08y | CR Book III, Chapter 5

mokkha, the Goal, the deathless Path, nibbana.
What saves you is that which makes you whole
(salinis=sarva=holos=whole), that which satis-
fies the isolated fragment's desire for comple-
tion.

The terminal point of the logical method
coincides with the last stage of the salvat-
ional approach. Search for selfhood thus aims
at total abstraction and at total concretness,
at complete isolation and at perfect complet-
eness, at total ownership through total estran-
gement.

The argument of this treatise sets, as arg-
uments do, the 'self' up against the 'other'. We a-
nalytically try, to see what a thing is by see-
ing what it is in itself, by itself, abstract-
ing or peeling off one layer of otherness af-
ter another. The first step (which corresponds
to the delimitation of what is merely 'mine')
would be to isolate the thing as 'inner'
against the environment as 'outer', and further
the thing as 'objective' against its presentat-
ions (as 'subjective'), thus obtaining a thing
as an object distinct not only from the sub-
ject attending, but from all presentations
whatever to which it attends. The second step
(which corresponds to the defining of 'me' or I')
would isolate the essential or substantial as
preacts of the thing against its accidental,
its merely individual, its superficial attrib-
utes (cf. bk I ch 3), against its external relat-
ions (bk viii ch 3), and its external conditions
(bk ii ch 5). The third step (which corresponds
to the isolation of my self) takes the thing
strictly itself by itself. It tends to be emp-
ty the self-being of any object of 'all' its
particular attributes; to take away 'all' relat-
ions, leaving only the Absolute; and also 'all'
conditions, ending up with the Unconditioned.
Thought is triumphant, and the world is slain.

When, however, we pay attention to the prac-
tice which underlies the argument, we find af-
ter some time that we had only a very dim re-
collection of our self when we defined it as
something just by itself, apart, secluded, isola-
ted. Although the existence of a self is an
open question (see ch.3), 'self' as a normative
concept is indispensable for the application