Buddhist Romanticism

conflicts of opinion—like all other conflicts—are no more than temporary
dissonances in the evolving harmony of the entire cosmos.
This, however, raises two important issues with regard to all the early
Romantic theories of truth: If the organic infinitude of the cosmos means
that all human ideas can offer only partial and temporary glimpses of the
truth, what does that say about the idea that the cosmos is an organic
infinitude? Is that idea, too, only partial and temporary? If so, then (1)
wouldn’t that allow for the possibility that the actual structure of the
universe was not an organic infinitude? And wouldn’t that further allow for
the possibility that the universe had a different structure, one that could be
grasped by ideas that did offer adequate and universal views of the truth?
(2) If the idea of an organic infinitude was only partially true, wouldn’t it
mean that the sense of comfort offered by the idea of the harmony of that
infinitude is illusory? After all, the purpose of the organic infinitude is
essentially unknowable, so how can it be trusted to be benevolent? Isn’t it
terrifying to be in a cosmos where life disposes so easily of life—where life
actually feeds on death—and whose purpose cannot be understood?
In response to both of these objections, the Romantics insisted that the
idea of the infinite organic unity of the cosmos had a special status. Unlike
ordinary human ideas, it was not subject to the limitations of the senses.
Instead, it was directly intuited by the sensitive mind. It, in a way similar to
Kant’s categories, was built into the structure of how a direct intuition
occurred. And the experience, once obtained, showed that the miseries of
life as perceived through the senses—aging, illness, and death—only
seemed to be miseries. The larger view afforded by this experience was
infinitely comforting. Despite all the miseries from which Hölderlin
suffered, he had the narrator of Hyperion state:
“I have seen it one time, the unique spirit that my soul sought, and
the perfection that we project far upward above the stars, that we
postpone until the end of time, I felt its presence. It was there, the
highest, in this circle of human nature and of things, it was there!
“I ask no more where it may be; it was in the world, it can return
in the world, it is now only concealed in it. I ask no more what it may
be; I have seen it, I have come to know it.” 23
And then again:
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