en minded seeker after truth of whatever race or
color, will find in the instructions given man by each and every great
teacher, whether we believe in them as especially "divine" or as mere
humans who have attained to the realization of their godhood (_avatars,_) a
complete unity of _purpose_, and if these teachers differ in _method of
attainment_, it is only because of the immutable fact that there can be no
_one and only_ way of attainment.

Methods and systems are established consistently with the age and character
of those whom they are designed to assist in finding the way.

And again we must emphasize the fact that by the phrase "the way," we mean
the way to a realization of the godhood within the inner temple of man's
threefold nature.

Thus, the intelligent, unprejudiced student of the religions and
philosophies of all times and all races, will find that, while there are
many and diverse paths to the goal of "salvation," the goal itself means
unity with the Causeless Cause, wherein exists perfection.

Perhaps it has been left for the expected Incarnate God, which Christians
speak of as "the second coming of Christ," to make clear the problem as to
whether this attainment or completement means an absorption of individual
consciousness, or whether it will be an adding to the present incarnation,
of the memory of past lives, in such a manner that no consciousness shall
be lost, but all shall be found.

In considering instances of cosmic consciousness, _mukti_, which have been
recorded as distinctly religious experiences, and the effect of this
attainment, the system best known to the Occident, is contained in the
philosophy of Vedanta, expounded and interpreted to western understanding
by the late Swami Vivekananda.

But it should be understood that the philosophy taught by Vivekananda is
not strictly orthodox Hinduism. It bears the same relation to the old
religious systems of India that Unitarianism bears to orthodox Christianity
such as we find in Catholicism, and its off-shoots.

Vivekananda honored and revered and followed, according to his
interpretation of the message, Sri Ramakrishna, whom an increasing number
of Hindus regard as the latest incarnation of Aum--the Absolute. Not that
the reader is to understand, that Sri Ramakrishna's message contradicted
the essential character of the basic principles of orthodox Hinduism, as
set down in the Vedas and the Upanashads.

The same difference of _emphasi