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after age, as the herald of the gods, the immortal, the offerer of oblations, the preserver, the god who ought to be extolled, and have worshipped thee as the ever-wakeful, the all-pervading, and the lord of men.

O, Agni, who renderest glorious both worlds during the performance of our rites, thou goest backward and forward through the two worlds as the messenger of the gods; since therefore we apply ourselves to the sacred rites and sacred hymns, be thou manifested as the prosperer of the three habitable regions (of earth, air, and heaven.)

PRAYER TO THE TRIUNE DIVINITY.

May we, who propitiate the gods, arrive at the age laid down by the divinity with undiminished mental and bodily vigor.

May Indra, served with sacrificial viands, grant us prosperity. May the nourishing Sun, who knows all things, grant us prosperity.

May Tarkshya Rishi, the ring of whose chariot-wheel could not be cut, grant us prosperity. (O, triune divinity!) May Vrihuspati grant us prosperity. Triune divinity! grant us prosperity.

VEDAS.*

Any place where the mind of man can be undisturbed, is suitable for the worship of the Supreme Being.

The vulgar look for their gods in water; the ignorant think they reside in wood, bricks, and stones; men of more extended knowledge seek them in celestial orbs; but wise men worship the Universal Soul.

There is one living and true God; everlasting, without parts or passion; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker and Preserver of all things.

* From Progress of Religious Ideas, by Mrs. L. M. Childs.

He overspreads all creatures. He is entirely Spirit, without the form either of a minute body, or an extended one, which is liable to impression or organization. He is the ruler of the intellect, self-existent, pure, perfect, omniscient, and omnipresent. He has from all eternity been assigning to all creatures their respective purposes. No vision can approach him, no language describe him, no intellectual power can comprehend him.

As a thousand rays emanate from one flame, thus do all souls emanate from The One Eternal Soul, and return to him.

The Supreme Soul dwells in the form of four-footed animals, and in another place he is full of glory. He lives in the form of the slave, he is smaller than the grain of barley. He is smallest of the small, and the greatest of the great; yet he is neither small nor great.

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Without hand nor foot, he runs rapidly and grasps firmly; without eyes, he sees all; without ears, he hears all. He knows whatever can be known; but there is none who knows him. The wise call him the Great, Supreme, Pervading Spirit.

He who considers all beings as existing in the Supreme Spirit, and the Supreme Spirit as pervading all beings, cannot view with contempt any creature whatsoever.

This body, formed of bones, skin, and nerves, filled with fat and flesh, is a great evil, and without reality. It ought to perish. Of what use is it then for the soul to seek corporeal pleasures?

Through strict veracity, universal control of the mind and senses, abstinence from sexual indulgence, and ideas derived from spiritual teachers, man should approach God, who, full of glory and perfection, works in the heart, and to whom only votaries freed from passion and desire can approximate.

May this soul of mine, which is a ray of perfect wisdom, pure intellect, and permanent existence, which is the unextinguishable light fixed within created bodies, without which no good act is performed, be united by devout meditations with the Spirit supremely blest and supremely intelligent.

That All-pervading Spirit, which gives light to the visible sun, even the same in kind am I, though infinitely distant in degree. Let my soul return to the immortal Spirit of God, and then let my body return to dust.

By one Supreme Ruler is this universe pervaded; even every world in the whole circle of Nature. Enjoy pure delight, O man, by abandoning all thoughts of this perishable world; and covet not the wealth of any creature existing.

God, who is perfect wisdom and perfect happiness, is the final refuge of the man who has liberally bestowed his wealth, who has been firm in virtue, and who knows and adores the Great One.

The way to eternal beatitude is open to him who without omission speaketh truth.

If any one assumes the garb of the religious, without doing their works, he is not religious. Whatever garments he wears, if his works are pure, he belongs to the order of pure men. If he wears the dress of a penitent, and does not lead the life of a penitent, he belongs to the men of the world; but if he is in the world, and practices penitential works, he ought to be regarded as a penitent.

Saints wise and firm, exempt from passion, assured of the soul's divine origin, satisfied solely with the science of God, have seen God everywhere present with them, and after death have been absorbed in him.

To know that God is, and that all is God, this is the substance of the Vedas. When one attains to this, there is no more need of reading, or of works; they are but the bark, the straw, the envelope. No more need of them when one has the seed, the substance, the Creator. When one knows Him by science, he may abandon science, as the torch which has conducted him to the end.

FROM BHAGVAT GEETA.

Kreeshna to Arjoun:

IMMORTALITY.

I, myself, never was not, nor thou, nor all the princes of the earth; nor shall we ever cease to be. As the soul in this mortal frame findeth infancy, youth and old age; so, in some future frame will it find the like. One who is confirmed in this belief is not disturbed by anything that may come to pass. The sensibility of the faculties giveth heat and cold, pleasure and pain, which come and go, and are transient and inconstant. Bear them with patience, O Son of Bharat, for the wise man, whom these disturb not, is formed for immortality.

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As a man throweth away old garments, and putteth on new, even so the soul, having quitted its old mortal frames, entereth others which are new. The weapon divideth it not, the fire burneth it not, the water corrupteth it not, the wind drieth it not away; for it is indivisible, inconsumable, incorruptible; it is eternal, universal, permanent, immovable; it is invisible, inconceivable and unalterable; therefore, believing it to be thus, thou shouldst not grieve.

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Wise men, who have abandoned all thought of the fruit which is produced by their actions, are freed from the chains of birth, and go to the regions of eternal happiness.

INCARNATION.

Although I (Kreeshna) am not, in my nature, subject to birth or decay, and am lord of all created beings; yet having command over my own nature, I am made evident by my own power; and as often as there is a decline of virtue, and an insurrection of vice and injustice, in the world, I make myself evident; and thus I appear from age to age, for the preservation of the just, the destruction of the wicked, and the establishment of virtue.

OF WORKS, AND A RECLUSE LIFE.

Arjoun: Thou speakest, O Kreeshna, of the forsaking of works, and again of performing them. Tell me which of the two is best.

Kreeshna: Both the desertion and the practice of works are equally the means of happiness; but of the two, the practice is to be distinguished above the desertion. The perpetual recluse, who neither longeth nor complaineth, is worthy to be known, free from duplicity, and happily freed from the bond of action.

Children only, and not the learned, speak of the speculative and practical doctrines as two. They are but one, for both obtain the self-same end. To be a Sanyassee (or recluse) without application, is to obtain pain and trouble; whilst the Monee, who is employed in the practice of his duty, presently obtaineth Brahm the Almighty. The man who, employed in the practice of works, is of a purified soul, a subdued spirit, and restrained passions, and whose soul is the universal soul, is not affected by so being (employed).

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The man who, performing the duties of life, and quitting all interest in them, placeth them upon Brahm, the Supreme, is not tainted by sin; but remaineth like the leaf of the lotus, unaffected by the waters. Practical men, who perform the offices of life but with their bodies, their minds, their understandings and their senses, and forsake the consequences for the purification of their souls, and, although employed, forsake the fruit of action, obtain infinite happiness; whilst the man who is unemployed, being attached to the fruit by the agent (active) desire, is in the bonds of confinement. The man who hath his passions in subjection, and with his mind forsaketh all works, his soul sitteth at rest in the nine-gate city of its abode (in his body), neither acting nor causing to act.

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The duties of a man's own particnlar calling, although not free from faults, are far preferable to the duty of another, let it be ever so well pursued.

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