UNITY IN DIVERSITY I3I of the old crude theories of the Persians — two gods creating this world. The good god doing everything that is pleasurable, and the bad one everything else. On the very face of it you find the absurdity, for if it be carried out every law of nature must have two parts, and this law of nature is sometimes manipulated by one god, and then he goes away and the other man- ipulates it. It is the law of Unity that gives us our food, and the same law kills many men through acci- dents or misadventure. Then the difficulty comes, that both are working at the same time, and these two gods keep themselves in harmony, by injuring one and doing good to another. This was a crude case, of course, the crudest way of expressing the duality of existence. But then, take the more advanced philoso- phy, the abstract cases, of telling people that this world is partly good and partly bad. This again is absurd, arguing from the same standpoint.
As such, we find first of all that this world is neither optimistic nor pessimistic; it is a mixture of both, and as we go on we shall find that the whole blame is taken out of the hands of nature and put upon us. And again, the Vedanta offers a great hope. It is not a denial of evil; it analyzes boldly the fact as it is, and does not seek to conceal anything. It is not hope- less; it is not agnostic. It finds out a remedy, but it wants to place that remedy on adamantine foundations, not by shutting the child's mouth and blinding its eyes with something which is transparently untrue, and which the child will find out in a few days. I remember when I was a young child, a young man's father died and left him poor, and with a large family 132 J NANA YOGA 132 J NANA YOGA to support. He found that his father's friends were his worst enemies in reaHty, and one day he had a conversation with a clergyman who offered this con- solation, "Oh, it is all good, all is sent for our good." That is the old method of trying to put a piece of gold cloth on an old sore. It is a confession of weak- ness, of absurdity. Then this young man went away, and six months afterw^ards the clergyman had a son born, and the young man was invited to the party for thanksgiving. Then the clergyman began to pray, "Thank God for His mercies." And the young man stood up and said, "Stop; this is all misery." The clergyman asked why. "Because when my father died it was all good, though apparently evil; so now this is apparently good, but really evil." Is this the way to cure the misery of the world? Be good and have mercy to those who suffer. Do not try to patch it up, nothing will cure this world; go beyond it.
This world is a world of good and evil always. Wherever there is good, evil follows, but beyond and behind all the manifestation, all the contradiction, the Vedanta finds that Unity. It says give up what is evil and give up what is good. What then remains? It says good and evil are not all we have. Behind these stands something which is yours, the real you, beyond every evil, and beyond every good too, and it is that which is manifesting itself as good and bad. Know that first, and then, and then alone, you will be an optimist; and not before; for you will then control the whole thing. Control these manifestations and then you will be at liberty to manifest the real "you" just as you hke. Then alone you will be able to UNITY IN DIVERSITY 1 33 manifest it only as good, or only as evil, just as you like; but be first master of yourself, stand up and be free; go beyond the pale of these laws, for these laws do not absolutely govern you, they are only part of your being. First find out that you are not the slave of nature, never were and never will be; that this nature, infinite as you may think it, is only finite, but one drop in the ocean, and your nature is as the ocean; you are beyond the stars, or the sun, or the moon. They are like mere bubbles compared with your infinite being. Know that and you will control both good and evil. Then alone the whole vision will change and you will stand up and say, how beautiful is good and how wonderful is evil.
That is what the Vedanta teaches you to do. It does not propose any slipshod remedy by covering things over with gold paper, and the more the wound festers putting on the more gold paper. This life is a hard fact; work out of it if you can, boldly, though it may be adamantine; no matter, the soul is greater. It lays no responsibility on little gods; but you are the makers of your fortunes. You make yourselves suffer, you make good and evil, and it is you who put your hands before your eyes and say it is dark. Hands off and see the light; you are effulgent, you are perfect already, from the very beginning. We understand it now. "He goes from death to death who sees the many here. See that One and be free."
How are we to see it? Nay, even this very mind, so deluded, so weak, so easily led, even this mind can be strong and may catch a glimpse of that knowledge, that Oneness, and then it saves us from dying again 134 J NAN A YOGA and again. "As water which falls upon a mountain breaks into pieces, and in many various streams runs down the sides of the mountain, so all the energies which you see here are that one Unit beginning." It has become manifold falling upon Maya. Do not run after the manifold; go towards the One. "He is in all that moves; He is in all that is pure. He fills the Universe; He is in the sacrifice; He is the Guest in the house; He is in man, in water, in animals, in truth; He is the Great One; He is the One Fire coming into this world. He is manifesting Himself in various forms. Even so that one Soul of the Universe is mani- festing Himself in all these various forms. As the one air coming into this universe manifests itself in various forms, even so the One Soul of all souls of all beings, is manifesting Himself in all forms." This is true for you when you have understood this Unity, and not before. Then all is optimism, because He is seen everywhere. The question is, that if all this be true, that that Pure One, the Self, the Infinite, has entered all this, how is it that He suffers, how is it that He becomes miserable, impure? He does not, says the Upanishad. "As the sun is the cause of the eye-sight of every being, yet is not made defective by the defect in any eye, even so the Self of all is not affected by the miseries of the body, or by any misery that is around you." I may have some disease, and see everything yellow, but the sun is not affected. "He is the One, the Creator of all, the Ruler of all, the internal Soul of every being. He who makes His Oneness manifold. Thus sages who realize him as the Soul of their souls, unto them belong eternal UNITY IN DIVERSITY I35 peace; unto none else, unto none else. He who in this world of evanescence finds Him who never changes, he who in this universe of death finds that one life, he who in this manifold finds that oneness, and all those who realize Him as the soul of their souls, to them belongs eternal peace; unto none else, unto none else. Where to find Him in the external world, where to find Him in the suns, and moons, and stars? There the sun cannot illumine, nor the moon, nor the stars, the flash of lightning cannot illumine the place; what to speak of this mortal fire. He shin- ing, everything else shines. It is His light that they have borrowed, and He is shining through them.'* Here is another beautiful simile. Those of you who have been in India and have heard of the Banyan tree, how it comes from one root, and spreads far around, will understand. He is that Banyan tree; His root is above, and has branched out until it has become this universe, and however far it extends, every one of these trunks and branches is connected. He is the root of all.
Various heavens are spoken of in the Brahmana portion of the Vedas, and the philosophical teaching of the Upanishads implies giving up the idea of going to heaven. All the work is not in this heaven, or that heaven, it is here in the soul; places do not sig- ) nify anything. Here is another passage which shows j these different states. "In the heaven of the fore- fathers, as a man sees things in a dream, so the real truth is seen." As in dreams we see things hazy and indistinct, so we see things there. There is another heaven called the Gandharva; there it is still less 136 J NANA YOGA distinct; as a man sees his own reflection in the water, so is the reaUty seen there. The highest heaven that the Hindus conceive is called the Brahmaloka, and in this the truth is seen much more clearly but not yet quite distinctly, like light and shade; but as a man sees his own face in a mirror, perfect, dis- tinct, and clear, so is the truth shining in the soul of man. The highest heaven, therefore, is here in our own souls, the greatest temple of worship is the human soul, greater than all heavens, says the Vedanta, for in no heaven anywhere can we understand the reality as distinctly and clearly as here in this life, in our own soul. You may change places, just as we have seen. I have thought while in India that the cave would give clearer vision. I found it was not so. Then I thought the forest would be better. Then I thought Benares. The difficulty exists everywhere, because we make our own worlds, t If I am evil the whole world is evil to me. That is what the Upanishad says. And the same thing applies to all. If I die and go to heaven, I should find the same. Until you are pure it is no use going to caves, or forests, or to Benares, or to heaven; and if you have polished your mirror it does not matter where you live, you get the \ reality just as it is. So it is useless work, running hither and thither, spending energy in vain, which should be spent only in polishing the mirror. The same idea is expressed again.
"None see Him, none see His form with the eyes. It is in the mind, the pure mind. He is seen, and thus immortality is gained." Those that were at the sum- mer lectures on Raja Yoga will be interested to know ( UNITY IN DIVERSITY 137 that what was taught then was a different kind of Yoga. Here in philosophy there is also a Yoga, but this is what is meant, that where there is control of all our senses, when these are held as slaves by the human soul; when they can no longer disturb his mind, then the Yogin has reached the goal. "When all vain desires of the heart have been thrown out, then this very mortal becomes immortal, then here he becomes one with God. When all the knots of the heart are cut asunder, then the mortal becomes immor- tal, and he enjoys Brahman." Here on earth, nowhere else.
A few words ought to be said here. Generally you will hear that this Vedanta, this philosophy and these Eastern systems look only to something beyond, letting go the enjoyments and struggles of this life. This idea is entirely wrong. Ignorant people who do not know anything of Eastern thought, and never had brain enough among them all to understand anything of the real teaching, tell you that you are going outside to the other world. On the other hand, we read in black and white here that they do not desire to go to any other world, but depreciate these worlds as places where people weep or laugh for a little while and then die. So long as we are weak, we shall have to go through the same thing there, but whatever is true is here, and that is the human soul. And this also is insisted upon, that we cannot escape the inevit- able by committing suicide; we cannot evade it. But the right path is hard to find. The Hindu mind is just as practical as the Western, only we differ in our views of life. One man says build a good house, and 138 JNANA YOGA have good clothes and good food, and intellectual knowledge, knowledge of science and so on, this is the whole of life; and in that he is immensely practical. But the Hindu says true knowledge of the world means knowledge of the soul, metaphysics, and he wants to enjoy that life. In America there was a great Agnostic orator, a very noble man, a very good man, and a very fine speaker. He lectured on religion and said it was no use, we need not bother our heads about other worlds, and he employed this simile: we have an orange here, and we want to squeeze all the juice out of it. I met him once and said, "I agree with you entirely. I have this orange and I want to squeeze the juice out too. Only we differ as to the fruit. You think it is an orange; I think it is a mango. You think it is only necessary to live here and eat and drink and have a little scientific knowledge, but you have no right to say, that is the whole idea of life. To me such a conception is nothing. If I had only to know how an apple falls to the ground, or how an electric current shakes my nerves, I would commit suicide the next moment. I want to know the heart of things, the very life itself. Your study is the man- ifestation of life, mine is the life itself. I want to squeeze the juice out of my fruit even in this life. My philosophy says you must know the whole of it and drive out your heavens and hells and all these superstitions, even if they exist in the same sense that this world exists. I would know the heart of this life, its very essence, how it is, not only how it works and what are its manifestations. I want the 'why' of everything, I leave the 'how' to children. As one of UNITY IN DIVERSITY I39 your countrymen said, 'While I am smoking a cigarette, if I were to write down everything that happens, it would be the science of the cigarette.' It is good and great to be scientific. Lord bless them in their search, but when a man says that is all, he is talking foolishly, not caring to know the raison d'etre of life, never studying existence itself. I may argue that all your knowledge is nonsense without basis. You are study- ing the manifestations of life, and when I ask you what life is you say you do not know. You are wel- come to your study, but leave me mine."
Yet I myself am practical, very practical, in my own way. So all these ideas about being practical are nonsense. You arc practical in one way, and others in another. But a man of another type of mind does not talk. If he is told that he will find out the truth standing on one leg, he will find it that way. Another kind of man hears there is a gold mine some- where, with savages all round. Three men go. Two perish, but one succeeds. The same man has heard there is a soul, and is content to leave it to the clergy- man to preach. But the first man will not go near the savages. He says it may be dangerous, but if you tell him that on the top of Mount Everest, 30,000 feet above the sea level, there is a wonderful sage who can give him knowledge of the soul, he tries to climb there — 40,000 may be killed, but one finds out the truth. These are practical, too, but the mistake lies in regard- ing what you term the world, as the whole of life. Yours is the vanishing point of enjoyment of the senses; there never was anything permanent in it, it can only bring more and more misery. Mine I40 J NANA YOGA brings eternal peace, and yours brings only perpetual sorrows.
I do not say your view of what is practical is wrong. You are welcome to your interpretation. Great good and man's blessing come out of it, but do not therefore condemn my view. Mine also is practical in its own way. Let us all work according to our own plans. Would to God all of us were equally practical on both sides. I have seen some scientists who were equally practical scientists and spiritual men, and it is my great hope that in course of time the whole of humanity will be efficient in all such things. When a kettle of water is boiling, if you watch the phenomenon you find a bubble rising in one corner, and another in an opposite corner, then the bubbles begin to multiply, and four or five join together, and at last they all join, and a tremendous motion goes on. This world is very similar. Each individual is like a bubble, and the nations resemble many bubbles. Gradually these nations are joining, and I am sure the day will come when such a thing as a nation will vanish, and this separation will vanish; that Oneness to which we are all going, whether we like it or not, will become mani- fest; we are brothers by nature, and have become separate. A time must come when all these ideas will be joined, and every man and woman in this world will be as intensely practical in the scientific world as in the spiritual, and then that Oneness, the harmony of oneness, will pervade the whole world. The whole world will become jivanmuktas — "free whilst living." And we are all fighting towards that one end through all our jealousies and hatreds, through co-operation UNtTY IN DIVERSITY I4I and antagonism. A tremendous stream is flowing towards the ocean. There are Httle bits of paper and straw in the stream. They may struggle to go back, but, in the long run, must follow down to the ocean. So you and I and all nature are like these little bits of paper rushing in mad currents towards that ocean of Life, Perfection and God; we may struggle to go back, to get up or down, and play all sorts of pranks, but in the long run we must go and join this ocean of Life and Bliss.
GOD IN EVERYTHING GOD IN EVERYTHING We have seen how the greater portion of our life must of necessity be filled with evils, however we may resist, and that this mass of evil is practically almost infinite for us. We have been struggling to remedy this since the beginning of time, yet everything remains very much the same. The more we discover remedies, the more we find subtle evils existing in the world. We have also seen that all religions propose a God, as the one way of escaping from these difficulties. All religions tell us that if you take the world as it is, as most practical people would advise us to do in this age, then nothing would be left to us but evil. But all religions assert that there is something beyond this world. This life in the five senses, life in the material world, is not all that we have, it is only a small portion, and merely superficial. Behind and beyond is the Infinite where there is no more evil. Some people call this Infinite God, some Allah, some Jehovah, and so on. The Vedantin calls It Brahman.
The first impression of the advice given by religions is that we had better terminate our existence. Yet we have to live. The question is how to cure the evils of life, and the answer apparently is, give up life. It reminds one of the old story. A mosquito settled GOD IN EVERYTHING 143 on the head of a man, and a friend, wishing to kill the mosquito, gave it such a blow that he killed both man and mosquito. The remedy seems to suggest a similar course of action. Life is full of ills, the world is full of evil; that is a fact which no one who is old enough to know the world can deny.
But what is the remedy proposed by all the religions? That this world is nothing. Beyond this world is something which is very real. And here is the real fight. The remedy seems to destroy everything. How can that be a remedy? Is there no way out? Another remedy is proposed. The Vedanta says that what all the religions advance is perfectly true, but it should be properly understood. Often it is misunderstood, because the various religions are not very explicit, not very clear. What we want is head and heart together. The heart is great indeed; it is through the heart that come the great inspirations of life. I would a hundred times rather have a little heart and no brain, than be all brains and no heart. Life is possible, progress is possible for him who has heart, but he who has no heart and only brains dies of dryness.
At the same time we know that he who is carried along by his heart alone has to undergo many ills, for now and then he is liable to fall into pits. The com- bination of heart and head is what we want. I do not mean that a man should have less heart or less brain, and make a compromise, but let every one have an infinite amount of heart and feeling, and at the same time an infinite amount of reason. Is there any limit to what we want in this world? Is not the world infinite? There is room for an infinite amount of 144 JNANA YOGA feeling, and so also for an infinite amount of culture and reason. Let them all come together without any limit, let them be running together, as it were, in paral- lel lines each with the other.
Most religions understand this fact and state it in very clear and precise language, but the error into which they all seem to fall is the same; they are carried away by the heart, the feelings. There is evil in the world; give up the world: that is the great teaching, and the only teaching, no doubt. Give up the world. There cannot be two opinions that, to understand the truth, every one of us must give up error. There cannot be two opinions that every one of us, in order to have good must give up evil; there cannot be two opinions that every one of us to have life, must give up what is death. And yet, what remains to us, if this theory involves giving up the life of the senses, life as we know it, and what do we mean by life? If we give up all this, nothing remains. We shall under- stand this better, when, later on, we come to the more philosophical portions of the Vedanta. For the present, however, I beg to state that in Vedanta alone we find a rational solution of the problem. Here I can only lay before you what the Vedanta seeks to teach, and that is, the deification of the world.
The Vedanta does not, in reality, denounce the world. The ideals of renunciation nowhere attain such a climax as in the teachings of the Vedanta, but, at the same time, dry suicidal advice is not intended, it really means deification of the world — ^to give up the world as we think of it, as we seem to know it, as it is appearing, and to know what it really is. Deify it; GOD IN EVERYTHING I45 it is God alone, and, as such, we read at the com- mencement of the oldest of the Upanishads, the very first book that was ever written on the Vedanta — "Whatever exists in this Universe, whatever is there, is to be covered with the Lord."
We have to cover everything with the Lord Himself, not by a false sort of optimism, not by blinding our eyes to the evil, but by really seeing God in everything. Thus we have to give up the world, and when the world is given up, what remains? God. What is meant? You can have your wives; it does not mean that you are to abandon them, and leave them to go away, but that you are to see God in the wife. Give up your children; what does that mean? Take your children and throw them into the street, as some human brutes do in every country? Certainly not. That is diabolism; it would not be religion. But see God in your children. So in everything. In life and in death, in woe and in joy, in misery and in happiness, the whole world is full of the Lord. Open your eyes and see Him. That is what Vedanta says. Give up the world which you have conjectured, because your conjecture was based upon very partial experience; your conjecture was based upon poor reasoning, and upon your own weakness. Give that up; the world we have been thinking of so long, the world to which we have been clinging so long, is a false world of our own creation. Give that up; open your eyes and see that as such it never existed; it was a dream, Maya.
What existed was the Lord Himself. It is He in the child, He in the wife, and He in the husband, He in the good, and He in the bad. He in the murderer.
146 J NANA YOGA He in the sin, and He in the sinner, He in life, and He in death. A tremendous proposal indeed! Yet that is the theme which the Vedanta wants to demon- strate, to teach, to preach, and to prove. This is just the opening theme.