The incorporeal Brahm is prepared from the beginning, for such as are free from lust and anger, of humble minds and subdued spirits, and who are acquainted with their own souls.

BRAHM-THE UNIVERSAL SPIRIT.

I am the sacrifice; I am the worship; I am the spices; I am the invocation; I am the ceremony to the manes (spirits) of the ancestors; I am the provisions; I am the fire, and I am the victim; I am the father and mother of the world, the grandsire and preserver. I am the Holy One, worthy to be known; the mystic figure Aum; the Rig, the San, and Yajoor Veds.

I am the journey of the good; the comforter; the creator; the witness; the resting place; the asylum, and the friend. I am generation and dissolution, the place where all things are reposited, and the inexhaustible seed of all nature. I am sunshine, and I am rain; I now draw in and now let forth. I am death and immortality; I am entity and nonentity.

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They who serve other gods, with a firm belief, in doing so involuntarily worshlp even me. I am he who partaketh of all worship, and I am their reward.

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I am the soul which standeth in the bodies of all beings. I am the beginning, the middle, and the end of all things. * * I am among worships the silent worship, and amongst immovables the mountain Himmalaya. Of all science, I am the knowledge of the ruling spirit, and of all speaking, I am the oration. I am also never-failing time, the preserver, whose face is turned on all sides. I am all-grasping death, and I am the resurrection of those about to be. Among feminines I am fame, fortune, eloquence, memory, understanding, fortitude, patience. I am the seed of

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all in nature, not anything animate or inanimate is without My divine distinctions are without end.

me.

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I

planted this whole universe with a single portion (motion) and then stood still.

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THE GOOD MAN-OR DEVOTEE.

Kreeshna said: He, my servant, is dear unto me, who is free from enmity, the friend of all nature, merciful, exempt from all pride and selfishness, the same in pain and pleasure, patient of wrong, contented, constantly devout, of subdued passions, and firm resolves, and whose mind and understanding are fixed on me alone. He also is my beloved of whom mankind are not afraid, and who is not afraid of mankind; and who is free from the influence of joy, impatience, and the dread of harm. He, my servant, is dear unto me who is unexpecting, just and pure, impartial, free from distraction of mind, and who hath forsaken every enterprise. He also is worthy of my love, who neither rejoiceth nor findeth fault; who neither lamenteth nor coveteth, and, being my servant, hath forsaken both good and evil fortune. He also is my beloved servant, who is the same in friendship and in hatred, in honor and in dishonor, in cold and heat, in pain and pleasure; who is unsolicitous about the event of things; to whom praise and blame are as one; who is of little speech, and pleased with whatever cometh to pass; who owneth no particular home, and who is of a steady mind.

DIVINE DESTINY-ABSORPTION IN THE DIVINE NATURE.

Kreeshna said: The man born to divine destiny is endued with the following qualities: exemption from fear, a purity of heart, a constant attention to the discipline of his understanding; charity, self-restraint, religion, study, penance, rectitude, freedom from doing wrong, veracity, freedom from anger, resignation, temperance, freedom from slander, universal compassion, exemption from the desire of slaughter, mildness, modesty, discretion, dignity, patience, fortitude, chastity, unrevengefulness, and freedom from vain-glory: whilst those who come into life under the influence of the evil destiny, are distinguished by pride, hypocrisy, presumption, anger, harshness of speech,

and ignorance. The divine destiny is for Moksh, or eternal absorption into the divine nature; and the evil destiny confineth the soul to mortal birth.

FROM CODE AND LAWS OF MENU.

MORAL DUTIES-THE SOUL ITS OWN WITNESS.

To patriarchs, to deities, and to mankind, the scripture is an eye giving constant light. The Veda Shastra could not be made by human faculties, nor can it be measured by human

reason.

The birth which man derives from his parents is merely human; that which the Vedas procure for him is the true birth, exempt from age or death.

To a man contaminated by sensuality, neither the Vedas, nor liberality, nor sacrifices, nor strict observances, nor pious austerities, will produce felicity.

A wise man faithfully discharges all moral duties, even though he does not constantly perform the ceremonies of religion. He will fall very low if he performs ceremonies only, and fails to discharge his moral duties.

By honoring his father, mother, and sister, a man effectually does whatever ought to be done. This is the highest duty, and every other is subordinate. All duties are performed by him who completely honors these three; but to him by whom they are dishonored, all other acts are fruitless.

Whatever oblations a man, actuated by strong faith, piously offers, as the sacred laws have directed, become a perpetual, imperishable gratification to his ancestors in the other world.

He whose sins are mostly corporeal, will assume, after death, a vegetable or mineral form; for sins mostly verbal he will assume the form of bird or beast; for sins merely mental he will assume a human form, but in some of its lower con

ditions. An unauthorized teacher of the Sacred Books will return into a dumb body.

If a wife speak unkindly to her husband, she may be superseded by another, at once. A woman is never fit for independence.

The sacrifice required of Brahmins is to gain knowledge and instruct others; of the Cshatriyas, that they protect others; of the Vaisyas, that they supply the wants of commerce; of the Soodras, that they serve others.

Like a tree carried far from the river which saw its birth, like a bird that flies from the branch on which it rested, man ought to free himself from the body; for thus will he see himself delivered from the devouring monster of this world.

The soul itself is its own witness, and its own refuge. Offend not thy conscious soul, the supreme internal witness of men! Oh, friend to virtue! that Supreme Spirit which thou believest one and the same with thyself, resides in thy bosom perpetually, and is an all-knowing inspector of thy goodness, or wickedness.

The priest, baptising the child, says: "Little babe, thou enterest the world weeping, while all around thee smile. Mayest thou so live that thou mayest depart in smiles, while all around thee weep."

ON CREATION.

The universe existed in darkness imperceptible, undefinable, undiscoverable, and undiscovered; as if immersed in sleep.

Then the self-existing power, undiscovered himself, but making the world discernible with the five elements and other principles, appeared in undiminished glory dispelling the gloom.

He whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible parts, who exists from eternity, even he, the soul of things, shows forth in

person.

He, having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, first created the waters, with a thought, and placed in them a productive seed.

The seed became an egg, bright as gold, blazing like the luminary with a thousand beams, and in that egg he was born himself, in the form of Brahma, the great forefather of all spirits.

The waters are called Nara, because they were the production of Nara, or the Spirit of God; and hence they were his first ayana, or place of motion; he hence is named Narayana, or moving of the waters.

In that egg the great power sat inactive a whole year of the creator, at the end of which, by his thought alone, he caused the egg to divide itself.

And from its two divisions he framed the heavens above, and the earth beneath; in the midst he placed the subtle ether, the eight regions, and the permanent receptacle of the waters.

From the Supreme Soul he drew forth mind, existing substantially, though unperceived by sense, immaterial; and before mind, or the reasoning power, he produced consciousness, the internal monitor, the ruler.

And before them both he produced the great principle of the soul, or first expansion of the divine idea; and all vital forms endued with the three qualities of goodness, passion, and darkness, and the five perceptions of sense, and the five organs of sensation.

That, having at once pervaded with emanations from the Supreme Spirit, the minutest portions of fixed principles immensely operative, consciousness, and the five perceptions, he formed all creatures.

Thence proceed the great elements, endued with peculiar powers, and mind with operations infinitely subtle, the imperishable cause of all apparent forms.

This universe, therefore, is compacted from the minute portions of those seven divine and active principles; the great