In the paper, "The Anti-self in Yeats's Per Amica Silentia Lunae" published on Dec. 2004, I studied the theory of Yeats's anti-self in the occultic meditation. In "Ego Dominus Tuss," Ille finally found his anti-self. In "Anima Hominis," Yeats said that the saint like Christ and Buddha, and the poets like Dante and Keats attained the anti-self. The anti-self is the opposite of daily self and the egoless self. After leaving the Golden Dawn in 1917 Yeats explored a wide range of meditative traditions such as Zen Buddhism, Upanishads, Tibetan Mysticism and Chinese Taoism. Throughout his poetic career, Yeats defined poetry, and indeed all art, as a form of meditation, as an experience which can reveal the unified "Self," defined by the Upanishads, and unlock its creative energy stored in the "deep of the mind." In "Discoveries," Yeats said that the more he tried to make his art deliberately beautiful, the more he follow the opposite of himself. In this paper I argue that Yeats's anti-self is similar to the "Self" of Upanishads and the Buddhahood of Zen Buddhism. In "The Double Vision of Michael Robartes" the girl dancing between a Sphinx and a Buddha in the fifteenth night is the anti-self of Yeats. In a moment the girl, the Sphinx, the Buddha and the poet himself had overthrown time in contemplation. They remain motionless in the contemplation of their real nature, Buddhahood. Full moon is the light of Samadhi and Turiya which is the forth state corresponding to the whole sacred word "AUM," pure personality, the "Self" of Upanishads. Only when Yeats becomes the anti-self he can be a totally subjective mind, overcome the illusion of duality, and find a "revelation of realty." It is a deliverance that leads simply to seeing things the way they really are, in their most naked reality. The process of spiritual realization is cognitive, for knowledge unites the knower and the known together, reverting to the language of "A Dialogue of Soul and Self," intellect no longer knows/ Is from Ought, or Knower from the Known. "The Self is Brahman": the individual soul is seen to be the universal spirit. When each man realize that his original nature is the eternal spirit, no matter how ordinary he is, he will enter Buddhahood. Like Bodhisattvas who, on the verge of their own enlightenment, vow to hold themselves from that final bliss until all sentient beings are released from the phenomenal world Yeats would like to be an Avalokitesvara in this rag-and-bone shop.

This paper is an attempt to discuss Yeats' meditative poem and its formative process. Before taking up the main subject, I will survey the background of the meditative poem. The most notable of meditative practices were the Ignation meditations that synthesized several medieval branches of meditation and gave them new echo in the early modern world. These meditation then formed the structural backbone of poems that also demanded a similar type of ordered contemplation by Donne, Herbert, Hopkins and Wordsworth. Also Yeats clearly fits into this English meditative tradition due to the Irish and mystical elements but works with meditative techniques in a quite novel manner. The techniques of meditation become significant for their impact on how a poem works to trace the mind's progress. Yeats's poems, especially his mature poems, develop many of the imageable patterns and employ similar technique. There is a close correspondence between meditative discipline and the creative imagination. If we cannot imagination ourselves as different from what we are and assume that second self, we cannot impose a discipline upon ourselves. It is the creation of this self that a meditative poem records. A self is ideally one with itself, with other human beings, with created nature, and with the supernatural. Thus the self of meditative poetry speaks a language based on that of common men, but includes whatever in its own experience is unique and individual. In conclusion, Yeats' meditation allows him to reach that Unity of Being where the oppositions of change and changelessness, time and eternity, are reconciled. Toward the union of "the powers of the soul," Yeats's "Unity of Being" by disciplined effort makes his way, while creation of the poetry plays its part in the struggle. Unity of Being is both the resolution to the tension between opposites and the point at which all things connect.

Per Amica Silentia Lunae (Yeats translated it into Through the Friendly Silences of Moon) was written between January and May of 1917, and consists of a Prologue and an Epilogue for Iseult Gonne, "Ego Dominus Tuss," Anima Hominis and Anima Mundi. In Anima Mundi Yeats said, "I have always sought to bring my mind close to the mind of Indian and Japanese poets, old women in Connacht, mediums in Soho, lay brothers whom I imagine dreaming in some mediaeval monastery the dreams of their village, learned authors who refer all to antiquity: to immerse it in the general mind where that mind is scarce separable from what we have began to call 'the subconscious'... ." In the background of his theory of anti-self there are Indian and Japanese Religious thought, Celtic folklore, Spiritualism, the Order of Golden Dawn, and the great poet Dante. "Ego Dominus Tuss" is a dialogue between two men, Hic and Ille, who discuss poetry and creative process. Ille, like Yeats, is a daimonic poet walking in the moonlight. For Yeats, lunar and subjective were always the antitheses to solar and objective. Poesis called for complete subjectivity, for entry into the friendly silence of the moon. The moon is always associated with feminine divinity. With the help of a mask, Ille is calling to the opposite of his daily self, his anti-self. In the end of the poem, Ille found his anti-self. In Anima Hominis Yeats said that the saint like Christ and Buddha, and the poets like Dante and Keats attained the anti-self. The anti-self is a egoless self, the higher self. Saint, hero, and poet are all inspired. Yeats said, "Saint or hero works in his own flesh and blood and not in paper or parchment, have more deliberate understanding of that other flesh and blood." Only when Yeats became the anti-self could he become a totally subjective mind, overcome the illusion of duality, and find a "revelation of realty." Yeats could receive daimonic inspiration only during visionary experiences. Finally Yeats found the anti-self he felt ecstasy. According to his theory, the production of art was an expression of the artist's longing for "Unity of Being." In Per Amica silentia Lunae Yeats said "the poet, because he may not stand within the sacred house but lives amid the whirlwinds that beset its threshold, may find his pardon."