Vedantic Philosophy of India and Christian Science
By George F. Enoch
Striking Identity of the Two Religious Systems—Have We a Personality? This is the third article by Elder Enoch based upon that striking prophecy in the second of Isaiah which tells us that in the last days the people would “be replenished from the East” and become “soothsayers” and “please themselves in the children of strangers.” The replenishing in the religious field that is coming from the Oriental religions, the soothsaying that is entering into the religious life of this time, is truly remarkable. The article this week is particularly striking and very valuable in showing the entire identity between the old Vedantic philosophies of India and the modern claims of Christian Science. The teachings of the Vedas are a matter of record, and cannot be denied; and the absurdity of the claim of Christian Science to being something new in the world should be apparent to any one. EDITOR. PERHAPS the most striking and so far successful invasion of the West by the principles of the Vedantic philosophy of India is in the guise of Christian Science. It is true that this cult takes the name of Christ, and denies its identity with Vedantic philosophy; but a careful and unbiased examination of the two side by side will convince one that they have the same character and source. In this investigation, we must not confuse modern, degenerate, polytheistic Hinduism with the pure pantheistic philosophy of the Vedas and the Upanishads. The careful student of both philosophies must recognize that at bottom they are identical. That the readers of the SIGNS may compare these two systems, I will give a summary of each. The following are the fundamental principles of the Vedas. The famous Sanskrit formula which summarizes the philosophy in two words is, ekam advitiyam; that is, one without a second. This does not approximate the Christian monotheistic idea, but means that God is all, and that nothing really exists but God. The neuter Brahma is the only symbol that can express God, impersonal, destitute of qualities, the only Reality. All else, including the phenomenal world of which we are a part, is maya, or illusion; that is, does not really exist, is but as the dream of a disordered mind. There is in reality no such thing as evil, and sickness or disease, or death. India’s reverence is for pure spirit, an abstraction, and not anything material. We must not say “ourselves”—this is erroneous—but “myself.” “The highest knowledge is to find and know my inner and highest self; and that self is God—not a part of God, but God all-inclusive. When I have returned completely to this world soul—the highest self—then I regain my identity with it, and cease my round of births and rebirths, and am absorbed back into God.” The Upanishad says, “The jar is broken, and the ether that was in it, is one with the one and undivided ether from which the jar once seemed to separate it.” Each soul is the complete, indivisible Brahma. The universe does not exist. To know is to be. It is all I, I, I. These statements, and pages of others similar, can be found in Max Müller’s monumental works on the Upanishads, the commentaries on the Vedas, which have developed the Vedantic philosophy. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE JUST LIKE IT
Any one at all familiar with Christian Science and Mrs. Eddy’s “Science and Health,” on reading these principles, recognizes at once their identity. As the Vedas and the Upanishads were written from 1300 B.C. to 500 B.C., it is evident which one has the precedence. But lest some might not think this is so, I subjoin a few quotations taken from “Science and Health,” edition 1904, giving page and line: “Spirit, God is all.”—425 (20). “He is the only spirit.”—73 (11, 12). “God is the only mind.”—469 (13). “Man has no mind, but God.”—319 (19). “God is all, there is no matter.”—421 (17, 18). “Spirit—the synonym of mind—Soul, God is substance, that is, the only real substance.”—468 (24, 21). “God is all and there is no other consciousness.”—492 (25), 586 (9). “In reality there is no evil.”—311 (6). “All that we term sin, sickness, death, is comprised in a belief in matter.”—278 (28). “Matter is unknown.”—250 (7). “Mortal existence is a dream. It has no real entity.”—250 (7). “There is no reality in death.”—487 (8). “Objects cognized by the physical senses have not the reality of substance.”—311, (26, 27). “Sin is belief in matter.”—278 (28). “God is not a person.”—1891, page 605. On the flyleaf of the early editions of “Science and Health,” the following was found: “I, I, I, I, itself I,
The inside, the outside, the what and the why,
The when and the where, the low and the high,
All I, I, I, I, itself I.”
Who will deny the absolute identity of the foregoing principles of Christian Science with the Vedantic philosophy? How, then, are we to meet these subtle philosophies of the East? The writer has two suggestions. First, it is quite necessary to understand the difference between the pantheism of India and other pantheistic beliefs. The ordinary pantheism identifies the universe with God, or God with the universe, making every visible thing, God manifested, and the conception of God is that He is the sum of all. But Indian pantheism is spiritual, saying that every atom of the phenomenal universe is unreal, but an illusion, the real foundation of which is a divine, spiritual essence behind it. This divine essence, unseen, unknowable, impersonal, is God. For illustration, take a beautiful flower. First we have the bud, then the flower, with its illusive beauty and fragrance, then the ripened fruit. These are not God, or even a part of God, but are the sport or play of a great Conjurer that is the substratum of all. This substratum is called, by the Vedantist, God or thought or mind. ASSUMPTIONS AND ILLUSORY REASONING
The only way to overthrow this system is, not to grant the premises. The whole structure is based on false premises, assumption and illusory analogies. Grant either the Vedantist or the Christian Scientist his premises, and accept his false analogies, and you must go the entire way with him; for the reasoning from that point is the masterpiece of the great deceiver of the human mind. The entire argument centers in the idea of personality. Have we a personality? Has God a personality? If this is so, the argument is ours, and this “replenishing from the East” is seen to have its foundation on shifting sand.489 To discover the fallacy in the reasoning, we must hold the propagators of such doctrines to correct reasoning when they try to pass from the personal to the impersonal. There is no process of correct reasoning by which their absurd assumptions can be maintained. Personality, self-consciousness, is the highest conception of the human mind. It is the highest phenomenon known to us, and is the point from which we must pass to the infinite beyond, if we are to pass at all. Revelation comes in right at this point, and leads us upward, beyond the created universe to the most high God, who is still the highest personality. Here the source of all being reveals Himself by His name, I AM. This divine intelligence has in infinite perfection the qualities we find in our own heart, a living, personal, holy, loving God; one who sympathizes with us, to whom we can come in the hour of perplexity or grief, to whom we can cast every anxiety; a loving personality, who surrounds us with His personal solicitude and care, and in whose presence we shall eventually find eternal rest.