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A Series of Lessons on the Inner Teachings of the Philosophies and Religions of India1250
was that of “The Thing-in-Itself” with all of its manifestations vanished—the
Absolute as Non-Being, as distinguished from The Absolute as Being, But
as all advanced Western students of philosophy know full well, “Non-Being”
does not mean “Nothing,” but is the term used to designate Reality in Pure
Essence, as distinguished from Reality manifesting Relativity.
And so we state positively that a careful study of the original teachings of
Gautama will reveal the fact that he did not teach the doctrine of Ultimate
Nothingness or Nihilism; but that his “No-Thing” was identical with the
Western conception of Non-Being, which is really the highest conception of
Reality “beyond-Being”; and that he recognized that in its purest essence as
the fundamental reality underlying all that is in appearance. Without this basic
conception, the entire philosophy of Gautama would fall to the ground—
would be meaningless—would be a doctrine of Something proceeding
from Nothing and to Nothing returning in order to gain Freedom—a
palpable absurdity lacking all sanity, and opposed to every principle ad
instinct of Hindu thought. Gautama indeed taught the Nothingness of the
phenomenal life, or Samsara, even surpassing the Advaitist Vedantists in
his conception of the nature of Maya, which he denounced as the purest
Ignorance lacking even a shadow of Truth or Reality; a Lie in the mind of
The Absolute. But upon that he founded his teachings—upon that which
is ever present in all Hindu thought—that which if removed would bring
all Hindu thought tumbling in shattered bits beyond possibility of repair
or restoration. Gautama was considered as an iconoclast—an infidel—an
“atheist” even, in the eyes of the orthodox church of India—but he was not
a Fool, claiming a nothing as a basis for All-Things. Surely the “interpreters”
of Buddha have inverted his pyramid of thought.
While Gautama forbade all speculation regarding the nature of the
Unknowable, holding that the ultimate questions could not be grasped
by the human mind, although “all would be understood” when the state
of Nirvana was reached, still from the sidelights which he threw upon
his doctrines from time to time, it may be stated that his Inner Teachings