Refusing To Believe In The Interference, And Even Presence
Of The Spirits, In The So-Called Spiritualistic Phenomena, We
Nevertheless Believe In The Living Spirit Of Man; We Believe In
The Omnipotence Of This Spirit, And In Its Natural, Though Benumbed
Capacities.
We also believe that, when incarnated, this spirit,
this divine spark, may be apparently quenched, if it is not
Guarded,
and if the life the man leads is unfavorable to its expansion,
as it generally is; but, on the other hand, our conviction is
that human beings can develop their potential spiritual powers;
that, if they do, no phenomenon will be impossible for their
liberated wills, and that they will perform what, in the eyes of
the uninitiated, will be much more wondrous than the materialized
forms of the spiritualists. If proper training can render the
muscular strength ten times greater, as in the cases of renowned
athletes, I do not see why proper training should fail in the
case of moral capacities. We have also good grounds to believe
that the secret of this proper training - though unknown to, and
denied by, European physiologists and even psychologists - is
known in some places in India, where its knowledge is hereditary,
and entrusted to few.
Mr. Y - - was a novice in our Society and looked with distrust
even on such phenomena as can be pro-duced by mesmerism. He had
been trained in the Royal Institute of British Architects, which
he left with a gold medal, and with a fund of scepticism that
caused him to distrust everything, en dehors des mathematiques
pures. So that no wonder he lost his temper when people tried to
convince him that there existed things which he was inclined to
treat as "mere bosh and fables."
Now I return to my narrative.
The Babu and Mulji left us to help the servants to transport our
luggage to the ferry boat. The remainder of the party had grown
very quiet and silent. Miss X - - dozed peacefully in the carriage,
forgetting her recent fright. The colonel, stretched on the sand,
amused himself by throwing stones into the water. Narayan sat
motionless, with his hands round his knees, plunged as usual in
the mute contemplation of Gulab Lal-Sing. Mr. Y - - sketched
hurriedly and diligently, only raising his head from time to time
to glance at the opposite shore, and knitting his brow in a
preoccupied way. The Takur went on smoking, and as for me, I sat
on my folding chair, looking lazily at everything round me, till
my eyes rested on Gulab-Sing, and were fixed, as if by a spell.
"Who and what is this mysterious Hindu?" I wondered in my uncertain
thoughts. "Who is this man, who unites in himself two such distinct
personalities: the one exterior, kept up for strangers, for the
orld in general, the other interior, moral and spiritual, shown
only to a few intimate friends? But even these intimate friends
do they know much beyond what is generally known?
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