nations, there are minds which incline to dwell in the conception of
the fundamental Unity. The raptures of prayer and ecstasy of devotion
lose all being in one Being. This tendency finds its highest expression
in the religious writings of the East, and chiefly, in the Indian
Scriptures, in the Vedas, the Bhagavat Geeta, and the Vishnu Purana.
Those writings contain little else than this idea, and they rise to
pure and sublime strains in celebrating it.

The Same, the Same! friend and foe are of one stuff; the ploughman,
the plough, and the furrow, are of one stuff; and the stuff is such,
and so much, that the variations of forms are unimportant. "You are
fit" (says the supreme Krishna to a sage) "to apprehend that you are
not distinct from me. That which I am, thou art, and that also is this
world, with its gods, and heroes, and mankind. Men contemplate
distinctions, because they are stupefied with ignorance." "The words
I and mine constitute ignorance. What is the great end of all, you
shall now learn from me. It is soul,--one in all bodies, pervading,
uniform, perfect, preeminent over nature, exempt from birth, growth,
and decay, omnipresent, made up of true knowledge, independent,
unconnected with unrealities, with name, species, and the rest, in
time past, present, and to come. The knowledge that this spirit, which
is essentially one, is in one's own, and in all other bodies, is the
wisdom of one who knows the unity of things. As one diffusive air,
passing through the perforations of a flute, is distinguished as the
notes of a scale, so the nature of the Great Spirit is single, though
its forms be manifold, arising from the consequences of acts. When the
difference of the investing form, as that of god, or the rest, is
destroyed, there is no distinction." "The whole world is but a
manifestation of Vishnu, who is identical with all things, and is to
be regarded by the wise, as not differing from, but as the same as