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GOD with the acquisition of these labdhis that the doctrine of grace is associated, for they cannot be acquired by study or argumept or instruction. They are themselves necessary for the serenity of disposition and clarity of mind without which truth cannot be distinguished from untruth or be acceptable to the soul. How, then, can they be acquired ? By grace and grace alone; that is to say by the soul itself becoming invested by the element of grace. The grace of anyone else will not do; every soul must manifest that most auspicious of the divine attributes in its own being. And the only way for the acquisition of grace is the practising of the divine virtues of forgiveness and mercy. Here it is that the true value of the doctrine of ahimsá (non-injur. ing any form of life) is realised, for refraining from. killing and maiming or otherwise injuring others is the true scope of forgiveness and mercy. Those who practise ahimså, therefore, are alone entitled to obtain nirvana, for they shall speedily acquire divine grace that shall put an end to their transmigration.
The doctrine of grace, thus, itself teaches a very different thing from what it is supposed to do. As for the idea of absorption in God, that is clearly a mystic teaching, implying no more than the acquisition of the status and divinity of Godhood. For there can be no merger of two or more real entities into one another by any possibility. The analogy of the absorption of a drop in the sea is beside the point, and actually proves the opposite of that which it is intended to prove, sioce
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