These lectures were delivered before the Theological Society connected with the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj. In these discourses the author has tried, in painting the ideal life and the means of realising it in its outlines and setting forth its sadhans, to keep himself as free as possible from philosophical discussions and has lappealed more to practical experience than to reason. What help the book may render to earnest aspirants after spiritual life can be better judged by the reader than the author. But it may as well be said that if the thoughts and experiences embodied in it had not helped him and those closely to him in spirit in their humble endeavours after the life related divine, he would not have ventured to publish them.
The author's indebtedness to teachers, ancient and modern, is too deep and wide to be acknowledged in detail. It will be somewhat evident to the reader as he goes through the book. But a faint indication of the main lines of the author's thoughts and of the sources to which he is chiefly indebted, may perhaps be here given. If the little system which is presented in these pages be com- pared to a building, it may then be said that the jnan which forms its basis is essentially the Monodualistic Theism of the Upanishads, somewhat modified by the Idealism of Hegel as interpreted by his English followers; that the bhakti which forms the superstructure is that doctrine of an ever-active divine love and our relation to it which the author first learnt in his youthful days at the feet of Brahmananda Kesabchandra Sen, and which he has not yet met with in any other teacher in all its purity and fullness; and lastly that the doctrine of karma which forms its entrance, is essentially the Christian ideal of perfection, corrected by the teachings of the Bhagavadgita and the doctrine of self-realisation taught by western Idealists. The author does not care whether the system set forth here be called national or eclectic. He does not know where to draw the line between nationalism and eclecticism. He only knows that the basis of his system, which would perhaps be called national, determines every part of it, and that openness to truth, wherever and by whomsoever taught, and the candour to acknowledge one's debt, are of the very essence of true religion.
The author is deeply conscious of the defects of the book he offers to be public. In fact if he knew of another book covering the same ground, he would scarcely have ventured to publish it. Knowing, however, that with all its shortcomings it has a work to do in the world, he lets it go with great diffidence and commends it to the grace of God and to the indulgence of its readers. In a manner it completes the system he has been endeavouring to expound for several years past. Not that there is nothing more to be said in its elucidation and amplification. But failing health and strength indicate that with the single exception of the 'Ritual' which he was asked by the All-India Theistic Conference to prepare and which he has already submitted to that body, this little book may be the author's last piece of literary service to his fellow-beings. In anticipation of that contingency he bids a hearty fare- well to his readers until the hoped-for re-union in the kingdom of heaven.
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