190 JNANA YOGA the heavens may produce, is only one of degree, and not of kind. So the Vedantin thinker says boldly that the bliss of the enjoyments in this life, even the most (jdegraded joy, is but the manifestation of that one Divine Bliss, the essence of the soul.
This one idea seems to be the most prominent, and, as I have said, to me it appears that every religion holds this same doctrine. I have yet to know the religion which has not that as its basis. It is the one universal idea working through all religions. Take the Bible for instance. You find there the allegorical statement, how Adam came first and was pure, and that purity was obliterated by his evil deeds after- wards. It is clear from this allegory that they thought that the nature of the primitive man, or however they may have put it, the real man, was already perfection. The impurities that we see, the weaknesses that we feel, are but super-impositions, and the subsequent history of that very religion shows that they also believe in the possibility, nay, the surety of regaining that old state. This is the whole history of the Bible, Old and New Testament together. So with the Mohammedans, they also believed in Adam and the purity of Adam, and since Mohammed came the way opened to regain that lost state. So with the Bud- dhists, they also believed in the state called Nirvana, which is beyond this relative world of ours. It is exactly the same which the Vedantins called the Brahman, and the whole system of the Buddhists is advice to regain that lost state of Nirvana, So in every system, we find this one doctrine always present, that you cannot get anything which is not yours THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL J9I already. You are indebted to nobody in this universe. You will claim your own birthright, or as it has been most poetically put by the great Vedantin philosopher, by making it the title of one of his books — "The attaining to our own empire." That empire is ours; we have lost it and we have to regain it. The Mdyd- avdin, however, says that this losing of the empire was an hallucination; you never lost it. This is the only difference.
Although all the systems agree so far, that we had the empire, and that we have lost it, they give us varied advice how to regain it. One says that you must perform certain ceremonies, pay certain sums of money to certain idols, eat certain sorts of food, live in a peculiar fashion to regain that empire. Another says that if you weep and prostrate yourselves and ask pardon of some Being beyond nature you will regain that empire. Another says, if you love such a Being with all your heart you will regain that empire. All this varied advice is in the Upanishads. As I go on you will find it so. But the last and the greatest counsel is, that you need not weep at all. You need not go through all these ceremonies, and need not take any notice of how to regain your empire, because you never lost it. Why should you go to seek for what you never lost. You are pure already, you are free already. If you think you i are free, free you are this moment, and if you think j you are bound, bound you will be. Not only that: it is a very bold statement — as I told you at the beginning of this course, I shall have to speak to you most boldly. It may frighten you now, but you 192 JNANA YOGA 192 JNANA YOGA will come to know by-and-by that it is true, when you think of it, and when you realize in your life the truth of it. For, supposing it is not your nature, that freedom is not your nature; by no manner of means can you become free. Supposing you were free and in some way you lost the freedom, then you cannot regain it, because that shows you were not free to commence with. Had you been free what could have bound you? The independent can never be made dependent, otherwise it was not independent, it was an hallucination.
So, of the two sides which will you take? If argu- ment is stated it comes to this. If you say that the soul was by its own nature pure and free, it naturally follows that there was nothing in this universe which could make it bound or limited. But if there was something in nature which could bind you, it naturally follows that the soul was not free, and your state- ment that it was free is a delusion. So you have to come to this idea, that the soul is by its nature free. It cannot be otherwise. Freedom means independence of anything outside, and that means that nothing out- side itself could work upon it as a cause. The soul is causeless, and hence come all the great ideas that we have. You cannot establish any idea of immor- tality unless you grant that the soul is by its nature free, or in other words, that it cannot be acted upon by anything outside. For death is an effect produced by something outside of man, showing that he can be acted upon by something else. I drink some poison and I am killed, showing that my body can be acted upon by something outside that is called poison. If THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL I93 this be true of the soul, the soul is bound. But if it be true that the soul is free it naturally follows that nothing outside can work upon the soul, and never will; therefore the soul will never die, it is beyond the law of causation. Freedom, immortality, blessedness, all depend on this, that the soul is beyond the law of causation, beyond this Maya. Very good. Now if your nature was originally perfectly free and we have become bound, that shows that we were not really free. It was untrue. But, on the other side, here is this proposition, that we are free, and that this idea of bondage is but a delusion. Of these two, which will you take? Either make the first a delusion, or make the second a delusion. Certainly I will make the second a delusion. It is more consonant with all my feelings and aspirations. I am perfectly aware that I am free by nature, and I will not admit that this bondage is true and my freedom a delusion.
This discussion you see going on in all philosophies, taken in the crude form. Even in the most modern philosophies you find the same discussion entering. Here are the two parties. One party says that there is no soul, soul is a delusion. That delusion is being produced by the repeated transit of particles of matter, this combination which you call the body or the brain, and so on; its vibrations and motions and continuous transit of particles here and there, leaving that impres- sion of freedom. There were Buddhistic sects who said, if you take a torch, and whirl it round you rapidly, there will be a circle of light. That does not exist, because the torch is changing place every moment. We are but bundles of little particles, which 194 J NANA YOGA in the rapid whirling produce this delusion. On the other hand there is the statement, that this body is true, and the soul does not exist. Another explana- tion is, that in the rapid interchange of thought matter occurs as a delusion, but matter does not really exist. These remain to the present day, one side claiming that spirit is a delusion and the other that matter is a delusion. Which side will you take? Of course we will take the spirit side and deny the matter side. The arguments are the same for both sides, only on the spirit side the argument is a little stronger. For nobody has even seen what matter is. We can only feel ourselves. I never saw a man who could feel matter outside of himself. Nobody was ever able to jump outside his own soul. Therefore the argument is a little stronger on the side of the spirit. Secondly, the spirit thought explains the universe, while mate- rialism does not. Therefore the materialistic explan- ation is illogical. This is a crude form of the same thought. If you boil all these philosophies down and analyze them, you will find these two things in col- lision. So here, too, in a more intricate form, in a more philosophical form, we find the same question about natural purity and freedom, and natural bondage. One side says that the first is a delusion, and the other that the second is the delusion. And here, too, we side with the second, that our bondage is a delusion.
So the solution of the Vedanta is that we are not bound, we are free already. Not only so, but to say or to think that we are bound is dangerous; it is a mistake; it is self-hypnotism. As soon as you say, THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL 195 "I am bound/' "I am weak," "I am helpless," woe unto you; you rivet one more chain upon yourself. Do not say that, do not think it. I have heard of a man who lived in a forest and used to repeat day and night, "S'ivoham" — I am the Blessed One — and one day a tiger fell upon the man and dragged him away to kill him, and people on the other side of the river saw it, and heard the voice as long as voice remained in him saying, ^'S'ivoham" — even in the very jaws of the tiger. There have been many such men. There have been cases of men who, while being cut to pieces, have blessed their enemies. "I am He, I am He; and so art thou." I am pure and perfect, and so are all my enemies. You are He, and so am I. That is the position of strength. Nevertheless, there are great and wonderful things in the religions of the dualists; wonderful is the idea of the personal God apart from this nature, whom we are to worship and whom we are to love. Sometimes it is very soothing. But, says the Vedanta, that soothing is something like morphia, the soothing that comes from an opiate, not natural. It brings weakness in the long run, and what this world wants to-day more than it ever did is strength- ening. It is weakness, says the Vedanta, which is the cause of all misery in this world. Weakness is the one cause of suffering. We become miserable because we are weak. We lie, steal, kill, or commit any crime, because we are weak. We suffer because we are weak. We die because we are weak. Where there is nothing to weaken us, there is no death or sorrow. We are miserable through delusion. Give up the delusion and the whole thing vanishes. It is plain and simple 196 JNANA YOGA indeed. Through all these philosophical discussions and tremendous mental gymnastics we come back to this one religious idea, the simplest in the whole world. The Monistic Vedanta is the simplest form in which you can put a truth. To teach dualism was the tre- mendous mistake made in India, made everywhere else, because people did not look at the principles they arrived at, but only thought of the process, which is very intricate indeed. These tremendous philosoph- ical and logical propositions were alarming to them. They thought these things could not be made universal, could not be made teachings of everyday practical life, and that under the guise of such a philosophy much laxity of living would arise.
But I do not believe at all that Monistic ideas preached to the world would produce immorality and weakness. On the contrary, I have reason to believe that it is the only remedy there is. If this be the truth, why let people drink ditchwater when the stream of life is flowing by? If this be the truth, that they are all pure, why not at this moment teach it to the whole world? Saints and sinners, men, women and children, great or small, why not teach it with the voice of thunder, teach it to every man that is born or ever will come into the world, to the man on the throne and to the man sweeping the streets, rich or poor?
It appears now a very big and a very great under- taking, to many it appears very startling, but that is because of superstition, nothing else. By eating all sorts of low and indigestible food, and by starving ourselves, we have made ourselves incompetent to eat THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL I97 a good meal. We have listened to words of weakness from our childhood. It is just the same with ghosts. You always hear people say they do not believe in ghosts, but, at the same time, there are very few who do not get a little creepy sensation in the dark. It is simply superstition. So with all these things. This is the one idea that will come out of Vedanta, and the one idea that deserves to live. These books may perish to-morrow. Whether this idea first flashed into the brains of Hebrews or of people living at the North Pole nobody cares. But this is truth and truth is eternal, and truth itself teaches that it is not the special property of any being. Men and animals and gods are all common recipients of this one truth. Teach it to them. Why make life miserable? Why let people fall into all sorts of superstition? I will give ten thousand lives if twenty of them will give up their superstitions. Not only in this country, but in the land of its very birth, if you tell people this they are frightened. They say that this idea is for San- nyasins, who give up the world and live in forests; for them it is all right. But for us poor householders, we must all have some sort of fear, we must have ceremonies, and so on.
Dualistic ideas have ruled the world long enough, and this is the result. W^hy not make a new experiment? It may take millions of years perhaps for all minds to receive it, but why not begin now? If we have told it to twenty persons in our lives we have done a great work. There is generally one idea in India which militates against it. It is this. It is all very well to say, "I am the Pure, the Blessed," but I cannot show igS J NANA YOGA it always in my life. That is true; the ideal is always hard. Every child that is born sees the sky over head very far away, but is that any reason why we should not strike towards the sky? Would it mend matters to go towards superstition? If we cannot get nectar, will it mend matters for us to drink poison? Would it be any help for us because we cannot realize truth immediately to go into darkness and weakness and superstition?
I have no objection to dualism in many of its forms. I like most of them, but I have objections to every form of teaching which inculcates weakness. That is the one question I put to every one, man, woman or child, when they are in training, physical, mental or spiritual. The question is: Are you strong? Do you feel strength? — for I know it is truth alone that gives strength. I know that truth alone gives life, and nothing but going towards reality will make us strong, and none will reach truth until he is strong. Every system, therefore, w^hich weakens the mind, weakens the brain, makes one superstitious, makes one mope in darkness, makes one desire all sorts of morbid impossibilities and mysteries and superstitions, I do not like, because its effect is dangerous on the human being. Such teachings never bring any good.
Some may agree with me, that such things create morbidness in the human being, miake him weak, so weak that in course of time it will be almost impossible for him to receive truth or live up to it. Strength, therefore, is the one thing that we want. Strengthen- ing is the great medicine for the world's disease. Strengthening is the medicine which the poor must THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL 1 99 have when tyrannized over by the rich. Strength is the medicine that the ignorant must have when oppressed by the learned; and it is the medicine that sinners must have when tyrannized over by other sin- ners, and nothing gives such strength as this idea of Monism. Nothing makes us so moral as this idea of Monism. Nothing makes us work so well at our best and highest^ as when all the responsibility is thrown upon us. I challenge every one of you. How will you behave if I put a little baby in your hands? Your whole life will be changed for the moment; whatever you may be you must become selfless for the time being. You will give up all your criminal ideas; as soon as responsibility is thrown upon you, your whole character will change. So, if the whole respon- sibility is thrown upon our own shoulders we shall be at our highest and best. When we have nobody to grope towards, no one to lay all our blame upon; when we have neither the devil nor a personal God to lay all our evils upon, when we are alone responsible, then we shall rise to our highest and best. I am responsible for my fate, I am the bringer of good unto myself, I am the bringer of evil. I am the Pure and Blessed One. We must reject all thoughts that assert the contrary. "I never had death nor fear, I have no difference of caste or creed, I had neither father nor mother, nor birth nor death, nor friend nor foe, for I am the Existing- Knowledge-Bliss Absolute; I am the Blissful One, I am the Blissful One. I am not bound either by virtue or vice, by happiness or misery. Pil- grimages and book and the Vedas, and all these cere- monials can never bind me. I do not eat, the body is not mine, nor the superstitions that come to the 200 J NANA YOGA body, nor the decay that comes to the body, for I am Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute; I am the Bliss- ful One, I am the Blissful One."
This, says the Vedanta, is the only prayer that the masses should have. This is the only way to reach the goal, to tell ourselves, and to tell everybody else that we are divine. And as we go on repeating, strength comes. He who limps at first will get stronger and stronger, the voice will increase in volume until it takes possession of our hearts and ideas, and will course through our veins, and permeate all our body. The delusion will vanish as the sunlight becomes more and more effulgent, load after load of ignorance will vanish, and then will come a time when the whole has disappeared and the Sun alone will be left. This Vedantic idea of course to many seems very terrible, but that is, just as I have said, on account of superstition. There are people in this country who, if I tell them there is no such being as the devil, will think all religion has gone too. Many people have said to me, how can there be religion without a devil? They say, how can there be a religion without some one to direct us? How can we live without being ruled by somebody? We like to be so treated. We have become used to it and like it. We are not happy until we feel we have been reprimanded by somebody every day. The same superstition! But however terrible it may seem now, the time will come when we shall look back, each one of us, and smile at every one of those superstitions which covered the pure and eternal soul, and repeat with gladness, with truth, and with strength, "I am free, and was free, and alwavs will be free," XII PRACTICAL VEDANTA Part I I HAVE been asked to say something about the prac- tical position of the Vedanta Philosophy. As I have told you, theory is very good indeed, but how are we to carry it into practice? If it be absolutely impracti- cable no theory is of any value whatever, except as intellectual gymnastics. The Vedanta, therefore, to become a religion, must be intensely practical. We must be able to carry it out in every part of our lives. And not only this, the fictitious differentiation between religion and the life of the world must vanish, for the Vedanta teaches Oneness — one life throughout. The ideals of religion must cover the whole field of life, they must enter into every one of our thoughts, and more and more into our practice. I will enter grad- ually into the practical side as we go on. But this series of lectures is intended to be a basis, and so we must first apply ourselves to theories, and understand how they are worked out, proceeding from forest caves, to busy streets, and cities; and one peculiar feature we find is that many of these thoughts have been the outcome, not of retirement into forests, but have emanated from thrones — from persons whom we JNANA YOGA expect to be the busiest in this Hfe of ours, from ruling monarchs.
S'vetaketu was the son of Aruni, a sage, most proba- bly a recluse. He was brought up in the forest, but he went into the city of the Panchalas and there went to the court of the king, Pravdhana Taivali, and the king asked him: **Do you know how beings depart hence at death?" "No, Sir." "Do you know how they return hither?" No, Sir." Do you know the way of the fathers and the way of the gods?" "No, Sir." Then the king asked other questions. S'vetaketu could not answer them. Then the king told him that he knew nothing. The boy went back to his father and the father admitted that he could not answer these questions. It was not that he had not taught the boy, but he did not know these things himself. So S'vetaketu returned to the king with his father and they both asked to be taught this secret. The king said this secret, this philosophy, was only known among kings hitherto; the priests never knew it. He, however, proceeded to teach them what he knew about these things. Thus we find in various Upanishads the same idea, that this Vedanta philosophy is not the out- come of meditation in the forests only, but that the very best parts of it were thought out and expressed by brains which were busiest in the affairs of this life of ours. We cannot conceive any man busier than an absolute monarch, one man who is ruling absolutely over millions of people, and yet some of these rulers were deep thinkers.
Everything goes to show that this philosophy must be very practical, and later on, when we come to the PRACTICAL VEDANTA 203 Bhagavad Gita — most of you, perhaps, have read it; it is the best commentary we have on the Vedanta philosophy — curiously enough the scene is laid on the battle field, where Krishna teaches this philosophy to Arjuna, and the doctrine which stands out luminously in every page of the Gita is intense activity, but in the midst of that, eternal calmness. And this idea is called the "Secret of Work,'* to attain which is the goal of the Vedanta. Inactivity as we understand it, in the sense of passivity, certainly cannot be the goal. Were it so then the w^alls around us would be the most intelligent; they are inactive. Clods of earth, stumps of trees, would be the greatest sages in the world; they are inactive. Nor does inactivity become activity when it is combined with passion. Real activi- ty, which is the goal of Vedanta, is that which is com- bined with eternal calmness, the calmness which cannot be ruffled, the balance of mind which is never disturbed, whatever happens around it. And we all know from our experience in life that that is the best attitude for work.
I have been asked many times how we can work if we do not feel the passions which we generally feel for work. I also thought in that way years ago, but as I am growing older, getting more experience, I find it is not true. The less passion there is, the better we work. The calmer we are, the better for us, and the more the amount of work we do. When we let loose our feelings we spoil so much of energy, shatter our nerves, disturb our minds, and accomplish very little work. The energy which ought to have gone out as work is spent as mere feeling, which counts for 204 J NANA YOGA 204 J NANA YOGA nothing. It is only when the mind is very calm and collected that the whole of its energy is spent in doing good work. And if you read the lives of the great workers which the world has produced, you will find that they were wonderfully calm men. Nothing, as it were, could throw them off their balance. That is why the man who becomes angry never does a great amount of work, and the man whom nothing can make angry accomplishes much more. The man who gives way to anger, or hatred, or any other passion, cannot work in this life of ours; he only breaks himself to pieces, and does nothing practical. It is the calm, for- giving, equable, well-balanced mind that does the great- est amount of work.