Collected Works (Vol. II)

SCIENCE AND BUDDHISM 259 The mind is a machine that reasons: here are its results. Very good; can it do any- thing else? This is the question not only of the Buddhist; but of the Hindu, of the Mohammedan, of the Mystic. All try their various methods ; all attain results of sorts ; none have had the genuine training which would have enabled them to record those results in an intelligible, orderly form. Others deliberately set their face against such an attempt. I am not of them; humanity has grown up; if the knowledge be dangerous in unsuspected ways, what of bacteriology? I have obtained one result; a result striking “at the very condition of consciousness; which I may formulate as follows: ‘‘Tf a single state of consciousness persist unchanged for a period exceeding a very few seconds, its duality is annihilated ; its nature is violently overthrown ; this phenomenon is accompanied by an indescribable sensation of bliss.” Very well! but I want this formula verified a hundred times, a thousand times, by in- dependent investigators. I want it better stated; its conditions modified, defined ex- actly. I want it to leave its humble station as my observation, and put into the class of regular phenomena. But I am verging back towards Hindu philosophy, and it is a reminder well needed at this moment. For this experience of the destruction of duality, this first phenomenon in the series, has, in all its illusory beauty, been seized upon, generalised from, by philo- sophers, and it is to this basis of partial and therefore deceptive fact that we owe the systems of Vedanta and Idealism, with their grotesque assumptions and muddle- headed ‘‘ reconcilements ”’ all complete. One fact, O Sri Cankaracharya, does not make a theory; let us remember your fate, and avoid generalising on insufficient evi- dence. With this word of warning, I leave the metaphysician to wallow in his mire, and look toward better times for the great problems of philosophy. Remember that when the solution is attained it is not the solution of one learned man for his fellows, but one realised and assimilated by every man in his own consciousness. And what the solution may be none of us can foreshadow. To hoist the problem on to the horns of a dilemma will avail nothing when A=A may be no longer true ; and this by no Hegelian word-juggle ; but by direct apperception as clear as the sun at noon. Therefore ; no word more, but—to the work ! XII. THE THREE REFUGES, Buddham Saranangachami. Dhammam Saranangachami. Sangham Saranangachami. I take my refuge in the Buddha. I take my refuge in the Dhamma. I take my refuge in the Sangha. This formula of adhesion to Buddhism is daily repeated by countless millions of humanity; what does it mean? It is no vain profession of reliance on others ; no cowardly shirking of burdens—burdens which cannot be shirked. It is a plain estimate of our auxiliaries in the battle; the cosmic facts on which we may rely, just as a scientist “relies ” on the conservation of energy in making an experiment. . Were that principle of uncertain applica- tion, the simplest quantitative experiment would break hopelessly down. So for the Buddhist. I take my refuge in the Buddha, That there was once a man who found the Way is my encouragement. I take my refuge inthe Dhamma. The Law underlying phenomena and its unchanging certainty ; the Law given by the Buddha to show us the Way, the inevitable tendency to Persistence in Motion or Rest—and Persist- ence, even in Motion, negates | change in consciousness—these observed orders of fact are our bases.