In a similar manner _Krishna_ affirms of himself that He is the most Excellent among all the different forms of existence (Lect. X, 21): "Among the star's I am the radiant sun, among the human signs the moon, among the sacred Books the Book of Hymns, among the senses the spiritual, Meru among the tops of the mountains, the lion among animals, the vowel A among all letters, among the seasons of the year the blooming spring-time, etc."
This enumeration, however, of superlative excellence, and we may add the description of that which is merely a change of forms, among which it is always one and the same thing that is envisaged, despite any superficial appearance such may give us at first of a prodigal imagination, is none the less, by reason of this very equality of content, extremely monotonous and in general empty and tedious.
2. Under a higher mode and in a freer manner from the subjective point of view we find, _secondly_, oriental pantheism is elaborated in Mohammedanism more particularly among the _Persians._
And here we are confronted with a relation of some singularity when we direct our attention expressly to the point of view of the individual poet.
(_a_) To explain this more fully we would point out that so long as the poet yearns to behold the Divine in everything, and really so beholds it, he also surrenders his own personality; but, while doing so, he realizes quite as vividly the immanence of the Divine in his spiritual world thus expanded and delivered; and consequently there grows up within him that joyful ardour of the soul, that liberal happiness, that revel of bliss, which is so peculiar to the Oriental, who in freeing himself from his own particularity seems wholly to sink himself in the Eternal and Absolute, and henceforth to know and feel the image and presence of the Divine in all things. Such a self-absorption in the Divine, such an intoxicated life of bliss in God borders closely on mysticism. Under this aspect no volume is more famous than the Oschelaleddin-Rumi, of which Rückert, with the help of his marvellous powers of expression, which enable him to make light of both words and rhymes with all the wealth and freedom of the phantasy that comes so natural to the Persian poet, has supplied us with the fairest examples. Love to God, with whom man identifies himself in most boundless surrender, beholding Him as the One through every part of His Universe, with whom and to whom every and each thing is related and referred--this it is that gives us the focus of this type of thought, a centre which radiates in every direction.