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Page 1 of 21904 · PDF PAGE 119
…thy 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 overthrow the conclusions he admits as being those of reason. But his statem ent that Idealism is but verbally intelligible is for m y purpose the most admirable thing he could have said. He is wrong in say ing that idealists are bewildered by their own terminology ; the fact is that idealis t conclusions are pre- sented directly to consciousness, when that consciousness is Dhyanic. (Cf. Section …
1904 · PDF PAGE 73
… to assert the denial of duality. I have. Consciousness, as we know it, has one essential quality: the opposition of subject and object. Reason has attacked this and secured that complete and barren victory of convincing without producing conviction.* It has one quality apparently not essential, that of ex- ceeding impermanence. If we examine what we call steady thought, we shall find that its rate of change is in reality inconceivably sw ift. To consider it, to watch it, is beweildering, and to some people becomes intensely terrifying. It is a…
1904 · PDF PAGE 38
…East and West from A to Z Agree—Alas ! so do not you ? (It matters nothing—you, I find, Are but a mode of my own mind.) As far as normal reasoning goes, I must admit my concepts close Exactly where my worthy friend, Great Mansel, says they ought to end. But here’s the whole thing in a word : Olympus in a nutshell ! I Have a superior faculty To reasoning, which makes absurd, Unthinkable and wicked too, A great deal that I know is true ! In short, the mind is capable, Besides mere ratiocination, Of twenty other things as well, The first of which …
1904 · PDF PAGE 115
…t themselves—apart from obvious illusion, if even we dare to except this—are undisprovable to the immediate apprehen- sion. Whatever our reason may tell us, we act precisely as through Berkeley had never lived, and the herculean Kant had been strangled while yet in his cradle by the twin serpents of his own perversity and termi- nology. What criterion shall we apply to the relative realities of norm al and dream consciousness? Why do I confidently assert that the dream s tate is trans itory and un- real? In that state I am equally confident tha…
1904 · PDF PAGE 39
…of man’s ? How many are Hegelians ? This, though I hold him mostly true. But, to teach others that same view ? Surely long years develop reason.45 After long years, too, in thy season Bloom, Concentration’s midnight flower ! After much practice to this end I gain at last the long sought power (Which you believe you have this hour, But certainly have not, my friend !) Of keeping close the mind to one Thing at a time—suppose, the Sun. I gain this (Reverence to Ganesh’ !)46 And at that instant comprehend (The past and future tenses vanish) What Fi…
1904 · PDF PAGE 30
PENTECOST 23 I lived, Elijah-like, Mt. Carmel in : All gave me nothing. I slid back To common sense, as reason bids, And “hence,” my friend, “the Pyramids.” At last I met a maniac With mild eyes full of love, and tresses Blanched in those lonely wildernesses Where he found wisdom, and long hands Gentle, pale olive ’gainst the sand’s Amber and gold. At sight, I knew him ; Swifter than light I flashed, ran to him, And at his holy feet prostrated My head ; then, all my being sated With love, cried “Master ! I must know. Already I can love.” E’en s…
1904 · PDF PAGE 21
…? Hath Krishna not at all sufficed? I hereby guarantee to pull A faith as quaint and beautiful As much attractive to an ass, And setting reason at defiance, As Zionism, Christian Science, Or Ladies’ Leage,65 “Keep off the Grass !” From “Alice through the Looking-Glass.” Hence I account no promise worse, Fail to conceive a fiercer curse Than John’s third chapter (sixteenth verse). But now (you say) broad-minded folk Think that those words the Master spoke Should save all men at last. But mind ! The text says nothing of the kind ! Read the next v…
1904 · PDF PAGE 46
…d stupid or unjust ! He took the universe on trust : He reconciled the world below With that above ; rolled eloquence Steel-tired58 o’er reason’s “why?” and “whence?” Discarded all proportion just And thundered in our ears “I know,” And bellowed in our brains “ye must.” 675 680 685 690 695 700 705 710 Fifty years of Europe worth a cycle of Cathay. Method of Christ. The poet a Chris- tian. With reserva- tions. Deus in machinâ. Pon- tious Pilate as a Surry Magis- trate.
1904 · PDF PAGE 123
… is principally verbal none may doubt; that no parallel advance to that of science has been made in the last fifty years is certain. The reason is obvious. Philosophy has had two legitimate weapons —introspection and reason; and introspec- tion is not experiment. 1 A few weeks after writing these words I came across the following passage in T yndall’s “Scientific Materialism” which I had not previously read: “ Two-thirds of the rays em itted by the sun fail to ar ouse the sense of vision. The rays exist, but the visual or gan requisite for thei…
1904 · PDF PAGE 118
… 1 “W hy should y ou expect Vedana to m ake Rupa appear illusory?” asked a friend of mine, on reading through the MS. of this essay. The reason of my omission to explain is that to m e it had seemed obvious. T he fact had been assim ilated. To meditate on any thing is to per ceive its unr eal nature. Notably this is so in concentrating on parts of the body, such as the nose. On this phenomenon the Hindus have based their famous aphorism, “That which can be thought is not true.”—A. C. fortunately the living in such a state is conditional on soun…
1904 · PDF PAGE 113
…the “ Jataka.” But the doctrine is not very essential; its chief value is to show what serious difficulties confront us, and to supply a reason to struggle to some better state. For if nothing 1 W ithout an elabor ate analy sis of the ideas involved in the Ding an sich of Kant, and of H. Spencer’s definition of all things as M odes of the Unknowable, I may point out in passing that all these hypotheses are as sterile as the “vital principle” in biology , or “phlogiston” in chemistry. They lead literally nowhere. That the phenomenal world is an …
1904 · PDF PAGE 10
… enlarge upon, So will I do too to launch my old barge upon Analyse, get hints from Newton19 or Faraday,20 Use every weapon—love, scorn, reason, parody ! Just where he worships ? Ah me ! shall his soul, Far in some glory, take hurt from a mole Grubbing i’ th’ ground ? Shall his spirit not see, Lightning to lightning, the spirit in me ? Parody ? Shall not his spirit forgive Me, who shall love him as long as I live ? Love’s at its height in pure love ? Nay, but after When the song’s light dissolves gently in laughter ! Then and then only the love…
1904 · PDF PAGE 72
…have destroyed the meaning of vetitum nefas and are in no fear of an imaginary cohort of ills and terrors. H aving perfected one weapon, reason, and found it destructive to all falsehood, we have been (some of us) a little apt to go out to fight with no other weapon. “FitzJames’s blade was sword and shield, ”† and that served him against the murderous bludgeon-sword of the ruffianly Highlander he happened to meet; but he w ould have fared ill had he called a Western Sheriff a liar, or gone off Boer-sticking on Spion Kop. Reason has done its utm…
1904 · PDF PAGE 4
… the song is called ‘The Book of the Beast.’ ” “Oh! how ugly” cried Alice. “Never m ind,” s aid the mild creature. “Some people call it ‘Reason in Rhyme.’ ” “But which is the name of the song?” Alice said, trying not to seem too interested. “Ah, you don’t understand,” the Knight said, looking a little vexed. “That’s what the name is called. The nam e really is ‘Ascension Day and Pentecost; with some Prose Essay s and an Epilogue,’ just as the title is ‘The Sword of Song’ y ou know, just in the sam e way, just in the sam e way, just in the same …
1904 · PDF PAGE 98
… Satan, and Man). Then M is also the resultant of G, S, and - x. S o that we can regard either of our forces as supreme, and there is no reason for worshipping one rather that the other. All are finite. This argument the Chris tians clearly see: hence the development of God from the petty
1904 · PDF PAGE 65
… I was ever a hog ; Muck ? I am one with it ! Let me die like a dog ; Die, and be done with it ! * Famous Adelphi villain. II. As far as reason goes, There’s hope for mortals yet : When nothing is that knows, What is there to regret ? Our consciousness depends On matter in the brain ; When that rots out, and ends, There ends the hour of pain. III. If we can trust to this, Why, dance and drink and revel ! Great scarlet mouths to kiss, And sorrow to the devil ! If pangs ataxic creep, Or gout, or stone, annoy us, Queen Morphia, grant thy sleep ! L…
1904 · PDF PAGE 99
…aight.” The definition of God as infinite therefore denies man implicitly; while if he be finite, there is an end of the usual Christian reasons for worship, though I daresay I could myself discover some reasonably good ones. [I hardly expect to be asked, somehow.] The resulting equilibrium of God and man, destructive of worship, is of course absurd. We must reject it, unless we want to fall into Positivism, Materialism, or something of the sort. But if, then, we call God i nfinite, how are we to regard man, and Satan? (the latter, at the very …
1904 · PDF PAGE 105
…aces it, though the Yogis claim to attain to Nirvikalpa-Samadhi, a nd that Moksha is identical with Nirvana ; the form er claim I see no reason to deny them ; the latter statement I m ust decline at present to accept. The task of the Buddhist recluse is roughly as follows. He must plunge every particle of his being into one idea : right views, aspirations, word, deed, life, will-power, medi- tation, rapture, s uch are the s tages of his liberation, which resolves itself into a struggle against the laws of causality . He cannot prevent past caus…
1904 · PDF PAGE 102
…y as a mathe- matical conception as impossible in nature as the square root of -1. Against all this mathematical, or s emi-mathematical, reason- ing, it may doubtless be objected that our 1 Compare and contrast this doctrine with that of Herbert Spencer (“First Principles,” Pt. I.), and see my “Science and Buddhism ” for a full discussion of the difference involved. —A. C. 2 If by “infinitely gr eat” we only mean “indefinitely gr eat,” as a m athematician would perhaps tell us, we of cour se begin at the very point I am aim ing at, viz. , E cra…
1904 · PDF PAGE 55
…nce.9—The imaginary Aunt Sally for the poetic cocoanut.* 16. “Gods right use of it.”10—“And many an eel, though no adept In God’s right reason for it, kept Gnawing his kidneys half a year.”—Shelley, Peter Bell the Third. 17. One Tree.11—Note the altered value of * C rowley c onfuses tw o common pastoral amuse- ments—throwing wooden balls a t c ocoanuts a nd sticks at Aunt Sally. the metaphor, such elasticity having led Prof. Blümengarten to surmise them to be india- rubber trees. 27. “ Truth, thats the gold.”12—Two Poets of Croisic, clii. 1, …