THE LEGACY OF ASIA AND

WESTERN MAN
BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE SPIRIT OF ZEN

A WAY OP LIP.e, Wou: AND A:B.r IN THE
FAR BAST.

" I advise all students of the Dhamma to

enlist the services of this most competent
guide without delay."-B11ddliis111 in England.
THE LEGACY OF ASIA
AND WESTERN MAN
A Study of the Middle Wqy

BY
ALAN W. WATTS

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
 First Ed1°tio11 1937

Bock bu.

Mado and Printed in Great Britain by Butler &: Tanner Ltd,, Fromc and I..onclon
 CONTENTS
PAGll
INTRODUCTION xi
I THEl WISDOM OP ASIA I

II THE FRUIT 01' TllB TREE 41

III THE SoN OP Goo AND MAN 72
IV THE SECRET 01' TIIE BEARDED liARIIAIUAN 104
V THE G1m.AT R..EN1JNCIAT!ON I28
CONCLUSION 154
IlIBLIOGRAl'IIY I6I
GLOSSARY. 169
INDEX IBI

Vll
 NOTE
a
A S this book is rather propos of than about the
philosophy and religion of the East, I would
especially direct the reader's attention to the Bibliography
and Glossary at the e11d. The former is a comprehensive
selection of the innumerable works on Vcdanta, Bud­
dhism, Taoism and Yoga published in English, French
and German. This book is less a description of the :
information contained in these works than a guide to
it, an account of certain principles which will make if'
more understandable to the Westeni mind. It might
therefore be called a preface to books on the wisdom
of Asia, while the Bibliography forms the contents list
of the main work. Inevitably a study ofEastern religions
involves the use of technical terms which can only be
translated by a sentence or a paragraph in English; All
�mporta11t terms used in this book are briefly defined
in tf:tc Glossary, for though many of them arc explained
ll!, the text, their constant recurrence requires a briefer
definition easily to hand.
I must take this opportunity of thanking Mr. Cranmer­
Byng, the publisher's reader, and Mr. Christmas Hum­
phreys for giving many valuable comments and sug­
gestions which have been of the greatest use. And
ix
 NOTE
for help in a number of small but important way
am indebted to Dr. Lionel Giles and Mr. John
Watkins.
ALAN W. WATTS
ROWAN TREE COTTAGE,
CmsLEHURST.
Spring, 1937.
 INTRODUCTION

I F this book had been writte11 three hundred years

ago, its title would have read like this : The
Religious and Philosophical Legacy of Central and Eastern
Asia, considered in relation to the Spiritual Problems of
Western Mari-being a Study ofthe Middle Way as expressed
ill Buddhism, Taoism aud Vedanta, together with an examina­
tion of its relations with Clzristia11ity and Modem Psychology,
and even that would have been a little inadequate.
Convention, however, forces us to confine it to the
shorter cl1ough less explicit form : The Legacy of Asia
and Westem Man. But this is not simply a b�ok about
Oriental Philosophy and Religion or those other, if
less important, parts of Asia's legacy-her art, literature
and law, except in so far as these bear directly on our
subject. Already there is a large enough number of
b_ooks 011 the wisdom nf the East considered by itself,
for the most part written by scholars and students of
comparative rdigion. 1 ht the last fifty years trcmcn-
1 It is iutcmting to note thot iii spite of their rather limited oppcal,
on lluddhism olo11e chert· are almost 2,000 books in English and at
least twice that number in French and German. The number on
other branches of Oriental philosophy-Vccla.nta, Yoga, Taoism,
C(mfucianism, Sufi.ism, Zoroastrianism, Jainis111, Mohism and Tantra
-has never been coiu1tcd. Apart from those issued by well-known
publishing houses, hundreds arc published every year by societies
and private individuals in Eu.rope, America and Asia, a large pro­
porrio11 cvc11 (if the Asiatic onc..'S being written il1 English.
xi
 INTRODUCTION

dous progress has been made in Oriental studies, and

thanks to the diligent labour of scholars a vast amount
of information is now available. The scholar would
be no scholar if he did not pay the most careful atten­
tion to details, and inevitably his pre-occupation with
the trees obscures his vision of the wood. There arc
exceptions, but generally speaking before the public
can make use of the fruit of research, there must come
between the scholar and the world at large the inter­
preter. There exist already many interpreters of Eastern
thought, prese11ting it in everyday language and in
broad outlines so that it can be understood by those
who have no taste for technicalities and trifling di:tails.
But beyond research and interpretation there is another
important question. For having amassed and, in part,
understood this wealth of information, we have to con­
sider what relation it has with our own traditions, and
what influence it can have on our own way of lifo.
So far, however, little has been done in this way.
It is true that many have suggested that the wisdom
of the East is so far superior to our own that we shonM
at once discard Christianity (and even Science) and
become Buddhists, Hi11dus or Theosophists. Dut this
is as much beside the point as the suggestion that Asiatics
should become Christians or Rationalists, for a world
devoted to one particular religion would be as uninterest­
ing as"a diet of one particular food, however nourishing
that food might be. Moreover, proselytism has this
fault : that being unwilling to lcam from othi:rs it
lacks humility. Therefore the object of this book is
xii
 INTRODUCTION
• less to describe Eastern thought and mysticism than to
relate it to Christianity and to that yotmg but swiftly
growing science-Psychology. Further, the stress is
laid not so much on tl1c two things to be related as 011
the actual relationship. Every b ook is i.J.1 some degree
an expression of personal opinion, an accow1t of personal
exp erimce, and in so far as this is true here it must
be regarded as the view of lifo suggested through
Eastern thought to one brought up in Western traditions.
For those traditions he has deep respect, and though
his respect for the traditions of Asia is equally deep,
he is in no way tempted to " change his skin " and try
to become Oriental. But respect for an alien culture
need not be tl1e respect one feels for a valiant euemy ;
it should be nearer to the regard which man feels for
woman. He docs not wish to beco me a woman, but
through union witl1 her he creates a child. Therefore
this book is concerned with the possible child of Easten1
and Western wisdom. As such it is written in the main
for tl1ree kinds of people : for the sincere Christian who
wishes his religi011 to mea11 more for him than it docs
already, for those seeking enlightenment iii the new
psychology of Freud, Jw1g and Adler, and for those
Westerners who are so enthralled with the wisdom of
the East that they neglect the wisdom of the West.
All these duce kinds of people, livi11g as they arc in the
Twentieth Century, are likely to belong to one general
type : tl1c thoughtful person who feels uncertain of his
roots, who has seen tl1e replacement of Faith by Reason
and has lea.mt the barrenness of Reason alone, whose
xiii
 INTRODUCTION
head is satisfied but whose h eart thirsts. He has much
knowledge, 1nuch education, much power of intellect,
but he £nds that there is a gulf bctwcc11 what he thinks
and what he feels and docs.
Among psychologists there is one who has already
begun to tackle this very problem, and that is Jung
himself. Although he has confim•d his work to a
rather specialized field, he is one of the first to approach
the problem in the right way. In Iris commen tary to
ef
The Secret the Golden Flower 1 he has made a profound
study of the advantages and dangers of the assimilation
of Eastern thought by Europeans. In a comparatively
short space he has put forward au extraordinary mnnbcr
of vital and suggestive ideas, and whcth t·r or no he will
agree with the main conclusions of this book, it owes
its inspiration to his work. For Jung opt.•ns up a way
to the understanding of the East which docs not involve
breaking away from our own roots. He keeps care­
fully to scientific method iii so far as he is never led
away by the mere glamour of words, symbols and exotic
doctrines which capture the faith of so many who have
lost confidence in Christianity. For by approaching the
Eastern wisdom neither as outwom supcrstitfon, nor
as metaphysics, nor as a body of esoteric aud inaccessible
mysteries, but as psychology, he secs it as a natural

.
growth of the soul which we of tho West can develop
1 Wilhelm. and Jung, London, 193 1 . Translated by C. F. Jbyn�'S
from Das Geheimnis der Goldenm Blute, Munich, 1929. This is 11.11
old Chinese text of Buddhist and Taoist origin c:illed 'I" ai I Cl,i,i
Hua Tsung Chili.
xiv
 INTRODUCTION

out of our own roots without any resort to imitation.

The danger, according to Jung, is that we should imitate
the high states of mind mentioned in Eastern philo­
sophies, that we should try to add to ourselves artificially
what we have not achieved by natural evolution. It
is not for the West to copy the East, for to steal the
prize of wisdom before it is earned can only lead us
to confusion. In the words of a Chinese sage, " When
the wrong man uses the right means, the right means
work in the wrong way." Obviously it would be
absurd for those who arc still in some way attached to
the world to pretend that they have attained conscious­
ness of Nirvana. Fw1damentally, however, Eastern
philosophy applies to mankind in all stages of his evolu­
tio11. For it is concerned 11ot 011ly with that final cycle
of man' s existence where he passes into the state of
Supreme Enlightc11mcnt, but also with the cycle of
those who, like ourselves, have still our debts to life,
our responsibilities in the world of maya. There are
many who imagine that in order to practise the wisdom
of Asia it is necessary to retire from earthly activities,
to sever all attachments and to wander away into soli­
tude as a homeless sanyassin. But this is altogether a
wrong impression, for if Eastem philosophy applied
only to men in certain conditimis it would have no claim
to be universal. Indeed, if it necessarily involved the
lifo of the sa11yassi11 it could be of no use to the •West
whatever, for there can be no question of givi11g up
earthly functions until they arc completely fulfilled.
While there is any fear of earthly life and its functions,
xv
 INTRODUCTION
of eaming one's living, of marriage, of establishing a
family, of maki11g friends, they cam10t be avoided with
impwiity. In the West we arc by n o means proficient
in these arts, and before we can even dream of giving
up the world we must have m!l.stcrcd them, for there
is no short cut to Nir11a11a.
But to carry o ut the functions of the world with
success, to be truly constructive and creative in this
lower cycle of being, it is necessary that we should be
reconciled to it. For unless we arc as much in union
with life as man is with woman, we can 11cvcr produce
any child. Now in the course of his cvolutio11 man
must produce many children, and if the last of all is the
Holy Child, the Saviour, the Bodhisattva, there are
many lesser childrc11 to come before. Sllp crficially,
Eastern. philoso phy seems to be couccmcd only with
the last, but the same principles of union and birth
apply on every plane. For whatever our particular
vocation in the world, it is essential that we embrace
life whole-heartedly, that we accept it, that we give
ourselves to it ; otherwise nothing will come of it but
frustration and mental disease. It is curious, however,
that the very words we use in ordinary speech-embrace,
accept, give ourselves to it-apply both to life and to
the love of man and won1a11. For this is yet another
illustration of the fact that certain principles apply i11
all places and to all activities alike. Eastcm philosophy
is, for the most part, the study of these prin ciples and
the technique of their applicatio11. If the superhuman
heights of Buddhas, B odhisattvas and Avatars arc beyond
xvi
 INTROD U CTI ON

' us, let us regard them as symbols of lesser achievements

as well. And if it is not for us at present to attain
that final union with the One Reality as described in
the Upanishads, the Gita and the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali,
we can at least attain it in a lesser way in the ordinary
affairs of the world.. For is not this the meaning of
the prayer, " Thy will be cl.one on earth as it is in
heaven " i

xvii D
Like unto space the Tao knows no b oundaries ;
Yet it is right here with us ever retaining its serenity and
fulness.
It is only when you seek it that you lose it.
You cannot take hold of it, nor can you get rid of it ;
While you can do neither, it goes on its own way.
You remain silent and it speaks ; you speak and it is silent.
Hsiian-chiao.

To seek after the Tao is like turning round in circles to

see one's own eyes. Those who understand this walk
straight on.
From a Notebook.

xviii
 I. THE WISD OM OF ASIA

A S yet we have made use of only a small portion ·

of the legacy left to us by the ancient world.
We have turned our attention in the main to the heritage
of Greece, Rome and Israel, and for hundreds of years
a knowledge of the literature and arts of these three
civilizations has been the essence of our education. It
is probable, therefore, that one of the reasons for the
increasing neglect of classical education is that we have
now almost wholly absorbed this heritage, but it would
be absurd to imagine that, because of this, we have
11othi11g further to learn from anti qui ty. If a plant is
to flourish, care must be taken that it does not exhaust
all the goodness in its soil lest it should be forced to
feed upon itself and so perish. From time to time it
is necessary for the soil to be revitalized, and it seems
that the time has come for fresh food to be given to
the roots of Western civilization. Otherwise we shall
try to nourish ourselves on our own indigenous culture ,
thus perishing before our time as it were through
spiritual consumption. Our own culture is primarily
scientific, and the growing tendency towards a purely
utilitarian education is a sign that this consumptio]l has
already begun. There is no need, however, for us to
perish so soon through lack of suitable food, for in recent
years the enormous wealth of ancient India and China
has become available. It was once customary to refer
l
 THE WISDOM OF ASIA

ta these peoples as heathens, but increasing familiarity

with their cultures should convince us that what they
have to offer is wiquestionably equal to all that ever
came from Greece, Rome and Israel. If any doubt
remained among reasonable people in the West as to
the value of this legacy, the International Exhibition of
Chinese Art which was held in London at the end of
193 5 should have made them wonder at the attitude to
life which inspired such inimitable beauty. Artistic
achievements of this kind are astonishing en ough in
themselves, but there is something which for centuries
Asia has valued higher than art, something which lay
behind this art and which has been the main pre­
occupation of Asiatic culture for almost three thousand
years. That thing is, to use the most inclusive term,
Wisdom, comprising religion, psychology and philo­
sophy. The wi sdom of Asia is the greatest portion of
its legacy, and it is significant that all the great religious
systems of the world had their origin in Asia, if we
are to allow that the Semitic peoples arc truly Asiatic
in spirit. This, however, is open to question, for,
apart from Sufi.ism, the Near East produced nothing to
approach the high level of mystical and psychological
philosophy attained in India and China. Therefore for
our purpose it will be sufficient to consider only the
distll}ctly mystical religions of Asia-Hinduism, Bud­
dhism and Taoism. The teachings of Confucius are
primarily ethical, and in spite of their undoubted nobility
they are more subject to changes of manner and custom
than those which concern the aspect of man which
2
 THE ROOTS OF CHRISTEND OM
is constant in whatever time or of whatever race. Islam
is so closely allied to the tradition of Israel that it offers
little beyond what we already know, and however
much we may admire the simplicity and evangelical
power of its faith, it is so essentially a religion suited to
the uncontemplative vita1ity of youth that it is unable
to satisfy the more complex needs of maturity. Christi­
anity, however, although of Semitic origin, has become
an integral part of our own culture, and as suc:h it is
just as dangerous for it to feed on itself instead of an
older tradition. During the Thirteentl1 Century, whe11
Christianity reached a higher level than ever attained
in subsequent times, it was nourished by Greek philo­
sophy, principally of the school of Aristotle. h1 its
earlier days it derived power from Neo-platonism,
but now that these particular traditions are almost
absorbed it must seek energy from other sources. The
Reformation instituted a return to the source from
which Christianity had sprung ii1 its very earliest days,
the tradition of Israel, and for many years Protestantism
. had a decidedly Old Testament flavour. But now even
that is passing, an d Christianity is left with three alterna­
tives : to resurrect its own past by returning to Puritan­
ism, Sc:holasticism or Gnosticism 1 ; to root itself in
1 The term Puritanism as used here should be understood to
embrace all those post-Refonnarion fonns of Chrisnanity which
gave preponderance to the JCWISh tradition, which saw Chrilti.anity
as set forward in the New Testament snnply as the fulfilment of
the philosophy of the Old. It 1s an int�Tcsting fact, to which far
too little study has been given, that almost evcty form of Protes­
tantism gives far more emphasis to the Mosaic tradition than Catho-
3
 THE WISDOM OF ASIA
modem scientific thought ; or to explore the entirely
new field of the tradition of Asia. To take the first
alternative would yield but poor results. Both the Old
Testament and the philosophy of Aristotle have been so
thoroughly absorbed and exhausted that Christianity
would only be feeding on what has now become a part
of itself. Gnosticism has now little to offer beyond a
most involved and contradictory set of metaphysical
systems which are little more than garbled versions of
truths far better expressed in the Asiatic religions from
which they were derived. Most of what was essential
in Gnostic doctrines Christianity absorbed, and we
find it in such ideas as the Trinity and in the Pauline
conception of Christ as an inward, spiritual experience,
known in Gnosticism as the Chrestos, or Christ­
principle.

licism. The latter has a more thorough grasp of the significance

of St. Paul's Epistles, in which he is at pains to emphasize that
through Christ the Mosaic law is rendered obsolete. The term
Gnosticism IS here used in a far wider sense than usual-a sense which
few Clmstian historians would be ready to allow. The term is
generally applied to certain " heretical " sects which practiscJ a
form of Christianity strongly permeated by Neo-platonis111 and
Oriental mysticism. The evidence of this permeation is so strong,
however, especially in Catholic Christianity, that it would appear
that all Early Christians were Gnostics in greater or lesser dcgrce.
Thus we understand the Gnostic period of Christianity to be that
in whtch it absorbed Neo-platonic and Kabalistic thot1ght, together
with wha.t was left of the tradition of the Mysteries. This, how­
ever, was by no means a full absorption of Asiatic mysticism, for
in those clays that particular mysticism was only available in Europe
and the Near East in a peculiarly muddled and incoherent form.

4
 PSYCHOLO GY AS AN ART

Modem scientific thought, however, pres ents a

different kind of problem. Certainly Christianity has
not yet absorbed this, but the absorption would hardly
be profitable, for science, as we know it, has little or
no relation with what is important in religion. If we
regard the essentials of religion as certain doctrines
about the objective universe, then, perhaps, a relation
between science and religion may be found. Fundamen­
tally, however, religion is concerned with subj ective
values and intuitions which can no more be treated by
science than colour can be described ii.1 terms of shape.
All scienc:es with the one exception of psychology are
concerned with the obj ective world, with the measure­
ment of quantities, with the relationships between bodies
which can be estimated in terms of feet, pounds, volts or
wave-lengths. But if we define sciei1ce as measurement
in the widest sense of the word, psychology as applied
to the cure of neurosis, to the adoption of a right attitude
to life, can hardly be called a science. It is rather an art,
almost a religion. A psychologist cannot be said to
measure a " guilt-feeling " as a physician measures the
beat of the pulse or the quantity of uric acid in the blood.
In truth th.ere is no science of psychological healing in
the strict sense of the term, for no system can be evolved
which can just be learnt from a book or a teacher and
applied with success. The cure depends almost entirely
on the person who applies it, and its effect can only be
measured by the somewhat immeasurable thing which
is called a man's happiness. A system of psychology
corresponds ahnost exactly to the technique of an artist•
s
 THE WISD OM OF ASIA

Given sufficient knowledge almost anyone can diagnose

blood-pressure by making physiological measurements,
but no amount of mere knowledge can detect lack of
beauty in a picture or lack of happiness in a human being.
These things require an innate feeling for qualities, ai.1
intuitive faculty which no learning can give. Precisely
the same faculty is necessary in religion, for no mere
philosophical or metap�ysical study can produce an
appreciation of such personalities as the Buddha and the
Christ. It can produce no love for man, no feeling of
God, no sense of holiness. The objects of religious
experience, as of ;e;thetic experience, can in 110 way be
measured. It may be incorrect to call then1 objects at
all, for strictly speaking they are subjects ; they arc not
things externally created or seen by man ; they arc
manifested through him, and he feels them because they
come subjectively from his own divine nature.
Thus Christianity may learn from psychology, but it
would be absurd for it to look to this alone for a new
source of nourishment. fa the West psychology is in
its babyhood. As Jung once said, it was not even born
yesterday ; it was only born this morning. Moreover,
it is gradually evolving more or less independently ideas
which have been known to the East for centuries. The
philosophy of Freud is far more completely expressed in
Tan� and the cult of Kali, while some ofJung's most im­
portant discoveries will. be found in Vedanta, Buddhism
and Taoism, to which he has frequently acknowledged his
debt. The unique value of modem psychology is that
it presents these conclusions in a form more easily adapt-
6
 A NEW INTER.PRETATION
able to the West, though it is to be regretted that there
is not sufficient knowledge of Tantra and the cult of Kali
to enable us to sec the very serious dan gers of Freud's
philosophy. We refer especially to his teaching of the
goal of life as death, and death as re-entry in the womb
of the mother-a philosophy which has been the excuse
for some of the most depraved rites of !ndia's " religious
underworld." But if a satisfactory relati on can be
established between mo dem psychology and the wisdom
of Asia, Christianity may fit1d a source of energy which
might produce a Christian renaissance as great, if not
greater, than that of the Thirteenth Century. That is
not to say that Christianity would simply imbib e these
new teachings without making any fundamental altera­
tion in its own. Although it is claimed by Catholics
that the schoolmcn, in tumit1g to Aristotle, only amplified
the Chri!>tian rcvclatio11, it is just such amplification which
is really alteration. It is part of the Christian revelation
that there is a God, that there is a Trinity, that there is a
soul, but almost more important than one's belief in
these things is one's conception of them. The Christian
revelation is ignorant superstition or divine w1derstanding
according to the mam1er in which we conceive it, and
it is our conception which is altered by the absorption
of other philosophies. It wot1ld be splitting hairs to
co11tend that this docs not amount to an alteration in
Christian doctrine. For the bare essentials of Christi­
anity, the few revealed trutl1s which compose its creed,
arc symbols into which we may read not just what we
like but just what our spiritual d evelopment enables us
7
 THE WISD OM OF ASIA
to read. Thus we might say that although the present
interpretation of those symbols adopted by Catholicism
is true, it is not much of a truth. In just the same way
we say that although a man is a man, he may not be much
of a man. The difference may be of both quality and
quantity, but the lesser contains the possibility of the
greater.
We cannot, however, consider the foture of Christi­
anity unless it is related to the life of the West as a whole.
It is a common fallacy to imagine that the West can cut
adrift from its Christian roots, to regard Christianity as
an outworn creed in no way suited to the development
of a rational civilization. But it is precisely to preserve
us from a rational civilization (in a special sense of that
term) that a vital Christianity is necessary-a Christianity
reinforced by all that Asia and modem psychology can
give. To understand the danger of this particular type
of " rationality " we must return to the beginning of
modem history-the Renaissance-and to trace the
growth of the attitude to life known as Humanism. The
main characteristic of this attitude is its faith in the sdf­
suffi.ciency of rational man-a faith which has dominated
the history of Europe, and especially of Protestant
Europe, ever since the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Cen­
turies. O f course, there are no abrupt beginnings of
world movements ; Humanism may be traced back
farther th.an the Renaissance, and its rapid spread in those
two centuries was only possible because for many years
previously the ground had been in course of preparation .
The Renaissance apparently marks the beginning of the
8
 THE WORSHIP OF MAN
spectacular development of rationality which has enabled
this civilization to advance far ther in five hundred years
than the older civilizations advanced in two or three
thousand. It has made possible the unparalleled feats
of invention and organization which have given us the
conceit that ours is the first tmly progressive culture,
and that there is no reaso11 why it should not go forward
indefinitely to greater an d greater heights of supremacy
over nature. Wc call the Renaissance the beginning,
however, mainly for convenience, for the movement
was already in progress when St. Thomas Aquinas
resorted to reason for proof of the Church's revelation.
But at this time we notice a marked chaugciu the direction
of men's interests ; their eyes were turned from God
to Mau, hence the term Humanism, and they gave their
attention i11 the main to that aspect of Man which is
conscious and rational. Their attitude may be stmuned
up iu those words from Hamlet :

What a pC'cc� of worki: is man, how noble in reason, how inlinic

in faculties, in form and moving, how cxprcsse and admirable in
action, how like a1t Angell in apprehension, how like a God !

Thus in art we see a11 emphasis on th!! beauty of the

human form and in literature an absorption in human
deeds and emotions. Men , as it wcrl!, fell i11 love with
Man, w1til i.J.1 time they imagined that the hum.an under­
standi.J.1g was so great that it could be sufficient to itself,
that it could solve all problems and embrace all know­
ledge. The mediaevalist, however, was not interested
in humanity as such. When he drew a Madonna he
9
 THE WISDOM OF ASIA

had in mind not so much the form of a woman and child

as the divine truth of which the drawing was no more
than a symbol. But the artists of the Renaissance were
interested rather in the humanity of these divine beings,
and when they painted the crucified Christ they were at
pains to express human form and emotion-the Son of
Man rather than the Son of God. The mediaevalist
knew that the love of God could never be shown in any
picture, and he was content with the symbol ; he took
little pains to evolve a correct likeness of the human form,
for it did not :interest him. At his best he loved God
infinitely more than. Man, and trusted in the providence
of God rather than the exercise of his own reason. The
contrast between these two attitudes is seen again in the
drama. In mediaeval times the mystery play was con­
cerned not with the hopes and passions of men, but with
the re-enacting of the divine story of the Creation, the
Fall, and the Birth and Passion of the Christ. The
mystery play was in truth an extension of the symbolic
rites of the Church, but in Shakespeare these mystical
themes arc set aside ; here we have a complete map of
the human soul in its most exalted and its most depraved
aspects. For Humanism, " th e proper study of mankind
is man "-but, it should be added, conscious, rational
man, for Humanism never embraced those aspects of the
soul which mo dem psychology groups wider the term
" the Onconscious "-that part of us which is inseparably
bound up with nature and with the divine. This is no­
where better illustrated than in the course of post­
Renaissance philosophy. For Descartes, who is regarded
IO
 NARCISSUS

as the father of rationalism, set out to build up a �

sophy by reason from the very beginning. Starting
from a complete doubt of all existence, he reasoned that
if he was reasoning there must be a he that reasoned.
This gave him his first principle-cogito, erg o s1mi-and
from this he developed his whole system. An earlier
c-xample of his method may be fom1d in St. Thomas,
but he began with a rcvdation and sought to prove
by reason, while Descartes began with nothing and relied
on reason alone. Iu this the whole trend of Westem
philosophy has followed him until recent times ; it 'has
sought to solve the mysteries of the universe purely by
the exercise of human reason, imagining that all things
can be grasp ed by the intellect. Thus in art, drama,
literature, philosophy and science Humanism exalts Ma11
as a fully conscious and self-sufficient being ; it is not
even as near to nature as S cholasticism, for :it1 all forms
of nature it secs only the likeness of lrnmaitlty. The
rose is compared to a woman, the mow1tains to the soul's
aspirations, and the ordering of the stars to human
:it1tclligcnce. The wtlvcrse becomes Man's mirror, :it1to
which he gazes like Narcissus, ador:it1g ltls own image.
hi these o] d myths there is always an important moral,
for Narcissus languished a11d died through the adoration
of his own beauty. In the same way, Man will languish
and die through adoration of his owi1 reason, for un­
witt:it1gly it will lead him to a state of exhaustion and
self-contradiction, a state which was foreshadowed as
early as the Reformation. In Calvinism we discern the
beginnings of this self-defeat, for in the doctrine of
II
 THE WISD OM OF ASIA
Predestination, of determinism, is the logical end of pure
reason. It is here that Humanism begins to crush
humanity, for it gives preponderance to a principle
which is but one half of true philosophy. For reason,
in the sense in which it is used here, is the characteristic
of intellect, the faculty which is at a loss unless it can
understand life as conforming to certain fixed laws.
The philosopher who relies on reason alone is not happy
unless he can classify and arrange things, unless h e can
place his data in mental pigeon-holes so that he can know
where to find thC"m when he wants them ; otherwise
he would be overwhelmed by a mass of details,
each demanding individual attention. But life has an
unfortunate perversity which philosophers find sadly
disturbing, a perversity which is the cause of all the
philosophical arguments which have filled and will con­
tinue to fill an alarming number of inconclusive volumes.
It has been said that three-quarters of controversy is due
to inadequate definition or understanding of terms. It
would be more correct to say that it is due to life's
unfortunate dislike of terms. Terms themselves arc
misleading enough when ill-defined, but the real diffi­
culty is th.at the facts of life refuse to be termed ; they
are so elusive and changeable that before they can be
sufficiently described they have become different. It
would not be so difficult if it were only that things arc
so very diiferent from one another ; what aggravates
the difficulty is that they are always becoming so very
different from themselves. But even in making that
convenient generalization we have fallen into the trap ;
I2
 THE BOREDOM OF SOLOMON
• we have termed the facts of life elusive and diverse, and
at once they refuse the terms. For we are reminded of
the old saw, Plus fa change, plus c' est la m2me ch ose, and
that is 110 idle saying. Yet while similar situations repeat
themselves again and again wider many different forms,
and while all things have to conform to certain eternal
and universal principles, we know that the wider­
standing of such principles alone does not amount to an
understanding of life. This is the limitation of reason
and intellect. However thoroughly we may analyse
the laws of the universe, however much we may try to
impress upon nature the order of our own intellects,
there is still something lacking, for we widerstand only
the mechanics of life. In terms of principles life is a
machine in which every event is determined, and to
explain life in such terms is to explain it away. It is
foolish to believe that things are explained when their
causes arc revealed ; to imagine that the wind is no
longer a mystery when we know that it is , caused by
changes in the temperature of the atmosphere is to try
to deprive life of its wonder. But life is not deprived ;
the loss is suffered by our own souls, an d to lose the sense
of wonder is to take on the boredom of Solomon who
declared that there is nothing new w1der the sun. Indeed,
he fowid this life such a vanity that he devoted his old
age to concubines and idolatry, until the LDrd said, " I
will rend the kingdom from Solomon."
For in philosophy there is a conflict between two
principles. On the one hand there is life elusive, end­
lessly diverse, ever changing, ever becoming new,
13
 THE WISDOM OF ASIA

j oyously free and refusing all definitions. 011 the other •

there is life eternally repeating its elf, bound by iron
laws and determined in its every movement. These two
principles represent life and death respectively, yet how­
ever much we may desire to cast away the latter and
embrace the former, we must remember that life is not
possible without death. Both principles are true, for
without liberty law is dead, and without law liberty
would bring itself to confusion. And just as law sets
bounds to lib erty, death sets bounds to life ; both are
ess ential to one another. Thus exclusi ve reliance upon
reason is equivalent to an over-emphasis of the principle
of law, and this involves its own contradiction. The
Humanist would measure all things by the laws of Man's
intellect, but, however wonderful this intellect, in itself
it is no more than a mental machine, and through it all
things seem mechanical. The Humanist looks in the
mirror of life and beholds an order which reflects Iris
own intellect. He sees all events as conditi oned by
previous causes and all causes by previous effects ; each
event becomes inevitable, and by inference he assumes
that this is true also of his own mind. For reason leads
us inescapably to the conclusion that we have no free
will ; it binds all things to law ; it claims that there
is nothing which caru1ot be explained by reference to
law. The dcterminist description of life is thus..-thtr'­
description of a machine. We can claim no ffery for
any achievement ; we can deserve no blame for any
failure. That is complete exhaustion. There is nothing
more to be done ; cverythi11g has been explained, an d as
I4
 THE DANGER OF BEING RATIONAL
• soon as mystery dies, life dies too. By trying to measure
the universe by his own reason, Man imparts to it the
limitations of that reason.
Herein lies the danger of the " rational civilization."
For the purely rational ordering of life becomes a purely
mechanized life. The complete planrung of our exis­
tence required by Marxism and Fascism is nothing other
than social determinism. Scientists are expected to find
ways and means of evolving, through eugenics and
other expedients, the perfectly planned human being.
It is hoped that an operation on the brain of a criminal
will cure his anti-social tendencies ; perfect hygiene
will destroy all possibility of disease ; perfect economics
all prospect of poverty ; the scientific study of aesthetic
reactions to colour and form WJ.ll produce perfect art.
If it went so far as to say that perfect medicine would
abolish all chance of death, we 1night say that perfect
planning would disperse all hope of life. That is
certainly an extreme statement of the rationalist position,
but it is the inevitable result of followi.11g Humanism to
its extreme, even if the followers themselves do not
desire such a barren existence. But there is no need to
fear that Western civilization will ever come to that end.
Not only will the suppressed irrational forces assert them­
selves (in an unpleasant manner if we do not forestall
them), but already there is a widespread revolt against
the Age of Reason, an interest in things beyond and
greater than rational man. For Humanism has already
shown its bankruptcy, even without going to its logical
extreme. In art it reached the end in perfect realism-
IS C
 THE WISDOM OF ASIA
at least, what should have been its end. The various ·
" futurist " schools are the logical result of that realism ;
they are in no sense a reform, for they demonstrate the
victory of the machine. In realism we see the height
of rational art, with its absorption in the accurate por­
trayal of rational man ; in " futurism " is the inevitable
result-Man's subjection to mechanics, for reason, by its
very nature, is mechanical. Its processes are as unavoid­
ably determined as the effect of one revolving cog-whed
on the other to which it is joined. Thus it is par excel­
lence the faculty for ordering nature, for mastering
the external world, for conducting the struggle for
existence. Our grasp of it has made possible the present
civilization, materially without any rival in history.
But to master nature in the extreme, to control all things,
to explain all things, is to defeat one's real purpose.
The subjection of life to reason is the method of keeping
oneself alive, and the animal uises a primitive form of
reason when it outwits its prey or builds a nest. But
a balance must be maintained between reason and un­
reason, for if all life is subject, there is nothing left on
which to live. The complete planning of society must
lead to a spiritual exhaustion and emptiness ; it may
give us all that could be desired of food, clothing, luxury
and health, but the life is more than meat. Complete
order must produce complete boredom, for Man's soul
longs for the wipredictable and the mysterious.
The serious problems of hfe [wntcs Jwig] are never fully solved.
If it should for once appear that they arc, t1us is the sign that some­
thing has been lost. The meaning md design of a problem seem
16
 THE UNCONSCIOUS
• not to lie in its solution, but in our working at it incessantly. This
alone preserves us from stultification and petrefaction.

Man knows little of himself if he takes into account

only the conscious, reasoning aspect of his mind. For
just as we are unconscious of the greater part of the
body, so we are unconscious of the greater part of the
psyche ; and just as the body goes on its own way,
forcing us to recognize its demands in spite of all our
ingenuity, so the unknown depths of the mind must ass ert
themselves to our confusion if we do not make provision
for them. We feel nothing of the countless processes
which effect the digestion and assimilation of o ur fo od,
and yet they perform their work entirely without the
direction of our reason. Unless we arc physicians we
are utterly unaware of the operations of our nerves, of
the origins of the forces of sex, and the 1niraculously
intricate system of the circulation. But these pro cesses
rule our lives to such an extent that it is absurd to imagille
that we are masters of our bodies. For once we act
in disregard of these unconscious forces they assert them­
selves in a sufficiently unpleasant mam1er to make us
remember that tl1ey exist and must be respected. Indeed,
we are only conscious of digestion, circulation, brcatl1ing
and nervous response when these processes suffer from
some disorder, when they make themselves felt as a
result of our disregard. fo. the same way, there arc
countless mental systems and impulses which so rnlc our
thoughts that in fact the belief in the supremacy of reason
i s a laughable conceit. The conscious " I " docs not
rule the mind, for although the " I " is allowed to
17
 THE WISD OM OF ASIA
assume that it is the willer and the thinker, it is scarcely ·
ever aware th.at it acts in accordance with forces which
pay little heed to the " reasonable " and the " intelligible."
The " I," however, has a remarkable faculty for persuad­
ing itself that it is being rational when it obeys irrational
impulses ; it has the most subtle expedients for justifying
itself, for fmding a11 explanation for all that it thinks
and does. But the conscious " I " is but a small :fraction
of the whole man ; indeed, it is perhaps the most limited
and fettered part of the soul. Certainly the will is free,
but it is not the .. I " that wills ; it is willed by the pro­
founder aspect of the mind in which is to b e fowid both
the wildly irrational 6:eedom of the satyr and the divine
freedom of God. Here is the will, the director of life,
the source of energy, of libido, while conscious reason
is simply the tool, the machine, which it uses to carry out ·
its desires. It must not be imagined, however, th.at this
complete subjection of the conscious to the unconscious
is a happy arrangement. In spite of the " I's " capacity
for rationalizing unconscious impulses, th.ere are tjmcs
when unconscious demands are so strong that they con­
flict violently with all that the " I " understands as reason­
able. Whereupon there occurs a splitting of the person­
ality ; the conscious and rational part of man atte1npts
to be a law to itself, with. th.e result th.at it becomes only
law ; it kills everything by its desire for order and per•
fection. On the other hand, the unconscious and irra­
tional part, without the restraining influence of law,
becomes so utterly unruly that in time it wrecks all that
mere reason has achieved on its own, The one is
18
 WHEN LAW IS DISORDER

• inflamed by the independence of the other, and the

har1nonious interaction of law and liberty is replaced by
the extremes oftyranny and licence. Modem civilization
offers an unusual example of this conflict-a conflict
which, when it occurs in the individual, is regarded as a
serious form of insanity known as schizophrenia. To
s ome extent we suffer from a social schizophrenia, for
in no other age have there been such extremes of s cientific
order and p olitical organization, yet it is precisely our
immense scientific knowledge which makes p ossible the
most violent orgies of destruction, and it is j ust those
nations which regiment and organize their people in the
extreme that are most eager for war. Herein we see the
truth of Lao Tzu's aphorism that when the laws are
overmuch in evidence, thieves and robbers abound.
But even in this violent splitting of the personality,
the conscious reason is not so free as it would believe.
It is probable that its apparent freedom is only one of
the devices of the unconscious for indulging its own
liberty. For the unconscious is by no means at peace
within itself, and its conflicting parts see in liberty an
opportunity to fight. The reason is persuaded to j oin
in this conflict ; it is caj oled by one part to resist others ;
it is inflamed with a pride in itself which simply assists
one unconscious impulse against another. The same
may occur in the bodily realm, for here again there is
conflict. There is an unconscious process which causes
delight it1 the sensation of taste, and this may so capture
the consciousness that s erious harm is wrought on the
process of digestion. But the conscious faculty is in
19
 THE WISD OM OF ASIA
"
some sens e responsible for the conflict. Without its aid,
the various unconscious processes would be m1able to
fight one another, and therefore we find that in forms of
life where consciousness as we understand it is undeve­
loped there is little or no disharmony. The trouble is
that consciousness is strong enough to make a conflict,
but not strong enough to resist the persuasions of the
various combatants. What is necessary, therefore, is
not the subjection of the unconscious to the conscious,
but, as it were, a treaty between the two. The terms
of this treaty must be that all unconscious forces shall
have liberty to fulfil themselves, provided that this docs
not involve the destruction of one another. Thus our
task is to become conscious of the unconscious, not to
put it in fetters, but to give fair recognition to all its
demands. We must make no attempt to claim victory
over it, for this would be trying to deprive it of its own
essential value. A garden requires discipline, but it is
understood that this discipline exists simply to give all
the :flowers and plants freedom to grow to their best.
Needless to say, this coming to terms with the w1-
conscious is no easy task, especially in a civilization
which for some five hundred years has been st eeped in
the philosophy of Humanism. It is just because of all
that has happened in this period that we cannot return
to the old method of saving the soul from disintegration.
This method is the practice of Catholicism-a system
which contains every device necessary for the fulfilment
and control of unconscious impulses. In the symbolism
of the Mass, the practice of confession and the story of
20
 THE PASSING OF BELIEF
Christ there is all that the unconscious requires, and to
have faith in these doctrines is to have a peace of mind
unknown to those who rely on reason alone. That,
however, is well enough if one can have faith, but five
centuries of Humanism has made a rctur11 to the Catholic
Church impossible for all but the comparatively few. As
Jung writes in his Modern Ma11 in Search of a S011l :
People no longer feel themselves to be redeemed by the death
of Christ ; they cannot believe-they cannot compd themselves to
believe, however happy they may deem the man who has a belie£
Sin ha& for them become something quite relative : what is evil
for one, is good for the other. After all, why should not 13uJdha
be in th'" right also 1 (p. 268.)

This scepticism, however, docs not alter the inherent

value of Christianity ; the truth remains in its s ymbols,
and what is necessary is not just a return to belief but
an enquiry which will show just how and why tbose
symbols are effective. To carry out this enquiry it is
essential to consider the religious legacy of Asia, because
here we find a fuller and profom1dcr treatment of the
same symbols, with this difference : that the Eastern
doctrines arc confessedly psychological rather than theo­
logical. That is to say, their intention is not to provide
a satisfying explanation of the world and a theological
sanction for morality ; they exist simply to provide a
technique for the soul's enlightenment. Duddhism in
particular claims 11ot to be a revelation, but the resul t
of countless experiments, the sum total (.)f ccnturks (�f
experience. The Buddha did not co me to earth with
a wisdom which had been his from all eternity ; acc:ord-
.Z.I
 THE WISD OM OF ASIA
ing to his own account as recorded in the Jataka Tales,
he ac quired it through innumerable lives of patient effort.
Thus he offers his disciples a technique of spiritual
development rather than a set of doctrines to be believed
as if belief were the chief thing necessary for salvation.
Christianity offers salvation through acceptance of a
historical event-the Passion of Christ, and the difficulty
is that when man doubts its historicity, he doubts also
its power to save. But the Passion is actually the story
of the spiritual adventure which is necessary to every
man's salvation. T o us, its value is not so much that it
once happened, but that we can make it happen again
and again. Th.us the " revelation " of the Church can
be seen less as an acc01mt of certain historical events,
than as an allegory of the soul's development. Salvati.on
can be obtained not simply by believing in and relying
on the efficacy of things which actually happened, bu t
by re-enacting them i11 our own lives. Hence the im­
portance t o us of the Asiatic religions is that they place
little or no trust in historical events, and precisely through
their very full descriptions of spiritual technique we arc
enabled to understand the Christian allegory in a new
and more satisfactory way.
For the West, however, the approach to Eastern philo­
sophy is encumbered with many difficulties created both
by our own lack of understanding and the Easteru habit
of speaking in paradoxes so alien to our own ways of
thinking. The wisdon1 of Asia has only been studied
at all seriously within the last fifty years, and much of
this study has been undertaken by missionaries who
22
 EXPERIMENTAL RELIGI ON

· approached the subject with anything bttt sympathy.

On the other hand, many students have been mere
scholars whose interest in the letter dimmed their percep­
tion of the spirit. Certainly we owe a great debt to
their work, but it is seldom that the scholarly mind is
able to interpret. It can give us the facts, but seldom
their meaning, for only too often it is the purely analytic
mind which is nnable to sec the wood for the trees.
Above all it is that strictly logic-bound mentality which
is unable to appreciate the subtle flights of intuition which
mark all Eastern mysticism. For the Oriental philoso­
pher pays little attention to the rules of philosophy as
we nnderstand them ; he seldom troubles to offer logical
proof of his conclusions ; he seldom reasons out his thesis
from a fundamental postulate in the manner of Descartes.
On the contrary, the only proof he offers is the proof
of experience ; he says in effect, " Put my conclusio11S
into practice and prove them by the results which this
· has 011 your life." In this it is similar to psychotherapy,
which has never sought to prove the existence of the
Unconscious as theologians and philosophers have tried
to prove the existence of God and the soul. The nnc on­
scious is confessedly no more than a working hypothesis ;
its reality has been assumed simply because the assumption
has been effective in the treatment of patients. There is
little foundation for belief iii die w1co11scious in physio­
logical psychology, unless we take it to mean no more
than the involuntary rcsp01ise of the mind to certain
circumstances. But the unconscious as understood by
Freud and Jung n1eans far more than this ; it is the
23
 THE WISD OM OF ASIA

receptacle of all that has been seen, felt, thought-and

forgotten, not only in the life of the individual, but also,
as Jung insists, of the whole race. More than this, it is
the source of that energy which shapes our lives-an
energy far older than man-which is the libido or, in
ordinary speech, desire. This is ii1 many ways similar
to the Buddha's doctrine that all desire (trislma) arises
from i gnorance (avidya) or lack of knowledge ; the
desire which causes us to be b orn into the world, which
drives us along the road of our destiny whether we
consciously wish it or not, proceeds front that part of
ourselves which we do not know. The Buddha taught
th.at this desire could be controlled by the co11quest of
avidya, that through self-knowledge we could master
our destinies. Psychotherapy, in effect, brings forward
a similar teaching : if we can make conscious what is
unconscious we can make an end of mental disease. Thus
we find a close resemblance between the Budd.hist and
Vedantist concept of avidya and the m1consciousncss of
psychology, though the term " the Unconscious " signi­
fies the something of which we are ignorant rather than
i gn orance itself. Neither of these systems, however,
requires any theology. It is not necessary for the Buddhist
or the yogi in search of self-knowledge or the psycho­
logist in search of the unconscious to have any belief
in the saving power of a historical event or in th e existence
of a particular universal scheme. He requires no more
th.an the facts of life as he knows them and the knowledge
of a technique which can reveal further facts. He travels
by himself into the unknown, for those who have gone
24
 OUR SUPREMACY IN LOGIC
· before can find no language to describe what they have
found. They can only offer guidance on the journey ;
the traveller must undertake the j ourney for himself, and
experience for himself what lies at its end. Thus until
he has reached that end he must regard all theories of thc
universe, all metaphysics, all theology as hyp othetical and
unproved ; the proof is only to be found in experiment
and even then it can only give satisfaction to the experi­
menter himsel£
For this reason the philosophies of the East inrucate
rather than explain ; from the Europca.11 point of view
their metaphysics are poor and their rcasotung w1ccrtain.
But they would be of little value to us if they offered
merely a repetition of the mctl1ods of Wcstem philo­
sophers. In logic the West is supreme ; in Plato, Des­
cartes, Kant, Hegel and the other " classical '' philosophers
of Europe we have the greatest masters of reason known
to history. If life could be managed entirely by the
exercise of reason we should have all that we require.
But however intellectually convinced one may be of a
certain philosophy, tlus conviction is often enough
strangely remote from the serious problems of our lives,
for the satisfaction of the intellect docs not necessarily
involve the satisfaction of emotion, feeling a.11d intuition.
It is therefore necessary to find a more catholic philosophy,
a philosophy which applies to the whole of man instead
of to but one of his parts.
If the wisdom of Asia seems strange to our reason,
if it seems poor as philosophy, it is bey011d question the
most catl1olic of all psychologies. It may appear absurd
25
 THE WISDOM OF ASIA
to speak of the wisdom of Asia as a unity, seeing that the •
religions of the East comprise a vast number of different
sects and schools. There are the six systems of Indian
philosophy, the five schools of yoga, the two " vehicles "
of Buddhism. with their innumerable subdivisions, and
the two philosophies of Chlna (which seem as far apart
as black and white) to mention only a few of the more
important groups. But, apart from the fact that these
systems have certain common elements, we of the West
are able to approach them as a whole. Coming from
afar we are able to see what is invisible (or rather, what
is not often recognized) near at hand. Even if Eastern
philosophers do not understand (though some are well
aware of it) th.at their hundreds of different schools form
a living organism, a unity in diversity, the West can
appreciate that Asia offers us " ways to the One as many
as the lives of men." This unity is only possible because
it offers us tl)ays as distinct from creeds ; it offers a variety
of techniques suited to the many different types of mind.
ranging from the advanced psyi;hism of Tantra to the
practical mysticism of the Blingavad-Gita. Creeds there
are as well, complex metaphysical doctrines over which
pandits have argued without end, but the true wisdom
of Asia does not lie in these. The theologies of Brah­
manism and Mahayana Buddhism are regarded in all the
important texts as subordinate to the practical technique
of spiritual devdopment, and they insist not tbat a man
should believe in a set of theological propositions but
that he should tread a path. These philosophics arc
nothing if they arc not ways rather than creeds, for they
26
 WAYS AND NOT CREEDS
·never tire of stating that their deepest truths are unintelli­
gible to those who have not attained such an exalted state
of widerstanding that those truths are less believed than
known. So far as · ' ultimate realities " are concerned,
the religions of Asia require not faith but knowledge ;
faith is only required. in the technique for attaining that
knowledge. More than this, even if Asia herself docs
not always recognize it, faith is not asked for any parti­
cular technique, for her religions offer a variety of ways
leading to the same Goal-ways which are adapted to
the varying capacities and talents of mankind. It matters
little which technique is chosen, provided that, when
chosen, it is followed with unswerving loyalty, for no
one is entitled to say that his techni que is useless until
he has given it fair trial.
So far as the religions of Asia as a whole are concerned
this catholicity can hardly be called intentional. The
pandits of Vedanta, Buddhism and Taoism did not meet
together and arrange to construct an organic philosophy.
On the contrary, they frequently sought to exalt
their own religions over others, but the organism grew
in spite of their efforts. The reason for this was that
the two greatest religions, Vedanta and Buddhism, were
or ganic in themselves. Vedanta and its developments,
which are contained in the inclusive term " Hinduism,"
consciously made provision for varying mentalities, while
Buddhism adapted itself to the peoples amongst whom it
spread. As an example of the former we may cite tho
, different forms of yoga, all of which are recognized in
India as e qually effective. For the inte1lcctual type there
27
 THE WISD OM OF ASIA

is Gnana yoga, the way of thought ; for the feeling type'

there is Bhakti yoga, the way of love ; for the worker
there is Karma yoga, the way of service. But for those
exceptionally gifted, there is a fourth which comprises
the other three-Rty'a yoga, the royal way, and this
contains not only the trinity of thought, love and service,
but also that mainly psychic form of yoga known as
Hatlia. For W csterners, unaided by an experienced
teacher, this last is an extremely dangerous practice, and
it is to be regretted that many irresponsible writers have
made a knowledge of its methods too easily available.
It releases energies too strong for untrained nerves, burn­
ing them as a p owerful electric current bums a weak wire.
Moreover, so great are the powers which it develops
that they are only safe in the hands of those of the highest
moral discipline, those who can be trusted to use them
without thought of personal gain.
Thus Hinduism provides for the occultist and for the
three types of mystic, and not only docs it offer different
paths for different men ; in addition it recognizes three
different vocations, all of which arc equally necessary t o
th e life of each individual. Some form of yoga or
spiritual exercise is not the only object worthy of pursuit,
for being gifted with faculties other than spiritual it is
our responsibility to use them well. Hence three voca­
tions, or :functions, pertaining to the differ ent periods of
man's life arc given equal recognition, and these arc
Artha, Kama and Dharma. " In youth and maturity,"
writes Vatsyayana, ' ' man busies himself with Artlza and
Kama, and in old age he follows Dharma, striving thus to
28
 THE STAGES OF LIFE IN MANU
•attain Mokslia, the deliverance from further re-birth."
Artha comprises the duties of citizenship, of acquiring
a profession or trade, of making friends and establishing
a family. Kama is the right use of the senses, the tech­
nique of sexual enjoyment and of all forms of pleasure
natural to man. Dliarma is the fulfilment of spiritual
duties, the study of the scriptures and the practice of yoga.
Thus [says Vatsya.yana] a man who practises Dlumua, Artha and
Kama tastes at the same time fortune in this world and m the world
to come. . . . Each act which conduces to the practice of Dliarma,
Artha and Kama together, or of two of them, or even of one, that
act should be performed ; but one must avoid an act which con­
duces to the practice of one alo11e at the expC'nse of the other two. 1

Hinduism, therefore, is perhaps the most catholic of all

religions, for it has not become so in the course of its
evolution but was based on the principle of catholicity
from its very beginnings. Those who laid down the
code of Manu made provision both for different mentali­
ties and different vocations in the most thoroughgoing
manner ; they showed an understanding of the social
organism which in subsequent times has seldom been
equalled, and it is probable that the peculiar missionary
methods of Buddhism were strongly influenced by the
social ideals of its native land.
For among missionary religions Buddhism is unique
1 A fuller treatment of this subj ect will be found in the first sec­
tion of Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra, from which the two passages above
are quoted. The fullest treatment is, of course, in the 2nd to 6th
books of the Laws of Manu, upon which Vats yayana has based his
observations.
29
 THE WISD OM OF ASIA

in that it is almost entirely free from the desire to eradicate·

the indigenous faiths and cultures of the peoples to whom
it spreads. When it took root in China, instead of trying
to impose Indian ways of thought upon people of a very
clifferent temperament, it skilfully adapted itself to the
Chinese mind. Its founder had always counselled a re­
spect for the opinions of others, and when in China it
came into contact with Confucianism and Taois m it
soon adapted itself to these native philosophies, producing
a way of life which was the " Chinese synthesis " of the
three religions. From time to time it was strongly
resisted by hostile Emperors, but b ecause of its unusual
method of propaganda it succeeded. where a more sclf­
ass ertive metho d would have foiled. Mahayana Buddh­
ism as taught by the hidians was a highly involved and
speculative system of metaphysics far removed from the
practical tendencies of the Chinese. But not long after
its introduction, these Indian characteristics began to
disappear. Instead of keeping Sanskrit as the official
language of Buddhism as for many centuries the Chris­
tian Church kept Latin, every assistance was given to the
great scholar-pilgrillJ. Hiuen-tsang to tramlate the Sans­
krit sutras into Chinese. Hence before long a peculiarly
Chinese form of Buddhism arose which combined with
Buddhism certain aspects of Taoism and Confucianism.
This was known as Ch' an Qapanese, Zen), a product of
Southern China which in years to come was to have
the most profound influence on Chinese ideals and especi­
ally on the art of the T' ang and Sung Dynasties. If iu
India Buddhism had fallen away from the practical spirit
30
 THE CATHOLICITY OF BUDDHISM

of its founder, the Chinese brought this spirit back to

life in the most intense form. For in Zen they brought
together the Buddhist's tremendous will for Enlighten­
ment and his detachment from all changing things, the
Taoist's reverence for nature and his understanding of the
value of rhythm and change, and the Confucian's respect
for ceremony and social order. But it is said that the
whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and it is certain
that Zen was not merely the adding together of these
several virtues. It was as if a number of chemical in­
gredients had been mixed to produce something alto­
gether new and unique, for in Zen there was a spirit
which had not previously existed in either of the three
faiths alone. It was something as mighty as a gale and
as impossible to grasp in the hands of logic, something
so one-pointed in its quest for Enlightenment that its
rough treatment of mere doctrines and intellectual
formulae was almost alarming.
Zen, however incomprehensible to Western thought,
is the essentially Chinese form of Buddhism, and its
ascendancy from the Eighth to the Twelfth Centuries
coincided with the Golden Age of Chinese Art. But
China is now long past its meridian and Zen has given
way to corrupt forms of religion in which are little more
than the shadows of Buddhism, Taoism and Con­
fucianism. Even so, the three still exist side by side, and
it is said that people go to the Taoists for reading the
destiny of new-bon1 children, to the Confucians for a
blessing on marriage and for rules for the conduct of
life, and to the Buddhists for the burial of the dead.
3I D
 THE WISDOM OF ASIA
But in Japan Buddhism lives on in vital form, and here"
again there has been an adaptation to native culture.
Zen became the religion of the warriors and artists, and
was soon brought into an intimate relation with the
Japanese love of nature. The indigenous cult of Shinto
was enabled to exist together with Buddhism, partly
through the ingenious process of identifying the various
Shinto deities with the various Buddhas and Bod.hi­
sattvas. From this there arose a curious cross between
Shinto and Budd.hism known as Ryobii Shinto in which
the rites and symbols of both religions were merged
together. For Shinto is an essentially national religion ;
it could not apply to any other com1try than Japan, and
thus it is possible for millions ofJapanese to be Shintoists
as Japanese and Buddhists as human beings. In all
matters affecting the nation as such they observe the rites
of Shinto, but in those which affect all men alike-birth,
suffering, love, death-they arc Buddhists.
These, however, arc only a few of the countless ways
in which Buddhism has given fresh life and meaning
to cultures different from its own. In the 2, 500 years
of its history it has expressed itself ii.1 forms corresponding
to almost every general type of mind, and at the same
time it has preserved a unity. Never has there been a
Buddhist religious war in any way equal to the Wars of
Religion between Catholic a11d Protestant in Sixteenth­
Century Europe, and this may be attributed in part to
the Buddhist vision of universal salvation. Men may
hold foolish opinions, but it1 the course of many rebirths
th ey will eventually learn from their own mistakes and
32
 SPITTING AT THE HEAVENS
"follow the true way. In the meantime, nothing can force
them, and a man learns more from the natural results of
his own follies than from the interference of others.
This attitude has its disadvantages, and it may be said
that whereas the strife between the sects of Christianity
is a sign of life and health, the easy-going tobrance of
Buddhism results in an aimless and unending differentia­
tion like the decomposition of a corpse. The metaphor
would be peculiarly apt were it not for such noteworthy
memorials of greatness and life as the art of China and
Japan, and the records in the literature of almost every
people in Central and Eastern Asia of the lives of the
Buddhist sages. Certainly we do not fin d much evidence
in Asia of material improvement, of general education,
of health an d prosperity among the masses of the people,
and for this reason it is often said that its religions arc
a failure. B ut it is absurd to compare civilizations to
each other's disadvantage in this way, for such forms of
condemnation arc like the boomerang. Or, as the
Buddha said, " It is as a man who looks up and spits at
heaven ; the spittle docs not soil the heaven, but comes
back and defiles his own person." For it must be re­
membered not only that the East is old and tl1at the
glorious days of India and China have, as must all things
on this earth, passed away, but also that it is a mistake to
j udge it by our own standards of greatness. The a chieve­
ment of Asia is its spiritual understanding and its art,
and if these have had little effect on tl1e lives of the masses,
let us remember that the scientific creations of Europe
are used for peculiarly hideous forms of self-destruction,
33
 THE WISDOM OF ASIA
and that its high standard of living and w1iversal " educa-"
tion " have given ignorant people unheard-of opportuni­
ties for vulgarity. We are proud enough of the way in
which we fatten our people, but we must not be surprised
if the Asiatic remarks that pigs also arc fattened for the
slaughter-house. His remark might not be altogether
just, but neither are similar accnsations against Asia .
There is no profit, however, in mutual disparagement,
for it blinds us to the fact that Asia's gift to us is now
at our feet, and that it would be madness simply to
relegate this untold wealth to museums and the libraries
of learned societies. It is true that the days of the old
and wise Asia are past, but Greece, Rome and Israel
vanished centuries ago and yet we have since that time
reaped countless benefits from their remains.
But it is said that we can learn little from the East
that we do not already know, and moreover that its
wisdom is so cold and impersonal that it is utterly unsuited
to the Western temperament. It is said to be the " wis­
dom " of those who did not understand the meaning and
value of personality, of a people crushed by poverty and
tyranny to a dull uniformity, and overawed by vast
natural forces which made man seem as nothing. Again
the accusation invites the Easterner to observe, in re­
sponse, that we are so vain that we have made the whole
universe our looking-glass, even to the extent of making
God in our own image. But both observations, apart
from being not strictly trne, neglect tl1e obvious necessity
of relating the two attitudes in such a way that the
· personal and the 1miversal are seen in their right prop or-
34
 THE PARADOX OF IMPERS ONALITY
"tions. There can be no doubt that in some ways the
philosophies of india are radi cally impersonal and, to our
ideas, cold and vast like the lifeless infmities of space.
To a superficial understanding they naturally imply that
the world and all its b eauties, horrors, pleasures, pains,
virtues and vices is maya-illusion ; personality is a dream
born of ignorance ; to the wise, all differentiation is the
mind's distorted view of the One Reality, and man's task
is so to unify himself with the One that personality
vanishes and the limited self becomes the wuversal Se\f.
But by one of those curi ous paradoxes whi ch attend all
spiritual life, the men who followed this way, so far
from becoming nonentities, grew into personalities of
the highest form. P erhaps the Chinese had a clearer
understanding of this paradox, for in Taoism and Zen
we find the cult of :impersonality side by side with a
profound appreciation of things momentary and personal.
For in answer to questions about ultimate realities the
Zen masters, instead of giving philosophical discourses
in the Indian manner, pointed to a clump of bamboos,
a flock of wild geese on the wing, or a sack of rice.
Long before Indian philosophy had been heard of in
China Lao Tzu said : " The Sage keeps himself behind
and he is in front ; he forgets himself and he is preserved.
Is it not because he is not self-interested that his self­
interest is established l " Here was the paradox of
impersonality and personality d eveloping together, and
in an old Zen saying we find it stated in another way :
To a m:J.n who knows nothing of BudJhism, mow1tains arc
mountains, waters are waters, and trees arc trees. But when he
35
 THE WISDOM OF ASIA
has read the scriptures and knows a little of Buddhism, mountains '
are no longer mountains, waters no longer waters, and trees no
longer trees [i.e. they are 11111ya or illusion] . But when he has thor­
oughly understood Buddhism, mountains are once again mountains,
waters are waters, and trees are trees.

Whatever the precise meaning of these words, the differ­

ence from the accepted trend of Indian philosophy is
obvious. But though it may seem that the Indians were
content with the second stage, and seldom passed on to
the third, this is only partially true, for there were some
who understood more deeply. Thus this third stage,
although not expressly stated, is at least implied in two
of the Mahayana sutras-the Laukavatara and the Vima­
l akirti-and even in the Upanishads. What is important
to note, however, is that as Indian philosophy developed
through Buddhism, the division between the world of
reality and the world of illusion, Nirvana and Sangsara,
became less absolute. This change did not take place
in Buddhism of the Hinayana or Southern School, which
claims to contain no more and no less than the original
teaching of the Buddha-a claim upon which recent
research has thrown considerable doubt. 1 The trend of
Hinayana is to deny utterly the world of form, to see in
all earthly beauty a sensual snare, to look forward only
1 We refer to the work of Mrs. C. A. F. Rhys Davids. In spite
of some of her rather extravagant conclusions, she has done most
valuable research in showing the disparities in the P.11i C:mon
between the authentic words of the Buddha and the dull interpola­
tions of monkish commentators. Sec her 011tli11es of B111lrlhis111,
London, 1934 ; M111111al of Buddhism, 1932, and all recent works,
indudmg revisions of b o oks p ubli�hcd before the War.
36
 THE DENIAL OF LIFE
to escape from life and death-an escape to be achieved
in the quickest possible manner. To the Hinayanist, life
is misery and all its forms, whether beautiful or ugly,
good or evil, he rejects as equally vain.

The well-taught disciple feels dis gust for body, feels disgust for
feeling, feels disgust for p erception, for the activities, feels disgust
for coruciousm:ss. So feeling disgust he is repelled ; being repelled
he is freed. . . . So that he knows, " D estroyed is rcbirth ; hvcd
is the righteous hfc: ; done is my task ; for life in terms like these
there is no hereafter." 1

Here is the doctrine of maya in its extreme, and similar

passages, drawn out in monotonous and repetitive form,
abound in the Pali Canon-the scriptures of Hinayana
Buddhism. The tragedy is that until comparatively
recently such doctrines as these were presented to tl1e
West as orthodox Buddhism. S cholars began by con­
centrating on the Pali scriptures, and it was not until
later that the Sanskrit texts of tl1e Mahayana were given
publicity. But even here tl1ey found persistent reference
to tl1c emptiness and vanity of the world, and it seemed
as if Mahayana were only a metaphysical version of
Hinayana.
Yet tl1cre was a difference, and in Mahayana the trend
of Indian philosophy underwent a subtle change. For
there came into being the sublime conception of the
Bodhisattva-the sage who sought Enlightenment, not
for his own peace and salvation, but for the welfare of
all sentient beings. " Never will I seek or receive private,
1 Vinaya Pitaka, i. 6, and Samyutta Nikaya, iii. 66 et seq. Trans.
F. L. Woodward.
37
 THE WISDOM OF ASIA
individual salvation ; never will I enter into fmal peace­
alone ; but forever, and everywhere, will I live and strive
for the redemption of every creature throughout the
world." Such was the Bodhisattva's vow, and in it we
see, not the desire to escape from the world, but its fullest
acceptance. For the Bodhisattva identifies himself with
all that lives ; he accepts responsibility for every single
creature, and instead of trying to be delivered from the
world. of life and death he enters into it, knowing that
there can b e no peace for himself until the world, too,
has peace.1 Thus in Mahayana there is little mention
of " disgust " for the things of this world ; on the con­
trary, we find it said that all things are potential Buddhas
and should be treated as such. Furthermore, if we could
only realize it, we should know that at this moment
This very earth is the Lotus Lancl of Purity,
And this bod y is the body of Buddha.

This was the logical result of the ancient teaching of

the Upa11isliads that all individual forms are appearances
of the Di.vine Self. By this the world of form was
given divinity, and the emphasis was shifted from the
illusoriness of the form to the Reality which it contained.
Nirvana and Sangsara were showu to be in truth one and
the same, the only barrier between them being our own
ignorance. But the implicati.011s of this teaching do
not end here, for the Mahayanist philosophers set them­
selves to understand the whole psychology of the attitude
to life which it involved, and in China we find this
1 Sec Chap. V for further treatment of the Bodhisattva ideal.
33
 THE MIDDLE WAY NOT COMPROMISE

' intensely subtle and complex psycholo gy transformed

into a practical way of living.
A study of this evolution of thought will show that
our impression of the Eastern wisdom as a merely im­
personal and world-denying philosophy is no more than
superficial. This is not to say that it does not contain
a strong element of the impersonal, but apart from im­
portant modifications of that clement in its higher forms,
this impersonality might well be a useful counterbalance
to the excesses of Western Humanism. For the principle
by which all problems arc tmderstood, including the pro­
blems of Eastern philosophy, the principle which is at
the root of all creative tl1ought and action, is contained
in the Buddhist doctrine of the Middle Way. This
is not exclusively a Buddhist doctrine, for though it is
given especial emphasis in that religion and also in Taoism,
it is found. i11 somewhat lesser degree il1 many other
systems. The Middle Way must be carefully distin­
guished from mere compromise or moderation ; it is
not so much that which is between extr emes as that which
is born of tl1eir wrion, as the child is born of man and
woman. Hence it is this principle which we must con­
sult in relating all the pairs of opposites. By means of
it we are able to be at peace with life and death, to recog-
1iize alike the demands of co11Scious and unconscious,
to han11011ize rcaso11 and nature, law and. liberty, West
and East. h1 tlris sense, tl1e Middle Way is tl1e first
principle of life, for all that is born proceeds from the
union of two opposites, just as in the myth the world
was created through Water and. the Spirit, the symbols
39
 THE WISDOM OF ASIA
of matter and energy. At heart, the wisdom of Asia ·
is the application of this principle to the spiritual life
of man. For the problem which the sages of the East
endeavoured to solve in so great a variety of ways comes
eventually to this : If man and wo man together create
a child, what is That which we must create from the
opposites of life and death, subject and object, mind and
form-a11d how is it to be done � Disharmony comes
through failure to create, through the opposites b eing
in confusion. Therefore Asia s ought the One which
proceeds from the union of man and the univers e, the
s elf and the " non-self," that through life he might
create instead of being at enmity with the world. Thus,
if it is true that we of the West are ill at ease because of
the conflict of our reason with nature in ourselves and
around us, and if we suffer because we have isolated
rational and conscious man and set him at war with life,
then we have much to learn from Asia's legacy of the
Middle Way.

40
 II. THE FRUIT OF THE TREE

H OWEVER shallow we may find the interpreta­

tions which the Catholic Church has placed upon
its ancient symbols, it would be the greatest folly to rej ect
the symbols themselves. In the doctrines of the Fall of
Man, the Incarnation, the Immaculate Conception, the
Atonement, the Resurrection and the Trinity we may see
mere mythology, mere relics of pagan.ism, of no signifi­
cance to an age of scientific understanding. But how­
ever much we may boast of th.is understanding, the
Catholic Church continues, not only to flourish, but to
increase iii spite of it. In recent years there has been
an important revival in Catholic literature, for the
Church has gathered to herself in modem times a group
of most able writers-van Hugel, . Mercier, Adam,
Chesterton, Gilson, Belloc, and Dawson, not to men­
tion that great philosopher of the Eastern Church,
Nicholas Berdyaev. There is little doubt that one of the
reasons for this revival is that which we have already
mentioned-the inevitable revolt of the modem mind
agamst the so-called Age of Reason. But there is another
which is perhaps even more important, and this is the
tremendous power of the Church's symbols to excite
the unconscious depths of the soul. For however much
we may imagine ourselves to have cut adrift from them,
they return to us under ma11y forms in our dreams and
phantasies, when the intellect sleeps and the m.i11d has
4I
 'l'HE FRUIT OF TI-i:E TREE
liberty to break from the rational ord:::r which it de- '
mands. These symbols arc far more ancient than the
Church ; they are fotmd in the mythologies of every
culture of antiquity and seem to have been embedded in
human thought even in prehistoric times. From time
to time fashionable theories arise concerning their origin ;
it is said that they are " nothing but " phallic, or ' ' nothing
but " solar, yet there is always something in these
" nothlng but " theories which reminds one of the
sweeping generalizations of the scientific tyro, of the
amateur who desires facts to conform with preconceived
theories. Without doubt these archaic symbols arc not
only phallic and solar but also spiritual, for it appears
that all forms of growth and life follow a similar pattern,
whether the functions of sex, the stars or the dcvdopment
of divine understanding. To say that a symbol is phallic is
not, as some imagine, a way of detracting from its value.
On the contrary, if it were unable to be interpreted in a
phallic sense it could not be called a universal symbol.
For the principles of sex are in no way different from
the principles of religion, which is not to say that religion
originates in sex, but simply that both are aspects of the
same life. If it is going to be argued that all culture is
based upon sex, it might equally well be argued that it is
based upon breathing or eating, for all three arc alike
methods ofsustaining life and follow the same principles. 1
1 See Gustav Richard Heyer, Der Orga11ist1111s der Seclc, cine

Ei,ifiihnmg in die analytische Seele11l1eilk1111de, J. F. Lehman-Verlag,

Munich, 1932. English translation The Organism of tl1c Mind,
London, 1933.
 THE SYMB OLS OF CHRISTIANITY

Thus our method will be to work from these symbols,

to examine their " orthodox " interpretations, and then
to show how much more they can mean in the light of
Oriental and modern psychology. And here it must be
made clear that we arc conccmed less with their cos­
mological, metaphysical and biological meanings tha11
with their application to the human soul. Hence, to
begin at the beginnin g, we arc interested rather in the
creation and Fall of Adam than in the creation of the
universe. Keeping to the ancient order, we shall pro­
ceed from Adam to the birth of the Christ, a11d thence
to the Passion a11d Resurrection, for there is meaning
not only in the isolated symbols but also in their whole
connection-not only in the Fall and the Incarnation,
but in the Fall followed by the Incarnati.011. In the
words of St. Paul, " For as in Adam all die, even so i11
Christ shall all be made alive." Furthermore, we arc
not concemed with any historical connection that may
or may not exist between the symbols of Christianity
and those of Buddhism, Vedanta, Taoism and the
Mysteries. It would certainly be convenient if we could
be sure that all religions have their root in a central
Wisdom Religion imparted to the world from time
to time by a secret hierarchy of initiates. This would
no doubt solve many of the problems which trouble the
religious historian, the scholar who is interested in the
spread and evolution of the symbols themselves. But
it would ho of little concem to those who are simply
interested in the meaning of symbols. From the stand­
point of mean.fog it docs not matter whether Christianity
43
 THE FRUIT OF THE TREE

is a development of Paganism, an offsho ot of the Wisdom

Religion or a purely independent growth. These are
historical and 11ot psychological questions.

The doctrine of the Fall and of Original Sin was one

of the first Catholic dogmas to be rej ected by modern
rationalism. For Humanism is distinguished by a
certain optimism, a certain faith in the supremacy of
human reason, to which the idea of man's ess ential
frailty and sinfulness is wholly repugnant. Since the
Great War less and less has been said about the great
ideal of Progress so favoured by the scientists and philo­
sophers of an earlier generation, for that war was, among
other things, the greatest witness of our age to the truth
of Original Sin, to the presence of the unrege11crate
Adam in the soul of homo sapiens. S ome may have seen
in it the j udgement of a wrathful Go d against a people
so confident of their own inherent wisdom as to be able
to do without Him ; it would perhaps be more correct
to say that the L ord simply left His people to themselves
so that, without any interference on His part, their
" wisdom " simply proved its own limitatio11s, its
incapacity to override that aspect of the soul which
c orresponds to " nature, red in tooth and claw." For the
Church has always taught that man is unable to achieve
salvation by his own light. By reason of Adam's
disobedience, of his eating of the fruit of the tree of
Knowledge, and of his expulsion from Eden , the whole
human race has inherited the desire for Sin, for diver­
gence from the will of God. And because " the wages
44
 NO GOOD WITHOUT EVIL
•of sin is death," man has b een placed in a condition
where there is not only a con:Bict b etween good and
evil but also between life and death. Thus man is, of
his own power, unable to conquer either sin or death ;
whatever he may have of goo dness and life is tainted by
their opposites. In this sense man is predestined to
damnation, to eternal banishment from Eden, from the
presence of God, to try and work out his own salvatio11
-if he can. But b ecaus e, in this condition, he is tom
mercilessly between good and evil, and because from the
frailty of his nature he tends to move towards the latter,
life divorced from the presence of God is necessarily
a hell. Christian eschatology has made this hell an
after-death state, and il.1. the same way has removed the
blessedness of Eden to the life beyond the grave. This
is perhaps the least profound of all its teachings, for unless
it is recognized that heaven and hell arc very much in
this present world the whole Christian scheme becomes
dependent upon metaphysics, and the demise of the
body becomes an event of unnecessary significance.
The Day of Judgement is thus placed in the future
instead of in the past, and though this may be convenient
for the purpose of frightening people into good be­
haviour, it does not encourage any real enlightenment.
The Day of Judgement, however, was the day when
Adam was banished from E den, and this involved a
judgement not on Adam alone but on his entire progeny.
For it signified the removal of man from the Divine
Grace, a removal whose necessary and immediate conse­
quence is damnation. But Calvin maintained that there
4S
 THE FRUIT OF THE TREE

was, besides pr edestination to damnation, predestination •

to Grace, and that through Adam the human race was
not only inevitably sinful, but that " before the founda­
tions of the world were laid " God had foreordained
those who were to receive His Grace. This doctrine
follows perfectly logically from the conception of an
anthropomorphic God who is omnipotent (and thus
knows the future) . However, it reduces the Christian
scheme of the universe to the mer ely mechanical, to
a mere arrangement of wooden chessmen with which
God and Satan play on the Etemal Boar d. Through
this doctrine the human being entirely loses significa11ce ;
all that matters is the struggle of wits between God .and
Satan, and that is no concern of human beings. For
some reason it is considered inevitable that God will
win, a11d the whole procedure is rendered more purpose­
less then ever . Calvinism may have been a triumph
of human logic, but it was an utter defeat of the huma11
soul, and it is to the Catholic Church that we ar e indebted
for preserving that wholly illogical but essentially divine
factor called free-will. For this implies that though
man has not the power to attain salvation through his
own efforts he has freedom to choose between the accep­
tance and refusal of Grace.
In spite of the r evolt of science against the idea of
Original Sin, it is science which has in our own time
provided the most powerful a dvocate of that very
doctrine. The revelations which this particular scientist
presented to a world still deeply imbued with Humanist
ideals were received with incredulous horror. But time
46
 FREUD AND ORIGINAL SIN
·and growing knowledge have made us more accustomed
to his discovery, and, in spite of s ome of the unfortunate
conclusions he drew from it, it is finding a growing
acceptance. When Sigmund Freud declared that be­
neath our conscious mental pro cesses there are other
unconscious and more powerful process es, he was
certainly bearing witness to human frailty. And when
he showed that s ome of thes e processes were p eculiarly
horrible, he was simply repeating what the Church had
always said about man's essential sinfulness. But what
made his discoveries especially unp opular was his in­
convenient way of discovering the most vile unconscious
motives behind the most virtuous cons cious deeds .
Yet this was only furth er pro of of Christian teaching,
in that those who neglect God and attempt to be virtuous
of themselves have no real virtue but are simply re­
sponding to their evil nature, attempting to deny God
by proving that His Grace is not necessary. Ill this
sense the saying holds true that " all goo d deeds are
done for the love of gain." It is possible for cynic and
psycho-analyst alike to find, with perfect justice, essen­
tially selfish motives behind apparently w1sel.6.sh deeds,
even though the person in question, may be unaware of
them.
To obtain a deeper insight into the doctrine of the
Fall of Man and Original Sin we must, for the moment,
set aside the factor of Divine Grace and consider the
life of man as something quite apart from God. In
short, we must consider the condition of the soul in its
unredeemed and unregenerate state. What is especially
- � E
 THE FRUIT OF THE TREE

significant about the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is •

that it gave man consciousness of good as well as evil.
Before the Fall Adam was unaware not only of evil
but also of good, and at that point the story leaves us
altogether vague as to what manner of life Adam led
in the state of blessedness. If we are to c onsider the
myth chronologically, we may perhaps assume that he
led a merely amoral existence like the animals, and that
the eating of the fruit signified the birth of self-conscious­
ness. Just as the child is apparently without the moral
sens e of the adolescent and adult, so perhap s Adam led
the life of a child concerning which Jesus said, " Except
ye be as little children ye cannot enter into the Kingdom
of Heaven." It is here that we receive some enlighten­
ment from the Taoist sages of China, for Taoism also
had its state of blessedness and its Fall. Turning to
Chuang-Tzu we find the following description of man
before the Fall :

Good men were not appreciated ; ability was not conspicuous.

Rulers were mere beacons, while the people were free as the wild
deer. They were upright without being conscious of duty to their
neighbours. They loved one another without being conscious of
charity. They were true without being conscious ofloyalty. They
were honest without being conscious of good faith. They acted
freely in all things without recogmzing obligations to anyone.
Thus their deeds left no trace: ; their affairs were not handed down
to posterity.
( Trans. Giles.)

As to the Fall itself, Lao-Tzu says in the Tao Ching :Te

'' Great Tao lost, and there came duty to man and right
48
 THE FALL IN TAOISM
• conduct." That is to say, as long as one is in perfect
accord with the Tao the question of good and evil does
not arise ; one's actions are spontaneously adapted to
social and material conditions. But there comes the
Fall, and at once the pairs of opposites are born. Of
these Lao-Tzu says (Tao Te Ching, 2) :
When all in the world understand beauty to be beautiful, then
ugliness exists.
When all understand goodness to be good, then evil exists.
Thus existence suggests non-existence ;
Easy gives rise to difficult ;
Short is derived from long by comparison ;
Low is distinguished fron1 high by p osition.
( Tra11s. Ch'u Ta-Kao.)

As soon as we are conscious of these opposites it becomes

necessary to make laws, to ordain rewards and punish­
ments, to preach good conduct and to study ethics.
Thus there arises a violent conflict between good and
evil, and because it is impossible for the one to exist in
our consciousness without the other, the conflict re­
mains without victory or defeat on either side. But
man imagines that by strict obedience to the moral law
good can be made to conquer, so much so that much of
the ethical teaching of to-day (as of other " rational ••
ages) is based on the assumption that all that is necessary
is a sound law and a powerful will to obedience. People
who call themselves Christians so often say that if we
only obeyed the precepts given in the Sermon on the
Mount, that would b e sufficient to bring civilization to
a state of blessedness. But in the Epistles to the Romans
49
 THE FRUIT OF THE TREE
and the Galatians St. Paul shows that to rely on law is"
to enter a spiritual cul-de-sac, to continue in a state
of imprisonment between its two sides, good and evil,
and to run wildly from one to the other in a vain attempt
to find salvation. Thus in the seventh chapter of
Romam is the following significant passage :

For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were
by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto
death. . . . What shall we say then ! Is the law sin ! God for­
bid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law : for I liad not k11ow11
lust, excc:p t tlie laiv had said, Thou slialt 11ot covet. But sin, taking
occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of con­
cupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive
without the law once : but when the commandment came, sin
revived, and I died.

St. Paul is not suggesting that the law is i11 itself an evil,
but simply that, as a result of his own fallen state, when
the law admonished good this inevitably suggested its
opposite, evil.
To some it may not be sufficient to say that we cannot
of ourselves overcome evil with good because the two
mutually give rise to one another. They will say that
this is no more than a logical trick and demand concrete
evidence. Let us then imagine for a moment what
would happen if everyone suddenly decided to observe
the moral law. Apart from the not very serious sug­
gestion that it would cause grave unemployment among
policemen, bankers' clerks, ticket-collectors and soldiers,
we should find the absence of evil the main cause of its
speedy return. For the greater part of virtue, as we
so
 WITHOUT THE LAW SIN IS DEAD

·.know it, consists precisely in resisting evil, and goodness

derives its health and strength from the exercise of this
conflict. Without the stimulus of evil the power of
moral resistance would become atrophied, and the
m oment someone decided that life was growing a
little dull and that it might be interesting to have some
evil for a change, sin would return with redoubled
strength and continue to :flourish unopposed until the
balance was restored. But as this is somewhat outside
the bowids of p ossibility, let us consider instead the
problem of what is known in psychological jargon as
" repression." This is generally w1derstood as the
conscious or unconscious attempt to resist and banish
from the mind an impulse or impression which it either
fears or for some other reason considers undesirable.
Psychological research reveals that such impulses are
in fact not banished but rather aggravated by the resis­
tance offered. In the course of resistance they may be
forgotten, because forgetting is in itself an unconscious
method of resisting, and, although temporarily u11-
conscious, these impulses cause a state of mental indi­
gestion similar to the results of retaining decayed fo o d
i n th e body. This discovery i s often used o r condemned
as an excuse for all manner of immorality. Yet if
the discovery is true, it seems that man has only two
a1tern.atives : to contract serious neuroses through
repression or to indulge his impulses with.out restraint.
Of course, it is almost impossible to adopt either extreme
in its entirety, for man cannot co11tinuc on any ex­
treme course for any length of time without meeting
SI
 THE FRUIT OF THE TREE

oppos1t1on. Thus in its own terms the problem has

no satisfactory s olution, for it is concerned 011ly with
two opposites-the conscious and the unconscious
-and iii terms of opposites alone nothing is ever
solved.
For the fallen condition of man consists precisely in
being b ound to th.is pendulum which swings from one
extreme to the other, from good to evil, life to death,
pleasure to pain, and love to hate. Indeed, it is upon
the fact of opposites that the very existence of the u11i­
verse depends, for who can conceive light without
darkness, fullness without emptiness, expansion without
b oundary, beginning without ending ! Just as man
would cease to exist without woman, there could be no
life without death. For in eating our fo o d we kill in
order that we may live, and from th e decaying matter
of animals and plants build up the living tissue of our
bodies. And from cast-off manure flowers and plants
grow again to die in their turn and give nourishment
to other forms . Yet it is not usual to consider that
there is anything particularly disgusting in this mter­
dependence of life and death , and there is no more reason
to find anything repulsive in the existe11ce of an un­
conscious mind whose contents somewhat resemble
manure. When food enters our mouths we like it to
lo ok pleasant and taste good, but in the unconscious
realms of the stomach and b owels it develops just the
opposite qualities. This remains a perfectly natura1
and happy arrangement until there arises a conflict
between the conscious mouth and the w1conscious
52
 THE CONFLICT OF OPPOSITES
ston1ach. In such conflicts it is usually, in fact always,
0

the unconscious element which asserts itself to most

effect. However much we may repress it or try to
forget its existence, it suddenly rebels and makes us
vomit or else causes all manner of disease. Whereat
we are confronted with some highly unpleasant facts
about our internal organs . It should not surprise us,
therefore, when Freud confronts us with some e qually
unpleasant facts about the unconscious and internal
workings of the mind. For between mental and b odily
processes there is an almost exact c orrespondence, and
the maladjustments of modem man may thus in great
measure be put down to his disregard of the mental
stomach, to his absorption in the purely conscious
delights of the feast.
Thus the fallen condition of man does not consist in
the fact of there b eing opposites ; it is rather in his
incapacity to cope with the conflict between them-a
conflict, moreover, which he in his unregenerate state
creates . For underlying the conflicts between g o o d
an d evil, pleasure and pain, li fe an d death, i s what might
be called the primary conflict between man and the
universe, the " I " and the " not-I," the subj ective ego
and the objective world. Hence we find in the story
of the Fall that, before Adam eats of the fruit and so
creates the opposition between good and evil, this
primary conflict is shown in the temptation to disobey
the will of God. For God has created the univers e and
seen that all in it is good. Everything conforms with
His plan, and the world is at one with Him. But be--
S3
 THE FRUIT OF THE TREE

tween Adam and Eve and God there comes the Serpent,
and from that moment man is set at variance with Go d
and His universe. He ca.ts of the Tree, and at once
God proclaims a state of conflict between Adam and
the wor]d.
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and
thy conception ; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth cltildren . . . .
And unto Adam he said . . . Cursed is the ground for thy sake ;
in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.

There is a peculiar resemblance between thes e words

and the famous passage on sorrow (dukkha) in the first
sermon of the Buddha (Samyutta Nikaya, v. 421-3 ) .
" Birth is sorrow, decay is sorrow, sickness is sorrow,
death is sorrow. . . . To be conjoined with things
we dislike, to be separated from things which we like
-that also is sorrow. Not to get what one wants­
that too is sorrow." Sorrow in this sense must be
understood not simply as pa.in as opposed to pleasure.
For if we conceive dukkha as " discord " or " lack of
harmony," we shall see that it refers rather to a state of
discord in the relationship between pleasure and pain,
implying a conflict between the two opposites. This
conflict exists only in the mind of man, for it is he who
sets the opposites at war by striving for the perpetuation
of one and th e abolition of the other. It is precisely
this conflict which is at the root of man's misery, of
his spiritual dis-ease, for he is seeking something which
simply docs not exist, which is may a in the real sense of
that term. For as there is no pleasure without pa.in,
dukkha would seem to be the illusion (maya) of seeking
54
 SORROW AND DESIRE
)?leasure as a thing-in-itself (atta) . Therefore the Buddha
describ ed all individual things considered in an d by
themselves as anatta, anicca and dukkha-without soul,
impermanent and pro ducing sorrow. Furthermore,
man's desire for the thing-in-itself arises from what we
have called the primary conflict between himself and
the universe, between the part and the whol e. For this
is the desire (tanha) to exist as an isolated being for
whom the universe is no more than a personal appendage,
imagining that the part has som.e meaning in and by
itself and that the universe can be brought into line with
that meaning.
Thus tanha can only come into b eing because man docs
not understand anatta, becaus e he tries to hold himself
apart from life as a separate entity. This tremendous
attachment to the ego implies that he can mtly accept
those things in life which please it and rej ect those which
give it pain, and in this he is like one who attempts to
separate the beautiful parts of the human bo dy from the
ugly with the result that he kills both. For anatta
means that any individual thing taken apart from life
has absolutely 110 meanin g, no use, no life, 110 autono­
mous soul. For there is 110 living finger without a
hand ; a spoke cannot run row1d without a wheel ;
a hair cannot grow without a head. For if we consider
these two opposites the part and the whole, we see that
they can no more exist without each other than pleasure
without pain. That they are opposites we know well
enough, for each on e of us distinguishes sharply between
the self and the n ot-self, subj ect and object, " I " and the
ss
 THE FRUIT OF THE TREE
universe. But separate self from the universe a11d it"
has no existence-it is a11atta. The converse is also true,
and here we have to rememb er that in original Bu ddhism
th.ere i.s no reference whatever to th e doctrine which
some Western interpreters have ascribed to it, namely
that the Goal is man's absorption into the universe. For
the whole has no existence without its parts. No one
ever saw a hammer without handle or head, or a cub e
without sides, or a tree without leaves, branches, roots
or trunk. The Buddha never said th.at the self docs not
exist in any s ense whatever ; indeed, when a certain
Vacchagotta pressed him for a defuute Yes or No 011
this point, the only answer he received. was a " Noble
Silence " (Samyutta Nikaya, iv. 400) . In the same way
he did not say that life is ess entially suffering. The
point is that without sorrow there is no joy, and joy is
not any the less j oyful for this reason. On the contrary,
if there were no sorrow, j oy would not only be tedious
bt1t unnoticed. These three m.isi11tcrprctations have
sadly clouded Western w1dcrstanding of Buddhism,
though it should be noted that the West docs not bear
the sole responsibility. Buddhism has suffered just as
much at the hands of certain monk interpreters who
have turned it in to a philosophy of pure disintegration.
They have simply analysed life into its various parts,
declared that the whole does not exist b ecause there
are only parts, and then proceeded to deny the parts
themsdves .
A trend of thought similar to the Buddha's may also
he found in the Upanishae1s, and here again we have
j6
 MAYA IN THE UPANISHADS
ro encounter misinterpretation. For we shall find that
what the Buddha described in the three terms of a11atta,
anicca and dukkha is here contained in the single term
maya-illusion. In the Rigveda the word denotes a
cunning device, a magi.cal act or even a trick, but i.J.1 the
Upanishads it is given the wider meaning of the trick,
the deceit, by which the mind of man produces the
illusion of separateness (sakay aditthi), the consciousness
of objects as realities in th emselves. But it is held that
the only reality is the Self (Atman) , and that objects arc
only real in so far as they are appearances of the Self,
which is to say that whereas their distinctive marks arc
unreal, there is a single Reality from which they arc
manifeste d. through the ignorance (avidya) of our mind.�.
Thus Yajnavalkya says : " When the Self is seen, heard,
perceived. and known, the whole universe is known,"
and again, " He who imagines there is plurality goes
from death to death." (Brilzadaranyaka- Upanisliad, 4.
iv. 19 ; v. 6) . And in the Chandogya-Upanishad (7.
xxv. 2.) we find : " The Self is above and below,
behind and :iii front. The Self is all the world." In the
tropical climate of hid.i.a this doctrine became what we
might call an " excuse for idleness." For it s eemed to
proclaim the world of form as a dream, a phantasm
which the wise would do well to ignore, and in carrying
it into practice many a sannyassin became a world­
denier, an utterly isolated seeker of enlightenment which,
if it satisfied himself, was of little benefit to others. The
doctrine of maya was thus, on the one h and, the occasion
of a via negativa which involved the virtual annihilation
S7
 THE FRUIT OF THE TREE
of the world. The seeker lost both himself and tht!
universe in the contemplation of the Infinite-a con­
templation. which may not appeal to us but requires,
we are told, a special sense of appreciation. For the
ego is not bored by the hi.finite when the ego has ceased
to exist. But the difficulty of the Infinite, though some
might think it almost blasphemy to say so, is that it is
a mere opposite, that it would be altogether inconceiv­
able without the Finite. Someone has even gone so
far as to say that " there is nothing infinite apart
from finite things " and Chesterton once observed that
God is " the synthesis of infu:i.ity and b ow1dary."
Yet it should be sufficiently obvious that the Infinite
means simply that which is not finite and so is only
distinguished, only exists, by contrast. Th.is point,
however, did 11ot escape tl1e philosophers of Vedanta.
For, on the other hand, we find this passage in the
Isha-Upanishad : " In darkness are they who worship
the world alone, but in greater darkness they who
worship the Infinite alone. He who accepts both saves
himself from death by knowledge of the former
and attains immortality by the knowledge of the
latter."
But this may seem to be at variance with the true
Advaita Vedanta-the doctrine that the world is One,
that all forms a11d qualities are illusion, and that even
the illusion is itself an illusion. That is to say, there
are not two worlds, the real and the W1Ieal, the Absolute
Brahman and the world of forms. For Sankara, the
great exponent of Vedanta, says that the latter simply
58
 THE LIMITATI ONS OF INFINITY

does not exist,1 that there is only the Absolute Infmite

Brahman, without form and without attribute, which is
described in the Mand11ky a- Upanisliad (vii) as

that which is not co1ucious of the subjective, nor that which is co11-
scious of the objective, nor tha.t which is conscious of both, nor that
wluch is simple consciousness, nor that which is a mass all scnticncy,
nor that which is all darkness. It is unseen, transcendent, unapprc­
hensible, uninferable, unthinkable-, indescribable, the s ole essence of
the consciousness of self, the negative of all illusion, the ever peaceful,
all bliss, the One Unit.
( Tra11s. Dvi11cdi. )

Sankara p oints out that although the One is described by

negatives (neti, neti) it is not itself a negative ; negatives
are only used because " the imagination must have so1nc­
thing to stand up on " ; in fact, we can 011.ly conceive
the Infurite as the not finite, as the word itself implies.
Yet apparently Sankara woul d say, not that the Infinite
presupposes the finite, but that there is only the Infinite
and the finite do cs not exist. B ut however satisfactory
this may be from the purely metaphysical standpoint,
practically it is the absolute denial of the world. If
Sankara's philosophy, supposing we have 11ot misw1dcr­
sto od it, is to be made a way of life, it can only lead us
to the ultimate futility of pure Infurity, which is to say
non-existence, for the Infinite has no existence apart
from its opp osite, the finite.
But Vcdanta can 01tly have meaning a11d practical
application if we understand Sankara in this way :
1 Mamlukyopa11ishacl, with Sankara's commentary (trans. M. N.
Dvived.i. Bombay, 1909), pp. 20 et seq.
S9
 THE FRUIT OF THE TREE
that :finite and Infinite are not separable, that they ar!
Advaita-not two but One, and that One is Brahman.
Thus we have the Trinity :
BRAHMAN

INFINITE FINITE

and these three arc One. Maya (illusion) is to regard the

Infinite as in any way opposed to the finite (or vice
versa) or to regard Brahman as opposed to fini te and
Infinite together. He11ce, if we say, " There is only the
:finite," we err ; if we say, " There is 011Jy the I11.6.11ite,"
we err. Vedanta deni es both, if they arc to be sought
as things existing apart from each other and without
each other ; but it affirms both if they arc understood as
together being Brahman. Thus it docs not dcny the
world ; it glorifies it by making it one with Brahman.
To think that the world is not Brahman is indeed maya,
but the world ceases to be 111aya when u11dcrstood as one
with Brahman. But that do es not mean that the world
itself ceases to exist. Hence the saying Tat tvam asi
-" That (Brahman) art thou ! "-and if we understand
that, the world is no long er maya. In other words, if we
apprehend separate forms as one with Brahman, this
do es not imply that we pass beyond forms it1to form­
lessness, into pure Infinity. For Brahmau is uot form­
lessness alone, a11d it 1nust not be thought that the aim
60
 " TAT TVAM ASI ! "
of troe Vedanta is absorption into the Infinite, which is
tantamount to annihilation. This is expressly stated
in one of the most important Upanishads, the Brihadaran­
yaka : " In truth there are two forms of Brahm.an :
the formed and the formless, the mortal and the immortal,
the solid and the fluid, the definite and the indefinite.''
In the same way Deussen writes that " Brahman is sat
and asat, the existing and the non-existing, satyam and
asatyam, reality and unreality." 1 For here again we
have the principle of the Middle Way beyond the
opposites. Paradoxically the Goal is both and neither,
for it is synthesis, whereby the opposites through them­
sdves surpass themselves, just as man and woman unite,
while yet remaining different, and create a child. Taken
together, the opposites create and are Brahman ; taken
apart they create maya, illusion, which is to say that
they cease to exist. We must understand maya as the
opposites taken apart just because man, when under
the veil of maya, tries to separate them and to hold to
one alone. The error of the opposites is not in dis­
tinguishing between life and death, but in attempting to
isolate them, to hold to the one and reject the other.
To the Vedantist and Buddhist alike both are aspects of
the same Brahman or Sunyata ; thus they deny them
as things-in-themselves, not as aspects.
As the philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism was evolved
out of Indian thought the idea of the One Reality
as something opposed to this unreal world gradualJy
1 Allgemeine Gesicl1te dcr Plrilcisophie (Leipzig, 1894-1908), i. 2,
p. 1 1 7.
61
 THE FRUIT OF THE TREE

drifted even farther into the backgrow1d. Thus Dr.

D. T. Suzuki writes : 1
Sunyata is a concept even prior to the rise of this world of plurali­
ties, underlying it, and at the same time conditioning it so that all
individual existences have their being in it. Although we say that
Sunyata is " that which underli:s " the one and the many, birth
and death, you and me, that which is and that which is not, it is
not quite right to say " underlies," for it suggests the opposition
between that which lies under and that which lies over-which is
a new dualism ; and when we go on like this we commit the fault
of infinite regression.

Sunyata literally means " Emptiness " or what is some­

times known as " the Void," though accordi.J.1g to Dr.
Suzuki it should be regarded more as a " third concept "
mediating between the opposites and existi.J.1g in them,
so that the whole trinity comprises what the Japa.11ese
Mahayanists call Byodo in Shabetm and Shabetsu in Byodo
-unity in diversity and diversity in wtity. It will be
noted that Dr. Suzuki describes Sw1yata as that which
underli es " the one and the many," for the Mahayana
insists that even if one discovers the One Reality b ehind
the manifold appearances the Goal has not yet been
achieved. For the Sutras say that we must get rid
even of the idea of One-ncss, even of Nothingness, until
we :finally realize the state of " neither existent nor non­
existent," " neither nameless nor not nameless " (hiso­
hihiso-sho) ; then only have we realized Sunyata. In
fact, we may say that Sunyata is neither real nor unreal,
positive nor negative, plural nor singular. In other
1 Buddhism in the Life a11d T/1 011ght ofJa an (London, 1937), p. 2.
p
62
 " THE FULLNESS OF THE VOID "
words, although the Mahayana states it negatively,
Sunyata is the synthesis of both. This is perhaps the
most fundamental and the least understood pri.11.ciple
of Buddhist philosophy, and though we fmd it stated
more explicitly in the Mahayana, it is implied even in
the Pali texts of the Hinayana (as in the four jhanas).
For Buddhism never teaches categorically that the
world is unreal ; 1 an d when it says that it is neither real
nor unreal it is neither avoiding the issue nor making a
compromise. Its position is simply that if we conceive
a single Reality behind the multitudinous forms of the
world, we must not make an opposition between the
two. This is in the true Advai ta tradition of Indian
philosophy ; for Advaita means " not two," and if we
begin to think about the real and the unreal, the one and
the many, we immediately fall i.11.to a dualism. Further­
more, when Buddhism teaches that Sunyata is neither
real nor unreal it is not opp osing Sunyata to reality
and unreality (sat and asat), for this would be another
dualism. It is only another way of saying that Sunyata
is both real and unreal. FtU1damentally this means that
Sunyata is neither of tl1e pairs of opposites but both,
that it is neither life nor death alone, neither singular
nor plural alone, but tl1at it is the two taken together.
Here we return to the original idea that inaya applies
to the opposites considered s eparately, to reality as
existing apart from unreality, to life considered as some­
thing which can be had without death. But it docs not
apply t<?_,the opposites when seen as mutually dependent.
1 . Samy utta Nika n, iv. 400.
y
63 F
 THE FRUIT OF THE TR.EE
Thus if we try to grasp pleasure and rej ect pain, we seek
a maya ; if we accept both we find Brahman.
This is even more clearly stated in Taoism, for the
Chinese preferred to use the language of everyday life
rather than the jargon of philos ophy. Indeed, s o clearly
did Taoism grasp the idea of the opposites as mutually
dependent that it is almost unique among religions in
possessing no moral code. Both Buddhism and Vedanta
speak of the Goal as beyond Good and Evil, yet at the
same time they provide a morality for the discipline of
those who have not reached the spiritual insight of the
sage. Thus both Buddhism and Vedanta were able to
retain a certain dignity when they became popular
creeds, whereas Taoism very rapidly degenerated into
a mixture of laziness and superstition. This, however,
is no reflection on the truth of Taoism, for often enough
in the greatest truth is the greatest danger. Essentially
Taoism was a religion for the few, for it recognized fully
the interdependence of good and evil, and preached
what might be called a Greater Good beyond the pairs
of opposites. But for those whose understanding is
not sufficiently developed, the doctrine of the relativity
of good and evil is simply an excuse for libertinism.
Thus Chuang Tzu says :
Those who would have right without its correlative, wrong ;
or good g overnment without its correlative, misrule,-they do not
apprehend the great principles of the universe nor the conditions
to which all creanon is subj ect. One might as well talk of the
existence of heaven without that of earth, or of the negative prin­
ciple without the positive, which is clearly absurd.
( Trans. Giles.)
 AVOIDING EXTREMES

'I'he obvious conclusion would be that if it is imp ossible

to have good government without misrule, no harm
can be done by indulging in misrule to our heart's
content, and no good by rebelling against tyranny.
And once again we see that the problem has no solution
in its own terms. However mud1 Chuang Tzu's dry
statement may conflict with our ideals, we have to admit
that in those words he has summed up the whole history
of human politics to the present day. For the Taoist
views morality neither as something with whic;h the
world can dispense, nor as a sign of spiritual progress.
He does not strive to cultivate it in others or in himself
any more than he strives to cultivate immorality. He
simply observes that the two must necessarily follow
one another or exist together, b ecause they arc back and
front of the same coin. He has no moral law to preach,
for he knows that if there is evil, a moral law will arise
of itself and vice versa. For this reason the advice wl1ich
the Taoist sages gave to the rulers of states may seem
the purest cynicism. " The energies of the Emperor
should be directe d to keeping the minds of the people
unpreoccupied and their bellies well filled." For the
uncomfortable fact is that unless people can of themselves
find the Tao, the ruler must just do his best to keep a
balance between extremes.
Not exalting the worthy keeps the p eople from emulation. Not
valuing rare things keeps them from theft. Not showing what is
desirable keeps their hearts fron1 confusion.
(" Tao Te Cliillg," III. Tra11s. Cli'u Ta-Kr10.)
In fact the object of Taoist politics seems to be
65
 THE FRUIT OF THE TREE
to avoid extremes of evil by avoiding extremes of
good.
Do away with learning, and grief will not be known.
Do away with sageness and ej c:ct wisdom, and the: people will be
more benefited a hundred times. . . .
Do away with aro.fi.ce and eject g ains, and there: will be no robbers
and thieves.
(Ibid., XIX.)

This, however, is rather different from the advice given

to the ruler for directing his own life-advice which, as
we shall see, concerns the same Middle Way that we
find in ::Buddhism and Vedanta. And here again let it
be said that the Middle Way is not just an avoidance of
extremes like Taoist politics. This is but a shadow of
the Middle Way, and there is much to be said for the
wisdom of Buddhism and Vedanta in incorporating a
moral law as well as a mystical philosophy. For even
if morality is, by itself, utterly unable to remove evil
from the world, it does at least give that mental con­
centration which is necessary for the Middle Way apart
from any question of good and evil whatsoever. For
where th.ere is morality there is struggle, certainly in­
decisive struggle, but nevertheless life and movement.
It may be moving round in circles, but it saves the soul
from petrefaction. It has been said that where there
are great saints there are great sinners ; thus there is
perhaps more virtue in the great sinner than in the man
who is a moral n011entity, who is no better than a lump
of wood or a piece of stone. A criminal may be going
in the wrong direction, but he is at least going. Hence
66
 THE MORAL PENDULUM
the words of the Bible, " because thou art neither hot
nor cold I will sp ew thee out of my mouth," and hence
also Christ's preference of publicans and sinners to the
pharisees who prided themselves on the somewhat
useless attainment of not being very evil. Herein is the
stupidity of the merely negative precept so often mis­
taken for an effective moral code, for it does not follow
that because a person is not evil he is therefore necessarily
good. He is just neither good nor evil, which is not the
same thing as b eing beyond good and evil. In one
s ense it is the difference between stopping the swing of
a pendulum altogether and, alternatively, going to the
point on y.rhich it hangs. That point represents the
Middle Way, for though the opposites depend 011 it
they do not affect it.
Nevertheless, it remains true that, apart from that
point on which the pendulum hangs, we have to choose
between an alternation of good and evil or mere lifeless
mediocrity. For unless we consider that terthim quid
which relates the opposites to one a11other and at the
same time surpasses them, we are hopelessly bound by
the curse of Ad.am, involved iJ.1 a mechanical, determin­
istic and barren condition from whose logic there is 110
release. This is yet another example of the insufficiency
of reason alone to cope with the deepest problems of
life ; at its best it will try to subject all things to the
moral order, neglecting the irrational a11d m1co11scious
forces of disorder which have an equal claim to recogni­
tion ; at its worst it will perceive the inevitability of this
moral alternation and preserve an attitude of " fatalistic
67
 THE FRUIT OF THE TREE

realism." Christianity has a profound und erstanding"

of this problem, for in recognizing man's inability to
solve it of his own will and reason, it finds this tertium
quid in the Grace of God which brings Chris t to birth
in the human soul. It does not reserve the gift of
Grace for the morally perfected ; Grace is offered
through Christ freely to all. This is clearly implied
in the parable of the Wedding Feast, but our nature is
such that we " all with one accord begin to make
excuse." Hence all the riff-raff " b oth bad and
good " from the highways and hedges are invited
in our place. The same teaching is found even more
expressly in the parable of the Pharisee and the
Publican. For morality is no passp ort to religion ;
on the contrary, there can b e no real morality without
religion, for try as one may, one cannot be wholly
and consistently moral until some form of religious
experience has entirely changed one's desires. Unless
man desires the highest good he only deceives himself
if he tries to obtain it against his inmost wishes,
and, in Christian terminology, it is only the Grace of
God which can create that desire. In other words,
while desire is simply concerned with the conflict
between the opposites man is p erpetually confused.
But if he desires the Christ, the Brahman, the Tao, the
Sunyata, he will attain salvation whatever his moral
status. For this new and irratio11al element will break
up the logic of the opp osites, giving man dominion
over them instead of being no more than the ball which
is tossed between.
68
 MORALITY IS NOT RELIGION

Unfortunately, however, it is not clear how far this

is realized. by the leaders of mod.cm Christianity. So
far as its evangelical work in the Wes c is co11ccmcd it
appears that especially among certain Protestant sects
religious questions are given second place to moral
questions. So much is said about the evils of war, of
unemployment, of the alleged immorality in matters
of sex, that there has long been the most absurd co11-
fusion between morality and religion . Presumably the
Churches wish modem man to become more religious,
but to effect this they must offer Christ and not the
Sermon on the Mou11t or any other system of ethics .
A man is not religious because he abstains from theft
drink, adultery, gambling, fighting and telling lies ;
indeed, he may be anything but religious, and if any­
one imagines that the West is to be recalled to Christi­
anity by an appeal to morality he is surely trying to
" make the tail wag the dog." But there are additional
difficulties. Chris tianity seems to be defici ent in religious
technique. That is to say, it is too much inclined to
offer supposed historical facts as a means of salvation.
For there is a perfectly legitimate type of mind which
cannot find any enthusiasm for someone, however
great, who lived and died two thousa11d years ago and
now exists in some indefinite and dise111bodied state.
It does not understand how the death of that person
can have any connection with the soul's redemption.
After all, thousands of others were crucified as well,
many of them just as undeservedly. In short, it cannot
conceive that any series of historical events can have
69
 THE FRUIT OF THE TREE

any important relationship with the inner life of s ome.:.

one living in a differcut time and a different place.
Certainly one may read the Gospels and try t o follow
the example of Christ, but this is no more than imita­
tion. In a sense the story is as vivid to-day as ever,
but the Church is not sufficiently clear when it offers
Christ as to what it offers other than an admittedly
remarkable story. Moreover, a whole number of im­
portant matters such as the Virgin Birth and the Resur­
rection are removed to the realms of history and eschato­
logy, whereas what so many of us want to know in this
time is how Christ is to be born in us, to make the
sacrifice in us and to rise again in us. In fact, if the
Church would place the emphasis on the Christ story
as an inner experience for each man instead of on a
primarily historical basis, it would be found of infinitely
greater value. The difficulty is that not only the his­
torical emphasis but also the acc epted technique of
prayer is for some people simply a means of putting
Christ at a distance. For s ome, prayer is a perfectly
suitable way of approach, but it must be understood
that for various types of mind various forms of mysti­
cism are required, and of these prayer is only one.
Moreover, it creates the dualism of the one who prays
and the one who is prayed to, and it is necessary to come
closer than that, even to a union between Christ and
the soul. In the words of St. Paul : " I am crucified
with Christ : nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me " (Galatians ii. 20 ) . It is as if the centre of
consciousness were shifted from the ego to the Christ,
70
 THE MEDIATOR
and this should be distinguished from a union with
God, for Christ is the mediator between God and man
and so represents that third principle whirh reconciles
the part with the whole, man with the universe. Thus
Christ is both Son of God and S on of Mau, the Holy
Child that is bom from the two. Once again, if we
would understand more of this Divine Incamation, if
we would find the technique which Christianity lacks
in its present form, we must tum to Asia for further
knowledge of the Middle Way.

7I
 III. THE SON OF GOD AND MAN

T HERE is a sayi11g that the child is father to the

man, and this is true not only in the sense that
the child grows into manhood and that in his infancy
he plants the seeds that bear fruit in maturity. For
the child is father to the man i.11 the deeper sense that
with.out him the division of our kind into man and
woman would have no meaning. If the male is of no
account with.out the female, still less are both male and
female of any accow1t with.out the child, who is in this
sense both their cause, their raison d'2tre, and the product
of the relationship between th.em. So also a symphony
is born of the male sound and the female silence, being
a rhythm of notes sow1ded and silenced. By itself,
sound is nothii1g, for it is unknown with.out silence,
and in the same way silence by itself is unknown.
Moreover, th.ere is nothing in mere silence and mere
sound unless the two are writed by a meaning, which
is the symphony. This Meaning, therefore, which
unites, brings forth and is brought forth by the opposites
is what is called in St. John's Gospel the Word (Logos),
and in the Eastern religions the Dharma and the Tao.
Therefore St. John writes :
In the begmnmg was the Word, and. the Word. was with God.
and the Word was God. . . . He was in the world., and. the world.
was made by him, and the world. knew him not. He came unto
his own, but his own received. him not. But as many)� received.
72
 THE WORD MADE FLESH
Ium., to tliem gave he power to become the sons of God. . . . And the
Word was mad� flesh, ancl dwelt among us.
If these words arc considered apart from the historical
context with which they are usually associated, we may
begin to understand something of this symbol of the
Incarnate Word, the Christ, and of the tremendous
number of its implications. Indeed, it would be no
new thing in Christian history if the historical context
were given a second place, for St. Paul himself appears
to be far more interested in Christ as a spiritual experi­
ence than as the person who worked and taught in
Judaea a little before his own time. For St. Paul hardly
ever quotes the parables and precepts recorded in the
Gospels, and it seems almost as if Jesus of Nazareth was
wholly unknown to him, but for his use of the 11ame
Jcsus and for his references to the Passion and Resur­
rection. These latter, however, were no new ideas in
the Near East ; the cross was 110 new symbol and the
death and resurrection of the God were certainly as old
as the myth of Osiris. This is not to cast any doubt
on the Gospel story ; it is only to show that if indeed
there was a Jesus of Nazareth who was bom of a virgin
and lived as the Gospels record and was what the Gospels
claimed, then He was the living symbol of what must
happen in every man who follows the life of the spirit.
Throughout St. Paul's Epistles there arc constant
references to the birth of Christ in man which would
seern to bear out the words of St. John, " But as many
as received him, to them gave he power to become
the sons of God," or as St. Paul says even more explicitly,
73
 THE SON OF GOD AND MAN
he who receives comes " unto a perfect man, unto the"
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." It
follows, therefore, that Christ is not just some separate
Deity to whom we should offer prayers for Grace and
forgiveness, but something which we must ourselves
become, or rather, something which, in union with life,
we must produce just as man and woman produce the
child.
The original conflict which resulted in the Fall of
Adam was this opposition between man and the universe,
and Christ as the redeemer of the Fall must signify the
restoration of harmony between these two. In this
connection Christ represents the Meaning of the two
opposites, man and the universe, the part and the whole.
It is said that the whole is greater than the sum of its
parts, but the relationship between parts and whole is
best understood if we remember that there are two
wholes : one which is j ust the sum of the parts, which
is the universe, and one which is greater, the Cluist.
That is to say, there is nothing in the parts taken separ­
ately and nothing in the parts taken together to form
a whole unless there is a relationship, a meaning, between
each and all which makes up the meaning of the whole
organism. If a whole is just to be described as the sum
of its parts, then we may say that playing a violin is
a mere matter of scraping cats' entrails with horsehair.
But the whole which is greater than the sum of its
parts is the meaning, the music, the raison d' 2tre of that
interaction of cats' entrails and horsehair which is called
playing a violin. And j ust as both bow and strings
74
 THE BIRTH OF MEANING

move in rhythm with the meaning which is music, so

man and the lllliverse can move in rhythm with that
meaning which is the Tao. Thus Chuang Tzu says :
If metal and stoni: weri: without Ta o, they would not be capable
of emitting sound. And just as they p ossess the propC'rty of sound,
but will not cnut s0tmd unless struck, so surely is the same prmciple
applicable to all creation.
( Tm11s. Giles.)
Therefore, from man's point of view, if the Christ or
the Tao is to be realized, th.ere must first be a union
between himself and the universe to give that realiza­
tion birth. This, however, must not be understoo d as
the abs orption of the s oul into a panthcistically con­
ceived God. If a b ook is to be read with meaning it
is of no use either just to look at it an d think one's
own thoughts or to allow oneself to be completely
absorbed and carried away. There must be a union
between one's own thoughts and the thoughts expressed
in the book, and then only will there be a meaning in
both reading and writing it. Similarly 110 one has ever
seen an egg composed of a cock and hen rolled into one
and put inside a shell, or even a clock in which all the
parts are so perfectly in union with the whole that they
cease to be distinguishable.
But if man is to resolve this primary conflict between
himself and the universe, he must first come to a full
understanding of the pairs of opposites. In psycho­
logical terms this is called " acceptance of life," and this
means acceptance in all its asp ects, just as the plru.1t
welcomes light and air with the flower, and slime and
75
 THE S ON OF GOD AND MAN
dirt with the roots. In other words, we deceive out­
selves if we imagine that the purity of the flower or all
those aspects of life which are noble and beautiful have
no positive relationship with the slime. At the same
time, there is no need to seek out the slime with the
flower and the sun with the roots, because the ugliness
of the slime does not in any way detract from the
beauty of the flower. Thus it cannot be argued that
the psychological doctrine of the Unconscious reduces
human nature to nothing but filth, even though some
psychologists seem a little anxious to prove that it does.
The point is that there is both beauty and filth, and
neither is any more essential than the other. Hence
Heyer says in his Organism of the Mind :
One who has risen out of the " lees " but remains thankful. to
his matemal menstruum and is in no wise revolted by the know­
ledge that his roots strike deep into it, is a human being who has
undergone a natural and healthy development out of the earthly
sphere. Defective and inadequate, on the other hand, has been the
development of him who is a.shamed of his roots-precisely because
he has never achieved the requisite freedom from them. (p. 165.)

In Taoism this acceptance of life is known as wu-wei

(lit. " non-assertion "), or giving up the attempt to
make the universe subservient to the sel£ In the words
of Chuang Tzu :
For the perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps
nothing ; it refuses nothing. It receives, but does not keep. And
thus he can triumph over matter without injury to him.sel£
[ Trans. Giles.)
It is interesting to compare this with a letter written to
76
 THE FLOWER HAS ROOTS IN MUD
Jung by one of his patients and quoted by him in his
commentary to The Secret of the Golden Flower :
Out of evil, much good has come to me. By keeping quiet,
repressing nothing, remaining attentive, and hand in hand with
that, by accepting reality-taking things as they are, and not as I
wanted them to be-by doing all this, rare knowledge has come
to me. . . . I always thought that, when we accept things, they
overpower us in one way or another. Now th.is is not true at all,
and. it is only by accepting them that one can define an attitude
toward them. So now I intend playing the game of life, bemg
receptive to whatever comes to m�, good and bad . . . also my
own nature with its positive and negative sides. (p. 1 26.)

Before the Christ can be born there must be acceptance

both of the external world and of the unconscious depths
of one's own soul. Certainly the ego will resort to a
thousand cwming devices to avoid this acceptance, not
the least of which is to pretend that as the opposites
are maya they can just be ignored. Thus the fallacy of
Christian Science and so much of that so-called opti­
mistic philosophy of New Thought is that it simply
avoids death, evil and pain by treating them as illusions.
But the paradox is that evil t:;an only be overcome by
the fullest acceptance, and hence the precept of Jesus,
1
' Resist not evil." As this precept is often made the
excuse for absolute pacifism, it is relevant here to remark
that in the same way war is not overcome by avoiding
it but only by accepting it as an integral part of our
nature. For the pacifist is inclined to ignore wholly
his own unconscious desires for war, though for this
he compensates by the highly aggressive way in which
he advocates his peaceful views.
77
 THE S ON OF GOD AND MAN
The refusal to accept, which is the primary confilE:t
between God and Adam, is in a sense the refusal to
allow the universe to live, for it involves resistance to
the two factors which are essential to life, namely, the
opposites and change. For if we arc to allow the
universe to give us life, we must also allow it to give
us death. This is not only a matter of welcoming death
merely because it makes life p ossible ; it is also welcom­
ing death as an essential part of life-not so much of
life as we understand it, opposed to death, but rather
of that Greater Life which is made up of living and
dying just as a symphony is made up of the sounding
and silencing of notes. B ecause there is no change
without death, and no life without change, he who
would not change, who would not die, is already dead.
For he denies life by desiring the eternity of its forms,
of himself and of the things and people he loves and
values. But such love is not love of the living person ;
it is just love of the plea.sing effect which that person
has on oneself at a certain time ; it does not welcome
his right to change and die which is the absolute con­
dition of his being alive in any sense at all, which is
indeed just the thing that makes him live. For life is
more than its forms, and if this were not so the work
of life would come to an end in ea.ch created thing.
If the :B.ower did not die, the seeds would not ripen and
be scattered ; if man were immortal he would need
no children to preserve his kind. He would be finished,
complete, an unmoving perfection of as little interest
or value as if he were frozen into stone. If forms were
78
 WE LIVE BECAUSE WE DIE
-immortal, life would die, for life is precisdy an ever­
lasting re-creation out of death. Like Chuang Tzu' s
perfect man it goes forward for ever receiving and not
keeping, being received and not being kept, and in this
is its freedom and its undying wand.er. Thus to the
Taoist sages perfection never meant conclusion.
Therefore it is the experience of everyone that the
moment we try to make our happiness s ecure it vanishes,
and that the more we try to hold on to youth and beauty,
the more we feel them slipping away. For in denying
the approach of age we deny our very existence, for
existence is not a matter of remaining fixed but of
moving on. The denial of life is like trying to grasp
water in one's hands, for the harder one grips, the
faster it slips through one's fingers. Or again, if one
tries to shut the wind in a box, at once it ceases to be
wind and in time becomes foul and stagnant air. In
the same way a beam of swilight can never b e caught
in a room by pulling down the blind., for whatever
is cut off from the li\ring whole vanishes away. It is
just this cutting off which stands in the way of recon­
ciliation between man and the universe, for it will be
remembered that in the myth our fallen state originally
began by cutting off a fruit from the Tree. For cutting
off, dissection, is done to corpses, and not to living
b odies if they are to remain alive. In this, therefore, is
the whole fallacy of materialism which claims to prove
that there is no Divinity in the universe and no soul in
man by mere analysis, by taking them to pieces and
failing to discover any parts which answer to the names
L.A.
79 G
 THE SON OF GOD AND MAN
" God " and " soul." It is like taking a watch to pieces
to tell the time or expecting a post-mortem to reveal
the secrets of a woman's beauty.
Nowhere is this attitude of wu-ivei more clearly re­
flected th.an in the paintii1gs of those Chinese and Japanese
artists whose work was influenced by Taoism and Zen
Buddhism. It is often said that they painted the soul
of the object rather than the object itsclf, and this is
true so long as the word " soul " docs not call to our
minds any impression of a formless and airy being
with no particular characteristics . By soul in this con­
nection we must understand meaning or Tao, although
this is something which can never be fully expressed
in any shapes or words. Therefore the painter indicates
rather than explains, suggests rather than describes, for
his object is not to convey to others a complete repre­
sentation which :finishes with the painting and leaves
the beholder nothing to do but admire. Rather he
wishes to start a movement which is to be continued
in the beholder's mind ; he desires a co-operation
between himself and those who look at his work, and
therefore he leaves empty spaces, unfinished forms and
hints of colour. He gives enough to excite and too
little to satisfy, and thus he extracts a positive response
of the imagination from others which, together with
his own suggestion, creates the full meaning or, in other
words, bears a child. Hence the masterpieces of Chinese
painting are never ends in themselves ; they are never
what we should call p erfect or faithful representations,
for the artist has no desire to fix any living subject in
80
 THE TAO IN CHINESE ART
a· dead and rigid form of paint. It is, as it were, that
he docs not want to capture a bird on his silk, but to
make it fly off it. In this com1ection there is a story
concerning the Japanese painter Kanaoka. Some farmers
living near him found that on s everal o ccasions their
crops had been roughly trampled down during the
night. When someone entered the local temple early
one morning, he was surpris ed to find the painting of
a horse which Kanaoka had put there covered with
sweat and clouded with steam. The artist was immedi­
ately summoned, and, having drawn in a. p ost and a
rope tethering the horse to it, the farmers were given
no further trouble.
But the i.nfl.uence of Taoism and Zen is exhibited to
a greater degree i11 a form of pai11ti.1.1g with which the
West is somewhat unfamiliar. This is regarded by
Far Eastern connoisseurs as the very highest branch of
art next to calligraphy, from which it is derived, a11d
most of the examples of this ki11d of work arc now
in private collections in Japan. 1 In Japan it is known
as Sumiye, which is to say pain.ting in black ink on a
plain white surface, usually a thin, brittle paper or
sometimes silk. The interesting feature of both media
1 Only some six or seven examples were shown at the Inter­
national Exhibition of Chinese Art in London in 193 5-6. A fine
series of reproductions, however, may be found in Ernst Grosse's
Die Ostasiatische TuscT1111alcrci, Bruno Cassirer Verlag, Berlin, 1923 .
Grosse has prefaced them with a full account of the connections of
this branch of painting with Taoism and Zen. Further t"Xamples
may be found in Dr. D. T. Suzuki's Essays i11 Zen Budahism, Vols.
II and III, London and Kyoto, 1933 a.11d 1934.
BI
 THE S ON OF GOD AND MAN
is that the lines must be drawn swiftly and with.out
hesitation or the ink will blot, and further that it is im­
possible to erase any error. Thus the artist had to
commit his inspiration to paper in the few moments
while it was still alive, for th.ere could be no question
of making a rough sketch a11d then slowly filling in the
details after the 1nanner of Western painters. In Sumiyc
the act of painting of a bird i11 flight is as livmg as the
bird itself. For the bird does not stay poised in the
air to adjust the curve of its wing ; it ca1111ot go back
in time to correct the movement of its flight ; and,
unless it is stuffed and put in a glass case, it is here one
moment and gone the next so that there is no time to
study and analyse it. Hence in a similar momentary
Hash the artist commits it to paper as irrevocably as its
own coming and going. If he stops to think, an ugly
blot appears a11d the uupiration has gone. For he 1nust
go forward with his work as unhesitatingly as life itself
is moving. To change the metaphor, he must sing in
time with the music ; to stop to consider a uote, to
hold it for longer than its time, to sing a phrase over
and over again until it is correct, this is to lose touch,
to wander off into a world which the music of life has
left behind. Thus the result of his work is a painting
which lives in the truest sense of the word ; th.ere is no
hint of the glass case such as one may :find in Thorburn.
and other European bird painters. Similarly, when his
subject is a spray of flowers, a branch of bamboo or a
twisted pine, there is nothiug of the monumental fixity
of so many European flower-pieces, syllllll.etrically
82
 IN TIME WITH CHANGE
arranged in their vases. Each leaf of the bambo o 1s
drawn with one rapid sweep of the brush, and as it
sways in the wind this technique gives it a vitality which
no adagio painting can attain. Yet it is not simply a
matter of speed ; in fact, speed. is the result rather than
the cause, for the artist brings himself into such direct
contact, such perfect harmony, with his subject that he
moves as it moves and creates his picture as Nature
expresses herself in the flying bird.
This, therefore, is something of what is meant by a
union of man with the universe. It is chiefly a matter
of keeping one's mind in the same rhythm, as with
music, of accepting each change as it comes without
wanting to go back, without wishing to hold and keep
anything that may come. It is just this holding which
destroys the union, for it is the conflict of the ego with
the world, the desire to dissect the livit1g body, to
explain away the music as a s eries of pleasant and un­
pleasant noises. Thus Chuang Tzu says again : " The
Master (Lao Tzu) came because it was his time t o b e
born ; he wei1t, because i t was his time t o die. For
those who accept the phenomenon of birth and death
in this sense, lamentation and sorrow have no place."
But so far we have considered this attitude mainly
in relation to the external world, from what Jung might
call the " extraverted " point of view. It applies equally
to that internal world which we apprehend as somc­
thi11g other than the conscious ego, to the Unconscious
-the internal reflection of the external universe. For
just as man is inseparably bound up with the u1uvcrse
83
 THE S ON OF GOD AND MAN
from without, just as he derives life from earth, rain,
air, sun, father and mother, so he is bound up to the
universe from within. For here, according to Jung, is
a vast concourse of mental tendencies inherited from
our ancestors, linking us up with the race, with animals,
and, perhaps it will in time be shown, with plants and
rocks. Our minds contain all the characteristics of life,
and we bring to consciousness just as much as we desire.
Yet here again there is conflict between the ego and
the universe, and, as in its outer aspect, the conflict has
two general forms. On the one hand, the ego may so
isolate itself from the world as to ignore its existence
except as a convenient or inconvenient personal appen­
dage ; on the other, it may be so overwhelmed by the
pressure of circumstances that self-confidence and self­
respect are destroyed. In each case it is necessary to
achieve a point of balance, a poise, between the two.
Thus we find some who so far ignore the Unconscious
as to deny its existence, who trust overmuch in their
own reason ; others are so overcome by its impulses
and phantasics that they find dreams more real than
concrete facts.
In this realm it is perhaps more helpful to turn to India
than to China, for to some extent we may say that the
technique of Yoga is introverted and the technique of
Taoism extraverted. While the Chinese looks at Nature
and the ordinary affairs of life, the Indian looks into his
o,vn _mind, and in this we may find reason for the
genrral superiority of the Chinese in art and craftsman­
ship, and of the Indian in philosophy and psychology.
84
 TAOISM AND YOGA
Yet so far as psychology is concerned, the difference
is of quantity rather than qt1ality. Indian psychology is
more daboratc, more technical, whereas the Chinese is
subtle without being complex. It is profound know­
ledge contrasted with a simplicity which is as obvious
as one's own nose and yet wmoticed just because it is
so close. Thus, generally speaking, the Chinese are
subtle because they see what others miss by looking too
far afield ; but the Indians go farther afield tl1a11 any­
one dse and, as it were, come back to the Chinese by
going round the world.
However, seeing that generalizations are notoriously
unsafe, it may be better to replace tl1e terms ' ' Indian "
and " Chin cse " by " Yoga " an d " Tao1sm, . U ror.t:. un-
questionably Yoga, as a teclmique of meditation, com­
prises the most elaborate science of the " inner life "
known to Asia, even to the world. Yet there is Karma
Yoga, the Yoga of action, and Taoist Yoga, the Taoism
of meditation, for extraverts and introverts ca11 never
correspond exactly with the divisions between peoples.
Each philosophy is sufficiently catholic to adapt itself
where necessary to different types of mind. It is almost
certain, however, that Taoist Yoga was derived in great
measure from India, and it is here that we must look
for the greater wealth of information.
At the present time there is a large a1nou11t of litera­
ture on Yoga in European languages, a large proportion
of which, if not erroneous, is distinctly dangerous. For
apart from any psychological harm that may be done
by wrong use of this science, serious physiological
85
 THE S :JN OF GOD AND MAN
damage may result from certain exercises in breathing
and posture which require the perso11al guidance of an
expert teacher. Many self-styled " teachers " arc to be
found in Europe and America who advertise their
" knowledge " and propose to sell it for money. But
of this one may be sure : that no genuine teacher
(guru) will either advertise himself or accept payment,
nor will he attempt to impose on another any system,
practice or belief which he has no particular desire to
know. Moreover, he will never describe Yoga as :i
means of obtaining wealth and power, nor encourage
the development of psychic faculties as ends in them­
selves. Unfortunately in certain " theosophical " and
" occult " circles there is an absurd love of " guru
hunting," of trying to find a Master who, for the mere
asking, will impart divine understanding to merely
curious, self-seeking or deluded enquirers. There is,
however, the pertinent Eastern saying, " When the
pupil is ready, the teacher will appear." Thus it is no
one's concern to seek, desire or trouble himself about
a teacher in this particular sense, In this present stage
of our evolution so few are even ready for a teacher
that the question should never enter our thoughts ;
our task is simply to go on with our work as we :find
it, seeking what knowledge we require from sources
which bear directly on that work. That is to say, it
is not our concern to explore high states of conscious­
ness and psychic conditions until we have mastered those
lower strata of the mind which will provide us with
more than enough work for many years to come. We
86
 FROM IDENTITY TO UNITY
ta11not pass on to ecstatic contemplations, to " cosmic
consciousness," or any other form of what is known
in Yoga as samadhi, until we have come to terms with
those very " earthy " imp" ulses, rears
r and " comp1 exes "
which lurk unlmown in the depths of the m.it1d. This
applies especially to modem man of the West with his
intellectual, humanist traditions, and it is precisely his
particular problem which we have set out to consider.
Certainly there are those among us who are different,
who are nearer to the " primitive " and for whom this
question does not yet exist. But in modem civilization,
those who form the intelligentsia, who interest them­
selves in religion, philosophy and psycholugy, arc for
the most part unfamiliar with and often obstinately
blind to their unconscious depths. The primitive, on
the other hand, is so close to those depths that he is
almost identified with them, that there exists between
him and the Unconscious what Levy-Briihl has termed
the p articipation mystique, the union with Nature which
modern man sometimes mistakes for a higher state of
life than his own. But it is not a tme union, and
perhaps i.J.1 this connection it would be better to use
the term " identification," because there can be no
productive union until there has first been differentia­
tion. The state of the primitive is, as it were, the
primaeval Chaos which existed before heaven and earth
were divided. There came the estrangement of earth
from heaven through Adam, but in Christ they are
again brought together. In the same way, modem
man is estranged from Nature. One might almost say
87
 THE S ON OF GOD AND MAN
that the primitive is Nature, but both in mind and·
extern.al circumstances modem man lives in an artificial,
intellectual and mechanical world. This is a necessary
stage in his devclopme11t, for it must precede a union
which is not a return to the primitive condition, not
an identification, but a co-operation in which unity and
difference are equally balanced. This is organism as
distinct from both undifferentiated fluidity and con­
:fficting division.
Thus it is not a question of " returning to Nature "
or leading " th e simple life." None of the gains of
civilization need be cast aside in favour of a return to
the earth or to the animal freedom of the Unconscious ;
no complete reversal of civilized manners, customs and
traditions is involved, no ab olition of machinery, 110
lowering of culture to primitive levels . For what is
necessary is a relating of civilization to Nature, not the
substitution of Nature for civilization. But it is impor­
tant to distinguish here between the participation mystique
of the primitive and the psychology of Chinese and
Indian mysticism. For in the goldet1 ages of Chinese
and. Indian thought their culture was somethin g far
removed from savagery. The necessary clement of
arti£ciality, of differentiation from Nature, was pro­
vided for the chinese in the Foitr Books of Confucius
and for the Indians in Manu, and these in no way corre­
sponded to the elaborate system of taboos which com­
pose the greater part of primitive social order. For
the taboo springs from an unreasoning fear, whereas
the laws of Manu and the Four Books arc founded 011
88
 TO UNITE ONE MUST FIRST DIVIDE
'teason and a high sense of moral and aesthetic values.
Hence the Dharma and the Tao were evolved by people
as civilized u1 their own way as ourselves, and they
represent not the return to Nature but the union of
Art and Nature, understanding " Art " in its widest
sense.
But before modern man can attain the greatest heights
of Chu1ese and Indian mysticism, he must first become
conscious of Nature in and around him, though not
identified with it. For this, not only modem psycho­
logy, but also Christianity itself, have in some measure
prepared the way in revealing the Unconscious and the
reality of Original Sin. There can be no union w1til
one is first fully aware of the opposite factor with which
union is to be made, and becaus e the East had already
achieved that awareness, its philosophy is concerned
mainly with the act of union. In Yoga, however,
there are described a number of methods by which the
irrational forces of the mind may be brought to light,
in order, it is said, to show the disciple just how great
are the powers with which he must come to tenns.
Thus Patanjali opens the second book of his Yoga Sutra
by saying, " The preliminary exercises for those who
wish to practise Yoga include discipline or relaxation
of tension." Each aphorism in this sutra is, as it were,
a summary of a whole body of teaching, and the whole
work is one of the most remarkable examples of saying
much with the minimum of words. It may seem
peculiar to us to speak of discipline as " relaxation of
tension," but in Yoga relaxation is the essential pre-
89
 THE SON OF GOD AND M AN

liminary to all exercise and ma11y methods arc taught.

for achieving it in both body and mind.
Relaxation implies the loosc11i11g of all artificial strain,
and so involvc-s a weakening of those intellectual forces
which strive to hold the Unconscious in check. There­
fore it is not surprising that nearly all authorities on
Yoga refer to the innumerable desires, fears and im­
pressions which msh to consciousness as so on as the
disciple begins to meditate. This is recognized as a
perfectly natural stage, so much so that one of the
exercises prescribed is just to let the mind think what
it likes, and to observe and note the undreamed-of
things which rise to its surface. Thus Vivekananda
writes in his Raja Yoga : 1

The first lesson is to sit for some time and let the mind rw1 on.
The mind is bubbling up :ill the time. It is Wee the monkey jump­
ing about. Let the monk ey jump as much as he can ; you s1111ply
wait and watch. Knowledge is power says the proverb, and that
is true. Until you know wh:it the mind is doing y ou cannot con­
trol it. Give it the full length of the reins ; many most hideous
th.oughts ma.y come into it ; you will be astonished that it was
possible for you to clunk such thoughts. But you will find that
each day the mind's vagaries arc becoming less and less violent,
that each day it is becoming c:i.lmer,

1 This passage is taken from p. 67 of the 1 901 edition. It has

since been rc:pnnted by an Indian publisher. The book consists of
lectures originally given in Chicago, and though the bulk of the
information is sound, variotlS practices relating to the control of
the breath are described whkh wC1uld be extremely dangerous for
most Westerners. Later in his lifo Vivekananda regretted that he
had ever published these.
90
 LETTING GO
lt is important to note here the differentiation between
the thoughts and the " Seer " who observes them. The
mind is allowed to run wild, but at the same time an
objective attitude is maintained towards it so that the
Unconscious is realized once again, but without the
participation mystique. Similar methods arc used to-day
in psychotherapy. Sometimes the patient is made to
lie relaxed and to say whatever comes into his mind,
and if the experiment is successful, he finds that his
resistance to 1u1conscious impressio11s is dwindling and
that he reveals facts of great importance to his treatment,
facts which no amount of deliberate and reasoned think­
ing would have produced. Somewhat the same method
is found in Jung's techuique of " active imagination,"
in which the patient relaxes and simply lets himself
create a phautasy, a day-dream, which he afterwards
describes to the doctor. Or again, the method of
" w1co11scious drawing " may be used, in which the
patient paints or draws these impressions as they come
freely to consciousness. Thereafter he studies them
objectively, so avoiding the participation mystique and
preparing for the act of mriou which will bring conscious
and m1c01iscious into a balanced and creative relationship.
For the same reason every school of modern psycho­
therapy gives careful attention to dreams, for in sleep
the same relaxation of artificial restraint is achieved.
But there is this difference : that in the dream the
unconscious processes take p ossession of the consciow
and there exists a participation mystiq11e similar to the
waking state of the primitive. Thus it is significant
91
 THE SON OF GOD AND MAN
th.at the primitive :finds it hard to distingtrish between
dreams and reality.
It is therefore interesting to compare the passage
quoted ab ove from Vivekananda with the following
from Jung (Secret of the Golden Flower, pp. 9D-9I) :

The k i:y is this : we must be able to let things happen in the

psyche. . . . Consciousness is forever interfering, helping, correct­
ing and negating, and never leaving the simple growth of the psychic
processes in peace. . • . It consists solely in watching obj ectively
the development of any fragment of fantasy. . . . These exer­
cises must be continued until the cramp in the conscious is released,
or, in other words, until one can let things happen ; which was
the immediate goal of the exercise. In this way, a new attitude
is created, an attitude which accepts the irrational and the unbeli�­
able, simply because it is what is happening. This attitude woulcl'
be p oison for a person who has already been overwhelmed by things
that just happen, but it is of the highest value for one who, with
an exclusively conscious critique, cho oses from the things that
happen only those appropriate to his consciousness.

Jung is especially wise in pointing out the danger of

this technique for those who are overwhehned by psychic
" happ enings," but this condition is generally found in
modern civilization among those neurotic cases where
there is a regression to the primitive state. Among
the maj ority of thinking people, however, this technique
is necessary before the main work of Yoga can be
started. And this is precisely the task of achieving
between the conscious and the unconscious, as between
the ego and the extemal world, th.at new centre of being
which we have called the Christ or the Tao, known
in Yoga as the Purusha. This is clearly set forward
9.2
 THE EGO AND THE SELF
in the second book of Patanjali's Yoga Sutra (II. 2r, 22,
23 , 48) :
Nature (the world of opposites) has no ulterior purpose of her
own. The only reason for her existence is the perception of her
by the Purusha.
Yet there is objective reality in the universe, for it is the common
source of all experience, and does not cease to exist because one
soul ceases to be bound by it.
The self-identification of the Purusha with phenomenal experi­
eme is inherent in the nature of things. Although it is the cause
of obstacles, yet 1t is necessary in order to kindle the spark of Self­
consciousness into full activity . . ,
The fruit of right poise is the capacity to remain balanced between
the pairs of opposites.

In these four aphorisms he has put forward the essence

of our whole position : that the meaning and raison
d"etre of the opposites is the Tao or Purusha ; that the
opposites cannot be called unreal and set against the
Purusha (as real) ; that the real Self is confused with
the false self, the ego, false because only one of the
opposites, that the ego tries to make itself the centre
instead of the Purusha, and th.at this confilct is a neces­
sary stage in our evolution ; finally, that the union of
the opposites when achieved again is not fusion but
balance. Further, Patanjali says, " The Purusha is
necessary, because the mind cannot be aware of itself
as an object. . . . The identincation of the conscious­
ness with the Self or Purusha brings awareness of the
mind as an object " (IV. 20 and. 22) . That is to say,
the mind as just conscious and unconscious cannot, as
we have seen, solve its own problem, but if a new centre
93
 THE SON OF GOD AND MAN
of consciousness is attained above and between these
two opposites, both can then be controlled. One must
be careful here not to be misled by Patanj ali's termino­
logy. For when he speaks of an identification of
consciousness with the Purusha, this docs not mean
that the conscious, as distinct from the unconscious,
becomes the Purusha. The conscious in that sense
means simply the ego which is known in Indian
philosophy as the Lower sel£ In the same way the
unconscious does not signify something into which no
form of consciousness can enter. Here we arc sadly
limited by language and the accepted terminology of
modern psychology, and the position can only be
grasped if we can recognize a consciousness which.
can know both the ego and the " unconscious."
The term " unconscious " means only that which
is unknown by the ego, but Yoga implies a Higher
Self which is not cut off from the unconscious in this
way.1
The Purusha, however, is always approached through
the ego, for at this stage our consciousness is centred
in the ego and it is from there that we take all initiative.
Or so we imagine, for with our present knowledge we
cannot say how far this initiative is prompted by the
unconscious. In any event, the apparent process is an

1 This " Higher Self " should on no account be confused with

what Freud terms the " Super Ego," which is almost equivalent
to " conscience." It refers to the moral code, the inhibitions,
implanted in man during his earliest childhood, thereafter becoming
largely unconscious or what might be called instinctive.
94
 THE SECOND BIRTH

ascent from the ego to the Purusha combined with a

proportionately growing knowledge of the unconscious.
For the very first act of relaxing the ego, of accepting
the unconscious, implies the birth of something between
the two, of the desire to come to terms. It is almost
as if the Purusha had itsdf prompted the desire, just
as some say that the love between man and woman is
caused by the child's yearning to be born. This is
true even in terms of materialism, for love is simply
an instrument of Nature's urge to create children.
And j ust as man and woman were once themselves
children, so conscious and unconscious are now the
twin sexed, differentiated, forms of what was just the
child in primitive man, in whom the two were fused.
This, then, is the meaning of the Second Birth, for the
first was whe� the human race was in the child-state,
when conscious and unconscious were undifferentiated.
The race became adult, and the two were split ; primi­
tive culture developed into civilization. Thus the task
of civilization is to bring about the second birth, to
" become again as little children " though not in the
sense of a mere return.
In Yoga the task of bringing to birth the new Self,
of realizing the Purusha, follows naturally from the
first step of relaxing the ego and watching the mind.
For as the yogi watches he begins to feel that it is not
just the mind which is watching the mind, for it can­
not see itself any more than one can sec one's own
eyes. He begins to sense something beyond his con­
scious thoughts, something which is more than himself
u. 95 H
 THE SON OF GOD AND MAN
as he understands himsel£ He realizes gradually th1t
it is not himself but this Other which is bringing the
unconscious to light. & the rush of th.oughts begins
in time to grow quiet and the unconscious flows forth
less violently than at the first bursting of the dam, he
begins to see both aspects of his mind t ogether. The
one is made up of things peculiar to him.self, being
his character, his mental pers onality ; it is distinguished
from the other aspect just as his body is distinguished
from the material universe. The other is a vast collec­
tion of things which may be called the mental universe,
hitherto for the most part unconscious. It contains
what Jung describes as the " archetypes," the bases of
all myths, and all thos e tendencies and impressions
which belong to humanity in general. He can know
these two aspects together b ecause, through the accept­
ance of the one by the other, the Purusha has been realized
standing, as it were, above and between them, and look­
ing down on both.
In this way the yogi attains the state of kaivalya, of
complete spiritual freedom and detachment. The world
of opposites does not cease to exist, but, centred in the
Purusha, he is no longer bound by it. In the words
of the Bh agavad Gita (V. 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, n) :
He should be known as a perpetual sannyasin who neither hateth
nor desireth ; free from the pairs of opposites, 0 mighty-armed,
he is easily set free from bondage. . . .
He who is harmonized by Yoga, the Self-purified, Self-ruled.,
the senses subdued, whose Self is the S elf of all beings, although
acting he is not affected.
" I do not do anything," should think the harmonized one, who
96
 AT THE CENTRE OF THE WHEEL
.knoweth the Essene= of things ; seeing, hearing, touching, smelling,
eating, moving, sleeping, breathing.
Speaking, giving, grasping, opening and closing the eyes, he
holdeth : " The senses move among the objects of the senses."
He who acteth, placing all acnons in the Eternal, abandoning
attachment, is unaffected by sin as a lotus leaf by the waters.
Yogis, having abandoned attachment, perform action only by
the body, by the intellect, by the intuition. and even by the senses,
for the purification of the sd£

He acts and feels, as it were, only in th e lower part

of hims elf ; the rim of the wheel revolves, but the
hub at its very centre remains unmoved. In the same
way we fm d it said in the Vimalakirti Sutra of Mahayana
Buddhism :

Meditation (lit. " sitting quietly ") should mean that while re­
maining in supreme contemplation, one is able to do the various
bodily movements such as walking, standing, sitting or reclining.
It should mean that without deviating from the Dhanna, one is
able to discharge various temporal duties. It should mean that one
abides neither within nor without. . . . It should mean that with­
out exterminating klesas (defilements or contacts with the world of
opposites), one may enter Nirvana.

Hence Nirvana in Buddhism is the equivalent of kaivaly a

in Yoga. It is not just a complete absorption into the
Infinite, with eyes closed and body immobile and all
thoughts cleared from the mind. For the passage quoted
above was supposed to have been Vimalakirti' s reproof
to Saraputra when he found him sitting in a wood
absorbed in a state which may best be d escrib ed in
Saraputra' s own words, ' ' This precisely is bliss-that
there is no consciousness ." Indeed, the idea that Nir­
vana consists in mere unconsciousness is not only found
97
 THE SON OF GOD AND MAN
in the West. For we find the Chinese Budd.hist sage
Hui Neng correcting the same mistake in a collection
of sermons delivered during the T'ang dynasty : 1
The capacity of Mind is wide and great ; it is like the emptiness
of space. To sit with a nti11d emptied makes one fall into empti­
ness of indifference. Space contains the sun, moon, stars, con­
stellations, great earth, mountains and rivers. All grasses, plants,
good men and bad men, . • . Heaven and hell-they are all in
empty space. The emptiness of [Self-) nature as it is in all people
is just like this. It contains in it all objects ; hence it is great. All
objects without exception are of Self-nature. Seeing all human
beings and non-human beings, as they are, evil and good, . . . it
abandons them not, nor is it contaminated with them ; it is like
the emptiness of space. . . • There are people who conceive this
to be great when they have their minds emptied of thoughts­
which is not right. The capacity of Mind is great ; when there is
no life accompanying it it is small.

It is probable, however, that in realizing the Purusha

or Nirvana there are various levels of attainment. For
in all things there arc deeper and deeper " layers " of
meaning. Thus we of the West may find a Purusha
in the ordinary affairs of life by applying the principles
of Eastern psychology on our earthly plane of being.
But this does not necessarily involve the attainment of
Buddha.hood-a task so tremendous that it is impossible
for us to conceive it. To understand the ultimate,
universal Purusha it is necessary to know levels of
consciousness and being of which we have no inkling.
This knowledge is the obj ect of the more advanced
exercises i11 Yoga and of the various forms of Eastern
1 From the Ta11-Chi11g (Platform Sutta). 24, and .25, translated by
D. T. Suzuki
 ONE WORLD AT A TIME

ot:cultism with which it is allied. For the present,

however, we have no means to affirm or doubt the exist­
ence of these supra- and sub-mundane realms which
are mentioned so freely in the sutras . What must
concern us is the principle and not the level of its applica­
tion. That is to say, we must apply it to the world
we know before we try to dis cover any new world
by the development of psychic faculties. The animal
applies the Tao in sex but not in music, and because
a man applies it in music it does not follow that he
can apply it in his ordinary life. B ut beyond what we
know as ordinary life, there may well be planes as
unknown to us as literature to horses. Buddhahood
implies the capacity to apply the Dharma, the Tao , 011
all planes, and thus it is a question which at the present
time simply does not enter into our lives and concern­
ing which we are quite incapable of giving any opinion.
The sutras enter into it very fully, but much of this
is purely unintelligible to us ; it is a knowledge which
the East has reached in the fullness of its years. For
ourselves, any attempt to copy or deny it is an imperti­
nence ; it is like assuming e quality with Cicero when
one has only mastered the first Declension. The supe­
riority of the East in these matters is often scorned by
our ' ' wise men," but every great scientist exhibits a
profound humility not only on what he does not w1der­
stand, but also on what he thittlcs he knows. He has
to change his opinions so often that he avoids the pride
of knowledge as his worst enemy. In the words of
Chuang Tzu, '' He who knows he is a fool is not a
99
 THE SON OF GOD AND MAN
great fool." Let us remember, therefore, that for us
the important thing in Asia's legacy is not the " signs
and wonders " offered to us by irresponsible writers
on Yoga, but the underlying principle of the Middle
Way, of the redemption of our ordinary life through
understanding of the Tao.
This, then, is the birth of the Holy Child, and once
again we find a new meaning in the Christian symb ol.
For Jesus said, " Except a man be born of water and
the spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God." The
Church preserves this in the sacrament of Baptism,
which for some strange reason is administered to new­
born babes-a remarkable instance of confusing the
letter with the spirit. For the little child to which Jesus
referred comes after, not before, the adult, and it seems
that water and the spirit signify the opposites out of
which the Christ is born. We are told in the book
of Genesis that before the world was made ' ' the Spirit
of God moved upon the face of the waters," and that
out of these two, formless in themselves, was created
the world of forms as if the spirit had entered into the
water and reared up waves. For spirit is the active
male, and water the passive female, meaningless in
themselves and yet given meaning by that which is
produced from their union. In the same way, pure
energy is nothing, for it expands infinitely and to no
purpose. Pure matter is nothing, for it is shapeless
and dead. But when the two are brought together,
matter places a check upon energy, and energy moves
matter, with the result that the two give birth to form.
1 00
 OF WATER AND THE SPIRIT
Hence it is of the greatest significance that Christ was
born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, for it
cannot be merely by chance that Mary suggests mare
"
(Lat. sea ") and the parase
L_ " Vll'gtn
• • matter. n The
Buddha, also, was miraculowly conceived, and curiowly
enough his mother was called Maya. Thw, des cending
from the Sanskrit root ma-, the words mater, materia,
Maya, mare, Maria (Gk. Mae71) , present a suggestive
group. But even if their similarity is purely fortuitow,
the meaning of the symbol in its context is clear. The
Spirit enters into the virgin woman, and woman is
matter, the female principle, the mother of the world,
and from the union of the opposites is born the Christ.
Therefore it is only from the position of the Christ
that the problem of the opp osites can be solved, that
the curse of Adam can be redeemed. In this way man
can be released from the spiritual and moral impasse
of a life considered simply in terms of good an d evil,
conscious and unconscious, life and death. For he
acts no longer in accordance with one or other of the
opposites, but with the meaning, the Tao, which trans­
cends them. His virtue is more than virtue as it is
generally understood, which is to say, contrasted with
vice. Ordinary virtue is at pains to emphasize th.at it
is virtuous, but in the words of Lao Tzu :

The sup erior virtue is not conscious of itsclf as vircuc ;

Therefore it has virtue.
The inferior vircue never lets off vircue ;
Therefore it has no virtue.
( Trans. Ch'u Ta-kao.)
IOI
 THE SON OF GOD AND MAN
From the standpoint of Tao there is no question of
actions being good or evil ; in fact the Chinese word
here translated " virtue " is Te, which signifies Tao
working in man. For the man of Tao is not concerned
with making good triumph over evil ; his whole atten­
tion is absorbed in working out a meaning. To return
once more to the reading analogy : what concerns
him is not how well or how badly he concentrates on
reading a book, but the actual work of reading. Thus
he concentrates well, yet that is not his obj ect ; it is
merely incidental.
This is demonstrated further by the attitude of Yoga
to concentration. Obviously the attainment of the
Purusha or the Tao is no easy task. Paradoxically, it
requires a tremendous force not only to make the
first relaxation of the ego but to maintain it and over­
come the ego's long ingrained habit of trying to make
itself supreme. For this reason Yoga contains irmumer­
able exercises in concentration and self-discipline. But
these are entirely defeated if looked upo11 as ends in
themselves, and for this reason the gum will frown
upon any desire to practise Yoga simply for the power
of concentration which it gives. For concentration is
no matter of asserting the ego, of trying to force one's
attention on a given subject. This simply aggravates
the conflict b etween the ego and the world, perpetuating
the discord of the two opposites good and bad concen­
tration. Thus the more one thinks of oneself trying
to read, the less one succeeds in reading. In the same
way, the man of Tao does not trouble as to how well
I02
 WHEN FAILURE COMES OF TRYING
hr how badly he is living life ; he just lives life. That
is not to say that he drifts on circumstance any more
than he is utterly carried away by what he reads in
his b o ok. Life for him is the relationship, the meaning,
between himself and the world ; it is the process of
himself working in the universe and the universe work­
ing in him. He is s o absorbed in this that he forgets
himself as a s eparate thing and the universe as a separate
thing, j ust as a musician will forget both himself and
his instrument and think only of the tune. Here again,
those who make a great effort, who try to be sure that
they are playing the instrument well, spoil the tune by
their self-consciousness. The secret is to think of the
tune and let it play itself ; that the player plays well
follows as a consequence and does not come first as a
cause. Hence there is no virtue without Grace, without
Christ being born in the soul.

103
 IV. THE SECRET OF THE BEARDED
BARBARIAN

A LTHOUGH we no longer bow down to wood

and stone, and even though we regard it as a
form of idolatry to worship ourselves, we still have our
idols. As idols, they are little better than wood and
stone, and somewhat worse than ours elves. Obviously
the maker is more than what he makes, and to worship
an image of stone fashioned by one's own hands is
dearly folly, whereas to take pride in oneself for making
it is understandable. The things we create have our
own limitations with this added disadvantage : that once
created they cannot of thems elves overcome those limita­
tions. For man's works are his mirror, and ifhe worships
them, he worships what is less than himself-his own
reflection. There is little difference, therefore, between
the man who makes himself an idol of stone and he who
makes an idol of thought. Everyone is well aware of
the evils of making a God of one's belly, but it does not
seem to be understood that it is an equal folly to make a
God of one's mind. For both are our servants and serve
us well when treated as servants. But as masters they
lead us to ruin. Much is said of the folly of allowing
our senses to run away with us, but it is seldom that any­
one says the same thing of our sense. In the capacity
for rational thought we see " the means of Grace and
the hope of Glory," and so much do we rely on it that
104
 IDOLS OF THOUGHT
\ -,,L
we are as much the victims of our ideas as the gl� 1
of his appetites. That is not to say that they arc n"b,;:
good ideas ; the sculptor may make a good image and
the glutton may als o be something of a gourmet, but
the difficulty is that the better the ideas, the better the
image and the better the meal, the greater is the temp­
tation to idolatry. Modem man has evolved a remark­
able number of good ideas, but just because they are s o
good he i s especially inclined t o forget that they are his
· own creations and not his creator. It is often said that
many of our problems in this age are caused by lack of
thought ; it would be more correct to say that they arc
caused by too much thought, for we deceive ourselves by
our own cleverness. In thought we have fowid a process
capable of the most astonishing achievements, just as the
glutton finds in his belly a source of the most delicious
sensations ; the achievements and the sensations are both
perfectly legitimate so long as they are kept wider control.
But the more astonishing the achievements and the more
delicious the sensations, the more the mind and the belly
take on the aspect of divinity ; we bow to them in
gratitude and adoration, whereupon our lives are sur­
rendered to our servants. Instead of thinking our
thoughts, our thoughts think us, and in ideas, systems,
organizations and technique we see the salvation of the
world.
It is, however, in religion that the worship of the idea
attacks us in the most subtle form and that our minds
are especially apt to nm away with us. For the more
skilfully we work out the philosophy of our religion,
I OS
THE SECRET OF THE BEARDED BARBARIAN

the more we are tempted to rcly on it. It is one thing"

to satisfy one's intellect with well-co11structed ideas, or
to satisfy one's emotions with sublime rites and symbols,
but quite another to transmute ideas or feelings about
Truth into Truth itsel£ It is the difference between
thinking (or feeling) and b eing ; between talking about
religion and living it. Moreover, it is not simply a
question of practising what one preaches. One may
practise for years, in the sense of following out some
technique, without coming any nearer to the Goal. For
religion does not consist in actions any more than it
consists :in thoughts and feelings so long as they are only
" about it and about." That is to say, the Tao, the
Holy Child, is not brought to birth by deep philosophical
understanding or by any effort of action or emotion,
although it is necessary and inevitable that one of these
attempts should precede the birth. The birth itself,
however, only takes place when the futility of the
attempt has been fully realized, and that realization c:u1
only come through making the attempt. For the
paradox is that we are living the Tao all the time, and
that to search after it is like looking all over the house
for the shoes on one's feet. That is to say, the conflict
between the opposites is maya, illusion. However much
we may imagine ourselves cut off and. separated. from
life as a whole, however much we may imagine a con­
flict between ourselves and the universe, the truth is that
we are life, that in every thought and. action we are
unconsciously expressing the Tao ; otherwise we should
simply cease to exist. We exist because we live and
Io6
 " BECOME WHAT YOU ARE "

3ie, because there is a universe as well as ourselves ;

from these opposites and froin all others life proceeds
and life is the Tao . There is no avoiding it, no coming
to meet it ; it is.
Thus religion is a matter of " becoming what we arc,"
and while thought, fccli.1.1g and action may lead us some
way towards it as in the Three Yogas, we realize evct1-
tually that in spite of all our efforts there was really
nothing to strive for, that we have been at th e Goal all
the time. But although there is in fact no division
between ourselves and the Tao, we uiust understand the
division before we can w1dcrs ta11d the unity. To use
an analogy, it is lih a man who has never sce11 his 0W11
face ; he cannot look at it because it is his own, and then
someone holds up a mirror before him. At :first he
th.inks someone else is looking at him fron1 the mirror
and begins to be mystified and worried. At length he
discovers that it was himself all the time and realizes
that after all it was absurd to be so concerned about the
creature in the mirror. In the same way, philosophy
is the mirror which shows us a difference between our­
selves and the Tao, which makes us think about estab­
lishing a union between the two. Thus we begin to
search in philosophy for this n1ysterious Tao, when
suddenly we find that we have it all the time. But there
is this c:1ifference between. the time before we had the
mirror and the time after our realization : that before,
our union with the Tao was purely unconscious, that
our life was purely instinctive (participation mystique) ;
when. the mirror is held up, an apparent division is made
107
THE SECRET OF THE BEARDED BARBARIAN

-we are conscious but in conflict ; but after the realiza!

tion the union becomes conscious. Hence the words of
St. Paul : " For now we see through a glass, darkly ;
but then face to face : n ow I know in part ; but then
shall I know even as I am known."
Therefore there comes a time in the pursuit of religion
when we realize that ideas and words can carry us no
farther. We see that all our efforts to know the Tao
are of no avail, for the more we try to know it, the more
our very effort to know stands in the way. For the
actual consciousness that one is trying at once presupposes
a distinction between oneself and the Tao. Philosophi­
cally we may understand that Tao is the meaning, �
relationship, between ourselves and the universe and
between all other opposites, and we know that to live
in harmony we must concentrate on this meaning. But
it seems impossible to concentrate, for not only does the
effort turn our attention back on ourselves, but also the
Tao itself seems so ill-defined, so elusive, so abstract.
But perhaps the reason is mainly that we are looking
for the Tao in the wrong place. Philosophy has to
express it as a third concept mediating between opposites,
but this is misleading because it still makes us think of
it as something outside and apart from ourselves. But
we have to understand that the Tao is in no way apart
from the opposites, that, indeed, it is the opposites, but
the opposites considered together in meaningful relation­
ship. In short, Tao is no abstraction, no " spiritual
essence," no " inner light "-all these terms mislead and
make it something other than ourselves. Someone came
108
 USUAL LIFE IS TAO

to a Chinese sage and asked, " What i s the Tao � "-

" Usual life," he replied, " is the very Tao."-" If that
is so," he was asked again, " how do we bring ourselves
into accord with it."-" If you try to accord with it, you
will get away from it." This is, perhaps, not very
helpful, but the sage has mentioned something of every­
day experience, a problem which all have to face.
This problem is the difference between " What " and
" How," between what to do and. how to do it. That
is to say, you can teach a person the technique of painting,
but you cannot teach him how to be a Leonardo. You
can tell him exactly what he must do, you can provide
him with all the text-books in the world, but not one
will teach him the secret of great art. In the same way,
you may provide him with all the books on reli gion
and philosophy in the world but none will teach him
wisdom. Technique gives one the means of expressing
what one already has within ; it does not give one the
thing to be expressed and no artist, musician or sage
can :find any words to convey to others that unknown
quantity which makes their work more than mere
technique. And so often does one meet with religion
that is mere technique, mere observanc e of the moral law,
mere intellectual understanding, mere emotion, mere
fruitless effort. It seems tragic that there should be so
much earnest searching and so little enlightenment.
This problem has faced every civilized people, and
Christia11ity has provided something near to a solution­
the gift of Divine Grace, freely given to. all who ask m
sincerity and humility. This gift makes religion some-
109
THE SECRET OF THE BEARDED BARBARIAN

thing more than technique, and enables ordinary mortals

to achieve something of the religious genius of Christ.
There is absolutely no doubt that for many this solution
has been wholly effective ; whether there is or is not a
loving God, certain p eople hav e asked Him for Grace
in this way, and whether from Him or :from out of
themselves, they obtained something which transformed
their lives, which made their religion real. There
appear, however, to be two difficulties in th e way of this
solution. The first, which has already been considered,
is that it rests upon belief and thus excludes those who
either cannot b elieve or believe differently. The second
is that, though in the end the solution may be fully
effective, the belief complicates it unnecessarily and is
apt to distort the religious exp erience. We only say
this because in Asia there was evolved an e qually if not
more effective solution which do es not require any
particular belief, which apparently produces as near as
possible a pure religious experience independent of any
form of theology or philosophy.
That is not to say that it does not matter what one
believes, but before the question of belief can be wi�er­
stood we have to distinguish between theolo gy and
religion. Religion in itselfis a pure experience which no
form of words or ideas can embrace or convey to others.
Theology interprets that experience just as science inter­
prets the experience of our ordinary senses. But
theology can no more pro duce the experience than
�cience can make us fed the beauty of a flower. Theo­
logy cannot give us Divine Grace, and can no more
I IO
 THE OLOGY AS S CIENCE

describe Grace than physical b eauty can be described in

s cientific terms. Moreover, it is as tmwise to mix
religion with theology as b eauty with science, for just
as our perception of b eauty may be dimmed by absorp­
tion in " reflex actio11s," " sense mechanisms " and
" nervous respons es,'' so als o our understanding of
religion may be obscured by pre-occupation with ideas
about the Trinity, the Last Judgement and the 11aturc
of the soul. In the words of Pro£ Whitd1ead : 1

When you understand all about the sun and all about the atmo­
sphere and all about the rotation of the earth, you may sttll miss
the radiance of the sunset. There 1s no substitute for the direct
perception of the concrete achic-vcmcnt of a thin g in its actualuy.
We want concrete fact with a high light thrown on what is rdcv,mt
to its prcciousncs�.

But theology is important as science is important.

For its value is in interpreting religious experience, i11
showing its relation to the rest of life, in explainin g its
necessity to right living, in deriving from it, as far as is
possible, a hypothetical explanation of m1iversal mys­
teries to satisfy man's innate and legitimate curiosity.
But, in the course of its history, the Christia11 religious
experience has become too involved with theology ; the
discovery of the fact has been made too dependent 011
belief in the theory. hi other words, thinking of the
experience in terms of theology has distorted it in the
same way that science 1nay distort our view of beat1ty.
Our appreciation of Bach is not perceptibly increased
by an analysis of the audic nerve and the structure o f
1 Science and the Modem World (Lmulnn, 1 93 3 ), p . ::1 4 H ,
u. III I
 THE SECRET OF THE BEARDED BARBARIAN
the brain, nor does botany tell us why we find a.Ily
particular charm in the daffodil. But if we are so
absorbed in science that we can only think of beauty
in terms of brain-cells or artistic technique, we shall
resemble those who are so absorbed in theology, in
belieC that th ey can only think of the religious experience
in terms of dogma or philosophy. In this condition the
belief becomes an idol instead of a servant ; we begin to
fear anything which might shake it, and abstain from all
mental adventure ; we refuse experiences that contradict
it, not because there is evidence against them, but because
there is a theory against them. Yet thought follows
experience, and it is vain to imagine that we shall be
made wise for our much thinking.
Yet whereas the Christian religious experience is
achieved in terms of a belief about something beyond
this world, there is a particular Buddlrist experience
achieved in terms of this life as we know it. Christianity
has found it almost impossible to preserve its original
experience from the distortion of mis-applied theology,
whereas there is still a form of Buddhism which has
passed on the Buddha's Enlightenment without any
philosophical or symbolic intermediary. In the end
both Christianity and Buddhism arrive at the same Goal,
but the former goes by a roundabout route and the latter,
in this particular instance, direct ; it grasps the experience
immediately, understanding it without allowing any ideas
about it to come between the knower and the known.
This is perhaps the most tm.ique of Asia's contributions
to religion. All other cults present the religious ex-
II2
 THE LMN G BUDDHISM

:Eferience in solll.e particular guis e, in terms of some

special practice or belief outside our everyday experience.
But this one alone points directly at life, leaves tl1cology
out of consideration, and finds the secret which we
looked for afar lying right at our feet. This cult is
known by the name of Zen (Chinese : Ch' an) , and it
is ge11 erally regarded as a form of Buddhist quietis111, as
something of use only to those who can spare the time
to retire from the world and devote their lives to d'-!ep
contemplation. But tl1is lll.isunderstanding is in part
the result of a misleading name, for the word Ze11 is the
Japanese equivalenL of the Sanskrit Dhyana, always
w1derstood as a state of profound meditation. For the
word is usually associated witl1 the practice of Yoga,
with sitting cross-legged in meditation and c11tcri11g in to
what is loosely des cribed as a trance. Yoga practices
are certainly fow1d :iJ.1 Zen, but in a strictly subordinate
capacity. But to widersta11d Zen as a method of medi­
tation is wholly erroneous. Only in recent years has the
history of Zen been lll.ade known to us, and this is due
in the main to the work of Dr. D. T. Suzuki of Kyoto
who has taken the trouble to translate 111a11y of its texts
into English a11d to give the West some s ort of inter­
pretation of a subj ect which would otluirwise have
remained an illl.penetrable mystery.
In the light of Dr. Suzltlci.'s work there can be 11 0 doubt
whatever tl1at Zen Buddhism has had more influence
than any other cult in the shaping of Far-Eastcm culture.
The supreme creations of Chi11csc and Japamse art did
not owe their inspiration merely to the ethics of Co11-
u3
 THE SECRET OF THE BEARDED BARBARIAN

fucius nor even to the subtle mysticism of Lao Tzd.

The West knew of Confucius and Lao Tzu long before
it knew of Zen, not because they were more important,
but because Zen in comparison seemed incomprehensible.
It was regarded as a highly abstruse system of metaphysics
which could only have had a limited following. But
now we know that Zen was anything but metaphysics,
and so far from having only a limited following, it was
not only the impiration of T'ang and Sung art but the
popular religion of the Japanese samurai for several
hundred years. Far-Eastern culture without Zen is
almost as unintelligible as European culture without
Christianity. It is not simply a form of Buddhism ;
rather it is the fruit of Buddhism, the final- development
of the Mahayana, the Chinese synthesis of Buddhism,
Confucianism and Taoism. Buddhism began with the
Buddha's Enlightenment, with a spiritual experience
which he could not describe in words, which was the
secret of his genius. It developed as a complex system
of ideas about this experience and practices calculated
to adrieve it. It was completed in a return to the source
from which it came, to the pure experience freed from
all its trappings. For Zen is just that Enlightenment,
or what the Christian understands as Grace, with tlris
difference : that whereas Grace has a theological associa­
tion, Zen is just Zen and cannot be understood in any
philosophical terms.
At the beginning of the Christian Era Buddhism was
gradually entering into China and was influencing and
being influenced by the two native religions-Con-
114
 ZEN

fucianism and Taoism. In A.D. 405 Kumaraj iva was

translating the scriptures of Mahayana Bud dhism from
Sanskrit into Chinese, and in the following years the
pilgrim Fa-hi.en visited hldia and collected further scrip­
tures. There was at first persect1tio11 of the new religion,
but its popularity increased. As Buddhism began to die
out through persecution in Iudia, many of its adherents
took refuge north of the Himalayas-in Tibet ancl
Chii1a, until finally in 527 the Buddh..1.'s twenty-dgh th
successor arrived ii1 China, the P..1.triarch Bodhidharma..
From all accow1ts it is clear that Bodhidharma must have
been an unusually remarkable person . Other tL·a<:lu.·rs
might be profow1d philosophers or models of righteous­
ness, but here was s omeone who had trne religious
insight, who knew the secret of Enlightenment itsdf.
Of Bodhidharma we know little, but his greatness must
be j udged from the effects of bis teaching. For the
Chinese must have encountered this problem of brhl g­
ing the gap between mere philosophy and true Enlighten­
ment, and in Bodhidharma they saw one who had the
secret which no words can convey. The ChineSl\ bein g
a practical people, were dctermii1ed to learn this secrc.·t ;
they recognized it as the one thin g, lacking whkh ,
scriptures, rites, observances and ideas were j ust em p ty
forms. Hence one of the stock q uesti ons which ZL'n
disciples ask their masters is : " What was the SL'l'r<.'t
message of the Bcardc:d Barbarian ( B L> dhidha.rn1a ) � " 1
1 " Barbarian " was of c:nursc ,L tl'rlll ,lppl il'll hy tlw C :him•s4• tll
all forcigm:r,q. The wcll-Jcfirll'll t�·aiun·s .uul hL·,11 4h• d fat·l·s ,�r d11:
I.uc.lians 11aturally appl·arcu smm·what gmt,·s,1m: tl, till' C :hhu.•,,• mind,
us
THE SECRET OF THE BEARDED BARBARIAN
At first there were only a few who were anxious tb
learn this secret, a.11d, when he had obtained sufficient
proof of their earnestness, Bodhidharma accepted them
as disciples. One of them learnt the secret and became
his successor, and so it was passed down through a line
of six Patriarchs. By this time the fame of Bodhidharma
had spread, and the last few Patriarchs had collected
together large communities of disciples, so much so that
the sixth, Hui N eng, managed to pass it on to several
others. From that time forward it spread rapidly. Hui
Neng died towards the end of the T'ang dynasty, and
in the following periods of Sung and Yiian (7I3-1367)
the Zen School attained tremendous strength. This
period. of the supremacy of Zen coincided with the
Golden Age of Chinese culture when art and literature
were in their prime and had not descended into the
elaborate prettiness of the Ming and later dynasties.
Towards the end of the Twelfth Century Zen passed on
to Japan, to be followed in a few decades by a similar
awakening of culture. 1

and hence all the pictures of Bodhidharma by Chinese and Japanese

artists represent him as a fierce and uncouth creamre with a bushy
beard. In his fierce appearance there is, however, something char­
acteristic of Zen as will be seen from the following pages.
1 For full details of the influence of Zen on the culture of the
Far East see Suzuki, Essays i11 Ze11 B11ddhis111, Vol. III, last chap.,
London and Kyoto, 1934 ; Suzuki, Buddhism and the Jap anese Love
of Nature, London, 193 6 ; Suzuki, Buddhism in the Life and Thougl1t
of Japan, London, 1937 ; Ernst Grosse, Die Ostasiatische Tusch­
malerei, Berlin, 1923 ; Okakura, T/,e Book of Tea, Edinburgh, 1919 ;
Binyon, The Flight of the Dragon, London, 1922 ; Gatenby, The
u6
 LOOKING FOR THE OX
• But what was the secret message of Bodhidharma
which had such astonishing results ? Perhaps it will
be best to give the answer i11 the words of the Zen
masters themselves. One of them simply answered,
" The cypress tree in the courtyard." Another said :
"Wait until there is nobody around us and I will
tell you."
Master and disciple then walked around the fields until
th ey were alone. Then the disciple asked :
" Nob ody is around here now ; pray tell me, 0 master,
about the secret of B odhidh.anna."
The master pointed at a bamboo and said, " How tall
this bamboo is," and pointing at another, " a11d how
short that one ! "
A questio11 to the same effect is I I What is the first
principle of Buddhism ? " or " What is the Buddha ? "
or simply a request for instruction. Thus Master
Hyakujo (Chinese : Pai-chang) was asked :
" I have been seeking for the Buddha, but do not yet
know how to go on with my research."
Hyak.ttj o replied : " It is very much like looking for
an ox when you arc riding 011 one."
Kwaido (Hui-t'ang) wasonce asked about Zen by a
leamed Confucian. He replied that th.ere was a saying
of Co11fucius' which gave the answer : " Do you think
I am holding something back from you, 0 my disciples !
Indeed, I have held nothing back from you."
Cloud Mcu ef Ya111atL1, London, T!)3!) ;� Crru1111er-Uy11g, The Visio11
efAsia, London, 193 5 ; Watts; Tfo: Spirit of Zc11, Chap. V, Londl)n.
1936 ; Chiang Yee, Tlic Clri11csc Eye, London, 1 9 35.
II7
THE SE CRET OF THE BEARDED BARBARIAN

The Confucian was sadly puzzled, but some time

afterwards they were walking together in the mountains,
and as they passed a sweetly scented bush of wild laurel
Kwaido asked, " Do you smell it � "
When the Confucian answered that he did, Kwaido
exclaimed, " There, I have kept nothing back from
you ! " And at that moment the Confucian W1derstood
the whole secret.
Joshu (Chao-chou) was once asked : " When the body
crumbles all to pieces and returns to the dust, there
eternally abides one thing. Of this I have b een told,
but where does this one thing abide 2 "
Joshu answered : " It is windy again this morning. "
The following story is interesting as an example of
the Zen attitude to ideas, to teachings in books.
Yeh-hsien was asked : " Is it advisable to read the
scriptures or not 2 "
He replied : " There are no by-roads, no cross-roads,
here ; the hills all the year row1d are fresh and green ;
east or west, in whichever direction, you may have a
fine walk."
Master Wen was interviewing a new disciple and
asked :
" Where do you come from 2 "
"
" From Ta-yang.
" Wh ere were you last summer 2 "
" At Ta-kuei."
.
" Wh ere IS "
your home �
" At Hsing-yuan Fu."
Suddenly wen held out his hand and asked : ' ' How
n8
 " ALL IS PERFECTLY OPEN TO YOU "
� it that my han d is so much like the :Buddha's
hand e "
The disciple did not kn ow what to say, so the master
continued : " So far your answers have b een splendidly
11att1ral and easy ; and what obstmctions do you feel
now that I ask you about my hand resembling the
,Buddha's e "
" I fail," said the disciple, " to sec the point."
" All is perfectly open to you, and there is nothing
specially for you to perceive."
At these words the disciple st11.kli:nly graspeLl the wh ofo
trttth of Zen.
Master Tao-wu was aski:d by a disciple : " Since I
came to you, I have nnt been instructed at all."
The master replkd : " Ever sin ce you came to me,
I have always been poiuting to you how to study."
. "
" I11 w11at way, sir e
" Whm you brought me a cup of tea, <.lid I not accept
it 1 When ynu served me with food, di Ll I not partake
of it ! When you made bows to me, di d I not return
them ! When <.lid I ever neglect in giving you instruc­
tions ? ''
The disciple was more mystifietl than ever, so Tao-wu
said again : " If you want to sec, sec directly into it ;
but wh en you try to think about it, it is altogether
missed."
This must seem a peculiar, if 11ot nonsensical, way of
teaching religio11, and yet from records which there is
good reaso11 to trust and froin the experience of people
living to-day we may know that it " works." For
Il9
 THE SECRET OF THE BEARDED BARBARIAN

these apparently fatuous remarks now and then succeed

in passing on the secret of Bodhidharma, the Enlighten­
ment which he had inherited from the Buddha himsel£
The result is that the disciple has his whole attitude to
life changed, that he lives in the freedom and fullness of
the spirit. Yet it hardly seems possible that these sayings
have anything to do with religion. For in answer to
religious questions the masters make remarks about
ordinary mundane affairs, about the weather, eating and
drinking, the trees and the flowers. There is little
reference to the Budd.ha, to Nirvana or to any of the
accepted principles of the Buddhist religion. One
master even went so far as to make the following extra­
ordinary statement : " Nirvana and Enlightenment are
dead stumps to tie your donkey to. The twelve divisions
of the scriptures are only lists of ghosts and sheets of paper
fit to wip e the dirt from your skin. And all your four
merits and ten stages are mere ghosts lingering in their
decaying graves. Can these have anything to do with
your salvation l " In fact, Zen seems to turn the accepted
idea of religion upside-down ; what is usually considered
worl dly and trivial it seems to exalt ; what is considered
divine and holy it seems to ignore. Perhaps our first
reaction, if it is not to dismiss the whole thing as lunacy,
is to look for some deep symbolic meaning in these
sayings. But this will not help, for though symbolism
is sometimes used it is only superficial. For their mean­
ing is really obvious, so obvious in fact that it is difficult
to see. ' ' It is like looking for an ox when you are
riding on one." The disciple asks a serious religious
I20
 II
TO LIVE IS CHRIST "

ciucstion, expe cting some profoun d answer, wh ereat the

111aster poi11ts at smncthin g stmigh t in front of him . It
may be that after som t! time the mast4.• r is ahf o to make the
disciple sec what he means, :md at that moment he
experiences s11t111'i-thL· sudden flash of Enlighten ment
which revt·als tltt.· wlmfo m ystl'ry of life.• . I le sudden ly
fimls that what he has ht•en sL·ekin� in idc.•as, in books,
in good conduct, in 111c.· 1Iitation , has hc.•cn with him all
the time, that he has hec.·n like.• a stupid dog chnsing its
own tail. " Nothing is kft to you at this m1,m<..·11t,"
writes a Zen mastc.•r, " but to have a gomt laugh."
St. Paul remarks in the Epistle ti> the.· Phili ppiru1s, " For
to me to live is Ch rist " nuJ in the same way n Zen
master has sakl, " Usual life is tlu, w1·y Tao." Or
again, another has saiJ that Zi•n means simply " .Eat
when you art! hunv;ry, slc.·c.·p whc.• n you arc tirl·d." The
disciples arc bewildered and ask, " Is that all l " Ft>r
they arc too prnml : t h e y imagine.� rt·lighm as something
abstruse and ,lifficult, that the y h:\VL' tn m:tkc themselves
unusually clever and wisr: aml good b�·forc they can
understand it. But Christfanity also says that if yoLt
imagine that the Grace of 0ml is offen·d to you because
you arc r:spL·cial ly p;oo,l, yo ll suffi.•r from one of the
greatest sins-spiritual pride. Zm docs not want us to
think at all about the " 1 " who must come into accord
with the Tao, for this at t)nce makes a division bctwcct1
the two. It wan ts lts to understand that to live is Tao,
a11d that the momc.·n t wc seek the Tao we go ro1u1d in
circles like the dog after its tail. In fact, it is perhaps
misl eading to bring the idea of du.: Tao into the matter
J2I
THE SECRET OF THE BEARDED BARBARIAN
at all, for it so easily becomes a form of idolatry. Thm
the Zen masters do not talk about the Tao ; they just
demonstrate it. It is as if, instead of telling us to listen
to a twre, they just play it ; one thlng is of importance
-the tune, the Tao, life-and any idea of oneself
listening or oneself living immediately separates one
from it.
Master Goso once said to a disciple : '' You are all
right, but you have a trivial fault."
The disciple asked what this was, and Goso replied :
" You have altogether too much of Zen."
" Why," the disciple objected, " if one is studying
Zen at all, don't you think it the most natural thing
for one to be talking of it l "
" When it is like an ordinary everyday conversation,"
said Goso, " it is somewhat better."
Someone who was standing by asked : " Why do you
specially hate talking about Zen ! "
" Because it turns one's stomach."
Thus when the master replied to a question, '' It is
windy again this morning " here was an ordinary every­
day conversation-a rem.ark full of Zen, expressing the
greatest truth of religion. When we dress in the morn­
ing, eat our breakfast, shake hands with a friend, walk
upstairs, this is all full of Zen. It is worth more than
all the sacred scriptures in the world put together, for
what are they other than enormous commentaries about
and about this one thing which is life ! At this very
moment all of w are living Zen, and the only diffcrct1c:e
between ourselves and the great sages is that they realize
1 22
 GOING STRAIGHT AHEAD

it and we do not. Hence the words of the Zen poet

Hokoji (P'ang-yiin) :
How wonclrnusly sup l"rn.ttural
And how mirnculous thi�,-
1 draw wati:1· :mcl I carry fod !

In the same way Master R.inzai (Lin-chi) has said : " The
truly religious man has 1r nthin g tu do but go on with
his life as he finds i t in the various circumstances of his
workUy existence. Uc rises quietly in the morning, puts
011 his clothes and goes out to work. When he wants
to walk, he walks ; when he wants to sit, he sits. He
has no hankering after B uddhal1ootl, uot tl1c remotest
thought of it. How is this possible e A wise man of
old b as said, ' If you strive after Budclahood by any
conscious contrivances, your Buddha is indeed tl1e source
of eternal misery.' " But to tltl11k that Zen is j ust 11ot
tltlnking about things is to go wrong again, for thoughts
arc jltst as 1nuch life and Tao as anything dsc. Hc11cc
whc11 a master was asked, 1 1 What is satori l " he replied,
" Your everyday thoughts.'' In short, it is quite useless
to try to define Zen at all ; Z en is life, and to try to
dcfme it is to stand away from it, to stop while the living
stream moves 011, leaving us high and dry. Herc again
we sec that if our immediate task is to play a twic, tl1e
moment we begil.1 to ai1alys c it, to think about ourselves
playing it, it is lost. Moreover, it docs not help us much
to :find the t1.u1 e if we bcgit1 to talk about it, to philoso­
phize, to think about the necessity of devoting our whole
attcntio11 to it. It is here that ideas fail, and here that
Zen succeeds, for Ze11 just demonstrates the tune.
123
THE SECRET OF THE BEARDED BARBARIAN

"What puzzles us so much when we are confronted

with Zen is that we are shown the Tao itself and do not
recognize it when we see it. It is as if we went into a
concert hall expecting to hear the orchestra discussing
the right way to play a symphony and w ere astonished
to hear music. We may read a hundred books on
Beethoven without having the least idea of his Seventh
Symphony, and when we hear it we may well be some­
what at a loss to find any connection between it and
what we read in the bo oks. In the same way we may
have a hundred ideas, a hundred feelings , about life and
yet know nothing of life itself. To return to the analogy
of the mirror : the Zen master holds a mirror up in front
of our faces and we do not recognize them, never having
seen them. Again we see that religion is a matter of
becoming what we are, and if we are to succeed we must
forget the becoming iI1 looking at the " arc." Our diffi­
culty is that we are at once utterly right and utterly
wrong ; we say, " I live " and the Zen master also says ,
" I live." The difference is that we have a barrier be­
tween the " I " and the " live " whereas he has not.
But it is useless to pursue the subj ect a11y farther
with words. Words mean different things to differ­
ent people ; two people may mean the same thing
and yet misunders tand each other through looking for
each other's meaning in the words used. If the secret
of great art cannot be conveyed in words, how much
less can the secret of Zen. " It is like drinking water,"
says a master, " and knowing for yourself that it is cool."
We may look all over the world for Zen ; we may
124
 THERE IS NO SE CRET
onderstand that ordin ary life is Zen, but we may yet
fail through looking for Zen in ordinary ]ifc. For that
is like lookit1g for a stone in a stone. If we seek the
Tao in life we miss it because while we arc so busily
searching for the Tao wc miss life, which is the Tao.
Perhaps we arc thc11 just to sit still and look for nothi1.1g
at all. But even if we look for Zen in that, we shall not
:6nd it. Zen says neither " Look ! " nor " Do not
look ! " ; it docs 11ot divert our attention from the
Tao by telling us to find by not scckit1g, for this is
only another way of trying to fo1d. To explain life
only coufuscs it, because it is already per fectly clear,
and the secret is that there is no secret.
This, then, is the chief Eastcn1 a1tcrnativc to the
Christian doctrine of Grace. For in answer to the qucs­
tio11 " How shall I find the secret e " it points, not to
a supcniatural Being, but to the life of everyday experi­
ence, Instead of asking us to empty Olmclves that we
may be filled with the Grace of a God in whon1 we may
or may not believe, it asks us to ma.kc the same act of
relaxation, of " Letting go," to the familiar life in and
arowid us. This is to receive the Tao, for Tao is all or
nothing and can only be realized by saying " Yes " to
all experience. The paths, though different, lead to a
common Goal, and while the sa111c experience is fow1d
in perhaps lesser degree in all the great mystical religions
of Asia, only in Zen is it set forward alone, free from all
sy1nbolic and philosophical association s. That it should
baffie and n1ystify those who arc accustomed to under­
stand it in the guise of rcligiow terminology is only to
us
 THE SECRET OF THE BEARDED BARBARIAN

be expected. But its very independence of religious

forms is its supreme value, for whatever religion one
may follow one can apply Zen. Whether we believe
in God or not, whether we are atheists, pantheists or
polytheists, it is all the same to Zen because our idea of
the Divine is only a symbol, and Zen passes beyond the
symbol. For the Divine becomes as natural as being
alive, or in the words of a Zen master : ' ' When we
really attain to the doubtless Tao, it will be as clear as
the vastness of the sky. What is the necessity of calling
it in question then 2 " So many forms of mysticism
only go as far as seeing in all created things the symbols
of God. " If thy heart were right," said Thomas a
Kempis, " then every creature would be a mirror of life
and a book of holy doctrine " or, as it is sometimes said,
" sermons in stones and God in everything." This is
near to Zen, but Zen just goes one step farther. Let
us remember again that famous Zen saying : " To him
who knows nothing of Buddhism, mountains are moun­
tains, waters are waters and trees are trees. When he
has read the scriptures and knows a little of the doctrine,
mountains are to him no longer mountains, waters no
longer waters, and trees no longer trees (i.e. th ey become
mere symbols, mere appearances, of the One Reality).
But when he is thoroughly enlightened, mountains are
once again mountains, waters once again waters, and trees
once- again trees." B efore and after Enlightenment the
world is, as the Italians say, na ca so, na ca anno-not the
same, yet not another. Or as it was shown by a Zen
master :
126
 THE MASTER RAISED HIS STICK

· " How were things before the Buddha came into the
world i! "
The master raised his stick.
" And. how were they after the Buddha came i! "
The master raised his stick.
Jesus said the same thing when he declared that after
all our efforts to grow up we must become agai11 as Jittle
children. Indeed, " my end is my beginning," but the
whole world lies between.

127 IC
 V. THE GREAT RENUNCIATION

I T has been said that there are two kinds of religions,

those of Enlightenment and thos e of Service. At
:first sight it would seem that the religions of the East
belong to the former and of the West to the latter, th.at
in the meditating :Buddha we see the ideal of vast Know­
ledge and in the crucified Christ the ideal of Love. The
one appears to concentrate on the creation of mighty
individuals, to offer man a destiny of which the West
has never dreamed, and the other to humble the indivi­
dual in the service of all, just as Jesus washed His disciples'
feet. It is curious, therefore, that in the East, where
religion is supposed to be impersonal, the Goal should
be an exaltation of the individual, whereas in the West,
where personality is so valued, the individual must
accowit his virtue as notlring beside the goodness of
God, It would seem that the ideal of the East is to
become God, and the ideal of the West to realize one's
very distance from God, according all that is divine and
right to Him alone. If religion is a reaction to circum­
stances, it might be said that the Asiatic is offered the
destiny of :Buddhahood because in ordinary life the
individual is accowited nothing, whereas the European
is offered humility because he is naturally individualistic.
The meditating Buddha is nothing if not dignified and
regal, whereas in the Crucifurion we see the Christ
suffering the lowest indignity-the pwrishment of a thief
128
 THE B ODHISATTVA IDEAL
among thieves. But such generalizations can only be
made through lack of knowledge. The West is familiar
with the contemplating figure of Buddha, but as yet
it knows little of the Bodhisattva ideal of self-sacrifice
b eside which the generally accepted meaning of the
Crucifixion must seem a little pale. As a rule the
Bodhisattva is understood as just a lesser kind of Buddha ;
in Chinese and Japanese paintings we see these beings
standing in attendance round the figures of the great
Buddhas, and perhaps th.is d oes not help us much to
w1derstand the tremendous ideal which they represent.
But the terms Budd.ha, Bodhisattva and Arhat arc used
somewhat loosely, and to imagine that they refer to
various grades of spiritual attainment is as misleading as
to imagine that the Christ is a lesser form of God. For
although the idea of a Buddha docs not correspond to
the Christian idea of God, the Bodhisattva is to the
Buddha as the Third Person of tl1e Trinity is to the
First. That is to say, no difference is made in Christian
theology betwee11 the Father and the Son ; there arc
three Persons, but one God, for God is at once the
Father of the universe, the Redeemer of man through
the Flesh, and the Comforter of man through the Spirit.
To save mankind, God took upon Himsclf hu1na11 form ,
suffered all the pains to which that form is subject-even
death-whercafter He brought it back to life as a sign
that he would do the same for all men. In short, God
redeemed humanity by becoming human. For precisely
the same purpose a Buddha. becomes a Bodhisattva ; he
t?,kes up on himself a human body and all the limitations
129
 THE GREAT RENUNCIATION

attached to it in order that he may likewise save the

world. Hence the Buddhist text : " In all the world there
is not one spot even so large as a mustard-seed where he
has not surrendered his body for the sake of creatures."
But before we can understand just what is implied
by the Bodhisattva ideal, we must rid ourselves of this
false antithesis between Enlightenment and S ervice. In
the first p1ace, Enlightenment as understo o d in the Eastern
religions is not something which one can attain like a
prizefor oneself For of all the dangerous traps in religion
the most dangerous comes at the end of the search for
wisdom ; it is the conceit that one has found it. It is
s o easy to deceive oneself in.to the belief th.at one is the
possessor of Grace, of satori, ofEnlightenment, to imagine
that through some kind of spiritual experience one is
specially unique among human beings. In the second
place, Service is the corollary of Enlightenment, for like
all things which are alive and given to us by nature
Enlightenment can no more b e kept to oneself than a
candle can be put under a bushel and continue to burn.
To attain Enlightenment is to pass it on to others or to
lose it, just as water will become stagnant if it does not
flow and as blood will clot if it does not circulate.
Thus the great obstacle to man's union with the Tao
is the very thought " I am the Tao." For just as trying
to find the Tao separates one from it, so also the idea
that one has found it creates again that dualism of " I "
and ' ' Tao " which destroys the union. The reason is that
the concepts of " trying " and " having " b oth direct the
attention away from the Tao to oneself and encourage th«:
130
 " YOUR LIFE IS NOT YOUR OWN "

perilous imagination that one's effort to achieve or one's

realization of the Tao is an exaltation of the sd£ It is
like two men listening to a symphony, the one dirl'ctin�
his whole attention to it and thinking of the sym phony
alone, and the other thinking to himsdf how m lightl·1wd
he is to be listening to such good music. The httl'J:' will
naturally hear considerably more of his own thou�h ts than
of the symphony. The one secs the Tao c.lim:tly, wlwn·.,s
the other looks at its reflection 011 hinud f, ima�in in� t h :lt
he has the Tao in its reflection. Yet Jw losL'S it just as t l w
dog in .A3sop's fable lost its rdlcctcJ nwat in thL• pno l .
Therefore Chuang Tzu tells the followiu � st M)' :
Shun asked Ch'eng, saying, " Can one ��·t T:ul s,l ,1,; t,l h.1v1• ir
for one's own 1 "
" Your very b ody," replfoJ Ch'mg, " is not ynur uwn. I l1 1w
should Tao be 1 "
" If my body," said Slum, " is not my own, pr,l }' wh,1�1· i� it 1 "
" It is the delegated image of Tno," r1•pli�·1l C :h'rni�· " Yn111 hi;,
is not your own. It is the ,fofogntL·tl h.:trrmmy of T.10, V, 111r 1ml 1 "
viduality is not your own. It is the dd,·g,\tL'd a1l.1p1.1hili1 y of ' 1 ',11 1.
. . . You inove, but know not how. Yem an· :1t ri·,1, hue l..111 >\\/
not why. . . . Tlu.•se a.re the- opl·rntion of tlw l.1w� of ' 1 ', 1u, I l 1 1 w
should you then get Tail st, :u to haw it for your own ! "

It is one thing to sec the To.a in its rdll-rti:d glory on , 1m•­

self, but quite another to Jouk strni�ht at it. 111 Yug.,
it is taught that in foll concl'11tratinn tiWl'l: pn•vails :1 uni, ,u
between subject an d objl'Ct, lK'L'r and Sl'l'II , ju:-.t a� i 1 1
listening to music one's though t.� simply ,m• t ilt' hllH',
Hence there is no room for tl1l' tlrnught " I am t h�· 1 t1111• , "
Once that enters the t u n !.' hcrnml'S Sl' paratt· fr p 1 1 1 d,,.
f
'.' I," and the two wander ot int1) dilli.•n·ot worlds.
I) [
 THE GREAT RENUNCIATION
Therefore in listening one forgets that one is listening
but remembers the sound. In the same way, to live in
Tao is to forget that one is living and to remember life.
Indeed, " he that loseth his life shall find it."
The very thought th.at one is attaining the Tao, being
contrary to the great paradox that one has had it all the
time, puts one farther away from it than ever. For to
imagine that one has become the Tao is to deny it ; it
is to forget that Tao is universal, that oneself and others
have had it always. In the same way, to believe that
one has, through especial righteousness, earned the Grace
of God is to blaspheme ; for it makes one's own
righteousness the cause of the gift of Grace, whereas in
truth it is offered to saint and sinner alike freely, and to
it we owe our existence, not to mention the very capacity
for being righteous. To think of on eself finding the
Tao or earning the Grace of God is the supreme vanity ;
it is given alike to the worms and to the dust. To seek
after it for oneself is to deny it to them, to deny that it
is given universally. It is as much an insult as to ignore
a friend's gift and to try to make for oneself what he has
given. As is said in the Tao T� Ching :
The great Tao pervades everywhere, both on the left and on the
right.
By it all things came into being, and it does not reject them.
Merits accomplished, it does not possess them.
It loves and nourishes all things but does not dominate over them . . . .
Because it never assumes greatness, therefore it can accomplish
greatness.
( Trans. Ch'u Ta-kao.)
In the same way, he who lays no claim to Tao, who �
132
 TO CLAIM IS TO LOSE
fact renounces it for hiinself, is he who is truly in accord
with it. For it is by giving it away that we really have
it, just as Tao is always giving itself away.
If we arc to understand the Tao as the rclatio11ship,
the meaning, the centre of power, between the opposites,
we must avoid the idea that it is in any way apart from
the opposites. This laying claim to Tao is no more
than creating yet another opposition, another conflict.
For he who imagines that i11 attaining the Tao he has
conquered the world of opposites simply makes himself
its victim ; he sets himself up as God as disti11ct from
the world, and th.is is to fall back into the old illusio11 of
the world-that one opposite can triumph over another.
Thus any thought of victory, of attainment, of having
in any way surpassed the world of life and death, creates
again another conflict bctwccu oneself and that world,
and the curse of Adam returns with all its strength.
Hence Buddhist and Taoist sages say that in Nirva11a and
Tao there is nothing to be attained ; Nirvana is Sangsara
and Tao is the Yin and the Yang. Therefore attainment
is no victory over the world ; it is just seeing the world
as it is. He who is truly enlightened clai1ns no victory
and keeps nothing specially for himself at all ; he sur­
renders himself and all that he has to the world, and in
that moment he truly becomes the Tao, for Tao is pre­
cisely that giving, that passing 011, that circulation and
movement which is life. u Merits acco1nplishcd, it docs
not possess them." It is only by giving ourselves that
we can live ; whatever is withheld dies, just as the sun
:would cease to shine if it held back its rays. To live
13 3
 THE GREAT RENUNCIATION
in the Tao is like breathing : to attain it is to renounce!
it and to renounce it is to attain ; to :611 the lungs is to
empty them and to empty them is to fill, for unless we
are willing to release our breath having taken it we shall
become in:flate-d till we burst.
It is of peculiar interest to note how the modem
psychologist, travelling along a different path, can arrive
at the same understanding as the Buddhist and Taoist
sages, to see how, beneath cold scientific study, the ancient
doctrine of renunciation appears again with all its force.
For in this lies the full significance of Adler's study of the
" inferiority complex " and his t.eaching that most
psychological disease is caused by the desire to attain
power over others. Thus he who is especially an:x:iow
to seem superior is he who is wicomfortably aware of his
inferiority. In pride, in all special claims for oneself,
Alder sees the symptom of absence of any foundation for
those claims. The more one is at pains to emphasize
one's virtue, the less actual virtue there is ; the more one
emphasizes one's superiority over circumstances, the
more one is their slave. Hence cure of this disease can
only come from renouncing the claim to superiority
and giving the rights of others e qual recognition to one's
own. To quot.e the Tao Te Ching again :
The man of highest " power " does not reveal himself as a possessor
of " power " ;
Therefore he keeps his " power."
The man of inferior " power " cannot rid it of the appearance of
" power " ;
Therefore he is in truth without " power."
( Trans. Waley.)
134
 LAO TZU, ADLER AND JUNG

If we would bring Adler's teaching into line with the

Christian doctrine of Grace, here is Parker's translation
of the same passage :
The highest Grace makes no p ,)SC of Gracl·, ::t11d for this reason
really is Grace ; whils t the lower quality of Gr,,cc may never divest
itself of Grace, and yet never feds like true Grace.

For in these words we have the essence of the whole

matter ; they represent a principle which applies alike
on every plane-the principle that to attain is t() rc11ou11cc,
and to rcnoU11cc is to attain. It is therefore instructive
to quote the passage translating it word for word from
the Chinese :
High Te not Te and thus has T,1, low 'fJ unt lo.�c 1 i.1 a.nd tluis
no TO.

One is inclined to fed that the literal Chim:sc is far

superior to all " finished " translations. T6 has no tme
equivalent it1 En glish ; it may be rendered as " Grace,"
"
" Powcr, " 1rtue,
v· " " w· "
1st1om, " " Eulig1 1tcnmcnt, l)r
any exalted quality one may choose, for basically it is just
the Tao realized in man. If it docs not lose itscl£; it is
not real.
But, as might be expected, of all ot1r lcadi.11g psycho­
logists it is jllllg who has gone most deeply it1to this
particular qucstion.1 Whereas Adler treats it in the
main as the problem of adjusting oneself to the external
world, to society, Jung looks inwards and applies the
1 Two Essays 011 A11al tical Psycholo
y gy (trans. H. G. and C. F.
Baynes. Lo11don, 1928), Part II, Chap. IV.
_
13 5
 THE GREAT RENUNCIATION
very same principle to the adjustment between Conscious
and Unconscious. Having described the technique for
bringing the contents of the Unconscious to light (see
Chap. ID), he introduces the primitive idea of the mana
personality. For mana is the occult power of the magi­
cian, the medicine man, which Jung uses in relation to
" autonomous complexes," to those contents of the
Unconscious which override our conscious will. These
are the powers which impose on us unwanted moods,
which compel us to act in absurd and irrational ways,
which are at the root of all those obsessions and impulses
which no mere act of conscious reason can defeat. The
primitive projects these psychic factors into the forms of
gods and demons, whereas civilized man tries to forget
that they exist, to regard them as mere weaknesses of his
conscious ego which manifest themselves when he " for­
gets himself" Thus after coming to terms with them,
after recognizing them for what they are, they begin
to lose their power. They rule us only when we fear
or oppose them, but if we give them recognition
and allow them to " speak " their mystery and strength
vanish away. The primitive believes that to kill a mana
personality is to take possession of his mana oneself, and
in the same way the ego which comes to terms with the
Unconscious, which overcomes its autonomous psychic
factors through recognition, deprives them of their mana
and takes it to itsel£ But here is the danger, for if the
ego takes possession of this mana it becomes inflated ;
in mystical terminology, it conceives itself as God, as
a gr�at sage or magician who is lord of himse1£ Yet
13 6
 THE MANA PERS ONALITY
in this it has only become the victim of another and
deeper mana personality, another archetype or " collective
image " which is the hero, the powerful man, of all the
ancient myths. According to Jung th.ere are, as it were,
hierarchies of these images within the Unconscious, and
unless one is careful the recognition of the lesser may
easily become possession by the greater. To identify
oneself with God means simply that one has not come
to terms with the mana-image, with the vain dream of
being a powerful magician, a master of the world, an
inhuman superman. For there is all the difference be­
tween living in God and being obsessed by the God­
image ; the one is indeed Enlightenment while the other
is the most pernicious egoism. Therefore he who,
through acceptance of the Unconscious, breathes i.J.1 its
mana must also bread1c it out ; otherwise he must suffer
spiritual inflation. In Jung's own words :
If the ego arrogates to itself power over the unconscious, the
unconscious responcls with a. subtle attack, in this case with the
mana penonality dominant, the enormous prestige of which casts
a spell over the ego. The only protection against this is the fullest
confession of one's own weakness over against the powers of the
unconscious. We set up no power in opposition to the uncon­
scious, and consequently we do not provoke it to attack.

In short, he who makes a victory and docs not surrct1der

it, beconics obsessed by the victory-idea, the ill usion of
himself as a great conqueror. This arouses conflict again,
and he is if anything a little worse off than he was at the
start. hiclced, there is no defeat like letting victory
.defeat you.
137
 THE GREAT RENUNCIATION

This brings us back to the ideal of the Bodhisattva,

the answer of Mahayana Buddhism to the question,
" Having attained Enlightenment, what then � " fu the
imagery of Buddhism the attainment of Nirvana consists
in gradually liberating oneself from the ties of the world
of life and death (Sangsara). While there is any attach­
ment to forms, any possession by the things of the world,
man is drawn back to them again and again simply by
the power of his own desire. Thus death is no release ;
it is only the exhaustion of the present physical instrument
of that desire-the body. In time the desire creates for
itself another body and so is reborn in the world to
continue to work itself out. For to wish to possess the
forms of the world is to be possessed by them, to be
enthralled and bound as if by a magician's spell. Bud­
dhism claims to be the way of release from that bondage,
the severing of attachments, and in truth. th.is is not a
denial of life, but an affirmation of life by allowing it to
live. For the desire to possess and keep for oneself the
forms of the world is to kill them ; they only live because
they change and vanish. Therefore th.e sincere Buddhist
is represented as one who, through countless lives, labours
steadily to dissolve these attachments. After it may be
" millions of aeons " he at last cuts the final bond and
attains the threshold of Nirvana, the right to deliverance
from rebirth, to enter into eternal rest and bliss. He
' ' possesses nothing and is not possessed by anything " ;
he is free to do what he wills ; he has, figuratively speak­
ing, slain the magician who had enthralled him, the world
of form, and now holds his 111a11a. A Zen master was
138
 " CAST IT AWAY ! "

asked, " What would you say to one who comes to you
with nothing � " and the immediate reply was, " Cast it
away ! " This is precisely what the Bodhisattva must
do when nothing holds him back to the world ; he must
cast away his attainment. Thus he is described as being
presented on the threshold of Nirvana with a choice :
either to enter into etcrual bliss, or to surreuder that right
and offer it to " all sentient beings " for th eir welfare.
The Bodhisattva is he who accepts the latter alternative,
for he is said to vow that he will never accept the right
which he has earned until the whole universe shares it
with him ; he prefers to return to the world and to
labour again through auothcr vast cycle of lives, wider­
going all the pains to which human form is subject,
in order that the whole Uuiverse may be liberated.
" Never will I seek nor receive private, individual
salvation ; never will I enter into final peace al011e ;
but forever, and everywhere, will I live and s trive
for the redemptiou of every creature throughout the
world."
Hence the Bodhisattvas arc sometimes known as the
" Buddhas of Compassion," and in this conception we
must sec, 11ot the desire of humanity for loving gods to
help it out of its difficulties, but the logical development
of Buddhist philosophy-the discovery that Enlighten­
ment is meaningless without Service. The Bodhisattva
ideal is sometimes described as the revolt of the hlllnan
soul against a purcly cold and abstract philosophy, as if it
were the effort of Eastern man to make the best of an
�nadequate religion. But this is as much beside the point
1 39
 THE GREAT RENUNCIATION
as to say that the softness of the fruit is a revolt against
the hardness of the branch. Even so, it is a remarkable
" best " that Eastern man has made of his religion, and
it would be nearer the point to say that such a large
fruit needs a particularly tough branch to bear it. For the
great renunciation of the Bodhisattva is inconceivable
unless preceded by the sternest discipline and the most
absolute disregard of sel[ As yet it is almost impossible
for us to imagine what the Bodhisattva's vow involves,
for the ideal was brought forth by India in the maturity
of her spiritual insight and it is not easy for us to under­
stand the meaning of this sacrifice to those who for
centuries had been accustomed to the idea of rebirth
through immeasurable periods of time. What is more,
whereas ordinary men forget their previous lives, the
Bodhisattva remembers. If India's sages were not hum­
bugs, and if their psychic knowledge is not pure self­
deception, it is probable that men such as Nagarjuna,
Asanga, Ashvaghosha and Santi-deva, the men who first
understood the Bodhisattva ideal were those who were
most aware of what rebirth involves. Such knowledge,
however, is at present outside our scope, for we have
no means of testing its truth. But the importance of the
Bodhisattva ideal for us, in common with the other chief
principles of Eastern philosophy, is that it can be applied
at every stage of our development. For it is a principle
which concerns not only those who have severed the last
attachment to this world, but also those who live right
in the midst of it. In the words of the Hermetic
aphorism, " As above, so below," for the Bodhisattva's.
140
 THE IDEAL OF NO PURPOSE
vow is only the right conduct of life " writ large " upon
a cosmic scale.
Therefore so far as we are concerned the Bodhisattva
ideal involves two things : what the Bhagavad-Gita
describes as " renunciation of the fruit of action," and
love for the world in all its aspects, or what has already
been referred to as ' ' acceptance of life." For just as
he renounces Nirvana, just as he works on without any
thought of the ultimate reward, so to those who are
bound to the world this must imply action without
thought of any lesser reward. In Taoism this is ki1own
as " purposelessness," as in the saying " the secret of life
consists in using purp ose to achieve purposefossness."
For the Taoist would distinguish between purp ose and
meaning. To purp ose he would give the: narrower sense
of merely personal or egoistic motive, whereas mca.1ri11g
can only be realized when there is so close: a relationship
between the ego and the world that the former no longer
makes plans to outwit the latter. It has been said that
the perfect act has no result, whicl1 is to say that, for the
doer, the deed and its result are one, that the only result
he seeks fr01n his action is the action itself rightly p er­
formed. In mystical language this is known as " living
in the eternal Now," as being detached from both past
and future. As is said in the s,,tra of the Sixth Patriarch ;

If we allow our thoughts, the past, the present and the future
ones, to link up in a series, we put ourselves under restraint. On
the other hand, if we let our mind attach to notlung at all times
and towards all th.i11gs, we gain emancipation.
(" Tan-Cliing," Tra11s. W,mg Mow-lam.)
I4I
 THE GR.EAT R.ENUNCIATION

To return to the analogy of music, action with

' ' purpose " is like making plans about the sixty-fourth
bar when one is playing the fifteenth ; the result is that
the tune su:ffers, for to play correctly the mind must
move with the tune. This is not the same thing as just
" living in the present," which is to say, looking 11either
behind nor forward for fear of what may be seen.
Rather it is the development of a certain poise which is
ready for everything that comes. Thus in fencing, the
moment one begins to think. about the possible moves
one' s opponent may make, one's guard slack.ens and he
has a chance to thrust home. The attention must never
for a second wander from the movements of his sword,
and one's own position must be relaxed and poised, ready
to thrust or parry at any moment without having to
overcome strain in an opposite direction. Hence the
great Japanese fencing-master, Takuan, said :

When the hands are clapped, the sound issues without a moment's
deliberation. The sound does not wait and think before it issues.
There is no mediacy here ; one movement follows another without
being interrupted by one's conscious mmd. If you are troubled
and cogitate what to do, seeing the opponent about to strike you
down, you give him room, that is, a happy chance for his deadly
blow. Let your clcfen.ce follow the attack without a moment's
interruption, and there will be no two separate movements to be
known as attack and defence.
This immediateness on your part will inevitably end in the
opponent's self-defeat. It is Wee a boat smoothly gliding down the
rapids ; in Zen, and in fencing as wcll, a mind of no-hesitation,
no-mediacy, is highly valued. So n10ch reference is made in Zen
to a flash of hghtning or to sparks issuing from the imp:i.ct of two
flint-stones. If this is understood in the sense of 4uickness, �
142
 THE UNHURRIED LIGHTNING
grievous mistake is committed. The idea is to show immediateness
of action, an uninterrupted movement of hfe-energy. Whenever
room is left for interruption from a quarter not at all in vital rela­
tion with the occasion, you are sure to lose your own position.
This of course docs not mean to desire to do things rashly or in
the quickest possible time. If there were this desire in you its very
presence would be an interruption.
(Trans. D. T. Suzuki.) 1
Thus the mind moves with the opponent's sword, with
the music, with life, and right action depends less on plans
for the future than on correct poise and full awareness
in the present. Suzuki has said that Buddhism is a
philosophy of time rather than space, and by this we
must understand that it is a philosophy of keeping time.
Or as Cramncr-Byng writes in his Vision of Asia : " It is
rather the doctrine of the right opportunity, of acting on
the inevitable hour, of striki.t1g the timely note that passes
into harmony with others an d produces a perfect chord."
Therefore the question of results, of purposes, of striv­
ing for a reward, does not enter here, for the highest form
of action is spontaneous ; past and future do not concem
it, and when presented with opportu11ity in the present
it acts so immediately that there is no room for motive
or purpose to come between actor and action. But this
spontaneity can only be achieved when there is consider­
able mental balance, for just as in fencing there can be no
immediate action from an incorrect poise, so in life there
can be no " purposelessness " unless the will is in accord
with the Tao. That is to say, " purposeless " action is
effected by a pure decision of will independent of n1otivc,
1 Essays iri Zeu Budd/1is111, III, p. 3 19.

L.,\, 1 43 L
 THE GREAT RENUNCIATION

and the decision is wise in proportion to the will's

harmony with the Tao. In the same way, because of his
accord with Christ, St. Paul was able to dispense with the
Law, for when he acted, Christ acted. The will is thus
set free from the struggle between stronger and weaker
motives for its mastery, and for the first ti.me free-will
is attained in its fullness. This can only become effective
when the Tao or Christ is our will, " whose service is
perfect freedom." But before so great an accord be­
tween will and Tao is attained, the principle is to accept
and resp ond to each opportunity as it comes, considering
the effect of one's response upon others and renouncing
any reward it may bring to onesel£ But when accord
between will and Tao has b een achieved, there is no need
to consider the effect on others, much less on oneself, for
" Tao benefits all things and does not contest place with
,
them ,_in short, Tao is love. Therefore this fust applica­
tion ofthe B odhisattva ideal cannot be understoo d without
the second., his love for the world in all its aspects.
For the Bodhisattva has kinship, not only with gods and
angels, but with demons, trees, grass and dust ; all these
are included in his vow. He is pictured as the saviour
of the whole animate and inanimate univers e, not 01tly
as the saviour of men, for it is said in one o f the sutras,
" Trees and grass---all these shall become Buddha," and
again, " When every phase of mind is in accord with the
mind of Buddha, there shall not be even one atom of dust
that does not enter into Buddhahood." For us this must
mean just the acceptance of the world in all its forms
and aspects. In the words of the Zen poet Wu-men :
144
 THE LOUSE AND THE BUDDHA

Hwidreds of spring flowers ; the autumnal moon :

A refreshing summer breeze ; winter snow :
Free thy mind of all idle thoughts,
And for thee how enj oyable is every season.

This may seem just the sentimental love of Nature when

she is pleasant, but, as a sharp contrast, here is a poem
by the Japanese poet Ryokwan which arises from the
same feeling :

0 lice, lice,
If you were the insects
Singing in the autumn fields,
My chest would really be
For you the Musashino prairie.

In this there is a hint of that peculiar sense of humour

which the Chinese and Japanese have found in Buddhlst
philosophy, for there is something delightfully incon­
gruous in the thought of a louse being a potential Buddha,
something which leads one to believe with Chesterton
that there is a closer b ond between cosmic and comic
than the mere likeness of the words.
The point, however, is that the Bodhisattva regards
nothing as w1worthy of the Tao. He knows that

The highest goodness is like water. Water is bcncficcnt to all

things but does not contend. It stays in places which others despise.
Therefore it is near to Tao.
(" Tao Te Cl,ing," 8. Trans. Clt'11 Ta-kao.)

Therefore just as the Tao " loves and nourishes all things
but does not dominate over them," the Bodhisattva
I4S
 THE GREAT RENUNCIATION

accepts with reverence even the lowest of created things'.

In the East this attitude is sometimes carried to what we
should consider absurd extremes : in Buddhist monas­
teries not even a rag is supposed to be cast carelessly aside,
and a use is always found for what we should consider
waste material. This attitude is also at the root of the
curious and delightful Japanese custom of paying kuyo
(Sk. puja) or homage to a catch of fish, the weeds about
to be removed from the garde11, the enemies' dead
lying on the battlefield and to all things animate and
inanimate which benefit humanity at their own expense.
But even if these outward signs of respect seem far­
fetched to us, the attitude o f grateful acceptance of the
world, of life in all its stages-spring, summer, autunui,
winter-is an essential characteristic of the Bodhisattva.
Thus Santi-dcva writes in his Bodliicharyavatara (V) that
the Bodhisattva will be tl1e disciple of all men, while
Asanga says : " If another d ocs harm to the Bodhisattva,
he endures with patience the worst injuries with the idea
that it is a benefit he has received. To thiiik. that the
offender does one a service, that is to conduct oneself
in accordance with the example of the Perfect Ones."
It is perhaps here that we find the closest wiity between
Buddhism and Christianity, for this attitude of grateful
acceptance of both good and evil is one of the most
importa11t factors in the Christian life. While the Bud­
dhist regards all things that come to him as means of lcarn­
iug the Tao, as teachers of the Dharma, the Christian is
thankful even for adversity, seeing in it a means of Grace
sent from God. For in our ordinary life the Bodhisattva
146
 THE ANALO GY OF BREATH
is just one who is at home in the world, its pains causing
him no rancour and its pleasures no corruption. In him
the attitude ofhostility and defensiveness which marks the
spiritually diseased is altogether absent. Indeed, diseased
is the right word, for even though he has difficulties
greater perhaps than other men the Bodhisattva is funda­
mentally at ease. His attitude is relaxed and welcoming ;
in Taoist imagery, he makes himself a vacuum so that the
whole world is drawn to him, while what he empties
from himself he offers freely and indiscriminately to all
who come. It is not surprising, therefore, that i11 the
East calm, deep and easy breathing is considered indis­
pensable to medi tation, for it is the physical analogy of
the Bodhisattva's attitude to life. There is 110 gasping,
no stoppage, no hostile sniffing, no withholding, for the
breathing of those who arc ill at ease with the world is
always spasmodic and forced, and in sleep they lie tense
and curled-up with the blanket over their heads. Thus
in Buddhist and Taoist writings the sage is described as
b reathing " from the ankl es " and sleeping " with legs
fully stretched." Like Jesus,

he is found in company with wini:-bibbcrs and butchl!'rs ; he and

they are all converted i11to Buddhas. Barc:..'-chcsted and bare-footed,
he comes out into the market place ; daubed with mud and ashes,
how broadly he smiles ! There is no need for the miraculous power
of the gods, for he touches, and lo ! the dead trees are in fuU blo<'lm. 1

1 From the commentary to the Co111J1ei cli11J Pictum, ilhmrath1g

the " Ten Stages of Spiritual Cowht:rding," reproduced and tran.'1-
latcd by Dr. D. T. Suzuki in his Manual of Ze11 Buddl,;sm (Kyoto,
193 5), pp. 1 50-61.
1 47
 THE GREAT RENUNCIATION
U CC II •
B ut " acceptance, or even grateful acceptance, 1S'
in fact too weak a term to describe the Bodhisattva's
attitude to life. For acceptance is founded ultimately
on love, and because the Bodhisattva loves the world the
realization of the Tao is born between them. Indeed,
the coldness of Buddhism is no more than superficial.
There is a familiar proverb that cold hands mean a warm
heart, and the secret of Buddhism is that though, to out­
ward appearances, it seems to rise away from the world
like some vast, hard and frozen mountain, yet, unseen
to those who live on the surface, it penetrates do'VV'l1.wards
even farther to the burning centre of the earth. For the
Buddha said :
As a mother, even at the risk of her own life, protcc:ts her son,
her only son, so let the disciple c:ulti.vate love without measure
towards all beings. Let him c:ultivate towards the whole world­
ab ove, bdow, around-a heart of love unstintcd, unmixed with
the sense of differing or opposing interests. Let a man maintain
this mindfulness all the while he is awake. . . . This state of heart
is the best in the world.

And again :
Just as whaoioever stars there be, their radiance avails not the six­
teenth part of the radiance of the moon, that takes all those up into
itself, ouuihining them in radiance and glory ; just as in the last
month of the rains, at harvest time, the sun, mounting 11p on high
into the cle:i.r and cloudless sky, overwhelms all darkness in the
realms of space, and shines forth in radiance and glory ; just as in
the night, when the dawn is breaking, the morning star shines out
in radiance and glory : just so all the mea11s that can be used as
helps towards doing right avail not the sixteenth part of the emanci­
pation of the heart through love.
148
 THE PROBLEM OF " HOW 1 "
Yet here again we have to face the problem of ' ' How l ''
For it is of little use to make the command " love thy
neighbour " a precept to be obeyed by a mere decisio11
of the reason. One cannot learn how to love the world
out of a text-book on religion any more than one can
learn to love one's wife or husband out of a text-book
on matrimony. It is another instance of " seek and find
'
not," for love can no more be " forced " than Enlighten­
ment. If we would know the Tao, the only means is
to think of the Tao and not of ourselves trying to know
it ; in the same way, if we would love the world, the
only means is to think of the world and not of ourselves
trying to love it. In this connection we may say the same
thing of love which Zen says of Enlighte11111ent-to
him who knows nothing of the world, man and nature
may seem beautiful and worthy of love ; when he
knows a little of the world, man and nature reveal their
evils, and beauty is seen to have its roots in filth ; but
when he really knows the world, man and nature are
once again beautiful and worthy of love. Only the
very few can study the world long and intimately without
being oppressed by its underlying ugliness, stupidity,
pain and vanity, but the only cure for this despair is to
follow one's study through until it comes out on the
other side. A Zen master was asked, " W'hat is the
Tao ! " and answered simply, " Walk 011 ! " For the
only way to see the Tao iJ.1 life, to love the world, just
as to concentrate on a book, is to go on looking at it
until, of a sudden, the whole thiJ.1g comes. For in our­
selves we have hidden away aU the qualities of the
I 4!)
 THE GREAT RENUNCIATION
outside world, in some of us more deeply buried than in
others. It may take long to appreciate the beauty of a
certain picture or twie, but when, after continued looking
or listening, its beauty suddenly appears, it has at last
called out the kindred quality in ourselves. So also, if
we see it as ugly, it is because of the kindred ugliness in
ourselves. When this is understood we can truly say,
humani nihil a me alienum puto. For we find that our own
souls arc, as it were, mirrors of the world and, conversely,
that in looking intently at the world we sec our own
reflections, partly beautiful, partly ugly. Even then we
have to go on loolcing at both until we can love the
ugliness in both as well as the beauty. For there is just
this difference between ugliness and sin : that whereas
the ugliness of dirt is necessary for the beauty of the
flower, sin is to put the flower in the dirt and the roots
in the air. To love ugliness is to put it in its proper
place, and then sin vanishes of itscl£ To put it in its
proper place is to give it meaning, and the inverted p1ant
is the absence of meaning. Now meaning is Tao, and
while all other creatures live unconsciously in accord
with it, man alone, having consciousness, sins through
setting himself against it. For only man would or could
plant a tree with its roots in the air. Thus man has
rightly been called " that great orphan," but in time he
will return to his Father, for " prodigal " would be a
better word. But in the parable it was the prodigal for
whom the fatted calf was slain, for only he who has
sinned can know the foll depth of his Father's love.
Before one can unite, one must first separate ; before one
ISO
 ROOTS IN THE AIR
tan know one's own face, one must first look in a mirror,
and go on looking until it is understood that face and
reflection are one ; before one can appreciate the Tao,
one must first lose it. For the meaning means nothing
to us until we know its value. " Likewise joy shall be
in heaven over one sinner that repcnteth, more than
over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repent-
ance.
What is true of the Bodhisattva is true als o of the
Christ, if we read correctly the symbol of his life. For the
Nativity is meaningless without the Crucifixion ; the Holy
Child is an abomination w1less he surrenders his l ordship
over the world. That is to say, when the Tao is brought
to birth it is no Tao at all if it is considered as something
apart from the world of opposites, as something, having
which, we can claim superiority to that world. For if
we discriminate between ordinary life and the Tao, we
create simply another pair of conflicting opposites. Thus
when we overcome the discord b etween ot1rselves and
the external world, between pleasure and pain, life and
death, good and evil, through the realization of the
Tao, we must renounce our victory remembering that
Tao
. . . acts without depending upon them (the things of the world),
and raises without lording it over them.
When merits are accomplished it docs not lay claim to them.
Beca.usc it docs not lay claim to them, therefore it docs not lose them.
(" Tao T� Ching," 5 1 . Tra11s. Ch'ii Ta-kao.) 1

1 In other translations the last two sentences will be fowid at the

end of Chapter II.
1 .5 1
 THE GREAT RENUNCIATION

Therefore, although his Divine Incarnation gave hint

power over the world, to become a Messiah and found
an earLhly kingdom, Christ did not claim it. But because
he surrendered kingship and accepted the death of a
thief, his power became real, and th.is is the meaning of
the Resurrection. Yet we must not understand his
surrender of kingship simply as the surrender of dominion
over the Jews, or even of the destiny of a Julius Caesar
,. or an Alexander. For if we would grasp the full mean­
ing, the " earthly kingdom " must mean more than that.
The Buddhist who does not renounce his Nirvana be­
comes, in the deepest sense, an earthly king, for he has
done no more than to claim victory over the world, to
possess himself of its power, to become inflated with its
mana. But in truth he has not overcome the world at
all, for in claiming victory, victory has claimed him and
involved him in the worst of all conflicts-the conflict
between victor and vanquished. But Christ could only
,,
say, " I have overcome the world because he was not
its conqueror but its Saviour, and only the Bo dhisattva
has Nirvana because he does not make it in any way
different from the world of life and death, because he
renounces it for the salvation of all beings that live and
die.
Therefore it may have seemed to many that God might
have redeemed the world simply by the exercise of
Divine magic, by entering into the souls of men by
storm. But though this is the way of the King, it is not
the way of the Saviour, for the Saviour redeems the
world by accepting it, by loving it however great its evil.
152
 THE SUPREME PARAD OX
For this reason Christ did not claim dominion ; he
hallowed humanity by becoming human, and pain by
suffering it in its keenest form. Thus the Cross which
was once the symbol of contempt, of punished crime,
has become the symb ol of divinity, and in the Crucifix
we may see two things : firstly, that the Divine Son
accepts the whole of life, even the fate of malefactors,
and secondly, that tl1e living form of Tao , tl1e Incarnate
Word, is glorified by being spread and nailed upon the
archaic symbol of tl1e opposites. And over his head were
placed the words : " Jesus Natus Rex Iudaeomm," to
which the Jews obj ected, saying that he was not their king
but only claimed to be. But the whole meaning of his
life was that he renounced that claim, and wheth er or not
Pilate knew this, whether he saw th at Christ by renounc­
ing kingship was truly kiug, or whether he wrote thos e
words merely t o show his contempt fo r the Jews, know­
ing or unknowing he stated the very truth and the
supreme paradox. For by giving the highest title to
the figure of the 1 owest wretch Pilate completed the
symbol, and through stubborn contempt or deep insight
refused any change, saying, " Wha t I have written, I
have written."

1 53
 CONCLUSION

T O write of the deepest principles of life is to be

remmded always of a chain : if one link is raised
all the others follow. For one cannot understand the
thmgs of the spirit by separating life into bits and pieces,
and no part can be seen truly unless at the same time one
has regard for the whole. As life is such a chain, so also
are Christianity and the religions of the East. The Fall
cannot well be thought of apart from the Incarnation and
Crucifixion, while the pairs of opposites are likewise
meaningless without the Tao which binds them. There­
fore each chapter in this book has in some measure
necessarily overlapped the others. To use the language
of music, they have been less the distinct movements of
a symphony than a number of variations 011 a theme,
which is the Middle Way, the Tao, the Christ, the Mean­
ing or the Reconciling Principle of reason and nature,
good and evil. man and the universe, and of all those
opposites upon which the movement of life depends.
In order to grasp the problems occasioned by the conflict
between these various opposites we have consulted the
wisdom of the two great divisions of humanity-Bast
and West. We have discussed Christianity, Psychology,
Buddhism, Taoism and Vedanta in one ano ther's terms.
But our object was neither simply to compare, nor yet
to prove that these seemingly different faiths arc n1 fact
one. In the union of man and woman which produc�s
1 54
 C ONCLUSION
the child each remains different but, by reason of the
child, is given greater meaning. In the same way our
object has not been to discuss the wisdom of the East
and the West separately, nor even to compare them
standing in isolation. It has been to show how both
may be transformed, not just by contact with one another,
but by reason of the fruit of contact. ht other words,
it has been to bring them together and to think of each
in the light of the meaning given to it by the results
of that union.
But with those results we do not wish to try to found
an altogether new philosophy, existing apart from the
parent faiths. For the meanin g is in no way apart from
the opposites ; we speak of it as some new and third
factor, but this may easily mislead if we do not under­
stand that it exists in the opposites and cannot e:xist
without them. Herc we must be careful of our analogy
of the child. The child may appear to be something
new, and we may suppose that when it is bom it is so
much more important than the parents that they deserve
our attention no longer. But we, who arc Western and
Eastern people, are the parents, a11d we cannot cha11ge
our nature. As yet we have produced no child race
which can take to itself the child philosophy ; but if
we can conceive and bear this child philosophy, our task
is not to substitute it for our own, but to nourish and tend
it so that it gives n ew meaning to our own. The child
depends on its father a11d mother, and it would not b e
helpful i f its parents decided to be children themselves.
� ut in watching over the child they must nevertheless
xss
 CONCLUSION
become in some degree children themselves ; they musf
play the games of children and enter into the thoughts
of children, and this without any feeling of superiority.
What is important, however, is the way in which the
care of the child transforms and gives new meaning to
their own lives. That is to say, if we tried to make a new
religion from a synthesis of Buddhism and Christianity,
we should fail because our absorption in the synthesis
would lead to neglect of the two vital supp orts on which
it must stand. For we ourselves are those supports ; we
cannot deny our traditions, and the forms and symbols
of our native religions are deeply ingrained in our souls.
Therefore we have not set out to compare East and West
as one might compare the mental and physical peculiari­
ties of woman with those o f man. Nor has our object
been to amalgamate the two ; it has been to find in this
idea of the Middle Way a child which gives new meaning
to each. We do not ask for a new Religion of the Middle
Way ; we only ask that Westerners and Easterners should
think of it, develop it and nurture it, and understand
it in terms of their own traditions.
If, therefore, our ideas of Christianity, Buddhism,
Taoism and Vedanta have erred somewhat from the
orthodox path, the reaso11 is that we have interpreted
the meaning of each in the light of this Middle Way.
Because this book has b een written in the main for
Western people, we must finally state in brief how au
understanding of the Middle Way affects Christianity.
But first we must say that amoug Christians this Way
is not wholly new ; in the past many have seen its chief
156
 CONCLUSION
significance, which is that the Christian story from the
Fall to the Resurrection is less important as history than
as a symbol of what each must experience for himsel£
It is not easy to grasp this fully in the light of Christianity
alone, and. for this reason it is important that we should
study religions which are psychological, which are ways
of living rather than ways of belie£ For we have to live
the Christian story, and this is not done simply by re­
membering its events on the days of the year set apart
for each. The task is not so much to think of the present
meaning of what happened in the past, as to think of
those past events as symbols of what is happening in the
present. In this way the Fall becomes our own conflict
with the world and the Incarnation becomes a symbol
of mutual understanding between the two, of the
ascent to a position from which we can see both the
personal and the universal meaning of all that comes to
us. And lest we should imagine that this ascent has made
us into gods, into superior beings who have mastered
the world and broken its spell, the Crucifixion becomes
the symbol of our acceptance of all those conflicts and
pains, of our renunciation of divinity. For by this means
we find that divinity does not consist in our attitude to
life but in life itsel£ Thus the Incarnation is the birth
of this new attitude and the Crucifixion the understand­
ing that it is no cause for pride. For God is no God if
He stays in His high heaven and separates Himself from
the worms and the dust.
:But the East does not only help us in understanding
o�r symbols. It has something further to offer which
15 7
 CONCLUSION

is really beyond symbols. We devoted a chapter to Zen,

and it seems that this is a subject which must be
approached in a different way from any other Eastern
cult. For it is not specifically Eastern and it does not
use th e alien terms and forms of exotic faiths but the
language of ordinary life. In substance it appears to be
the pure religious experience apart from any creed, and
in form the pure everyday experience common to all
men apart from any na.tion or race. As the supreme
vision of the mystic which no words can describe, Zen is
found all over the world. But as a specific cult it comes
nearer than any other to the bedrock of religion, because
it points uncompromisingly to our ordinary experience
of life, telling us to find there what others seek in the
distant realms of philosophy and symbolism. Ideas and
symbols are necessary, for their study is like the Prodigal's
journey into a far cow1try. In the end we return to the
home from which we started, but it com.es before our
eyes iJ.1 a new light, and Zen is just this returning home.
It begins where philosophy ends, just as historically it
represents the fulfilment of Buddhism. To avoid any
prejudice or misW1.dcrstanding it is b est to remove it from
its Cbinese associations, to forget the label " Zen," to
return to our own religions and consider this : that
betwee11 the greatest height of spirituality and the most
ordinary thi11gs of the world there is no division. We
shall study every philosophy, search through all the
scriptures, consult every teacher and practise all spiritual
exercises until our minds are swollen with the whole
wisdom of the world. But in the end we shall return
158
 CONCLUSION
to the surprising fact that we walk, eat, sleep, feel and
breathe, that whether we are deep in thought or idly
passing the time of day, we are alive. And when we can
know just that to be the supreme experience of religion
we shall know the final secret and j oin in the laughter of
the gods. For the gods are laughing at themselves.

1 59 M
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
NoTE.-The number of works on Eastern thought
and mysticism is now so great that the general
reader will require a selection of the more im­
portant and readable works on each subject. The
Bibliography is divided into six sections : General,
Vedanta, Buddhism, Taoism, Yoga and Mis cel­
laneous. With the exception of the first and the
last, each of these is subdivided into two sections
-Original Texts and General Works by modem
commentators.
GENERAL
The Pageant of Asia. Kenneth Saunders. London, 1934.
The Heritage of Asia. Kenneth Sawiders. London, 1932.
The Story of Oriental Philosophy. L. Adams Beck. New
York, 193 1 .
Mysticism of East and West. W . L. Hare. London, 1923 .
Mysticism of East and West. Rudolf Otto. London, 1932.
INDIA
Indian Philosophy. Sir S. Radhakrishnan. London, 1 929.
The Legacy of India. Various authors . London, 1937.
Ancient India and Indian Civilization. Oursel, Grabowska
and Stem. London, 1 93 4.
Six Systems of Indian Philosophy. Max Muller. London,
1 899.
CIDNA
Three Religions of China. W. E. Soothill. London, 191 3 .
History of Early Chinese Philosophy. D . T . Suzuki. London,
19 1 4.
1 61
 BIBLIO GRAPHY

The Vision of Asia. L. Cranmer Byng. London, 1935.

The Historical Development of Religion in China. W. J.
Clcnncll. London, 1926.
Crnifi1eia11ism and its Rivals. H. A. Giles. London, 1926.
The Religions of China. (Confucianism and Taoism de­
scribed and compared with Christianity.) J. Legge.
London, 1 88 r .
Studies i n Chinese Religion. E . H . Parker. London, 1910.

JAPAN
History of Japanese Religion. M. Anesaki. London, 193 0.
Japan : A Cultural Survey. G. B. Sansom. London, 1936.
VEDANTA

Texts
Vedanta St1tras. Trans. G. Thibaut. First 2 vols. with
Sankara's commentary, third vol. with Ramanuja's.
London, 1 890, 1 896, and 1904.
The Ten Principal Upanishads. Shrcc Purohit Swami and
W. B . Yeats. London, 1937.
The Upanishads. 2 vols. Trans. Max Muller. London,
1 879-84.
Taittiriya Upanishad (Sankara's commentary) . Trans. A. M.
Sastri. Mysore, 1903 .
Isha-Upanishad. Trans. Sir Aurobindo Ghose. Calcutta,
1 924.
The Mand1&yopa11ishad (with Gaudapada's Karika and San­
kara's commentary) . Trans. M. N. Dvivcdi. Bom­
bay, 1909.
The Bhagavadgita (with the Sanatsugatiya and Anugita).
Trans. Kashinath Trimbak Telang. London, 1908.
The Song of the Lord (Bhagavadgita). Trans. E. J. Thom.as.
London, 193 I .
1 62
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

General
Vedanta. Sir S . Radhakrishnan. London, 1928 .
Philosophy of the Upanishads. Sir S. Radhakrishnan. Lon­
don, 193 5,
Vedanta Philosophy. Max Muller. London, 1924.
Outline of Vedanta. P. D eussen. London and New York,
1907.
System of Vedanta. P. Deussen. London. 1912.
Comparative Studies i11 Vedantism. Rabindranath Sircar.
London, 1927.
Studies in Vedanta. Kirtikar. Bombay, 1924.

BUDDHISM
A Buddhist Bibliography. A. C. March. 2204 items listed.
Annual Supplements published. Includes all works in
English. London, 193 5 .
Bibliographie Bouddhique. Various compilers. Paris, 1928-
3 0. 2 vols.
Texts
Complete translations of these are long and numerous,
and thus of little interest to the general reader. These,
however, may be found in the publications of :
The Pali Text Society ; Secretary : Mrs. Rhys Davids, Chip­
stead, Surrey.
Further translations (of b oth Mahayana and Theravada
texts) will be found in :
The Sacred Books of the East. Oxford University Press.
Tlie Sacred Books of the Buddhists. Oxford U.P.
Bibliotheca Buddhica. 26 vols. In Tibetan, Sanskrit, English
, and Russian. Leningrad, 1 897-193 0.
Of interest to the general reader are the following · texts
. and selections :
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Dhammapada. Trans. Max Muller. London, 1 898:

Reprint, 1924.
The Buddha's Way of Virtue (Dhammapada) . Trans. Wagis­
wara and Saunders. London, 1912.
Some Sayings of the Buddha. Trans. F. L. Woodward.
London, 1925.
Buddhism iti Translations. Trans. H. C. Warre11. Harvard,
1896.
Lankavatara Sutra. Trans. D. T. Suzuki. London, 1932.
Vimalakirti St1tra. Trans. Hokei Idumi. Eastern Buddhist,
Vols. 2, 3 and 4. Kyoto.
Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. Trans. Wong Mow Lam.
Shanghai, 1930.
The Diamond Sutra. Trans. W. Gemmell. London, 1912.
A Buddhist Bible. Compiled by Dwight Goddard. 4
Mahayana sutras. Thetford, Vermont, U.S . A., 1932.
Man11al of Zen Buddhism. Compiled and trans. by D . T.
Suzuki. Kyoto, 193 5.

General
The Pilgrimage of Buddhism. J. B. Pratt. London, 1928.
Buddha and The Gospel of Buddhism. A. Coomaraswamy.
London, 191 6.
What is Buddhism ? The Buddhist Lodge, London, 193 1.
History of Buddhist Thought. E. J. Thomas. London, 193 3 .
Buddhism : its History and Literature. T. W. Rhys Davids.
New York and London, 1926.

THERAVADA (HINAYANA)
Manual of Buddhism. C. A. F. Rhys Davids. London, 1932.
Die Lehre des Buddha. G. Grimm. Munich, 1925. Eng.
Trans. Leipzig, 1926.
The Wisdom of the Aryas. Ananda Metteya. London, 1923 .
164
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
73uddhism : its Birth and Dispersal. C. A. F. Rhys Davids.
London, 1934.
Outlines of Buddhism. C. A. F. Rhys Davids. London,
1934.
Buddhism and its Place in the Mental Life ef Mankind. Paul
Dahlke. London, 1927.

MAHAYANA
Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism. D. T. Suzuki. London,
1907.
Introduction to Mahayana Buddhism. Wm. McGovern. Lon­
don, 1922.
Japanese Buddhism. Sir Charles Eliot. London, 193 5.
Les Sectes bouddhiques japrmaises. Steinilbcr-Oberlin and
Matsuo. Paris, 1930.
Essays in Zen Buddhism. 3 vols. D. T. Suzuki. London
and Kyoto, 1927, 193 3 and 1934.
Studies in the Lankavatara S11tra. D. T. Suzuki. London,
1930.
Buddhism in the Life and Thought efJapan. D. T. Suzuki.
London, 1937.
Introduction to Zen Buddhism. D. T. Suzuki. Kyoto, 1934.
The Sp irit of Zen. A. W. Watts. London, 1936.
Zen, der Lebendige Buddhismus i,i Japan. Ohasama and
Faust. Gotha, 1925.
Tibet's Great Yogi, Milarepa. Evans-Wcntz and Dawa
Samdup. London, 1928.
Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines. Evans-Wentz and Dawa
Samdup. London, 193 5.
The Buddhism of Tibet. L. A. Waddell. Cambridge, 1934.
Initiations and Initiates in Tibet. A. David-Neel. Lo11don,
193 1.
The Religion of Tibet. J. E. Ellam. London, 19.27.
I6i
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

TA OISM

Translations of the " Tao T� Ching "

Ch'u Ta-Kao. London, 193 7.
Arthur Waley. (The Way and Its Power.) London, 193 5 .
E . H. Parker. Reprinted from the Dublin Review. Lon-
don, undated.
Stanislas Julien. (Lao Tseu Tao Te King. Le Livre de la
Voie et de la Vertue.) Paris, 1 842.
C. S. Medhurst. Chicago, 1905.
Lionel Giles. (Sayings of Lao Tzu.) London, 1926.
Richard Wilhelm. (Laotse-Taoteking. Das Buch des Alte,n
vom Sinn und Leben.) Jena, 1923 .
Translations of Chuang Tzu
H. A. Giles. London and Shanghai, 1926.
Richard Wilhelm. (Dschuang Dsi.) Jena, 1923 .
Yu-lan Fung. Shanghai, r.923 .
Lionel Giles. (The Musings of a Chinese Mystic.) London,
r9zo.
The last two arc selections.
Translations of one or other or both of the above, together
with other texts are :
The Texts of Taoism. 2 vols. Trans. J. Legge. London,
1891 .
Taoist Texts. f. H. Balfour. Shanghai, r 8 84.
Taoisme. 2 vols. Leon Wieger. · Paris, 1913.
Other texts are :
Taoist Teachings (Lieh Tzu) . Trans. Lionel Giles. London,
r925.
Das Geheimnis der Goldenen Blute (The Secret of the Golden
flower) . Wilhelm and Jung. Munich, r929. Trans.
London, 193 r.
1 156
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Tao the Great Lwninant. (Huai Nan Tzu.) Trans. Evan

Morgan. London and Shanghai, 193 3 .
The Classic of Purity. (Ko Hsuan.) London, 1934.

General
The Itiner Life a11d the Tao- Teh-King. C. H. A. Bj erre­
gaard. New York, 1912.
Chinesische Mystik. A. Forke. Berlin, 1922.
Lao Tse t1tid der Taoisinits. R. Wilhdm. Stuttgart, 1925 .

YOGA
Patanjali 's " Yoga Sutra "
Rajendralala Mitra. Calcutta, 1 8 8 3 .
M . N . Dvivedi. London and Madras, 1934.

General
Yoga as Philosophy and Religion. Surendranath Dasgupta.
London, 1924.
Introduction to Yoga. C. Bragdon. London, 193 3 .
Yoga and Western Psychology . Geraldine Coster. London,
1 934.
Raja Yoga. Swami Vivekananda. Almora, 193 0.
Bhakti Yoga. Ditto.
Gnana Yoga. Ditto.
Karma Yoga. Ditto. Calcutta, 1926.
Swami Vivekananda, Collected Works. Mayavati Mem orial
Edn.
Kunstform tmd Yoga. Heinrich Zimmer. B erlin, 1926.

MISCELLANEOUS
Psychological Types. C. G. Jung. London, 193 3 .
Tw o Essays o n Analytical Psy chology . C . G . Jung. London,
1928.
Modern Man in Search of a Soul. C . G . Jung. London, 193 l'i.
.
167
 BIBLIO GRAPHY

Der Orga11is,nus der Seele (The Organism of the Mind):

G. R. Heyer. Muni.ch, 1932, Trans. London, 193 3 .
Understanding Human Nature. Alfred Acller. London, 1928.
Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology. Alfred Adler.
London, 1 929.
The Ego and the Id. Sigmwid Freud. London, 1927.
Civilization and its Discontents. Sigmund Freud. London,
193 0.
Psychology and Morals. J. A. Hadfield. London, 1936.
I and Me. E. Graham Howe. London, 193 5.
War Dance. E. Graham Howe. London, 1937.
The World of Man. G. Groddeck. London, 193 5.
Creative Understanding. H. K eyserling. London, 1929.
The Message of Plato. E. J. Urwick. London, 1920.
Freedom and the Spirit. Nicholas Berdyaev. London, 193 5.
The End of Our Time. Nicholas Bcrdyaev. London, 193 5 .
Concentration and Meditation. The Buddhist Lodge, London,
1 9 3 5.
Seven Symbols of Life. A. W. Watts. London, 193 6.
The above are recommended as important in throwing
light on various aspects of the main theme of this book.

1 68
 GLOS SARY
Abbreviations : Ch. Chinese ; J. Japanese ; P. Pali ; Sk. Sanskrit.
Advaita (Sk.) : " Not two." The basic principle of
Vedanta, i.e. that there is only one ultimate Reality. Al­
though in appearance the wtlverse is dualistic, made up of
conflicting opposites (dvandva), and though we discriminate
between ourelves and the universe, the two are in fact one.
This doctrine is contained in the saying, Tat tvam asi­
" That (the One) art thou "-for the individual is tmderstood
not just as a part of the one Reality (Brahman) but as Brah­
man in its entirety.
Anatta (P.) : " No-self." This is one of the " Three
Signs of Being " in Buddhism (v. Anicca and Dukkha) .
It means that no individual thing exists as a tbi11g-i11-itsclf,
as a c omplete and autonomous entity apart from the rest
of the tmivme. Thus in.an has no s oul which is an etcn1al
and separate reality. His soul is his " meaning," and if man
is considered by himself this docs not exist.
Anicca (P.) : " Not-permanent." Another of the
Buddhist " Three Signs of Being." Its meaning is that 110
individual thing preserves its fom1 for ever ; forms only
exist because they are in a continuous state of change.
Arhat (Sk.) , Arhan (P.) : The p erfect man in Bud­
dhism. He who has followed the Path to its end and has
attained the state of Nirvana (q.v.) .
Artha (Sk.) : The duties of citizenship-establishing a
family, gaining a position in the world, and in every way
" rei1dering unto Caesar the things that arc Caesar's." This
term is used in the Code of Ma.nu to designate one of the
.three functions of man's life. (v. Kama and Dharma.)
169
 GLO S SARY

Atman (Sk.) : The Self, the Spirit, in man and all createa
things which is one with Brahman, the universal S elf (q.v.),
in its entirety.
Atta (P.) : As used in Buddhism this must be translated
" the thing-in-itsc:lf," the individual considered as a real,
self-existent and eternal entity. (v. Anatta.)
Avatar (Sk.) : A Hindu term for the earthly incarnation
of Vishnu, that aspect of God which preserves the universe,
as distinct from Brahma the Creator, and Shiva the Des­
troyer. These incarnations (e.g. Rama and Krishna) appear
on earth from time to time to teach mankind the Law of
life.
Avidya (Sk.) , Avijja (P.) : " Not-knowledge " or
Ignorance. The condition which creates our bondage to
the world of lifo and death (Sangsara, q.v.), which involves
us in the conflict of the opposites. This bondage is the
result of n ot w1dersta11ding the true nature of the opposites.
(11. Advaita.)
Bhagavad-Gita (Sk.) : " The Song of the Lord." A
portion of the sixth book of the Mahabharata, generally
ascribed to the Second Century B.c. The Gita consists of
a number of poetical discourses p ut into the mouth of
Krishna, exhorting Arjuna on the field of battle. This is
perhaps not only the most popular but the most remarkable
text of Indian mysticism. (See Bibliography, Vedanta
(Texts) .)
Bhakd (Sk.) : Devotion. One of the three forms of
Yoga (q.v.) .
Bodhisattva (Sk.) : One whose essence (sattva) is En­
lightenment (Bodhi). This term is used in Mahayana. Bud­
dhism to describe one of the manifestations of a Buddha in
the world of form. For a Buddha do cs not retire into the
ultimate bliss of Nirvana, shutting himself away from the
rest of creation for all eternity. He renounces this eternal
1 70
 GLOS SARY

peace, and appears in the form of a B odhisattva in order

that he may help every living creature to attain Enlighten­
ment.
Brahman (Sk.) : From the Sk. root Brih-, " Breath."
The world. of opposites, night and day, rest and activity,
pralaya and manvantara, is descnbcd as the inbreathing and
outbreathing of Brahman, the Self-existent. Brahman
corresponds in some ways to the Absolute of Subjective
Idealism, the One Reality of which all separate things arc
appearances. (v. Advaita.)
Buddha (Sk.) : " An Enlightened One." The name is
usually applied to Gautama Siddartha, sage of the Sakya
clan, a prince of royal birth, who lived between 600 and
500 :e.c. He was the founder of the Buddhist religion, but
in Mahayana Buddhism he is seen as one of ma11y Buddhas
who appear on earth from time to time in order that the
knowledge of the Law may never perish. B11ddlta is really
a title and not a name, and sometimes it is used to designate
the principle rather than the person, i.e. the absolute Essence,
Reality or Meaning of the Universe. Hence the saying,
" All is Buddha." Thus Buddha.hood is an attainment
which may be reached by all, and a Buddha is not so much
what the West understands as a God, but a man who through
countless lives has reached the fulfilment of human destiny.
Chuang Tzu (Ch.) : One of tl1c three principal sages of
Taoism, the other two being Lao Tzu, its founder (q.v.),
and Lieh Tzu. His date is about 3 3 0 :e . c., and the writings
ascribed to him (in which there arc many interpolations)
develop the principles of the laconic Tao Te Ching (q.v.)
with a wealth of anecdote and anal ogy which is both subtle
and humorous. (v. Bibliography, Taoism.)
• Dharma (Sk.), Dhamma (P.) : This word has many
shades of meaning. The nearest English equivalent is
'.' Law," and its three main senses are : the fundamental
171
 GLOSSARY

Law or Meaning upon which all the processes

based, the way in which the universe works ; the
Teaching of the Buddha ; as applied to each ind.ivi
thing, its functio11, the law of its being, or its meaning. It
also denotes one of the three stages or functions of man's
life as described in the Code of Manu, i.e. the latter part of
lifo when man devotes himself to the things of the spirit.
(v. Artha an cl. Kama.)
Dhyana (Sk.) , Jhana (P.) : In Yoga (q.v.) this signifies
a particular state of consciousness attained in profound medi­
tation. It may generally be described as the union of sub­
j ect and obj ect in concentration. i.e. When one has con­
centrated 011 a given object for a considerable time, there
prevails a union between oneself and that object. This in
tum gives way to samadhi (q.v.) . In Buddhism four Jhanas
a.re enumerated, being the four states of consciousness to be
attained before reaching the final Nirvana (q.v.) .
Dukkha (P.) : Another of the Buddhist " Three Signs
of Being " (v. Anatta and Anicca) . The usual translation
is " suffe1i.ng,' ' but this is too narrow, for it involves not
only physical and mental pain but any sort of discord. The
saying sabbc sankhara dukklza-" All compow1ds are dukkha "
-docs not mean that they arc suffering pain so much as
that, through ignorance, they are involved in the conflict
of opposites.
Gnana (Sk.) : The intellectual aspect of knowledge or
wisdom. One of the three forms of Yoga (q.v.) .
Hinayana (Sk.) : " The Little Vehicle "-i.e. the lesser
means of bringi11g man to Enlightenment. A term coined
by the followers of the Mahayana (Great Vehicle, q.v.) to
describe those who acknowledge only the version of the
Buddha's teaching recorded in the Pali scriptures. This
version is said to be nearer to the original teaching of the
Buddha than the more elaborate Sanskrit scriptures. By
T '72
 GLO SSARY

its own followers the Hinayana is known as the Theravada

(P.) or " Way of the Elders." It is now found in Ceylon,
Burma and Siam.
Kaivalya (Sk.) : Used by Patanjali (q.v.) in his Yoga
Siitra to describe the state of complete spiritual freedom from
the world of form and the conflict of the opposites.
Kali (Sk.) : The bride of Shiva, the Destroying aspect
of God (Hinduism) . Is said to take delight in destruction,
being the absolute female (i.e. negative) principle. In
various cults she is worshipped with debased orgies in which
human sacrifice is often used. The victims often come of
their own wish, desiring only complete annihilation.
Kama (Sk.) : Passion, the emotional nature, or the art
of pleasing the senses. One of the three functions of man
in the Code of Manu.
Karma (Sk.) : " Action." Used also to mean.
" destiny, " as in, " It is my karma that this has happened to
me," or in other words, " It is my own doing." Doth in
Vedanta and Buddhism, all that happens to us comes by
reason of our own condition. Wc attract certain circum­
stances to ourselves by reason of what we are, by reason of
the results of past actions a.11d thoughts. The term also
denotes another of the three forms of Yoga (q.v.) .
Lao Tzu (Ch.) : " Young-Old " or " The Old D t)y, "
the founder of Taoism, said to have lived c. 600 B.c. and
to have written the Tao Te Ching (q.v.) . Some authoritfrs
hold that he is only a legendary figure, and Waley believes
that his name was only associated with the Tao ''1"6 Cl,i,�i!
after the Second Century B.C. Usually rep rc.� mtcd in art
as riding on a water-buffal o, one of the fiercest animals,
which his calm spirit has tamed.
Mahayana (Sk.) : " The Great Vehicle." The form of
Buddhism now found in Chi11a, Japan, Tibet, Mongolia a.nu
�orea, .flourishing in a great variety of sects. Odginally
1 73
 GLOSSARY
basl:d on the Sanskrit version of the Buddha's teaching, its
chief early exponents were Ashvaghosha, Nagarjwia, Asanga,
Vasubandhu and Santi-deva. It comprises many doctrines
which, though not fomul in early Buddhism, arc the
logical devclopmcnt of the Buddha's original teaching.
The most important of these are the Bodhisattva do ctrine
(q.v.) and the Trikaya, the Trinity, or the Three Bodies of
the Buddha.
Maya (Sk.) : illusion. The false view of the world
obtained as a result of avidya (q.v.) .
Neti, neti (Sk.) : " Not this, not this . • . " The for­
mula describing the negative way of approach to the ulti­
mate Reality, i.e. denying Reality as any particufor form.
(v. Sunyata.)
Nirvana (Sk.), Nibbana (P.) : The " waning out " of
the flame of trislma (q.v.) , of selfish craving, which results
in liberation from the conflict of the opposites. Nirvana is
a negative term, but the Buddhist scriptures describe it p osi­
tively as a state of absolute freedom, calm and bliss.
Patanjali (Sk.) : The author of the Yoga Sutra, a collec­
tion of terse aphorisms on Yoga practice (q.v.), divided into
four books. He is sometimes regarded as the fowider of
Yoga, but Yoga existed long before his time (Second Cen­
tury B.c.), and it is probable that he was the first to collect
and arrange its principles in literary form.
Purusha (Sk.) : The S oul or Self which is the Seer, the
Spectator, in all actions, thoughts and emotions, without
being itself involved therein. Ignorance, says Patanjali, is
the result of identifying the Seer (Purusha) with the instru­
ments of seeing-the mind, the body and the senses which
together compti.se the physical personality.
Sakayaditthi (P.) : The heresy of separateness. The
idea of the soul as a self-existent reality, separate from the
rest of the universe. (v. Anatta, Atta and Atman.)
1 74
 GLOSSARY

· Samadhi (Sk.) : The state of consciousness achieved in

me ditation which follows after dhyana (q.v.) . If dhyana is
the union of subj ect and object, samadhi is the state in which
subject and object are forgotten and only the meaning which
relates them remains. Various grades of samadbi arc men­
tioned in the books of both Yoga and Buddhism.
Samurai (J.) : The warrior of feudal Japan. They were
the retainers of the various daimy o (feudal lords) . For an
account of their code of honour ( bushido) and their connec­
tion with Zen in its influence on judo, ke11do and other mili­
tary arts, see E. J. Harris on's Fighting Sp irit ofJap an (London,
1913 ) , Nukariya's Religion of the Samurai (London , 1 9 1 3 )
an d A . W . Watts's Sp irit of Zen (London, 193 6) .
Sangsara (Sk.) : The world of opposites, the alternation
of birth and death, sometimes known as the Wheel of Life
(Bhavachakra). Sa11gsara is the pairs of opposites considered
apart from the meaning which relates them, i.e. the opposites
in conflict. As this conflict is illusion (may a), San�sara is i11
fact Nirvana, and to understand this is to attain liberation .
Sanyassin (Sk.) : A homeless seeker of E11lightc11mc11t.
Satori (J.) : The term used in Zen for the sudden fh�h
of Enlightenment which solllctimes follows prolonged con­
centration on some problem (ko-an) . Satori, however,
comes at other times as well, an d many instances arc 1·ccordcd
of satori resulting from 011c of those curious atlSWl'ts to ques­
tions (mondo) with which Ze11 literature abounds. Ilxa.mplcs
in Chapter IV.
Sunyata (Sk.) : " Empti11css." The 11ega.tivc way of
describing the t1lti111atc Reality. It is called Bmptin�·ss tlr
No-thingness because it is not a.ny 11artimfor thing; or form.
When it is understood that no individual exists as a thi 11g-i11-
itself, then the whole t111ivcrsc is seen as empty of sd f�
existc11t thil1gs. But this is n ot a denial of the tmiwrs�·. for
�o say that Stmyata is No-thing is to say that it is All-thi ng:.,
r..A, 1 75 N
 GLOSSARY
or rather that it is the meaning, the relationship between th'e
whole and the parts, neither of which exists without it.
Sutra (Sk.) , Sutta (P.) : A sacred scripture. In Bud­
dhism the term is generally applied to the recorded words
of the Buddha. In Vedanta and other Indian systems it is
applied to the works of outstanding sages, while commen­
taries on these sutras are known as sastras.
Tantra (Sk.) : A " web " or " warp," hence a continuous
series and hence a rule or ritual. Tantra is found in both
Hinduism and Buddhism, and though its forms are many,
it is concerned mainly with the s exual aspect of religion.
There are exalted and debased forms, and all make we of
magical and symbolic rites and practices relating to the
generative principle.
Tao (Ch.) : Originally Tao meant " speech." Thus the
first line of the Tao Te Ching reads : " The Tao that can be
tao-cd is not the eternal Tao." Many translations have been
suggested-the Way, God, Reason, the Logos, the Law,
the Spirit. These fail because the Tao contains a multi­
plicity of ideas. Wilhelm has translated it as " Meaning "
and perhaps this is the nearest we can come. like Dharma
(q.v.), Tao is used in three main senses : as the Meaning or
Way of the universe ; as the art and science of Taoism, as
following the Way ; as the meaning, function or way of
any particular thing.
Tao T� Ching (Ch.) : " The Book of Tao and Te."
This is perhaps the greatest of all the mystical books of
China, not only because of its profundity but also because
of its manner. It is laconic, witty and hwnorous, and the
writer had a most remarkable sense of analogy and insight
into natural phenomena. The work is usually ascribed to
Lao Tzu (q.v.), alth0l1gh Waley gives its date as about 240
B.c. There is no particular sequence of thought running
through it ; rather it is a series of aphorisms and observations
176
 GLO SSARY

written down from time to time without any atteiupt at

logical arrangement. (v. Bibliography, Taoism.)
T! (Ch.) : Like Tao, Ti is untranslatable. The usual
rendering is " virtue," hut it should not be understoo d. as
mere obs ervance of the moral law, for Taoism has no moral
law. Rather it is the Tao working in man, and. the man
of Ti is he who has realized Tao in his way of living.
Trishna (Sk.), Tanha (P.) : " Thirst." Althot1gh the
usual rendering is " desire," this is too wide a term, for
trishna is a particular kind. of desire : viz.-the desire to hold
on to oneself or any other changing form as an atta or tbing­
in-itsel£ It resists change, because change removes things
from our grasp, and. hence it is a denial of hfe. For things
cannot live unless they change, and cannot even exist if they
are isolated. from the universe. Thus tri.shna is the desire
to isolate and possess certain objects for oneself, the chief
of these being one's own person.
Wu-wei• (Ch . ) : " Non-a.ct1011 . " or 0 11011-asscrtion.
• "

This should not be understood. a.s doing nothing, for it is

the principle of overcoming the world by acceptance, by
yielding oneself. It is a Taoist term describing the prin­
ciple of victory by gentleness exe1npli£i.cd in judo or jH-j11ts11,
whereby the opp onent is defeated by yielding to hilll and
using his own strength to bring about his downfall. Thus
water cannot be cut, however much it yields to the knife ;
in fact, it is invulnerable because it yields.
Yajnavalkya {Sk.) : A nan1e which occurs in solllc of
the principal Upanishads as the teacher whose doctrine tl1cy
record. Nothing is known of him outside die Upanishads,
hut Gedcn writes, " Ifthe name represents a real individuality,
and. is not merely a title under whose shelter many co11-
vergent thoughts and reasonings ha.ve found expressi on,
Yajnavalkya may claim a plac:e with the grcati..'St thinkers
of the world. or of any age.' '
1 77
 GLOSSARY

Yin and Yang (Ch.) The female and male, dark and"
light, negative and p ositive principles. A Taoist term for
the two aspects of the Tao.
Yoga (Sk.) : Literally a yoke or disciplin e. S ometimes
said to be called a yoke because it is the method of j oining
man and the universe. There arc three basic forms of Yoga
-Gnmia, Bhakti and Karma, Thought, Devotion an d Action,
b eing the three main ways of approach to Enlightenment.
Raja Yoga is an eclectic form comprising not only these
three, but a fourth, Hatha Yoga, which consists of various
neuro-physical exercises. The chief treatise on Raja Yoga
is Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, while a further exposition is found
in the Bh ag avad-Gita (q.v.) . The object of Yoga technique
is to discriminate between the real Self (Atman or Purusha,
q.v.) and the false self. The latter is the personality, com­
posed of body, mind and s enses, with its three qualities
(gunas) of energy, inertia and balance. The former, the
real Self, uses the false as its instrument, and if the instrument
is to be employed aright, it should not b e identified with
the user.
INDEX
 INDEX
Acceptance of life, xvi, 75, 77, Bliss, 97
148, 152 Bodhicharyavatara, 1 46
Action, 141 Bodhidharma, n5, n6
" Active imagination," 91 Bo dhisattva, xvi, 3 7, 129, 13 8 fl:,
Adam, Fall and Curse of, 43, 54, 144, 152
IOI, I 3 3 Boredom, 13
Adler, Dr. Alfred, 134 Brahman, 58 ff.
Advaita, 58, 60, 63 Breath, Analogy of, 1 3 4, !4?
Analysis, Principle of, 79 Buddha, the, 21, 24, S4, I I4, r28,
Anatta, 55 148
Anicca, S5 Iluddhahood, 98, 123
Antiquity, Classical, I Buddhism, 21, 26, 27, 56, 97,
Archetypes, 96 I I 5 , 143 , 146
Arhat, 129 and Christianity, I I2
Aristotle, 3 , 7 Development of, 29
Art and Nature, 89 and Love, 148
- Chinese, 31, Bo ff., I I3
- Eastern, 2 Calligraphy, Chinese, 81
- Japanese, So, n 3 Calvin, 45
- Mediaeval and Humanist, Calvinism, I I
IO Catholicism, 3 n , 2 0 , 41
Asanga, 146 Catholicity of Eastern wisdom,
Atman, 57 25
Atta, 55 Ch'an Buddhism, 30 (v. Zen)
Avidya, 24 Change, 78
Chesterton, G. K., 58, 145
Balance, 84 Child Principle, tl1e, xvi, 40, 6r,
Baptism, I oo 71, 72 ff., 9S, I DO, ISI,
B eauty, 150 15 5 ff.
Belief, 22, no, n2 China, Buddhism in, 30
Bliagavad-Gitn, 9 6, 141 Chinese Art, 3 1, So ff., n3
. .Blasphemy, 132 - Mentality and Indian, R4
181
 INDEX
Chi.i1cse Art, hiternational Ex­ Denial of Life, 79
hibition of, 2, 81 n. D escartes, IO
Chrcstos, the, 4 Desire, 24, 5 s
Christ, thc, 43 , 68, 70, 73 , 77, Dctcrn1inism, 12, 14
I DD, IO I, I2I, I 2 8 , I44, D cusscn, P., 6r
151 ff. Dhyana, II3
Christianity, 89, 109, 1:11 , 146, Disciplin e, 20, 89, 1 02
156 ff. Discord, 54
and Buddhism, I I2 Dr:una, European, IO
and Morality, 68 Dreams, 41, 91
Christian Science, 77 Dt1absm, 63 , 70
Chu:u1g Tzu, 48, 64, 75 , 76 , 8 3 , Dukkha, 54
99, 1 3 1
Church, the Catholic, 41 Ease, Fcding of, 147
Civilization, 95 Edttcation, 1
" Collective image," l 3 7 E go, th e, 5 3 , 55, 93 , 94, 1 02
Con1passion, 1 3 9 the Super (Freud), 94 11.
Complexes, 1 3 1> Energy, 1 00
Concentration, 1 02 , ro8 Enlightenment, xv, I I 4, I I S,
Conflict, 5 3 , 78 I20, I 2I , 128
of Opposit('S, 45 Escapism, 3 7
Psychological, 19 Eschatology, Christian, 45 , 70
Confucianism, 30 Ethics, Insufficiency of, 1>9
Confucius, 2, 8 8 , 1 14 Eugenics, I 5
Conscience, 94 n. Evil, 48
Consciousness, 92, 97 and Sin, r so
Cosmic Consciousness, 87 Extravcrsion, 83
Go111lmding Pictures, The Ten, 147
and n. Fa-Hien, n s
Cranmer-Byng, L. , 143 Faith, Jung on, 21
Cross, the, 153 Fall of Man, the, 43 , 44 ff. , 53 , 74
Crucifixion, the, 128, r s r ff. , 1 5 7 Fmtasy, 92
Curse o f Adam, 54 Fascism, 1 5
Cynicism, Taoist, 65 Fencing, Analogy of, 142
Fixation, 79
Damnation, 45 Flower, Analogy of the, 75, 76
Death, 78 Free-will, 14, 46
182
 INDEX
• Freud, Sigmund, 5, 2 3 , 47, 53 Incarnation, the, 43 , 1 52, 157
Functions of Man, tl1e Three, 28 India, S7
Futurism, 16 Indian Buddhism, 30
- Philosophy, 36
Genesis, Book of, I DO - Mentality and Chinese, 84
Glamour, of exotic faiths, xiv Inferiority Complex, 1 3 4
Gnosticism, 3 , 4 Infmitc, the, 5 8
God, 110, 1 3 7, 1 52, 1 5 7 Inflation, Spiritual, 136, 1 52
Good, 48 Intellcct, xiv, 12, 25
Governm ent, 65 Interpreter, Function of the, xii
Grace of God, 45, 47, 68, I D!) ff., Isl1a-Upanishad, 5 8
no, n4, r21 , T25, 130, 1 3 2, Islam, 3
135 Israel, Tradition of, 3 and n.
Greek Philosophy, 3
Grossc, Ernst, 81 n. Japan, n6
Guru, 8 6 Buddhism in, 32
Japanese Art, So, u3
Happiness, 79 Jesus, 73 , xoo
Heaven, 4S Jh:mas, the Four, 63
Hell, 45 Judgement, Day of, 45
Hero, Image, the, 137 Jung, C. G., xiv, 2 I, 23, 8 3 , 84,
Heyer, G. R. , 42 n., 76 !)l, 92, 96, I 3 S ff.
Hinayana Buddhi�m, 3 6
Hinduism, 27, 28 Kabala, The, 4 n.
Holy Spirit, the, 101 Kaivalya, 96, 9 7
Hui-Ncng, 98, u6 Kali, 6
Humanism, 8 ff., 44 Kama Sutra, 29 n.
Humour, Budd.hist, 145 Kanaoka, 81
Kingship, Spiritual, 1 52
Ideas, 105 Knowledge, 128
Identification and Unity, 87 and Faith, 2 7
Idolatry, 104 Kumarajiva, n s
Ignorance, 24
Illusion, 3 s Lao Tzu, 49, 101, II4
Imitation of Eastern wisdom, xv Laughter, 121, 159
Impersonality of Eastern wis- Law, 14, 50
dom, 34 .ff., 39 Levy-Briihl, 87
183
 INDEX
Libertinism, 64 Nature, Love o f, 145
Libido, 1 8, 24 Mastery of, 16
Literature on Eastern Thottght, Return to, 8 8
xi. Union with, 87, 88
Logic, 23, 25 Neo-Platonism, 3
Logos, the, 72 " Neri, ncti," S9
Love, xvi, 128, 144, 149 .ff. New Testamt'nt, 3
in Bucl.dh.is111, 148 New Thottght, 77
Nirvana, xv, 36, 3 8, 97, 120, 133 ,
Magician, the, 1 3 6 1 3 8 , I4I, I S2
Mahayana Buddhism, 3 0, 36,
37 ff., 61, 138, 1 3 6 ff. Occultism, 99
Marzdukya-Upani;liad, 59 Old Age, 79
Ma.nu, Code of, 29, 8 8 Old Testament, 3
Marxism, IS Opposites, the Pairs of, 39, 45,
Materialism, 79 52, 63 , 74, J08, I 3 3 , I5 1
Matter, 100 Optimism o f Humanism, 44
M aya, xv, 3 S , 37, 54, 57, 6 0 , 6r , Organic Pl11losophy, 27
63 , 77, 106 O��nnism of the Mi11d, 76
Meaning, 72, 74, 101, I S O Original sin, 44 ff., and Freud,
Mecha.rucal view of lifc, 1 3 46, 47
Mediator, Christ the, 71 Osiris, 73
Meditation, 97
Metaphysics, 25 Pacifism, 77
Middle Way, the, 39 ff., 6r, 66, Paganism, 4r
154 :ff. Pa.in, 5 4
Mind, 98 Painting, Far Eastern, Bo
Monasteries, Buddhist, 146 Pali Canon, 3 7
Morality, 49, 64, 66 ff. Pantheism, 75
Taoism and, 65 Paradox, Eastern use of, 22
Mosaic Tradition, 3 n. Participation mysti'.lue, 87, 88, 91,
Music, Analogy of, 103 , 123 , 1 07
124, 1 3 1 , 142 Passion of Christ, 22
Mysteries, the, 4 n. Patanj:ili, 89, 93
Mysticism, Eastem, 2 Pendulum, Analogy of, 67
Perfection, 18, 78, 79
Narcissus, Myth of, I I Pl'rsonality, 3 5
1 84
 INDEX
l>hallicism, 42 Relationship, Principle of, 74
Philosophy, Oriental, 2 3 Relaxation, 8 9, 9S, 102, I2 S
W estem, II, 25 Religion and Theology, no
Pilate, Pontius, 1 S 3 Religious exp erience, 6, no,
Planning of Society, IS I I2, IS8 ff.
Pleasure, 54 Renaissance, the, 8
Poise, I42 Renunciation, 139, 14 1, I S I
Politics, Taoist, 6 5 Repression, S I
Possess, Desire to, r 3 8 " Resist not Evil," 77
Power, I34 Resurrection, the, 70
Prayer, 70 Revelation, the Christian, 7, 22
Predestination, r2, 46 Rhys Davids, Mrs. C. A. F.,
Pride, Spiritual, I2I 3 6 n.
Primitive, the, 87, r36 Rhythm, 8 3
Prodigal, Parable of the, I so, Rig veda , S7
158 Rinzai, 123
Proselytism, xii Romans, EpistTc to the, 5 0
Protestantism, 3 , 69
Psychic Faculties, 99 St. Jolm, Gospel of, 72
Psychology, Modern, xiii, s ff. St. Paul, 4 n., so, 70, 108 , I2I,
Psychological trend of Eastern 144, and Jcsus, 73,
wisdom, xiv, 23, 2s St. Thomas Aquinas, 9
Puritanism, 3 and n. Salvation, 22, 44, 68
Purposelessness, I4I, I4 3 Samadhi, 87
Purusha, 92, 9 3 , 94 , 9 s, 9 8 Sangsara, 36, 38, 1 33
Sankara, 5 8
Raja Yoga (Vivekananda ) , 90 Santi Deva, 14 6
Rationalism, 8 Sanyassin, xv
Realism in art, J S Sarap utra, 97
Reality, the One, 3 5 , S7 Satori, 121 , 123, 1 3 0
Realization, ro7 Saviour, the, :xvi, 1 s2
Reason, xiii, 67 Schizophrenia, 19
Age of, I5, 41 Scholar, Attitude of the, xii,
Rebirth, 32, 140 23
Redemption, the, 129, r s2 Scholasticism, 3
Reformation, the, 3 Schoohncn, the, 7
Regimentation, 19 Science, s ff., no, III
185
 INDEX
Secret ef t11c Golden Flower, xiv, Taoism, 3 0 , 48, 64, 76, 79 , 84:
77, 92 141
Sectarianism, Christian and Bud­ T6, 1 02, c 3 5
dhist, 3 3 Technique, Religious, 22, 69,
Seer and the Seen, the, 9 1 106, 109 ff.
Self, the, 3 8 , 56, S7, 93 Theology, HO
the Higher, 94 a
Thomas Kemp is, 126
Semitic Peoples, the, 2 Tree of Knowledge, 48
S ennon on the Mount, the, 49, Triliity, the, 129
69 Trishna, 24
Service, 128
Sex, 42 Unco11scious, the, JO, 17 ff., 23,
Shakespeare, IO S3, 76, 83, 9 6, l 3 6
Shinto, 32 Unconscious Drawing, 9 r
Sin, so Universality o f Eastern wisdom,
and Evil, I 50 xv
Original, 44 ff. Upanishads, 3 8, 56, 5 7
- :md Freud, 46, 47
Solomon, 1 3
Som of God , 73 Vacclmg otta, 56
Sorrow, 54 Vatsyay::m.'1, , 28, 29
Spontaneity, 143 Vedanta, 27, 58 ff.
Sufi.ism, 2 Vimnlakirti S11tra, 97
Sumiye, 8 I, 82 Virgin Birth, thc, 70
Sunyat:i., 61, 62 Virgin Mary, the, J O C
Suzuki., D. T., 62, u3, 143 Virtue, so, 101
Symbolism, Christian, 7, 20, Vivekananda, 90 and 11.
4I ff., 1 57 Void, the, 6:i.

Takuan, 142 War, 1 9 , 3 2, 77

Tan-Ching, 98, I4I the Great, 44
Tan.ha, ss Water and the Spirit, 39, IOO
Tantra, 6 Whitehcnd, A. N., I n
Tao, 4 8 , 75 , 92 , 93 , 99, I OI , I D2, Will, the, 1 8 , 143 ff.
I06, 107, 108, I09, I2l, 130, Wistlnm , 2
I32, I44, I4S, I49, I S O, ISI Wisdom Religion, the, 43
Looking for the, 125 Wonder, the sense of, 13
186
 INDEX
-
Word, the, 72, 73 Zt'nBu dcJ.him1, 3 0, 3 1, 3 5, n3 ff.,
Wu- wei, 76, So 1 42, 15 8 .ff.
- and Far Eastern culture:, I I 3,
Yajnavalk.ya, 57 1 1 5 n.
Yoga, 2.6, 27 ff., 84, 85 fl�, 89 ff, - and Grace, 1 1 4
92 , 9 5 , 9 8 , I 02, 1 07, H 3 - 11ot Metaphysics, 1 14
Yoga S11tra, 89, 93 - :m d. Symbolism, 120
Yin and. Ya11g, 133 - Topsy-mrvy, 120
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