makes a completely new word with an entirely new meaning. NOTE. It may be mentioned here that the Western philosophers especially selected in the text to serve as landmarks on the path of enquiry have been so selected because their special way of thought, arising out of modern conditions, is the freshest and most suited to the modern student and best fitted for the purpose in hand. Otherwise, indeed, the same subjects of enquiry have been and are being investigated by hundreds of the finest intellects of the human race from the most ancient times up to the present day, and different aspects of the same truths and propositions and solutions may be found in the works of the ancient Greek philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, and the Neo-Platonists especially, of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, of the mystics, Scheffler, Eckhart, Albrecht, and Bohme, of Bruno and Bacon, and, again, Schopenhauer and Spencer, and many others. Each philosopher worthy of the name, and to whom the name has been given by public recognition, has undoubtedly left the world's stock of philosophical knowledge richer by at least some definite piece of work, a fuller and deeper view of some law, or a new application and use of it, or a new aspect of a question, or fact, or law. Indeed, as may appear later on, the most erroneous-seeming opinion ever held by any thinker will appear, from an all-embracing standpoint, and in a certain sense, to be a not inaccurate description of one aspect of a world-fact, one half of a truth. But some of the latest German thinkers seem to have succeeded better than any of their precursors in Europe in the attempt to systematise and unify. And even amongst these, from such accounts and translations of his writings into English as are available, Fichte appears to be an almost indispensable help to the students of true Vedânta and the higher metaphysic-the higher metaphysic which would enclose so-called occult and superphysical science within its principles as well as physical science; which claims to be a science because it offers to be tested in the same way as every particular science is tested, viz., by endeavouring to show that its hypotheses agree with present facts, and also enable prediction to be made correctly, of results in the future; which, indeed, claims to be the very science of sciences by providing a great system, a great hypothesis, which, while special sciences systematise and unify limited groups of facts, would systematise and unify all possible world-facts, past, present, and to come. CHAPTER VII. THE LAST ANSWER. सर्वे वेदा यत्पदमामनंति तत्ते पदं संग्रहेण ब्रवीमि ॥ Yama, Lord of Death, than whom, as Nachiketâ said, there could be no better giver of assurance against mortality, no truer teacher of the truth of life and death, gives this last answer: "That which all the scriptures ponder and repeat; that which all the shining sufferers declare ; that for which ( the pure ones) follow Brahmacharya (the life of holiness, of sacrifice to Brahman); that do I declare to thee in brief, it is AUM."1 1 Katha-Upanishat. I. ii. 15. What is the meaning of this mysterious statement repeated over and over again in a hundred ways in all Samskrit literature, sacred and secular? Thus : The Prashna-Upanishat says: "This, O Satyakâma, desiror of truth, is the higher and the lower Brahman-this (that is known as) the Aum. Therefore, (strong-based) in that as (his) home (and central refuge), the knower may reach out to any thing (that he deems fit to follow after, and shall obtain it)."1 The Chhandogya says: "The Aum is all this; the Aum is all this." 2 The Taittiriya says: "Aum is Brahman; Aum is all this." 3 The Mândûkya says: "This, the imperishable Aum is all this; the unfolding thereof is the past, the present and the future; all is Aum." 4 The Târa-sâra repeats these words of the Mândûkya and says again: "The Aum-this is 1 'एतद्वै सत्यकाम परं चापरं च ब्रह्म यदोंकारस्तस्माद्विद्वा नेतेनैवायतनेनैकतरमन्वेति । . 2. 2 3 4 ओंकार एवेदं सर्वमोंकार एवेदं सर्वं । II. xxiii. 3. aifafa au, vifante då i I. viii. ओमित्येदक्षरमिदं सर्वं तस्योपव्यारव्यानं भूतं भवद्भविष्यदिति सर्वमोंकार एव । i. the imperishable, the supreme Brahman; it alone should be worshipped."1 Patanjali says: "The declarer Thereof is the Pranava."2 Such quotations may be multiplied a hundredfold. What is the meaning of these mysterious and fanciful-looking statements ? Many profound and occult interpretations of this triune sound have been given expressly in the Upanishats themselves, also in the Gopatha Brahmana, and in the books on Tantra, but the deepest and most luminous of all remains implicit only. For if the above seemingly exaggerated statements are to be justified in all their fulness, then, in view of all that has gone before, Aum must include within itself the Self, the Not-Self, and the mysterious Relation between them which has not yet been discovered in any of the preceding answers-that mysterious Relation, which being discovered, the whole darkness will be lighted up as with a sun, the Relation wherein will be combined changelessness and change. If it does this, then truly is the Indian tradition justified that all knowledge, all science, is summed up in the Vedas, all the Vedas in the Gâyatrî and 1 difadeyt ut au nèaìqıfanai | i. 27. |