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THE VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY
87
bliss. Intelligent seems the nearest approach to Sanskrit fan and cr. Spiritual would not answer, because it would not express more than that it is not material. But farct means that it is, that it perceives and knows, though as it can perceive itself only we may say that it is lighted up by its own light or knowledge, or, as it is sometimes expressed, that it is pure knowledge and pure light. We can best understand it when we consider what is negatived by it, namely, dulness, deafness, darkness and all that is material. In several passages a third quality is hinted at, namely, blissfulness, but this again only seems another name for perfection and chiefly intended to exclude the idea of any possible suffering in Brahma.
It is in the nature of this Brahma to be always subjective and hence it is said that it cannot be known in the same way as all other objects are known, but only as a knower knows that he knows and he is.
(k) Still whatever is and whatever is known--two things which in the Vedanta and in all other idealistic systems of philosophy are identical-all is in the end Brahma. Though we do not know it, it is Brahma that is known to us when conceived as the author or creator of the world, an office, according to Hindu ideas, quite unworthy of the Godhead in its true character. It is the same Brahma that is known to us in our own selfconsciousness. Whatever we may seem to be or imagine ourselves to be for a time, we are in truth the eternal Brahma, the eternal self. With this conviction in the background, the Vedantist retains his belief in what he calls the Lord, God, the creator and ruler of the world, but only as phenomental or as adopted to the human understanding. He thinks that just as a man believes in his personal self so he is sure to believe in a personal God, and such personal God may even be
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