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BRAHMANISM
most ancient orthodoxy (an Agni, Indra, Varuņa), of the later Hindu piety (Siva, Vişnu, Kālī), or of one of the still later, intrusive, missionizing systems (Allahı and Christ). Casting the spell of delusion upon every creature, displaying through the acts of all his universal ināyā, the Supreme Being is ever ready to allow each man to go along his own particular way of ignorance, more or less bedimmed, which he and his circle take for knowledge and wisdom. It is all perfectly all right so far as the Divine Being is concerned if the fish in the deep sca cling to their own two or three ideas about the world and life, if the birds in the lofty air cherish different ones, and if the denizens of the forests and of the cities of mankind have patterns of their own. The magnificent Tenth Chapter of the Bhagavad Gitā tells that the Divine Being Himself exists in all. “Whatsoever is the seed (bija) of all creatures, that am I. There is no creature, whether moving or unmoving, that can exist without Me. I am the gambling of the fraudulent, I am the power of the powerful. I am victory; I am effort. I am the purity of the pure." u: Each is permitted and even cncouraged to perpetrate his own particular delusion as long as he can go on believing it to be true. Once he rcalizes, however, that he is only trudging on a treadmill, keeping the world-as-hc-sees-it in motion through his own activity, having to go on simply because he insists on going on yet remaining ever in the same place-just as he would remain if he were doing nothing at all-then the spell is broken; the desire, the necd, for freedom comes; and the Divine Being is equally willing now to open the hidden way to the sphere beyond the round.
“The Blessed Lord declared:
“'Threefold is the vehcment faith or desire (śraddha) 98 of the dwellers in bodies, according to their various natures: sāttvic, rājasic, or tāmasic. Hear thou the exposition of their
07 Ib. 10. 39, 36. 08 Sraddha means both "faith" and "desire." Cf. supra, p. 48.
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