r
opinion, survives death. The brain, the nerves and the sense organs
obviously decay: the soul, you may say, is not a product of them, but
when they are destroyed or even injured, perceptive and intellectual
processes are inhibited and apparently rendered impossible. Must not
that which lives for ever be, as the Hindus think, independent of
thought and of sense-impressions?

I have observed in my reading that European philosophers are more ready
to talk about soul and spirit than to define them[54] and the same is
true of Indian philosophers. The word most commonly rendered by soul is
_atman_[55] but no one definition can be given for it, for some hold
that the soul is identical with the Universal Spirit, others that it is
merely of the same nature, still others that there are innumerable souls
uncreate and eternal, while the Buddhists deny the existence of a soul
_in toto_. But most Hindus who believe in the existence of an atman or
soul agree in thinking that it is the real self and essence of all human
beings (or for that matter of other beings): that it is eternal _a parte
ante_ and _a parte post_: that it is not subject to variation but passes
unchanged from one birth to another: that youth and age, joy and sorrow,
and all the accidents of human life are affections, not so much of the
soul as of the envelopes and limitations which surround it during its
pilgrimage: that the soul, if it can be released and disengaged from
these envelopes, is in itself knowledge and bliss, knowledge meaning the
immediate and intuitive knowledge of God. A proper comprehension of this
point of view will make us chary of labelling Indian thought as
pessimistic on the ground that it promises the soul something which we
are inclined to call unconsciousness.

In studying oriental religions sympathy and a desire to agree if
possible are the first requisites. For instance, he who says of a
certain ideal "this means annihilation and I do not like it" is on the
wrong way. The right way is to ascertain what many of our most
intelligent brothers mean by the cessation of mental activity and why it
is for them an ideal.

14. _Eastern Pessimism and Renunciation_

But the charge of pessimism against Eastern religions is so important
that we must consider other aspects of it, for though the charge is
wrong, it is wrong only because those who bring it do not use quite the
right word. And indeed it would be hard to find the right word in a
Euro