lies in its denial, we see all religions at their highest point pass over into mysticism and mysteries, i.e., into darkness and veiled obscurity, which for knowledge signify merely an empty spot, the point where knowledge necessarily ceases; therefore for thought this can only be expressed by negations, but for sense perception it is indicated by symbolical signs; in temples by dim light and silence; in Brahmanism indeed by the required suspension of all thought and perception for the sake of sinking oneself profoundly in the grounds of one's own being, mentally pronouncing the mysterious Oum.[1] Mysticism in the widest sense is every guidance to the immediate consciousness of that to which neither perception nor conception, thus in general no knowledge extends. The mystic is thus opposed to the philosopher by the fact that he begins from within, while the philosopher begins from without. The mystic starts from his inner, positive, individual experience, in which he finds himself to be the eternal and only being, &c. But nothing of this is communicable except the assertions which one has to accept upon his word; consequently he cannot convince. The philosopher, on the other hand, starts from what is common to all, from the objective phenomenon which lies before all, and from the facts of consciousness as they are present in all. His method is therefore reflection upon all
- ↑ If we keep in view the essential immanence of our knowledge and of all knowledge, which arises from the fact that it is a secondary thing which has only appeared for the ends of the will, it then becomes explicable to us that all mystics of all religions ultimately attain to a kind of ecstasy, in which all and every knowledge, with its whole fundamental form, object and subject, entirely ceases, and only in this sphere, which lies beyond all knowledge, do they claim to have reached their highest goal, for they have then attained to the sphere in which there is no longer any subject and object, and consequently no more knowledge, just because there is no more will, the service of which is the sole destiny of knowledge.Now, whoever has comprehended this will no longer regard it as beyond all measure extravagant that Fakirs should sit down, and, contemplating the tip of their nose, seek to banish all thought and perception, and that in many passages of the Upanischads instructions are given to sink oneself, silently and inwardly pronouncing the mysterious Oum, in the depths of one's own being, where subject and object and all knowledge disappear.
