Gnāna Yoga belongs to the school of the Vedānta philosophy. Vedānta is "Veda" and "Anta" which means "End," so that Vedānta means End of the Veda—the Aim or Goal of the Veda; and the word Veda is the original of the English word "Wisdom" (Swedish, Visdom) from Sanscrit, "Vida," to know. Veda means knowledge of the Reality, the Truth. The Vedānta Aphorisms of Vedavyasa are but Indices to the Principles of the Upanishads—the Wisdom part of the Veda. There are two Schools of Vedānta, the Old and the New. The Old possesses the true interpretation of the Aphorisms, the New is deluded by their false interpretations, is only about two thousand years old and has a comparatively small number of adherents. The Old school is founded on Parināmbād, the new is founded on Vivartabād, The Old school holds that the universe is composed of the ever changeful manifestations of the Will (Energy) of the One Changeless Deity (Parināmbād), the New calls the whole universe, in fact, all that is visible and perceptible, Māyā (Illusion), in the sense that it never existed, does not exist now and will never exist. All that exists is Brahm, the Divine Essence, and we are That. All else is illusion wrought in our mind through ignorance, just as the mistaking a piece of rope lying in some dark place for a snake is due to the illusion of the darkness. This theory with its plausible analogy is all wrong. The universe is not all illusion though it is the changeful force-materialization of the Unchangeful One Substance. The force or energy or light or reflection of a substance is inseparable from it and is pervaded by it and partakes of its spirit. This materialized force-reflection of Brahm not only possesses its substance at bottom but must be called a part of it as the light of a flame or reflection of a light is undeniably its part. The analogy of the snake and rope is, therefore, not true of God and the Universe: The snake is merely the conjuration of the darkness and not born of the rope; but the universe is born of Brahm (the rope). The theory that it is born of the illusion of our ignorance, is absurd in that it involves accepting that "ignorance" to be something self-existent, that it has an independent existence, separate from the All-in-All, the One-without-a-Second. If not, whence is this "ignorance" which has such power of illusion over our mind and senses? What is it? Whence does it come? The Neo-Vedāntist answers, it is something inexplicable, His Māyā is inexplicable—the argument of one in darkness himself. This New Vedāntic thought has done and is doing more harm to the world than any other religious theory. It is a worse delusion than the delusion of Māyā. SECTION XXII. BHAKTI YOGA.