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THE BIDDHANTA.
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which are unanalyzable and therefore almost beyond words, left them with no choice but to keep quiet.
The Hindus, however, made no secret of their inability to describe Brahman, and openly said so invariably in the end. At times this silence was preserved most tantalisingly, and finally employed as an argument to baffle the exasperated opponent with some such retort as the following, uttered with all the boldness of accusation : “I have been answering you all the time, but it is no fault of mine if you do not understand ; Brahman, dear sir, cannot be described in words, but by silence !"
The later teaching quite correctly acknowledges, the fourth phase of consciousness, which is the true Ideal for mankind ; though even here the conception of Brahman as an abstraction is responsible for a lot of confusion. If the Vedantists will seriously reflect over the matter, they will not fail to observe that it is neither desirable nor possible to become a pure mental abstraction. : If we revert to our old illustration for the moment, we can see at a glance the absurdity involved in the conception of Vedanta. Suppose we were to ask a candidate for the dignity of the post of honour of the French President as to the ideal he had in view, and he to reply that he was trying to become the French Republic, would he be right in saying so ? Most certainly, not; for nobody can become the French Republic. Similarly, nobody can become the Absolute of Philosophy, which stands to the whole world in the same relation as the French Republic does to the people and institutions of France. Neither is it possible to imagine the
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