Spirituality-Religions
Spiritual Uplifting
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There is one great basic fact which underlies all the questions that are discussed on the political platform at the present moment. That singular fact is that nothing is done in this country as it was done twenty years ago.
Whatever forces may govern human life, if they are to be recognised by man, must betray themselves in human experience. Progress in science or religion, no less than in morals and art, is a dramatic episode in man's career, a welcome variation in his habit and state of mind; although this variation may often regard or propitiate things external, adjustment to which may be important for his welfare.
If man were a static or intelligible being, such as angels are thought to be, his life would have a single guiding interest, under which all other interests would be subsumed.
Experience has repeatedly confirmed that well-known maxim of Bacon's, that "a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." In every age the most comprehensive thinkers have found in the religion of their time and country something they could accept, interpreting and illustrating that religion so as to give it depth and universal application.
Man exists amid a universal ferment of being, and not only needs plasticity in his habits and pursuits but finds plasticity also in the surrounding world. Life is an equilibrium which is maintained now by accepting modification and now by imposing it.
Science is so new a thing and so far from final, it seems to the layman so hopelessly accurate and extensive, that a moralist may well feel some diffidence in trying to estimate its achievements and promises at their human worth.
"What are you, where did you come from, and whither are you bound?"--the question which from Homer's days has been put to the wayfarer in strange lands--is likewise the all-absorbing question which man is ever asking of the universe of which he is himself so tiny yet so wondrous a part.
The purpose of this book is to explore the ways and means that human beings have been persuaded to believe deceptions about who we are, what we are and where we came from. We are not the ne'er do wells we are continually told we are. Evil is not a natural human trait. We are blessed beings otherwise we would not have been chosen to be the guardians of Creation's most beautiful garden.
Whatever forces may govern human life, if they are to be recognised by man, must betray themselves in human experience. Progress in science or religion, no less than in morals and art, is a dramatic episode in man's career, a welcome variation in his habit and state of mind; although this variation may often regard or propitiate things external, adjustment to which may be important for his welfare.
The writer has attempted in this volume to take up a few of the most characteristic points in Jewish doctrine and practice, and to explain some of the various phases through which they have passed, since the first centuries of the Christian era. A really nice overview of Judaism, Hebrew culture and its general history. 3 Books on this 'always enlightening' topic in one volume.
This sameness is the mystery, Mystery within mystery; The door to all marvels.
Perhaps it is well for me to explain that the subject-matter of the papers published in this book has not been philosophically treated, nor has it been approached from the scholar's point of view. The writer has been brought up in a family where texts of the Upanishads are used in daily worship; and he has had before him the example of his father, who lived his long life in the closest communion with God, while not neglecting his duties to the world, or allowing his keen interest in all human affairs to suffer any abatement.
MANY OF THE PEOPLE who have had occasion to read this, after the first publication, have all asked the same questions. "What philosophy are you advocating? Where did you get your information? What qualifies you to write such a book?"
NTERIOR freedom rests upon the principle of non-resistance to all the things which seem evil or painful to our natural love of self. But non-resistance alone can accomplish nothing good unless, behind it, there is a strong love for righteousness and truth.
The inhabitants of a certain country have always been travelers who journey towards a distant city. The roads are many, and numbers lose their way and perish