IMMUTABILITY OF THE DIVINE MIND.
Argument. Expansion of the Divine Spirit, and its apparent variations
in Nature.
Vasishtha continued:—The essence of Brahma is all in all, and
ever remains in every manner in every thing in all places. It is
omnipotence, omniform and the lord God of all.
(This is the _to pan_ of Pantheism, that, God is All and All is God;
that God and nature are one substance, and all its various
modifications. (This is the doctrine of Vedánta, Plato and Plotinus, and
lately of Sufism and German philosophy)).
2. This Essence is the Spirit or Soul, whose omnipotence developes itself
sometimes in the form of intellectual activity, and sometimes in the
tranquility of soul. Sometimes it shows itself in the _momentum_ of
bodies, and at others in the force of the passions and emotions of the
soul. Sometimes as something in the form of creation, and at another as
nothing in the annihilation of the world. (This is the _to on onton_—the
All of all; the eternal source of all existence; the Subjective as well
as Objective both together).
3. Whenever it realises itself any where in any form or state, it is
then viewed in the same manner at the same place and time. (The spirit
realises itself in one form or other of its own free Will).
4. The absolute Omnipotence manifests itself as it likes and appears to
us; and all its powers are exhibited in one form or other to our view
and understandings.
5. These powers are of many kinds, and are primarily concentrated in the
Divine Soul or Spirit. The potentialities (or _potes esse_) are the
Active and Passive powers, also the Rational and Irrational and all
others.
6. These varieties of powers are the inventions of the learned for their
own purpose and understanding; but there is no distinction of them in
the Divine Spirit. (All diversities are one and the same to the unity of
God (_omne ens—to en—est unum._ And again, _Qua ens est indivisum in se,
divisum ab omnialio_)).
7. There is no duality in reality, the difference consists in shape and
not in substantiality. Thus the waves in the waters of the sea, the
bracelets and wristlets formed of gold, are no more than modifications
of the same substances.
(All formal differences terminate in the material, and this again in the
immaterial Spirit of God).
8. The form of a thing is said to be so and so, from its appearance only
and not in its reality. The snake is affirmed of a rope, but we have
neither the outward perception nor inward thought of a snake in it.
Hence all appearances are delusions of sense.
9. It is the universal soul that shows itself in some form or other, to
our deluded senses and understandings, and this also according to our
different apprehensions of the same thing (as what appears as gold to
one, seems as brass to another).
10. It is the ignorant only that understand the Omniform God, to be all
forms of things; while the learned know the forms to be modifications of
the various powers of the Almighty, and not the figures themselves.
11. Now whether the forms (of material things) be real or unreal, it is
to be known that they appear to men according to their different
apprehensions of those beings, which Brahma is pleased to exhibit in any
particular form to their minds and senses. (_i.e._ Some taking an
abstract and others a concrete view of them, agreeably to their internal
conceptions or external perceptions, of their various properties and
qualities).