Our self is identical with the supreme
deity and only apparently differentiated from it. Whosoever has mastered
this truth has become at one with all creation; whosoever has not
mastered it, is a stranger and a foe to all creatures."
I do not intend to depreciate Indian wisdom; I merely desire to point
out its inherent dissimilarity to Western thought; my task of laying
hold of the spirit of Europe in its crises and watching its growth is
bound to be advanced by this division.
The religious experience of Christ, based on the realisation of the
divine nature of the soul, and the road of the soul to God, has
established the fundamental Western principle. A world-system was built
up which emanated from the innermost depth of the individual soul and,
very consistently, related all existing things, heaven and earth, the
creation and the destruction of the world, salvation and perdition, to
the soul of man. This was achieved with the aid of a naive metaphysic,
created by the Greek genius and externalised by the crude intellect of
barbarians; this metaphysic drew its whole content from a unique
revelation, and the essential was frequently hidden by dialectic and
speculation.
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