We are witnessing in the West the appearance of an at present thin but slowly deepening current of interest in those very thoughts and ideas which th… - Paul Brunton

This Indian doctrine declares human cognition of the entire manifold universe to be illusionary in character. The vast multitude of tangible objects and tangible creatures, which we so plainly witness around us were said to be the product of the constructive imagination of the One Hidden Self. Man and his material environments were but finite dreams passing through the mind of the Infinite Dreamer. Consequently all that we know of the world is nothing more or less than a series of idea held in our consciousness. Thus we arrive at a completely idealistic metaphysics, which because of its very nature, must apparently remain forever purely speculative and beyond the scope of the finest instruments, which can be devised to prove or disprove. Nevertheless the strangeness and unfamiliarity of the doctrine fascinated the Indian mind to an amazing extent. That this early foreshadowing of modem idealistic philosophy was not merely a worthless superstition is evidenced by the fact that some brilliant minds of the West have been equally fascinated and perplexed."

For Indian culture is fruitful in the domain of psychology, philosophy, and religion, so fruitful that there are few doctrines which appeared out of original Western sources that have not already been anticipated and developed .. .in India.

The ancient Hindus took their philosophic statements in the nature of a revelation from on high, as issuing forth from their seers as a result of a personal self-experience in the spiritual domain.