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GOD.
151 propositions may be adduced the fact that if the mind is deeply engrossed elsewhere pain is not felt in the body, though its causes might continue to exist with undiminished vigour and give rise to it again after a time. The second proposition needs no further proof, and is obvious from our analysis of the nature of joy. These facts entitle us to say that pleasure, and pain, and all anti-joyous emotions arise in the soul only when its attention is directed to the physical body, and becomes engrossed in its concerns. Hence, if the soul be rid of the physical body with which it erroneously identifies itself, it would enjoy its own natural feeling, that is, pure bliss.
It must be now clear that so far as the place of man in nature is concerned, the ideal set before him in the first chapter is by no means too high for him to aspire to. Of the two elements of which he is composed, namely, an atman, or soul, and the body of matter, the former is fully endowed with all that is noblest and best in our conception of a God. It is true that there is little if anything at all of the divine in manifestation in his present condition, but it is no less true that none of the elements that go to constitute divinity is wanting in his soul. It is a rule with nature that the attributes and function of substances are never annihilated, however much they might remain suspended for the time being in any given condition, as is evident in the case of certain gases which lose their gaseous nature while existing in the form of water, but recover it the moment the liquid is resolved into its component parts. Similarly, whether divinity manifest itself or not, it is there,
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