The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1893-12-25
THE DIVINE ESSENCE
A Brahmin Priests Subtle Meas
urement Of the Human Soul.
Narasimha Carya at Plymouth Church
Rev. Mr.. Milburn's Sermon on
the Birth of Jesus.

Church last night TO good audience. The
young priest from far-off India appeared
the rostrum attired in the elegant garb Of the
priesthood of his country. He discussed the
"Brahminical Idea of the Soul,'' and
followed throughout his thirty-minute dis
course with marked attention. He is
PERTAINING talker and uses the best of En-
glish. He said:
"A sage was once asked What is the
most wonderful thing on earth?' 1t appears
the reply was, Men die around us every day
and are seen no more, but still none of us
believe ourselves mortal The inherited wis
dom of ages was given voice to in that re-
ply. The belief in immortality is as old
the hills. The savage can no more conceiTe
than can the civilized man., that the short
span of three score and ten is the be-all and
end-all, of the struggling SOUL When the
savage nations piously laid out their dead
chief on a bier and left him alone in the
woods they simply expressed their Inability
to understand that the vital spark which
animated the frame is gone never more to
return. 1t is easily conceivable that in the
upward path of mankind it took ages before
it was understood that the soul once gone
never returns again, and just as the savage
in that wisdom born of intuition mistook
death for sleep, so do we at least those of
whose instinct has not been killed out
by the new tangled Goddess of Reason, be-
leve that the soul lives after death, that
death is not humiliation extinction, but
only a transformation into a newer life,
better or worse than this, as the case may
pitied She has been subjected in a thousand
ways to thousand inquiries, and when at
last tired and faded she sends forth a
the nationalist jumps up In JOY ana eX-
claims: There is nothing more then to see,'
and in this matter-of-fact everyday civiliZa-
ton of the nineteenth century we have come
to such pass that we have to reconcile TO
reason the existence of the soul or man.
Reason is undoubtedly all powerful as far
as she goes, but there Is a region beyond
her reach. a country which she can never
traverse. but to deny the existence OF such
country because she cannot see IL VIII
be like denying the existence or Japan
because we have not been there. True, trav-
elers return from Japan and tell us or It's
wonders. Does it not apply equally Well
to that other land? The Hindus have been
affirming that it is our own ignorance that
blinds US and keeps the other shore beyond
human sight; that people have arisen in
the world few and far between, perhaps,
to whom the book of life Is ike unto an
open book, and there comes to every think
ing man, even in our day, sometime or other
in his life a ray of light. dim and indis-
tinct in most cases. clear and bright IN
some but still an unmistakabe ray of light
penetrating the thick encirclinS gloom
through which we grope our way
But in India, the other hand, every
philosophical school starts with the assump-
ton OF the existence of the human soul
power of molding the material universe;
| affirming that matter forms, defOrms ana
reforms itself according to fixed material
laws; even they admitted the existence or
numerous human souls.
Before coming to the orthodox Brahmin-
| ical idea of the end of the human soul let
us take survey of their theories of God.
| The soul of man is in all ages trying TO
| realize the supreme soul. 1t rises and scars
| like the sparrowS that dash themselves
| against lighthouses, it falls back baffleG
| till finding all search fruitless, it is glad to
accept the words of the founder OF Budd-
hism and say with him:
"Nor Him, nor any light
I,ulI coo VIII
| Veil after veil will Iift-but there must be
Veil upon veil behind.
Hence it is that the Hindu writer de-
:" Spirit mysterious, force immense. power
immeasurabIe: how was your power your
| of creation? Ddst Thou sleep like an eX-
| tinguished sun in the bosom of decomposing
| or didst Thou ordain it? Vert Thou chaos?
Vert Thou life comprehending in Thee,
| all the lives that had fed the strife OF de-
| stroying elementS?
"Such were the vain questionings. But
| it was soon conceded that such queries are
| unanswerable; that no law can be laid down
| factory TO all: that each man must feel
| for himself and infer from thousand acts
of his daily life, according TO his faith and
reason, the working out of a divine law
| which none can arrest or stop, disobedence
| to which entails sorrow and suffering, while
obedience leads to happiness.
1.-THE fascinating panthesm of the Vedan-
| tins was the last step of religious growth.
| The earlier Vedic works lead us to the con-
cusiOn that the Hindus We're originally
| nature worshpers. But this was in
| prehistoric ages. Hindu civilization had
| invaded India, 1900 years ago. 1t had
flourished when Rome was unheard of,
perhaps even before the pyramids were
| built They wOrshiped the various powers
of nature as manifested in this world.
| Wind and floods. fire and air were each
presided over by being who had to be
| befriended and propitiated; But it was not
long before they realized that these various
powers were simply manifestations of one
| being who presided over all; and illusions
| A single example is enough; says a hymn:
What God shall we adore with sacrifice?
| Him let praise. the golden child that
| In the beginning: who was born the Lord
| The one sole Lord of all that is-who made
| The Earth and formed the sky. who giveth
| Who giveth strength, whose biddings gods
revere.
Whose hiding place is immortality,
Whose shadow death; who by his might is
| OF all the breathing. sleeping waking world.
| Where'er let loose in space, the mighty
waters
Have gone, depositing fruitful seed
| And generating fire, there lie arose
| Whose mighty glance looks round the vast
| OF waterv vapor-Source of energy.
| Cause of the sacrifce-The only God
| Above the gods.
"Thus did they rise from polytheism to
| monotheiSm. But mOnotheism did not long
satisfy The question arose. is this Gre
| atOr apart from the created? If so where
| did the material universe come from? And
as il came to be acknowledged axiom
among them that something cannot come
/ out of nothing. the various philosophers of
India divided themselves on the subject;
some asserted that matter is eternal, fol-
lowing out a law of its own and evolving
| into its present condition, Y bile others
| maintained that all is one and only one,
| that by the power of illusion we look upon
ourselves as distinct from the Creator.
| They rejected eXtra-cosmic creator who
| them with balance in hard; just man
| rose from his polytheism TO monotheism so
| did he rise from personal active God, who
| delighted i'm taking part in human affairs
| to a passive serene being from whom ev-
erything emanateS and into whom every
| thing returns. Starting from the many
! gods. sometimes friendly and sometimes
| scared higher and higher. till human mag
| ination lost itself in the essential insep-
| arabic oneness of the Cosmos.
What then, is this idea of God? The
| Vedas saws: He who exists by himself
| and who is in all because all is in him.
| and Manu-. the legislator of India, COM
| menting says He who exists by himself,
| is imperceptible to the organs of sense.
| who is without visible parts, eternal, the
| soul of all beings and whom none can COM
| prehend.' The Puranas, explaining, say
| God is one immutable. without form or
| parts. infinite. omnipresent and omnpOtent,
| The divine mover. the great originating eS-
| sence the efficient and material cause of
l. 49, 81.