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IS2
THE POWER OF KARMA stars shine, but who is not revealed by their light.” Similarly, in the later Persian scriptures we find the supreme deity Ahura Mazda worshipped above all the early Vedic deities : "When I made the wide-ruling Mithra, I created him just like myself in divine nature and dignity, I who am Ahura Mazda. Go up shining sun, with thy swift horses, rise above Mount Berezsiti, and shine to the creatures on the way which Ahura Mazda has made in the air.” The supreme creator of all that lives was not conceived of by the bards who composed the Vedic hymns. Their deities were visible in light and fire, in the rushing winds, in the moon and stars, in the flame that consumed the forest and mounted into the air from the place of sacrifice and even in Soma, the sacred drink which fired the blood and imparted courage and strength to the warrior.
“Whatever was apparent to their senses” (to quote again from General Pike's work), "visible, tangible, or audible, was real, and nothing else was so. In everything that was real, they saw life, and knew no difference between their own life, and that of all Nature around them. ... It may be that they were wiser than we are. ... Our modern faith need not smile contemptuously at the ideas of these ancients, in regard either to Nature or the Deity. ... Our
