dead, material, spacious, sensuous infinite, but instead of that comes something, which is as fine as even that mentioned in llie sa)ing, — ^?Tf*PTwr 11 What poetry in the world can be moie sublime than this! “There the sun cannot illumine, nor the moon, nor the stars, there this Hash of lightning cannot ilUmiinc; what to speak of this mortal fire! ” Such poetiy you find nowheie else, 'lake that most marvellous Upanisliad, the Kalha. What a wonderful finish, what a most mar- vellous art displat-ed in that poem! How wondei fully it opens, with that little boy to whom ShradJhd came, who wanted to see Yama, and how that most maivellous of all teachers, Death himself, teaches him the great lessons of life and death! And what was his quest? To know the secret of death.
The second point that I want you to remember is the perfectly impersonal character of the Upanishads. Although we find many names, and many spcakcis, and many teachers in the Upanishads, not one of them stands as an aulhoiity of the Upanishads, not one verse is based upon the life of any one of them, 'I'liese aie simply figures like shadows moving in the background, unfelt, unseen, unrealised, but the real force is in the marvellous, the brilliant, the effulgent ic,\is of the Upani- sliads, peifectly impersonal. If twenty Yajnavalkyas came, and lived, and died, it does not matter; the te.\ts are there. And yet it is against no personality; it is broad and e:tpansive enough to embrace all the personalities that the woild has yet produced, and all that are yet to come. It h.is nothing to say against the woi ship of persons, or Avatais, or sages. On the other hand it is always upholding it. At the same time, it is perfectly impersonal. It is a most maivellous idea, like the (Jod it preaches, the impersonal idea of the Upanishads. At the same lime, foi the sage, the thinker, the philosopher, for the rationalist it is as much impeisonal as any modern scientist can wish. And tliese are our sciipliircs. You nuis.t lemeinber that what the Bible is to the Christians, what the Quoran is to the iMahommedaus, what the Tripitaka is to the Buddhists, what the Zend Avcsla is to tliu Faisis, so these Upanishads are to us. These and nolliing but lliese, arc our scriptures. The Puranas, the Tantras, and all the other books, even the Vyasa Sutias, aie of secoudaiy, leiliary authority, but piimaiy are the Vedas. l\Ianu, and the Puianas, and all the other books are to be taken so far as they agiec with llie authority of the Upanishads, and when they disagree they are to be rejected without mercy. This we oujihl to lemcmber always, but unfortunately for India, at the pie.scnt time we have foi gotten it. A petty village custom seems now the real authoiily for the teaching of the Upaui- shads. A petty idea current in a wayside village in Bengal seems to have the authoiity of the Vedas, and even something better. And that word “oithodox, ’ how wondeiful its influence! To the villager, the following of every little bit of the Karnia-kanda is the very height of “ orthodoxy,” and one who does not do it is told,— “ (u> away, you aie no more a Hindu,” So there are, most unfoitunatcly, in my mothei land, pei sons who will take up one of these Tantras and say, that the practice of this 'I’anira is to be obeyed; be who does not do so is no moie oithodox in his views. Thcrcfoie it is better for us to remember that in the Upanishads is the piimary aulhoiity, even the Grikya and Srauta Sutras are subordinate to the aulhoiity of the Vedas. They are the words of the Rishis, our forefathers, and }0u have to believe them if you want to become a Hindu. You may even believe the most peculiar ideas about the Godhead, but if you deny the authority of the Vedas, you are a Nasiika.
126 LECTURES— FROM COLOMBO TO ALMORA Therein lies the dilTcrcnce of the scriptures of the Christians or the Buddhists; they are all Puranas, and not sciiptures, because they describe the history of the deluge, and the history of kings and reigning families, and record the lives of great men, and so on. 'Phis is the woik of the Puranas, and so far as they agree with the Vedas, they are good. So far as the Bible and the scriptures of other nations agree with the Vedas, they are perfectly good, but when they do not agree, they are no more to be accepted. So with the Quoian. There are many moral teachings in these, and so far as they agree with the Vedas they have the aulhonty of the Puranas, but no more. The idea is that the Vedas were never wiitten, the idea is they never came into existence. I was told once by a Clnislian missionary that their scriptuies have a hislorial character, and therefore ate true. To which I leplied, “ Mine have no historical character, and iherefoie they tye true; yours being historical they were evidently made by some man the other day. Yours aie man-made and mine are not; their non-historicality is in their favoui.” These aie the relations of the Vedas with all the other sciiptures at the present day.
Wo now come to the teachings of the Upanishads. Various texts are there. One is peifectly dualistic. What do I mean by dualistic? There aie certain doctrines which are agieed to by all the different sects of India. First, theie is the doctrine of Sanuiira, oi re-incai nation of the soul. Secondly, they all agiee in their psychology; first there is the body, behind that, what they call the Sukshma-Sharira, the mind, and behind that even, is the Jiva. That is the gieal dil'leience between Western and Indian Psychology; in the Western Psychology the mind IS the soul, heie it is not. The Anldhktirana, the internal insliument, as the mind is called, is only an instrument in the hands of that Jiva, through w'hich the Jiva works on the body, or on the external woild. Here they all agree, and they all also agree that this jiva, or Atman, Jivhtman as it is called by vaiious secb, is eternal, without beginning; and that it is going fiom biith to biith, until it gets a final lelease. They all agiee in this, and they also all agiee in one other most vital point, which alone maiks chaiactenstically, most prominently, most vitally, the diffeience betw'cen the Indian and the Western mind, and it is this, that everything is in the soul. There is no inspiiation, but propeily speaking, expiration. All poweis and all pmily and all greatness -everything is in the soul. I’he Yogi would tell you that the Siddhis — Aninu), Lnghinia, and so on that he wants to attain to, are not to be atiained, in tlie proper sense of the word, but aie alieady theie in the soul; the work is to m.tke them manifest. Patanjali, for instance, would tell you that even in the lowest worm that crawls under your feet, all the eightfold Yogi’s powers are already existing. The diffeience has been made by the body. As soon as he gets a better body the pow^eis will become mani- fest, but they aie there. “ Good and bad deeds are not the diiect causes in the transfuiination of nature, but they act as breakers of obstacles to the evolutions of nature: as a faimer breaks the obstacles to the course of water, which then runs down by its owm nature.” Here Kapila gives the celebrated example of the cultivator biinging water into his field from a huge tank somewhcie. The lank is already filled and the water would flood his land in a moment, only ihete is a mud-wall betw'cen the tank and his field. As soon as the baiiier is bioken, in rushes the water out of its own power and force. This mass of power and puiily and pcifection is in the soul already. The only diffcicncc is this cmiru/za— this veil — that has been cast over it. Once the veil is removed the soul attains to purity, and Us powers become manifest. This, you ought THE VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES to remember, is the great difference between Eastern and Western thought. Hence you find people teaching such awful doctrines as lliat we are all boin sinners, and because we do not believe in such awful doctrines we are all born wicked. They never slop to think that if we are by our very nature wicked, we can never be good— for how can nature change? If it changes, it contradicts itself; Jt is not nature. We ought to remember this. Here the Dualist, and the Advaitist, and all others in India agree.
The next point, which all the sects in India believe in, is God. Of course their ideas of God will be different. The Dualists believe in a personal God, and a personal only. I want you to understand this word personal, a little more. This woid personal does not mean that God has a body,.sits on a tin one somewhere, and rules this world, but personal means \\ith qualilie.s. There are many descriptions of the personal God. This personal God as the Ruler, the Creator, the Tre- server, and the Destroyer, of this universe, is believed in by all the sects. The Advaitists believe something more. They believe in a still higher phase of lhr.s personal God, which is personal-impersonal. No adjective can illustrate where there is no qualification, and the Advaitist would not give Him any qualities cxcei^ the three— Sat— Chit— Ananda, Existence, Knowledge and Bliss Absolute. This is what Sankara did. But in the Upanishads themselves you find they peneliate even further, and say, nothing can be piedicaleil of It except fie/i, fie/i, “not this, not this.’’ Here all the different sects of India agree. But taking the duahslic side, as 1 have said, I will take Ramanuja as the typical dualist of India, the gicat modem repiesenlaiive of the dualistic systems. It is a pity that our people in Bengal know so very little about the great leligious leaders in India, who have been born in other pait.s of the country; aivrfor the matter of that, dining the whole of the Maliommedan jKriod, with the exception of our Chailanya, all the great religious leadcis wcic born in.Southern India, and it is the intellect of Southern India that is ically governing India now; foi even Cluuianja belonged to one of these sects, a sect of the Madbv.as. According to Ramanuja these three entities arc eternal— God. and soul, and Naluie. The souls aie eternal, and they will remain ctcinally existing, individualised through eternity, and will letain their individuality all through Your soul will be different from my soul llirough all eternity, says Ramanuja, and so will this Nature, which is an existing fact, as much existing as the existence of soul, or the existence of God— this will remain always. And God is interpenetrating, the essence of the soul. He is the Aii/ivyn/fiin; in this sense Ramanuja sometimes thinks that God is one with the.soul, the essence of the soul, and these.souls —at the lime of Prahn><t, when the whole of Nature becomes what he calls SaMiiia, conlracted, -become contmeted and minute, and remain so for a time. And at the beginning of the next cycle they all come out, according to their past Karma, and undergo the effect of that Karma. Every action that makes the natural inborn piuity and peifeclion of the soul, get conliactcd, is a bad action, and cveiy action that makes it come out and expand itself, is a good action, says Ramanuja. Whatcvei helps to make the Vtbhha of the soul is good, and whatever makes it Sanhuhila is bad. And thus the soul is going on, expanding or contracting in its actions, till, th.ough the grace of God comes sa vat.on And that grace comes to all souls, says Ramanuja, that aie pure, and struggle for that ^"^^^Thcre is a celebrated verse in the Srutis, mfWmt U, ‘‘When the food Is puie then the Sa//va becomes pure; when the LECTURES~FROM COLOMBO TO ALMORA S(jf/7'a is pure ihcn ihc Smiiii,” the mcmoiy of the Lord, or llic memory of our own peifcction — if you are an Advailisl — “becomes truer, steadier, and abso- lute.” Ileie IS aigicat (hsenssion. First of all, what is this A(?//7v/ We know that aecoiding to the S.uikli) a— and it has been admitted by all our sects of philosophy — the body is composed of three soits of inateiials — not qualities; it is the geneial idea tliat.Sattva, Kajas and 'I'anias are qualities. Not at all, not qualities but the mateii.ils of this nniveisc, and with lihara-suthihi, when the food is pure, the S<?//r'rt: matciial becomes puie. The one theme of the Vedanta is to get this Sattva< As 1 ha\e told you, the soul is alieady pine and peifcct, and it is, according to the Vedanta, covered uj) b) Rajas and Tamas particles. The S.altva particles are the most lumi- nous, and the elfulgence of the soul penetiates through them as easily as light ihiough glass. So il the Rajas and I'amas paiticles go, and leave the Sattva particles, in this slate the powei and jiuiity of the soul will appear, and leave the soul more in am test, Theiefore it is necc.ssary to have this Sattva. And the text says, “When the (lhara becomes puie.’” Ramanuja takes this woid,.Ihaia, to mean food, and he has made it one of the turning jioints of his philosophy. Not only so, it has affected the whole of India, and all the dilTeient sects. Therefore, it is necessary for us to understand what it means, for that, accoidmg to Ramanuja, is one of the piincipal factois in oui dlu'n a-suddhi. What makes food im[)ure, asks Ramanuja.'* Thiee soits of defects make food impuic — iwsi, joii-do^ha, the defect in the very nature of the class to which the food belongs, as the smell in onions, gailic, and such like. I'lie next is dshyaya-dosha, the defect nr the poison fiom whom the food comes; food coming fioin a wicked jieison will make }ou impure. I myself ha\e seen many gieat sages in India tollowing stiictly that advice all their lives. Of couise they had the power to know who biought food, and even who had touched the food, and I have seen il in my own life, not once, hut hundieds of times. Then Nimilta-doshay the defect ot iinpuie things oi inlhionces coming in contact with food is another. We had bettei attend to that a little moie now It has become too pievalent in India to take food with diitand dust and hits of haii in it. If food is taken fiom which these ihice defects h.ive been removed, that makes Sat ti'a-suddhi the Salii'a, Religion seems to he a vmy easy task (hen. 'I'lien eveiyone can have lehgion, if it comes 1))' ealmg jiure food only 'I'lieie is none so weak oi incompetent in this w'Oild, that 1 know, who cannot save himself fiom these defects. 'I'hen comes Sankaiachai) a, who s.iyb tins woid dlidr,} means thought collected in the mind; when that becomes jane, the Sd/fvii becomes pine, and not holoie that You may eat wlial you like. If lood alone would puiify the SijUxhi, then feed the monkey with milk and lice all its life; would It become a great Yogi Then the cows and the deer would be gieat Yogis. As has been said, if it is by bathing much that heaven is reached, the fishes will get to heaven liist. If by eating vegetables a man gels to heaven, the cows and the deer will gel to heaven fust.
Ikil what IS the solution? Both are neces.saiy. Of course the idea that San- kaiachai va gives us of d/idra is the piimaiy idea. But pure food, no doubt, helps puie thought: it has an intimate connection; both ought to be theie. But the defect is, tiiat m modem India we have forgotten the advice of Sankarachaiya and taken only the “ puie food ’ meaning That is why peojile get mad with me when 1 s.'i\, religion has got into the kitchen, and if you had been in Madras with mo you would liave agieed with me. The Bengalees are belter Ukui that. In Madias they li'ttE Vedanta in all ith Eitm^kS 129 throw away food it anybody looks at it. And with all ihit., I do not see that the people are any the belter there. If only eating this and that soil of food, and saving ,t fioin the looks of tliis peison and that person would give them peifection, you would e.Kpect tlient all to be peifect men, which they afe not Thus, although these aie to be combined, and linked together to make a peifect whole, do not put the cait befoie the hoise. Theie is a ciy iiowada\«, about this and that food, and about Vanuhhrama, and the Bengalees aie the most vocifeioiis in these (.lies. I would ask eveiy one of )ou, what do you know about this V,ir}i,lshrama P Where are the four castes to-day in tins countiy? Answei me; I do not see the foul castes. Just as om Bengalee pio\eib has it, ‘ As headache without a head,’ so jou want to make this Vai nushrama lieie Thcie aic not foui castes heie. I see only the Bi^hman and the Sudia. If theie are the Kshatiiyas and the Vaisyas, where are they, and why do not you Bialimans order tliem to take the Va'iuopavita and siud^ the Vedas, as eveiy Hindu ought to do.? -and if the Vais^as and tlio Ksliatiiyas do not exist, but only the Bi.\hmans and the Sudias, the Sastias sa) ilial the Brahman must not hve in a countiy, wlicie ibere aie only Sudras; so dcpail bag and baggage ’ Do you know what the Sasti as say about people who have been eating mleJufiha food, and lumg under a GoveinmeiU of the mln/uhho^, as jouhave foi the last ihoiisaiid )eais? Do you know the penance foi that.? The penaiiee would be burning one’s self will) his own hands. Do } ou w'anl to pass as leacheis, and walk like hypocrites? If )ou believe in your Sastias bum yomsolvos lust like the one griMt BiAliman did, w'lio went with Ale.xandcr the (Beal, and burnt himself l)ccause he thought he had eaten the food oi inleJnhha Do like liiat and )uu will sec lliat the whole nation will be at }OUi feet. Vuti do not believe m youi own Sastias and )et wauU to make olheis believe in them. B you think )ou are not able to do that in this age, admit )om weakness and excuse the weakness of olhcis. take the otiiei castes up, give llieni a heliiing hand, let tiiein study tlie \ edas, and become jusi as good Aryans as any other Ai)ans in the woild and be you likewise Ai\ans, jou Bi.'ihinans of Bcng.ii.
Give up this filthy Vdmddair.L that is killing \oui country. Von have not seen the otlici parts of India. When I see hov' much the h.\s enlcicd our soticly, 1 find it a most disgmceful pl.tco with all Us l)oast of culture These Vdrnd-, ebud sects aie honeycombing our society m Bengal. Those who tome out in the da) tunc and pi each most loudly about u, It is they w'ho cairy on the lioiiible dcbanchery at night, and are backed by the most dieadful books. They are oideied by the books to do tliese things. You who are of Bengal know' it. The Bengalee Sastias aie the Vmnachaia 'J'antias. The} are published by the carldoad. and ) ou poison the miiuls of )oiir cliildien w’lth litem, instead of teaching lliem }oui Sinus. Katheis of (’alculta, do }au not feel ashamed that such hoiiihle slulT as these N’ainachai a Taiuras, with iranslation.s too, should’ be put mlo the hands of }uur 1)0) s and gills, and their minds poisoned, and that they should be biought up with the idea llial these aie the Sastias of the Hindus? If you aie ashamed, lake them away fiom your childien, and let them lead the true Sastias, the Vedas, the Gila, the Upanishads, Accouling to the dualisiic sects of India, the individual souls remain as individ- uals throughout, and God creates the univeise out of pre-oMsling material, only as the ellieieni cause. Accoiding to the Atlvaiti'>ts, on the oilier hand, God is both ths mateii.d, and the cthcieiil cause of the universe. He is not only the Creator of the umveise, but He cieatcs it out of llunself. That is the Advailist position.
Q LECTURES— FROM COLOMBO TO ALMORA There are crude dualistic sects who believe that this world has been created by God out of Himself, and at the same time God is eternally sepaiale from the univeisQ, and everything is eternally subordinate to the Ruler of the umveise. There are sects too who also believe that out of Himself God has evolved this universe, and individ- uals in the long run attain to Niiv?ina, to give up the finite and become the Infinite. But these sects have disappeared. I'he one sect of Advaitists that you see in modern India is composed of the followers of Sankara. According to Sankara, God' is both the material and the efficient cause, through Maya, but not in leality. God has not become this universe, but the universe is not, and God is This is one of the highest points to undeislandof Advaila Vedanta, this idea of Maya. I am afraid I have no time to discuss this one most difficult point in oui philosophy. I'hose of you who are acquainted with Wcstcin philosophy will find something vciy similai in Kant. But I must warn you, those of you, who have studied Piofessoi.ALu Alullei 's wiitmgs on Kant, that tlieie is one idea most misleading. It was S.inkaia who liist found out the idea of the identity of time, space and causation with Alaya, and I had the good foitune to find one or two passages in Sankaia’s comnieniai les and send them to my fiiend the Piofessor. So even that idea was heie in India Now this is a peculiar theory— -this Maya thcoiy of the Advaita V'cdanlists. The Brahman is all that exists, but differentiation has been caused by this Alaya. Unity, the one Biahman, is the ultimate, the goal, and heiein is an ctoin.al dissension again between Indian and Western thought. India has thrown this challenge to the woild foi thousands of years, and the challenge has been taken up by (lilTeienl nations, and the lesult is that they all succumbed and you live. Tins is the challenge, that tins woild is a delusion, that It is all Alaya, that whethei you cat off the gunind with youi fmgeis, or dine off golden plates, whether you live in palaces, and aic one of the mightiest of monarchs or are the poorest of beggais, death Is the one lesult; it is all the saine, all Maya. That is the old Indian theme, and again and again nations aie spiinging up trying to unsay it, to dispiovc it; becoming great, with enjoyment a.s their watch- word, power in their hands, they use that power to the utmost, enjoy to the utmost, and the next moment they die. We stand for cvei because we.see that eveiylhmg is Maya. The childien of Maya live for ever, but the children of enjoyment die.
Here again is anothei gical difference. Just as you find the attempts of Hegel and Schopenhauer in German Philosophy, you will find the veiy same ideas bi ought forward in ancient India. Fortunately foi us, Hegelianism was nipped in the bud, and not allowed to spiout and cast its baneful shoots over this motherland of ouis. Hegel’s one idea is that the one, the absoUuo, is only chaos, and that the individualised foim is the greater. The world is greatei than the non-woild, Samsaia is greater than salvation. That is the one idea, and the moie you plunge into this Samsara, the more your soul is covered with the woi kings of life, the bettci you aie. They say, do you not see how we build houses, cleanse the streets, enjoy the senses Aye, behind that they may hide lancour, misery, hoiror — behind every bit of that enjoyment. On the other hand, our philosophers have fiom the very fust dcclaicd that every manifestation, what you call evolution, is vain, a vain attempt of ihe unmanifested to manifest itself. Ay^e, you the almighty cause of this universe, tiying to reflect yourself in little mud puddle.s! But after making the attempt for a time you find out it was all in vain, and beat a retreat to the place from whence you came.
This is Vairdgya, or renunciation, and the vciy beginning of leligion. How can rehgtou or morality begin without renunciation itself } The Alpha and Omega is THE VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES rcnilnciation; ‘‘j^ive up,” says th(i Veda, “give up.” Thai is the one way, “give up.”
^ JTITJir?Tr*T%^ I — ” Neither ihrougii wealth, nor through progeny, bul by giving up alone that iinuiortaliiy is to be reached.” That is the dictate of the Indian hooks. Of couise, there have been gieat giveis-uj) ot the woild, even sitting on till ones, bul even Janaka himself had to I'enounce; who was a gicater rcnouncer than he? But in modem times we all want to be called Janakas! 'Bhey are all Janakas* of childien, — unclad, ill-fed, miseiable childien. The word Janaka can be applied lo them in that sense only; they have noiH) of the shining, God^like thoughts as the old Janaka had. These are oni modem Janakas! A little less of tins' Janakism now, and come straight to the niaik! It you can give up, you will have religion. If you cannot, you may lead all the books that are in tiic world, from East to West, swallow all the libiaiies, and become the greatest of Pandits, but’ if you have Karma-kanda only, yon are nothing, tlrerc i's no SJm•ituallly^ Thfouglt lenunciatiou alone this immoilality is to be leached. It is the power, the great ])owei, that caies not even for the universe, then it is that ifrsTTWfT The whole univeise becomes likes a hollow made by a cow’s foot ” Renuiicialioii, that i.s the Hag, the bannei of India, floating over the woild, the one undying thought whicE India sends again and again as •a warning to dying r.xccs, as a warning to all tyranny', as a warning to wickedness in the woild. Aye, Hindus, let not your hold of that bannei go. Hold it aloft. Even if you aie weak, and cannot icnouncc, do not lowci the ideal,."^ay 1 am weak and cannot renounce the woild, bul do not tiy to- be hypocrites, loriui mg texts, and making specious aigumcnts, and Hying lo thiovv dust m the eyes ot people vvho ought to have known belter. Do not do that, but own you aie weak. Eoi the uka is gieat, that of i enunciation. What matteis it if inilliuns Kill in llw allempt, it ten soklieis, oi even two, letuin victorious! Blessed- be the millions dead ' 'I'heri blood has bought the vicloiy. This reimndalioii i.s the one ideal thioughoul ihe diltoieiit Vcdic sects execpl one, and that is the Vallabha- eh.iiya sect 111 Bombay fhesidemy, and most of you aie awaie what comes where lenunciatiou does not exi-t. We want oilhodoxy, even the hideously oitliodox, eveiv those who smolhei themselves with ashe.s, even those who stand with then hands iii).
Idled Aye, we want them, nun Uuial though they be, foi standing for that idea of giving, igi, and acting as a waimng to the lace against succumbing lo the effeminate luxuiies that aie cieeping into India, eating into oui veiy vitals, and lending to make the whole i.ice a lace ol liy port lies We want to have a little of a.sceticism. Renunciation has conipieied India in days ot yore, it has still lo comjuer Imlia. Still it stands gicalest and highest of Imii.ui ideals, — (his lenunciatiou. Ihe land of ]>uddha, the land of Ramanuja, of Kamakiishna Pai.amahamsa, the land of renunciation, the land whcie, tiom the days of yoie, Kamia-kanda was pieachecl against, and even to day there arc hundieds who have given up everything, ami become yivanmuklas--^yG, will that land give up Us ideals? Ceilamly not. Theie may be people who.se brains have become turned by the Western luxuaious ideals, there may be thousands ami hundieds of thousands, who have diunk deep of enjoyment, this curse of the We.st, tl>e sensc.s, the cuisc of the vvorhl, yet for all that, there will be other thousands in this mother- land of mine to whom ichgion will ever be a reality, and wlio will be ever ready to give up without counting the cost, if need be.