Mysticism

Book 2 put:

• the origin of knowledge in the will
• the sole function of knowledge is to be serviceable to the ends of the will

True salvation lies in the denial of the will.

All religions at their highest point pass over into mysticism and mysteries, i.e., into darkness and veiled obscurity where knowledge ceases.

Therefore, for thought this can only be expressed by negations.

But for sense perception, it is indicated by symbolical signs.

In temples by dim light and silence; in Brahmanism by the required suspension of all thought and perception for the sake of sinking oneself profoundly in the grounds of one’s own being, mentally pronouncing the mysterious Oum.

The mystic is thus opposed to the philosopher by the fact that he begins from within, while the philosopher begins from without.

The mystic starts from his inner, positive, individual experience, in which he finds himself to be the eternal and only being, &c.

But nothing of this is communicable except the assertions which one has to accept upon his word; consequently he cannot convince. The philosopher, on the other hand, starts from what is common to all, from the objective phenomenon which lies before all, and from the facts of consciousness as they are present in all.

His method is therefore reflection upon all this, and combination of the data given in it: accordingly he can convince. He ought therefore to beware of falling into the way of the mystics, and, for example, by the assertion of intellectual intuitions or pretended immediate apprehensions of the reason, to seek to make a vain show of positive knowledge of that which is for ever inaccessible to all knowledge, or at the most can be indicated by means of a negation.

The value and worth of philosophy lies in the fact that it rejects all assumptions which cannot be established, and takes as its data only what can be certainly proved in the world given in external perception, in the forms of apprehension of this world, which are constitutive of our intellect, and in the consciousness entirely ceases, and only in this sphere, which lies beyond all knowledge, do they claim to have reached their highest goal, for they have then attained to the sphere in which there is no longer any subject and object, and consequently no more knowledge, just because there is no more will, the service of which is the sole destiny of knowledge.

Whoever has comprehended this will no longer regard it as beyond all measure extravagant that Fakirs should sit down, and, contemplating the tip of their nose, seek to banish all thought and perception, and that in many passages of the Upanischads instructions are given to sink oneself, silently and inwardly pronouncing the mysterious Oum, in the depths of one’s own being, where subject and object and all knowledge disappear.

of one’s own self which is common to all. Therefore it must remain cosmology, and cannot become theology. Its theme must limit itself to the world; to express in all aspects what this is, what it is in its inmost nature, is all that it can honestly achieve. Now it answers to this that my system when it reaches its highest point assumes a negative character, thus ends with a negation. It can here speak only of what is denied, given up: but what is thereby won, what is laid hold of, it is obliged (at the conclusion of the fourth book) to denote as nothing, and can only add the consolation that it is merely a relative, not an absolute nothing.

For if something is none of all the things which we know, it is certainly for us, speaking generally, nothing.

But it does not yet follow from this that it is absolutely nothing, that from every possible point of view and in every possible sense it must be nothing, but only that we are limited to a completely negative knowledge of it, which may very well lie in the limitation of our point of view. Now it is just here that the mystic proceeds positively, and therefore it is just from this point that nothing but mysticism remains. However, any one who wishes this kind of supplement to the negative knowledge to which alone philoso- phy can guide him will find it in its most beautiful and richest form in the Oupnekhat, then also in the Enneads of Plotinus,[432] in Scotus Erigena, in passages of Jakob Böhm, but especially in the marvellous work of Madame de Guion, Les Torrens, and in Angelus Silesius; finally also in the poems of the Sufis, of which Tholuk has given us a collection translated into Latin, and another translated into German, and in many other works. The Sufis are the Gnostics of Islam. Hence Sadi denotes them by a word which may be translated “full of insight.” Theism, calculated with reference to the capacity of the multitude, places the source of existence without us, as an object.

All mysticism, and so also Sufism, according to the various degrees of its initiation, draws it gradually back within us, as the subject, and the adept recognises at last with wonder and delight that he is it himself. This procedure, common to all mysticism, we find not only expressed by Meister Eckhard, the father of German mysticism, in the form of a precept for the perfect ascetic, “that he seek not God outside himself” (Eckhard’s works, edited by Pfeiffer, vol. i. p. 626), but also very naïvely exhibited by Eckhard’s spiritual daughter, who sought him out, when she had experienced that conversion in herself, to cry out joyfully to him, “Sir, rejoice with me, I have become God” (loc. cit., p. 465). The mysticism of the Sufis also expresses itself throughout precisely in accordance with this spirit, principally as a revelling in the consciousness that one is oneself the kernel of the world and the source of all existence, to which all returns. Certainly there also often appears the call to surrender all volition as the only way in which deliverance from individual existence and its suffering is possible, yet subordinated and required as something easy. In the mysticism of the Hindus, on the other hand, the latter side comes out much more strongly, and in Christian mysticism it is quite predominant, so that pantheistic consciousness, which is essential to all mysticism, here only appears in a secondary manner, in consequence of the surrender of all volition, as union with God. Corresponding to this difference of the conception, [433] Mohammedan mysticism has a very serene character, Christian mysticism a gloomy and melancholy character, while that of the Hindus, standing above both, in this respect also holds the mean. Quietism, i.e., surrender of all volition, asceticism, i.e., in- tentional mortification of one’s own will, and mysticism, i.e., consciousness of the identity of one’s own nature with that of all things or with the kernel of the world, stand in the closest connection; so that whoever professes one of them is gradually led to accept the others, even against his intention. Nothing can be more surprising than the agreement with each other of the writers who present these doctrines, notwithstanding the greatest difference of their age, country, and religion, accompanied by the firm certainty and inward confidence with which they set forth the permanence of their inner experience. They do not constitute a sect, which adheres to, defends, and propagates a favourite dogma once laid hold of; indeed the Indian, Christian, and Mohammedan mystics, quietists, and ascetics are different in every respect, except the inner significance and spirit of their teaching.

A very striking example of this is afforded by the comparison of the Torrens of Madame de Guion with the teaching of the Vedas, especially with the passage in the Oupnekhat, vol. i. p. 63, which contains the content of that French work in the briefest form, but accurately and even with the same images, and yet could not possibly have been known to Madame de Guion in 1680. In the “Deutschen Theologie” (the only unmutilated edition, Stuttgart, 1851) it is said in chapters 2 and 3 that both the fall of the devil and that of Adam consisted in the fact that the one as the other ascribed to himself the I and me, the mine and to me, and on p. 89 it is said: “In true love there remains neither I nor me, mine, to me, thou, thine, and the like.” Now, corresponding to this, it is said in the “Kural,” from the Tamilian by Graul, p. 8: “The passion of the mine directed outwardly, and that of the I[434] directed inwardly, cease” (cf. ver. 346). And in the “Manual of Buddhism” by Spence Hardy, p. 258, Buddha says: “My disciples reject the thoughts I am this, or this is mine.” In general, if we look away from the forms which are introduced by external circumstances and go to the bottom of the matter, we will find that Sakya Muni and Meister Eckhard teach the same; only that the former dared to express his thoughts directly, while the latter is obliged to clothe them in the garments of the Christian myth and adapt his expressions to this. He carries this, however, so far that with him the Christian myth has become little more than a symbolical language, just as the Hellenic myth became for the Neo-Platonists: he takes it throughout allegorically. In the same respect it is worth noticing that the transition of St. Francis from prosperity to the mendicant life is similar to the still greater step of Buddha Sakya Muni from prince to beggar, and that, corresponding to this, the life of St. Francis, and also the order he founded, was just a kind of Sannyasiism. Indeed it deserves to be mentioned that his relationship with the Indian spirit appears also in his great love for the brutes and frequent intercourse with them, when he always calls them his sisters and brothers; and his beautiful Cantico also bears witness to his inborn Indian spirit by the praise of the sun, the moon, the stars, the wind, the water, the fire, and the earth.49

Even the Christian quietists must often have had little or no knowledge of each other; for example, Molinos and Madame de Guion of Tauler and the “Deutsche Theologie,” or Gichtel of the former. In any case, the great difference of their culture, in that some of them, like Molinos, were learned, others, like Gichtel and many more, were the reverse, has no essential influence upon their teaching. Their great internal agreement, along with the [435] firmness and certainty of their utterances, proves all the more that they speak from real inward experience, from an experience which certainly is not accessible to all, but is possessed only by a few favoured individuals, and therefore has received the name of the work of grace, the reality of which, however, for the above reasons, is not to be doubted. But in order to understand all this one must read the mystics themselves, and not be contented with second-hand reports of them; for every one must himself be comprehended before one judges concerning him. Thus to become acquainted with quietism I specially recommend Meister Eckhard, the “Deutsche Theologie,” Tauler, Madame de Guion, Antoinette Bourignon, the English Bunyan, Molinos50 and Gichtel.