INSTANCES OF COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS.

CHAPTER 1.

Gautama the Buddha.

It is not, of course, intended to write biographies here of the men given in this volume as cases of Cosmic Consciousness, nor, equally of course, can more than the faintest hint be given of their teaching. The facts quoted from their lives and the passages from their words are simply intended to establish and illustrate the fact that these men were illumined in the sense in which that word is used in this book.

1

Siddhartha Gautama was born of wealthy parents (his father being rather a great landowner than a king, as he is sometimes stated to have been), between the years 562 and 552 B. C. It seems sufficiently certain that he was a case of Cosmic Consciousness, although, on account of the remoteness of his era, details of proof may be somewhat lacking. He was married very young. Ten years afterwards his only son, Rahula, was born. Shortly after Rahula’s birth, Gautama, being then in his twenty-ninth year, suddenly abandoned his home to devote himself entirely to the study of religion and philosophy. He seems to have been a very earnest-minded man who, realizing keenly the miseries of the human race, desired above all things to do something to abolish, or at least lessen, them. The orthodox manner of attaining to holiness in Gautama’s age and land was through fasting and penance, and for six years he practiced extreme self-mortification. He gained extraordinary fame, for which he cared nothing, but did not gain the mental peace or the secret of human happiness, for which he strove. Seeing that that course was vain and led to nothing, he abandoned asceticism and shortly afterwards, at about the age of thirty-five, attained illumination under the celebrated Bo tree.

2

For our present purpose it is important to fix the age of the oncoming of the Cosmic Sense in this, as hi other cases, as precisely as possible. A very recent and probably good authority [60] gives it as thirty-six. Ernest de Bunsen in his work “The Angel Messiah” says that Buddha, like Christ,” commenced preaching at thirty years of age. He certainly must have preached at Vaishali, for five young men became his disciples there and exhorted him to go on with his teachings. He was twenty-nine when he left that place; therefore he might well have preached at thirty. He did not turn the wheel of the law (became illumined) until after a six years meditation under the tree of knowledge”.

3

Now as to the result of his illumination. What did he say about it? And what change did it effect in the man? The Dhamma-Kakka-Ppavattana-Sutta is accepted by all Buddhists as a summary of the words in which the great Indian thinker and reformer for the first time successfully promulgated his new ideas. In it over and over again Gautama declares that the “noble truths” taught therein were not “among the doctrines handed down,” but that “there arose within him the eye to perceive them, the knowledge of their nature, the understanding of their cause, the wisdom that lights the true path, the light that expels darkness.”  He could not well more definitely state that he did not derive his authority to teach from the merely Self Conscious, but from the Cosmic Conscious, mind—that is, from illumination or inspiration. Compare with this what Bohme says of himself in the same connection: “I am not collecting my knowledge from letters and books, but I have it within my own Self; because heaven and earth with all their inhabitants, and moreover God himself, is in man”.

4

In the Maha Vagga it is said that “during the first watch of the night following on Gautama’s victory over the evil one (the night following upon his attainment of Cosmic Consciousness) he fixed his mind upon the chain of causation; during the second watch he did the same, and during the third watch he did the same.” This tradition exists among both northern and southern Buddhists, has come down from the time before the separation of these churches, and is therefore probably genuine and from Gautama himself. But it embodies in clear and concise language one of the most fundamental phenomena belonging to the oncoming of the Cosmic Sense: most probably “the revelation of exceeding greatness” of which Paul speaks; the vision of the “eternal wheels” of Dante; “the knowledge that passes all the argument of the earth” of Whitman; the “inner illumination by which we can ultimately see things as they are, beholding all creation—the animals, the angels, the plants, the figures of our friends, and all the ranks and races of human kind—in their true being and order,” of Edward Carpenter.

5

Again in the Akankheyya-Sutta is set forth the spiritual characteristics which belong to those who possess the Cosmic Sense. No one, not having it, could have written the description which, doubtless proceeds, as claimed, directly from Gautama. Neither could any later possessor of the faculty set forth more clearly in the same number of words the distinctive marks which belong to it. For instance, it is said there that the attainment of Arhatship (supernatural insight—Nirvana—illumination—Cosmic Consciousness) “will cause a man to become”:

Gautama’s Words.

Beloved, popular, respected among his fellows, victorious over discontent and lust; over spiritual danger and dismay; will bestow upon him the ecstasy of contemplation; will enable him to reach with his body, and remain in, those stages of deliverance which are incorporeal and pass beyond phenomena; cause him to become an inheritor of the highest heavens; make him being one to become multiple, being multiple to become one; will endow him with clear and heavenly ear, surpassing that of men; enable him to comprehend by his own heart the hearts of other beings, and of other men, to understand all minds, the passionate, the calm, the angry, the peaceable, the deluded, the wise, the concentrated, the ever-varying, the lofty, the narrow, the sublime, the mean, the steadfast, the wavering, the free and the enslaved; give him the power to call to mind his various temporary states in days gone by; such as one birth, two births, three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand or a hundred thousand births; his births in many an eon of renovation; in many an eon of both destruction and renovation; to call to mind his temporary states in days gone by in all their modes and in all their details; to see with pure and heavenly vision surpassing that of men, beings as they pass from one state of existence and take form in others; beings base or noble, good looking or ill favored, happy or miserable; to know and realize emancipation of heart and emancipation of mind.

Parallel Passages.

“Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you my brother, my sister? I am sorry for you, they are not murderous or jealous upon me, all has been gentle with me, I keep no account with lamentation (what have I to do with lamentation?) “. “The holy breath kills lust, passion and hate”.

“Yet O my soul supreme! Knowest thou the joys of pensive thought? Joys of the free and lonesome heart, the tender”

Tomb-leaves, body-leaves growing up above me, above death”., gloomy heart?”.

“Heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ”.
“The other I am”.
“Thou teachest how to make one twain”.

Is this not a perfect description of a large and important part of what the Cosmic Sense did, for instance, for Dante, “Shakespeare/’ Balzac, Whitman?

“I pass death with the dying and birth with the new washed babe.” “No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before”.
Compare “Faces” where this heavenly vision” is seen in action.
The final and supreme test.

6.

A few other passages alluding to the cosmic sense and having more or less close parallels in the writings of more modern illuminati may be given in further illustration, but it is almost needless to say that whoever desires light on this subject should read for himself—not once, but over and over again—the words left us by these lords of thought. Here is a passage from The Book of the Great Decease. Gautama is teaching his disciples; he speaks as follows:

So long as the brethren shall not engage in, or be fond of, or be connected with business—so long as the brethren shall not be in the habit of, or be fond of, or be partakers in idle talk—so long as the brethren shall not be addicted to, or be fond of, or indulge in slothfulness—so long as the brethren shall not frequent, or be fond of, or indulge in society—so long as the brethren shall neither have nor fall under the influence of sinful desires—so long as the brethren shall not become the friends, companions or intimates of sinners—so long as the brethren shall not come to a stop on their way (to Nirvana) because they have attained to any lesser thing (as riches or power)—so long may the brethren be expected not to decline, but to prosper.

It is needless to quote parallel passages from Jesus, they are so numerous and will occur to everyone. But it is worth noting that Paul uses almost the same language, referring to the same figure which is in the mind of the Buddhist writer, when he says (comparing Nirvana, the Cosmic Sense and the things belonging to it to the prize of a race): “one thing I do, forgetting the things (the lesser things of the Buddhist text) which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize”. Compare also “The Song of the Open Road,” in which the same thought is elaborately worked out. Then as to .the admonition against “business” and the “lesser things,” such as wealth, consider the lives of Gautama, Jesus, Paul, Whitman and E. C, most of whom either were or might easily have been “well off,” but either turned their backs upon their wealth (as Gautama or E. C.) or simply declined to have any (as Jesus and Whitman). In commentary upon this fact read these words of Whitman:

Beyond the independence of a little sum laid aside for burial money, and of a few clapboards around and shingles overhead on a lot of American soil owned and the easy dollars that supply the year’s plain clothing and meals, the melancholy prudence of the abandonment of such a great being as a man is to the toss and pallor of years of money making with all their scorching days and icy nights ... is the great fraud upon modern civilization.

7

The following lines are quoted as a plain allusion to the Cosmic Sense—the whole Upanishad should be read:

There lived once Svetaketu Aruneya (the grandson of Aruna).

To him his father (Uddalaka, the son of Aruna) said: ‘‘Svetaketu, go to school, for there is none belonging to our race, darling, who, not having studied (the Veda),
is, as it were, a Brahmana by birth only.”

“That seeing they may see and not perceive; and hearing that they may hear and not understand” I do not doubt interiors have their interiors and exteriors have their exteriors, and that the eyesight has another eyesight, and the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice”
Having begun his apprenticeship with a teacher when he was twelve years of age, Svetaketu returned to his father when he was twenty-four, having studied all the Vedas, conceited, considering himself well read and stern.

His father said to him: “Svetaketu, as you are so conceited, considering yourself so well read, and so stern, my dear, have you ever asked for that instruction by which we hear what cannot be heard, by which we perceive what cannot be perceived, by which we know what cannot be known”

8

In the same connection read this verse:

The teacher replies: It is the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of speech, the breath of breath, and the eye of the eye,

Just one more passage:

That one (the self), though never stirring, is swifter than thought.  The never reached it, it walked before them.  Though standing still, it overtakes the others who are running. The moving spirit bestows powers upon it. It stirs and it stirs not.  It is far and likewise near. It is inside of all this “The sense is a sense that one is those and it is outside of all this.

And he who beholds all beings in the self and the self in all beings, he never turns away from it. When to a man who understands, the self has become all things, what sorrow, what trouble can there be to him who once beheld that unity.

The sense is a sense that one is those objects and things and persons that one perceives, and the whole universe”

9

The specific reasons for believing that Gautama was a case of Cosmic Consciousness are:

a. The initial character of his mind, which seems to have been ardent, earnest and aspiring; such, indeed, usually precedes the oncoming of the Cosmic Sense.

b. The definiteness and suddenness of the change in the man from unceasing aspiration and endeavor to achievement and peace. “A religious life is well taught by me” (says Gautama). “An instantaneous, an immediate life”, and, again, Gautama is said to teach “the instantaneous, the immediate, the destruction of desire, freedom from distress, whose likeness is nowhere”.

c.  The age at which illumination is said to have been attained —the typical age for the oncoming of the Cosmic Sense—thirty-five years.

d.  The general teaching of the “Suttas,” said to have come from Gautama, which teachings undoubtedly spring from a mind possessed of Cosmic Consciousness.

e.  The   intellectual   illumination—“supernatural   insight”—ascribed, and justly ascribed, to Gautama and proved by the above teachings—if these proceed from him.

f. The moral elevation attained by Gautama which nothing but the possession of Cosmic Consciousness will account for.

g. Gautama seems to have had the sense of eternal life which belongs to Cosmic Consciousness. The Mahavagga is supposed to give with considerable accuracy his actual teaching in such matters. In it we find these words: “The man who has no desire, who knowingly is free from doubt, and has attained the depth of immortality, him I call a Brahmana”. It is important to note that the test is not a belief or assurance (however strong) in a future eternal life. The man, in order to be a Brahmana (to have attained Nirvana—Cosmic Consciousness), must already have acquired eternal life.

h. The personal magnetism exerted directly by him upon his contemporaries, and through his words upon his disciples in all ages since.

i. There is a tradition of the characteristic change in appearance known as’’ transfiguration.’’ When he came down “from the mountain Mienmo a staircase of glittering diamonds, seen by all, helped his descent. His appearance was blinding”. Allowing for Oriental exaggeration, a germ of truth may be contained in this tradition.

10

If, now, Gautama had Cosmic Consciousness, and if, as seems almost certain, it has appeared among his followers generation after generation from his time until now, then it must have a name in the copious literature of the Buddhists. There is, in fact, a word used by these people as to the exact value of which Western students have always been more or less in doubt, but if to that word we assign this meaning all difficulty seems to be ended and the passages in which that word occurs are seen to have a clear and simple signification.  The word referred to is Nirvana.

Kinza M. Hirai says: “Nirvana is interpreted by Western nations as the actual annihilation of human desire or passion; but this is a mistake. Nirvana is nothing else than universal reason.”
It may be doubted whether Mr. Hirai by “universal reason” means “Cosmic Consciousness,” but his intention in using the expression is the same.  If he realizes or shall ever realize what Cosmic Consciousness is it is certain that he will say that Nirvana is a name for it.

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In further illustration of this point read (as follows) part of a chapter on Nirvana by an excellent authority —Rhys Davids:

One might fill pages with the awestruck and ecstatic praise which is lavished in Buddhist writings on this condition of mind, the Fruit of the Fourth Path, the state of an Arahat, of a man made perfect according to the Buddhist faith. But all that could be said can be included in one pregnant phrase—this is Nirvana.

There is no suffering for him who has finished his journey, and abandoned grief, who has freed himself on all sides, and thrown off all fetters.  The gods even envy him whose senses like horses well broken in by the driver, have been subdued, who is free from pride, and free from appetites. Such a one who does his duty is tolerant like the earth, like Indra’s bolt; he is like a lake without mud; no new births are in store for him. His thought is quiet, quiet are his word and deed when he has obtained freedom by true knowledge.

They who by steadfast mind have become exempt from evil desire, and well trained in the teachings of Gautama; they, having obtained the Fruit of the Fourth Path, and immersed themselves in that Ambrosia, have received without price and are in the enjoyment of Nirvana.

Their old Karma is exhausted, no new Karma is being produced; their hearts are free from the longing after a future life; the cause of their existence being destroyed, and no new yearning springing up within them, they the wise are extinguished like this lamp (Ratana Sutta).

That mendicant conducts himself well who has conquered (sin) by means of holiness, from whose eyes the veil of error has been removed, who is well trained in religion; and who, free from yearning, and skilled in the knowledge, has attained unto Nirvana (Sammaparibbajaniya Sutta).

What, then, is Nirvana, which means simply blowing out—extinction; it being quite clear from what has gone before, that this cannot be the extinction of a soul? It is the extinction of that sinful, grasping condition of mind and heart which would otherwise, according to the great mystery of Karma, be the cause of renewed individual existence. [Italics belong to text quoted.]

“Who in his spirit in any emergency neither hastens nor avoids death”

The earth neither lags nor hastens, does not withhold, is generous enough, the truths of the earth continually wait, they are not concealed either, they are calm, subtle,
untransmissible by print”

Karma-one’s action or acts considered as determining his lot after death and in a following existence.

A man who has acquired the cosmic sense does not desire eternal life – he has it.

Nir “out” vana “blowing,” from root va, “blow,” with suffix ana. That Nirvana cannot mean extinction in the sense of death is clear from the following passage: “And erelong he attained to that supreme goal of Nirvana—the higher life—for the sake of which men go out from all and every household gain and comfort to become homeless wanderers, yea that supreme goal did he by himself, and while yet in this visible world, bring himself to the knowledge of and continue to realize and to see face to face”,

That extinction is to be brought about by, and runs parallel with, the growth of the opposite condition of mind and heart; and it is complete when that opposite condition is reached. Nirvana is therefore the same thing as a sinless, calm state of mind; and if translated at all may best, perhaps, be rendered ” holiness”—holiness, that is, in the Buddhist sense—perfect peace, goodness and wisdom.

To attempt translations of such pregnant terms is, however, always dangerous, as the new word—part of a new language which is the outcome of a different tone of thought—while it may denote the same or nearly the same idea, usually calls up together with it very different ones. This is the case here; our word holiness would often suggest the idea of love to, and awe in the felt presence of, a personal creator—ideas inconsistent with Buddhist holiness. On the other hand, Nirvana implies the ideas of intellectual energy, and of the cessation of individual existence; of which the former is not essential to, and the latter is quite unconnected with our idea of holiness.

Holiness and Nirvana, in other words, may represent states of mind not greatly different; but these are due to different causes and end in different results; and, in using the words, it is impossible to confine one’s thought to the thing expressed, so as not also to think of its origin and its effect.

It is better, therefore, to retain the word Nirvana as the name of the Buddhist summum bonum, which is a blissful holy state, a moral condition, a modification of personal character; and we should allow the word to remind us, as it did the early Buddhists, both of the Path which leads to the extinction of sin, and also of the break of the transfer of Karma, which the extinction of sin will bring about. That this must be the effect of Nirvana is plain; for that state of mind which in Nirvana is extinct (upadana klesa, trishna) is precisely that which will, according to the great mystery of Buddhism, lead at death to the formation of a new individual, to whom the Karma of the dissolved or dead one will be transferred. That new individual would consist of certain bodily and mental qualities or tendencies, enumerated, as already explained in the five Skandhas or aggregates. A comprehensive name of all five is upddi, a word derived (in allusion to the name of their cause, upadana) from upada, to grasp, either with the hand or the mind. Now when a Buddhist has become an Arahat, when he has reached Nirvana, the Fruit of the Fourth Path, he has extinguished upadana and klesa, but he is still alive; the upadi, the skandhas, his body with all its powers—that is to say, the fruit of his former sin—remain.

These, however, are impermanent, they will soon pass away, there will then be nothing left to bring about the rise of a new set of skandhas, of a new individual; and the Arahat will be no longer alive or existent in any sense at all, he will have reached Parinibbana, complete extinction, or Nir-upana-sesa Nibbana dhatu, extinction so complete that the upadi, the five skandhas, survive no longer—that is, in one word, death.

The life of man, to use a constantly recurring Buddhist simile or parable, is like the flame of an Indian lamp, a metal or earthenware saucer in which a cotton wick is laid in oil. One life is derived from another, as one flame is lit at another; it is not the same flame, but without the other it would not have been. As flame cannot exist without oil, so life, individual existence, depends on the cleaving to law and earthly things, the sin of the heart. If there is no oil in the lamp it will go out, though not until the oil which the wick has drawn up is exhausted; and then no new flame can be lighted there. And so the parts and powers of the sinless man will be dissolved, and no new being will be born to sorrow. The wise will pass away; will go out like the flame of a lamp, and their Karma will be individualized no longer.

Stars long ago extinct may be still visible to us by the light they emitted before they ceased to burn; but the rapidly vanishing effect of a no longer active cause will soon cease to strike upon our senses; and where the light was will be darkness. So the living, moving body of the perfect man is visible still, though its cause has ceased to act; but it will soon decay, and die and pass away; and, as no new body will be formed, where life was will be nothing.

Death, utter death, with no new life to follow, is then the result of, but not, Nirvana. The Buddhist heaven is death that can then happen is the death of not death, and it is not on death, but something no longer wanted, on a virtuous life here and now that the Pitakas lavish those terms of ecstatic description which they apply to Nirvana, as the Fruit of the Fourth Path of Arahatship.

Thus Professor Max Mueller, who was the first to point out the fact, says (Buddhaghosha’s Parables): “If we look in the Dhamma-pada, at every passage where Nirvana is mentioned there is not one which would require that its meaning should be annihilation, while most, if not all, would become perfectly unintelligible if we assigned to the word Nirvana that signification. The same thing may be said of such other parts of the Pitakas as are accessible to us in published texts Thus the commentator on the Jataka quotes some verses from the Buddhavansa, or history of the Buddha’s, which is one of the books of the second Pitaka. In those verses we have (inter alia) an argument based on the logical assumption that if a positive exists, its negative must also exist; if there is heat, there must be cold; and so on. In one of these pairs we find existence opposed, not to Nirvana, but to non-existence; whilst in another the three fires (of lust, hatred and delusion) are opposed to Nirvana (Fausboll Jataka texts). It follows, I think, that to the mind of the composer of the Buddhavansa, Nirvana meant not the extinction, the negation of being, but the extinction, the absence, of the three fires of passion.”

So little is known of the books of the northern Buddhist Canon, that it is difficult to discover their doctrine on any controverted point; but so far as it is possible to judge, they confirm that use of the word Nirvana which we find the Pitakas. In the Lalita Vistara the word occurs in a few passages, in none of which is the sense of annihilation necessary, and in all of which I take Nirvana to mean the same as the Pali Nibbana.

The Tibetan rendering of the word is a long phrase, meaning according to Burnouf’, “the state of him who is delivered from sorrow,” or “the state in which one finds one’s self when one is so delivered.” This is confirmed by Mr Beal’s comprehensive and valuable work   on   Chinese   Buddhism, the Chinese version of the Sanskrit Parinirvana Sutra has the following: “Nirvana is just so.  In the midst of sorrow there is no Nirvana and in Nirvana there is no sorrow.”

The early Sanskrit texts o¥ the northern Buddhists, like the Pali texts of the Pitakas, all seem to look upon Nirvana as a moral condition, to be reached here, in the world, and in this life.

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Finally, in order to show that as the word is used by those who know its meaning best it can hardly mean death and may well mean what is here called cosmic consciousness, read the following passages culled from the Dhamma-pada, one of the oldest and most sacred of the Buddhist scriptural books. Every passage in this book in which the word Nirvana occurs is here given and with them parallel passages from other analogous writings:

Earnestness is the path of immortality (Nirvana), thoughtlessness the path of death. Those who are in earnest do not die, those who are thoughtless are as if dead already. These wise people, meditative, steady, always possessed of strong powers, attain to Nirvana, the highest happiness, A Bhikshu (mendicant) who delights in reflection, who looks with fear on thoughtlessness, cannot fall away (from his perfect state)—he is close upon Nirvana. “One is the road that leads to wealth, another the road that leads to Nirvana;” if the Bhikshu, the disciple of Buddha, has learnt this, he will not yearn for honor, he will strive after separation from the world, Men who have no riches, who live on recognized food, who have perceived void and unconditioned freedom (Nirvana) their path is difficult to understand, like that of birds in the air. He whose appetites are stilled, who is not absorbed in enjoyment, who has, perceived void and unconditioned freedom (Nirvana), his path is difficult to understand, like that of birds in the air. Some people are born again; evil-doers go to hell; righteous people go to heaven; those who are free from all worldly desires attain Nirvana. If, like a shattered metal plate (gong), thou utter not, then thou hast reached Nirvana; contention is not known to thee.

The Awakened call patience the highest penance, long-suffering the highest Nirvana; for he is not an anchorite (pravragita) who strikes others, he is not an ascetic (stramana) who insults others.

Hunger is the worst of diseases, the body the greatest of pains; if one knows this truly, that is Nirvana, highest, happiness. Health is the greatest of gifts; contentedness the best riches; trust is the best of relationships; Nirvana the highest happiness. He in whom a desire for the Ineffable (Nirvana) has sprung up, who is satisfied in his mind, and whose thoughts are not bewildered by love, he is called urdhvamsrotas (carried upward by the stream). The sages who injure nobody, and who always control their body, they will go to the unchangeable place (Nirvana), where, if they have gone, they will suffer no more, Those who are ever watchful, who study day and night, and who strive after Nirvana, their passions will come to an end; Cut out the love of self, like an autumn lotus, with thy hand! Cherish the road of peace. Nirvana has been shown by Sugata (Buddha). A wise and good man who knows the meaning of this, should quickly clear the way that leads to Nirvana, For with these animals does no man reach the untrodden country (Nirvana), where a tamed man goes on a tamed animal—viz., on his own well tamed self. He who having got rid of the forest (of lust) (i.e., after having reached Nirvana) gives himself over to forest-life (i.e., to lust), and who, when removed from the forest (i.e., from lust), runs to the forest (i.e., to lust), and look at that man! Though free, he runs into bondage. The Bhikshu who acts with kindness, who is calm in the doctrine of Buddha, will reach the quiet place (Nirvana), cessation of natural desires, and happiness. O Bhikshu, empty this boat! If emptied, it will go quickly; having cut off passion and hatred, thou wilt go to Nirvana. Without knowledge there is no meditation, without meditation there is no knowledge: he who has knowledge and meditation is near unto Nirvana. As soon as he has considered the origin and destruction of the elements (khandha) of the body, he finds happiness and joy which belong to those who know the immortal (Nirvana). The Bhikshu, full of delight, who is calm in the doctrine of Buddha, will reach the quiet place (Nirvana), cessation of natural desires and happiness.

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Gautama, then, was a case of Cosmic Consciousness, and the central doctrine in his system, Nirvana, was the doctrine of the Cosmic Sense. The whole of Buddhism is simply this: There is a mental state so happy, so glorious, that all the rest of life is worthless compared to it, a pearl of great price to buy which a wise man willingly sells all that he has; this state can be achieved. The object of all Buddhist literature is to convey some idea of this state and to guide aspirants into this glorious country, which is literally the Kingdom of God.