of what their religion truly advocates, as to project a consistent unison in doctrines among themselves, witness the differing schools and sects of Buddhism.

So what? You are a catholic, so maybe that makes sense to you. But have you ever read the history of physics, the doctinal dispuites are very similar.
But if you like the lockstep of moo-moo and baa-baa, more power to you. Only silly people think theuy havre the truth.


Okay, Buddhists here in this JREF forum, tell us what you think or more correctly what has been taught to you and you accepted, to be the eternal boon that you will obtain in following your religion faithfully to your last breath, and what doom awaits you otherwise?

read the dots on the page and don't blink.

NO ETERNAL BOON, when you die you are dead, no afterlife, no rebirth, just the disintegration of the body.

One arrow.


All this seems like digression from the topic of the thread: Similarities and differences of Buddhism compared to Hinduism, Jainism, Ajivika...

But what I am heading toward is that since religion does not in fact exactly provides us with an absolutely certain boon we are going to attain post the grave, or doom we will fall into, because we can't know from evidence and logic what comes after death; then it seems reasonably practical to search the origins of religion in mankind, like examining the doctrinal sources of Buddhism, to find out what are the earliest longings moving mankind toward religion, common to all peoples.

The sources of religion are wonder, birth, loss and death. And all the colors of the rainbow. Many paths lead to different goals.


Then set up objectives that can be concretely described, which can be realized by mankind on this side of the grave, and that should be the essence of religion for modern man who can no longer take on faith the speculations of other men like unto themselves, on the boon or doom that would come to a man upon his earthly demise.

So, what do we have in karma, rebirth, moshka/nirvana, and right behavior, propounded in Hinduism and also in its derivative Buddhism? that is actually the longing of man even prior to his departure to the world beyond the grave, which is unknowable if it does exist for man demised.

Here:

karma means justice,

rebirth means long even unending duration of life,

moshka/nirvana means peace and happiness,

right behavior means everyone working for an ideal society.
Can we today with our knowledge of life and what the universe is all about map out objectives for mankind to achieve with his current knowledge and control of life and nature? Yes, I believe we can, and that is my religion which I call Yrregism.


Yrreg




yay and yippee.

AUGMN HA

[yrreg]

You are one great companion of yours truly since the start of my present life episode here in JREF. Thanks for the unfailing fellowship, same also with Ryokan, although Ryokan really takes his Buddhism seriously, he believes in rebirth as explained by Gautama; only he does not know that Gautama's historical existence is being questioned today and the grounds seem to be very convincing.

I have to go now, my wife is calling me to dinner, and if I don't report pronto, she will pick up everything when the kids, two, one girl and one boy, and the dog and cat are finished, and it's going to be dinner by myself on self-service and in solitude.

Give my regards to your better half and your kids.

There was this story by S, Maugham if I remember correctly of two guys hateful of each other; but finally one of them died and the other missed him terribly and his purpose in life disappeared, no more incompatible party to disagree over everything continually every moment of the waking hours.


I want to read something that you will write like what I have composed in the preceding post, I think you can do it; so that I would feel more admiration for you, seeing that you can write as well as I (what hubris, hehehe).

Okay, tell me what is the most important lesson you have learned from Thich Nhan Hahn, hope I get his name correctly, your idol of a teacher, on how to relieve stress, which your good life partner and your kids cannot teach you and drill you in. Every time I look at my wife and my kids and our dog and cat, all stress and tension evaporate, try that approach.

Do I get that piece of writing and done the way I do mine (what arrogance, hahaha).

I really have to go now, the wife has rung the dinner bell twice now.


Have a good evening.


Yrreg

[Dancing David]

Given my mish mash of beliefs there is no single point to what i have learned from Thich Haht hahn, I suppose when i read his teachings on love, and he challenged me to write a letter to a person in power who I despised (in my case GW Bush, who had just been elected) and to show compassion, understanding and love in that letter. It caused me to re-evaluate my self.

I am not stalking, I do post in quite a few areas, but if that is your perception, so be it.

[yrreg]

Blah, blah blah.

Karma, rebirth, moshka/nirvana, right behavior, they are all old hats in the days of Gautama.

What exactly then is original with Gautama?

It would seem annatta.



Granting though not conceding that the idea of anatta started with Gautama, is it an earthshaking concept like the one that the earth is round.

In terms of man's progress in knowledge, science, technology, civilization, and also most importantly, spirituality, would you care to give just five (5) benefits such an idea like the non-self, anatta, supposedly original with Gautama, has reaped for mankind?

Perhaps you would like to speak from the standpoint of a rational skeptic; or anyway, anyhow you want and care to speak.

[And please, abstain from saying blah blah blah, we are skeptics here but not thereby uncouth. Smile just the same.]


Yrreg

[Dancing David]

blah, blah, blah :)

I have stated what I thought, I doubt I can come up with five
-detachment from the notion of reincarnation
-refutation of what is later called cartesian views of the self
-extinguishment of the transcendential self
-precursor to behavioral psychology
-elimination of solipism

I would not claim that annatta is earth shattering, nor revolutionary, at least to me, I had already come to the same conclusion long ago. I doubt the the buddha was the first, but hey that is true of all spiritual leaders.

[yrreg]

Before anything else, go to that thread of mine on In re: Pachomius aka Yrreg being banned from the IIDB (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=67331) and read the latest post there (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2079960#post2079960) from yours truly, a reply to EverLastingGodStopper, who confesses an inclination for learning new things even though being an admin and mod combined on active duty in the IIDB which banned me.

EverLastingGodStopper
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Mod--PA&A, CSS, IINF mean the following:


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But my purpose in this post is to invite you to undertake with me either one of these two topics:

1. What is the religion of Buddhism for the common folks in traditional Buddhist lands as compared to elitist Buddhists like the monks inside their sangha (read that, isolation from ordinary people);

2. Where and how did Gautama come out some 450 years after the legendary date of his mythical birth?
I invite you to join with me to study topic #1, it is most useful for the advancement of our knowledge about the phenomenon of religion in mankind, which phenomenon is found only in man as distinct from other animals -- to mankind's weal or woe.

What do you say? Every time I read your posts I am most disappointed that for showing the rudiments of learning and intelligence you waste your precious time and labor with blah blah blah replies to issues which can as EverLastingGodstopper, although being an admin and mod combined in the IIDB, admits, can satisfy your inborn desire to learn something new -- that is why and for which she confesses to joining this JREF Forum -- to learn something new.


What do you say, shall we work together on topic #1, scil.:

What is the religion of Buddhism for the common folks in traditional Buddhist lands as compared to elitist Buddhists like the monks inside their sangha (read that, isolation from ordinary people).


Have a good day, and regards to the wife and kids.


Yrreg

[Dancing David]

http://religionfacts.com/jainism/beliefs.htm

It would seem the jainists vary somewhat from buddhists


Jains believe that the universe and everything in it is eternal. Nothing that exists now was ever created, nor will it be destroyed.



Given that impermanence is one of the teachings of the buddha, this is a difference.

Being eternal themselves, humans can also attain "perfect beingness," or divinity.


This is also different from the teachings of the buddha.

In Jain thinking, a jiva is a soul attached to a body.

The buddha taught annatta. There is no soul.

In Jainism, the soul is uncreated, eternal and has infinite power and knowledge. It therefore has the inherent potential of divinity (that is, perfectly omnipotent, omniscient and free; not a god).

The buddha taught impermanence and annatta.

Depending on one's karma and level of spiritual development, death may mean being reborn in another physical appearance in the earthly realm, suffering punishment in one of eight hells or joining other liberated souls in the highest level of heaven.

While many sects of buddhism teach rebirth and the six realms, it is not a teaching of the alleged historical buddha.

It would seem that there are some similarities between jainists and buddhists.


principle of ahimsa (nonviolence) extends to all jives



In Hinduism and Buddhism, karma is the natural moral law of the universe in which every good and bad action has a corresponding effect on the doer.



One can only attain liberation when he or she has shed all karma.

[Dancing David]

http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/hindu/ascetic/ajiv.html

The Ajivikas, 'Followers of the way of Life,' are an ascetic order that started at the time of Buddha and Mahavira and lasted until the fourteenth century.
The exact nature of Ajivika doctrine is unclear because the sect's own texts have not survived. It is believed the original Ajivika texts were written in an eastern Prakrit, perhaps similar to the Jain Prakrit Ardhamagadhi. Quotations and adaptations from these texts appear to have been inserted into Jain and Buddhist accounts of the Ajivikas. Makkhali Gosala is regarded as the founder leader of the Ajivikas and one source of his teachings is the Buddhist Digha Nikaya. Three Tamil texts, the Manimakalai of the Buddhists, the Nilakesi of the Jains, and the Sivajnanasiddhiyar of the Shaivites, all contain outlines of Ajivika doctrine. The Nilakesi of the ninth century CE tells us most and is about a heroine Nilakesi visiting teachers in search of the truth, including Buddha and Puranan, leader of the Ajivikas, a dignified figure living in a flowery hermitage.

The basic principle of the doctrine according to Gosala was niyati, fate or destiny. The Ajivikas were rigid fatalists and determinists, seeing niyati as the sole determinant of every happening. No human effort could have any effect against niyati and therefore karma is a fallacy. Nirvana was only reached after living through an immense number of lives, which proceeded automatically like the unwinding of a ball of thread, the last life being as an Ajivika monk. After twenty-four years of asceticism, Gosala enumerated the six inevitable factors of life: gain and loss, joy and sorrow, and life and death, together with the two 'paths' of song and dance.

Purana Kassapa (the Puranan of the Nilakesi), perhaps an older contemporary of Gosala, added the view that a murderer or robber commits no sin and likewise there was no merit in becoming an ascetic, for with niyati there was only one course left open to them. Pakudha Kaccayana, a contemporary of the Buddha, held an atomic theory with seven substances, earth, water, fire, air, joy, sorrow, and life, that are uncreated and unchanging. This was absorbed into the Ajivika doctrine of the negation of free will and moral responsibility. It was argued that since future events are already determined then in some way they already exist. The Ajivika teacher Puranan in the Nilakesi says "Though we may speak of moments, there is really no time at all." This was the theory of avicalita-nityatvam, unmoving permanence. And to the Ajivikas the soul was also atomic and could not be divided. In its natural state outside the body it is immense in size, five hundred leagues (yogana) in extent.
There are close links with Jainism. Gosala claimed to be the twenty-fourth tirthankara, and as a disciple of Mahavira for six years until a split, there are doctrinal similarities between Ajivikism and Jainism. In fact, Gosala may have influenced Mahavira over nudity and he rejected the alms-bowl, a view adopted by the Digambara Jains. There are inconsistencies in Jain karma theory inexplicable without referring to Ajivika doctrine. Mahavira disagreed with Gosala's antinomian doctrine and way of life, and the Buddha strongly condemned the Ajivika doctrine of niyati.
It is very possible that the Jains and Buddhists distorted Ajivika doctrine. Lucas thinks that "it seems doubtful whether a doctrine which genuinely advocated the lack of efficacy of individual effort could have formed the basis of a renunciatory path to spiritual liberation" (Dundas 1992, 26).