The Equinox (Volume I, Number IV)

THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON THE KING their place, that each particle in turn is passing on its motion to its neighbours. To the first there is a translation of matter, to the second one of force. ‘‘ The Vedantist has seen Substance, an enduring Principle, an Ens; the Buddhist only Qualities, themselves in all their elements ever changing, but the sum- total of their Doing passing steadily on, till the wave breaks upon Nibbana’s shore, and is no more a wave for ever.” We have not space to criticise this, all we will ask is— what is the difference between Force and Matter, and if the annihilation of the one does not carry with it the annihilation of the other irrespective of which is first—if either? Ananda Metteya carries his illustration further still. John Smith, then, in a sense, is immortal; nay, every thought he thinks is deathless, and will persist, somewhere, in the depths of infinity... . But it is not this part of his energy that results in the formation of a new being when he dies. ... We may then consider the moment of John Smith’s death... . During his life he has not alone been setting in vibration the great ocean of the ther, he has been affecting the structure of his own brain. So that at the moment of his death all his own life, and all his past lives are existing pictured in a definite and characteristic molecular structure, a tremendous complicated representation of all that we have meant by the term John Smith—the record of the thoughts and doings of unnumbered lives. Each cell of the millions of his brain may be likened to a charged leyden-jar, the nerve-paths radiating from it thrill betimes with its discharges, carrying its meaning through man’s body, and, through the A®ther, even to the infinitude of space. When it is functioning normally, its total discharge is prevented, so that never at any time can more than a fraction of its stored up energy be dissipated. ... And then Death comes; and in the moment of its coming, all that locked up energy flames on the universe like a new-born star.* Ananda Metteya then in a lengthy and lucid explanation demonstrates how the light ofa flame giving off the yellow light of sodium may be absorbed by a layer of sodium vapour, * Buddhism, vol. i, No. 2, p. 299, abridged. 137