This idea we have to understand — "How to know the knower;" the knower cannot be known, because VEDANTA 341 if it be known, it will not be the knower. If you look at your eyes in a mirror, the reflection is no more your eyes, but something else, a reflection only. Then if this Soul, this universal, infinite being which you are, is only a witness, what good is it? It can- not live, and move about, and enjoy the world, as we do. People cannot understand how the witness can enjoy. Oh, you Hindus have become quiescent, and good for nothing, through this doctrine that you are witnesses. First of all it is only the witness that can enjoy. The more and more you are the witness of anything in life the more you enjoy it. And this is anandam (bliss), and therefore infinite bliss can only be yours when you have become the witness of this universe, then alone you are a mukta (free soul.) It is the witness alone that can work without any desire, without any idea of going to heaven, without any fear of blame, without any desire for praise. The witness alone enjoys, and none else.
Coming to the moral aspect, there is one thing between the metaphysical and the moral aspect of Advaitism, it is the theory of Maya. Every one of these points in the Advaita system requires years to understand and months to tell. Therefore you will excuse me if I only just touch upon them en passant. This theory of mdyd has been the most difficult thing to understand in all ages. Let me tell you in a few words that it is more than a theory, it is the combina- tion of the three ideas Desa-kdla-nimitfa — Space, time, and causation, which have been further reduced to nama-rupa — name and form. Suppose there is a wave in the ocean. The wave is distinct from the 342 JNANA YOGA 342 JNANA YOGA ocean only in its form and name, and this form and this name cannot have any separate existence from the wave, they exist only with the wave. The wave may subside, but the same amount of water remains, even if the name and form that were on the wave vanish forever. So this mdya is what makes the difference between me and you, between all animals and man, between men and gods. In fact it is this may a that causes the Atman to be caught, as it were, in so many millions of beings, and these are distin- guishable only through name and form. If you let name and form go, all this variety vanishes forever, and you are what you really are. This is mdya. It is again no theory, but a statement of facts.
When the realist states that this world exists, what he means is that this table has an independent exist- ence of its own, that it does not depend on the exist- ence of anything else in the universe, and if the rest of the universe were destroyed and annihilated this table would remain just as it is now. A little knowl- edge shows 3'^ou this cannot be. Everything here in the sense-world is dependent and inter-dependent, relative and correlative, the existence of one depend- ing on the other. There are three steps, therefore, in our knowledge of things; the first is that each thing is individual and separate from every other; the next step is to find that there is relation and correlation between all things; and the third is that there is only one thing which we see as many. The first idea of God with the ignorant is that God is somewhere outside of the universe; that is to say, the con- ception of God is extremely human, He does just VEDA NT A 343 VEDA NT A 343 what a man does only on a higher scale. And we have seen how that idea of God is proved in a few words to be unreasonable and insufficient. And next is the idea of a power that we see manifested everywhere. This is the real personal God we get in the Chandi (a book of praise of the Divine Mother), but, mark me, not the God whom you make the reser- voir of all good qualities only. You cannot have two Gods, God and Satan, you must have only one, and dare to call Him good and bad, but have only one, and take the logical consequences.
"Thus we salute Thee, O Divine Mother, who lives in every being as peace, who lives in all beings as purity." At the same time we must take the whole consequence of it. "All this bliss, O Gargi, wherever there is bliss, there is a portion of the Divine." You may use it how you like. You may try to give a poor man a hundred rupees, another man may forge your name, but the sunlight will be the same for both. This is the second stage, and the third is that God is neither outside nature, nor inside nature, but God and nature and soul and universe are all convertible terms. You never see two things, it is your meta- physical words that have deluded you. You assume that you are a body and have a soul, and that you are both together. How can that be? Try in your own mind. If there is a yogi among you, he knows him- self as chaitanya, for him the body has vanished. An ordinary man thinks of himself as a body; the idea of spirit has vanished; but because the metaphysical ideas exist that man has a body and a soul and all these things, you think they are all simultaneously 344 j^NANA YOGA 344 j^NANA YOGA there. One thing at a time. Do not talk of God when you see matter, you see the effect and the effect alone, and the cause you cannot see, and the moment you can see the cause the effect will have vanished. Where then is this world, and who has taken it off?
"One that is formless and limitless, beyond all com- pare, beyond all qualities, O sage, O learned man, such a Brahman will shine in your heart in samadhi" (the superconscious state.)
"Where all the changes of nature cease forever, thought beyond all thoughts, whom the Vedas declare, who is the essence in what we call our existence, such a Brahman will manifest himself in you in samadhi."
"Beyond all birth and death, the Infinite One, incomparable, like the whole universe deluged in water in mahdpralaya ("the great dissolution'') — water above, water beneath, water on all sides, and on the face of that water not a wave, not a ripple, silent and calm, all visions have died out, all fights and quarrels and wars of fools and saints have ceased forever, such a Brahman will shine in your hearts in samadhi/' That also comes, and when that comes the world has vanished.
We have seen then, that this Brahman, this Reality is unknown and unknowable, not in the sense of the agnostic, but because to know Him would be blas- phemy, because you are He already. We have also seen that this Brahman is not this table and yet is this table. Take off the name and form, and what- ever is reality is He. He is the reality in everything. "Thou art the woman, thou art the man, thou the young man walking in the pride of youth, thou the old VEDANTA 345 man tottering on his stick, thou art all in all, in every- thing, and I am Thou, I am Thou."
That is the theme of Advaitism. A few words more. Herein we find the explanation of the essence of things. We have seen how here alone we can take a firm stand against all the onrush of logic and scien- tific knowledge. Here at last reason has a firm foundation. At the same time the Indian Vedantist does not curse the preceding steps. He looks back and he blesses them, for he knows that they were true, only wrongly perceived and wrongly stated. They were seen through the glass of mdya, distorted it may be, yet truth and nothing but truth. The same God whom the ignorant man saw outside nature, the same whom the little-knowing man saw as inter-penetrating the universe, and the same whom the sage realizes as his own self, as the whole universe itself, all are one and the same being, the same entity seen from differ- ent points of view, seen through different glasses of maya, perceived by different minds. All the differ- ence is caused by that. Not only so, but one view must lead to the other. What is the difference between science and common knowledge? Go out into one of these streets and if something is happening, ask one of gonwars (boors) what it is. It is ten to one that he will tell you that a ghost is causing the phenomenon.
He is always going after ghosts and spirits outside, because it is the nature of ignorance to seek for causes outside of effects. If a stone falls it has been thrown by a devil or a ghost, says the ignorant man, but the scientific man says it is the law of nature, the law of gravitation.
346 J NANA YOGA What is the fight between science and religion everywhere? Religions are encumbered with a mass of explanations which are outside, one angel is in charge of the sun, another of the moon, and so on ad infinitum; every change is caused by a spirit, the one point of agreement being that they are all outside the thing itself; while science means that the cause of a thing is to be sought in the nature of the thing itself. As step by step science is progressing, it has taken the explanation of natural phenomena out of the hands of spirits and angels. Because Advaitism has done likewise, it is the most scientific religion. This uni- verse has not been created by any extra-cosmic God, nor is it the work of any outside genius. It is self- created, self-manifesting, self-dissolved,, one infinite existence, the Brahman. ''Tat tvam asi Svetaketo" — "O Svetaketu, That thou art." Thus you see that this, and this alone, can be the scientific religion, and with all the prattle about science that is going on daily at the present time in modem half -educated India, with all the talk about rationalism and reason that I hear every day, I expect that whole sects will come over and dare to be Advaitists, and dare to preach it to the world in the words of Buddha, "for the good of many, for the happiness of many." If you do not, I take you for cowards. If you are cow- ards, if fear is your excuse, allow the same liberty unto others, do not try to overthrow the poor idol- worshipper, do not call him a devil, do not go about preaching to every man who does not agree entirely with you; know first that you are cowards yourselves, and if society frightens you, if your own superstitions VEDANTA 347 of the past frighten you so much, how much more will these superstitions frighten and bind down those who are ignorant? That is the Advaitist position. Have mercy on others. Would to God that the whole world were Advaitists to-morrow, not only in theory, but in realization; but if that cannot be, let us do the next best thing. Let us take our less enlightened brothers by the hand, lead them gently step by step just as they can go, and know that every step in all religious growth in India has been progressive. It is not from bad to good, but from good to better.
Something more must be said about the moral rela- tion. Our boys blithely talk nowadays, they learn from somebody — Lord knows from whom — that Advaita will make people immoral, because if we are all one and all God, we need not be moral at all. In the first place, that is the argument of the brute, who can only be kept down by the whip. If you are such a brute, commit suicide first, rather than be the kind of human being that has to be kept down by the whip. If the whip goes away, you will be a demon! You ought all to be killed just here, if such is the case; there is no help for you; you must always be living under this whip and rod, and there is no salvation, no escape for you. In the second place, Advaita and Advaita alone explains morality. Every religion preaches that the essence of all morality is to do good unto others. And why? Be unselfish. And why? Some god has said it? He is not for me. Some texts have told it? Let them all tell it; that is nothing to me; let them all tell it. And if they do, what is it? Each one for himself, and somebody for the hinder- 34^ J NANA YOGA 34^ J NANA YOGA most, that is all the morality in the world, at least with many. What is the reason why I should be moral? You cannot explain it except when you come to know. "He who sees every one in himself, and himself in every one, thus seeing the same God living in all in the same manner, he (the sage) no more kills the self by the self." Know through Advaita that whomever you hurt, you hurt yourself; they are all you. Whether you know it or not, through all hands you work, through all feet you move, you are the king enjoying in the palace, you are the beggar lead- ing that miserable existence in the street; you are the ignorant as well as the learned, you are the man who is weak, and you are the strong; know this and be sympathetic. And that is why we must not hurt others. That is why I do not even care whether I have got to starve, because there will be millions of mouths eating at the same time, and they are all mine. Therefore I should not care what becomes of me and mine, for the whole universe is mine, I am enjoying all the bliss at the same time; and who can kill me, or the universe? Herein Advaita alone explains mor- ality. The others teach it, but cannot give you its reason. So much for explanation.
What is the gain? Strength is the gain. Take off that veil of hypnotism which you have cast upon the world, send not out thoughts and words of weakness unto humanity. Know that all sins and all evil can be summed up in that one word weakness. It is weak- ness that is the motive power in all evil doing; it is weakness that is the source of all selfishness, it is weak- ness that makes men injure each other, it is weakness VEDANTA 349 that makes them manifest as they are not really. Let them all know what they are; let them tell day and night what they are. Let them suck it with their mothers' milk, this idea of strength. Let them ever repeat "Soham, Soham'' "I am He, I am He." And then let them think of it, and lastly let them deeply meditate upon it, and out of that heart will proceed works such as the world has never seen. What has to be done? This Advaitism is said by some to be impracticable; that is to say, it is not yet manifesting itself on the material plane. To a certain extent this is true, for, remember the saying of the Vedas — "Om, this is the great secret; Om. this is the greatest pos- session; he who knows the secret of this Om, what- ever he desires that he gets." Therefore first know the secret of this ''Om," that you are the "Om''; know the secret of this "Tat tvam asi," and then, and then alone, whatever you want shall come to you. If you want to be great materially, believe that you are so. I may be a little bubble, and you may be a wave mountain-high, but know that for both of us the infinite ocean is the background, the infinite Brahman is our magazine of power and strength, and we can draw as much as we like, both of us, I the bubble and you the mountain-high wave. Believe therefore in yourselves. The secret of Advaita is — Believe in yourselves first, and then believe in anything else. In the history of the world, you will find that only those nations that have believed in themselves have become great and strong. In the history of each nation, you will always find that only those individuals who have believed in themselves have become great 350 JNANA YOGA and strong. Here, in India, came an Englishman, who was only a clerk, and for want of funds and other reasons he twice tried to blow out his brains, and when he failed he believed that he was born to do great things, and that man became Lord Clive, the founder of the Empire. If he had believed the padris and gone crawling all his life — "Oh Lord, I am weak and I am low" — where would he have been? In a lunatic asylum. They have made weaklings of you with these evil teachings. I have seen all the world over the bad effects of these weak teachings of humility, destroying the human race.
This is on the practical side. Believe, therefore, in yourselves, and if you want material wealth work it out; it will come to you. If you want to be intellec- tual let it work out on the intellectual plane and intel- lectual giants you shall be. And if you want to attain to freedom let it work out on the spiritual plane, and gods you shall be. "Enter into Nirvana, the blissful." The defect is here; so far the Advaita has only been tried on the spiritual plane, and nowhere else, now the time has come when you must make it practical. It shall no more be a secret, it shall no more live with monks in caves and forests, and in the Himalayas; it must come down to the daily, everyday life of the people; it shall be worked out in the palace of the king, in the cave of the recluse, it shall be worked out in the cottage of the poor, by the beggar in the street, everywhere, anywhere it can be worked out. There- fore do not fear if you are a woman or a Sudra, or anything, for this religion is so great, says Lord Krishna, that even the least done brings a great amount VEDANTA 351 VEDANTA 351 of good. Therefore children of the Aryans, do not sit idle, awake and arise, and stop not until the goal is reached. The time has come when this Advaita is to be worked out practically. Let us bring it down from heaven unto earth; this is the present dispensation. Aye, the voices of our forefathers of old are telling us to stop — stop here my children. Let these great teach- ings come down lower and lower until they have per- meated the world, till they have entered into every pore of society, till they have become the common property of everybody, till they have become part and parcel of our lives, till they have entered into our veins and tingle with every drop of blood there.
You may be astonished to hear it, but as practical Vedantists the Americans are better than we are. I used to stand on the sea-front of New York, and look at the emigrants coming from different countries, crushed, down-trodden, hopeless, with a little bundle of clothes as their only possession, their clothes in rags, unable to look a man in the face; if they saw a police- man they were afraid and tried to get to the other side of the footpath. And, mark you, in six months those very men were walking erect, well clothed, looked everybody in the face; and what makes this wonderful difference? Suppose a man comes from Armenia, or from any other place where he was crushed down beyond all recognition, where everybody told him he was a born slave, born to remain in a low state all his life, and where at the least move on his part he was trodden upon^ There everything cried out to him, "Slave; you are a slave; remain such Helpless you were born, helpless remain." Even the very air mur- 352 J NAN A YOGA 352 J NAN A YOGA mured round him, "There is no hope for you, hopeless and a slave remain;" while stronger men crushed the life out of him. And when that same man landed in New York he went about, and found a new life; he found that there was a place in the world where he was a man among men. Perhaps he went to Wash- ington, shook hands with the President of the United States, and perhaps there he saw men coming from distant villages, peasants, and ill clad, all shaking hands with the President. Then the veil of mdya slipped away from him. He who had been hypnotized into slavery and weakness, is once more awake, and he rises up and finds himself a man in the world of men.
In this country of ours, the very birthplace of Vedanta, our masses have been hypnotized for ages into that very state. To touch them is pollution. To sit with them is pollution. Hopeless they were born; hopeless they must remain; and the result is that they have been sinking, sinking, sinking, and have come to the last stage to which a human being can come. For what other country is there in the world where man has to sleep with the cattle? And for this blame nobody else, do not commit the mistake of the ignorant. The effect is here and the cause is here too. We are to blame. Stand up, be bold, and take the blame on your shoulders. Do not go about throwing mud at others; for all the pangs you suffer you are the sole and only cause.
Young men of Lahore, understand this, that this great sin, hereditary and national, is on your shoul- ders. There is no hope for us. You may make thou- sands of societies, twenty thousand political assem- VEDANTA 353 blages, fifty thousand institutions. These will be of no use until there is that sympathy, that love, that heart, which thinks of all, until Buddha's heart comes once more into India, until the words of Lord Krishna are brought to their practical use there is no hope for us. You go on imitating the Europeans and their societies and their assemblages, but let me tell you a story, a fact that I saw with my own eyes. A company of Burmans was taken over to London by some per- sons from India, who turned out to be Eurasians. They exhibited these people in London, took all the money, and then took these Burmans over to the Con- tinent, and left them there for good or ill. These poor people did not know one word of any European language, but the English Consul in Austria sent them over to London. They were helpless in London, not knowing any one. But an English lady heard of them, took these foreigners from Burmah into her own house, gave them her own clothes, her bed, and every- thing, and then sent the news to the newspapers. And, mark you, the next day the whole nation was, as it were, aroused. Money poured in and these people were helped out, and sent back to Burmah. On this sort of sympathy are based all English political and other institutions, it is the rock foundation of love, for themselves at least. They may not love the world; they may be enemies all round, but in that coun- try, it goes without saying, there is this great love for their own people, for truth and justice and charity to the stranger at the door. I would be the most un- grateful man, if I did not continually tell you how wonderfully and how hospitably I was received in 554 JNANA YOGA every country in the West. Where is the heart here to build upon?
No sooner do we start a little joint-stock company then we cheat each other, and the whole thing comes down with a crash. You talk of imitating the Eng- lish, and building as big a nation as they have. But where are the foundations? Ours are only sand, and therefore the building comes down with a crash in no time. Young men of Lahore, raise once more that wonderful banner of Advaita, for on no other ground can you have that all-embracing love, until you see that the same Lord is present in the same manner every- where; unfurl that banner of love. "Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached." Arise, arise once more, for nothing can be done without renuncia- tion. If you want to help others, your own little self must go. In the words of the Christians, you cannot serve God and mammon at the same time. Have vairdgyam — your ancestors gave up the world to do great things. At the present time there are men who give up the world to help their own salvation. Throw away everything, even your own salvation, and go and help others. Aye, you are always talking bold words, but here is practical Vedanta before you. Give up this little life of yours. What matters if you die of starvation, you and I and thousands like us, so long as this nation lives? The nation is sinking, the curse of unnumbered millions is on our heads; to whom we have been giving ditch-water to drink when they have been dying of thirst, while the perennial river of water was flowing past; the unnumbered millions whom we have allowed to starve in sight of plenty; the unnum-