The inward light

Front matter

INWARD LIGHT i H- FIELDING HALL '

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BL 1451 .F53 1908 Fielding-Hall, H. 1859-1917 The inward light

Preface

The words which form the title of this book, the quotation on the title-page, and the fuller quotation in Chapter XXI. are to be found in Some Sayings from the Upanishads^ translated by Dr. L. D. Barnett.

Contents

CHAP.

I. THE SECRET OF THE EAST .

II. THE GOLDEN HOURS

Chapter I The Secret Of The East

What is that great and vital principle that underlies all Eastern faiths? What is that truth that finds so varied and so different an expression in Hinduism, Shintoism, Buddhism, and many another religion, in the philosophies of Laotze and Confucius? What is the understanding of the world that is acceptable alike to prince and peasant, to philosopher and labourer, to soldier and recluse ; that is the basis of all truth ? The West has sought it always. It has recognised that from the East came light, that in the East there rose a fountain of the spirit that dried up never. The West has sought, but has not found.

It has never looked deep enough. It has mistaken things, taking the non-essential for the essential, the form for that which it encloses, the temporary for the eternal. It has borrowed and then has found that what it took away was but a dead thing and that the life was left behind.

The East has ever been and is religious, not in part of its life but in the whole of it. It has held that religion is not of one day but of all time, not of time only but of eternity, not of eternity only but of every moment. To its mind religion embraces everything,

B I not man's soul only but his body, all of him; and not man alone but the whole universe; not some virtue but all virtues, all that is good and all that is evil. It is not therefore a theory, a teaching, a method, nor an ideal, a dogma, a thought ; for these, however great, however true, must always be narrow, cannot hold but a little part of truth. They are finite, whereas religion is infinite. It is none of these. Religion is a way of looking at life and at the universe, it is a way to see and'uhderstand.

But to the West it is not so, and when it has gone to the East and asked for truth, it meant by truth a moral, or a virtue, or an ideal, or a dogma. It has sought the clothes in which truth shows itself and not^ the truth. Therefore despite all the books written of Eastern forms of faith none have been understood. The writers have explained nothing because they saw nothing, felt nothing, knew nothing. More especially is this true of Buddhism, that latest expression of an all-world view.

When I have read the Western books on Buddhism, when I have heard Western people talk about it and explain this faith, it has always seemed as if they wTre as travellers who describe a landscape dimly seen through fog and mist. To these wayfarers nothing is clear, there are no outlines. The mist wreaths open now and then and show long vistas — leading sometimes nowhere, sometimes ending in a cliff or chasm- At times they see the bases of the hills that have no summits, they are mist-hidden; or they catch momentary glimpses of far mountain peaks that hang all unsubstantial in the heavens. The mists move to and fro full of suggestions of unseen, undreamt of things, of ghosts and spirits wandering homeless in the void. Nothing is fixed, or real, there is no sunshine; all is unhappy, sad, and formless. You are afraid of it, you would not care to go forward and affront what it may hold. For there is no clear light to show what is before, nothing but lightning gleams and meteors shot across the clouds, and a cold phosphorescence in the atmosphere that comes and goes. No one could see by that. It is a phantom land, a place of visions, like to the Western faiths. But to the Eastern it is otherwise. To him life seen through his religion is a landscape under clearest sunshine, gay and happy. His seas are all alive with waves and sparkle, and the purple hills stand up beneath a clear blue sky. Where there are rifts, morasses, dangers for the traveller in this land, the light displays them. He can see and stop in time and find another way. He sees not very far ahead, the horizons bar him as they must every mortal eye. He does not seem to see so far as those who look through mists and shadows that give delusion of great distance, yet he sees farther, and what he sees is clear. He does not take a shifting cloud for solid certainty, or rainbow shadows in the heavens for gates of paradise. He knows his view has^ bounds. This does not trouble him. He knows he cannot see the far sides of the hills, the bases of the world, infinity of space. He knows his brain and eye are limited. But he sees far enough for daily use. He sees the path before him, the turns and angles, the diversions of the ways. He knows whither he would go. The horizon is not walled with shadow, there are no wraiths nor ghosts that live there, no fear that has its kingdom there beyond.

And he is sure that the line that bounds his sight is not the Hmit of the world, of light and life. Beyond it there are other countries not less fair, where the sun is not less bright. He is not afraid to journey on, and he is sure that he will be always able to see enough to guide his steps. Distance will stretch to an infinity, there is a future soft with pearly lustre in a world beyond his ken.

That is the way he sees it.

For Buddhism is a very simple faith. It is not made of dreams nor revelations, nor founded upon the supernatural. It is the science of the evolution of the soul within the body. It is what men have seen and feel and know. It has ideals, beautiful ideals. They are not sunset clouds hung far in space remote from us: their base is on the earth, the spires ascend from the strong and sure foundations of the things that are. It has a theory of this world that agrees with all that science has discovered. It has a promise of Immortality, the only beautiful and reasonable Immortality the world has known. It is a study of man, not as he impossibly ' ought ' to be but as he is, and of what he may be judged from what he has been. It recognises the soul because it sees it, and it knows it comes from some great Power because it feels that this is so. There is no cast-iron dogma. Whatever statements or deductions it makes are liable to correction if wrong. Never does it consider it has found the absolute. Its thoughts and its ideas are but a step. It seeks always new truths to add, new steps to climb towards an infinite.

The reasons of the errors of Western writers explaining Buddhism arise, I think, mainly from two causes. The first is this: it is assumed that the only part of

Buddhism which they know — the written teachings of Buddha and his followers — forms a system offered as being complete in itself; that it embraces all truth, all that a man need know and follow. It rests on nothing, rose from nothing, has no base, but drifts indefinite in space. They begin with the life of Buddha, they take his message and they end with the additions made by the disciples. Nothing is said of what the world was when Buddha was born into it, of the truths that then were widely known and followed. It is assumed Buddha ignored them. He only found them insufficient. It is assumed he made new discoveries of new truths, but he only pushed the old a further step. What he taught was the complement of all that went before.

The teachings of the Buddha are no complete scheme of conduct, of faith, of immortality. They rest on Hinduism — not the corrupt Hinduism of to-day with its caste and ceremonies but the Hinduism of twenty-five centuries ago. For Buddha did not come to destroy but to build, not to deny but to affirm. The world he lived in was one that in all the earlier virtues was as advanced as any is to-day. It was brave, and free, and learned. It was a happy w^orld, of family love, of patriotism and honesty. Yet it was a world that made its only happiness in the current hour, that had a righteousness only of this world; which knew of nothing beyond. It drifted towards the grave and passed, fearful, into the unknown.

With the happiness of the day, with the righteousness that was necessary and true for this world the Buddha had no quarrel. He saw it and experienced it, and he knew that it was good and true.

I /

But he knew, too, that it soon passed. Life is but short, its pleasures are but evanescent, we are drifted down the great river to the sea of death, and in that sea the righteousness of this world saveth not. That is what he said. And his message was of another life, of another righteousness, another happiness beyond the grave. He did not come to denounce this world or to rob it of happiness, but to add another world, to add a higher, more enduring happiness to that which passes so quickly from us. He came not to displace one truth with another, but to perfect truth with truth, joy with joy; to round our fleeting time with an eternity. And therefore Buddhism is nothing by itself. It is not, it never pretended to be a complete truth, to be a temple in itself. It was but another story added to that great building whose feet are in the earth, whose summit rises up towards heaven.

Therefore to understand the theory and practice of the Buddha it is necessary to know on what they stood and stand. If you would understand the pinnacle you must know also of the base. You cannot have one without the other. The higher the spire rises towards heaven the broader and deeper must be its base upon this earth. That is what makes it firm and strong, what makes it real. They are only unrealities and dreams that float unsupported.

If to the West Buddhism as it has been explained has seemed entirely vague and unsubstantial, theory and mystification, this is one reason, because its base was never perceived and understood.

When I wrote The Soul of a People I included in that 'soul' not only the Buddhism of the people but their other beliefs as well. I was sure then that these were as essential as the Buddhist teachings: that they were even essential to the Buddhist teaching which could not stand without them. Yet at that time I did not clearly see that they were one whole. I did not understand how they completed one the other; sometimes these even seemed in contradiction. I thought that the creed said one thing and the people believed another. But I know now that this is never so. All the beliefs of a people — any people — are a whole. They are not a patchwork, not a medley taken here and there. There is in every man and every people allowed to develop naturally an instinctive consciousness of Truth, and everything in which they really believe is an expression of it. Their traditions, their legends, their moralities, their faith and creeds, are all but ways of setting forth this truth, this view of life. Whatever they believe they do so because it rings to them true. It has truth therein, hidden in imagery and phrase but still felt by them. Therefore they believe. But what this truth which underlay all their beliefs might be I did not know, I could not guess. I was unable to get behind the words, because the words seemed clear and definite. Yet words are but a vehicle to express something that is inexpressible, they are the body in which the truth is able to manifest itself. The words are never the truth, any more than the body is the life of man. You may dissect the creed, the legend, tradition, custom, formula as much as you like and you will understand no more of the truth it is meant to express than by dissecting a dead body w^ill you find the life. The essential thing to know about any belief is not the form that belief is expressed in, not the words that actually are said;

you want to know what the teller wanted to say, what the hearer heard.

Words are but images as stone or wood are. The savage roughly hews a god of stone to express a fear, a hope, a force, an emotion. To him and to those like him the image does express, does incarnate it. When he sees it he feels that fear or hope ; the image is alive. To the stranger it expresses nothing, it is dead. He may analyse the material and the workmanship for ever and he will find nothing. It is exactly the same with any form of words in which a belief is contained. To the believer it is alive, to the non-believer dead. Because like beauty which is the beholder's echo to the beauty that is without, the spirit of the image, of the legend, of the creed is not really in the thing itself but in him who sees or hears and feels. Therefore to understand what is meant you must attune yourself to feel as do those who believe in these things. When you have done that all else is easy. You understand, you feel, and doing this you can form for yourself other images, other phrases, other explanations more in accord with your own mode of expression whereby to show these beliefs to yourself and those who think as you do.

That is my first point, that Buddhism cannot be taken as a part but as a whole. We must never divorce it from its base. And although the Burmese were not Hindus before they became Buddhists they had in their beliefs and traditions all the essentials of early Hinduism, and these survive to-day. Did they disappear Buddhism would topple into ruin. You cannot have a pinnacle without a base. That is the point essential for trying to realise what Buddhism really is.

But again — this faith of daily life must rest on something. There must be some conception of this world, of man, of his relation to the universe, on which this earlier faith must rest. And what is that? It is usually assumed it is what ours is. What do we think of the earth and all the world without us ? That it is not connected with us in any way. We stand apart, a separate creation. That is our theology, the theory of our souls, though our science tells us differently, as far as our bodies are concerned. What do we think of birth ? That our soul was then made anew from nothing. What of life ? That between the cradle and the grave our destiny for all eternity is decided. What of death ? That our soul then goes to judgment, or to await judgment. Our personality remains unchanged for ever, and the endless cycles of eternity are spent either in hell or heaven.

These are our fundamental thoughts, they are our axioms now. Perhaps they were not always so and we have only arrived at them by clinging to the letter which kills, because we have not the spirit which lives. But anyhow these are our beliefs and we think that all the world must hold them, not perhaps exactly as we do, details may vary, but certainly in essentials. In fact it never occurs to us that there can be any other conception, so we use these axioms to work out and explain Eastern beliefs. And what do we make thereby? To take an illustration: the East believes in the transmigration of the soul. We think this means that the unchanged, unchangeable entity of the soul of man is incarnated now in a beast, now in one man, now in another, as a lighted candle might glow moved through a series of lamps. We cannot lo THE INWARD LIGHT ch.

understand such an idea, for it seems to us absurd. Indeed it is so, but the absurdity is not in what the East believes, but the way the West understands it. Transmigration means a very different thing from this, because the soul is not to them what it is to us.

Then take Nirvana.

This is the Buddhist heaven, and we explain it that after centuries of effort in this world, in many different incarnations the weary soul acquiring sufficient righteousness is absorbed into the infinite. It loses its identity. 'The dewdrop falls into the shining sea.'

It seems to us only another way of expressing annihilation and death. It has no attraction but fills us rather with fear and distrust. Because we misunderstand its meaning ; we read it in terms of our own premises.

But when you have abandoned these ideas, when you have learnt what to Eastern eyes the soul of man is now, and may be, you are then enabled to understand the strength and beauty of the conception, surely the most wonderful the world has known. Then alone can you understand them when they say that this Nirvana of which they speak is not annihilation, it is not death.

It is the opposite of all these things. It is the realisation of self in a greater, grander self than ever we have dreamed of; it means a fuller, more glorious life than this world gives us now. That is what Nirvana means to those who understand it rightly.

It is to explain and illustrate really what Buddhism is that I have written this book. It may be objected that in doing so I go to some extent over the same ground as in my former book, but it is not so. In my former book I wrote: 'My object is not to explain

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I THE SECRET OF THE EAST ii

what the Buddha taught but what the people beHeve.' My object now is different. I want to explain as clearly as may be that conception of the world, man's life, the past, the present and the future which finds its latest, not its last, expression in Buddhism. I use the Burmese as my illustrations because they alone of modern people retain the spirit of Buddhism as it was understood. They are a simple people and very often they do not see very clearly all that their faith means, and even when they understand they are not strong enough to follow. They are my illustrations as much by their failures as successes; for when they have succeeded it is because they have understood and been able to follow their faith, and when they have failed it is because they could do neither. If it be objected that we of the West are far wiser, stronger, cleverer in a thousand ways than this little people in their eastern valley and can have nothing to learn from them, I make this answer: It is true we are stronger, far, we are more civilised, far, we have many qualities, many virtues they have not. We have very much to teach them. We have in fact cultivated a side of Buddhism they have neglected.

But, after all, life contains more things than these, great as they are — than strength, organisation, civilisation, energy, and learning. There is happiness. Is that worth nothing? There is a serenity of courage in all the troubles of life. Is not that something ? There is a conception of the world which rings always true. And at the end, to be able to see in Death, not fear, not horror, not the end of things, to find him not the King of Terrors but the Great Romance, is that for nothing ?

12 THE INWARD LIGHT ch. i

To have a religion that makes for happiness and hope, never for fear, that is based on truth we see, that has its future high above, is it not worth considering how it may be achieved ? We who are always saying that we are decadent, that life is not worth living, that faith is dead?

One word as to the form of this book.

Every one who writes or speaks does so in that way in which he thinks he can best express what he has to say.

This is my way. -x

Whether the man here spoken of really existed or not, whether each scene occurred exactly as described or not, what does it matter? This is not the history of a man, but of a discovery: it is the explanation of a vision of the world from its foundation upwards. But the history of the way one man saw, or might see it is the simplest way to make it plain to others.

Chapter II The Golden Hours

It was deep noon. Right overhead the sun hung in a sky of blue so pure, so strong as almost to seem dark, and his golden light flooded the world. It fell in a tide of life upon the fields filling them with glory, it touched with fire the tops of the pagodas, — it made a magnificence even on the bare hillsides. Beneath the trees the shadows were as clear as crystal water, as full of lustre and of life.

There was a silence and a peace. The ploughmen who had worked from early dawn now slept beneath the palms, the cattle all were hidden, nothing moved. Even the crickets in the trees were still.

A man came riding down a lane that led across the uplands to the river. His European dress showed hke a blot upon the landscape. The sun beat on him as on an enemy. He seemed a swimmer fighting against a flood that knew him not, this son of the misty North. The pulses throbbed in his ear-drums and his eyes were clouded.

Of a sudden the pony gave a start, a swerve, for he had nearly trodden on a snake, and the rider lost his balance. The pony was frightened, and a moment later the man had fallen and was alone.

The sun beat on him pitilessly, he must find shelter from its cruelty. So he crawled on, dragging a broken

'3 leg, and came at length to the shadow of a palm grove near at hand. There was a well there, fresh with the coolness of the water spilt about it and the greenness of moss and fern. With a last effort he reached the curb and then his senses failed. The world became dark and void. A squirrel came and looked at him and fled, and a chameleon hid behind a tree.

When he again regained his consciousness he found himself within a little wooden chamber in a monastery. His leg was set and bandaged with rude efficient village surgery. Upon his head were leaves damp with fresh water. The night had fallen and a breeze sweet with the scent of flowers blew in from opened jalousies. He felt a peace come on him and he fell asleep.

But in the village there was trouble. The villagers were gathered under the big tree beside the gate and grumbled. They did not want a stranger in their village, a foreigner, one of those strong and restless men who went about and pushed every one and everything aside. They were a quiet people and they loved their distance from the strife and noise of moneymaking. They were a timid people and they feared intruders. Why should this white man stay within their monastery, let him go to his own kind. It was not so very far down to the river station where the steamer came each day. They would take him there by cart, now in the dark and coolness of the night; they would put him on board a steamer, and be rid of him. So they determined. They yoked the oxen and they went up to the monastery. The monks were at their prayers, the children chanted, the night was full of prayer sung by their earnest voices. The villagers sat and waited.

11 THE GOLDEN HOURS

When the prayer was finished the old monk came forth and standing on the steps between the carved balustrades under the stars he asked them what they wanted. They told him, 'Bring out the foreigner. He cannot stay. We will send him to his own people.'

The monk shook his head. 'He cannot go. He is too ill.'

'It is not far,' they urged; 'three hours in the cart will take us to the river, there we will put him in a steamer and send him to the city where the white government is. We will give him to his own people.'

'He will die if he be moved. He has fever.'

'He will die if he stay. If die he must, let it be amongst his own, and our hands will be clean.'

The monk refused.

'Consider,' said the headman, 'how can he stay? Who is he ? no one knows him here. He has dropped upon us as it were from the clouds. It is not good to have anything to do with these strange foreigners if you can help it. He had no one with him, no horse, nothing. He is some wanderer it were as well to be suspicious of. A deserting soldier, a sailor who has run away, as we had before. If he stay he must be fed, must be looked after. If he die he must be buried. It is not our business to do either except for our own folk. Let us take him at once now when the night is cool, that the way may be easier.'

But the monk would not.

'Charity,' he answered; 'did harm ever come to any one from charity? Let him be. When he is better we will see. And for the rest, what will he want ? — a little rice, a little fruit, a little water. Have you not charity to that amount?'

They murmured they were afraid. A wolf within a sheepfold, that is what they thought him, and wolves are wolves even if sick. They were not unkind, they did not lack a charity and open-handedness. But until now they had lived in peace in their little village far from the roads of change and bustle. They feared the introduction of a ferment. ' No, no,' they said, but there was no conviction in their voices.

And the monk knew that he had won. 'Now go,' he said, 'and be sure that charity has always its reward. To give to your own where is the virtue? Charity is to the stranger. Be glad that there has been sent you a chance to earn merit that will be eternal. He must stay here. But send word to the city that they may know.'

He stood there upon the steps looking down at them and his confidence removed their fears. With the ready acquiescence of young children in what they feel is right, they turned away cheerfully. Going down the village road back to their homes they laughed and sang. 'Yes, the monk is right,' they said, and their hearts were lightened.

And the old monk went slowly to the chamber where the man lay. In the darkness he could hardly be made out, only his face made a slight pallor in the gloom. The monk listened and stooped down and touched him. 'Yes, he will Hve,' he said. 'He is not ill, but only very tired. He wants rest, long rest and peace — our peace — and that is all.' So in the shelter of a great compassion the sick man lay and slept.

They came to see him when they heard the news, Gallio and the doctor. They would have removed him, had he been willing, carrying him in a litter to the river, but he would not.

II THE GOLDEN HOURS 17

^ No, no,' he murmured, ' I am better here. I love this place. I like to sit and look out at the fields across the river to the hills. I like the air, for it is fresh and pure. I like the monks, they are so silent. I like to hear the children singing in the dawn. I am quite happy.'

So they did not press him and the doctor said to Gallio: 'Leave him alone for a time. His broken limb will mend quickly, but it is more than that. His blood is full of fever. He is weak and tired. He has been doing too much, going up and down regardless of sun and rain, working without a pause in this hot climate. He will do well here, better than anywhere, till we can send him home.'

They went away and left him as he asked them.

So he stayed there in the monastery. His chamber had windows on three sides that looked out upon the land. From high up where he was upon a watershed he could see the whole great valley from mountain range to range with the broad river winding through it. By day it glowed and trembled under the sun, at night the moon threw silver dreams upon it. The life was full of quiet and of rest. The only sounds that broke them were the village voices far away, the lowing of the cattle coming home, drowsy sounds that drifted up half heard, and the chanting of the prayers. Three hours after sunset and just before the dawn they sang. The slow Gregorian music was like a song out of the night, full of unknown things of this world and every other. It was a farewell to the day that passed, a welcome to the dawn. The night was deeper and the day more glorious because of it. He lay, and thoughts came to him out of the silence — new thoughts from a new silence.