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56 resolution of the spirit of nian into the Divine Essence is acquired by calling upon the name of the Supreme Being, Hari, by those who have been properly received into the faith, whom the Guru has himself accepted as elect and to whom he has confided the secret of correctly invoking the Sacred Name. This initiation on the part of the Guru was however, in the true spirit of Calvinism, confined to the elect, those on whose forehead Destiny had written the decree of their emancipation. Such fatalistic doctrine was not dwelt upon, for the obvious reason that the power of the Guru would diminish in proportion as it was understood that he could not relieve his followers from the burden of destiny, and it was generally taught that by religious exercises and by patient reception of the teaching of the Guru, the heart would be inclined to righteousness and a choice would thus be allowed which might counteract the fatalistic decree which was supreme over human will. If the doctrine was in itself contradictory, it was no more so than the conflict in Calvinism between predestination and freewill, and merely represented the human yearning to escape from the inevitable necessity with which the whole constitution of the universe appeared to surround and overwhelm mankind.

The most important doctrine of the Granth is that of reverence and obedience to the Guru and respect to and worship of the saints. The practices of ablution, of giving alms, of abstinence from animal food are enjoined, while, as ethical teaching, evil-speaking,