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MYSTICISM IN INDIA
ever with nature and never against it or in other words being in love with nature that all other restrictions are prescribed. And what end do you achieve by the observance of this doctrine of universal love-universal brotherhood not of man only but of all living beings. We claim that when one has acquired that confirmed frame of wind-the positive feeling of universal love for all living creatures, even natural antipathy is held in abeyance; needless to add that no one harms or injures him. Al beings, men, animals, birds appoach him without fear and mix with him without reserve. In an extended description of the religious rites, inonastic life and superstitions of the Siamese, de la Louhere cites among other things the wonderful power over wild beasts possessed by the Talapoin (the monks or the holy men of Buddha whose first command was protection of all living beings). The Talapoin of Sia in-he says-will pass whole weeks in the dense woods under & spall awning of branches and palm-leaves and never make a fire in the night to scare away the wild beasts, as all other people do who travel through the woods of this country. The people considar it a miracle that no Talapoin is ever devoured. The tigers, elephants and rhinoceroses with which the neighbourhood abounds respect him; and travellers placed in secure ambuscade have often seen these wild beasts lick the hands and feet of the sleeping Talapoin. The Jain history also testifies to the same fact. Mahavirā the twenty-fourth prophet of the Jains who lived 600
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