The Star in the West

THE NEW WINE 297 I subsequently discovered this peculiar state of con sciousness classified in the Abhidhamma . That it is a contradiction in terms I am perfectly aware ; to assign any meaning to it is frankly beyond me ; but I am as certain that such a state once existed , as I am of anything .' This is quite true , for on attaining to such an ad vanced stage of illumination , language rapidly fails us , and we break through the dialectic veil and enter that life which lies “ behind , ” solely expressed by means of symbols . “ What can I know ? " asked Kant , as we have already seen . “ What is Knowledge ? ” asks the Yogi or mystic , and his question is the right one of the two . I see a cat. Dr. Johnson says it is a cat. Berkeley says it is a group of sensations. Çankaracharya says it is an illusion , an incarnation , or God , according to the hat he has got on , and is talking through . Spencer says it is a mode of the Unknowable . But none of them seriously doubt the fact that I exist ; that a cat exists ; that one sees the other . All -- bar Johnson --- hint - but oh ! how dimly ! -at what I now know to be true ? -no , not necessarily true , but nearer the truth . Huxley goes deeper in his demolition of Descartes . With him “ I see a cat proves “ something called consciousness exists ." He denies the assertion of duality ; he has no datum to assert the denial of duality . I have . 13 . Their ( the mystics of all lands ) endeavour has been to slow the rate of change ; their methods perfect quietude of body and mind , produced in varied , and too often vicious , ways . Regularisation of the breathing is the best known formula . Their results are contemptible , we must admit ; but only so | Science and Buddhism , vol . ii, p . 256 .