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202 understand the esoteric doctrines of any good reli- gion, is sure to find therein, among its crown and choicest jewels, thoughts and notions, — developed or in embryo— more or less approaching those which are infused in the VedS.nta. The supreme and universal excellence of the Vedanta is acknowledged by those greatest thinkers of foreign countries as well as those of India, who have been fortunate enough to understand it. It possesses a charm of its own. It strikes out of other minds that fire which sets light to original thoughts. It creates a sublimity and harmonious unity, which satisfy both the aspirations of the heai’t and the de- mands of the intellect. Seeing Good Everywhere. The purifying and ennobling influence of the Vedanta on its students is wonderful. It teaches them to see, with the eye of knowledge, everywhere Brahman, i. e., Being-Thought-Bliss. ^ankara’s AparoJcsMnuhhUti. ‘Having made the sight — mind — ^full of knowledge, one should see the woi ld full of Brahman, bliss, &c,’ A genuine student learns to inhale happiness with the air he breathes. Milton says “The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” There are two kinds of sight — ^mind. One sees good in evil, and another sees evil in good. One sees a beautiful rose in the thorns, and admires and enjoys it. The other sees the thorns surround- 203 ing the rose, and despises it. In a pure shallow pool there is the mud lying at the bottom, and an image of the heavens above. The seer of good sees therein the image of the heavens, while the other sees only the mud. The Veddnta inculcates in us the former habit of perceiving good everywhere. It establishes that everything is fuU of happiness if we know how to derive it. Shakespeare says : — "All places that the eye of Heaven visits Are to the wise man ports and happy havena” The Veddnta has nothing to fear from research and progress of any kind, but on the contrary, it will grow stronger and fuller with every advance- ment of true philosophy and sound science, remain- ing changeless amidst perpetual change, and exempt from all the influence of time and space and causali- ty. It allows Science to supply all the premises on which its conclusions about the Universe are based. It is a reasoned system of knowledge. It calls forth one’s admiration in the same degree as he is able to fathom its depth. It is truly said that all the triumphs of truth and genius in every country and every age have been the triumphs of the spirit of the transcendental Vedanta doctrines, the God of which is everywhere. It may be repeated here that there is no religion, from fetichism to a most exalted one, that could or might be conceived, but comes under its wing. It is all-pervading and all-including. The true Ved&ntin has to love every good thing and hate nothing, though he has to pity many. It is his bounden duty, as long as he 204 lives in the world, to show himself worthy of the Highest Self in him, by learning the best that is known and thought in the world, and then propa* gating the same, and doing what may lead all to- wards perfection and bliss. He must, in brief, dis- interestedly try his best to make others as well as himself, better, wiser, and happier, and thus glorify Him from whom he has come and to whom he is to return at last. “Seeking nothing, he gains all ; Foregoing self, the Universe grows ‘ L’ ” Conclusion Though the all-absorbing knowledge of the all- embracing and all-important Vedanta is self-evidenc- ing, being the most sublime, it is not within easy reach of all. A few of the privileged, — whose super- conscious faculty of mind is liberated from finite anxieties, and is duly developed, whose Divine Essence is discovered, and who are no longer their finite seifs, can apprehend the necessary, xmiversal, and apodictical truths of the Vedilnta which scales the loftiest height and plumbs abysmal depth. It teaches us to find the One in Many and the Many in One. The Vedanta tries, however, by various means — arguments, reasonings, illustrations, parallel passages from the highest authorities, repetitions, varying expressions, &c., — to make its truths intelligible to the student, on whose preparation and capacity of sound pure mind depends their attainment and reali- zation. The Vedanta furnishes flowers. The student 205 is expected to imitate the bee. He should gather the stores of the flowers and transmute them into honey. His Learned Reverence Vasis'tha, in congratulat- ing his beloved pupil, E4ma, on his having success- fully annihilated Nescience and compre- hended the highest truth, observes that:— - "O R&mal it is only the discriminating high intellect of the student, which is the cause of the highest knowledge.” It is truly said that man is the architect of his own goodness, greatness, and happiness. A great philosopher rightly remarks that, — ''Just as the sun cannot shed its light but to the eye that sees it, nor music sound but to the hearing ear, so the value of all masterly work is conditioned by the kinship and capacity of the mind to which it speaks The impression made by a master- piece varies with the capacity of the mind to under- stand it Every man must necessarily take his chief pleasure in the work of people like him... The works of genius cannot be fully enjoyed except by those who are themselves of the privi- leged order.” ^ Amongst Philosophical and Transcendental ideas, there are some which, in spite of all efforts, cannot become international. " There is,” says Mr. Arthur Balfour, “ in matters speculative, as in matters poetical, a certain amount of natmal protection for J. The Art of lAtoraturo by A. Schopenhauer, pp, 94, 96, 96. 18 206 the home-producer, which commentators and trans* lators seem unable altogether to overcome." Of so vast a subject as the Vedanta only a glimpse of a few principal points could be hinted at here in this sketch. It will be evident therefrom that the purpose of it is to discover the truth, irresistible and neces- sary truth, scattered more or less in all religions, that there is but the one real Unity underlying all phenomenal multiplicity. It is, therefore, specially called the Advaita Vedanta. It teaches non-duality or Monism. It demonstrates that there exists only one all-embracing absolute Being, Brah- man ; all difference (^, and plurality are illusory. The entire complex of pheno- menal existence is considered as true as long as <fw5r) the knowledge of Brahman being the Self of all has not ai'isen ; just as the phantoms of a dream are considered to be true until the sleeper awakes. (Br. S, II, 1, 14). It demonstrates that all things proceed from, live in, and are resolved into. Brahman, the Sal-chit- dnanda, Existence-Intelligence-Bliss, the Universal, the Absolute, the Essential Spirit, Which is space- less, timeless, and causeless, and upon an infinitesimal part of which is super-imposed by Nescience the visible universe, the perishable and ever-perishing phenomenon. Man, men, are necessary singulars in whom Brahman (the noumenon) and the phenomenal or the universal and the particular meet and are realised. It establishes the presence of Brahman in all things, and demonstratively reduces all things 207 into Its ideviAity and unity. All things by defined gradations ascend to unity. How this truth is the essential principle for man’s Summum honum, will be seen from the following:— Gravity is said to be 'the self-internality ( the being within self) of matter, and its longing to come to itself’ is now a universally admitted fact. The centre of gravity of a body is the oneness which it seeks. The same tendency towards reduction of multiplici- ty into individuality, unity, oneness, is the funda- mental princiiale of universal gravitation, of the whole solar system. There is no rest for a body till it is united to its centre, which it pei'petually seeks. This is the nature of the universal insentient mat- ter. How immensely greater must it be of the sentient soul, the spirit, confined in matter ? How could there be any rest or happiness till its unity with its centre, the highest Self, is an accomplished fact ? The Vedanta teaches us ‘how blessed it is to have the oi'b of the mind concentric with the orb of the Universe,’ and how to reach the highest beatitude by being re-instated in Brahman, the highest Self and centre of all. It is necessary here to draw the student^s atten- tion to the one characteristic feature of the Vedanta in relation to the science of thought. We are familiar with the two forms of the Syllogism : — viz., ( 1 ) the Aristotelian Deduction, under which we have a conr- sideration of those transcendental facts or traths acquired intuitively or inductively, through which alone experience becomes possible, or which leads 208 from; the universal to the particular and individual ; ( 2 ) the Baconian Induction, which leads from the particular to the universal. Besides these two forms, viz., ( 1 ) Deduction,—* passing from more general to less general truths, and ( 2 ) Induction, — the contrary process of passing from less to more general truths, — there is a third form, that of ( 3 ) Identification. This is a character- istically especial form of the Vedanta philosophy. It is termed ( ^ ). This Jahadajahad — or Bhdgatydga-Laxan^'^ is an Indication in which, Avhen two things of the same nature, but with different adjuncts, or different names and forms, are concerned, there is the abandonment of the conflicting adjuncts or parts, and the reten- tion of the substrate, or the part, which is the same. The rmification of the same remaining substance or part is the Identification.