Part 37.5 - Western Thought and Bhedabheda

This brings us to Western philosophers, whose views may be considered briefly in order to see if they have propounded or held doctrines analogous to Bhedabheda. Mediaval philosophy was based on that of Aristotle, who propagated the doctrines of Plato. Indeed, Aristotle has been reckoned the oracle of the scholastic philosophers and theologians in the Middle Ages. The very incarnation of the philosophic spirit, Aristotle, by the vast field of speculation he covered by his many writings, has influenced besides the progress of modern thought and clear science

which establish the value of his works. Scholastic philosophy made, with the aid of Aristotle, an attempt at reconciliation between dogma and thought, between faith and reason, an attempt to form really a scientific system on that basis founded on the pre-supposition that the creed of the Christian Church was absolutely true and capable of rationalization. This held the ground in Europe during the period beginning with the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 A.D. and closing with the invention of printing, the discovery of America and the revival of learning in Europe in the fifteenth century. It is in the period succeeding the Middle Ages that we get the first attempts at bold speculations relating to Man, Nature and God. The direct cause of this was the Revival of Learning that marked the Renaissance (15 th and 16 th centuries A.D.). The capture of Constantinople in 1453 by the Turks drove learned Greeks into Italy. Their arrival quickened the growth of study of Classical, especially Greek, literature. This, in its turn, aided, by the invention of printing, the gradual extinction of the dry, barren scholasticism so far in vogue in Europe. The new learning, based on the study of ancient models in the literature and art of Greece and Rome, awakened in the cultured classes the free and broad humanity which inspired them. The Renaissance thus marks an epoch-the transition from the rigid formality of mediaeval to the enlightened freedom of modern times. First among the products of the Renaissance was the Italian Giordano Bruno, the bold and fervid original thinker, who was burned as a heretic in 1600 A.D., after seven years spent in prison, at the hands of the Inquisition. Bruno, though currently described by European writers as a pantheist, was really a qualified monist. He regarded God as the living omnipresent soul of the universe, and Nature as the living garment of God-as the Earth-Spirit does in Goethe's Faust a definition of Nature which finds favour in the pages of Sartor Resartus and sounds as a mere echo of Ramanuja's conception of Visishtadvaita. In illustration 45 F

706 - :INTRODUCTION of Ramanuja's view, one single passage taken from his commentary on Badarayana's Sutra II. 1. 15, Tadananyatvam arambhanasabdadibhyah will prove instructive. After quoting numerous Sruti texts and remarking that these intimate that non-difference only is real, he says "It is in this way that we prove, by means of the texts beginning with arambhana, that the world is non-different from the universal cause, i.e., the highest Brahman. Brahman only having the aggregate of sentient and non-sentient beings for its body and hence for its modes (prakaras) is denoted by all words whatsoever. The body of this Brahman is sometimes constituted by sentient and non-sentient beings in their subtle state, when-just owing to that subtle state-they are incapable of being (conceived and) designated as apart from Brahman whose body they form. Brahman is then in its so-called causal condition. At other times the body of Brahman is constituted by all sentient and non-sentient beings in their gross, manifest state, owing to which they admit of being thought and spoken of as having distinct names and forms: Brahman then is in its "effected state. The effect, i.e., the world, is thus seen to be non-different from the cause, i.e., the highest Brahman. And that in the effected as well as the causal state of Brahman's body as constituted by sentient and non-sentient beings and of Brahman embodied therein, perfections and imperfections are distributed according to the difference of essential nature between Brahman and its body as proved by hundreds of scriptural texts we have shown above."1049 " Bruno, who was open to Neo-Platonic influences, admits only one first principle, cause, or substance in the universe. Much like Ramanuja-and other Visishtadvaitic philosophers of India-he is never tired of dwelling on the unity of all things, which he regards as a multiform unity embracing the whole and present in every part. He 1019 Thibaut, Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary of Ramanuja, 458-459. See also Ramanuja's commentary on I. 4. 27, Parinamat, Thibaut, 402-407.

rejects the notion of formless matter, and maintains that matter and form are inseparable. Finite things differ from one another, not in other being, but only in their mode of being so that in them the one substance is not diverse but only diversely fashioned and figured; all things are in the universe, and the universe in all things. The study of Nature seems to disclose two substances of mind and body, but further contemplation reduces them to one; and the ultimate object of all philosophy and science is declared (with an ironical reservation as to supernatural knowledge) to be the perception of unity. In one dialogue the speaker who represents Bruno's own opinions asserts that the "first principle" is infinite in all its attributes, and that one of those attributes is extension (uno amplissima dimensionale infinite). Again, it is animated, in as much as it includes all life as part of one and the same being; all particular lives are effects of the divine life present in all things, Natura est deus deus in rebus. The terms attribute and mode appear in Bruno in a manner which suggest Spinoza's adoption of them, though the precision with which he uses them is his own. Similarly, in parts of Bruno's writings, much prominence is given to the identification of the highest kind of speculative knowledge with the love of God, or the one perfect object; and the power and surpassing excellence of this ideal and intellectual love are dealt with, as Pollock remarks, with exuberant poetic fancy. Notwithstanding the wide difference between Bruno's manner and Spinoza's, the thought and even the expressions are often strikingly like those of the Essay on God and Man, 1050 Contemporaneous with Bruno was Jacob Boehme (1575-1624), the celebrated German mystic, who also suffered for his views at the hands of the men of the letter. His philosophy anticipated in no small measure the secret of Hegel, who, indeed, acknowledges him as one of the 1050 See Pollock, Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy, Chap. III, 98-99.

fathers of German philosophy. His writings bear witness to a scheme of mystical philosophy which sets forth the trinity in unity of the Hegelian system, that is, viewing the divine as it is itself, as it comes out in Nature, and as it returns to itself in the human soul. These are the first instances Bruno and Boehme-we have in modern western philosophy of anything like a systematised conception of Reality consisting in one-ness-the One Substance of Spinoza. Spinoza (1632-1677), indeed, is said to have come largely under the influence of Bruno. This is evident as much from the system of thought we associate with the name of Spinoza as from his writings. Almost every one-for instance, Pollock, Avenarius and Sigwart-stresses the influence of Bruno, while Hale White gives a selection of parallel passages from Bruno in his translation of Spinoza's Ethics which is decisive in the matter. Spinoza was also largely influenced by Descartes (1596-1650) and Thomas Hobbes (1588-1619), who were both his contemporaries, and by the writings of Francis Bacon (1561-1626), who had just died when he was born. To the last of these, the father of the inductive method of scientific inquiry, he did not owe more than his method and the scientific attitude. Spinoza had evidently studied the Novum Organum as some Baconian phrases occur in his writings, but as Pollock says, the influence Bacon exercised on him "at all events, was a transitory one". To Descartes he owed more, though his allegiance was brief, for he invites attention to his differences with him, not only on minor issues but also on fundamental points. All the same, Spinoza owed to Descartes his knowledge of contemporary metaphysical thought, and what is more, his knowledge of physical science. As Pollock observes, Spinoza derived his notions of physical science and his doctrine of conservation of matter to Descartes. His Principles of Cartesianism Geometrically Demonstrated shows that he well knew the system he discarded. Descartes' philosophy starts with Doubt, and by one single step it arrives at Certainty. "If I doubt, it is plain, I exist" and from this certainty,

that is, the existence of the thinking subject, he deduces his whole system. If all comes from the formula cogito, ergo sum, "I think, therefore I exist," i.e., the thinking ego exists; in which thinking, philosophy ere long sums the universe up, regarding it as a void, without thought. The extent of the influence exerted by Cartesianism on Spinoza has been increasingly doubted in recent years. It is now suggested that he owed more to his Jewish parentage than to Cartesianism. At any rate his starting point and inspiration is now sought for in the religious speculations of his Jewish predecessors. Histories of philosophy describe his theory as the logical development of Descartes, doctrines of the One Infinite and the two finite substances. Mr. Pringle-Pattison, however, remarks, Spinoza himself was never a Cartesian. He brought his pantheism and determinism with him to the study of Descartes from the mystical theologians of his race. Earlier than Pattison, Pollock has remarked that the pantheist, or as he calls it the mystical element in Spinoza, is to be traced to the mediaval Jewish philosophers, with whose works Spinoza is known to have been familiar. 1051 Spinoza postulated a system-popularly called to-day Spinozism-which regards God as the one self-subsistent substance and both matter and thought attributes of Him. The foundation of Spinoza's philosophy is the doctrine of one infinite substance, of which all finite existences are modes or limitations (modes of thought or modes of extension). God is thus the immanent cause of the universe; but of creation or will there can be no question in Spinoza's system. God is throughout as equivalent to Nature. The philosophical standpoint comprehends the necessity of all that is a necessity that is none other than the necessity of the divine nature itself. To view things thus is to view them, according to Spinoza's favourite phrase, sub-specie aternitatis. His doctrine has been summed up thus: 1051 See Pringle-Pattison's article on Spinoza in the Encyclopadia Britannica, XXV (Eleventh edition).

" Whatever is, is; and that is extension and thought. These two are all that is; and besides these there is nought. But these two are one; they are attributes of the single substance (that which, for its existence, stands in need of nothing else), very God, in whom, then, all individual things and all individual ideas (modes of extension those, of thought these) are comprehended and take place. Spinoza, it will be seen, includes under the term extension all individual objects, and under thought all individual ideas, and these two he includes in God, as he in whom they live and move and have their beinga great and fruitful conception, being the speculative ground of the being of all that lives and is. This oneness of Spinoza ran the risk of being called "atheistic" in his own life-time-that was the reason why he refrained from publishing his Ethics during his life-time, it being published a year after his death-and in later times came to be generally spoken of as " pantheism or "mysticism". The greatness of Spinoza, in Western eyes, consists in not merely placing the pantheistic or mystic element besides the scientific element, but fusing it into one with it. The scientific element is that of the unity and uniformity of the world. Nature, as conceived by him, includes thought no less than things, and the order of nature knows no interruption. Again, there is not a world of thought opposed to or interfering with a world of things; we have everywhere the same reality under different aspects. Nature is one as well as uniform. The combination of these two elements-the physical and speculative-is what makes, in the opinion of Sir Frederick Pollock, Spinoza's philosophy great. 1052 The pantheist or mystical element is traced by Sir Frederick to the medieval Jewish philosophers, with whose works, it is known, Spinoza was familiar. "This," adds Sir Frederick, "is to some extent a matter of direct evidence." A claim has also been put in, and with likelihood practically amounting 1052 Sir Frederick Pollock, Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy, 80-81.

to certainty, for Giordano Bruno. Now Bruno himself was subject in certain ways to Oriental influences, while the Jewish and Arabic Schools of the Middle Ages were again strongly imbued with Neo-Platonism, and Neo-Platonism in turn has a semi-Oriental character. It seems impossible even if it were worth while, to disentangle all the details. But it remains sufficiently clear, whatever theory we may adopt, that the East has a considerable share in this portion of Spinoza's materials. Next, as to the scientific element, Sir Frederick says that it "may be assigned without hesitation to Descartes, though Spinoza carried out the scientific view of the world farther and more vigorously than Descartes. himself." As regards its union with the mystical element, it is material to remark, adds Sir Frederick, that "a nascent scientific impulse runs through the naturalism of the Renaissance philosophy as represented by Bruno and others and thus, the line of contact was in a manner already traced." The monistic element is given, in Sir Frederick's opinion, "by reaction from the dualism of Cartesian philosophy" and determined chiefly, in his opinion, by considerations of a scientific order. The pantheist idea may also have its part _ that, one would think, is permitted by way of concession. "But we can strike," remarks Sir Frederick, "no exact account between the two, for Spinoza had completed the fusion of the mystical and scientific principles before he settled his monism in its final form." Though Spinoza might have had ideas and suggestions of a general kind from Descartes, and a good deal of more definite material from Hobbes, Sir Frederick holds that the conception of natural law is "the most independent work of Spinoza's genius". It will be readily seen that Sir Frederick Pollock in analysing the birth and growth of Spinoza's philosophical ideas sets down what he calls the "pantheist or mystic element" to Jewish philosophers. Writing further on this topic, he traces the Jewish influence to Moses Maimonides (1135-1204 A.D.); Chasdai Creskas (14 th century); Gersonides (1288-1340); and the Kabbalah. Of these, Maimonides

712 " INTRODUCTION " He was the great Jewish Rabbi, who, born at Cordova, came to "The be regarded by the Jews as their Plato and called Lamp of Israel" and "The Eagle of the Doctors ". He was a man of immense learning and taught his co-religionists to interpret their religion in the light of reason. wrote a Commentary on the Mishna and the Second Law but his chief work is the Moreh Nebochim, or Guide to the Perplexed. Gersonides, who was born at Bagnal in Provence, was thoroughly Aristotelian in his outlook, though he professed to be a mere interpreter of the Scriptures. The influence of these writers on Spinoza is admitted to be comparatively slight in the purely philosophical part of his work. As a matter of fact, Spinoza's object was indeed opposite to that of Maimonides. He was not impressed with Maimonides' artificial system of interpretation and suggests that it is idle to seek philosophy in the Scriptures. In the Ethics, in particular, Sir Frederick admits, there are only traces of influence of these Jewish writers "apart from the doctrine of the mind's eternity" (in the Fifth Part), which Sir Frederick believes "comes from the Averroists through Gersonides." The Averroists were, it might be added, the followers of Averroes (1126-1198), the celebrated Arabian physician and philosopher, a Moor by birth and a native of Cordova, who devoted himself to the study and exposition of Aristotle, earning for himself the title of the "Commentator", though he appears to have coupled with the philosophy of Aristotle the oriental doctrine of emanations. It must also be remarked that certain of the views of Maimonides were not peculiar to him. They were the common possession of the scholastic writers and perhaps might be further traced much farther back to Neo-Platonism. Next as to Chasdai Creskas, his chief work Adonai, or the Light of the Lord, contains many thoughts and views which come "near to characteristic points of Spinoza's philosophy". He evidently exercised a great deal of influence on Spinoza, in regard to the making up of "extension", his idea of the perfection of God consisting not in knowledge as the Aristotelians hold, but in love, and

his conception of determinism. But Spinoza took his suggestions in detail and worked them into a systematic connection of his own which, as Pollock puts it, "would probably have found little favour in Chasdai's eyes". The influence on Spinoza of the mystical literature represented by the Kabbalah has also been widely discussed. The metaphysical foundations of the later Kabbalah appear to have been derived by some road not fully known from NeoPlatonism and they bear evident traces of imitation from Greek. The doctrine of emanations and intermediate powers between God and the world was adopted as a counterblast to Maimonides and the rationalists. In Spinoza's time, this system had attained its highest development. Spinoza himself refers to its "follies ". The doctrines of emanation and the transmigration of souls are both fundamental to it and these are incompatible with Spinoza's system. But he shows marked respect to the earlier Kabbalistic system. "Only an accomplished Orientalist can be entitled" says Pollock, "to a positive opinion on the sources and antiquity of these speculations." But at the same time, he admits that "all mysticism is Eastern in its ultimate origin, and the choice would seem to be substantially between holding that the Jewish mysticism was indirectly delivered from the East through Neo-Platonism and the Alexandrian Schools, or that it came, as we know that modern Jewish theology came, earlier and more directly from the old Persian religion, in which case Jewish and Alexandrian mysticism would be related to one another, not in a direct line of descent, but as parallel and partly intermixed streams from the same fountain-head." Personally, Pollock would adhere to the latter view. He also notes the fact that Giordano Bruno, whose relationship to Spinoza is known, was not free from Neo-Platonic influence. Bruno is known to have used the writings of the Jewish Neo-Platonist Avicebron (Ibn-Gebirol) who lived about 1200 A.D. This was another road by which, says Pollock, "Neo-Platonic ideas may have found their way to Spinoza." In his speculative writings, Avicebron is known to have

followed Plotinus, the Neo-Platonist (207-270), who, as we know, taught a system of philosophy which based itself on the intuitions of the soul elevated into a state of mystical union with God, who in his single unity sums up all and whence all emanates, all being regarded as an emanation from Him. Pollock draws attention to the close resemblance there is between Bruno and Spinoza in regard to the prominence given by both to the identification of the highest kind of speculative knowledge with the love of God, or the one perfect knowledge and the exuberant manner in which they dwell on the power and surpassing excellence of this ideal and intellectual love. Despite the fact that even their expressions are similar, Pollock thinks, that as this topic is "so much the common property of all mystic and mystically inclined writers" it is hardly possible to hold that these resemblances "add very much to the evidence of a specific connection between the two thinkers." It would, he says, be no great matter for surprise if an equally good parallel could be produced from the Persian Sufis, whom Spinoza had certainly not studied. The strong resemblances that exist between Spinoza's doctrines and the mystical schools of mediaval Christianity are also referred to by him. But he dismisses all these as sources of Spinoza's philosophy for "there is neither evidence nor probability to warrant any belief in a historical connection". But cultural and religious contacts have a tendency to influence metaphysical and religious thought and that is what seems ignored by Pollock. As to Sufism, for instance, there is reasonable ground for belief that, at least in its later stages, it borrowed from Hindu philosophy. Its chief doctrines are, according to Klein, 1033. that the souls of men differ in degree, but not in kind from the Divine Spirit, of which they are emanations and to which they ultimately return; that the spirit of God is in all He has made and it in Him; that He alone is perfect love and beauty and that hence love to Him is the only real thing and all besides is mere illusion; that the present 1053 T. A. Klein, The Religion of Islam (1906).

life is one of separation from the Beloved; that the beauties of nature, music and art revive in man the divine idea and recall his affections from wandering from God to other objects. The highest state of bliss is oneness with God, absorption in the Eternal-oneness in the sense as being inseparable from God and absorption in the sense as being always together, in all conditions, as associates which is "Dualism appearing as Monism ". The Sufis are also required as among Hindus-to implicitly obey their teachers. The doctrine that the soul is a direct emanation from the Deity seems incompatible with the fundamental article of the Muslim faith which exalts God as a being passing all comprehension, but such is the influence of cultural contact that it overcomes even such obstacles and produces changes too remarkable for words. Thus the common saying that the system of Spinoza owes as much to the Jewish Rabbis as to Descartes is only partially true. It is nearer the truth to say that while it owes something to the Rabbis, it owes much to Giordano Bruno who himself owed a great deal to Oriental influences, while the Jewish Rabbis and Arabic Schools of the mediaval times were again strongly imbued with Neo-Platonism and Neo-Platonism in its turn had been largely coloured by Hindu thought and doctrine. The Christian mystics, too, to whom Pollock refers, were, it is admitted, profoundly influenced by Neo-Platonism and Dionysian thought. It is to-day conceded that Dionysius, the Areopagite, 1054 was a 1054 Dionysius, St., the Areopagite (Judge of the Areopagus) according to Acts XVII: 34, was a convert of St. Paul's, became bishop of Athens and died a martyr in 95 A.D. He has been long regarded as the father of mysticism. He is said to have been the author of writings imbued with a pantheistic idea of God and the universe. While some have expressed doubts as to the authenticity of this tradition, modern opinion seems to favour it. Dean Inge holds that the mediaval mystics were steeped in Dionysius. His works (6 th century A.D.) were translated into Latin by John Scotus Erigena (9 th century) who worked up his theories" into a consistent philosophical system". See Dean Inge, Christian Mysticism (7 th Edn.), 101-122. Harnack places him in the second half of the 4 th century e "

Neo-Platonist. "No one doubts at present," writes Max Muller in his Theosophy or Psychological Religion, "that the writer was a Neo-Platonist Christian, and that he lived towards the end of the fifth century, probably at Edessa in Syria." The fact that he was a Neo-Platonist and that he had been at one time in Alexandria, which was the centre for Indian thought in his days, shows that his source of inspiration should have been India. Admittedly Neo-Platonism has Indian elements in it-elements too which, it is significant, have no basis in Greek, Jewish or Christian thought. It is not Christianity that has influenced Neo-Platonism but it is Neo-Platonism that has shaped Christian thought. " - "The influence of Christianity" says Harnack, "whether Gnostic or Catholic, on Neo-Platonism was at no time considerable.... If we search Plotinus for evidence of any actual influence of Jewish and Christian phraseology, we search in vain; and the existence of any such influence is all the more unlikely because it is only the later Neo-Platonism that offers striking and deep-rooted parallels to Philo and the Gnostics."1055 On the other hand, there is to be seen a close similarity-some have termed it "identity" between Indian beliefs and doctrines and Neo-Platonism. Ammonius Sakkas of Alexandria (175-200 A.D.), the founder of Neo-Platonism, gave a religious and mystical turn to Greek philosophy. It was he that combined to the ideas and doctrines of Plato and Pythagoras, the Hindu ideas and doctrines. His teaching was such that it could not be traced to any known philosophy current in the Alexandria of his day. Tradition says he lived in contact with travellers who reached Alexandria from almost all countries in the East or the West, A.D. Dean Inge remarks that Dionysius is quoted not much beyond 500 A.D. 1055 Adolph Harnack (born 1851), the German theologian and Professor, has written on the history of dogma in the Christian Church, on Gnosticism, early Christian literature and the Apostle's. Creed. On the last of these, he has written in a manner which has not commended itself to the orthodox. As to Indian ideas being current in Alexandria, see H. G. Rawlinson, Intercourse between India and the Western World.

including Palestine, Syria, Chaldaa, Persia and India, besides Greece and Rome. His teaching was held to be so novel that he came to be called "God-taught ". his greatest Among his students were Longinus, Origen, Herennius and Plotinus. Of these, Plotinus was the most distinguished. Plotinus had his practical spiritual training under Ammonius and for long, kept his teachings a secret. He, indeed, did not make them known until some of his co-students had published them. It has been suggested that the novel character of Ammonius' teaching is also confirmed by this fact. In view of the general similarity that exists between the Hindu and the Neo-Platonic views, it seems fair to infer that the teaching of Ammonius was derived from Hindu A consideration of the views of Plotinus, pupil, seems to confirm us in this view. It was Plotinus who actually developed and systematised Ammonius' doctrines and theories. Born at Lycopolis in Egypt, he studied under some teachers in Alexandria and finally became a pupil of Ammonius. Eleven years he studied under this great master and then desired to know first hand the philosophy of the Persians and the Hindus. He accordingly joined the army of Marcus Antonius Gordianus, grandson of the Emperor of the same name, who was surnamed Africanus and was Emperor from 238-244 A.D., in the hope of reaching Persia and India. But as misfortune would have it, though Gordianus drove back the Persians beyond the Euphrates and relieved Antioch, he was assassinated by his own soldiers while preparing to cross the Euphrates. Though he was thus effectually prevented from accomplishing his ambition, Plotinus must, from his very objective, be held to have been a spirit which claimed kindred with that of Persia and India. This view is confirmed by the nature and character of philosophy he developed and systematised. By him all existence is referred not to two principles, but only one. "God or the primal Essence is the simple unity that lies above all multiplicity. As such, God is without thought, because thinking requires plurality; and without will, because willing pre-supposes duality. God

is the absolutely transcendent One, exalted above every thing, above consciousness and unconsciousness, above rest and motion, above life and being. Hence God is entirely unattainable in our knowledge. Thinking must here abandon itself and become Not-thinking, if it is to apprehend God in blessed vision and unite itself with Him. But at the same time God is the original source and ground of all things; finite things arise out of Him by emanation of what is absolutely simple unfolding itself into an ever-advancing series of finite things, that are always the more imperfect the farther they are removed from God. In all things, therefore, there is only one divine power and essence, but in different degrees of perfection, so that every higher existence embraces the lower with itself. Finite things long for a return to their origin, and this is especially true of the human soul, which, banished into this earthly life as a punishment for former sin, strives to soar aloft to its higher home. . . . The higher goal is immediate intuition of the primal divine Being. This is the true philosophy, the perfection of the spirit and likewise the highest happiness. By such intuition the soul becomes completely one with the primal Being and sinks in ecstasy into deity."1056 Dean Inge, who has written at length on Plotinus, remarks that he laid "the coping stone on the edifice of Greek philosophy by a scheme of idealism which must always remain one of the greatest achievements of the human mind". He welds into one compact whole several of the most characteristic doctrines of mysticism which in Plato are only thrown out tentatively. Among the doctrines developed by him are his theory of the Absolute, whom he calls the One, or the Good, and his theory of the Ideas which differs from Plato's. Plato represents the mind of the World-Artist as immanent in the idea of the Good, while Plotinus makes the Ideas immanent in the universal mind. In 1066 See B. Punjer, History of the Christian Philosophy of Religion (1887).

other words, the real world (which he calls the "intelligible world," the sphere of the Ideas) is in the mind of God. Further, in his doctrine of vision, he attaches an importance to revelation which was new to Greek philosophy. Above all, to his psychology, which is really the centre of his system, the Christian church and Christian mysticism became most indebted. With the soul is the meeting-point of the intelligible and the phenomenal. It is diffused everywhere. Animals and vegetables participate in it and the earth has a soul which sees and hears. The soul is immaterial and immortal, for it belongs to the world of real existence, and nothing that is can cease to be. The body is in the soul, rather than the soul in the body. The soul creates the body by imposing form on matter, which in itself is no-thing, pure indetermination, and next door to absolute non-existence. (If matter were nothing, it could not desire to be something; it is only no-thing.) Space and time are only forms of our thought. The concepts formed by the soul by classifying the things of sense are said to be "Ideas unrolled and separate," that is, they are conceived as separate in space and time, instead of existing all together in eternity. The nature of the soul is triple; it is presented under three forms, which are at the time the three stages of perfection which it can reach. There is first and lowest the animal and sensual soul, which is closely bound up with the body; then there is the logical, reasoning soul, the distinctively human part; and lastly, there is the superhuman stage or part in which man 'thinks himself according to the higher intelligence, with which he has become identified, knowing himself no longer as a man, but as one who has become altogether changed, and has transferred himself into the higher region". The soul is thus "made one with Intelligence without losing herself; so that they two are both one and two". The soul is not altogether incarnate in the body; part of it remains above, in the intelligible world, whither it desires to return in its entirety. The world is an image of the Divine Mind, which is itself a reflection of the One. It is therefore not bad or evil. What more

" 720 INTRODUCTION beautiful image of the Divine could there be ", he asks, than this world, except the world yonder ?" And so it is a great mistake to shut our eyes to the world around, "and all beautiful things". The love of beauty will lead us up a long way-up to the point when the love of the Good is ready to receive us. Only we must not let ourselves be entangled by sensuous beauty. Those who do not quickly rise beyond this first stage, to contemplate "ideal form, the universal mould," share the fate of Hylas; they are engulfed in a swamp, from which they can never emerge. The universal resembles a vast chain, of which every being is a link. It may also be compared to rays of light shed abroad from one centre. Everything followed from this centre, and everything desires to flow back towards it. God draws all men and all things towards Himself as a magnet draws iron, with a constant unvarying attraction. The whole universe is one vast organism, and if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. This is why a "faint movement of sympathy" stirs within us at the sight of any living creature. All existence is drawn upwards towards God by a kind of centripetal attraction, which is unconscious in the lower, half conscious in the higher organisms. Plotinus' Trinity are the One or the Good, who is above existence, God as the Absolute; the Intelligence, who occupies the sphere of real existence, organic unity comprehending multiplicity-the One-Many, as he calls it, or, as we might call it, God as thought, God existing in and for Himself; and the Soul, the One and Many, occupying the sphere of appearance or imperfect reality-God as action. Soulless matter, which only exists. as a logical abstraction, is arrived at by looking at things "in disconnexion, dull and spiritless". It is the sphere of the "merely many", and is zero, as "the One who is not" is Infinity. The Intelligible World is timeless and spaceless, and contains the archetypes of the Sensible World. The Sensible World is our view of the Intelligible World. When we say that it does not exist, we mean that we shall not always see it in this form. The "Ideas " are the

ultimate form in which things are regarded by Intelligence, In its essence it is not or by God. Evil is disintegration. merely unreal but unreality as such. conjunction with some low degree of goodness-as Plotinus It can only appear in still human, being mixed The The "lower virtues" finely puts it, "Vice at its worst is with something opposite to itself ". as he calls the duties of the average citizen, are not only purgative, but teach us the principles of measure and rule, which are Divine characteristics. As the Sensible World " is a shadow of the Intelligible, so is action a shadow of contemplation, suited to weak-minded persons. From this proceeds the doctrine-styled "heartless" by Dean Inge-that public calamities are to the wise man only stage tragediesor even stage comedies. Finally as to the conditions under which the vision is granted. "The soul, says Plotinus, describing the ecstatic vision, "when possessed by intense love of Him divests herself of all form which she has, even of that which is derived from Intelligence; for it is impossible, when in conscious possession of any other attribute, either to behold or to be harmonised with Him. Thus the soul must be neither good nor bad nor aught else, that she may receive Him only, Him alone, she alone. While she is in this state, the One suddenly appears, ' with nothing between', and they are no more two but one; and the soul is no more conscious of the body or of the mind, but knows that she has what she desired, that she is where no deception can come, and that she would not exchange her bliss for all the heaven of heavens. "1057 Dean Inge thinks that the vision of the One is no part of Plotinus' philosophy, but "a mischievous accretion". "What," he asks, "is the source of this strange aspiration to rise above Reason and Intelligence, which is for Plotinus the highest category of Being and to come out on the other side of Being?" Plotinus says himself elsewhere that "he who would rise above Reason, falls outside it"; and yet he regards as the highest reward of the philosopher-saint to 1057 See Dean Inge, Christian Mysticism, Seventh Edition (1933), 91-96. Also, his study of The Philosophy of Plotinus, 2 vols. (1929). 48 F

" converse with the hypostatised Abstraction who transcends all distinctions. Accordingly Dean Inge holds that the vision cannot be a part of Plotinus' philosophy. For he adds, though the "super-essential Absolute may be a logical necessity, we cannot make it, even in the most transcendental manner, an object of sense, without depriving it of its Absoluteness. What is really apprehended is not the Absolute, but a kind of "form of formlessness," an idea not of the Infinite but of the Indefinite. It is then impossible to distinguish 'the One', who is said to be above all distinctions, from undifferentiated matter, the formless No-thing, which Plotinus puts at the lowest end of the scale.1058 How then did the theory of the "vision" of the One become part of the Neo-Platonic system? Dean Inge thinks that its accretion was due to two different causes. First, he says, "there was the direct influence of Oriental philosophy of the Indian type, which tries to reach the universal by wiping out all the boundary-lines of the particular, and to gain infinity by reducing self and the world to zero"; and secondly, there was the influence as well of the blank trance. which was a real psychical experience, quite different from the "visions", of which we have abundant evidence. But to dismiss the "vision" thus from the philosophy of Plotinus cannot be justified, because in keeping with the Hindu system with which Plotinus allied himself, both immanence and transcendence have to be conceded to the God predicated by Plotinus. Not only that; there are other parts of Plotinus' theory which show the influence that the Hindu system exerted on his own. Plotinus' conception of the One is the same as Brahman; the Absolute is as inexpressible to him as to the authors of the Upanishads; his Divine Mind seems to be analogous to the Isvara in the Vedanta system; his World-Soul represents the Hiranyagarbha of the Vedanta; and his Nature takes the place of Prakriti. Then, again, his view of man as spirit, soul and body corresponds to karana, sukshma and sthula upadhi; his three spheres 1058 Dean Inge, Christian Mysticism, 98.

of existence or states of being, or hypostases of being correspond to the avastha-traya, the three states of jagrata, svapna and sushupti; and his ecstasy is indistinguishable from samadhi. Finally, he is a believer in the theories of reincarnation and karma, his law of Necessity being akin to the latter. Of course, parallels of this kind can be set up easily between two different systems of thought, but still when the general probability of Plotinus' relation to Hindu. thought, as systematised in the Upanishads, is once conceded, all points of coincidence have a certain cumulative effect, though each may in itself be capable of a different explanation. It will be seen that Dean Inge, in common with other writers, fully acknowledges that Neo-Platonism owes its doctrine of ecstasy directly to the influence of Oriental philosophy of the Indian type, though he doubts if it was really part of Plotinus' teachings. According to tradition Plotinus practised ecstacy-samadhi-and if his disciple Porphyry is to be believed, ended his life in the manner of the Indian yogis, i.e., by deliberately entering into samadhi and giving up the body. His last words were: His last words were: "Now I seek to lead back the Self within me to the All-Self."'1059 Max-Muller says, "Plotinus and his school seem to have paid great attention to foreign, particularly to Eastern, religions and superstitions and endeavoured to discover in all of them remnants of divine wisdom." Porphyry of Tyre (233-305 A.D.), the disciple and biographer of Plotinus, developed Neo-Platonism on its religious side. The replies which have come down to us against his Evidently as 1059 Encyclopadia Britannica, vol. XIX, page 373, article on NeoPlatonism. Porphyry records the fact that on four occasions during the six years of their intercourse, Plotinus attained to this ecstatic union with God. See also Dean Inge's Plotinus, Vol. I, pages 114-121. Dean Inge records that when Puteoli, his friend and physician, came to see him for the last time, he uttered these last words: 'I was waiting for you, before that which is divine in me departs to unite itself with the Divine in the Universe. See also Swami Ashokananda, The Influence of Indian Thought on the Thought of the West, Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati, Almora (1931). "

animadversions against his Christian contemporaries suggest the wide influence exercised by the doctrines of Plotinus on the Christian church of the day. His disciple and successor, Iamblichus of Coele-Syria (333 A.D.), developed the mystical side and taught a system of theurgy (divya-drishti), which would seem to indicate the part the "vision" had been playing in the Neo-Platonic system. Next, Proclus (412-485 A.D.), born in Constantinople, built up a whole system of dogmas and philosophy, which depict Neo-Platonism as a fully blown system of thought. Neo-Platonists like Synesius of Cyrene (circa 430 A.D.), who was a disciple of the NeoPlatonist Hypatia of Alexandria, and Boethius (470-524 A.D.), one of the last of the Neo-Platonists, when they became Christians carried their Neo-Platonism into their new religion. The question whether the influence of Persian and Indian thought can be traced in Neo-Platonism, or whether that system was purely Greek-including in that word the Hellenized Jew-is discussed by Dean Inge and it is worth while to note his view as well here. Though he remarks that it is a quite hopeless task to try to disentangle the various strands of thought which make up the web of Alexandrianism, "there is," he says, "no doubt that the philosophers of Asia were held in reverence at this period." Origen, in justifying an esoteric mystery-religion for the educated, and a mythical religion for the vulgar, appeals to the example of the "Persians and Indians". And Philostratus, in his life of Apollonius of Tyana, says, or makes his hero say, that while all wish to live in the presence of God, "the Indians alone succeed in doing so. And certainly there are parts his successors, which strong- (Proclus used to say that a exclusiveness in his worship, of Plotinus, and still more of ly suggest Asiatic influences. philosopher ought to show no but to be the hierophant of the whole world. This eclecticism was not confined to cultus.) When we turn from Alexandria to Syria, we find Orientalism more rampant. Speculation among the Syrian monks of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries was perhaps more unfettered and more

audacious than in any other branch of Christendom at any period." To illustrate this remark, Dean Inge refers to the book of Hierotheus, which the canonised Dionysius praises in glowing terms as an inspired oracle. Dionysius, indeed, professes that his own object in writing was merely to popularize the teaching of his master. Hierotheus was the holy man converted by St. Paul and the teacher of the original Dionysius the Areopagite. The book attributed to really by one Stephen him is believed to have been written bar Sudaili, a Syrian mystic, who is assigned to the 5 th century A.D. According to Hierotheus, everything is an emanation from the Chaos of bare indetermination which he calls God, and everything will return thither.1000 There are three periods of existence. First, the present world, which is evil, and is characterised by motion; secondly, the progressive union with Christ, who is all in all-this is the period of rest; and thirdly, the period of fusion of all things in the Absolute. He says that the three Persons of the Trinity will then be swallowed up, even the evil spirits being thus ending their existence. Further, these three world-periods are also phases in the development of individual souls. In the first, the mind aspires towards its first principles; in the second, it becomes Christ, the Universal Mind; and in the third, its personality is wholly merged. Much space is given to the adventures of the Mind including the ladder of perfection. The writer of the book-whether it was Hierotheus or the Syrian Stephen bar Sudailiprofesses to have attained to ecstatic union more than once and describes the process of preparation for it in words. characteristically yogic. "To me, he says, "it seems right to speak without words, and understand without knowledge, that which is above words and knowledge; this I apprehend to be nothing but the mysterious silence and mystical quiet which destroys consciousness and dissolves forms. Seek, therefore, silently and mystically, 1060 " Cf. with what has been said in the preceding pages in the Commentary on the Sutra, Asaditichenna pratishedhamatratvat, II. 1.7.

the perfect and primitive union with the Arch-Good."1061 It is interesting to note the various transmutations the Mind undergoes in its "ascent". ascent ". At one stage, it is crucified "with the soul on the right and the body on the left"; it is turned for three days; it descends into Hades; then it ascends again, till it reaches Paradise, and is united to the tree of life then it descends below all essences, and sees a formless luminous essence, and marvels that it is the same essence that it has seen on high. Now it comprehends the truth, that God is consubstantial with the Universe, and that there are no real distinctions anywhere. So it ceases to wander. "All these doctrines," concludes the seer, "which are unknown even to angels, have I disclosed to thee, my son" (-Dionysius, probably). "Know, then, that all nature will be confused with the Father-that nothing will perish or be destroyed, but all will return, be sanctified, united and confused. Thus, God will be all in all." Dean Inge's remark on this description of the process of apotheosis is significant. "There can be no difficulty," he writes, "in classifying this Syrian philosophy of religion. It is the ancient religion of the Brahmins, masquerading in clothes borrowed from Jewish allegorists, half-Christian Gnostics, Manicheans, Platonising Christians and pagan Neo-Platonists."1002 Dionysius, who uses his master's theory, is even more distinctively Hindu in his thought, so much so that he may be said to carry the Hindu ideas into Christianity as it prevailed in the 5 th century A.D. He was a theologian, and not a mere mystic. As Dean Inge puts it, his main object was to present Christianity in the guise of a Platonic mysteriosophy and he uses the technical terms of the mysteries wherever he can. His philosophy is that of his day-"the later Neo-Platonism, with its " " 1061 Cf. with the Commentary on the Sutras, Om avrittir asakridupadesat ; Lingachcha; and Atmeti tupagachchanti grahayanti cha, IV. 1. 1-3. 1062 W. R. Inge, Christian Mysticism, 104. The summary of Hierotheus' doctrine is taken by him from Frothingham's account of Hierotheus, Ibid., 102, f. n. 1.

"" INTRODUCTION 727 His theories are those of He is so Oriental in his view class him as a Syrian monk strong Oriental affinities". Proclus rather than Plotinus. that Dean Inge is tempted to who probably perpetrated a fraud-a pious fraud in his opinion-by suppressing his own individuality and fathering his books on St. Paul's Athenian Convert". Though pretended to have been written in the first century A.D., it is full of the later Neo-Platonic theories of probably the second half of the fourth century A.D. As Dean Inge remarks, readers of the sixth century A.D. did not see anything strange in the success that the "imposture" attained and the medieval church was even ready " to believe that this strange semi-pantheistic Mysticism dropped from the lips of St. Paul." The fact of the matter is that Christianity early absorbed Hindu ideas and its so-called mysticism is entirely Hindu in its origins. Proclus propounds a trinitarian view of the universe and regards the All, abstractly viewed as contained in the Divine, ever emerging from it and returning into it. This doctrine, as we know, is implied in the Gospel of St. John¹083 (I. 1), and appears in a 66 1083 The Gospel of St. John is presumed to have been written by St. John at Ephesus about 78 A.D. Recent criticism assigns it to somewhere between 160 and 170 A.D. Though its authenticity has also been greatly debated, there is no question that its portrayal of Jesus as the light of life shows its author as a person who should have imbibed a great deal of the Neo-Platonic philosophy current in the second century A.D. The Gospel of St. John, says Arnot Naumann in his Jesus, cannot be placed earlier than the second century, and arising as it did as a protest against Judaising parties and as a defence of ideas of religion conceived in an unhistorical way, all the details in the story, as regards localities, time and personal characteristics, have been adapted to the requirements of that Christian philosophy in which the Gospel is steeped, or have been misplaced through its influence. To the author of this Gospel, Jesus is the 'Word of God,' that is to say, the second person of the Godhead, who existed before Abraham, and in fact took part in the creation of the world (I. 1. 3; VIII. 5. 8; XVII. 5). Holding this view, he is naturally obliged to represent the appearance of Jesus as the thinly-veiled manifestation of a Divine Being. .The author's conception of the religion of Jesus, pervaded

highly developed form in Hegel. But it is a later idea and is traceable to outside influences exerted on Christianity when it was still under development. Dionysius beginning with the Trinity, identifies God the Father with the Neo-Platonic Monad and describes Him as Super-essential Indetermination, ""Super-rational Unity", "the Unity which unifies every unity", "Super-essential Essence", "Irrational Mind", "Unspoken Word", "the absolute No-thing which is above all existence". But he is a good Platonist. "The Good and the Beautiful," he adds, "are the cause of all things that are; and all things love and aspire to the Good and the Beautiful, which are, indeed, the sole objects of their desire." Then he tries to reconcile the two ideas-the Platonic with the Hindu. "Since then," he says, "the Absolute Good and Beautiful is honoured by eliminating all qualities from it, the non-existent also must participate in the Good and Beautiful." Dean Inge characterises this attempt at reconciliation as the "pathetic absurdity" to which we are driven "if we try to graft Indian nihilism upon the Platonic ideas." Dionysius found the co-existence of the two sets of ideas and what he attempted was a reconciliation and no more. And the fact that Dionysius attempted such a reconciliation should be set down to his credit rather than be made a matter for adverse criticism; as "God is the Being of all that is," Being being identical with God or Goodness, evil as such does not exist. It only exists by its participation in good. Evil must arise from "disorderly and inharmonious motion". "All evil is done with the object of gaining some good; no one does evil as evil." Evil in itself is that which is "no-how, no-where and no-thing. God sees evil as good." All this is in accordance with Hindu theory. According to this theory, there is nothing intrinsically evil in nature. Evil has neither objective existence nor ultimate reality, apart from throughout by the spirit we have indicated, is certainly sublime enough, but it is far removed from the simple, sober, naive facts of history as we find in the Gospels according to Mark, Matthew and Luke."

" INTRODUCTION 729 Brahman whose real nature consists of good only. The true principle is that sin is its own punishment and virtue its own reward. That is the essence of the law of Karma. It is not surprising, therefore, that Dean Inge should see from this point of view, certain of the chapters in Bradley's Appearance and Reality show "a certain sympathy with Oriental speculative Mysticism," "Oriental" here standing for " Hindu". Nor is it surprising that he should see in other parts of the theory of Dionysius the influence of "the old religion of India". Dionysius propounds the theory that all things flow from God, and all will ultimately return to Him. The first emanation is the Thing in itself, corresponding to the Johannine Logos. He gives it the names of "Life in Itself" and "Wisdom in Itself". "The Divine Wisdom," he says, "in knowing itself will know all things". It will know the material immaterially and the divided inseparably, and the many as one, knowing all things by the standard of absolute unity." In creation, the "One is said to become multiform " The world is a necessary process of God's being. He created it "as the sun shines", "without premeditation or purpose". But he does not assert that all separate existence will ultimately be merged in the One. The highest Unity gives to all the power of striving, on the one hand, to share in the One; on the other, to persist in their own individuality. And more than once he speaks of God as a Unity comprehending, not abolishing, differences. "God is before all things "; Being is in Him, and He is not in Being." The transcendence of God is thus safeguarded, while immanence is not denied. The outflowing process is appropriated by the mind by the positive method-the downward path through finite existences: its conclusion is, "God is All". The return journey is by the negative road, that of ascent to God by abstraction and analysis: its conclusion is, All is not God". The mystic, according to Dionysius, leave behind all things both in the sensible and in the intelligible worlds, till he enters into the darkness of nescience that is truly mystical." This "Divine darkness," $6 " " ' must

730 " INTRODUCTION " " he says in another place, "is the light unapproachable mentioned by St. Paul. It is dark through excess of light. "This doctrine, remarks Dean Inge, really renders nugatory what he (Dionysius) has said about the persistence of distinctions after the restitution of all things"; for as "all things agree in the dark," so, "for us, in proportion as we attain to true knowledge, all distinctions are lost in the absolute ". According to Dionysius, the soul is bipartite. The higher portion sees the "Divine images" directly, the lower by means of symbols. Symbols, he suggests, should not be despised for they are, in his view, "true impressions of the Divine characters," and necessary steps, which enable devotees to "mount to the one undivided truth by analogy". Dionysius holds that this is the way we should use the Scriptures whose symbolic truth and beauty can be perceived only by those who free themselves from the " peurile myths" in which they are sometimes embedded. Dean Inge is somewhat startled by the language used in this connection by Dionysius, a saint of the Church. But there is no need for any surprise for Dionysius was something more than a mere saint; for he was also one who had attained to enlightenment. Dean Inge notes that the theory propounded by Dionysius that we can approach God only by analysis or abstraction was not an "invention" on his part, but found also in Plotinus (third century A.D.) and Proclus (fifth century A.D.). Proclus, indeed, we find using phrases like "sinking into the Divine Ground", saking the manifold for the One", etc. This would make the doctrine as old as the beginning of the third century A.D. Since Basilides also is seen to hold it, it may be even referred back to the early part of the second century A.D., as Basilides is known to have died about 139 A.D. Basilides, indeed, presents it in an extreme form. "We must not," he says, "even call God ineffable, since this is to make an assertion about Him. He is above every name that is named."1064 Dean Inge, Christian Mysticism, 111, quoting Harnack, III, 1064 242, 243. "for-

Dean Inge Christian tradition absorbed the doctrine. points out how Cyril's catechism repeats the common-place of Christian instruction that "in Divine matters there is great wisdom in confessing our ignorance". At the bottom, Dean Inge remarks, "the doctrine that God can be described only by negatives is neither Christian nor Greek, but belongs to the old religion of India."1085 Though he misapprehends the implications of the doctrine, there is no doubt that he is right in seeking for the root of the doctrine in "the old religion of India". What texts he has in view he does not specifically mention. Since he quotes not long after the Vedantasara, 10 it is, perhaps, permissible to go back to well-known Upanishadic texts on which generalizations of this kind should be held to be based, for example, the famous one in the Kathakopanishad, VI. 12, Naiva vacha na manasa, etc.;1087 Taittiriyopanishad, II. 4 and 9, Yato vacho nivartante, etc. The Vedantasara itself opens with a description of the Brahman which is largely negative in character. Brahman, for instance, is termed Akhanda, partless, a negative description. Again, he is called Sachchidananda, which has to be interpreted negatively, being placed between two negative epithets. Sat does not predicate being of atman but only denies "becoming" of it. In the same way, chit and ananda do not predicate intelligence and bliss but only deny objectivity and strife that arises from the consciousness of mere diversity. 1068 Dean Inge elaborates at some length the negative argument and its 1065 Ibid., 111. 106 He quotes Hunt's summary of the philosophy of the Vedantasara as given in the latter's Pantheism and Christianity, 19. The Vedantasara referred to here is the work of the same name by Sadananda, the disciple of Narasimhasarasvati, who lived about the beginning of the 16 th century. His chief sources are the Mandukyopanishad and the Panchadasi attributed to Vidyaranya. 1007 Katha. Upa., VI. 12, which may be thus rendered: Neither by words nor by mind can one perceive the divine source! no, not by the eye for none apart from the believers true, can grasp the Real. 1068 Cf. Sankaracharya's commentary on Taittiriya-upanishad , II. 1.

732 " INTRODUCTION " consequences. Since God is the Infinite, and the Infinite is the antithesis of the Finite," he remarks," every attribute which can be affirmed of a finite being may be safely denied of God." Hence, God can only be described by negatives; He can only be discovered by stripping off all the qualities and attributes which veil Him; He can only be reached by diverting ourselves of all the distinctions of personality, and sinking and rising into an uncreated nothingness"; and He can only be imitated by aiming at an abstract spirituality, the passionless "apathy" of an universal which is nothing in particular. Thus we see that the whole of those developments of Mysticism which despise symbols, and hope to see God by shutting the eye of sense, hang together. They all follow from the false notion of God as the abstract unity transcending, or rather excluding, all distinctions. Of course, it is not intended to exclude distinctions, but to rise above them; but the process of abstraction, or subtraction, as it really is, can never lead us to "the One". The only possible unification, he says, with such an Infinite is that of the Nirvana. Dean Inge, it would seem, misses the whole point of view involved in the conception of the Nirguna Brahman. Even though described as Nirguna, it is not pure nothing, for it is fundamentally one, with our own self, which it is impossible to negate. God is not abstract Unity transcending distinctions but the ultimate Reality. According to the doctrine of Advaita, of which Dean Inge is really thinking in this connection, the only Reality is the Supreme Brahman. It postulates an organic Unity of the whole which is ever maintained by the power of the Brahman. Both the inanimate objects of nature and the individual atman are comprehended in the Brahman. They have their essential being in the Brahman by an organic Unity which does not permit the world of any separate existence apart from the Brahman. Neither the inanimate objects nor the individual atman can exist or fulfil their functions of their own accord apart from the Brahman, who controls the world from within by inexorable laws, maintaining a synthetic unity of the world as

a whole in its different states of creation, preservation and destruction. This primal doctrine of Unity is what is known as Advaita. It postulates the unity of the entire world in the Brahman. The Upanishadic texts, Sarvam khalvidam Brahma, etc. and Sadeva saumyedamagra asit, etc. 1089 fully establish, in the opinion of Advaitins, this doctrine of organic unity of the world. It is needless to add that this doctrine of organic unity of the world should not be confounded with the doctrine of pantheism as it is commonly understood in the West. Pantheism in the latter sense takes cognizance of only the empiric world of reality. Thus, Weissenborn defines Pantheism as the system which identifies God and the all of things, or the unity of things. 1070 Pantheism, thus conceived, does not comprehend the whole metaphysical truth. It simply attempts to identify the Supreme Being and the Universe, including those in it. It does away with the distinctions between matter and spirit, cause and effect, and subject and object of the empiric world. The doctrine of Advaita correctly conceived, does not seek to identify spirit with matter in its manifest condition in the world. Spirit is immaterial and cannot be identified with matter which is not real. This being so, what the Advaita aims at is to attempt to identify the individual atman with the Supreme Brahman and to set up a relation of non-separateness between the self and nature, the individual atman and matter having their being in pure spirit, thus preserving the unity of the world. This relationship is postulated in the great Upanishadic texts Aham Brahmasmi; 1011 Tattvamasi; 1072 Prajnanam Brahma;1073 Ayamatma Brahma; 1071 etc. The second of ;¹ 1069 Chchandogya-upanishad , III. 13. 1 and VI. 2. 1. 1070 K. R. Hagenbach, History of Christian Doctrines (1880), III, 323. 1071 Brihadaranyaka-upanishad, I. 4. 10. 1072 Chchandogya-upanishad , VI. 8. 7. 1073 Aitareya-upanishad , V. 3. 1074 Brihadaranyaka-upanishad , II. 5. 19.; cf. Sadeva Saumya, Chchandogya-upanishad , VI. 2. 1 and Sarvam khalvidam Brahma, Chchandogya-upanishad , III. 14. 1.

" these texts may be taken to sum up Vedantic thought at its highest. It is the text on which Uddalaka bases his teaching to Svetaketu in the Chchandogya Upanishad. Dean Inge suggests that the negative view popularised in the West by the "old religion of India" held the ground It held sway, throughout the medieval period. " he says, "for a long time-so long that we cannot complain if many have said, 'This is the essence of Mysticism'.' It is interesting to note what he thinks was the cause which made popular in Europe the via negativa, which, in metaphysics, religion and ethics he regards as "the great accident of Christian Mysticism". How it became the ruling passion as it were of Christian thinkers is described by him in terms which it is well to note. "The break-up 66 $ " " of the ancient civilization, with the losses and miseries which it brought upon humanity and the chaos of brutal barbarism in which Europe weltered for some centuries,' he says, caused a widespread pessimism and world weariness which is foreign to the temper of Europe, and which gave way to energetic and full-blooded activity in the Renaissance and Reformation. Asiatic Mysticism is the natural refuge of men who have lost faith in civilization, but will not give up faith in God. Let us fly hence to our dear country!' We hear the words already in Plotinus -nay-even in Plato. The sun still shone in heaven, but on earth he was eclipsed. Mysticism cuts too deep to allow us to live comfortably on the surface of life; and so all 'the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world' pressed upon men and women till they were fain to throw it off, and seek peace in an invisible world of which they could not see even a shadow round about them." This explanation for the spread of what is termed "Asiatic Mysticism" may be true to the extent it goes, but it does not explain the whole position. "Asiatic Mysticism" is not the refuge of people who have "lost faith in civilization" but of people who have believed in it, but set due bounds to it in their scheme of life. Its spread into the West was primarily due to the fact that it was the natural line of

development that religion and with it philosophy sought in the centuries following the rise of Christianity. It was an Eastern religion and it followed its modes of thought-the thought in which it was born and had had its living. The Renaissance and Reformation did not altogether kill it. The broad humanism of the former prepared the way for the latter which may be fully described-at least in the domains of religion and philosophy-as a spent force. Though described as a revolt of light against darkness, it had, even during the time it had its highest effect, no uniform effects on the states of Europe. Its appeal varied from nation to nation and country to country. Austria, according to Carlyle, preferred "steady darkness to uncertain new light"; in Spain people stumbled "in steep places in the darkness of midnight"; Italy shrugged its shoulders and elected "going into Dilettantism and the Fine Arts"; and France "with accounts run up on compound interest ", had to answer the "unit of summons" with an all too indiscriminate "Protestantism" of its own. Whether this enshrines. a true picture of its effects or not, there is nothing to show that it barred the march of mysticism in Western Europe. Martin Luther himself (1483-1546) published a remarkable book an unknown writer, German Theology, which is held to have prepared the way for the Reformation. This work is mystical in tone and contends that "the more the Self, the I, the Me, the Mine, that is, self-seeking and selfishness, abate in a man, the more doth God Himself, increase in him." Pollock finds much in common between this writer and Spinoza. Valentine Weigel (1533-1588) is another mystic of the Reformation period. He holds that God is conscious in man of His own being and that in pitying man He has pity on Himself. Followers of Weigel continued down to the 18 th century. St. Juan of the Cross (1542-1591) is perhaps the greatest Catholic mystic of modern times. He tried to restore Mediaval Christianity as a protest against the fanatics of the Renaissance. " Obey God; cast thyself on Him; He resembles no created thing; put your faith in Him; contemplate on Him; and your

soul, by participation, becomes God." In this mystic state, "the soul gives God to God; for she gives to God. all that she receives of God; and He gives Himself to her." Jacob Boehme (1575-1624), the great Nature mystic, has already been referred to. William Law, the English mystic (1686-1761), translated Boehme's work and thus became the exponent of his views in England. Michael Molinos, the founder of Quietism (1640-1696), expounded Spanish mysticism. On most of these Dean Inge himself has written at some length. 1075 What has been said thus " • far is sufficient to show that the Renaissance and the Reformation did not do away with mysticism which is deep-rooted in the Christian religion because of its root origins in contemplative Hindu thought. Nor does Dean Inge himself hold that the "negative road is a pure error As he himself frankly admits, "there is a negative side in religion, both in thought and practice. We are first impelled to seek the Infinite by the limitations of the finite, which appear to the soul as bonds and prison walls. It is natural first to think of the Infinite as that in which these barriers are done away. And in practice we must die daily, if our inward man is to be daily renewed....' The individual has generally to pass through the quagmire of the "everlasting No", before he can set his feet on firm ground; and the Christian races, it seems, were obliged to go through the same experience. Moreover, there is a sense in which all moral effort aims at destroying the conditions of its own existence, and so ends logically in self-negation. Our highest aim, as regards ourselves, is to eradicate not only vice but temptation. We do not feel that we have the victory until we no longer wish to offend."1078 thought crosses the mind of Dean Inge and he says that a being who is entirely free from temptation would be either But a See Dean Inge, Christian Mysticism; for German Theology at pages 363-365; for Luther, at page 196; for Weigel, at pages. 274-76 for Boehme, at pages 277-86; for Molinos, at pages 231-34 and for Law, at pages 278-86. 1076 Ibid., 115-116.

more or less than a man-either a beast or a God, as Aristotle has it. There is, accordingly, "a half truth", in his opinion, "in the theory that the goal of earthly striving is negation and absorption". It at once becomes false, he adds, "if we forget that it is a goal which cannot be reached in time, and which is achieved, not by good and evil neutralising each other, but by death being swallowed up. in victory. If morality ceases to be moral when it has achieved its goal, it must pass into something which includ es as well as transcends-a condition which is certainly not fulfilled by contemplative passivity." This criticism would be true if the premises on which it is based were granted to be true. But as Dean Inge himself admits, it would be a misuse of the term via negativa, to interpret it in this extreme manner. The negative road marks but the line. of argument which establishes the transcendence of God, as the "affirmative road" establishes His immanence. A theory or practice is not tested by its extremest abuse of it. The negative mode stresses the affirmative and the so-called " contemplative passivity", at least so far as the Upanishads go, is intended to affirm the affirmative. The text goes "Let him meditate (upasita) on mind as Brahman" and concludes "He who knows this (veda) shines, warms, etc.' Further on we have the text, by means of upas, "teach me the deity on which you meditate."1078 Similarly we have texts, which have the same meaning as the text "He who knows. Brahman reaches the Highest "-viz., "the Self should be "-viz., seen, be heard, be reflected on, be meditated upon (nididhyasitavya)"; "Then he sees him meditating (dhyayamana) on him as without parts"; 1079 and others use the verb dhyai to express the meaning of vid. Dhyai means to think of something not in the way of mere representation but in the way of continued representation. And upas has the same meaning; for we see it used in the sense of uninterrupted concentration of the mind on one object. It has, therefore, to 1077 Chchandogya-upanishad , III. 18. 1078 Ibid., IV. 1. 2. 1079 Munda. Upa., III. 1. 8. 47 F

be concluded that the verb vid is used interchangeably with dhyai and upas, the mental activity referred to in texts such " " "He knows Brahman" and the like is an often-repeated continuous representation.1080 The "contemplative passivity" suggested by Dean Inge is a non-existent, indefinite idea and his suggestion that the negative way is liable to abuse. -as it did in the case of the early Christian mystics-is only partially-if at all-true. As he frankly admits, even these Christian mystics should not be judged with "impatience or contempt "The limitations incidental to their place in history, as he justly remarks, "do not prevent them from being glorious pioneers among the high passes of the spiritual life, who have scaled heights which those who talk glibly about the mistake of asceticism have seldom ever seen afar off."1081 This, indeed, is a just appreciation of the teaching of the early Christian mystics. They are easily charged as being pantheists in the looser sense of the term. But as Mr. H. B. Workman says, however much they might play with phrases tending to convey loose ideas of pantheistic belief, there are few of them who do not seek to conserve personality. "For the mystics were conscious, as Mr. Workman remarks, "that the originality of Christianity 1082 consists in its revelation through the person of Christ of the depth and inexhaustibleness of human personality." Accordingly in the Christian mystics, dangerous as their language with reference to absorption may be at times, there is always an emphasis of purpose; in the later mystics, for instance, much is made of the will-and this in itself is fatal to pantheism of the looser variety. This is so, because the foundations of belief of the early Christian " See the illuminating comment of Ramanuja on IV. 1. 1, Avrittirasakridupadesat. 1081 Dean Inge, Christian Mysticism, 117. 1082 As compared with Judaism, and not with Hinduism in which the looser pantheistic ideas do not find any prominent place. Indeed, they are put into the shade in almost every known text of the Upanishads which speak of the all-inclusive character of the Brahman,

mystics, who led the way in this matter, were based on Upanishadic teachings via the Neo-Platonists, as above indicated. Not much is required by way of proof to show that "absorption", according to Upanishadic ideas, does not mean loss of personality. Indeed, the stress laid on this particular idea by the different schools of philosophy in India, more particularly by the Dvaitins, Vishistadvaitins, the Bhedabhedins and others, is proof positive of the affirmation of personality even after the attainment of salvation. There is thus need to distinguish between types of pantheism and this, indeed, is what Dean Inge is compelled to do. "True Pantheism", according to Dean Inge, "must mean the identification of God with the totality of existence, the doctrine that the Universe is the complete and only expression of the nature and life of God, who in this theory is only immanent and not transcendent. On this view, everything in the world belongs to the Being of God, who is manifested equally in everything; whatever is real is perfect; reality and perfection are the same thing." For a perfect example of this type of pessimism, we have to go, he says, to India, and quotes the text "The learned behold God alike in the revered Brahman, in the ox and in the elephant, in the dog and in him who eateth the flesh of the dogs." He styles this type of "pantheism. an "error and describes it as leading to "all manner of absurdities and even immoralities", as inconsistent with any belief in purpose, either in the whole or in the parts; that, according to it, evil cannot exist for the sake of a higher good but must be itself good. It is easy to see,' " he adds, "how this view of the world may pass into pessimism or nihilism; for if everything is equally real and equally Divine, it makes no difference, except to our tempers, whether we call it This is an extreme everything or nothing, good or bad." way of putting the case against pantheism and though Dean Inge rescues most of the mystics with whom he deals from this error, he thinks Eckhart comes perilously near it and Emerson seriously compromised in its direction. So far as Upanishadic teaching is concerned, it is enough to state " " "

that it represents the stages marked by realism, theism, pantheism and idealism. It, indeed, presents, as Deussen has well remarked, "a very varied colouring of idealistic, pantheistic or theistic shades without becoming contradictory in the proper sense of the term. For the fundamental thought, that is held fast at least as a principle at all stages, even at the lowest which maintains the independent existence of matter, is the conviction of the sole reality of the atman; only that side by side with and in spite of this conviction more or less far-reaching concessions were made to the empirical consciousness of the reality of the Universe, that could never be entirely cast off; and thus the Universe. disowned by the fundamental idealistic view of the sole reality of the atman was yet again partially rehabilitated. This was effected either by regarding it pantheistically as an apparition of the only real atman or theistically as created by and out of the alman, but yet contrasted with it as separate, or realistically as prakriti occupying from the very beginning an independent position by the side of the purusha, although in a certain sense dependent on the latter. Texts of the kind quoted by Dean Inge should not accordingly be taken as typical of the teachings. of the Upanishads. Their position in the context where they appear is explainable as those which, for instance, declare that with the knowledge of the atman all is known 1084 and which accordingly deny a universe of plurality.¹ While this height of thought was reached, a prolonged stay on it was naturally impracticable. The universe was still something existing; it lay there before the eyes of the Upanishadic teachers. It was necessary to find a way back to it. This was accomplished without abandoning the fundamental idealistic principle, by conceding reality of the manifold universe, but at the same time 1085 91083 1083 Paul Deussen, The Philosophy of the Upanishads (1906), 161. 1084 Brihadaranyaka-upanishad , II. 4. 5; Chchandogya-upanishad , VI. 1. 2; and Mundaka-upanishad , I. 1. 3. 1085 Na iha nana asti kinchana, Brihadaranyaka-upanishad , IV. 4. 19; Katha. Upa., IV. 10-11,

" 741 maintaining that this manifold universe is in reality Brahman, Sarvam khalvidam Brahma.1086 Idealism, therefore, entered into alliance with the realistic view natural to us, and became pantheism--not of the type described by Dean Inge but of the higher kind which the Upanishadic sages absorbed to make their teachings rise to the highest heights imaginable. "This," as Deussen aptly reminds us, was the case already in the definition of satyasya satyam, 'the reality of reality' 1087 The universe is reality (satyam), but the real in it is Brahman alone. The same is true when in Chchandogya Upanishad, VI. 6, the rise of the manifold. universe is traced in a realistic manner, accompanied by the repeated assurance that all these changes are "dependent on words, a mere name". With this are connected the numerous passages which celebrate Brahman as the active principle through the entire universe:-" He is alleffecting, all-wishing, all-smelling, all-tasting, embracing all, silent, untroubled; 1088 "the atman is beneath and above, in the west and in the east, in the south and in the north; the atman is this entire universe":1089 "the Sun rises from " him, and sets again in him 1000 "all the regions of the sky are his organs; 1001 the four quarters of the universe. (east, west, south and north), the four divisions of the universe (earth, air, sky and ocean), and the four vital breaths (breath, eye, ear and manas), are his sixteen parts; 1002 fire is his head; his eyes Sun and Moon; his ears, the regions of 1080 Chchandogya-upanishad , III. 14. 1. 1087 Brihadaranyaka-upanishad , II. 1. 20. This doctrine may be traced back to the great Naradiya Sukta of the Rig-Veda (Griffith, Rig-Veda, X. 129). The Purusha Sukta is also interpreted as conveying the idea that the Supreme Soul having animated the universe, became also present in man, either in a minute form or of indefinite dimensions. (See Wilson, Rig-Veda, X. 7. 6). 1088 1089 1090 X. 8. 16. Chchandogya-upanishad , III. 14. 2. Chchandogya-upanishad , VII. 25. 2; cf. Mundaka-upanishad , II. 2. 11. Brihadaranyaka-upanishad , I. 5. 23; Katha. Upa., IV. 9; Atharva-Veda, 1091 Brihadaranyaka-upanishad , IV. 2. 4. 1092 Chchandogya-upanishad , IV. 4-9.

as the sky; the revealed Veda is his voice; the wind his breath; the universe his heart; from his feet is the earth; He is the inmost self in all things."1093 In what manner, however, is the relation of Brahman to this his evolution as the manifold universe to be conceived? Deussen would answer identity", following in this the later Vedanta, which appeals to the word used to express attachment. 1091 But this word is, as he justly remarks, 1095 a mere make-shift; there is still always a broad distinction, between the one Brahman and the multiplicity of his appearances. A concession is made to the empirical consciousness, tied down as it is to space, time and causality. Brahman is regarded as the We cause antecedent in time, and the universe as the effect proceeding from it. The inner dependence of the universe on Brahman and its essential identity with him is represented as a creation of the universe by and out of Brahman. find ourselves at a point where we apprehend the creation theories of the Upanishads-unintelligible though they may seem from the standpoint of its idealism-form an unconscious accommodation to the forms of our intellectual capacity. A few of the more important texts which set out the essential identity of the created universe with the Creator may be noted here. In the Brihadaranyaka we read: "Just as the spider by means of its thread goes forth from itself, as from the fire the tiny sparks fly out, so from this Atman all the spirits of life spring forth, all worlds, all gods, all living beings. Its secret name (Upanishad) is: "The Truth of truth. " "The Reality of reality." "The vital force is truth, and These illustrations of the spider it is the truth of that."1096 and the fire are repeated in another Upanishad, 1097 That 1093 Mundaka-upanishad , II. 1. 4. 1094 Chchandogya-upanishad , VI. 1. 3; see also Sankara's commentary on Brahma-Sutras, II. 1. 14, Tadananyatvamarambhana sabdadibhyah. This Sutra is II. 1. 15 according to Ramanuja. The word arambhana is to be noted in this Sutra. 1095 1096 The Philosophy of the Upanishads, 163-166. Brihadaranyaka-upanishad , II. 1. 20. 1097 Mundaka-upanishad , I. 1. 7; II. 1. 1.

the material substance of things also is derived solely from Brahman is taught in connection with the illustration of the spider, in the text of the Svetasvatara Upanishad, 1098 where Brahman is described as the god "who spider-like by threads which proceed from him as material (pradhanam), concealed his real nature". The last words, according to Deussen, mean that Brahman, by not bringing objects forth from himself, but changing himself into the objects, "has concealed his real nature" (svabhavato svam avri- · · · · not). In this sense it is said as early as the Rig-Veda that Visvakarman by his entrance into the lower world was "concealing his original state" (prathamachchad). 1099 Similarly another Upanishadic text declares 1100 that the Atman has "entered" into this universe upto the finger-tips, as a knife is hidden in its sheath, or the all-sustaining fire in the fire-preserving (wood). Therefore is he not seen; for he is divided; as breathing he is named breath, as speaking speech, as seeing eye, as hearing ear, and as thinking mind." According to another text, the Atman is amritam satyena chchannam, "the immortal, concealed by (empirical) reality;"'1101 and in a third, we read that "it is with him as with a lump of salt, which, thrown into the water, is lost in the water, so that it is not possible to take it out again whence, however, we may always draw, it is salt throughout." This thought is developed in another text.1103 To meet " a possible objection the same idea occurs in another text 110 in an altered form: "It is with him as with a lump of salt, which has no (distinguishable) inner or outer, but throughout consists entirely of taste," etc. Likewise, in this manner, efforts are made in other texts to show that Brahman by his transformation into the universe has forfeited nothing of the perfection of his own nature. 1098 Sveta. Upa., VI. 10. 1000 Rig-Veda, X. 81. 1. 1100 Brihadaranyaka-upanishad , I. 4. 7. 1101 Ibid., I. 6. 3. 1102 Chchandogya-upanishad , VI. 13. 1108 Brihadaranyaka-upanishad , IV. 5. 13. This

idea was not a new one to the Upanishadic seers. It is seen in the Rig-Veda, 1101 in the famous Purusha Sukta, where it is said that all beings are only a fourth of the Purusha while the three other fourths remain immortal in heaven. This teaching appears in the Upanishads again and again, 1105 in one of which it is elaborated in a manner which is strikingly impressive. This text referring to the Brahman as Gayatri, describes one-fourth of his as consisting of the three worlds (Earth, Sky and Heaven), the second of the triple knowledge of the Veda, the third of the three vital breaths, while the fourth, exalted above the dust of earth, shines as the Sun.1100 The same idea is expressed still more clearly in another well-known text which says that Brahman, after having created the three worlds with that which lies above and beyond them, himself entered "that half beyond ".1107 Still another Vedic text describes the infinite nature of Brahman, 1108 in keeping with which is the famous Upanishadic text Om Purnamadah purnamidam, etc. 1100 which stresses the theme that though a man may journey from the perfect to the perfect, yet that which is perfect yet remains over and above all. It holds forth that Brahman is infinite, that this universe is infinite, and that the infinite proceeds from the infinite. Then, taking the infinitude of the infinite (universe), it remains as the infinite (Brahman) alone. This same idea is amplified 1104 Rig-Veda, X. 10. 3. The full text is: "Such is his greatness; and Purusha is greater than this: all beings are one-fourth of him; his other three-fourths, (being) immortal, (abide) in heaven." And X. 10. 4 is as follows:-"Three-fourths of Purusha ascended; the other fourth that remained in this world proceeds repeatedly and diversified in various forms, went to all animate and inanimate creation." Deussen's citations have been checked and corrected. 1105 Chchandogya-upanishad , III. 12. 6, which repeats the Rig-Veda text ; Maitr. Upa., VII. 11. 1106 Brikad. Upa., V. 14. 1. 1107 Satap. Br., XI. 2. 3. 1108 Atharva-Veda, X. 8. 29. 1109 Brihadaranyaka-upanishad , V. 1. 1.; this reiterates what is enunciated in I. 4. 10; cf. also Katha. Upa., IV. 10.

in greater detail in the beautiful verses of another Upanishadic text, which have been thus rendered in inimitable manner by Deussen :-"The light, as one, penetrates into space, and yet adapts itself to every form; so the inmost self of all beings dwells enwrapped in every form, and yet remains outside. The air, as one, penetrates into space, and yet adapts itself to every form; so the inmost self of all beings dwells enwrapped in every form, and yet remains outside. The Sun, the The Sun, the eye of the whole universe, remains pure from the defects of eyes external to it; so the inmost self of all beings remains pure from the sufferings of the external worlds."1110 Thus, it will be seen that though there are passages in the Upanishads which identify the atman as the infinitely small within us with the infinitely great outside of us, and in this way the identity of the two, the atman and the universe, is incessantly emphasized, as though it were a matter which stood greatly in need of emphasis, still, as Deussen has pointed out, the equation that "alman = universe universe " has remained very obscure". The one atman and the manifold universe, often as they were brought together, always fell asunder again. A natural step was therefore taken, when more and more as time went on, instead of this unintelligible identity the familiar empirical category of causality made its appearance, by virtue of which the atman was represented as the cause chronologically antecedent and the universe " as its effect, its creation. Thus a connection with the ancient Vedic cosmogony became possible. Several Upanishads 1111 can be quoted to support this position. It is characteristic at this point that the atman, after having evolved the universe from himself, enters himself into it as soul. Thus, we read, in the Chchandogya Upanishad: "That deity resolved: 'Verily into these three deities (heat, water, food), I will enter with this living 1110 Katha. Upa., V. 5. 11. 1111 Chchandogya-upanishad , III. 19; VI. 2. Taittiriya-upanishad , II. 6; Art. Upa., I, 1, etc.

746 self'."1112 ' INTRODUCTION >>1114 • It Again in the Taittiriya Upanishad, we have the following: "After he had created the universe, he entered into it";1113 and in the Aitareya Upanishad, we read: "He reflected: 'How could this subsist without me ?' ....accordingly he cleft here the crown of the head, and entered in through this gate Even at this stage, the individual soul maintains its identity with the atman. is not like everything else, a created work of the atman; but it is the atman himself as he enters into the world he has created. But the stage is soon reached when the contrast between the Supreme and individual souls appears. This was early anticipated; 1115 but later on the individual soul became more and more definitely opposed to the Supreme Soul as "another ".111 With the rise of theism, a theory of pre-destination was also evolved.1117 The Svetasvatara Upanishad, on which Sripati relies so much, is the best evidence of this theism. But it must be remembered, however, that here all the earlier stages of development, the idealistic, pantheistic and cosmogonistic, continue to exist side by side, as already remarked, as indeed generally in the religious sphere the old is accustomed to assert its time-honoured right by the side of the new, the fruits of which are readily seen in the far-reaching inner contradictions, with which we are often confronted. Thus, not only the origin of Indian pantheism-strictly so called, according to which the universe is real, and yet the atman remains the sole reality, for the atman is the universe -is very different from the pantheism of Europe but also its identification with the philosophy of the Upanishads is apt to be wholly misleading. Even in the West, pantheism has been defined in a variety of views and it will not do to confuse these different views with one another. Weissenborn 1112 Chchandogya-upanishad , VI. 3. 2. 1113 Tailt. Upa., II. 6. 1114 Art. Upa., I. 3. 11. 1115 See Brihadaranyaka-upanishad , IV. 4. 22; Kaush. Upa., III. 8. 1116 See Katha. Upa., I. 3; Sveta. Upa., IV. 6, 7, 5, 8, etc. 1117 See Katha. Upa., II. 2. 3 ; Mundaka-upanishad , III. 2. 3.

defines it as the system which identifies God and the all of things, or the unity of things. 1118 At least six forms of Pantheism are known in the West. Mechanical or materialistic pantheism represents God as being the mechanical unity of existence; ontological pantheism, which postulates abstract unity, represents God as being the one substance in all-this school being associated prominently with the great name of Spinoza; dynamic pantheism, which represents God as being the only force in all; psychical pantheism, which represents God as being the soul of the world; ethical pantheism, which represents God as being the universal moral order, a school at whose head stands Fichte; and logical pantheism, which is enunciated by Hegel. These different views of Western pantheism show how dangerous it would be to seek to define Upanishadic pantheism, as we find it developed in the texts above quoted, in terms not strictly covered by them. If Christian mystics are loosely charged with being pantheists, the Upanishadic seers are worse So, for the charge is not only loose but also entirely unsubstantiated. The fact that pantheism in the Upanishads is connected with idealistic and realistic thought should never be forgotten in any discussion pertaining to its exact connotation. Dean Inge finds consolation in the dictum of Amiel that "Christianity, if it is to triumph over Pantheism, must absorb it". Upanishadic teaching has, indeed, triumphed over it by actually absorbing it. This is best illustrated in the Bhedabheda of Sripati which is a serious attempt at reconciling theism with pantheism. From what has been thus far said, it will be clear that both Neo-Platonism and early Christian mysticism were largely influenced by Hindu religion and philosophical thought, and they in their turn influenced Western philosophical thought, especially, through Bruno, the great philosophy propounded by Spinoza. This philosophy outlined a 1118 See K. R. Hagenbach, History of Christian Doctrines, III, 323.

world-idea, which in its essence is the idea underlying the system of Bhedabheda postulated by Sripati. In this view of Spinoza's philosophy, it is necessary to set out briefly its main features.