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a world-age; at the beginning of a world-age, again, I emanate them. Hidden in nature which is Mine Own, I emanate again and again all this multitude of beings, helpless by the force of Nature. Under Me as Supervisor, Nature sends forth the moving and unmoving; because of this the universe revolves. Nor do these works bind Me...enthroned on high, unattached to action."
The Qur'an also declares :--
"His throne is extended over the heavens and the earth, and the care of them burdeneth him not." (Chap. II.)
GOD.
The idea conveyed is that creation is not the outcome of a deliberate effort on the part of God, but results from his functional activity, so that no desire can be attributed to him for world-making. In this sense it is that worldmaking is said to be the lila (sport) of the Lord.
But this is fatal to theology, for the 'Lord of lila' is not a being, but a power, the same which makes the world of dreams for us while we sleep, namely, the faculty of Imagination, or the image-making function of Life. Later on we shall see that thought is a tremendous power at the disposal of man which he has only to understand and utilise, in order to have a mastery over the empire of nature. The Secret Doctrine' has it:
"The one source of form--the mysterious power of thought which enables it to produce external, perceptible, phenomenal results by its own inherent energy."
The author of the Gospel of St. John also writes:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made which was made....And the Word was made flesh."
Concerning the derivation of the word Brahman, which is the name Vedanta gives to the Absolute, Prof. Max Muller maintains that it seems to have originally meant that which bursts or breaks forth, whether in the
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