Produced by Chetan Jain at BharatLiterature
SĀDHANĀ
THE REALISATION OF LIFE
By
Rabindranath Tagore
Author of 'Gitanjali'
1916
To
Ernest Rhys
Author's Preface
Perhaps it is well for me to explain that the subject-matter of
the papers published in this book has not been philosophically
treated, nor has it been approached from the scholar's point of
view. The writer has been brought up in a family where texts of
the Upanishads are used in daily worship; and he has had before
him the example of his father, who lived his long life in the
closest communion with God, while not neglecting his duties to
the world, or allowing his keen interest in all human affairs to
suffer any abatement. So in these papers, it may be hoped,
western readers will have an opportunity of coming into touch
with the ancient spirit of India as revealed in our sacred texts
and manifested in the life of to-day.
All the great utterances of man have to be judged not by the
letter but by the spirit--the spirit which unfolds itself with
the growth of life in history. We get to know the real meaning
of Christianity by observing its living aspect at the present
moment--however different that may be, even in important
respects, from the Christianity of earlier periods.
For western scholars the great religious scriptures of India seem
to possess merely a retrospective and archælogical interest; but
to us they are of living importance, and we cannot help thinking
that they lose their significance when exhibited in labelled
cases--mummied specimens of human thought and aspiration,
preserved for all time in the wrappings of erudition.
The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences
of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of
logical interpretation. They have to be endlessly explained by
the commentaries of individual lives, and they gain an added
mystery in each new revelation. To me the verses of the
Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha have ever been things of
the spirit, and therefore endowed with boundless vital growth;
and I have used them, both in my own life and in my preaching, as
being instinct with individual meaning for me, as for others, and
awaiting for their confirmation, my own special testimony, which
must have its value because of its individuality.
I should add perhaps that these papers embody in a connected
form, suited to this publication, ideas which have been culled
from several of the Bengali discourses which I am in the habit of
giving to my students in my school at Bolpur in Bengal; and I
have used here and there translations of passages from these done
by my friends, Babu Satish Chandra Roy and Babu Ajit Kumar
Chakravarti. The last paper of this series, "Realisation in
Action," has been translated from my Bengali discourse on
"Karma-yoga" by my nephew, Babu Surendra Nath Tagore.
I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to Professor
James H. Woods, of Harvard University, for his generous
appreciation which encouraged me to complete this series of
papers and read most of them before the Harvard University. And
I offer my thanks to Mr. Ernest Rhys for his kindness in helping
me with suggestions and revisions, and in going through the
proofs.
A word may be added about the pronouncing of Sādhanā: the accent
falls decisively on the first ā, which has the broad sound of the
letter.
CONTENTS
I. THE RELATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO THE UNIVERSE
II. SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS
III. THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
IV. THE PROBLEM OF SELF
V. REALISATION IN LOVE
VI. REALISATION IN ACTION
VII. THE REALISATION OF BEAUTY
VIII. THE REALISATION OF THE INFINITE
I
THE RELATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO THE UNIVERSE
The civilisation of ancient Greece was nurtured within city
walls. In fact, all the modern civilisations have their cradles
of brick and mortar.
These walls leave their mark deep in the minds of men. They set
up a principle of "divide and rule" in our mental outlook, which
begets in us a habit of securing all our conquests by fortifying
them and separating them from one another. We divide nation and
nation, knowledge and knowledge, man and nature. It breeds in us
a strong suspicion of whatever is beyond the barriers we have
built, and everything has to fight hard for its entrance into our
recognition.
When the first Aryan invaders appeared in India it was a vast
land of forests, and the new-comers rapidly took advantage of
them. These forests afforded them shelter from the fierce heat
of the sun and the ravages of tropical storms, pastures for
cattle, fuel for sacrificial fire, and materials for building
cottages. And the different Aryan clans with their patriarchal
heads settled in the different forest tracts which had some
special advantage of natural protection, and food and water in
plenty.
Thus in India it was in the forests that our civilisation had its
birth, and it took a distinct character from this origin and
environment. It was surrounded by the vast life of nature, was
fed and clothed by her, and had the closest and most constant
intercourse with her varying aspects.
Such a life, it may be thought, tends to have the effect of
dulling human intelligence and dwarfing the incentives to
progress by lowering the standards of existence. But in ancient
India we find that the circumstances of forest life did not
overcome man's mind, and did not enfeeble the current of his
energies, but only gave to it a particular direction. Having
been in constant contact with the living growth of nature, his
mind was free from the desire to extend his dominion by erecting
boundary walls around his acquisitions. His aim was not to
acquire but to realise, to enlarge his consciousness by growing
with and growing into his surroundings. He felt that truth is
all-comprehensive, that there is no such thing as absolute
isolation in existence, and the only way of attaining truth is
through the interpenetration of our being into all objects. To
realise this great harmony between man's spirit and the spirit of
the world was the endeavour of the forest-dwelling sages of
ancient India.
In later days there came a time when these primeval forests gave
way to cultivated fields, and wealthy cities sprang up on all
sides. Mighty kingdoms were established, which had
communications with all the great powers of the world. But even
in the heyday of its material prosperity the heart of India ever
looked back with adoration upon the early ideal of strenuous
self-realisation, and the dignity of the simple life of the
forest hermitage, and drew its best inspiration from the wisdom
stored there.
The west seems to take a pride in thinking that it is subduing
nature; as if we are living in a hostile world where we have to
wrest everything we want from an unwilling and alien arrangement
of things. This sentiment is the product of the city-wall habit
and training of mind. For in the city life man naturally directs
the concentrated light of his mental vision upon his own life and
works, and this creates an artificial dissociation between
himself and the Universal Nature within whose bosom he lies.
But in India the point of view was different; it included the
world with the man as one great truth. India put all her
emphasis on the harmony that exists between the individual and
the universal. She felt we could have no communication whatever
with our surroundings if they were absolutely foreign to us.
Man's complaint against nature is that he has to acquire most of
his necessaries by his own efforts. Yes, but his efforts are not
in vain; he is reaping success every day, and that shows there is
a rational connection between him and nature, for we never can
make anything our own except that which is truly related to us.
We can look upon a road from two different points of view. One
regards it as dividing us from the object of our desire; in that
case we count every step of our journey over it as something
attained by force in the face of obstruction. The other sees it
as the road which leads us to our destination; and as such it is
part of our goal. It is already the beginning of our attainment,
and by journeying over it we can only gain that which in itself
it offers to us. This last point of view is that of India with
regard to nature. For her, the great fact is that we are in
harmony with nature; that man can think because his thoughts are
in harmony with things; that he can use the forces of nature for
his own purpose only because his power is in harmony with the
power which is universal, and that in the long run his purpose
never can knock against the purpose which works through nature.
In the west the prevalent feeling is that nature belongs
exclusively to inanimate things and to beasts, that there is a
sudden unaccountable break where human-nature begins. According
to it, everything that is low in the scale of beings is merely
nature, and whatever has the stamp of perfection on it,
intellectual or moral, is human-nature. It is like dividing the
bud and the blossom into two separate categories, and putting
their grace to the credit of two different and antithetical
principles. But the Indian mind never has any hesitation in
acknowledging its kinship with nature, its unbroken relation with
all.
The fundamental unity of creation was not simply a philosophical
speculation for India; it was her life-object to realise this
great harmony in feeling and in action. With mediation and
service, with a regulation of life, she cultivated her
consciousness in such a way that everything had a spiritual
meaning to her. The earth, water and light, fruits and flowers,
to her were not merely physical phenomena to be turned to use and
then left aside. They were necessary to her in the attainment of
her ideal of perfection, as every note is necessary to the
completeness of the symphony. India intuitively felt that the
essential fact of this world has a vital meaning for us; we have
to be fully alive to it and establish a conscious relation with
it, not merely impelled by scientific curiosity or greed of
material advantage, but realising it in the spirit of sympathy,
with a large feeling of joy and peace.
The man of science knows, in one aspect, that the world is not
merely what it appears to be to our senses; he knows that earth
and water are really the play of forces that manifest themselves
to us as earth and water--how, we can but partially apprehend.
Likewise the man who has his spiritual eyes open knows that the
ultimate truth about earth and water lies in our apprehension of
the eternal will which works in time and takes shape in the
forces we realise under those aspects. This is not mere
knowledge, as science is, but it is a preception of the soul by
the soul. This does not lead us to power, as knowledge does, but
it gives us joy, which is the product of the union of kindred
things. The man whose acquaintance with the world does not lead
him deeper than science leads him, will never understand what it
is that the man with the spiritual vision finds in these natural
phenomena. The water does not merely cleanse his limbs, but it
purifies his heart; for it touches his soul. The earth does not
merely hold his body, but it gladdens his mind; for its contact
is more than a physical contact--it is a living presence. When a
man does not realise his kinship with the world, he lives in a
prison-house whose walls are alien to him. When he meets the
eternal spirit in all objects, then is he emancipated, for then
he discovers the fullest significance of the world into which he
is born; then he finds himself in perfect truth, and his harmony
with the all is established. In India men are enjoined to be
fully awake to the fact that they are in the closest relation to
things around them, body and soul, and that they are to hail the
morning sun, the flowing water, the fruitful earth, as the
manifestation of the same living truth which holds them in its
embrace. Thus the text of our everyday meditation is the
_Gayathri_, a verse which is considered to be the epitome of all
the Vedas. By its help we try to realise the essential unity of
the world with the conscious soul of man; we learn to perceive
the unity held together by the one Eternal Spirit, whose power
creates the earth, the sky, and the stars, and at the same time
irradiates our minds with the light of a consciousness that moves
and exists in unbroken continuity with the outer world.
It is not true that India has tried to ignore differences of
value in different things, for she knows that would make life
impossible. The sense of the superiority of man in the scale of
creation has not been absent from her mind. But she has had her
own idea as to that in which his superiority really consists. It
is not in the power of possession but in the power of union.
Therefore India chose her places of pilgrimage wherever there was
in nature some special grandeur or beauty, so that her mind could
come out of its world of narrow necessities and realise its place
in the infinite. This was the reason why in India a whole
people who once were meat-eaters gave up taking animal food to
cultivate the sentiment of universal sympathy for life, an event
unique in the history of mankind.
India knew that when by physical and mental barriers we violently
detach ourselves from the inexhaustible life of nature; when we
become merely man, but not man-in-the-universe, we create
bewildering problems, and having shut off the source of their
solution, we try all kinds of artificial methods each of which
brings its own crop of interminable difficulties. When man
leaves his resting-place in universal nature, when he walks on
the single rope of humanity, it means either a dance or a fall
for him, he has ceaselessly to strain every nerve and muscle to
keep his balance at each step, and then, in the intervals of his
weariness, he fulminates against Providence and feels a secret
pride and satisfaction in thinking that he has been unfairly
dealt with by the whole scheme of things.
But this cannot go on for ever. Man must realise the wholeness
of his existence, his place in the infinite; he must know that
hard as he may strive he can never create his honey within the
cells of his hive; for the perennial supply of his life food is
outside their walls. He must know that when man shuts himself
out from the vitalising and purifying touch of the infinite, and
falls back upon himself for his sustenance and his healing, then
he goads himself into madness, tears himself into shreds, and
eats his own substance. Deprived of the background of the whole,
his poverty loses its one great quality, which is simplicity, and
becomes squalid and shamefaced. His wealth is no longer
magnanimous; it grows merely extravagant. His appetites do not
minister to his life, keeping to the limits of their purpose;
they become an end in themselves and set fire to his life and
play the fiddle in the lurid light of the conflagration. Then it
is that in our self-expression we try to startle and not to
attract; in art we strive for originality and lose sight of truth
which is old and yet ever new; in literature we miss the complete
view of man which is simple and yet great, but he appears as a
psychological problem or the embodiment of a passion that is
intense because abnormal and because exhibited in the glare of a
fiercely emphatic light which is artificial. When man's
consciousness is restricted only to the immediate vicinity of his
human self, the deeper roots of his nature do not find their
permanent soil, his spirit is ever on the brink of starvation,
and in the place of healthful strength he substitutes rounds of
stimulation. Then it is that man misses his inner perspective
and measures his greatness by its bulk and not by its vital link
with the infinite, judges his activity by its movement and not by
the repose of perfection--the repose which is in the starry
heavens, in the ever-flowing rhythmic dance of creation.
The first invasion of India has its exact parallel in the
invasion of America by the European settlers. They also were
confronted with primeval forests and a fierce struggle with
aboriginal races. But this struggle between man and man, and man
and nature lasted till the very end; they never came to any
terms. In India the forests which were the habitation of the
barbarians became the sanctuary of sages, but in America these
great living cathedrals of nature had no deeper significance to
man. The brought wealth and power to him, and perhaps at times
they ministered to his enjoyment of beauty, and inspired a
solitary poet. They never acquired a sacred association in the
hearts of men as the site of some great spiritual reconcilement
where man's soul has its meeting-place with the soul of the
world.
I do not for a moment wish to suggest that these things should
have been otherwise. It would be an utter waste of opportunities
if history were to repeat itself exactly in the same manner in
every place. It is best for the commerce of the spirit that
people differently situated should bring their different products
into the market of humanity, each of which is complementary and
necessary to the others. All that I wish to say is that India at
the outset of her career met with a special combination of
circumstances which was not lost upon her. She had, according to
her opportunities, thought and pondered, striven and suffered,
dived into the depths of existence, and achieved something which
surely cannot be without its value to people whose evolution in
history took a different way altogether. Man for his perfect
growth requires all the living elements that constitute his
complex life; that is why his food has to be cultivated in
different fields and brought from different sources.
Civilisation is a kind of mould that each nation is busy making
for itself to shape its men and women according to its best
ideal. All its institutions, its legislature, its standard of
approbation and condemnation, its conscious and unconscious
teachings tend toward that object. The modern civilisation of
the west, by all its organised efforts, is trying to turn out men
perfect in physical, intellectual, and moral efficiency. There
the vast energies of the nations are employed in extending man's
power over his surroundings, and people are combining and
straining every faculty to possess and to turn to account all
that they can lay their hands upon, to overcome every obstacle on
their path of conquest. They are ever disciplining themselves to
fight nature and other races; their armaments are getting more
and more stupendous every day; their machines, their appliances,
their organisations go on multiplying at an amazing rate. This
is a splendid achievement, no doubt, and a wonderful
manifestation of man's masterfulness which knows no obstacle, and
which has for its object the supremacy of himself over everything
else.
The ancient civilisation of India had its own ideal of perfection
towards which its efforts were directed. Its aim was not
attaining power, and it neglected to cultivate to the utmost its
capacities, and to organise men for defensive and offensive
purposes, for co-operation in the acquisition of wealth and for
military and political ascendancy. The ideal that India tried to
realise led her best men to the isolation of a contemplative
life, and the treasures that she gained for mankind by
penetrating into the mysteries of reality cost her dear in the
sphere of worldly success. Yet, this also was a sublime
achievement,--it was a supreme manifestation of that human
aspiration which knows no limit, and which has for its object
nothing less than the realisation of the Infinite.
There were the virtuous, the wise, the courageous; there were the
statesmen, kings and emperors of India; but whom amongst all
these classes did she look up to and choose to be the
representative of men?
They were the rishis. What were the rishis? _They who having
attained the supreme soul in knowledge were filled with wisdom,
and having found him in union with the soul were in perfect
harmony with the inner self; they having realised him in the
heart were free from all selfish desires, and having experienced
him in all the activities of the world, had attained calmness.
The rishis were they who having reached the supreme God from all
sides had found abiding peace, had become united with all, had
entered into the life of the Universe._ [Footnote:
/**
Samprāpyainam rishayo jñānatripatāh
Kritātmānō vītarāgāh praçantāh
tē sarvagam sarvatah prāpya dhīrāh
Yuktātmānah sarvamēvāviçanti.
*/
]
Thus the state of realising our relationship with all, of
entering into everything through union with God, was considered
in India to be the ultimate end and fulfilment of humanity.
Man can destroy and plunder, earn and accumulate, invent and
discover, but he is great because his soul comprehends all. It
is dire destruction for him when he envelopes his soul in a dead
shell of callous habits, and when a blind fury of works whirls
round him like an eddying dust storm, shutting out the horizon.
That indeed kills the very spirit of his being, which is the
spirit of comprehension. Essentially man is not a slave either
of himself or of the world; but he is a lover. His freedom and
fulfilment is in love, which is another name for perfect
comprehension. By this power of comprehension, this permeation
of his being, he is united with the all-pervading Spirit, who is
also the breath of his soul. Where a man tries to raise himself
to eminence by pushing and jostling all others, to achieve a
distinction by which he prides himself to be more than everybody
else, there he is alienated from that Spirit. This is why the
Upanishads describe those who have attained the goal of human
life as "_peaceful_" [Footnote: Praçantāh] and as "_at-one-with-God_,"
[Footnote: Yuktātmānah] meaning that they are in perfect
harmony with man and nature, and therefore in undisturbed union
with God.
We have a glimpse of the same truth in the teachings of Jesus
when he says, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye
of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven"--which
implies that whatever we treasure for ourselves separates
us from others; our possessions are our limitations. He who is
bent upon accumulating riches is unable, with his ego continually
bulging, to pass through the gates of comprehension of the
spiritual world, which is the world of perfect harmony; he is
shut up within the narrow walls of his limited acquisitions.
Hence the spirit of the teachings of Upanishad is: In order to
find him you must embrace all. In the pursuit of wealth you
really give up everything to gain a few things, and that is not
the way to attain him who is completeness.
Some modern philosophers of Europe, who are directly or
indirectly indebted to the Upanishads, far from realising their
debt, maintain that the Brahma of India is a mere abstraction, a
negation of all that is in the world. In a word, that the
Infinite Being is to be found nowhere except in metaphysics. It
may be, that such a doctrine has been and still is prevalent with
a section of our countrymen. But this is certainly not in accord
with the pervading spirit of the Indian mind. Instead, it is the
practice of realising and affirming the presence of the infinite
in all things which has been its constant inspiration.
We are enjoined to see _whatever there is in the world as being
enveloped by God._
[Footnote: Içāvāsyamidam sarvam yat kiñcha jagatyāñ jagat.]
_I bow to God over and over again who is in fire and in water, who
permeates the whole world, who is in the annual crops as well as
in the perennial trees._ [Footnote: Yo dēvō'gnau y'ōpsu y'ō
viçvambhuvanamāvivēça ya ōshadhishu yō vanaspatishu tasmai dēvāya
namōnamah.]
Can this be God abstracted from the world? Instead, it signifies
not merely seeing him in all things, but saluting him in all the
objects of the world. The attitude of the God-conscious man of
the Upanishad towards the universe is one of a deep feeling of
adoration. His object of worship is present everywhere. It is
the one living truth that makes all realities true. This truth
is not only of knowledge but of devotion. '_Namonamah_,'--we bow
to him everywhere, and over and over again. It is recognised in
the outburst of the Rishi, who addresses the whole world in a
sudden ecstasy of joy: _Listen to me, ye sons of the immortal
spirit, ye who live in the heavenly abode, I have known the
Supreme Person whose light shines forth from beyond the darkness._
[Footnote: Çrinvantu viçve amritasya putrā ā ye divya dhāmāni
tasthuh vedāhametam purusham mahāntam āditya varņam tamasah
parastāt.] Do we not find the overwhelming delight of a direct
and positive experience where there is not the least trace of
vagueness or passivity?
Buddha who developed the practical side of the teaching of
Upanishads, preached the same message when he said, _With
everything, whether it is above or below, remote or near, visible
or invisible, thou shalt preserve a relation of unlimited love
without any animosity or without a desire to kill. To live in
such a consciousness while standing or walking, sitting or lying
down till you are asleep, is Brahma vihāra, or, in other words,
is living and moving and having your joy in the spirit of
Brahma._
What is that spirit? The Upanishad says, _The being who is in
his essence the light and life of all, who is world-conscious, is
Brahma._ [Footnote: Yaçchāyamasminnākāçē tējōmayō'mritamayah
purushah sarvānubhūh.] To feel all, to be conscious of
everything, is his spirit. We are immersed in his consciousness
body and soul. It is through his consciousness that the sun
attracts the earth; it is through his consciousness that the
light-waves are being transmitted from planet to planet.
Not only in space, but _this light and life, this all-feeling
being is in our souls._ [Footnote: Yaçchāyamasminnātmani
tējōmayō'mritamayah purushah sarvānubhūh.] He is all-conscious
in space, or the world of extension; and he is all-conscious in
soul, or the world of intension.
Thus to attain our world-consciousness, we have to unite our
feeling with this all-pervasive infinite feeling. In fact, the
only true human progress is coincident with this widening of the
range of feeling. All our poetry, philosophy, science, art and
religion are serving to extend the scope of our consciousness
towards higher and larger spheres. Man does not acquire rights
through occupation of larger space, nor through external conduct,
but his rights extend only so far as he is real, and his reality
is measured by the scope of his consciousness.
We have, however, to pay a price for this attainment of the
freedom of consciousness. What is the price? It is to give
one's self away. Our soul can realise itself truly only by
denying itself. The Upanishad says, _Thou shalt gain by giving
away_ [Footnote: Tyaktēna bhuñjīthāh], _Thou shalt not covet._
[Footnote: Mā gridhah]
In Gita we are advised to work disinterestedly, abandoning all
lust for the result. Many outsiders conclude from this teaching
that the conception of the world as something unreal lies at the
root of the so-called disinterestedness preached in India. But
the reverse is true.
The man who aims at his own aggrandisement underrates everything
else. Compared to his ego the rest of the world is unreal. Thus
in order to be fully conscious of the reality of all, one has to
be free himself from the bonds of personal desires. This
discipline we have to go through to prepare ourselves for our
social duties--for sharing the burdens of our fellow-beings.
Every endeavour to attain a larger life requires of man "to gain
by giving away, and not to be greedy." And thus to expand
gradually the consciousness of one's unity with all is the
striving of humanity.
The Infinite in India was not a thin nonentity, void of all
content. The Rishis of India asserted emphatically, "To know him
in this life is to be true; not to know him in this life is the
desolation of death." [Footnote: Iha chēt avēdit atha
satyamasti, nachēt iha avēdit mahatī vinashtih.] How to know him
then? "By realising him in each and all." [Footnote: Bhūtēshu
bhūtēshu vichintva.] Not only in nature but in the family, in
society, and in the state, the more we realise the World-conscious
in all, the better for us. Failing to realise it, we
turn our faces to destruction.
It fills me with great joy and a high hope for the future of
humanity when I realise that there was a time in the remote past
when our poet-prophets stood under the lavish sunshine of an
Indian sky and greeted the world with the glad recognition of
kindred. It was not an anthropomorphic hallucination. It was
not seeing man reflected everywhere in grotesquely exaggerated
images, and witnessing the human drama acted on a gigantic scale
in nature's arena of flitting lights and shadows. On the
contrary, it meant crossing the limiting barriers of the
individual, to become more than man, to become one with the All.
It was not a mere play of the imagination, but it was the
liberation of consciousness from all the mystifications and
exaggerations of the self. These ancient seers felt in the
serene depth of their mind that the same energy which vibrates
and passes into the endless forms of the world manifests itself
in our inner being as consciousness; and there is no break in
unity. For these seers there was no gap in their luminous vision
of perfection. They never acknowledged even death itself as
creating a chasm in the field of reality. They said, _His
reflection is death as well as immortality._ [Footnote: Yasya
chhāyāmritam yasya mrityuh.] They did not recognise any
essential opposition between life and death, and they said with
absolute assurance, "It is life that is death." [Footnote: Prāno
mrityuh.] They saluted with the same serenity of gladness "life
in its aspect of appearing and in its aspect of departure"--_That
which is past is hidden in life, and that which is to come._
[Footnote: Namō astu āyatē namō astu parāyatē. Prānē ha bhūtam
bhavyañcha.] They knew that mere appearance and disappearance are
on the surface like waves on the sea, but life which is permanent
knows no decay or diminution.
_Everything has sprung from immortal life and is vibrating with
life_, [Footnote: Yadidan kiñcha praņa ejati nihsritam.] _for life
is immense._ [Footnote: Prāno virāt.]
This is the noble heritage from our forefathers waiting to be
claimed by us as our own, this ideal of the supreme freedom of
consciousness. It is not merely intellectual or emotional, it
has an ethical basis, and it must be translated into action. In
the Upanishad it is said, _The supreme being is all-pervading,
therefore he is the innate good in all._ [Footnote: Sarvavyāpī
sa bhagavān tasmāt sarvagatah çivah.] To be truly united in
knowledge, love, and service with all beings, and thus to
realise one's self in the all-pervading God is the essence of
goodness, and this is the keynote of the teachings of the
Upanishads: _Life is immense!_ [Footnote: Prāņo virāt.]
II
SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS
We have seen that it was the aspiration of ancient India to live
and move and have its joy in Brahma, the all-conscious and
all-pervading Spirit, by extending its field of consciousness over
all the world. But that, it may be urged, is an impossible task
for man to achieve. If this extension of consciousness be an
outward process, then it is endless; it is like attempting to
cross the ocean after ladling out its water. By beginning to try
to realise all, one has to end by realising nothing.
But, in reality, it is not so absurd as it sounds. Man has every
day to solve this problem of enlarging his region and adjusting
his burdens. His burdens are many, too numerous for him to
carry, but he knows that by adopting a system he can lighten the
weight of his load. Whenever they feel too complicated and
unwieldy, he knows it is because he has not been able to hit upon
the system which would have set everything in place and
distributed the weight evenly. This search for system is really
a search for unity, for synthesis; it is our attempt to harmonise
the heterogeneous complexity of outward materials by an inner
adjustment. In the search we gradually become aware that to find
out the One is to possess the All; that there, indeed, is our
last and highest privilege. It is based on the law of that unity
which is, if we only know it, our abiding strength. Its living
principle is the power that is in truth; the truth of that unity
which comprehends multiplicity. Facts are many, but the truth is
one. The animal intelligence knows facts, the human mind has
power to apprehend truth. The apple falls from the tree, the
rain descends upon the earth--you can go on burdening your memory
with such facts and never come to an end. But once you get hold
of the law of gravitation you can dispense with the necessity of
collecting facts _ad infinitum_. You have got at one truth
which governs numberless facts. This discovery of truth is pure
joy to man--it is a liberation of his mind. For, a mere fact is
like a blind lane, it leads only to itself--it has no beyond.
But a truth opens up a whole horizon, it leads us to the
infinite. That is the reason why, when a man like Darwin
discovers some simple general truth about Biology, it does not
stop there, but like a lamp shedding its light far beyond the
object for which it was lighted, it illumines the whole region of
human life and thought, transcending its original purpose. Thus
we find that truth, while investing all facts, is not a mere
aggregate of facts--it surpasses them on all sides and points to
the infinite reality.
As in the region of knowledge so in that of consciousness, man
must clearly realise some central truth which will give him an
outlook over the widest possible field. And that is the object
which the Upanishad has in view when it says, _Know thine own
Soul_. Or, in other words, realise the one great principal of
unity that there is in every man.
All our egoistic impulses, our selfish desires, obscure our true
vision of the soul. For they only indicate our own narrow self.
When we are conscious of our soul, we perceive the inner being
that transcends our ego and has its deeper affinity with the All.
Children, when they begin to learn each separate letter of the
alphabet, find no pleasure in it, because they miss the real
purpose of the lesson; in fact, while letters claim our attention
only in themselves and as isolated things, they fatigue us. They
become a source of joy to us only when they combine into words
and sentences and convey an idea.
Likewise, our soul when detached and imprisoned within the narrow
limits of a self loses its significance. For its very essence is
unity. It can only find out its truth by unifying itself with
others, and only then it has its joy. Man was troubled and he
lived in a state of fear so long as he had not discovered the
uniformity of law in nature; till then the world was alien to
him. The law that he discovered is nothing but the perception of
harmony that prevails between reason which is of the soul of man
and the workings of the world. This is the bond of union through
which man is related to the world in which he lives, and he feels
an exceeding joy when he finds this out, for then he realises
himself in his surroundings. To understand anything is to find
in it something which is our own, and it is the discovery of
ourselves outside us which makes us glad. This relation of
understanding is partial, but the relation of love is complete.
In love the sense of difference is obliterated and the human soul
fulfils its purpose in perfection, transcending the limits of
itself and reaching across the threshold of the infinite.
Therefore love is the highest bliss that man can attain to, for
through it alone he truly knows that he is more than himself, and
that he is at one with the All.
This principal of unity which man has in his soul is ever active,
establishing relations far and wide through literature, art, and
science, society, statecraft, and religion. Our great Revealers
are they who make manifest the true meaning of the soul by giving
up self for the love of mankind. They face calumny and
persecution, deprivation and death in their service of love.
They live the life of the soul, not of the self, and thus they
prove to us the ultimate truth of humanity. We call them
_Mahātmās,_ "the men of the great soul."
It is said in one of the Upanishads: _It is not that thou lovest
thy son because thou desirest him, but thou lovest thy son
because thou desirest thine own soul._ [Footnote: Na vā arē
putrasya kāmāya putrah priyō bhavati, ātmanastu kāmāya putrah
priyō bhavati.] The meaning of this is, that whomsoever we love,
in him we find our own soul in the highest sense. The final
truth of our existence lies in this. _Paramātmā_, the supreme
soul, is in me, as well as in my son, and my joy in my son is the
realisation of this truth. It has become quite a commonplace
fact, yet it is wonderful to think upon, that the joys and
sorrows of our loved ones are joys and sorrows to us--nay they
are more. Why so? Because in them we have grown larger, in
them we have touched that great truth which comprehends the whole
universe.
It very often happens that our love for our children, our
friends, or other loved ones, debars us from the further
realisation of our soul. It enlarges our scope of consciousness,
no doubt, yet it sets a limit to its freest expansion.
Nevertheless, it is the first step, and all the wonder lies in
this first step itself. It shows to us the true nature of our
soul. From it we know, for certain, that our highest joy is in
the losing of our egoistic self and in the uniting with others.
This love gives us a new power and insight and beauty of mind to
the extent of the limits we set around it, but ceases to do so if
those limits lose their elasticity, and militate against the
spirit of love altogether; then our friendships become exclusive,
our families selfish and inhospitable, our nations insular and
aggressively inimical to other races. It is like putting a
burning light within a sealed enclosure, which shines brightly
till the poisonous gases accumulate and smother the flame.
Nevertheless it has proved its truth before it dies, and made
known the joy of freedom from the grip of darkness, blind and
empty and cold.
According to the Upanishads, the key to cosmic consciousness, to
God-consciousness, is in the consciousness of the soul. To know
our soul apart from the self is the first step towards the
realisation of the supreme deliverance. We must know with
absolute certainty that essentially we are spirit. This we can
do by winning mastery over self, by rising above all pride and
greed and fear, by knowing that worldly losses and physical death
can take nothing away from the truth and the greatness of our
soul. The chick knows when it breaks through the self-centered
isolation of its egg that the hard shell which covered it so long
was not really a part of its life. That shell is a dead thing,
it has no growth, it affords no glimpse whatever of the vast
beyond that lies outside it. However pleasantly perfect and
rounded it may be, it must be given a blow to, it must be burst
through and thereby the freedom of light and air be won, and the
complete purpose of bird life be achieved. In Sanskrit, the bird
has been called the twice-born. So too the man who has gone
through the ceremony of the discipline of self-restraint and high
thinking for a period of at least twelve years; who has come out
simple in wants, pure in heart, and ready to take up all the
responsibilities of life in a disinterested largeness of spirit.
He is considered to have had his rebirth from the blind
envelopment of self to the freedom of soul life; to have come
into living relation with his surroundings; to have become at one
with the All.
I have already warned my hearers, and must once more warn them
against the idea that the teachers of India preached a
renunciation of the world and of self which leads only to the
blank emptiness of negation. Their aim was the realisation of
the soul, or, in other words, gaining the world in perfect truth.
When Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
the earth," he meant this. He proclaimed the truth that when man
gets rid of his pride of self then he comes into his true
inheritance. No more has he to fight his way into his position
in the world; it is secure for him everywhere by the immortal
right of his soul. Pride of self interferes with the proper
function of the soul which is to realise itself by perfecting its
union with the world and the world's God.
In his sermon to Sádhu Simha Buddha says, _It is true, Simha,
that I denounce activities, but only the activities that lead to
the evil in words, thoughts, or deeds. It is true, Simha, that I
preach extinction, but only the extinction of pride, lust, evil
thought, and ignorance, not that of forgiveness, love, charity,
and truth._
The doctrine of deliverance that Buddha preached was the freedom
from the thraldom of _Avidyā_. _Avidyā_ is the ignorance that
darkens our consciousness, and tends to limit it within the
boundaries of our personal self. It is this _Avidyā_, this
ignorance, this limiting of consciousness that creates the hard
separateness of the ego, and thus becomes the source of all
pride and greed and cruelty incidental to self-seeking. When a
man sleeps he is shut up within the narrow activities of his
physical life. He lives, but he knows not the varied relations
of his life to his surroundings,--therefore he knows not
himself. So when a man lives the life of _Avidyā_ he is
confined within his self. It is a spiritual sleep; his
consciousness is not fully awake to the highest reality that
surrounds him, therefore he knows not the reality of his own
soul. When he attains _Bodhi_, i.e. the awakenment from the
sleep of self to the perfection of consciousness, he becomes
Buddha.
Once I met two ascetics of a certain religious sect in a village
of Bengal. "Can you tell me," I asked them, "wherein lies the
special features of your religion?" One of them hesitated for a
moment and answered, "It is difficult to define that." The other
said, "No, it is quite simple. We hold that we have first of all
to know our own soul under the guidance of our spiritual teacher,
and when we have done that we can find him, who is the Supreme
Soul, within us." "Why don't you preach your doctrine to all the
people of the world?" I asked. "Whoever feels thirsty will of
himself come to the river," was his reply. "But then, do you
find it so? Are they coming?" The man gave a gentle smile, and
with an assurance which had not the least tinge of impatience or
anxiety, he said, "They must come, one and all."
Yes, he is right, this simple ascetic of rural Bengal. Man is
indeed abroad to satisfy needs which are more to him than food
and clothing. He is out to find himself. Man's history is the
history of his journey to the unknown in quest of the realisation
of his immortal self--his soul. Through the rise and fall of
empires; through the building up gigantic piles of wealth and the
ruthless scattering of them upon the dust; through the creation
of vast bodies of symbols that give shape to his dreams and
aspirations, and the casting of them away like the playthings of
an outworn infancy; through his forging of magic keys with which
to unlock the mysteries of creation, and through his throwing
away of this labour of ages to go back to his workshop and work
up afresh some new form; yes, through it all man is marching from
epoch to epoch towards the fullest realisation of his soul,--the
soul which is greater than the things man accumulates, the deeds
he accomplishes, the theories he builds; the soul whose onward
course is never checked by death or dissolution. Man's mistakes
and failures have by no means been trifling or small, they have
strewn his path with colossal ruins; his sufferings have been
immense, like birth-pangs for a giant child; they are the prelude
of a fulfilment whose scope is infinite. Man has gone through
and is still undergoing martyrdoms in various ways, and his
institutions are the altars he has built whereto he brings his
daily sacrifices, marvellous in kind and stupendous in quantity.
All this would be absolutely unmeaning and unbearable if all
along he did not feel that deepest joy of the soul within him,
which tries its divine strength by suffering and proves its
exhaustless riches by renunciation. Yes, they are coming, the
pilgrims, one and all--coming to their true inheritance of the
world; they are ever broadening their consciousness, ever seeking
a higher and higher unity, ever approaching nearer to the one
central Truth which is all-comprehensive.
Man's poverty is abysmal, his wants are endless till he becomes
truly conscious of his soul. Till then, the world to him is in a
state of continual flux-- a phantasm that is and is not. For a
man who has realised his soul there is a determinate centre of
the universe around which all else can find its proper place, and
from thence only can he draw and enjoy the blessedness of a
harmonious life.
There was a time when the earth was only a nebulous mass whose
particles were scattered far apart through the expanding force of
heat; when she had not yet attained her definiteness of form and
had neither beauty nor purpose, but only heat and motion.
Gradually, when her vapours were condensed into a unified rounded
whole through a force that strove to bring all straggling matters
under the control of a centre, she occupied her proper place
among the planets of the solar system, like an emerald pendant in
a necklace of diamonds. So with our soul. When the heat and
motion of blind impulses and passions distract it on all sides,
we can neither give nor receive anything truly. But when we find
our centre in our soul by the power of self-restraint, by the
force that harmonises all warring elements and unifies those that
are apart, then all our isolated impressions reduce themselves to
wisdom, and all our momentary impulses of heart find their
completion in love; then all the petty details of our life reveal
an infinite purpose, and all our thoughts and deeds unite
themselves inseparably in an internal harmony.
The Upanishads say with great emphasis, _Know thou the One, the
Soul._ [Footnote: Tamēvaikam jānatha ātmānam.] _It is the bridge
leading to the immortal being._ [Footnote: Amritasyaisha sētuh.]
This is the ultimate end of man, to find the _One_ which is in
him; which is his truth, which is his soul; the key with which he
opens the gate of the spiritual life, the heavenly kingdom. His
desires are many, and madly they run after the varied objects of
the world, for therein they have their life and fulfilment. But
that which is _one_ in him is ever seeking for unity--unity in
knowledge, unity in love, unity in purposes of will; its highest
joy is when it reaches the infinite one within its eternal unity.
Hence the saying of the Upanishad, _Only those of tranquil minds,
and none else, can attain abiding joy, by realising within their
souls the Being who manifests one essence in a multiplicity of
forms._ [Footnote: Ēkam rūpam bahudhā yah karōti * * tam
ātmastham yē anupaçyanti dīhrāh, tēshām sukham çāçvatam
nētarēshām.]
[Transcriber's note: The above footnote contains the * mark in
the original printed version. This has been retained as is.]
Through all the diversities of the world the one in us is
threading its course towards the one in all; this is its nature
and this is its joy. But by that devious path it could never
reach its goal if it had not a light of its own by which it could
catch the sight of what it was seeking in a flash. The vision of
the Supreme One in our own soul is a direct and immediate
intuition, not based on any ratiocination or demonstration at
all. Our eyes naturally see an object as a whole, not by
breaking it up into parts, but by bringing all the parts together
into a unity with ourselves. So with the intuition of our
Soul-consciousness, which naturally and totally realises its unity in
the Supreme One.