The idea of the cruel and ruthless Jehovah in the Old Testament has frightened many — but why?
^6 JNANA YOGA What right have they to assume that the Jehovah of the ancient Jews must represent the conventional idea of God of the present day? And at the same time we must not forget that there will come men after us who will laugh at our ideas of religion and God in the same way that we laugh at those of the ancients. Yet through all these various conceptions runs the golden thread of unity, and it is the purpose of the Vedanta to unfold this thread. "I am the thread that runs through all these various ideas, each one of which is like one pearl," says the Lord Krishna; and it is the duty of Vedanta to establish this connecting thread, however incongruous, hideous, horrible, or disgusting may seem these ideas when judged according to the conceptions of to-day. When these ideas had the set- ting of past times they were harmonious, they were not more hideous than our present ideas. It is only when we try to take them out of these settings and apply them to our own present circumstances that the hideousness becomes obvious. It is all dead and gone and past. Just as the old Jew has developed into the keen, modern, sharp Jew, and the ancient Aryan into the intellectual Hindu, similarly Jehovah has grown, and Devas have grown. The great mistake is in recognizing the evolution of the worshippers, while we do not acknowledge the evolution of the God. He is not credited with the advance that his devotees have made. That is to say, you and I, as representing ideas, have grown; these gods also, as representing ideas, have grown. This may seem somewhat curious to you — how can God grow? He cannot. He is unchangeable, but man's ideas about God are con- MAYA AND EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTION OF GOD 7/ stantly changing and expanding. In the same sense the real man never grows. We will see later on how the real man behind each one of these manifestations is immovable, unchangeable, pure, and always perfect; and in the same way the idea that we form of God is a mere manifestation, our own creation. Behind that is the real God who never changes, the ever pure, the immutable. But the manifestations are always changing, revealing the reality behind more and more. When it reveals more of the fact behind, it is called progression; when it hides more of the fact behind, it is called retrogression. Thus, as we grow, so the gods grow. From the common-sense point of view, just as we reveal ourselves as we evolve, so the gods reveal themselves.
We shall now be in a position to understand the theory of Maya. In stating all the religions of the world one question they propose to discuss is this: Why is there disharmony in the universe? Why is there evil in the universe? We do not find this ques- tion in the very primitive inception of religious ideas because the world did not appear incongruous to the primitive man. Circumstances around him were not inharmonious; there was no clash of opinions; no antagonism of good and evil. There was merely the fight in his own heart between something which said yea, and something which said nay. The primitive man was a man of impulse. He did what occurred to him, and tried to bring out into his muscles what- ever thought came into his mind. He never stopped to judge, and seldom tried to check his impulses. So with the gods, they also were creatures of impulse.
78 J NANA YOGA 78 J NANA YOGA Indra comes and shatters the forces of the demons. Jehovah is pleased with one person and displeased with another, for what reason no one knows or asks; for the habit of inquiry had not then arisen, and what- ever he did was regarded as right. There was no idea of good or evil. The Devas did many wicked things in our sense of the word; again and again Indra and other gods committed very wicked deeds, but to the worshippers of Indra the ideas of wicked- ness and evil did not occur, so they did not question.
With the advance of ethical ideas came the fight. There arose a certain sense in man; different lan- guages and nations called it by different names, and it acted as a checking power; for the impulses of the human heart are the voice of God, or the result of past education, but whatever it is called the effect is the same. There is one impulse in our minds which says: "do." Behind it rises another voice which says: "do not." There is one set of ideas in our mind which is always struggling to get outside through the chan- nels of the senses, and behind that, although it may be thin and weak, an infinitely small voice which says do not go outside. The two beautiful Sanskrit words for these phenomena are pravritti and nivritti, "circling forward" and "circling inward." It is the circling forward which usually governs our actions. Religion begins with the circling inward. Religion begins with this "do not." Spirituality begins with this "do not." When the "do not" is not there, religion has not begun. And this "do not" came, causing men's ideas to grow despite the brutal fighting gods which they had made.
MAYA AND EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTION OF GOD 79 A little love awoke in the hearts of mankind. It was very small indeed, and even now it is not much greater. It was at first confined to the tribe, embrac- ing perhaps members of the same tribe; these gods loved their tribes and each god was a tribal god, the protector of that tribe. And sometimes the members of those tribes would think of themselves as the descendants of that god, just as the clans in different nations think that they are the common descendants of some one who was the founder of the clan. There were in ancient times, and are even now, some people claiming to be descendants not only of these gods, but also of the Sun and Moon. You read in the ancient Sanskrit books of the great heroic emperors of the solar dynasty. They were first worshippers of the Moon and Sun, and gradually came to think of themselves as descendants of the god of the Sun, of the Moon, and so forth. So when these tribal ideas began to grow there came a little love, some slight idea of duties towards each other, a little social organ- ization, and immediately began the idea, how can we live together without bearing and forbearing? How can one man live with another man — even one — without having some time or other to check his impulses, restrain himself, forbear from doing things which his mind would prompt him to do. It is impos- sible. Thus comes the idea of restraint. The whole social fabric is based upon that idea of restraint, and we all know that the man or woman who has not learned the great lesson of bearing and forbearing, leads a most miserable life.
Now when these ideas of religion came, a glimpse 80 J NANA YOGA of something higher, more ethical, dawned upon the intellect of mankind. The old gods were found to be incongruous, these boisterous, fighting, drinking, beef-eating gods of the ancients, whose delight was in the smell of burning flesh and libations of strong liquor. Sometimes Indra drank so much that he fell upon the ground and began to talk unintelligently. These gods could no longer be tolerated. The notion had arisen of inquiring into motives, and the gods had to come in for their share of inquiry. What is the reason for such an action of such and such a god? — ^and the reason was wanting. Therefore men gave up these gods, or rather they developed higher ideas concerning them; they collected together and discarded all the actions and qualities of the gods which they could not harmonize, and they kept those which they could understand and harmonize, and com- bining these, labelled them with one name, Deva-deva, the God of gods of the universe. The god to be wor- shipped was no more a simple symbol of power; some- thing more was required than power. He was an ethical god; he loved mankind, did good to mankind. But the idea of god still remained. They increased his ethical significance, and increased also his power. He became the most ethical being in the Universe, as well as almost almighty.
But all this patchwork would not do. As the explanation assumed greater proportion, the difficulty which it sought to solve did the same. If the qualities of the god increased in arithmetical progression, the difficulty and doubt increased in geometrical progres- sion. The difficulty of Jehovah was very little beside MAYA AND EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTION OF GOD 8 1 the difficulty of the god of the universe, and this question remains to the present day. Why, under the reign of an almighty and all loving God of the Uni- verse, should such diabolical things be allowed to remain? Why so much more misery than happiness? and so much more wickedness than good? We may shut our eyes to all these things, but the fact still remains, this world is a hideous world. At best it is the hell of Tantalus and nothing else. Here we are with strong impulses, and stronger cravings for sense enjoyments and nothing outside to satisfy them. There rises a wave which impels us forward in spite of our own will, and as soon as we move one step comes a blow. We are all doomed to live here and die here like Tantalus. Ideals come into our head, far beyond the limit of our sense ideals, but when we seek to express them, we never can see them ful- filled. On the other hand, we are crushed into atoms by the surging mass around us. Yet if I give up all ideality and merely struggle through this world, my existence is that of a brute, and I degenerate and degrade myself. Neither way is happiness. Unhap- piness is the fate of those who are content to live in this world born as they are. A thousandfold unhappiness is the fate of those who dare to stand forth for truth and for higher things, and who dare to ask for something higher than mere brute existence here. These are the facts; there is no explanation. There cannot be any explanation, but Vedanta shows the way out. You must bear in mind that I must tell you facts in this course which will frighten you some- times, but remember what I say, think of it, digest it.
82 J NANA YOGA and it will be yours, it will raise you high, and make you capable of understanding and living in truth.
Now this is a statement of fact, not a theory, that this world is a Tantalus' hell, that we do not know anything about this Universe, yet at the same time we cannot say that we do not know. I cannot say that this chain exists, when I think of it I do not know. It may be an entire delusion in my brain. I may be dreaming all the time. I am dreaming that I am talking to you, and that you are listening to me. No one can prove that it is not a dream. My brain itself may be a dream, and as to that, no one has ever seen his own brain yet. We all take that for granted. So it is with everything. My own body I take for granted. At the same time I cannot say I do not know. This standing between knowledge and ignor- ance, this mystic twilight, the mingling of truth and falsehood, where they meet no one knows. We are walking in the midst of a dream, half sleeping, half waking, passing all our lives in a haze, this is the fate of every one of us. This is the fate of all sense knowledge. This is the fate of all philosophy, of all boasted science, of all boasted human knowledge. This is the Universe.
What you call matter, or spirit, or mind, or any- thing else you may like to call them, any nickname you may choose to give them, the fact remains the same, we cannot say they are; we cannot say they are not. We cannot say they are one, we cannot say they are many. This eternal play of light and darkness, indiscriminate, indistinguishable, inseparable is always there. A fact, yet at the same time, not a MAYA AND EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTION OF GOD 83 fact, awake, and at the same time, asleep. This is a statement of facts, and this is what is called Maya. We are born in this Maya, we live in it, we think in it, we dream in it. We are philosophers in it, we are spiritual men in it, nay, we are devils in this Maya, and we are gods in this Maya. Stretch your ideas as far as you can, make them higher and higher, call it infinite or by any other name you please, even that idea is within this Maya. It cannot be otherwise, and the whole of human knowledge is generalization of this Maya, trying to know it as it really is. This is the work of Ndma-Rupa — name and form. Every- thing that has form, everything that calls up an idea in your mind, is within Maya, for, everything that is bound by what the German philosophers call the laws of time, space, and causation, is within Maya.
Let us go back a little to those earlier ideas of God, and see what became of them. We perceive at once that with such a state of things the idea of some being who is eternally loving us — the word love in our sense — eternally unselfish and almighty, ruling this universe, cannot be. It requires the boldness of the poet to withstand this idea of the personal God. Where is your just, merciful God? the poet asks. Does he not see millions and millions of his children perish, either in the form of men, or of animals; for who can live one moment here without killing others? Can you draw a breath without destroying thousands of lives? You live because millions die. Every moment of your life, every breath that you breathe, is death to thousands, every movement that you make is death unto millions. Every morsel that you eat is death 84 J NANA YOGA 84 J NANA YOGA unto millions. Why should they die? There is an old sophism, "But they are very low existences." Supposing they are; it is a question. Who knows whether the ant is greater than man, or the man than the ant? Who can prove one way or the other? Man can build a house or invent a machine, therefore the man is greater! The same argument will apply, because the ant cannot build a house nor make a machine, therefore he is greater. There is no more reason for one than for the other.
Apart from that question, even taking it for granted that these are very low beings, still why should they die? If they are low they ought to live the more. Why not? Because they live more in the senses, they feel pleasure and pain a thousandfold more than you or I can. Which of you can eat a dinner with the same gusto as a dog or a wolf? Because our energies are not in the senses, they are in the intellect, the spirit. But in the dog the whole soul is in the senses, and they become mad, enthusiastic, enjoy things which we human beings can never dream of, and the pain is commensurate with the pleasure.
Pleasure and pain are meted out in equal measure. If the pleasures felt by animals are so much keener than those felt by man, it follows absolutely that the animals' sense of pain is as keen, if not keener than that in men; and they have to die. So the fact is that the pain and misery men would feel in dying is intensified a thousandfold in animals, and yet we have to kill them, without troubling about their misery. This is Maya, and if we suppose there is a personal God like a human being, who made all, these so-called MAYA AND EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTION OF GOD 85 explanations and theories which try to prove that out of evil comes good are not sufficient. Let twenty; thousand good things come, why should they come from evil? On that principle I might cut the throats of others because I want the full pleasure of my five senses. That is no reason. Why should good come through evil? The question remains to be answered, and it cannot be answered; and philosophy in India was compelled to admit this.
The Vedanta is the boldest system of religion. It stopped nowhere, and it had one advantage. There was no body of priests seeking to suppress every man who tried to tell the truth. There was always abso- lute religious freedom. In India the bondage of super- stition was a social one; here society is very free. Social matters in India have not been free, but religious opinion has. In England a man may dress as he likes, or eat what he likes — no one says nay, or objects; but if he misses attending his church then Mrs. Grundy is down on him. He has to look a thousand times at what society says, and then think of the truth. In India, on the other hand, if a man dines with another who does not belong to his own caste, down comes society with all its terrible power^ and crushes him then and there. If he wants to dress a little differently from the way in which his ancestor dressed ages ago he is done for. I have heard of a man who was out- casted because he went several miles to see the first railway train. Well, we will presume that that was not true! On the other hand, in religion, we find Atheists, and Materialists, and Buddhists, and creeds and opinions, and speculations of every phase and 86 J NANA YOGA 86 J NANA YOGA variety; some of a most startling character. Men going about preaching and gaining adherents, and at the very gates of the temple full of all the gods, the Brahmins — to their credit be it said — allow even the Materialist to stand on the steps of their temples and denounce their gods.
Buddha died at a ripe old age. I remember a friend of mine, a great American scientist, who was fond of reading his life. He did not like the death of Buddha, because he was not crucified. What a false idea! For a man to be great he must be murdered! Such ideas never prevailed in India. This great Buddha travelled all over India denouncing all gods, and even their God, the Governor of the Universe, and he died at a ripe old age. Eighty-five years he lived, until he had converted half the country.
There were the Chdrvdkas, who preached the most horrible things; the most rank, undisguised mate- rialism, such as in the nineteenth century they dare not preach openly. These Chdrvdkas were allowed to preach from temple to temple, and city to city, that religion was all nonsense, that it was priestcraft, that the Vedas were the words and writings of fools, rogues and demons, and that there was neither God nor an eternal soul. If there were a soul why did it not come back after death, drawn by love of wife and children? Their idea was that if there was a soul it must still love after death, and want nice things to eat and nice dresses. Yet no one hurt these Chdrvdkas.
Thus India has always had this magnificent idea of religious freedom — for you must always remember MAYA AND EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTION OF GOD 8/ that freedom is the first condition of growth. What you do not make free will never grow. The whole of that idea that you can make others grow, and help their growth, can direct and guide them, always retain- ing for yourself the freedom of the teacher, is non- sense, a dangerous lie, which has retarded the growth of millions and millions of human beings in this world. Let men have the light of liberty. That is the only condition of growth.
We, in India, allowed liberty in spiritual matters, and we have a tremendous spiritual power in religious thought, even to-day. You grant the same liberty in social matters, and so have a splendid social organiza- tion. We have not given any freedom to the expan- sion of social matters, and ours is a cramped society. You have never given any freedom in religious matters. With fire and sword you have enforced your beliefs, and the result is that religion is a stunted, degenerate growth in the European mind. In India we have to take off the shackles from society; in Europe the chains must be taken from the feet of spiritual pro- gress. Then will come a wonderful growth and development of men. If we discover that there is one unity running behind all these developments, either spiritual, moral or social, we shall find that religion in the full sense of the word must come into society, must come into our every day lives. In the light of Vedanta you will understand that all your sciences are but manifestations of religion, and so is every- thing that exists in this world.
We see then that through freedom these sciences were built, and in them we have two sets of opinions 88 JNANA YOGA growing slowly in the teaching of the Vedanta, the one about which I have just told you, that of the materialists, the denouncers, and the other the positive, the constructive. This again is a most curious fact; in every society you find it. Supposing there is an evil in society. You will find immediately one group rising up and beginning to denounce it in vindictive fashion. This sometimes degenerates into fanaticism. You always find fanatics in every society,, and women frequently join in these outcries, because they are impulsive in their nature. Every fanatic who gets up and denounces something secures a following. It is very easy to break down; a manaic can break any- thing he likes, but it would be hard for him to build anything in this world.
So there is this set of denouncers in every country, present in some form or other, and they think they will mend this world by the sheer power of denunciation and of exposing evil; they do some good, according to their light, but much more harm, because things are not done in a day. Social institutions are not made in a day, and to change means removing the cause. Suppose there is evil here; denouncing it will not do anything, but you must go to work at the root. First find out the cause, then remove it, and the effect will be removed also. All this outcry will not produce any effect, unless indeed it produces misfortune.
There were others who had sympathy in their hearts and who understood the idea that we must go deep into the cause, and these were the great saints. One fact you must remember, that all the great teachers of the world have declared that they came not to MAYA AND EVOLUTION OF CONCEPTION OF GOD 89 destroy but to fulfil. Many times this has not been understood, and their forbearance has been thought to be an unworthy compromise with existing popular opinions. Even now, you occasionally hear that these prophets and great teachers were rather cowardly, dared not say and do what they thought was right; but it was not so. Fanatics little understand the infinite power of love in the hearts of these great sages. They looked upon the inhabitants of this world as their children. They were the real fathers, the real gods, filled with infinite sympathy and patience for every one, they were ready to bear and forbear. They knew how human society should grow, and patiently, slowly, surely, went on applying their rem- edies, not by denouncing and not by frightening people, but by gently and kindly leading them step by step. Such were the writers of the Upanishads. They knew full well how the old ideas of God were not recon- cilable with the advanced ethical ideas of the time; they knew perfectly well that truth was not on that side of the question, but on the other side; they knew full well that what the Buddhists and the other atheists were preaching contained a good deal of truth, nay, great nuggets of truth, but, at the same time, they understood that those who wish to sever the thread that binds the beads, who want to build a new society upon the air, will entirely fail.
We never build anew, we simply change places, we cannot have anything new, we only change the posi- tions of things. The seed grows into the tree, and patiently, gently, we must direct the energies towards truth, and fulfil the truth that exists, not try to make 90 J NANA YOGA new truths. Thus, instead of denouncing these old ideas of God as unfit for modern times, these ancient sages began to seek out the reality that was in them, and the result was the Vedanta Philosophy, and out of the old deities, out of the monotheistic God, Ruler of the Universe, they found yet higher and higher ideas in what is called the Impersonal Absolute; they found One-ness throughout the Universe. '*'He who ^ sees in this world of manifoldness that One running through all; in this world of death, he who finds that one Infinite Life; and in this world of insentience and ignorance, he who finds that one Light and Knowledge, unto him belongs eternal peace. Unto none else, unto^ none else."
VI MAYA AND FREEDOM