In this consciousness of an omnipresent, allper-vading unity, in which every vestige of individuality is swallowed we notice the most distinctive feature of oriental as compared with occidental mysticism. To become like God, or to participate in the divine nature, is the aim of the European mystic. Oriental mysticism goes a step further and asks the devotee to throw off the shackles of his unreal self-hood and thereby to be reunited with the One Infinite Being. Deification is The Ultima Thule of the Hindu as well as the Muslim mystic.
But close though the resemblance is between the Hindu and Muslim ideas of Oneness, it is clear that the Beloved of the mystic of Iran, whose dazzling beauty and awe-inspiring splendour is the theme of many a Sufi song, is not the same abstract deity as the Brahman or rather the Parabrahman, of the Indian sage, devoid of all personal attributes. Neither is there any reason to believe that Sufism has been in any wise deliberately grafted on Vedantism.