Pantheism, Its Story and Significance: Religions Ancient and ModernPicton, J. Allanson (James Allanson)
Religion
Pantheism, Its Story and Significance: Religions Ancient and Modern
Picton, J. Allanson (James Allanson)
Pantheism; Religion
Here we are clearly taught that the "self," or inmost reality of every
person and thing is the Eternal One, or Brahma, or God.
[Sidenote: Illustration from the Bhagavad Gîtâ.]
The same doctrine is taught in a more advanced form by the poem called
the "Bhagavad Gîtâ," the date of which is probably more than a thousand
years later than that of the Upanishad just quoted. In this poem,
Krishna, incarnate for the nonce as Arjuna's charioteer, reveals for a
special purpose his identity with Brahma, the Eternal All; and Arjuna,
when sufficiently instructed adores him thus:--
"O infinite Lord of Gods! the world's abode,
Thou undivided art, o'er all supreme.
Thou art the first of Gods, the ancient Sire,
The treasure-house supreme of all the worlds.
The Knowing and the Known, the highest seat.
From Thee the All has sprung, O boundless Form!
Varuna, Vayu, Agni, Yama thou,[6]
The Moon; the Sire and Grandsire too of men.
The Infinite in power, of boundless force,
The All thou dost embrace; the Thou art All."[7]
[Sidenote: Omission of Buddhism.]
These illustrations must suffice for Indian Pantheism. Because, with
Buddhism we have nothing to do. For, according to its ablest European
exponent (Professor T.W. Rhys Davids), that system of religion simply
ignored the conception of an All in All. And this not at all on
philosophical grounds, but because its aims were entirely practical. For
the aim of its founder was to show men how by a virtuous life, or lives,
they might at last attain annihilation--or, at any rate, the extinction
of the individual self, the apparent separateness of which was, in his
view, the source of all misery. And if he could teach his followers to
attain that salvation, he was entirely indifferent as to the opinions
they might hold about the ultimate nature of the world, provided only
that they did not fall into any heresy which proclaimed an immortal
soul.[8]
[Sidenote: Persian Religions, not strictly Pantheistic.]
[Sidenote: A World Drama or Process is a Human, not a Divine Aspect of
Things.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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