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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES
359 * Every age hath its book' of revelation (Chap. xiii].... The Koran is not a new invented fiction, but a confirmation of those scriptures which have been revealed before it [Chap. xii]...There has been no nation but a preacher hath in past times been convergant among them [Chap. iii-25] ..I swear by the instructive Koran that thou art one of the messengers of God, sent to show the right way” (chap. iv. 36).
Modern critics unfortunately know nothing of religion, and like the exotericists themselves display gross ignorance in understanding the mysterylanguage of Mysticism. The story of the red heifer is not a narrative of facts that could be borrowed or twisted out of shape; it is the heritage of the whole race, and belongs as much to you and me as to Mahomed and the Israelites. No one has a right to object to your embellishing it still further, provided you have the capacity to do so; but otherwise you must hand it down the ladder of posterity as you received it, without change or alteration. As regards the elucidation of the further details of the legend of the red heiser, the man who left a son and a heifer at his death is Spirit whose death signifies its impurity. † The soul is the son of Spirit
* It is interesting to note that purusha (literally, male) is the term used in Sankhyan Metaphysics for the Soul.
+ The idea of death in the case of Spirit is that of the loss of Self-Kuowledge which is due to the contact of matter. This is also the sense in which Jesus rebuked the disciple wbo wauted leave to bury the dead.
4 Follow me and let the dead bury their dead” (Matt. viii. 22).
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