'Satyam Jnanam Anantam Brahma.' Tait. Up. ii. I

'Bliss is Brahman.' Tait. Up. iii. 6.

'There is one Rudra only, - they do not allow a second - who rules all the words by his powers.' - Atharva Siras. 'God is Love.'

We begin where we left off in our last; and in discussing the nature of Saguna and Nirguna God, we will discuss the article of the Rev. Father Bartoli on 'God, a Personal Being' which appeared in our last two issues, and the Editorial 'God and the Brahman' of the 'Brahmavadin' of 16th ultimo, and the lecture of Svami Vivekananda, published in the last November number of the same magazine. These two parties occupy positions which seem almost distant as the poles, and altogether irreconcilable. The Rev. Father asks, 'Why this mockery? Say with the fool that there is no God: that the existence of God is a sham, a bubble, a false show, a cheat, a day dream, a chimera: because an Impersonal God is all this.' The learned Svami on the other hand says "The monistic theory has this merit that it is the nearest to a demonstrable truth in theology we can get. The idea that the Impersonal Being is in nature, and that nature is the evolution of that Impersonal, is the nearest that we can get to any truth that is demonstrable, and every conception of God which is partial and little and Personal is comparatively not rational." In the editorial note on 'God and Brahman,' a novel and a very presumptuous and misleading distinction in the use of the words God and Brahman is attempted, and the article concludes by saying that the worship of God, in all truth and in all love will never lead one to Moksha. "God is for such, and the Brahman is for those whose goal is perfect rest in perfect freedom." The presumption is in supposing that all other religionists, except those of our learned brother's ilk, do not postulate a Brahman, and that their path, not being the 'Soham' path (Paramahamsa) will not lead one to Moksha; and it is also an unwarranted presumption in trying to restrict the use of the word God to what these people were till now calling the lower Brahman or Saguna Brahman or Personal God. The so-called Vedantists have an insidious way of recommending themselves to the favour of other people by bestowing judiciously, a panegyric here and a panegyric there, and, at the same time, they try to raise themselves above the shoulders of these others, and at the latter's expense.

They profess to be full of the milk of human kindness to professors of all creeds and sects, and would willingly take them under their folds, what for? Only, so that these people may see that what they profess to teach is the only true path containing the only truth, and that the other paths are - well - only no paths at all - only it will bring them to the same point of birth and death, containing a so-called - a phenomenal truth. And then what is the truth of these people worth after all? In itself, it is so shaky, or they maul it so badly in their attempt to please every body that their truth (substance) becomes indistinguishable from untruth (phenomena); and this is exactly what the Svami's Guru, the Paramahamsa, the Mahatman says. God - the Saguna - the Personal God is Maya or Sakti, indistinguishable as heat from fire and this God or Maya is as such one with Brahman, and so the distinction of Personal and Impersonal God is a distinction without a difference. (Prabhudda Bharata p. 109) !! It will be seen from a reading of the Rev. Father's article, and from how these words are used in the Brahmavadin and the Prabhudda Bharata, that all these parties use the word Saguna as fully equivalent to Personal, and Nirguna as equivalent to Impersonal Being; and a shade has never crossed these learned people's minds whether such rendering is quite the truth.

In our last we quoted a Svetasvatara Mantra in which the One God is called Nirguna. To-day we quote a Gita verse in which God is called Nirguna. "Beginningless, without qualities (Nirguna) the Supreme Self (Paramatman) Imperishable, though seated in the body, O Kaunteya, worketh not, nor is soiled."* And the whole of chapters 13 and 14 have to be read to know the precise meanings of Guna, Saguna and Nirguna. Verses 5 to 18 (chap. 14) define and describe the Gunas and their varieties - Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. The three Gunas are Prakriti born. (14. 5., and 13. 19) from which are all action, causes and effects (13. 23) and from where are all bodies produced (14. 20).. Sattva is simply bodily (and mental) purity leading one to the desire of wisdom and bliss, (14.6), wisdom light streameth forth from the Sattvic Man; and when he dies, he goes to the worlds of the Gods (Vijnanaloka) and he rises upwards. The Sattvic Man is still clothed in the material (Prakntic) body, and is not yet released from his bonds, not a Mukta. He is simply what the world esteems as a wise and great man.

On the other hand Rajas engenders passion, engenders thirst for life and is united to action - greed, out-going energy, undertaking of actions, restlessness, desire - and he is again and again born among people attached to action. Tamas engenders ignorance, delusion, sloth, indolence, darkness, negligence etc, and he is born and enveloped in the vilest qualities. From this Prakriti and the three Gunas born of Prakriti, is distinguished the Purusha.† Prakriti is the cause of causes and effects and instruments; and Purusha is the origin of pleasure and pain i.e., experiences, and is attached to the qualities (guna) born of Prakriti, and by this attachment or Pasa undergoes birth and death. So the reason for its undergoing birth and death is its attachment to the Gunas,

* Chap. xiii. 31,

† In page 582. Brahmavadin, Purusha, Brahman, and Spirit are called synonymous terms. In page 247, Mr. Mahadeva Sastrin's Gita translation, Sankara says, Purusha, Jiva, Kshetrajna, Bhokta, are; all synonymous terms. So Brahman and jiva are synonymous!!!

Sattva included. And the only way, this Purusha (our Brahma-vadin's Brahman),the Dweller in the body, can be freed from death unto everlasting life is by crossing over the three Gunas, (14. 20) and by realizing that all action and change is the result of the three Gunas, (14. 19), and that he himself (Purusha) is actionless. or flawless (13. 29) and that there is One higher than the three Gunas (Prakriti),, (14. 19), other than himself. The Highest Purusha, the Paramatman, He who pervadeth and sustaineth the three worlds, the indestructible Isvara, (15. 17). the Spectator, and Permitter, Supporter, Enjoyer, the Mahes-vara, and this Beginningless, Nirguna Paramatman cannot perish though he is also seated in the body, as the Purusha or Atma is seated, and is not attached to the three Gunas of which the bodies are created, and is not tainted nor soiled, as the Purusha was declared to be in verse (19, 20 and 21 of 13th chapter), just as Akasa is not soiled, though present in each and every thing.