"No teaching foresaw the future with such precision as Buddhism. Parallel with reverence for Buddha, Buddhism develops the veneration of Bodhisattvas—future Buddhas. According to the tradition, Gotama, before reaching the state of Buddha, had been a Bodhisattva for many centuries. The word Bodhisattva comprises two concepts: Bodhi—enlightenment or awakening, and Sattva—the essence. Who are these Bodhisattvas? The disciples of Buddhas, who voluntarily have renounced their personal liberation and, following the example of their Teachers, have entered upon a long, weary, thorny path of help to humanity. Such Bodhisattvas appear on Earth in the midst of the most varying conditions of life. Physically indistinguishable in any way from the rest of humanity, they differ completely in their psychology, constantly being the heralds of the principle of the common welfare. [...] Buddha, directing all possibilities toward the affirmation of evolution, bade his disciples venerate the future Buddhas more than the Buddhas of the past. “Thus as the new moon is worshipped more than the full moon, so those who have faith in Me must reverence Bodhisattvas more than Buddhas.” History has not revealed to us elsewhere such a living example of self-denial. According to tradition, the Blessed One preordained the Bodhisattva Maitreya as his successor."