LETTERS FROM ABROAD
ideal. Though I know this to be a fact, I cannot take it as a truth. We must choose our allies once for all; for they stick to us even when we might be glad to be rid of them. If we once claim strength from intoxication, then in the time of reaction our normal strength is bankrupt; and we go back again and again to the demon who lends us resources in a vessel whose bottom it takes away.
Brahma-vidya, the cult, of Brahma, the Infinite Being, has for its object mukti, emancipation, while Buddhism has xirvana, extinction. It may be argued that both have the same idea in different names, But names represent attitudes of mind and emphasise particular aspects of truth, Mukti draws our attention to the positive, and nirvana to the negative side of truth, Buddha kept silence all through his teachings about the truth of the Om, the Everlasting Yes, his implication being that by the negative path of destroying the self we naturally reach that truth. Therefore he emphasised the fact of dukha, misery, which had to be avoided. But the Brahma-vidya emphasised the fact of Ananda, Joy, which had to be attained. The latter cult also needs for its fulfilment the discipline of self-abnegation ; yet it holds before its view the idea of Brahma, not only at the end, but all through the process of realisation.
Therefore the idea of life’s training was different in the Vedic period from that of the Buddhistic, In the former it was the purification
