the Not-Self giving rise to struggle all over the world, social struggle
as well as mental struggle. In every civilisation in which the intellect
is developing from its earlier stages, you must have struggle without in
order to stimulate the evolution within; it is a necessary stage,
although it be a passing one, and it need not distress us, who see its
end, in a world guided by the Gods. All the stages through which a
nation passes are necessary for its growth, and need not be condemned
merely because of their being limited and imperfect. In practical
politics condemnation is useful as a stimulus, as one of the agents for
bringing about the evolutionary changes, but the philosopher should
understand, and, understanding, he cannot condemn. The worst struggle
that we may see, the most terrible poverty, the most shocking misery,
the strife of man against man and nation against nation--all these are
working out the Divine purpose, and are bringing us towards a richer
unity than without them we could possibly attain.
Let me take one instance which seems to be the most hopeless of all--the
instance of war. What can be more inhuman than war, what more brutal and
more terrible, stirring the angriest passions of man and making him like
a wild beast in his rage? Aye, but that is not all. Let us look at the
life within a soldier which has been evolved by this terrible discipline
without. What is that life learning as its vehicles are plunged into
strife, into blood-shed, into mutilation, into death? It is learning
lessons that without that stern experience it could not learn, without
which its evolution would be checked and be unable to proceed it is
learning that there is something greater than the body, something
greater than the physical existence, something higher, more noble, more
compelling, than the guarding of the physical vehicle from injury and
even from death; and the poorest soldier who goes out on a campaign, who
goes through hardship after hardship, who finds himself frozen with cold
or burnt up with heat, who plunges through frozen river or toils across
sandy desert, who learns to preserve discipline and submission under
hardship, who learns to keep cheerful under difficulty, so that his
comrades may not be depressed, who is moved, not by the thought of the
body which is suffering, but by the great ideal of the military renown
of his regiment, and the safety of the country which he is serving, who
is learning thus to sacrifice himself for an ideal, is developing
thereby qualities invaluable in lives to come. Need I say this to you,
who know the place of the Kshattriya in human evolution? Did Manu when
he described these different castes demarcate a caste that had not its
place in the evolution of life, that had not something to teach? Was not
a man kept in the Kshattriya vehicle until he had learned that life was
not dependent on the body, that life was to be held at the service of
the ideal, at the service of the mother-land that gave him birth, of the
king who ruled him, and who to him stood, as to every Hindu the king
should stand, as an Avatâra of God? He learned that when that king
called him to the battle-field, he had to give his body to mutilation
and to death, because the life that was in him recognised the service of
the ideal as evolving the real life, and the body as a mere garment to
be thrown aside when duty called? Without that training, no Brâhmana
could be; no man could come into the caste of the Brâhmana, save as he
had gone through that discipline in the ranks of the Kshattriya; because
until he had learned that life was everything and form nothing--and that
is the lesson which war teaches when it is rightly understood--until
that lesson was learned, he was not prepared for the far harder
evolution of the life, which is to master the lesson of unity beneath
diversity, of love beneath antagonism, of being the friend of every
creature and the foe of none.
When the intelligence has developed, when it has reached a fairly high
standpoint, the germs of the next aspect of Deity begin to show
themselves in man and that aspect is A'nanda, Joy or Bliss. But in what
does A'nanda really consist? It is in the drawing together of separated
objects and uniting them into one. That is the essence of Bliss, that
the very core and heart of the next stage of evolution. In the old days
of Hinduism, this was called the life of the Brâhmana, when the Brâhmana
was really a Brâhmana and had no further birth before him on the wheel
of births and deaths. In the Christian symbology it is called the
Christ stage, that of Divine Sonship, and you will find in a great
prayer of Jesus, called the Christ, that in praying for His disciples He
asked that "they may be one in me," in union with each other and
Himself. There is a grander unity yet, the unity between the Son and
Father, a unity of nature not a union of the erst-separated; but before
that unity can be reached, man must have realised the union with his
brother men, must see humanity as united, and not as separate; that is,
he must have changed his centre of consciousness--that responds to the
impacts from without--from the vehicles in which the intellect and the
feelings were developed to the life itself, which is one and the same in
all. No longer is he to think himself as separate, inasmuch as the "I,"
the separated self, is now to be transcended, is to be merged in the
uniting aspect of the Deity, the Vishnu or the Christ. That is to be
developed as the life of man, with all its wonderful beauty and power,
with its unifying force. Therefore did Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa come as an Avatâra
to this Eastern world to show forth the life of Love; for the life of
A'nanda, or Bliss, is ever the life of Love, and by Love alone may we
evolve it within ourselves. The aspect of God that is Bliss shows itself
as Love; and in word and in action, in simile and in parable, did the
Beloved and the Lover of man reveal that Divine aspect to the longing
hearts of his Bhaktas. That was His special work, to show out the Love
power of God; and only as that is developed within us can the life take
on this lofty unfoldment that knits all selves in the One Self, that
sees all lives in Him. Now, in evolution, the Self knows itself as the
Life, and is no longer deluded by the ignorance that made it identify
itself with the Form; it is life which realises itself as Life. When
this stage is reached by the evolving life, the man who was separated
becomes Humanity, and is one of the Saviours of the world. There is
nothing apart from him, nothing separate to him. He stands in the very
Life itself, and sheds his light in every direction into whatever
Upâdhi, or vessel, may be in need of it; wherever there is want or cry
for his aid, thereto flow his powers. As the sun shines forth in heaven,
and may shine unto a million houses, the only condition of his rays
entering being that the houses shall lay themselves open to the
sunshine, so is the man who has become the second aspect of Deity, in
whom that perfection of Divine Sonship is revealed. Man, as the Son of
God in Heaven, is above all the distinctions that you find on Earth. He
sends down his rays into the waiting hearts of men, and the only
condition necessary for his entrance, the one thing that ensures his
coming, is that his brother will open his heart to receive him. For he
will not break his way in, he will only come where he is welcome. Thus
this great life of God shows itself forth now in the man who has become
the Saviour, the Son, the Initiate, as a deep compassionate love for
all. Every man who reaches that stage is a new force for the uplifting
of humanity. Every man who develops that aspect of life is one more wing
with which to lift everything upwards. If a man be weak, his life can go
to him to strengthen him; if a man be sorrowful, his life can go to him
to make him glad; if a man be sinful, his life can go to him to make him
pure from sin. To all men he says: "Wherever a man is there will I meet
him, and there will I accept him." That is Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa in
manifestation, that the love that shines forth from the bliss aspect of
the Human Self.
One step remains, the last, of evolution for this rapidly perfecting
life. Again I take up my Christian symbol and venture the quotation:--
"As Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be
one in Us." The Son becomes in fact what he has ever been potentially,
one with the Father. He enters into the mighty realm of Self-Being,
where God, in the Christian phrase, is "all-in-all." Do not let the
narrower presentations of Christianity that here meet you blind
you to these fundamental identities of the deeper and more spiritual
Christianity with our own ancient faith. Shall these pettinesses, or
even outer divergencies, separate those whom the living Spirit would
unite? We learn, as we study the Hindu Scriptures, that man after having
reached the second stage rises by Yoga, until he attains the last, and
becomes one with the Deity Himself in full power of eternal Self-Being.
It was because your own Svâmi T. Subba Rao knew this occult truth, which
too many know not, that he spoke, as I before mentioned, of the
innumerable Centres, or Logoi, in the One, every one of which could be
the beginning of a new universe, of a new out-pouring of life. The
building of those Centres is a purpose of Life-evolution. The building
them up stage by stage is done as the life passes from form to form; and
end or ending there is none in the infinite series of the future. What
that life holds for us we cannot tell; how should we imagine that far
off land, those distant reaches? But this we know: that no will of the
Eternal is ever frustrate, no purpose of the Eternal lacks its fruit or
misses its goal; and if our eyes fail us in the dazzle of the light
wherein we see our unity with the Eternal Father--that unity that
transcends our dreaming, when we shall know ourselves to be one with
Him--it is enough that at last the evolution of all lives leads into
that unimaginable splendour, known only to Íshvara Himself, who pours
out His life that we may know it also. And Mahâdeva shall return to It
with all the centres that His life has brought into existence, with all
the new lives and joys that His imprisonment in His universe has made.
That is enough for us to give us the hope--hope, do I say? it is too
feeble a word--the joy inexpressible and the certainty which are founded
on the very Life of God; for is He not the Truth, the Foundation of the
Universe? And when we enter into SAT we shall know the future as we see
the past, for we shall be not only immortal but Eternal.
[FOURTH LECTURE.]
EVOLUTION OF FORM.
My Brothers,--We are now to concentrate our attention on the phenomenal
side of the universe, that is, on the varied appearances that surround
us, whether those appearances be visible to the physical eyes or not;
for we must remember that the principle of form is to be found in every
stage of the manifested universe, and that when the phrase "the formless
world" is used, the word "formless" is only true in relation to the
worlds below the one so spoken of. All higher worlds are "formless"
regarded from below, that is, regarded by the organs of perception which
are fitted for exercise in the lower world; but if a person has
developed the capacity to respond to the vibrations in any given world
of manifestation, then that world to him is a world of form and not of
formlessness. Everywhere manifestation implies form, however subtle may
be the matter which composes it; and you may remember that it is said in
the _Vishnu Purâna_ that the one characteristic of matter which is
always present is extension, that is, the capacity of taking form, of
being shaped in a definite way.
Now before we take up the details of evolution, there are one or two
great principles that I want to ask you to keep in mind; for we shall
never be able to understand the complexity of detail, if we take it as a
series of isolated details; we need to classify these under certain
fundamental principles and then, those principles being clear in the
mind, we can easily, as it were, pack every detail into its appropriate
pigeon-hole in our thought. I shall not trouble you this morning at all
with that threefold division of the evolving life with which we dealt
yesterday. We can, for our work now, treat life as a unit, speaking of
the Divine Life as Íshvara, and of the reflection of that life in man as
the Self. We will keep these two terms to avoid confusion: Íshvara as
the Divine Life which is the source of evolution; the Self as the human
life which is gradually evolving. And we need these two distinguishing
names, without going into any of the sub-divisions that we dealt with
yesterday in connection with life, in order that we may be able to see
how forms are shaped, and to which principle, if I may say so, we are to
refer the special modifications.
The next thing that we must realise is the respective functions of these
sources of life; one working through the whole kosmos, and therefore
coming to man as a part of that kosmos, the other working in man as an
individual through the early stages and transcending individuality at the
close. The great life of Íshvara as it rolls outwards, building the
universe of forms, expresses itself, as we have seen, by a certain series
of vibrations, and every modification in the form is the result of an
impulse coming by way of vibrations from the ensouling life. Now the point
that strikes us most in this manifestation of Íshvara, as we study it, is
the unutterable patience of it. We are impatient for results, He never. We
are impatient for results, because, limited by time, we crave to see the
outcome of our action; He being the eternal is unspeakably patient, set
upon perfection and careless of the time which that perfection may take in
evolving. For the evolution of forms this patience is absolutely
necessary; when we come to think, we see that any impatience in the
evolution of forms would mean the over-rapid breaking up of the forms. The
form is comparatively rigid as compared with the life. If the life
vibrates too rapidly for the form which it is evolving, the form will
shatter under the stress of those vibrations. Let me give you a very
common illustration to show you what I mean; a tube of glass, or an
ordinary lamp-glass if you like, has a certain note to which it vibrates;
and if that note be sung near the lamp-glass, you will hear the note sound
out independently from the lamp-glass, as though the lamp-glass were
singing; the glass has vibrated in answer to the vibrations of the sound
sung to it, it having the capacity of that vibration in it, and thus it
reproduces the note. If you increase the force of that note, if you
continue vibration after vibration, beyond the point at which the glass is
able to respond, your glass will shiver into pieces, shivered by the force
of the effort to respond to vibrations beyond its limit of rigidity. I
only take that as an illustration, as a picture; it is true in every world
of form; and if Íshvara were to send forth vibrations too swift, too
subtle for the form which He is ensouling to respond to, that form would
be shivered into pieces, and its evolution would be stopped; nature would
have again to begin to build a similar form in order to again reach the
point which it had already reached. This patience of Íshvara is the thing
that strikes us first as we study the evolution of forms. How slow are the
changes, how gradual the modifications, what thousands of successive forms
are worked in, how wellnigh imperceptible are the changes in their
minuteness, although so great when we look at them in the mass; that is
one great principle to bear in mind.
Another great principle is the double and parallel action of Íshvara and
of the evolving Self. Íshvara is present in the Self of man that is
formed within Him. Every evolutionary impulse in the earliest stages
comes directly from the life of Íshvara, and as He moulds the form
without, He gradually strengthens the centre that He is building up
within. His object is to make that centre the image of Himself,
self-sustaining; but enormous reaches of time are needed for the
building; as He shapes the forms, He builds the centre; and as He builds
that centre, and it becomes more and more active, answering to the
vibrations that He transmits to it from the outer world, it begins to
take on a little action of its own and to send out vibrations, as we may
say, on its own account. As this double action goes on within the form,
more and more does that evolving centre begin to control the form within
which it is developed. As this power of control develops and increases,
He withdraws more and more of His directive energy as Íshvara; the
energy drawn from Him is now beginning to work _quasi_-independently in
the separated centre that He has been building, until at last that
centre reflects Himself, and is able to be self-existent by the very
life that it has drawn from Him. If this conception be a little
abstract, let me give it again in a concrete form. There is one symbol
that the sages have used over and over again, in order to express this
wonder of the brooding life of Íshvara making an image of Himself and
giving to that image the possibility of independent life. It is the
symbol of the mother and the child within the womb. As the life of the
mother passes into the child that is building within her, transmitting
to that new form all the nourishment which is necessary for its growing
life, the whole life of the child is dependent on the mother and the
life-streams that nourish it are drawn from her own life. The building
goes on, and on, and on, till the new centre of life has grown strong,
but not until that centre can hold itself together amid the vibrations
of the outer universe, is the new form with its ensouling life sent
forth on its own independent course. So does the brooding mother-life of
Íshvara envelope the children of His love, and so does He nourish them,
building them within Himself as the ages pass, until they are able to
hold their own centres in the illimitable life of the One, the Supreme.
That is another principle which you have to remember throughout the
details of the evolution of form.
One other that has two divisions and then the statement of our main
principles will be sufficiently complete. There are three aspects, we
recollect, which the evolving Self has to unfold. We must add to this a
comprehension of the nature of these aspects, when externalised; for we
did not yesterday, for lack of time, glance quite precisely at the in
characteristic outer mark of each aspect of life. As these aspects
modify the evolution of form, the form cannot be understood unless its
relations to the aspects of life be realised. We have, as we know, to
show forth Knowledge, Bliss, and Being. These will come out as powers
into the world of form as evolution reaches its later stages, and the
form will be able to express those powers of the evolving life.
Knowledge, showing forth through form, has as its power Intelligence;
Bliss, shown forth through form, has as its power Love; Being, shown
forth through form, has as its power Existence; so that the fundamental
aspects may be said severally to manifest as the powers of intelligence,
of love, of existence. Otherwise put, the nature of intelligence is
knowledge, the nature of love is bliss, the nature of existence is
being. The intelligence, love and existence of our worlds are the
manifested Knowledge, the manifested Bliss, and the manifested Being of
the Self. That is the outward aspect of the Self as the other is the
inner aspect, and these characteristic natures seek their expression in
form. This expression is sought cosmically and individually, alike by
the life of Íshvara and the life of the Self. Cosmically they make the
planes of the manifested universe, the five planes on which we are
evolving. That which manifests as existence, the power of Being, has as
its form the Akâsha of the higher realm; that which manifests as love,
the power of Bliss, has as its form of matter Vâyu; that which manifests
as intelligence, the power of Knowledge, has as its material Agni. These
are the three fundamental manifestations in form. The other two are
reflections: That which is love, reflecting itself in the lower form of
matter--the denser matter of Varuna--takes on the aspect of desire and
passion, and becomes kâma. That which is existence, reflecting itself on
the yet grosser form of Prithivî, shows forth what we call objective
reality. See how the planes correspond, the one with the other. Try and
make a picture of a mountain reflected in a lake; and if you have that
in your mind, you will follow exactly the way the reflection takes
place. There is no reflection of intelligence because it is the central
quality; the intelligence is the centre of the five, two are above it
and two are below it. It is the central region, the pivot on which the
whole has to turn. If you look above to the higher regions, we find love
and existence showing themselves forth as the powers of Bliss and
Being. That is as it were, the mountain. Now look at your reflection in
the lake; the middle part of the mountain is reflected half-way down in
the water. The shore is the dividing line between object and image, and
represents the intelligence; below that, half-way down, will come the
reflection of love showing itself as emotion and desire; then we see the
highest peak reflected in the deepest depth of the lake, the existence
above, the power of the real Being, reflected below in the plane of
physical matter as that illusory existence which man calls real. Try and
keep that picture, for the principle of reflection from above to below
is one of the keys to understanding both above and below. It helps you
to see why emotional love passes into devotion, and how, in the passing
from emotion into the higher love which is devotion, it passes from
the kâmic plane to the buddhic, where bliss is the distinguishing
characteristic; and you will understand why action, the most illusory of
things, has to us the sense of reality. It gives that peculiarly
definite sense of reality to us because it is the reflection of the
real, of the existence of which it is the lower form.
Now these are the principles. Let us try to carry them out in our
evolutionary study; for if you hold firm to the principles, the study
of detail, of forms, will seem less confusing, less complex and less
difficult; you will not lose your way among the trees, when once you
have looked down on the forest as a whole; that is a simile I once heard
from Professor Huxley, as illustrating principles and details, and it is
a suggestive one.
We begin then the detailed evolution of form; it is like a great circle
traced downwards and upwards. There is a great difference between the
downward arc, the one-half of the circle, and the upward arc, the other
half of the circle. In the one case, coming downwards, Íshvara imparts
qualities and attributes; in the other half, going upwards, He builds
the qualities and attributes into vehicles. These are the two great
differences between the downward and upward arcs. In the downward,
matter takes up qualities; in the upward, matter is formed into
vehicles, or sheaths, or bodies, whatever may be the term we prefer. A
process of specialisation goes on, up to a certain point. After a time
the specialised materials are drawn together and combined into a
vehicle, an organised unity, serving as a tabernacle for the Self. First
comes differentiation, and the first step to that is to impart qualities
to matter. Let me remind you, as the subject is so difficult a one, what
is meant by tattvas, the fundamental forms of matter, and recall once
more that passage in the _Vishnu Purâna_ where their evolution is
described, and where it is stated that the tanmâtra of sound produces
A'kâsha; that is, a modification of the consciousness of Íshvara
produces the form of matter that we call the atom of A'kâsha; that atom
has a mere film of subtlest matter for its envelope, and the vibrating
life of Íshvara for the force within. Then we are told that A'kâsha
generates another tanmâtra which is touch, and that, enveloped,
permeated by A'kâsha, produces the film of denser matter which is called
Vâyu, the two tanmâtras and the A'kâsha being the generating force.