Brahma Knowledge

PART I: section 22. GOD.--These two ideas, empiric servitude to Works and transcendental freedom, leave little room for a Supreme God or moral guide of the experiences of souls. The older texts practically ignore such a power; their polytheistic myths are merely echoes from the Veda, allegorically turned, and when they refer to a supreme deity they mean the higher Self within man. Later authors, however, began occasionally to set up in theistic fashion a distinction between the Self wi

relation to God as that of a servant to his master is justified by him (on II. iii. 43 f.), inasmuch as Brahma by his supreme "determinations" regulates the activity of the empiric soul in the exercise of its inferior "determinations." He permits the worship of this "qualified Brahma," i.e. the Absolute conceived under the forms of empiric thought, but regards it as inferior in saving power to the true knowledge (see section section 24, 25). The works of religion--ritual and devotion--are of value only as aids to enlightenment; they are not necessary, and after enlightenment is gained they lose all significance (on III. iv. 25 f., IV. i. 1 f.).

Footnotes

^47:1 Predestination for empiric life, B.A. III. viii. 9, IV. iv. 5, Ch. III. xiv. 1, VIII, i. 5; Unconscious freedom of transcendental Self, Ch. VIII. iii. 2; Absolute freedom in enlightenment, Ch. VII. xxv. 2, VII. i. 6, v. 4.