Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda - Vol-3
Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
Volume-3
Published by Advaita Ashrama, Kolkatta
E-Text Source: www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info
Index
Lectures and Discourses
* Unity, the Goal of Religion
* The Free Soul
* One Existence Appearing as Many
Bhakti-Yoga
* Definition of Bhakti
* The Philosophy of Ishvara
* Spiritual Realisation, aim of Bhakti-Yoga
* The Need of Guru
* Qualifications of Aspirant and Teacher
* Incarnate Teachers and Incarnation
* The Mantra: Om: Word and Wisdom
* Worship of Substitutes and Images
* The Chosen Ideal
* The Method and the Means
Para-Bhakti or Supreme Devotion
* The Preparatory Renunciation
* Bhakta's Renunciation
* Naturalness of Bhakti-Yoga
* The Forms of Love - Manifestation
* Universal Love and Self-Surrender
* Higher Knowledge and Higher Love
* The Triangle of Love
* The God of Love is His Own Proof
* Divine Ideal of Love
* Conclusion
Lectures from Colombo to Almora
* First Public Lecture in East (Colombo)
* Vedantism
* Reply to Welcome Address at Pamban
* Address at the Rameswaram Temple
* Reply to Welcome at Ramnad
* Reply to Welcome at Paramakudi
* Reply to Welcome at Shivaganga
* Reply to Welcome at Madura
* The Mission of the Vedanta
* Reply to Welcome at Madras
* My Plan of Campaign
* Vedanta in its Application to Indian Life
* The Sages of India
* The Work before us
* The Future of India
* On Charity
* Address of Welcome at Calcutta
* The Vedanta in all its phases
* Address of Welcome at Almora
* Vedic Teaching in Theory and Practice
* Bhakti
* The Common Bases of Hinduism
* Bhakti
* The Vedanta
* Vedantism
* Indian Spiritual Thought in England
* Sannyasa: Its Ideal and Practice
* What have I learnt?
* The Religion we are born in
Reports in American Newspapers
* India: Her Religion and Customs
* Hindus at the Fair
* At the Parliament of Religions
* Personal Traits
* Reincarnation
* Hindu Civilisation
* An Interesting Lecture
* The Hindoo Religion
* The Hindoo Monk
* Plea for Tolerance
* Manners and Customs in India
* Hindoo Philosophy
* Miracles
* The Divinity of Man
* The Love of God
* The Women of India
Buddhistic India
Lectures and Discourses
UNITY, THE GOAL OF RELIGION
(Delivered in New York, 1896)
This universe of ours, the universe of the senses, the rational,
the intellectual, is bounded on both sides by the illimitable, the
unknowable, the ever unknown. Herein is the search, herein are the
inquiries, here are the facts; from this comes the light which is
known to the world as religion. Essentially, however, religion
belongs to the super sensuous and not to the sense plane. It is
beyond all reasoning and is not on the plane of intellect. It is a
vision, an inspiration, a plunge into the unknown and unknowable,
making the unknowable more than known for it can never be "known".
This search has been in the human mind, as I believe, from the
very beginning of humanity. There cannot have been human reasoning
and intellect in any period of the world's history without this
struggle, this search beyond. In our little universe, this human
mind, we see a thought arise. Whence it arises we do not know; and
when it disappears, where it goes, we know not either. The
macrocosm and the microcosm are, as it were, in the same groove,
passing through the same stages, vibrating in the same key.
I shall try to bring before you the Hindu theory that religions do
not come from without, but from within. It is my belief that
religious thought is in man's very constitution, so much so that
it is impossible for him to give, up religion until he can give up
his mind and body, until he can give up thought and life. As long
as a man thinks, this struggle must go on, and so long man must
have some form of religion. Thus we see various forms of religion
in the world. It is a bewildering study; but it is not, as many of
us think, a vain speculation. Amidst this chaos there is harmony,
throughout these discordant sounds there is a note of concord; and
he who is prepared to listen to it will catch the tone.
The great question of all questions at the present time is this:
Taking for granted that the known and the knowable are bounded on
both sides by the unknowable and the infinitely unknown, why
struggle for that infinite unknown? Why shall we not be content
with the known? Why shall we not rest satisfied with eating,
drinking, and doing a little good to society? This idea is in the
air. From the most learned professor to the prattling baby, we are
told that to do good to the world is all of religion, and that it
is useless to trouble ourselves about questions of the beyond. So
much is this the case that it has become a truism.
But fortunately we must inquire into the beyond. This present,
this expressed, is only one part of that unexpressed. The sense
universe is, as it were, only one portion, one bit of that
infinite spiritual universe projected into the plane of sense
consciousness. How can this little bit of projection be explained,
be understood, without knowing that which is beyond? It is said of
Socrates that one day while lecturing at Athens, he met a Brahmin
who had travelled into Greece, and Socrates told the Brahmin that
the greatest study for mankind is man. The Brahmin sharply
retorted: "How can you know man until you know Gods" This God,
this eternally Unknowable, or Absolute, or Infinite, or without
name - you may call Him by what name you like - is the rationale,
the only explanation, the raison d'être of that which is known and
knowable, this present life. Take anything before you, the most
material thing - take one of the most material sciences, as
chemistry or physics, astronomy or biology - study it, push the
study forward and forward, and the gross forms will begin to melt
and become finer and finer, until they come to a point where you
are bound to make a tremendous leap from these material things
into the immaterial. The gross melts into the fine, physics into
metaphysics, in every department of knowledge.
Thus man finds himself driven to a study of the beyond. Life will
be a desert, human life will be vain, if we cannot know the
beyond. It is very well to say: Be contented with the things of
the present. The cows and the dogs are, and so are all animals;
and that is what makes them animals. So if man rests content with
the present and gives up all search into the beyond, mankind will
have to go back to the animal plane again. It is religion, the
inquiry into the beyond that makes the difference between man and
an animal. Well has it been said that man is the only animal that
naturally looks upwards; every other animal naturally looks down.
That looking upward and going upward and seeking perfection are
what is called salvation; and the sooner a man begins to go
higher, the sooner he raises himself towards this idea of truth as
salvation. It does not consist in the amount of money in your
pocket, or the dress you wear, or the house you live in, but in
the wealth of spiritual thought in your brain. That is what makes
for human progress, that is the source of all material and
intellectual progress, the motive power behind, the enthusiasm
that pushes mankind forward.
Religion does not live on bread, does not dwell in a house. Again
and again you hear this objection advanced: "What good can
religion do? Can it take away the poverty of the poor?" Supposing
it cannot, would that prove the untruth of religion? Suppose a
baby stands up among you when you are trying to demonstrate an
astronomical theorem, and says, "Does it bring gingerbread?" "No,
it does not", you answer. "Then," says the baby, "it is useless."
Babies judge the whole universe from their own standpoint, that of
producing gingerbread, and so do the babies of the world. We must
not judge of higher things from a low standpoint. Everything must
be judged by its own standard and the infinite must be judged by
the standard of infinity. Religion permeates the whole of man's
life, not only the present, but the past, present, and future. It
is, therefore, the eternal relation between the eternal soul and
the eternal God. Is it logical to measure its value by its action
upon five minutes of human life? Certainly not. These are all
negative arguments.
Now comes the question: Can religion really accomplish anything?
It can. It brings to man eternal life. It has made man what he is,
and will make of this human animal a god. That is what religion
can do. Take religion from human society and what will remain?
Nothing but a forest of brutes. Sense-happiness is not the goal of
humanity. Wisdom (Jnâna) is the goal of all life. We find that man
enjoys his intellect more than an animal enjoys its senses; and we
see that man enjoys his spiritual nature even more than his
rational nature. So the highest wisdom must be this spiritual
knowledge. With this knowledge will come bliss. All these things
of this world are but the shadows, the manifestations in the third
or fourth degree of the real Knowledge and Bliss.
One question more: What is the goal? Nowadays it is asserted that
man is infinitely progressing, forward and forward, and there is
no goal of perfection to attain to. Ever approaching, never
attaining, whatever that may mean and however wonderful it may be,
it is absurd on the face of it. Is there any motion in a straight
line? A straight line infinitely projected becomes a circle, it
returns to the starting point. You must end where you begin; and
as you began in God, you must go back to God. What remains? Detail
work. Through eternity you have to do the detail work.
Yet another question: Are we to discover new truths of religion as
we go on? Yea and nay. In the first place, we cannot know anything
more of religion, it has all been known. In all religions of the
world you will find it claimed that there is a unity within us.
Being one with divinity, there cannot be any further progress in
that sense. Knowledge means finding this unity. I see you as men
and women, and this is variety. It becomes scientific knowledge
when I group you together and call you human beings. Take the
science of chemistry, for instance. Chemists are seeking to
resolve all known substances into their original elements, and if
possible, to find the one element from which all these are
derived. The time may come when they will find one element that is
the source of all other elements. Reaching that, they can go no
further; the science of chemistry will have become perfect. So it
is with the science of religion. If we can discover this perfect
unity, there cannot be any further progress.
The next question is: Can such a unity be found? In India the
attempt has been made from the earliest times to reach a science
of religion and philosophy, for the Hindus do not separate these
as is customary in Western countries. We regard religion and
philosophy as but two aspects of one thing which must equally be
grounded in reason and scientific truth.
The system of the Sânkhya philosophy is one of the most ancient in
India, or in fact in the world. Its great exponent Kapila is the
father of all Hindu psychology; and the ancient system that he
taught is still the foundation of all accepted systems of
philosophy in India today which are known as the Darshanas. They
all adopt his psychology, however widely they differ in other
respects.
The Vedanta, as the logical outcome of the Sankhya, pushes its
conclusions yet further. While its cosmology agrees with that
taught by Kapila, the Vedanta is not satisfied to end in dualism,
but continues its search for the final unity which is alike the
goal of science and religion.
THE FREE SOUL
(Delivered in New York, 1896)
The analysis of the Sânkhyas stops with the duality of existence -
Nature and souls. There are an infinite number of souls, which,
being simple, cannot die, and must therefore be separate from
Nature. Nature in itself changes and manifests all these
phenomena; and the soul, according to the Sankhyas, is inactive.
It is a simple by itself, and Nature works out all these phenomena
for the liberation of the soul; and liberation consists in the
soul discriminating that it is not Nature. At the same time we
have seen that the Sankhyas were bound to admit that every soul
was omnipresent. Being a simple, the soul cannot be limited,
because all limitation comes either through time, space, or
causation. The soul being entirely beyond these cannot have any
limitation. To have limitation one must be in space, which means
the body; and that which is body must be in Nature. If the soul
had form, it would be identified with Nature; therefore the soul
is formless, and that which is formless cannot be said to exist
here, there, or anywhere. It must be omnipresent. Beyond this the
Sankhya philosophy does not go.
The first argument of the Vedantists against this is that this
analysis is not a perfect one. If their Nature be absolute and the
soul be also absolute, there will be two absolutes, and all the
arguments that apply in the case of the soul to show that it is
omnipresent will apply in the case of Nature, and Nature too will
be beyond all time, space, and causation, and as the result there
will be no change or manifestation. Then will come the difficulty
of having two absolutes, which is impossible. What is the solution
of the Vedantist? His solution is that, just as the Sankhyas say,
it requires some sentient Being as the motive power behind, which
makes the mind think and Nature work, because Nature in all its
modifications, from gross matter up to Mahat (Intelligence), is
simply insentient. Now, says the Vedantist, this sentient Being
which is behind the whole universe is what we call God, and
consequently this universe is not different from Him. It is He
Himself who has become this universe. He not only is the
instrumental cause of this universe, but also the material cause.
Cause is never different from effect, the effect is but the cause
reproduced in another form. We see that every day. So this Being
is the cause of Nature. All the forms and phases of Vedanta,
either dualistic, or qualified-monistic, or monistic, first take
this position that God is not only the instrumental, but also the
material cause of this universe, that everything which exists is
He. The second step in Vedanta is that these souls are also a part
of God, one spark of that Infinite Fire. "As from a mass of fire
millions of small particles fly, even so from this Ancient One
have come all these souls." So far so good, but it does not yet
satisfy. What is meant by a part of the Infinite? The Infinite is
indivisible; there cannot be parts of the Infinite. The Absolute
cannot be divided. What is meant, therefore, by saying that all
these sparks are from Him? The Advaitist, the non-dualistic
Vedantist, solves the problem by maintaining that there is really
no part; that each soul is really not a part of the Infinite, but
actually is the Infinite Brahman. Then how can there be so many?
The sun reflected from millions of globules of water appears to be
millions of suns, and in each globule is a miniature picture of
the sun-form; so all these souls are but reflections and not real.
They are not the real "I" which is the God of this universe, the
one undivided Being of the universe. And all these little
different beings, men and animals etc. are but reflections, and
not real. They are simply illusory reflections upon Nature. There
is but one Infinite Being in the universe, and that Being appears
as you and as I; but this appearance of divisions is after all a
delusion. He has not been divided, but only appears to be divided.
This apparent division is caused by looking at Him through the
network of time, space, and causation. When I look at God through
the network of time, space, and causation, I see Him as the
material world. When I look at Him from a little higher plane, yet
through the same network, I see Him as an animal, a little higher
as a man, a little higher as a god, but yet He is the One Infinite
Being of the universe, and that Being we are. I am That, and you
are That. Not parts of It, but the whole of It. "It is the Eternal
Knower standing behind the whole phenomena; He Himself is the
phenomena." He is both the subject and the object, He is the "I"
and the "You". How is this? "How to know the Knower? The Knower
cannot know Himself; I see everything but cannot see myself. The
Self, the Knower, the Lord of all, the Real Being, is the cause of
all the vision that is in the universe, but it is impossible for
Him to see Himself or know Himself, excepting through reflection.
You cannot see your own face except in a mirror, and so the Self
cannot see Its own nature until It is reflected, and this whole
universe therefore is the Self trying to realise Itself. This
reflection is thrown back first from the protoplasm, then from
plants and animals, and so on and on from better and better
reflectors, until the best reflector, the perfect man, is reached
- just as a man who, wanting to see his face, looks first in a
little pool of muddy water, and sees just an outline; then he
comes to clear water, and sees a better image; then to a piece of
shining metal, and sees a still better image; and at last to a
looking-glass, and sees himself reflected as he is. Therefore the
perfect man is the highest reflection of that Being who is both
subject and object. You now find why man instinctively worships
everything, and how perfect men are instinctively worshipped as
God in every country. You may talk as you like, but it is they who
are bound to be worshipped. That is why men worship Incarnations,
such as Christ or Buddha. They are the most perfect manifestations
of the eternal Self. They are much higher than all the conceptions
of God that you or I can make. A perfect man is much higher than
such conceptions. In him the circle becomes complete; the subject
and the object become one. In him all delusions go away and in
their place comes the realisation that he has always been that
perfect Being. How came this bondage then? How was it possible for
this perfect Being to degenerate into the imperfect? How was it
possible that the free became bound? The Advaitist says, he was
never bound, but was always free. Various clouds of various
colours come before the sky. They remain there a minute and then
pass away. It is the same eternal blue sky stretching there
forever. The sky never changes: it is the cloud that is changing.
So you are always perfect, eternally perfect. Nothing ever changes
your nature, or ever will. All these ideas that I am imperfect, I
am a man, or a woman, or a sinner, or I am the mind, I have
thought, I will think - all are hallucinations; you never think,
you never had a body; you never were imperfect. You are the
blessed Lord of this universe, the one Almighty ruler of
everything that is and ever will be, the one mighty ruler of these
suns and stars and moons and earths and planets and all the little
bits of our universe. It is through you that the sun shines and
the stars shed their lustre, and the earth becomes beautiful. It
is through your blessedness that they all love and are attracted
to each other. You are in all, and you are all. Whom to avoid, and
whom to take? You are the all in all. When this knowledge comes
delusion immediately vanishes.
I was once travelling in the desert in India. I travelled for over
a month and always found the most beautiful landscapes before me,
beautiful lakes and all that. One day I was very thirsty and I
wanted to have a drink at one of these lakes; but when I
approached that lake it vanished. Immediately with a blow came
into my brain the idea that this was a mirage about which I had
read all my life; and then I remembered and smiled at my folly,
that for the last month all the beautiful landscapes and lakes I
had been seeing were this mirage, but I could not distinguish them
then. The next morning I again began my march; there was the lake
and the landscape, but with it immediately came the idea, "This is
a mirage." Once known it had lost its power of illusion. So this
illusion of the universe will break one day. The whole of this
will vanish, melt away. This is realization. Philosophy is no joke
or talk. It has to be realised; this body will vanish, this earth
and everything will vanish, this idea that I am the body or the
mind will for some time vanish, or if the Karma is ended it will
disappear, never to come back; but if one part of the Karma
remains, then as a potter's wheel, after the potter has finished
the pot, will sometimes go on from the past momentum, so this
body, when the delusion has vanished altogether, will go on for
some time. Again this world will come, men and women and animals
will come, just as the mirage came the next day, but not with the
same force; along with it will come the idea that I know its
nature now, and it will cause no bondage, no more pain, nor grief,
nor misery. Whenever anything miserable will come, the mind will
be able to say, "I know you as hallucination." When a man has
reached that state, he is called Jivanmukta, living-free", free
even while living. The aim and end in this life for the Jnâna-Yogi
is to become this Jivanmukta, "living-free". He is Jivanmukta who
can live in this world without being attached. He is like the
lotus leaves in water, which are never wetted by the water. He is
the highest of human beings, nay, the highest of all beings, for
he has realised his identity with the Absolute, he has realised
that he is one with God. So long as you think you have the least
difference from God, fear will seize you, but when you have known
that you are He, that there is no difference, entirely no
difference, that you are He, all of Him, and the whole of Him, all
fear ceases. "There, who sees whom? Who worships whom? Who talks
to whom? Who hears whom? Where one sees another, where one talks
to another, where one hears another, that is little. Where none
sees none, where none speaks to none, that is the highest, that is
the great, that is the Brahman." Being That, you are always That.
What will become of the world then? What good shall we do to the
world? Such questions do not arise "What becomes of my gingerbread
if I become old?" says the baby! "What becomes of my marbles if I
grow? So I will not grow," says the boy! "What will become of my
dolls if I grow old?" says the little child! It is the same
question in connection with this world, it has no existence in the
past, present, or future. If we have known the Âtman as It is, if
we have known that there is nothing else but this Atman, that
everything else is but a dream, with no existence in reality, then
this world with its poverties, its miseries, its wickedness, and
its goodness will cease to disturb us. If they do not exist, for
whom and for what shall we take trouble? This is what the
Jnana-Yogis teach. Therefore, dare to be free, dare to go as far
as your thought leads, and dare to carry that out in your life. It
is very hard to come to Jnâna. It is for the bravest and most
daring, who dare to smash all idols, not only intellectual, but in
the senses. This body is not I; it must go. All sorts of curious
things may come out of this. A man stands up and says, "I am not
the body, therefore my headache must be cured"; but where is the
headache if not in his body? Let a thousand headaches and a
thousand bodies come and go. What is that to me? I have neither
birth nor death; father or mother I never had; friends and foes I
have none, because they are all I. I am my own friend, and I am my
own enemy. I am Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. I am He, I am
He. If in a thousand bodies I am suffering from fever and other
ills, in millions of bodies I am healthy. If in a thousand bodies
I am starving, in other thousand bodies I am feasting. If in
thousands of bodies I am suffering misery, in thousands of bodies
I am happy. Who shall blame whom, who praise whom? Whom to seek,
whom to avoid? I seek none, nor avoid any, for I am all the
universe. I praise myself, I blame myself, I suffer for myself, I
am happy at my own will, I am free. This is the Jnâni, the brave
and daring. Let the whole universe tumble down; he smiles and says
it never existed, it was all a hallucination. He sees the universe
tumble down. Where was it! Where has it gone!
Before going into the practical part, we will take up one more
intellectual question. So far the logic is tremendously rigorous.
If man reasons, there is no place for him to stand until he comes
to this, that there is but One Existence, that everything else is
nothing. There is no other way left for rational mankind but to
take this view. But how is it that what is infinite, ever perfect,
ever blessed, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute, has come under
these delusions? It is the same question that has been asked all
the world over. In the vulgar form the question becomes, "How did
sin come into this world?" This is the most vulgar and sensuous
form of the question, and the other is the most philosophic form,
but the answer is the same. The same question has been asked in
various grades and fashions, but in its lower forms it finds no
solution, because the stories of apples and serpents and women do
not give the explanation. In that state, the question is childish,
and so is the answer. But the question has assumed very high
proportions now: "How did this illusion come?" And the answer is
as fine. The answer is that we cannot expect any answer to an
impossible question. The very question is impossible in terms. You
have no right to ask that question. Why? What is perfection? That
which is beyond time, space, and causation - that is perfect. Then
you ask how the perfect became imperfect. In logical language the
question may be put in this form: "How did that which is beyond
causation become caused?" You contradict yourself. You first admit
it is beyond causation, and then ask what causes it. This question
can only be asked within the limits of causation. As far as time
and space and causation extend, so far can this question be asked.
But beyond that it will be nonsense to ask it, because the
question is illogical. Within time, space, and causation it can
never be answered, and what answer may lie beyond these limits can
only be known when we have transcended them; therefore the wise
will let this question rest. When a man is ill, he devotes himself
to curing his disease without insisting that he must first learn
how he came to have it.
There is another form of this question, a little lower, but more
practical and illustrative: What produced this delusion? Can any
reality produce delusion? Certainly not. We see that one delusion
produces another, and so on. It is delusion always that produces
delusion. It is disease that produces disease, and not health that
produces disease. The wave is the same thing as the water; the
effect is the cause in another form. The effect is delusion, and
therefore the cause must be delusion. What produced this delusion?
Another delusion. And so on without beginning. The only question
that remains for you to ask is: Does not this break your monism,
because you get two existences in the universe, one yourself and
the other the delusion? The answer is: Delusion cannot be called
an existence. Thousands of dreams come into your life, but do not
form any part of your life. Dreams come and go; they have no
existence. To call delusion existence will be sophistry. Therefore
there is only one individual existence in the universe, ever free,
and ever blessed; and that is what you are. This is the last
conclusion reached by the Advaitists.
It may then be asked: What becomes of all these various forms of
worship? They will remain; they are simply groping in the dark for
light, and through this groping light will come. We have just seen
that the Self cannot see Itself. Our knowledge is within the
network of Mâyâ (unreality), and beyond that is freedom. Within
the network there is slavery, it is all under law; beyond that
there is no law. So far as the universe is concerned, existence is
ruled by law, and beyond that is freedom. As long as you are in
the network of time, space, and causation, to say you are free is
nonsense, because in that network all is under rigorous law,
sequence, and consequence. Every thought that you think is caused,
every feeling has been caused; to say that the will is free is
sheer nonsense. It is only when the infinite existence comes, as
it were; into this network of Maya that it takes the form of will.
Will is a portion of that being, caught in the network of Maya,
and therefore "free will" is a misnomer. It means nothing - sheer
nonsense. So is all this talk about freedom. There is no freedom
in Maya.
Everyone is as much bound in thought, word, deed, and mind, as a
piece of stone or this table. That I talk to you now is as
rigorous in causation as that you listen to me. There is no
freedom until you go beyond Maya. That is the real freedom of the
soul. Men, however sharp and intellectual, however clearly they
see the force of the logic that nothing here can be free, are all
compelled to think they are free; they cannot help it. No work can
go on until we begin to say we are free. It means that the freedom
we talk about is the glimpse of the blue sky through the clouds
and that the real freedom - the blue sky itself- is behind. True
freedom cannot exist in the midst of this delusion, this
hallucination, this nonsense of the world, this universe of the
senses, body, and mind. All these dreams, without beginning or
end, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, ill-adjusted, broken,
inharmonious, form our idea of this universe. In a dream, when you
see a giant with twenty heads chasing you, and you are flying from
him, you do not think it is inharmonious; you think it is proper
and right. So is this law. All that you call law is simply chance
without meaning. In this dream state you call it law. Within Maya,
so far as this law of time, space and causation exists, there is
no freedom; and all these various forms of worship are within this
Maya. The idea of God and the ideas of brute and of man are within
this Maya, and as such are equally hallucinations; all of them are
dreams. But you must take care not to argue like some
extraordinary men of whom we hear at the present time. They say
the idea of God is a delusion, but the idea of this world is true.
Both ideas stand or fall by the same logic. He alone has the right
to be an atheist who denies this world, as well as the other. The
same argument is for both. The same mass of delusion extends from
God to the lowest animal, from a blade of grass to the Creator.
They stand or fall by the same logic. The same person who sees
falsity in the idea of God ought also to see it in the idea of his
own body or his own mind. When God vanishes, then also vanish the
body and mind; and when both vanish, that which is the Real
Existence remains forever. "There the eyes cannot go, nor the
speech, nor the mind. We cannot see it, neither know it." And we
now understand that so far as speech and thought and knowledge and
intellect go, it is all within this Maya within bondage. Beyond
that is Reality. There neither thought, nor mind, nor speech, can
reach.
So far it is intellectually all right, but then comes the
practice. The real work is in the practice. Are any practices
necessary to realise this Oneness? Most decidedly. It is not that
you become this Brahman. You are already that. It is not that you
are going to become God or perfect; you are already perfect; and
whenever you think you are not, it is a delusion. This delusion
which says that you are Mr. So-and-so or Mrs. So-and-so can be got
rid of by another delusion, and that is practice. Fire will eat
fire, and you can use one delusion to conquer another delusion.
One cloud will come and brush away another cloud, and then both
will go away. What are these practices then? We must always bear
in mind that we are not going to be free, but are free already.
Every idea that we are bound is a delusion. Every idea that we are
happy or unhappy is a tremendous delusion; and another delusion
will come - that we have got to work and worship and struggle to
be free - and this will chase out the first delusion, and then
both will stop.
The fox is considered very unholy by the Mohammedans and by the
Hindus. Also, if a dog touches any bit of food, it has to be
thrown out, it cannot be eaten by any man. In a certain Mohammedan
house a fox entered and took a little bit of food from the table,
ate it up, and fled. The man was a poor man, and had prepared a
very nice feast for himself, and that feast was made unholy, and
he could not eat it. So he went to a Mulla, a priest, and said,
"This has happened to me; a fox came and took a mouthful out of my
meal. What can be done? I had prepared a feast and wanted so much
to eat it, and now comes this fox and destroys the whole affair."
The Mulla thought for a minute and then found only one solution
and said, "The only way for you is to get a dog and make him eat a
bit out of the same plate, because dogs and foxes are eternally
quarrelling. The food that was left by the fox will go into your
stomach, and that left by the dog will go there too, and both will
be purified." We are very much in the same predicament. This is a
hallucination that we are imperfect; and we take up another, that
we have to practice to become perfect. Then one will chase the
other, as we can use one thorn to extract another and then throw
both away. There are people for whom it is sufficient knowledge to
hear, "Thou art That". With a flash this universe goes away and
the real nature shines, but others have to struggle hard to get
rid of this idea of bondage.
The first question is: Who are fit to become Jnana-Yogis? Those
who are equipped with these requisites: First, renunciation of all
fruits of work and of all enjoyments in this life or another life.
If you are the creator of this universe, whatever you desire you
will have, because you will create it for yourself. It is only a
question of time. Some get it immediately; with others the past
Samskâras (impressions) stand in the way of getting their desires.
We give the first place to desires for enjoyment, either in this
or another life. Deny that there is any life at all; because life
is only another name for death. Deny that you are a living being.
Who cares for life? Life is one of these hallucinations, and death
is its counterpart. Joy is one part of these hallucinations, and
misery the other part, and so on. What have you to do with life or
death? These are all creations of the mind. This is called giving
up desires of enjoyment either in this life or another.
Then comes controlling the mind, calming it so that it will not
break into waves and have all sorts of desires, holding the mind
steady, not allowing it to get into waves from external or
internal causes, controlling the mind perfectly, just by the power
of will. The Jnana-Yogi does not take any one of these physical
helps or mental helps: simply philosophic reasoning, knowledge,
and his own will, these are the instrumentalities he believes in.
Next comes Titikshâ, forbearance, bearing all miseries without
murmuring, without complaining. When an injury comes, do not mind
it. If a tiger comes, stand there. Who flies? There are men who
practice Titiksha, and succeed in it. There are men who sleep on
the banks of the Ganga in the midsummer sun of India, and in
winter float in the waters of the Ganga for a whole day; they do
not care. Men sit in the snow of the Himalayas, and do not care to
wear any garment. What is heat? What is cold? Let things come and
go, what is that to me, I am not the body. It is hard to believe
this in these Western countries, but it is better to know that it
is done. Just as your people are brave to jump at the mouth of a
cannon, or into the midst of the battlefield, so our people are
brave to think and act out their philosophy. They give up their
lives for it. "I am Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute; I am He, I
am He." Just as the Western ideal is to keep up luxury in
practical life, so ours is to keep up the highest form of
spirituality, to demonstrate that religion is riot merely frothy
words, but can be carried out, every bit of it, in this life. This
is Titiksha, to bear everything, not to complain of anything. I
myself have seen men who say, "I am the soul; what is the universe
to me? Neither pleasure nor pain, nor virtue nor vice, nor heat
nor cold is anything to me." That is Titiksha; not running after
the enjoyments of the body. What is religion? To pray, "Give me
this and that"? Foolish ideas of religion! Those who believe them
have no true idea of God and soul. My Master used to say, "The
vulture rise higher and higher until he becomes a speck, but his
eye is always on the piece of rotten carrion on the earth." After
all, what is the result of your ideas of religion? To cleanse the
streets and have more bread and clothes? Who cares for bread and
clothes? Millions come and go every minute. Who cares? Why care
for the joys and vicissitudes of this little world? Go beyond that
if you dare; go beyond law, let the whole universe vanish, and
stand alone. "I am Existence-Absolute, Knowledge-Absolute,
Bliss-Absolute; I am He, I am He."
ONE EXISTENCE APPEARING AS MANY
(Delivered in New York, 1896)
Vairâgya or renunciation is the turning point in all the various
Yogas. The Karmi (worker) renounces the fruits of his work. The
Bhakta (devotee) renounces all little loves for the almighty and
omnipresent love. The Yogi renounces his experiences, because his
philosophy is that the whole Nature, although it is for the
experience of the soul, at last brings him to know that he is not
in Nature, but eternally separate from Nature. The Jnâni
(philosopher) renounces everything, because his philosophy is that
Nature never existed, neither in the past, nor present, nor will
It in the future. The question of utility cannot be asked in these
higher themes. It is very absurd to ask it; and even if it be
asked, after a proper analysis, what do we find in this question
of utility? The ideal of happiness, that which brings man more
happiness, is of greater utility to him than these higher things
which do not improve his material conditions or bring him such
great happiness. All the sciences are for this one end, to bring
happiness to humanity; and that which brings the larger amount of
happiness, man takes and gives up that which brings a lesser
amount of happiness. We have seen how happiness is either in the
body, or in the mind, or in the Âtman. With animals, and in the
lowest human beings who are very much like animals, happiness is
all in the body. No man can eat with the same pleasure as a
famished dog or a wolf; so in the dog and the wolf the happiness
is entirely in the body. In men we find a higher plane of
happiness, that of thought; and in the Jnani there is the highest
plane of happiness in the Self, the Atman. So to the philosopher
this knowledge of the Self is of the highest utility, because it
gives him the highest happiness possible. Sense-gratifications or
physical things cannot be of the highest utility to him, because
he does not find in them the same pleasure that he finds in
knowledge itself; and after all, knowledge is the one goal and is
really the highest happiness that we know. All who work in
ignorance are, as it were, the draught animals of the Devas. The
word Deva is here used in the sense of a wise man. All the people
that work and toil and labour like machines do not really enjoy
life, but it is the wise man who enjoys. A rich man buys a picture
at a cost of a hundred thousand dollars perhaps, but it is the man
who understands art that enjoys it; and if the rich man is without
knowledge of art, it is useless to him, he is only the owner. All
over the world, it is the wise man who enjoys the happiness of the
world. The ignorant man never enjoys; he has to work for others
unconsciously.
Thus far we have seen the theories of these Advaitist
philosophers, how there is but one Atman; there cannot be two. We
have seen how in the whole of this universe there is but One
Existence; and that One Existence when seen through the senses is
called the world, the world of matter. When It is seen through the
mind, It is called the world of thoughts and ideas; and when It is
seen as it is, then It is the One Infinite Being. You must bear
this in mind; it is not that there is a soul in man, although I
had to take that for granted in order to explain it at first, but
that there is only One Existence, and that one the Atman, the
Self; and when this is perceived through the senses, through
sense-imageries, It is called the body. When It is perceived
through thought, It is called the mind. When It is perceived in
Its own nature, It is the Atman, the One Only Existence. So it is
not that there are three things in one, the body and the mind and
the Self, although that was a convenient way of putting it in the
course of explanation; but all is that Atman, and that one Being
is sometimes called the body, sometimes the mind, and sometimes
the Self, according to different vision. There is but one Being
which the ignorant call the world. When a man goes higher in
knowledge, he calls the very same Being the world of thought.
Again, when knowledge itself comes, all illusions vanish, and man
finds it is all nothing but Atman. I am that One Existence. This
is the last conclusion. There are neither three nor two in the
universe; it is all One. That One, under the illusion of Maya, is
seen as many, just as a rope is seen as a snake. It is the very
rope that is seen as a snake. There are not two things there, a
rope separate and a snake separate. No man sees these two things
there at the same time. Dualism and non-dualism are very good
philosophic terms, but in perfect perception we never perceive the
real and the false at the same time. We are all born monists, we
cannot help it. We always perceive the one. When we perceive the
rope, we do not perceive the snake at all; and when we see the
snake, we do not see the rope at all - it has vanished. When you
see illusion, you do not see reality. Suppose you see one of your
friends coming at a distance in the street; you know him very
well, but through the haze and mist that is before you, you think
it is another man. When you see your friend as another man, you do
not see your friend at all, he has vanished. You are perceiving
only one. Suppose your friend is Mr. A; but when you perceive Mr.
A as Mr. B. you do not see Mr. A at all. In each case you perceive
only one. When you see yourself as a body, you are body and
nothing else; and that is the perception of the vast majority of
mankind. They may talk of soul and mind, and all these things, but
what they perceive is the physical form, the touch, taste, vision,
and so on. Again, with certain men in certain states of
consciousness, they perceive themselves as thought. You know, of
course, the story told of Sir Humphrey Davy, who has making
experiments before his class with laughing-gas, and suddenly one
of the tubes broke, and the gas escaping, he breathed it in. For
some moments he remained like a statue. Afterwards he told his
class that when he was in that state, he actually perceived that
the whole world is made up of ideas. The gas, for a time, made him
forget the consciousness of the body, and that very thing which he
was seeing as the body, he began to perceive as ideas. When the
consciousness rises still higher, when this little puny
consciousness is gone forever, that which is the Reality behind
shines, and we see it as the One Existence-Knowledge-Bliss, the
one Atman, the Universal. "One that is only Knowledge itself, One
that is Bliss itself, beyond all compare, beyond all limit, ever
free, never bound, infinite as the sky, unchangeable as the sky.
Such a One will manifest Himself in your heart in meditation."
How does the Advaitist theory explain these various phases of
heaven and hells and these various ideas we find in all religions?
When a man dies, it is said that he goes to heaven or hell, goes
here or there, or that when a man dies he is born again in another
body either in heaven or in another world or somewhere. These are
all hallucinations. Really speaking nobody is ever born or dies.
There is neither heaven nor hell nor this world; all three never
really existed. Tell a child a lot of ghost stories, add let him
go out into the street in the evening. There is a little stump of
a tree. What does the child see? A ghost, with hands stretched
out, ready to grab him. Suppose a man comes from the corner of the
street, wanting to meet his sweetheart; he sees that stump of the
tree as the girl. A policeman coming from the street corner sees
the stump as a thief. The thief sees it as a policeman. It is the
same stump of a tree that was seen in various ways. The stump is
the reality, and the visions of the stump are the projections of
the various minds. There is one Being, this Self; It neither comes
nor goes. When a man is ignorant, he wants to go to heaven or some
place, and all his life he has been thinking and thinking of this;
and when this earth dream vanishes, he sees this world as a heaven
with Devas and angels flying about, and all such things. If a man
all his life desires to meet his forefathers, he gets them all
from Adam downwards, because he creates them. If a man is still
more ignorant and has always been frightened by fanatics with
ideas of hell, with all sorts of punishments, when he dies, he
will see this very world as hell. All that is meant by dying or
being born is simply changes in the plane of vision. Neither do
you move, nor does that move upon which you project your vision.
You are the permanent, the unchangeable. How can you come and go?
It is impossible; you are omnipresent. The sky never moves, but
the clouds move over the surface of the sky, and we may think that
the sky itself moves, just as when you are in a railway train, you
think the land is moving. It is not so, but it is the train which
is moving. You are where you are; these dreams, these various
clouds move. One dream follows another without connection. There
is no such thing as law or connection in this world, but we are
thinking that there is a great deal of connection. All of you have
probably read Alice in Wonderland. It is the most wonderful book
for children that has been written in this century. When I read
it, I was delighted; it was always in my head to write that sort
of a book for children. What pleased me most in it was what you
think most incongruous, that there is no connection there. One
idea comes and jumps into another, without any connection. When
you were children, you thought that the most wonderful connection.
So this man brought back his thoughts of childhood, which were
perfectly connected to him as a child, and composed this book for
children. And all these books which men write, trying to make
children swallow their own ideas as men, are nonsense. We too are
grown-up children, that is all. The world is the same unconnected
thing - Alice in Wonderland - with no connection whatever. When we
see things happen a number of times in a certain sequence, we call
it cause and effect, and say that the thing will happen again.
When this dream changes, another dream will seem quite as
connected as this. When we dream, the things we see all seem to be
connected; during the dream we never think they are incongruous;
it is only when we wake that we see the want of connection. When
we wake from this dream of the world and compare it with the
Reality, it will be found all incongruous nonsense, a mass of
incongruity passing before us, we do not know whence or whither,
but we know it will end; and this is called Maya, and is like
masses of fleeting fleecy clouds. They represent all this changing
existence, and the sun itself, the unchanging, is you. When you
look at that unchanging Existence from the outside, you call it
God; and when you look at it from the inside, you call it
yourself. It is but one. There is no God separate from you, no God
higher than you, the real "you". All the gods are little beings to
you; all the ideas of God and Father in heaven are but your own
reflection. God Himself is your image. "God created man after His
own image." That is wrong. Man creates God after his own image.
That is right. Throughout the universe we are creating gods after
our own image. We create the god and fall down at his feet and
worship him; and when this dream comes, we love it!
This is a good point to understand - that the sum and substance of
this lecture is that there is but One Existence, and that
One-Existence seen through different constitutions appears either
as the earth, or heaven, or hell, or gods, or ghosts, or men, or
demons, or world, or all these things. But among these many, "He
who sees that One in this ocean of death, he who sees that One
Life in this floating universe, who realises that One who never
changes, unto him belongs eternal peace; unto none else, unto none
else." This One existence has to be realised. How, is the next
question. How is it to be realised? How is this dream to be
broken, how shall we wake up from this dream that we are little
men and women, and all such things? We are the Infinite Being of
the universe and have become materialised into these little
beings, men and women, depending upon the sweet word of one man,
or the angry word of another, and so forth. What a terrible
dependence, what a terrible slavery! I who am beyond all pleasure
and pain, whose reflection is the whole universe, little bits of
whose life are the suns and moons and stars - I am held down as a
terrible slave! If you pinch my body, I feel pain. If one says a
kind word, I begin to rejoice. See my condition - slave of the
body, slave of the mind, slave of the world, slave of a good word,
slave of a bad word, slave of passion, slave of happiness, slave
of life, slave of death, slave of everything! This slavery has to
be broken. How? "This Atman has first to be heard, then reasoned
upon, and then meditated upon." This is the method of the Advaita
Jnâni. The truth has to be heard, then reflected upon, and then to
be constantly asserted. Think always, "I am Brahman". Every other
thought must be cast aside as weakening. Cast aside every thought
that says that you are men or women. Let body go, and mind go, and
gods go, and ghosts go. Let everything go but that One Existence.
"Where one hears another, where one sees another, that is small;
where one does not hear another, where one does not see another,
that is Infinite." That is the highest when the subject and the
object become one. When I am the listener and I am the speaker,
when I am the teacher and I am the taught, when I am the creator
and I am the created - then alone fear ceases; there is not
another to make us afraid. There is nothing but myself, what can
frighten me? This is to be heard day after day. Get rid of all
other thoughts. Everything else must be thrown aside, and this is
to be repeated continually, poured through the ears until it
reaches the heart, until every nerve and muscle, every drop of
blood tingles with the idea that I am He, I am He. Even at the
gate of death say, "I am He". There was a man in India, a
Sannyâsin, who used to repeat "Shivoham" - "I am Bliss Eternal";
and a tiger jumped on him one day and dragged him away and killed
him; but so long as he was living, the sound came, "Shivoham,
Shivoham". Even at the gate of death, in the greatest danger, in
the thick of the battlefield, at the bottom of the ocean, on the
tops of the highest mountains, in the thickest of the forest, tell
yourself, "I am He, I am He". Day and night say, "I am He". It is
the greatest strength; it is religion. "The weak will never reach
the Atman." Never say, "O Lord, I am a miserable sinner." Who will
help you? You are the help of the universe. What in this universe
can help you? Where is the man, or the god, or the demon to help
you? What can prevail over you? You are the God of the universe;
where can you seek for help? Never help came from anywhere but
from yourself. In your ignorance, every prayer that you made and
that was answered, you thought was answered by some Being, but you
answered the prayer yourself unknowingly. The help came from
yourself, and you fondly imagined that someone was sending help to
you. There is no help for you outside of yourself; you are the
creator of the universe. Like the silkworm you have built a cocoon
around yourself. Who will save you? Burst your own cocoon and come
out as the beautiful butterfly, as the free soul. Then alone you
will see Truth. Ever tell yourself, "I am He." These are words
that will burn up the dross that is in the mind, words that will
bring out the tremendous energy which is within you already, the
infinite power which is sleeping in your heart. This is to be
brought out by constantly hearing the truth and nothing else.
Wherever there is thought of weakness, approach not the place.
Avoid all weakness if you want to be a Jnani.
Before you begin to practice, clear your mind of all doubts. Fight
and reason and argue; and when you have established it in your
mind that this and this alone can be the truth and nothing else,
do not argue anymore; close your mouth. Hear not argumentation,
neither argue yourself. What is the use of any more arguments? You
have satisfied yourself, you have decided the question. What
remains? The truth has now to be realised, therefore why waste
valuable time in vain arguments? The truth has now to be meditated
upon, and every idea that strengthens you must be taken up and
every thought that weakens you must be rejected. The Bhakta
meditates upon forms and images and all such things and upon God.
This is the natural process, but a slower one. The Yogi meditates
upon various centres in his body and manipulates powers in his
mind. The Jnani says, the mind does not exist, neither the body.
This idea of the body and of the mind must go, must be driven off;
therefore it is foolish to think of them. It would be like trying
to cure one ailment by bringing in another. His meditation
therefore is the most difficult one, the negative; he denies
everything, and what is left is the Self. This is the most
analytical way. The Jnani wants to tear away the universe from the
Self by the sheer force of analysis. It is very easy to say, "I am
a Jnani", but very hard to be really one. "The way is long", it
is, as it were, walking on the sharp edge of a razor; yet despair
not. "Awake, arise, and stop not until the goal is reached", say
the Vedas.
So what is the meditation of the Jnani? He wants to rise above
every idea of body or mind, to drive away the idea that he is the
body. For instance, when I say, "I Swami", immediately the idea of
the body comes. What must I do then? I must give the mind a hard
blow and say, "No, I am not the body, I am the Self." Who cares if
disease comes or death in the most horrible form? I am not the
body. Why make the body nice? To enjoy the illusion once more? To
continue the slavery? Let it go, I am not the body. That is the
way of the Jnani. The Bhakta says, "The Lord has given me this
body that I may safely cross the ocean of life, and I must cherish
it until the journey is accomplished." The Yogi says, "I must be
careful of the body, so that I may go on steadily and finally
attain liberation." The Jnani feels that he cannot wait, he must
reach the goal this very moment. He says, "I am free through
eternity, I am never bound; I am the God of the universe through
all eternity. Who shall make me perfect? I am perfect already."
When a man is perfect, he sees perfection in others. When he sees
imperfection, it is his own mind projecting itself. How can he see
imperfection if he has not got it in himself? So the Jnani does
not care for perfection or imperfection. None exists for him. As
soon as he is free, he does not see good and evil. Who sees evil
and good? He who has it in himself. Who sees the body? He who
thinks he is the body. The moment you get rid of the idea that you
are the body, you do not see the world at all; it vanishes
forever. The Jnani seeks to tear himself away from this bondage of
matter by the force of intellectual conviction. This is the
negative way - the "Neti, Neti" -"Not this, not this."
Bhakti-Yoga
CHAPTER I
PRAYER
स तन्मयो ह्यमृत ईशसंस्थो ज्ञः सर्वगो भुवनस्यास्य गोप्ता।
य ईशेऽस्य जगतो नित्यमेव नान्यो हेतुर्विद्यत ईशनाय॥
यो ब्रह्माणं विदधाति पूर्व यो वै वेदांश्च प्रहिणोति तस्मै।
तं ह देवं आत्मबुध्दिप्रकाशं मुमुक्षुर्वै शरणमहं प्रपद्ये॥
"He is the Soul of the Universe; He is Immortal; His is the
Rulership; He is the All-knowing, the All-pervading, the Protector
of the Universe, the Eternal Ruler. None else is there efficient
to govern the world eternally. He who at the beginning of creation
projected Brahmâ (i.e. the universal consciousness), and who
delivered the Vedas unto him - seeking liberation I go for refuge
unto that effulgent One, whose light turns the understanding
towards the Âtman."
Shvetâshvatara-Upanishad, VI. 17-18.
DEFINITION OF BHAKTI
Bhakti-Yoga is a real, genuine search after the Lord, a search
beginning, continuing, and ending in love. One single moment of
the madness of extreme love to God brings us eternal freedom.
"Bhakti", says Nârada in his explanation of the Bhakti-aphorisms,
"is intense love to God"; "When a man gets it, he loves all, hates
none; he becomes satisfied forever"; "This love cannot be reduced
to any earthly benefit", because so long as worldly desires last,
that kind of love does not come; "Bhakti is greater than karma,
greater than Yoga, because these are intended for an object in
view, while Bhakti is its own fruition, its own means and its own
end."
Bhakti has been the one constant theme of our sages. Apart from
the special writers on Bhakti, such as Shândilya or Narada, the
great commentators on the Vyâsa-Sutras, evidently advocates of
knowledge (Jnâna), have also something very suggestive to say
about love. Even when the commentator is anxious to explain many,
if not all, of the texts so as to make them import a sort of dry
knowledge, the Sutras, in the chapter on worship especially, do
not lend themselves to be easily manipulated in that fashion.
There is not really so much difference between knowledge (Jnana)
and love (Bhakti) as people sometimes imagine. We shall see, as we
go on, that in the end they converge and meet at the same point.
So also is it with Râja-Yoga, which when pursued as a means to
attain liberation, and not (as unfortunately it frequently becomes
in the hands of charlatans and mystery-mongers) as an instrument
to hoodwink the unwary, leads us also to the same goal.
The one great advantage of Bhakti is that it is the easiest and
the most natural way to reach the great divine end in view; its
great disadvantage is that in its lower forms it oftentimes
degenerates into hideous fanaticism. The fanatical crew in
Hinduism, or Mohammedanism, or Christianity, have always been
almost exclusively recruited from these worshippers on the lower
planes of Bhakti. That singleness of attachment (Nishthâ) to a
loved object, without which no genuine love can grow, is very
often also the cause of the denunciation of everything else. All
the weak and undeveloped minds in every religion or country have
only one way of loving their own ideal, i.e. by hating every other
ideal. Herein is the explanation of why the same man who is so
lovingly attached to his own ideal of God, so devoted to his own
ideal of religion, becomes a howling fanatic as soon as he sees or
hears anything of any other ideal. This kind of love is somewhat
like the canine instinct of guarding the master's property from
intrusion; only, the instinct of the dog is better than the reason
of man, for the dog never mistakes its master for an enemy in
whatever dress he may come before it. Again, the fanatic loses all
power of judgment. Personal considerations are in his case of such
absorbing interest that to him it is no question at all what a man
says - whether it is right or wrong; but the one thing he is
always particularly careful to know is who says it. The same man
who is kind, good, honest, and loving to people of his own
opinion, will not hesitate to do the vilest deeds when they are
directed against persons beyond the pale of his own religious
brotherhood.
But this danger exists only in that stage of Bhakti which is
called the preparatory (Gauni). When Bhakti has become ripe and
has passed into that form which is called the supreme (Parâ), no
more is there any fear of these hideous manifestations of
fanaticism; that soul which is overpowered by this higher form of
Bhakti is too near the God of Love to become an instrument for the
diffusion of hatred.
It is not given to all of us to be harmonious in the building up
of our characters in this life: yet we know that that character is
of the noblest type in which all these three - knowledge and love
and Yoga - are harmoniously fused. Three things are necessary for
a bird to fly - the two wings and the tail as a rudder for
steering. Jnana (Knowledge) is the one wing, Bhakti (Love) is the
other, and Yoga is the tail that keeps up the balance. For those
who cannot pursue all these three forms of worship together in
harmony and take up, therefore, Bhakti alone as their way, it is
necessary always to remember that forms and ceremonials, though
absolutely necessary for the progressive soul, have no other value
than taking us on to that state in which we feel the most intense
love to God.
There is a little difference in opinion between the teachers of
knowledge and those of love, though both admit the power of
Bhakti. The Jnanis hold Bhakti to be an instrument of liberation,
the Bhaktas look upon it both as the instrument and the thing to
be attained. To my mind this is a distinction without much
difference. In fact, Bhakti, when used as an instrument, really
means a lower form of worship, and the higher form becomes
inseparable from the lower form of realisation at a later stage.
Each seems to lay a great stress upon his own peculiar method of
worship, forgetting that with perfect love true knowledge is bound
to come even unsought, and that from perfect knowledge true love
is inseparable.
Bearing this in mind let us try to understand what the great
Vedantic commentators have to say on the subject. In explaining
the Sutra Âvrittirasakridupadeshât (Meditation is necessary, that
having been often enjoined.), Bhagavân Shankara says, "Thus people
say, 'He is devoted to the king, he is devoted to the Guru'; they
say this of him who follows his Guru, and does so, having that
following as the one end in view. Similarly they say, 'The loving
wife meditates on her loving husband'; here also a kind of eager
and continuous remembrance is meant." This is devotion according
to Shankara.
"Meditation again is a constant remembrance (of the thing
meditated upon) flowing like an unbroken stream of oil poured out
from one vessel to another. When this kind of remembering has been
attained (in relation to God) all bandages break. Thus it is
spoken of in the scriptures regarding constant remembering as a
means to liberation. This remembering again is of the same form as
seeing, because it is of the same meaning as in the passage, 'When
He who is far and near is seen, the bonds of the heart are broken,
all doubts vanish, and all effects of work disappear' He who is
near can be seen, but he who is far can only be remembered.
Nevertheless the scripture says that he have to see Him who is
near as well as Him who, is far, thereby indicating to us that the
above kind of remembering is as good as seeing. This remembrance
when exalted assumes the same form as seeing. . . . Worship is
constant remembering as may be seen from the essential texts of
scriptures. Knowing, which is the same as repeated worship, has
been described as constant remembering. . . . Thus the memory,
which has attained to the height of what is as good as direct
perception, is spoken of in the Shruti as a means of liberation.
'This Atman is not to be reached through various sciences, nor by
intellect, nor by much study of the Vedas. Whomsoever this Atman
desires, by him is the Atman attained, unto him this Atman
discovers Himself.' Here, after saying that mere hearing, thinking
and meditating are not the means of attaining this Atman, it is
said, 'Whom this Atman desires, by him the Atman is attained.' The
extremely beloved is desired; by whomsoever this Atman is
extremely beloved, he becomes the most beloved of the Atman. So
that this beloved may attain the Atman, the Lord Himself helps.
For it has been said by the Lord: 'Those who are constantly
attached to Me and worship Me with love - I give that direction to
their will by which they come to Me.' Therefore it is said that,
to whomsoever this remembering, which is of the same form as
direct perception, is very dear, because it is dear to the Object
of such memory perception, he is desired by the Supreme Atman, by
him the Supreme Atman is attained. This constant remembrance is
denoted by the word Bhakti." So says Bhagavân Râmânuja in his
commentary on the Sutra Athâto Brahma-jijnâsâ (Hence follows a
dissertation on Brahman.).
In commenting on the Sutra of Patanjali, Ishvara pranidhânâdvâ,
i.e. "Or by the worship of the Supreme Lord" - Bhoja says,
"Pranidhâna is that sort of Bhakti in which, without seeking
results, such as sense-enjoyments etc., all works are dedicated to
that Teacher of teachers." Bhagavan Vyâsa also, when commenting on
the same, defines Pranidhana as "the form of Bhakti by which the
mercy of the Supreme Lord comes to the Yogi, and blesses him by
granting him his desires". According to Shândilya, "Bhakti is
intense love to God." The best definition is, however, that given
by the king of Bhaktas, Prahlâda:
या प्रीतिरविवेकानां विषयेष्वनपायिनी।त्वामनुस्मरतः सा मे
हृदयान्मापसर्पतु॥
"That deathless love which the ignorant have for the fleeting
objects of the senses - as I keep meditating on Thee - may not
that love slip away from my heart!" Love! For whom? For the
Supreme Lord Ishvara. Love for any other being, however great
cannot be Bhakti; for, as Ramanuja says in his Shri Bhâshya,
quoting an ancient Âchârya, i.e. a great teacher:
आब्रह्मस्तम्बपर्यन्ताः जगदन्तर्व्यवस्थिताः। प्राणिनः
कर्मजनितसंसारवशवर्तिनः॥
यतस्ततो न ते ध्याने ध्यानिनामुपकारकाः। अविद्यान्तर्गतास्सर्वे ते
हि संसारगोचराः॥
"From Brahmâ to a clump of grass, all things that live in the
world are slaves of birth and death caused by Karma; therefore
they cannot be helpful as objects of meditation, because they are
all in ignorance and subject to change." In commenting on the word
Anurakti used by Shandilya, the commentator Svapneshvara says that
it means Anu, after, and Rakti, attachment; i.e. the attachment
which comes after the knowledge of the nature and glory of God;
else a blind attachment to any one, e.g. to wife or children,
would be Bhakti. We plainly see, therefore, that Bhakti is a
series or succession of mental efforts at religious realisation
beginning with ordinary worship and ending in a supreme intensity
of love for Ishvara.
CHAPTER II
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ISHVARA
Who is Ishvara? Janmâdyasya yatah - "From whom is the birth,
continuation, and dissolution of the universe," - He is Ishvara -
"the Eternal, the Pure, the Ever-Free, the Almighty, the
All-Knowing, the All-Merciful, the Teacher of all teachers"; and
above all, Sa Ishvarah anirvachaniya-premasvarupah - "He the Lord
is, of His own nature, inexpressible Love." These certainly are
the definitions of a Personal God. Are there then two Gods - the
"Not this, not this," the Sat-chit-ânanda, the
Existence-Knowledge-Bliss of the philosopher, and this God of Love
of the Bhakta? No, it is the same Sat-chit-ananda who is also the
God of Love, the impersonal and personal in one. It has always to
be understood that the Personal God worshipped by the Bhakta is
not separate or different from the Brahman. All is Brahman, the
One without a second; only the Brahman, as unity or absolute, is
too much of an abstraction to be loved and worshipped; so the
Bhakta chooses the relative aspect of Brahman, that is, Ishvara,
the Supreme Ruler. To use a simile: Brahman is as the clay or
substance out of which an infinite variety of articles are
fashioned. As clay, they are all one; but form or manifestation
differentiates them. Before every one of them was made, they all
existed potentially in the clay, and, of course, they are
identical substantially; but when formed, and so long as the form
remains, they are separate and different; the clay-mouse can never
become a clay-elephant, because, as manifestations, form alone
makes them what they are, though as unformed clay they are all
one. Ishvara is the highest manifestation of the Absolute Reality,
or in other words, the highest possible reading of the Absolute by
the human mind. Creation is eternal, and so also is Ishvara.
In the fourth Pâda of the fourth chapter of his Sutras, after
stating the almost infinite power and knowledge which will come to
the liberated soul after the attainment of Moksha, Vyâsa makes the
remark, in an aphorism, that none, however, will get the power of
creating, ruling, and dissolving the universe, because that
belongs to God alone. In explaining the Sutra it is easy for the
dualistic commentators to show how it is ever impossible for a
subordinate soul, Jiva, to have the infinite power and total
independence of God. The thorough dualistic commentator
Madhvâchârya deals with this passage in his usual summary method
by quoting a verse from the Varâha Purâna.
In explaining this aphorism the commentator Râmânuja says, "This
doubt being raised, whether among the powers of the liberated
souls is included that unique power of the Supreme One, that is,
of creation etc. of the universe and even the Lordship of all, or
whether, without that, the glory of the liberated consists only in
the direct perception of the Supreme One, we get as an argument
the following: It is reasonable that the liberated get the
Lordship of the universe, because the scriptures say, 'He attains
to extreme sameness with the Supreme One and all his desires are
realised.' Now extreme sameness and realisation of all desires
cannot be attained without the unique power of the Supreme Lord,
namely, that of governing the universe. Therefore, to attain the
realisation of all desires and the extreme sameness with the
Supreme, we must all admit that the liberated get the power of
ruling the whole universe. To this we reply, that the liberated
get all the powers except that of ruling the universe. Ruling the
universe is guiding the form and the life and the desires of all
the sentient and the non-sentient beings. The liberated ones from
whom all that veils His true nature has been removed, only enjoy
the unobstructed perception of the Brahman, but do not possess the
power of ruling the universe. This is proved from the scriptural
text, "From whom all these things are born, by which all that are
born live, unto whom they, departing, return - ask about it. That
is Brahman.' If this quality of ruling the universe be a quality
common even to the liberated then this text would not apply as a
definition of Brahman defining Him through His rulership of the
universe. The uncommon attributes alone define a thing; therefore
in texts like - 'My beloved boy, alone, in the beginning there
existed the One without a second. That saw and felt, "I will give
birth to the many." That projected heat.' - 'Brahman indeed alone
existed in the beginning. That One evolved. That projected a
blessed form, the Kshatra. All these gods are Kshatras: Varuna,
Soma, Rudra, Parjanya, Yama, Mrityu, Ishâna.' - 'Atman indeed
existed alone in the beginning; nothing else vibrated; He thought
of projecting the world; He projected the world after.' - 'Alone
Nârâyana existed; neither Brahmâ, nor Ishana, nor the
Dyâvâ-Prithivi, nor the stars, nor water, nor fire, nor Soma, nor
the sun. He did not take pleasure alone. He after His meditation
had one daughter, the ten organs, etc.' - and in others as, 'Who
living in the earth is separate from the earth, who living in the
Atman, etc.' - the Shrutis speak of the Supreme One as the subject
of the work of ruling the universe. . . . Nor in these
descriptions of the ruling of the universe is there any position
for the liberated soul, by which such a soul may have the ruling
of the universe ascribed to it."
In explaining the next Sutra, Ramanuja says, "If you say it is not
so, because there are direct texts in the Vedas in evidence to the
contrary, these texts refer to the glory of the liberated in the
spheres of the subordinate deities." This also is an easy solution
of the difficulty. Although the system of Ramanuja admits the
unity of the total, within that totality of existence there are,
according to him, eternal differences. Therefore, for all
practical purposes, this system also being dualistic, it was easy
for Ramanuja to keep the distinction between the personal soul and
the Personal God very clear.
We shall now try to understand what the great representative of
the Advaita School has to say on the point. We shall see how the
Advaita system maintains all the hopes and aspirations of the
dualist intact, and at the same time propounds its own solution of
the problem in consonance with the high destiny of divine
humanity. Those who aspire to retain their individual mind even
after liberation and to remain distinct will have ample
opportunity of realising their aspirations and enjoying the
blessing of the qualified Brahman. These are they who have been
spoken of in the Bhâgavata Purâna thus: "O king, such are the,
glorious qualities of the Lord that the sages whose only pleasure
is in the Self, and from whom all fetters have fallen off, even
they love the Omnipresent with the love that is for love's sake."
These are they who are spoken of by the Sânkhyas as getting merged
in nature in this cycle, so that, after attaining perfection, they
may come out in the next as lords of world-systems. But none of
these ever becomes equal to God (Ishvara). Those who attain to
that state where there is neither creation, nor created, nor
creator, where there is neither knower, nor knowable, nor
knowledge, where there is neither I, nor thou, nor he, where there
is neither subject, nor object, nor relation, "there, who is seen
by whom?" - such persons have gone beyond everything to "where
words cannot go nor mind", gone to that which the Shrutis declare
as "Not this, not this"; but for those who cannot, or will not
reach this state, there will inevitably remain the triune vision
of the one undifferentiated Brahman as nature, soul, and the
interpenetrating sustainer of both - Ishvara. So, when Prahlâda
forgot himself, he found neither the universe nor its cause; all
was to him one Infinite, undifferentiated by name and form; but as
soon as he remembered that he was Prahlada, there was the universe
before him and with it the Lord of the universe - "the Repository
of an infinite number of blessed qualities". So it was with the
blessed Gopis. So long as they had lost sense of their own
personal identity and individuality, they were all Krishnas, and
when they began again to think of Him as the One to be worshipped,
then they were Gopis again, and immediately
तासामाविरभूच्छौरिः स्मयमानमुखाम्बुजः।
पीताम्बरधरः स्त्रग्वी साखान्मन्मथमन्मथः॥
(Bhagavata) - "Unto them appeared Krishna with a smile on His
lotus face, clad in yellow robes and having garlands on, the
embodied conqueror (in beauty) of the god of love."
Now to go back to our Acharya Shankara: "Those", he says, "who by
worshipping the qualified Brahman attain conjunction with the
Supreme Ruler, preserving their own mind - is their glory limited
or unlimited? This doubt arising, we get as an argument: Their
glory should be unlimited because of the scriptural texts, 'They
attain their own kingdom', 'To him all the gods offer worship',
'Their desires are fulfilled in all the worlds'. As an answer to
this, Vyasa writes, 'Without the power of ruling the universe.'
Barring the power of creation etc. of the universe, the other
powers such as Animâ etc. are acquired by the liberated. As to
ruling the universe, that belongs to the eternally perfect
Ishvara. Why? Because He is the subject of all the scriptural
texts as regards creation etc., and the liberated souls are not
mentioned therein in any connection whatsoever. The Supreme Lord
indeed is alone engaged in ruling the universe. The texts as to
creation etc. all point to Him. Besides, there is given the
adjective 'ever-perfect'. Also the scriptures say that the powers
Anima etc. of the others are from the search after and the worship
of God. Therefore they have no place in the ruling of the
universe. Again, on account of their possessing their own minds,
it is possible that their wills may differ, and that, whilst one
desires creation, another may desire destruction. The only way of
avoiding this conflict is to make all wills subordinate to someone
will. Therefore the conclusion is that the wills of the liberated
are dependent on the will of the Supreme Ruler."
Bhakti, then, can be directed towards Brahman, only in His
personal aspect.
क्लेशोऽधिकतरस्तेषामव्यक्तासक्तचेतसाम् - "The way is more difficult
for those whose mind is attached to the Absolute!" Bhakti has to
float on smoothly with the current of our nature. True it is that
we cannot have; any idea of the Brahman which is not
anthropomorphic, but is it not equally true of everything we know?
The greatest psychologist the world has ever known, Bhagavan
Kapila, demonstrated ages ago that human consciousness is one of
the elements in the make-up of all the objects of our perception
and conception, internal as well as external. Beginning with our
bodies and going up to Ishvara, we may see that every object of
our perception is this consciousness plus something else, whatever
that may be; and this unavoidable mixture is what we ordinarily
think of as reality. Indeed it is, and ever will be, all of the
reality that is possible for the human mind to know. Therefore to
say that Ishvara is unreal, because He is anthropomorphic, is
sheer nonsense. It sounds very much like the occidentals squabble
on idealism and realism, which fearful-looking quarrel has for its
foundation a mere play on the word "real". The idea of Ishvara
covers all the ground ever denoted and connoted by the word real,
and Ishvara is as real as anything else in the universe; and after
all, the word real means nothing more than what has now been
pointed out. Such is our philosophical conception of Ishvara.