Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 449

ABSORPTION IN THE GODHEAD
409
Another union of spirit (together with its forms and
with Matter produces the elements and a third
produces the world as it stands.
Such then, according to this doctrine, is the synthesis of
Wisdom acquired through various stages
the universe.
of contemplation produces freedom of the spirit, which
liberates itself at one time from one form or quality, at
another time from another, by constantly meditating on
qualities)
;
these three truths
:
not in any thing
1. I exist
2. Nothing
exists in
me
!
!
3. I myself exist not
expressed by the combination of these three
!
This
words
is
:
Nasmeeha-namama-naham
!
The time comes at last when the spirit has liberated
from all its forms and qualities. This means the end
itself
of the world,
when
everything, returning to
its
primitive
and
identified with God.
Kapila maintains that every religion known to him serves
but to draw together more closely the bonds in which the
spirit is held, instead of helping it to free itself from them.
For, says he, the worship of subordinate deities, who are in
state, is lost in
but the offspring of the most degraded and
union of spirit with Matter, binds us more
closely to the object of it instead of liberating us from it.
The worship also of superior deities, who are in reality
only the offspring of the closest union of spirit with Matter,
cannot but be in the same way an obstacle to complete
Such is the contention of Kapila, and
spiritual freedom.
one can but conclude that he wished to sap to the very
foundations the authority of the Vedas and of the Hindu
Indeed, the groundwork of his doctrine seems
religion.
to bear a very close resemblance to that of Spinoza and
reality nothing
latest conceived
other modern philosophers.
His doctrine gives us also to understand that the gods
of the Vedas are merely allegorical figures relating to the
world itself, as much in its first principles as in its com-
ponent parts, which are but emanations from or modifica-
tions of these
first
principles.