Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/45

, and which has not relatively to the latter the objectivity of concrete being in-and-for-self, and therefore is quite justly not held in reverence by it.

Every Hindu is himself momentarily Brahma. Brahma is this One, the abstraction of thought, and to the extent to which a man puts himself into the condition of self-concentration, he is Brahma. Brahma himself is not worshipped; the One God has no temple, has no worship, and no prayer is addressed to him. An Englishman, the author of a treatise on “Idol-worship among the Hindus,” makes a number of reflections on the subject, and says, if a Hindu were asked whether he worships idols, he would answer without the least hesitation, “Yes, I worship idols.” If, on the other hand, we were to ask a Hindu, whether learned or unlearned, “Do you worship the Supreme Being, Paramesvara? Do you pray to Him? Do you bring Him offerings?” he would then say, “Never.” If we were to inquire further, “What is this tranquil devotion, this silent meditation which is enjoined on you and which you practise?” he would then reply, “When I engage in prayer, sit down, cross my legs over one another, fold my hands, and look toward heaven, and concentrate my spirit and my thoughts without speaking, I then say within myself, ‘I am Brahma, the Supreme Being.’”

2. Since in this first attitude we have only one moment of single prayer, of devotion, so that Brahma is momentary only in his existence, and since this existence is thus inadequate to such content and its universality, the demand arises that this existence should be made into a universal one, such as the content is. The “I,” abstractly as such, is the universal, only that this itself is merely a moment in the existence of abstraction; the next demand therefore is that this abstraction, this “I” should be made commensurate with the content. This exaltation means nothing else than the breaking off of the transition from the moment