The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c11.50

c11.50

It is time now that we return to the last question which I propounded for to-day’s lecture. How did the *brahma*, the One, the Universal spirit, finally shape himself from out of the mass of ideas whose constant drift was in the direction of oneness, or, as we may finally call it, monistic pantheism? One of the main circumstances of the higher religious thought of the time just preceding the Upanishads was a strong monotheistic tendency which seemed to develop simultaneously and peacefully along with the monistic ideas, such as the “That,” the “Only,” the “Being.”