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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
Ascetics, indeed, aspire for absolute control over these undesirable conditions, and by means of persistent healthy auto-suggestion and tapas-fasting, observance of the vow of celibacy and the like-acquire full mastery over them.
We now come to cases of accidents. It would seem a great presumption to the vast majority of mankind to say that no accidents can possibly happen to a fully spiritualized soul; nevertheless the fact is that no jivana mukta or kevali (the saint who has acquired omniscience) can ever die of an accident. It is, no doubt, hard for materialism to endorse our statement, especially as science is supposed to deny the miraculous ; but if we ponder over the matter we shall perceive that there is nothing strange or incredible in it. We could quote many great men of science to show that the materialist's views are not corclusive on spiritual matters; but in these days of rapid progress a single quotation from an address, delivered by Sir Oliver Lodge, at the Free Church Council Assembly at Portsmouth, will suffice to show that spiritualism has passed that stage when it could be open to doubt, though men of science are still trying to understand its phenomena and know very little about its real nature.
“Why seek to deny either the spiritual or the material ? Both aro real, both true, In some higher mind, perhaps, they might be united. The bare possibility of the existence of the miraculous has been hastily denied. It is not necessary to object to miracles on scientific grounds. They need be no more impossible, no more law. less, than the interference of a human being would seem to a colony of ants or bees.''*
There is, as a matter of fact, no miracle, nothing that * See The Leader' (Indian), dated 4th April, 1911.
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