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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 | |
# Tags | |
yoga |