….
Perhaps there are no things out of which we get so little of the truth
as the truisms; especially when they are really true. We are all in the
habit of saying certain things about Asia, which are true enough but
which hardly help us because we do not understand their truth; as that
Asia is old or looks to the past or is not progressive. Now it is true
that Christendom is more progressive, in a sense that has very little to
do with the rather provincial notion of an endless fuss of political
improvement. Christendom does believe, for Christianity does believe,
that man can eventually get somewhere, here or hereafter, or in various
ways according to various doctrines. The world's desire can somehow be
satisfied as desires are satisfied, whether by a new life or an old love
or some form of positive possession and fulfilment. For the rest, we all
know there is a rhythm and not a mere progress in things, that things
rise and fall; only with us the rhythm is a fairly free and incalculable
rhythm. For most of Asia the rhythm has hardened into a recurrence. It
is no longer merely a rather topsy-turvy sort of world; it is a wheel.
What has happened to all those highly intelligent and highly civilised
peoples is that they have been caught up in a sort of cosmic rotation,
of which the hollow hub is really nothing. In that sense the worst part
of existence is that it may just as well go on like that forever. That
is what we really mean when we say that Asia is old or unprogressive or
looking backwards. That is why we see even her curved swords as arcs
broken from that blinding wheel; why we see her serpentine ornament as
returning everywhere, like a snake that is never slain. It has very
little to do with the political varnish of progress; all Asiatics might
have top-hats on their heads but if they had this spirit still in their
hearts, they would only think the hats would vanish and come round again
like the planets; not that running after a hat could lead them to heaven
or even to home.
Now when the genius of Buddha arose to deal with the matter, this sort
of cosmic sentiment was already common to almost everything in the east.
There was indeed the jungle of an extraordinarily extravagant and almost
asphyxiating mythology. Nevertheless it is possible to have more
sympathy with this popular fruitfulness in folk-lore than with some of
the higher pessimism that might have withered it. It must always be
remembered, however, when all fair allowances are made, that a great
deal of spontaneous eastern imagery really is idolatry; the local and
literal worship of an idol. This is probably not true of the ancient
Brahminical system, at least as seen by Brahmins. But that phrase alone
will remind us of a reality of much greater moment. This great reality
is the Caste System of ancient India. It may have had some of the
practical advantages of the Guild System of Medieval Europe. But it
contrasts not only with that Christian democracy, but with every extreme
type of Christian aristocracy, in the fact that it does really conceive
the social superiority as a spiritual superiority. This not only divides
it fundamentally from the fraternity of Christendom, but leaves it
standing like a mighty and terraced mountain of pride between the
relatively egalitarian levels both of Islam and of China. But the fixity
of this formation through thousands of years is another illustration of
that spirit of repetition that has marked time from time immemorial. Now
we may also presume the prevalence of another idea which we associate
with the Buddhists as interpreted by the Theosophists. As a fact, some
of the strictest Buddhists repudiate the idea and still more scornfully
repudiate the Theosophists. But whether the idea is in Buddhism, or only
in the birthplace of Buddhism, or only in a tradition or a travesty of
Buddhism, it is an idea entirely proper to this principle of recurrence.
I mean of course the idea of Reincarnation.
But Reincarnation is not really a mystical idea. It is not really a
transcendental idea, or in that sense a religious idea. Mysticism
conceives something transcending experience; religion seeks glimpses of
a better good or a worse evil than experience can give. Reincarnation
need only extend experiences in the sense of repeating them. It is no
more transcendental for a man to remember what he did in Babylon before
he was born than to remember what he did in Brixton before he had a
knock on the head. His successive lives need not be any more than human
lives, under whatever limitations burden human life. It has nothing to
do with seeing God or even conjuring up the devil. In other words,
reincarnation as such does not necessarily escape from the wheel of
destiny, in some sense it is the wheel of destiny And whether it was
something that Buddha founded, or something that Buddha found, or
something that Buddha entirely renounced when he found, it is certainly
something having the general character of that Asiatic atmosphere in
which he had to play his part. And the part he played was that of an
intellectual philosopher, with a particular theory about the right
intellectual attitude towards it.
....
Read full article at: http://www.chesterton.org/introduction-to-job/
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