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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
gratitude on the part of those born with a silver spoon in their miouths. But even this sense of gratitude would be entirely wanting, and might be counter-indicated by a strong feeling of hatred in the case of those unfortunate ones who find themselves placed, for no fault of theirs, in unsuitable and painful surroundings, and of those who are created to people the hell,' as the holy Qur'an asserts.
The case with those who believe in the existence of a creator, but make his creative activity subservient to the principle of karma is even worse, since on their hypothesis the creator becomes merely an artificer of karma, without a voice of his own, so that neither praise nor blame can ever be earned by him. It follows from this that no one can ever feel grateful to such a creator for his creative activity.
We may now turn our attention to the teaching of Mysticism which maintains that God should be worshipped to obtain his vision, or to become absorbed in him. This view also is not tenable, since the vision or contact of another cannot possibly afford anything more than a passing sensation, which is as different from true happiness as a piece of stone from bread. As a matter of fact, true joy is the natural attribute of the soul, and becomes an actuality of experience the moment one gives up the idea of extracting it from things outside his own Self. Hence, so long as one expects to find joy in things outside one's own soul, true joy cannot come into manifestation. It is thus clear that neither the vision nor the contact of another can ever take the place of true happiness which the soul is athirst for.
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