If the savage ceases to believe in his god of wood, it does not mean that there is no God, but merely that God is not made of wood. We cannot comprehend God, but we can be more and more conscious of Him. So that if we discard a crude notion of God, it is really better for us. It helps us to have a better and a higher consciousness of God.
9. To prove that there is a God I Can there be anything more absurd than the idea of proving the existence of God? To prove the existence of God is like proving that you are living. Prove it to whom? By what argument?
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For what purpose? If there is no God, there is nothing. How can we prove God?
10. God is. We do not have to prove it. Proving that there is a God is a blasphemy; denying His existence is madness. God lives in our conscience, in the consciousness of humanity, in the surrounding universe. To deny God beneath the dome of the starry firmament, over the graves of our loved ones, before the glorious death of a martyr put to death— only a very pitiable, or a very depraved man is capable of doing so. Maesini.
VI.
Loving God
"I do not understand wHat it means to love God. Is it possible to love something incomprehensible and unknown? To love your neighbor, that is intelligible and good, but to love God is a mere phrase." Many people speak and think in this manner. But people who speak and think thus, are gravely in error. They do not understand what it means to love their neighbor, not someone agreeable or useful to them, but all men equally, though they be the most disagreeable and hostile men. Only he can love his neighbor in this manner who loves God, that God who is the same in all men. Thus not the love of God is unintelligible, but the love of fellow-man without the love of God.
THE SOUL
THE SOUL
The intangible, invisible, incorporeal something, which gives life to all that is living, which is per se, we call God. The same intangible, invisible, incorporeal principle, which is separated by the body from all else, and of which we are conscious as self, we call the soul.
I.
What is the Soul?
1. A man who has attained old age has passed through many vicissitudes: he was first an infant, then a child, an adult, an old man. But no matter how he has changed, he always calls himself "I." This "I" has always remained the same. This '*!" was the same in his infancy, in his period of maturity, in his old age. This unchanging "I" we call the soul.
2. If a man imagines that what he sees all around, the infinite universe, is just as he sees it, he is very much in error. All material things man knows only through his individual sense of sight, hearing and touch. Were his senses different, the whole world would appear different. Therefore we do not know, we can not know this material world as it is. Only one thing we truly and fully know, namely our soul.
II.
The "I" is Spiritual 1. When we say "I" we do not refer to our body, but to that by which our body lives. What is then this **Г'? We can not put into words what this "Г* is, but we know it better than anything else that we know. We know that but for this "I" we should know nothing, there would be nothing in the world for us, and we ourselves should not be.
2. When I think about it, it is tiiore difficult for me to understand what my body is than what my soul is. As close as it is to me, the body is something foreign, it is the soul that is MINE.
3. If a man is not conscious of the soul within himself, it does not prove that he has no soul, but only that he has not yet learned to be aware of the soul within himself.
4. Until we have realized what is within us, what good is it to us to know what is beyond us ? And is it possible to know the world without knowing ourselves? Can he who is blind at home, possess sight when he is abroad ^^
Scovoroda.
5. Just as a candle can not bum without a fire, man can not live without a spiritual life. The spirit dwells in all men, but not all men are aware of this.
Happy is the life of him who knows this, and unhappy his life who does not know it. Brahminic rvisdom.
III.
The Soul and the Material World
1. We have measured the earth, the sun, the stars and the depths of the sea, we have penetrated the bowels of the earth in search of gold, we have explored rivers, the mountains of the moon, we have discovered new stars and know their dimensions, we have filled up abysses, we have built cunning machinery: not a day passes, but we have new inventions. Is there a limit to our capabilities? But something, the most important thing is lacking. What that is we do not know ourselves. We are like babes: the infant feels that something is wrong, but what or why, he does not know.
г -f —ГТ
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Something is wrong because we know much that is superfluous, but do not know the most needful thing: our own self. We do not know what dwells within us. If we knew and remembered what dwells within us, our lives would be altogether different. Scovoroda,
2. All that is material ii> this world, we can not know the true nature thereof. Only the spiritual that is within us is fully known to us, namely that of which we are conscious, and which does not depend upon our feelings or our thoughts.
3. There are no limits, there can be no limits to the world in any direction. No matter how distant a thing* may be, behind the most distant there are other objects still more distant. The same is true of time: back of thousands of years that have passed, there had been thousands and thousands of previous years. And therefore it is clear that mail can not possibly grasp what the material world is to-day, what it has been nor what it will be*
What then can man understand ? Only one thing, for which there is no need of either space or time, namely his soul.
4. Men frequently think that only that exists which they can touch with their hands. However, quite on the contrary, only that truly is that can not be seen, heard or touched, what we call "I," our soul.
5. Confucius said: The sky and the earth are great, but they have color, shape and size. But there is something in man that can think of everything and hsLS no color, shape Of size. Thus if the whole world were dead that which is within man could of itself give life to the world.
than wood, wood is more solid than water, water is more solid than air. But that which can not be touched, heard or seen is more solid than anything. One thing has always been, is now and will never be lost. , What is it ?
It is the soul in man.
7. It is well for man to think what he is as regards his body. This body is large as compared with that of the flea, insignificant compared with the earth. It is also well to think that our own earth is a grain of sand compared with the sun, and the sun as a grain of sand compared with Sirius, and Sirius is as nothing compared with still other stars, and so without end.
It is clear that man with his body is nothing compared with the sun and the stars. And to think that we were not even thought of a hundred, a thousand, many thousands of years ago, but other men like unto us were still bom, grew up and died, that of the millions and millions of men such as I nothing remains, neither bones, nor even the dust of bones, and that after me millions and millions of people will live, and that grass will grow from my bones, and that sheep will feed on the grass, and men will eat the sheep, and nothing will remain of me, not a grain of dust, nor even a memory! Is it not clear that I am nothing?
Nothing, indeed, but this nothing has a conception of itself and of its place in the universe. And if it has such a conception, this conception is far from nothing, it is something that is more important than the entire universe, for without this conception within me and within other creatures like me, that which I call the infinite universe would not exist. 'i