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fice of knowledge is superior to the sacrifice of wealth, for action is wholly and entirely comprehended in knowledge.... Even if you are the most sinful of all sinful men, you will cross over all trespasses by means of the boat of knowledge alone. As a fire well kindled, O Arjuna! reduces fuel to ashes, so the fire of knowledge reduces all actions to ashes. For there is in this world no means of sanctification like knowledge, and that one perfected by devotion finds within one's self in time. He who has faith, whose senses are restrained, and who is assiduous, obtains knowledge. Obtaining knowledge he acquires, without delay, the highest tranquillity.... Therefore, O descendant of Bharata! destroy with the sword of knowledge these misgivings of yours which fill your mind, and which are produced from ignorance." "He who is possessed of knowledge, who is always devoted, and whose worship is addressed to one only, is esteemed highest. For to the man of knowledge I am dear above all things, and he is dear to me. All these are noble, but the man possessed of knowledge is deemed by me to be my own self." From time immemorial Indian sages have looked upon God as the Supreme Intelligence; He is the absolute Wisdom, and to know Him or it, and to know that "I am it" (_Tat twam asi_), this is the highest wisdom (_Brahma Gnana_), and it gives immediate entrance into the heaven of beatification or of absorption. And the only sin which such a man, and which this system of thought, recognizes is the sin of ignorance (_Avidia_); that is, the folly, or stupidity, of thinking that one's soul is separate from the divine Soul. To know, under these mundane conditions of delusion (_Maya_), and while under the tyranny of passion and of action (_Karma_), that I am, after all, identical with the divine Spirit, and that the thought of a separate existence is a snare and a bondage,--this is the immediate shattering of my earthly bondage and the full entrance of my soul (like a drop of water to its mother ocean) into the eternal peace and tranquillity (_Sayutcha_) of the godhead--a state of unconscious calm which shall never after be disturbed. Thus the highest way of salvation, as taught by Hindus of all classes, is the way of knowledge. It is the highest step in the progress of human redemption. All other ways of salvation are but preliminary, or stepping-stones, to this. There is no return to the bondage of this world of Him who has crosse
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