No. 62.— 1909.] 



JNA3STA VASISHTAM. 



309 



twin-brother sleep, the pure consciousness or spirit long hidden 

 begins to manifest itself. 1 Free from the stain of thought and 

 oblivion and truly pure in heart, the soul is blessed with the 

 vision of God, wins the peace of God that passe th all under- 

 standing, realizes somewhat of the infinite power, glory, and 

 bliss of the Divine Spirit, and finally is united to it. 



A kindred experience is thus described by Tennyson : — 

 " For more than once when I 

 Sat all alone, revolving in myself 

 The word that is the symbol of myself, 

 The mortal limit of the Self was loosed 

 And past into the nameless, as a cloud 

 Melts into Heaven. I touched my limbs, the limbs 

 Were strange, not mine — and yet no shade of doubt- 

 But utter clearness, and thro' loss of Self 

 The gain of such large life as match' d with ours 

 Were Sun to spark — unshadowable in words, 

 Themselves but shadows of a shadow-world." 



The Ancient Sage. 



Notwithstanding the difficulties of interpreting such a work 

 as the Jnana -Vasishtam, the attempt has been made in the 

 hope that, even in the garb in which it is here presented, a 

 poem which has been of inestimable help to the best spirits 

 among countless generations of Hindus will be of interest to 

 Western students, and perhaps be of service to some among 

 that large and increasing number of cultured men and women, 

 in the West as in the East, who are sick of church or temple, 

 sick of ritual and prayer, and are left stranded on the shore of 

 atheism or agnosticism without hope or comfort. Here they 

 will find, and perhaps have comfort in finding, what the sages 

 of ancient India conceived, and their successors still conceive, 

 to be the true worship of God, and as a preparation for which 

 has been established the Hindu religious system with its 

 diversity of methods, providing spiritual food for all according 

 to their needs, and significantly called the Sopdna Mdrga or 

 Ci the ladder- way." 



1 See the writer's article on *' Luminous Sleep " in the Westminster 

 Review of November, 1902, republished in 1903 by the Government 

 Printer. Ceylonu 



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