Men, enslaved by self, passionate, proud, and condemnatory, believe their particular creed or religion to be the Truth, and all other religions to be error; and they proselytize with passionate ardor.  There is but one religion, the religion of Truth.  There is but one error, the error of self.  Truth is not a formal belief; it is an unselfish, holy, and aspiring heart, and he who has Truth is at peace with all, and cherishes all with thoughts of love.

You may easily know whether you are a child of Truth or a worshiper of self, if you will silently examine your mind, heart, and conduct.  Do you harbor thoughts of suspicion, enmity, envy, lust, pride, or do you strenuously fight against these?  If the former, you are chained to self, no matter what religion you may profess; if the latter, you are a candidate for Truth, even though outwardly you may profess no religion.  Are you passionate, self-willed, ever seeking to gain your own ends, self-indulgent, and self-centered; or are you gentle, mild, unselfish, quit of every form of self-indulgence, and are ever ready to give up your own?  If the former, self is your master; if the latter, Truth is the object of your affection.  Do you strive for riches?  Do you fight, with passion, for your party?  Do you lust for power and leadership?  Are you given to ostentation and self-praise?  Or have you given up the love of riches?  Have you relinquished all strife?  Are you content to take the lowest place, and to be passed by unnoticed?  And have you ceased to talk about yourself and to regard yourself with self-complacent pride?  If the former, even though you may imagine you worship God, the god of your heart is self.  If the latter, even though you may withhold your lips from worship, you are dwelling with the Most High.

The signs by which the Truth-lover is known are unmistakable.  Hear the Holy Krishna declare them, in Sir Edwin Arnold’s beautiful rendering of the “Bhagavad Gita":—­

    “Fearlessness, singleness of soul, the will
    Always to strive for wisdom; opened hand
    And governed appetites; and piety,
    And love of lonely study; humbleness,
    Uprightness, heed to injure nought which lives
    Truthfulness, slowness unto wrath, a mind
    That lightly letteth go what others prize;
    And equanimity, and charity
    Which spieth no man’s faults; and tenderness
    Towards all that suffer; a contented heart,
    Fluttered by no desires; a bearing mild,
    Modest and grave, with manhood nobly mixed,
    With patience, fortitude and purity;
    An unrevengeful spirit, never given
    To rate itself too high—­such be the signs,
    O Indian Prince! of him whose feet are set
    On that fair path which leads to heavenly birth!”

When men, lost in the devious ways of error and self, have forgotten the “heavenly birth,” the state of holiness and Truth, they set up artificial standards by which to judge one another, and make acceptance of, and adherence to, their own particular theology, the test of Truth; and so men are divided one against another, and there is ceaseless enmity and strife, and unending sorrow and suffering.