A Akimeaiita: Self Naughting* Vivo autem, jam non ego Gal azo Byd din solte du see seheiden vow allem dem, dax tht it Eckhart, Peller edly p 535 Her ube sot dev mensche goflinnen tn, daz cr sich entbilde sin selbes uxt alten erative nook heinen eater wizze denne bot alleine... Dis is allen menschen fremde ... ich wolde, ds ine bsjunden Aiter mit loberne. katt, Pfeifer ec, pp. 420, 464 When thou standest sil from the thinking of self, and che willing of sf Tce Bochine, Dialogues on the Supersentual Life ‘An egomania occasioned the fall of Lucifer, who would be “Like the most High” (Iss. 14:14), thinking, “Who is like me in Heaven or Earth?” (Tabért xxw), and desiring to deify himself (Augustine, Quacstiones eteris ot novi testamenti cxmt), not in the way discussed below by an abegation of selfhood, but, as Se. Thomas Aquinas says, “by the virtue cof his own nature” and “of his own power” (Sum. Theol. 63,30). We are all to a greater or less extent egomaniacs, and to the same extent fol- lowers of Satan, Acts 5236 refers to a certain Theudas as “boasting him- self to be somebody.” Ta the vernacular, when @ man is presumptuous, we ask him, “Who do you think you are?” and when we refer to someone's insignificance, we call him a “nobody” or, in earlier English, a “nithing.” In chis worldly sense itis a good thing to be “someone” and a misfortane to be “aobody,” and from this point of view we think well of “ambition” (iti-bhavdbhava tapha). To be “someone” is to have a name and lineage (nma-gotta) or, at least, to have a place or rank in the world, some distinction that makes us recognizable and conspicuous. Our modern civilization is essentially individualistic and self-assertive, even our educational systems being mote [This essay was frst published in che New Indian Aasigaary, x (1940)—e0.] As the ile implies, this study is mainly based on Christian and Buddhist sources 88 AKIMCARIA: SELF-NAUGHTING and moze designed to foster “selfexpression” and “selfcealization”; and i we are at all concerned about what happens after death, itis in terms of the survival of our treasured “personality"* with all its attachments and memories. On the other hand, in the words of Eckhart, “Holy scripture cries aloud for freedom from sel.” In this unanimous and universal teaching, which affirms an absolute liberty and autonomy, spatial and temporal, attainable as well here and now as anywhere cls, this treasured “personality” of ‘ours is at once a prison and a fallacy, from which only the ‘Truth shall set you free: a prison, because all definition limits that which is defined, and 2 fallacy because in this ever-changing composite and comuptible paychophysical “personality” itis impossible to grasp constant, and im- possible therefore co recognize any authentic or “real” substance. Insofar as ‘man is merely a “reasoning and mortal animal,” tradition fs in agreement with the modern determinist in affirming that “this man,” Sorand-so (yo- yamdyasmé cvam nimo evam gotto, § 125) has neither free will® 2 We wsite “personality” because we are Using the word herein icy vulgar sense and noc in the erieter and teshnical sense in which the veritable “person” is ds Tinguished fram the phenomenal “individeal;” eg, in AA 232 and Bocthius, Contes Eutychen 2 "The doctriae is one of eicape and the pursue of happiness. 1e will not be eon fuse with what has been called escapism, Becapism ig an esendslly selfish activity, failure 1 “face the music" (as when one “drowns one’s sotrows in drink"), and the choice of easier paths; escapism is a symptom of disappointment and is cynical rather than mature, We nced hardly say that ro “wish one had never been born" is he antithesis ofthe perfect sorrow that may be occasioned by the sense of 2 eoo- tinued existence: we are born in onder eo die, but this death is noc one that ean be attained by suicide or by eucring death a¢ the hands of ethers; itis not of our selves or others, but only of God that ir can be sad in the words of St. John of the (Cross, “and, slaying, dost from death to life translate.” [At the same time, the trie way of "cseape” is more strenuous by far than the life that is escaped (hence the designation of the rligious in India as 2 “Toller,” roma tee), and itis the degree of man's maturity (in Ske, che extent wo which he is prakoa, “puke,” and no Tonger ame, “raw”) thac isthe measure of the possibilty Ot his eseape and consequent beasitude “The minds of some are set on Union (yoga), the minds of others on comfort (CRaema)” (18 125.1155 e KU tt). “The denial of freedom in "this man,” the individual, is explicit in Sn 350, “Ie does not belong wo the manyiolk to do what they will (na Rimakivo Ai pusbjie ‘nanam),.” Cf, "Ye cannot do the things that ye would” (Gal. 5:17). Thie denial is sade in a very striking manner in Vin 113-14 and 1.66967, where for the uaual formula according to which the body and mentality are enard, not I, nor rine, the roof is offered that this body, sensibility, er, enanot be “ming,” eannot be,” for if these were myself, or mine, they wovld never be sick, since in this exe one could say, “Let my body, sensibility, etc, be thus, or noethus," nothing being really %MAJOR ESSAYS nor any element of immortality. How litle validity attaches to this man's conviction of freedom will appear if we reflect that while we speak of “doing what we like.” we never speak of “being when we like,” and that to conceive of a spatial liberty that is not also a temporal liberty involves a contradiction. Tradition, however, departs from science by replying: to the man who confesses himself to be only a reasoning and mortal animal that he has “forgotten who he is” (Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae, prose x1), requires of him to "Know thyself" and warns him. “IE thou knowest not thyself, hegone" (sé ignarar te, egredere, Song of Solomon, 1:8). Tradition, in other words, affirms the validity of our con- sciousness of being but distinguishes ie from the So-and-so that we think we are. The validity of our consciousness of being is not established in metaphysics (25 it isin philosophy) by the facr of thought or knovcledges on the contrary, our veritable being is distinguished from the operations of discursive thought and empirical knowing, which are simply the caus ally determined workings of the “reasoning and mortal animal,” which are to be regarded yathabhdtane, not as affects but only as effects in which wwe (in our veritable being) are not really, but only supposedly, involved. ‘owrs except to the extent chat we have it altogether in our power, aor anything variable any part of an identity such a the notion of a “very person” (struts) intends A further consideration is this, that if the becoming (Blase) of the finite individual were not absolutely determined by “Yate” “mediate causes,” of “arma” (the terms are synonymous), the idea of an omniscient providence (prajid, pends Knowledge of things not derive from the things cherselvet) would be unintelligible, In this connection we may remark that we are aot, of course, concerned to prove ialectically any doctrine whacever, but only 19 exhibit its conssteney and there. With its imellighlits. This consisteney of the Philosophia Perennis is indeed good ground for “faith” (ie, confidence, as distinguished from mere belief), but af this “philosophy” is neither a “system” nor 2 “philosophy,” ic cannot be argued for cor aginst. "Eg, Avencebrol, Fons cizge 1.2, “guid ese ergo, quod debet home inquierere in hae vita?» «hog est ue sciat se ipsum.” CE. Jacob Roehme, De signature rerum Lr. The reader ‘will not confuse the “science of sel” (Semevidya) here with that Intended by the psychologist, whether ancient or modeen: ab remarked by Edrvond Vanstecabergve, the GA ead with which Nicholas of Cusa opens his De docta fgmorantia “next plus le‘Connaisoi wismtme’ du psychologue Socrate, cst Ie ‘Suis muaftre de to” (= Dh 160, Ro, att Af atano nstho) des moralistes rsiciens” (dir tour de le docte ignorance, Minster, 1015, p. 42). In che same way, the only rairon Gre of "Budhist psychology” isnot "Scientifg” bue to bresk down the illusion of tell The modern pepehologist's onlp concern and curiosity are withthe alloa-utian self, chat very self which even in its highest and least sinpected extensions is still 2 prison, Traditional metaphysics has nothing. in common with thi psychology, ‘which sestricts itslf to “Whar can be psychically experienced” (Jung's own defiak ton). 0 ARIMCANNA: SELE NAUGHTING ‘Tradition, then, differs from the “oothing-morist” (Skr. ndvtika, Pali natthika) in affirming a spiritual nature that is not in any wise, but im- ‘measurable, inconnumerable, infinite, and inaccessible to observation, and of which, therefore, empirical science can neither afirm nor deny the realty, It is to this “spirit (Gk. mveiua, Skr. diman, Pali aité, Arabic ri, ete.) as distinguished from body and soul—ie, whatever is phe- ‘nomenal and formal (Gk. oye. and yyy, Skr. and Pali ndma-ripa, and savijfians-hiys, savifindna-Raya, “oame and appearance,” the “body with its consciousness”)—chat tradition attributes with perfect consistency an sibsolute liberty, spatial and temporal, Our sense of free will is as valid in itself as our sense of being, and as invalid as our sense of being So-and-s. "There is a free will, a will, that is, unconstrained by anything external to its own nature; bur it is only “ours” to the extent that we have abandoned all that we mean in commen sense by “ourselves” and our “own” willing Only His service is perfect freedom, “Pate lies in the crcated causes thera- selves” (Sum, Theol 1.0162); “Whatever departeth farthest from the First Mind is involved more deeply in the meshes af Fate [ie karma, the in- cluctable operation of “mediate causes”); and everything is so much freer from Fate by how much it draweth nigh to the pivot of all chings. And if ir wickech to the constancy of the Supernal Mind, that needs not move, itis superior to the necessity of Fate” (Boethius, De consolatione philoso- ‘phiae, prose). This frcedom of the Unmoved Mover (“that which, itself at rest, outgoeth them that run,” [8 Up. 0) from any necessitar cone tonis is that of the spirit that bloweth where and as ie will (Srov Oédes sruei, John 3:8; carati yathd vatem, RV x68.) "To possess it, one must have been “born again... of the Spirit” (John 3-7-8) and thus “in the spiri” (St. Paul, passim), one must have “found and awakened to the Spirie™ (yasyanuoittah pratibuddha dima, BU 14.r3),” must be in excessus "The phenomena of tis “spit” (the realizations ofits possibilities of manifest. tion under given condition) are all phenomena. whatever, among which those called "“spititalsde” have no privileged ranks on the contrary, "a mouse is miracle enough.» TRY 1684-4 John 3:7-8 and Gylfegioning 18 present remarkable parallels (et Edda Snorra Stertusonar med Skédesal, . Gud Ténsson (Reskjavik, 1935)— a who a ns and Sinise once a ly a with the Spit, whove dalliance is with the Spit [es in BU v3. “All creation is female to God] and whose joy i in the Spint, be beeames sotonomous (sear), he beeames a Moverat-vill (Ramdcarin) in every world; but the worlds of im hose knowledge i otherwise than this are eocrupeile, he does not become a Movecatwill in any world” (CU vtag.2). The conception of moton-atwll i developed in many texts, from RV 1.1330, “Make me undying there where motion otMAJOR ESSAYS (gone out of" oneself, one’s senses), in samadhi (etymologically and se mantically “synthesis”), unified (eko Bhtitah, cf. ekodi-bhiva), or in ‘other words “dead” in the sense that “the kingdom of God is for none but the thoroughly dead” (Eckhart), and in the sense chat Rimi speaks of a “dead man walking" (Mathnawi v1.742-755), ot again that of initiatory death as the prelude to a regeneration. ‘There is not, of course, any neces- sary connection between liberation and physical death:* a man can as well be liberated “now in the time of this life” (ditthe va dhamme parinibbuto, jivan mocked) as at any other time, all depending only upon his remem- bering “who he is,” and this isthe same as to forget oneself, to “hate one's ‘own life” (psyche, “soul” or “self,” Luke 14:26), deficere a se rota and a semetipsa liquescere (St. Bernard), the “death of the soul” (Eclchart), 1s ac will” (yutrimukiiman caranans ... oxime arrtate Araki), onwards. The Chris. tisn equivalent can be found in John 3:8 and 70:9 ("shall go in and out, and find pasture,” as in TU m305, “he goes up and down these works, eating what be will and assuming what aspect he will"). Motionatil isa necessary consequence of ilstion or deifcation, the Sprit toy ing “as it will” in virtue ofits omni- and total presence and because he tht is joined tento the Lord is one Spirie” (1 Cor. 6:17), all passion of “powers” (radi, add, sels fying through the air or walking on the water) being gifts of the Spiet and depending upon 2 more or les allan omtnissltritatis et divertatis (Nicholas of (Casa). In ether words, our freedom and beatitude are theless the more we ate sill “ourselves” wn def. The “miracle” ie never an “imponitiliy,” but only so according to our way of thinking: performance is always the demonstration of a por It is not opposites (as possible” and "impossible"), but contraries—for example, zest, and motion—both of which ace “posibles”" that are reconciled dw diviis, "Pit tive” languages retain the stamp of this polarity in words which may mean either of cwo oontary things (cf. Freud on Abel, "Gegensinn der Urwore” in fabrbuch Ihr psychoanalytiche wnd peyehopathologische Porachungen, IL 1gio, and Betsy Hei- mann, "The Polarity f the Zaft" JISOA, V, 203 i may be added that because of the identiy of the immanent and aranscendent Spice (1 Cor, 6:17; “That att thou" of the Upanisads, et), we make no real ds Sncton in the present ard beteen “my sii” (the “ghost” chat we “give up death) and “the Spire” (the Holy Ghost), although sometimes writing “spirit with reference 10 he immanent essence (antariemen) and “Spirit” with reference to the wanseendent essence (pararidiman). So far as» distinetion can be tnad, itis ogical but not real” (secunde vationem, won secundum rem), "Then shall the dust zerarn to the earth ax ie was: and the spirit shall rewuen tunto God who gave it” (Pecl. 12:7). Our sease of being may be “in the spirit” or "im the dus.” and so ether “seved or Tose tt is well for him "who hae been of sicengh t awaken before the body is unsung” (KU via), 8For St, Bernard, see Frienne Gilson, Lo Thélogie mystique de Saint Bervard (Paris, 1934), ch. 5. How close to Indian formulation Se Bernard comee appears in Bis distinction of propriv trom este (mama fom. ati) and in Rouseets sumac bid, pe 150, m. 2) “Cela revient & dize qu'on ne peut pleinement poaséder Diet ‘ns pleinement se poser sisntme,” at the same time that (id, p. 152, n. 2) 2 AKIMCANN A: SELP-NAUGHTING “nothing else than that the spirit goeth out of itself, out of time, and entereth into a pure nothingness” (Johannes Tanler), becoming thus “free as the Godhead in its non-existence” (Eckhart); to have said “Thy will bbe done, not mine” or, in other words, to have been perfected in “Islam.” ‘Man has thus two selves, lives or “souls,” one physical, instinctive, and mortal, the other spiritual and not in any way conditioned by time ot space, but of which the life is a Now “where every where and every when is focused” (Paradiso xxrs.a), and “apart from what bas been or shall be” (KU 1114), chat “now thac stands stil” of which we as temporal beings, knowing only a past and future, can have no empirical experience Liberation is not a matter only of shaking off the physical body—oneself is not so easily evaded—but, as Indian texts express it, of shaking off all bodies, mental or psychic 2s well as physical. “The word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any twe-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul (aye) and spirit (wvetjua)" (Heb. 4:12). Ik is between these two that our choice lies: between ourselves as we arc in ourselves and to others, and ourselves as we are in God—not forgetting that, as Hekhart says, “Any flea as it is in God is higher than the highest of the angels as he isin himselE.” OF these two “selves” the psychophysical ny a plus de saum, Tze vest vidé de Iniméms;” as in $B ax.8.2—3, where ‘he initiated sacrifice is “as if copied out of himself (viicéna fvbtmé Baaoai) in foider to enter into postession of his “whole self" (sareiéminam), or 28 in A 1249, ‘where che man who “has brought in fall being body, will ‘and foreknowing (havitehiyo, citto, parto—ie, whole welt) i not emptied out (aparitte = apr kta) but the Great Spiritual Slé of whiel the way ie beyond all messure (mahaisa eppamana vier). 2 As far a1 possible th clear distinction of “Soul” (Yunch anima, agi, zedani, te) from “Spirit” (aveija, spiritus rh, dimen, ec) is maintained in the present attile; c& Origen, cted by Echare (Pleifer ed. p. 531) “din geist ist di nit sgenomens die keefor diner ele snt dir ganomen” ("It is not thy spirit, but che pow. eof thy soul [= indriyane] that art taken from thee”). Tt must als be recognized, however, that in the European tradition the word “Soul” is used in many senses or example, “imal” ie Ererally “ensouled,” anime here as spisaculens vitae, ch Skr. prina-oéyt) and that in one of these senses (wich is sricly that of Phils “soul of the su" Herer uv; cL, Augustine, De duis animebis contra Masichzos) oul" mesne "spirit" In what sense “soul” is or 3 nox wo be ken to mean “sic” iseusved by Wiliam of Thierzy in the Golden Epistle, x (9. Bp in Walter Shew. Sing’s English version, London, 1930). In the same way, déman may refer 10 the oychopiysical “self” or to the spiritual self; from the latter point of view, the Psvchophical self is anti, “not epirtul”™ Teis because both “soul” and “sprit” ate selves, although of very diferent orders, that an equivocation is inevitable. The use af the woeds in thir context has always tw be very carefully considered; the proper sense can always be made out. 93MAJOR ESSAYS and spiritual, one is the “life” (yuxe)) to be rejected and the other the “life” that is thereby saved (Luke 17:33 and Matt. 16:25), and of these again the former is that “life” (Yayo) which “he who hateth . in this ‘world shall keep it unto life eternal” (John 12:25) and which a man ‘must hate, “if he would be my disciple” (Luke 14:26), It is assuredly all that is meant by psyche in our “psychology” that is in this way le mo Aaissable; all of us, in fact, that is subject to affects or affections or wants of any sort, or entertains “opinions of his own.”* The unknown author of the Cloud of Unknowing is therefore alto- agther in order when he says so poignantly (ch. 44) that “All men have matter of sorrows but most specially he feelech matter of sorrow, that swotteth and fecleth that he is... And whoso acver felt this sorrow, he ay make sortow: for why, he never yet felt perfeet sorrow.!* This sor- row, whem it is had ... maketh a soul able to receive that joy, the which sceveth fron a man all witting and feeling of his being.” And so also William Blake, when he says, “T would go down unto Annihilation and Exernal Death, Jest the Last Judgment come and find me Unannihilate, and I be sciz'd and giv'n into the hands of my own Selfhood.” In the same way St. Paul, evo, autem jam non ego: vivit vero in me Christus (Gal. ate) [and Rami, “He has died to celf and become living through the Lord” (Mathnawot 1.3364)]. ¥CE the citaion from Jacob Boelume at the head of thie aril, Te ie compara tively cay for us to admit that a “SelEwilling” is egotistical; itis far more difficult but equally indispensable p realize that a “eelltbinking” ie, “thinking for onc selé" ot “having opinions of one's own”—is as much an error or “sin,” defined as “any departure from the order t the end,” ss any wilfulnes can be. A good case of "thinking for oncsef” is what is called the “free examination of stipeure”; hetey 28 was remarked by David Maclver, "the number of pomible objections to a point of doctrine is equel wo the mumiber of ways of misunderstanding it, and therefore infinite 38 Vaivieya, “ds gus,” 2s distinguished from Sia Shanes, “diappointment”: nek Reananaasits as distinguished feom gelita in $ w.232 and in Mil 76. CE. xarh Bey 2a 28 distinguished from ro% brow Amy in t Cor. 7210, 36s remarked by Sc Thomas Aquinas (Sum. Theol. 1633), “no crentre can attain @ higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist” which selédenial is 4 thing “aguins the natural desire.” It is noe of its “own” will that che creature can desire its own “annihilation” or “death” (ef, Meister Eckhart, Evans ed, [, 274]. But ‘ur consciousness of Being (as distinguished from any concelt of being Steandlso 0 Such-and-such) is precisely tot the “ereatare's itis anther will in rae chan “mine; the lover of another (S v.58) self than “mine” chat “longs intensely for the Great SclP" (mohatiam abhikkharheta, A 1.21)—ie, for Wel. This doce aot pertain t ‘ow sel€love, but God's, who is in all ings elEintent and loves no one bit hime. [Thus we understand how « life perishes... Tet will noe give itself up m death, then ic cannot attain any other world” (Boehine, Sex paecta v.10)] 4 ARIMCANR 4: SELF NAUGHTING We are sometimes shocked by the Buddhist disparagement of natural affections and family ties (cf. MU via8, “If to son and wite and family he is attached—for such a one, no, never at all!"). But itis not the Christian, who can thus recoil, for no man can be Christ's disciple “and hate not his facher, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters.” as well as himself (Luke 14226 [ef Plato, Phaedo €84]). These uncom- promising words, from one who endorsed the command to honor father and mother and who equated contempt with murder, show clearly enough that it is not an ethical doctrine of unselfishness or alteuism chat we are dealing with but a purely metaphysical doctrine of the transcending of individuation, It isin the same sense that he exclaims, “Who is my mother, cor my brethren?” (Mark 3:33, ete.), and accordingly that Meister Eck- hare wams, “As long 2s thon still knowest who thy father and thy mother have been in time, thou art not dead with the real death” (Pfeiffer ed, p. 42). ‘There can be no return of the prodigal, no “turning in” (nivrtti), except of same to same. “Whoever serves 2 God, of whom he thinks that ‘He is one and I another,’ is an ignoramus” (BU 144.10); “IE then you do not make yourself equal to God, you cannot apprehend God: for like is known hy like” (Hermes, Lib. x12.nh). The question is asked of the ane who comes home, “Who art thou?” and if he answers by his own ot a family name, he is dragged away by the factors of time on the threshold of suc- cess (JUB mnrg.1-2) “that ill-fated soul is dragged back again, re- verses its course, and having failed to know itself, lives in bondage to un- 6 The traveles, at the end of life's journey (not necessarily on his deathbed), knocks atthe Sundoor (as in JUB, e.), which isthe door of the house of Death (asin KU) and that of Yams paradise (as in RV), and would be recived as a auest or, at cxpresed in Pali, omatedeirem dace sighat (8 1643). Admision, however, depends upon anonsmity, with all is implications of "being in the spirit’ CGsmony era maka dese, “going ia the spit the exe accepts him,” JUB 1.338) ‘There can be no doube that ehe same mythical and profound eschatology underlies the Homeric legend of Ulyses and Pelyphemus. The lace is assuredly Death. (is tne eye corresponds to Siva's third; cat itis blinded and ths “closed” means that the world Wlumined by sun and moon, the to eyes of the god, isto persist for Ulysses and his companions. It mast be an iniavory, not a fzal death that is over come, ais also suggested by the “cave") His land which siels crops untied 3s « Parse, like Yama's or Varuns's; Ulysses would be his guest. The story, ax wld by Homer (and Euripides), has become an adventure rather dhan 3 myth, but it remiins thatthe Bero who overcomes Death isthe one man who when he is asked, “Who arc hou answers, “No one"; and iti noteworthy that in the Euripides ve. sion, when the blinded Cyclops cree out, "Where ix Nobody the chorss answer, “Nowhere, O Cyclops” Ie would be hard to say whether Homer still “understood his materia"; ie may be taken for granted that Euripides did not 95MAJOR ESSAYS couth and miserable bodies. ‘The fault of this soul is its ignorance™* (Hermes, Lid. xa). He should answer, “Who I am is the light Thow art. What heavenly light Thou art, as such I come to Thee,” and answer- ing thus is welcomed accordingly, “Who thou art, chat am I; and who Tam, art thou. Come in” (JUB 1124.3-4). To the question, “Who is at the door?” he answers, “Thow art at the door,” and is welcomed with the words, “Come in, O myself” (Rami, Mathnawi 1362-3). It is not as sun tel that he can be received—"Whoever enters, saying ‘I am So-and+0,) 1 smite him in the face” (Shamsi-Tabris); as in Song of Solomon 1:7, Si ignoras te, ... epredere, “Hee that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). But this Spirit (diman), Brahman, God, the “What?” of JUB iu.r4, “hath not come anywhence nor become anyone” (KU 1148). The Imperishable has neither personal nor family name (BU 188, Madhyamdine text) not any caste (Mund. Up. 1.16); "God himself does not know what he is, because he is aot any what” (Erivgena); the Buddha is “neither priest nor prince nor husbandman nor any one stall (Rect no’mhi).... Twander in the world a veritable naught (akimcana)... Useless to ask my kin" (gotten, Sn 455-456)." 2°Ci, Dh 243 where, after list of “faults,” we have: “the supreme fauk is ig nnorance” (savjitparamam: malar) "The deiformed soul in which an ablatio omnis alteritats et diversas has been ‘feted (Nicholas of Cuse) is therefore beyond our apesehways (ebdaparhs, Sx 076); “unknown (0 herielé or any eresturs, she knows well that she is, But she ‘doxs 30 know what she is" (Meister Eckhart, Pisiffer ed, p. 537) Mn the same way, the famous ode wos of Shamed Tabriz. [ROmi, Dinin), T know not myself... ; 11am nat of Adama nor of Eve... ; my place is the Phaceless, my trace is the Tacelos; nor body mor life since Cam of the life af the Beloved (ne ton mised na jn 2dsad, hi sen az jen jinén-eme). Nicholson ccan- ments: “I am novghe means ‘God is al.’ From che Indian point of view, the “Beloved” is, of coure, “she Spirt, which is aleo one's ewn spiritual exsence”—"For fone wito has attained, there is none dearer than the Spinit” or "than the Sele” (ne pipataram: attand, § v7; c&. BU 148, tad tat preyah passat. yd aye atm dtmanam cca priyem «pisita; BU v.43 BU ws; CU vinas; [Mund. Up. 1a.t fly ste). With “acaceless” compare Dh 179, tam duddham anantapaearare pedam, Rens pedena nessatha, “that Buddha, whose pasture is without end, the footles [or track Jes], by what track ean you find him out?” (This is complementary to the usual Hlocitine of tae vesrigiam pedis, according 10 which the intelligible Buddha [or ‘Aqai] can be tracked by his spoot, pda or padéni.) Cf. Coomazaswamy, Elements of Buddhist Teonography, 1035, an. 145. “A Tathagata, I say, is actually (@hemmne) Deyond our ken” (anameecio, M1240 [similatly anupolabohr yamine, S m.213]) and in the same way of Athats “there is no demonstration” (outtam decane nattBi erihapaniya: S x42): "Hin nether gods nar men ean sce” (tam ce hi nadakhunm, 5.23). The las it spoken ig the Buddha's physical presence and correrponds ¢0 the 96 ARIMCARNA: SELFNAUGHTING Having drawn the outlines of the universal doctrine of selfnaughting and of self-sacifice or devotion in the most literal sense of the words, we propose to devote the remainder of our demonstration to its specifically Buddhist formulation in terms of akimeaiiféyasana, “the Station of No- what-ness,” or, more freely, “the Cell of SelEnaughting.” “When it is realized that "There is no aught’ (a'aithi himei), tha is ‘Emancipation of the Will” (ceto-vimutt/) in the ‘Station of No-what-ness’” ($ w.ag6 and M 1297; of. D tra). ‘The exact meaning of “There is naught"—ie, swellinown text of the VajseckedAt2 Stra, "Thies who see me in the body (n= tera) of think of me in words they do not see me at all thei way of thinking is ‘stake; the Bleed Ones ae to be sen ony in the Body of he Law, dhe Buda can only be tightly understood as the principle of he Law, esuredly not by any toeans” CE Si Thomas Aquinas, “Therefore i anyone ia secing, God conceives something in his mind, this is noe God, be one of Gods effes” (Sum. Taco me2.¢ ff 4); "We have no means for considering what Gels, but eater how Hl i aoe” (232). [CE Hennes, Lib. mins, oie UgBahpote roibreve Geopotuat, 3 reer “The new an, being corporeal, cat De scen oly with ihe eyes of he sind” CE JOB wg and The Doctrine of the Sif, AJ. Atbers, te. (Cambridge, 1955), 34] © Getcione (often rendered “ears release") in contented wih poitvimet, intlecwal iuancipaion,” cto and. port denoting both the means or way of liseration and the respect in which liberation isebvained. The tx often sek of “cing ice in bot czparcuenss" Bfaiohiga-inat, aswell as of olher Ops of Liberation, and iis evidenc thas the ewo Ways, which are those of te will and the ie tlle, converge and ultimately esineie A n.35, cetoeipetta ot eitabkarpchers “Hes a pest master of che will n matters of ehoie for tae of eounse! "beings cout very clay the conativeconawnatons of cet, which are evidens also for cetae in AV vti63. 8 slo defines sankhid es samectand, rendered by Rhys Davids “seas of will” Tes deer, then, dat the connecion of eet with akinceta is in ini since itis just wo the extent cat one czaes 1 fa that one fs anyone and te the exent that one lees all sense of proprium (mama) that swing and sf thinking must eeae Te just because ceo inpies hots willing and thinking chat itis diate o represen i bya single Bnglh word; however, iin jus he same ‘ay that English “to have mind io” ir the sume & “to wish to” of "to want and so, toy that Sk. maa, (0 “Chik,” and Rem, to "wish or “wont” are vial ‘synonymous in many contents, Peis not of cause, “thought” in this sent, ‘muck rather “speclation” inthe sie sense ofthis word (2d mahat ~~ danie Prtiipah Kacy, Up. 2. wih very many Chistian and otber parallel, Seam. Theol. cizse, “All things ate seem in God asin an intelligible miro” t2, the ‘eco actermum). Ics asked in M 1437, how ist tac some are liberated in one oy and some in the ober, the Buddha replying tat it depends upon “a dierence in faculties” (indriya veruttter The difereace is, in face, ypclly that of the royal from the ecerdotl Kyawya from Behan character beease of ehis difer- nce a bhak-navge and karoa manga ae steed in the Bhaguind Gitd and a five rigs in the Upanieds The to ways of cetera (in Hhvataks 37, ened ‘wich mes, “chavty") and pedtaaemit!corespand to and ate exciially the same 2 the dbalsimarge snd joeminge of Brabmaica txts 97MAJOR ESSAYS “naught of mine”®—is brought out in A 1177: “The Brihenan™ speaks the truth and no lie when he says ‘I am naught of an anyone anywhere, and therein there is taught of mine anywhere soever'” (naham eacani kassaci kimcanam, tasmim na ce mama kvacani katthaci kinicanam slatthis also in M 11.263-264),"* the text continuing, “Therewith he has no conceit of being ‘a Toiler’ (semana) or ‘a Brahman,’ nor conceit that ‘I am better than’ or ‘I am equal to’ or ‘inferior to’ (anyone). Moreover, by a full comprehension of this truth, he reaches the goal of veritable ‘naught- ing’ (akimeaainm yeva patipadam).” What is neither "T” nor “mine” is above all body, sensibility, volitional eonformations, and empirical con- sciousness (iy the psychophysical self), and to have rejected these is “for your best good and beatitude” (S 1.33; the chapter is entitled Natum- aka, “What Is Not ‘Yours’”). Accordingly, “Behold the Arhats' beat tudel No waating can be found in them: excised the thought ‘I am’ (asm) * delusion’s net is rent. ... Unmoving, unoriginated . ., Brakma- 2 1 will be seem that the Arhat or Briluman who has stained 9 selénaughting and confesses accordingly atti ot afothi Kinet might ave been called a natbiba or satehibooad? ("denier"). TE he $3 newer in fact so called (but, rather, Sanya), it is because these were designations current in avery different sense, with reference namely to the “materialist” or “skeptic” who denies that there is another world or hereafter (as it M tgaa-go3) or takes che exteme view (nestnte) that there o ab- solotely nothing in ommon becwoen the individual that ats and the incividual that experiences the results ofthe aes (S117). We propose to discuss this other “enies" ‘upon anather oceasion Pili Buddhism not only equates Brakme idea with buddha, brabmocakhe with dhansmacathe, et, uc (where here is po polemic involved) saaintans the old and familar distinction of the Brahman by birth (rahmasbond hi) froma the Brahonan as Comprchentor (Onsraceit), in the later sense equsting Beihman with Athat = Net 183 (ete in a ote on A 1.203) explains kemenea hereby rga-dosa moie— ise, ethially~and this i true in the sense thar when self let go, there remains no ground for any “‘elGsh" pasion; Rimcana is the “sornewhat” of the man who sit feels that hes “somebody” and accoedingly the ground in which interes, ill-will, and delusion can ourish In all repeats equivalent to washi (Skr, nds) is Petsan ne (7 13523, cited by Nicholon, p. 233), “Be thou naught (née chi), naughted of self, for there iz ao crime more heinous than thine existence.” "This does not imply thet the Achat "is nos” bur excludes from am ineffable ‘essence the proces of thought. From thi point of view, cogito ergo sim is altogether ‘without validity; what I call “my” thinking is by no means my Sel, The Ashat does rot wonder whether he i, what he is, or how he is, has been, or will be (S 1.26, Sn 774). "Hle doce not worry about what is unreal” (eset na puritasati, M136); hhe is seitsynihesized (ajihettnn cursmathito, pestis), and in this state of synthesis Gamadhi), though be is unawace of anything, "yes there is awareness in i” (S vids et, BU 1308-30), The Buddha neither teaches that nibbana i 2 “nothingness” thor that the Arhat “comes co naught": “There is (ait) a unboen, unbeeome, un- 98 AKIMCARN A: SELF NAUGHTING become ... true Persons’ (capparisd), natural sons of the Walke. .. That heart-wood of the Brahmavlife is their eternal reason; unshaken in what ever plight, released from ‘still becoming’ (genabbhava), on ground of ‘dompred [-self) they stand, they in the world have won their battle... They roar the ‘Lion's Roar.’ Incomparable ace the Wake (arahanca, § m2.83-84, 159).” There is no question of a postmortem “annihilation” here, then, but of “Persons” triumphant here and now; their uncondi- tionality will not be changed by death, which is not an event for those who have “died before they die” (Rami), not an event for the jivancmkia, the veritable difyite for whom the funeral rites have already been per- formed and for whom his relatives have already mourned (JUB m.79). Of these itis only the manifestation in terms of “name and appearance” (ndma-ripa) that comes to an end (as all things rust that have had a beginning), so that after death they will be sought for in vain by Devas cor men in this world or any other (S 1.123, D 14, et.) just as one might seck in vain for a God anywhere, of whom it is asked “Whence did he come to be?” (uta d babheva, RV x.368.3), “In what quarter is He or in what?” (TS v4.34) and “Who knows where He is?” (KU 25): Thou "canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is horn of the Spirit” (John 38). In spite af this, however, i must be remarked that the attainment of infinity is not a destruction of finite possibility, for the deveased Comprehensor, being @ Moverat-will (Ri ‘ndcdrin), can always therefore reappear if, when, where, and as he will Examples of this “resurrection” may be cited in JUB s1.29-30 (where the noli' me tangere offers a notable parallel to the Christian resurrection), and in the Parosahassa Jataka (No. 99), where 2 Bodhisattva is asked on his deathbed, “What good has he gotten?," and he answers: “There is, naught" (n'atshi Aime’), which is misunderstood by his disciples to