Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda - Vol-9
THE MUNDAKA UPANISHAD
(New Discoveries, Vol. 3, pp. 557-68)
[A Jnâna-Yoga class delivered in New York, January 29, 1896, and
recorded by Mr. Josiah J. Goodwin]
In the last Jnana-Yoga (Vide Complete Works, II.) lecture, we read
one of the Upanishads; we will read another [the Mundaka
Upanishad]. Brahmâ was the first of the Devas, the Lord of this
cycle and its protector. He gave this knowledge of Brahman, which
is the essence of all knowledge, to his son Atharvan. The latter
handed it over to his son Angiras, he to his son, Bharadvâja, and
so on.
There was a man called Shaunaka, a very rich man, who went to this
Angiras as a learner. He approached the teacher and asked him a
question. "Tell me, sir, what is that which, being known,
everything else is known?"
One [knowledge] is supreme and the other is inferior. The Rig-Veda
is the name of one of the different parts of the Vedas. Shikshâ is
the name of another part. All different sciences are inferior.
What is the supreme science? That is the only science, the supreme
science, by which we reach the Unchangeable One. But that cannot
be seen, cannot be sensed, cannot be specified. Without colour,
without eyes, without ears, without nose, without feet - the
Eternal, the Omnipresent, the "Omnipenetrating", the Absolute - He
from whom everything comes. The sages see Him, and that is the
supreme knowledge.
Just as the Urnanâbhi, a species of spider, creates a thread out
of his own body and takes it back, just as the plants grow by
their own nature, and all these things are yet separate and
apparently different (the heart is, as it were, different from the
other parts of a man's body; the plants are different from the
earth; the thread is different from the spider - yet they [the
earth, the spider and so on] were the causes, and in them these
things act), so from this Unchangeable One has come this universe.
First, out of Brahman comes the knowledge of desire and from that
comes the manifestation of Creator, or the Golden Womb. From that
comes intelligence, from that, matter and all these different
worlds.
This is the truth - that for those who want to come to salvation
or attain to other enjoyments, various ways are told in the Vedas.
Then it [the Mundaka Upanishad] goes on to say how they will reach
these blessings. When they die they will go through the sun's rays
to places which are very beautiful, where after death they will go
to heaven and live for some time, but from there they will again
fall.
Here are two words - Ishtam and Purtam. Sacrificial and other
rituals are called Ishtam, and Purtam is making roads, building
hospitals and so on. "Fools are they who think that rituals and
doing good work are high and that there is nothing higher." They
get what they desire and go to heaven, but every enjoyment and
every sorrow must have an end. And so that ends, and they fall
back and back and become men again, or still lower. Those that
give up the world and learn to control the senses live in a
forest. Through the rays of the sun they reach that immortality
where lives He who is the Absolute.
Thus the sage, examining all desires of good or evil works, throws
away all duties and wants to know that, getting which there is no
more return, no more change. And to know that, he goes to the
Guru, the teacher, with fuel in his hand.
There is a myth in our country about going to the Guru with fuel
in one's hands as a sign of helping him in making sacrifices, as
he will not take presents.
Who is a teacher? He who knows the secrets of the scriptures, he
whose soul has gone unto Brahman, who does not care for works or
going to heaven or all these things.
Unto such a disciple, who has controlled his mind, has become
peaceful and calm, has given up all this tremendous wave that
rises in the mind by desire ("I will do this and that" and all
those desires which are at best only disturbing, such as name and
fame, which impel mankind to do all sorts of things) - to that
disciple in whom all these vexatious desires have been calmed
down, the teacher teaches the way which is the science of Brahman,
by which he can know that One who never changes and who is the
Truth.
Then comes what he [Angiras] taught:
This is the truth, O gentle one, as from a mass of burning flame
myriads of sparks come out of the same nature as the fire, even so
from this Unchangeable One all these forms, all these ideas, all
this creation, come out; and unto Him it [the creation] goes back.
But the Eternal One is everlasting, formless, without beginning,
inside and outside of every being - beyond all life, beyond all
mind, the Pure One, beyond even the unchangeable, beyond
everything.
From Him is born the vital principle. From Him comes the mind.
From Him come all organs of the senses. From Him are air, light,
water and this earth which holds all beings. These heavens are, as
it were, His head; His eyes, the sun and moon. The cardinal points
are, as it were, His ears. The eternal knowledge of the Vedas is,
as it were, His manifested speech. His life is the air. His heart
is this universe; His feet, this world. He is the Eternal Self of
every being.
From Him have come the different Vedas. From Him have come the
gods of the Sâdhyas. The latter are superior men, much higher than
ordinary men and very much like the gods.
From Him are all men. From Him are all animals. From Him is all
life; from Him, all the forces in the mind; from Him all truth,
all chastity.
The seven organs are all from Him. The seven objects of perception
are from him; the seven actions of perception are from Him.
From Him are the seven worlds in which the life currents flow.
From Him are all these seas and oceans. From Him are all rivers
that roll into the sea; from Him are all plants and all liquids.
He is the inside. He is the inner Soul of every being. This great
Purusha, this great One - He is this universe, He is the work, He
is the sacrifice. He is Brahman, and He is the trinity. He who
knows Him frees his own soul from the bond of ignorance and
becomes free.
He is the bright one. He is inside every human soul. From Him are
all name and form; all the animals and men are from Him. He is the
one Supreme. He who knows Him becomes free.
How to know Him? Take this bow, which is the Upanishad, the
knowledge of the Vedanta; place upon that bow the sharpened rod
[arrow] of worship; stretch that bow by what? - by making the mind
of the same form as He, by knowing that you are He. Thus strike at
it; strike at that Brahman with this rod.
This One is the bow. This human mind is the rod [arrow]. Brahman
is the object which we want to hit. This object is to be hit by
concentrating the mind. And just when the rod has hit [its mark],
the rod penetrates into the object and becomes one with it - a
unity. Even so, this soul, the rod, is to be thrown upon the
object so that it will become one with It - in Whom are the
heavens, this earth and the skies, in Whom are the mind and all
that lives.
In the Upanishads there are certain passages which are called the
great words, which are always quoted and referred to.
In Him, that One - in Him alone, the Atman - exist all other
worlds. What is the use of all other talk? Know Him alone. This is
the bridge over this life to reach universality.
He [Angiras] goes on to show a practical way. So far it is very
figurative.
Just as all the spokes of a wheel meet at the axle, even so in
this body is that place from which all the arteries flow and at
which they all meet. There, meditate upon the Om that is in the
heart. May thou succeed.
May the gentle one with success attain the goal. May you go beyond
all darkness to Him who is omniscient, the All-Knowing. His glory
is in heaven, on earth and everywhere.
He who has become the mind, the Prânâ, He who is the leader in the
body, He who is established in the food, the energy of life. By
supreme knowledge the sages see Him whose nature is bliss, who
shines as immortality.(Mundaka Upanishad 2.2.8.) (This is another
of the sentences very much quoted.)
There are two words: one is Jnâna, the other Vijnâna. Jnana may be
translated as science - this means intellectual [knowledge] only -
and Vijnana as realization. God cannot be perceived by
intellectual knowledge. He who has realized [the Self] by that
supreme knowledge - what will become of that man?
All the knots of the heart will be cut asunder. All darkness will
vanish forever when you have seen the Truth.
How can you doubt? How foolish and childish you will think these
fights and quarrels of different sciences and different
philosophies and all this. You will smile at them. All doubts will
vanish, and all work will go away. All work will vanish.
Beyond, the golden sheath is there - without any impurity, without
parts [indivisible] - He, the Brahman. His is the brightness, the
Light of all light - the knowers of the Atman realize Him as such.
And when you have done that, the sun cannot illumine, nor the
moon, nor the stars. A flash of lightning cannot illumine the
place; it is mental - away, deep in the mind. He shining,
everything else shines; when He shines within, the whole man
shines. This universe shines through His light.
Take such passages [for memorizing] later on, when studying the
Upanishads.
The difference between the Hindu mind and the European mind is
that whereas in the West truths are arrived at by examining the
particular, the Hindu takes the opposite course. There is no
[such] metaphysical sublimity as in the Upanishads.
It [the Mundaka Upanishad] leads you on, beyond the senses -
infinitely more sublime than the suns and stars. First Angiras
tried to describe God by sense sublimities - that His feet are the
earth, His head the heavens. But that did not express what he
wanted to say. It was in a sense sublime. He first gave that idea
to the student and then slowly took him beyond, until he gave him
the highest idea - the negative - too high to describe.
He is immortal, He is before us, He is behind us, He is on the
right side, He is on the left, He is above, He is beneath. Upon
the same tree there are two birds with most beautiful wings, and
the two birds always go together - always live together. Of these,
one is eating the fruits of the tree; the other, without eating,
is looking on. So in this body are the two birds always going
together. Both have the same form and beautiful wings. One is the
human soul, eating the fruits; the other is God Himself, of the
same nature. He is also in this body, the Soul of our soul. He
eats neither good nor evil fruits, but stands and looks on.
But the lower bird knows that he is weak and small and humble, and
tells all sorts of lies. He says he is a woman, or he is a man or
a boy. He says he will do good or do bad; he will go to heaven and
will do a hundred sorts of things. In delirium he talks and works,
and the central idea of his delirium is that he is weak.
Thus he gets all the misery because he thinks he is nobody. He is
a created little being. He is a slave to somebody; he is governed
by some god or gods, and so is unhappy.
But when he becomes joined with God, when he becomes a Yogi, he
sees that the other bird, the Lord, is his own glory. "Why, it was
my own glory whom I called God, and this little "I", this misery,
was all hallucination; it never existed. I was never a woman,
never a man, never any one of these things." Then he gives up all
his sorrow.
When this Golden One, who is to be seen, is seen - the Creator,
the Lord, the Purusha, the God of this universe - then the sage
has washed off all stains of good and bad deeds. (Good deeds are
as much stains as bad deeds.) Then he attains to total sameness
with the Pure One.
The sage knows that He who is the Soul of all souls - this Atman -
shines through all.
He is the man, the woman, the cow, the dog - in all animals, in
the sin and in the sinner. He is the Sannyâsin, He is in the
ruler, He is everywhere.
Knowing this the sage speaks not. (He gives up criticizing anyone,
scolding anyone, thinking evil of anyone.) His desires have gone
into the Atman. This is the sign of the greatest knowers of
Brahman - that they see nothing else but Him.
He is playing through all these things. Various forms - from the
highest gods to the lowest worms - are all He. The ideas want to
be illustrated.
First of all the writer showed us the idea that if we want to get
to heaven and all these places, we will get there. That is to say,
in the language of the Vedas, whatever one desires that he sees.
As I have told you in previous lectures, the Atman neither comes
nor goes. It has neither birth nor death. You are all omnipresent,
you are the Atman. You are at this moment in heaven and in the
darkest places too. You are everywhere. Where are you not?
Therefore how can you go anywhere? These comings and goings are
all fictions - the Atman can never come nor go.
These visions change. When the mind is in a particular condition
it sees a certain vision, dreams a certain dream. So in this
condition, we are all seeing this world and man and animals and
all these things. But in this very place, this condition will
change. And the very thing we are seeing as earth, we shall see as
heaven, or we may see it as the opposite place or as any place we
like.
All this depends on our desires. But this dream cannot be
permanent, just as we know that any dream in the night must break.
Not one of these dreams will be permanent. We dream that which we
think we will do. So these people who are always thinking in this
life of going to heaven and meeting their friends, will have that
as soon as their dream of this life is ended. And they will be
compelled by their desires of this life to see these other dreams.
And those who are superstitious and are frightened into all such
ideas as hell will dream that they are in the hot place. Those
whose ideas in this life are brutal - when they die, will become
pigs and hogs and all these things. With each one, what he desires
he finds.
This book starts by telling us that those who know nothing better
than a little road-making or hospital-building and such good works
will have a good dream when they die. They will dream that they
are in a place where they will have god-bodies and can eat
anything they like, jump about, go through walls and so on, and
sometimes come down and startle someone.
In our mythology there are the Devas, who live in heaven, and the
Devakas, who are very much the same but a little more wicked. The
Devas are like your angels, only some of them from time to time
become wicked and find that the daughters of men are good. Our
deities are celebrated for this sort of thing. What can you expect
of them? They are here - simply hospital-makers - and have no more
knowledge than other men. 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 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 man, once and for all, to brush aside all such
foolish ideas as heavens and hells.
Two things exist in the world - dream and reality. What we call
life is a succession of dreams - dream within dream. One dream is
called heaven, another earth, another hell, and so on. One dream
is called the human body, another the animal body, and so on - all
are dreams. The reality is what is called Brahman, that Being who
is Existence, Knowledge, Bliss.
He is the Guru - the sage who wants to get rid of all these
dreams, to stand aside and know his own nature - who wants to go
beyond this self-hypnotism.
When we desire, we are hypnotizing ourselves. Just as I desire "I
will go to heaven", that hypnotizes me, and I begin to find I am
in heaven directly I die, and will see angels and all sorts of
things. I have seen about fifty people who have come from death's
door, and they all have told me stories about being in heaven.
These are the mythologies of our country, and it shows that it is
all hypnotism.
Where Western people make a great mistake is here. So far as you
have these ideas of heaven and hell, we agree with you. But you
say this earth is real. That cannot be. If this is real, heavens
and hells are real, because the proof of each of these is the
same. If one is a hypnotic condition, the whole of it must be so.
Vedantists say that not only are heavens hypnotic, but so is this
life and everything here. Some people want to go from one hypnotic
condition to another, and these are what we call the fools of the
world - the Samsârins, the travellers who go from dream to dream,
from one hypnotic trance to another. For fifty years they are
under the idea that they are men and women.
What nonsense is [this - ] a man or a woman in the soul? It is
terrible hypnotism. How can the soul have any sex? It is
self-hypnotism. You have hypnotized yourself and think you are men
and women. If we are fools, we will again hypnotize ourselves and
want to go to heaven, and hear all this trash of gods and
goddesses and all sorts of humbug, and will kneel down and pray,
and have god-bodies by the millions to worship on thrones. At the
end, we have to hypnotize ourselves again.
We are all in the same boat here, and all who are in the same boat
see each other. Stand aside - free, beyond dream and hypnotism.
Some fools have hypnotized themselves that they have bodies and
wives and all these things. I also am a fool and have hypnotized
myself that I have senses and all these things. So we are all in
the same boat and see each other. Millions of people may be here
whom we do not see, touch or feel. Just as in hypnotism there may
be three books before you, but you are hypnotized and are told
that one of them does not exist. And you may live for a year in
that condition and never see it. Suppose thirty men are under the
same hypnotic influence and are told that this book does not
exist. Those who are in this condition will all fail to see the
book. Men, women, animals are all hypnotized, and all see this
dream because they are all in the same boat.
The Vedanta philosophy says that this whole universe - mental,
physical, moral - is hypnotic. Who is the cause of this hypnotism?
You yourself are to blame. This weeping and wailing and knocking
your heads into corners [against brick walls, as it were] will not
do you the least good.
However, knocking everything [that is hypnotic] on the head [leads
to] what is called non-attachment; and clinging to more and more
hypnotism is attachment. That is why in all religions you will
find they wanted to give up the world, although many of them do
not understand it. These fellows used to starve themselves in a
forest and see the devil coming to them. You have heard those
wonderful stories of India - of how those magicians can make a man
see a rope rise from the ground to the skies. I have not seen any
of them. One of the Mogul emperors, Jahangir, mentions it. He
says, "Allah, what do these devils do? They take a rope or a
chain, and the chain is thrown up and up until it becomes firm -
as if it were stuck to something. Then they let a cat go up the
chain - then a dog, then a wolf, then a tiger, then a lion. All
walk up the chain and vanish. Sometimes they will send men up the
chain. Two men will go up and begin to fight, and then both of
them vanish. And after a while you hear a noise of fighting - and
[then] a head, a hand, and a foot fall. And, mind you, there are
two or three thousand people present. The fellow showing it has
only a loincloth on". They say this is hypnotism - throwing a net
over the audience.
That is what they call their science. It exists within a certain
limit. But if you go beyond this limit or come within it, you do
not see it. The man who is playing does not see anything. So if
you stand near him, you do not see anything. Such is the hypnotism
here.
So we have first to get beyond the circle (Jnana) or stand within
the circle of the hypnotism (Bhakti) with God, the great Player
who is playing all these things - the whole universe He projects.
Chapter after chapter comes and goes. This is called Mâyâ, the
power which creates all these tremendous things. He who is the
ruler of this Maya, is God; and he who is ruled by Maya [is the
soul]. Just as in the case of that chain - so the man who was
standing in the centre had the power and was not deluded, but all
that audience was governed by Maya. So that portion of Atman which
rules Maya is called God, and the little bits of the Atman deluded
by it are called souls - you and I.
The Bhakta says, Crawl nearer and nearer to the hypnotist, and
when you get to the centre you do not see anything. You get clear
of it.
The Jnâni does not care to undergo all this trouble - it is a
dangerous way. Unless a man becomes a lunatic, when he finds
himself covered with mud, will he take more mud to wash himself?
So why increase the hypnotism? Get out of the circle; cut it off
and be free. When you are free you will be able to play, even
without being caught yourself. Now you are caught, then you will
catch - that will be all the difference.
Therefore in the first part of this book, we are told that we must
give up all this idea of heaven and of birth and death and so on.
It is all nonsense; no man was ever born or ever died. They are
all in hypnotism. So is eternal life and all this nonsense. Heaven
is hypnotism and so is earth. It is not as materialists say: that
heaven is a superstition and God is a superstition, but he himself
is not a superstition. If one is superstition - if one link is
nonexistent - the whole chain is nonexistent. The existence of the
whole chain depends on the existence of one link - and that of one
link, on the whole.
If there is no heaven, there is no earth; and if there is no God,
there is no man. You are under this hypnotism; and as long as you
are under it, you will have to see God and nature and the soul.
And when you are beyond this hypnotism, God will vanish - so
will nature, and so will the soul.
Therefore, first of all, we will have to give up all these ideas
of God and heaven and enjoying the fruits of these; and all that
going to heaven will be one more dream. Next, after showing these
things, the book goes on to tell us how to get out of this
hypnotism. And the one idea that is brought out through all these
ideas is to be one with that Universal Being. The thing manifested
- the Universal Being - is not anything of these; these are all
nonsense - Maya. [The Swami has been discussing the two aspects of
Maya. On the previous page, (a few paragraphs earlier) he
described Maya as the power of Brahman; here he is referring to
Maya as the world-appearance.] But that upon which all these
things are being played - the background upon which all this
picture is written - [is we ourselves]; we are one with Him [that
Universal Being]. You know you are one with Him, only you must
realize it.
He gave us two words: one is intellectual knowledge, and the other
is realization. That is to say, intellectual assent is within this
realization, and realization is beyond it. Therefore intellectual
assent is not sufficient.
Every man can say this theory is right, but that is not
realization; he must realize it. We can all say we understand that
this is hypnotism, but that is not realization. That will be when
the hypnotism will break - even for a moment. It will come in a
flash; it must come. If you struggle it will come. When it does
vanish, all idea of body will go along with it - that you have sex
or body - just as a lamp blows out. Then what will become of you?
If some part of your Karma remains, this world will come back
again - but not with the same force. You have known that it is
what it is; you will know no more bondage. So long as you have
eyes you will have to see; or ears [you will have to] hear - but
not with the same force.
I had read all sorts of things about the mirage, but had never
seen it before until about four years ago when I was travelling in
western India. Of course, as a Sannyasin I was travelling on foot,
making my slow marches. So it took me about a month to travel
through that country. Every day I saw such beautiful lakes and the
shadows of trees on the shores of those lakes, and the whole thing
was quivering in the breeze - and birds flying, and animals. Every
day I saw this and thought what a beautiful country it was. But
when I reached some village, I found it was all sand. I said, How
is it?
One day I was very thirsty and thought I would drink a little
water at the lake. But when I approached, it disappeared, and with
a flash [the thought] came into my mind: "This is the mirage about
which I read all my life". But the strange thing is that I was
travelling for a month and could never recognize that it was a
mirage - and in one moment it vanished. I was very glad to know
this was the mirage about which I had read all my life.
Next morning I saw the lake again, and along with it came the
idea: "That is the mirage". All that month I had been seeing the
mirage and could not distinguish between reality and mirage. But
in that one moment I caught the idea.
From that time, when I see a mirage, I will say, "That is a
mirage", and never feel it. Such will it be with this world when
the whole thing will vanish once; and after that, if you have to
live out your past work, you will not be deceived.
Take a carriage with two wheels. Suppose I cut one of the wheels
from the axle. The other wheel will run for some time by its past
momentum and will then fall. The body is one wheel, and the soul
another; and they are joined by the axle of delusion. Knowledge is
the axe which will cut the axle, and the soul will stop
immediately - will give up all these vain dreams. But upon the
body is that past momentum, and it will run a little, doing this
and that, and then it will fall down. But only good momentum will
be left, and that body can only do good. This is to warn you not
to mistake a rascal for a free man. It will be impossible for that
[free] man to do evil. So you must not be cheated.
When you become free the whole hypnotism has vanished and you know
the distinction between the reality and the mirage. [The mirage]
will no more be a bondage. The most terrible things will not be
able to daunt you. A mountain [could] fall upon you, but you will
not care. You will know it for a mirage.
HISTORY OF THE ARYAN RACE
[A Jnâna-Yoga class delivered in London, England, on Thursday
morning, May 7, 1896, and recorded by Mr. Josiah J. Goodwin]
I have told you how I would divide the subject into four Yogas,
but, as the bearing of all these various Yogas is the same - the
goal they want to arrive at is the same - I had better begin with
the philosophical portion: the Jnana-Yoga. Jnâna means knowledge,
and, before going into the principles of the Vedanta philosophy, I
think it is necessary to sketch in a few words the origin and the
beginning and the development - the historical portion of that
system. Most of you are now familiar with the words Arya and
Aryan, and many things have been written on these words.
About a century ago there was an English judge in Bengal, Sir
William Jones. In India, you know, there are Mohammedans and
Hindus. The Hindus were the original people, and the Mohammedans
came and conquered them and ruled over them for seven hundred
years. There have been many other conquests in India; and whenever
there is a new conquest, the criminal laws of the country are
changed. The criminal law is always the law of the conquering
nation, but the civil law remains the same. So when the English
conquered India, they changed the criminal law; but the civil law
remained. The judges, however, were Englishmen and did not know
the language of the country in which the civil laws were written,
and so they had to take the help of interpreters, lawyers of
India, and so on. And when any question about Indian law arose,
these scholars would be referred to. One of these judges, Sir
William Jones, was a very ripe scholar, and he wanted to go to the
fountain-head himself, to take up the language himself and study
it, instead of relying upon these interpreters who, for instance,
might be bribed to give any verdict. So he began to study the law
of the Gentoos, as the Hindus were called. Gentoo is probably a
form of the word gentile, used by the Portuguese and Spaniards -
or "heathen", as you call it now. When the judge began to
translate some of the books into English, he found that it was
very hard to translate them correctly into English at first hand.
What was his surprise when he found that if he translated them
first into Latin, and next into English, it was much easier. Then
he found in translating that a large number of Sanskrit words were
almost the same as in Latin. It was he who introduced the study of
Sanskrit to the Europeans. Then as the Germans were rising in
scholarship - as well as the French - they took up the language
and began to study it.
With their tremendous power of analysis, the Germans found that
there was a similarity between Sanskrit and all the European
languages. Among the ancient languages, Greek was the nearest to
it in resemblance. Later, it was found that there was a language
called Lithuanian, spoken somewhere on the shores of the Baltic -
an independent kingdom at that time and unconnected with Russia.
The language of the Lithuanians is strikingly similar to Sanskrit.
Some of the Lithuanian sentences are less changed from Sanskrit
forms than the northern Indian languages. Thus it was found that
there is an intimate connection between all the various languages
spoken in Europe and the two Asiatic languages - Persian and
Sanskrit. Many theories are built upon it as to how this
connection came. Theories were built up every day, and every day
smashed. There is no knowing where it is going to stop. Then came
the theory that there was one race in ancient times who called
themselves Aryans. They found in Sanskrit literature that there
was a people who spoke Sanskrit and called themselves Aryans, and
this is mentioned also in Persian literature. Thus they founded
the theory that there was in ancient times a nation [of people]
who called themselves Aryans and who spoke Sanskrit and lived in
Central Asia. This nation, they said, broke into several branches
and migrated to Europe and Persia; and wherever they went, they
took their own languages. German, Greek and French are but
remnants of an old tongue, and Sanskrit is the most highly
developed of these languages.
These are theories and have not been proved yet; they are mere
conjectures and guesses. Many difficulties come in the way - for
instance, how the Indians are dark and the Europeans are fair.
Even within the same nations speaking these languages - in England
itself - there are many with yellow hair and many with black. Thus
there are many questions which have not yet been settled. But this
is certain, that all the nations of Europe except the Basques, the
Hungarians, the Tartars and the [Finns?] (Vide Complete
Works, VIII.) - Excepting these, all the Europeans, all the
northern Indians and the Persians speak branches of the same
language. Vast masses of literature are existing in all these
Aryan tongues: in Greek, in Latin, in modern European languages -
German, English, French - in ancient Persian, in modern Persian
and in Sanskrit.
But in the first place, Sanskrit literature alone is a very big
mass. Although, perhaps, three-fourths of it has been destroyed
and lost through successive invasions, yet, I think, the sum total
of the amount of literature in Sanskrit would outbalance any three
or four European languages taken together, in number of books. No
one knows how many books are there yet and where they are, because
it is the most ancient of all these Aryan languages. And that
branch of the Aryan race which spoke the Sanskrit language was the
first to become civilized and the first to begin to write books
and literature. So they went on for thousands of years. How many
thousands of years they wrote no one knows. There are various
guesses - from 3000 B.C. to 8000 B.C. - but all of these dates are
more or less uncertain. Each man in writing about these ancient
books and dates is first of all prejudiced by his earlier
education, then by his religion, then by his nationality. If a
Mohammedan writes about the Hindus, anything that does not glorify
his own religion he very scrupulously pushes to one side. So with
the Christians - you can see that with your own writers. In the
last ten years your literature has become more respectable. So
long as they [the Christians] had full play, they wrote in English
and were safe from Hindu criticism. But, within the last twenty
years, the Hindus have begun writing in English, so they are more
careful. And you will find that the tone has quite changed within
the last ten or twenty years.
Another curiosity about the Sanskrit literature is that it, like
any other language, has undergone many changes. Taking all the
literature in these various Aryan languages - the Greek or the
Latin or all these others - we find that all the European branches
were of very recent date. The Greek came much later - a mere child
in comparison with the Egyptian or the Babylonian.
The Egyptians and the Babylonians, of course, are not Aryans. They
are separate races, and their civilizations antedate all the
European civilization. But with the exception of the ancient
Egyptians, they were almost coeval [with the Aryans]; in some
accounts, they were even earlier. Yet in Egyptian literature,
there are certain things to be accounted for - the introduction of
the Indian lotus on old temples, the lotus Gangetic. It is well
known that this only grows in India. Then there are the references
to the land of Punt. Although very great attempts have been made
to fix that land of Punt on the Arabs, it is very uncertain. And
then there are the references to the monkeys and sandalwood of
southern India - only to be found there.
The Jews were of a much later date than the Greek Aryans. Only one
branch of the Semitic race of Babylon and this nondescript,
unknowable race - the Egyptians - were much older than the Aryans,
except the Hindus.
So this Sanskrit has undergone very much change as a matter of
course, having been spoken and written through thousands of years.
It necessarily follows that in other Aryan languages, as in Greek
and Roman, the literature must be of much later date than
Sanskrit. Not only so, but there is this peculiarity, that of all
regular books that we have in the world, the oldest are in
Sanskrit - and that is the mass of literature called the Vedas.
There are very ancient pieces in the Babylonian or Egyptian
literature, but they cannot be called literature or books, but
just a few notes, a short letter, a few words, and so on. But as
finished, cultured literature, the Vedas are the oldest.
These Vedas were written in the peculiar archaic Sanskrit, and for
a long time - even today - it is thought by many European
antiquarians that these Vedas were not written, but were handed
down by father to son, learned by rote, and thus preserved. Within
the last few years, opinion is veering round, and they are
beginning to think that they must have been written in most
ancient times.
Of course they have to make theories in this way. Theory after
theory will have to be built up and destroyed until we reach
truth. This is quite natural. But when the subject is Indian or
Egyptian, the Christian philosophers rush in to make theories;
while if the subject is nearer home, they think twice first. That
is why they fail so much and have to keep on making fresh theories
every five years. But this much is true, that this mass of
literature, whether written or not, was conveyed and, not only
that, but is at the present day conveyed by word of mouth. This is
thought to be holy.
You find in every nation when a new idea, a new form, a new
discovery or invention comes in, the old things are not brushed
aside all at once, but are relegated to the religion of holiness.
The ancient Hindus used to write on palm leaves and birch bark;
and when paper was invented they did not throw aside all the palm
leaves, but used to consider writing on palm leaves and birch bark
holy. So with the Jews - they used to write only on parchment, and
parchment is now used for writing in their temples. So you find
when new customs come in, the old ones become holy. So this form
of transmitting the literature of the Vedas from teacher to
disciple by word of mouth, although antiquated and almost useless
now, has become holy. The student may refresh his memory by books,
but has to learn by word of mouth of a teacher. A great many
modifications will always gather round such a fact to make its
holiness more rational, but this is the law.
These Vedas are a vast mass of literature by themselves. That is
to say, in those ancient times, in every country, religion was the
first ideal to spring out of the heart of man, and all the secular
knowledge that men got was made over to religion. Secondly, people
who deal with religion and in later times came to be called
priests - being the first thinkers of every nation - not only
thought about religious subjects, but secular matters also; and,
as such, all knowledge was confined to them. These masses of
knowledge - both secular and religious - will always be gathered
together and made into a vast mass of literature.
In much later times, this is the case. For instance, in studying
the Bible of the Jews, we find the same thing. The Talmud
contained a vast mass of information on all subjects and so did
the Pentateuch. In the same way, the Vedas give information on
various subjects. They have come together and form one book. And
in later times, when other subjects were separated from religion -
when astronomy and astrology were taken out of religion - these
subjects, being connected with the Vedas and being ancient, were
considered very holy.
Almost the largest portion of the Vedas has been lost. The priests
who carried it down to posterity were divided into so many
families; and, accordingly, the Vedas were divided into so many
parts. Each part was allotted to a family. The rituals, the
ceremonies, the customs, the worship of that family were to be
obtained from that [respective] portion of the Vedas. They
preserved it and performed all the ceremonies according to that.
In course of time, [some of] these families became extinct; and
with them, their portion of the Vedas was lost, if these old
accounts be true.
Some of you know that the Vedas are divided into four parts. One
is called the Rig-Veda, another Yajur-Veda, another Sâma-Veda, and
the fourth Atharva-Veda. Each one of these, again, was divided
into many branches. For instance, the Sama-Veda had one thousand
branches, of which only about five or six remain; the rest are all
lost. So with the others. The Rig-Veda had 108, of which only one
remains; and the rest are all lost. Then [there were] these
various invasions. India has been the one country to which every
nation that has become strong wants to go and conquer - it being
reputed to be very rich. The wealth of the people had become a
fable, even in the most ancient history. [Many foreign invaders]
rushed to become wealthy in India and conquered the country. Every
one of these invasions destroyed one or more of these families,
burned many libraries and houses. And when that was so, much
literature was lost. It is only within the last few years that
ideas have begun to spring up about the retention of these various
religions and books. Before that, mankind had to suffer all this
pillaging and breaking down. Most stupendous creations of art were
lost forever. Wonderful buildings - where, from a few bits of
remnants now in India, it can be imagined how wonderful they were
- are completely gone. . . .
[The fanatical belief of many of these invaders into India is]
that those who do not belong to their sect have no right to live.
They will go to a place where the fire will never be quenched when
they die; in this life they are only fit to be made into slaves or
murdered; and that they have only the right to live as slaves to
"the true believers", but never as free men. So in this way, when
these waves burst upon India, everything was submerged. Books and
literature and civilization went down.
But there is a vitality in that 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 neighbours. 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 purifying and teaching, but never robbing.
Three-quarters of the wealth of the world has come out of India,
and does even now. The commerce of India has been the turning
point, the pivot, of the history of the world. Whatever nation got
it became powerful and civilized. The Greeks got it and became the
mighty Greeks; the Romans got it and became the mighty Romans.
Even in the days of the Phoenicians it was so. After the fall of
Rome, the Genoese and the Venetians got it. And then the Arabs
rose and created a wall between Venice and India; and in the
struggle to find a new way there, America was discovered. That is
how America was discovered; and the original people of America
were called Indians, or "Injuns", for that reason. Even the Dutch
got it - and the barbarians - and the English and they became the
most powerful nation on earth. And the next nation that gets it
will immediately be the most powerful.
Think of all this mass of energy that our nation displays - where
does it get it? In India, they are the producers and you are the
enjoyers, no doubt. They produced this - the patient, toiling
millions of Hindus under the whip and slavery of everyone. Even
the missionaries, who stand up to curse the millions of India,
have been fattened upon the work of these millions, and they do
not know how it has been done. Upon their blood the history of the
world has been turning since we know history, and will have to
turn for thousands of years more. What is the benefit? It gives
that nation strength. They are, as it were, an example. They must
suffer and stand up through all, fighting for the truths of
religion - as a signpost, a beacon - to tell unto mankind that it
is much higher not to resist, much higher to suffer, that if life
be the goal, as even their conquerors will admit, we are the only
race that can be called immortal, that can never be killed. (Vide
Complete Works, IV)
Where are the Greeks today - they whose armies marched over the
whole world? Gone, thousands of years - nobody knows where.
Vanished, as soon as the barbarians of the north came and attacked
them. Where are the mighty Romans, whose cohorts came and trampled
the face of the earth? Where are they today? Gone - vanished like
the morning dew, and left behind in the march.
But here are the Hindus - three hundred million strong. And think
of the fertility of the race! They can increase more than the
whole world can kill them. This is the vitality of the race.
Although not belonging very much to our subject, I wanted to bring
these things before you. Generally the uneducated minds, the
vulgar minds of every nation, like the vulgar mobs in every big
city, cannot grasp, cannot see, cannot understand, any fine
movement. The causes, the real movements in this world of ours,
are very fine; it is only the effects that are gross and muscular.
The mind is the real cause of this body, the fine movements
behind. The body is the gross, the external. But everyone sees the
body; very few see the mind. So with everything; the masses, the
brutal, ignorant masses of every race, see a triumphant
procession, stampeding horses, arms and cannonades, and these they
understand. But those fine, gentle workings that are going on
behind - it is only the philosopher, the highly cultivated man or
woman, that can understand.
To return to our Vedanta, I have said that the Sanskrit in which
the Vedas were written is not the same Sanskrit in which books
were written about a thousand years later than the Vedas - the
books that you read in your translations of poets and other
classical writers of India. The Sanskrit of the Vedas was very
simple, archaic in its composition, and possibly it was a spoken
language. But the Sanskrit that we have now was never a spoken
language, at least for the last three thousand years. Curiously
enough, the vast mass of literature was written in a language
which was dead, covering a period of three thousand years. Dramas
and novels were written in this dead language. And all the time it
was not spoken in the homes; it was only the language of the
learned.
Even in the time of Buddha, which was about 560 years before the
Christian era, we find that Sanskrit had ceased to be a spoken
language. Some of his disciples wanted to teach in Sanskrit, but
the master studiously refused. He wanted to teach in the language
[of the people], because he said he was the prophet of the people.
And that is how it has come about that the Buddhistic literature
is in Pali, which was the vernacular of that time. This vast mass
of literature - the Vedas - we find in three groups. The first
group is the Samhitâs, a collection of hymns. The second group is
called the Brâhmanas, or the [group dealing with different kinds
of] sacrifice. The word Brahmana [by usage] means [what is
achieved by means of] the sacrifice. And the other group is called
the Upanishads (sittings, lectures, philosophic books). Again, the
first two parts together - the hymns and the rituals - are called
the Karmakânda, the work portion; and the second, or philosophic
portion (the Upanishads), is called the Jnânakânda, the knowledge
portion. This is the same word as your English word knowledge and
the Greek word gnos - just as you have the word in agnostic, and
so on.
The first portion is a collection of hymns in praise of certain
gods, as Agni, fire; Mitra, the sun; and so forth. They are
praised and oblations are offered to them. I have said these hymns
are to the gods. I have used the word gods until I make you
familiar with the Sanskrit word Deva, because the word gods is
very misleading. These Devas mean the "bright ones", and gods in
India are less persons than positions. For instance, Indra and
Agni are not names of particular persons, but particular posts in
this universe. There is the post of President, the presiding post
over certain elements, the presiding post over certain worlds, and
so forth. According to these theologians, you and I - most of us -
probably have been some of these gods several times. It is only
temporarily that a soul can fill one of these positions. And after
his time is over, he gives way; another soul is raised from this
world by good works and takes that position - he becomes [for
example] Agni. In reading Sanskrit philosophy or theology, people
always get bothered by the changing of these gods. But this is the
theory - that they are names of positions, that all souls will
have to fill them again and again; and these gods, when the soul
has attained to that position, can help mankind. So gifts and
praise are offered to them. How this idea came to the Aryans we do
not know, but in the earliest portion of the Rig-Veda we find this
idea perfected and completed.
Behind and beyond all these Devas and men and animals and worlds
is the Ruler of this universe, Ishvara - somewhat similar to what
in the New Testament is called God the Creator, Preserver, the
Ruler of this universe. These Devas are not to be confused with
Ishvara at all, but in the English language you have the same word
for both. You use the word God in the singular and the plural. But
the gods are the bright ones - the Devas - and God is Ishvara.
This we find even in the oldest portions of the Vedas. Another
peculiarity is that this Ishvara, this God, is manifesting Himself
in all these various forms of bright ones. This idea - that the
same God manifests Himself in various forms - is a very
rudimentary idea of the Vedas, even in the oldest portions. There
was a time when a sort of monotheistic idea entered the Vedas, but
it was very quickly rejected. As we go on, perhaps you will agree
with me that it was very good that it was rejected.
So we find in these oldest portions of the Samhitas that there
were these various Devas - [being praised as] the manifestations
of someone very much higher than they [had left] behind, so that
sometimes each one of them was taken up and adjectives piled on it
and at last it was said, "You are the God of the universe". Then
such passages as this occurred: "I am God, worshipped as the
fire", and so forth. "It is the One; sages call Him variously."
"He is that one existence; the sages call Him by various names."
This I ask you to remember, because this is the turning point, the
key-note of all thought that India has produced - "He is that One
Being; sages call Him variously." All Hindu philosophy - either
theistic or atheistic or monotheistic, dualistic or non-dualistic
- has that as the core, the centre. And by thousands of years of
culture in the race, it is impossible for the Hindu race to go
[away from] that idea.
That germ became a big tree; and that is why there was never a
religious persecution in India, at least by the Hindus. That
explains their liberality and welcome to any religion from any
part of the world which came to settle there. That is how, even at
the present day, Indian Rajas go and perform Mohammedan ceremonies
and enter Mohammedan mosques, although [some] Mohammedans took the
first opportunity to kill a number of "the heathens".
"He is the One Being; sages call Him variously."
There have been two theories advanced in modern times with regard
to the growth of religions. The one is the tribal theory; the
other is the spirit theory. The tribal theory is that humanity in
its savage state remains divided into many small tribes. Each
tribe has a god of its own - or sometimes the same god divided
into many forms, as the god of this city came to that city, and so
on; Jehovah of this city and of such-and-such mountain [came to
such-and-such city or mountain]. When the tribes came together,
one of them became strong. Take the case of the Jews. They were
divided into so many tribes, and each tribe had a god called
either Baal or Moloch, which in your Old Testament is translated
as "the Lord". There was the Moloch of this state and that state,
of this mountain and that mountain, and there was the Moloch of
the chest, who used to live in a chest. This latter tribe became
strong and conquered the surrounding tribes and became triumphant.
So that Moloch was proclaimed the greatest of all Molochs. "Thou
art the Java [?] of the Molochs. Thou art the ruler of all the
Baals and Molochs." Yet the chest remained. So this idea was
obtained from tribal gods.
There is the other theory of Spiritualism - that religion begins
with the worship of ancestors. Ancestor worship was among the
Egyptians, among the Babylonians, among many other races - the
Hindus, the Christians. There is not one form of religion among
which there has not been this ancestor worship in some form or
other.
Before that they thought that this body had a double inside it and
that when this body dies the double gets out and lives so long as
this body exists. The double becomes very hungry or thirsty, wants
food or drink, and wants to enjoy the good things of this world.
So he [the double] comes to get food; and if he does not get it,
he will injure even his own children. So long as the body is
preserved the double will live. Naturally the first attempt, as we
see, was to preserve the body, mummify the body, so that the body
will live forever.
So with the Babylonians was this sort of spirit worship. Later on
as the nations advanced, the cruel forms died out and better forms
remained. Some place was given to that which is called heaven, and
they placed food here so that it might reach the double there.
Even now the pious Hindus must, one day a year at least, place
food for their ancestors. And the day they leave off [this habit]
will be a sorry day for the ancestors. So you also find this
ancestor worship to be one cause of religion. There are in modern
times philosophers who advance the theory that this has been the
root of all religions. There are others who advance the theory
that the root of all religions was the tribal assimilation of gods
into one. Among the Jews of the Old Testament you do not find any
mention of soul. It is only in the Talmud that it is found. They
got it from the Alexandrians, and the Alexandrians from the Hindus
- just as the Talmud had [developed] later on the idea of
transmigration of the soul. But the old Jews had grand ideas of
God. The God of the Jews developed into the Great God - the
Omnipotent, Omniscient, All-Merciful - and all this came to them
from the Hindus, but not through the idea of the soul. So
Spiritualism could not have played any part in that, because how
could the man who did not believe in any soul after death have
anything to do with Spiritualism?
On the other hand, in the oldest portion of the Vedas, there is
very little of Spiritualism, if anything at all. These Devas [of
the Vedas] were not [related to Spiritualism] - although later on
they became so; and this idea of Someone behind them, of whom they
were manifestations, is in the oldest parts.
Another 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 soul. The idea of soul
has come from the Hindus.
Two people have given all the religion to the world - the Hindus
and the Jews. But it is only with the Hindus that the idea of soul
comes at first, and that was shared by the Aryan races.
The peculiarity you find is that the Semitic races and the
Egyptians try to preserve the dead bodies, while the Aryans try to
destroy them. The Greeks, the Germans, the Romans - your ancestors
before they became Christians - used to burn the dead. It was only
when Charlemagne made you Christians with the sword - and when you
refused, [he] cut off a few hundred heads, and the rest jumped
into the water - that burying came here. You see at once the
metaphysical significance of burning the dead. The burying of the
dead (Preserving the dead by the burying of the body.) can only
remain when there is no idea of the soul, and the body is all. At
best there came the idea later on that this very body will have
another lease of life, after so many years - mummies will come out
and begin to walk the streets again. But with the Aryans the idea
was from the first that the soul is not the body, but would live
on. There are some old hymns in the Rig-Veda: when the bodies are
burnt they say, "Take him gently, purify him, give him a bright
body, take him to the land where the fathers live – where there is
no more sorrow and where there is joy forever". (Rig-Veda
10.16.4.)
It is curious that though in modern times many hideous and cruel
forms of religion crept into India, there is one peculiar idea
that divides the Aryan from all other races of the world: that
their religion, in the Hindu form, accepted this Indra as one
[with the Ultimate Reality]. Three-quarters of the mythology of
the Vedas is the same as that of the Greeks; only the old gods
became saints in the new religion. But they were originally the
gods of the Samhitas.
One other peculiarity we remark - that it is a cheerful, joyful,
at times almost hilarious religion; there is not a bit of
pessimism in it. The earth is beautiful, the heavens are
beautiful, life is immortal. Even after death they get a still
more beautiful body, which has none of the imperfections of this
body, and they go to live with the gods and enjoy heaven
forever.On the other hand, with the Semitic races, the very first
inception of religion was one of horror. A man crouched in his
little house for fear. All round his house were those doubles. The
family ancestors of the Jews were there, ready to pounce upon
anybody and tear him to pieces if bloody sacrifices were not given
to them. Even when you find that this [double] idea coagulated
into one - "Thou art the Elohim of the Jews, Thou art the Elo[him]
of the [Babylonians?]" - Even then the idea of sacrifice
remained.
The idea of sacrifice in India was not with this first portion.
But in the next portion we find the same idea in India too, in the
Brahmanas. The idea of sacrifice was originally simply giving food
[to the gods], but gradually it was raised and raised until it
became a sacrifice to God. Philosophy came in to mystify it still
more and to spin webs of logic round it. Bloody sacrifices came
into vogue. Somewhere we read that three hundred bullocks have
been roasted, or the gods are smelling the sacrifices and becoming
very glad. Then all sorts of mystical notions got about - how the
sacrifice was to be made in the form of a tri-angle or a square, a
triangle within a square, a pentagon, and all sorts of figures.
But the great benefit was the evolution of geometry. When they had
to make all these figures - and it was laid down strictly how many
bricks should be used, and how they should be laid, and how big
they should be - naturally geometry came [into being]. The
Egyptians evolved geometry [by] their [irrigation] - [they] made
canals to take the Nile water inside their fields - and the
Hindus, by their altars.
Now there is another particular difference between the idea of
sacrifice in India and [that] of the Jews. The real meaning of
sacrifice is worship, a form of worship by oblations. At first it
was simply giving food to the bright ones, or the higher beings.
They had gross food just as we have. Later on philosophy stepped
in and the idea came that they, being higher beings, could not eat
the same food as we do. Their bodies are made of finer particles.
Our bodies cannot pass through a wall; theirs find no resistance
in gross material. As such, they cannot be expected to eat in the
same gross way as we do.
[Some parts of the transcription of the remaining portion of this
lecture, recorded by Mr. J. J. Goodwin, were found in a severely
damaged condition. Hence we have reproduced below only the legible
fragments as they appeared in the original.]
. . . "O Indra, I offer you this oblation. O Agni, I offer you
this oblation." The answer is that these words have a mystical
power in Sanskrit. And when a man, in a certain state of mind,
pronounces these words, he sets in motion a set of psychological
causes, and these causes produce a certain effect. That is the
evolution of thought.
To make it clearer, suppose a man was childless and wanted a son.
He worshipped Indra, and if he got a son he said Indra gave him
the son. Later on they said Indra did not exist. Who, then, gave
him the son? The whole thing is a matter of cause and effect. . .
.. . . They said it was not giving the gods food, but simply
laying my sins upon the head of another victim. "My sins go upon
the goat's head, and, if the goat be killed, my sins are
forgiven." That idea of sacrifice of the Jews never entered India,
and perhaps that has saved us many a pang, many a trouble.
Human nature is selfish, and the vast majority of men and women
weak; and to teach vicarious sacrifice makes us more and more
weak. Every child is taught that he is nothing until the poor
fellow becomes hypnotized into nothing. He goes in search of
somebody to cling onto, and never thinks of clinging to himself. .
. . (Vide Complete Works, VIII for similar ideas.)
Notes of Lectures and Classes
NOTE
Swami Vivekananda delivered scores of lectures and classes during
his relatively short ministry. Unfortunately the Swami was not
always accompanied by a professional stenographer who could keep
pace with the exceptional speed of his extempore deliveries.
However, a few students managed to take notes of some lectures and
classes, which are today the only available records of works that
would otherwise have been lost to the world.
The original quotation marks of the note-takers have been
reproduced.
- Publisher
THE RELIGION OF INDIA
(New Discoveries, Vol. 2, pp. 145-49, 155-56.)
These notes of daily morning classes delivered at Greenacre,
Maine, in the summer of 1894 and recorded by Miss Emma Thursby
were discovered among Miss Emma Thursby's papers at the New-York
Historical Society. They have been lightly edited in order to
conform to the style of the Complete Works.
Notes taken miscellaneously from discourses given by Swami
Vivekananda under the "Pine" at Greenacre in July and August 1894.
The name of Swami's master was Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. The
signification of Vivekananda is conscious bliss.
Meditation is a sort of prayer and prayer is meditation. The
highest meditation is to think of nothing. If you can remain one
moment without thought, great power will come. The whole secret of
knowledge is concentration. Soul best develops itself by loving
God with all the heart. Soul is the thinking principle in man, of
which mind is a function. Soul is only the conduit from Spirit to
mind.
All souls are playing, some consciously, some unconsciously.
Religion is learning to play consciously.
The Guru is your own higher Self.
Seek the highest, always the highest, for in the highest is
eternal bliss. If I am to hunt, I will hunt the rhinoceros. If I
am to rob, I will rob the treasury of the king. Seek the highest.
[Some of the following passages are the Swami's free translations
from Indian scriptures, including the Avadhuta-Gitâ of
Dattâtreya.]
If you know you are bound [you are bound]; if you know you are
free, you are free. My mind was never bound by yearnings of this
world; for like the eternal blue sky, I am the essence of
Knowledge, of Existence and of Bliss. Why weepest thou, Brother?
Neither death nor disease for thee. Why weepest thou, Brother?
Neither misery nor misfortune for thee. Why weepest thou, Brother?
Neither change nor death was predicated of thee. Thou Art
Existence Absolute.
I know what God is; I cannot speak [of] Him to you. I know not
[what] God is; how can I speak [of] Him to you? But seest not
thou, my brother, that thou wert He, thou wert He? Why go seeking
God here and there? Seek not, and that is God. Be your own Self -
One that cannot be confessed or described, One that can be
perceived in our heart of hearts. One beyond all compare, beyond
limit, unchangeable like the blue sky. Oh! learn the All Holy One.
Seek for nothing else.
Where changes of nature cannot reach, thought beyond all thought,
unchangeable, immovable, whom all books declare, all sages
worship, O Holy One! Seek for nothing else.
Beyond compare, Infinite Oneness - no comparison is possible.
Water above, water beneath, water on the right, water on the left.
No wave on that water, no ripple. All silence, all eternal bliss.
Such will come to thy heart. Seek for nothing else. Thou art our
father, our mother, our dear friend. Thou bearest the burden of
this world. Help us to bear the burden of our lives. Thou art our
friend, our lover, our husband. Thou art ourselves.
Four sorts of people worship Me. Some want the delights of the
physical world. Some want money, some want religion. Some worship
Me because they love Me.
Real love is love for love's sake. I do not ask health or money or
life or salvation. Send me to a thousand hells, but let me love
Thee for love's sake. Mirâ Bâi, the great queen, taught the
doctrine of love for love's sake.
Our present consciousness is only a little bit of an infinite sea
of mind. Do not be limited to this consciousness.
Three great things [are] to be desired to develop the soul: First,
human birth; second, thirst for the highest; third, to find one
who has reached the highest - a Mahâtmâ, one whose mind, word and
deed are full of the nectar of virtue, whose only pleasure is in
doing good to the universe, who looks upon others' virtues, be
they only as a mustard seed, even as though they were a mountain,
thus expanding his own self and helping others to expand. Thus is
the Mahatma.
The word Yoga is the root of which our word yoke is a derivation -
meaning "to join" - and Yoga means "joining ourselves with God" -
joining me with my real Self.
All actions now involuntary or automatic were once voluntary, and
our first step is to gain a knowledge of the automatic actions -
the real idea being to revivify and make voluntary all automatic
actions, to bring them into consciousness. Many Yogis can control
the actions of their hearts.
To go back into consciousness and bring out things we have
forgotten is ordinary power, but this can be heightened. All
knowledge - all that - can be brought out of the inner
consciousness, and to do this is Yoga. The majority of actions and
thoughts is automatic, or acting behind consciousness. The seat of
automatic action is in the medulla oblongata and down the spinal
cord.
The question is, how to find our way back to our inner
consciousness. We have come out through spirit, soul, mind, and
body, and now we must go back from body to spirit. First, get hold
of the air [breath], then the nervous system, then the mind, then
the Atman, or spirit. But in this effort we must be perfectly
sincere in desiring the highest.
The law of laws is concentration. First, concentrate all the nerve
energies and all power lodged in the cells of the body into one
force and direct it at will. Then bring the mind, which is thinner
matter, into one center. The mind has layer after layer. When the
nerve force concentrated is made to pass through the spinal
column, one layer of the mind is open. When it is concentrated in
one bone [plexus, or "lotus"], another part of the world is open.
So from world to world it goes until it touches the pineal gland
in the center of the brain. This is the seat of conservation of
potential energy, the source of both activity and passivity.
Start with the idea that we can finish all experience in this
world, in this incarnation. We must aim to become perfect in this
life, this very moment. Success only comes to that life amongst
men who wants to do this, this very moment. It is acquired by him
who says, "Faith, I wait upon faith come what may". Therefore, go
on knowing you are to finish this very moment. Struggle hard and
then if you do not succeed, you are not to blame. Let the world
praise or blame you. Let all the wealth of the earth come to your
feet, or let you be made the poorest on earth. Let death come this
moment or hundreds of years hence. Swerve not from the path you
have taken. All good thoughts are immortal and go to make Buddhas
and Christs.
Law is simply a means of [your] expression [of] various phenomena
brought into your mind. Law is your method of grasping material
phenomena and bringing them into unity. All law is finding unity
in variety. The only method of knowledge is concentration on the
physical, mental, and spiritual planes; and concentrating the
powers of the mind to discover one in many, is what is called
knowledge.
Everything that makes for unity is moral, everything that makes
for diversity is immoral. Know the One without a second, that is
perfection. The One who manifests in all is the basis of the
universe; and all religion, all knowledge, must come to this
point.
[The following are some of the disconnected notes taken by Miss
Emma Thursby during the last of the Swami's Greenacre classes,
delivered Sunday morning, August 12, 1894.]
I am Existence Absolute Kundalini
Bliss Absolute Circle mother
I am He, Shivoham
I am He, Shivoham
He is the learned man who sees that every man's property is
nothing. Every woman his Mother.
Shanti - peace -
We meditate on the Glory of Hrim (A Bija Mantra, or seed word, for
the Divine Mother.)
Mother Buddhistic Prayer
I bow to all the saint[s] on Earth
I bow down to the founders of Religion
to all holy men and women
Prophets of Religion
who have been on Earth
Hindu prayer
I meditate on the Glory of the producer of this Universe
may He enlighten our minds.