At this point the Buddha segues into a discussion of the four brahma-viharas, the four divine abodes. These are four meditations involving loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity that are brought up in many different discourses, and together they constitute the way to union with Brahma (the Vedic name of the supreme lord and creator) in the Brahma Heavens. The Buddha taught this series of meditations to those who needed to overcome feelings of aversion, hatred and contempt for others and for those who firmly believed that the highest aim in life is to seek union with God as they imagined Him [sic] to be and who would have been put off by the Buddha’s teaching of nirvana, which defies all images and concepts whether personal or impersonal. The idea behind the four divine abodes is that these are the qualities of Brahma himself, and if one were to cultivate them and make them a part of one’s life then one would naturally gravitate towards the Brahma Heavens after death. With the Kalamas, however, the Buddha’s intention was to show that the development of these qualities of relating to the world were good-in-and-of-themselves and did not need to rely on any metaphysical presuppositions or guesswork.

“Then, Kalamas, that noble disciple — devoid of covetousness, devoid of ill will, unconfused, clearly comprehending, ever mindful — dwells pervading one quarter with a mind imbued with loving-kindness, likewise the second quarter, the third and the fourth. Thus above, below, across and everywhere, and to all as to himself, he dwells pervading the entire world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness, vast, exalted, measureless, without hostility and without ill will. (Ibid, p. 66)

This exercise is then repeated three more times with the qualities of compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity following upon the development of loving-kindness and upon one another. Once again, none of this requires that one believe in anything. Not once has the Buddha gone beyond the basic sanity of common sense.