The generalization of the personal God is another case in point. We have seen how the same generaliza- tion was reached, and how it was called the sum total of all consciousness. But a difficulty arises from that; it is not an all-sufficient generalization. We take up only one side of the facts of nature, the fact of con- sciousness, and out of that we generalize, and our generalization takes the form of the personal God, when the whole of nature is left aside. So, in the first place it is rather a defective generalization. There is another insufficiency, and that is the outcome of the second principle. Everything should be explained out of its own nature. There may have been people who thought that every stone that fell to the ground was 248 J NANA YOGA dragged down by some ghost, but the explanation is the law of gravitation, and although we know it is not a perfect explanation, yet it is much better than the other, because one explanation is by some extraneous cause, and the other is by its own nature. So on, throughout the whole range of our knowledge, the explanation which is the outcome of the nature of the thing itself is a scientific explanation, and any explana- tion which is entirely outside of the thing in question is unscientific.
So the explanation of a personal God as the creator of the universe has to stand that test. If that God is outside of nature, having nothing to do with nature, and this nature is the outcome of the command of that God, produced from nothing, it becomes naturally, a very unscientific theory, and that has been the diffi- culty and the weak point of every theistic theory throughout the ages. These two defects we find there- fore in what is generally called the theory of mono- theism, the theory of a personal God, with all the qualities of a human being multiplied very much, and who, by his will, created this universe out of nothing, and yet is separate from it. This leads us into two difficulties.
As w^e have seen, it is not a sufficient generalization, and secondly it is not an explanation of nature from nature. It holds that the effect is not the cause, that the cause is entirely separate from the effect. Yet all the tendency of human knowledge shows that the effect is but the cause in another form. To this idea the discoveries in modern science are pointing every day, and the latest theory that has been granted on PRACTICAL VEDANTA 249 all sides is what we call the theory of evolution, the principle of which is that the effect is but the cause in another form, readjustment of the old cause, and the old cause takes the form of the effect. Creation out of nothing would be laughed at by modern scientific men.
Can religion stand these tests? If there be any religious theories which can stand these two tests they will be acceptable to the modern mind, to the thinking mind. Any other theory which we ask them to believe from the authority of priests, or churches, or books, the modern man is unable to accept, and the result is a hideous mass of unbelief. Even in those in whom there is an external display of belief, in their hearts there is a tremendous amount of unbelief. The rest give up religion, shrink away from it, as it were, do not want to touch it, regard it as priestcraft.
Religion has been reduced to a sort of national form. It is one of our very best social remnants; let it remain. But the real necessity which the grand- father of the modern man felt for it is gone. He no longer finds it satisfactory to his reason. The idea of such a personal God, and such a creation, the idea which is generally known as monotheism in every religion, cannot hold any longer. In India it could not hold its own because of the Buddhists, and that was the very point where the Buddhists gained their victory in ancient times. They showed that if nature is allowed its almost infinite power, and if nature can work out all its wants, it is simply unnecessary to insist that there is something beside nature. Even the soul is unnecessary. There was an old discus- 250 J NANA YOGA sion, and you will sometimes find that old superstition living at the present day, the idea of substance and qualities.
Most of you have read how, during the middle ages, and, I am sorry to say, even much later, this was one of the questions of discussion, whether qualities inhered in substance, or substance in qualities; whether length and breadth and thickness form part of certain substances which we call dead matter, or if the sub- stance remains whether the qualities are there or not. Now comes our Buddhist, and he says you have no grounds to maintain the existence of such a substance, these qualities are all that exist. You do not see beyond them; and that is just the position of most of our modern agnostics. For, taking this fight of the substance and qualities upon a still higher plane is the fight between noumenon and phenomenon. There is this phenomenal world, the universe of continuous change, and there is something which does not change, and this duality of existence, noumenon and phenom- enon, some hold is true, and others with better reason claim that you have no right to admit the two, for what we see, feel, and think is only the phenomenon. You have no right to assert there is anything beyond phenomena; and there is no answer at all. The only answer we get is from the monistic theory of the Vedanta, that it is true that only one exists, and that one is either phenomenon or noumenon. It is not true that there are two, something changing, and in and through that, something which does not change, but it is the one and the same thing which appears as changing, and which is in reality unchangeable.
PRACTICAL VEDANTA 25 1 To bring it to a concrete and philosophical conclu- sion, we have come to think of the body, and mind, and soul as many, but really there is only one; that one is appearing in all these various forms. Taking the well-known illustration of the monists, the rope appears as the snake. Some people mistake the rope for the snake, in the dark or through some other cause, but when knowledge comes, the snake vanishes and it is found to be a rope. By this illustration we see, that, when the snake exists in the mind, the rope has vanished, and when the rope exists, the snake has gone. When we see phenomena and phenomena only around us, the noumenon has vanished; but when we see the noumenon, the unchangeable, it naturally fol- lows that the phenomena have vanished. We under- stand then better the position of both the realist and the idealist. The realist looks at phenomena only, and the idealist tries to look at the noumenon. For the idealist, the really genuine idealist, who has truly arrived at the power of perception, where he can get away from changes, for him the changeful universe has vanished, and he has the right to say it is all delusion, there was no change. The realist at the same time looks at the changeful. For him the unchangeable has vanished, and he has a right to say this is all real.
What is the outcome of this philosophy? It is that the personal idea of God is not sufficient. We have to get to something higher, to the impersonal idea. Not that the personal idea would be destroyed by that, not that we supply proof that the personal God does not exist, but it is the only logical step that we can take.
252 JNANA YOGA 252 JNANA YOGA Just as we say that man is a personal-impersonal being. We are the impersonal, at the same time that we are the personal. So our old idea of God must go, for it is only a repetition of the same idea on a higher plane, the anthropomorphic idea of God. To the impersonal we must go at last, therefore, for the explanation of the personal, for the impersonal is a much higher generalization than the personal. The Infinite can only be impersonal, the personal is lim- ited. Thereby we preserve the personal and do not destroy it. Many times this doubt comes that if we arrive at the idea of the impersonal God the personal will be destroyed, if we arrive at the idea of • the impersonal man the personal will be lost. But the idea is not the destruction of the individual, but its real preservation. We cannot prove the individual by any other means than by referring to the universal, by proving that this individual is really the universal. If we think of the individual as separate from every- thing else in the universe, it cannot stand a minute, such a thing never existed.
Secondly, by the application of the second principle, that the explanation of everything must come out of the nature of the thing, we confront a still bolder idea, and one more difficult to understand. But it comes to nothing short of this, that the Impersonal Being, our highest generalization, is in ourselves, and we are That. "O Svetaketu, thou art That; thou art that Impersonal Being; that God for whom thou hast been searching all over the universe is all the time thyself" — not in the personal sense but in the impersonal sense. The man we know now, the mani- PRACTICAL VEDANTA 253 fested, is personalized, but the reality of this is the impersonal. To understand the personal we have to refer to the impersonal, the particular must be referred to the general, and that impersonal is the Truth, the Self of man, but this personalized manifestation is not referred to as that truth.
There will be various questions in connection with this, and I will try to answer them as we go on. Many difficulties will arise, but first let us clearly understand the position of monism. That this uni- verse which we see is all that exists; we need not seek elsewhere. Gross or fine it is all here: the effect and the cause are both here, the explanation is here. What is known as the particular is simply repetition in a minute form of the universal. We get our idea of the universe from the study of our own souls, and what is true there also holds good in the outside universe. The ideas of heaven and all these various places, even if they be true, are in the universe; they altogether make this unity. The first idea, therefore, is that of a whole, a unit, composed of various minute particles, and each one of us, as it were, is a part of this unit. As manifested beings we appear to be separate, but our reality is in that unit, and the less we think of ourselves as separate from that unit the better for us. The more we think of ourselves as separate from this whole the more miserable we become. From this principle we get the principle of monistic ethics, and I dare to say that we cannot get any ethics from anywhere else. We know that the oldest idea of ethics was the will of some particular being or beings, but few are ready to accept that now.
254 J NANA YOGA because it would be only a partial generalization. The Hindus say we must not do this, or that because the Vedas say so, but the Christian is not going to obey the authority of the Vedas. The Christian says you must do this and not do that because it is in the Bible. That will not be binding on those who do not believe in the Bible. But we must have a theory which is large enough to take in all these various grounds. Just as there are millions of people who are ready to believe in a personal Creator, there have also been thousands of the brightest minds in this world who felt that such ideas were not sufficient for them, and wanted something higher, and wherever religion was not broad enough to include all these minds the result was that the brightest minds in the society were always on the outside of religion, and never was this so marked as at the present time, especially in Europe. To include these, therefore, religion must become broad enough. Everything it claims must be judged from the standpoint of reason. Why religions should claim that they are not bound to abide by the stand- point of reason no one knows. If one does not take the standard of reason there cannot be any true judg- ment, even in the case of religions. One religion may ordain something very hideous. For instance, the Mohammedan religion allows all who are not Moham- medans to be killed. It is clearly stated in the Koran, kill the infidels if they do not become Mohammedans. They must be put to fire and sword. Now if you tell a Mohammedan that this is wrong, he will naturally ask: "How do you know that? How do you know it is not good? Because your ideas of good and bad are PRACTICAL VEDANTA 255 from your books? My book says it is good." If you say your book is older, there will come the Buddhist, who says: "My book is much older still." Then there will come the Hindu, who says: "My books are the oldest of all." Therefore referring to books will not do. Where is the standard by which you can com- pare? You will say, look at the Sermon on the Mount, and the Mohammedan will reply, look at the Ethics of the Koran. The Mohammedan will say, who is the arbiter as to which is better of the two? Neither the New Testament nor the Koran can be the arbiter in a quarrel between them. There must be some indepen- dent authority, and that cannot be any book, but some- thing which is universal; and what is more universal than reason? It has been said that reason is not strong enough; it does not always help us to get the Truth; many times it makes mistakes, and therefore the conclusion was, that we must believe in the authori- ty of a church. That was said by a Roman Catholic, but I could not see the logic of it. On the other hand, if I have to state a proposition, I should say if reason be so weak, a body of priests would be weaker, and I am not going to accept their verdict, but I will yield to reason, because with all its weakness there is some chance of getting truth, while by the other means I should not get any truth.
We have to follow reason, therefore, and we have to sympathize with those who do not come to any sort of belief following reason. For it is better that mankind should become atheists by following reason, than believe in two hundred millions of gods by fol- lowing anybody. What we want is progress, devel- 256 J NANA YOGA opment, realization. No theories ever made men higher. No amount of books can help us to become purer. The only power that lies in ourselves is in realization, and that comes from thinking. Let men think. A clod of earth never thinks; you may take it for granted that a clod of earth believes in every- thing, but it is only a lump of earth. The glory of man is that he is a thinking being. It is the nature of man that he differs therein from animals, and there- fore man must think. I believe in reason and follow reason, having seen enough of the evils of authority, for I was born in a country where they have gone to the extreme of authority.
The Hindiis believe that creation has come out of their book. How do you know there is a cow? Because the word cow is in the Vedas. How do you know there is a man outside? Because the word man is there. If it had not been there would have been no man outside. That is what they say. Authority with a vengeance! And it is not studied as I have studied it now, but some of the most powerful minds have taken it up and spun out some most wonderful logical theories round it. They have argued it out and there it stands, a whole system of philosophy, and thousands of the brightest intellects have been dedicated through thousands of years to the working out of this theory. Such has been the power of authority, and great are the dangers thereof! It stunts the growth of humani- ty, and we must not forget that we want growth. Even in all relative truth, more than the truth itself we want the exercise. That is our life.
The monistic theory has this merit, that it is the PRACTICAL VEDANTA 257 nearest to a demonstrable truth in theology that we can get. The idea of the Impersonal, and that nature is the evolution of that Impersonal, is the nearest that we can get to any truth that is demonstrable, and every other idea, every conception of God which is partial and little and personal is not rational. And it has this glory, that this rational conception of God proves that these partial conceptions which we see are yet necessary for many. For that is the only argu- ment in their favor. You sometimes see people who say this personal explanation is irrational, but it is comfortable; they want a comfortable religion and we understand that it is necessary for them. The clear light of truth very few in this life can bear, much less work upon. It is necessary, therefore, that this com- fortable religion should be there; it helps many souls, in time, to a better. The little mind whose circum- ference is very limited and requires little things to build it up, never dares to soar in thought. Their conceptions are very good and helpful, even of little gods and symbols and ideals, but you have to under- stand the impersonal, for it is in and through that alone that these others can be made helpful and good. For instance, the man who understands and believes in the impersonal — ^John Stuart Mill, for example — says the personal God is impossible, cannot be proved. I admit with him, that it cannot be demonstrated, but it is the highest reading of the Absolute that can be reached by the human intellect, and what else is the universe but various readings of the Absolute. It is like a book before us, and each one has brought his intellect to read the book, and each one has to read 258 JNANA YOGA it for himself. There is something which is similar in the intellect of all men, therefore certain things are common to the intellect of mankind. That you and I see a chair proves that there is something common to both our minds. Suppose a being comes with another sense; he will not see the chair at all, but all beings similarly constituted will see the same things. Thus this universe itself is the Absolute, the unchangeable, the noumenon, and the phenomena constitute the read- ing thereof. For you will first find that all phenomena are finite. Every phenomenon that we can see, feel, or think of, is finite, limited by our knowledge; and a personal God as we conceive of Him is in fact a phenomenon. The very idea of causation exists only in the phenomenal world, and God, as the cause of this universe, must naturally be thought of as limited, and yet He is the same impersonal God. This very universe, as we have seen, is the same Impersonal Being read by our intellect. Whatever is reality in the universe is that Impersonal Being, and the forms and conceptions are given to It by our intellects. What- ever is real in this table is that Being, and the table form and all other forms are given by the intellects of men.
Now, motion, for instance, which is a necessary adjunct of the phenomenal, cannot be spoken of the universal. Every little bit, every atom inside the universe, is in a constant state of change and motion, but the universe as a whole is unchangeable, because motion or change is a relative thing, we can only think of something in motion in comparison to something not in motion. There must be two in order to under- PRACTICAL VEDANTA 259 stand motion. The whole mass of the universe, taken as a unit, cannot move. In regard to what will it move? It cannot be said to change. With regard to what will it change? So the whole is the Absolute, but within it every particle is in a constant state of flux and change. It is unchangeable and changeable at the same time, impersonal and personal in one. This is our conception of the universe, of motion and of God, and that is what is meant by "Thou art That." For we must know our own nature.
The finite, manifested man forgets his origin, like the water that comes from the ocean forgetting its origin and thinking itself to be entirely separate. So we, as personalized beings, little, differentiated beings, forget our reality, and what is meant by the teaching of monism is not that we must give up these differ- entiations, but that we must learn to understand what they are. We, that infinite Being, that very Soul, are like the water, and this water starts and has its being from, and is really the ocean, not a part, but the whole of the ocean, for the infinite mass of energy which exists is yours and mine, because you and I, and every being, represent so many channels, so many paths, through which this Infinite Reality is manifesting Itself, and the whole mass of changes which we call evolution is the soul manifesting all this infinite ener- gy, and we cannot stop anywhere on this side of the Infinite. Our power, and blessedness, and wisdom, cannot stop anywhere this side of the Infinite. Infinite power and existence and blessedness are ours, not that we will acquire them, but they are our own; we have to manifest them.
This is one great idea that comes from monism, and 260 J NANA YOGA one that is very hard to understand. I find in myself how from childhood every one around teaches weak- ness, how I have been told since I was born that I was a weak thing. It is very hard for me now to understand my own strength, but by analysis and rea- soning I see I must simply gain knowledge of my own strength, must realize it. All the knowledge that we have in this world, where did it come from? It is in us. What knowledge is outside? Show me one bit. Knowledge was not in matter; it was in man all the time. Nobody ever created knowledge; man dis- covers it, brings it from within. It is lying there. The whole of that big banyan tree, which covers miles of ground perhaps, was in the little seed, like one- eighth of a mustard seed— that mass of energy was there confined. The gigantic intellect we know can lie coiled up in the protoplasmic cell, and why not infinite energy? We know that it is so. It may seem like a paradox, but it is true. All of us have come out of" one protoplasmic cell, and all the little powers we; have were coiled up there. You cannot say it was ', acquired by food; for build up food mountains high and see what power comes out. The energy was there; potentially, but still there, and so is infinite power in the soul of man, if man never knows it. It is only a question of being conscious of it. Slowly i this infinite giant is, as it were, arousing himself, I waking up, and becoming conscious of his power, and the more he is becoming conscious the more bonds are breaking, chains are snapping all around, and there must come a day when infinite consciousness is regained; with power and wisdom this giant will stand erect. Let us all help to bring that about.
XV PRACTICAL VEDANTA Part IV We have been dealing more with the universal so far. This morning I will try to bring before you the Vedantic ideas of the relation of the particular to the universal. As we have seen in the dualistic form of Vedic doctrines, the earlier forms, there was a clearly defined particular and limited soul for every being. There have been a great many theories about this par- ticular soul in each individual, but the main discussion was between the ancient Buddhists and the ancient Vedantists, the one believing in the individual soul complete in itself, the other denying in toto the exist- ence of such an individual soul. As I told you the other day, it is pretty much the same discussion you had in Europe as to substance and quality, one set holding that behind the qualities there is something as substance, in which the qualities inhere, and the other denying the existence of such a substance as being unnecessary; the qualities may live by them- selves. The most ancient theory of the soul, of course, is based upon the argument from self -identity — "I am I"— that the "F' of yesterday is the "I" of to-day, and the "I" of to-day will be the *T" of to-morrow, 262 JNANA YOGA