soul, let us believe in it. Have faith, as Nachikcta. At the Lime of his father's s.aci dice, faith came unto Nachikcla. aye, 1 wi.',!! that faith would come to each of you; and eveiy one of you would stand up a giant, a woild-movcr with a gigantic intellect, an infinite Ood in every respect; that is vvliat I want yon to become. This is the slienglh that you get from the Upanishads, this is the faith that you get fiom there.
Aye, but it was only for the Sann}asin! Raha\Ya 1 The Upanishads were in the hands of the Sannyasin; he went into the forest! Sankara was a little kind, and says even Gi ihiuthas may study the Upanishads, it will do them good; it will not hurt them. But still the idea is that the Upanishads talked only of the foiest life of the recluse. As I told you the other day, the only commentary, the authoritative commentary on the Vedas, has been made once and for all by Him w'ho inspired the Vedas, by Kiishna in the Gita. It is there for every one in every occupation of life. These conceptions of the Vedanta must come out, must remain not only in the foiest, not only in the cave, but they must come to work out at the Bar and the Bench, in the Pulpit, and in the cottage of the poor man, with the fishermen that are catching fish, and with the students that are studying. They call to every man, woman, and child, whatever be their occupation, wherever they may be; and w-hat is there to fear' How can the fishermen and all the.se carry out the ideals of the Upanishads? The way has been shown. It is infinite; religion is infinite, none can go beyond it; and whatever you do sincerely, is good for you.
VEDAXTA IX ITS APPLICATION TO INDIAN LIFE n Even the least tiling well done brings marvellous results; therefore let every one do what little he can. If the fisheunan thinks that he is the spirit, he will be a better fishertnau; if the student thinks he is spiiit, he will be a better student. If the lawyer thinks that he is spirit, he will be a better lawyer, and so on, and the result will be that the castes will remain for ever. It is in the nature of society to form itself into moups; and what will go will be these privileges I Caste is a natural order. I c.u\ perlorm one duty in social life, and )ou another; }ou can govern a country, and I can mend a pair of old shoes, but that is no reason why you are greater than I, foi can )0u mend my shoes? Can I govern the countiy? I am clevei in mending shoes, you aie clever in reading Vedas, but that is no reason why you should li ample on my head; why if one commils murdci should he be praised, and if another steals an apple why.should he be hanged! This will have to go. Caste is good. That is the only natural way of solving life. Men nuistfoim themselves into gioups, and you cannot get lid of that. Wherevci yon go there will be caste. But that does not mean that thcie should be these piivileges. They should be knocked on the head. If you teach Vedanta to the fisheunan, he will say, I am as good a man as you, I am a fisherman, you aie a philosopher, but I have the.saihe God in me, as you have in you. And that is ivhat we want, no privilege foi any one, equal chances for all; let ever) one be taught that the Divine is within, and every one will work out his own salvation.
Liberty is the first condition of giowth. It is wiong, a thousand times wrong, if any of you (hues to say ‘I will woik out the salvation of this woman or child.’ T am asked again and again, what I think of the widow pioblem and w’hat 1 think of the woman question. Let me answer once for all, — am 1 a widow that you ask me that nonsense. Am I a woman, that lOii ask me that question again and again? Who ate you to solve women’s pioblems? Are you the Lord God that )ou should rule ovci cvciy widow and every woman? Hands off! They will.solve theii own problems. Oh tyianls, attempting to think that you can do anything for any one! Hands off! 'I’he Divine will look after all. Who aie you to as.surne that }ou know everything? How' dare you think, oh blasphemers, that you have the right over God? For don’t you know that cveuy soul is the soul of God? Mind youi own Karma, a load of Kaima is there in you to workout. Your nation may put you upon a pedestal, ) our society may cheer you up to the skies, and fools may piaise you; but He sleeps not, and ictiibution will be sure to follow, here or hereafter.
Look upon every man, woman and every one as God. You cannot help anyone; you can only serve; serve the children of the T.ord, serve the Lord Himself, if you have the piivilege. If the Lord grants that you can help any one of His children, blessed you are; do not think too much of yourselves. Blessed you are that that privilege was given to you, when otheis had it not. Do it only as a worship. I should see God in the poor, and it is for my salvation that I go and worship them. The poor and the miserable are for our salvation, so that we may serve the Lord, coming in the shape of the diseased, coming in the shape of the lunatic, the leper, and the sinner! Bold are my words, and let me repeat that it is the greatest privilege in our life that we are allowed to serve the Lord in all these shapes. Give up the idea that by ruling over others, you can do any good to them. But you can do just the same as in the case of the plant; you can supply the growing seed with the mateiials for the making up of its body, bringing to it the earth.
8o I KC TURKS FROM COLOMBO TO ALMORA the \\nler, the an, thu it want*:. It will lake ail that it wants by Us own nature, ft will.I'^hiiiiil.ile iiml ”i()\\ by us own nature.
Bung all light into the woild; light, biing light! Let light come unto every one; the task will not be finished till every one has reached the Lord. Bring light to the poor, and biing more light to the lich, for they require it more than the poor; bung light to the ignorant, and moie light to the educated, for the vanities of the edueatiou ol unr time arc ticnicndous 1 'I’hus bring light to all and leave the icst unto the Lord, for in the words of the same Lord, “To woik you h ive the light and not to the fiuits thereof Let not your work produce results ior vou, and at the same time may you nevei l)e without work.
May lie who taught such giand ideas to our loiefathcis ages ago, help us to get strength to carry into piaclice llis commands.
THE SAGES OF iHDtA.
In speaking of the sages of India, my mind goes back to those peiiods of which history has no record, and tradition tries in vain to bring the secrets out of the gloom of the past. The sages of India have been almost innumeiable, foi what has the Hindu ntition been doing for thousands of yeais except pioducing sages? I will take, theiefore, the lives of a few of the most biilhant ones, the epoch-makers, and piesent them before you, that is to say, my study of them. In the lii.st place, we liave (o understand a little about our scriptuies. Two ideals of liulh me in our.scnpluies, the one is, what we call the eteinal, and the other is not so aulhoiilative, yet binding undei paiticular ciicumslances, limes, and j)laccs, The eternal lelalions nhich deal \\ilh the nature of the soul, and of God, and the iclations between souls and (iod, aie embodied in what we call the Srutis, the Vedas. 'I'hc next.sot of tiuilis is w'hat we call the Smiilis, as embodied in the woiks of Manu, Yajnavalkya, and other writers, and also in (he Puianas, down to thcTanlias. This second class of books and teachings is subordinate to the Siutis, inasmuch as whenevei an\one of these con- tradicts anything in the Sums, the Siulis mtisl pievail. This is the law', d'lie idea IS that the fiamcwork of the destiny and goal of man has been all delineated in the Vedas, the details have been left to be w'oiked out in the Smiilis and Piiianas. As foi gcncial diiections, the Srutis arc enough; for spiiitiial life, nothing more can be said, nothing more can be known. All that is necessaiy has been known, all the advice that is necessaiy to lead the soul to peifoclion has been completed in the SiLitis; (he details alone weie left out, and these the Siniilis have supplied fiom time to lime. Another peciiliaiit) is that these Siulis have many sages as the lecOrdeis of (he tiuths in them, mosil) men, even,.some women. Very little is known of their jiersonalilies, the dates of their biith, and so foith, but their best thoughts, their best disco\eries, I should say, are piescned there, embodied in the sacicd lilciatuie of oiii counliy, the Vedas. In ihe Smiilis, on the olhei hand, personalities arc mote in evidence. Stailling, gigantic, impressive, w'orld-movmg j)eisons stand befoie us, as It weie, fen the fust lime, sometimes of more magnitude, even, than then- teachings.
This is a peculiarity wdiich w'c have to understand,— that oui leligion pieaches an Impersonal Personal God. It pi caches any amount of impersonal laws ///u any amount of pcisonality, but the vciy fountam-head of oui leligion is in the Siutis, the Vedas, which aie pcifeclly impersonal; the pci. sons all come in the Smiitis and Puranas, the great Avatars, Incarnations of God, Piophcts, and so foilh. And this ought also to be observed, that except oui religion, cveiy olhei leligion in the wold, depends upon the life or li\es of some peisonal foundei or founders. Chiis- tianity is built ui>on the life of Jesus Chiist, ]\Iahommedanism, upon Mahommed, Buddhism, upon Buddha, Jainism, upon the Jinas, and so on. It natuially follows that there must be in all these leligions a good deal of fight about what they call the historical evidences of these great personalities. If at any time the hisloiical evidences about the existence of these peisonagesin ancient limes become weak, the whole building of the religion tumbles down and is bioken to pieces. We escaped this late because our icligion is not based upon peisons but on piinciples. That you K 82 LECTURES— FROM COLOMBO TO AlMORA obey your religion is not because it came through the authority of a sage, no, not even of an Incaination. Krishna is not the authoiity of the Vetlas, hut the Vedas are the authority of Krishna himself, flis gloiy is that he is the greatest preacher of the Vedas that ever existed. So as to the other Incarnations; so with all our sages. Our fust principle is that all that is ncccssaiy foi the perfection of man and for attaining unto freedom is there, in the Vedas. You cannot find anything new. You cannot go beyond a perfect unity, whichps the goal of all knowledge: this has been alieady reached iheie, and it is impossible to go be>ond the unity. Religious knowl- edge became complete when 'Tai tivcim asi was discovered, and that was in the Vedas. What remained, was the guidance of people from time to time, accoiding to dillcient times and places, accoiding to dillerenl ciicumslanccs and environments; people had to be guided along the old, old path, and for this these great teachers came, these great sages. Nothing can boar out more clearly this position than the celcbiated saying of wSii Kiishna in the Gita — “ W^henever viiiue subsides and irrcligion prevails, I create Myself for the protection of the good; for the desli action of ^ill irnnioialily I am coming from time to time.” 'Fliis is the idea in India.
W' hat follows? That on the one hand, there are these ctci nal pi inciples which stand upon their own foundations, without depending on any reasoning even, much less •on the authoiity of sages however great, of Incarnations however biilliant they may have been, W'e may remaik that as this is the uniipie position in India, our claim is that the Vedanta only can be the universal leligion, that it is alieady the existing uni- versal religion in the world, because it teaches pimciplcs and not peusons. No religion built upon a peison can be taken up as a l)pe by all the laces of mankind. In our own countiy we find that there h.ave been so many giand characlcis; in even a small city many peisons aie taken up as typos by the diffcient minds in that one city. How is it possible that one person, as IMahommcd oi liuddha or Chiist, can be taken up as the one type for the whole world? nay, that the whole of moiality, ethics, spirit- uality and religion can he true only fiom the sanction of that one pci son, and one person alone? Now, the Vedantic icligion does not requite any such personal authority; its sanction is the eternal nature of man, its ethics aie based upon the eternal spiiitual solidarity of man, already existing, alieady attained and not to be attained. On the other hand, fiom the voiy eailiest times, our sages have been feeling conscious of this fact that the vast majoiity of mankind require a personality. They must have a Personal God, in some foim or other. The very Buddha who declaied ■ against the existence of a Personal God had not died fift) years before his disciples manufacluied a Personal God, out of him. This Personal God is necessary, and at the same time vs c know that instead of and belter than vain imaginations of a Personal God, which in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred aie unwoithy of human worship, we have in this world, living and walking in our midst, living Gods, now and then. These are moic woilhy of woiship than any imaginary God, any creation of our imaginations, that is to say any idea of God which we can make. Sri Krishna is much gicater than any idea of God you or I can make. Buddha is a much higher idea, a more living and idolised idea, than they ideal you or I can conceive of in our minds, and therefore it is that they always command the worship of mankind, even to the exclusion of all imaginary deities. This our sages knew, and therefore left it open to all Indian people to woiship such great personjrges, such Incarnations. Nay, the greatest of these Incarnations goes further. — “ Wher- ever theie IS an exliaoidiimiy spiiilual power manifested by external man, know THE SAG EE OF INDIA S3 that I am tK^ere; it is from Me that that manifestation comes/' That leaves the door opeiv for the Hindu to worship the Incarnations of all the counliies in the woild. The Hindu can woiship any sage and»any saint fiom any cotintiy whatsoever, and as a fact we know that we go and woiship many limes in the chinches of the Chiis- tians, and many, many limes in the Mahoinmedan mosques, and that is good. Why not? Ours, as I have said, is the univeisal leligion. It is inclusive enough, it is bioad enough to include all the ideals. All the ideals of lehgion that alieady exist in the woild can be immediately included, and we can patiently wait for all the ideals that are to come in the fuluie, to be taken in the same fashion, cnibiaced 111 the infinite aims of the religion of the Vedanta.
This, moie or less, is out ix)sition with regard to the great sages, the Incai na- tions of (iod. Thcie aic also secondaiy chaiacteis. We find the word Rishi again and again mentioned in the Vedas, and it has become a common word at the piesent lime. The Rishi is the gicat authoiily. Wc have to undei stand that idea. The definition is that the Rishi is the Mantra drashhi, the seer of thought. What is the pi oof of religion -this was asked in very ancient times. Theie is no proof in the senses, was the declaration. I “ Fiom whence woids reflect back with thought without reaching the goal,” sf ?fr »TJfr I “'rheie the eyes cannot reach, neither can the mind, nor any of the oigans,” — that has been the declaration foi ages and ages. Nature outside cannot give us any answer as to the cxi.sleiice of the soul, the existence of God, the eternal life, the goal of man, and all that. This mind is continually changing, always in a slate of flux; it is finite, it is bioken into pieces. ITow can Natuie tell of the Infinite, the Unchangeable, the Unbioken, the Indivisible, the Eternal It never can. And whenevei mankind has slii\cn to get an answer fiom dull dead matter, history shows how disaslioiis the lesults have been. How comes, then, the knowledge which the Vedas declared It comes ihiough being a Rishi. This knowledge is not in the senses; but aie the senses the be-all and the end-all of the human being? Who dates say that the senses are the all-in-all of man? Even in our lives, in the life of eveiyone of us here, theie come moments of calmness, perhaps, when we see before us the death of one we loved, when some shock comes, to us, or when extreme blessedness comes to us; m.iny other occasions there are when the mind, as it were, becomes calm, feels for the moment its real nature, and a glimpse of the Infinite beyond, wheie w'ords cannot reach nor the mind go,. is revealed to us. This happens in oidmaiy life, but it has to be heightened, prac- tised, peifectcd. Men found out ages ago that the soul is not bound or limited by the senses, no, not even by con.sciousncss. We have to undcisland that this consciousness is only the name of one link in the infinite chain. Being is not ulentical with consciousness, but consciousness is only one pail of Being. Beyond consciou.s- ness is where the bold.scaich. Consciousness is bound by the senses. Beyond that, beyond the senses, men must go, in ouler to. arrive at liiUhs of the spiiitual woild, and there are even now j>ersons who. succeed in going be}ond the bounds of the senses. These are called Rishis, because they come face to face with spiiitual truths.
The proof, therefore, of the Vedas is just the same as the proof of this table before me, pratyahham, direct perception. This I sec with the senses, and the truths of spirituality we also see in a superconscious state of the human soul. This Rishi state is not limited by time or place, by sex or lace. VAtsfiyana boldly declares that this Rishihood is the common propel ly of the descendant of S4 iKcrrRHs-Fj^oM Colombo to almoba tlic of the Aryan, of the non-Aryan, of even the JMlechcha. This is the sageship of the V^ctlas, and con*^tHnlly we ought to remember this ideal of religion in India, whieh I wish other nations of the worid \\ould also remember and learn, so that theic may be less fight and less quairel. Religion is not m books, nor in theories, noi in dogmas, nor in talking, not even in reasoning. It is — being and becoming. Aye, my fiiemds, until each one of you has become a Rishi and come face to face M’lth spiiiiual facts, leligious life has not begun for you. Until the supcrconscious opens foi you, icligion is mere talk, it is nothing but preparation. You are talking second-hand, ihiiil-hanil, and hcic applies that beautiful s.iying of Buddha when he had a discussion ^\lth some Biahinanas! They came discussing about the nature of Biahman, and the gicat sage asked, “Have you seen Biahman?“ “No,” said the Brahinana; “Oi youi father?” “ No, neilhei has he; ” “()i your grandfather “ I don’t think even he saw Him.” “ My fiiend, how can you discuss about a person, whom your father and grandfather never saw, and try to put each other down?’' That is what the whole world is doing. T.et us say in the language of the 'Vedanta, This Atman is not to be leachcd by too much talk, no. not even by the highest intellect, no, not even by the study of the Vedas themselves.” fvct us speak to all the nations of the woild in the language of Ihe Vedas. — Vain aie youi fights and your quai i els, have you seen God whom you want to pieaeh If you have not seen, vain is your preaching; you do not know whatjou say, and if you have seen God you will not quarrel, ) GUI vciy face will shine. An ancient sage of the Upanishads, sent Ills son out to loam about Biahman, and the child came back, and the father asked, “ What have )Oii leaint.^” The child leplied he had leaint so many sciences. But the father said, “ That is nolhing, go back." And the son went back, and when he lelLuncd again the fallier asked the same question, and the same number of sciences was the answet fiom the child. Once moie he had to go back, and the next lime he came, his whole face was shining, and lus father stood up and declared, “Aje, to-day, my child, youi face shines like a knower of Brahman.” When you have known God your vciy face will be changed, youi voice will be changed, youi whole appearance will be changed. You will be a blessing to mankind; none will be able to resist the Rishi, This is the Rishihood, the ideal in our religion. The rest, all these talks, and reasonings, and philosophies, and dualisms, and monisms, and even the Vedas themselves, aic but pieparations, sccondaiy things. The other is piimary. The Vedas, Grammar, Astronomy, &c., all these aie secondary; that is supreme knowledge which makes us realise the Unchangeable One. Those who realised are the sages whom we find in the Vedas, and we understand how this Rishi is the name of a type, of a class, which every one of us, as true Hindus, is expected to become at some period of our life, and becoming which, to the Hindu, means salvation. Not belief in doctiines, nor going to thousands of temples, nor bathing in all the rivers in the woild, but becoming the Rishi, the il/aw/ra that is freedom, that is salvation.
Coming down to later times, there have been great world-moving sages, great Incarnations, of whom there have been many, and according to the Bh^gavatam they also aie infinite in number, and those that are worshipped most in India are Rama and Krishna, Rama, the ancient idol of the Heroic ages, the embodiment of truth, of morality, the ideal son, the ideal husband, the ideal father, and above all, the ideal King, this Rama has been presented before us by the great sage Valmiki. No language can be purer, none chaster, none more beautiful, and at the sanye time sipapler, THE S. / GES OF IX DI. t fithan the language in ^vl.ich the gical poet has depicted the life of Rama. And to speak of Sita? Vou ma) exhaiisi the liteiatuic of the ^^ol Id that is pa.sl, and I may assure you. that ) on will lia\e to exhaust the liteiatuie ot the woihl of the future, hefoie finding anollier Sita. Siia is uni(|uc; that chaiaclei was depicted once and for all. Ihere may have been seveial Ramas, peihaps, but never moie than one Sita! She is the veiy type of the line Indi.m woman, lor, all the Indian ideals of a peifected woman have o,o\\n out of that one life of Sita; and heie she stands these thousands of yeais, commanding the woislnp ol cveiv man, woman, and chihl, thioughout the length and bieadth of the land ot Aivavaitha. Theie she will.always be. this gfoiious Sita, puicr than punty itself, all patience, and all suffoi mg. She who sulTeied that life of suffeiing without a munnui. she is the ever-chaste and ever-purc wife, she the ideal of the people, the ideal of the gods, the gieat Sita, our national <iod she must always lemain. And cveiy one of us knows” hm too well to recpiiie much dehneaiion. All oui mvlholog) ma\ vanish, even oui Vedas may depart, and our Sansknt language may vanish foi ever, but so long as theie will be live Hindus living heie, even if only speaking the most vulgar /wA;/r, there will be the story ot Sita piescnt, maik my w’oids Sita has gone into the verv vitals of our lace. She is theie m the blood of eveiy Hindu man and woman; we are all children of Sita. Any attempt to inodcinise oui women, if it tiios to take our women apart fiom that ideal of Sita, is immediatelv a lailuie, as we sec even day, 'I'hc women of India must grow and develop in the foot-pnnls of Sila, and that is the only way.