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GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
THE ANCIENT ORDER OF MONKS The Āchārya whose life it is here proposed to sketch belongs to the most ancient and sacred Order of Monks, whose bond of union is not the acceptance or profession of a common belief, but a common search and a common aspiration for Truth-Truth which forms the basis of all religions, and which cannot be claimed as the exclusive possession of any. He belongs to those monks who regard Truth as a prize to be striven for, not as a dogma to be imposed by authority; who maintain that Truth should be sought by study and reflection, by contemplation and meditation, by purity of life and conduct, by consecration and devotion to high ideals; who hold that religious belief should be the result of individual study or intuition, and not its antecedent, and should rest on knowledge, not on assertion; who illuminate the scriptures, and explain and elucidate the doctrines and tenets of religions, by unveiling their hidden meanings, thus justifying them at the bar of intellectual criticism, as they are ever justified in the eyes of intuition; who consider every religion as an expression of the Ancient Wisdom, and prefer its study to its condemnation, and its practice to proselytism; who extend tolerance to all, even to the intolerant, not as a privi.
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