Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 448

THE SANK UNA SCHOOL
108
You, you do not
exist.
There is nothing existent
except the Ego. There is nothing Vedanta,
nor doctrine, nor any being except the Ego. In imagining
to myself that you exist, I am under the illusion of Maya.
I am mistaken
that is all
the subject of my illusion
does not in fact exist.
Maya, or illusion, makes men believe that they have
wives and children, that they possess cattle, jewels, houses,
and other temporal goods but nothing of all this is real.
Hindus explain the effects of this illusion very imperfectly
by comparing them to a rope coiled on the ground and
mistaken for a snake.
True wisdom consists in obtaining deliverance from this
illusion by diligent contemplation of Self, by persuading
oneself that one is the unique, eternal, and infinite Being,
and so forth, without allowing one's attention to be diverted
air nut
in tlie world,
:
;
:
from this truth by the effects of Maya.
The key by which the soul may free
Maya
itself
from these
contained in the following words,
which these pretentious sages are bound to repeat without
Ahum- Eva- Param- Brahma, that is to say, / am
ceasing
The hypothetical conception
myself the Supreme Being.
of this idea, they say, should eventually result in actual
conviction and lead to supreme blessedness.
illusions
of
is
:
The basic principle of the Sankhya school, founded by
Kapila, is the doctrine of Dwaita
it rejects the Upamana
of Logic, and seems generally less pretentious than the
other schools. It also teaches that the soul is simply a part
of God, and that the wisdom acquired by yoga, or contem-
plation, ends in either actual or spiritual unity with God.
Kapila recognized a spiritual nature and a material
The spiritual
nature, both of them real and eternal.
nature, by the exercise of the will, unites itself with the
material nature outside itself. From this union are born
an infinite number of forms and a certain number of quali-
Amongst the forms is that of the Ego, by reason of
ties.
which each being can say / am I, and not another.
As stated above, the qualities are three in number, viz.
goodness, passion, ignorance.
One or other of these three
qualities predominates in all animate beings and accounts
for the differences to be observed amongst them.
;
: