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BUDDHISM
as potential Buddhas. This is a view at once democratic and aristocratic-basically the same vicw as that of the ancient Jaina system and the doctrine of Gosāla. Indeed, in all of the later Indian philosophic disciplines dedicated to the realization of the hidden truth through an attainment of individual perfection, this view is reflected, one way or another. Its main principle is, that perfection is not something added or acquired from without, but rather, the very thing that is already potential within, as the basic actuality of the individual. The proper metaphor, therefore, for the Indian view of the process of fulfillment is not that of progress, growth, evolution, or expansion into greater external spheres, but Self-recollection. The effort of the pupil is to bring into consciousness what already reposes in a hidden state, dormant and quiescent, as the timeless reality of his being.
This is the basic Indian concept of the way-a fundamentally static view of the "march to enlightenment" (bodhicaryā). In the Yoga-sūdras the goal is represented as the attainment of “isolation-integration” (kaivalya), in the Sankhya as the achievement of "discriminating insight" (viveka), in Vedānta as the realization of the "Transcendental Self” (ātman-brahman), and in Buddhism as “Enlightenment" (bodhi); but in essence these goals are one. Something that was stained, impaired, temporarily inactive and out of contact, polluted, obscured, not shining forth in its supreme light, not manifesting its boundless strength and prodigious faculties, becomes reinstated, restored to its native glory, cleansed, awake, and pristine. The process is compared to that of the polishing of a crystal, or the cleaning of a mirror that has somehow become besmeared and soiled. Pta
The purification of the gross body is properly the first step, and this is best effected through the physical exercises and processes of Hatha Yoga: a cleansing of the intestinal canal through
04" Editor's note: Nāgārjuna's doctrine of the Void rendered this image archaic; nevertheless, it continued to serve as a respected metaphor until
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