Mahayana Buddhism tends to be more hopeful in its belief that all can and should attain enlightenment. Like Kierkegaard's "Christian", the Bodhisattva ideal is theoretically attainable by all, but few actually do.
By way of comparison, Mahayana Buddhism's ideal of an authentic religious experience leading to salvation is characterized by the Bodhisattva path. The latter was in direct opposition to Hegel's rational idealism (Dunning 35). Kierkegaard's philosophical goals could be described as twofold: trying to find a way of realizing an authentic religious experience that was not subject to the rigorous rationalism prevalent at the time, and doing away with systematic philosophizing altogether.
He did this in order to expose the fallacy of these viewpoints. These pseudonymous writings often took positions that were later explained by Kierkegaard himself as being contrary to his personal belief. His early writings addressed these topics indirectly, ironically, and pseudonymously. This salvation experience is characterized by a highly subjective awareness of Truth within one's own individual existence. As it pertains to Christianity, Kierkegaard's thought was instrumental in defining a way of being in the world that is characterized by an insistence on an individual and deeply personal experience leading to salvation. Later Existentialists described man as having no essence but only existence. Existentialism can best be described as a mood within philosophy that emphasizes the concrete and particular existence of man in the world. Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was an Existentialist, although that description was applied to his thought posthumously. Kierkegaard stands squarely in the Christian tradition of faith in Jesus Christ as the only means of personal salvation. An attempt will also be made to reconcile the struggle for Truth, found in both of these traditions, as a necessary component of coming into contact with Sacred Power, contact that is personal, subjective in nature, and highly passionate. An endeavor will be made to show how Kierkegaard's religious person is similar in som e ways to the Bodhisattva ideal. And what it means to be an authentic religious person, compared and contrasted with the Bodhisattva path and series of perfections leading to enlightenment found in the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism.
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