Collected Works (Vol. II)

SCIENCE AND BUDDHISM 251 grandeur of our edifice by jimcrack pinnacles of stucco—as who should hang the Taj Mahal with fairy lamps and chintz. It is simple. The mind is compelled to fix its attention on a single thought; while the controlling power is exercised and a profound watchfulness kept up lest the thought should for a moment stray.t. The latter portion is, to my mind, the essential one. The work is comparable to that of an electrician who should sit for hours with his finger on a delicately adjusted resistance- box and his eye on the spot of light of a galvanometer, charged with the duty of keeping the spot still, at least that it should never move beyond a certain number of degrees, and of recording the more impor- tant details of his experiment. Our work is identical in design, though worked with subtler—if less complex—means. For the finger on the resistance - box we substitute the Will; and its control extends but to the Mind; for the eye we substitute the Introspective Faculty with its keen observa- tion of the most minute disturbance, while the spot of light is the Consciousness itself, the central point of the galvanometer scale the predetermined object, and the other figures on the scale, other objects, connected with the primary by order and degree, sometimes obviously, sometimes obscurely, perhaps even untraceably, so that we have no real right to predicate their connection.” 1 Huxley, Essays, V., 136. 2 This last sentence will be best understood by those who have practised up to a certain point. At first it is easy to trace back by a connected chain of thoughts from the thought which awakes us to the fact that we are wandering to the original thought. Later, and notably as we improve, this becomes first difficult, then impossible. At first sight this fact suggests that we are injuring our brains by the practice, but the explanation is as follows: Suppose we figure the central con- sciousness as the Sun, intent on seeing that nothing falls into him. First the near planets are carefully arranged, so that no collision can occur; afterwards Jupiter and Saturn, until his whole system is safe. If then any body fall upon the Sun, he knows that it 1s raptures.”’ How any sane person can describe this process as delusive and unhealthy passes my comprehension; that any scientist should do so implies an ignorance on his part of the facts. I may add that the most rigid necessity exists for perfect health of body and mind before this practice can begin; asceticism is as sternly discouraged as indulgence. How would the electrician do his work after a Guildhall Banquet? The strain of watching would be too much, and he would go off to-sleep. So with the meditator. If, on the other hand, he had been without food for twenty-four hours, he might—indeed it has been done often—perform prodigies of work for the necessary period; but a reaction must follow of proportionate severity. Nobody will pretend that the best work is done starving.? Now to such an observer certain pheno- mena present themselves sooner or later which have the qualities above predicated of our imaginary ‘‘dream” preceded by a transition-state very like total loss of con- sciousness. Are these fatigue phenomena? Is it that this practice for some as yet unknown reason stimulates some _ special nerve-centre? Perhaps; the subject re- quires investigation; I am not a physio- logist. Whatever physiology may say, it is at least clear that if this state is accom- panied with an intense and passionless bliss beyond anything that the normal man can conceive of, and unaccompanied with the slightest prejudice to the mental and physical health, it is most highly desirable. And to the scientist it presents a magnificent field of research. not from any of those planets with which he is familiar, and, lord of his own system, cannot trace the course or divine the cause of the accident which has disturbed him. And he will accept this ignorance as a proof of how well his own system is going, since he no longer receives shocks from it.—A. C, 1 Hallucination especially is to be feared. Light-headedness from want of food is quite sufficient explanation for many ‘‘ Mystic I do not care to invoke hysteria and epilepsy without positive evidence,—A, C.