Transactions of the Annual Congress of the Federation of European Sections of the Theosophical Society (Volume 1904)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906. Excerpt: ... The Religion of the Future--An aspect of Vaishnavism. Purnendu Narayana Sinha, M. A., B. L. Tend the child for five years. For ten years, let him feel the rod of strict discipline. When he reaches the sixteenth year, let your son be treated as a friend. Such is the old adage, which applies to the Divine as well as to the human father. Providence is always bountiful to the infant human race, and the gods themselves attend to its early needs and rear it up. But when humanity grows up, the rod of pain and misery is freely applied to it, and through joy and sorrow, it passes on from stages of self-preservation to higher and higher ideas of duty and sacrifice. First a sense of interdependence, and then Emsense of unity as underlying all forms of life. As ideas develop and expand, the most advanced amongst the race break through the limitations of the outer shell, even when seemingly imprisoned within it, and they feel the life within as one with the life without. Isvara takes up the foremost amongst the race and treats them as His friends. When He comes down in manifestation, they also gather round Him, as friends, companions and colleagues. Through them, He speaks. To them, He gives. He is reflected in them, and they radiate Him forth, through the distorting medium of ignorant humanity. The friend of Isvara is still a Bya. a Kshetrajiia, a monadic soul. Earth, water, fire, airf akasa. Ahamkara, Mahat and Mula Prakrrti--these are my eightfold Prakrrti. This is Apara PrakrAi. Other than this, know Jiva to be my Para Prakr/ti. The universe is sustained by this Prakri'ti. Gita, vn. 4, 5. The life of Isvara, as Jiva Prakrrti, is in every form, in every atom, in every molecule. That life tries to manifest itself more and more, in the likeness of what it is, the...