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56
BHAKTI-YOGA.
monkey. So whenever we try to think of God as He is in His absolute perfection, we invariably meet with the most miserable failure ; because as long as we are men, we cannot conceive Him as anything higher than man. The time will come when we shall transcend our human nature, and know Him as He is; but as long as we are men we must worship Him in man and as man. Talk as you may, try as you may, you cannot think of God except as a man. You may deliver great intellectual discourses øn God, you may become very great rationalists and prove to your satisfaction that all these accounts of the Avatáras or incarnations of God as man are nonsense-but let us come for a moment to practical common sense and examine them. What is there behind these rational discourses-how much real substance ? Zero, nothing-simply so much froth! Hence next time when you hear a man delivering a great intellectual lecture
