ArcaMax Publishing > Books > Religion > Pagan and Christian creeds: their origin and meaning > Section 18
II. THE NATURE OF THE SELF
The true nature of the Self is a matter by no means easy to
compass. We have all probably at some time or other attempted
to fathom the deeps of personality, and been baffled. Some
people say they can quite distinctly remember a moment in
early childhood, about the age of THREE (though the exact period
is of course only approximate) when self-consciousness--the
awareness of being a little separate Self--first dawned in the
mind. It was generally at some moment of childish tension--
alone perhaps in a garden, or lost from the mother's protecting
hand--that this happened; and it was the beginning of a whole
range of new experience. Before some such period there is
in childhood strictly speaking no distinct self-consciousness.
As Tennyson says (In Memoriam xliv):
The baby new to earth and sky,
What time his tender palm is prest
Against the circle of the breast,
Hath never thought that "This is I."
It has consciousness truly, but no distinctive
self-consciousness. It is this absence or deficiency which
explains many things which at first sight seem obscure in the
psychology of children and of animals. The baby (it has often
been noticed) experiences little or no sense of FEAR. It does not
know enough to be afraid; it has never formed any image of
itself, as of a thing which might be injured. It may shrink from
actual pain or discomfort, but it does not LOOK FORWARD--which is
of the essence of fear--to pain in the future. Fear and
self-consciousness are closely interlinked. Similarly with
animals, we often wonder how a horse or a cow can endure to stand
out in a field all night, exposed to cold and rain, in the
lethargic patient way that they exhibit. It is not that they do
not FEEL the discomfort, but it is that they do not envisage
THEMSELVES as enduring this pain and suffering for all those
coming hours; and as we know with ourselves that nine-tenths of
our miseries really consist in looking forward to future
miseries, so we understand that the absence or at any rate slight
prevalence of self-consciousness in animals enables them to
endure forms of distress which would drive us mad.
In time then the babe arrives at self-consciousness; and,
as one might expect, the growing boy or girl often becomes
intensely aware of Self. His or her self-consciousness is crude,
no doubt, but it has very little misgiving. If the question
of the nature of the Self is propounded to the boy as a problem
he has no difficulty in solving it. He says "I know well enough
who I am: I am the boy with red hair what gave Jimmy Brown such a
jolly good licking last Monday week." He knows well enough--or
thinks he knows--who he is. And at a later age, though his
definition may change and he may describe himself chiefly as a
good cricketer or successful in certain examinations,
his method is practically the same. He fixes his mind on a
certain bundle of qualities and capacities which he is supposed
to possess, and calls that bundle Himself. And in a more
elaborate way we most of us, I imagine, do the same.
Presently, however, with more careful thought, we begin to see
difficulties in this view. I see that directly I think of myself
as a certain bundle of qualities--and for that matter it is
of no account whether the qualities are good or bad, or in what
sort of charming confusion they are mixed--I see at once that
I am merely looking at a bundle of qualities: and that the
real "I," the Self, is not that bundle, but is the being
INSPECTING the same--something beyond and behind, as it were. So
I now concentrate my thoughts upon that inner Something, in
order to find out what it really is. I imagine perhaps an inner
being, of 'astral' or ethereal nature, and possessing a new range
of much finer and more subtle qualities than the body--a being
inhabiting the body and perceiving through its senses, but
quite capable of surviving the tenement in which it dwells and
I think of that as the Self. But no sooner have I taken
this step than I perceive that I am committing the same mistake
as before. I am only contemplating a new image or picture,
and "I" still remain beyond and behind that which I contemplate.
No sooner do I turn my attention on the subjective
being than it becomes OBJECTIVE, and the real subject retires
into the background. And so on indefinitely. I am baffled;
and unable to say positively what the Self is.
Meanwhile there are people who look upon the foregoing
speculations about an interior Self as merely unpractical. Being
perhaps of a more materialistic type of mind they fix their
attention on the body. Frankly they try to define the Self
by the body and all that is connected therewith--that is by
the mental as well as corporeal qualities which exhibit
themselves in that connection; and they say, "At any rate the
Self--whatever it may be--is in some way limited by the body;
each person studies the interest of his body and of the feelings,
emotions and mentality directly associated with it, and you
cannot get beyond that; it isn't in human nature to do so.
The Self is limited by this corporeal phenomenon and doubtless
it perishes when the body perishes." But here again the
conclusion, though specious at first, soon appears to be quite
inadequate. For though it is possibly true that a man, if left
alone in a Robinson Crusoe life on a desert island, might
ultimately subside into a mere gratification of his corporeal
needs and of those mental needs which were directly concerned
with the body, yet we know that such a case would by no means be
representative. On the contrary we know that vast numbers of
people spend their lives in considering other people, and often
so far as to sacrifice their own bodily and mental comfort and
well-being. The mother spends her life thinking almost day
and night about her babe and the other children--spending
all her thoughts and efforts on them. You may call her selfish
if you will, but her selfishness clearly extends beyond her
personal body and mind, and extends to the personalities of her
children around her; her "body"--if you insist on your definition
--must be held to include the bodies of all her children.
And again, the husband who is toiling for the support of the
family, he is thinking and working and toiling and suffering
for a 'self' which includes his wife and children. Do you
mean that the whole family is his "body"? Or a man belongs
to some society, to a church or to a social league of some kind,
and his activities are largely ruled by the interests of this
larger group. Or he sacrifices his life--as many have been doing
of late--with extraordinary bravery and heroism for the sake
of the nation to which he belongs. Must we say then that
the whole nation is really a part of the man's body? Or again,
he gives his life and goes to the stake for his religion. Whether
his religion is right or wrong does not matter, the point is that
there is that in him which can carry him far beyond his local
self and the ordinary instincts of his physical organism, to
dedicate his life and powers to a something of far wider
circumference and scope.
Thus in the FIRST of these two examples of a search for the
nature of the Self we are led INWARDS from point to point, into
interior and ever subtler regions of our being, and still in the
end are baffled; while in the SECOND we are carried outwards
into an ever wider and wider circumference in our quest of
the Ego, and still feel that we have failed to reach its ultimate
nature. We are driven in fact by these two arguments to the
conclusion that that which we are seeking is indeed something
very vast--something far extending around, yet also buried
deep in the hidden recesses of our minds. How far, how deep,
we do not know. We can only say that as far as the indications
point the true self is profounder and more far-reaching than
anything we have yet fathomed.
In the ordinary commonplace life we shrink to ordinary
commonplace selves, but it is one of the blessings of great
experiences, even though they are tragic or painful, that they
throw us out into that enormously greater self to which we
belong. Sometimes, in moments of inspiration, of intense
enthusiasm, of revelation, such as a man feels in the midst of
a battle, in moments of love and dedication to another person,
and in moments of religious ecstasy, an immense world is
opened up to the astonished gaze of the inner man, who sees
disclosed a self stretched far beyond anything he had ever
imagined. We have all had experiences more or less of that
kind. I have known quite a few people, and most of you have
known some, who at some time, even if only once in their lives,
have experienced such an extraordinary lifting of the veil, an
opening out of the back of their minds as it were, and have
had such a vision of the world, that they have never afterwards
forgotten it. They have seen into the heart of creation, and
have perceived their union with the rest of mankind. They
have had glimpses of a strange immortality belonging to them,
a glimpse of their belonging to a far greater being than they
have ever imagined. Just once--and a man has never forgotten
it, and even if it has not recurred it has colored all
the rest of his life.
Now, this subject has been thought about--since the beginning
of the world, I was going to say--but it has been thought
about since the beginnings of history. Some three thousand
years ago certain groups of--I hardly like to call them
philosophers --but, let us say, people who were meditating and
thinking upon these problems, were in the habit of locating
themselves in the forests of Northern India; and schools arose
there. In the case of each school some teacher went into the
woods and collected groups of disciples around him, who lived
there in his company and listened to his words. Such schools were
formed in very considerable numbers, and the doctrines of
these teachers were gathered together, generally by their
disciples, in notes, which notes were brought together into
little pamphlets or tracts, forming the books which are called
the 'Upanishads' of the Indian sages. They contain some
extraordinary words of wisdom, some of which I want to bring
before you. The conclusions arrived at were not so much what we
should call philosophy in the modern sense. They were not so
much the result of the analysis of the mind and the following
out of concatenations of strict argument; but they were flashes
of intuition and experience, and all through the 'Upanishads'
you find these extraordinary flashes embedded in the midst
of a great deal of what we should call a rather rubbishy kind
of argument, and a good deal of merely conventional Brahmanical
talk of those days. But the people who wrote and spoke thus
had an intuition into the heart of things which I make bold to
say very few people in modern life have. These 'Upanisihads,'
however various their subject, practically agree on one point
--in the definition of the "self." They agree in saying: that
the self of each man is continuous with and in a sense identical
with the Self of the universe. Now that seems an extraordinary
conclusion, and one which almost staggers the modern mind
to conceive of. But that is the conclusion, that is the thread
which runs all through the 'Upanishads'--the identity of the
self of each individual with the self of every other individual
throughout mankind, and even with the selves of the animals
and other creatures.
Those who have read the Khandogya Upanishad remember
how in that treatise the father instructs his son Svetakeitu on
this very subject--pointing him out in succession the objects
of Nature and on each occasion exhorting him to realize his
identity with the very essence of the object--"Tat twam asi,
THAT thou art." He calls Svetaketu's attention to a tree. What
is the ESSENCE of the tree? When they have rejected the external
characteristics--the leaves, the branches, etc.--and agreed
that the SAP is the essence, then the father says, "TAT TWAM ASI
--THAT thou art." He gives his son a crystal of salt, and asks
him what is the essence of that. The son is puzzled. Clearly
neither the form nor the transparent quality are essential. The
father says, "Put the crystal in water." Then when it is melted
he says, "Where is the crystal?" The son replies, "I do not
know." "Dip your finger in the bowl," says the father, "and
taste." Then Svetaketu dips here and there, and everywhere
there is a salt flavor. They agree that THAT is the essence of
salt; and the father says again, "TAt twam asi." I am of course
neither defending nor criticizing the scientific attitude here
adopted. I am only pointing out that this psychological
identification of the observer with the object observed runs
through the Upanishads, and is I think worthy of the deepest
consideration.
In the 'Bhagavat Gita,' which is a later book, the author
speaks of "him whose soul is purified, whose self is the Self
of all creatures." A phrase like that challenges opposition.
It is so bold, so sweeping, and so immense, that we hesitate to
give our adhesion to what it implies. But what does it mean
--"whose soul is purified"? I believe that it means this, that
with most of us our souls are anything but clean or purified,
they are by no means transparent, so that all the time
we are continually deceiving ourselves and making clouds
between us and others. We are all the time grasping things
from other people, and, if not in words, are mentally boasting
ourselves against others, trying to think of our own superiority
to the rest of the people around us. Sometimes we try to run
our neighbors down a little, just to show that they are not
quite equal to our level. We try to snatch from others some
things which belong to them, or take credit to ourselves for
things to which we are not fairly entitled. But all the time we
are acting so it is perfectly obvious that we are weaving veils
between ourselves and others. You cannot have dealings with
another person in a purely truthful way, and be continually
trying to cheat that person out of money, or out of his good
name and reputation. If you are doing that, however much
in the background you may be doing it, you are not looking
the person fairly in the face--there is a cloud between you all
the time. So long as your soul is not purified from all these
really absurd and ridiculous little desires and superiorities and
self-satisfactions, which make up so much of our lives, just
so long as that happens you do not and you cannot see the
truth. But when it happens to a person, as it does happen
in times of great and deep and bitter experience; when it
happens that all these trumpery little objects of life are swept
away; then occasionally, with astonishment, the soul sees that.
It is also the soul of the others around. Even if it does not
become aware of an absolute identity, it perceives that there is
a deep relationship and communion between itself and others, and
it comes to understand how it may really be true that to him
whose soul is purified the self is literally the Self of all
creatures.
Ordinary men and those who go on more intellectual and less
intuitional lines will say that these ideas are really contrary
to human nature and to nature generally. Yet I think that those
people who say this in the name of Science are extremely
unscientific, because a very superficial glance at nature reveals
that the very same thing is taking place throughout nature.
Consider the madrepores, corallines, or sponges. You find, for
instance, that constantly the little self of the coralline or
sponge is functioning at the end of a stem and casting forth its
tentacles into the water to gain food and to breathe the air out
of the water. That little animalcule there, which is living in
that way, imagines no doubt that it is working all for itself,
and yet it is united down the stem at whose extremity it stands,
with the life of the whole madrepore or sponge to which it
belongs. There is the common life of the whole and the individual
life of each, and while the little creature at the end of the
stem is thinking (if it is conscious at all) that its whole
energies are absorbed in its own maintenance, it really is
feeding the common life through the stem to which it belongs, and
in its turn it is being fed by that common life.
You have only to look at an ordinary tree to see the same
thing going on. Each little leaf on a tree may very naturally
have sufficient consciousness to believe that it is an entirely
separate being maintaining itself in the sunlight and the air,
withering away and dying when the winter comes on--and there is
an end of it. It probably does not realize that all the time it
is being supported by the sap which flows from the trunk of the
tree, and that in its turn it is feeding the tree, too--that its
self is the self of the whole tree. If the leaf could really
understand itself, it would see that its self was deeply,
intimately connected, practically one with the life of the whole
tree. Therefore, I say that this Indian view is not unscientific.
On the contrary, I am sure that it is thoroughly scientific.
Let us take another passage, out of the 'Svetasvatara Upanishad,'
which, speaking of the self says: "He is the one God, hidden in
all creatures, all pervading, the self within all, watching
over all works, shadowing all creatures, the witness, the
perceiver, the only one free from qualities."
And now we can return to the point where we left the argument
at the beginning of this discourse. We said, you remember,
that the Self is certainly no mere bundle of qualities--that
the very nature of the mind forbids us thinking that. For
however fine and subtle any quality or group of qualities may
be, we are irresistibly compelled by the nature of the mind
itself to look for the Self, not in any quality or qualities, but
in the being that PERCEIVES those qualities. The passage I have
just quoted says that being is "The one God, hidden in all
creatures, all pervading, the self within all . . . the witness,
the perceiver, the only one free from qualities." And the more
you think about it the clearer I think you will see that this
passage is correct--that there can be only ONE witness, ONE
perceiver, and that is the one God hidden in all creatures,
"Sarva Sakshi," the Universal Witness.
Have you ever had that curious feeling, not uncommon,
especially in moments of vivid experience and emotion, that
there was at the back of your mind a witness, watching everything
that was going on, yet too deep for your ordinary thought
to grasp? Has it not occurred to you--in a moment say of
great danger when the mind was agitated to the last degree by
fears and anxieties--suddenly to become perfectly calm and
collected, to realize that NOTHING can harm you, that you are
identified with some great and universal being lifted far over
this mortal world and unaffected by its storms? Is it not
obvious that the real Self MUST be something of this nature,
a being perceiving all, but itself remaining unperceived? For
indeed if it were perceived it would fall under the head of some
definable quality, and so becoming the object of thought would
cease to be the subject, would cease to be the Self.
The witness is and must be "free from qualities." For
since it is capable of perceiving ALL qualities it must obviously
not be itself imprisoned or tied in any quality--it must either
be entirely without quality, or if it have the potentiality of
quality in it, it must have the potentiality of EVERY quality;
but in either case it cannot be in bondage to any
quality, and in either case it would appear that there can
be only ONE such ultimate Witness in the universe. For if
there were two or more such Witnesses, then we should be
compelled to suppose them distinguished from one another by
something, and that something could only be a difference of
qualities, which would be contrary to our conclusion that such
a Witness cannot be in bondage to any quality.
There is then I take it--as the text in question says--only
one Witness, one Self, throughout the universe. It is hidden
in all living things, men and animals and plants; it pervades
all creation. In every thing that has consciousness it is
the Self; it watches over all operations, it overshadows all
creatures, it moves in the depths of our hearts, the perceiver,
the only being that is cognizant of all and yet free from all.
Once you really appropriate this truth, and assimilate it in
the depths of your mind, a vast change (you can easily imagine)
will take place within you. The whole world will be transformed,
and every thought and act of which you are capable
will take on a different color and complexion. Indeed the
revolution will be so vast that it would be quite impossible for
me within the limits of this discourse to describe it. I will,
however, occupy the rest of my time in dealing with some points
and conclusions, and some mental changes which will flow
perfectly naturally from this axiomatic change taking place
at the very root of life.
"Free from qualities." We generally pride ourselves a
little on our qualities. Some of us think a great deal of our
good qualities, and some of us are rather ashamed of our bad
ones! I would say: "Do not trouble very much about all
that. What good qualities you have--well you may be quite
sure they do not really amount to much; and what bad
qualities, you may be sure they are not very important! Do
not make too much fuss about either. Do you see? The
thing is that you, you yourself, are not ANY of your qualities--
you are the being that perceives them. The thing to see to is
that they should not confuse you, bamboozle you, and hide you
from the knowledge of yourself--that they should not be erected
into a screen, to hide you from others, or the others from you.
If you cease from running after qualities, then after a little
time your soul will become purified, and you will KNOW that your
self is the Self of all creatures; and when you can feel that you
will know that the other things do not much matter.
Sometimes people are so awfully good that their very goodness
hides them from other people. They really cannot be
on a level with others, and they feel that the others are far
below them. Consequently their 'selves' are blinded or hidden
by their 'goodness.' It is a sad end to come to! And sometimes
it happens that very 'bad' people--just because they are so
bad--do not erect any screens or veils between themselves
and others. Indeed they are only too glad if others will
recognize them, or if they may be allowed to recognize others.
And so, after all, they come nearer the truth than the very good
people.
"The Self is free from qualities." That thing which is so
deep, which belongs to all, it either--as I have already said--
has ALL qualities, or it has none. You, to whom I am speaking
now, your qualities, good and bad, are all mine. I am perfectly
willing to accept them. They are all right enough and in
place--if one can only find the places for them. But I know
that in most cases they have got so confused and mixed up that
they cause great conflict and pain in the souls that harbor
them. If you attain to knowing yourself to be other than and
separate from the qualities, then you will pass below and beyond
them all. You will be able to accept ALL your qualities and
harmonize them, and your soul will be at peace. You will be free
from the domination of qualities then because you will know that
among all the multitudes of them there are none of any
importance!
If you should happen some day to reach that state of mind
in connection with which this revelation comes, then you will
find the experience a most extraordinary one. You will become
conscious that there is no barrier in your path; that the way
is open in all directions; that all men and women belong to
you, are part of you. You will feel that there is a great open
immense world around, which you had never suspected before,
which belongs to you, and the riches of which are all yours,
waiting for you. It may, of course, take centuries and thousands
of years to realize this thoroughly, but there it is. You are
just at the threshold, peeping in at the door. What did
Shakespeare say? "To thine own self be true, and it must follow
as the night the day, thou can'st not then be false to any
man." What a profound bit of philosophy in three lines!
I doubt if anywhere the basis of all human life has been
expressed more perfectly and tersely.
One of the Upanishads (the Maitrayana-Brahmana) says:
"The happiness belonging to a mind, which through deep
inwardness[1] (or understanding) has been washed clean and has
entered into the Self, is a thing beyond the power of words to
describe: it can only be perceived by an inner faculty." Observe
the conviction, the intensity with which this joy, this happiness
is described, which comes to those whose minds have been washed
clean (from all the silly trumpery sediment of self-thought) and
have become transparent, so that the great universal
Being residing there in the depths can be perceived.
What sorrow indeed, what, grief, can come to such an one who
has seen this vision? It is truly a thing beyond the power of
words to describe: it can only be PERCEIVED--and that by an
inner faculty. The external apparatus of thought is of no use.
Argument is of no use. But experience and direct perception
are possible; and probably all the experiences of life and of
mankind through the ages are gradually deepening our powers
of perception to that point where the vision will at last rise
upon the inward eye.
[1] The word in the Max Muller translation is "meditation." But
that is, I think, a somewhat misleading word. It suggests to most
people the turning inward of the THINKING faculty to grope and
delve in the interior of the mind. This is just what should NOT
be done. Meditation in the proper sense should mean the inward
deepening of FEELING and consciousness till the region of the
universal self is reached; but THOUGHT should not interfere
there. That should be turned on outward things to mould them into
expression of the inner consciousness.
Another text, from the Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad (which
I have already quoted in the paper on "Rest"), says: "If a
man worship the Self only as his true state, his work cannot
fail, for whatever he desires, that he obtains from the Self."
Is that not magnificent? If you truly realize your identity
and union with the great Self who inspires and informs the
world, then obviously whatever you desire the great Self win
desire, and the whole world will conspire to bring it to you.
"He maketh the winds his angels, and the flaming fires his
ministers." [I need not say that I am not asking you to try
and identify yourself with the great Self universal IN ORDER to
get riches, "opulence," and other things of that kind which
you desire; because in that quest you will probably not succeed.
The Great Self is not such a fool as to be taken in in that way.
It may be true--and it is true--that if ye seek FIRST the Kingdom
of Heaven all these things shall be added unto you; but
you must seek it first, not second.]
Here is a passage from Towards Democracy: "As space spreads
everywhere, and all things move and change within it, but it
moves not nor changes,
"So I am the space within the soul, of which the space without
is but the similitude and mental image;
"Comest thou to inhabit me, thou hast the entrance to all
life--death shall no longer divide thee from whom thou
lovest.
"I am the Sun that shines upon all creatures from within--
gazest thou upon me, thou shalt be filled with joy eternal."
Yes, this great sun is there, always shining, but most of the
time it is hidden from us by the clouds of which I have spoken,
and we fail to see it. We complain of being out in the cold;
and in the cold, for the time being, no doubt we are; but our
return to the warmth and the light has now become possible.
Thus at last the Ego, the mortal immortal self--disclosed at
first in darkness and fear and ignorance in the growing babe
--FINDS ITS TRUE IDENTITY. For a long period it is baffled in
trying to understand what it is. It goes through a vast
experience. It is tormented by the sense of separation and
alienation--alienation from other people, and persecution by all
the great powers and forces of the universe; and it is pursued by
a sense of its own doom. Its doom truly is irrevocable. The hour
of fulfilment approaches, the veil lifts, and the soul beholds at
last ITS OWN TRUE BEING.
We are accustomed to think of the external world around us
as a nasty tiresome old thing of which all we can say for certain
is that it works by a "law of cussedness"--so that, whichever
way we want to go, that way seems always barred, and
we only bump against blind walls without making any progress.
But that uncomfortable state of affairs arises from ourselves.
Once we have passed a certain barrier, which at present looks
so frowning and impossible, but which fades into nothing
immediately we have passed it--once we have found the open
secret of identity--then the way is indeed open in every
direction.
The world in which we live--the world into which we are
tumbled as children at the first onset of self-consciousness--
denies this great fact of unity. It is a world in which the
principle of separation rules. Instead of a common life and
union with each other, the contrary principle (especially in the
later civilizations) has been the one recognized--and to such
an extent that always there prevails the obsession of separation,
and the conviction that each person is an isolated unit. The
whole of our modern society has been founded on this delusive
idea, WHICH IS FALSE. You go into the markets, and every man's
hand is against the others--that is the ruling principle. You
go into the Law Courts where justice is, or should be,
administered, and you find that the principle which denies unity
is the one that prevails. The criminal (whose actions have really
been determined by the society around him) is cast out,
disacknowledged, and condemned to further isolation in a prison
cell. 'Property' again is the principle which rules and
determines our modern civilization--namely that which is proper
to, or can be appropriated by, each person, as AGAINST the
others.
In the moral world the doom of separation comes to us in the
shape of the sense of sin. For sin is separation. Sin is actually
(and that is its only real meaning) the separation from others,
and the non-acknowledgment of unity. And so it has come
about that during all this civilization-period the sense of sin
has ruled and ranged to such an extraordinary degree. Society
has been built on a false base, not true to fact or life--and
has had a dim uneasy consciousness of its falseness. Meanwhile
at the heart of it all--and within all the frantic external
strife and warfare--there is all the time this real great life
brooding. The kingdom of Heaven, as we said before, is still
within.
The word Democracy indicates something of the kind--the
rule of the Demos, that is of the common life. The coming of
that will transform, not only our Markets and our Law Courts
and our sense of Property, and other institutions, into something
really great and glorious instead of the dismal masses of
rubbish which they at present are; but it will transform our
sense of Morality.
Our Morality at present consists in the idea of self-goodness
--one of the most pernicious and disgusting ideas which has
ever infested the human brain. If any one should follow and
assimilate what I have just said about the true nature of the
Self he will realize that it will never again be possible for him
to congratulate himself on his own goodness or morality or
superiority; for the moment he does so he will separate himself
from the universal life, and proclaim the sin of his own
separation. I agree that this conclusion is for some people a
most sad and disheartening one--but it cannot be helped!
A man may truly be 'good' and 'moral' in some real sense;
but only on the condition that he is not aware of it. He can
only BE good when not thinking about the matter; to be conscious
of one's own goodness is already to have fallen!
We began by thinking of the self as just a little local self;
then we extended it to the family, the cause, the nation--ever
to a larger and vaster being. At last there comes a time when
we recognize--or see that we SHALL have to recognize--an inner
Equality between ourselves and all others; not of course an
external equality--for that would be absurd and impossible
--but an inner and profound and universal Equality. And so
we come again to the mystic root-conception of Democracy.
And now it will be said: "But after all this talk you have
not defined the Self, or given us any intellectual outline of
what you mean by the word." No--and I do not intend to. If
I could, by any sort of copybook definition, describe and show
the boundaries of myself, I should obviously lose all interest
in the subject. Nothing more dull could be imagined. I may
be able to define and describe fairly exhaustively this inkpot
on the table; but for you or for me to give the limits and
boundaries of ourselves is, I am glad to say, impossible. That
does not, however, mean that we cannot FEEL and be CONSCIOUS
of ourselves, and of our relations to other selves, and to the
great Whole. On the contrary I think it is clear that the more
vividly we feel our organic unity with the whole, the less shall
we be able to separate off the local self and enclose it within
any definition. I take it that we can and do become ever more
vividly conscious of our true Self, but that the mental statement
of it always does and probably always will lie beyond us. All
life and all our action and experience consist in the gradual
manifestation of that which is within us--of our inner being.
In that sense--and reading its handwriting on the outer world
--we come to know the soul's true nature more and more
intimately; we enter into the mind of that great artist who
beholds himself in his own creation.
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