2022-08-01 - Yogis on the Rhine =============================== I ran across some interesting quotes in a new Project Gutenberg book: > He who in the body hath obtained liberation is of no caste, of no > sect, of no order; attends to no duties, adheres to no shastras, to > no formulas, to no works of merit; he is beyond the reach of > speech; he remains at a distance from all secular concerns; he has > renounced the love and the knowledge of sensible objects; he is > glorious as the autumnal sky; he flatters none, he honours none; he > is not worshipped, he worships none; whether he practises and > follows the customs of his country or not, this is his character. In the fourteenth century, mystics were to be found among the lower orders, whose ignorance and sloth carried negation almost as far as this. They pretended to imitate the divine immutability by absolute inaction. The dregs and refuse of mysticism along the Rhine are equal in quality to its most ambitious produce on the banks of the Ganges. ... 1320. Second week in October--A ride over to Fegersheim about Sir Rudolf's new bascinet with the beaked ventaille. As I reached the castle the ladies were just coming out for hawking, with a brave company of knights and squires. They were fair to see, with their copes and kirtles blue and white, and those fanciful new-fashioned crowns on their heads, all glittering with gold and jewels. Sir Rudolf stayed for me awhile and then followed them. On my way back, rested at noon at a little hostelry, where I sat before the door at a table, chatting with mine host. There ride up a priest and monk with attendants. Holy Mary, what dresses! The monk with bells on his horse's bridle, his hood fastened with a great golden pin, wrought at the head into a true-love knot, his hair growing long so as to hide his tonsure, his shoes embroidered and cut lattice-wise. There was the priest with broad gold girdle, gown of green and red, slashed after the newest mode, and a long sword and dagger, very truly militant. I marvelled at the variety and unction of the oaths they had at their service. The advantage of a theological training was very manifest therein. Scarcely were these worthies, with bag and baggage, well on their way again when I espied, walking towards the inn, a giant of a man—some three inches higher than I am (a sight I have not often seen), miserably attired, dusty and travel-worn. When he came to where I was he threw down his staff and bundle, cast his huge limbs along the bench, gave a careless, surly glance at me, and, throwing back his shaggy head of black hair, seemed about to sleep. Having pity on his weariness I said, "Art thirsty, friend? the sun hath power to-day." Thereupon he partly raised himself, looked fixedly at me, and then drank off the tankard I pushed towards him, grunting out a something which methought was meant for thanks. Being now curious, I asked him straight, "Where he came from?" He: "I never came from anywhere." I: "What are you?" He: "I am not." I: "What will you?" He: "I will not." I: "This is passing strange. Tell me your name." He: "Men call me the Nameless Wild." I: "Not far off the mark either; you talk wildly enough. Where do you come from? Whither are you bound?" He: "I dwell in absolute Freedom." I: "What is that?" He: "When a man lives as he list, without distinction (Otherness, Anderheit), without before or after. The man who hath in his Eternal Nothing become nothing knows nought of distinctions." I: "But to violate distinction is to violate order, and to break that is to be a slave. That is not the freedom indeed, which the truth gives. He that committeth sin is the servant of sin. No man can be so utterly self-annihilated and lost in God,--can be such a very nothing that there remains no remnant of the original difference between creature and Creator. My soul and body are one, are not separate; but they are distinct. So is it with the soul united to God. Mark the difference, friend, I prithee, between separation and distinction (Geschiedenheit und Unterschiedenheit)." He: "The teacher saith that the saintly man is God's son, and what Christ doth, that doth he." I: "He saith that such man followeth Christ in righteousness. But our personality must ever abide. Christ is son of God by nature, we by grace. Your pride blinds you. You are enlightened with a false light, coming whence I know not. You try and 'break through' to the Oneness, and you break through reason and reverence." He replied by telling me that I was in thick darkness, and the boy coming with my horse, I left him. As I rode homeward I thought on the contrast I had seen. This man who came last is the natural consequent on the two who preceded him. So doth a hypocritical, ghostly tyranny produce lawlessness. I have seen the Priest and the Levite, and methinks one of the thieves,--where is our good Samaritan? I know not which extreme is the worst. One is selfish absoluteness, the other absolute selfishness. Oh, for men among us who shall battle with each in the strength of a truth above them both! Poor Alsace! [Interesting point that the yogi is the natural consequence in reaction to hypocritical tyranny. Though it seems the author jumped to conclusions regarding disorder and lawlessness. He gives no evidence of finding such fruit in the Nameless Wild.] tags: yoga Tags ==== yoga