Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/60

46 course, it would not be capable of conceiving of non-existence. This is the circulus vitiosus which man, owing to the nature of his thinking apparatus, is not able to pass. As long as he thinks, his Ego is fully conscious of its existence and not able to grasp the idea of non-existence; but on the contrary, if his Ego loses consciousness of its existence, it has ceased to think and can thus grasp no ideas at all.

By a miracle of abstract reasoning, the philosopher of India conceived the idea of Nirvanah, the absolute Nothing, the absolute non-existence of matter and motion The human mind is capable of comprehending this conception of an absolute Nothing, when universe and Ego alike can cease to exist. But it is incapable of grasping the idea of an annihilation of the Ego, while the world lives on. How can these things around us, which are only there, because we are cognizant of them, whose existence outside of our perceptions would be absolutely inconceivable, how can they continue to exist if that which first gave them their existence, our Ego, which perceives them, has ceased to exist. It is inconceivable. We can grasp the idea of a Nirvanah, when the entire phenomena of the universe and the Ego, would cease simultaneously to exist; it is not only possible, but in a certain sense would prove a source of egotistical consolation to some minds. But that the Ego can cease to exist, while the world lives on, is an idea which can not enter upon our field of thought, bounded as it is, on all sides by the limitations of the Ego. We can be swept off our feet by a torrent of technical words and phrases, we can compose all sorts of philosophical formulas and definitions, and argue ourselves into a state of apparent conviction that we are conveying the ideas clearly and forcibly to our brains by constantly repeating certain definitions and axioms. But in reality,