Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/185

Upanishads, in which the teacher starts with an explicit idealism. In such passages the topic of inquiry is directly the problem: What is the Self? It is here assumed that the Self is the universe. But even here the Self appears in a twofold way. It is first one’s life principle, typified by the breath, by the desire, or by the mere physical sense of being, which any one feels within him at any moment. As thus typified the Self or Atman seems finite, changes, grows old, longs, is disappointed, dies, transmigrates, is subject to fate. On the other hand, the Self is the Knower. As such it is the topic of an ingenious reflective process, which these Hindoo thinkers pursue through an endless dialectic, recorded in legendary dialogues and discourses of seers with learners. The purpose of the dialectic is always to make naught of every dualistic account, either of the relation between the Self and the universe, or of the inner structure and meaning of the Self. All the finite process of thinking and of desiring is now to be treated as a process of seeking the Self. Could the true Self be found, it would be found as the fulfilment of desire, as the perfection, as the finality, and as nothing but this. The contrast between the real and the desirable is itself a dualism. It must be cast off, together with the false realism that regards any truth as independently real. The finite world is simply the process of striving after self-knowledge. And in this process the seeker pursues only himself. But if he found himself, if all desires were fulfilled, if knowledge were complete — what would remain? Or rather, since this use of if and of would is itself a mere expression of finite illusion,