Page:Bengal Vaishnavism - Bipin Chandra Pal.djvu/48

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ABSOLUTE 38 illusion. It is not even what is popularly called relatively real, but absolutely real, though here in our experience this reality is a progressively realising reality, which exists eternally realised in the Being of Bhagavan. In this, Bengal Yaishnavism (and generally more or less all the Vaishnavic schools of Hinduism) stands differentiated from the popular mediaeval thoughts and philosophies of India that are fatally obsessed bj’ the Yedantic dogma of Maya or Illusion ; and wherein the negation of this world, as distin- guished from its spiritualisation or idealisa- tion, is an overwhelming note, with the result that renvmciation of the world, supression of all natural instincts, however healthy, and the rejiudiation of jill normal obligations of human love and affection became a dominant note in the religious life ond spiritual endea- vours of this medieval Hinduism. Bengal Yaishnavism entered a strong protest against these. It frankly accepted the fundamental truths of mediaeval Yedantic culture and therefore did not absolutely repudiate the fundamental disciplines of so-called asceticism and nionasticism, but only corrected its false philosophy and abnormal excesses. The object of asceticism is not the suiiression of the