I
In historical time the Buddha comes first of those who declared
salvation to all men, without distinction, as by right man's own. What
was the special force which startled men's minds and, almost within
the master's lifetime, spread his teachings over India? It was the
unique significance of the event, when a man came to men and said to
them, "I am here to emancipate you from the miseries of the thraldom
of self." This wisdom came, neither in texts of Scripture, nor in
symbols of deities, nor in religious practices sanctified by ages, but
through the voice of a living man and the love that flowed from a
human heart.
And I believe this was the first occasion in the history of the world
when the idea of the Avatar found its place in religion. Western
scholars are never tired of insisting that Buddhism is of the nature
of a moral code, coldly leading to the path of extinction. They forget
that it was held to be a religion that roused in its devotees an
inextinguishable fire of enthusiasm and carried them to lifelong exile
across the mountain and desert barriers. To say that a philosophy of
suicide can keep kindled in human hearts for centuries such fervour of
self-sacrifice is to go against all the laws of sane psychology. The
religious enthusiasm which cannot be bound within any daily ritual,
but overflows into adventures of love and beneficence, must have in
its centre that element of personality which rouses the whole soul. In
answer, it may possibly be said that this was due to the personality
of Buddha himself. But that also is not quite true. The personality
which stirs the human heart to its immense depths, leading it to
impossible deeds of heroism, must in that process itself reveal to men
the infinite which is in all humanity. And that is what happened in
Buddhism, making it a religion in the complete sense of the word.
Like the religion of the Upanishads, Buddhism also generated two
divergent currents; the one impersonal, preaching the abnegation of
self through discipline, and the other personal, preaching the
cultivation of sympathy for all creatures, and devotion to the
infinite truth of love; the other, which is called the Mahayana, had
its origin in the positive element contained in Buddha's teachings,
which is immeasurable love. It could never, by any logic, find its
reality in the emptiness of the truthless abyss. And the object of
Buddha's meditation and his teachings was to free humanity from
sufferings. But what was the path that he revealed to us? Was it some
negative way of evading pain and seeking security against it? On the
contrary, his path was the path of sacrifice--the utmost sacrifice of
love. The meaning of such sacrifice is to reach some ultimate truth,
some positive ideal, which in its greatness can accept suffering and
transmute it into the profound peace of self-renunciation. True
emancipation from suffering, which is the inalienable condition of the
limited life of the self, can never be attained by fleeing from it,
but rather by changing its value in the realm of truth--the truth of
the higher life of love.
We have learnt that, by calculations made in accordance with the law
of gravitation, some planets were discovered exactly in the place
where they should be. Such a law of gravitation there is also in the
moral world. And when we find men's minds disturbed, as they were by
the preaching of the Buddha, we can be sure, even without any
corroborative evidence, that there must have been some great luminous
body of attraction, positive and powerful, and not a mere unfathomable
vacancy. It is exactly this which we discover in the heart of the
Mahayana system; and we have no hesitation in saying that the truth of
Buddhism is there. The oil has to be burnt, not for the purpose of
diminishing it, but for the purpose of giving light to the lamp. And
when the Buddha said that the self must go, he said at the same moment
that love must be realised. Thus originated the doctrine of the
Dharma-kaya, the Infinite Wisdom and Love manifested in the Buddha. It
was the first instance, as I have said, when men felt that the
Universal and the Eternal Spirit was revealed in a human individual
whom they had known and touched. The joy was too great for them, since
the very idea itself came to them as a freedom--a freedom from the
sense of their measureless insignificance. It was the first time, I
repeat, when the individual, as a man, felt in himself the Infinite
made concrete.
What was more, those men who felt the love welling forth from the
heart of Buddhism, as one with the current of the Eternal Love itself,
were struck with the idea that such an effluence could never have been
due to a single cataclysm of history--unnatural and therefore untrue.
They felt instead that it was in the eternal nature of truth, that the
event must belong to a series of manifestations; there must have been
numberless other revelations in the past and endless others to follow.
The idea grew and widened until men began to feel that this Infinite
Being was already in every one of them, and that it rested with
themselves to remove the sensual obstructions and reveal him in their
own lives. In every individual there was, they realised, the
potentiality of Buddha--that is to say, the Infinite made manifest.
We have to keep in mind the great fact that the preaching of the
Buddha in India was not followed by stagnation of life--as would
surely have happened if humanity was without any positive goal and his
teaching was without any permanent value in itself. On the contrary,
we find the arts and sciences springing up in its wake, institutions
started for alleviating the misery of all creatures, human and
non-human, and great centres of education founded. Some mighty power
was suddenly roused from its obscurity, which worked for long
centuries and changed the history of man in a large part of the world.
And that power came into its full activity only by the individual
being made conscious of his infinite worth. It was like the sudden
discovery of a great mine of living wealth.
During the period of Buddhism the doctrine of deliverance flourished,
which reached all mankind and released man's inner resources from
neglect and self-insult. Even to-day we see in our own country human
nature, from its despised corner of indignity, slowly and painfully
finding its way to assert the inborn majesty of man. It is like the
imprisoned tree finding a rift in the wall, and sending out its eager
branches into freedom, to prove that darkness is not its birthright,
that its love is for the sunshine. In the time of the Buddha the
individual discovered his own immensity of worth, first by witnessing
a man who united his heart in sympathy with all creatures, in all
worlds, through the power of a love that knew no bounds; and then by
learning that the same light of perfection lay confined within
himself behind the clouds of selfish desire, and that the
Bodhi-hridaya--"the heart of the Eternal Enlightenment"--every moment
claimed its unveiling in his own heart. Nagarjuna speaks of this
Bodhi-hridaya (another of whose names is Bodhi-Citta) as follows:
One who understands the nature of the Bodhi-hridaya, sees
everything with a loving heart; for love is the essence of
Bodhi-hridaya.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism_, by Dr. D. T.
Suzuki.]
My object in writing this paper is to show, by the further help of
illustration from a popular religious sect of Bengal, that the
religious instinct of man urges him towards a truth, by which he can
transcend the finite nature of the individual self. Man would never
feel the indignity of his limitations if these were inevitable. Within
him he has glimpses of the Infinite, which give him assurance that
this truth is not in his limitations, but that this truth can be
attained by love. For love is the positive quality of the Infinite,
and love's sacrifice accordingly does not lead to emptiness, but to
fulfilment, to Bodhi-hridaya, "the heart of enlightenment."
The members of the religious sect I have mentioned call themselves
"Bauel." They live outside social recognition, and their very obscurity
helps them in their seeking, from a direct source, the enlightenment
which the soul longs for, the eternal light of love.
It would be absurd to say that there is little difference between
Buddhism and the religion of these simple people, who have no system
of metaphysics to support their faith. But my object in bringing close
together these two religions, which seem to belong to opposite poles,
is to point out the fundamental unity in them. Both of them believe in
a fulfilment which is reached by love's emancipating us from the
dominance of self. In both these religions we find man's yearning to
attain the infinite worth of his individuality, not through any
conventional valuation of society, but through his perfect
relationship with Truth. They agree in holding that the realisation of
our ultimate object is waiting for us in ourselves. The Bauel likens
this fulfilment to the blossoming of a bud, and sings:
Make way, O bud, make way,
Burst open thy heart and make way.
The opening spirit has overtaken thee,
Canst thou remain a bud any longer?