ART IN BENGAL VAISHNAVISM 66 from logical abstractions and philosophical generalisations, of an exceedingly complex character. In all our realisations the sensuous and the super-sensuous, the physical and the spiritual, the material and the ideal, are organicallj^ and indissolubly mixed up, like shine and shadow, as our ancients would say. All our I'ealisations of the spiritual are really through our sense-experiences. All our realisations of God are through our direct experiences of man and this world. God as Creator cannot be abstracted from His creation. The personality of God can never be realised except in the light of our direct exjDeriences of the human personality. We call God our Father, but the Fatherhood of God can only be realised directly by our own fatherhood. In our deepest devotions we address God as our F'ather, our Friend, our Lord or Lover. But these terms have their mean- ing and truth only in our direct experiences of the human relations. Yaishnavic bhakti and Vaishnavic art are both the fruit of these experienees of the human relations, which at their highest point transcend the sensuous and reach the plane of the super-sensuous or the spiritual. Purification of the senses by means of rigorous physical, psycho-physical and 5
