infinite wealth and value by reason of the consciousness of
its unity with the divine infinite fullness. The usual method of
stating the difference between the Christian conception of God and the
Hindu conception of the root of all being is that the one is personal
and the other impersonal. But these terms are inadequate. Rather say
the one is perfectly personal and the other perfectly abstract.
Impersonality, even in its strictest meaning, _i.e._, without
"conscious separate existence as an intelligent and voluntary being,"
only partially expresses the conception of Buddhism. The full
conception rejects not only personality, but also every other quality;
the ultimate and the absolute of Buddhism--we may not even call it
being--is the absolutely abstract.

With regard, then, to the conception of the separate self and of the
supreme self, the Buddhistic view may be called "impersonal," not in
the sense that it lacks the consciousness of a separate self; not in
the sense that it emphasizes the universal unity--nay, the identity of
all the separate abstract selves and the infinite abstract self; but
in the sense that all the qualities and characteristics of human
beings, such as consciousness, thought, emotion, volition, and even
being itself, are rejected as unreal. The view is certainly
"impersonal," but it is much more. My objection to the description of
Buddhism as "impersonal," then, is not because the word is too strong,
but because it is too weak; it does not sufficiently characterize its
real nature. It is as much below materialism, as materialism is below
monotheism. Such a scheme of thought concerning the universe
necessarily reacts on those whom it possesses, to destroy what sense
they may have of the value of human personality; that which we hold to
be man's glory is broken into fragments and thrown away.

But this does not constitute the whole of the difficulty. This method
of introspective thought necessarily resulted in the doctrine of
Illusion. Nothing is what it seems to be. The reality of the chariot
is other than it appears. So too with the self and everything we see
or think. The ignoant are perfectly under the spell of the illusion
and cannot escape it. The deluded mind creates for itself the world of
being, with all its woes and evils. The great enlightenment is the
discovery of this fact and the power it gives to escape the illusion
and to see that the world is nothing but illusion. To see that the