The Vedanta seems to help many to free their minds from all doubt as to the Universe and its First Cause, but my doubts remain undispelled. It is true that the Vedanta is simpler than most other theories. The problem of Creation and its Creator is more complex than appears at first sight; but the Vedanta has certainly simplified it half way, by cutting the Gordian knot and leaving out Creation altogether. There is only Brahma, and the rest of us merely imagine that we are, it is wonderful how the human mind should have found room for such a thought. It is still more wonderful to think that the idea is not so inconsistent as it sounds, and the real difficulty is, rather, to prove that anything does exist.
Anyhow, when as now the moon is up, and with half-closed eyes I am stretched beneath it on the upper deck, the soft breeze cooling my problem-vexed head, then the earth, waters, and sky around, the gentle rippling of the river, the casual wayfarer passing along the tow-path, the occasional dinghy gliding by, the trees across the fields, vague in the moonlight, the sleepy village beyond, bounded by the dark shadows of its groves,—verily seem an illusion of Maya; and yet they cling to and draw the mind and heart more truly than truth itself, which is abstraction, and it becomes impossible to realise what kind of salvation there can be in freeing oneself from them.