The conclusion of Mark Twain's last work expresses something of this, written close to his death (which he precognitively predicted would occur at the same time as Halley's Comet), by which point he had probably become familiar with Eastern spirituality in various forms:
No. 44, the Mysterious Stranger: Being an Ancient Tale Found in a Jug and Freely Translated from the Jug.
by Mark Twain
Ever since I stumbled across an exquisitely beautiful film version of this on HBO's "After School" film series many many years ago (still available on DVD I believe) staring Lance Kerwin and Chris Makepeace, I fell in love with this story.
Here's a very nice summary from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Stranger
Be sure to read Satan's startling exiting monologue which ends the book.
Based on all my many LSD, Mushroom and 5-Meo-DMT trips, apparently this quirky frizzy white haired cigar smoking smart alec, this Mark Twain, this Samuel Clemens was singularly gifted among all other authors ever to walk the Earth with what I have always intuitively felt since first reading it, was very probably the true explanation for Life, The Universe and Everything.
Its just an amazing thing having been written by that crochety old man so long ago, that still gives me goosebumps everytime I read it to this very day.
(If nothing else, jump down to the ending speach beginning with quote marks)
- Dwayne
The third version, called No. 44, the Mysterious Stranger: Being an Ancient Tale Found in a Jug and Freely Translated from the Jug, returns to Medieval Austria and tells of No. 44's mysterious appearance at the door of a print shop and his use of heavenly powers to expose the futility of mankind's existence. This version also introduces an idea Twain was toying with at the end of his life involving a duality of the "self", one being the "Waking Self" and the other being the "Dream Self". Twain explores these ideas through the use of "Duplicates", copies of the print shop workers made by No. 44. This version contains an actual ending, however the version is not considered as complete as Twain would have intended.
The edition published in 1916 is composed mainly of a heavily edited Chronicle of Young Satan with a slightly altered version of the ending from No. 44 tacked on. Paine, who had sole possession of Twain's unfinished work after Twain's death and kept them private, searched through Twain's manuscripts and found the proper intended ending for The Mysterious Stranger.
Summary of Paine's version
In 1590 a few boys are living happy sheltered lives in a remote Austrian village named Eseldorf. (Esel means "donkey" in German and can refer to a stupid or ignorant person, and "dorf" means village, so in essence it is a village of stupid people.) The story is narrated by one of the boys—Theodor, the village organist's son—in a first-person narrative. One day, a handsome teenage boy named Satan appears in the village. He explains that he is an angel and the nephew of the fallen angel Satan. Young Satan performs several magical feats. He claims to be able to foresee the future and informs the group of unfortunate events that will soon befall those they care about. The boys don't believe Satan's claims until one of his predictions comes true. Satan proceeds to describe further tragedies that will befall their friends. The boys beg Satan to intercede. Satan agrees, but operates under the technical definition of mercy. For instance, instead of a lingering death due to illness, Satan simply causes one of Theodor's friends to die immediately.
Mayhem ensues — witch trials, burnings, hangings, deaths and mass hysteria. Satan vanishes with a brief explanation:
"In a little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless solitudes without friend or comrade forever--for you will remain a thought, the only existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and set you free. Dream other dreams, and better!
"Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago - centuries, ages, eons, ago! - for you have existed, companionless, through all the eternities.
Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane - like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell - mouths mercy and invented hell - mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him! . . .
You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks - in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier.
It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream - a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"
