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# 2022-08-01 - Yogis on the Rhine
I ran across some interesting quotes in a new Project Gutenberg book:
> He who in the body hath obtained liberation is of no caste, of no
> sect, of no order; attends to no duties, adheres to no shastras, to
> no formulas, to no works of merit; he is beyond the reach of
> speech; he remains at a distance from all secular concerns; he has
> renounced the love and the knowledge of sensible objects; he is
> glorious as the autumnal sky; he flatters none, he honours none; he
> is not worshipped, he worships none; whether he practises and
> follows the customs of his country or not, this is his character.
In the fourteenth century, mystics were to be found among the lower
orders, whose ignorance and sloth carried negation almost as far as
this. They pretended to imitate the divine immutability by absolute
inaction. The dregs and refuse of mysticism along the Rhine are
equal in quality to its most ambitious produce on the banks of the
Ganges.
...
1320. Second week in October--A ride over to Fegersheim about Sir
Rudolf's new bascinet with the beaked ventaille. As I reached the
castle the ladies were just coming out for hawking, with a brave
company of knights and squires. They were fair to see, with their
copes and kirtles blue and white, and those fanciful new-fashioned
crowns on their heads, all glittering with gold and jewels. Sir
Rudolf stayed for me awhile and then followed them.
On my way back, rested at noon at a little hostelry, where I sat
before the door at a table, chatting with mine host. There ride up a
priest and monk with attendants. Holy Mary, what dresses! The monk
with bells on his horse's bridle, his hood fastened with a great
golden pin, wrought at the head into a true-love knot, his hair
growing long so as to hide his tonsure, his shoes embroidered and cut
lattice-wise. There was the priest with broad gold girdle, gown of
green and red, slashed after the newest mode, and a long sword and
dagger, very truly militant. I marvelled at the variety and unction
of the oaths they had at their service. The advantage of a
theological training was very manifest therein.
Scarcely were these worthies, with bag and baggage, well on their way
again when I espied, walking towards the inn, a giant of a man—some
three inches higher than I am (a sight I have not often seen),
miserably attired, dusty and travel-worn. When he came to where I
was he threw down his staff and bundle, cast his huge limbs along the
bench, gave a careless, surly glance at me, and, throwing back his
shaggy head of black hair, seemed about to sleep. Having pity on his
weariness I said, "Art thirsty, friend? the sun hath power to-day."
Thereupon he partly raised himself, looked fixedly at me, and then
drank off the tankard I pushed towards him, grunting out a something
which methought was meant for thanks. Being now curious, I asked him
straight, "Where he came from?"
He: "I never came from anywhere."
I: "What are you?"
He: "I am not."
I: "What will you?"
He: "I will not."
I: "This is passing strange. Tell me your name."
He: "Men call me the Nameless Wild."
I: "Not far off the mark either; you talk wildly enough. Where do
you come from? Whither are you bound?"
He: "I dwell in absolute Freedom."
I: "What is that?"
He: "When a man lives as he list, without distinction (Otherness,
Anderheit), without before or after. The man who hath in his Eternal
Nothing become nothing knows nought of distinctions."
I: "But to violate distinction is to violate order, and to break that
is to be a slave. That is not the freedom indeed, which the truth
gives. He that committeth sin is the servant of sin. No man can be
so utterly self-annihilated and lost in God,--can be such a very
nothing that there remains no remnant of the original difference
between creature and Creator. My soul and body are one, are not
separate; but they are distinct. So is it with the soul united to
God. Mark the difference, friend, I prithee, between separation and
distinction (Geschiedenheit und Unterschiedenheit)."
He: "The teacher saith that the saintly man is God's son, and what
Christ doth, that doth he."
I: "He saith that such man followeth Christ in righteousness. But
our personality must ever abide. Christ is son of God by nature, we
by grace. Your pride blinds you. You are enlightened with a false
light, coming whence I know not. You try and 'break through' to the
Oneness, and you break through reason and reverence."
He replied by telling me that I was in thick darkness, and the boy
coming with my horse, I left him.
As I rode homeward I thought on the contrast I had seen. This man who
came last is the natural consequent on the two who preceded him. So
doth a hypocritical, ghostly tyranny produce lawlessness. I have
seen the Priest and the Levite, and methinks one of the
thieves,--where is our good Samaritan? I know not which extreme is
the worst. One is selfish absoluteness, the other absolute
selfishness. Oh, for men among us who shall battle with each in the
strength of a truth above them both! Poor Alsace!
[Interesting point that the yogi is the natural consequence in
reaction to hypocritical tyranny. Though it seems the author jumped
to conclusions regarding disorder and lawlessness. He gives no
evidence of finding such fruit in the Nameless Wild.]
gopher://gopher.pglaf.org/1/6/8/6/4/68646/
tags: yoga
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