This it is which constitutes the real meaning of pantheism, and we shall only have occasion now to employ the expression in this sense. It applies first and foremost to the Orient, whose type of conception is based on the thought of an absolute unity of Godhead and of everything else as subsisting in this Unity. As such Unity and All the Divine can only be presented to consciousness by means of the ever recurrent evanescence of the limited number of particular objects, in which its Presence is expressed. On the one hand we have here the Divine envisaged as immanent in the most diverse objects, whether it be life or death, mountain or sea, and with still closer intimacy no doubt as the most excellent and pre-eminent among and in all determinate existence. On the other hand, inasmuch as the One is this and again that other and that other beyond it, and in short is discharged into everything, all particular existence appears for that reason to be a thing which is cancelled and vanishes, for no particular is alone this One, but this One is this manifold of particulars which pass away before semi-perception, as such particulars into the universe which comprises them. For if the One is Life, it is also at another point Death, and is to that extent not merely life, so that it is neither as life nor the sun nor the sea that these or any other objective realities constitute the Divine and One. At the same time we do not find here, as in the genuine type of the Sublime, that the accidental is expressly posited in the negative relation of mere service. So far from this being so, substance is essentially identified with one particular and accidental existence, inasmuch as it is this One in everything. Conversely, however, this very particular, because it is equally subject to change, and the imagination does not restrict substance to one definite existence, but moves over every definition, letting it fall that it may advance to another, is thereby relegated in its turn to the accidental, over which the One is superposed in the sublimity thus conjoined with it.
Such a way of viewing existence therefore can only be expressed in art through poetry; the plastic arts are closed to it, inasmuch as they bring before the vision the definite and particular, which in their contrast to the substance present in the objects of Nature has to be given up in a determinate and persistent form. Where we find pantheism in its purity no plastic art is found as a mode of its presentation.
1. Once more we may adduce, as a first example of such pantheistic poetry, the literature of the Hindoos, which along with its fantastic symbolism has also elaborated the type of art under discussion with distinction. In other words the Hindoo race, as we have seen, proceed in their conceptions from the point of most abstract universality and unity, which is then carried forward to the specific shaping of gods such as Trimûrtis, Indras, and the rest. This process of definition, however, is not adhered to with constancy; but to a like extent is suffered once more to break up, so that we find inferior gods are absorbed in superior gods, and the highest of all in Brahman. From this it is sufficiently obvious that this Universal constitutes the one persistent and unalterable basis of all. And if, as we freely admit, the Hindoos evince the twofold impulse in their poetry, namely, either to exaggerate the particular existence, in order that it may appear to the senses compatible with the significance of the Absolute, or, in the converse case, to suffer every form of definition to pass as mere negation when contrasted with the one abstraction of Being, yet at the same time there is another aspect of their literature, in which we also find artistic representation under the purer mode of imaginative pantheism we have just described, a mode in which the immanence of the Divine is exalted above all particular existence in which it is presented to sense and which as such disappears. We may no doubt be rather inclined to recognize in this later mode of conception a certain similarity with that type of the immediate unity of pure thought which we found to be characteristic of the religious consciousness of the Parsees. Among the Parsees, however, the One and Excellent is conserved in its independence as itself a fact of Nature, that is, Light. With the Hindoos, on the contrary, the One, or Brahman, is merely the formless One; and this it is which in its transformations through the infinite variety of the phenomenal world, first gives rise to the pantheistic mode of representation. So we read of Krishna (Bhagavad-Gita, Lect. VII, II. 4 et seq.): "Earth, water and wind, air and fire, reason and egoity are the eight pieces of my essential force; yet knowest thou somewhat more in me, a more exalted essence, which animates the earthly and supports the world. In it all existences have their origin. Ay, verily, thou knowest I am the origin of the entire universe as also its annihilation. Aught higher than myself is not; in me is this All conjoined together, as a chaplet of pearls on a thread. I am the taste of sweetness in all that flows; I am the splendour in the sun and moon, the mystic Word in the sacred writings, manhood in man, the clean savour in the Earth, brightness in flame, in all Being Life, meditation in all who repent. In that which has Life the Power of Life, in the wise Wisdom, in the glorious Glory. Everything that is true of its kind, and everything that is specious and obscure proceeds out of me. I am not in them, but they are in me. Through the illusion of these three qualities all the world is made foolish, and knows me not who am unalterable. Moreover also the Divine illusion, even Mâya, is my own illusion, which is hard indeed to surpass, albeit all who follow after me step over this illusion." In this passage we have indicated in the most striking terms just such a substantive unity as the one above discussed, not merely from the point of view of its immanence in immediate sense, but also from that of its advance beyond and over all singularity.
In a similar manner Krishna affirms of himself that He is the most Excellent among all the different forms of existence (Lect. X, 21): "Among the star's I am the radiant sun, among the human signs the moon, among the sacred Books the Book of Hymns, among the senses the spiritual, Meru among the tops of the mountains, the lion among animals, the vowel A among all letters, among the seasons of the year the blooming spring-time, etc."
This enumeration, however, of superlative excellence, and we may add the description of that which is merely a change of forms, among which it is always one and the same thing that is envisaged, despite any superficial appearance such may give us at first of a prodigal imagination, is none the less, by reason of this very equality of content, extremely monotonous and in general empty and tedious.
2. Under a higher mode and in a freer manner from the subjective point of view we find, secondly, oriental pantheism is elaborated in Mohammedanism more particularly among the Persians.
And here we are confronted with a relation of some singularity when we direct our attention expressly to the point of view of the individual poet.
(a) To explain this more fully we would point out that so long as the poet yearns to behold the Divine in everything, and really so beholds it, he also surrenders his own personality; but, while doing so, he realizes quite as vividly the immanence of the Divine in his spiritual world thus expanded and delivered; and consequently there grows up within him that joyful ardour of the soul, that liberal happiness, that revel of bliss, which is so peculiar to the Oriental, who in freeing himself from his own particularity seems wholly to sink himself in the Eternal and Absolute, and henceforth to know and feel the image and presence of the Divine in all things. Such a self-absorption in the Divine, such an intoxicated life of bliss in God borders closely on mysticism. Under this aspect no volume is more famous than the Oschelaleddin-Rumi, of which Rückert, with the help of his marvellous powers of expression, which enable him to make light of both words and rhymes with all the wealth and freedom of the phantasy that comes so natural to the Persian poet, has supplied us with the fairest examples. Love to God, with whom man identifies himself in most boundless surrender, beholding Him as the One through every part of His Universe, with whom and to whom every and each thing is related and referred—this it is that gives us the focus of this type of thought, a centre which radiates in every direction.
(b) And, further, while in the true type of the sublime, as will appear shortly, the most excellent objects and the most glorious shapes are employed merely as the ornament of God, and as servants to celebrate the splendour and majesty of the One, being set before our eyes to do Him honour as Lord of all creation, in pantheism, on the contrary, it is the immanence of the Divine in external fact which exalts the determinate existence itself of the world, Nature, and humanity to its own self-substantial glory. The identical Life of Spirit in the phenomena of Nature and all human relations animates and spiritualizes the same in their own nature, and is further the source of that characteristic attitude of subjective feeling in the soul of the poet toward the objects he celebrates in his song. Suffused with the animating influx of this glory the soul is essentially serene, independent, free, secure in its comprehension and greatness; and in this positive identification of itself with such qualities it penetrates imaginatively with its life into the very heart of objective existence, sharing the restful unity that it finds there, and grows up in most blissful, most blithesome intimacy with the natural world and its munificence, with the drinking-booth no less than the beloved, and, in short, all that is held worthy of praise or affection. We find, no doubt, the same kind of self-absorption in the romantic temperament of the West. Generally speaking, however, and more particularly in the North, it is not so gladsome, spontaneous, or free from yearning; or, at least, it remains more exclusively shut up in itself, and is consequently selfish and sentimental. A spiritual mood of this type, in its depression and gloom, finds its most forceful outlet in the popular songs of barbarous peoples. The spontaneous and joyful emotional atmosphere is, on the contrary, congenial to the East, and particularly characteristic of the Mohammedan Persians, who openly and gladly surrender themselves with all their soul to the Divine influence, and indeed to everything that appears to merit such devotion, while they do not fail to retain the freedom of independence in such surrender, and consciously to preserve the same in their attitude to the world and all that surrounds them. We may, in fact, observe in the ardour of this passion, the most expansive ecstasy and parrhesia[70] of the emotional life, through which, in its inexhaustible wealth of gorgeous and splendid images, one emphatic note of joy, beauty, and happiness rings again and again. If the Oriental suffers or is unfortunate he takes his reverses as the unalterable fiat of Destiny, and falls back upon the strength of his own resources without any increase of depression, sensitiveness, or vexation of spirit. In the poetry of Hafis we hear often enough of the lover's woes and laments[71], as of many another kind, but our poet persists through grief, no less than in happiness, as free of care as ever. This is the mood of that sometime refrain:
For thanks, in that the present glow
Of friendship circles thee,
Light strong the taper e'en in woe,
And joyful be.