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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES
195
The significance of these terms is that the distresses, privations, wars and suffering that appear on the earth are the result of the lusts, vices, villainy and hypocrisy of human beings; that notwithstavding all human efforts to rule over the world or the empire of nature, only thistles and thorns shall be the lot of the greedy lustful man; and that it is not in the province of a soul-less materialism to impart the true strength that only comes from Religion). As for the earthly nalure of the ego, there are three kinds of personalities :
(i) the bâhiidtman (the bodily sell), (ii) the antar åtman (the soul), and (iii) the paramåtman (God). The foolish mnan only looks upon himself as the bodily self that is a pure compound of matter, perishable and mortal. The enlightened man knows himself as a soul that is immortal and to be perfected, when he shall become paramåtman (God). It is the first kind of conception of the self, the bahiratmon, of the fallen ego, that is described
in the Biblical curse. (14) After the fall Abel and Cain are born to
Adam, of whom Abel is the keeper of sheep and Cain, the tiller of soil. They both take
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