16
❖ * மறைமலையம் - 27
coarse and foul impurities require equally coarse substances to be cleansed of their impurities: whereas the highly developed souls rising above the filth require only the help of finer substances to raise them still higher. For we see plainly before our eyes the mental powers of individual souls developing in different degrees in different souls without any limit being set to them. In proportion to the mental development of souls, matter which serves as its vehicle also becomes rarified in different degrees. In the words of Dr. Schiller, "The spiritualization of Matter is displayed also in its relations to spiritual beings. As in the course of evolution these become more harmonized with the Divine Will, Matter the expression of that Will, becomes more and more harmonized with the desires of spiritual beings." 10 I need then hardly say that the doctrine of Mayai as held by Saivism is in entire harmony with the discoveries of modern science.
To all those who seek after an exact knowledge of these six eternal verities, it must be very gratifying to note as above that the recent developments of western philosophy and physical science go every inch to prove the truth and value of all the fundamental doctrines only of the Saiva Siddhanta and not of any other religion or philosophy.
Foot notes
1.
2.
Pragmatism, p. 13.
Taken from Dr. G.U. Pope's translation of the Thiruvarutpayan; see his Translation of the Thiruvachakam. p. ii.
Dr. E. Caird's "The Evolution of Religion” vol. p. 227.
3.
4.
The Realm of Ends. p. 204.
5.
The Realm of Ends, p. 18.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Riddles or the Sphinx. 2nd edition, p. 403.
Ibid. P. 434.
Natural law in the Spiritual World, cheap ed., P. 29.
The Realm of Ends. p. 213.
Riddles of the Sphinx, p. 298.
