Mr. Chetty's book should largely fulfil the hopes which have inspired and sustained so great and conscientious a labour. His serious study of Swedenborg's writings has enabled him to supply abundant and appropriate quotations upon almost all the essential questions raised by the subject of the book. Thus, the reader will be able, without difficulty, to obtain a clear idea of Swedenborg's teaching and to grasp its relation to the philosophy of the Siddhanta. Of course, we must not leave the reader under the impression that it is possible, with strings of quotations however copious, to acquire a real knowledge of such an author as Swedenborg. The works themselves must be read and studied to realise their complete messages. But, as an introduction to so vast a subject, the method adopted by Mr. Chetty is probably the best; in fact, under the circumstances, probably the only practical one.
We thank the learned author for having thus introduced the spiritual philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg to the peoples of India in a manner so truly calculated to enlist their interest and to give to their minds a new orientation. Yet they will not feel it to be altogether new. They have in their own religious literature much that points in the same direction, towards justice, peace, the Fatherhood of the one God, and the Brotherhood of Man. In their own Bhagavad-Gitā, they have passages like the following which respond to the thought of the educated West no less than to their own thought.
... When thy firm soul
Hath shaken off those tangled oracles
Which ignorantly guide, then shall it soar
To high neglect of what's denied or said.
This way or that way, in doctrinal writ.
Troubled no longer by the priestly lore,
Safe shall it live, and sure; steadfastly bent
On meditation. This is Yog--and Peace.[1]
- ↑ Bhagavad-Gita, Book II. Translation by Sir Edwin Arnold, K.C.I.E., etc.
