Page:Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West.djvu/180

 which is God. The European is a part of the whole, which is the social system or the political machine. But whether as a citizen or a yogi, the individual has ceased to exist. And of the two absorbing, non-entitizing mediums, the political and the religious, no two right-thinking people will disagree as to which is nearer to the ideal of the soul. Personally, if I am to be effaced as a human entity, I prefer to submit to the spiritual process, whether it be based on a dogma, a vision, or a truth. And in this, I am not contenting myself with an illusion, as it might be supposed; on the contrary, I am pursuing the practical course of wisdom.

But complete effacement is not possible in either case. Nature is against it; super-nature, or the supreme source of the light within us, frowns upon it. I am a part of the All, but I am free. And my freedom ends necessarily where the freedom of the All, whether God or the State, begins. This deep truth, which the Mohammedan recognizes, has been overlooked