Buddhist-Meditation-Systematic-and-Practical

then how should this be done? (See Ch. VII, A. 1.)
It is true that the Christian God, absolute in conception,
is somehow opposed to Buddhist ideas. But readers will
soon realize, after they have read some of the Buddhist
scriptures, that the Buddha did not deny the existence of
gods, that is, of super-human beings in states happier
than the one in which we live. He often taught such
beings his Dharma, and later countless such gods
became protectors of Buddhism, took the refuges and
precepts, or entered various stages of noble realization.
On the other hand, the Buddha taught that the existence
of an absolute creator-God is a delusion, and that any
one of the conditioned gods who thought of himself in
this way was also gravely deluded.
Gods should be respected even thought they are
samsaric beings, because they have only achieved their
purified state by acquiring many merits. With these
merits one may gain many powers which may be used
to help our meditations. The Buddha was once asked by
a disciple, "Bhante, how did you acquire so many
supernormal powers?" The Enlightened One gave two
reasons in his answer: "By the strength of my samadhi
and by the help of the gods." Even though the Buddha's
powers were primarily the result of Enlightenment, still
we find that on many occasions the devas also helped
him.
At one time, before he took refuge in the Buddha, the
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