“Enq: But how can you explain those cases which are followed by full success? Where does a Theosophist look to for power to subdue his passions and selfishness?
Theo: To his Higher Self, the divine spirit, or the God in him, and to his Karma. How long shall we have to repeat over and over again that the tree is known by its fruit, the nature of the cause by its effects?
You speak of subduing passions, and becoming good through and with the help of God or Christ. We ask, where do you find more virtuous, guiltless people, abstaining from sin and crime, in Christendom or Buddhism – in Christian countries or in heathen lands?
Statistics are there to give the answer and corroborate our claims.
According to the last census in Ceylon and India, in the comparative table of crimes committed by Christians, Musselman, Hindoos, Eurasians, Buddhists, etc., etc., on two millions of population taken at random from each, and covering the misdemeanors of several years, the proportion of crimes committed by the Christian stands at 15 to 4 as against those committed by the Buddhist population. (Vide LUCIFER for April, 1888, p. 147, Art. Christian lecturers on Buddhism.)
No Orientalist, no historian of any note, or traveler in Buddhist lands, from Bishop Bigandet and Abbe Hue, to Sir William Hunter and every fair-minded official, will fail to give the palm of virtue to Buddhists before Christians.
Yet the former (not the true Buddhist Siamese sect, at all events) do not believe in either God or a future reward, outside of this earth. They do not pray, neither priests nor laymen. “Pray!” they would exclaim in wonder, “to whom, or to what?”
Enq: Then they are truly Atheists.
Theo: Most undeniably, but they are also the most virtue-loving and virtue keeping men in the whole world.
Buddhism says: Respect the religions of other men and remain true to your own; but Church Christianity, denouncing all the gods of other nations as devils, would doom every non-Christian to eternal perdition.
Enq: Does not the Buddhist priesthood do the same?
Theo: Never. They hold too much to the wise precept found in the DHAMMAPADA to do so, for they know that, “If any man, whether he be learned or not, consider himself so great as to despise other men, he is like a blind man holding a candle – blind himself, he illuminates others.””
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 