the Equinox - The Hermetic Library

THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON THE KING
he both exist and not exist after death?” “Do he neither
exist nor not exist after death?” . . . Because “the Blessed
Buddhas lift not up their voice without a reason and without
an object.”* But in spite of their being no soul “in the
highest sense,Ӡ Gotama had to postulate some vehicle which
would transmit the sorrow of one generation to another, of
one instant of time to the next; and, not being able to use the
familiar idea of Âtman, he instead made that of Karma do a
double duty. “He does not die until that evil Karma is
exhausted,” says Nâgasena.‡
Now this brings us to an extraordinary complex question,
namely the practical difference between the Karma minus
Âtman of the Buddhists and the Karma plus Âtman of the
later Vedântists?
The Brahman’s idea, at first, was one of complete whole,
this, as the comment supplanted the text, got frayed into
innumerable units or Âtmans, which, on account of Karma,
were born again and again until Karma was used up and the
individual Âtman went back to the universal Âtman. Buddha,
erasing the Âtman, though he refused to discuss the Beginning,
postulated Nibbâna as the end, which fact conversely
also postulates the Beginning as Nibbâna. Therefore we have
all things originating from an x sign, Âtman, Nibbâna, God,
Ain or First Cause, and eventually returning to this primordial
Equilibrium. The difficulty which now remains is the bridging
over of this divided middle. To Gotama there is no unit, and
existence per se is Ignorance caused as it were by a bad dream
in the head of the undefinable Nibbâna; which itself, however,
* “The Questions of King Milinda,” iv, 2, 5. † Ibid., iii, 5, 6.
‡ Ibid., iii, 4, 4.
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