CHAPTER IV Reality Omnipresent If one knows Him as Brahman the Non-Being, he becomes merely the non-existent. If one knows that Brahman Is, then is he known as the real in existence. Taittiriya Upanishad.¹ Since, then, we admit both the claim of the pure Spirit to manifest in us its absolute freedom and the claim of universal Matter to be the mould and condition of our manifestation, we have to find a truth that can entirely reconcile these antagonists and can give to both their due portion in Life and their due justification in Thought, amercing neither of its rights, denying in neither the sovereign truth from which even its errors, even the

CHAPTER VIII The Methods of Vedantic Knowledge This secret Self in all beings is not apparent, but it is seen by means of the supreme reason, the subtle, by those who have the subtle vision. Katha Upanishad.¹ BUT what then is the working of this Sachchidananda in the world and by what process of things are the relations between itself and the ego which figures it first formed, then led to their consummation? For on those relations and on the process they follow depend the whole philosophy and practice of a divine life for man. We arrive at the conception and at the knowledge of a divine existence by exceeding the evidence of the sense

CHAPTER X Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge They see the Self in the Self by the Self. Gita. Where there is duality, there other sees other, other hears, touches, thinks of, knows other. But when one sees all as the Self, by what shall one know it? it is by the Self that one knows all this that is.... All betrays him who sees all elsewhere than in the Self; for all this that is is the Brahman, all beings and all this that is are this Self. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. The Self-Existent has pierced the doors of sense outward, therefore one sees things outwardly and sees not in one's inner being. Rare

CHAPTER V The Cosmic Illusion; Mind, Dream and Hallucination Thou who hast come to this transient and unhappy world, turn to Me. Gita.1 This Self is a self of Knowledge, an inner light in the heart; he is the conscious being common to all the states of being and moves in both worlds. He becomes a dream-self and passes beyond this world and its forms of death.... There are two planes of this con- scious being, this and the other worlds; a third state is their place of joining, the state of dream, and when he stands in this place of their joining, he sees both planes of his existence, this world and the other wo