Nature Mysticism | Page 5

is well
to face this issue squarely--let the mystic choose, either the Absolute
and Maya, or a Ground of existence which can allow value to nature,
and which therefore admits of limitations. Or, if there is to be a
compromise, let it be on the lines laid down by Spinoza and Schelling.
That is to say, let the name God be reserved for the phenomenal aspect
of the Absolute. But the nature-mystic will be wise if he discards

compromise, and once for all repudiates the Unconditioned Absolute.
His reason can then chime in with his intuitions and his deepest
emotions. He loses nothing; he gains intellectual peace and natural joy.
The never-ceasing influence of the genuine Real is bound to declare
itself sooner or later. Buddhism itself is yielding, as witness this
striking pronouncement of the Buddhist Lord Abbot, Soyen Shaku.
"Buddhism does not, though sometimes understood by Western people
to do so, advocate the doctrine of emptiness or annihilation. It most
assuredly recognises the multi-tudinousness and reality of phenomena.
This world as it is, is real, not void. This life, as we live it, is true, and
not a dream. We Buddhists believe that all these particular things
surrounding us come from one Ultimate Source, all-knowing and
all-loving. The world is the manifestation of this Reason, or Spirit, or
Life, whatever you may designate it. However diverse, therefore, things
are, they all partake of the nature of the Ultimate Being. Not only
sentient beings, but non-sentient, reflect the glory of the Original
Reason."
Assuredly a comforting passage to set over against that of the Yogi
quoted above! But is not the good Abbot a little hard on the Westerners?
For the full truth is that while the Yogi represents the old Absolutism,
the Abbot is feeling his way to a wider and more human world-view.
Buddhism has evidently better days in store. Let our views of ultimate
Reality be what they may, the nature-mystic's position demands not
only that man may hold communion with nature, but that, in and
through such communion, he is in living touch with the Ground of
Existence.
CHAPTER III
MYSTIC INTUITION AND REASON
So much for the nature-mystic's relation to the concept of the Absolute.
It would be interesting to discuss, from the same point of view, his
relations to the rival doctrines of the monists, dualists, and pluralists.
But to follow up these trails with any thoroughness would lead us too

far into the thickets and quagmires of metaphysics. Fortunately the
issues are not nearly so vital as in the case of the Absolute; and they
may thus be passed by without serious risk of invalidating subsequent
conclusions. It may be worth our while, however, to note that many
modern mystics are not monists, and that the supposed inseparable
connection between Mysticism and Monism is being thrown overboard.
Even the older mystics, when wrestling with the problem of evil, were
dualists in their own despite. Of the moderns, so representative a
thinker as Lotze suggested that Reality may run up, not into one
solitary peak, but into a mountain chain. Hoeffding contends that we
have not yet gained the right to career rough-shod over the antinomies
of existence. James, a typical modern mystic, was an avowed pluralist.
Bergson emphasises the category of Becoming, and, if to be classed at
all, is a dualist. Thus the nature-mystic is happy in the freedom to
choose his own philosophy, so long as he avoids the toils of the
Absolute. For, as James remarks, "oneness and manyness are absolutely
co-ordinate. Neither is primordial or more excellent than the other."
It remains, then, to subject to criticism the third principle of Mysticism,
that of intuitional insight as a mode of knowing independent of the
reasoning faculties, at any rate in their conscious exercise. Its root idea
is that of directness and immediacy; the word itself prepares us for
some power of apprehending at a glance--a power which dispenses
with all process and gains its end by a flash. A higher stage is known as
vision; the highest is known as ecstasy. Intuition has its own place in
general psychology, and has acquired peculiar significance in the
domains of aesthetics, ethics, and theology; and the same root idea is
preserved throughout--that of immediacy of insight. The characteristic
of passivity on which certain mystics would insist is subsidiary--even if
it is to be allowed at all. Its claims will be noted later.
Now Nature Mysticism is based on sense perception, and this in itself
is a form of intuition. It is immediate, for the "matter" of sensation
presents itself directly to the consciousness affected; it simply asserts
itself. It is independent of the conscious exercise of the reasoning
powers. It does not even permit of the distinction between subject and
object; it