“When ye say Kismet, say it wittingly, O, true believers! under Allah’s throne place is not left for those accursed three, ‘Destiny,’ ‘Fortune,‘ ‘Chance.’ Allah alone ruleth his children: Kismet ye shall deem each man’s alloted portion * * *”
And Whitman plainly states that the provision which is made for all the happenings is a provision existing “in the inherences of things,” and not a fatalistic decree by an irresponsible Almighty.
He also says that he is limitless. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. Everyone is limitless, for Ishwara, the Lord, dwells in the heart of every mortal being. Jesus also, said; “the kingdom of heaven is within you.” Now the kingdom of heaven cannot be apart from God, so that the Nazarene herein says the same thing as the Upanishads.
Again, in the lines, “I do not doubt that interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have their exteriors, and that the eyesight has another eyesight, and the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice,” Whitman might be said to be taking the words from the mouths of those sages who in ancient India penned the Upanishads. In those it is incessantly insisted that these interiors really are the Universal Self which is “the eye of the eye and the hearing of the ear.” And a knowledge of that is the key to unlock the doors of glory and praise. As it is beautifully said in Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad:[152]
“This Self is the footstep of everything, for through it one knows everything. And as one can find again by footsteps what was lost, thus he who knows this finds glory and praise.”
And further, “Therefore, now, also, he who thus knows that he is Brahman (the Self) becomes all this, and even the Devas cannot prevent it, for he himself is their Self.”
S. B. J.
Apollonius and the Mahatmas.
[READ BEFORE THE MALDEN BRANCH, T. S.]
(Concluded.)