show, and so this personal God fell to pieces.
Truth, and nothing but tiulh, is the w-alchword of the Advailist. Salyameva jayale mUuiitani saivmaiva panthd vUato Truth alone tiiuinphs, and not untiiuh. Thiough truth alone the way to Devaydna lies." lueiy- bocly marches foiwaid under that bannci; aye, but it is only to crush the weaker man’s position by Ids own. You come with your Dualislic idea of God to pick a quaiiel with a poor man who is worshipping an image, and you think you aie w’ondei fully lational, you can confound him, but if he turns round and shalteis your own peisonal God, and calls that an imaginaiy ideal, where aie you? You fall back on faith and so on, oi laisc the cry of Atheism, the old ciy of a weak man— whosoever defeats him is an atheist. If you arc to be rational, be rational all along the line, and if not, allow others the same privilege w hich you ask for yourselves IIow can you prove the existence of this God? On the other hand it can be almost disproved. There is not a shadow of proof as to His existence, and there are very strong arguments to the contiaiy. How will you pi ove His existence, with your God, and His and an infinite number of souls which.are substance, and eacli soul an individual? In what aie you an individual? You are not as a body, for you know to-day belter than even the Buddhists of old knew', that what may have been matter in the sun has just now become matter in you, and w'lll go out and become matter in the plants; then whcie is your individuality, Mr. so and so? The same applies to the mind. Wheie is your individuality? You have one thought LECTURES—FROM COLOMBO TO ALMORA to-nighf and another to-morrow. You do not ' think the same way as you thought when you were a child, and old men do not think the same way as they did when they were young. Where is your individuality then? Do not say it is in conscious- ness, this ahamkdra^ because this only covers a small part of your existence. While I am talking to you, all my oigans are working and I am not conscious of it. If consciousness is the proof of existence they do not exist then, because I am not conscious of them. Where are you then with your personal God theories? How can you prove such a God? Again, the Buddhists will stand up and declare not only is |t illogical, but immoral, for it teaches man to be a coward and to seek assistance outside, and nobody can give him such help. Here is the universe, man made it;, why then depend on an imaginary being outside, whom nobody ever saw or felt, or got help from? Why then do you make cowards of yourselves, and teach your children that the highest state of man is to be like a dog, and go crawling before this imaginary being, saying that you are weak and impure, and that you are everything vile in this universe? On the other hand, the Buddhists may urge not only that you tell a lie, but that you bring a tremendous amount of evil upon your children, for, mark you, this world is one of hypnotisation. Whatever you tell yourself that you believe. Almost the first words the great Buddha uttered were What you think, that you are, what you will think, that you will be.” If this is true, do not teach yourself that you aie nothing, aye, that you cannot do anj tiling unless you are helped by somebody who does not live here, but sits above the clouds. The result will be that you will be more and more weakened cveiy day; by constantly lepeating, “ We are very impure, f.ord, make us pure,” the result will be that you will hypnotise yourselves into all sorts of vices. Aye, the Buddhists say that ninety per cent, of these vices that you see in every society are on account of this idea of a peisonal God; this is an awful idea of the human being that the end and aim of this expicss- ion of life, this wonderful expression of life, is to become like a dog. Sa3s the Buddhist to the Vaishnava, if your ideal, your aim and goal is to go to the place called Vaikuntha where God lives, and there stand befoie Him with folded hands all through eternity, it is better to commit suicide than do that. The Buddhists may even urge, that that is why he is going to create annihilation, Nhvdna, to escape this. I am putting these ideas before you as a Buddhist just for the time being, because nowada}S all these Advaitic ideas are said to make you immoial, and I am tiding to tell you how the other side looks. Let us face both sides boldly and bravely.
We have seen first of all that this cannot bo proved, this idea of a peisonal God creating the world; is there any child that can believe this to-day? Because a kumbhakdra creates a gha/a, therefore a God created the world! If this is so, then your kumbhakdra is God also, and if arty one tells you that he acts without head and hands you may take him to a lunatic asylum. Has ever your Personal God, the Creator of the world, to whom you cry all your life, ever helped you,-- -is the next challenge from modern science. They will prove that any help you have had could have been got by your own exertions, and better still, you need not have spent your energy in that crying, you could have done it better without that weeping and crying. And we have seen that along with this idea of a Personal God comes tyranny and priestcraft. Tyranny and priestcraft have prevailed wherever this idea existed, and until the lie is knocked on the head, say the Buddhists, tyranny will not cease. So long as man thinks he has to cower before a supernaluial being, so long there will be priests to claim rights and privileges and to make men cower before them, while these THE VEDANTA,7, THE VEDANTA,7, poor men will cotitinile to ask some priesl to act as interceder for them. You may do away w.ih the Rralimana, but mark me, that tlrose wlm do so will put themselves In h.s place, and will be vorse, because the Biahatatra has a certain amount of generosity in liim, but lliesc tipstarts are always the wotst of lyrannisers. If a beggar gets wealth he thinks the whole wo, Id is a hit of straw..So these priests there must he, so long as this Personal God idea persists, and it will be impossible to Ihh.k of any great morality In society. Pileslcralt and lytanny go hmul in hand. Why was it invented f Because some sttong men in old times got people into their hands and said, you must obey us or we wili desttoy you. That was the long and short of it. SMayam rajramudyalam. It is the idea of the thunderer, who kills every one who does not obey him. ^ Next the Buddiiist says, you have been so rational up to this point that yob say that eveiylhing is the result of the law of Karma. You believe in an infrniiy of souls and that souls are wilhom biiih or death, and tins infinity of souls and the belief iii the law of Kaima, is peifeclly loi^dcal no doubt. Theie cannot be a cause without an cffocl, the picsent must have had its cause in the past, and will have it» effect in the future. The Hindu says the Karma is jada and not ihaitanya, therefore some ihailanya is necessary to brin^^ t!,is cause to fiuiiton. Is it so, that is neccssaiy to bring the plant to fruition? If I plant the seed and add water, no chiUianya is necessary. You may say there was some original chaitanva there,’ but the souls themselves weie the nothing else is necessary. If human souls have it too, wh.at necessity is there for a God, as say the Jains, who, unlike the Bud- dhists, believe in souls, and do not believe in God. Where are you logical, where aie you nioial? And when you criticise Advaitism and fear that it will make for immoiality, just read a little of what has been done in India by Dnalislic sects. If there have been twenty thousand Advaitisl blackguards, there have been more than twenty thousand Dvaitist blackguards. Generally speaking, there will be more Dv.ailist blackguards, because it takes a belter ty|>e of mind to understand Advaitism, and Advaitisis can scarcely be fiiglitcned into anything. What remains for you Hindus, then? There is no help for you out of the clutches of the Buddhist. You may quote the Vedas, but he does not believe in them. He will say, “ My Tiipiiakas say olheiwisc, and they are without beginning or end, not even written by Buddha, for Buddha says he is only reciting them; they are eternal." And he adds, that yours are wrong, ours are the true Vedas, yours are manufactured by the Biahman piiests, therefore out with them. How do you escape?
Here is the way to get out. Take up the first objection, the metaphysical one, that substance and qualities are different. Says the Advaitisl, they are not. There is no difference between substance and qualities. You know the old illustration, how the rope is taken for the snake, and when you.see the snake you do not see the rope at all, the rope has vanished. Dividing the thing into.substance and quality, is a metaphysical something in the brains of philosophers, for never can there be an effect outside. You see substance if you are an oidinary man, and qualities if you are a great Yogi, but you never see both at the same time. So, Buddhists, your quarrel about substance and qualities has been but a miscalculation which does not stand in fact. But, if substance is unqualified, there can only be one. If you take qualities off from the soul, and show that these qualities are in the mind, really superimposed on the soul, then iheio can never be two souls, for it is qualification that makes the difference between one soul and another. How do you know that LECTURES— FROM COLOMBO TO ALMORA one soul is different from the other? Owing to certain differentiating marks, certain qualities. And where qualities do not exist how can there be differentiation? There- fore there aie not two souls, there is but One, and your Paramdtman is unnecessary, it is this vciy soul. That One is called Paramdtman, that very One is called jivdiman, and so on; and you Dualists, such as the Sdnkhya and others, who say that the soul is v'lbhn, omnipresent, how can you make two infinUes.? There can be only one. What else? This One is the one Infinite Atman, everything else is Its manifestation. There the Buddhist stops, but there it does not end. 'J'he Advaitist position is not merely a weak one of criticism. The Advaitist criticises others when they come too near him, and just throws them away, that is all, but he propoijnds his own position, lie is the only one that ciiticises, and does not stop with ciiticisin and showing books. Here you are. You say the univeise is a thing of continuous motion. In vyaLiti everything is moving, you aie moving, the table is moving, motion everywhere; it is samxdra, continuous motion; it is jai((it. Therefoie there cannot be an individuality in this jagat, because individuality means that which does not change; theie cannot be any changeful individuality, it is a contradiction in terms. There is no such thing as individuality in this little vvoild of ouis, the ja}^at. Thought and feeling, mind and body, men and animals and plants are in a continuous state of Ilux. But suppose you take the universe as a unit whole; can it change or move? Clertainly not. Motion is possible in compaiison with something which is a little less in motion, or entirely motionless. The universe as a whole, theiefoie, is motionless, unchangeable. You arc, therefore, an individual then, and then alone, when you aie the whole of it, when the realisation of “ I am the universe” comes. That Is why the Vedantist says that so long as theic are two, feai does not cease. It is only when one does not see another, does not feel another, when it is all one, — then alone fear ceases, then alone death vanishes, then alone xamuira vanishes. Advaita teaches us therefore that man is individual in being universal, and not in being particular. You are immortal only when jou aie the whole. You are feailess and deathless only when you are the univeise: and then, that which you call the universe is the same as that you call God, the same that you call existence, the same that you call the whole. It is the one undivided Existence which is taken to be the manifold world as we see it and others also who aie in the same state of mind as we. People who have done a little better Karma and get a better state of miml, when they die, look upon it as svarya, and see Indras and so forth. People still higher will see it, the very same thing, as Brahma T.oka, and the perfect ones will neither see the eaith nor the heavens, nor any Loka at all. This univeise will have vanished, and Brahinan will be in its stead.
Can we know this Brahman? I have told you of the painting of the Infinite in the Samhita. Here we shall find another side shown, the infinite internal. That was the infinite of the muscles. Heie we shall have the infinite of thought. There, the Infinite was attempted to be painted in language positive; here, that language faded, and the attcmjit has been to paint it in language negative. Here is this universe, and even admitting that it is Brahman, can we know it? No! No! You must understand this one thing again very clearly. Again and again this doubt will come to )Ou. if this is Brahman, how can vve know it? VijmUdramare kena vijdniydt — By what can the knower be known”? How can the knower be known? The eyes see evei ) thing; can they see themselves? They cannot. The very fact of knowledge is a degradation. Children of the Ar^as, you must remember this, for herein lies THK VEMNTA ',73 a Ws story All the Western temruiion, U«i come to you. hnve their mctnphvsical basts on that one Hung tb,,e „ sense-knowlcige. In ti.e'Kast, ave say m our \cda, that tins knotvWge is loner than the thing itself, because it,s altvavs a inn, tat, on. When you „.n,t to know a tlting, ii i,n,nediatelv hecon.e, bnnletl by your tnnttl. 1 l,ey say. refer hack to tl,,,t inst.tnce of the ovcer rnakntw a peail anti see how knoulecige is In.ntation, g.tthenn.g a ttnng, fnineing it n,to conscousness, and not known, g n as.t uhole. This „ une ahoul all knot, ledge, and can It be less so about the liifinue? Can yon thus btuit linn who is the suh.iance of all knowleclftc, Ili.n who is the S^ihhi, the Witness, without w'honi vou cannot have any knowled-c.Ifnnwho has no qualities, who is the Witness of the whole univcise, the Wit- ness in our owMi souls? IJow can you know Him? liy what means can ^on bind Him up? Ever) thing, the whole universe, is such a false attempt. This Inlinite Atman is, as it were, trying to see liis own face, and all, tiom the IowctI animals, to the lii^liost of gods, are like so many minors to lellecl himself m, and he K taking np siiirotheis, hnding them insullicient, until in lire Imnnn hod.^ he comes to Know that it is the liniie of the (iuile, all is finite, ihcie cannot he any expression of the Infinite in the finite. I hen comes the retiograde maich, and this is what is called icnunciaiion, vairni^ vttni, Hack fiom the senses, hack ' do not go to the senses, is the walchwoid of va'n I'his is the walchwoid of all moialiiy, this is the watchword of all w'cll-hemg; for )ou must icmemher that with us the univcise he, gins in Ar/ijMv/, in renunciatioH; and as jnu go hack and back, all the forms aic being manilosted hefoic }ou. and they aic left aside one after the othei until you I emaiii what )0u really aie. This is viokshii, or ii he I at ion.
This idea we have to \\w>Scxh[?y(\(\.-"Vi}n.U(lnvtuvc kena vij<Unv(U. “I low' to know the kiiower j the knowci cannot he known, because if it w'eic known it will not he the knower. If )ou look at \oui eies in a miiioi, the lellection is no more your eves, hut something else, only a lefleciion. Then if this Soul, this Universal, Infinite Heing which you are, is only a witness, what good is it? It cannot li\e, and nio\e about, and enjoy the woild, as we do. People cannot undeisiand how the witness can enjoy, “ Oh," they say “ you Hindus have become quiescent, and good for nothing, ihioiigh this docli me, that you are witnesses I'drsl of all, it is only the witness that can enjoy. If there is a wieslhng match, who enjoys it, those who Uke pait in it, or those who ate looking on, the oulsideis? 'Phe moie and more you aic the witness of anything in life, the moie joii enjoy it. And this is (hiani/nm, and therefoie infinite bliss can only he yours wdien you have become the witness of this universe, then alone you arc a mukia pmusha. It is the witness alone that can woik without any desire, without any idea of going to heaven, without any idea of blame, without any idea of piaise. The witness alone enjoys, and none else.
Coming to the moral aspect, theie is one thing between the melaphjsical and the moial aspect of Ad\ailism, it i.s the theory of IMaja, Everyone of these points m the Advaita system requires yeais to undeisiand.ind months to explain. Therefore you will excuse me if 1 only just toiicli them rn passani. This theory of Maya has been the most difficult thing to understand in all ages. Let me tell yon in a few' words that it is surely no theoiy, it is the combination of the three ideas Desha-kdla-nimitia. — space, lime, and causation— and this time and ^pace and cause have been furtj^r reduced into ndma rupa. Suppose ihcie i.s a wave in the ocean. 'J'he wave" Is distinct from the ocean only in its foim and name, and this form and this name cannot have any separate existence fiom the w'ave; they exist only with the wave, 'i'lie wave LECTURES-FROM COLOMBO TO ATJ/ORA may subside, but the same amount of water remains, even if the name and form that ueie on the wave vanish for ever. So this Maya is what makes the chfteience between me and'you, between all animals and man, between gods and men. In fact, it is tins Maya that causes the Atman to be caught, as it were, in so many millions of beings, and these are distinguishable only through name and foim. If you leave it alone, let name and form go, all this vaiicty vanishes foi ever, and you are what you really are. This is INfaya. It is again no theory, but a statement of facts. When the lealist statesj that this table exists, what he means is, that this table has an independent existence of its own, that it does not depend on the existence of anything else in the univeise, and if this whole universe be destroyed and annihilated this table will icniain just as it is now. A liltle thought will show you that it cannot be so. Everything here m the sense- woild is dependent and inter-dependont, lelalive and co-i dative, the e.xistence of one depeuilmg on the other. Tliere aie thice steps, therefore, in our knowledge of things; the first is, that each thing is indiviilnal, and separate from every other; and the next step is to find that there is a relation and co-relation between all tilings; and the thiid is tliat there is only one thing which wc see as many. The fust idea of God with the ignoiant is that this God is somewhere outside the univeise, that is to say, the conception of God is cxtiemely human; He does just what a man does, only on a bigger and higher scale. And we have seen how that idea of God is proved in a few words to be unreasonable and insufficient. And the next idea is the idea of a power we see manifested cverywheie. This is the leal personal God we get in the Chandi, but, mark me, not a God that you make the rescivoir of all good qualities only. You cannot have two Gods, God and Satan; you must base only one, and daie to call Him good and l)a<l, but have only one, and take the logical consequences. We read in the Chandi — “We salute 'Fhee, O Divine Mother, who lives in every being as peace. We salute Thee, O Divine Mother who lives in all beings as puiily.” At the same time we must take the whole consequence of calling Him the All-formed. “All this bliss, O Gaigi, wherever there is bliss theie is a poition of the Divine.” You may use it how you like. In this light before me, you m.ay give a poor man a hundred rupees, and another man may forge your name, but the light will be the same for both. This is the.second stage; and the third is that God is ncillier outside nature nor inSide nature, but God and natuie and soul and univeise aie all convertible tcims. You never sec two things; it is your metaphysical vvouls 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 himself as chaifanva, for him the body has vanished. An ordinaiy man thinks of himself as a body; the idea of spii it has vanished from him; but because the metaphy.sical ideas exist that man has a body and a soul and all these things, you think they are all simultaneously there. One thing at a lime. Do not talk of God when you see matter; you see the effect and the effect alone, and the cause you cannot sec, and the moment you can see the cause the effect will have vanished. Where is this world then, and who has taken it off?
“One that is present always as consciousness, the bliss absolute, beyond all bounds, beyond all compare, beyond all qualities, ever-ficc, limitless as the sky, without parts, the absolute, the perfect, — such a Brahman, O sage, O learned one, shines in the heart of the Jnanin, in Samiidhi.”
Where all the changes of Nature cease for ever, thought bey6nd all thoughts, who is equal to all yet having no equal, immeasurable, whom the Vedas declare, who is THE VEDANTA the essence in xvhat we call our existence, the perfect, -such a Brahman, O sage, O learned one, shines in ihe licait of ihc Jnaiiin in Saniadlii.”
Beyond all biuli and deadi, ilie Inliniic One, incomparable, like ths whole un verse deluged in water in »«W//',t/,yu,_waier above, water Iwneath, water on all stdes, and on the face of that water not a wave, not a ripple,- silent and calm, all visions have died out, all fights and qnai rehand the war of fools and saints have ceased for ever such a Bralintau, (J sage, O learned one, shines in the heatt of the Jnaiiin in samddht," I'hat also comes, and when that comes the world has vanished.
Wc 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 l:>e a blasphemy] because you aie He already. Wc have also seen that this Biahman is noj this table and yet is this table. 'I'ake o(T the name and form, and whatever is reality is He. He is the reality in everything.
“ I'hou ait the woman, thou the man, thou ait the boy, and the giil as well, thou the old man suppoitest thyself on a stick, thou ait all in all in the Universe.” That is the theme of Advaitism. A few woids mote. Herein lies, we find, the explanation of the essence of things. We have seen how heie alone we can lake a film stand against all the oniush of logic and scientific knowledge. Here at last reason has a firm foumla- tion, and, at the same time, the Indian V^edantist does not emse the preceding steps; he look-s back and he blesses them, and he knows that they weie tine, only wrongly per- ceived, and wrongly stated. They were the same truth, only seen thiough the glass of Rlaya, distorted it may be, —yet truth, and nothing hut truth. The same (Jod whom the Ignorant man saw outside nature, tlie same whom the little-knowing man saw as. interpenetrating the univcise, and the same whom the sage realises as liis own self, as the whole univeise itself,— all aic One and the same Ik'ing, the same entity seen fioin dilTerent standpoints of view, seen thiough dilTerent glasses of Maya, perceived by dilTeienl minds, and all the diffeieiice was caused by that. Not only so, hut one view must lead to the other. What is the dilfcrence between science and common knowledge } Go out into the streets in the dark, anil if something uiuisiial is hapiiim- ing there, ask one of the passers-by, wdiat is the c.uisc of it. It is ten to one that he will tell you it is a ghost causing the phenomenon. He is always going alter ghosts and spiiils outside, because it is the nature of ignoiance to seek for causes outside of elTccts. If a stone falls it has been thrown by a devil or a gho.st, says the ignorant man, but the scientific man says it is the law of natiiie, the law of gravitation.
What is the fight betw'een science and religion everywhere? Religions are encumbered with such a mass of explanations which are outside — one angel is in chaigo of the sun, another of the moon, and so on ad infinitum; every change is caused by a spiiit, the one common point of agreement being that they are all outside the thing; while science means that the cau.se of a thing is sought out by the nature thing itself. As step by step science is progre.ssing, it has taken the e.xplanation ’ iciT natural phenomena out of the hands ofUpirils and angels. Because Advaitism has done likewise in spiritual matters, it is the most scientific religion. This universe has not; been created by any extra-cosmic God, nor is it the work of any outside genius. It is the i self-creating, self-dissolving, self-manifesting, One Infinite Existence, the Brahman, v. Tatfvamasi Sve/akeio^" That Thou art, O Svetaketu!” Thus you sec that this, and this alone, and none else, can be the only scientific religion. And with all the LECTURES—FROM COLOMBO TO ALJfORA ptalile about science that is going on daily at the present time in modern haU- educated India, \>ilh all the talk about rationalism and reason that 1 hear every day, 1 expect that whole sects of you will come over and dare to be Advaitists, and (.lare to preach it to the woiUl in the wouis of llutldha, Bahujana h 'ltiiya bahiijana Snkfidya—^'^ h'or the good of many, for the happiness of many,” If you do not, 1 take }Ou for cowards. If you cannot get over your cowaidice, if your fear is your excuse, allow the same libeity to otheis, do not try to 44p the poor idc)l-worshi[)per, do not call him a devil, do not go about ‘g to every man that does not agiee entiiely with you; know first, that yoit awards;oiu selves, and if society fiighteiis )ou, if 3our own supeistitions of trrei|®p liighten you so much, how much moie will these bin>erstitions fiighien and Db..down those who are ignoiant? I'liat is tlie Advaita position. Have mcicy V ■'theis. Would to God that the whole world were Advaitists to-moiiow, not Old}'*’. 01 y, but in realisation. Hut it that cannot be, let us do the next best thing; let take the ignoiant by the hand, lead them always step by step just as they can, ami know that every step in all religious giovvth in India has been progiessive. i is not fiom bad to good, but fiom good to better.