minds to be got rid of at any cost; or they are useful, and
therefore in temporary and partial relation to us, becoming
burdensome when their utility is lost; or they are like wandering
vagabonds, loitering for a moment on the outskirts of our
recognition, and then passing on. A thing is only completely our
own when it is a thing of joy to us.
The greater part of this world is to us as if it were nothing.
But we cannot allow it to remain so, for thus it belittles our
own self. The entire world is given to us, and all our powers
have their final meaning in the faith that by their help we are
to take possession of our patrimony.
But what is the function of our sense of beauty in this process
of the extension of our consciousness? Is it there to separate
truth into strong lights and shadows, and bring it before us in
its uncompromising distinction of beauty and ugliness? If that
were so, then we would have had to admit that this sense of
beauty creates a dissension in our universe and sets up a wall of
hindrance across the highway of communication that leads from
everything to all things.
But that cannot be true. As long as our realisation is
incomplete a division necessarily remains between things known
and unknown, pleasant and unpleasant. But in spite of the dictum
of some philosophers man does not accept any arbitrary and
absolute limit to his knowable world. Every day his science is
penetrating into the region formerly marked in his map as
unexplored or inexplorable. Our sense of beauty is similarly
engaged in ever pushing on its conquests. Truth is everywhere,
therefore everything is the object of our knowledge. Beauty is
omnipresent, therefore everything is capable of giving us joy.
In the early days of his history man took everything as a
phenomenon of life. His science of life began by creating a
sharp distinction between life and non-life. But as it is
proceeding farther and farther the line of demarcation between
the animate and inanimate is growing more and more dim. In the
beginning of our apprehension these sharp lines of contrast are
helpful to us, but as our comprehension becomes clearer they
gradually fade away.
The Upanishads have said that all things are created and
sustained by an infinite joy. To realise this principle of
creation we have to start with a division--the division into the
beautiful and the non-beautiful. Then the apprehension of beauty
has to come to us with a vigorous blow to awaken our
consciousness from its primitive lethargy, and it attains its
object by the urgency of the contrast. Therefore our first
acquaintance with beauty is in her dress of motley colours, that
affects us with its stripes and feathers, nay, with its
disfigurements. But as our acquaintance ripens, the apparent
discords are resolved into modulations of rhythm. At first we
detach beauty from its surroundings, we hold it apart from the
rest, but at the end we realise its harmony with all. Then the
music of beauty has no more need of exciting us with loud noise;
it renounces violence, and appeals to our heart with the truth
that it is meekness inherits the earth.
In some stage of our growth, in some period of our history, we
try to set up a special cult of beauty, and pare it down to a
narrow circuit, so as to make it a matter of pride for a chosen
few. Then it breeds in its votaries affections and
exaggerations, as it did with the Brahmins in the time of the
decadence of Indian civilisation, when the perception of the
higher truth fell away and superstitions grew up unchecked.
In the history of æsthetics there also comes an age of
emancipation when the recognition of beauty in things great and
small become easy, and when we see it more in the unassuming
harmony of common objects than in things startling in their
singularity. So much so, that we have to go through the stages
of reaction when in the representation of beauty we try to avoid
everything that is obviously pleasing and that has been crowned
by the sanction of convention. We are then tempted in defiance
to exaggerate the commonness of commonplace things, thereby
making them aggressively uncommon. To restore harmony we create
the discords which are a feature of all reactions. We already
see in the present age the sign of this æsthetic reaction, which
proves that man has at last come to know that it is only the
narrowness of perception which sharply divides the field of his
æsthetic consciousness into ugliness and beauty. When he has the
power to see things detached from self-interest and from the
insistent claims of the lust of the senses, then alone can he
have the true vision of the beauty that is everywhere. Then only
can he see that what is unpleasant to us is not necessarily
unbeautiful, but has its beauty in truth.
When we say that beauty is everywhere we do not mean that the
word ugliness should be abolished from our language, just as it
would be absurd to say that there is no such thing as untruth.
Untruth there certainly is, not in the system of the universe,
but in our power of comprehension, as its negative element. In
the same manner there is ugliness in the distorted expression of
beauty in our life and in our art which comes from our imperfect
realisation of Truth. To a certain extent we can set our life
against the law of truth which is in us and which is in all, and
likewise we can give rise to ugliness by going counter to the
eternal law of harmony which is everywhere.
Through our sense of truth we realise law in creation, and
through our sense of beauty we realise harmony in the universe.
When we recognise the law in nature we extend our mastery over
physical forces and become powerful; when we recognise the law in
our moral nature we attain mastery over self and become free. In
like manner the more we comprehend the harmony in the physical
world the more our life shares the gladness of creation, and our
expression of beauty in art becomes more truly catholic. As we
become conscious of the harmony in our soul, our apprehension of
the blissfulness of the spirit of the world becomes universal,
and the expression of beauty in our life moves in goodness and
love towards the infinite. This is the ultimate object of our
existence, that we must ever know that "beauty is truth, truth
beauty"; we must realise the whole world in love, for love gives
it birth, sustains it, and takes it back to its bosom. We must
have that perfect emancipation of heart which gives us the power
to stand at the innermost centre of things and have the taste of
that fullness of disinterested joy which belongs to Brahma.
Music is the purest form of art, and therefore the most direct
expression of beauty, with a form and spirit which is one and
simple, and least encumbered with anything extraneous. We seem
to feel that the manifestation of the infinite in the finite
forms of creation is music itself, silent and visible. The
evening sky, tirelessly repeating the starry constellations,
seems like a child struck with wonder at the mystery of its own
first utterance, lisping the same word over and over again, and
listening to it in unceasing joy. When in the rainy night of
July the darkness is thick upon the meadows and the pattering
rain draws veil upon veil over the stillness of the slumbering
earth, this monotony of the rain patter seems to be the darkness
of sound itself. The gloom of the dim and dense line of trees,
the thorny bushes scattered in the bare heath like floating heads
of swimmers with bedraggled hair, the smell of the damp grass and
the wet earth, the spire of the temple rising above the undefined
mass of blackness grouped around the village huts--everything
seems like notes rising from the heart of the night, mingling and
losing themselves in the one sound of ceaseless rain filling the
sky.
Therefore the true poets, they who are seers, seek to express the
universe in terms of music.
They rarely use symbols of painting to express the unfolding of
forms, the mingling of endless lines and colours that goes on
every moment on the canvas of the blue sky.
They have their reason. For the man who paints must have canvas,
brush and colour-box. The first touch of his brush is very far
from the complete idea. And then when the work is finished the
artist is gone, the windowed picture stands alone, the incessant
touches of love of the creative hand are withdrawn.
But the singer has everything within him. The notes come out
from his very life. They are not materials gathered from
outside. His idea and his expression are brother and sister;
very often they are born as twins. In music the heart reveals
itself immediately; it suffers not from any barrier of alien
material.
Therefore though music has to wait for its completeness like any
other art, yet at every step it gives out the beauty of the
whole. As the material of expression even words are barriers,
for their meaning has to be constructed by thought. But music
never has to depend upon any obvious meaning; it expresses what
no words can ever express.
What is more, music and the musician are inseparable. When the
singer departs, his singing dies with him; it is in eternal union
with the life and joy of the master.
This world-song is never for a moment separated from its singer.
It is not fashioned from any outward material. It is his joy
itself taking never-ending form. It is the great heart sending
the tremor of its thrill over the sky.
There is a perfection in each individual strain of this music,
which is the revelation of completion in the incomplete. No one of
its notes is final, yet each reflects the infinite.
What does it matter if we fail to derive the exact meaning of
this great harmony? Is it not like the hand meeting the string
and drawing out at once all its tones at the touch? It is the
language of beauty, the caress, that comes from the heart of the
world straightway reaches our heart.
Last night, in the silence which pervaded the darkness, I stood
alone and heard the voice of the singer of eternal melodies.
When I went to sleep I closed my eyes with this last thought in
my mind, that even when I remain unconscious in slumber the dance
of life will still go on in the hushed arena of my sleeping body,
keeping step with the stars. The heart will throb, the blood
will leap in the veins, and the millions of living atoms of my
body will vibrate in tune with the note of the harp-string that
thrills at the touch of the master.
VIII
THE REALISATION OF THE INFINITE
The Upanishads say: "Man becomes true if in this life he can
apprehend God; if not, it is the greatest calamity for him."
But what is the nature of this attainment of God? It is quite
evident that the infinite is not like one object among many, to
be definitely classified and kept among our possessions, to be
used as an ally specially favouring us in our politics, warfare,
money-making, or in social competitions. We cannot put our God
in the same list with our summer-houses, motor-cars, or our
credit at the bank, as so many people seem to want to do.
We must try to understand the true character of the desire that a
man has when his soul longs for his God. Does it consist of his
wish to make an addition, however valuable, to his belongings?
Emphatically no! It is an endlessly wearisome task, this
continual adding to our stores. In fact, when the soul seeks God
she seeks her final escape from this incessant gathering and
heaping and never coming to an end. It is not an additional
object the she seeks, but it is the _nityo 'nityānām_, the
permanent in all that is impermanent, the _rasānām rasatamah_,
the highest abiding joy unifying all enjoyments. Therefore when
the Upanishads teach us to realise everything in Brahma, it is
not to seek something extra, not to manufacture something new.
_Know everything that there is in the universe as enveloped by
God._ [Footnote: Īçhāvāsyamdiam sarvam yat kincha
jagatyānjagat.] _Enjoy whatever is given by him and harbour not
in your mind the greed for wealth which is not your own._
[Footnoe: Tēna tyaktēna bhunjīţhā mā gŗidhah kasyasviddhanam.]
When you know that whatever there is is filled by him and
whatever you have is his gift, then you realise the infinite in
the finite, and the giver in the gifts. Then you know that all
the facts of the reality have their only meaning in the
manifestation of the one truth, and all your possessions have
their only significance for you, not in themselves but in the
relation they establish with the infinite.
So it cannot be said that we can find Brahma as we find other
objects; there is no question of searching from him in one thing
in preference to another, in one place instead of somewhere else.
We do not have to run to the grocer's shop for our morning light;
we open our eyes and there it is; so we need only give ourselves
up to find that Brahma is everywhere.
This is the reason why Buddha admonished us to free ourselves
from the confinement of the life of the self. If there were
nothing else to take its place more positively perfect and
satisfying, then such admonition would be absolutely unmeaning.
No man can seriously consider the advice, much less have any
enthusiasm for it, of surrendering everything one has for gaining
nothing whatever.
So our daily worship of God is not really the process of gradual
acquisition of him, but the daily process of surrendering
ourselves, removing all obstacles to union and extending our
consciousness of him in devotion and service, in goodness and in
love.
The Upanishads say: _Be lost altogether in Brahma like an arrow
that has completely penetrated its target._ Thus to be conscious
of being absolutely enveloped by Brahma is not an act of mere
concentration of mind. It must be the aim of the whole of our
life. In all our thoughts and deeds we must be conscious of the
infinite. Let the realisation of this truth become easier every
day of our life, that _none could live or move if the energy of
the all-pervading joy did not fill the sky._ [Footnote: Ko
hyevānyāt kah prānyāt yadesha ākāçha ānando na syāt.] In all our
actions let us feel that impetus of the infinite energy and be
glad.
It may be said that the infinite is beyond our attainment, so it
is for us as if it were naught. Yes, if the word attainment
implies any idea of possession, then it must be admitted that the
infinite is unattainable. But we must keep in mind that the
highest enjoyment of man is not in the having but in a getting,
which is at the same time not getting. Our physical pleasures
leave no margin for the unrealised. They, like the dead
satellite of the earth, have but little atmosphere around them.
When we take food and satisfy our hunger it is a complete act of
possession. So long as the hunger is not satisfied it is a
pleasure to eat. For then our enjoyment of eating touches at
every point the infinite. But, when it attains completion, or in
other words, when our desire for eating reaches the end of the
stage of its non-realisation, it reaches the end of its pleasure.
In all our intellectual pleasures the margin is broader, the
limit is far off. In all our deeper love getting and non-getting
run ever parallel. In one of our Vaishnava lyrics the lover says
to his beloved: "I feel as if I have gazed upon the beauty of thy
face from my birth, yet my eyes are hungry still: as if I have
kept thee pressed to my heart for millions of years, yet my heart
is not satisfied."
This makes it clear that it is really the infinite whom we seek
in our pleasures. Our desire for being wealthy is not a desire
for a particular sum of money but it is indefinite, and the most
fleeting of our enjoyments are but the momentary touches of the
eternal. The tragedy of human life consists in our vain attempts
to stretch the limits of things which can never become
unlimited,--to reach the infinite by absurdly adding to the rungs
of the ladder of the finite.
It is evident from this that the real desire of our soul is to
get beyond all our possessions. Surrounded by things she can
touch and feel, she cries, "I am weary of getting; ah, where is
he who is never to be got?"
We see everywhere in the history of man that the spirit of
renunciation is the deepest reality of the human soul. When the
soul says of anything, "I do not want it, for I am above it," she
gives utterance to the highest truth that is in her. When a
girl's life outgrows her doll, when she realises that in every
respect she is more than her doll is, then she throws it away.
By the very act of possession we know that we are greater than
the things we possess. It is a perfect misery to be kept bound
up with things lesser than ourselves. This it is that Maitreyī
felt when her husband gave her his property on the eve of leaving
home. She asked him, "Would these material things help one to
attain the highest?"--or, in other words, "Are they more than my
soul to me?" When her husband answered, "They will make you rich
in worldly possessions," she said at once, "then what am I to do
with these?" It is only when a man truly realises what his
possessions are that he has no more illusions about them; then he
knows his soul is far above these things and he becomes free from
their bondage. Thus man truly realises his soul by outgrowing
his possessions, and man's progress in the path of eternal life
is through a series of renunciations.
That we cannot absolutely possess the infinite being is not a
mere intellectual proposition. It has to be experienced, and
this experience is bliss. The bird, while taking its flight in
the sky, experiences at every beat of its wings that the sky is
boundless, that its wings can never carry it beyond. Therein
lies its joy. In the cage the sky is limited; it may be quite
enough for all the purposes of the bird's life, only it is not
more than is necessary. The bird cannot rejoice within the
limits of the necessary. It must feel that what it has is
immeasurably more than it ever can want or comprehend, and then
only can it be glad.
Thus our soul must soar in the infinite, and she must feel every
moment that in the sense of not being able to come to the end of
her attainment is her supreme joy, her final freedom.
Man's abiding happiness is not in getting anything but in giving
himself up to what is greater than himself, to ideas which are
larger than his individual life, the idea of his country, of
humanity, of God. They make it easier for him to part with all
that he has, not expecting his life. His existence is miserable
and sordid till he finds some great idea which can truly claim
his all, which can release him from all attachment to his
belongings. Buddha and Jesus, and all our great prophets,
represent such great ideas. They hold before us opportunities
for surrendering our all. When they bring forth their divine
alms-bowl we feel we cannot help giving, and we find that in
giving is our truest joy and liberation, for it is uniting
ourselves to that extent with the infinite.
Man is not complete; he is yet to be. In what he _is_ he is
small, and if we could conceive him stopping there for eternity
we should have an idea of the most awful hell that man can
imagine. In his _to be_ he is infinite, there is his heaven,
his deliverance. His _is_ is occupied every moment with what it
can get and have done with; his _to be_ is hungering for
something which is more than can be got, which he never can lose
because he never has possessed.
The finite pole of our existence has its place in the world of
necessity. There man goes about searching for food to live,
clothing to get warmth. In this region--the region of nature--it
is his function to get things. The natural man is occupied with
enlarging his possessions.
But this act of getting is partial. It is limited to man's
necessities. We can have a thing only to the extent of our
requirements, just as a vessel can contain water only to the
extent of its emptiness. Our relation to food is only in
feeding, our relation to a house is only in habitation. We call
it a benefit when a thing is fitted only to some particular want
of ours. Thus to get is always to get partially, and it never
can be otherwise. So this craving for acquisition belongs to our
finite self.
But that side of our existence whose direction is towards the
infinite seeks not wealth, but freedom and joy. There the reign
of necessity ceases, and there our function is not to get but to
be. To be what? To be one with Brahma. For the region of the
infinite is the region of unity. Therefore the Upanishads say:
_If man apprehends God he becomes true._ Here it is becoming,
it is not having more. Words do no gather bulk when you know
their meaning; they become true by being one with the idea.
Though the West has accepted as its teacher him who boldly
proclaimed his oneness with his Father, and who exhorted his
followers to be perfect as God, it has never been reconciled to
this idea of our unity with the infinite being. It condemns, as
a piece of blasphemy, any implication of man's becoming God.
This is certainly not the idea that Christ preached, nor perhaps
the idea of the Christian mystics, but this seems to be the idea
that has become popular in the Christian west.
But the highest wisdom in the East holds that it is not the
function of our soul to _gain_ God, to utilise him for any
special material purpose. All that we can ever aspire to is to
become more and more one with God. In the region of nature,
which is the region of diversity, we grow by acquisition; in the
spiritual world, which is the region of unity, we grow by losing
ourselves, by uniting. Gaining a thing, as we have said, is by
its nature partial, it is limited only to a particular want; but
_being_ is complete, it belongs to our wholeness, it springs not
from any necessity but from our affinity with the infinite, which
is the principle of perfection that we have in our soul.
Yes, we must become Brahma. We must not shrink to avow this.
Our existence is meaningless if we never can expect to realise
the highest perfection that there is. If we have an aim and yet
can never reach it, then it is no aim at all.
But can it then be said that there is no difference between
Brahma and our individual soul? Of course the difference is
obvious. Call it illusion or ignorance, or whatever name you may
give it, it is there. You can offer explanations but you cannot
explain it away. Even illusion is true an illusion.
Brahma is Brahma, he is the infinite ideal of perfection. But we
are not what we truly are; we are ever to become true, ever to
become Brahma. There is the eternal play of love in the relation
between this being and the becoming; and in the depth of this
mystery is the source of all truth and beauty that sustains the
endless march of creation.
In the music of the rushing stream sounds the joyful assurance,
"I shall become the sea." It is not a vain assumption; it is
true humility, for it is the truth. The river has no other
alternative. On both sides of its banks it has numerous fields
and forests, villages and towns; it can serve them in various
ways, cleanse them and feed them, carry their produce from place
to place. But it can have only partial relations with these, and
however long it may linger among them it remains separate; it
never can become a town or a forest.
But it can and does become the sea. The lesser moving water has
its affinity with the great motionless water of the ocean. It
moves through the thousand objects on its onward course, and its
motion finds its finality when it reaches the sea.
The river can become the sea, but she can never make the sea part
and parcel of herself. If, by some chance, she has encircled
some broad sheet of water and pretends that she has made the sea
a part of herself, we at once know that it is not so, that her
current is still seeking rest in the great ocean to which it can
never set boundaries.
In the same manner, our soul can only become Brahma as the river
can become the sea. Everything else she touches at one of her
points, then leaves and moves on, but she never can leave Brahma
and move beyond him. Once our soul realises her ultimate object
of repose in Brahma, all her movements acquire a purpose. It is
this ocean of infinite rest which gives significance to endless
activities. It is this perfectness of being that lends to the
imperfection of becoming that quality of beauty which finds its
expression in all poetry, drama and art.