" The Indian
lacks the central conception of love, for which he substitutes
knowledge. Primitive Christianity conceived the connection between body
and soul, the encumbering of the soul by the body, as it were, as a
temptation or a punishment; according to the Vedas, it is merely a
delusion to which the sage is not subject. Before his keen vision, the
deception falls to the ground, and by this very fact he is delivered. To
the feeling of Europe and Christianity, however, life and the universe
are genuine, deep realities, the touchstone of the soul. Love is the
soul's greatest treasure and the only true path to God; knowledge can
never take its place. "The divine stream of love flowing through the
soul," says Eckhart, "carries the soul along with it to its origin, to
the bourne of all knowledge, to God."
The very general identification of the Christian and Indian mystics--a
fact which is accounted for by their common metaphysical tendency--is
based on an error; Indian mysticism and Christian mysticism originated
in different concepts; here the centre of all being is laid in love and
in the soul of man, there it is contained in knowledge and in Brahma.
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