পাতা:তত্ত্ববোধিনী পত্রিকা (অষ্টম কল্প দ্বিতীয় খণ্ড).pdf/৮৮

Ե յ fruit in the palm of the hand. The word for prayer in the Sanskrit language (upasauq ) comes from a root signifying “to sit " and literally ineans “ sitting lowly before God.” This “sitting lowly before God * at last culminates in the contact with God mentioned above. Your expression “the Heing dearer and nearer to us than a flower or star" brought to ıııy imiııd the saying of the 1'ersian poet Sadi: “ The তত্ত্ববোধিনী পত্রিকা Friend is nearer to me than I am to myself. This is troubling to me that I am far from him.” Our Vedas say in one place: “The wise who see him in the soul enjoy everlasting peace and not others” and in anotho, “The wise, who see him in the soul, enjoy everlasting felicity and not others.” This constant perception of God as the soul of the soul, wearer to ne than I anu to myself and more mine than I atit mine, is, i think, the highest prayer. Most of the prayers in the book are addressed to ( $od as f¡uther iln(l 111eitlier. The ideas of God as father and nother are very consoling and, at the saine time, true in as much as ( to quote the beautiful words of Jeigh Hunt) that side of God which iouches humanity is fiue but still those words only figura tively express the relation of God to us. God is not exactly our father and Inother as one's earthly fatheraud mother are. More spiritually true, therefore, is the undefinable mysterious relationship which draws us to Him as nearer and deater to ourselves than we are to ourselves. This is well illustrated in the following song of Bishtooram, one of our principal Brahruo song-makers: “I aiu at a loss to think what relationship is there between you and me. I find no clue of this, O Thou beyond conception 1 in the Vedas and the Puranas. Art thou father, mother or any near relation ? somewhat w द**च* ५ ३ छf मैं This cannot possibly be said of thee. How strange is this that there is no relationship with thee but still i do not consider thee as a stranger. I hear from all the Shastras that thou art in every place but still I know thec not. Thou must be some body who is mine, yea, more mine than I am mine. If this be not the case, why does the mind of itself draw to thee ?” words Bishtooram puts in the “ Brother, sister, son or daughter" after “Father, mother, near elative " but, as it is offensive to good taste to use those words with reference to God, I have expunged them from the translation. I quite agree with you. In the opi ıi10n thal th0re is a separat.J set wif faculties for the attainment of religious knowledge and that the intellect on. in other words, the reasoning faculty ( there is a differi: nee between tije i et soning faculty and reason ) plays but an inferior part in the process, acting simply as “regulator and corobor ator” of what we learn from those tacultics, but, from your frequent allusions to sculpture, painting and music when treating of the existence of those faculties, it seems that you think them akin to the aesthetic faculty (which does not occupy a very high rank in the classificaton of the faculties) and the affections You seem to think them to be more of an emotional character than otherwise, but this is not what you exactly mean appears again from other words in the preface where you say that we know God by means of the three faculties of will, conscience, and affection. I however go to the length of saying that even these three faculties are insufficient to give us the knowledge of God. They certainly give us the idea of a Being possessed of intelligence, purity