As pure water poured into pure water remains the same, thus, 0 Gautama, is the self of a thinker who knows. — Katha Upanishad.

   And he who beholds all being in the Self, and the Self in all beings, he never turns away from it. When ... the Self has become all things, what sorrow, what trouble can there be to him — having once beheld that Unity? — Vagasaneyi-Samhita Upanishad.

   With joined hands filled with flowers, and trembling with homage, the Hindoos pray daily to the Outer Eye of the Deity.... The sun is the physical expression of the spiritual Sun, Krishna.

   As the sun (the orb) is the concrete center of its abstract self in its different manifestations of light and heat which pervade the universe, so the Spiritual Sun, Krishna, the source of the sun, is the concrete center of the diffused effulgence of his body which pervades even the sunlight and its heat.

   Krishna has a form, a form of which the most exquisite human form is but a crude counterpart. The effulgence of Krishna's body is the substance of all space and creation. This Effulgence Krishna, with Form-Krishna for its center, from which it radiates, is Love.
   Sree Krishna, the Lord of Love
   Ba'ba Premanand Pharatin.

   India is the home of what is, perhaps, the oldest continuously surviving post-Atlantean civilization on this planet. Though her peoples are varied and her interests diversified, India possesses a single great religious tradition — more ancient than the pyramids of Egypt or than Sumeria — which once bound all together in a unity of mind and spirit. This tradition came with the Chosen People of Atlantis, yet it contains something which the Atlantean mind never could have understood. It reaches heights of clear thinking which could not have been encompassed by the mother race and which have never been surpassed by any other. For all this, it is not a tradition of cold intellectualism, for it recognizes that Reason and Love are one. As every Mystic knows that Truth resides with God, so every Sage realizes that Love resides with Him. In Him is fulfillment of all that the soul seeks: wise counsel for a loving heart, gentleness and sweetness for a cold intellect. This the Indian peoples understand and cherish as their ancient heritage.

   After the Chosen People had been molded into the new Fifth Epoch Race, semi-divine leaders were appointed by the great archangelic Race Spirits to lead carefully selected groups to new homes. These were not selected at random. The leaders saw with clear vision all the lands on earth, together with an outline of their destinies. The land to which the Old post-Atlanteans went, present-day India, was particularly adapted to their needs, as was the spiritual instruction received from their leaders. In time the teachings crystallized into a textbook, their Book of Books, or Bible. (The word Bible means The Book.)

   Since all world religions stem from a single source they have had a common theme and a common purpose: to prepare mankind for the coming of the Supreme Teacher and Initiator, the Lord Christ. The fifteen hundred years prior to His advent in Palestine, constituting the Arian Age during which the Vernal Equinox was in Aries, were especially important in this work of preparation. As a result many great Teachers appeared among man: Akhnaton to the Egyptians; Moses to the Hebrews; Orpheus to the Greeks; Krishna to the Hindus — to name only a few who stood upon the threshold of the Arian Age.

   Exalted teachings given early post-Atlantean peoples have been incorporated in what is termed the Vedas (the word Veda is Sanskrit meaning wisdom). Vedic literature is defined as a revelation of Divine Wisdom.

   According to some authorities the oldest Vedic documents were written about 1000 B. C., and they deal almost entirely with prayer. Next came the Brahmanas, sometime between this date and 800 B. C., which place special emphasis on sacrifice. These were followed by the Upanishads, probably ranging to 600 B. C., that exhorted to philosophical contemplation. Not until about 250 B. C. were the Laws of Manu written, a very complex code of laws for every-day living. The Bhagavad-Gita is placed as late as the beginning of the Christian era, while the Christ Child was in His infancy, and is an occult drama. As late as 250 A. D, were added the Puranas, eighteen symbolical allegories probably collected from earlier writings.

   The Race Father of ancient India is revered under the name Manu, a proper noun derived from the root "man" meaning to think and to reason. The origin of his teaching is given by Manu himself in these words: "The God Brahma, having framed this system of laws, taught it fully to me in the beginning. I then taught it to the nine other Sages (my offspring, of whom Bhrigu is one). Of these, Bhrigu is deputed by me to declare the Code to you from beginning to end, for he has learned from me to recite the whole of it."

   The Rishis (Sages) of the Vedas were the most advanced of their race who became leaders and teachers of the less advanced. Manu and his chief disciple, Bhrigu, enlightened the Rishis and they in turn instructed the people.

   The time came, however, when the Rishis were passing away and men asked the Gods, "Who shall be our Rishi?" Then the Gods gave them the science of reason that they might discover for themselves the meaning of the sacred hymns. This science was to take the place of their Rishis, but not of the Vedas. Although the latter were supra-intellectual in origin, they were not irrational in any way and could never run contrary to reason.

   It cannot be imagined that Divine Mind which governs the stars by astronomical law would not also be law to human intelligence. It is this law that functions in intellectual order or reason. Hence, a true Scripture cannot be antipathetic to reason.

   Such was the first and one of the most important lessons given to members of the Fifth Root Race. It was incumbent upon all to learn how to focus powers of spirit through the brain, to reason and to think logically within the limits of time and space. The "Gods" who taught them to reason were Elder Brothers from Mercury.

   It was not possible to bestow this faculty on early Atlanteans; nor was it easily done at the beginning of the post-Atlantean Epoch. The human brain was not yet the focalizing instrument of mind which it later became. Man was then immersed in the living wisdom of nature. He was able to place himself in rapport with Cosmic Consciousness and to study the Akashic Records. There he saw living pictures and could verify that the world was "breathed out of Brahma," as declared by the holy Rishis. Later, as man became separated from nature he found it necessary to reason.

   Time passed and great teachers discoursed on the Vedas. Devoted students and disciples transcribed their discourses as the Upanishads, called Forest Books because the disciples were taught amid the seclusion and peace of woodlands far removed from the noise and confusion of men's familiar ways. The Upanishads then became part of sacred initiatory instruction.

   It is not surprising that the Vedas are looked upon as the very utterance of Divinity. They have little to do with human thinking, being literally the pure thoughts of angelic Beings translated into human language.

   The story is told that the God Indra once appeared before one of the holy Rishis and said to him: "Thou hast now studied the Vedas for three hundred years. Note those three high mountains in the distance. The first one represents the first part of the Vedas, the Rig-Veda; the second one represents the second part of the Vedas, the Sama-Veda; and the third one represents the third part of the Vedas, the Yajur-Veda. Thou hast studied these three parts of the Vedas for three hundred years." Indra then took three small lumps of earth out of these three great mountains, just so much as could be held in the hands from each. "Look at these lumps of earth. Thy knowledge of the Vedas is as these lumps in proportion to yonder towering mountains."

   Only as one approaches the world religions in such humility of spirit as Indra taught the Rishi, only by setting aside all bigotry and prejudice and looking upon them as essential and inevitable phases of human evolution, can one begin to understand the esoteric wisdom concealed therein and profit by it.

   The purpose of earthly evolution is that each ego, by a variety of experiences, may become all-wise and develop an all-inclusive consciousness. God manifests in all and through all. On becoming one with Universal Good the soul perceives that Good shining through every Holy Book in the world.

 — Corinne Heline