The dew is on the Lotus! Rise, Great Sun!

And lift my leaf and mix me with the wave.

Om mani padme hum, the Sunrise comes!
The Dewdrop slips into the shining sea!
Nirvana, the aim of every Buddhist in his earth-life, has
been described by a Buddhistic writer as follows: Nirvana is
a condition of heart and mind in which every earthly craving
is extinct; it is the cessation of every passion and desire, of
every feeling of ill-will, fear and sorrow. It is a mental state of
perfect rest and peace and joy, in the steadfast assurance of
deliverance attained, from all the imperfections of finite being.
It is a condition impossible to be defined in words, or to be
conceived by anyone still attached to the things of the world.
Only he knows what Nirvana is who has realized it in his own
heart. It is deliverance, and is attainable in this life. What many
Western writers describe as Nirvana is really the final stage
called by the Buddhist! Para-Nirvana in which the individual
soul blends into the One Reality when the dew drop slips
into the shining sea, and becomes one with the Infinite.
While the philosophy of Buddhism may be considered a
negative one the aim being a retreat rather than advance, or
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96
apparently so still it has a high moral value, and advances
moral ideals of the very highest. As Max Muller has said:
The Buddha addressed himself to all castes and outcasts. He
promised salvation to all, and he commanded his disciples to preach
his doctrines in all places and to all men. A sense of duty, extending
from the narrow limits of the house, the village, and the country, to the
ardent circle of mankind; a feeling of sympathy and brotherhood to all
men, the idea in fact of Humanity, were first pronounced by Buddha.
But, although it has changed its dwelling place, Buddhism
has left its influence upon Hindu thought, and its power is now
manifesting itself in influencing the modern thought of the
Western world. This has come about from various causes, chief
among which is probably the influence of and general interest
in modern Theosophy, the school established by Madame
Blavatsky. To this influence must be added the popularity of
the semi-Buddhistic conceptions of Schopenhauer and von
Hartmann, in their idea of the World-Will, and the general
leaning toward some of the original Buddhistic philosophical
teachings on the part of certain modern scientists. Buddha s
teaching that the Ultimate Reality is to be found only in a
conception of a Universal Law, rather than in a Being, hears a
striking analogy to the ideas of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus,
and to the fundamental ideas of our modern philosopher,
Herbert Spencer. Buddha s idea of the Creative Will which is
ever striving to manifest itself in ever-changing phenomenal
shape, form and variety, finds many modern followers in the
philosophical school of Voluntarism, the fundamental tenet
of which is that the ultimate nature of reality is to be conceived
as some form of Will, a view specially favored by Schopenhauer
and his followers.
The influence of Buddhism on modern Western thought is
exerted through two channels, apparently unconnected, but
still originally emerging from the same common source. Along
Vedantism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism And Sufiism.
97
one of these channels flows the stream of the Buddhistic
doctrine of reincarnation (rebirth) and Karma (cause and effect

operating in rebirth on the new life); along the other flows the
stream of the doctrine of the power of Thought and Will. The
first channel and its stream reaches the Western world through
the fields claimed by Theosophy; the second wends its way
through the somewhat diversified fields of the New Thought
movement.
While the doctrine of reincarnation and Karma is firmly held
by the orthodox Hindu schools of thought, it is nevertheless
true that it finds its greatest growth and richest flowering in the
Buddhistic garden. The Buddhists have reduced the doctrine of
reincarnation and Karma to a science, and the ordinary Hindu
presentation seems tame and subdued by comparison. The
conceptions entertained by Theosophy, so far as this particular
doctrine is concerned, were obtained directly from Buddhist
sources. Madame Blavatsky s writings on reincarnation and
Karma bear the impress of Buddhism, and still more plainly
does the mark show on Mr. Sinnett s statement of the doctrine
in his Esoteric Buddhism; while Col. Olcott, one of the
founders of the Theosophical Society, lived and died an ardent
Buddhist. Theosophy itself, while it has outgrown some of
the limitations of Buddhism and has moved into the general
field of Hindu and ancient Greek thought, must acknowledge
its indebtedness to Buddhism for its (Theosophy s) cardinal
doctrines of reincarnation and Karma. And the general interest
in these subjects manifested of late years in Western thought
may be readily traced to the school of Gautama, the Buddha.
Reincarnation, as every reader probably knows, is the doctrine
of repeated rebirth in the physical body the soul being held
to have risen by degrees from the lowest animal forms, thence
incarnating in a succession of human bodies, during many lives
and personalities, from whence it shall eventually move forward
to higher forms of life, until finally it shall enter into the blissful
state of Nirvana, bliss and freedom from rebirth. The term
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98
Nirvana is distinctly Buddhistic, the Hindu equivalent being
Moksha, meaning liberation, emancipation, divine absorption,
etc. Karma is the doctrine accompanying that of reincarnation,
and the term means The law of spiritual cause and effect, the
workings of which determine the successive incarnations of the
individual soul. Each act is held to generate Karma, or the seed,
of future action which will sprout, grow, blossom and bear
fruit in future lives. Karma is akin to fate, but a fate arising from
one s own actions, thoughts and deeds, rather than imposed
by providence.
It is interesting to notice how the idea of reincarnation and
Karma has grown in the minds of Western people during the
past two decades. Originally repugnant to the Western mind,
it has nevertheless managed to work its way to an acceptance
on the part of many people who are searching for the new
in philosophy and religion. It is now quite common to hear
people discussing the probability of their having lived before
the present life, and accounting for many of the happenings,
joyful or sorrowful, of the present life, upon the basis of Karma.
The other channel of Buddhistic thought, through which
is flowing a stream which is irrigating the Western lands, is
that which is bringing about the remarkable interest in
thought-force, will-power, etc., now noticeable on all sides.
While the orthodox Hindu schools recognize the power of
thought-force and will, they are too much taken up with the

dreamy, transcendental, metaphysical speculations to bestow

more than a passing notice to the subject. Not so with the
Buddhist! The Buddhist priesthood, in Thibet, Ceylon, and
in Japan, particularly, have devoted much time and study to
the subject of the thought-force and will. They have evolved
a distinctively Buddhistic psychology, of which the general
Western world knows little. Chief among their beliefs is that
thought-force and will are dynamic forces, capable of being
employed for good or evil, and which are operative over a
distance. The phenomena of hypnotism, telepathy, mental
Vedantism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism And Sufiism.