Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/50

 of the religious standpoint under consideration consists just in this, that all the moments drop asunder, and that the supreme unity casts no reflection into the fulness of the heart and life.

If the Absolute be conceived of as the spiritually free, the essentially concrete, then self-consciousness exists as something essential in the religious consciousness only, to the extent to which it maintains within itself concrete movement, ideas full of content, and concrete feeling. If, however, the Absolute is the abstraction of the “Beyond” or of the Supreme Being, then self-consciousness too, since it is by nature what thinks, by nature good, is that which it ought to be.

The man who has thus made himself into the continuously existing Brahma holds a position equivalent to that which we have already seen was held by the magician, namely, that he has won an absolute power over nature, and is that power. It is imagined that such a man can inspire even Indra with fear and apprehension. In an episode in Bopp’s “Chrestomathie” the story of two giants is mentioned, who came to the Almighty with a request for immortality; but as they had entered upon their exercises merely with a view to attaining to such power, he granted their petition only to this extent, that they are to die only by some act of their own. They then exert complete dominion over nature. Indra becomes afraid of them, and employs the usual means of inducing any one to give up such an exercise of power. He brings a beautiful woman into existence; each of the giants wishes to have her for his wife. In the strife they put each other to death, and thereby nature is delivered.

3. A characteristic which is quite peculiar remains to to be considered, and that is, that every Brahman, every member of that caste, is esteemed as Brahma, is regarded as God by every other Hindu. This particular way of viewing the matter, however, is in close connection with the previous characteristics. That is to say, each of the