The exaggeration of the power of temptation can hardly be a positive means of overcoming it.…As long as in our struggle against evil we regard it as strong and enticing, and at the same time both awe-inspiring and forbidden, we are not going to achieve any radical or final victory over it…it will remain invincible as long as it is so regarded.…The attraction of evil is a lie and an illusion.…Only the knowledge of its absolute emptiness and tedium can give us the victory over it.
Christianity and Oriental Religion
In Christianity the idea of total acceptance is somewhat hidden; it is only spoken of directly in some of the writings of the mystics, but it is soon discovered when we begin to make a thorough search into the symbolism of Christian doctrine. In the religions of the East, however, it is given particular emphasis; in fact, it is the fundamental principle of Vedantist, Buddhist, and Taoist philosophy. The chief difference between these Eastern religions and Christianity is that, on the surface at least, Christianity is concerned with belief in doctrines whereas the Eastern religions are concerned with states of mind. That is to say, Christianity tends to be a theological and ethical religion, while Buddhism, Taoism, and Vedanta are psychological religions. In Christianity the supreme attainment is reserved for the life after death and it is seldom described in more definite terms than “the bliss of the soul absorbed in the eternal contemplation of God.” Some Christians believe that the contemplation of God can be achieved while on earth, but to most people such phrases convey nothing more than a form of deep introspection in which the soul is confronted with a vision of boundless light and permeated by a feeling of infinite love. But how is this condition attained? Most Christian mystics agree that its intense forms arise spontaneously, at rare intervals, and without any apparent cause.
Eastern religions have this condition of the soul as their very center and raison d’être, although they do not describe it in quite the same terms as do the Christian mystics. For them it is not just an unusual phenomenon which happens to occur among some strangely gifted people called mystics; it is the very lifeblood of religion, and comes before doctrines, ethics, or any other aspect of the religious life. The avowed object of Vedanta, Buddhism, and Taoism alike is that man, while living on this earth, may attain a state of mind which is indicated as the understanding of his eternal union and identity with the “Self of the universe.” This is the object of Christianity also, but it is not stressed, its psychology is inadequately studied and the many possible ways to its attainment are only vaguely described. In the ordinary way the aim of Christianity is to make the person of Jesus as described in the Gospels as vivid a reality as possible so that the believer may love, follow, and serve Him as if He were a real friend standing always at his side. The psychology of Christian faith is therefore one of the personal devotion of the disciple to his Lord and Master, and this expands into mysticism when the believer feels a relation of love to the cosmic as well as to the personal Christ. In the ordinary way it is impossible to separate the psychology of Christian religion from a specific personality and specific beliefs concerning him, and thus it is not always easy for the Christian to recognize that a similar, if not identical, state of soul can be attained by one who has never heard of Jesus of Nazareth.
This in no way invalidates the Christian experience. It only means that in Christianity there is no clear division between the psychology of spiritual experience and religious doctrine and history. The Christian belief that only one historical religious tradition is valid for man is a clear enough sign of this confusion; so much emphasis is placed on history and doctrine as the essentials of salvation that a psychology of religion independent of the person of Christ is not understood. In the three great Eastern religions this confusion does not exist, and from them we are able to form a much clearer idea of the essentials of religion, of the state of mind called spiritual experience as distinct from the “local color” of particular historical events. For if indeed this experience is attainable outside the Christian faith, apart from devotion to a particular personality, and even without reference to theology (as in certain forms of Buddhism), then Eastern religions have two important contributions to make to Western civilization. Firstly, they show the principles of an approach to spiritual experience on a purely psychological basis to those who have lost faith in the historical and theological tenets of Christianity; secondly, Christianity itself can be enriched and expanded in this sadly underdeveloped aspect of its experience, and perhaps led to a higher understanding of spirituality than even many of its own mystics have attained.9
Eastern Wisdom and Modern Man
The wisdom of the East is something from which we can learn but which we should be careful not to imitate. It is unwise for a Westerner to become “converted” to Buddhism or Hinduism as missionaries expect the “heathen” to become converted to Christianity, for there are aspects of the Eastern religions which would be decidedly harmful for us to adopt. We cannot escape our roots and traditions, which are different from those of Asiatic peoples, for we have a different function or Dharma to fulfill in the world. We have already said that acceptance is not necessarily a matter of mental or physical passivity, but we find a certain kind of passivity insisted upon in all the great religions of the East, for the Asiatic attitude to life has a decided element of quietism and laissez faire—an attitude which is encouraged by their religious technique. For them this attitude is right, but European and American psychology is active and assertive and it would not be right for us to deny this active urge. Therefore it is important for us in our study of Oriental religion to distinguish between principles and their application; the principles have universal value, but, generally speaking, their application has been worked out to accord only with Asiatic peoples and conditions. We have to discover our own way of applying those principles, and though in the end this may lead us to something like Oriental passivity it would be the greatest mistake to begin by imitating it.
The outward forms of this passivity are seen in yoga meditation, a pacifism (ahimsa) extended even to animals, a total disregard for material progress and social service, and a lofty detachment from material concerns in general. It is often that in the applied philosophy of the East the world of form and action is illusion (maya) and does not merit the wise man’s attention; but this is applied philosophy and not a fundamental principle, according to which the universe cannot be absolutely divided into illusion and reality, seeing that the ultimate is nondual and includes all opposites. It is impossible for anyone not inured to it by tradition to regard the world as illusion by a mere decision of the will, for imitation of other people’s ideas is as false as imitation of their behavior. But Oriental introversion and Occidental extraversion are alike essential and equally important human functions, the one without the other being as sterile as man without woman. To grasp the essentials of Oriental wisdom we do not have to imitate its externals; it is neither necessary nor wise, as some theosophists and would-be Buddhists and yogis imagine, for us to go and sit at the feet of masters in India or Tibet, to assume the life of the homeless sanyassin, and to adopt the technique of Eastern meditation in order to attain spiritual freedom. Having attained that freedom, however, there is no reason why one should not study Eastern meditation as much as one pleases if one happens to be interested in it. But to look for actual salvation, happiness, or enlightenment in it is asking for trouble because it is almost impossible to avoid both imitation in itself and imitation of something that belongs to an alien tradition.10