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THE CHOSEN IDEAL
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of exactly the same opinions as themselves. Would to God that this world was full of men who were as intense in their love as world-wide in their sympathies ! But such are only few and far between. Yet we know that it is practicable to educate large numbers of human beings in the ideal of a wonderful blending of both the width and the intensity of love; and the way to do that is by this path of the IshtaNishtha or the “chosen ideal." Every sect of every religion presents only one ideal of its own to mankind, but the eternal Vedantic religion opens to mankind an infinite number of doors for ingress into the inner shrine of Divinity, and places before humanity an almost inexhaustible array of ideals, there being in each of them a manifestation of the Eternal One. With the kindest solicitude, the Vedanta points out to aspiring men and women the numerous roads, hewn out of the solid rock of the realities of human life by the glorious sons, or human manifestations of God, in the past and in the present, and stands with outstretched arms to welcome all-to welcome even those that are yet to be-to that Home of Truth and that Ocean of Bliss, wherein the human soul liberated from the net of Mâyâ, may transport itself with perfect freedom and with eternal joy.
Bhakti-Yoga, therefore, lays on us the imperative command not to hate or deny any one of the various paths that lead to salvation. Yet the growing plant must be hedged round to protect it until it has grown into a tree. The tender plant of spirituality will
