Now what are these two great methods? One of them may be described as
seeking the Self by the Self; the other may be described as seeking the
Self by the Not-Self; and if you will think of them in that fashion, I
think you will find the idea illuminative. Those who seek the Self by
the Self, seek him through the faculty of Buddhi; they turn ever
inwards, and turn away from the outer world. Those who seek the Self by
the Not-Self, seek him through the active working Manas; they are
outward-turned, and by study of the Not-Self, they learn to realise the
Self. The one is the path of the metaphysician; the other is the path
of the scientist.
To the Self by the Self
Let us look at this a little more closely, with its appropriate
methods. The path on which the faculty of Buddhi is used predominantly
is, as just said, the path of the metaphysician. It is the path of the
philosopher. He turns inwards, ever seeking to find the Self by diving
into the recesses of his own nature. Knowing that the Self is within
him, he tries to strip away vesture after vesture, envelope after
envelope, and by a process of rejecting them he reaches the glory of
the unveiled Self. To begin this, he must give up concrete thinking and
dwell amidst abstractions. His method, then, must be strenuous,
long-sustained, patient meditation. Nothing else will serve his end;
strenuous, hard thinking, by which he rises away from the concrete into
the abstract regions of the mind; strenuous, hard thinking, further
continued, by which he reaches from the abstract region of the mind up
to the region of Buddhi, where unity is sensed; still by strenuous
thinking, climbing yet further, until Buddhi as it were opens out into
Atma, until the Self is seen in his splendour, with only a film of
atmic matter, the envelope of Atma in the manifested fivefold world. It
is along that difficult and strenuous path that the Self must be found
by way of the Self.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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