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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
conversion of jinns is simply indicative of the fact that some beings of the goblin tribe were once seen listening to his discourses.
The life of Mahomed, thus, is the life of a man whose habits of meditation and retirement in seclusion had enlarged his consciousness to a certain extent, and had brought to him knowledge of things generally unknown to humanity at large. His greatness, as such, cannot be denied ; and the greatest feature of that greatness is that he never claimed to be greater than what he actually was,--a prophet, or seer.
There, in the seclusion of the caves of Mount Hira, he used to become absorbed in holy meditation. One day, all of a sudden and without warning, the scales fell off his eyes, and brought before his view things which are generally hidden from the gaze of the profane ; he found himself in the presence of the arch-angel. "
* The angel Gabriel is but another aspect of one's own Soul This is borne out not only from the meaning of the word Jesus,' which, in Arabic, signifies both the soul and the arch-angel (see The Philosophy of Islam, p. 30), but can be easily verified by any one who would seriously practise yoga for a few months. The concentration of mind on the nervous plexus known as Ajna, situate in the brain behind the eye-brows, if sufficiently intense, will enable the soul to perceive its own lastre, reflected in the outer atmosphere. It is this lustre from the real Self which is described as the archangel Gabriel. The Shiva Samhita has it :
“When the yogi thinks of the great Soul, after rolling back his eyes, and concentrates his mind to the forehead, then he can perceive the lustre from the great Soul. That clever yogi who always meditates in the above-mentioned way, evinces the great Soul within himself, and can even hold communion with 'Him."
It is interesting to note in connection with the Gabriel legend that Sir Syed Ahmad Khan who was a staunch Mahomedan, declined
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