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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES
233 It is this lustre from the "great Soul" which seems to have been personified as the arch-angel Gabriel. Of the other angels, there are two that are deputed to take an account of a man's behaviour, "one sitting on the right hand, and the other on the left : he uttereth not a word, but there is with him a watcher ready to note it" (Al Qur'an chap. 50). These are clearly the two principal currents of the vital breath, termed Ida and Pingalı, that pass through the chains of sympathe. tic ganglia, in which is preserved the quintessence of bodily tenden'cies, that is the essence of passions, emo. tions and thoughts of the individual. I had better say that the Ida passes through the left and the Pingala. through the right nostril.
To come now to the real doctrines of Islam, there is no doubt but that the same fundamental principles are to be found in the Qur'an as in other religions, though for obvious reasons the admixture of the useful and the useless is the most bewildering in that scripture. Times out of number is God defined in the Qur'an, as he who seeth and heareth. We know that seeing and hearing appertain to consciousness or life, not to one particular being or soul. In Suratul Hadid it is said :
"God is with you wherever you are".
In Suratul Rahman He is said to be the first and the last, the apparent and the real, and all-knowing. Surah Fatah points out : "The people who strike palm with thee, do not strike it with
thee, but with God.”
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