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TJE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
illusions and then hypnotise themselves to believe the product of their imaginations to be real. As for scientific or philosophical merit in their teaching, there is little or nothing to be said in its favour ; it is essentially a system* which can appeal only to a particular class of men-those who cannot or will not pursue clear, logical thought. It is true that suggestion is a potent and powerful ally on the spiritual path, but it is also true that it is not every suggestion that will land one in nirvana. As a matter of fact, salvation and hallucination are as widely apart from one another as the poles, the one implying the fullest degree of perfection in omniscience and bliss, and the other only seeking to hide its rotting imperfection under self-deluding falsehood. The suggestion that is likely to encompass the desired good is not the suggestion that the world is an illusion and that the ego is different and distinct from knowledge and happiness which must be scraped off it, but the belief that the soul is fully able to attain to the status of Gods, the living embodiments of all-embracing knowledge and absolute, unqualified bliss. Neither samvara nor nirjara
* The cash value of this system of philosoply--if indeed the term he applicable to a collection of mystic and mystifying, though elegant and well chosen words and phrases, interspersed here and there with half-understood plagiarisms of others may be judged from the somewhat lengthy review of one of the most recent publications on the subject, which is given in the appendix at the end of the book. It originally appeared in the Jaina Gazette for 1917 (pp. 295-317), but as it lays bare the whole subject and goes to the very root of mysticism, it is reproduced here to enable the reader to form a correct estimation of the teaching of the system under consideration.
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