Page:The Sikh Religion, its gurus, sacred writings and authors Vol 1.djvu/73

Rh minds of men of vivid imagination were of necessity recalling from the misty past—gathering from the fount of original knowledge—ideas evolved by primitive man long anterior, not only to European civilization, but to all Semitic history. Many persons have thought on beholding for the first time, in this life at any rate, scenes in foreign lands, that they had been previously familiar with their beauties and derived no new gratification from them. The tenacity with which the Greek philosopher Pythagoras held this doctrine, which he called metempsychosis, is well known. Well known, too, is the success with which he and his followers for a long time imparted their views to the Dorian aristocracy on this and kindred subjects, such as, for instance, the non-destruction of life. And according to the Phaedo of Plato, Sokrates appears to have proved the doctrine of Pythagoras to his own satisfaction.

To some of our English poets the belief has been one of curious interest and satisfaction. Thus Wordsworth :— Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;

The soul that rises with us, our life's star

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar;

Thus, too, Browning :— At times I almost dream

I too have spent a life the sages' way,

And tread once more familiar paths.

And also Rossetti :— I have been here before,

But how or when I cannot tell.

The soul when it separates from the body is likened in ancient Indian works to the moon on the day when it is invisible on account of its conjunction with the sun. The soul exists as the moon exists, though it is not perceptible; and as the moon shines again when it progresses in its motion, so does the soul when it moves into another body.

The soul being in a state of mobility, and at the same Rh