Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/284

 268 The Religion of the Veda

terms the existence of evil. We Westerners have learned one way or another to endure this naughty world fairly well. But when it becomes too bad we are apt to remember that the refuge is with the Omnipotent Power. That is the silver lining to the cloud of human existence. The Hindu mind turns this the other way; the silvery sheen of Brahma has a cloud lining. The conception of this One True Being, out of which ﬂow all visible things, might have been an anchor of strength and a head-spring of hope and joy for the Hindus. A palpany pos~ sible consequence of their thought is, that all men have the divine or Brahmic spark, that all are micro- cosms, ﬂung offmfor some reason—why that superb macrocosm, the Brahma. If so, then individual human existence must be based upon truth and Wholesomeness, no less than the Universal Brahma. Not so did the Hindus proceed. They lavish upon the Brahma all imaginable attributes of perfec— tion, and then proceed to apply the same standard to this world: of course they ﬁnd it by contrast a very sorry affair. The world ceases to be a desirable home in which one may live, sustained perhaps by the hope of better things to come, because it is measured by the standard of Brahma and found Wanting. When the Brahma is praised, that Brahma which is lifted above hunger and thirst, above grief

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