Thanks for these intriguing remarks. I'm interested in the prospect of white lies on the grounds raised by Leo Strauss, and in my view on how cults or countercultures relate to mainstream societies.

I wonder, though, what the early Buddhists would say about this appraisal of bodhisattvas. You seem to be appealing to popularity, whereas I'd expect the early Buddhists to be more elitist.

It reminds me of how later Christians might dilute the early Christians' absolutism, to preserve the religion's popularity. Selling a religion on political grounds is different from reckoning philosophically with the truth.