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The paragon of all monistic systems is the Vedanta philosophy of Hindostan, and the paragon of Vedantist missionaries was the late Swami Vivekananda who visited our shores some years ago. The method of Vedantism is the mystical method. You do not reason, but after going through a certain discipline YOU SEE, and having seen, you can report the truth.

These may justly be regarded as the ancestors of the Vedânta, inasmuch as the tone of thought prevalent in them is incipient Vedântism. It rejects dualism and regards the universe as a unity not as plurality, as something which has issued from Brahman or is pervaded by Brahman and in any case depends on Brahman for its significance and existence.

Considering first its teaching concerning God, we find emphasized that monistic teaching of Hindu Pantheism which has been the dominant note in the faith of India from the first. But it is not the strictly spiritual and the unequivocal Pantheism of Vedantism, which is purely idealistic and which bluntly denies the existence of everything but Brâhm itself.

He teaches that Brahman is the origin of the world and that with him should all knowledge, religion and effort be concerned. By meditation on him, the soul is released and somehow associated with him. Though the sûtras are the acknowledged text-book of Vedântism, their utterances are in practice less important than subsequent explanations of them.

It was the demand of a thoughtful and an earnest religious man for a personal God which could bring peace and rest to the soul, in contradistinction to the unknowable, unethical, and unapproachable Brâhm, which the dominant Vedantism had thrust upon the people. The Madhwachariars went one step farther and inculcated a dualism, which many to-day accept as the basis of their faith.

The unbelieving Calcutta graduate has Hegel and Spinoza interwoven with his Vedantism, and the eclectic leader of the Brahmo Somaj, while placing Christ at the head of the prophets and recognizing the authority of all sacred bibles of the races, called on Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Mohammedans to unite in one theistic church of the New Dispensation in India.

India to-day acknowledges no higher authority in matters of religion, ceremonial, customs, and law than the Vedas, and the spirit of Vedantism, which is breathed by every Hindu from his earliest youth, pervades the prayers of the idolater, the speculations of the philosopher, and the proverbs of the beggar.

This rule did the Brahmans good service in insuring the continuity and respectability of their class but it tended to drive enthusiasts to other creeds. It does not seem that any sect can plausibly claim Śaṅkara as founder or adherent. His real religion was Vedântism and this, though not incompatible with sectarian worship, is predisposed to be impartial.

What was the caste system recently enunciated by Abhedananda in Madras? It is certainly not a thing known in India by that name. And I have no doubt that his whole audience smiled when he presented his conception of a caste system so foreign to all Hindu ideas and practice. It is just so with his Vedantism, and with his interpretation of all the religious teachings of this land.

It is foreign to Vedantism, whose God is the Impersonal and the Ineffable One; foreign also to the Sankya school, where God is neither known nor needed. It is essentially a new teaching, and is a peculiar feature of the worship of the incarnations of Vishnu.