There is a further aspect of this subject, and one so singular and serious that the reader will be as much surprised at the alleged divine law which requires it, as the sole and only path to moral purity and ultimate perfection, as he will be that men have ever been found who would undertake to conform themselves to the amazing and unique discipline by which it is to be attained. We may talk of self-denial and cross-bearing, but did the history of human endurance ever present any thing equal to the requirements of the following teachings?
In all the wide range of Hindoo Literature it is conceded that there is nothing so sublime, and even pure, as the disquisitions contained in the Bhagvat Geeta, (Bhagvat, Lord, Geeta, song—“the Song of the Lord.”) This book is an episode of the celebrated Mahabarata, and consists of conversations between the divine Kreeshna, (the incarnate God of the Hindoos, in his last avatar, or descent to earth in mortal form,) and his favorite pupil, the valiant Arjoona, commander-in-chief of the Pandoo forces.
Arjoona is religious as well as heroic, and in deep anxiety to know by what spiritual discipline he may reach perfection and permanent union with God. His Incarnate Deity undertakes to enlighten him in the following instructions.
To assist the reader in comprehending the teachings of this whimsical method of reaching “the higher life,” as practiced by the most sincere and yearning of India's religious devotees, I present a faithful picture of one of the class described, and who is at the same time one of the most celebrated of the Yogee order, just as I have seen him in Delhi, where the photograph was taken. The Yogee is the central figure. The Fakir standing is his attendant; the man to the right is one of the Yogee's devotees or worshipers, come to pay him the usual homage, expressed by his clasped hands. The Saint is silent, engaged in the meditation and abstraction, the rules of which we are going to present. His body is daubed with ashes till he looks as if covered with leprosy; the marks on his forehead are red, as they are on the face, and breast, and arms of his attendant. He holds no converse with mortal man, nor has he
