THE
VEDANTA
(Delivered
at Lahore on 12th November, 1897)
Two
worlds there are in which we live, one the external, the other internal.
Human progress has been made, from days of yore, almost in parallel lines
along both these worlds. The search began in the external, and man at
first wanted to get answers for all the deep problems from outside nature.
Man wanted to satisfy his thirst for the beautiful and the sublime from
all that surrounded him; he wanted to express himself and all that was
within him in the language of the concrete; and grand indeed were the
answers he got, most marvellous ideas of God and worship, and most
rapturous expressions of the beautiful. Sublime ideas came from the
external world indeed. But the other, opening out for humanity later, laid
out before him a universe yet sublimer, yet more beautiful, and infinitely
more expansive. In the Karma Kânda portion of the Vedas, we find the most
wonderful ideas of religion inculcated, we find the most wonderful ideas
about an overruling Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer of the universe
presented before us in language sometimes the most soul-stirring. Most of
you perhaps remember that most wonderful Shloka in the Rig-Veda Samhitâ
where you get the description of chaos, perhaps the sublimest that has
ever been attempted yet. In spite of all this, we find it is only a
painting of the sublime outside, we find that yet it is gross, that
something of matter yet clings to it. Yet we find that it is only the
expression of the Infinite in; the language of matter, in the language of
the finite, it is,. the infinite of the muscles and not of the mind; it is
the infinite of space and not of thought. Therefore in the second portion
of Jnâna Kânda, we find there is altogether
a
different procedure. The first was a search in external nature for the
truths of the universe; it was an attempt to get the solution of the deep
problems of life from the material world. 
—
"Whose glory these Himalayas declare". This is a grand idea, but
yet it was not grand enough for India. The Indian mind had to fall back,
and the research took a different direction altogether; from the external
the search came to the internal, from matter to mind. There arose the cry,
"When a man dies, what becomes of him?"
—
"Some say that he exists, others that he is gone; say, O king of
Death, what is the truth?" An entirely different procedure we find
here. The Indian mind got all that could be had from the external world,
but it did not feel satisfied with that; it wanted to search further, to
dive into its own soul, and the final answer came.
The Upanishads, or
the Vedanta, or the Âranyakas, or Rahasya is the name of this portion of
the Vedas. Here we find at once that religion has got rid of all external
formalities. Here we find at once that spiritual things are told not in
the language of matter, but in the language of the spirit; the superfine
in the language of the superfine. No more any grossness attaches to it, no
more is there any compromise with things of worldly concern. Bold, brave,
beyond the conception of the present day, stand the giant minds of the
sages of the Upanishads, declaring the noblest truths that have ever been
preached to humanity, without any compromise, without any fear. This, my
countrymen, I want to lay before you. Even the Jnana Kanda of the Vedas is
a vast ocean; many lives are necessary to understand even a little of it.
Truly has it been said of the Upanishads by Râmânuja that they form the
head, the shoulders, the crest of the Vedas, and surely enough the
Upanishads have become the Bible of modern India. The Hindus have the
greatest respect for the Karma Kanda of the Vedas, but, for all practical
purposes, we know that
for
ages by Shruti has been meant the Upanishads, and the Upanishads alone. We
know that all our great philosophers, whether Vyâsa, Patanjali, or
Gautama, and even the father of all philosophy, the great Kapila himself,
whenever they wanted an authority for what they wrote, everyone of them
found it in the Upanishads, and nowhere else, for therein are the truths
that remain for ever.
There are truths
that are true only in a certain line, in a certain direction, under
certain circumstances, and for certain times — those that are founded on
the institutions of the times. There are other truths which are based on
the nature of man himself, and which must endure so long as man himself
endures. These are the truths that alone can be universal, and in spite of
all the changes that have come to India, as to our social surroundings,
our methods of dress, our manner of eating, our modes of worship — these
universal truths of the Shrutis, the marvellous Vedantic ideas, stand out
in their own sublimity, immovable, unvanquishable, deathless, and
immortal. Yet the germs of all the ideas that were developed in the
Upanishads had been taught already in the Karma Kanda. The idea of the
cosmos which all sects of Vedantists had to take for granted, the
psychology which has formed the common basis of all the Indian schools of
thought, had there been worked out already and presented before the world.
A few words, therefore, about the Karma Kanda are necessary before we
begin the spiritual portion, the Vedanta; and first of all I should like
to explain the sense in which I use the word Vedanta.
Unfortunately there
is the mistaken notion in modern India that the word Vedanta has reference
only to the Advaita system; but you must always remember that in modern
India the three Prasthânas are considered equally important in the study
of all the systems of religion. First of all there are the Revelations,
the Shrutis, by which I mean the Upanishads. Secondly, among our
philosophies,
the
Sutras of Vyasa have the greatest prominence on account of their being the
consummation of all the preceding systems of philosophy. These systems are
not contradictory to one another, but one is based on another, and there
is a gradual unfolding of the theme which culminates in the Sutras of
Vyasa. Then, between the Upanishads and the Sutras, which are the
systematising of the marvellous truths of the Vedanta, comes in the Gita,
the divine commentary of the Vedanta.
The Upanishads, the Vyâsa-Sutras,
and the Gita, therefore, have been taken up by every sect in India that
wants to claim authority for orthodoxy, whether dualist, or Vishishtâdvaitist,
or Advaitist; the authorities of each of these are the three Prasthanas.
We find that a Shankaracharya, or a Râmânuja, or a Madhvâchârya, or a
Vallabhâcharya, or a Chaitanya — any one who wanted to propound a new
sect —had to take up these three systems and write only a new commentary
on them. Therefore it would be wrong to confine the word Vedanta only to
one system which has arisen out of the Upanishads. All these are covered
by the word Vedanta. 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 Vedantist.
I want you to note that these three systems have been current in India
almost from time immemorial; for you must not believe that Shankara was
the inventor of the Advaita system. It existed ages before Shankara was
born; he was one of its last representatives. So with the Vishishtadvaita
system: it had existed ages before Ramanuja appeared, as we already know
from the commentaries he has written; so with the dualistic systems that
have existed side bv side with the others. And with my little knowledge, I
have come to the conclusion that they do not contradict each other.
Just as in the case
of the six Darshanas, we find they
times
motion, and often people confuse one with the other. We must guard against
that. And what becomes of what you call matter? The forces permeate all
matter; they all dissolve into Âkâsha, from which they again come out;
this Akasha is the primal matter. Whether you translate it as ether or
anything else, the idea is that this Akasha is the primal form of matter.
This Akasha vibrates under the action of Prana, and when the next Srishti
is coming up, as the vibration becomes quicker, the Akasha is lashed into
all these wave forms which we call suns, moons, and systems.
We read again: 
—
"Everything in this universe has been projected, Prana
vibrating." You must mark the word Ejati, because it comes from Eja
— to vibrate. Nihsritam — projected. Yadidam Kincha — whatever in
this universe.
This is a part of
the cosmological side. There are many details working into it. For
instance, how the process takes place, how there is first ether, and how
from the ether come other things, how that ether begins to vibrate, and
from that Vâyu comes. But the one idea is here that it is from the finer
that the grosser has come. Gross matter is the last to emerge and the most
external, and this gross matter had the finer matter before it. Yet 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, there is the unity of
matter, called Akasha. Is there any unity to be found among them again?
Can they be melted into one? Our modern science is mute here, it has not
yet found its way out; and if it is doing so, just as it has been slowly
finding the same old Prana and the same ancient Akasha, it will have to
move along the same lines.
The next unity is
the omnipresent impersonal Being known by its old mythological name as
Brahmâ, the fourheaded Brahma and psychologically called Mahat. This
is
where the two unite. What is called your mind is only a bit of this Mahat
caught in the trap of the brain, and the sum total of all minds caught in
the meshes of brains is what you call Samashti, the aggregate, the
universal. Analysis had to go further; it was not yet complete. Here we
were each one of us, as it were, a microcosm, and the world taken
altogether is the macrocosm. But whatever is in the Vyashti, the
particular, we may safely conjecture that a similar thing is happening
also outside. If we had the power to analyse our own minds, we might
safely conjecture that the same thing is happening in the cosmic mind.
What is this mind is the question. In modern times, in Western countries,
as physical science is making rapid progress, as physiology is step by
step conquering stronghold after stronghold of old religions, the Western
people do not know where to stand, because to their great despair, modern
physiology at every step has identified the mind with the brain. But we in
India have known that always. That is the first proposition the Hindu boy
learns 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
is also material, only finer; and it is not the Âtman.
I will not translate
this word to you in English, because the idea does not exist in Europe; it
is untranslatable. The modern attempt of German philosophers is to
translate the word Atman by the word "Self", and until that word
is universally accepted, it is impossible to use it. So, call it as Self
or anything, it is our Atman. This Atman is the real man behind. It is the
Atman that uses the material mind as its instrument, its Antahkarana, as
is the psychological term for the mind. And the mind by means of a series
of internal organs works the visible organs of the body. What is this
mind? It was only the other day that Western philosophers have come to
know that the eyes are not the real organs of vision, but that
behind
these are other organs, the Indriyas, and if these are destroyed, a man
may have a thousand eyes, like Indra, but there will be no sight for him.
Ay, your philosophy starts with this assumption that by vision is not
meant the external vision. The real vision belongs to the internal organs,
the brain-centres inside. You may call them what you like, but it is not
that the Indriyas are the eyes, or the nose, or the ears. And the sum
total of all these Indriyas plus the Manas, Buddhi, Chitta, Ahamkâra,
etc., is what is called the mind, and if the modern physiologist comes to
tell you that the brain is what is called the mind, and that the brain is
formed of so many organs, you need not be afraid at all; tell him that
your philosophers knew it always; it is one of the very first principles
of your religion.
Well then, we have
to understand now what is meant by this Manas, Buddhi, Chitta, Ahamkara,
etc. First of all, let us take Chitta. It is the mind-stuff — a part of
the Mahat — it is the generic name for the mind itself, including all
its various states. Suppose on a summer evening, there is a lake, smooth
and calm, without a ripple on its surface. And suppose some one throws a
stone into this lake. What happens? First there is the action, the blow
given to the water; next the water rises and sends a reaction towards the
stone, and that reaction takes the form of a wave. First the water
vibrates a little, and immediately sends back a reaction in the form of a
wave. The Chitta let us compare to this lake, and the external objects are
like the stones thrown into it. As soon as it comes in contact with any
external object by means of these Indriyas — the Indriyas must be there
to carry these external objects inside — there is a vibration, what is
called Manas, indecisive. Next there is a reaction, the determinative
faculty, Buddhi, and along with this Buddhi flashes the idea of Aham and
the external object. Suppose there is a mosquito sitting upon my hand.
This sensation is carried to my Chitta and it vibrates a little; this is
the psychological Manas. Then there is a reaction, and immediately comes
the idea that I have a mosquito on my hand and that I shall have to drive
it off. Thus these stones are thrown into the lake, but in the case of the
lake every blow that comes to it is from the external world, while in the
case of the lake of the mind, the blows may either come from the external
world or the internal world. This whose series is what is called the
Antahkarana.
Along with it, you
ought to understand one thing more that will help us in understanding the
Advaita system later on. It is this. All of you must have seen pearls and
most of you know how pearls are formed. A grain of sand enters into the
shell of a pearl oyster, and sets up an irritation there, and the oyster's
body reacts towards the irritation and covers the little particle with its
own juice. That crystallises and forms the pearl. So the whole universe is
like that, it is the pearl which is being formed by us. What we get from
the external world is simply the blow. Even to be conscious of that blow
we have to react, and as soon as we react, we really project a portion of
our own mind towards the blow, and when we come to know of it, it is
really our own mind as it has been shaped by the blow. Therefore it is
clear even to those who want to believe in a hard and fast realism of an
external world, which they cannot but admit in these days of physiology
— that supposing we represent the external world by "x",
what we really know is "x" plus mind, and this
mind-element is so great that it has covered the whole of that "x"
which has remained unknown and unknowable throughout; and, therefore, if
there is an external world, it is always unknown and unknowable. What we
know of it is as it is moulded, formed, fashioned by our own mind. So with
the internal world. The same applies to our own soul, the Atman. In order
to know the Atman we shall have to know It through the mind; and,
therefore, what
little
eve know of this Atman is simply the Atman plus the mind. That is to say,
the Atman covered over, fashioned and moulded by the mind, and nothing
more. We shall return to this a little later, but we will remember what
has been told here.
The next thing to
understand is this. The question arose that this body is the name of one
continuous stream of matter — every moment we are adding material to it,
and every moment material is being thrown oft by it — like a river
continually flowing, vast masses of water always changing places; yet all
the same, we take up the whole thing in imagination, and call it the same
river. What do we call the river? Every moment the water is changing, the
shore is changing, every moment the environment is changing, what is the
river then? It is the name of this series of changes. So with the mind.
That is the great Kshanika Vijnâna Vâda doctrine, most difficult to
understand, but most rigorously and logically worked out in the Buddhistic
philosophy; and this arose in India in opposition to some part of the
Vedanta. That had to be answered and we shall see later on how it could
only be answered by Advaitism and by nothing else. We will see also how,
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 means of worship, very satisfying to the mind, and maybe,
they have helped the mind onward; but if man wants to be rational and
religious at the same time, Advaita is the one system in the world for
him. Well, now, we shall regard the mind as a similar river, continually
filling itself at one end and emptying itself at the other end. Where is
that unity which we call the Atman? The idea is this, that in spite of
this continuous change in the body, and in spite of this continuous change
in the mind, there is in us something that is unchangeable, which makes
our ideas of
things
appear unchangeable. When rays of light coming from different quarters
fall upon a screen, or a wall, or upon something that is not changeable,
then and then alone it is possible for them to form a unity, then and then
alone it is possible for them to form one complete whole. Where is this
unity in the human organs, falling upon which, as it were, the various
ideas will come to unity and become one complete whole? This certainly
cannot be the mind itself, seeing that it also changes. Therefore there
must be something which is neither the body nor the mind, something which
changes not, something permanent, upon which all our ideas, our sensations
fall to form a unity and a complete whole; and this is the real soul, the
Atman of man. And seeing that everything material, whether you call it
fine matter, or mind, must be changeful, seeing that what you call gross
matter, the external world, must also be changeful in comparison to that
— this unchangeable something cannot be of material substance; therefore
it is spiritual, that is to say, it is not matter — it is
indestructible, unchangeable.
Next will come
another question: Apart from those old arguments which only rise in the
external world, the arguments in support of design — who created this
external world, who created matter, etc.? The idea here is to know truth
only from the inner nature of man, and the question arises just in the
same way as it arose about the soul. Taking for granted that there is a
soul, unchangeable, in each man, which is neither the mind nor the body,
there is still a unity of idea among the souls, a unity of feeling, of
sympathy. How is it possible that my soul can act upon your soul, where is
the medium through which it can work, where is the medium through which it
can act? How is it I can feel anything about your souls? What is it that
is in touch both with your soul and with my soul? Therefore there is a
metaphysical necessity of admitting another soul, for it must be a soul
which acts in contact all the
different
souls, and in and through matter — one Soul which covers and
interpenetrates all the infinite number of souls in the world, in and
through which they live, in and through which they sympathise, and love,
and work for one another. And this universal Soul is Paramâtman, the Lord
God of the universe. Again, it follows that because the soul is not made
of matter, since it is spiritual, it cannot obey the laws of matter, it
cannot be judged by the laws of matter. It is, therefore, unconquerable,
birthless, deathless, and changeless.
— "This Self,
weapons cannot pierce, nor fire can burn, water cannot wet, nor air can
dry up. Changless, allpervading, unmoving, immovable, eternal is this
Self of man." We learn according to the Gita and the Vedanta that
this individual Self is also Vibhu, and according to Kapila, is
omnipresent. Of course there are sects in India which hold that the Self
is Anu, infinitely small; but what they mean is Anu in manifestation; its
real nature is Vibhu, all-pervading.
There comes another
idea, startling perhaps, yet a characteristically Indian idea, and if
there is any idea that is common to all our sects, it is this. Therefore I
beg you to pay attention to this one idea and to remember it, for this is
the very foundation of everything that we have in India. The idea is this.
You have beard of the doctrine of physical evolution preached in the
Western world by the German and the English savants. It tells us that the
bodies of the different animals are really one; the differences that we
see are but different expressions of the same series; that from the lowest
worm to the highest and the most saintly man it is but one — the one
changing into the other, and so on, going up and up, higher and higher,
until it attains perfection. We had that idea also. Declares our
corner
of his field he brings water from a reservoir somewhere, and perhaps he
has got a little lock that prevents the water from rushing into his field.
When he wants water, he has simply to open the lock, and in rushes the
water of its own power. The power has not to be added, it is already there
in the reservoir. So every one of us, every being, has as his own
background such a reservoir of strength, infinite power, infinite purity,
infinite bliss, and existence infinite — only these locks, these bodies,
are hindering us from expressing what we really are to the fullest.
And as these bodies
become more and more finely organised, as the Tamoguna becomes the
Rajoguna, and as the Rajoguna becomes Sattvaguna, more and more of this
power and purity becomes manifest, and therefore it is that our people
have been so careful about eating and drinking, and the food question. It
may be that the original ideas have been lost, just as with our marriage
— which, though not belonging to the subject, I may take as an example.
If I have another opportunity I will talk to you about these; but let me
tell you now that the ideas behind our marriage system are the only ideas
through which there can be a real civilisation. There cannot be anything
else. If a man or a woman were allowed the freedom to take up any woman or
man as wife or husband, if individual pleasure, satisfaction of animal
instincts, were to be allowed to run loose in society, the result must be
evil, evil children, wicked and demoniacal. Ay, man in every country is,
on the one hand, producing these brutal children, and on the other hand
multiplying the police force to keep these brutes down. The question is
not how to destroy evil that way, but how to prevent the very birth of
evil. And so long as you live in society your marriage certainly affects
every member of it; and therefore society has the right to dictate whom
you shall marry, and whom you shall not. And great ideas of this kind have
been be
hind
the system of marriage here, what they call the astrological Jati of the
bride and bridegroom. And in passing I may remark that According to Manu a
child who is born of lust is not an Aryan. The child whose very conception
and whose death is according to the rules of the Vedas, such is an Aryan.
Yes, and less of these Aryan children are being produced in every country,
and the result is the mass of evil which we call Kali Yuga. But we have
lost all these ideals — it is true we cannot carry all these ideas to
the fullest length now — it is perfectly true we have made almost a
caricature of some of these great ideas. It is lamentably true that the
fathers and mothers are not what they were in old times, neither is
society so educated as it used to be, neither has society that love for
individuals that it used to have. But, however faulty the working out may
be, the principle is sound; and if its application has become defective,
if one method has failed, take up the principle and work it out better;
why kill the principle? The same applies to the food question. The work
and details are bad, very bad indeed, but that does not hurt the
principle. The principle is eternal and must be there. Work it out afresh
and make a re-formed application.
This is the orate
great idea of the Atman which every one of our sects in India has to
believe. Only, as we shall find, the dualists, preach that this Atman by
evil works becomes Sankuchita, i.e. all its powers and its nature become
contracted, and by good works again that nature expands. And the Advaitist
says that the Atman never expands nor contracts, but seems to do so. It
appears to have become contracted. That is all the difference, but all
have the one Idea that our Atman has all the powers already, not that
anything will come to It from outside, not that anything will drop into It
from the skies. Mark you, your Vedas are not inspired, but expired, not
that they came from anywhere outside, but they are the eternal laws living
in every soul. The Vedas are in the soul of the ant,
in
the soul of the god. The ant has only to evolve and get the body of a sage
or a Rishi, and the Vedas will come out, eternal laws expressing
themselves. This is the one great idea to understand that our power is
already ours, our salvation is already within us. Say either that it has
become contracted, or say that it has been covered with the veil of Mâyâ,
it matters little; the idea is there already; you must have to believe in
that, believe in the possibility of everybody — that even in the lowest
man there is the same possibility as in the Buddha. This is the doctrine
of the Atman.
But now comes a
tremendous fight. Here are the Buddhists, who equally analyse the body
into a material stream and as equally analyse the mind into another. And
as for this Atman, they state that It is unnecessary; so we need not
assume the Atman at all. What use of a substance, and qualities adhering
to the substance? We say Gunas, qualities, and qualities alone. It is
illogical to assume two causes where one will explain the whole thing. And
the fight went on, and all the theories which held the doctrine of
substance were thrown to the ground by the Buddhists. There was a break-up
all along the line of those who held on to the doctrine of substance and
qualities, that you have a soul, and I have a soul, and every one has a
soul separate from the mind and body, and that each one is an individual.
So far we have seen
that the idea of dualism is all right; for there is the body, there is
then the fine body — the mind — there is this Atman, and in and
through all the Atmans is that Paramâtman, God. The difficulty is here
that this Atman and Paramatman are both called substance, to which the
mind and body and so-called substances adhere like so many qualities.
Nobody has ever seen a substance, none can ever conceive; what is the use
of thinking of this substance? Why not become a Kshanikavâdin and say
that whatever exists is this succes
sion
of mental currents and nothing more? They do not adhere to each other,
they do not form a unit, one is chasing the other, like waves in the
ocean, never complete, never forming one unit-whole. Man is a succession
of waves, and when one goes away it generates another, and the cessation
of these wave-forms is what is called Nirvana. You see that dualism is
mute before this; it is impossible that it can bring up any argument, and
the dualistic God also cannot be retained here. The idea of a God that is
omnipresent, and yet is a person who creates without hands, and moves
without feet, and so on, and who has created the universe as a Kumbhakâra
(potter) creates a Ghata (pot), the Buddhist declares, is childish, and
that if this is God, he is going to fight this God and not worship it.
This universe is full of misery; if it is the work of a God, we are going
to fight this God. And secondly, this God is illogical and impossible, as
all of you are aware. We need not go into the defects of the "design
theory", as all our Kshanikas have shown them full well; and so this
Personal God fell to pieces.
Truth, and nothing
but truth, is the watchword of the Advaitist.
— "Truth
alone triumphs, and not, untruth. Through truth alone the way to gods,
Devayâna, lies." Everybody marches forward under that banner; ay,
but it is only to crush the weaker man's position by his own. You come
with your dualistic idea of God to pick a quarrel with a poor man who is
worshipping an image, and you think you are wonderfully rational, you can
confound him; but if he turns round and shatters your own Personal God and
calls that an imaginary ideal, where are you? You fall back on faith and
so on, or raise the cry of atheism, the old cry of a weak man —
whosoever defeats him is an atheist. If you are to be rational, be
rational all along the line, and if not, allow others the same privilege
which you ask for yourselves. How can you prove the
existence
of this God? On the other hand, it can be almost disproved. There is not a
shadow of a proof as to His existence, and there are very strong arguments
to the contrary. How will you prove His existence, with your God, and His
Gunas, and an infinite number of souls which are substance, and each soul
an individual? In what are you an individual? You are not as a body, for
you know today better than even the Buddhists of old knew that what may
have been matter in the sun has just now become matter in you, and will go
out and become matter in the plants; then where is your individuality, Mr.
So-and-so? The same applies to the mind. Where is your individuality? You
have one thought tonight and another tomorrow. You do not think the same
way as you thought when you were a child; and old men do not think the
same way as they did when they were young. Where is your individuality
then? Do not say it is in consciousness, this Ahamkara, because this only
covers a small part of your existence. While I am talking to you, all my
organs are working and I am not conscious of it. If consciousness is the
proof of existence they do not exist then, because I am not conscious of
them. Where are you then with your Personal God theories? How can you
prove such a God?
Again, the Buddhists
will stand up and declare — not only is it illogical, but immoral, for
it teaches man to be a coward and to seek assistance outside, and nobody
can give him such help. Here is the universe, man made it; why then depend
on an imaginary being outside whom nobody ever saw, or felt, or got help
from? Why then do, you make cowards of yourselves and teach your children
that the highest state of man is to be like a dog, and go crawling before
this imaginary being, saying that you are weak and impure, and that you
are everything vile in this universe? On the other hand, the Buddhists may
urge not only that you tell a lie, but that you bring a tremen
it
so, that Chaitanya is necessary to bring the plant to fruition? If I plant
the seed and add water, no Chaitanya is necessary. You may say there was
some original Chaitanya there, but the souls themselves were the Chaitanya,
nothing else is necessary. If human souls have it too, what necessity is
there for a God, as say the Jains, who, unlike the Buddhists, believe in
souls and do not believe in God. Where are you logical, where are you
moral? And when you criticise Advaitism and fear that it will make for
immorality, just read a little of what has been done in India by dualistic
sects. If there have been twenty thousand Advaitist blackguards, there
have also been twenty thousand Dvaitist blackguards. Generally speaking,
there will be more Dvaitist blackguards, because it takes a better type of
mind to understand Advaitism, and Advaitists can scarcely be frightened
into anything. What remains for you Hindus, then? There is no help for you
out of the clutches of the Buddhists. You may quote the Vedas, but he does
not believe in 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." How do you escape?
Here is the way to
get out. Take up the first objection, the metaphysical one, that substance
and qualities are different. Says the Advaitist, they are not. There is no
difference between substance and qualities. You know the old illustration,
how the rope is taken for the snake, and when you see the snake you do not
see the rope at all, the rope has vanished. Dividing the thing into
substance and quality is a metaphysical something in the brains of
philosophers, for never can they be in effect outside. You see qualities
if you are an ordinary man, and substance if you are a great Yogi, but you
never see both at the same
time.
So, Buddhists, your quarrel about substance and qualities has been but a
miscalculation which does not stand on fact. But if substance is
unqualified, there can only be one. If you take qualities off from the
soul, and show that these qualities are in the mind really, superimposed
on the soul, then there can never be two souls for it is qualification
that makes the difference between one soul and another. How do you know
that one soul is different from the other? Owing to certain
differentiating marks, certain qualities. And where qualities do not
exist, how can there be differentiation? Therefore there are not two
souls, there is but One, and your Paramatman is unnecessary, it is this
very soul. That One is called Paramatman, that very One is called Jivâtman,
and so on; and you dualists, such as the Sânkhyas and others, who say
that the soul is Vibhu, omnipresent, how can you make two infinities?
There can be only one. What else? This One is the one Infinite Atman,
everything else is its manifestation. There the Buddhist stops, but there
it does not end.
The Advaitist
position is not merely a weak one of criticism. The Advaitist criticises
others when they come too near him, and just throws them away, that is
all; but he propounds his own position. He is the only one that criticises,
and does not stop with criticism and showing books. Here you are. You say
the universe is a thing of continuous motion. In Vyashti (the finite)
everything is moving; you are moving, the table is moving, motion
everywhere; it is Samsâra, continuous motion; it is Jagat. Therefore
there cannot be an individuality in this Jagat, because individuality
means that which does not change; there cannot be any changeful
individuality, it is a contradiction in terms. There is no such thing as
individuality in this little world of ours, the Jagat. Thought and
feeling, mind and body, men and animals and plants are in a continuous
state of flux. But suppose you take the universe as a unit whole; can it
change or move? Certainly not.
come
to you: If this is Brahman, how can we know it?
— "By what
can the knower be known?" How can the knower be known? The eyes see
everything; can they see themselves? They cannot: The very fact of
knowledge is a degradation. Children of the Aryans, you must remember
this, for herein lies a big story. All the Western temptations that come
to you, have their metaphysical basis on that one thing — there is
nothing higher than sense-knowledge. In the East, we say in our Vedas that
this knowledge is lower than the thing itself, because it is always a
limitation. When you want to know a thing, it immediately becomes limited
by your mind. They say, refer back to that instance of the oyster making a
pearl and see how knowledge is limitation, gathering a thing, bringing it
into Consciousness, and not knowing it as a whole. This is true about all
knowledge, and can it be less so about the Infinite? Can you thus limit
Him who is the substance of all knowledge, Him who is the Sâkshi, the
witness, without whom you cannot have any knowledge, Him who has no
qualities, who is the Witness of the whole universe, the Witness in our
own souls? How can you know Him? By what means can you bind Him up?
Everything, the whole universe, is such a false attempt. This infinite
Atman is, as it were, trying to see His own face, and all, from the lowest
animals to the highest of gods, are like so many mirrors to reflect
Himself in, and He is taking up still others, finding them insufficient,
until in the human body He comes to know that it is the finite of the
finite, all is finite, there cannot be any expression of the Infinite in
the finite. Then comes the retrograde march, and this is what is called
renunciation, Vairâgya. Back from the senses, back! Do not go to the
senses is the watchword of Vairagya. This is the watchword of all
morality, this is the watchword of all well-being; for you must remember
that with us the universe begins in Tapasyâ, in renuncia
tion,
and as you go back and back, all the forms are being manifested before
you, and they are left aside one after the other until you remain what you
really are. This is Moksha or liberation.
This idea we have to
understand: —
"How to know the knower?" The knower cannot be known, because if
it were known, it will not be the knower. If you look at your eyes in a
mirror, the reflection is no more your eyes, but something else, only a
reflection. Then if this soul, this Universal, Infinite Being which. you
are, is only a witness, what good is it? It cannot live, and move about,
and enjoy the world, as we do. People cannot understand how the witness
can enjoy. "Oh," they say, "you Hindus have become
quiescent, and good for nothing, through this doctrine that you are
witnesses! " First of all, it is only the witness that can enjoy. If
there is a wrestling match, who enjoys it, those who take part in it, or
those who are looking on — the outsiders? The more and more you are the
witness of anything in life, the more you enjoy it. And this is Ânanda;
and, therefore, infinite bliss can only be yours when you have become the
witness of this universe; then alone you are a Mukta Purusha. It is the
witness alone that can work without any desire, without any idea of going
to heaven, without any idea of blame, without any idea of praise. The
witness alone enjoys, and none else.
Coming to the moral
aspect, there is one thing between the metaphysical and the moral aspect
of Advaitism; it is the theory of Mâyâ. Everyone of these points in the
Advaita system requires years to understand and months to explain.
Therefore you will excuse me if I only just touch them en passant.
This theory of Maya has been the most difficult thing to understand in all
ages. Let me tell you in a few words that it is surely no theory, it is
the combination of the three ideas Desha-Kâla-Nimitta — space, time,
and causation — and this time
and
space and cause have been further reduced into Nâma-Rupa. Suppose there
is a wave in the ocean. The wave is distinct from the ocean only in its
form and name, and this form and this name cannot have any separate
existence from the wave; they exist only with the wave. The wave may
subside, but the same amount of water remains, even if the name and form
that were on the wave vanish for ever. So this Maya is what makes the
difference between me and you, between all animals and man, between gods
and men. In fact, it is this Maya that causes the Atman to be caught, as
it were, in so many millions of beings, and these are distinguishable only
through name and form. If you leave it alone, let name and form go, all
this variety vanishes for ever, and you are what you really are. This is
Maya.
It is again no
theory, but a statement of facts. When the realist states that this table
exists, what he means is, that this table has an independent existence of
its own, that it does not depend on the existence of anything else in the
universe, and if this whole universe be destroyed and annihilated, this
table will remain just as it is now. A little thought will show you that
it cannot be so. Everything here in the sense-world is dependent and
interdependent, relative and correlative, the existence of one depending
on the other. There are three steps, therefore, in our knowledge of
things; the first is that each thing is individual and separate from every
other; and the next step is to find that there is a relation and
correlation between all things; and the third is that there is only one
thing which we see as many. The first idea of God with the ignorant is
that this God is somewhere outside the universe, that is to say, the
conception of God is extremely human; He does just what a man does, only
on a bigger and higher scale. And we have seen how that idea of God is
proved in a few words to be unreasonable and insufficient. And the next
idea is the idea of a power we
see
manifested everywhere. This is the real Personal God we get in the Chandi,
but, mark me, not a God that you make the reservoir of all good qualities
only. You cannot have two Gods, God and Satan; you must have only one and
dare to call Him good and bad. Have only one and take the logical
consequences. We read in the Chandi: "We salute Thee, O Divine
Mother, who lives in every being as peace. We salute Thee, O Divine
Mother, who lives in all beings as purity." At the same time we must
take the whole consequence of calling Him the All-formed. "All this
is bliss, O Gargi; wherever there is bliss there is a portion of the
Divine," You may use it how you like. In this light before me, you
may give a poor man a hundred rupees, and another man may forge your name,
but the light will be the same for both. This is the second stage. And the
third is that God is neither outside nature nor inside nature, but God and
nature and soul and universe are all convertible terms. You never see two
things; it is your metaphysical words that have deluded you. You assume
that you are a body and have a soul, and that you are both together. How
can that be? Try in your own mind. If there is a Yogi among you, he knows
himself as Chaitanya, for him the body has vanished. An ordinary man
thinks of himself as a body; the idea of spirit has vanished from him; but
because the metaphysical ideas exist that man has a body and a soul and
all these things, you think they are all simultaneously there. One thing
at a time. Do not talk of God when you see matter; you see the effect and
the effect alone, and the cause you cannot see, and the moment you can see
the cause, the effect will have vanished. Where is the world then, and who
has taken it off?
"One that is
present always as consciousness, the bliss absolute, beyond all bounds,
beyond all compare, beyond all qualities, ever-free, limitless as the sky,
without parts, the absolute, the perfect — such a Brahman, O sage, O
learned
one, shines in the heart of the Jnâni in Samâdhi. (Vivekachudamani,
408).
"Where all the
changes of nature cease for ever, who is thought beyond all thoughts, who
is equal to all yet having no equal, immeasurable, whom Vedas declare, who
is the essence in what we call our existence, the perfect — such a
Brahman, O sage, O learned one, shines in the heart of the Jnani in
Samadhi. (Ibid., 409)
"Beyond all
birth and death, the Infinite One, incomparable, like the whole universe
deluged in water in Mahâpralaya — water above, water beneath, water on
all sides, and on the face of that water not a wave, not a ripple —
silent and calm, all visions have died out, all fights and quarrels and
the war of fools and saints have ceased for ever — such a Brahman, O
sage, O learned one, shines in the heart of the Jnani in Samadhi."
(Ibid., 410)
That also comes, and
when that comes the world has vanished.
We have seen then
that this Brahman, this Reality is unknown and unknowable, not in the
sense of the agnostic, but because to know Him would be a blasphemy,
because you are He already. We have also seen that this Brahman is not
this table and yet is this table. Take off the name and form, and whatever
is reality is He. He is the reality in everything.
"Thou art the
woman, thou the man, thou art the boy, and the girl as well, thou the old
man supporting thyself on a stick, thou art all in all in the
universe." That is the theme of Advaitism. A few words more. Herein
lies, we find, the explanation of the essence of things. We have seen how
here alone we can take a firm stand against all the onrush of logic and
scientific knowledge. Here at last reason has a firm foundation, and, at
the same time, the Indian Vedantist does not curse the preceding steps; he
looks back and he blesses them, and he knows that they were true, only
wrongly perceived, and wrongly stated.
They
were the same truth, only seen through the glass of Maya, distorted it may
be — yet truth, and nothing but truth. The same God whom the ignorant
man saw outside nature, the same whom the little - knowing man saw as
interpenetrating the universe, and the same whom the sage realises as his
own Self, as the whole universe itself — all are One and the same Being,
the same entity seen from different standpoints, seen through different
glasses of Maya, perceived by different minds, and all the difference was
caused by that. Not only so, but one view must lead to the other. What is
the difference between science and common knowledge? Go out into the
streets in the dark, and if something unusual is happening there, ask one
of the passers-by what is the cause of it. If is ten to one that he will
tell you it is a ghost causing the phenomenon. He is always going after
ghosts and spirits outside, because it is the nature of ignorance to seek
for causes outside of effects. If a stone falls, it has been thrown by a
devil or a ghost, says the ignorant man, but the scientific man says it is
the law of nature, the law of gravitation.
What is the fight
between science and religion everywhere? Religions are encumbered with
such a mass of explanations which come from outside — one angel is in
charge of the sun, another of the moon, and so on ad infinitum.
Every change is caused by a spirit, the one common point of agreement
being that they are all outside the thing. Science means that the cause of
a thing is sought out by the nature of the thing itself. As step by step
science is progressing, it has taken the explanation of natural phenomena
out of the hands of spirits and angels. Because Advaitism has done
likewise in spiritual matters, it is the most scientific religion. This
universe has not been created by any extra-cosmic God, nor is it the work
of any outside genius. It is self-creating, self-dissolving,
self-manifesting, One Infinite Existence, the
Brahman.
Tattvamasi Shvetaketo — "That thou art! O Shvetaketu!"
Thus you see that
this, and this alone, and none else, can be the only scientific religion.
And with all the prattle about science that is going on daily at the
present time in modern half-educated India, with all the talk about
rationalism and reason that I hear every day, I expect that; whole sects
of you will come over and dare to be Advaitists, and dare to preach it to
the world in the words of Buddha, 
—
"For the good of many, for the happiness of many." If you do
not, I take you for cowards. If you cannot get over your cowardice, if
your fear is your excuse, allow the same liberty to others, do not try to
break up the poor idol-worshipper, do not call him a devil, do not go
about preaching to every man, that does not agree entirely with you. Know
first, that you are cowards yourselves, and if society frightens you, if
your own superstitions of the past frighten you so much, how much more
will these superstitions frighten and bind down those who are ignorant?
That is the Advaita position. Have mercy on others. Would to God that the
whole world were Advaitists tomorrow, not only in theory, but in
realisation. But if that cannot be, let us do the next best thing; let us
take the ignorant by the band, lead them always step by step just as they
can go, and know that every step in all religious growth in India has been
progressive. It is not from bad to good, but from good to better.
Something more has
to be told about the moral relation. Our boys blithely talk nowadays; they
learn from somebody — the Lord knows from whom — that Advaita makes
people immoral, because if we are all one and all God, what need of
morality will there be at all! In the first place, that is the argument of
the brute, who can only be kept down by the whip. If you are such brutes,
commit suicide rather than pass for human beings
who
have to be kept down by the whip. If the whip is taken away, you will all
be demons! You ought all to be killed if such is the case. There is no
help for you; you must always be living under this whip and rod, and there
is no salvation, no escape for you.
In the second place,
Advaita and Advaita alone explains morality. Every religion preaches that
the essence of all morality is to do good to others. And why? Be
unselfish. And why should I? Some God has said it? He is not for me. Some
texts have declared it? Let them; that is nothing to me; let them all tell
it. And if they do, what is it to me? Each one for himself, and somebody
take the hindermost — that is all the morality in the world, at least
with many. What is the reason that I should be moral? You cannot explain
it except when you come to know the truth as given in the Gita: "He
who sees everyone in himself, and himself in everyone, thus seeing the
same God living in all, he, the sage, no more kills the Self by the
self." Know through Advaita that whomsoever you hurt, you hurt
yourself; they are all you. Whether you know it or not, through all hands
you work, through all feet you move, you are the king enjoying in the
palace, you are the beggar leading that miserable existence in the street;
you are in the ignorant as well as in the learned, you are in the man who
is weak, and you are in the strong; know this and be sympathetic. And that
is why we must not hurt others. That is why I do not even care whether I
have to starve, because there will be millions of mouths eating at the
same time, and they are all mine. Therefore I should not care what becomes
of me and mine, for the whole universe is mine, I am enjoying all the
bliss at the same time; and who can kill me or the universe? Herein is
morality. Here, in Advaita alone, is morality explained. The others teach
item but cannot give you its reason. Then, so far about explanation.
What
is the gain? It is strength. Take off that veil of hypnotism which you
have cast upon the world, send not out thoughts and words of weakness unto
humanity. Know that all sins and all evils can be summed up in that one
word, weakness. It is weakness that is the motive power in all evil doing;
it is weakness that is the source of all selfishness; it is weakness that
makes men injure others; it is weakness that makes them manifest what they
are not in reality. Let them all know what they are; let them repeat day
and night what they are. Soham. Let them suck it in with their mothers'
milk, this idea of strength — I am He, I am He. This is to be heard
first — 
etc.
And then let them think of it, and out of that thought, out of that heart
will proceed works such as the world has never seen. What has to be done?
Ay, this Advaita is said by some to be impracticable; that is to say, it
is not yet manifesting itself on the material plane. To a certain extent
that is true, for remember the saying of the Vedas:
"Om,
this is the Brahman; Om, this is the greatest reality; he who knows the
secret of this Om, whatever he desires that he gets." Ay, therefore
first know the secret of this Om, that you are the Om; know the secret of
this Tattvamasi, and then and then alone whatever you want shall come to
you. If you want to be great materially, believe that you are so. I may be
a little bubble, and you may be a wave mountain-high, but know that for
both of us the infinite ocean is the background, the infinite Brahman is
our magazine of power and strength, and we can draw as much as we like,
both of us, I the bubble and you the mountain-high wave. Believe,
therefore, in yourselves. The secret of Advaita is: Believe in yourselves
first, and then believe in anything else. In the history of the world, you
will find that only those nations that have
believed
in themselves have become great and strong. In the history of each nation,
you will always find that only those individuals who have believed in
themselves have become great and strong. Here, to India, came an
Englishman who was only a clerk, and for want of funds and other reasons
he twice tried to blow his brains out; and when he failed, he believed in
himself, he believed that he was born to do great things; and that man
became Lord Clive, the founder of the Empire. If he had believed the
Padres and gone crawling all his life — "O Lord, I am weak, and I
am low" — where would he have been? In a lunatic asylum. You also
are made lunatics by these evil teachings. I have seen, all the world
over, the bad effects of these weak teachings of humility destroying the
human race. Our children are brought up in this way, and is it a wonder
that they become semi-lunatics?
This is teaching on
the practical side. Believe, therefore, in yourselves, and if you want
material wealth, work it out; it will come to you. If you want to be
intellectual, work it out on the intellectual plane, and intellectual
giants you shall be. And if you want to attain to freedom, work it out on
the spiritual plane, and free you shall be and shall enter into Nirvana,
the Eternal Bliss. But one defect which lay in the Advaita was its being
worked out so long on the spiritual plane only, and nowhere else; now the
time has come when you have to make it practical. It shall no more be a
Rahasya, a secret, it shall no more live with monks in caves and forests,
and in the Himalayas; it must come down to the daily, everyday life of the
people; it shall be worked out in the palace of the king, in the cave of
the recluse; it shall be worked out in the cottage of the poor, by the
beggar in the street, everywhere; anywhere it can be worked out. Therefore
do not fear whether you are a woman or a Shudra, for this religion is so
great, says Lord Krishna, that even a little of it brings a great amount
of good.
Therefore, children
of the Aryans, do not sit idle; awake, arise, and stop not till the goal
is reached. The time has come when this Advaita is to be worked out
practically. Let us bring it down from heaven unto the earth; this is the
present dispensation. Ay, the voices of our forefathers of old are telling
us to bring it down from heaven to the earth. Let your teachings permeate
the world, till they have entered into every pore of society, till they
have become the common property of everybody, till they have become part
and parcel of our lives, till they have entered into our veins and tingle
with every drop of blood there.
Ay, you may be
astonished to hear that as practical Vedantists the Americans are better
than we are. I used to stand on the seashore at New York and look at the
emigrants coming from different countries — crushed, downtrodden,
hopeless, unable to look a man in the face, with a little bundle of
clothes as all their possession, and these all in rags; if they saw a
policeman they were afraid and tried to get to the other side of the
foot-path. And, mark you, in six months those very men were walking erect,
well clothed, looking everybody in the face; and what made this wonderful
difference? Say, this man comes from Armenia or somewhere else where he
was crushed down beyond all recognition, where everybody told him he was a
born slave and born to remain in a low state all his life, and where at
the least move on his part he was trodden upon. There everything told him,
as it were, "Slave! you are a slave, remain so. Hopeless you were
born, hopeless you must remain." Even the very air murmured round
him, as it were, "There is no hope for you; hopeless and a slave you
must remain", while the strong man crushed the life out of him. And
when he landed in the streets of New York, he found a gentleman,
well-dressed, shaking him by the hand; it made no difference that the one
was in rags and the other well-clad. He went a step further and saw a
restaurant,
that there were gentlemen dining at a table, and he was asked to take a
seat at the corner of the same table. He went about and found a new life,
that there was a place where he was a man among men. Perhaps he went to
Washington, shook hands with the President of the United States, and
perhaps there he saw men coming from distant villages, peasants, and ill
clad, all shaking hands with the President. Then the veil of Maya slipped
away from him. He is Brahman, he who has been hypnotised into slavery and
weakness is once more awake, and he rises up and finds himself a man in a
world of men. Ay, in this country of ours, the very birth-place of the
Vedanta, our masses have been hypnotised for ages into that state. 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 man has
to sleep with the cattle? And for this, blame nobody else, do not commit
the mistake of the ignorant. The effect is here and the cause is here 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.
Young men of Lahore,
understand this, therefore, this great sin hereditary and national, is on
our shoulders. There is no hope for us. You may make thousands of
societies, twenty thousand political assemblages, fifty thousand
institutions. These will be of no use until there is that sympathy, that
love, that heart that thinks for all; until Buddha's heart comes once more
into India, until the words of the Lord Krishna are brought to their
practical use, there is no hope for us. You go on imitating the Europeans
and their societies and their assemblages, but let me tell you a story, a
fact that I saw with my own eyes.
—
"Shvetaketu, That thou art." That Immanent One is at last
declared to be the same that is in the human soul. Here is no Compromise;
here is no fear of others' opinions. Truth, bold truth, has been taught in
bold language, and we need not fear to preach the truth in the same bold
language today, and, by the grace of God, I hope at least to be one who
dares to be that bold preacher.
One
species — the Jâti is species — changes into another species —
evolution; Parinâma means one thing changing into another, just as one
species changes into another. Where do we differ from the Europeans?
Patanjali says, Prakrityâpurât, "By the infilling of nature".
The European says, it is competition, natural and sexual selection, etc.
that forces one body to take the form of another. But here is another
idea, a still better analysis, going deeper into the thing and saying,
"By the infilling of nature". What is meant by this infilling of
nature? We admit that the amoeba goes higher and higher until it becomes a
Buddha; we admit that, but we are at the same time as much certain that
you cannot get an amount of work out of a machine unless you have put it
in in some shape or other. The sum total of the energy remains the same,
whatever the forms it may take. If you want a mass of energy at one end,
you have got to put it in at the other end; it may be in another form, but
the amount of energy that should be produced out of it must be the same.
Therefore, if a Buddha is the one end of the change, the very amoeba must
have been the Buddha also. If the Buddha is the evolved amoeba, the amoeba
was the involved Buddha also. If this universe is the manifestation of an
almost infinite amount of energy, when this universe was in a state of
Pralaya, it must have represented the same amount of involved energy. It
cannot have been otherwise. As such, it follows that every soul is
infinite. From the lowest worm that crawls under our feet to the noblest
and greatest saints, all have this infinite power, infinite purity, and
infinite everything. Only the difference is in the degree of
manifestation. The worm is only manifesting just a little bit of that
energy, you have manifested more, another god-man has manifested still
more: that is all the difference. But that infinite power is there all the
same. Says Patanjali: 
—
"Like the peasant irrigating his field." Through a little 
—
It is the idea of the thunderer who kills every one who does not obey him.
