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Is it not the truest indication of our sincere love of God ? Emerson says : — ‘ The raptures of prayer and ecstacy of devotion lose all being in one Being.’ A Christian describes in a poem the union of the soul or Self with God as the essential feature of Christianity, "Dost thou know what Christianity is ? I shall tell it thee. It digs up thy own Ego, and carries thee to God. Thy soul is a monastery, wherein dwells oneness. Thou art Jerusalem, where the Eternal is enthroned ; The Holy Spirit works this miracle, for know that God’s being Rests in Holy Spirit as in His own spirit. The spirit of God gives to thy spirit the fire of the spirit, He moves in thy spirit beneath a thin veil ; If thou art delivered by the Spirit from manhood, Thou hast found eternal rest in the sanctuary of God ; He who has directed himself so that all passions are silent Will surely, like Jesus, ascend to heaven.”! 1. Quoted by Dr. Max Muller, Tlmtofhy, p. 343. 177 A Mohammedan poet, Jdmi, prays to God in these words: — “Thou lurkest under all the forms of thought, Under the form of all created things ; Look where I may, still nothing I discern But Thee throughout this universe, wherein Thyself Thou dost reflect, and through those eyes Of him whom Man Thou madest, scrutinise.” Thus among the Mohammedans almost the same idea is held by the Sufis. ‘ They believe that the souls of men differ infinitely in degree, but not at all in hind, from the divine spirit of which they are particles, and in which they will ultimately be absorbed.'^ It is declared in the Arabic work, the Mesnavi by Meul^nfi, Jalflluddin Rurni, Book I., that 'man’s soul, like the reed flute, ever sighs at its separation from the Divine source from which it sprang. This is the key-note of the mystic philosophy. God is everywhere, and everything is God; God is only the legitimate object of man’s love 'and aspiration, bht the veil of matter and of sense prevents the union of the two.’ The same idea is put in verse thus: — “Nature’s great secret let me now rehearse— Long have I pondered over the wondrous tale How Love immortal fills the universe, Tarrying till mortals shall His presence hail ; But man, alas 1 hath interposed a veil, And Love behind the lover’s self doth hide. Shall Love’s great kindness prove of none avail ? When will ye cast the veil of sense aside. Content in finding Love to lose all else beside ?” 1. See Sir William Jones’ Worhs, 1807, Vol IV, p. 212. 178 On realising the truth of the ‘ Thou art That ’ the qualified aspirant further realises that, ( ) * I am Brahman.* When this stage is reached through proper true self-knowledge he is free from all ( ) adjuncts, limitations, fetters, encum- brances, conditions. He is no more the body, nor the senses, nor the mind, but he is what he always has been, the True, the Real, the Self, whose nature is pure Existence, Intelligence, and Bliss. He now clearly sees that his true Self was hidden for a time by the Nescience, as the true nature of diamond or gold is hidden and its specific qualities become non-apparent, until it is cleaned by proper cutting or acid. As soon as the complete insight ( ) re- moves the impurities, he is again what he has been, and win remain so eternally. Or, to put this in another way, the enlightened Ved^ntin sees that his heart and head received the pure light from the highest lessons and became so luminous as to remove the Nescience ( ) and to illuminate the true nature of all the knowable ; and that he has regained his identity with the Highest Self. S'ankara’s Prayer. The Relation of Man with his Qod. The relation of man with his God, the perception and definition of which is declared by high authori- ties to be the purpose of true religion, is best describ- ed in the following prayer to God of (^ankara, to whom while rising, the Highest, as it were, has descended, and revealed Itself, and who raises the 179 lowest who conscientiously endeavour to mount up, and reveals It in turn to such worthies. It will also show in what noblest sense and deepest essence, the divine soul and God, the individual Self and the Highest Self, are regarded as one and the same. He prays: — 3 i ^ II” ‘ ( While ) regarding my body as myself, I am Thy servant ; ( while ) regarding my individual soul as myself, I am an atom, scintillation, ray, reflection of Thine ; ( but when ) regarding my ( interior ) Self as myself, I am the very Thou.’ The Vedanta proves by unimpeachable and unde- niable evidence, incontrovertible reasoning result- ing in immediate presentation or intuitional knowledge ( si^n^snTTJT ) and conviction, that the Three Selfs — the individual Self, the universal Self, and the highest Self — are one and the same. The seeming difterence between them is simply caused by the Nescience. The right knowledge destroys it by the conception of absolute Unity, arising from the complete comprehension of ‘Thou art That/ ( ) 'AH this Universe is veriJy Brah- man ; ( ) Brahman is Sachchiddnanda, that is, on surrendering the contradictory portions— phenomenal and finite — in the soul and in the uni- verse, all the Eeal that remains behind is identical with Brahman, the highest Self, just as three spaces —the space in a small jar, the space in a very large hall, and the whole endless space outside them— r. are, on surrendering or removing from our mind 180 the notions of the jar and the hall, not different but one and the same. The touch of Vedanta makes the whole world kin in the highest sense. The Ved&ntin thus sees not only his Self in the Highest Self, but also sees all as the Highest Self. He always sees one Reality be- hind the unreal. For the glory of his ecstatic ex- perience and highest rapturous happiness human language has no adequate expression. It is beyond the power of words to express and beyond the power of all thoughts of any one else to conceive. It is simply unspeakable. There is something grand in the idea of the Unity of all being. A knowledge of this noble idea leads us first to study man, to know man, and with all his weaknesses and follies, to learn to love man, which is one of the highest aims of good men. It also teaches us, like chemistry, how to extract what is excellent in man, and to let fall what is impure and useless. “There is a soul of goodness in things evil If one had power to distil it out” — Shakespeara There is no transcendental thought which is not called extravagant and absurd in its previous stage ; but what may seem most absurd in the limited ho- rizon of our so-called common-sense-wisdom, is sometimes, like a paradox, true in fact. Who, by the mere help of his common sense, can believe that common charcoal, divested of all its impurities, is, in fact, nothing but what, in its most simple state, makes the diamond !— But no truth is more plain to the experimenting chemist than this. 181 The analogy derived from the transformation of insects is beantifuUy applicable in the case of how a mortal human Self can become the immcwtal divine Highest Self, Brahman. The three states of the caterpillar, larva, and butterfly have been applied to the human being — its ignorant state, its initiated state, and its enlightened state or final release. If a sordid and crawling worm — an inhabitant of the dark and foetid dung-hill — entirely changes its form, rises into the air, and enjoys the sun beams, what wonder or impossibility is there for a man, who, living in good society, purifies himself and pursues true know- ledge, to rise into a state from which he has fallen, and recover his own source, the highest Self, Brah- man ? Some more instances may be given to illustrate how in Nature the best things come out of the lowest or meanest. Moral observers say: — Out of poverty grows virtue; out of suffering grows righteousness ; out of adversity grows the develop- ment of character ; out of bitter herbs the healing of maladies ; the fairest lotus comes up from the most forbidding ooze at the bottom of the lake ; the most brilliant and valuable diamonds are formed from purified carbons ; sapphire out of purified clay ; luscious fruit grows out of manure ; and to crown all, out of man, duly purified, comes or is unveiled Nescience-hidden God, Brahman. "I held it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in diverse tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.” Tennyson. In Memmam, I 16 182 The following striking passage, which appropria- tely illustrates a parallel idea in science, will, it is hoped, convince the reader of the truth of the above transcendental principle. It is confirmatory testi- mony, all the more valuable, considering the source from which it comes. "Where the untrained eye will see nothing but mire and dirt. Science ( S'dstra ) will often reveal exquisite possibilities. The mud we tread under our feet in the street is a grimy mixture of clay and sand, soot and water. Separate the sand, however, as Kuskin observes — let the atoms arrange them- selves in peace according to their nature — and you have the opal. Separate the clay, and it becomes a white earth, fit for the finest porcelain ; or, if it still further purifies itself, you have a sapphire. Take the soot, and if properly treated, it will give you a diamond. While, lastly, the water purified and distilled, will become a dew- drop, or crystalize into a lovely star."’^ What is said above of the dirty mixture is even truer of ( ) the mixture of soul ( the divine spirit ) and body, the Self and non-self. The reader will see that by extending a little the above illustrations, the truth of the great phrase ( ) ‘Thou art That’ will be plain.