Buck J.D. - Names and Things

In the imagined extent of our knowledge we often overlook entirely the character of such knowledge as we possess. Such knowledge as we possess serves only to reveal our own ignorance. We have ideas that are at best phantasms, and we clothe these ideas in words that masquerade like puppets in a play, and this phantasmagoria we imagine to be real knowledge, actual existences. Men talk learnedly of the discoveries of science, of the progress of science, as though there were any such thing as science. Science is, at best, man’s idea of nature, what it is, and how it works; what makes the wheels go round. But Nature itself is another thing entirely. The greatest revelation of so-called science, to the greatest of its advocates and followers is the revelation of his own ignorance, how little, after all his searching, he really knows. If so-called civilized man were at one stroke swept from the earth, how long would science remain? There would indeed remain Nature and her laws, which to a new race of men would appear to be a very different thing indeed from what it seems to us. There might, however, arise a new science as different from ours as the habits, thoughts, and occupations of the Orient now differ from the Occident. It is true that what we call the Force of Gravitation would still exist, and its laws and relations, whatever they really are, would remain unchanged; but the new race would call this law by a different name, representative of different ideas, of greater or lesser discoveries, of more or less knowledge, and yet this knowledge, unlike our own boasted science, would still be a phantasm, as compared with “the thing in itself,” viz., Nature. In our conceit and ignorance at the extent of our knowledge we thus continually overlook the character of our knowledge. This conceit it is that puts us to open shame, for in this apotheosis of ignorance is our progress toward all real knowledge barred. How is that individual to be taught, or to make any real progress in knowledge, who imagines that he already knows enough? A knowledge of our own ignorance is to the mind what a healthy appetite is to the body, viz.: the demand for sustenance. A mind filled with conceit and ignorance is like a stomach filled with wind; it increases hunger and unrest, but destroys appetite, and ends in atrophy. Unmask and analyse that which to-day is called the “authority of science,” and it will be found to be far less dignified, less consistent and less beneficent than the authority of the church that science so much despises. That which is called science to-day is a very different thing from what it was yesterday, or what it will be to-morrow. A few facts have indeed been verified and recorded, and a few laws have been approximately formulated; but all this is subject to revision or even reversion to-morrow. Give to so-called science the largest extent and most liberal meaning claimed for it, and still it has no existence outside 366of man. It in no sense stands for Nature, but is, at best, Nature reflected in the beclouded and contradictory mind of man. Nature deals with realities; man with shadows and phantasms.

The same is true also of religion and philosophy. We are apt to look upon these as real entities; but neither science, philosophy, nor religion have any existence outside the mind of man, though the real substance of which these are a passing shadow, exists in Nature. This existence in Nature is the Gnosis, but it is not split into fragments, inharmonious, contradictory, fighting for supremacy, cutting each other’s throats. All this discord arises solely from man’s ignorance. The Gnosis is One: silent: perfect harmony, and perfect peace. If Great Mother Nature were what the ignorance of man has ever imagined her to be, the crack of doom would long ago have sounded the knell of creation. Even Nature’s cataclysms are modes of her larger beneficence. When Nature turns destructive and sinks a continent, or burns a world, she but ploughs the field of matter for richer harvest of spirit. Brahmâ, Vishnu, and Siva are one, not three. To create, to preserve, to destroy, is for Nature but the conjugation of the verb, to be. The lower manas, the animal-human mind, never rises above names, and deals with these as children play with toys. When they seek to discover what makes the wheels go round the toy is broken, yet the mystery unsolved; then more toys and new mysteries! Is it any wonder that life is a cheat, a delusion, a snare? How many are ready to put away childish things? Alas! how few! Man builds a hut to cover his head and straightway imagines that he has intercepted the sun in his orbit because he is himself in darkness. Superstition builds an altar to fear and self-conceit, erects an idol of stone, or wood, or brass, christens it Jove or Jah; and lo! man has compassed religion, and is ready to cut throats to maintain it. The phantasms of a discordant imagination mingle with the dispirited speculations of the mind; these, bedecked with the pride of the peacock, and seasoned with animal greed, are labelled philosophy, and straightway man imagines that he is wise. ’Tis thus that man walls himself in, mistaking names for things, shadows for substances, ignorance for knowledge, and becomes incapable of enlightenment. Never until man tears down his walls, gets rid of his conceit and greed, and begins to hunger and thirst after truth and righteousness will his enlightenment begin to dawn. Then will he indeed be ashamed of his nakedness, and learn to know good and evil.

With the first flush of the new dawn will come a new danger that has already wrecked many, who, with great enthusiasm, born largely of curiosity, have joined the T. S. They now begin to find faults in others, and to discover flaws in their brothers. They allow carping criticism to root out the young and tender shoots of brotherhood. They are ready to dissect everybody but themselves, and are as ready to criticise and condemn a Mahatma as a mountebank. It requires no spirit of prophecy 367to discover the outcome. Utterly unmindful of the beam in their own eye, they allow themselves to be overwhelmed by the motes in the eyes of others. All along the toilsome way which for the past fourteen years the T. S. has come, may be seen these wrecks. Some are carping still. One cannot help feeling sorrow for these stranded souls, because they are often too conceited aud blind to feel sorry themselves. Had these deluded ones sought out the cause of evil within their own souls, they would not only have found no time to condemn others, but they would have learned charity for faults which were in no wise greater than their own. They would have learned to appreciate, and to approve and seek to emulate, many noble examples of courage, fortitude, and self-sacrifice.

These lessons are continually being repeated. So has it always been; so will it ever be. These are the earliest and the easiest trials that beset the neophyte when he mistakes persons for principles, names for things, shadows for substance, folly for wisdom. Many are to-day dissatisfied at their own slow progress through just these causes. These are jealous of favours which they imagine have been shown to others, when in truth these others have worked for years without thought of reward, and been rewarded by suspicion and abuse by their fellows. They have heard it repeated again and again, “No favours are shown to anyone,” and yet these carpers are foolish enough to seek for masters whom they credit with lying! These unhappy ones cry out against “authority,” when they have been told repeatedly that there is no authority for anyone save their own judgment and intention; the authority of their own higher selves. Pitiable as is the case of these individuals, the greater burden is borne by the Society itself; that suffers detraction, and has to carry such a dead weight, and is credited with so many casualties. Every possible effort has been put forth by the leaders and the few earnest workers to help, to encourage, to explain, and to enlighten.

Many have come to the very entrance of the “golden gates,” and turned away because the gate was not what their fancy had painted it. The gates have stood wide open, and while these deluded ones have stopped to inspect its date, its armorial bearings, and take accurate measures of its dimensions, lo! it has closed to them for ever. These have. indeed grieved the spirit, their own Atman, and it cannot again be drawn down in the present incarnation, for the re-bound has sent them to find out husks and to wallow with the swine. The door may be still open, but their curiosity is satisfied. Even so passes the bridegroom, and so sleep or wake the foolish and the wise virgins.

Many will still mistake names for things, for as Huriel puts it:

“Man only understands that of which he has the beginnings in himself.”

Harij, F.T.S.

Footnotes