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Page 1 of 21904 · PDF PAGE 119
…f Dhyana will surely arise long before one has passed even up to Sankhara. And for the reality, ’twill be a brave jest, my masters, to fling back on the materialists that terrible gibe of Voltaire’s at the m ystery- mongers of his day : “Ils nient ce qui est, et expliquent ce qui n’est pas.” NOTE TO SECTION VIII. Transfigured Realism. I will not waste my own time and that of my readers by any lengthy discussion of Mr. Herbert S pencer’s “ Transfigured Realis m.” I will not point out in greater detail how he proposes, by a chain of reasoning, to…
1904 · PDF PAGE 84
THE THREE CHARACTERISTICS 77 the bulk of cases one should certainly abstain from destroying life, that is, wantonly and wilfully: but I cannot drink a glass of water without killing countless m yriads of living beings. If you knew as I do, the conditions of existence: struggle deadly and inevitable, every form of life the inherent and immiti- gable foe of every other form, with few, few exceptions, you would not only cease to talk of the wickedness of causing death, but y ou would perceive the First Noble Truth, that no existence can be free fr…
1904 · PDF PAGE 47
…tian : let us pass Back to the text whose thread we lost, And see what means this “Pentecost.” This, then, is what I seem occurred According to our Saviour’s word) That all the Saints at Pentecost Received the gift—the Holy Ghost ; Such gift implying, as I guess This very super-consciousness.59 Miracles follow as a dower ; But ah ! they used that fatal power And lost the Spirit in the act. This may be fancy or a fact ; At least it squares with super-sense Or “spiritual experience.” You do not well to swell the list Of horrid things to me impute…
1904 · PDF PAGE 27
…e seas Filled with those innocent agonies Of Pagan Martyrs that once bled, Of Christian Martyrs damned and dead In inter-Christian bickerings Where hate exults and torture springs, A lion an anguished flesh and blood, A vulture on ill-omen wings, A cannibal74 on human food. Nor do I cry the scoffer’s cry That Christians live and look the lie Their faith has taught them : none of these Inspire my life, disturb my peace. I go beneath the outward faith Find it a devil or a wraith, Just as my mood or temper tends ! And thus to-day that “Christ asce…
1904 · PDF PAGE 102
…ist, his formula would then be X 0. This expression is equal to 1; whatever X may represent, if it be raised to the power of 0 (this meaning mathematically “if it be extended in no dimension or category”), the result is Unity, and the unknown factor X is eliminated. This is the Advaitist idea of the future of m an; his personality , bereft of all qualities, disappears and is lost, while in its place aris es the im personal Unity, The Pleroma, Parabrahma, or the Allah of the Unity-adoring followers of Mohammed. (To the Musulman fakir, Allah is b…
1904 · PDF PAGE 112
SCIENCE AND BUDDHISM 105 Hume follows by apply ing an identical process of reasoning to the phenomena of mind.1 Let us consider the Hindu theory . They classify the phenomena (whether well or ill matters nothing), but represent them all as pictured in, but not affecting, a certain changeless, omniscient, blissful existence called Atman. Holding to Theism , the ex- istence of evil forces them to the Fichtean position that “the Ego posits the Non-Ego,” and we learn that nothing really exists after all but Brahm. They then distinguish between Jiva…
1904 · PDF PAGE 110
SCIENCE AND BUDDHISM 103 but here I have nothing to do with what is uncertain.1 There is an excellent tes t for the value of any passage in a Buddhist book. We are, I think, justified in discarding passages which are clearly Oriental fiction, jus t as m odern criticism, however secretly Theistic, discards the Story of Hasisadra or of Noah. In justice to Buddhism, let us not charge its Scripture with the Sisy phean task of seriously upholding the literal interpreta- tion of obviously fantastic passages. 2 May our Buddhist zealots be warned by th…
1904 · PDF PAGE 55
… capacity as “unnatural” sons, daughters, fathers, and so on. But I leave it. I am content—my work will have been well done—if this trifling essay be accepted as a just instalment towards a saner criticism of our holiest writers, a j uster appre- ciation of the glories of our greatest poet, a possibly jejune yet assuredly historic attempt to place of the first time William Shakespeare on his proper pedastal as an early disciple of Mr. George Bernard Shaw ; and by conse- quence to carve myself a little niche in the same temple : the smallest con…
1904 · PDF PAGE 6
…internally , infallibly perceive what is Truth, he will find it equally well symbolised in most external faiths. It is curious that Browning never turns his wonderful faculty of analysis upon the funda- mental problems of religion, as it were an axe laid to the root of the Tree of Life. It seems quite clear that he knew what would result if he did so. We cannot help fancy ing that he was unwilling to do this. The proof of his knowledge I find in the following lines:— “I have read much, thought much, experienced much, Yet would rather die than a…
1904 · PDF PAGE 59
THE SWORD OF SONG 52 Dhyanic consciousness includes it and denies it. No doubt “something called” acts as a kind of caveat to the would-be sceptic, though the phrase is bad, implying a “calling. ” B ut we can guess what Huxley means. No doubt Buddha’s scepticism does not openly go quite so far as mine—it must be remembered that “scepticism” is merely the indication of a possible attitude, not a belief, as so many good fool folk thing; but Buddha not only denies “Cogito, ergo sum”; but “Cogito, ergo non sum.” See Sabbasava Sutta, par. 10.* At an…
1904 · PDF PAGE 93
…e was silent for a great while, and so departed our Father from Him. Forth he went along the dusty desert and met an antient woman bear- ing a bright crown of gold, studded with gem s, one on each knee. Dressed in rags she was, and squatted clumsily on the sand. A horn g rew from her forehead; and she spat black foam and froth. Foul was the hag and evil, y et our F ather bowed down flat on his face to the earth. “ Holy Virgin of God,” said he, “what dost thou here ? What wilt thou with thy servant ?” At that she stank so that the air gasped abo…
1904 · PDF PAGE 98
91 1902 tycarb AN ESSAY IN ONTOLOGY WITH SOME REMARKS ON CEREMONIAL MAGIC tycarb O M an, of a dar ing natur e, thou subtle pro- duction! Thou wilt not comprehend it, as when under- standing some common thing. ORACLES OF ZOROASTER. IN presenting this theory of the Universe to the world, I have but one hope of making any profound impression, viz.—that my theory has the merit of explaining the divergences between the three great forms of religion now existing in the world—Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity , and of adapting them to ontological sc…
1904 · PDF PAGE 114
SCIENCE AND BUDDHISM 107 survives death, what does it m atter to us? Why are we to be so altruistic as to avoid the reincarnation of a being in all points different from ourselves? As the small boy said, “What has posterity done for me?” But som ethin does persist; something changing, though less slowly . What evi- dence have we after all that an anim al does not remember his man-incarnation? Or, as Levi says, “In the suns they remember, and in the planets they forget.” I think it unlikely (may be), but in the total absence of all evidence for …
1904 · PDF PAGE 92
…t Mountain. So by ten days and fifty days and two hundred day s and yet ten days he went forth. After ten day s fell a thunderbolt, whirling through black clouds of rain: after sixty the road split in two, but he travelled on both at once: after two hundred and sixty, the sun drove away the rain, and the Star shone in the day-time, making it Night. After the last day came his Mother, his Redeem er, and Him self ; and joining together they were even as I am who write unto y ou. Seventeen they were, the three Fathers : with the three Mothers they…
1904 · PDF PAGE 95
…IX II 88 his flesh : he turned to his trade : he put forth his strength : he drew all to a point : he delighted. Therefore he is not, having become that which he was not. Mark ye all : it is declared. Now of the last adventure of our Father and of his going into the land of Apes, that is, England, and of what he did there, it is not fitting that I, the poor fool who loved him, shall now dis- course. But it is most necessary that I should speak of his holy death and of his funeral and of the bruit thereof, for that is gone into diverse lands as …
1904 · PDF PAGE 83
…all he fell. At that m oment all the currents of his continued and concen- trated Hate recoiled upon him and he fell into the Abyss of Being. And in the Halls of Birth he was cast out into the Lowest H ell— he becam e a clergy man of the Church of England, further than he had ever been before from Truth and Light and P eace and Love; deeper and deeper enmeshed in the net of Circumstance, bogged in the mire of Tanha1 and Avigga2 and all things base and vile. False Vichi-Kichi 3 had caught him at last ! XIII. “Aye! The hour was at hand. Perdu R A…
1904 · PDF PAGE 100
AN ESSAY IN ONTOLOGY 93 being convinced on insufficient grounds.1 This is surely the last refuge of incompetence. But though, always on the original hypo- thesis of the infinity of s pace, &c., the Ad- vaitist position of the Vedantists and the great Germans is unassailable, yet on practical grounds the Dvaitists have all the a dvantage. Fichte and the others exhaust themselves trying to turn the simple and obvious posi- tion that: “If the Ego alone exists, where is any place, not only for m orals and religion, which we can very well do without…
1904 · PDF PAGE 106
…olute- wala1 is really extended infinitely rather than diminished infinitely, as he will h imself assure you. True, Hegel say s: “Pure being is pure nothing !” and it is true that the infinite heat and cold, joy and sorrow, light and darkness, and all the other pairs of opposites,2 cancel one another out: yet I feel rather afraid of this Absolute ! May be i ts joy and sorrow are represented in phases, just as 0 0 and finity are phas es of an iden-tical expression, and I have an even chance only of being on the right side of the fence! The Buddh…
1904 · PDF PAGE 103
tycarb 96 whole system of numbers, and of manipulating them, is merely a series of conventions. When I s ay that the s quare root of three is unreal, I know quite well that it is only so in relation to the series 1, 2, 3, &c., and that this series is equally unreal if I make 3 , p, 50 3 the m embers of a ternary s cale. But this, theoretically true, is practically absurd. If I mean “the number of a, b, and c,” it does not matter if I write 3 or 50 3 ; the idea is a definite one ; and it is the funda-mental ideas of consciousness of which we are…
1904 · PDF PAGE 63
…is delerium does not amuse ; it appals ! A man who could conceive as he did must himself have had some glorious chord in his heart vibrating to the eternal principle of Boundless Love. That this love was wrecked is for me, in some sort a relative of his, a real and bitter sorrow. He might have been so great ! He missed Heaven ! Think kindly of him ! 169. Correctly rhymes.41—Such lines, how- ever noble in sentiment, as: “ À bas les Anglais ! The Irish up !” w ill not be admitted to the competition. Irish is accented on the penultimate—bad cess o…