In an article published in the Monist of January, 1898, and bearing on this subject, there occurs the following passage, accompanied with extracts from the works of several Christian mystics:—
"The Buddhist idea, that salvation consists mainly in dropping our own self, in becoming nothing, in self-annihilation for the sake of becoming Buddha—viz., divinely incarnate—can be found in many Christian writers. The highest religious aspirations are not the result of an anxiety for the salvation of one's own soul, but a yearning for a union with God."
Scotus Erigena writes: "In God all things will be put to rest and remain One, Indivisible, and Immutable."...
"God does not perceive what is Himself."
According to St. Augustine: "If the soul is to comprehend God, it must forget itself, for if the soul sees and comprehends itself it neither sees nor comprehends God."
"If the soul loses itself through God and forsakes all things, it finds itself again through God."...
"Whenever the soul comes to uniting itself with God it becomes annihilated." ...
"All perfection and all bliss consists in this, that man enters into the ground that is groundless."...
"How shall I love God? Thou shalt love Him as He is—a not God, a not spirit, a not person, a not image; but rather as He is—a true, pure, clear One, separated from all two-hood; and in this One we shall eternally disappear from nothing into nothing."[AN]...