The Criterion for Religions — Page 7
7 nal with Him. But if it is asked whether He personally contributes anything to it, the answer would be in the negative. Thus, the maximum extent of His power consists only in joining together existing souls and tiny material particles that are as eternal and necessary as His own being and over the creation of which He has no influence whatsoever. It is, therefore, difficult to explain why at all such eternal entities need a Par- meshwar since they themselves and all their properties are self-existent. Moreover, their ability to combine with one another is also innate and their mutual pull and attraction has existed since eternity. All their char- acteristics, resulting from their synthesis, are similarly self-existing. One fails to understand how the exis- tence of such a defective and powerless Parmeshwar can be justified. And what is there to distinguish Him from everything else except that He is more clever and intelligent! There is no doubt that the Parmeshwar of the Aryas lacks the infinite powers that are the hall- mark of Divine perfection. As ill luck would have it, this imaginary Parmeshwar failed to attain the absolute perfection which is a must for the full manifestation of Divine glory. Another misfortune is that, except for a few pages of the Vedas, there is no way of recognizing Him through the laws of nature. Because, if it is true that souls and material particles, along with all of their properties, attractions, characteristics, intellects, cogni-