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that I desire to say a few words as to belief in a Personal God, in an Impersonal God and in No-God.
Tne three beliefs are very different and pace our brethren of the Arya, who seem to think differently, the believer in an Impersonal God is not only no Atheist, but actually in many cases holds the exact tenets of the Upanishads.
It is in the meaning of the word Person that the misconception originates.
The Arya says, "By personal we understand the attribute of being an individual—the essence of personality is consciousness—the knowledge of the fact that I am." But this, if the writer will pardon my so saying, is really not a tenable position. Persona, or a mask, refers only to the mask of flesh and blood and bones and the associated powers that conceal, the spirit, soul or whatever it please? men to call that portion of the human entity which survives the dissolutions of the physical body. For materialists, who believe that with this latter the entire man perishes, it may be correct to say that the essence of personality is consciousness, but certainly, no Vedantist could ever say this if he really understood what personality signified. The essence of individuality is consciousness; it is the individuality which feels "I am," not the personality, which no more feels, of itself, I am, than does the suit of clothes in which it is arrayed.
Now there are many good men who believe in a Personal God, a radiant, glorified man, with head and body and limbs; and they draw pictures of him (those who have haunted the galleries of Europe only know what glorious idealizations of the "human form divine" this belief has inspired), and they attribute to him human feelings, anger; repentance and the like, and they picture him to themselves, and love him as a veritable "Father who is in Heaven." But there are others (who cannot accept these conceptions which to them seem derogatory to the Infinite and absolute) who believe in an Impersonal God. They hold that God is not a mere magnified man; that he has no form or persona, at any rate that we can conceive, that he is a spirit, all pervading, all sustaining, neither liable to anger, repentance or change, and hence panic (having always known from all eternity what was right and therefore what he willed), always working through immutable laws. Many of these (but by no means all) hold further that he is not conscious or