It is just because we cannot easily dissociate
individuality from individualism that we turn from the sublime
conception of primitive philosophy as from what concerns us as little as
the ceaseless activity and germination in other brains of thought once
thrown off and severed from the thinking source, which is the
immortality promised by Mr. Frederick Harrison to the select specimens
of humanity whose thoughts have any reproductive power. It is not a
mere preference of nothingness, or unconscious absorption, to limitation
that inspires the intense yearning of the Hindu mind for Nirvana. Even
in the Upanishads there are many evidences of a contrary belief, while
in the Sankhya the aphorisms of Kapila unmistakably vindicate the
individuality of soul (spirit). Individual consciousness is maintained,
perhaps infinitely intensified, but its "matter" is no longer personal.
Only try to realize what "freedom from desire," the favourite phrase in
which individualism is negated in these systems, implies. Even in that
form of devotion which consists in action, the soul is warned in the
Bhagavad-Gita that it must be indifferent to results.
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