FOLLOW A WORD THROUGH THE COLLECTION
Search the corpus.
Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.
39 matching pages
Page 1 of 21904 · PDF PAGE 124
…efore; no work more, but—to the work ! XII. THE THREE REFUGES. Buddham Saranangachami. Dhammam Saranangachami. Sangham Saranangachami. I take my refuge in the Buddha. I take my refuge in the Dhamma. I take my refuge in the Sangha. This formula of adhesion to Buddhism is daily repeated by countless millions of humanity; what does it mean? It is no vain profession of reliance on others; no c owardly shirking of burdens—burdens which cannot be shirked. It is a plain estimate of our auxiliaries in the battle; the cosm ic facts on which we may rely,…
1904 · PDF PAGE 126
…tions of s pecific heat. Even biologists have erred. But to the true scientist every failure is a stepping- stone to s uccess; every m istake is the key to a new truth. And the history of our Science is the history of all Science. If y ou choose to ape Christendom and put the pioneers of rational investigation into the nature of consciousness on the rack ( i.e. into lunatic asylums) I doubt not we shall find our Bruno. But it will add an additional pang that persecution should come from the house of our friends. Let us , however, turn away from…
1904 · PDF PAGE 44
…aith so very close is To similar experience ; Lies, in a word, beneath suspicion To ordinary common sense And logic’s emery attrition. I take, however, as before Your own opinion, and demand Some test by which to understand Huxley’s piano-talk,* and find If my hypnosis may not score A point against the normal mind. (As you are please to term it, though ! I gather that you do not know ; Merely infer it.) Here’s a test ! What in your whole life is the best Of all your memories ? They say You paint—I think you should one day Take me to seek your S…
1904 · PDF PAGE 49
…o nothing, lest the mystic jeer “So logic bends its line severe Back to my involuted curve !” These are my thoughts. I shall not swerve. Take them, and see what dooms deserve Their rugged grandeur—heaven or hell ? Mind the dark doorway there !62 Farewell ! How tedious I always find That special manner of my mind ! Aum ! let us meditate aright On that adorable One Light, Divine Savitri ! So may She Illume our minds ! So mote it be ! 795 800 805 810 815 Christian mystics not true Christians. What think ye of Crowley ? His interlo- cuter dis- miss…
1904 · PDF PAGE 53
… so egregious a crime. What father of to-day would disin- herit, would hunt down to death, a beloved son, on such evidence? Or are we to take it that the eclipse gave proof unshakable of a phenomenon so portentous ? In Scene ii. we have another taste of Kent’s gentlemanly demeanour ; let our conven- tionalist interpreters defend this unw arrantable bullying if they dare ! Another might be so gross, so cowardly ; but not our greatest poet ! A good portion of this play, as will be shown later, is devoted to a bitter assault upon the essentially E…
1904 · PDF PAGE 125
SCIENCE AND BUDDHISM 118 I take my refuge in the Sangha. These are not isolated efforts on my part; although in one sense isolation is eternally perfect and can never be overcome, 1 in another s ense as sociates are pos sible and desirable. One third of humanity are Buddhists; add men of Science and we form an absolute majority ; among Buddhists a very large proportion have deliberately gone out from social life of any kind to tread t hese paths of Research. Is the Way very hard? Is the brain tired? The results slow to com e? Others are working…
1904 · PDF PAGE 24
…—provided they are passed Beyond all change and pain at last Out of this universe accurst. But otherwise ! I lift my voice, Deliberately take my choice Promethean, eager to rejoice, In the grim protest’s joy to revel Betwixt Iscariot and the Devil, Throned in their midst ! No pain to feel, Tossed on some burning bed of steel, But theirs : my soul of love should swell And, on those piteous floors they trod, Feel, and make God feel, out of Hell, Across the gulf impassable, That He was damned and I was God ! Ay! Let him rise and answer me That fal…
1904 · PDF PAGE 22
… common Christian’s view ! This is my point ; the world lies bleeding :— (Result of sin ?)—I do not care ; I will admit you anywhere ! I take your premises themselves And, like the droll deceitful elves They are, they yet outwit your plan. I will prove Christ a wicked man. Free will. Herbert Spencer. If there is free will how can there be pain or damnation ? not-Self being an illusion. Self or not-Self real? Chute d’Icare. I have pity : had Christ any ? The Sheep and the Goats. 500 505 510 515 520 525 530
1904 · PDF PAGE 101
…, he took refuge in silence, which his disciples very conveniently interpreted as meaning that the question tended not to edification. I take it that the Buddha (ignorant, doubt- less, of algebra) had sufficiently studied philosophy and possessed enough worldly wisdom to be well aware that any system he might promulgate would be instantly attacked and annihilated by the acumen of his numer- ous and versatile opponents. Such teaching as he gave on the point may be summed up as follows. “Whence, whither, why, we know not; but we do know that we a…
1904 · PDF PAGE 27
…. 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 ascends,” I take the symbol, leave the fact Decline to make the smallest pact With your creative Deity, And say : The Christhood-soul in me, Risen of late, is now quite clear Even of the smallest taint of Earth. Supplanting God, the Man has birth (“New Birth” you’ll call the same, I fear,) Transcends the ordinary sphere And flies in the direction “x.” (There lies the fourth dimension.) Vex My soul no more with mistranslat…
1904 · PDF PAGE 26
…l that he can or ought to think ? No ! the strong man and self-reliant Is the true spiritual giant. I blame no weaklings, but decline To take their maunderings for mine. You see I do not base my thesis On your Book’s being torn to pieces By knowledge : nor invoke the shade Of my own boyhood’s agony. Soul, shudder not ! Advance the blade Of fearless fact and probe the scar ! You know my first-class memory ? Well, in my life two years there are Twelve years back—not so very far ! Two years whereof no memory stays. One ageless anguish filled my da…
1904 · PDF PAGE 100
…ship and in- genuity to this question is the best proof of the fatuity of the Advaita position. There is then a flaw somewhere. I boldly take up the glove against all previous wisdom, 1 Or, as the Sunday -school boy said: “Faith is the power of believing what we know to be untrue.” I quote Deussen with the more pleasure, because it is about the only sentence in all his writings with which I am in accord .—A.C. revert to the most elementary ideas of c anni- bal savages, challenge all the m ost vital premisses a nd axiomata that have passed curre…
1904 · PDF PAGE 110
…oned English orthodoxy ! But when Buddhism condescends to be vulgarly scientific; to observe, to classify , to think ; I conceive we may take the matter seriously, and accord a reas onable investigation to its assertions. Examples of s uch s uccinctness and clarity may be found in The Four Noble Truths ; The Three Characteris tics ; The Ten F etters; and there is clearly a definite theory in the idea of Karm a. Such ideas are bas ic, and are as a thread on which 1 See Huxley’s c lassical exam ple of the horse, zebra and centaur. 2 Sim ilarly, w…
1904 · PDF PAGE 17
…s, Dissolve your diabolic spells, With the quick truth and nothing else. So not one word derogatory To your own version of the story ! I take your Christ, your God’s creation, Just at their own sweet valuation, For by this culminating scene, Close of that wondrous life of woe Before and after death, we know How to esteme the Nazarene. Where’s the wet towel ? Let us first Destroy the argument of fools, From Paul right downward to the Schools, That the Ascension’s self rehearsed Christ’s Godhead by its miracle. Grand !—but the power is mine as we…
1904 · PDF PAGE 106
…y dismiss from our minds any alarm in res pect of this contingency. On mature consideration, therefore, I con- fidently and deliberately take my refuge in the Triple Gem. Namo Tasso Bhagavato Arahato Samma- sambuddhasa!3 Let there be hereafter no discussion of the classical problems of philosophy and religion! In the light of this exposition the 1 Wala, one whose business is connected with anything. E.g. Jangli-wala, one who lives in, or has business with, a jungle, i.e. a wild m an, or a Forest Conservator. 2 The Hindus see this as well as any…
1904 · PDF PAGE 7
…ic precipice, over which we may cast all our impedimenta of lies and trickeries, political, social, moral and religious, and (ourselves) take wings and fly . The comparison be- tween myself and the m asters of English thought I have named is unintentional though perhaps unavoidable ; and though the presumption is, of course, absurd, y et a straw will show which way the wind blows as well as the m ost beautiful and elaborate vane : and in this sense it is m y most eager hope that I may not unjustly draw a com- parison between my self and the gre…
1904 · PDF PAGE 9
…n the turbid tide Of the metaphysical lotus-eyed,6 And I was—anyhow, what’s the odds ? The life to live ? The thought to think ? Shall I take refuge In a tower like once Childe Roland‡ found, blind, deaf, huge, Or in that forest of two hundred thousand Trees,8 fit alike to shelter man and mouse, and— Shall I say God? Be patient, your Reverence,9 I warrant you’ll journey a wiser man ever hence ! Let’s tap (like the negro who gets a good juice of it, Cares nought if that be, or be not, God’s right use of it),10 In all that forest of verses one tr…
1904 · PDF PAGE 120
…and words uttered m ore than two thousand y ears ago: “Therefore, O Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye a refuge to yourselves. Betake y ourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the truth as a lam p. Hold fas t as a refugee to the truth. Look not for refuge to any one be- sides y ourselves.” (M ahaparanibbana S utta, ii. 33.) And to such seekers only does the Buddha promise “the very topmost Height”— if only they are “anxious to learn.” This is the corner-stone of Buddhism; can scien- tific men deny their assent to these words when …
1904 · PDF PAGE 6
…lf ? . . . I trust nor hand, nor eye, nor heart, nor brain To stop betimes: they all get drunk alike. The first step, I am master not to take.” This is surely the apotheosis of wilful ignorance! We may think, perhaps, that Browning is “hedging” when, in the last paragraph, he say s : “For Blougram, he believed, say, half he spoke,”* and hints at some deeper ground. It is useless to say, “This is Blougram and not Browning.” Browning could hardly have described the dilemma without seeing it. What he really believes is, perhaps, a mystery. That Br…
1904 · PDF PAGE 10
…en pence of it ?17 Try something easier,18 where the bard seems to me Seeking that light, which I find comes in dreams to me. Even as he takes to feasts to 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 …