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A Series of Lessons on the Inner Teachings of the Philosophies and Religions of India1256
In discussing this point with the Brahmins, and he had many opportunities
so to do, Gautama would illustrate it by comparing the “soul” with a chariot,
which was composed of wheels, body, axle, floor, tongue, etc., but which
was “nothing in itself” when these parts were taken away from it. So he held
that if all the attributes were taken away from a man, there would be no
“soul” left. Or, another illustration, man’s soul was like an Indian bulb akin
to an onion, which when stripped of its successive layers of skin in search
for the “real onion” or “the onion-in-itself,” resulted in nothing being left.
His opponents would answer: “Yes, but there would remain the Purusha,
or Spirit!” But Gautama would answer saying: “There would be naught
remaining but the Spirit of that, the Unknowable—divest the man of his
attributes or character, and there is nothing left but that which is No-Thing,
and which is Unknowable!” And this is why they claimed that Gautama
denied the immortal soul! They overlooked the fact that this stripping
away of the “attributes” or “characteristics” is just what Gautama sought to
accomplish by killing out Desire, and thus resolving man back to that, or
Non-Being, which indeed, in reality, was all that man was. Read this over,
carefully, and you will see the finesse of Gautama’s logic and reasoning, and
why he out-reasoned the Brahmins.
A word here regarding the reason that Gautama and Buddhism always
have been regarded as heterodox, and outside of the pale of the “orthodox”
Hindu philosophical systems. You will notice that Buddhism is always treated
as “an outside system.” You will notice that the “Six Systems,” differing as
they do from the orthodox religious dogmas of the Brahmins, and differing
from each other, are still considered “orthodox,” even though they deny
the existence of every god in the Hindu Pantheon, as does Kapila, even
to the extent of denying Ishwara, the Personal God of the Universe. And
Gautama’s Buddhism, which denies but little if anything more, is regarded
as “non-orthodox.” The reason is simple, when understood. And here it is: In
India, among the Brahmins, or priestly caste) there exists a wonderful degree
of liberty of philosophical or theological speculation, without the danger of