Secondly, although Gotama preached a kind of quietism, it was not the quietism of inertion and apathy. He exhorted his followers to vigorous activity in the acquisition of knowledge: "He who does not rouse himself when it is time to rise, who, though young and strong, is full of sloth, whose will and thought are weak, that lazy and idle man will never find the way to knowledge (enlightenment). If anything is to be done, let a man do it; let him attack it vigorously."[U]
Mr. Gough says that to gain this extinction the sage must loose himself from every tie and turn his back upon the world.
This is very much akin to the way in which a Christian must act, according to the teaching of the New Testament, if he would gain heaven, union with God, with Love, with a quality. But it would be doing injustice to the spirit of Christianity and Buddhism to describe their ultimate goals as annihilation, aboriginal nothingness, and extinction, and the path to it as one of inertion, apathy, and vacuity, in the ordinary sense of these terms.
The expression "annihilation" has much to answer for. It has been flaunted scornfully in the face of Buddhism by Vedantists of bygone ages and by Christians of this century; it has been hurled from pulpits with tremendous vehemence into the ears of bewildered congregations, and it has formed a text for delighted and triumphant denunciation in innumerable articles—in fact, with annihilation inscribed on its banners, the whole host of Buddha's army has been depicted as marching inevitably to utter and irretrievable ruin.
At this juncture let us turn to a later authority, Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, who, in answer to the question, What remains to rise above all forms and the total disintegration of body and final dissolution of the mind? sets forth the Buddhist conception in the following manner: "Unconsciously dwelling behind the false consciousness of imperfect man—beyond sensation, perception, thought—wrapped in the envelope of what we call soul (which, in truth, is only a thickly-woven veil of illusion), is the eternal and divine, the absolute Reality; not a soul, not a personality, but the All-self without selfishness—the Muga no Taiga—the Buddha enwombed in Karma. Within every phantom-self dwells this divine; yet the innumerable are but one. Within every creature incarnate sleeps the Infinite Intelligence, unevolved, hidden, unfelt, unknown, yet destined from all the eternities to waken at last, to rend away the ghostly web of sensuous mind, to break for ever its chrysalis of flesh, and pass to the supreme conquest of Space and Time."[V]
There is no doubt, as General Forlong informs us in his Short Studies in the Science of Comparative Religions, that Buddha's followers "finally revered him as a god, mixing up the first high and pure teaching of his faith with all the varied old and new doctrines, rites, and follies peculiar to each race and land which developed it. Every religion has to submit to this ordeal."
It cannot be too often reiterated that a personal moral ruler of the universe, "a gigantic shadow thrown upon the void of space by the imagination," or a sublimated edition of man located in the sky, is entirely foreign to true Buddhism; and, although Gotama deprecated as futile all speculations into the ultimate origin of things, he, in his "Buddha" capacity, was aware of the theory of an uncaused cause, whether called "Akâsa" or "Dzyu," or anything else, from which everything has issued in obedience to a law of motion inherent in it.[W] This uncaused cause has its counterpart in the incomprehensible Uncreate of the Athanasian Creed. It is the God without and the kingdom of heaven within. A Buddha and It are one.
In the "White Lotus of Dharma" Gotama is made to declare that, though in the form of a Buddha, he is in reality the Self-existent.[X] On the other hand, from a purely phenomenal point of view, "a Buddha is simply a very wise man, and means 'The Awakened.'"
"Buddha, as a Buddha, knew all about the ultimate origin of the Kosmos. The personal Buddha, however, abstained from any such speculations, holding that, for the purposes of practical ethics, the wise man not only may, but must, avoid the distraction of speculation as to any ultimate cause" (Rev. Spence Hardy). "Self-conquest and universal charity, these are the foundation thoughts, the web and woof of Buddhism, the melodies on the variations of which its enticing harmony is built up" (Professor Rhys Davids). Such, too, according to the Christian Scriptures, is religion, pure and undefiled, before God and the Father.
The Rev. A. Sherring points out how the success of Gotama in overcoming the forces opposed to him "is unparalleled in human history.... That a solitary man, prince and ascetic, after pondering for five years over all the great doctrines of religions, priestcraft, falsities, the immoralities, shams, and confusions of those times, and the groans and miseries of his countrymen, that he should devise an entirely new system, think it out, and put it in order to meet objectors and overcome their arguments, and then go forth to the gradual conquest of India, and send forth missionaries who have converted 500 millions of people—that all this was the ultimate result of that one man's energy, sagacity, and resoluteness of will is assuredly one of the most astounding events in the annals of the world. He was a simple philosopher, reasoner, and calm disputant, employing no physical force whatever; while the morality which he enforced was the purest the world ever saw." General Forlong, in quoting this passage, says: "Such, divested of a few professional words, is the deliberate opinion of one of the best, the most learned and experienced missionaries."