DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9550#0345
DIFFERENT MODES OF WORSHIP. 2g$
Vyas continues in six and a half verses beginning
with the following verse," Animate objects are preferable
to inanimate," &c. ; and ending with the following
sentence, " He to whom these four duties are prescribed
in the above text shall, mentally, do reverence and
profess much respect to all creatures, according to the
different degrees of their visible excellences." He
(Vyas) then concludes :—Man shall respect them " by
observing that the all powerful Lord is in the heart
, watching over the soul. " * Hence the author himself
explains that the observance of "an equal regard to all"
creatures directed in the above verse is in reference to
their being equally related to the divine Spirit and not
in reference to their qualities or identities.
It follows therefore that passages enjoining worship
by means of forms, and passages dissuading from such
From what I have noticed as to the two kinds of notions
entertained respecting spiritual devotion, the reader will perceive
the reason why a teacher of spiritual knowledge sometimes is-
justified in speaking of the Deity in the first person, in reference
to the assumed divine nature of his soul, although in the same
discourse, he again treats of God in the third person, in reference
to the present separated and subordinate state of the soul.
* " Two birds, cohabitant and coessential, reside unitedly in
one tr^te which is the body. One of them {the soul) consumes the
variously tasted fruits of its actions : but the other (God) without
partaking of them, witnesses all events.'''' Moondnkopunishud,
ch. the yd.
" God as being resplendent and most proximate to all creatures
is styled the operator in the heart." Moonduh the second, Section
the 2nd.
Vyas continues in six and a half verses beginning
with the following verse," Animate objects are preferable
to inanimate," &c. ; and ending with the following
sentence, " He to whom these four duties are prescribed
in the above text shall, mentally, do reverence and
profess much respect to all creatures, according to the
different degrees of their visible excellences." He
(Vyas) then concludes :—Man shall respect them " by
observing that the all powerful Lord is in the heart
, watching over the soul. " * Hence the author himself
explains that the observance of "an equal regard to all"
creatures directed in the above verse is in reference to
their being equally related to the divine Spirit and not
in reference to their qualities or identities.
It follows therefore that passages enjoining worship
by means of forms, and passages dissuading from such
From what I have noticed as to the two kinds of notions
entertained respecting spiritual devotion, the reader will perceive
the reason why a teacher of spiritual knowledge sometimes is-
justified in speaking of the Deity in the first person, in reference
to the assumed divine nature of his soul, although in the same
discourse, he again treats of God in the third person, in reference
to the present separated and subordinate state of the soul.
* " Two birds, cohabitant and coessential, reside unitedly in
one tr^te which is the body. One of them {the soul) consumes the
variously tasted fruits of its actions : but the other (God) without
partaking of them, witnesses all events.'''' Moondnkopunishud,
ch. the yd.
" God as being resplendent and most proximate to all creatures
is styled the operator in the heart." Moonduh the second, Section
the 2nd.