SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS (part 2)
By Sister Gayatriprana of The
Vedanta Society of
This page contains Chapter 11 to 16
For Chapters 1 to 10 click here
For chapters 17 onwards click here
PART II, SECTION 4: THE EVOLUTION OF THE VEDANTIC TEACHINGS
ON GOD
Chapter 11: The Atman
a) The Aryan Was Always
Seeking Divinity inside His or Her Own Self
The Aryans first began with
the soul. Their ideas of God were hazy, indistinguishable, not very clear; but,
as their idea of the human soul began to be clearer, their idea of God began to
be clearer in the same proportion. So the inquiry in the Vedas was always
through the soul. All the knowledge the Aryans got of God was through the human
soul; and, as such, the peculiar stamp that has been left upon their whole
cycle of philosophy is that introspective search after divinity. The Aryan was
always seeking divinity inside his or her own self. It became, in course of
time natural, characteristic. It is remarkable in their art and in their
commonest dealings. Even at the present time, if we take a European picture of
someone in a religious attitude, the painter always makes the subject point his
or her eyes upwards, looking outside of nature for God, looking up into the
skies. In
The Vedas say that the
whole world is a mixture of independence and dependence, of freedom and
slavery, but through it all shines the Soul - independent, immortal, pure,
perfect, holy. For if it is independent, it cannot
perish, as death is but a change and depends upon conditions; if independent,
it must be perfect, for imperfection is again but a condition, and therefore
dependent. (2)
That humanity and God are
one is the constant teaching of the Vedas, but few are able to penetrate behind
the veil and reach the realization of this truth. (3)
Cross reference to:
Rig Veda, 10.129.1
Brihad. Up., 1.4.10a
Ka. Up.,1.2.18
and 2.1.1
Mand. Up., 2
b) The Higher and Higher
Ideas of the Soul Found by the Aryans
1. The First Conception
of the Soul Was as an Independent, Bright Body
The earliest idea is that
when someone dies, he or she is not annihilated. Something lives and goes on
living even after the person is dead. Perhaps it would be better to compare the
three most ancient nations - the Egyptians, the Babylonians, and the ancient
Hindus - and take this idea from all of them. With the Egyptians and
Babylonians, we find a sort of soul-idea - that of a double. Inside this body,
according to them, there is another body which is moving and working here; and
when the outer body dies, the double gets out and lives on for a certain length
of time; but the life of the double is limited by the preservation of the outer
body. If the body which the double has left is injured in any part the double
is sure to be injured in that part. That is why we find among the ancient
Egyptians such solicitude to preserve the dead body by embalming, building
pyramids, etc. We find both with the Babylonians and the ancient Egyptians that
this double cannot live on through eternity; it can, at best, live on for a
certain time only; that is, just so long as the body it has left can be
preserved.
The next peculiarity is
that there is an element of fear connected with this double. It is always
unhappy and miserable; its state of existence is one of extreme pain. It is
again and again coming back to those who are living, asking for food and drink
and enjoyments that it can no more have. It is wanting
to drink of the waters of the
Coming to Aryan thought, we
at once find a very wide departure. There is still the double idea there, but
it has become a sort of spiritual body; and one great difference is that the
life of this spiritual body - the soul, or whatever you may call it - is not
limited by the body it has left. On the contrary, is has obtained freedom from
this body; and hence the peculiar Aryan custom of burning the dead. They want
to get rid of the body which the person has left, while the Egyptian wants to
preserve it by burying, embalming, and building pyramids. Apart from the most
primitive system of doing away with the dead, amongst the nations advanced to a
certain extent, the method of doing away with the bodies of the dead is a great
indication of their idea of the soul. Wherever we find the idea of a departed
soul closely connected with the idea of the dead body, we always find the
tendency to preserve the body, and we also find burying in some form or other.
On the other hand, with those in whom the idea has developed that the soul is a
separate entity from the body and will not be hurt if the dead body is even
destroyed, burning is always the process resorted to. Thus we find among all
ancient Aryan races burning of the dead, although the Parsees changed it to
exposing the body on a tower. But the very name of the tower - dakhma - means
a burning-place, showing that in ancient times they also used to burn their
bodies. The other peculiarity is that among the Aryans there was no element of
fear with these doubles. They are not coming down to ask for food or help; and
when denied that help, they do not become ferocious or try to destroy those
that are living. They are rather joyful, are glad at getting free. The fire of
the funeral pyre is the symbol of disintegration.....
Of these two ideas we see
at once that they are of a similar nature, the one optimistic, and the other
pessimistic, being the elementary. The one is the evolution of the other. It is
quite possible that the Aryans themselves had, or may have had, in very ancient
times, exactly the same idea as the Egyptians. In studying their most ancient
records we find the possibility of this very idea. But it is quite a bright
thing, something bright. When someone dies his or her soul goes to live with
the fathers and lives there enjoying their happiness. These fathers receive it
with great kindness; this is the most ancient idea in
Cross reference to:
Rig Veda, 9.13 and 10.6
2. Beyond the Bright
Body of the Soul, the Idea of the Freedom of the Soul Arose
In olden times, in all the
ancient scriptures, the power [which manifests itself through the body] was
thought to be a bright substance having the form of this body, and which
remained even after this body fell. Later on, however, we find a higher idea
coming - that this bright body did not represent the force. Whatsoever has form
must be the result of combinations of particles and requires something else
behind it to move it. If this body requires something which is not the body to
manipulate it, the bright body, by the same necessity, will also require
something other than itself to manipulate it. So that something was called the
Soul, the Atman in Sanskrit. It was the same Atman which through the bright
body, as it were, worked on the gross body outside. The bright body is
considered as the receptacle of the mind and the Atman is beyond that. It is
not the mind, even; it works the mind, and through the mind the body. You have
an Atman, I have another; each one of us has a separate Atman and a separate
fine body. (5)
Later on this idea becomes
higher and higher. Then it was found out that what they called the soul before
was not really the Soul. This bright body, fine body, however fine it might be,
was a body, after all; and all bodies must be made up of materials, either
gross or fine. Whatever had form or shape must be
limited and could not be eternal. Change is inherent in every form. How could
that which is changeful be eternal? So, behind this bright body, as it were,
they found something which was the Soul of human beings. It was called the
Atman, the Self. This Self-idea then began. It had also to undergo various
changes. By some it was thought that this Self was eternal; that it was very
minute, almost as minute as an atom; that it lived in a certain part of the
body, and when someone died his or her Self went away, taking along with it the
bright body. There were other people who denied the atomic nature of the soul
on the same ground on which they had denied that this bright body was the soul.
(6)
Here we find the germ out
of which a true idea of the soul could come. Here it was: where the real person
is not the body, but the soul; where all ideas of an inseparable connection
between the real person and the body were utterly absent - that a noble idea of
the freedom of the soul could arise. And it was when the Aryans penetrated even
beyond the shining cloth of the body with which the departing soul was
enveloped and found its real nature of a formless, individual, unit principle,
that the question inevitably arose: whence? (7)
3. The Unchanging,
Indivisible Soul Is the True Individuality behind All Phenomena
In the dualistic form of
Vedic doctrines, the earlier forms, there was a clearly defined, particular and
limited soul of every being. There have been a great many theories about this
particular soul in every individual, but the main discussion was between the
ancient Vedantists and the ancient Buddhists, the former believing in the
individual soul as complete in itself, the latter denying in toto the
existence of such an individual soul.... It is pretty much the same discussion
you have in
On the other hand the
ancient Buddhists denied the necessity of such an assumption. They brought
forward the argument that all that we know, and all that we can possibly know,
are simply these changes. The positing of an unchangeable and unchanging
substance is simply superfluous, and even if there were any such unchangeable
thing, we could never understand it, nor should be ever be able to cognize it
in any sense of the word....
In India this great
question did not find its solution in very ancient times, because we have seen
that the assumption of a substance which is behind the qualities and which is
not the qualities, can never be substantiated; nay, even the arguments from
self-identity, from memory - that I am the I of yesterday because I remember
it, and therefore I have been a continuous something - cannot be substantiated.
The other quibble that is generally put forward is a mere delusion of words.
For instance, someone may take a long series of sentences such as "I
do", "I go", "I dream", "I sleep", "I
move", and here you will find it claimed that the doing, going, dreaming,
etc. have been changing, but what remained constant was that "I". As
such, they conclude that the "I" is something which is constant and
an individual in itself, but all these changes belong
to the body. This, though apparently very convincing and clear, is based upon
the mere play on words. The "I" in the going, doing, and dreaming may
be separate in black and white, but no one can separate them in his or her
mind.
When I eat I think of
myself as eating - I am identified with eating. When I run, I and the running
are not two separate things. Thus the argument from personal identity does not
seem to be very strong. The other argument from memory is also weak. If the
identity of my being is represented by my memory, many things which I have
forgotten are lost from that identity. And we know that people under certain
conditions forget their whole past. In many cases of lunacy someone will think
of him or herself as made of glass, or as being an animal. If the existence of
that person depend upon memory, he or she has become glass; which, not being
the case, we cannot make the identity of the Self depend upon such a flimsy
substance as memory. Thus we see that the soul as a limited, yet complete and
continuing identity cannot be established as separate from the qualities. We
cannot establish a narrowed-down, limited existence to which is attached a
bunch of qualities.
On the other hand, the
argument of the ancient Buddhists seems to be stronger - that we do not know,
and cannot know, anything that is beyond the bunch of qualities. According to
them, the soul consists of a bundle of qualities called sensations and
feelings. A mass of such is what is called the soul, and this mass is
constantly changing.
The Advaitist theory of the
soul reconciles both these positions. The position of the Advaitist is that we
cannot think of the substance as separate from the qualities, we cannot think
of change and non-change at the same time; it would be impossible. But the very
thing which is the substance is the quality; substance and quality are not two
things. It is the unchangeable that is appearing as the changeable. The
unchangeable substance of the universe is not something separate from it. The
noumenon is not something different from phenomena, but it is the very noumenon
which has become the phenomena. There is a soul which is unchanging; and what
we call feelings and perceptions - nay, even the body - are the very soul seen
from another point of view. We have got into the habit of thinking that we have
bodies and souls and so forth, but really speaking, there is only One. (8)
4. The Atman or Self of
Humanity Is beyond Body, Mind and Even Consciousness As We Know It
[In
The old Aryans believed in
a soul, never that people are the body. (10)
It is the belief of the
Hindu that the soul is neither mind nor body. What is it which remains stable -
which can say, "I am I"? Not the body, for it is always changing; and
not the mind, which changes more rapidly than any body, which never has the
same thoughts for even a few minutes. (11)
Here I stand; and if I shut
my eyes and try to conceive of my existence: "I", "I", "I", what is the idea before me? The idea of a body. Am I, then, nothing but a combination of
material substances? The Vedas declare, " No."
I am a spirit living in a body. I am not the body. The body will die, but I
shall not die. Here am I in this body; it will fall, but I shall go on living.
I had also a past. The soul was not created, for creation means a combination
which means certain future dissolution . If then the
soul was created, it must die. (12)
The Vedas teach that people
are spirit living in a body. The body will die, but people will not. The spirit
will go on living. The soul was not created from nothing, for creation means a
combination and that means certain future dissolution. If then the soul was
created, it must die. Therefore, it was not created. (13)
In
The body is here, beyond
that is the mind, yet the mind is not Atman; it is the fine body, the sukshma
sharira, made of fine particles, which goes from birth to death, and so on;
but behind the mind is the Atman, the soul, the Self of humanity. It cannot be
translated by the word soul (or mind), so we have to use the word
Atman; or, as Western philosophers have designated it, by the word Self.
Whatever word you use, you must keep it clear in your mind that the Atman is
separate from the mind as well as from the body. (15)
The first proposition that
the Hindu boy learns [is] that the mind is matter, only finer. The body is
gross, and behind the body is what we call the sukshma sharira, the fine body
or mind. This also is material, only finer; and it is not the Atman.
I will not translate this
word to you in English because the idea does not exist in
All Hindus believe that
people are not only a gross material body; not only that within this there is
the finer body, the mind; but there is something yet greater - for the body
changes, and so does the mind - something beyond, the Atman - I cannot
translate the word to you, for any translation would be wrong - that there is
something beyond even this fine body, which is the Atman of humanity, which has
neither beginning nor end, which knows not what death is. (17)
Mind is a mixture of
sensations and feelings or action and reaction; so it cannot be permanent. The
mind has a fine body and through this it works on the gross body. Vedanta says
that behind the mind is the real Self. It accepts the other two, but posits a
third, the eternal, the ultimate, the last analysis, the unit, where there is
no further compound. Birth is re-composition, death is de-composition,
and the final analysis is where the Atman is found; there being no further
division possible, the perdurable is reached. (18)
The Vedas teach that the
Atman, or Self, is the one undivided Existence. It is beyond mind, memory or
thought, or even consciousness as we know it. From it are all things. (19)
Cross reference to:
Isha Up. peace chant
Kena Up., 1.4d)
The Nature of the Atman
1. All Our Impressions
and Ideas Are Unified in the Atman
In olden times questions
were asked about this Atman, about its nature. What is this Atman, this soul of
humanity, which is neither the body nor the mind? Great discussions followed.
Speculations were made, various shades of philosophic inquiry came into
existence; and I shall try to place before you some of the conclusions that
have been reached about this Atman. (20)
[The Hindus] believe that
there must be an identity which does not change - something which is to
humanity as banks are to a river - banks which do not change and without whose
immobility we would not be conscious of the constantly moving stream. Behind
the body, behind the mind, there must be something, viz. the soul, which
unifies human beings. Mind is merely the fine instrument through which the soul
- the master - acts on the body. (21)
[The Vedantic philosophers]
all have a common psychology. Whatever their philosophy may have been, their
psychology is the same in
According to the Sankhya
psychology which was universally accepted [at the time of the Vedas], in
perception - in the case of vision, for instance - there are, first of all, the
instruments of vision, the eyes. Behind the instruments - the eyes - is the organ
of vision, or indriya - the optic nerve and its centers, which is not the
external instrument, but without which the eyes will not see. More still is
needed for perception. The mind or manas must come and attach itself to the
organ. And besides this, the sensation must be carried to the intellect or
buddhi, the determinative, reactive state of the mind. When the reaction comes
from the buddhi, along with it flashes the external world and egoism. Here,
then, is the will; but everything is not complete. Just as every picture, being
composed of successive impulses of light, must be united on something
stationary to form a whole, so all the ideas in the mind must be gathered and
projected on something that is stationary (relatively to the body and mind) - that
is, on what is called the Soul, the Purusha, or Atman. (23)
Cross reference to:
Gita 2.18
2. The Atman - The Real
Person - Is One and Infinite, the Omnipresent Spirit
The Vedas teach that the
soul is infinite and in no way affected by the death of the body. (24)
The Vedanta philosophy
teaches that humanity is not bound by the five senses. They only know the
present, and neither the future nor the past; but as the present signifies both
past and future, and all three are only demarcations of time, the present also
would be unknown if it were not for something above the senses, something
independent of time, which unifies the past and the future and in the present.
But what is independent?
Not the body, for it depends on outward conditions; nor
our mind, because the thoughts of which it is composed are caused. It is our
soul. (25)
Time begins with mind;
space is also in the mind. Causation cannot stand without time. Without the
idea of succession there cannot be any idea of causation. Time, space, and
causation, therefore, are in the mind, and as this Atman is
beyond the mind and formless, it must be beyond time, beyond space, and beyond
causation. Now, if it is beyond time, space and causation, it must be infinite.
Then comes the highest speculation in our philosophy.
The infinite cannot be two. If the soul be infinite, there can be only one
Soul, and all ideas of various souls - you having one soul, and I having
another, and so forth - are not real. The real Person, therefore, is one and
infinite, the omnipresent Spirit. And the apparent person is only a limitation
of the real Person. In that sense the mythologies are true that the apparent
person, however great he or she may be, is only a dim reflection of the real
Person who is beyond. The real Person, the Spirit beyond cause and effect, not
bound by space and time must, therefore, be free. He or she was never bound,
and could not be bound. The apparent person, the reflection, is limited by
time, space, and causation and is, therefore, bound. Or, in the language of
some of our philosophers, he or she appears to be bound, but really is not.
This is the reality of our souls, this omnipresence, this spiritual nature,
this infinity. Every soul is infinite; therefore there is no question of birth
and death. (26)
Cross reference to:
Cha. Up., 6.2.1
3. Infinite Power Is
Latent in the Atman of Individual Beings; Differences Are Only in Manifestation
Let us remember for a
moment that, whereas in every other religion and in every other country, the
power of the soul is entirely ignored - the soul is thought of as almost
powerless and weak and inert - we in
There is no inspiration;
but, properly speaking, expiration. All powers and all purity and all greatness
- everything - is in the soul. (28)
All sects in
Innumerable have been the
manifestations of power of the Spirit in the realm of matter, of the force of
the Infinite in the domain of the finite; but the infinite Spirit itself is
self-existent, eternal, and unchangeable. (30)
Cross reference to:
Ait. Up., 3.1.3
f) The World Will Be
Revolutionized Only by the Great Thought of the Atman
[The Aryans] took the old
idea of God, the governor of the universe, who is external to the universe, and
first put Him or Her inside the universe. [To the Aryans, God] is not a God
outside, but inside; and they took Him of Her from there into their own hearts.
Here He or She is, in the heart of humanity, the Soul of our souls, the Reality
in us. (31)
The character of the Hindu
religion [as found in the Vedas]: to find God we must search our own heart.
(32)
The God of Vedanta is not a
monarch sitting on a throne, entirely apart. There are those who like their God
that way - a God to be feared and propitiated. They burn candles and crawl in
the dust before Him. They want a king to rule over them - they believe in a
king in heaven to rule over them all. The king is gone - from the
The idea of the glory of
the soul you get alone in Vedanta, and there alone. It has ideas of love and
worship and other things which we have in other religions, and more besides;
but this idea of the soul is the life-giving thought, the most wonderful. There
and there alone is the great thought that is going to revolutionize the world
and reconcile the knowledge of the material world with religion. (34)
Cross reference to:
Brih. Up., 1.4.10
Taitt. Up., 2.7.1
Shve. Up., 4.3
Cha. Up., 3.14.1
6.8.7
Mund. Up., 3.1.1-2
Mand. Up., 2
Gita 2.24
References1. CW, Vol.6: Methods and Purpose of
Religion, pp.3-4.
2. CW, Vol.1:The Hindu Religion, p.330.
3. CW, Vol.8: Discourses on
Jnana-Yoga I, p.4.
4. CW, Vol.6: The Nature of
the Soul and Its Goal, pp.18-20.
5. CW, Vol.2: The Real
Nature of Man, p.77.
6. CW, Vol.6: The Nature of
the Soul and Its Goal, p.20.
7. CW, Vol.4: Reincarnation,
p.263.
8. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta IV, pp.341-344.
9. CW, Vol.1:The Soul and God, p.494.
10. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 30, 1895, p.80.
11. CW, Vol.8: The Laws of
Life and Death, p.234.
12. CW, Vol.1: Paper on
Hinduism, pp.7-8.
13. CW, Vol.2: The Hindu
View of Life, p.501.
14. CW, Vol.2: Sects and
Doctrines in
15. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
p.126.
16. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta,
pp.401-402.
17. CW, Vol.3: The Common
Bases of Hinduism, p.374.
18. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 21, 1895, p.61.
19. CW, Vol.8: Discourses on
Jnana-Yoga III, pp.10-11.
20. CW, Vol.2: The Real
Nature of Man, p.77.
21. CW, Vol.8: The Laws of
Life and Death, pp.235-236.
22. CW, Vol.1: Steps of
Hindu Philosophic Thought, pp.394-395.
23. CW, Vol.1: The Vedanta
Philosophy, pp.360-361.
24. CW, Vol.8: Discourses on
Jnana-Yoga III, p.9.
25. CW, Vol.1: The Hindu
Religion, pp.329-330.
26. CW, Vol.2: The Real
Nature of Man, p.78.
27. CW, Vol.3: Indian
Spiritual Thought in
28. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
in All Its Phases, p.334.
29. CW, Vol.4: The Education
That India Needs, p.484.
30. CW, Vol.4: Indian
Religious Thought, p.188.
31. CW, Vol.1: Vedic
Religious Ideals, pp.355-356.
32. CW, Vol.2: The Religions
of India, p.491.
33. CW, Vol.8: Is Vedanta
the Future Religion?, p.125.
34 CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
p.131.
35. CW, Vol.4: Reply to the
Madras Address, pp.350-351.
PART II, SECTION 4: THE
EVOLUTION OF THE VEDANTIC TEACHINGS ON GOD
Chapter 12: The Last
Word of the Vedas: Abstract Unity, the One Soul Unifying the Manifestations of
the Universe
a) The God of Vedanta Is
Both Personal and Absolute
The writers of the
Upanishads knew full well how the old ideas of God were not reconcilable with
the advanced ethical ideas of the time; they knew full well that what the
atheists were preaching contained a good deal of truth, nay great nuggets of
truth; but, at the same time, they understood that those who wished to sever
the thread that bound the beads, who wanted to build a new society in the air,
would entirely fail.
We never build anew, we
simply change places; we cannot have anything new, we only change the position
of things. The seed grows into the tree, patiently and gently; we must direct
our energies towards the truth and fulfill the truth that exists, not try to
make new truths. Thus, instead of denouncing the old ideas of god as unfit for
modern times, the ancient sages began to seek out the reality that was in them.
The result was the Vedanta philosophy; and, out of the old deities, out of the
monotheistic God, the ruler of the universe, they found yet higher and higher
ideas in what is called the impersonal Absolute, they found oneness throughout
the universe. (1)
God is everywhere preached
in our [Hindu] religion. The Vedas teach God - both personal and impersonal.
God is everywhere preached in the Gita. Hinduism is nothing without God. The
Vedas are nothing without God. (2)
Our God is both personal
and absolute. The absolute is "male" and the personal is
"female". (3)
Abstract unity is the
foundation of jnana-yoga. This is called Advaitism (without dualism or
dvaitism) This is the cornerstone of the Vedanta
philosophy, the alpha and omega. (4)
Monism, or absolute oneness is the very soul
of Vedanta. (5)
Cross reference to:
Isha Up., 16
Cha. Up., 6.8.7
b) The Indian Mind Has
Always Been Directed to the Realization of Absolute Unity
With the Hindus you will
find one national idea - spirituality. In no other religion, in no other sacred
books of the world will you find so much energy spent in defining the idea of
God. They tried to define the ideal of soul so that no earthly touch might mar
it. The Spirit must be divine; and Spirit understood as Spirit must not be made
into a human being. The same idea of unity, of the realization of God, the
omnipresent, is preached throughout. (6)
The one theme of the
Vedanta philosophy is the search after unity. The Hindu mind does not care for
the particular; it is always after the general, nay, the universal. (7)
The Eastern mind could not
rest satisfied until it had found that goal, which is the end sought by all
humanity - namely, unity. (8)
The philosophers of
The real nature of the jiva
(individual soul) is Brahman, [the Absolute]. When the veil of name and form
vanishes through meditation, etc., then that idea is simply realized. This is
the substance of pure Advaita. The Vedas, the Vedanta, and all other scriptures
only explain this idea in different ways. (10)
Cross reference to:
Brih. Up., 1.4.10 a
2.3.6
Cha. Up., 3.14.1
Mund. Up., 1 1.3
Mand. Up., 2
c) Material
Manifestations Are Limited Versions of Brahman, to Which They Are All Subject
The Vedas are the only
scriptures which teach the real absolute God, of which all other ideas of God
are but minimized and limited visions. (11)
What makes this creation? God. What do I mean by the use of the English word God?
Certainly not the word as ordinarily used in English - a good deal of
difference. There is no other suitable word in English. I would rather confine
myself to the Sanskrit word Brahman. It is the general cause of all these
manifestations. What is this Brahman? It is eternal, eternally pure, eternally
awake, the almighty, the all-knowing, the all-merciful, the omnipresent, the
formless, the partless. It "creates" this
universe. (12)
All that has name and form
is subject to all that has none. This is the eternal truth the Shrutis preach.
(13)
Cross reference to:
Isha Up., 16
Gita 2.24
d) The Desirability of
Spiritual, Rather Than Material Monism
1. Absolute Oneness Is
the Only System For People Who Want to Be Rational and
Religious at the Same Time
Here are two parallel lines
of existence - one of the mind, the other of matter.
If matter and its transformations answer for all that we have, there is no
necessity for supposing the existence of a soul. But it cannot be proved that
thought has been evolved out of matter; and if a philosophical monism is
inevitable, spiritual monism is certainly logical and no less desirable than a
materialistic monism. (14)
In spite of people's
curious notions about Advaitism, people's fright about Advaitism, it is the
salvation of the world, because therein alone is to be found the reason of
things. Dualism and other isms are very good as a means of worship, very
satisfying to the mind; and maybe they have helped the mind onward; but if
someone wants to be rational and religious at the same time, Advaita is the one
system in the world for him or her. (15)
Ceremonials and symbols etc., have no place in our religion, which is the doctrine of
the Upanishads, pure and simple. Many people think the ceremonials etc. help
them in realizing religion. I have no objection.
Religion is that which does
not depend upon books or teachers or prophets or saviors, and that which does
not make us dependent in this or in any other lives upon others. In this sense
the Advaitism of the Upanishads is the only religion. But savior, books,
prophets, ceremonials etc. have their place. They may help many, as Kali
worship helps me in my secular work. They are welcome. (16)
2. The Basis of Ethics
Is Unity, Love
The Hindus say we must not
do this or that because the Vedas say so, but the Christian is not going to
obey the authority of the Vedas. The Christian says you must do this and not do
that because the Bible says so. That will not be binding on those who do not
believe in the Bible. But we must have a theory which is large enough to take
in all these various grounds. (17)
The idea of oneness has had
its advocates throughout all times. From the days of the Upanishads, the
Buddhas, Christs and all the great preachers of religion down to our present
day, in the new political aspirations and in the claims of the oppressed and
downtrodden, and of all those who find themselves bereft of privileges - comes
out the one assertion of this unity and sameness….
Applied to metaphysics,
this question also assumes another form. The Buddhist declares that we need not
look for anything which brings unity in the midst of these phenomena; we ought
to be satisfied with this phenomenal world. This variety is the essence of
life, however miserable and weak it may seem to be; we can have nothing more.
The Vedantist declares that unity is the only thing that exists; variety is but
phenomenal, ephemeral and apparent. "Look not to variety", says the
Vedantist, "go back to unity." "Avoid unity; it is a
delusion", says the Buddhist, "go to
variety." The same differences of opinion in religion and metaphysics have
come down to our own day for, in fact, the sum-total of the principles of
knowledge is very small. Metaphysics and metaphysical knowledge, religion and
religious knowledge, reached their culmination five thousand years ago, and we
are merely reiterating the same truths in different languages, only enriching
them sometimes by the accession of fresh illuminations. So this is the fight,
even today. One side wants us to keep to the phenomenal, to all this variation,
and point out, with great show of argument, that
variation has to remain, for when that stops everything is gone. What we mean
by life has been caused by variation. The other side, at the same time,
valiantly points to unity.
Coming to ethics, we find a
tremendous departure. It is, perhaps, the only science which makes a bold
departure from this fight. For ethics is unity; its basis is love. It will not
look at this variation. The one aim of ethics is this unity, this sameness. The
highest ethical codes that humankind has discovered up to the present time know
no variation; they have no time to stop to look into it; their one end is to
make for that sameness. The Indian mind being more analytical - I mean, the
Vedantic mind - found this unity as a result of its analyses and wanted to base
everything upon this one idea of unity. (18)
Cross
reference to:
Isha
Up., 5-6
Taitt. Up., 2.7.1
Ka. Up., 2.3.14-15
Cha. Up., 6.2.1
7.25
Mand. Up., 2
Npt. Up., 1.6
3. It Is More Logical to
Explain the Universe by the One Force of Love, to Be Worshipped in Every Form,
Which Is Its
This idea of oneness is the
great lesson
Thus the motive power of
the whole universe, in whatever way it manifests itself, is that wonderful
thing, unselfishness, renunciation, love, the real, the only living force in
existence. Therefore the Vedantist insists upon that oneness. We insist upon
that explanation because we cannot admit the causes of the universe. If we
simply hold that by limitation the same beautiful, wonderful love appears to be
evil or vile, we find the whole universe explained by the one force of love. If
not, two causes of the universe have to be taken for granted, one good and the
other evil, one love and the other hatred. Which is the more logical?
Certainly, the one force theory. (20)
The individual's life is in
the life of the whole, the individual's happiness is in the happiness of the
whole; apart from the whole, the individual's existence is inconceivable - this
is an eternal truth and is the bedrock on which the universe is built. To move
slowly towards the infinite Whole, bearing a constant feeling of intense
sympathy and sameness with it, being happy with its happiness and being
distressed by its affliction, is the individual's sole duty. Not only is it his
or her duty, but in its transgression is his or her death, while compliance
with this great truth leads to life immortal. (21)
Worship everything as God -
every form is God’s temple. All else is delusion. Always look within, never
without. Such is the God Vedanta preaches, and such is Its
worship. Naturally, there is no sect, nor creed, no caste, in Vedanta. (22)
Cross reference to:
Taitt. Up., 2.7.1
Gita 13.13
References1. CW, Vol.2: Maya and the Conception
of God, p.117.
2. CW, Vol.6: Notes Taken
Down in
3. SVW, Vol.2, Chapter 13:
The Last Battle, p.269.
4. CW, Vol.8: Discourses on
Jnana-Yoga I, p.5.
5. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 3, 1895, p.28.
6. CW, Vol.2: The Way to the
Realization of a Universal Religion, p.372.
7. CW, Vol.2: The Real and
the Apparent Man, p.263.
8. CW, Vol.1: Vedanta as a
Factor in Civilisation, p.385.
9. CW, Vol.3: Bhakti-Yoga:
Para-Bhakti: Universal Love and How It Leads to Self-Surrender, p.81.
10. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty, Belur, 1899, p.192.
11. CW, Vol.4: Reply to the
Madras Address, p.343.
12. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
p.123.
13. CW, Vol.4: Reply to the
Madras Address, p.351.
14. CW, Vol.1: Paper on
Hinduism, p.8.
15. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta,
p.404.
16. CW, Vol.8: Letter to
Mary Hale from
17. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta III, p.334.
18. CW, Vol.1: Privilege,
pp.431-432.
19. CW, Vol.3: Reply to the
Address of Welcome at Paramakudi, pp.160-161.
20. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta IV, pp.354-355.
21. CW, Vol.4: Modern India,
p.463.
22. CW, Vol.8: Is Vedanta
the Future Religion?, p.136.
PART II, SECTION 5: THE EVOLUTION OF VEDANTIC TEACHINGS ON
CAUSATION AND TRANSMIGRATION
Chapter 13: The Production of the
Universe from Abstract Unity
a) Answers to the
Question: Out of What Has All This Been Produced?
1. Vedanta in General
Takes the Position That the Universe Is Projected by God out of That Which
Already Existed
The Indian religions take a
peculiar start… [for] …at the first step in the Vedanta this question is asked:
If this universe is existent, it must have come out of something, because it is
very easy to see that nothing comes out of nothing, anywhere. All work that is
done by human hands requires materials. If a house is built, the material was existing before; if any implements are made, the
materials were existing before. So the effect is produced. Naturally,
therefore, the first idea that this world was created out of nothing was
rejected, and some material out of which this world was created was wanted. The
whole history of religion, in fact, is this search after this material. (1)
The word creation in
English has no equivalent in Sanskrit, because there is no sect in
Out of what has all this
been produced? Apart from the question of the efficient cause, or God; apart
from the question that God created the universe, the great question of all
questions is: Out of what did He or She create it? All the philosophies are
turning, as it were, on this question. (3)
Cross reference to:
Cha. Up., 3.14.1
6.2.2
2. The Dualists Believe
That God Is Eternally Separate from Nature
[The dualist] solution is
that nature, God, and the soul are eternal existences, as if three lines are
running parallel eternally, of which nature and soul comprise what they call
the dependent, and God the independent reality. Every soul, like every particle
of matter, is perfectly dependent on the will of God.... [They say] that humans
are beings who have first a gross body which dissolves very quickly, then a
fine body which remains through eons, and then a jiva. This jiva, according to
the Vedanta philosophy, is eternal, just as God is eternal. Nature is also
eternal, but changefully eternal. The material of nature - prana and akasha -
is eternal, but it is changing into different forms eternally. But the jiva is
not manufactured of either akasha or prana; it is immaterial and, therefore,
will remain for ever. It is not the result of any combination of prana and
akasha; and whatever is not the result of combination will never be destroyed,
because destruction is going back to causes. The gross body is a compound of
akasha and prana and, therefore, will be decomposed. The fine body will also be
decomposed after a long time, but the jiva is simple and will never be
destroyed. It was never born, for the same reason. Nothing simple can be born.
The same argument applies. That which is a compound only can be born. The whole
of nature, comprising millions and millions of souls, is under the will of God.
(4)
In dualism the universe is
conceived of as a large machine set going by God. (5)
The dualists believe that
God, who is the creator of the universe and its ruler, is eternally separate
from nature, eternally separate from the human soul. God is eternal, nature is
eternal, so are all souls. Nature and souls become
manifested and change, but God remains the same....
He or She cannot create
without materials, and nature is the material out of which He or She creates
the whole universe. He or She creates the universe out of indiscrete or
undifferentiated nature. (6)
Cross reference to:
Brih. Up., 4.4.22
3. The Qualified Monists
Believe That God Interpenetrates Nature
The real Vedanta philosophy
begins with those known as the qualified non-dualists. They make the statement
that the effect is never different from the cause; the effect is but the cause
reproduced in another form. If the universe is the effect and God is the cause,
it must be God Him or Herself - it cannot be anything but that. They start with
the assertion that God is both the efficient and the material cause of the
universe; that He or She Him or Herself is the creator and is also the material
out of which the whole of nature is projected.... The whole universe, according
to this sect, is God Him or Herself. He or She is the material of the
universe.... The God of the qualified non-dualists it also a personal God, the
repository of an infinite number of blessed qualities, only He or She is
interpenetrating everything in the universe. (7)
Cross reference to:
Cha. Up., 3.14.1
Mund. Up., 1.1.2
1.1.7
2.1.1
4. The Highest Point of
Vedanta Is Shankara's Idea of Maya
Vedanta and modern science
both posit a self-evolving cause. In itself are all
the causes. Take, for example, a potter shaping a pot. The potter is the primal
cause, the clay the material cause, and the wheel the instrumental cause; but
the Atman is all three. Atman is cause and manifestation too. The Vedantist
says the universe is not real, it is only apparent. Nature is God seen through
nescience. The pantheists say God has become nature or this world; the
Advaitists affirm that God is appearing as this world, but It
is not this world. (8)
The one sect of Advaitists
that you see in modern
The work of the Upanishads
seems to have ended at the point [of merging the two advancing lines of
impersonal God and the impersonal Person]; the next was taken up by the
philosophers. The framework was given them by the Upanishads, and they had to
fill in the details. So many questions would naturally arise. Taking for
granted that there is but one impersonal Principle which is manifesting Itself in all these manifold forms, how it is that the One
becomes the many? It is another way of putting the same old question, which in
its crude form comes into the human heart as the inquiry into the cause of
evil, and so forth. Why does evil exist in the world and what is its cause? But
the same question has now become refined, abstracted. No more is it asked from
the platform of the senses why we are unhappy, but from the platform of
philosophy. How is it that this one Principle becomes manifold? And the answer,... the best answer that
The theory of maya is as
old as the Rig Samhita. (11)
The idea of maya which
forms, as it were, one of the basic doctrines of the Advaita Vedanta is, in its
germs, found even in the Samhitas, and in reality all the ideas which are
developed in the Upanishads are found already in the Samhitas in some form or
other. Most of you are by this time familiar with the idea of maya and know
that it is sometimes erroneously explained as illusion, so that when the
universe is said to be maya, that also has to be explained as being illusion.
The translation of the word is neither happy nor correct. Maya is not a theory;
it is simply a statement of facts about the universe as it exists; and to
understand maya we must go back to the Samhitas and begin with the conception
in the germ. (12)
The word maya is
used, though incorrectly, to denote illusion or delusion, or some such thing.
But the theory of maya forms one of the pillars upon which the Vedanta rests;
it is, therefore, necessary that it should be properly understood. I ask a
little patience of you, for there is a great danger of its being misunderstood.
The oldest idea of maya that we find in Vedic literature is the sense of
delusion; but then [at that time] the real theory had not been reached. We find
such passages as: "Indra, through his maya assumed the form of Guru."
[Brih. Up., 2.5.19] Here it is true that
the word maya means something like magic, and we find various other passages
always taking the same meaning. The word maya then dropped out of sight
altogether. But in the meantime the idea was developing. Later the question was
raised: " Why can't we know this secret of the universe?'
And the answer given was very significant: "Because we talk in vain and
because we are satisfied with the things of the senses, and because we are
running after desires; therefore, we cover the reality with a mist." Here
the word maya is not used at all, but we get the idea that the cause of our
ignorance is a kind of mist that has come between us and the Truth. Much later
on, in one of the latest Upanishads, we find the word maya reappearing, but
this time a transformation has taken place in it, and a mass of new meaning has
attached itself to the word. Theories had been propounded and repeated, other
had been taken up, until at last the idea of maya became fixed. We read in the Swetashwatara
Upanisad, "Know nature to be maya, and the
ruler of this maya is the Lord himself." [4.10] (13)
The Swetashwatara
Upanisad contains the word maya which developed out of prakriti. I
hold that Upanisad to be at least older than Buddhism. (14)
Coming to our philosophers,
we find that this word maya has been manipulated in various fashions, until we
come to the great Shankaracharya. The theory of maya was manipulates a little
by the Buddhists, too, but in the hands of the Buddhists it became very much
like what we call idealism, and that is the meaning that is now generally given
to the word maya. When the Hindu says that the world is maya, at once people
get the idea that the world is an illusion. This interpretation has some basis,
as coming through the Buddhist philosophers, because there was one section of
philosophers who did not believe in an external world at all. But the maya of
the Vedanta, in its last developed form, is neither idealism nor realism, nor
is it a theory. It is a simple statement of facts - what we are and what we see
around us.(15)
Cross reference to:
Rig Veda, 1.164.46
Cha. Up., 3.14.1
6.2.3
Npt. Up., 1.6
b) Overcoming Our
Limitations in Understanding Maya
1. The Intellect Cannot
Answer the Riddle of How the Infinite Became the Finite
The one question that is
most difficult to grasp in understanding the Advaita philosophy, and the one
question that will be asked again and again, and that will always remain is:
how has the Infinite, the Absolute, become the finite? I will now take up this
question and, in order to illustrate it, I will use a figure: Here is the
Absolute (a), and this is the universe (b). The Absolute has become the
universe. By this is not only meant the material world, but the mental world,
the spiritual world - heavens and earths and, in fact, everything that exists.
Mind is the name of a change, and body the name of another change, and so on;
and all these changes compose our universe. This Absolute (a) has become the
universe (b) by coming through time, space and causation (c). This is the
central idea of Advaita. Time, space and causation are like the glass through
which the Absolute is seen; and when It is seen on the
lower side, It appears as the universe. Now, we at once gather from this that
in the Absolute there is neither time, space, nor causation.
The idea of time cannot be there, seeing that there is no mind, no thought. The
idea of space cannot be there, seeing that there is no external change. What
you call motion and causation cannot exist where there is only One. We have to understand this, and impress it upon our
mind, that what we call causation begins after, if we may be permitted to say
so, the degeneration of the Absolute into the phenomenal, and not before; and
that our will, our desire, and all these things always come after that.
A stone falls and we ask why.
This question is possible only on the supposition that nothing happens without
a cause. I request you to make this very clear in your minds, for whenever we
ask why anything happens, we are taking for granted that everything that
happens must have a why; that is to say, it must have been preceded by
something else which acted as the cause. This precedence and succession are
what we call the law of causation. It means that everything in the universe is
by turns a cause and an effect. It is the cause of certain things which come
after it and is itself the effect of something else which has preceded it. This
is called the law of causation and is a necessary condition of all our
thinking. We believe that every particle in the universe, wherever it be, is in relation to every other particle. There has been
much discussion as to how this idea arose. In Europe there have been intuitive
philosophers who believed that it was constitutional in humanity, others have
believe it came from experience; but the question has never been settled. We
shall see later on what Vedanta has to say about it. But first we have to
understand that the very asking of the question why presupposes that
everything around us has been preceded by certain other things and will be
succeeded by certain other things. The other belief involved in this question
is that nothing in the universe is independent, that everything is acted upon
by something outside itself. Interdependence is the law of the whole
universe..... Coming from subtleties of logic to the logic of our common plane,
to commonsense, we can see this from another side, when we seek to know how the
Absolute has become the relative. Supposing we know the answer, would the
Absolute remain the Absolute? It would have become the relative. (16)
The Vedantist... has proved
beyond all doubt that the mind is limited, that it cannot go beyond certain
limits - beyond time, space and causation. As no one can jump
out of his or her own self, so no one can go beyond the limits that have been
put on him or her by the laws of time and space. Every attempt to solve
the laws of causation, time and space would be futile, because the very attempt
would have to be made by taking for granted the existence of these three. What
does the statement of the existence of the world mean, then? "This world
has no existence" - what is meant by that? It means it has no absolute
existence. It exists only in relation to my mind, to your mind, and to the mind
of everyone else. We see this world with the five senses, but if we had another
sense, we would see in it something more. If we had another sense, it would
appear as something still different. It has, therefore, no real existence; it
has no unchangeable, immovable, infinite existence. Nor can it be called
non-existence, seeing that it exists, and we have to work in and through it. It
is a mixture of existence and non-existence. (17)
Cross reference to:
Isha Up. peace chant
Cha. Up., 6.2.1
2. The Surest Way of
Arriving at Facts Is through Change in the Subjective
Here is another thing to
learn. How do you know that nature is finite? You can only know this through
metaphysics. Nature is that Infinite under limitations. Therefore it is finite.
So there must come a time when we shall have conquered all environments. And how
are we to conquer them? We cannot possibly conquer all the objective
environments. We cannot. The little fish want to fly from its enemies in the
water. How does it do so? By evolving wings and becoming a bird. The fish did
not change the air or the water; the change was in itself. Change is always
subjective. All through evolution you find that the conquest of nature comes by
change in the subject. Apply this to religion and morality, and you will find
that the conquest of evil comes by the change in the subjective alone. That is
how the Advaita system gets its whole force - on the subjective side of
humanity. To talk of evil and misery is nonsense, because they do not exist
outside. If I am immune against all anger I never feel angry. If I am proof
against all hatred I never feel hatred.
This is, therefore, the
process by which to achieve that conquest - through the subjective, by
perfecting the subjective. (18)
[There are] various levels
and kinds of spiritual consciousness and of the superimposition or projection
(adhyasa) of these inner states of being upon external nature creating, as it
were, the universes experienced at different stages of spiritual awareness. It
is thus that various truths have been revealed to saints and seers in
accordance with their own various levels of consciousness and points of view -
all of them equally valid, none of them revelations of absolute Truth, of which
there can be no description and no revealer. (19)
A proper psychology is
essential to the understanding of religion. To reach Truth by reason alone is
impossible, because imperfect reason cannot study its own fundamental basis.
Therefore the only way to study the mind is to get at facts, and then intellect
will arrange them and deduce the principles. The intellect has to build the
house, but it cannot do so without bricks and it cannot make the bricks.
Jnana-yoga is the surest way of arriving at facts. (20)
3. The Struggle to Find
Oneness Ends in Finding the God Within
One basic idea of the
Vedanta [is] that everything which has name and form is transient. This earth
is transient because it has name and form, and so must the heavens be
transient, because there also name and form remain. A heaven which is eternal
will be contradictory in terms, because everything that has name and form must
begin in time, exist in time, and end in time. These are settled doctrines of
the Vedanta, and as such, the heavens are given up. (21)
In reality there is One, but in maya it is appearing as many. In maya there is
this variation. Yet even in maya there is always the tendency to get back to
the One, as expressed in all ethics and all morality of every nation, because
it is the constitutional necessity of the soul. It is finding its oneness; and
this struggle to find this oneness is what we call ethics and morality.
Therefore, we must always practice them.
Q: Is not the greater part of ethics
taken up with the relation between individuals?
A: That is all it is. The Absolute does
not come within maya.
Q: You say the individual is the
Absolute; I was going to ask you whether the individual has knowledge.
A: The state of manifestation is
individuality, and the light in that state is what we call knowledge. To use,
therefore, this term knowledge for the light of the Absolute is not
precise, as the Absolute state transcends relative knowledge.
Q: Does it include it?
A: Yes, in this sense: just as a piece
of gold can be changed into all sorts of coins, so with this. The state can be
broken up into all sorts of knowledge. It is the state of superconsciousness
and includes both consciousness and unconsciousness. The person who attains
that state has what we call knowledge. When someone wants to realize that consciousness
of knowledge, he or she has to go a step lower. Knowledge is a lower state; it
is only in maya that we can have knowledge. (22)
Beyond this maya the
Vedantic philosophers find something which is not bound by maya; and if we can
get there, we shall not be bound by maya. This idea, in some form or other, is
the common property of all religions. But, with the Vedanta, it is only the
beginning of religion, and not the end. The idea of a personal God, the ruler
and creator of this universe or, as He or She has been styled, the ruler of
maya or nature, is not the end of these Vedantic ideas; it is only the
beginning. The idea grows and grows until the Vedantist finds that what he or
she thought was standing outside is him or herself and is in reality within. He
or She is the One who is free, but who through limitation thought he or she was
bound. (23)
c) Different Viewpoints
Depend Upon the Power of Perception
These are the two subjects
for study for humanity, external and internal nature; and though at first these
seem to be contradictory, yet external nature must, to the ordinary person, be
entirely composed of internal nature, the world of thought. The majority of
philosophies in every country, especially in the West, have started with the
assumption that these two, matter and mind, are contradictory existences; but
in the long run we shall find that they converge towards each other and in the
end unite and form an infinite whole. So it is not that by this analysis I mean
a higher or lower standpoint with regard to the subject. I do not mean that
those who want to search after truth through external nature are wrong, nor that those who want to search after truth through
internal nature are higher. These are the two modes of procedure. Both of them
must live; both of them must be studied; and in the end we shall find that they
meet. We shall see that neither is the body antagonistic to the mind, nor the
mind to the body; although we find many persons who think that this body is
nothing. In olden times every country was full of people who thought this body
was a disease, a sin, or something of that kind. Later on, however, we see how,
as it was taught in the Vedas, this body melts into mind and the mind into the
body. (24)
In the ideas of the cosmos
we find the ancient thinkers going higher and higher - from the fine elements
they go to finer and more embracing elements, and from these particulars they
come to one omnipresent ether; and from even that they go to an all-embracing
force or prana; and through all this runs the principle that one is not
separate from the others. It is the very ether that exists in the higher forms
of prana, or the higher form of prana concretes, so to say, and becomes ether;
and that ether becomes grosser, and so on. (25)
Clear comprehension, inward
realization, is no small matter.... When the mind proceeds to self-absorption
in Brahman it passes through all these stages one by one to reach the absolute
(nirvikalpa) state at last. In the process of entering into samadhi, first the
universe appears as one mass of ideas; then the whole thing loses itself in a
profound
Great men and women, like
avatars, in coming back from samadhi to the realm of "I" and
"mine" first experience the unmanifest nada, which by degrees grows
distinct and appears as Om; and then from Omkara, the subtle form of the
universe as a mass of ideas becomes experienced and, at last, the material
universe comes into perception. (26)
The perfect one knows that
this world is maya. Life is called samsara - it is the result of the
conflicting forces acting upon us. Materialism says, "The voice of freedom
is a delusion." Vedanta says, "The voice that tells of bondage is but
a dream." Vedanta says, "We are free and not free at the same
time." That means that we are never free on the earthly plane, but ever
free on the spiritual side. (27)
Devotion to ceremonials,
satisfaction in the senses, and forming various theories have
drawn a veil between ourselves and the truth. This is another great landmark
[in Vedic thought which] developed later on into that wonderful theory of maya
of the Vedantists; this veil is the real explanation of the Vedanta, how the
Truth was there all the time, it was only this veil that had covered it. (28)
The realist sees the
phenomenon only, and the idealist looks to the noumenon. For the idealist, the
truly genuine idealist, who has truly arrived at the power of perception,
wherever he or she can get away from all idea of change, for him or her the changeful universe has vanished, and he or she has
the right to say that it is all delusion, there is no change. The realist, at
the same time, looks at the changeful. For him or her the
unchangeable has vanished, and he or she has a right to say that this is all
real. (29)
Cross reference to:
Rig Veda, 1.164.46
Brih. Up., 1.4.10
Cha. Up., 6.8.7
7.15.1
Npt. Up., 1.6
d) The Aryan Perception
of the Process of Creation
1. Creation Is Without
Beginning or End
The Vedas assert that the
universe is infinite in space and eternal in duration. It never had a
beginning, and it will never have an end. (30)
The Hindus received their
religion through the revelation of the Vedas which teach that creation is
without beginning or end. (31)
The ancient sages did not
believe in a creation [out of nothing]. A creation implies producing something
out of nothing. That is impossible. There was no beginning of creation as there
was no beginning of time. God and creation are as two lines without end,
without beginning, and parallel. Our theory of creation is, "It is, it
was, and is to be." (32)
[The spiritual laws
comprising the Vedas] may be said to be without end as laws, but they must have
had a beginning. The Vedas teach us that creation is without beginning and
without end. Science is said to have proved that the sum total of cosmic energy
is always the same. Then, if there was a time when nothing existed, where was
all this manifested energy? Some say it was in a potential form of God. In that
case, God is sometimes potential and sometimes kinetic, which
would make Him or Her mutable. Everything mutable is a compound, and
everything compound must undergo that change which is called destruction. So
God would die, which is absurd. So there never was a time when there was no
creation. (33)
Creation is without
beginning - this is the doctrine of the Vedas. So long as there is a God, there
is creation as well. (34)
Cross reference to:
Cha. Up., 6.2.2
Gita 3.24
2. God Creates the World
through the Eternal Ideas of the Vedas
Knowledge exists, people
only discover it. The Vedas are the eternal knowledge though which God created
the world. (35)
The commentator
Sayanacharya says, somewhere in his works, "[God] created the whole
universe out of the knowledge of the Vedas." (36)
The Creator Him or Herself
is creating, preserving and destroying the universe with the help of… [Vedic] truths. (37)
Veda is of the nature of
shabda or of idea. It is but the sum-total of ideas. Shabda, according to the
old Vedic meaning of the term, is the subtle idea which reveals itself by
taking the gross form later on. So, owing to the dissolution of creation, the
subtle seeds of future creation become involved in the Vedas.... In other
words, all created objects began to take concrete shape out of the shabdas or
ideas in the Veda. For in shabda, or idea, all gross objects have their subtle
forms. Creation has proceeded in the same way in all previous cycles or kalpas.
(38)
In the universe Brahma or
Hiranyagarbha or the cosmic Mahat first manifested Himself as name, and then as
form, i.e. as this universe. All this expressed
sensible universe is the form behind which stands the eternal inexpressible
sphota, the manifester as logos or word. This eternal sphota, the essential,
eternal material of all ideas or names, is the power through which the Lord
creates the universe; nay, the Lord first becomes conditioned as the sphota,
and then evolves Himself out as the yet more concrete, sensible universe. This
sphota has one word as its only possible symbol and this is the
Disciple: But, sir, how, in the absence of an
actual concrete object can the shabda or idea be applied, and for what? And how
can the names, too, be given at all?
Swami Vivekananda: Yes, that is what on first thought
seems to be the difficulty. But, just think of this: supposing this jug breaks
into pieces; does the idea of the jug become null and void? No, because the jug
is the gross effect, of which the idea jug is the subtle state, or
shabda state of the jug. In the same way, the shabda-state of every object is
its subtle state; and the things we see, hear, touch or perceive in any manner
are the gross manifestations of entities in the subtle or shabda state, just as
we may speak of the effect and its cause. Even when the whole creation is
annihilated, the shabda, as the consciousness of the universe or the subtle
reality of all concrete things, exists in Brahman as the cause. At the point of
creative manifestation, this sum total of causal entities vibrates into
activity, as it were; and, as being the sonant, material substance of it all,
the eternal, primal sound of Om continues to come out of itself. And then from
the causal totality comes out first the subtle image or shabda-form of each
particular thing and then its gross manifestation. Now, that causal shabda, or
word-consciousness, is Brahman, and it is the Veda. This is the purport of
Sayana. Do you now understand?
Disciple: No, sir, I can't clearly comprehend
it.
Swami Vivekananda: Well, you understand, I suppose,
that even if all the jugs in the universe were to be destroyed, the idea or
shabda, jug would still exist. So, if the universe be destroyed - I
mean, if all the things making up the universe were to be smashed to atoms -
why should not the ideas, or shabdas representing all of them in consciousness,
be still existing? And why cannot a second creation be supposed to come out of
them in time?
Disciple: But, sir, if one cries out,
"Jug! Jug!" that does not cause any jug to be produced!
Swami Vivekananda: No, nothing is produced if you or I
cry out like that; but a jug must be revealed if the idea of it rises in
Brahman, which is perfect in its creative determination. When we see even those
established in the practice of religion (sadhakas) bring about by will-power
things otherwise impossible of happening, what to speak of Brahman, with
perfect creativeness of will? At the point of creation Brahman becomes manifest as shabda and then assumes the form or nada or
Cross reference to:
Ka. Up., 1.2.15-16
3. The Projection of the
Universe Proceeds from the Finer to the Grosser
In the Samhita, old and
ancient as it is... we meet with the ...idea of force..... All the forces,
whether you call them gravitation or attraction or repulsion, whether
expressing themselves as heat or electricity or magnetism, are
nothing but the variations of... unit energy. Whether they express themselves
as thought reflected from the antahkarana, the inner organs of humanity, or as
actions from an external organ, the unit from which they spring is what is
called prana. Again, what is prana? Prana is spandana or
vibration. (41)
The akasha, acted upon by
repeated blows of prana, produces vayu or vibrations. This vayu vibrates; and
the vibrations growing more and more rapid, result in friction, giving rise to
heat, tejas. Then this heat ends in liquefaction, apah. Then that liquid
becomes solid. We had ether [akasha] and motion [prana]; then came heat, then it became liquefied and then it condensed
into gross matter. (42)
We see that the whole thing
has been resolved into two, but there is not yet a final unity. There is the
unity of force, prana; and there is the unity of matter, called akasha. (43)
This body is made of
particles which we call matter, and it is dull and insentient. So is what the
Vedantists call the fine body. The fine body, according to them, is a material,
but transparent body, made of very fine particles, so fine that no microscope
can see them. What is the use of that? It is the receptacle of the fine forces.
Just as this gross body is the receptacle of the gross forces, so the fine body
is the receptacle of the fine forces which we call thought in its various
modifications. First is the body, which is gross matter with gross force. Force
cannot exist without matter. It requires some matter to exist; so the gross
forces work in the body, and those very forces become finer; the very force
which is working in a gross form works in a fine form and becomes thought.
There is no distinction between them; simply, one is the gross and the other
the fine manifestation of the same thing. Neither is there any distinction
between this fine body and the gross body. The fine body is also material, only
very fine matter; and, just as this gross body is the instrument that works the
gross forces, so the fine body is the instrument that works the fine forces.
From where do all these
forces come? According to Vedanta philosophy, there are two things in nature,
one of which they call akasha, which is the substance, infinitely fine; and the
other they call prana, which is the force. Whatever you see or feel or hear,
such as air, earth, or anything - is material, the product of akasha. It goes
on and becomes finer and finer, or grosser and grosser, changing under the
action of prana. Like akasha, prana is omnipresent and interpenetrating
everything. Akasha is like water, and everything else in the universe is like
blocks of ice made out of that water and floating in the water; and prana is
the power that changes this akasha into all these various forms. The gross body
is the instrument made out of akasha for the manifestation of prana in gross
forms such as muscular motion, or walking, sitting, talking, and so forth. That
fine body is also made out of akasha, a very fine form of akasha, for the
manifestation of the same prana in the finer form of thought. So, first there
is this gross body. Beyond that is this fine body, and beyond that there is the
jiva, the real Person. Just as the nails can be pared off many times and yet
are still part of our bodies, not different, so is our gross body related to
the fine. It is not that human beings have a fine and also a gross body; it is
one body only; the part which endures longer is the fine body and that which
dissolves sooner is the gross. Just as I can cut this nail any number of times,
so, millions of times I can shed this gross body, but the fine body will
remain. (44)
Something cannot be made
out of nothing. Nor can something be made to go back to nothing. It may become
finer and finer and then again grosser and grosser. The raindrop is drawn from
the ocean in the form of vapor and drifts away through the air to the mountains;
there it changes back again into water and flows back through hundreds of miles
down to the mother ocean. The seed produces the tree. The tree dies, leaving
only the seed. Again it comes up as another tree, which again ends in the seed,
and so on. Look at a bird, how from the egg it springs, becomes a beautiful
bird, lives its life and then dies, leaving only other eggs containing germs of
future birds. So with the animals, so with human beings.
Everything begins, as it were, from certain seeds, certain rudiments, certain
fine forms, and becomes grosser and grosser as it develops; and then again it
goes back to that fine form and subsides. The whole universe is going on in
this way. There comes a time when the whole universe melts down and becomes
finer and at last disappears entirely, as it were; but remains as superfine
matter. We know through modern science and astronomy that this earth is cooling
down and in course of time it will become very cold; and then it will break to
pieces and become finer and finer until it becomes ether once more. Yet the
particles will all remain to form the material out of which another earth will
be projected. Again that will disappear and another will come out. So this
universe will go back to its causes; and again its materials will come together
and take form, like the wave that goes down, rises again, and takes shape. The
acts of going back to causes and coming out again are called in Sanskrit
sankocha and vikasha, which mean shrinking and expanding. To use the more
accepted words of modern science, they are involved and evolved. You hear about
evolution, how all forms grow from lower ones, slowly growing up and up. This
is very true; but each evolution presupposes an involution. We know that the
sum total of energy that is displayed in the universe is the same at all times
and that matter is indestructible. By no means can you take away one particle
of matter. You cannot take away a foot-pound of energy or add one. The sum
total is always the same. Only the manifestation varies, being involved and
evolved. So, this cycle is the evolution out of the involution of the previous
cycle, and this cycle will again be involved, getting finer and finer; and out
of that will come the next cycle. The whole universe is going on in this
fashion. (45)
[God's] knowledge comes out
at the beginning of a cycle and manifests itself; and when the cycle ends, it
goes down into minute form. When the cycle is projected
again, that knowledge is projected again with it. (46)
Rig Veda, 10.129
Brih. Up., 2.4.10
Ka. Up., 2.3.2
4. Creation in Cycles Is
a Common Ground of Belief among Vedantists
I think [all Vedantists]
are able to agree upon [this point]: we believe in nature being without
beginning and without end, only at psychological periods this gross material of
the outer universe goes back to its finer state, thus to remain for a certain
period, again to be projected outside to manifest all this infinite panorama we
call nature. This wavelike motion was going on even before time began, through
eternity, and will remain for an infinite period of time. (47)
Creation in cycles is a
common ground of belief among the Vedantists. The whole of creation appears and
disappears; it is projected and becomes grosser and grosser; and at the end of
an incalculable period of time, it becomes finer and finer and dissolves and
subsides, and then comes another period of rest. Again it begins to appear and
goes through the same process. They postulate the existence of a material which
they call akasha, which is something like the ether of the scientists, and a
power which they call prana. About this prana they declare that by its
vibration the universe is produced. When a cycle ends all this manifestation of
nature becomes finer and finer and dissolves into that akasha, which cannot be
seen or felt, yet out of which everything is manufactured. All the forces that
we see in nature, such as gravitation, attraction or repulsion, or as thought,
feeling and nervous motion - all these various forces resolve into that prana
and the vibration of the prana ceases. In that state it remains until the
beginning of the next cycle. Prana then begins to vibrate; and that vibration
acts upon the akasha and all these forms are thrown out in regular succession.
(48)
When this cycle ends, all
that we call solid will melt away into the next form, the next finer or the
liquid form; that will melt into the gaseous and that state into finer and more
uniform heat vibrations, and all will melt back into the original akasha; and
what we now call attraction, repulsion and motion, will slowly resolve into the
original prana. Then this prana is said to sleep for a period, again to emerge
and to throw out all those forms; and when this period ends, the whole thing
will subside again. Thus this process of creation is going down and coming up,
oscillating backwards and forwards. In the language of modern science, it is
becoming static during one period and during another it is becoming dynamic. At
one time it becomes potential and at the next period it become
active. This alteration has gone on through eternity. (49)
At the beginning of a
cycle, akasha is motionless, unmanifested. Then prana begins to act more and
more, creating grosser and grosser forms out of akasha - plants, animals,
people, stars, and so on. After an incalculable time, this evolution ceases and
involution begins; everything begins, everything being resolved back through
finer and finer forms into the original akasha and prana, when a new cycle
follows. Now, there is something beyond akasha and prana. Both can be resolved
into a third thing called Mahat - the cosmic mind. This cosmic mind does
not create akasha and prana, but changes itself into them. (50)
References
1. CW, Vol.1: Steps of Hindu
Philosophic Thought, pp.393-394.
2. CW, Vol.2: The Atman,
pp.245-246.
3. CW, Vol.1: Steps of Hindu
Philosophic Thought, p.394.
4.Ibid., pp.394 and pp.396-397.
5. Ibid., p.401.
6. CW, Vol.2: The Atman,
pp.240-24l.
7. Ibid., pp.245-247.
8. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 14, 1895, p.50.
9. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta in
All Its Phases, p.341.
10. CW, Vol.2: The Freedom
of the Soul, pp.191-192.
11. CW, Vol.5: Letter to
Swami Swarupananda from
12. CW, Vol.2: Maya and the
Evolution of the Conception of God, p.105.
13. CW, Vol.2: Maya and
Illusion, pp.88-89.
14. CW, Vol.5: Letter to
Swami Swarupananda, loc. cit., p.172.
15. CW, Vol.2: Maya and
Illusion, p.89.
16. CW, Vol.2: The Absolute
and Manifestation, pp.130-132.
17. CW, Vol.2: Maya and
Illusion, pp.90-91.
18. CW, Vol.2: The Absolute
and Manifestation, pp.137-138.
19. SVW IV, Chapter
11:
20. CW, Vol.6: Introduction
to Jnana-Yoga, p.42.
21. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta II, pp.315-316.
22. CW, Vol.5: A Discussion,
pp.309-310.
23. CW, Vol.2: Maya and
Illusion, p.104.
24. CW, Vol.6: The Methods
and Purpose of Religion, p.4.
25. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta III, pp.329-330.
26. CW, Vol.6: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty in
27. CW, Vol.8: Discourses on
Jnana-Yoga IX, p.35.
28. CW, Vol.1: Vedic
Religious Ideals, p.355.
29. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta III, p.333.
30. CW, Vol.4: Indian
Religious Thought, p.188.
31. CW, Vol.2: The Hindu
View of Life, p.501.
32. CW, Vol.5: Questions and
Answers III, p.313.
33. CW, Vol.1: Paper on
Hinduism, p.7.
34. CW, Vol.5: Conversation
with Surendra Nath Seal, January 23, 1898, p.338.
35.CW,
Vol.7: Inspired Talks, July 30, 1895, p.79.
36. CW, Vol.3: The Religion
We Are Born In, p.456.
37. CW, Vol.6: Hinduism and
Sri Ramakrishna, p.181.
38. CW, Vol.6: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty in
39. CW, Vol.3: Bhakti-Yoga:
The Mantra:
40. CW, Vol.6: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty, loc. cit., pp.497-498.
41. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta,
p.399.
42. CW, Vol.2: Cosmology,
pp.435-436.
43. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta,p.400.
44. CW, Vol.1: Steps of
Hindu Philosophic Thought, pp.395-396.
45. CW, Vol.2: Soul, Nature
and God, pp.426-427
46. CW,Vol.5:
Sayings and Utterances, #35, p.411.
47. CW, Vol.3: The Common
Bases of Hinduism, p.374.
48. CW, Vol.2: The Atman,
pp.239-240.
49. CW, Vol.2: The Real and
Apparent Man, p.264.
50. CW, Vol.1: The Vedanta
Philosophy, p.360
PART II, SECTION 5: THE EVOLUTION OF VEDANTIC TEACHINGS ON
CAUSATION AND CREATION
Chapter 14: The Law of Causation and Transmigration
a) Subject to the
Great Law of Spiritual Evolution, the Human Spirit Finally Attains Release
Another [Aryan] idea is
that when the body dies the soul [which] is immortal remains beatified. The
very oldest Aryan literature - whether German or Greek - has this idea of a
soul. The idea of the soul has come from the Hindus. (1)
The Vedas teach that the
soul of humanity is immortal. The body is subject to the law of growth and
decay; what grows must of necessity decay. But the indwelling Spirit is related
to the infinite and eternal life; it never had a beginning and it will never
have an end. One of the chief distinctions between the Vedic and the Christian
religion is that the Christian religion teaches that each human soul had its
beginning at its birth into this world; whereas the Vedic religion asserts that
the spirit of humanity is an emanation of the eternal Being and had no more a
beginning than God Him or Herself. Innumerable have been and will be its
manifestations in its passage from one personality to another, subject to the
great law of spiritual evolution, until it reaches perfection, where there is
no more change. (2)
That race which spent the
best part of its energies in the inquiry into the nature of humanity as
thinking beings - the Indo-Aryan - soon found out that beyond this body, beyond
even the shining body which their forefathers longed for, is the real person, the
principle, the individual which clothes itself with this body and throws it off
when it is worn out. Was such a principle created? If creation means something
coming out of nothing, their answer was a decisive "no". This soul is
without birth and without death; it is not a compound or combination, but an
independent individual; and as such it cannot be created nor destroyed. It is
only traveling through various states.
Naturally, the question
arises: where was it all this time? The Hindu philosophers say, "It was
passing through different bodies in the physical sense or, really and
metaphysically speaking, passing through different mental planes." (3)
There are certain doctrines
[of the Upanishads] which are agreed to by all the sects in
You must keep it clear in
your mind that the Atman is separate from the mind as well as from the body,
and that this Atman goes through birth and death, accompanied by the mind - the
sukshma sharira - and when the time comes that it has attained to all knowledge
and manifested itself to perfection, then this going from birth to death ceases
for it. Then it is at liberty either to keep that mind, the sukshma sharira, or
to let it go forever and remain independent and free throughout all eternity.
The goal of the soul is freedom; that is the one peculiarity of our religion
[Vedanta]. (5)
b) The Development of
the Aryan Theory of Causation
1. The Rsis Perceived
the Impermanence of Heaven
When the ancient Aryans
became dissatisfied with the world around them they naturally thought that after
death they would go to some place where there would be all happiness without
any misery; these places they multiplied and called swargas - the word may be
translated as heavens - where there would be joy forever, the body would
become perfect and also the mind, and there they would live with their
forefathers. (6)
The oldest idea which we
get in the Samhita portion of the Vedas is only about heaven where they had
bright bodies and lived with the fathers. (7)
Various heavens are spoken
of the Brahmana portions of the Vedas, but the philosophical teachings of the
Upanishads gives up the idea of going to heaven. Happiness is not in this
heaven or in that heaven. Places do not signify anything. (8)
In the Upanishads we see a
tremendous departure made. It is there declared that these heavens in which
humans live with the ancestors cannot be permanent, seeing that everything
which has name and form must die. If there are heavens with forms, these
heavens must vanish in course of time; they may last millions of years, but
there must come a time when they will have to go. With this idea came another, that these souls must come back to earth, and that
heavens are places where they enjoy the results of their good works, and after
these effects are finished they come back into the earth-life again. (9)
In the Upanishads there is
the doctrine of karma, [which] is the law of causation applied to conduct.
According to this doctrine, we must work forever and the only way to get rid of
pain is to do good works and thus to enjoy the good effects; and after living a
life of good works, die and go to heaven and live forever in happiness. Even in
heaven we could not be free from karma, only it would be good karma, not bad.
(10)
One thing is clear from
this - that humankind had a perception of the philosophy of causation even at
an early time. Later on we shall see how our philosophers bring that out in the
language of philosophy and logic; but here it is almost in language of
children. One thing that you may remark in reading these books is that it is
all internal perception. (11)
[The] Aryan heavens and
hells were all temporary, because no effect can outlast its cause and no cause
is eternal; therefore all effects must come to an end. (12)
(In the Upanishads) heavens
and earth are all thrown off in order to come to Light. (13)
Cross reference to:
Rig Veda 9.113
Mund. Up., 1.2.,5
and 7
Mand. Up, 2
2. As Heaven Is
Finite, Even for the Gods, Humanity Must Attain Liberation Here on This Earth
As soon as philosophy came
people found that [the idea of a heaven of enjoyment only] was impossible and
absurd. The very idea of an infinite in place would be a contradiction in
terms, as a place must begin and continue in time. Therefore they had to give
up that idea. They found out that the gods who lived in these heavens had once
been human beings on earth, who through their good works became gods; and the
godhoods, as they call them, were different states, different positions; none
of the gods spoken of in the Vedas are permanent individuals.
For instance, Indra and
Varuna are not the names of certain persons, but the names of positions as
governors, and so on. The Indra who had lived before is not the Indra of the
present day; he has passed away, and another man from earth has filled his place.
So with all the other gods. There are certain
positions which are filled successively by human souls who have raised
themselves to the conditions of gods, and yet even they die. In the old Rig
Veda we find the word immortality used with regard to these gods, but
later on it is dropped entirely, for they found that immortality which is
beyond time and space cannot be spoken of with regard to any physical form,
however subtle it may be. (14)
Heavens are only other
states of existence with added senses and heightened powers.
All higher bodies are also
subject to disintegration as is the physical. Death comes to all forms of
bodies in this and other lives. Devas are also mortal and can only give
enjoyment.
Behind all devas there is
the unit Being - God, as behind this body there is something higher that feels
and sees. (15)
[Vedanta] also has heavens
and hells, but these are not infinite, for in the very nature of things they
cannot be. If there were any heavens they would be only repetitions of this
world of ours on a bigger scale, with a little more happiness and a little more
enjoyment, but that is all the worse for the soul. There are many of these
heavens. Persons who do good works here with the
thought of reward, when they die, are born again as gods in one of these
heavens, as Indra and others. These gods are the names of a certain state. They
also had been men and by good works have become gods; and these different names
that you read of, such as Indra and so on, are not the names of the same
person. There will be thousands of Indras. Nahusha was a great king and when he
died he became Indra. (16)
Brahma is the name of a
high position among the devas to which every one can
aspire by virtue of meritorious deeds. (17)
[The gods] mean certain
states, certain offices. For instance, Indra, the king of gods, means a certain
office. Some soul which was very high has gone to fill that post in this cycle;
and after this cycle he will be born again as man and come down to this earth,
and the man who is very good in this cycle will go and fill that post in the
next cycle. So with all these gods; they are certain offices which have been
filled alternately by millions and millions of souls who, after filling those
offices, came down and became men. Those who do good works in this world an
help others, but with an eye to reward, hoping to reach heaven or to get praise
from their fellow humans must, when they die, reap the benefit of those good
works - they become these gods. (18)
The devas are like your
angels, only some of them from time to time become wicked and find that the
daughters of humans are good. Our deities are celebrated for this sort of
thing. What can you expect of them? They are simply hospital-makers here [on
earth] and have no more knowledge than other people. They do some good work
with the result that they become devas. They do their good work for fame or
name or some reward, and they get this reward, dreaming that they are in heaven
and doing all these things. Then there are demons who
have done evil in this life. But our books say that these dreams will not last
very long, and then they will either come back and
take the old dream again as human beings, or still worse. Therefore, according
to these books, it behooves every sensible, right-thinking person, once for
all, to brush aside all such foolish ideas as heavens and hells. (19)
[Godhood] is a position;
one soul become high and takes Indra's position, and remains in it only a
certain time; then he dies and is born again as a human being. But the human
body is the highest of all. Some of the gods may try to go higher and give up
all ideas of enjoyment in heavens; but, as in this world wealth and position
and enjoyment delude the vast majority, so do most of the gods become deluded
also; and, after working out their good karmas, they fall down and become human
beings again. This earth, therefore, is the karma-bhumi; it is this earth from
which we attain to liberation. So even these heavens are not
worth attaining to. (20)
Cross reference to:
Ka. Up., 2.1.10
Mund. Up., 1.2.10
c) The Dualist Scheme
of the Transmigration of Souls
1. The Results of
Action Condition the Life of Humanity
What comes after death? All
the Vedantic philosophers admit that this jiva is by its own nature pure. But
ignorance covers up its real nature, they say. As by evil deeds it has covered
itself with ignorance, so by good deeds it become conscious of its own nature
again. Just as it is eternal, so its nature is pure. The nature of every being
is pure. (21)
Both the dualists and the
qualified dualists admit that the soul is by its nature pure, but through its
own deeds it becomes impure. The qualified monists express it more beautifully
than the dualists by saying that the soul's purity and perfection become
contracted and again become manifest, and what we are trying to do is to
re-manifest the intelligence, the purity, the power which is natural to the
soul. Souls have a multitude of qualities, but not that of almightiness or
all-knowingness. Every wicked deed contracts the nature of the soul and every
good deed expands it; and these souls are all parts of God. (22)
According to [the popular
idea of dualism] we have a body, of course, and behind the body there is what
they call the fine body. This fine body is also made of matter, only very fine.
It is the receptacle of all our karma, of all our actions and impressions,
which are ready to spring up into visible forms. Every thought that we think,
every deed that we do, after a certain time becomes fine, goes into seed form,
so to speak, and lives in the fine body in a potential form; and after a time
it emerges again and bears its results. These results condition the life of
humanity. Thus it molds its own life. Humans are not bound by any other laws
excepting those they make for themselves. Our thoughts, our words and deeds are
the threads of the net which we throw around ourselves, for good or for evil.
Once we set in motion a certain power we have to take the full consequences of
it. This is the law of karma. (23)
Cross reference to:
Mai. Up., 6.34
Cha. Up., 5.10, 1-2
6.8.6
2. The Evolving Human
Soul Sojourns in Low as Well as High Forms
The dualist claims that the
soul after death passes on to the solar sphere, thence to the lunar sphere,
then to the electric sphere. Thence he is accompanied by a purusha to
Brahmaloka. (Thence, says the Advaitist, he goes to nirvana) (24)
People [in the
The human soul has
sojourned in lower and higher forms, migrating from one to another, according
to the samsaras or impressions, but it is only in the highest form as a human
being that it attains to freedom. The human form is higher than even the angel
form, and of all forms it is the highest; humanity is the highest being in
creation because it attains to freedom. (25)
The householder has five
objects for worship. One of them is learning and teaching. Another is worship
of dumb creatures. It is hard for Americans to understand the last worship and
it is difficult for Europeans to appreciate the sentiment. Other nations kill
animals wholesale and kill one another; they exist in a sea of blood. A
European said that the reason why in
d) The Non-Dualist
Contemplates the Projection of Various Spheres of Existence from the One
Now, on the Advaitic side,
it is held that the soul neither comes nor goes, and that all these spheres or
layers of the universe are only so many varying products of akasha and prana.
That is to say, the lowest or most condensed is the solar sphere, consisting of
the visible universe in which prana appears as physical force and akasha as
sensible matter. The next is called the lunar sphere, which surrounds the solar
sphere. This is not the moon at all, but the habitation of the gods; that is to
say, prana appears in it as psychic forces and akasha as tanmatras or fine
particles. Beyond this is the electric sphere, that is to say, a condition in
which the prana is almost inseparable from akasha, and you can hardly tell
whether electricity is force or matter. Next is Brahmaloka, where there is
neither prana nor akasha, but both are merged in the mindstuff, the primal
energy. And here - there being neither prana nor akasha - the jiva contemplates
the whole universe as samashti or the sum total of mahat or mind. This appears
as a purusha, an abstract universal soul, yet not the Absolute, for
still there is multiplicity. Form this the jiva finds
at last that Unity which is the end. Advaitism says that these are the visions
which rise in succession before the jiva, who itself neither comes nor goes,
and that in the same way this vision has been projected. The projection
(srishti) and dissolution must take place in the same order, only one means
going backward and the other coming out. (27)
The Vedantist says that
human beings are neither born nor dies, nor goes to heaven, and that
reincarnation is really a myth with regard to the soul. The example is given of
[the pages of a] book being turned over. It is the book that evolves, not the
human being. Every soul is omnipresent, so where can it come or go? These
births and death are changes in nature which we are mistaking for changes in
us.
Reincarnation is the
evolution of nature and the manifestation of the God within. (28)
The Atman never goes nor
comes, is never born and never dies. It is nature moving before the Atman, and
the reflection of this motion is on the Atman; and the Atman ignorantly thinks
it is moving, and not nature. When the Atman thinks that, it is in bondage; but
when it comes to find that it never moves, that it is omnipresent, then freedom comes. This Atman in bondage is called jiva.
Thus you see that when it is said that the Atman comes and goes, it is said
only for facility of understanding, just as for convenience in studying
astronomy you are asked to suppose that the sun moves around the earth, though
such is not the case. So the jiva, the soul, comes to higher or lower states.
This is the well-known law of reincarnation; and this law binds all creation.
(29)
You must always remember
that the one central idea of Vedanta… is oneness. There are no two in anything
- no two lives, nor even two different kinds of lives for the two worlds. You
will find the Vedas speaking of heavens and things like that at first; but
later on, when they come to the highest ideals of their philosophy, they brush
away all these things. There is but one life, one world, one
existence. Everything is that One; the difference is in degree, not in kind.
The difference between our lives is not in kind. The Vedanta entirely denies
such ideas as that animals are separate from humans,
and that they were made and created by God to be used for our food. (30)
The… idea of unity, of the
realization of God, the omnipresent, is preached throughout the [Hindu
religion]. [The Hindus] think it is all nonsense to say that God lives in
heaven, and all that. It is a mere, human, anthropomorphic idea. All the heaven
that ever existed is now and here. One moment in infinite time is quite as good
as any other. If you believe in a God, you can see Him or Her even now. (31)
e) Vedanta Seeks the
Unity beyond Good and Evil ,Reward and Punishment
1. The Idea of Satan
Was Rejected by Indian Thinkers Who Did not Want to
Throw the Blame on Someone Else
The idea that souls come
back is already [in the Upanishads]. Those persons who do good work with the
idea of a result get it, but the result is not permanent. There we get the idea
of causation very beautifully put forward, that the effect is only commensurate
with the cause. As the cause is, so the effect will be. The cause being finite,
the effect must be finite. If the cause is eternal, the effect can be eternal;
but all these causes - doing good work, and all other things - are only finite
causes and as such cannot produce infinite result.
We come now to the other
side of the question: as there cannot be an eternal heaven, on the same grounds
there cannot be an eternal hell. Suppose I am a very wicked person, doing evil
every minute of my life. Still, my whole life here, compared with my eternal
life is nothing. If there be an eternal punishment, it will mean that there is
an infinite effect produced by a finite cause, which cannot be. If I do good all my life, I cannot have an infinite heaven; it would
be the same mistake. (32)
I may tell you that the
idea of hell does not occur in the Vedas anywhere. It comes with the Puranas
much later. (33)
In the religion of
The devil is recognized in
the Vedas as the Lord of Anger.... But while Satan is the Hamlet of the Bible,
in the Hindu scriptures the Lord of Anger never divides creation. He always
represents defilement, never duality. (36)
Satan... did not have much
of a chance [in
Devil worship is not a part
of the Hindu religion. (38)
In
Cross reference to:
Rig Veda, 10.125
2. The Impersonal
Idea of the Upanishads Removed the Monotheistic Idea of Fear and Sin
Zoroaster was a reformer of
some old religion. Even Ormzud and Ahriman, with him, were not supreme; they
were only manifestations of the Supreme. That older religion must have been
Vedantic. (40)
[Humanity began to progress
spiritually] when it kicked the devil out. It stood up and took the
responsibility of the misery of the world upon its own shoulders. But whenever
people looked [at the] past and the future and [at the] law of causation, they
knelt down and said, "Lord, save us, [Thou] who art our creator, our
father, and dearest friend." That is poetry, but not very good poetry, I
think. Why not? It is the painting of the Infinite, [no doubt]... [but] it is the infinite of the senses, of the muscles. (41)
In the case of [the Vedic
god] Varuna there is... the germ of one idea... which was quickly suppressed by
the Aryan mind, and that was the idea of fear.... We read that they are afraid
they have sinned and ask Varuna for pardon. These ideas were never allowed...
to grow on Indian soul, but the germs were there, sprouting; the idea of fear,
and the idea of sin. This is the idea, as you all know, of what is called
monotheism. (42)
The worst punishment,
according to the Vedas, is coming back to earth, having another chance in the
world. From the very first we see that the idea is taking an impersonal turn.
The ideas of punishment and reward are very material, and they are only
consonant with the idea of a human God who loves one and hates another, just as
we do. Punishment and reward are only admissible with the existence of such a
God. They had such a God in the Samhita, and there we find the idea of fear
entering; but as soon as we come to the Upanishads the idea of fear vanished
and the impersonal idea takes its place. It is naturally the hardest thing for
people to understand, this impersonal idea, for they are always clinging on to
the person. (43)
3. The Advancing
Consciousness of the Aryans Found That God Presides over Both Good and Evil,
Which Are Not Separate Existences
In all the religions of the
world the one question they propose to discuss is this: why is there disharmony
in the universe? Why is there evil in the universe? We do not find this
question in the very inception of primitive religious ideas because the world
did not appear incongruous to primitive people. Circumstances were not
inharmonious for them; there was no clash of opinions; to them there was no
antagonism of good and evil. There was merely a feeling in their
own heart of something that said yea and something that said nay.
Primitive people were people of impulse. They did what occurred to them and
tried to bring out through their muscles whatever thought came into their
minds, and they never stopped to judge and seldom tried to check their
impulses. So with the gods; they were also creatures of impulse. Indra comes
and shatters the forces of the demons. Jehovah is pleased with one person and
displeased with another, for what reason no one knows or asks. The habit of
inquiry had not then arisen, and whatever they did was regarded as right. There
was no idea of good and evil. The devas did many
wicked things in our sense of the word; again and again Indra and other gods
committed very wicked deeds; but to the worshippers of Indra the ideas of
wickedness and evil did not occur, so they did not question them.
With the advance of ethical
ideas came the fight. There arose a certain sense in human beings, called in
different languages and nations by different names. Call it the voice of God,
or the result of past education, or whatever else you like; but the effect was
this that it had a checking power on the impulses of humanity. There is one
impulse in our minds which says do. Behind it rises
another voice which says, do not. There is one set of ideas in our minds
which is always struggling to get outside through the channels of the senses;
and behind that, although it may be thin and weak, there is an infinitely small
voice which says, "Do not go outside." The two beautiful Sanskrit
words for these phenomena are pravritti and nivritti,. circling forward and circling
inward. It is the circling forward which usually governs our actions.
Religion begins with this circling inwards. Real religion begins with this do
not. Spirituality begins with this do not. When
the do not is not there, religion has not begun. And this do
not came, causing people's ideas to grow, despite the fighting gods which
they had worshipped.
A little love awoke in the
hearts of humankind. It was very small indeed, and even now it is not much
greater.... When tribal ideas began to grow there came a little love, some
slight idea of duty towards each other, a little
social organization. Then, naturally, the idea came: how can we live together
without bearing and forbearing? How can people live with others without having
at some time or other to check their impulses, to restrain themselves, to
forbear from doing things which their minds would prompt them to do? It is
impossible. Thus comes the idea of restraint. The
whole social fabric is based upon that idea of restraint; and we all know that
the man or woman who has not learned the great lesson of bearing and forbearing
leads a most miserable life.
Now, when these ideas of
religion came, a glimpse of something higher, more ethical, dawned upon the
intellect of humankind. The old gods were found to be incongruous - these
boisterous, fighting, drinking, beef-eating gods of the ancients - whose
delight was in the smell of burning flesh and libations of strong liquor.
Sometimes Indra drank so much that he fell upon the ground and talked
unintelligibly. These gods could no longer be tolerated. The notion had arisen
of inquiring into motives, and the gods had to come in for their share of
inquiry. Reason for such-and-such actions was demanded and the reason was wanting.
Therefore people gave up these gods; or rather, they developed higher ideas
concerning them. They took a survey, as it were, of all the actions and
qualities of the gods and discarded those which they could not harmonize, and
kept those which they could understand, and combined them, labeling them with
one name: deva-deva, the God of gods. The god to be worshipped was no
more a simple symbol of power; something more was required than that. He or She
was an ethical god, He or She loved humankind, and did
good to humankind. But the idea of god still remained. They increased
his or her ethical significance and also increased his or her power. He or She
became the most ethical being in the universe as well as almost almighty....
We perceive at once that the
idea of some Being who is eternally loving us - eternally unselfish and
almighty, ruling this universe, could not satisfy. "Where is the just,
merciful God?" asked the philosopher. Does He or She not see millions and
millions of his or her children perish, in the forms of human beings and
animals, for who can live one moment here without killing others? Can you draw
a breath without destroying thousands of lives? You live, because millions die.
Every moment of your life, every breath that you breathe, is death to
thousands, every moment that you make is death to millions. Every morsel that
you eat is death to millions. Why should they die? There is an old sophism that
they are very low existences. Supposing they are - which is questionable, for
who knows whether the ant is greater than the human being or the human than the
ant - who can prove one way or the other? Apart from
that question, even taking it for granted that these are very low beings, still
why should they die? If they are low, they have more reason to live. Why not?
Because they live more in the senses, they feel pleasure and pain a
thousand-fold more than you or I can do. Which of us eats dinner with the same
gusto as a dog or a wolf? None, because our energies are not in the senses;
they are in the intellect, in the Spirit. But in animals, their whole soul is
in the senses and they become mad and enjoy things which we human beings never
dream of; and pain is commensurate with the pleasure. Pleasure and pain are
meted out in equal measure. If the pleasure felt by animals is so much keener
than that felt by human beings, it follows that the animals' sense of pain is
as keen, if not keener, than human beings’. So the fact is that the pain and
misery human beings feel in dying is intensified a thousand-fold in animals,
and yet we kill them without troubling ourselves about their misery. This is
maya. And if we suppose that there is a personal God like a human being, who
made everything, these so-called explanations and theories which try to prove that
out of evil comes good are not sufficient. Let twenty thousand good things
come, but why should they come from evil? On that principle, I might cut the
throats of others because I want the full pleasure of my five senses. That is
no reason. Why should good come through evil? The question remains to be
answered. The philosophy of
The riddle remains: who
presides over this evil? Many are hoping against hope that all is good and that
we do not understand. We are clutching at a straw, burying our heads in the
sand. Yet we all follow morality and the gist of morality is sacrifice - not I,
but thou. Yet, how it clashes with the great, good God of the universe! He or
She is so selfish, the most vengeful person that we know, with plagues, famine,
war!...
Manu Deva of the Vedas was
transformed in
Later books began to
realize this new idea: evil exists and there is no shirking the fact. The
universe is a fact; it is a huge composite of good and evil. Whoever rules must
rule over good and evil. If that power makes us live, the same makes us die. Laughter
and tears are kin, and there are more tears than
laughter in this world. Who made flowers, who made the
Vedanta does not take the
position that this world is only a miserable one. That would be untrue. At the
same time, it is a mistake to say that this world is full of happiness and
blessings. So, it is useless to tell children that this world is all good, all
flowers, all milk and honey. That is what we have all dreamt. At the same time
it is erroneous to think that because one person has suffered more than
another, that all is evil. It is this duality, this play of good and evil that
makes our world of experiences. At the same time Vedanta says, "Do not
think that good and evil are two, are two separate existences, for they are one
and the same thing appearing in different degrees and in different guises and producing
differences of feeling in the same mind." So, the first thought of Vedanta
is the finding of unity in the external; the one Existence manifesting Itself, however different It may appear in manifestation.
(46)
Cross reference to:
Rig Veda, 10.125
Ka. Up., 2.1.10
4) We Must Give Up
Self-Deception and Face the Whole of God
The old idea of the
fatherhood of God is connected with the sweet notion of God presiding over
happiness. We want to deny facts. Evil is non-existent, zero. The I is evil. And the I exists
only too much. Am I a zero? Every day I try to find myself so and fail.
All these are attempts to
fly evil. But we have to face it. Face the whole! Am I under contract to offer
partial love to God only in happiness and good, not in misery and evil?
The lamp
of the light by which one forges a name and another writes a check for a
thousand dollars for famine, shines on both, knows no difference. Light knows no evil; you and I make
evil.
This idea must have a new
name. It is called Mother, because in a literal sense it began long ago with a
feminine writer elevated to a goddess. (47)
Why is evil? Why is [the
world] a filthy, dirty hole? We have made it. Nobody is to blame. We put our
hands in the fire. The Lord bless us, [people get] just what they deserve.
Only, God is merciful. If we pray to God, God helps us,
He or She gives Him or Herself to us. That is the idea of [the ancient Indian
philosophers]. (48)
If one says that the Lord
is causing everything to be done, and willfully persists in wrongdoing, it only
brings ruin on him or her. That is the origin of self-deception. Don't you feel
an elation after you have done a good deed? You then
give yourself the credit of doing something good - you can't help it, it is
very human. But how absurd to take the credit of doing the good act on oneself
and lay the blame for the evil act on the Lord! It is a most dangerous idea -
the effect of ill-digested Gita and Vedanta. Never hold that view. (49)
Cross reference to:
Rig Veda, 10.125
f) Human Beings,, the Maker of Mistakes, Can Attain
1. Evil Is Limitation
of the Unlimited, for Which the Cause Is in Ourselves
Let us now pass on to
things which do not possibly belong to dualism. I cannot stay longer with the
dualists, I am afraid. My idea is to show that the highest ideal of morality
and unselfishness go hand in had with the highest metaphysical conception, and
that you need not lower your conception to get ethics and morality but, on the
contrary, to reach a real basis of morality and ethics you must have the
highest philosophical and scientific conceptions. Human knowledge is not
antagonistic to human well-being. On the contrary, it is knowledge alone that
will save us in every department of life - in knowledge and worship. The more we
know the better for us. The Vedantist says the cause of all that is apparently
evil is the limitation of the unlimited. The love which gets limited into
little channels and seems to be evil eventually comes out at the other end and
manifests itself as God. The Vedanta also says that the cause of all this
apparent evil is in ourselves. Do not blame any
supernatural being; neither be hopeless and despondent, nor think we are in a
place from which we can never escape unless someone comes and lends us a helping
hand. That cannot be, says the Vedanta. We are like silkworms; we make the
thread our of our own substance and spin the cocoon,
and in course of time are imprisoned inside. But this is not for ever. In that
cocoon we shall develop spiritual realization, and like the butterfly, come out
free. This network of karma we have woven around ourselves; and in our
ignorance we feel as if we are bound and weep and wail for help. But help does
not come from without; it comes from within ourselves.
Cry to all the gods in the universe. I cried for years, and in the end I found
I was helped. But help came from within. And I had to undo what I had done by
mistake. That is the only way. I had to cut through the net which I had thrown
around myself, and the power to do this is within. Of this I am certain: that
not one aspiration in my life, well-guided or ill-guided, has been in vain; but
that I am the resultant of all my past, both good and evil. I have committed
many mistakes in my life; but, mark you, I am sure of this - that without every
one of those mistakes I should not be what I am today, and so am quite
satisfied to have made them. I do not mean that you are to go home and
willfully commit mistakes; do not misunderstand me in that way. But do not mope
because of the mistakes you have committed; know that in the end all will come
out straight. It cannot be otherwise, because goodness is our nature, purity is
our nature, and that nature can never be destroyed. Our essential nature always
remains the same. (50)
Q: How can you reconcile your
optimistic views with the existence of evil, with the universal prevalence of
sorrow and pain?
Swami Vivekananda: I can only answer the question if
the existence of evil be first proved; but this the Vedantic religion does not
admit. Eternal pain unmixed with pleasure would be a positive evil; but
temporal pain and sorrow, if they have contributed an element of tenderness and
nobility tending towards eternal bliss, are not evils: on the contrary, they
may be supreme good. We cannot assert that anything is evil until we have
traced its sequence into the realm of eternity. (51)
Nowhere in the Vedanta is
it said that human beings are born sinners. To say so it a great libel on human
nature. (52)
Cross reference to:
Isha Up., 7
Taitt. Up., 2.7
2) The Vindication of
the Glory and
[A principle which not]
only all Hindus, but all Buddhists and Jains agree upon is: we all agree that
life is eternal. It is not that it has sprung out of nothing, for that cannot
be. Such a life would not be worth having. Everything that has a beginning in
time must end in time. If life began but yesterday, it must end tomorrow, and
annihilation is the result. Life must have been existing.
It does not now require much acumen to see that all the sciences of modern
times have been coming round to our help, illustrating from the material world
the principles embodied in our scriptures. You know it already that each one of
us is the effect of an infinite past; the child is ushered into the world, not
as something flashing from the hands of nature as poets delight so much to
depict, but he or she has the burden of an infinite past; for good or evil he
or she comes to work out his or her own past deeds. That makes the
differentiation. This is the law of karma. (53)
The premises from which
inference is drawn of a previous existence, and that
too on the plane of conscious action, as adduced by the Hindu philosophers are
chiefly these:
First,
how to explain the world of inequalities? Here is one child born in the province of a just and
merciful God, with every circumstance conducing to his or her becoming a good
and useful member of the human race; and perhaps at the same instant and in the
same city another child is born under circumstances, every one of which is
against his or her becoming good. We see children born to suffer, perhaps all
their lives, and that owing to no fault of theirs. Why should it be? What is
the cause? Of whose ignorance is it the result? If not the child's, why should
it suffer for its parents' actions?
It is much better to
confess ignorance than to try to evade the question by the allurements of
future enjoyments in proportion to the evil here, or by posing
"mysteries". Not only does undeserved suffering forced upon us by any
agent is immoral - not to say unjust - but even the future-making-up theory has
no legs to stand upon.
How many of the miserably
born struggle towards a higher life, and how many more succumb to the
circumstances they are placed under? Should those who grow worse and more wicked by being forced to be born under evil
circumstances be rewarded in the future for the wickedness of their lives? In
that case, the more wicked someone is here, the better
will be his or her desserts hereafter.
There is no other way to
vindicate the glory and the liberty of the human soul and to reconcile the
inequalities and the horrors of this world than by placing the whole burden on
the legitimate cause - our own independent actions, or karma. Not only so, but
every theory of the creation of the soul from nothing inevitably leads to
fatalism and preordination; and, instead of a merciful Father or Mother, places
before us a hideous, cruel, and ever-angry God to worship. And so far as the
power of religion for good or evil is concerned, this theory of a created soul,
leading to its corollaries of fatalism and predestination, is responsible for
the horrible idea prevailing among some Christians and Muslims that the
heathens are lawful victims of their swords, and all the horrors that have
followed and are following it still.
But an argument which the
philosophers of the Nyaya school have advanced in
favor of reincarnation and which to us seems conclusive is this: our
experiences cannot be annihilated. Our actions (karma), though apparently
disappearing, remain still unperceived (adrishta) and reappear again in their
effect as tendencies (pravrittis). Even little babies come with certain
tendencies - fear of death, for example.
Now, if a tendency is the
result of repeated actions, the tendencies with which we are born must be
explained on that ground, too. Evidently we could not have got them in this
life; therefore we must seek for their genesis in the past. Now, it is also
evident that some of our tendencies are the effects of the self-conscious
efforts peculiar to human beings; and if it is true that we are born with such
tendencies, it rigorously follows that their causes were conscious efforts in
the past - that is, we must have been on the same mental plane which we call
the human plane, before this present life. (54)
Every religion has it that
humanity's present and future are modified by the past
and that the present is but the effect of the past. How is it, then, that every
child is born with an experience that cannot be accounted for by hereditary
transmission? How is it that one is born of good parents, receives a good
education and becomes a good person, while another comes from besotted parents
and ends on the gallows? How do you explain this inequality without implicating
God? Why should a merciful Father set His child in such conditions which must
bring forth misery? It is no explanation to say God will make amends later on -
God has no blood-money. Then, too, what becomes of my liberty, if this be my
first birth? Coming into this world without the experience of a former life, my
independence would be gone, for my path would be marked out by the experience
of others. If I cannot be the maker of my own fortune, then I am not free. I
take upon myself the blame for the misery of this existence and say I unmake
the evil I have done in another existence. This, then, is our philosophy of the
migration of the soul. We come into this life with the experience of another
[life], and the fortune or misfortune of this existence is the result of our
acts in a former existence, always becoming better, till at last perfection is
reached. (55)
The human race is in a
process of development; all have not reached the same altitude. Therefore, some
are nobler and purer in their earthly lives than others. Everyone has the
opportunity, within the limits of the sphere of his or her present development,
of making him or herself better. We cannot unmake ourselves; we cannot destroy
or impair the vital force within us, but we have the freedom to give it
different directions. (56)
Each one of us is the maker
of his or her own fate. This law at once knocks on the head all doctrines of
predestination and fate and gives us the only means of reconciliation between
God and humanity. We, we, and none else, are responsible for what we suffer. We
are the effects, and we are the causes. We are free, therefore. If I am unhappy,
it has been of my own making, and that very thing shows that I can be happy, if
I will. If I am impure, that is also of my own making, and that very thing
shows that I can be pure, if I will. The human will stands beyond all
circumstances. Before it - the strong, gigantic, infinite will and freedom in
humanity - all the powers, even of nature, must bow down, succumb, and become
its servants. This is the result of the law of karma. (57)
3. This Is the Great
Hope: I Can Undo What I Have Done by Manifesting My Innate, Eternal Freedom
Your Shastras declare:
despair not. For you are the same, whatever you do, and you cannot change your
nature. Nature itself cannot destroy nature. Your nature is pure. It may be
hidden for millions of eons, but at last it will conquer and come out.
Therefore the Advaita brings hope to everyone, and not despair. Its teaching is
not through fear; it teaches, not of devils who are
always on the watch to snatch you if you miss your footing - it has nothing to
do with devils - but says that you have taken your fate into your own hands.
Your own karma has manufactured for you this body, and nobody did it for you.
The omnipresent Lord has been hidden through ignorance and the responsibility
is on yourself. You have not to think that you were
brought into the world without you choice and left in this most horrible place;
but to know that you have yourself manufactured your body bit by bit, just as
you are doing a this very moment. You yourself eat; nobody eats for you. You
assimilate what you eat; no-one does it for you. You make blood and muscles and
body out of food; nobody does it for you. So you have done all the time. One
link in the chain explains the infinite chain. If it is true that for one
moment you manufacture your body, it is true for every moment that has been or
will come. And all the responsibility for good and evil is on you. This is the
great hope: what I have done, that I can undo. And at the same time our
religion does not take away from mankind the mercy of the Lord. That is always
there. On the contrary, He or She stands beside this tremendous current of good
and evil. He or She, the bondless, the ever-merciful, is always ready to help
us to the other shore, for His or Her mercy is great; and it always come to the
pure in heart. (58)
We find, then, that this
world is neither optimistic nor pessimistic; it is a mixture of both and, as we
go on, we shall find that the whole blame is taken away from nature and put
upon our own shoulders. At the same time the Vedanta shows the way out, not by
denial of evil, because it analyzes boldly the fact as it is and does not seek
to conceal anything. It is not hopeless, it is not agnostic. It finds out a
remedy, but it wants to place that remedy on adamantine foundations. (59)
The Egyptians and the
Semites cling to the theory of sin, while the Aryans, such as the Indians and
Greeks, quickly lost it. In
The fundamental principle
is that there is eternal freedom for everyone Every
one must come to it. We have to struggle, impelled by our desire to be free.
Every other desire but that to be free is illusive. Every good action, the
Vedantist says, is a manifestation of that freedom. (61)
It is children who say that
there is no morality in Vedanta. Yes, they are right; Vedanta is above morality.
(62)
We had better remember here
that, throughout the Vedanta philosophy, there is no such thing as good and
bad; they are not two different things. The same thing is good or bad, and the
difference is only in degree. The very thing I call pleasurable today,
tomorrow, under better circumstances I may call pain. The fire that warms us
can also consume us; it is not the fault of the fire. Thus, the Soul being pure
and perfect, people who do evil are giving the lie to themselves; they do not
know the nature of themselves. (63)
Cross reference:
Ka. Up., 1.2.10
Cha. Up., 6.8.7
References
1. CW, Vol.9: The History of
the Aryan Race, p.261.
2. CW, Vol.6: Notes on
Vedanta, p.85.
3. CW, Vol.4: Reincarnation,
p.265.
4. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta in
All Its Phases, p.334.
5. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
pp.126-127.
6. CW, Vol.2: Unity in
Diversity, p.176.
7. CW, Vol.2: Realisation,
p.158.
8. CW, Vol.2: Unity in Diversity,
p.184.
9. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta II, pp.316-317.
10. CW, Vol.9: The Gita,
p.275.
11. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta II, p.317.
12. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 30, 1895, p. 80.
13. CW, Vol.6: Thoughts on
the Vedas and Upanishads, p.87.
14. CW, Vol.2: Unity in
Diversity, p.176.
15. CW, Vol.6: Thoughts on
the Vedas and Vedanta, p.87.
16. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
p.127.
17. CW, Vol.4: Knowledge:
Its Source and Acquirement, p.430.
18. CW, Vol.2: The Atman,
p.243.
19. CW, Vol.9: The Mundaka
Upanishad, pp.242-243.
20. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
p.127.
21. CW, Vol.1: Steps of
Hindu Philosophic Thought, p.397.
22. CW, Vol.2: The Atman,
pp.246-247.
23. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta IV, p.348.
24. CW, Vol.5: Letter to E.
T. Sturdy from
25. CW, Vol.2: The Atman:
Its Bondage and Freedom, p.258.
26. CW, Vol.8:
27. CW, Vol.5: Letter to E.
T. Sturdy, loc. cit., pp.102-103.
28. CW, Vol.5: On the
Vedanta Philosophy, p.281.
29. CW, Vol.2: The Atman:
Its Bondage and Freedom, pp.257-258.
30. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta I, p.297.
31. CW, Vol.2: The Way to
the Realization of a Universal Religion, p.372.
32. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta II, pp.317-318.
33. Ibid., p.319.
34. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, August 5, 1895, pp. 99-100.
35. CW, Vol.6:
Mother-Worship, p.147.
36. Notes, Chapter 9:
Walks and Talks Beside the Jhellum, p.94.
37. CW, Vol.1: The Soul and
God, p.496.
38. CW, Vol.5: Questions and
Answers III at Brooklyn Ethical Society, p.312.
39. CW, Vol.1: The Soul and
God, p.492.
40. Notes, loc. cit.,
p.94.
41. CW, Vol.1: The Soul and
God, p.499.
42. CW, Vol.1: Vedic
Religious Ideals, p.346.
43. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta II, p.319.
44. CW, Vol.2: Maya and the
Evolution of the Conception of God, pp.107-110 and 112-113.
45. CW, Vol.6:
Mother-Worship, pp.146-148.
46. CW, Vol.2: Unity in
Diversity, pp.179-180.
47. CW, Vol.6:
Mother-Worship, p.148.
48. CW, Vol.1: The Soul and
God, p.496.
49. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Priyanath Sinha, p.275.
50. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta IV, pp.355-356.
51. CW, Vol.5: Questions and
Answers III, p.312.
52. CW, Vol.6: Notes Taken
Down in
53. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
pp.124-125.
54. CW, Vol.4:
Reincarnation, pp.270-271.
55. CW, Vol.1: The Hindu
Religion, pp.330-331.
56. CW, Vol.5: Questions and
Answers at the Brooklyn Ethical Society, p.312.
57. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
p.125.
58. CW, Vol.3: Reply to the
Address of Welcome at Paramakudi, p.161.
59. CW, Vol.2: Unity in
Diversity, pp.180-181.
60. Notes, Chapter 9,
loc. cit., pp.94-95.
61. CW, Vol.5: On the
Vedanta Philosophy, p.282.
62. CW, Vol.7: On
Questioning the Competency of the Guru, p.411.
63. CW, Vol.2: Realization,
p.168.
PART II, SECTION 6: THE SPIRITUAL
CULTURE OF THE VEDAS AND VEDANTA
Chapter 15: Spiritual Freedom through Realization and
Renunciation
a) The Goal of the
Soul Is Freedom from the Bondage of Matter
1. In
Vedanta Freedom Means Spiritual
The Vedas teach that the
soul is divine, only held in the bondage of matter; perfection will be reached
when this bond will burst; and the word they use for it is, therefore, mukti
- freedom, freedom from the bonds of imperfections, freedom from death and misery.
(1)
The Hindu says that
political and social independence are well and good, but the real thing is
spiritual independence, mukti. This is our national purpose, whether you take
the Vaidika, the Jain, or the Buddhist, the Advaita, the Vishishtadvaita, or
the Dvaita - there, they are all of one mind. (2)
According to our
philosophers, freedom is the goal. Knowledge cannot be the goal, because
knowledge is a compound. It is a compound of power and freedom, and it is
freedom alone that is desirable. That is what humanity struggles after. Simply
the possession of power would not be knowledge. For instance, a scientist can
send an electric shock to a distance of some miles; but nature can send it to
an unlimited distance. Why do we not build statues to nature, then? It is not
law that we want, but an ability to break law. We want to be outlaws. If you
are bound by laws, you would be a lump of clay. Whether you are beyond law or
not is not the question; but the thought that we are beyond law - upon that is
based the whole history of humanity. For instance, a someone
lives in the forest and never has had any education or knowledge. He or she
sees a stone falling down - a natural phenomenon happening - and he or she
thinks it is freedom. He or she thinks it has a soul; and the central idea in
that is freedom. But as soon as he or she knows that it must fall, he or she
calls it nature - dead, mechanical action. I may or may not go into the street.
In that is my glory as a human being. If I am sure that I must go there, I give
myself up and become a machine. Nature with its infinite power is only a
machine; freedom alone constitutes sentient life.
The Vedanta says that the
idea of the person in the forest is the right one; his or her glimpse was
right, but the explanation is wrong. He or she holds to nature as freedom and
not as governed by law. Only after all this human experience we will come back
to think the same, but in a more philosophical sense. For instance, I want to
go out into the street. I get the impulse of my will, and then I stop; and in
the time that intervenes between the will and going into the street, I am
working uniformly. Uniformity of action is what we call law. This uniformity of
my action, I find, is broken into very short periods, and so I do not call my
actions under law. I work through freedom. I walk for five minutes; but before
those five minutes of walking, which are uniform, there was the action of the
will, which gave the impulse to walk. Therefore human beings say they are free,
because all their actions can be cut up into small periods; and, although there
is sameness is the small periods, beyond the period
there is not the same sameness. In this perception of non-uniformity is the
idea of freedom. In nature we see only very large periods of uniformity, but
the beginning and the end must be free impulses. The impulse of freedom was
given just at the beginning, and that has rolled on; but this, compared with
our periods, is much longer. We find by analysis on philosophic grounds that we
are not free. But there will remain this factor, this consciousness that I am
free. What we have to explain is how it comes. We will find that we have these
two impulsions in us. Our reason tells us that all our actions are caused, and
at the same time, with every impulse we are asserting our freedom. The solution
of the Vedanta is that there is freedom inside - that the soul is really free -
but that the soul's actions are percolating through body and mind, which are
not free. (3)
The ideal of the Indian
race is freedom of the soul. This world is nothing. It is a vision, a dream.
This life is one of many millions like it. The whole of this nature is maya, is
phantasm, a pest-house of phantasms. This is the philosophy. (4)
The goal of the soul among
all the different sects in
2. The Idea of
Absolute Freedom, Though Present in Every Religion, Is Most Prominent in
Vedanta
What is... worth having? Mukti, freedom. Even in the highest of heavens, says our
scriptures, you are a slave; what matters it if you are a king for twenty
thousand years? So long as you have a body, so long as you are a slave to
happiness, so long as time works on you, space works on you, you are a slave.
The idea, therefore, is to be free of external and internal nature. Nature must
fall at your feet and you must trample on it and be free and glorious by going
beyond. No more is there life; therefore no more is there death. No more
enjoyment: therefore no more misery. It is bliss
unspeakable, indestructible, beyond everything. What we call happiness and good
here are but particles of that eternal Bliss. And all this eternal Bliss is our
goal. (6)
Blessedness, eternal peace,
arising from perfect freedom, is the highest concept of religion underlying all
the ideas of God in Vedanta - absolutely free Existence, not bound by anything,
no change, no nature, nothing that can produce a change in It.
This same freedom is in you and in me and is the only real freedom. (7)
The Vedantin thinker boldly
says that the enjoyments in this life, even the most degraded joys, are but manifestations
of that one divine Bliss, the essence of the soul.
This idea seems to be the
most prominent in Vedanta and, as I have said, it appears that every religion
holds it. I have yet to know the religion which does not. It is the one
universal idea working through all religions. Take the Bible, for instance. You
find there the allegorical statement that the first man Adam was pure, and that
his purity was obliterated by his evil deeds afterwards. It is clear from this
allegory that they thought that the nature of the primitive human being was
perfect. The impurities that we see, the weaknesses that we feel, are but
superimpositions on that nature, and the subsequent history of the Christian
religions shows that they also believe in the possibility, nay the certainty,
of regaining that old state. This is the whole history of the Bible, Old and
New Testaments together. So with the Muslims: they also believed in Adam and in
the purity of Adam, and through Muhammad the way was opened up to regain that
lost state. So with the Buddhists: they believe in the state called nirvana which
is beyond this relative world. It is exactly the same as the Brahman of the
Vedantists, and the whole system of the Buddhists is founded upon the idea of
regaining that lost state of nirvana. In every system we find this doctrine
present, that you cannot get anything which is not yours already. You are
indebted to nobody in this universe. You claim your own birthright, as has been
most poetically expressed by a great Vedantin philosopher in the title of one
of his works - The Attainment of Our Own Empire" [
Swarajasiddhi of ]. That empire is ours; we have lost it
and we have to regain it. The mayavadin, however, says this losing of the
empire was a hallucination; you never lost it. This is the only difference. (8)
All the various
manifestations of religion, in whatever shape and form they have come to
mankind, have this one, common, central basis:… the
preaching of freedom, the way out of this world. They never came to reconcile
the world and religion, but to cut the Gordian knot, to establish religion in
its own ideal, and not to compromise with the world. That is what every
religion preaches, and the duty of Vedanta is to harmonize all those
aspirations, to make manifest the common ground between all the religions of
the world, the highest as well as the lowest. What we call the most arrant
superstition and the highest philosophy really have a common aim in that they
both try to show the way out of the same difficulty; and in most cases this way
is through the help of someone who is not bound by the laws of nature; in one
word, someone who is free. In spite of all the difficulties and differences of
opinion about the nature of the one free Agent, whether… a personal God, or a
sentient being like human beings, whether masculine, feminine, or neuter - and
the discussions have been endless - the fundamental idea is the same. In spite
of the almost hopeless contradictions of the different systems, we find the
golden thread of unity running through them all, and in this philosophy, this
golden thread has been traced, revealed little by little to our view; and the
first step to this revelation is the common ground that all are advancing
towards freedom. (9)
Cross reference to:
Isha Up.,16b
Brih. Up., 2.3.6
b) The Practicality
of the Vedantic Path to Freedom
1. Liberated Souls
Are Found Only Where There Is the Vedantic Idea of Spiritual, Not Material,
Freedom
Materialism says the voice
of freedom is a delusion. Idealism says, the voice
that tells of bondage is delusion. Vedanta says you are free and not free at
the same time - never free on the earthly plane, but ever free on the
spiritual. (10)
With [the Hindus] the
prominent idea is mukti; with the Westerners it is dharma. What we desire is mukti;
what they want is dharma. Here the word dharma is used in the sense of
the mimamsakas. What is dharma? Dharma is that which makes human beings seek
for happiness in this world or the next. Dharma is established on work; dharma
is impelling humanity day and night to run after and work for happiness.
What is mukti? That which
teaches that even the happiness of this life is slavery, and the same is the
happiness of the life to come, because neither this world nor the next is
beyond the laws of nature; only, the slavery of this world is to that of the
next as an iron chain is to a golden one. Again, happiness, wherever it may be,
being within the laws of nature, is subject to death and will not last ad
infinitum. Therefore human beings must aspire to become mukta, they must go
beyond the bondage of the body; slavery will not do. This moksha-path is in
The first principle [of
Vedanta] is that all that is necessary for the perfection of humanity and for
attaining unto freedom is there in the Vedas. You cannot find anything new. You
cannot go beyond a perfect unity, which is the goal of all knowledge; this has
been already reached there, and it is impossible to go beyond unity. (12)
Go through all the
Upanishads, and even in the Samhitas - nowhere will you find the limited ideas
of moksha which every other religion has. (13)
Cross reference to:
Gita 12.13
2. Vedanta
Dehypnotizes Us from the Law of Habit by Its Conception of Virtue as a Means to
Freedom
We are lions in sheep's
clothing of habit, we are hypnotized into weakness by
our surroundings. And the
Obedience to the law, in
the last issue, would make of us simply matter - either in society, or in
politics, or religion. This life is a tremendous assertion of freedom; excess
of laws means death. No nation possesses so many laws as the Hindus; and the
result is national death. But the Hindus had one peculiar idea - they never
made any doctrines or dogmas in religion, and the latter has had the greatest
growth. Therein we are practical - where the West is impractical - in our
religion. (14)
The old Hindu conception of
Law [was] as the King of kings who never slept, showing that the Hindus had the
true notion of it in the Vedas, while other nations only knew it as
regulations. (15)
Doing good
to others is virtue (dharma); injuring others is sin. Strength and manliness
are virtue; weakness and cowardice are sin.
3. Beyond All Other
Methods, the Vedas Teach That We Are Free Already
Soul has no caste, and to
think that it has is a delusion; so are life and
death, and any motion or quality. The Atman never changes, never goes nor
comes. It is the witness of all its own manifestations, but we take It for the manifestation, an eternal illusion, without
beginning or end, ever going on. The Vedas, however, have to come down to our
level, for if they told us the highest truth in the highest way, we could not
understand it. (17)
Although all the religious
systems agree... that we had a [spiritual] empire and that we have lost it,
they give us varied advice as to how to regain it. One says that you must
perform certain ceremonies, pay certain sums of money to certain idols, eat
certain sorts of food, live a peculiar fashion to
regain that empire. Another says that, if you weep and prostrate yourselves and
ask pardon of some Being beyond nature, you will regain that empire. Again,
another says that if you love such a Being with all
your heart, you will regain that empire. All this varied advice is in the
Upanishads. As I go on, you will find it so. But the last and greatest is that
you need not weep at all. You need not go through all these ceremonies and need
not take any notice of how to regain your empire, because you never lost it.
Why should you go to seek for what you never lost? You are pure already and you
are free already. If you think you are free, free you are this moment; and if
you think that you are bound, bound you will be. This is a very bold
statement... and I shall have to speak to you very boldly. It may frighten you
now, but when you think it over and realize it in your own life, then you will come to know that what I say is true. For,
supposing that freedom is not your nature, by no manner of means can you become
free. Supposing you were free and in some way you lost
that freedom; that shows that you were not free to begin with. Had you been
free, what could have made you lose it? The independent can never be made
dependent; if it is really dependent, its independence
was a hallucination.
Of the two sides, then,
which will you take? If you say that the soul was by its own nature pure and
free, it naturally follows that there was nothing in this universe which could
make it bound or limited. But if there was anything in nature which could bind
the soul, it naturally follows that it was not free, and your statement that it
was free is a delusion. So, if it is possible for us to attain to freedom, the
conclusion is inevitable that the soul is by its nature free. It cannot be
otherwise. Freedom means independence of anything outside, and that means that
nothing outside of itself could work upon it as a cause. The soul
is causeless; and from this follow all the great ideas that we have. You
cannot establish the immortality of the soul unless you grant that it is by nature
free; or, in other words, that it cannot be acted upon by anything outside. For
death is an effect produced by some outside cause. I drink poison and I die,
thus showing that my body can be acted upon by something outside that is called
poison. But if it be true that the soul is free, it naturally follows that
nothing can affect it, and it can never die. (18)
The Upanishads are the one
scripture in the world, of all others, that does not talk of salvation, but of
freedom. Be free from the bonds of nature, be free from weakness! And it shows
to you that you have this freedom already in you. That is another peculiarity
of their teachings. (19)
Cross reference to:
Mund. Up., 2.2.8
c) Freedom Is
Attained by Realizing the Truth
1. Vedanta Alone Says
That Religion Is a
As we find that somehow or
other, by the laws of our mental constitution, we have to associate our ideas
of infinity with the image of the blue sky, or of the sea, so we naturally
connect our idea of holiness with the image of a church, a mosque, a cross. The
Hindus have associated the idea of holiness, purity, truth, omnipresence, and
such other ideas with different images and forms, but with this difference:
that while some people devote their whole lives to their idol of a church and
never rise higher (because with them religion means an intellectual assent to
certain doctrines and doing good to their fellows), the whole religion of the
Hindu is centered on realization. (20)
The only way to get beyond
this veil of maya is to realize what Truth is; and the Upanishads indicate what
is meant by realizing the Truth. (21)
Religion in
Cross reference to:
Brih. Up., 2.4.5b
Cha. Up., 4.9.2
Mund. Up., 3.2.9
2. There Is No
Salvation for Human Beings Until, Here and Now, They Work Their Way Up from
Theories and Realizes Their Own Soul
Hinduism has this
advantage: its secret is that doctrines and dogmas do not mean anything; what
you are is what matters. If you talk all the best philosophies the world every
produced, [but] if you are a fool in your behavior, they do not count; and if
in your behavior you are good, you have more chances. That being so, the
Vedantist can wait for everybody. (23)
Vedanta declares that
religion is here and now, because the question of this life and that life, of
life and death, this world and that world, is merely one of superstition and
prejudice. There is no break in time beyond what we make. What difference is
there between ten and twelve o'clock, beyond what we make by certain changes in
nature? Time flows on the same. So what is meant by this life or that life? It
is only a question of time, and what is lost in time may be made up by speed in
work. So, says Vedanta, religion is to be realized now. And for you to become religious
means that you will start without any religion, work your way up and realize
things, see things for yourself; and when you have done that then, and then
alone, you have religion. Before that you are no better than atheists, or
worse, because the atheist is sincere - or she stands up and says, "I do
not know about these things" - while those others do not know but go about
the world saying, "We are very religious people." What religion they
have no one knows, because they have swallowed some grandmother's story and
priests have asked them to believe these things; if they do not, then let them take care. That is how it is going on. (24)
Vedanta teaches that
nirvana can be attained here and now, that we do not have to wait for death to
reach it. Nirvana is the realization of the Self; and after having once, if
only for an instant, known this, never again can one be deluded by the mirage
of personality. Having eyes, we must see the apparent; but all the time we know
it for what it is, we have found out its true nature. It is the
"screen" that hides the Self, which is unchanging. The screen opens
and we find the Self behind it - all change is in the screen. In the saint the
screen is thin and the Reality can almost shine through; but in the sinner, it
is thick and we are apt to lose sight of the truth that the Atman is there, as
well as behind the saint. (25)
As soon as human beings
perceive the glory of the Vedanta, all abracadabras fall off of themselves.
(26)
Cross reference to:
Cha. Up., 7.18.1
2. Working Towards the Goal of Realization
i) Religion Is a
Practical Science, the Opening of the Book of the Heart
If you ask me how [all of]
this can be practical, my answer is: it has been practical first and
philosophical next. You can see that first these things have been perceived and
realized, and then written. This world spoke to the early thinkers. Birds spoke
to them, animals spoke to them, the sun and the moon spoke to them; and little
by little they realized things and got into the heart of nature.
Not by cogitation, not by
the force of logic, not by picking the brains of others and making a big book,
as is the fashion in modern times; not even as I do, by taking up one of their
writings and making a long lecture, but by patient investigation and discovery
they found out the truth. Its essential method was practice, and so it must be,
always. Religion is ever a practical science and there never was, nor will be any theological religion. It is practice first and
knowledge afterwards. (27)
Hinduism indicates one
duty, only one, for the human soul. It is to seek to realize the permanent
amidst the evanescent. No one presumes to point any one way in which this may
be done. Marriage or non-marriage, good or evil, learning or ignorance - any of
these is justified if it leads to the goal. (28)
Get rid of the fundamental
superstition that we are obliged to act through the body. We are not. Go into
your own room and get the Upanishads out of your own Self. You are the greatest
book that ever was or ever will be, the infinite
depository of all that is. Until the inner teacher opens, all outside teaching
is in vain. It must lead to the opening of the book of the heart to have any
value. (29)
Cross reference to:
Rig Veda, 10.125.5
Ka. Up., 1.2.23
Cha. Up., 4.4.1-5
Mund. Up., 1.1.5
ii) Scriptures Only
Help to Take Away the Veil Which Hides Truth from Our Eyes
Realization of religion is
the only way. Each one of us will have to discover. Of what use are these
books, then, these bibles of the world? They are of great use, just as maps are
of a country. I have seen maps of
This is the first principle
of Vedanta - that realization is religion, and he or she who realizes is the
religious person; and he or she who does not is no better than someone who
says, "I do not know." - if not worse,
because the other says, "I do not know" and is sincere. In this
realization again, we shall be helped very much by these books, for every
science has its own particular method of investigation. (30)
The Vedas cannot show you
Brahman, for you are That already; they can only help
to take away the veil that hides the Truth from our eyes. The first veil to
vanish is ignorance; and when that is gone, sin goes; next desire ceases,
selfishness ends, and all misery disappears. (31)
Can you explain Brahman,
which transcends time and space, by means of questions and answers? Hence the
Shastras and mantras and other such things are only relatively and not
absolutely true. Nescience has verily no essence to call its own; how then can
you understand it? When Brahman manifests itself, there will be no more room for
such questions. (32)
When you have seen God,
this is no longer a matter of speculation. There is no more Mr. So-and-So....
No more books or Vedas, or controversy or preachers, or anything. (33)
That is religion: no humbug
of the world. No shilly-shallying, tall-talk, conjecture - I presume, I
believe, I think. How I would like to go out of this piece of painted humbug
they call the beautiful world... beyond, beyond - which can only be felt, never
expressed! That is religion.... There is a God. There all the saints, prophets
and incarnations meet. Beyond the babel of Bibles and Vedas, creeds and crafts,
dupes and doctrines, where all is light, all love - where the miasma of this
earth can never reach. (34)
iii) Old Association
of Ideas and Blind Beliefs Must Give Way to Superconscious Experience of the
Principle Underlying Personality
The one central idea
throughout all the Upanishads is that of realization. A great many questions
will arise from time to time, and especially to the modern person. There will be
the question of utility, there will be various other questions, but in all we
shall find that we are prompted by our past associations. It is association of
ideas that has such tremendous power over our minds. To those who from
childhood have always heard of a personal God and the personality of the mind,
these ideas will, of course, appear very stern and harsh; but if they listen to
them and think over them, they will become part of their lives and will no
longer frighten them. The great question that generally arises is the utility
of philosophy. To that there can be only one answer: if on the utilitarian
ground it is good for people to seek pleasure, why should not those whose
pleasure is in religious speculation seek for that? Because sense-enjoyments please
many, they seek for them; but there may be others whom they do not please, who
want higher enjoyment. (35)
Vedanta is necessary
because neither reasoning nor books can show us God. He or She is only to be
realized by superconscious perception, and Vedanta teaches us how to attain
that. You must get beyond the personal God (Ishwara) and reach the absolute
Brahman. God is the perception of every being; He or She is all there is to be
perceived. That which says I is Brahman, but
although we, day and night, perceive It, we do not know that we are perceiving
It. As soon as we become aware of this truth, all misery goes; so we must get
knowledge of the truth. Reach unity; no more duality will come. But knowledge
does not come by [ceremonial] sacrifice, but by seeking worshipping, knowing
the Atman. (36)
iv) Purification of the Mind in Order to Attain
Knowledge of the Absolute and Love of God
The Vedantic and
philosophers of the other Indian schools hold that knowledge is not to be
acquired from without. It is the innate nature of the human soul and the
essential birthright of every one. The human soul is the repository of infinite
wisdom; what external agency can illuminate it? (37)
By the power of meditation
we have got to control, step by step, all these [external] things. We have seen
philosophically that all these differentiations - Spirit, matter, mind, etc. -
[have no real existence].... Whatever exists is one. There cannot be many. That
is what is meant by science and knowledge. Ignorance sees manifold. Knowledge
realizes one.... Reducing the many into one is science.... The whole of the
universe has been demonstrated into one. The whole universe is one. The one
runs through all this seeming variety. (38)
Repeating the Vedas and
other mantras [purifies] the sattwa material in the body. (39)
How did the ancient One
come down to earth? There is but one answer to that in our scriptures:
ignorance is the cause of all this bondage. It is through ignorance that we
have become bound; knowledge will cure it by taking us to the other side. How
will that knowledge come? Through love, bhakti; by the worship of God, by
loving all beings as the temples of God. He or She resides within them. Thus,
with that intense love will come knowledge, and
ignorance will disappear, the bonds will break, and the soul will be free. (40)
Cross reference to:
Isha Up. peace chant
Brih. Up., 1.2.6
2.4.14
Taitt. Up., 2.6.11
Cha. Up., 6.8.7
Mund. Up., 1.1.8-9
2.2.8-9
d) Renunciation Is
the Real Beginning of Religion
1. Renunciation Is
the Very Soul of Vedanta
The Absolute and the
Infinite can become the universe only by limitation. Everything must be limited
that comes through the senses, or through the mind, or through the intellect;
and for the limited to be unlimited is simply absurd, and never can be. The
Vedanta, on the other hand, says that it is true that the Absolute, or the
Infinite, is trying to express itself in the finite, but there will come a time
when it will find that it is impossible, and it will then have to beat a
retreat; and this beating a retreat means renunciation, which is the real
beginning of religion. Nowadays it is very hard even to talk about
renunciation. It was said of me in
The alpha and omega of
Vedanta philosophy is to "give up the world" - giving up the unreal
and taking the Real. (42)
Disciple: Sir, even the Upanishads, etc., do
not clearly teach renunciation and sannyasa.
Swami Vivekananda: You are talking like a madman!
Renunciation is the very soul of the Upanishads. Illumination born of
discriminative reflection is the ultimate aim of Upanishadic knowledge. (43)
[The ancient Indian
philosophers] thought... this filthy world is not fit for the attention of
humanity. There is nothing in the universe that is [permanent - neither good
nor evil]. (44)
The Vedanta system begins
with tremendous pessimism and ends with real optimism. We deny the
sense-optimism but assert the real optimism of the supersensuous. That real
happiness is not in the senses, but above the senses; and it is in every one.
The sort of optimism we see in the world is what will lead to ruin through the
senses.
Abnegation has the greatest
importance in our philosophy. Negation implies affirmation of the real Self.
The Vedanta is pessimistic in so far as it negatives the world of the senses,
but it is optimistic in its assertion of the real world. (45)
Cross reference to:
Cha. Up., 7.2.3
Kaiv. Up., 2
2. The Struggle to Go
Beyond the Phenomenal Makes Us the Fittest to Survive
Two great problems are
being decided by the nations of the world.
In [India] are, still,
religion and spirituality, the fountains of which will have to overflow and
flood the world to bring in new life and new vitality to the Western and other
nations, which are now almost borne down, half-killed and degraded by political
ambitions and social scheming. From out of many voices, consonant and
dissentient, from out of the medley of sounds filling the Indian atmosphere,
rises up supreme, striking and full, one note - and that is renunciation. Give
up! That is the watchword of the Indian religions. The present life is of five
minutes. Beyond is the Infinite, beyond this world of delusion; let us seek
that. The continent is illumined with brave and gigantic minds and
intelligences which even think of this so-called infinite universe as only a
mud-puddle; beyond and still beyond they go. Time, even infinite time, is to
them but non-existence. Beyond and beyond time they go. Space is nothing to
them; beyond that they want to go, and this going beyond the phenomenal is the
very soul of religion. (47)
Cross reference to
Kaivalya Upanisad, 2.
3. Transcending the
Senses
I. Lust and
Possession Are Devoid of Substance
That humanity can transcend
the limits of the senses is the emphatic testimony of all past ages. The
Upanishads told 5,000 years ago that the realization of God could never be had
through the senses. So far, modern agnosticism agrees, but the Vedas go further
than the negative side and assert in the plainest terms that humanity can and
does transcend this sense-bound, frozen universe. It can, as it were, find a
hole in the ice through which it can pass and reach the whole ocean of life.
Only by so transcending the world of sense can it reach its true Self and
realize what it really is. (48)
The voice
of the ancient sages proclaim to us, "If you desire to attain God
you will have to renounce kama-kanchana (lust and possession). Samsara is
unreal, hollow, void of substance. Unless you give it
up, you can never reach God, try however you may." (49)
[The Hindu] goal of life is
moksha; how can that ever be attained without brahmacharya or absolute
continence? Hence it is imposed upon our boys and youth as an indispensable
condition during their studentship. The purpose of life in the West is bhoga or
enjoyment; hence much attention to brahmacharya is not so
indispensably necessary with them as it is with us. (50)
ii) Heaven and Hell
Are Not Permanent
In
The object of the search of
the Hindu is how to get rid of this birth and death, how not to go to heaven,
but how one can stop going to heaven. (52)
iii) Giving Up Our Individuality Centered in the Body and Living a Life
of Bliss Infinite
The Vedanta says there must
come a time when we shall look back and laugh at the ideals which make us
afraid of giving up our individuality. Each one of us wants to keep this body
for an indefinite time, thinking we shall be very happy; but there will come a
time when we shall laugh at this idea. Now, if such be the truth, we are in a
state of hopeless contradiction - neither existence nor non-existence, neither
misery nor happiness, but a mixture of them. What, then, is the use of Vedanta
and all other philosophies and religions? And, above all, what is the use of
doing good work? This is a question that comes to mind. If it is true that you
cannot do good without doing evil and whenever you try
to create happiness there will always be misery, people will ask you,
"What is the use of doing good?" The answer is, in the first place,
we must work to lessen misery, for that is the only way to make ourselves happy.
Every one of us finds it out sooner or later in our lives. The bright ones find
it out a little earlier, and the dull ones a little later. The dull ones pay
very dearly for the discovery and the bright ones less dearly. In the second
place, we must do out part, because it is the only way of getting out of this
life of contradiction. Both the forces of good and evil will keep the universe
alive for us, until we awake from our dreams and give up this building of mud
pies. That lesson we shall have to learn, and it will
take a long, long time to learn it. (53)
The pig body is hard to
give up; we are sorry to lose the enjoyment of our one little pig body! Vedanta
does not say, "Give it up"; it says, "Transcend it." No
need of asceticism - better would be the enjoyment of two bodies, better three,
living in more bodies than one! When I can enjoy through the whole universe,
the whole universe is my body. (54)
The whole object of the
[Vedanta] system is by constant struggle to become perfect, to become divine, to
reach God and see God; and this reaching God, seeing God, becoming perfect even
as the Father in Heaven is perfect [Matt.5.48] constitutes the religion of the
Hindus.
And what becomes of someone
when he or she attains perfection? He or she lives a life of bliss infinite. He
or she enjoys infinite and perfect bliss, having obtained the only thing in
which human beings ought to have pleasure, namely God, and enjoys bliss with
God. (55)
Cross reference to:
Mund. Up., 3.1.5
Gita 13.13
Brih. Up., 2.5.1
Cha. Up., .3.14.1
References
1. CW, Vol.1: Paper on
Hinduism, p.12.
2. CW, Vol.5: The East and
the West, p.458.
3. CW, Vol.5: Law and
Freedom, pp.289-290.
4. CW, Vol.8: Women of
India, p.70.
5. CW, Vol.6: Nature of the
Soul and Its Goal, pp.22-23.
6. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
pp.127-128.
7. CW, Vol.1: What Is
Religion? p.337.
8. CW, Vol.2: The Freedom
of the Soul, pp.194-195.
9. CW, Vol.2: Maya and
Freedom, pp.124-125.
10. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 5, 1895, p.32.
11. CW, Vol. 5: The East
and the West, p.446.
12. CW, Vol.3: The Sages of
India, pp.249-250.
13. CW, Vol.4: Reply to the
Madras Address, p.341.
14. CW, Vol.8: The Essence
of Religion, pp.257-258.
15. Rems. (Sister Nivedita), p.284.
16. CW, Vol.5: Sayings and
Utterances #85, p.419.
17. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 6, 1895, p.34.
18. CW, Vol.2: The Freedom
of the Soul, pp.195-196.
19. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in
Its Application to Indian Life, pp.238-239.
20. CW, Vol.1: Paper on
Hinduism, p.16.
21. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta II, p.318.
22. CW, Vol.3: The Common
Bases of Hinduism, pp.377-378.
23. CW, Vol.3: Buddhistic
India, p.536.
24. CW, Vol.6: Methods and
Purpose of Religion, pp.13-14.
25. CW, Vol.8: Discourses
on Jnana-Yoga III, p.12.
26. CW, Vol.8: Letter to
Mr. E. T. Sturdy from
27. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta II, p.317.
28. CW, Vol.5: On Indian
Women - Their Past, Present and Future, p.232.
29. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 27, 1895, p.71.
30. CW, Vol.6: Methods and
Purpose of Religion, p.14.
31. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 12, 1895, p.46.
32. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty at Belur, 1898, p.165.
33. CW, Vol.7: The Science
of Yoga, p.431.
34. SVW, Vol. II, Chapter
10: Trials and Triumph, p.106.
35. CW, Vol.2: Realisation,
p.170.
36. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 10, 1895, pp.41-42.
37. CW, Vol.4: Knowledge,
Its Source and Acquirement, p.431.
38. CW, Vol.4: Meditation,
pp.232-233.
39. CW, Vol.1: Raja-Yoga,
Chapter 7: Dhyana and Samadhi, p.190.
40. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
p.128.
41. CW, Vol.2: Maya and
Illusion, pp.99-100.
42. CW, Vol.2: The Atman:
Its Bondage and Freedom, p.259.
43. CW, Vol.6: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty, Alambazar, 1897, p.507.
44.CW,
Vol.1: The Soul and God, p.496.
45. CW, Vol.5: On the
Vedanta Philosophy, p.283.
46. CW, Vol.3: Reply to the
Address of Welcome at
47. CW, Vol.3: Reply to the
Address of Welcome at Ramnad, pp.148-149.
48. CW, Vol.8: Discourses
on Jnana-Yoga VI, p.21.
49. CW, Vol.3: What Have I
Learnt? p.451.
50. CW, Vol.5: The East and
the West, pp.514-515.
51. CW, Vol.6: Worshipper
and Worshipped, p.57.
52. CW, Vol.8: The Laws of
Life and Death, p.235.
53. CW, Vol.2: Maya and
Illusion, pp.98-99.
54. CW, Vol.8: Is Vedanta
the Future Religion? P.130.
55. CW, Vol.1: Paper on
Hinduism, p.13.
PART II, SECTION 6: THE SPIRITUAL CULTURE OF THE VEDAS AND
VEDANTA
Chapter 16: The Evolution of Divine Humanity through
Fearlessness, Strength, Faith and Love
a) Fearlessness and
Strength
1. The Only Religion
That Ought to Be Taught Is the Religions of Fearlessness
If you read the Vedas you
will find this word always repeated - fearlessness; fear nothing. Fear
is a sign of weakness. People must go about their duties without taking notice
of the sneers and ridicule of the world. (1)
What makes people stand up
and work? Strength. Strength is goodness, weakness is
sin. If there is one word that you find coming like a bombshell from the
Upanishads, bursting like a bombshell upon masses of ignorance, it is the word fearlessness.
And the only religion that ought to be taught is the realization of fearlessness.
Either in this world or in the world of religion, it is true that fear is the
sure cause of degradation and sin. It is fear that brings
misery, fear that brings death, and fear that breeds evil. (2)
Very few indeed are there
who can understand and appreciate, far less live and move in the grandeur of
the full blaze of light of the Vedanta, because the first step for the pure
Vedantist is to be abhih, fearless. Weakness has got to go before someone dares
to become a Vedantist - and we know how difficult that is. Even those who have
given up all connection with the world and have very few bondages to make them
cowards, feel in the heart of their hearts how weak they are at moments, at
times how soft they become, how cowed down; much more is it so with people who
have so many bondages and have to remain as slaves to so many hundred and
thousand things, inside and outside of themselves - nay, every moment of whose
life is dragged-down slavery. (3)
So I preach only the
Upanishads. If you look, you will find that I have never quoted anything but
the Upanishads. And of the Upanishads, it is only that one idea of strength.
The quintessence of the Vedas and Vedanta and all, lies in that one word.
Buddha’s teaching was non-resistance or non-injury. But I think this is a
better way of teaching the same thing. For behind that non-injury lay a dreadful weakness. It is weakness that conceived the
idea of resistance. I do not think of punishing or escaping from a drop of
sea-spray. It is nothing to me. Yet to the mosquito it would be serious. Now I
would make all injury like that. Strength and fearlessness.
(4)
Cross reference to:
Taitt. Up., 2.8
Cha. Up., 6.8.7
Gita, 2.24
2. Bringing Religion
and Freedom within Your Easy Reach
This forms the one great
question asked by Vedanta: why are people so afraid? The answer is that they
have made themselves helpless and dependent upon others. We are so lazy we do
not want to do anything for ourselves. We want a personal God, a savior or
prophet to do everything for us. Very rich people never walk; they always go in
a carriage; but in the course of years, they wake up one day paralyzed all
over. Then they begins to feel that the way they had
lived was not good, after all. No one can walk for me. Ever time one did, it
was to my injury. If everything is done for a someone
by another, he or she will lose the use of his or her own limbs. Anything we do
ourselves, that is the only thing we do. Anything that
is done for us by another never can be ours. You cannot learn spiritual truths
from my lectures. If you have learned anything, I was only the spark that brought
it out, made it flash. That is all the prophets and teachers can do. All this
running after help is foolishness. (5)
Stand upon your own feet.
You have the power within you!... Strength! Strength!... I preach nothing but strength. That is why I preach the
Upanishads. (6)
We have a place for
struggle in Vedanta, but not for fear. All fears will vanish when you begin to
assert your own nature. If you think you are bound, bound you will remain. If
you think you are free, free you will be. (7)
The quintessence of the
Vedanta philosophy, as also the keynote of the Upanishads consists in this:
fearlessness! fearlessness! Be fearless, away with all
weakness. If you can do this, then alone you are a true human being indeed.
Whom to fear? What to fear? The Atman that shines through you is the same Atman
dwelling in all. If you cannot perceive the identity of the Atman in all
individuals, if you cannot sympathize with the afflictions of all, if you
cannot remove the sufferings of others, if your heart does not well out in love
for one and all, and you are unable to serve others to the best of your ability
- how do you reckon yourself a human being? You are no better than a beast. Is
it not an absurdity on your part to talk of religion? So, first try to be a
human being in the true sense of the term: strong, virile, self-relying. You
will then see that religion and liberation will be within your easy reach. (8)
Cross reference to:
Cha. Up., 7.25
Brih. Up., 1.4.2
2.4.14
Is Up. Peace Chant
Mund. Up., 3.2.4
b) Faith and Love
1. The Indian Ideal
of Love Can Be Traced to the Upanishads
Faith in one's own Self...
is the basis of Vedanta. (9)
The Upanishads deal
elaborately with shraddha (faith) in many places but hardly mention bhakti.
(10)
Sometimes it has been urged
without any ground whatsoever that there is no ideal of bhakti in the
Upanishads. Those that have been students of the Upanishads know that that is
not true at all. There is enough bhakti in every Upanisad if only you will seek
for it; but many of these ideas which are found so fully developed in later
times in the Puranas and other Smritis are only in the germ in the Upanishads.
The sketch, the skeleton, as it were, is there. It was filled in in some of the
Puranas. But there is not one full-grown Indian ideal that cannot be traced
back to the same source - the Upanishads. Certain ludicrous attempts have been
made by persons without much Upanishadic scholarship to trace bhakti to some
foreign source; but, as you know, these have all been proved to be failures,
and all that you want of bhakti is there, even in the Samhitas, not to speak of
the Upanishads. It is there, worship and love and all the rest of it; only the
ideals of bhakti are becoming higher and higher. In the Samhita portions, now
and then you find traces of a religion of fear and tribulation; in the Samhitas
now and then you find a worshipper quaking before a Varuna or some other god.
Now and then you will find that they are very much tortured by the idea of sin,
but the Upanishads have no place for the delineation of these things. There is
no religion of fear in the Upanishads; it is one of Love and Knowledge. (11)
As we listen to the
heart-stirring poetry of the marvelous lines [of the Upanishads] we are taken,
as it were, off from the world of the senses, off even from the world of
intellect, and brought to that world which can never be comprehended, and yet
which is always with us. There is behind even the sublimity [of the Upanishads]
another ideal, following as its shadow, one more acceptable to mankind, one
more of daily use, one that has to enter into every part of human life, which
assumes proportion and volume later on and is stated in full and in determined
language in the Puranas, and that is the ideal of bhakti. (12)
Cross reference to:
Ka. Up., 2.2.15
2. The Aryans
Approached God with Faith Devoid of Fear, Which Later Developed into Full-
Grown Love
Q: Some of our philosophers in
Swami Vivekananda: I do not take any stock in that. The
assumption is ephemeral. The bhakti of
In the Semitic type of
religion there was tribulation and fear; it was thought that if someone saw God,
he or she would die. But, according to the Rig Veda, when someone saw God face
to face, then began his or her real life.
(14)
One supreme
Being, supreme by being infinitely more powerful than the rest, is the common
conception in the two great sources of all religions, the Aryan and the Semitic
races. But here the Aryans take a new start, a grand deviation. Their God was
not only a supreme Being, but He was the dyaus
pitar, the Father in Heaven. This is the beginning of love. The Semitic God
was only a thunderer, only the terrible One, the mighty Lord of Hosts. To all these the Aryan added a new idea, that of a Father.
And the divergence becomes more and more obvious all through further progress,
which in fact stopped at this place in the Semitic branch of the human race.
The God of the Semitic is not to be seen - nay, it is death to see Him; the God
of the Aryan cannot only be seen, but He or She is the goal of being; the one
aim of life is to see Him or Her. The Semitic obeys his or her King of kings for
fear of punishment and keeps His commandments. The Aryan loves his or her
Father; and further on adds Mother and Friend. And,
"Love me, love my dog", they say; so each one of His or Her creatures
should be loved, because they are His or Her’s. To the Semitic, this life is an
outpost where we are posted to test our fidelity; to the Aryan, this life is on
the way to the goal. To the Semitic, if we do our duty well, we shall have an
ever-joyful home in heaven. To the Aryan, this home is God Him or Herself. To the
Semitic; to the Aryan race, serving God is a means to an end, namely the pay,
which is joy and enjoyment. To the Aryan, enjoyment, misery - everything - is a
means and the end is God. The Semitic worships God to go to heaven, the Aryan
rejects heaven to go to God. In short, this is the main difference. The aim and
end of the Aryan life is to see God, to see the face of the Beloved, because
without Him or Her we cannot live. (15)
The one great [Vedantic]
ideal of oneness had developed and become shaped into universal love. We ought
to study [how the ideas grow up from very low ideals] in order to avoid
dangers. The world cannot find time to work [the idea] up from the lowest
steps. But what is the use of our standing on higher steps if we cannot give the
truth to others coming afterwards? Therefore, it is better to study it in all
its workings; and first, it is absolutely necessary to clear the intellectual
portion; although we know that intellectuality is almost nothing; for it is the
heart that is of the most importance. (16)
That the Atman is the one
object to be loved is known from Shruti, Smriti, and direct perception.(17)
Cross reference to:
Brih. Up., 1.4.8
Taitt. Up., 2.8
Brih. Up., 2.4.5
c) The Vedas Taught a
Method of Love Which Gave Freedom to Worship in Various Forms
1. Freedom of the
Ideal
[The path of knowledge]
belonged properly to the Aryas and therefore was so strict in the selection of
adhikaris ( qualified aspirants); and the (path of
devotion) coming from the South, or non-Aryan sources, had no such distinction.
(18)
Bhakti is divided into
vaidhi and raganuga bhakti. Vaidhi bhakti is implicit belief in and obedience
to the Vedas. (19)
There are as many different
conducts taught in the Vedas as there are differences in human nature. What is
taught to an adult cannot be taught to a child. (20)
The Vedas contain not only
the means of obtaining bhakti, but also the means for obtaining any earthly
good or evil. Take whatever you want. (21)
Except for the five devatas
who are to be worshipped in every auspicious karma as
enjoined in our Shastras, all the other devatas are merely the names of certain
states held by them. But again, these five devatas are nothing but the
different names of the one God only. (22)
Unless a person chooses [a
religion] for him or herself, the very spirit of Hinduism is destroyed. The
essence of our faith consists simply in... freedom of
the ishta [chosen ideal]. (23)
It has been recognized in
the most ancient times that there are various forms of worshipping God. It is also
recognized that different natures require different methods. Your method of
coming to God may not be my method; possibly it might hurt me. Such an idea as
that there is but one way for everybody is injurious, meaningless, and entirely
to be avoided. Woe unto the world when everyone is of the same religious
opinion and takes to the same path. Then all religions and all thought will be
destroyed. Variety is the very soul of life. When it dies out entirely,
creation will die. When this variation in thought is kept up, we must exist;
and we need not quarrel because of that variety. Your way is very good for you,
but not for me. My way is good for me, but not for you. My way is called in
Sanskrit my ishta. Mind you, we have no quarrel with any religion in the
world. We each have our ishta. But when we see people coming and saying,
"This is the only way" and trying to force it on us in
The more sides you can
develop, the more souls you have and you can see the universe through all souls
- through the bhakta (devotee), and the jnani (philosopher). Determine your own
nature and stick to it. Nishtha (devotion to the ideal) is the only method for
the beginner; but with devotion and sincerity it will lead to all. Churches,
doctrines, forms are the hedges to protect the tender plant; but they must
later be broken down so that the plant may become a tree. So the various
religions, Bibles, Vedas, dogmas - all are must tubs for the little plants; but
it must get out of the tub. (25)
Cross reference to:
Mund. Up., 2.2.1
2. Worship of the
True Guru and Repetition of
Worshipping of the guru is
the first duty inculcated in the Vedas. (26)
Those alone, say the
Shastras, are the real gurus who have studied the Vedas and Vedanta, who are
knowers of Brahman and who are able to lead others beyond to fearlessness [Vivekacudamani,
33]; when such are at hand, get yourself
initiated. (27)
Japa is repeating the holy
Name; through this the devotee rises to the Infinite. This boat of [ritual]
sacrifice and ceremonies is very frail; we need more than that to know Brahman,
which alone is freedom.
Around this word Om are
centered all the different religious ideas in
Cross reference to:
Brih. Up., 2.4.5
Brih. Up. 4.3.33
Ka. Up., 1.2.7
Ka. Up.,1.2.15
3. The Greatest Gurus
Are the Incarnations of God
From the very earliest
times our sages have been feeling conscious of the fact that the vast majority
of humankind require a personality. They must have a
personal God in some form or another. The very Buddha who declared against the
existence of a personal God had not died fifty years before his disciples
manufactured a personal God out of him. The personal God is necessary; and at
the same time we know that instead of and better than the vain imaginations of
a personal God, in which ninety-nine cases out of a hundred are unworthy of
human worship, we have in this world, living and talking in our midst, living
Gods, now and then. These are more worthy of worship than any imaginary God,
any creation of our imagination - that is to say, any idea of God which you or
I can have. Buddha is a much higher idea, a more living and idolized ideal than
the ideal you or I can conceive of in our minds; and therefore it is that they
have always commanded the worship of humankind, even to the exclusion of the
imaginary deities .
(30)
Cross reference to:
Brih. Up., 2.4.14
Gita 4.7-8
4. Worship of Divine
Incarnations is the First Step towards Recognition of the Oneness of God and
Humanity
When... any gods or other
beings are worshipped in and for themselves, such worship is only ritualistic
karma; and as a vidya (science) it gives us only the fruit belonging to that
particular vidya; but when the devas or any other beings are looked upon as
Brahman and worshipped, the result obtained is the same as by worshipping of
Ishwara. This explains how, in many cases, both in the Shrutis and the Smritis,
a God, or a sage, or some other extraordinary being is taken up and lifted, as
it were, out of his or her own nature and idealized into Brahman, and is then
worshipped. (31)
In the Vedas we find
mention of the matsya avatara (the fish incarnation) only. Whether
all believe this doctrine or not, is not the point. The real meaning,
however, of this avataravada is the worship of humanity - to see God in human
beings is the real God-vision. The Hindu does not go through nature to nature's
God - he or she goes to the God of humanity through Humanity. (32)
The theory of incarnation
is the first link in the chain of ideas leading to the recognition of the
oneness of God and humanity. God appearing first in one human form, then re-appearing
at different times in other human forms, is at last recognized as being in
every human form, or in all human beings. (33)
Cross reference to:
Mand. Up., 2
5. The Manifestation
of the Divinity of Humanity
We believe that every being
is divine, is God. Every soul is a sun covered over with clouds of ignorance;
the difference between soul and soul is owing to the difference in the density
of these clouds. We believe that this is the conscious or unconscious basis of
all religions, and that this is the explanation of the whole history of human
progress, either in the material, intellectual, or spiritual planes - the same
Spirit is manifesting through different planes. (34)
Humanity is a good deal
conscious, partly unconscious - and there is a possibility of getting beyond
consciousness. It is only when we become human beings that we can go
beyond reason. The words higher or lower can only be used in the
phenomenal world. To say them of the noumenal world is simply contradictory,
because there is no differentiation there. Human manifestation is the highest
in the phenomenal world. The Vedantist says that he or she is higher than the devas. The gods will have to die and will become human
beings again; and in the human body alone they will become perfect. (35)
Infinite knowledge abides
within every one in the fullest measure. You are not really ignorant, though
you may appear to be so. You are incarnations of God, all of you. You are the
incarnation of the almighty, omnipresent, divine Principle. You may laugh at me
now, but the time will come when you will understand. You must. Nobody will be
left behind. (36)
Cross reference to:
Isha Up., 16
Mand. Up., 2
Mund. Up., 3.2.9
Gita 5.19
d) Humanity Can Be
Ever-Free While Living
The question is: is it
necessary to pass through all the lower stages to reach the highest, or can a
plunge be taken at once? The modern American boy takes
twenty-five years to attain that which his forefathers took hundreds of years
to do. The present-day Hindu gets in twenty years to the heights reached in
eight thousand years by his or her ancestors. On the physical side, the embryo
goes from the ameba to the human being in the womb. These are the teachings of
modern science. Vedanta goes further and tells us that we not only have to live
the life of all past humanity, but also the future life. Whoever does the first
is the educated person, the second is the jivanmukta,
forever free (even while living). (37)
The Vedanta teaches that
nirvana can be attained here and now, that we do not have to wait for death to
reach it. Nirvana is the realization of the Self; and after having once known
that, if only for an instant, never again can one be deluded by the mirage of
personality. Having eyes, we must see the apparent, but all the time we know
what it is; we have found out its true nature. It is the screen that hides the
Self, which is unchanging. The screen opens and we find the Self behind it. All
change is in the screen. In the saint the screen is thin and the reality can
almost shine through. In the sinner the screen is thick, and we are liable to
lose sight of the truth that the Atman is there, as well as behind the saint's
screen. When the screen is wholly removed we find it never existed - that we
were the Atman and nothing else. Even the screen is forgotten. (38)
Cross-reference to:
Shve. Up., 4.3
Gita 5.19
Ntp. Up., 1.6
References
1. CW, Vol.1: Karma-Yoga,
Chapter 2: Each Is Great in His Own Place, p.47.
2. CW, Vol.3: Reply to the
Address of Welcome at Paramakudi, p.160.
3. CW, Vol.3: Bhakti,
p.386.
4. Master, Chapter
14: Past and Future in
5. CW, Vol.8: Is Vedanta
the Future Religion? p.131.
6. Rems,(Sister
Christine), pp.211-212.
7. CW, Vol.5: Law and
Freedom, pp.286-287.
8. Swami
Virajananda, "The Personality of Swami Vivekananda" in VK, January
1953, p.377.
9. CW, Vol.4: The Education
That India Needs, p.481.
10. CW, Vol.4: Thoughts on
the Gita, p.106.
11. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in
Its Application to Indian Life, pp.230-231.
12. CW, Vol.3: Bhakti,
p.385.
13. CW, Vol.5: A
Discussion, pp.300-301.
14. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
pp.436-437.
15. CW, Vol.8: The Birth of
Religion, pp.150-151.
16. CW, Vol.2: Practical
Vedanta I, p.306.
17. CW, Vol.5: Letter to
Sharat Chandra Chakravarty from Almora, July 3, 1897, p.133.
18. CW, Vol.5: Questions
and Answers, 4: Selections from the Math Diary, pp.315-316.
19. CW, Vol.6: Notes Taken
Down in
20. Ibid., p.107.
21. Ibid., p.123.
22. CW, Vol.3: The Religion
We Are Born In, p.460.
23. CW, Vol.5: On the
Bounds of Hinduism, p.235.
24. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
pp.131-132.
25. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, June 23, 1895, p.6.
26. CW, Vol.8: Letter to
Haridas Viharidas Desai from
27. CW, Vol.6: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty at Alambazar, May 1897, p.473.
28. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 8, 1895, p.37.
29. CW, Vol.1: Raja-Yoga:
Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali, Chapter 1, #27, p.219.
30. CW, Vol.3: The Sages of
India, p.251.
31. CW, Vol.3: Bhakti-Yoga:
Worship of Substitutes and Images, pp.60 - 61.
32. CW, Vol.3: The Religion
We Are Born In, p.459.
33. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, August 5, 1895, p.100.
34. CW, CW, Vol.4: What We
Believe In, p.357.
35. CW, Vol.5: On the
Vedanta Philosophy, pp.283-284.
36. CW, Vol.8: Is Vedanta
the Future Religion?, p.137.
37. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, August 5, 1895, p.97.
38. CW, Vol.5: On the
Vedanta Philosophy, pp.284-285.
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS
PART III, SECTION 7: THE FRAGMENTATION OF THE VEDIC MESSAGE
IN
Chapter 17: Sectarian Commentators on the Vedanta
a) Sects, the
Division of Spiritual Labor
1. The Interpretation
of the Vedas by Various Sects Should be Allowed
The Vedas are the common
source of Hinduism in all its varied stages, as also of Buddhism and every
other religious belief in
There are certain
principles in which, I think, we - whether Vaishnavas, Shaktas or Ganapatyas,
whether we belong to the ancient Vedantists or the modern ones, whether
belonging to the old, rigid sects or the modern reformed ones - are all one;
and whoever calls him or herself a Hindu believes in those principles. Of
course, there is a difference in the interpretation, in the explanation of
those principles, and that difference should be there, and it should be allowed,
for our standard is not to bind everyone down to our position. It would be a
sin to force everyone to work out our own interpretation of things, and to live
by our methods.(2)
Cross reference to:
Rig Veda, 1.164, 46
2. All Religions and
All Methods of Work and Worship Lead Us to One and the Same Goal
[The] peculiar idea of the
Vedanta is that we must allow this infinite variation in religious thought and
not try to bring everybody to the same opinion, because the goal is the
same.(3)
Every sect of every religion
presents only one ideal of its own to humankind, but the eternal Vedantic
religion opens to humankind an infinite number of doors for ingress into the
inner shrine of divinity and places before humanity an almost inexhaustible
array of ideals, there being in each of them a manifestation of the eternal
One. With the kindest solicitude the Vedanta points out to aspiring men and
women the numerous roads, hewn out of the solid rock of the realities of human
life by the glorious sons and daughters - or human manifestations of God - in
the past and in the present, and stands with arms outstretched to welcome all -
to welcome even those that are yet to be - to that Home of Truth and that Ocean
of Bliss wherein the human soul, liberated from the net of maya, may transport
itself with perfect freedom and with eternal joy.(4)
The grandest idea in the
religion of the Vedanta is that we may reach the same goal by different paths;
and these paths I have generalized into four, viz. those of work, love,
psychology, and knowledge. But you must, at the same time, remember that these
divisions are not very marked and quite exclusive of each other. Each blends
into the other; but according to the type which prevails, we name the
divisions. It is not that you can find people who have no other faculty than
that of work, nor that you can find people who are no more than devoted
worshippers only, nor that there are people who have no more than mere
knowledge. These divisions are made in accordance with the type, or the tendency
that may be seen to prevail in people. We have found that, in the end, all
these four paths converge and become one. All religions and all methods of work
and worship lead us to one and the same goal.(5)
3. The Religion and
the Vedas Has the Vigor to Absorb Sect after Sect
Three religions now stand
in the world which have come down to us from time
prehistoric - Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism. They have all received
tremendous shocks and all of them proved themselves by their survival their
internal strength. But while Judaism failed to absorb Christianity and was
driven out of its place of birth by its all-conquering daughter, and a handful
of Parsees is all that remains to tell the tale of their grand religion, sect
after sect arose in India and seemed to shake the religion of the Vedas to its
very foundations; but, like the waters of the seashore in a tremendous
earthquake it receded only for a while, only to return in an all-absorbing
flood, a thousand times more vigorous; and when the tumult of the rush was
over, these sects were all sucked in, absorbed and assimilated into the immense
body of the mother faith.
From the high spiritual
flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science
seem like echoes, to the lowest ideas of idolatry with its multifarious
mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists and the atheism of the Jains, each
and all have a place in the Hindus’ religion.(6)
[Many] books constitute the
scriptures of the Hindus. When there is such a mass of sacred books in a nation
and a race which has devoted the greatest part of its energies to the thought
of philosophy and spirituality (nobody knows for how many thousands of years),
it is quite natural that there should be so many sects; indeed it is a wonder
that there are not thousands more.(7)
4. It Is the
Necessity of the Age That All Sects Should Be Allowed to Live
To preach Vedanta in the
There are some religions
[including the Vedic] which have come down to us from the remotest antiquity,
which are imbued with the idea that all sects should be allowed to live, that
every sect has a meaning, a great idea, embedded within itself and, therefore,
it is necessary for the good of the world and ought to be helped. In modern
times the same idea is prevailing and attempts are made from time to time to
reduce it to practice. These attempts do not always come up to our
expectations, to the required efficiency. Nay, to our great disappointment, we
sometimes find that we are quarreling all the more.(9)
We may take different
points of view as to what the Vedas are. There may be one sect which regards
one portion as more sacred than another, but that matters little so long as we
say that we are all brothers and sisters in the Vedas, that out of these venerable,
eternal, marvelous books has come everything that we possess today, good, holy
and pure. Well, therefore, if we believe in all this, let this principle first
of all be preached broadcast throughout the length and breadth of [
b) Vedanta, the Sect
Which Must Cover the Whole Ground of Indian Religious Life
1. The Vedic Sect
Which Now Really Covers
The Upanishads not being in
a systematized form, it was easy for philosophers to take up texts as they
liked to form a system. The Upanishads had always to be taken,
else there would be no basis. Yet we find all the different schools of thought
in the Upanishads.(11)
There are six schools of
philosophy in
Of the three orthodox
divisions [of Hinduism] - the Sankhyas, the Naiyayikas, and the Mimamsakas -
the former two, although they existed as philosophical schools, failed to form
any sect. The one sect that now really covers
[In the Brahma-Sutras]
Vyasa’s philosophy is par excellence that of the Upanishads. He wrote in sutra
form, that is, in brief, algebraic symbols without nominative or verb. This
cause so much ambiguity that out of the Sutras came dualism,
mono-dualism and monism or "roaring Vedanta".(14)
The Sutras of Vyasa have
been variously explained by different commentators (15)
2. The Modern Custom
Is to Identify the Word "Vedanta" with the
All the schools of Hindu
philosophy start from the Vedanta or Upanishads, but the monists took the name to
themselves as a specialty, because they wanted to base the whole of their
theology and philosophy upon the Vedanta and nothing else. In course of time,
the Vedanta prevailed and all the various sects of
Of late it has become the
custom of most people to identify the word Vedanta with the Advaitic
system of the Vedanta philosophy. We all know that Advaitism [non-dualism] is
only one branch of the various philosophic systems that have been founded on
the Upanishads. The followers of the Vishishtadvaitic [qualified non-dualism]
system have as much reverence for the Upanishads as the followers of the Advaita , and the Vishishtadvaitists claim as much authority
for the Vedanta as does the Advaitist. So do the Dualists; so does every other
sect in
In what is being written
and taught in the West about the religious thought of India, one school of
Indian thought is principally represented - that which is called Advaitism, the
monistic [non-dual] side of Indian religion; and sometimes it is thought that
all the teachings of the Vedas are comprised in that one system of philosophy.
There are, however, various phases of Indian thought; and, perhaps, this
non-dualistic form is in the minority as compared with the other phases. From
the most ancient times there have been various sects of thought in India; and,
as there never was a formulated or recognized church or any body of men to
designate the doctrines which should be believed in by each school, people were
very free to choose their own forms, make their own philosophy and establish
their own sects. We, therefore, find that from the most ancient times
Unfortunately there is the
mistaken notion in modern
The word Vedanta, however,
must cover the whole ground of Indian religious life; and, being part of
the Vedas, by all acceptance it is the most ancient literature we have.(20)
Cross reference to:
Brih. Up., 1.4.10a
3. The Three Vedantic
Schools Are All Equally Important and Do Not Contradict Each Other, But Fulfill
It would be wrong to
confine the word Vedanta to only one system which has arisen out of the
Upanishads. The Vishishtadvaitist has as much right to be called a Vedantist as
the Advaitist; in fact, I will go a little further and say that what we really
mean by the word Hindu is really the same as the Vedantist.(21)
This is what I mean by
Vedanta, that it covers the ground of dualism, of qualified monism, and
Advaitism in
The Vedanta philosophy, as
it is generally called at the present day, really comprises all the various
sects that now exist in
Our solution is that the
Advaita is not antagonistic to Dvaita (dualism). We say the latter is only one
of three steps. The first is dualism. Then we get to a higher state - partial
non-dualism. And at last we find we are one with the universe. Therefore the
three do not contradict, but fulfill.(24)
4. The Vedanta
Contains All of Religion and Its Three Schools Represent the Stages of
Humanity’s Gradual Spiritual Growth
If one studies the Vedas
between the lines, one sees a religion of harmony.(25)
I want you to note that the
three systems [of Indian philosophy] have been current in
Just as in the case of the
six darshanas [systems of Indian philosophy], we find they are a gradual
unfolding of the grand principles whose music, beginning far back in soft, low
notes, ends in the triumphant blast of the Advaita, so also in these three
systems we find the gradual working up of the human mind towards higher and
higher ideals until everything is merged in that wonderful unity which is
reached in the Advaita system. Therefore these three are not contradictory.(26)
To realize God, the Brahman
(as the Dvaitins say) or to become Brahman (as the Advaitins say) - is the aim
and end of the whole teaching of the Vedas; and every other teaching therein
contained represents a stage in the course of our progress thereto.(27)
All of religion is
contained in the Vedanta, that is, in the three stages of the Vedanta
philosophy, the Dvaita, Vishishtadvaita and Advaita; one comes after the other.
These are the three stages of spiritual growth in man. Each one is necessary.
This is the essential of religion. The Vedanta, applied to the various ethnic
customs and creeds of
Cross reference to:
Cha. Up., 6.8.7
Mund. Up., 2.1.1
c) The Mistake of the
Thinking the Upanishads Teach Only One Thing
1. Every Indian
Philosopher Must Find His or Her Authority in the Upanishads
Whatever be
the philosophy or sect, everyone in
In India… in spite of all
these jarring sects which we see today and all those that have been in the
past, the one authority, the basis of all these systems, has yet been the
Upanishads, the Vedanta. Whether you are a dualist, or a qualified monist,
Advaitist, Vishishtadvaitist, Shuddhadvaitist, or any other Advaitist, or a
dualist, or whatever you may call yourself, there stand behind you as authority
your Shastras, your scriptures, the Upanishads. Whatever system in
The Vedanta, then,
practically forms the scriptures of the Hindus, and all systems of philosophy
that are orthodox have to take it as their foundation.
Even the Buddhists and Jains, when it suits their purpose, will quote a passage
from the Vedanta as authority.(31)
We know that all our great
philosophers, whether Vyasa, Patanjali, or Gautama, and even the father of all
philosophy, the great Kapila himself, whenever they wanted an authority for
what they wrote, every one of them found it in the Upanishads and nowhere else;
for therein are the truths that remain for ever.(32)
Either in the sharp
analysis of the Vaisheshikas, resulting in the wonderful theories about the paramanus,
dvyanus and trasarenus [atoms, entities composed of two atoms,
entities composed of three atoms], or the still more wonderful analysis
displayed in the discussions of jati, dravya, guna, samavaya (genus, substance,
quality and inhesion or inseparability), and to the various categories of the
Naiyayikas, rising to the solemn march of the thought of the Sankhyas, the
fathers of the theories of evolution, ending with the ripe fruit, the result of
all these researches, the Sutras of Vyasa - the one background to all these
different analyses and syntheses of the human mind is still the Shrutis.(33)
2. Vedantic Sects
Have Been Founded by Explaining the Upanishadic Conception from Only One
Standpoint
You find that the
[Upanishadic] texts have been commented upon by different commentators,
preached by great teachers, and sects founded upon them; and you find that in
these books of the Vedas there are apparently contradictory ideas.(34)
Commentators came and tried
to smooth down [the highest and lowest thoughts which have all been preserved
in the Vedas] and to bring out wonderful new ideas from the old things; they
tried to find spiritual ideas even in the midst of the most ordinary
statements, but the texts remained and as such, they are the most wonderful
historical study.(35)
Now I will try to lay
before you the ideas that are contained in the three sects, the dualistic,
qualified no-dualistic and non-dualistic [which cover all six schools of
orthodox Hindu philosophy]…. All the Vedantists agree on three points. They
believe in God, in the Vedas as revealed, and in cycles…. [We have already
considered these]; but before going on, I will make one remark - that these
different Vedanta systems have one common psychology, and that is the
psychology of the Sankhya system. The Sankhya psychology is very much like the
psychologies of the Nyaya and the Vaisheshika systems, differing only in minor
particulars….
The Vedantists, [however],
reject the Sankhya ideas of the soul and nature. They claim that between them
there is a huge gulf to be bridged over. On the one hand, the Sankhya system
comes to nature, and then at once it has to jump over to the other side and
come to the soul, which is entirely separate from nature. How can these
different colors, as the Sankhya calls them, be able to act on that soul which
is by its nature colorless? So the Vedantists, from the very first, affirm that
this soul and this nature are one…. They admit that what the Sankhya calls
nature exists, but say that nature is God. It is this Being,
the Sat, which has become converted into all this - the universe, humanity,
soul, and everything that exists. Mind and Mahat are but the manifestations of
that one Sat. But then the difficulty arises that that would be pantheism. How
came that Sat, which is unchangeable, as they admit (for that which is absolute
is unchangeable) to be changed into that which is changeable and perishable?
The Advaitists here have a theory which they call vivarta vada or apparent
manifestation.(36)
[Now], there are certain
[Vedic] texts which are entirely dualistic, others are entirely monistic. The
dualistic commentator, knowing no better, wishes to knock the monistic texts on
the head. Preachers and priests want to explain them in the dualistic meaning.
The monistic commentator serves the dualistic texts in a similar fashion. Now
this is not the fault of the Vedas. It is foolish to attempt to prove that the
whole of the Vedas is dualistic. It is equally foolish to attempt to prove that
the whole of the Vedas is non-dualistic. They are dualistic and non-dualistic,
both. We understand them better today in the light of newer ideas. These are
but different conceptions leading to the final conclusion that both dualistic
and monistic conceptions are necessary for the evolution of the mind, and
therefore the Vedas preach them. In mercy to the human race the Vedas show the
various steps to the higher goal. Not that they are contradictory, vain words
used by the Vedas to delude children; they are necessary, not only for
children, but for many a grownup person. So long as we have a body and so long
as we are deluded by the idea of our identity with the body, so long as we have
five senses and see the external world, we must have a personal God. For if we
have all these ideas, we must take, as the great Ramanuja has proved, all the
ideas about God and nature and the individualized soul; when you take the one
you have to take the whole triangle - we cannot avoid it. Therefore, so long as
you see the external world, to avoid a personal God and a personal soul is
arrant lunacy.(37)
Cross reference to:
Brih. Up., 1.4.10
Taitt. Up., 2.4
Cha. Up., 3.1.4 (?)
Cha. Up., 3.14.1.
Cha. Up., 6.1.4
Cha. Up., 7.25.1
Kena Up., 1.3, 2.2
Mund. Up., 1.1.3
3. By Making the
Texts Suit Their Own Philosophy Our Commentators Have Created Apparent
Contradictions in the Upanishadic Theme of Unity in Diversity
All the great commentators
in these different schools were at times "conscious liars" in order
to make the texts suit their philosophy.(38)
The Advaitic commentator,
whenever an Advaitic text comes, preserves it just as it is; but the same
commentator, as soon as a dualistic text presents itself, tortures it if he can
and brings the most queer meaning out of it. Sometimes
the unborn becomes a goat - such are the wonderful changes
effected. To suit the commentator, the word aja (the unborn) is
explained as aja, a she-goat. In the same way, if not in a still worse
fashion, the texts are handled by the dualistic commentator. Every dualistic
text is preserved, and every text that speaks of non-dualistic philosophy is
tortured in any fashion he likes. This Sanskrit language is so intricate, the
Sanskrit of the Vedas is so ancient, and the Sanskrit philology so perfect, that
any amount of discussion can be carried on for ages in regard to the meaning of
any word. If pandits takes it into their heads, they
can render anybody’s prattle into correct Sanskrit by force of argument and
quotation of texts and rules. These are the difficulties in our way of
understanding the Upanishads.(39)
[Having] an idea of
studying the grammar of the Vedas I began with all earnestness to study Panini
and the Mahabhashya, but to my surprise I found that the best part of
the Vedic grammar consists only of exceptions to the rules. A rule is make and later there comes a statement to the effect,
"This rule will be an exception". So you see what an amount of
liberty there is for anybody to write anything, the only safeguard being the
dictionary of Yaksa. Still, in this you will find, for the most part, but a
large number of synonyms.(40)
Our great commentators,
Shankaracharya, Ramanujacharaya and Madhvacharya… committed mistakes. Each one
believed that the Upanishads are the sole authority, but thought that they
preached one thing, one path only. Thus Shankaracharya committed the mistake of
supposing that the whole of the Upanishads taught one thing, which was
Advaitism and nothing else; and wherever a passage bearing distinctly the
Dvaita idea occurred, he twisted and tortured the meaning to make it support
his own theory. So with Ramanuja and Madhvacharya when a pure
Advaitic text occurred. It was perfectly true that the Upanishads had
one thing to teach, but that was taught as a going up from one step to another.(41)
I am bound to tell you that
[thinking that the three systems are contradictory] has been a mistake
committed by not a few. We find that an Advaitist teacher keeps intact those
texts which especially teach Advaitism and tries to interpret the dualistic or
qualified non-dualistic texts into his own meaning. Similarly, we find
dualistic teachers trying to read their dualistic meaning into Advaitic texts.
Our gurus were great men and women; yet there is a saying, "Even the
faults of a guru must be told." I am of the opinion that in this only they
were mistaken. We need not go into text-torturing, we need not go into any sort
of religious dishonesty, we need not go into any sort of grammatical twaddle,
we not go about trying to put our own ideas into texts that were never meant
for them; but the work is plain and becomes easier once you understand the
marvelous doctrine of adhikarabheda…. The old idea of arundhati nyaya
applies. To show someone the fine star arundhati, one takes the big and brilliant
star nearest to it, upon which he or she is asked to fix his or her eyes first,
and then it becomes quite easy to direct his or her sight to arundhati. This is
the task before us; and to prove my idea I will have simply to show you the
Upanishads, and you will see it.(42)
Cross reference to:
Cha. Up., 6.8.7
Mund. Up., 1.1.3
d) The Great
Commentators on the Vedas
1. The Mimamsakas,
Who Believed That We, as We Are, Create the Universe through the Vedas
This is the claim of a
certain sect of karmis, [the Mimamsakas, a Hindu philosophical sect]: the
universe is thought and the Vedas are the words. We can create and uncreate
this whole universe. Repeating the words, the unseen thought is aroused, and as
a result a seen effect is produced…. They think that each one of us is a
creator. Pronounce the words, the thought which corresponds will arise, and the
result will become visible. "Thought is the power of the word, the word is
the expression of the thought", they say.(43)
2. The Sankhyas, Who
Attempted to Harmonize the Philosophy of the Vedas through Reason and Taught
That Our Nature Is Purity and Perfection
We think the Sankhya
philosophy is the first attempt to harmonize the philosophy of the Vedas
through reason.(44)
The common ism all
through
The Vedanta requires of us
faith, for conclusiveness cannot be reached by argumentation. Then why has the
slightest flaw detected in the position of the schools the Sankhya and the
Nyaya been overwhelmed by a fusillade of dialectics? In whom, moreover, are we
to put our faith? Everybody seems to be mad over establishing his own view; if,
according to Vyasa [in the Brahma Sutras] even the greatest muni Kapila,
"the greatest among perfected souls" [Swet. Up., 5.2] is
himself deeply involved in error, then who would say that Vyasa may not be so
involved in a greater measure? Did Kapila, then, fail to understand the Vedas?
(46)
3. Sri Krishna, Who
Showed the Validity of the Various Steps in Religion
What do you find in the Gita, and what in modern commentators? One non-dualistic
commentator takes up an Upanisad; there are so many dualistic passages which he
twists and tortures into some meaning and wants to bring them all into a
meaning of his own. If a dualistic commentator comes, there are so many
non-dualistic texts which he begins to torture to bring them all round to a
dualistic meaning. But you find in the Gita there is no attempt at torturing
any one of them. They are all all right, says the
Lord; for slowly and gradually the human soul rises up and up, step after step,
from the gross to the fine, from the fine to the finer, until it reaches the
Absolute, the goal. That is what is in the Gita. Even the Karma-Kanda is taken
up and it is shown that, although it cannot give salvation direct, but only
indirectly, yet that also is valid; images are valid indirectly, ceremonies,
forms, everything is valid, only with one condition - purity of heart. For
worship is valid and leads to the goal if the heart is pure and the heart is
sincere; and all these various modes of worship are necessary - else why should
they be there? Religions and sects are not the work of hypocrites and wicked
people who invented all these to get a little money, as some of our modern
people want to think. However reasonable that explanation may seem, it is not
true and they were not invented that way at all. They are the outcome of the
necessity of the human soul. They are all here to satisfy the hankering and
thirst of different classes of human minds; and you need not preach against
them. The day when that necessity will cease, they will vanish along with the
cessation of that necessity; and so long as that necessity remains, they must
be there in spite of your preaching, in spite of your criticisms. You may bring
the sword or the gun into play, you may deluge the world with human blood; but
so long as there is a necessity for idols, they must remain. These forms, and
all the various steps in religion will remain; and we understand from Lord
Krishna why they should.(47)
4. Some Meanings from
the Brahma-Sutras
No foundation for the
authority of the Vedas has been adduced in the Vedanta Sutras. First it
has been said that the Vedas are the authority for the existence of God, and
then it has been argued that the authority for the Vedas is the text, "He
breathed out, as it were, all knowledge" [Brih. Up., 2.4.10], Now
is not this statement vitiated by what in Western logic is called an argument
in a circle?(48)
In the Gita the way is laid
open to all men and women, to all caste and color; but Vyasa [the author of the
Brahma-Sutras] tries to put meanings upon the Vedas to cheat the poor
shudras.(49)
5. Buddha, the Great
Vedantist
i) Buddha’s Fearless Analysis
of the Vedas and His Large-Heartedness in Throwing Their Hidden Truths
Broadcast over the World
Buddha was a great
Vedantist (for Buddhism is really only an offshoot of Vedanta) and Shankara is
often called a "hidden Buddhist". Buddha made the analysis; Shankara
made the synthesis out of it. Buddha never bowed down to anything - neither
Veda, nor caste, nor priest, nor custom. He fearlessly reasoned so far as
reason could take him. Such a fearless search for truth and love for every
living thing the world has never seen.(50)
Buddha was more brave and
sincere than any [other] teacher. He said, "Believe no book; the Vedas are
all humbug. If they agree with me, so much the better for the
books. I am the greatest book; sacrifice and prayer are
useless."(51)
[The commentators say]: The
same God who gives out the Vedas becomes Buddha again to annul them.(52)
There is no help [for the
Hindus] out of the clutches of the Buddhists. You may quote the Vedas, but he
does not believe them. He will say, "My Tripitakas say otherwise,
and they are without beginning or end, not even written by Buddha, for Buddha
says he is only reciting them; they are eternal." And he adds, "Yours
are wrong, ours are the true Vedas; yours are manufactured by the brahmin priests, therefore out with them!" (53)
ii) Buddha Gave Power and Heart
to Vedantic Ideas
Buddha was one of the
sannyasins of the Vedanta. He started a new sect, just as others are started
even today. The ideas which are now called Buddhism were not his. They were
much more ancient. He was a great man who gave the ideas power. The unique
element in Buddhism was its social element.(54)
What Buddha did was to
break wide open the gates of that very religion which was confined in the
Upanishads to a particular caste. What special greatness does his theory of
nirvana confer on him? His greatness lies in his unrivaled sympathy. The high
orders of samadhi, etc. that lend gravity to his religion are almost all there
in the Vedas; what are absent there are his intellect and his heart, which have
never been paralleled throughout the history of the world.(55)
iii) It Was
Absolutely Necessary for Buddha to Emphasize Non-Violence and Faith in His
Teachings
Even in the philosophical
writings of the Buddhists or Jains, the help of the Shrutis are never rejected;
and in at least some of the Buddhist schools and in the majority of the Jain
writings, the authority of the Shrutis is fully admitted, excepting what they
call the himsaka Shrutis [dealing with sacrifices involving violence to
animals] which they hold to be interpolations of the brahmins.(56)
Buddhist ritual itself,
[however], came from the Vedic.(57)
Buddha was the first man to
stand against [purification of the mind through sacrifices and such other
external means]. But the inner essence of the ideas remained as of old - look
at that doctrine of mental exercises which he preached and that mandate of his
to believe in the Suttas instead of the Vedas. Caste also remained as of old
(caste was not wholly obsolete at the time of Buddha); but it was now
determined by personal qualifications; and those that were not believers in his
religion were declared heretics, all in the old style. Heretic was a
very ancient word with the Buddhists, but then they never had recourse to the
sword (good souls!), and had great toleration. Argument blew up the Vedas. But
what is the proof of your religion? Well, put faith in it! - the
same procedure as in all religions. It was, however, and imperative necessity
of the times; and that was the reason of his having incarnated himself. His
doctrine was like that of Kapila.(58)
iv) Buddha’s Rejection of the Personal God
Could Not Hold the Popular Mind
Buddha is expressly
agnostic about God; but God is everywhere preached in [Vedanta].(59)
Every one of Buddha’s
teachings is founded [on] the Vedanta. He was one of those monks who wanted to
bring out the truths hidden in those books and in the forest monasteries. I do
not believe that the world is ready for them, even now; it still wants those
lower religions which teach of a personal God. Because of this, the original
Buddhism could not hold the popular mind until it took up the modifications which
were reflected back from
Hindus can give up
everything except their God. To deny God is to cut off the very ground from
under the feet of devotion. Devotion and God the Hindus must cling to. They can
never relinquish these. And here, in the teaching of Buddha, are no God and no
soul - simply work. What for? Not for the self, for the self is a delusion. We
shall be ourselves when this delusion has vanished. Very few are there in the
world that can rise to that height and work for work’s sake.(61)
6. Beliefs of the
According to Nyaya,
"Shabda or Veda (the criterion of truth) is the word of those who have realized
the highest."(62)
Shabdas are again divided
into two classes, the Vedic shabdas and those in common use. I found this
position in the Nyaya book called Shabdashaktiprakashika. There the
arguments indicate, no doubt, great power of thought; but, oh, the terminology
confounds the brain!(63)
[The Vaisheshikas] are
called orthodox because they accepted the Vedas, although they denied the
existence of a personal God, believing that everything sprang from the atom or
nature.(64)
7. Some Puranic and
Tantric Ideas Which Do Not Agree with the Vedas
In the Puranas you find
that, during the first divine incarnation, the minavatara,[fish
avatar], the Veda is first made manifest. The Vedas having been first revealed
in this incarnation, the other creative manifestations followed. (65)
In the Puranas we find many
things which do not agree with the Vedas. For instance, it is written in the
Puranas that some one lives ten thousand years another twenty thousand years;
but in the Vedas we find: "Human beings live indeed a hundred years."
[Isha Up., 2] Which are we to accept in this case? Certainly
the Vedas. Notwithstanding statements like these, I do not depreciate
the Puranas. They contain many beautiful and illuminating teachings and words
of wisdom of yoga, bhakti, jnana and karma; those, of course, we should accept.(66)
There is no mention of the
division of time into four yugas in the Vedas. They are arbitrary assumptions
of the Pauranika times.(67)
The Puranas, no doubt, say
that a certain caste has the right to such and such a recension of the Vedas,
or a certain caste has no right to study them, or that this portion of the
Vedas is for the Satya Yuga and that portion is for the Kali Yuga. But, mark
you, the Veda does not say so; it is only your Puranas that do so. But can the
servant dictate to the master?(68)
[In principle] it is
improper to hold many texts on the same subject to be contradicted by one or
two. Why, then, are the long-continued [Vedic] customs of madhuparka [serving
beef to a guest] and the like repealed by one or two [Puranic] texts such as,
"The horse-sacrifice, the cow-sacrifice, sannyasa, meat-offering in the
shraddha [funeral] ceremony are to be forsaken in the Kali Yuga", and so
forth?(69)
The Tantra says that in the
Kali-Yuga the Vedic mantras are futile.(70)
The Smritis and Puranas are
productions of people of limited intelligence and are full of fallacies,
errors, and the feelings of class and malice. Only parts of them breathing
broadness of spirit and love are acceptable; the rest are to be rejected. The Upanishads
and the Gita are the true scriptures.(71)
8. Shankaracharya,
the Greatest Teacher of Vedanta
i. Shankaracharya
Showed That There Is Only One Infinite Reality and Humans Can Come to It
through All the Various Presentations
Shankaracharya… caught the
rhythm of the Vedas, the national cadence…. Indeed, I always imagine that he
had some vision such as mine [of a rishi chanting the Rig Veda] when he was
young, and recovered the ancient music that way. Anyway, his whole life’s work
is nothing but that, the throbbing of the beauty of the Vedas and Upanishads.(72)
The greatest teacher of the
Vedanta philosophy was Shankaracharya. By solid reasoning he extracted from the
Vedas the truths of Vedanta, and on them built up the wonderful system of jnana
that is taught in his commentaries. He unified all the conflicting descriptions
of Brahman and showed that there is only one, infinite Reality.(73)
Shankara says: God is to be
reasoned on, because the Vedas say so. Reason helps inspiration; books and
realized reason - or individualized perception - both are proofs of God. The
Vedas are, according to him, a sort of incarnation of universal knowledge. The
proof of God is that He brought forth the Vedas, and the proof of the Vedas is
that such wonderful books could only have been given out by Brahman. They are
the mine of all knowledge and they have come out of Brahman as someone breathes
out air [Brih. Up, 2.4.10]; therefore we know that It is infinite in
power and knowledge. It may or may not have created the world - that is a
trifle; to have produced the Vedas is more important! The world has come to
know God through the Vedas; there is no other way. And so universal is this
belief held by Shankara in the all-inclusiveness of the Vedas, that there is
even a Hindu proverb that, if a man loses his cow, he goes to look for her in
the Vedas! (74)
Shankara showed, too, that
as a humanity can only travel slowly on the upward road, all the varied
presentations are needed to suit its varying capacity.(75)
Work and worship… are
necessary to take away the veil, to lift off the bondage and illusion. They do
not give up freedom; but all the same, without effort on our own part we do not
open our eyes and see what we are. Shankara further says that Advaita Vedanta
is the crowning glory of the Vedas; but the lower Vedas are also necessary,
because they teach work and worship; and through these many come to the Lord.
Others may come without any help but Advaita.(76)
Relative knowledge is good,
because it leads to absolute knowledge; but neither the knowledge of the
senses, nor of the mind, nor even of the Vedas is true, since they are all
within the realm of relative knowledge.(77)
ii) Despite His Grand
and Rational Doctrine, Shankaracharya Had No Great Liberality of Heart
Shankara’s doctrine [is]
far more grand and rational [than that of Buddha]. Buddha and Kapila are always
saying that the world is full of grief and nothing but that - flee from it -
ay, for your life, do! Is happiness altogether absent here?…
There is grief, forsooth, but what can be done? Perchance some will suggest
that grief itself will appear as happiness when you become used to it by
constant suffering. Shankara does not take this line of argument. He says: This
world is and is not - manifold, yet one; I shall unravel
its mystery - I shall know whether grief be there, or
anything else; I do not flee from it as from a bugbear. I will know all about
it - as to the infinite pain that attends its search, well, I am embracing it
in its fullest measure. Am I a beast that you frighten me with happiness and
misery, decay and death, which are but the outcome of the senses? I will know
about it - I will give up my life for it. There is nothing to know about in
this world - therefore, if there be anything beyond this relative existence -
what the Lord Buddha has designated as prajnapara - the transcendental -
if such there be, I want that alone. Whether happiness attends it, or grief, I
do not care. What a lofty idea! How grand! The religion of Buddha has reared
itself upon the Upanishads, and upon that also the
philosophy of Shankara. Only, Shankara had not the slightest bit of Buddha’s
wonderful heart, dry intellect merely! For fear of the Tantras, for fear of the
mob, in his attempt to cure a boil, he amputated the very arm itself! [He
neglected the rank and file of his countrymen which had been captured by
Tantricism, of which the excesses were threatening the purity of the Vedic
religion](78)
Shankara’s intellect was
sharp as a razor. He was a good arguer and scholar, no doubt of that, but he
had no great liberality; his heart too seems to have been like that. Besides,
he used to take great pride in his brahminism, much
like the southern brahmin of the priest class, you may say. How he has defended
his commentary in the Vedanta Sutras that the non-brahmin castes will
not attain to a supreme knowledge of Brahman! And what specious arguments!
Referring to Vidura [a saintly character in the Mahabharata who was of
low caste], he has said that he became a knower of Brahman by reason of his brahmin body in his previous incarnation. Well, if nowadays
a shudra [lowest caste person] attains to knowledge of Brahman shall we have to
side without your Shankara and maintain that, because he had been a brahmin is his previous birth, therefore he attained to this
knowledge! Goodness! What is the use of dragging in brahminism
with so much ado! The Vedas have entitled anyone belonging to the three upper
castes to a study of the Vedas and the realization of Brahman, haven’t they? So
Shankara had no need whatsoever of displaying this curious bit of pedantry on
this subject, contrary to the Vedas.(79)
Shankaracharya could not
adduce any proof from the Vedas to the effect that the shudra should not study
the Vedas. He only quotes, "The shudra is not conceived of as a performer
of yajna or Vedic sacrifices" [Taitt. Samhita 7.1.1.6] to maintain
that when he is not entitled to perform yajnas,
neither has he any right to study the Upanishads and the like. But the same
acharya contends, with reference to the "Now then commences hence the
inquiry about Brahman" [Vedanta Sutras, 1.1.1] that the words now
then does not mean subsequent to the study of the Vedas, because it
is contrary to proof that the study of the Upanishads is not permissible
without the previous study of the Vedic mantras and Brahmanas and because there
is no intrinsic sequence between the Vedic karma-kanda and jnana-kanda. It is
evident, therefore, that one may attain to the knowledge of Brahman without
having studied the ceremonial parts of the Vedas. So, if there is no sequence
between the sacrificial practices and jnana, why does the acharya contradict his own statement when it is a case of the shudras, by
inserting the clause, "By the force of the same logic"? Why should
the shudra not study the Upanishads?(80)
The Upanishads and the Gita
are the true scriptures; Rama,
9. Ramanuja, Who
Maintained Eternal Differences within Brahman
Truly it has been said of
the Upanishads by Ramanuja that they form the head, the shoulders, the crest of
the Vedas, and surely enough the Upanishads have become the Bible of modern
India.(82)
Ramanuja says that the
Vedas are the holiest study. Let the sons of the three upper castes get the
sutra [ ] and at eight, ten, or eleven years of age begin the study, which
means going to a guru and learning the Vedas word for word with perfect
intonation and pronunciation.
Visistadvaita is qualified
Advaita (monism). Its expounder was Ramanuja. He says, "Out of the ocean
of milk of the Vedas Vyasa has churned this butter of philosophy, the better to
help humankind." He says again, "All virtues and all qualities belong
to Brahman, Lord of the universe. He is the greatest Purusha.(83)
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.(84)
10. Madhvacharya,
Who Had
Madhva was a thoroughgoing
dualist or Dvaitist. He claims that even women may study the Vedas. He quotes
chiefly from the Puranas. He says that Brahman means Vishnu, not Shiva at all,
because there is no salvation except through Vishnu.
There is no place for
reasoning in Madhva’s explanation; it is all taken from revelation in the
Vedas. (85)
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48. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Pramadadas Mitra, loc. cit., pp.211-212.
49. CW, Vol.4: What We
Believe in, p.359.
50. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 19, 1895, p.59.
51. Ibid.,
July 10, 1895, pp.40-41.
52. CW. Vol.6: Letter to
Pramadadas Mitra, loc. cit., p.213.
53. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta,
p.415.
54. CW, Vol.5: A Discussion,
p.309.
55. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Swami Akhandananda from Ghazipur, February, 1890, pp.225-226.
56. CW, Vol.4: Reply to the
Madras Address, p.334.
57. Notes, Chapter 8:
The Temple of Pandrenthan, p.88.
58. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Swami Akhandananda, loc. cit., p.226.
59. CW, Vol.6: Notes Taken
down in
60. SVW, Vol.2, Chapter 13:
The Last Battle, p.275.
61. CW, Vol.8: Buddha’s
Message to the World, p.99.
62. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Pramadadas Mitra, loc. cit., p.212.
63. CW, Vol.6: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty, p.499.
64. CW, Vol.2: True
Buddhism, p.508.
65. CW, Vol.6: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty,
66. CW, Vol.3: The Religion
We Are Born In, p.458.
67. CW, Vol.5: Selections
from the Math Diary, p.315.
68. CW, Vol.3: The Religion
We Are Born In, p.457.
69. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Pramadadas Mitra, loc. cit., pp.212-213.
70. Ibid.
71. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Pramadadas Mitra from Almora, May 30, 1897, pp.393-394.
72. Notes of Some
Wanderings, Chapter 5: On the Way to Baramulla, p.54.
73. CW, Vol.8: Discourses on
Jnana-Yoga II, p. 6.
74. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 10, 1895, p.41.
75. CW, Vol.8: Discourses on
Jnana-Yoga II, p.6.
76. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 16, 1895, p.53.
77. Ibid., July 6, 1895,
p.33.
78. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Swami Akhandananda from Ghazipur, February, 1890, pp.226-227.
79. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty, Belur, 1898, pp.117-118.
80. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Pramadadas Mitra from Baranagore, August 7, 1889, pp.208-209.
81. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Pramadadas Mitra from Almora, May 30, 1897, p.394.
82. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta,
p.394.
83. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 7 and July 8, 1895, pp.36-37.
84. CW, Vol.3: Bhakti-Yoga:
The Philosophy of Ishwara, p.39.
85. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 7 and 8, 1895, p.37.
PART III, SECTION 7: THE FRAGMENTATION OF THE VEDIC MESSAGE
IN
Chapter 18: Reaction to Foreign Invasion
a) When the Kings
Supported Priestly
In the Vedic and adjoining
periods the royal power could not manifest itself on account of the grinding
pressure of the priestly power. We have seen how, during the Buddhistic
revolution, resulting in the fall of the brahminical supremacy, the royal power
in
[The priests and the
kings]… now friendly to each other… and engaged in the satisfaction of mutual
self-interest…, being steeped in all the vices consequent upon such a union,
e.g. the sucking of the blood of the masses, taking revenge on the enemy,
spoliation of others’ property, etc., they in vain tried to imitate the
rajasuya and other Vedic sacrifices of the ancient kings, and only made a
ridiculous farce of them. The result was that they were bound hand and foot by
a formidable train of sycophantic attendance and its obsequious flatteries;
and, being entangled in an interminable net of rites and ceremonies with
flourishes of mantras and the like, they soon became a cheap and ready prey to
the Muslim invaders from the West.(2)
The kshatriyas had always
been the backbone of
When the greater part of
their number sank into ignorance and another portion mixed their blood with
savages from Central Asia and lent their swords to establish the rule of priests
in India, her cup became full to the brim and down sank the land of Bharata
[India], not to rise again until the kshatriyas rouse themselves and, making
themselves free, strike the chains from the feet of the rest. Priestcraft is
the bane of
b) The Muslim Turks,
Themselves Renegades from the Vedic Religion (Buddhism), Crushed Brahminical
Supremacy under Their Feet
What is called the Muslim
invasion, conquest, or colonization of India means only this - that, under the
leadership of the Muslim Turks, who were renegades from Buddhism, those
sections of the Hindu race who continued in the faith of their ancestors were repeatedly
conquered by the other section of that very race who also were renegades from
Buddhism or the Vedic religion, and served under the Turks, having been
forcibly converted to Islam by their superior strength.(4)
The brahmin
power had lost all its own internal strength and stamina and become the weakest
of the weak. What wonder it should be broken into a thousand pieces and fall at
the mere touch of the storm of the Muslim invaders from the West! That great brahmin power fell - who knows if ever to rise again?
The resuscitation of the
priestly power under Muslim rule was, on the other hand, an utter
impossibility. The Prophet Muhammad was himself dead against the priestly class
in any shape and tried his best to destroy this power by formulating rules and
injunctions to that effect…. The utmost the Muslim kings could do as a favor to
the priestly class - the spiritual guides of the idolatrous, hateful Kafirs -
was to allow them somehow to pass their life silently and wait for their last
moment….
Crushing the brahminical
supremacy under his feet, the Muslim king was able to restore to a considerable
extent the lost glories of such dynasties as the Maurya, the Gupta, the Andhra
and the Kshatrapa.
Thus the priestly power -
which sages like Kumarila, Shankara and Ramanuja had tried to reestablish,
which for some time was supported by the sword of the Rajput power, and which
tried to rebuild its structure on the fall of its Jain and Buddhist adversaries
- was, under Muslim rule, laid to sleep for ever, knowing no awakening.(5)
c) The South Became
the Repository of Vedic Learning, the Backbone of the Hindu Religion
The Muslim tried for
centuries to subjugate the South, but can scarcely be said to have got even a
strong foothold; and when the strong and united empire of the Moguls was very
near completing its conquest, the hills and plateaus of the South poured in
their bands of fighting peasants and horsemen, determined to die for the
religion which Ramdas preached and Tuka sang; and in a short time the gigantic empire
of the Moguls was only a name.(6)
In the South, again, was
born the wonderful Sayanacharya - the strength of whose arms, vanquishing the
Muslims, kept King Bukka on his throne, whose wise counsels gave stability to
the Vidyanagar kingdom, whose state policy established lasting peace and
prosperity in the Deccan, whose superhuman genius and extraordinary industry
produced the commentaries on the whole Vedas - and the product of whose
wonderful sacrifice, renunciation and researches was the Vedantic treatise
named Panchadashi - that sannyasin Vidyaranya Muni or Sayana, was born
in this land.(7)
The South [remained] the
repository of Vedic learning, and… [therefore], in spite of reiterated
assertions of aggressive ignorance, [today] it is the Shruti that is still the
backbone of all the different divisions of the Hindu religion.(8)
d) The Vitality of
[The fanatical belief of
many of the invaders into
But there is a vitality in the race which is unique in the history of
humanity, and perhaps that vitality comes from non-resistance. Non-resistance
is the greatest strength. In meekness and mildness lies the greatest strength.
In suffering is greater strength than in doing. In resisting one’s own passions
is far higher strength than in hurting others. And that has been the watchword
of the race through all its difficulties, its misfortunes and its prosperity.
It is the only nation that never went beyond its frontiers to cut the throats
of its neighbors. It is a glorious thing. It makes me rather patriotic to think
I am born a Hindu, a descendant of the only race that never went out to hurt
anyone, and whose only action upon humanity has been giving and enlightening
and teaching, but never robbing.(9)
[
All along, in the history
of the Hindu race, there never was any attempt at destruction, only
construction. One sect wanted to destroy, and they were thrown out of
e) In
1. The Vedantic
Movements under the Muslims Preached the Muslim Idea of the Equality of Human
Beings
To the Muslim rule we owe
that great blessing - the destruction of exclusive privilege. That rule was,
after all, not all bad; and nothing is all good. The Muslim conquest of
The movements in northern
The friars of the orders
founded by Ramananda, Kabir, Dadu, Chaitanya or Nanak were all agreed in
preaching the equality of human beings, however differing from each other in philosophy.
Their energy was for the most part spent in checking the rapid conquest of
Islam among the masses, and they had very little left to give birth to new
thoughts and aspirations. Though evidently successful in their purpose of
keeping the masses within the fold of the old religion, and tempering the
fanaticism of the Muslims, they were mere apologists, struggling to obtain
permission to live.(13)
2. The Mighty
Spiritual Genius Chaitanya and His Teaching of Worship through the Senses
Wherever the Hindi language
is spoken, even the lowest classes have more knowledge of the Vedantic religion
than many of the highest in
And why
so?
Transported from the soil
of Mithila to Navadwip and developed by the fostering genius of Shiromani,
Gadadhara, Jagadisha and a host of other great names, an analysis of the laws
of reasoning, in some points superior to every other system in the whole world,
expressed in wonderful and precise mosaic of language, stands the Nyaya of
Bengal, respected and studied throughout the length and breadth of Hindusthan.
But, alas, Vedic study was sadly neglected; and until within the last few
years, scarcely anyone could be found in
The commentary which Sri
Chaitanya wrote on the Vyasa-Sutras has either been lost or not found
yet. His disciples joined themselves to the Madhvas of the South, and gradually
the mantles of such giants as Rupa and Sanatana and Jiva Goswami fell on the
shoulders of the Babajis, and the great movement of Sri Chaitanya was decaying
fast, till of late years there is a sign of revival. I hope that it will regain
its lost splendor.
The influence of Sri
Chaitanya is all over
Vaishnavism (the religion
of Chaitanya) says, "It is all right, this tremendous love for father, for
mother, for brother, husband or child. It is all right, if only you think that
Krishna is the child; and when you give him or her food, that you are feeding
Krishna" This was the cry of Chaitanya: "Worship God through the
senses" - as against the Vedantic cry, "Control the senses! Suppress
the senses!"(15)
3. The Creative
Genius of Guru Govind Singh Produced the Political Unity of the Sikhs
One great prophet… arose in
the North, Guru Govind Singh, the last guru of the Sikhs, with creative genius;
and the result of his spiritual work was followed by the well-known political
organization of the Sikhs. We have seen throughout the history of India, a
spiritual upheaval is almost always succeeded by a political unity extending
over more or less the area of the continent, which in its turn helps to
strengthen the spiritual aspiration that brought it into being. But the
spiritual aspiration that preceded the rise of the Mahratta or the Sikh empire
was entirely reactionary. We seek in vain to find in the court of Poona or
f) The English
Occupation of
Then there came again a
period of confusion. Friends and foes, the Mogul empire and its destroyers, and
the till then peaceful foreign traders, French and English, all joined in a
melee of fight. For more than half a century there was nothing but wars and pillage
and destruction. And when the smoke and dust cleared,
After an age-long play of
action between the two forces [priests and kings], the final victory of the
royal power was echoed on the soil of India for several centuries in the name
of foreign monarchs professing an entirely different religion from the faith of
the land [the Moguls]. But at the end of this Muslim period, another entirely
new power made its appearance in the arena and slowly began to assert its
prowess in the affairs of the Indian world.
This power is so new, its
nature and working are so foreign to the Indian mind, its rise so
inconceivable, and its vigor so insuperable that, though it wields the suzerain
power up till now, only a handful of Indians understand what this power is.
We are talking of the
occupation of
From very ancient times,
the fame of
From time immemorial the
Indians have seen the mightiest royal power tremble before the frown of the
ascetic priest, devoid of worldly desire, armed with spiritual strength - the
power of mantras and religious lore - and the weapon of curses. They have also
seen the subject people silently obey the commands of their heroic,
all-powerful suzerains, backed by their armies, like a flock of sheep before a
lion. But that a handful of vaishyas (traders) who, despite their great wealth,
have ever crouched awe-stricken not only before the king but also before any
member of the royal family, would unite, cross for purposes of business, rivers
and seas, would, solely by virtue of their intelligence and wealth, by degrees
make puppets of the long-established Hindu and Muslim dynasties; not only so,
but that they would also buy the services of the ruling powers of their own
country and use their valor and learning as powerful instruments for the influx
of their own riches - this is a spectacle entirely novel to the Indians, as
also the spectacle that the descendants of the mighty nobility of [England]…
would, in no distant future, consider it the zenith of human ambition to be
sent to India as obedient servants of a body of merchants called the East India
Company - such a sight was, indeed, a novelty unseen by India before!(18)
2.The Religious Movements in
1. The New Sects Are
Merely Pleading for Permission to Live
There have been a few
religious movements amongst the Indian people during the British rule,
following the same line that was taken up by the northern sects during the sway
of the empire of
At the present moment, we
may see three different positions of the national religion - the orthodox, the
Arya Samaj, and the Brahmo Samaj. The orthodox covers the ground taken by the
Vedic Hindus of the Mahabharata epoch. The Arya Samaj corresponds to Jainism,
and the Brahmo Samaj to the Buddhists. (20)
2. Hindu Orthodoxy,
Terrible Orthodoxy
If you tell a Hindu,
"Our Bible does not say -so-and-so" [he or she will reply]: "Oh,
your Bible! It is a babe of history. What other Bible could there be except the
Vedas? What other book could there be? All knowledge is in God. Do you mean to
say that God teaches by two or more Bibles? God’s knowledge came out in the
Vedas. Do you mean to say that God committed a mistake, then? That, afterwards,
God wanted to do something better and taught another Bible to another nation?
You cannot bring another book that is as old as the Vedas. Everything else - it
was all copied after that." They would not listen to you. And the
Christian brings the Bible. They say, "That is a fraud. God speaks only
once, because God never makes mistakes."
Now, just think of that.
That orthodoxy is terrible. And if you ask Hindus that they are to reform their
society and do this and that, they say, "Is it in the books? If it is not,
I do not care to change. You wait, in five [hundred] years more you will find
that this is good." If you say to them, "This social institution that
you have is not right", they say, "How do you know that?" Then
they say, "Our social institutions in this matter are the better. Wait
five [hundred] years and your institution will die. The test is the survival of
the fittest. You live, but there is not one community in the world that lives
five hundred years together. Look here! We have been standing all the
time." That is what they would say. Terrible orthodoxy! And thank God I have
crossed that ocean.(21)
3. The Arya Samaj, Whose Teaching Goes against Received National Opinion
The idea that the Samhitas
are the only Vedas is very recent and has been started by the late Swami
Dayananda. This opinion has not got any hold on the orthodox population.
The reason for this opinion
was that, though Swami Dayananda could find a consistent theory of the whole
based on a new interpretation of the Samhitas, the difficulties remained the
same, only they fell back on the Brahmanas. And in spite of the theories of
interpretation and interpolation, a good deal still remains.
Now, if it is possible to
build a consistent religion on the Samhitas, it is a thousand times more sure that a very consistent and harmonious faith can be
based upon the Upanishads; and moreover, here one has not to go against the
already received national opinion. Here all the acharyas (teachers) of the past
would side with you and you have a vast scope for new progress.(22)
4. The Brahmo Samaj,
Which Could Not Hold Its Own against the "Old Vedanta"
The Brahmo Samaj, like
Christian Science in [the
h) The Violent
Conflict between the Western and Vedic Ideals Produced a Wave of Reformers Who
Simply Played into the Hands of the Europeans
In the beginning of the
present century, when Western influence began to pour into India, when Western
conquerors, sword in hand, came to demonstrate to the children of the sages
that they were mere barbarians, a race of dreamers, that their religion was but
mythology, and God and soul and everything they had been struggling for were
mere words without meaning, that the thousands of years of struggle, the
thousands of years of endless renunciation, had all been in vain, the question
began to be agitated among young men at the universities whether the whole
national existence up till then had been a failure, whether they must begin
anew on the occidental plan, tear up their old books, burn their philosophies,
drive away their preachers, and break down their temples. Did not the
occidental conquerors, the people who demonstrated their religion with sword
and gun, say that all the old ways were superstition and idolatry? Children
brought up and educated in the new schools started on the occidental plan drank
in these ideas from childhood; and it is not to be wondered at that doubts
arose. But instead of throwing away superstition and making a real search after
truth, the test of truth became, "What does the West say?" The priest
must go, the Vedas must be burned, because the West has said so.(24)
Our Hindu ancestors sat
down and thought of God and morality, and so we have brains to use for the same
ends; but in the rush of trying to get gain, we are likely to lose them again.(26)
On one side the new
On one side, new
On the one side, new
Have we not, then, to learn
anything from the West? Must we not needs try and
exert ourselves for better things? Are we perfect? Is our society entirely
spotless, without any flaw? There are many things to learn, we must struggle
for new and higher things till we die - struggle is the end of human life….
That person or that society which has nothing to learn is already in the jaws
of death. Yes. Learn we must many things from the West; but there are fears, as
well….
O,
The Western ladies move
freely everywhere, therefore that is good, they choose their husbands for
themselves; therefore that is the highest step of advancement; the Westerners
disapprove of our dress, decorations, food, and ways of living; therefore they
must be very bad; the Westerners condemn image worship as sinful; surely, then,
image worship is the greatest sin, there is no doubt of it!
The Westerners say that
worshipping a single deity is fruitful of the highest good, therefore let us
throw our gods and goddesses into the River Ganges! The Westerners hold caste
distinctions to be obnoxious, therefore let all the different castes be jumbled
into one! The Westerners say that child-marriage is the root of all evils, therefore that is also very bad, of a certainty it
is!
We are not discussing here
whether these customs deserve continuance or rejection; but if the mere
disapproval of the Westerners be the measure of the abominableness of our
manners and customs, then it is our duty to raise our emphatic protest against
it.(27)
Out of the feeling of
unrest produced [by the conflict of Western influence and the Vedantic
tradition] there arose a wave of so-called reform in India.(28)
The orthodox have more
faith and more strength in themselves [than the reformers], in spite of their
crudeness; but the reformers simply play into the hands of the Europeans and
pander to their vanity. (29)
The West wants every bit of
spirituality through social improvement. The East wants every bit of social
power through spirituality. Thus it was that the modern reformers saw no way to
reform but by first crushing out the religion of
i) Uniting under the
Common Ideal of Spirituality Will Alone Make the Future
We see how in Asia, and
especially in India, race difficulties, linguistic difficulties, social
difficulties, national difficulties, all melt away before the unifying power of
religion. We know that, to the Indian mind, there is nothing higher than religious
ideals, that this is the keynote of Indian life; and we can only work in the
line of least resistance. It is not only true that the ideal of religion is the
highest ideal; in the case of
The characteristic of [our]
nation is…transcendentalism, this struggle to go beyond, this daring to tear
the veil off the face of nature at any risk, at any price, a glimpse of the
beyond. That is our ideal; but of course all the people in a country cannot
give up entirely. Do you want to enthuse them? Then
here is the way to do so: your talk of politics, of social regeneration, you
talks of money-making and commercialism - all these will roll off like water
from a duck’s back. This spirituality, then, is what you have to teach to the
world. Have we to learn anything else, have we to learn anything from the
world? We have, perhaps, to gain a little material knowledge, in the power of
organization, in the ability to handle powers, organizing powers, in bringing
in the best results out of the smallest causes. This, perhaps, to a certain
extent we may learn from the West. But if anyone preaches in India the ideal of
eating and drinking and making merry, if anyone wants to apotheosize the
material world into a God, that he or she is a liar; he or she has no place in
this holy land, the Indian mind does not want to listen to him or her. Ay, in
spite of all the sparkle and glitter of Western civilization, in spite of all
its polish and its marvelous manifestation of power, standing upon this
platform I tell them to their face that it is all vain. It is vanity of
vanities. God alone lives, soul alone lives, spirituality
alone lives. Hold on to that.
Yet, perhaps, some sort of
materialism toned down to our own requirements, would be a blessing to many of
our brothers and sisters who are not yet ripe for the highest truths. This is
the mistake made in every country and every society; and it is a greatly
regrettable thing that in India, where it was always understood, the same
mistake of forcing the highest truths on people who are not ready for them has
been made of late. My method need not be yours. The sannyasin, as you all know,
is the ideal of the Hindu’s life and everyone by our Shastras is compelled to
give up. Every Hindu who has tasted the fruits of this world must give up in
the latter part of his or her life and whoever does not is not a Hindu and has
no more right to call him or herself a Hindu. We know that this is the ideal -
to give up after seeing and experiencing the vanity of things. Having found out
that the heart of the material world is a mere hollow, containing only ashes,
give it up and go back. The mind is circling forward, as it were, towards the
senses; and that mind has to circle backwards; the pravritti has to stop and
the nivritti has to begin. That is the ideal. But that ideal can only be
realized after a certain amount of experience. We cannot teach the child the
truth of renunciation; the child is a born optimist, his whole life is in his
or her senses, his whole life is one mass of sense-enjoyment. So, there are
childlike people in every society who require a certain amount of experience,
of enjoyment, to see through the vanity of it, and then renunciation will come
to them. There has been ample provision made for them in our books; but,
unfortunately, in later times there has been a tendency to bind everyone down
by the same laws as those by which the sannyasin is bound, and that is a great
mistake. But for that, a good deal of the poverty and misery that you see in
Renunciation - that is the
flag, the banner of India floating over the world, the one undying thought
which India sends again and again as a warning to dying races, as a warning to
all tyranny, as a warning to wickedness in the world. Ay, Hindus, let not your
hold of that banner go. Hold it aloft. Even if you are weak and cannot
renounce, do not lower the ideal. Say, "I am weak and cannot renounce the
world", but do not try to be hypocrites, torturing texts and making
specious arguments and trying to throw dust in the eyes of people who are
ignorant. Do not do that, but own you are weak. For the idea
is great, that of renunciation. What matters it if millions fail in the
attempt, if ten soldiers or even two return victorious! Blessed be the millions
dead! Their blood has bought the victory. This renunciation is the one idea
throughout the different Vedic sects except one, and that is the Vallabhacharya
sect in the Bombay Presidency - and most of you are aware of what comes where
renunciation does not exist. We want orthodoxy - even the hideously orthodox,
even those who smother themselves with ashes, even those who stand with their
hands uplifted. Ay, we want them, unnatural though they may be, for standing
for that idea of giving up, and acting as a warning to the race against
succumbing to the effeminate luxuries that are creeping into
Cross reference to:
Kaiv. Up., 2
References
1. CW, Vol.4: Modern India,
p.447.
2. Ibid., pp.444-445.
3. CW, Vol.4: Reply to the
Address of the Maharaja of Khetri, p.327.
4. CW, Vol.7: Memoirs of
European Travel, p.395.
5. CW, Vol.4: Modern India,
pp.445-447.
6. CW, Vol.6: The Historical
Evolution of India, p.165.
7. CW, Vol.7: Memoirs of
European Travel, pp.330-331.
8. CW, Vol.4: Reply to the
Madras Address, p.332.
9. CW, Vol.9: History of the
Aryan Race, p.255.
10. CW, Vol.3: The Future of
India, p.285.
11. CW, Vol.5: The Abroad
and the Problems at Home, p.217.
12. CW, Vol.3: The Future of
India, p.294.
13. CW, Vol.6: The
Historical Evolution of India, pp.165-166.
14. CW, Vol.4: Reply to the
Madras Address, pp.336-337.
15. Master as I Saw Him, Chapter
15: On Hinduism, pp.262-263.
16. CW, Vol.6: The
Historical Evolution of India, p.166.
17. Ibid.
18. CW, Vol.4: Modern India,
pp.448-449.
19. CW, Vol.6: The
Historical Evolution of India, pp.166-167.
20. Master as I Saw Him, loc.
cit., p.263.
21. CW, Vol.3: Buddhistic
India, pp.514-515.
22. CW, Vol.5: Letter to Mr.
–––– from Almora, June 1, 1897, p.130.
23. CW, Vol.7: Letter to
Professor John Wright from
24. CW, Vol.4: My Master,
p.158.
25. CW, Vol.4: Modern India,
pp.475-476.
26. CW, Vol.7: Inspired Talks,
July 23, 1895, p.64.
27. CW, Vol.4: Modern
28. CW, Vol.4: My Master,
p.158.
29. CW. Vol.5: The
Missionary Work of the First Hindu Sannyasin to the West, p.223.
30. CW, Vol.5: Letter to
Alasinga from the
31. CW, Vol.3: The Future of
India, pp.287-288.
32. CW, Vol.3: Reply to the
Address of Welcome at Ramnad, pp.149-151.
33. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
in All Its Phases, pp.344-345.
PART III, SECTION 7: THE FRAGMENTATION OF THE VEDIC MESSAGE
IN
Chapter 19: Intellectual and Social Abuses in Modern Times
a) For the Last
Thousand Years We Have Been Weakened by Non-Vedic Stories
1. In Their Ordinary
Lives Indians Are Mostly Puranic or Tantric
The Upanishads are our
scriptures. They have been differently explained and, as I have told you
already, whenever there is a difference between subsequent Puranic literature
and the Vedas, the Puranas must give way. But it is at the same time true that,
as a practical result, we find ourselves ninety percent Puranic and ten percent
Vedic - if even so much as that.(1)
There was a time in
Modern Hinduism is largely
Puranic, that is, post-Buddhistic, in origin. Dayananda Saraswati has pointed
out, [for example], that though a wife is absolutely necessary in the sacrifice
of the domestic fire, which is a Vedic rite, she may not touch the shalagrama
shila, or the household idol, because that dates from the later period of the
Puranas.(3)
The Tantras Are
Poisoning the Minds of the People of
There are in my motherland,
most unfortunately, persons who will take up one of the Tantras and say that
the practice of this Tantra is to be obeyed; he or she who does not do so is no
more orthodox in his or her views.(4)
When I see how much the
Vamachara [Tantra] has entered our [Bengali] society, I find it a most
disgraceful place, with all of its boast of culture.
These Vamachara sects are honeycombing our society in
The Strength-Giving,
Practical Upanishads Should Be Worshipped Rather Than the Puranas
I have always found
"occultism" injurious and weakening to humanity. What we want is
strength. We Indians, more than any other race, want strong and vigorous
thought. We have enough of the superfine in all concerns. For centuries we have
been stuffed with the mysterious; the result is that our intellectual an spiritual digestion is almost hopelessly impaired, and
the race has been dragged down to the depths of hopeless imbecility - never
before or since experienced by any other civilized community. There must be
freshness and vigor of thought to make a virile race. More than enough to
strengthen the whole world exists in the Upanishads. The Advaita is the eternal
mine of strength. But it requires to be applied. It must first be
cleared of the incrustation of scholasticism and then in all its simplicity,
beauty and sublimity be taught over the length and breadth of the land, as
applied to the minutest detail of daily life. "This is a very large
order"; but we must work towards it, nevertheless, as if it would be
accomplished tomorrow. Of one thing I am sure - that whoever wants to help his
fellow beings through genuine love and unselfishness will work wonders.(6)
The more I read the
Upanishads, my friends, my countrymen, the more I weep for you, for therein is
the great practical application. - strength, strength
for us What we need is strength. Who will give us strength? There are thousands
to weaken us, and of stories we have had enough. Every one of our Puranas, if
you press it, gives out stories enough to fill three-fourths of the libraries
of the world. Everything that can weaken us as a race we have had for the last
thousand years. It seems as if during that period the national life had this
one end in view, viz. how to make us weaker and weaker till we have become real
earthworms, crawling at the feet of everyone who dares to put his foot on us.
Therefore, my friends, as one of your blood, as one who lives and dies with you,
let me tell you that we want strength, strength, and every time strength. And
the Upanishads are the great mine of strength.(7)
But nowadays we have put
the Puranas on an even higher pedestal than the Vedas! The study of the Vedas
has almost disappeared from
b) The Degeneration
of the Caste System Has Led to
1. The Heredity Caste
System Must Go, for It has Replaced the Original
System Based on Individual Qualities
From the time of the
Upanishads down to the present day, nearly all of our great teachers have
wanted to break through the barriers of caste, i.e. caste in its degenerate
state, not the original system. What little good you see in the present caste
clings to it from the original caste, which was the most glorious social
institution.(9)
The jati dharma or dharma
enjoined according the different castes, this swadharma, that is, one’s own
dharma (the set of duties prescribed for people according to their capacity and
position), is the very basis of Vedic religion and Vedic society…. It is the
path of welfare for all societies in every land, the ladder to ultimate
freedom. With the decay of this jati dharma, this swadharma,
has come the downfall of our land. But the jati dharma or swadharma as commonly
understood at present by the higher castes is rather a new evil, which has to
be guarded against. They think they know everything of jati dharma, but really
they know nothing of it. Regarding their own village customs as the eternal
customs laid down by the Vedas, and appropriating to
themselves all the privileges they are going to their doom! I am not talking of
caste as determined by qualitative distinction, but of the hereditary caste
system. I admit that the qualitative caste system is the primary one; but the
pity is that qualities yield to birth in two or three generations.(10)
There is a certain class of
people whose conviction is that, from time eternal, there is a treasure of
knowledge which contains the wisdom of everything past, present and
future. These people hold that is was their own
forebears who had the sole privilege of having the custody of this treasure.
The ancient sages, the first possessors of it, bequeathed in succession this
treasure and its true import to their descendants only. They are, therefore,
the only inheritors to it; as such, let the rest of the world worship them.
May we ask these people
what they think should be the condition of the other peoples who have not got
such forebears? "Their condition is doomed"
is the general answer. The more kind-hearted among them are perchance pleased to
rejoin, "Well, let them come and serve us. As a reward for such service,
they will be born in our caste in the next birth. That is the only hope we can
hold out to them." "Well, the moderns are making many new and
original discoveries in the field of science and the arts which you neither
dreamt of, nor it there any proof that your forebears ever had any knowledge
of. What do you say to that?" "Why, certainly our forebears know all
these things, the knowledge of which is now unfortunately lost to us. Do you
want proof? I can show you one. Look! Here is a secret Sanskrit verse…."
Needless to add that the modern party, who believes in direct evidence only,
never attaches any seriousness to such replies and proofs.(11)
That we have fallen is the
sure sign that the basis of the jati dharma has been tampered with. Therefore,
what you call the jati dharma is quite contrary to what we have in fact. First,
read your Shastras through and through, and you will easily see that what the
Shastras define as caste dharma has disappeared almost everywhere from the land.(12)
The caste system [as
practiced] is opposed to the religion of the Vedanta. Caste is a social custom,
and all our great teachers have tried to break it down. From Buddhism onwards,
every sect has preached against caste and every time it has only riveted the
chains. Caste is simply the outgrowth of the political institutions of
Although our caste rules
have so far changed from the time of Manu still, if he should come to us now,
he would call us Hindus. Caste is a social organization and not a religious
one. It was the outcome of the natural evolution of our society. It was found
necessary and convenient at one time. It has served its purpose. But for it, we
would long ago have become Muslims. It is useless now. It may be dispensed
with. The Hindus religion no longer require the prop of the caste system.(14)
2. The Ideal of Caste
Is to Raise Humanity Slowly and Gently to the Level of the Ideal Spiritual
Person
The solution [to the
problem of caste] is not by bringing down the higher, but by raising the lower
up to the level of the higher. And that is the line of work that is found in
all our books, in spite of what you may hear from some people whose knowledge
of their own scriptures and whose capacity to understand the mighty plans of
the ancients are only zero. They do not understand; but those do who have
brains, who have the intellect to grasp the whole
scope of the work. They stand aside and follow the wonderful procession of
national life through the ages. They can trace it step by step through all the
books, ancient and modern. What is the plan? The ideal at one end is the brahmin and at the other end, the chandala, and the whole
work is to raise the chandala to the brahmin. Slowly and slowly you find more
and more privileges granted to them. There are books where you read such fierce
words as these: "If the shudra hears the Vedas, fill his ears with molten
lead; and if he remembers a line, cut his tongue out. If he says to the brahmin, ‘You brahmin’ cut his tongue out." This is
diabolical old barbarism, no doubt - that goes without saying - but do not
blame the law-givers, who simply record the customs of the community. Such
devils sometimes arose among the ancients. There have been devils everywhere,
more or less, in all ages. Accordingly, you will find that later on this tone
is modified a little, as for instance: "Do not disturb the shudras, but do
not teach them higher things." Then gradually we find in other Smritis,
especially those that have full power now, that if the shudras imitate the
manners and customs of the brahmins, they do well and
ought to be encouraged. Thus it is going on. I have no time to place before you
all these workings, not how they can be traced out in detail; but coming to
plain facts, we find that all the castes are to rise slowly and slowly. There
are thousands of castes, and some are even getting admission into brahminhood -
for what prevents any caste from declaring that they are brahmins?
Thus caste, with all its rigor, has been created in
that manner. Let us suppose that there are castes here with ten thousand people
in each. If these put their heads together and said, "We will call
ourselves brahmins", nothing can stop them. I have seen it in my own life.
Some castes become strong, and as soon as they all agree, who is to say nay?
Because whatever it was, each caste was made exclusive of the other. It did not
meddle with others’ affairs; even the several divisions of one caste did not
meddle with the other divisions. Those powerful epoch-makers, Shankaracharya
and others, were the great caste-makers. I cannot tell
you all the wonderful things they fabricated, and some
of you may resent what I have to say. But in my travels and experiences I have
traced them out and have arrived at most wonderful results. They would
sometimes get hold of hordes of Baluchis [aboriginals] and at once make them
kshatriyas; also get hold of hordes of fishermen and make them brahmins
forthwith.(15)
Our solution of the caste
question is not degrading those who are already high up, is not running amok
through food and drink, is not jumping out of our own limits to have more
enjoyment; but it comes by every one of us fulfilling the dictates of our
Vedantic religion, by our attaining spirituality and by our becoming the ideal
brahmin. There is a law laid on each one of you in this land [of
3. If the Brahmins
Cannot Live Up to the Vedas Themselves Let Them Accept Others and Build Up a
New Aryan Society
Where are the four castes
today in this country? Answer me, [brahmins of
The meaning of the mantras
in the shraddha ceremony [for ancestors] is very edifying. The mantras depict
the suffering and care undergone by our parents on our behalf. The performance
of it is an honor paid to the memory of the sum total of the spirits of our
forebears, whose virtues we inherit. Sraddha has nothing to do with one’s
salvation. Yet no Hindu who loves his or her religion, his or her country, his
or her past and his or her great forebears should give up shraddha. The outward
formalities and the feeding of brahmins are not
essential. We have no brahmins in these days worthy of
being fed on shraddha days. The brahmins fed ought not
to be professional eaters, but brahmins who feed disciples gratis and
teach them true Vedic doctrines. In these days, shraddha may be performed
mentally.(18)
c) Blind Allegiance
to Non-Vedic Usages Has Been One of the Main Causes of the Downfall of
1. The Real Worship
in
The Vedanta was (and is)
the boldest system of religion. It stopped nowhere, and it had one advantage:
there was no body of priests who sought to suppress every one who tried to tell
the truth. There was always absolute religious freedom. In
We all find the most
contradictory usages prevailing in our [Indian] midst and also religious
opinions prevailing in[Indian] society which scarcely
have any authority in the scriptures of the Hindus; and in many cases we read
in books and see with astonishment, customs of the country that have neither
their authority in the Vedas nor in the Smritis nor Puranas, but are simply
local. And yet each ignorant villager thinks that if that little local custom
dies out, he or she will no more remain a Hindu. In his or her mind Vedantism
and these little local customs have been indissolubly identified. In reading
the scriptures it is hard for him or her to understand that what he or she is
doing has not the sanction of the scriptures, and that the giving up of them
will not hurt him or her at all; but, on the contrary, will make him or her a better
person. (20)
Unfortunately for
Minor social usages will
also be recognized and accepted when they are compatible with the spirit of the
true scriptures and the conduct and example of the holy sages. But blind
allegiance only to usages such as are repugnant to the spirit of the Shastras and
the conduct of holy sages has been one of the main causes of the downfall of
the Aryan race.(22)
There is the towering
temple of the eternal Hindu religion, and how many ways of approaching it! And
what can you not find there? From the absolute Brahman of the Vedantin down to
Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Shakti, Uncle Sun, the rat-riding Ganesha, and the minor
deities such as Shashthi and Makal, and so forth. Which is lacking there? And
in the Vedas, in the Vedanta and the philosophies, in the Puranas and the
Tantras, there are lots of materials, a single sentence of which is enough to
break one’s chain of transmigration for ever. And, Oh! The crowd! Millions and
millions of people are rushing towards the temple. I, too, had a curiosity to
see and join in the rush. But what was this that met my eyes when I reached the
spot! Nobody was going inside the temple! By the side of the door there was
standing a figure with fifty heads, a hundred arms, two hundred bellies, and
five hundred legs; and everyone was rolling at the feet of it. I asked someone
the reason and got the reply; "Those deities that you see in the interior,
it is worship enough for them to make a short prostration, or throw in a few
flowers from a distance. But the real worship must be offered to him who is at
the gate; and those Vedas, the Vedanta, the philosophies, the Puranas, and
other scriptures that you see - there is no harm if you hear them read now and
again; but you must obey the mandate of this one." Then I asked again,
"Well, what is the name of this God of gods?" "He is named Popular
Custom - came the reply.(23)
2. The Identification
of Vedanta with Popular Custom in the Common Mind Is Based upon Juggling with
the Meaning of the Vedas
There is another
difficulty: these scripture of ours have been very vast. We read in the Mahabhashya
of Patanjali, that great philological work, that the Sama-Veda had one
thousand branches. Where are they all? Nobody knows. So with
each of the Vedas; the major portion of these books have disappeared, and it is
only the minor portion that remains with us. They were all taken charge
of by particular families; and either those families died out or were killed
under foreign persecution, or somehow became extinct; and with them that branch
of the learning of the Vedas they took charge of became extinct also. This fact
we ought to remember, as it always forms the sheet-anchor in the hands of those
who want to preach anything new or to defend anything, even against the Vedas.
Wherever in
One more
idea. There is a
peculiar custom in
Any number
of lies in the name of a religious book are all right. In India, if I
want to teach anything new and simply state it on my own authority, as what I
think, nobody will come to listen to me; but if I take some passage from the
Vedas and juggle with it, and give it the most impossible meaning, murder
everything that is reasonable in it, and bring out my own ideas as the ideas
that were meant by the Vedas, all the fools will follow me in a crowd.(26)
I am very sorry to notice
in [
Poor fellows! Whatever the
rascally and wily priests teach them - all sort of mummery and tomfoolery as
the very gist of the Vedas and Hinduism (mind you, neither these rascals of
priests nor their forebears have so much as seen a volume of the Vedas
for the last four hundred generations) - they follow, and degrade themselves.
Lord help them from the rakshasas (demons) in the shape of the brahmins of the
Kali Yuga.(27)
3. Modern Hinduism
Has Lost the Spirit of Religion and Become a Religion of "Don’t
Touchism"
A dreadful slough is in front
of you - take care; many fall into it and die. The slough is this, that the
present religion of the Hindu is not in the Vedas, nor in the Puranas, nor in
bhakti, nor in mukti - religion has entered the
cooking-pot. The present religion of the Hindus is neither the path or
knowledge nor that of reason - it is "don’t
touchism". "Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!" - that exhausts its description. See that you do not lose your
lives in this dire irreligion of "don’t touchism"…; it is a form of
mental disease.(28)
There is a danger of our
religion getting into the kitchen. We are neither Vedantists, most of us now,
nor Pauranics, nor Tantrics. We are just "don’t touchists". Our
religion is in the kitchen. Our God is the cooking-pot, and our religion is, "Don’t
touch me, I am holy." If this goes on for another century, every one of us
will be in a lunatic asylum. It is a sure sign of softening of the brain when
the mind cannot grasp the higher problems of life; all originality is lost, the
mind has lost all its strength, its activity, and its power and thought, and
just tries to go round and round in the smallest curve it can find. (29)
The Vedas have two parts,
mandatory and optional. The mandatory injunctions are eternally binding on us
and constitute the Hindu religion. The optional ones are not so. The brahmins at one time ate beef and married shudras. A calf
was killed to please the guest. Shudras cooked for brahmins.
The food cooked by a male brahmin was considered as polluted food.(30)
In Pilibit in January of
1901, the swami adduced facts and authorities from the Vedas and the Samhitas
in proof of his claim [that] even the Vedic rishis ate, and enjoined upon
others, to eat beef, the very name of which is not offensive to the ears of
orthodox Hindus. In the old Vedic period it was the practice to kill cows in
honor of guests and at certain ceremonies and on auspicious occasions, and he
supported his remarks by dilating on the evils that had accrued in the
degeneracy of the Hindu race through the fanaticism of anti- meat-eating and
the deshacharas and lokacharas [local customs] of the so-called orthodoxists.(31)
The Hindu religion no
longer requires the prop of the caste system. A brahmin
may interdine with anybody, even a pariah. He or she won’t thereby lose his or
her spirituality. A degree of spirituality that is destroyed by the touch of a
pariah is a very poor quantity. It is almost at the zero point. Spirituality of
a brahmin must overflow, blaze and burn, so as to warm
into spiritual life not only one pariah, but thousands of pariahs who may touch
him or her. The old rishis observed no distinctions or restrictions as regards
food. Anyone who feels that his or her spirituality is so flimsy that the sight
of a low caste person annihilates it, need not approach a pariah and must keep
his precious little to him or herself.(32)
People in
In modern
d) Treading on the
Necks of the Poor and the Low Has Made the Orthodox Hindus Objects of
Indifference and Contempt and Undermined Faith in the Vedic Seers
1. By Despising the
Lower Classes and Monopolizing Religious Knowledge for a Very Long Time, the
Brahmins Themselves Have Become Beasts of Burden
In this country of ours,
the very birthplace of Vedanta, our masses have been hypnotized for ages into
[slavery and weakness]. To touch them is pollution, to
sit with them is pollution! Hopeless they were born, hopeless they must remain!
And the result is that they have been sinking, sinking, sinking, and have come
to the last stage to which a human being can come. For what country is there in
the world where people have to sleep with the cattle? And for this blame nobody
else, do not make the mistake of the ignorant. The effect is here, and the
cause is, too. We are to blame. Stand up, be bold, and take the blame on your
own shoulders. Do not go about throwing mud at others; for all the faults you
suffer from you are the sole and only cause.(35)
Swami Vivekananda: You have been despising the lower
classes of the country for a very long time and, as a result, you have now
become objects of contempt in the eyes of the world.
[Brahmin] Disciple: When did you find us despising them?
Swami Vivekananda: Why, [the] priest class never let
the non-brahmin read the Vedas and Vedanta, and all such weighty Shastras -
never touch them, even… They have only kept them down. It is they who have
always done like that through selfishness. It was the brahmins
who made a monopoly of the religious books and kept the question of sanction
and prohibition in their own hands. And, repeatedly calling the other races of
Disciple: Yes, sir, the stricture of orthodoxy
is gradually lessening nowadays.
Swami Vivekananda: It is as it should be. The brahmins, in fact, gradually took a course of gross
immorality and oppression. Through selfishness they introduced a large number
of strange, non-Vedic, immoral and unreasonable doctrines - simply to keep
their own prestige. And the fruits of that they are reaping forthwith.
Disciple: What may those fruits be, sir?
Swami Vivekananda: Don’t you perceive them? It is
simply due to you [brahmins] having despised the masses of India that you have
now been living a life of slavery for the last thousand years; it is therefore
that you are objects of hatred in the eyes of foreigners and are looked upon
with indifference by your countrymen.(36)
And where are they through
whose physical labor only are possible the influence
of the brahmin, the prowess of the kshatriya and the fortune of the vaishya?
What is their history who, being the real body of society,
are designated at all times in all countries as "the base
born"? - for whom kind India has prescribed the mild punishments, "Cut
out his tongue, chop off his flesh", and others of like nature, for such a
grave offense as any attempt on their part to gain a share of the knowledge and
wisdom monopolized by the higher classes - those " moving corpses" of
India, and the "beasts of burden" of other countries - the shudras;
what is their lot in life? What shall I say of
2. Lack of Sympathy
Has Hidden the Vedantic Conception of the Dignity of Humanity
Oh, how my heart aches to
think of what we think of the poor, the low, in
No religion on earth
preaches the dignity of humanity in such a lofty strain as does Hinduism, and
no religion on earth treads upon the necks of the poor and the low in such a
fashion as Hinduism. The Lord has shown me that religion is not at fault, but
it is the Pharisees and Sadducees in Hinduism, hypocrites who invent all sorts
of engines of tyranny in the shape of doctrines of paramarthika and
vyavaharika. [supreme truth versus "common
life"](38)
I claim that no destruction
of religion is necessary to improve Hindu society, and that this state of
society exists, not on account of religion, but because religion has not been
applied to society as it should have been. This I am ready to prove from our
old books, every word of it.(39)
The Shastras start by
giving the right to study the Vedas to everybody, without distinction of sex,
caste or creed.(40)
Ay, but it was only for the
sannyasin - rahasya, (esoteric)! The Upanishads were in the hands of the
sannyasin; he went into the forest! Shankara was a little kind and said that
even grihasthas (householders) may study the Upanishads; it will do them good;
it will not hurt them. But still the idea is that the Upanishads talked only of
the forest life of the recluse… These conceptions of the Vedanta must come out,
must remain, not only in the forest, not only in the cave, but also they must
come out to work at the bar and the bench, in the pulpit, and in the cottage of
the poor,, with the fishermen that are catching fish, and with the students
that are studying. They call to every man, woman, and child, whatever be their
occupation, wherever they may be.(41)
3. Under
Buddhism and Foreign Invasion Women Were Deprived of Their Vedic Rights
It is very difficult to
understand why in [
Q: Are you… entirely satisfied with the
position of women [in
Swami Vivekananda: By no means; but our right of
interference is limited entirely to giving education. Women must be put in a
position to solve their own problems in their own way. No one can or ought to
do this for them. Our Indian women are as capable of doing it as any in the
world.
Q: How do you account for the evil
influence which you attribute to Buddhism?
Swami Vivekananda: It came only with the decay of the
faith. Every movement triumphs by dint of some unusual characteristic and, when
it falls, that point of pride becomes its chief element of weakness. The Lord
Buddha - the greatest of men - was a marvelous organizer and carried the world
by this means. But his religion was the religion of a monastic order. It had,
therefore, the evil effect of making the very robe of the monk honored. He also
introduced for the first time the community life of religious houses and
thereby necessarily made women inferior to men, since the great abbesses could
take no important step without the advice of certain abbots. In ensured its
immediate object - the solidarity of the faith. You see, only its far-reaching
effects are to be deplored.
Q: But sannyasa is recognized in the
Vedas!
Swami Vivekananda: Of course it is, but without making
any distinction between men and women (43)
The vaishya and the shudra
[when writing letters] should sign themselves as dasa and dasi [servant,
male or female]; but the brahmin and kshatriya should
write deva and devi. [god and goddess].
Moreover, these distinctions of case and the like have been the invention of
our modern, sapient brahmins. Who is a servant, and to
whom? Everyone is a servant of the Lord Hari. Hence a woman should use her
patronymic, that is, the surname of her husband. This is the ancient Vedic
custom.(44)
In what scriptures do you
find statements that women are not competent for knowledge and devotion? In the
period of degradation, when the priests made the other castes incompetent for
the study of the Vedas, they deprived women also of their rights.(45)
There is a passage in the
later law books that a women shall not read the Vedas.
So it is prohibited to a weak brahmin, even; if a
brahmin boy is not strong-minded, the law applies to him also. But that does
not show that education is prohibited to them, for the Vedas are not all that
the Hindus have. Every other book a woman can read, all the mass of Sanskrit
literature, that whole ocean of literature, science, drama, poetry is all for
them; they can go there and read that, except the scriptures. In later days the
idea was that a woman was not intended to be a priest; what is the use of her
studying the Vedas?(46)
[The barbarous custom of ] child-marriage was resorted to in northern
4. Out of a Strong
Desire for Progress, the Brahmins Have Taken Up Western Usages and Belittle the
Aryan Sages
There is no escaping out of
[the endless net of priestly power] now. Tear the net and the priesthood of the
priest is shaken to its foundation! There is implanted in everyone, naturally,
a strong desire for progress; and those who, finding that the fulfillment of
this desire is an impossibility so long as one is trammeled in the shackles of
priesthood, rend this net and take to the profession of other castes in order
to earn money thereby - them, society immediately dispossesses of their
priestly rights. Society has no faith in the brahmin-hood of the so-called brahmins who, instead of keeping the shikha [sacred tuft of
hair], part their hair; who, giving up their ancient habits and ancestral
customs, clothe themselves in semi-European dress and adopt the newly
introduced usages from the West in a hybrid fashion. Again, in those parts of
India, wherever this newcomer, the English government, is introducing new modes
of education and opening up new channels for the coming in of wealth, there
hosts of brahmin youths are giving up their hereditary priestly profession and
trying to earn their livelihood and become rich by adopting the calling of
other castes, with the result that the habits and customs of the priestly
class, handed down from our distant forebears, are scattered to the winds and
are fast disappearing from the land.(48)
There are people today who,
after drinking the cup of Western wisdom, thinks that they know everything.
They laugh at the ancient sages. All Hindu thought is to them arrant trash -
philosophy mere child’s prattle, and religion the superstition of fools. On the
other hand there are people - educated, but a sort of monomaniacs, who run to
the other extreme and want to explain the omen of this and that. They has philosophical and metaphysical, and Lord knows what
other puerile explanations for every superstition that belongs to their
particular race, or their peculiar gods, or their peculiar village. Every
little village superstition is to them a mandate of the Vedas; and upon the
carrying out of it, according to them, depends the national life. You must
beware of this. I would rather see every one of you rank atheists than
superstitious fools, for atheists are alive and you can make something out of
them. But if superstition enters, the brain is gone, the brain is softening, degradation has seized upon life. Avoid these two.(49)
There are two great
obstacles on our path in
A pandit asked Swami
Vivekananda if there was any harm in giving up sandhyavandanam or prayers
performed in the morning, noon and evening, which he had had to do for lack of
time. "What!" cried out the swami, almost with ferocity, "Those
giants of old, the ancient rishis, who never walked, but strode - the like of
whom, if you are to think [of] for a moment, you would be shriveled into a moth
- they, sir, had time and you have none!"… When a Westernized Hindu spoke
in a belittling manner of the "meaningless teachings" of the Vedic
seers, the swami fell upon him with thunderbolt vehemence, crying out,
"Man, a little learning has muddled your brain! How dare you criticize
your venerable forebears, how dare you bastardize the blood of the rishis in
your veins by speaking in such a fashion! Have you tested the science of the
rishis? Have you even so much as read the Vedas? There is the challenge thrown
by the rishis! If you dare oppose them, take it up, put their teachings to the
test, and they shall not be found wanting! What is making this race
contemptible is just such intellectual bigotry and lop-sidedness as you
manifest!"(51)
5. Lack of Faith and
Physical Weakness Have Broken the Backbone of
What do we want in
What we want is… shraddha,
[faith]. Unfortunately, it has nearly vanished from
Would you believe me, we
have less faith than the Englishman or woman - a thousand times less faith!
These are plain words, but I say them; I cannot help it. Don’t you see how the
Englishmen and women, when they catch our ideals, become mad, as it were; and,
although they are the ruling class, they come to
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1. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in Its
Application to Indian Life, p.231.
2. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta in
All Its Phases, p.324.
3. CW, Vol.5: On Indian
Women - Their Past, Present and Future, p.229.
4. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta in
All Its Phases, p.333.
5. Ibid., pp.340-341.
6. CW, Vol.9: The Editor of The
Light of the East, 1896, pp.76-77.
7. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in Its
Application to Indian Life, p.238.
8. CW, Vol.3: The Religion
We Are Born In, p.457.
9. CW, Vol.5:
10. CW, Vol.5: The East and
the West, pp.455-456.
11. CW, Vol.4: Knowledge,
Its Source and Acquirement, p.433.
12. CW, Vol.5: The East and
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13. CW, Vol.5: Questions and
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14.
Shankari Prasad Basu, "Swami Vivekananda in
15. CW, Vol.3: The Future of
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16. CW, Vol.3: The Mission
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17. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
in All Its Phases, pp.339-340.
18. Sankari Prasad Basu, op.
cit., p.297.
19. CW, Vol.2: maya and the
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20. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in
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21. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
in All Its Phases, p.333.
22. CW, Vol.6: Hinduism and
Shri Ramakrishna, p.182.
23. CW, Vol.6: Matter for
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24. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in
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25. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
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26. CW, Vol.4: Addresses on
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27. CW, Vol.8: Letter to
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28. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
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29. CW, Vol.3: Reply to the
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30. Shankari Prasad Basu,
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31. Life, Vol.3,
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32. Shankari Prasad Basu,
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33. CW, Vol.5: The
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34. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
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36. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
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37. CW, Vol.4: Modern India,
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38. CW, Vol.5: Letter to
Alasinga from
39. CW, Vol.5: Letter to
Alasinga from
40. CW, Vol.3: Bhakti,
p.389.
41. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in
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42. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
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43. CW, Vol.5: Indian Women
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44. CW, Vol.6: Letter to Indumati
Mitra from
45. CW, Vol.7: Conversation,
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46. SVW, Vol.2, Appendix C:
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47. SVW, Vol.1,Chapter 4: The Midwestern Tour, p.214.
48. CW, Vol.4: Modern India,
pp.456-457.
49. CW, Vol.3: The Work
before Us, p.278.
50. CW, Vol.3: Reply to the
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51. Life,Vol.2, Chapter
74: In Madras and
52. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in
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53. CW, Vol.3: Address of
Welcome Presented at
54. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in
Its Application to Indian Life, pp.243-244.
To be
continued…..