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Nor was it possible to help the admission; for we have as much reason to ascribe to animals, as we have to attribute to our fellow-men, the power, not only of perceiving external objects as external, and thus practically recognizing the difference between the self and the not-self; but that of distinguishing between like and unlike, and between simultaneous and successive things.
“Thou that does know the Self and the not-Self, expert in every work: endowed with self-restraint and perfect same-sightedness towards every creature free from the sense of I and my thy power and energy are equal to my own, and thou hast practised the most severe discipline.” The Mahābhārata. The Great God thus addresses Shakti, when he asks her to describe the duties of women.
Knowledge is a form of union of Self and not-Self; like all union, it is impaired by dominion, and therefore by any attempt to force the universe into conformity with what we find in ourselves.
Strictly speaking, the existence of a "self" and of a "not-self" are hypotheses by which we account for the facts of consciousness.
And as the essential nature of the Self is of one and the same kind, viz. knowledge or intelligence, in all beings from gods down to plants, the text rightly asserts the unity of the Self 'that Self is all this'; and denies all otherness from the Self, on the ground of the characteristic attributes of gods and so on really being of the nature of the Not-self, 'he is abandoned by everything, &c.
But neither of the existence of "self," nor of that of "not-self," have we, or can we by any possibility have, any such unquestionable and immediate certainty as we have of the states of consciousness which we consider to be their effects. They are not immediately observed facts, but results of the application of the law of causation to those facts.
Nor was it possible to help the admission; for we have as much reason to ascribe to animals, as we have to attribute to our fellow-men, the power, not only of perceiving external objects as external, and thus practically recognizing the difference between the self and the not-self; but that of distinguishing between like and unlike, and between simultaneous and successive things.
The coal scuttle is made to proclaim causal relation between the self in effort and the not-self in response more satisfactorily than the rag doll; and the manifest glee over the contortions of the playful father whose hand is slapped is not innate cruelty but the delight of successful experiment in causation.
This view, if our previous discussions were correct, is untrue; but in addition to being untrue, it has the effect of robbing philosophic contemplation of all that gives it value, since it fetters contemplation to Self. What it calls knowledge is not a union with the not-Self, but a set of prejudices, habits, and desires, making an impenetrable veil between us and the world beyond.
Amongst the Hinḍus it is a commonplace to assert the possibilities of yoga, that a man can now, as much as in the days of the Manu or of the great Ṛiṣhis, do what They did, can free himself from the physical body, can travel into other worlds of the systems, can acquaint himself with the forces and objects of those worlds, and carry on as definite a study of the Not-Self in those worlds, as anyone who wishes to do so may carry on a definite study of the Not-Self in the physical world.
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