The Theosophical Society,
The Writings of Annie Besant
Annie
Besant
(1847
-1933)
Dharma
By
Annie Besant
Three Lectures delivered on Oct. 25, 26 and 27
1893
DIFFERENCES
WHEN
the nations of the earth were sent forth one after the other, a special word
was given by God to each, the word which each was to say to the world, the
peculiar word from the Eternal which each one was to speak. As we glance over
the history of the nations, we can hear resounding from the collective mouth of
the people this word, spoken out in action, the contribution of that nation to
the ideal and perfect humanity. To
But we cannot speak this word, so full of
meaning, so vast in its out-reaching force, without making our bow at the feet
of him who is the greatest embodiment of Dharma that the world has ever seen -
our bow to Bhishma, the son of Gangâ,
the mightiest incarnation of Duty. Come with me for a
while, traveling five-thousand years back in time, and see this hero, lying on
his bed of arrows on the field of [Page 1] Kurukshetra,
there holding Death at bay, until the right hour should strike. We pass through
heaps upon heaps of the slaughtered warriors, over mountains of dead elephants
and horses, and we pass by many a funeral pyre, many a heap of broken weapons
and chariots. We come to the hero lying on the bed of arrows, transfixed with
hundreds of arrows and his head resting on a pillow of arrows. Far he has
rejected the pillows they brought him of soft down, and accepted only the arrowy pillow made by Arjuna. He,
perfect in Dharma, had, while still a youth, for the sake of his father, for
the sake of the duty that he owed to his father, for the sake of the love he
bore to his father, made that great vow of renouncing family life, renouncing
the crown, in order that the father's will might be done, and the father's
heart be satisfied. And Shantanu gave him his
blessing, that wondrous boon, that Death should not
come to him until he came at his own command, until he willed to die. When he
fell, pierced by hundreds of arrows, the sun has in his southern path, and the
season was not favourable for the death of one who
was not to return any more. He used the power that his father had given him,
and made Death stand aside until the sun should open up the way to eternal
peace and liberation. As he lay there for many a weary day, racked with the
agonies of his wounds, tortured by the anguish of the mangled body that he
wore, there came around him many Rishis and the
remnants of the Aryan kings, and thither came also [Page 2] Shri
Krishna, to see the faithful one. Thither came the five princes, the sons of Pându, the victors in the mighty war, and they stood round
him weeping and worshipping him, and longing to be taught by him. To him, in
the midst of that bitter anguish, came the words from One whose lips were the
lips of God, and He released him from the burning fever, and He gave him bodily
rest and clearness of mind and quietness of the inner man, and then He bade him
teach to the world what Dharma is - he whose whole life had taught it, who had
not swerved from the path of righteousness, who whether as son, or prince, or
statesman, or warrior, had always trodden the narrow path. He was asked for
teaching by those who were around him, and Vâsudeva
bade him speak of Dharma, because he was fit to teach (Mâhâbharata,
Shanti Parva, § LIV).
Then there drew closer round him the sons of Pându, headed by their eldest brother Yudhishthira,
who was the leader of the host that had brought Bhîshma
to his death; and he was afraid of coming near and asking questions, thinking
that as the arrows were really his, being shot for his cause, he was guilty of
the blood of his elder, and he ought not to ask to be taught. Seeing his
hesitation, Bhîshma, whose mind was ever balanced,
who had trodden the difficult path of duty without being moved to the right
hand or the left, spoke the memorable words: "As the duty of Brâhmanas consists in the practice of charity, study, and
penance, so the duty of Kshattriyas [Page 3] is to
cast away their bodies in battle. A Kshattriya should
slay sires and grandsires and brothers and preceptors and relatives and kinsmen, that may engage with him in unjust battle. This is
their declared duty. That Kshattriya, O Keshava, is said to be acquainted with his duty who slays
in battle his very preceptors, if they happen to be sinful and covetous and
disregardful of restraints and vows. . . . . . Ask me, O child, without any
anxiety". Then, just as Vâsudeva, in speaking of
Bhîshma, had described Bhîshma's
right to speak as teacher, so Bhîshma himself in
turn, in addressing the princes, described the qualities that were needed in
those who would ask questions on the problem of Dharma:
"Let the son of Pându,
in whom are intelligence, self-restraint, brahmacharya, forgiveness, righteousness, mental vigor and
energy, put questions to me. Let the son of Pându,
who always by his good offices honors his relatives and guests and servants and
others that are dependent on him, put questions to me. Let the son of Pându, in whom are truth and
charity and penances, heroism, peacefulness, cleverness and fearlessness, put
questions to me." (Ibid. § LIV.).
Such are some of the characteristics of the
man who may seek to understand the mysteries of Dharma. Such are the qualities
which you and I must try to develop, if we are to understand the teachings, if
we are to be worthy to enquire.
Then began that wonderful
discourse, without parallel among the discourses of the world. It treats
of the duties of Kings and of subjects, the duties of the four orders, of the
four modes of life, duties for every kind of man, duties distinct from each
other and suited to every stage of evolution. Every one of you ought to know
that great discourse, ought to study it, not only for its literary beauty, but
for its moral grandeur. If we could but follow on the path traced by Bhishma, then would our evolution quicken, then would the
day of
With regard to morality - a subject closely
bound up with Dharma, and which cannot be understood without a
knowledge of what is meant by Dharma - with regard to morality, some
think that it is a simple thing. So it is in its broad outlines. The boundaries
of right and wrong in the common actions of life are clear, simple, and
definite. For a man of small development, for a man of narrow intelligence, for
a man of restricted knowledge, morality seems simple enough. But for those of
deep knowledge and high intelligence, for those who are evolving towards the
higher grades of humanity, for those who desire to understand its mysteries,
for them morality is very difficult: "Morality is very subtle," as
the prince Yudhishthira said when he was dealing with
the problem of the marriage of Draupadi with the five
sons of Pându. And one greater than that prince had
spoken of the difficulty; Shri Krishna, the Avâtara, in His discourse delivered on the field of Kurukshetra, spoke on this very question of the difficulty
of action. He said:
"What is action, what inaction? Even the
wise are hereby perplexed. It is needful to discriminate action, to
discriminate unlawful action, to discriminate inaction; mysterious is the path
of action" (Bhagavad Gita, iv. 16-17.)
Mysterious
is the path of action; mysterious, because morality is not, as the
simple-minded think, one and the same for all; because it varies with the
Dharma of the individual. What is right for one, is
wrong for another. And what is wrong for one is right for another. Morality is
an individual thing, and it depends upon the Dharma of the man who is acting,
and not upon what is sometimes called "absolute right and wrong".
There is nothing absolute in a conditioned universe. And right and wrong are
relative, and must be judged in relation to the individual and his duties. Thus
the greatest of all Teachers said with regard to Dharma - and this will guide
us in our tangled path - "Better one's own Dharma, though destitute of
merit, than the Dharma of another, well discharged. Better death in the
discharge of one's own Dharma; the Dharma of another is full of danger"
(Ibid. iv. 35.).
He repeated the same thought again at the end
of that immortal discourse, and He said - but then changed in such a way as to
throw fresh light on the subject: "Better is one's own Dharma, though
destitute of merits, than the well executed Dharma of another. He who doeth the Karma laid down by his own nature incurreth not sin" (Ibid. xviii. 47.). There He
expounds more fully this teaching, and He traces for us one by one the Dharma
of the four great castes, and the very wording that He uses shows us the
meaning of this word, which is sometimes translated as Duty, sometimes as Law,
sometimes as Righteousness, sometimes as Religion. It means these, and more
than any of them, for the meaning is deeper and wider than any of thee words
expresses. Let us take the words of Shri Krishna when
speaking of the Dharma of the four castes: "Of Brâhmanas,
Kshattriyas, Vaishyas and Shûdras, O Parantapa, the Karmas
have been distributed, according to the gunas born of
their own natures. Serenity, selfrestraint,
austerity, purity, forgiveness and also uprightness; wisdom, knowledge, belief
in God, are the Brâhmana-Karma, born of his own
nature. Prowess, splendour, firmness, dexterity, and
also not flying from battle, generosity, the nature of a ruler, are the Kshattriya-Karma, born of his own nature. Ploughing, protection of kine, and trade are the Vaishya-Karma, born of his own nature. Action of the nature
of service is the Shudra-Karma, born of his own
nature. Man reacheth perfection by each being intent
on his own Karma".
Then he goes on to say: "Better one's own
Dharma, though destitute of merit, than the well executed Dharma of another. He
who doeth the Karma laid down by his own nature incurreth
not sin".
See how the two words Dharma and Karma are
interchanged. They give us the key which we shall use to unlock our problem.
Let me give you first a partial definition of Dharma. I cannot make the whole
definition clear at once. I will give you the first half of it, dealing with
the second half when we come to it. The first half is that "Dharma is the
inner nature, which has reached in each man a certain stage of development and
unfolding". It is this inner nature which moulds the outer life, which is
expressed by thoughts, words, and actions, the inner nature which is born into
the environment suited for its further growth. The first idea to grasp is that
Dharma is not an outer thing, like the law, or righteousness, or religion, or
justice. It is the law of the unfolding life, which moulds all outside it to
the expression of itself.
Now in trying to trace out this difficult and
abstruse subject, I will treat it under three main divisions. First, Differences, for people have different Dharmas.
Even in the passage quoted, four great classes are mentioned. Looking more
closely, each individual man has his own Dharma. How shall we understand these?
Unless we grasp something of the nature of difference; why they came to be, why
they should exist, and what me mean when we speak of differences; unless we
understand how each man shows by his thoughts, words, and actions, the stage he
has reached; unless we grasp this, we cannot understand Dharma. Then secondly,
we shall have to deal with Evolution. For we must trace these
differences as they evolve. Lastly, we must deal with the problem of
Right and Wrong, for the whole of our study leads up to the answer to the
question. "How should a man conduct his life?" It would not be worth
while to ask you to follow me, into difficult regions of thought, unless in the
end we are to turn our knowledge to good account, and try to lead lives
according to Dharma, thus giving to the world that which
In what does the perfection of a Universe
consist? When we begin to think over a universe and what we mean by it, we find
we mean a vast number of separated objects working together more or less
harmoniously. Variety is the keynote of the universe, as unity is the note of
the Unmanifest, of the Unconditioned - the One
without a second. Diversity is the note of the manifested and conditioned - the
result of the will to become many.
When a Universe is to come into existence, we
learn, the First Cause, the Eternal, the Inconceivable, the Indiscernible, the
Subtle, shines forth by His own Will. What that shining forth may mean within Himself none may dare to guess. What it means on the side
from which we regard it, that to some extent may be grasped. Ishvara comes forth, but He, coming forth, appears
enwrapped in the veil of Mâyâ - there are two sides
of the Supreme in manifestation. Many words have been used to express that
fundamental pair of opposites: Ishvara and Mâyâ, Sat and Asat,
Reality and Unreality, Spirit and Matter, Life and Form. These are words which
we, in our limited language, use to express that which is well-nigh beyond the
grasp of thinking. All that we can say is: "Thus have the Sages taught us,
and thus we in humility repeat".
Ishvara and Mâyâ. What is the universe to
he? It is the image of Ishvara
reflected in Mâyâ - the perfected image of Ishvara, as He has chosen to condition Himself for this
particular universe whose birth-hour is come. His image - limited, conditioned.
His Self-conditioned image, the universe is in perfection to declare. But how
shall that which is limited, that which is partial, image Ishvara?
By the multiplicity of parts working together in one harmonious whole; infinite
variety of differences, and the manifold combinations of each with each, shall
speak forth the law of the divine thought, until the whole thought is expressed
in the totality of that perfected Universe. You should try to catch some
glimpse of what this means. Let us together seek to understand.
Ishvara thinks of
Beauty; at once His mighty energy, all-potent, generative, strikes upon Mâyâ and develops it into myriad forms of objects that we
call beautiful. It touches the matter that is ready to be moulded
- for example, water; and the water takes on a million forms of Beauty. We see
one in the vast expanse of ocean, still and tranquil, where no wind is blowing,
and where the sky is mirrored in its deep bosom. Then we catch another form of
Beauty, when the wind lashes it into billows upon billows, and abyss beneath
abyss, till the whole mass is terrible in its fury and grandeur. Then a new
form of Beauty comes forth from it, and the raging and
the foaming waters are hushed, and the ocean is changed into myriad-ripples,
glittering and glistening under the moon which shines upon them, her rays
broken and bent into a thousand coruscations. And this gives us another hint of
what Beauty means. And then we look at the ocean where no land limits the
horizon and where the vast expanse is unbroken, and again we stand on the shore
and see the waves breaking at our feet. With every change of mood of the sea,
its waters speak out a new thought of Beauty. Another glimpse of the thought of
Beauty thrown into water we see in the mountain lake, in the stillness and
serenity of its quiet bosom; and in the stream that leaps from rock to rock;
and in the torrent that dashes itself into millions of spray-drops, catching
and refracting the sunlight into all the hues of the rainbow. So from water in
every shape and form, from the tossing ocean to the frozen iceberg, from the
foggy mists to the gorgeously coloured clouds, bursts
forth the thought of Beauty impressed upon it by Ishvara,
when the word came forth from Him. When we leave the water, we learn new
thoughts of beauty in the tender creeper, in its mass of brilliant colours, the
stronger plant and the sturdier oak, and the dark obscurity of forest depths.
New thoughts of Beauty come to us from the face of every mountain peak, and
from the vast, rolling prairie where the earth seems to break into new
possibilities of life, from the sand of the desert, from the green of the
meadow. If we are tired of the earth, the telescope brings to our view the
Beauty of myriads of suns, rushing and rolling through the depths of space.
Then the microscope reveals to our wondering gaze the Beauty of the infinitely
small, as the telescope does of the infinitely great: and thus a new door is
opened to us for the contemplation of Beauty. Around us we have thousands and
millions of objects that are all beautiful. From the grace of the animal, from
the strength of man, from the supple charm of woman, from the dimples of the
laughing children, from all these things we catch some glimpses of what the
thought of Beauty is in the mind of Ishvara.
In this fashion we may sense something of the
way in which His thought broke into myriad forms of splendour,
when He spoke as Beauty to the world. The same is the case with Strength,
Energy, Harmony, Music, and so on. You grasp, then, why there should be
variety: because no limited thing may fully tell Him, because no limited form
may fully express Him. But as each becomes perfect of its kind; all combined
may partly reveal Him. Thus the perfection of the Universe is perfection in
variety and in the harmony of interrelated parts.
Having reached that conception, we begin to
see that the Universe can only gain perfection by each part performing its own
function, and developing completely its own share of life. If the tree tries to
imitate the mountain, or the water to imitate the earth, each would miss its
own beauty and fail to show that of the other. The perfection of the body does
not depend upon every cell doing the work of the other cells, but in each cell
doing its own part perfectly. We have brain, lungs, heart, digestive organs,
and so on. If the brain tried to do the work of the heart, and the lungs tried
to digest food, then the body would indeed be in a melancholy condition. The
health of the body is secured by each organ doing its own part. We thus realize
that as the universe develops, each part is going along the road which is
marked out by the law of its own life. The image of Ishvara
in nature will never be perfect, until each part is complete in itself and in
its relations to the others.
How can these innumerable differences arise?
How can all these differences come into existence? How does the Universe, as it
evolves as a whole, stand in relation to its parts evolving each on its
separate line? We are told that Ishvara, expressing
himself on the Prakriti side shows forth three
qualities - Sattva, Rajas and Tamas.
No English words are equivalent to or can satisfactorily translate these. I may
however, for the moment translate Tamas as inertia,
the quality that does not move, that gives stability; Rajas is the quality of
energy and motion; and Sattva is perhaps best
expressed by harmony the quality of pleasure-giving, as all pleasure springs
from harmony and only harmony can give it. Then we learn that these three gunas are further modified in seven kinds of ways, seven
great lines, as it were, along which innumerable
combinations evolve. Every religion speaks of this sevenfold division,
every religion proclaims its existence. In Hinduism, they are the five great
elements and the two beyond. These are the seven Purushas
of whom Manu speaks.
These three gunas
combine and divide, arranging themselves into seven great groups, from which
arise vast numbers of things by various combinations; remember that into each
separate thing each of these qualities enters in different proportions,
modified in one of the seven fundamental ways.
From this primary difference brought over
from a Universe of the past - for world is linked to world and Universe to
Universe - we find that the downpouring life divided
and subdivided itself as it fell into matter, till, reaching the circumference
of the mighty circle, it rolled back upon itself. Evolution begins at the turning-point,
where the wave of life begins to return to Ishvara.
The previous stage is the stage of involution, during which this life is
becoming involved in matter; in evolution it is unfolding the powers that it
contains. We may quote Manu where he says that Ishvara
placed His seed in the mighty waters. The life which Ishvara
gave was not a developed life, but a life capable of development. Everything
exists in germ at first. As the parent gives his life to generate the child,
and as that life-seed is built up through many combinations, until it reaches
birth, and then year after year, through childhood, youth and manhood, until
maturity is reached, and the image of the father is seen again in the son; so
does the Eternal Father, when He places the seed in the womb of matter, give
the life, but it is not yet evolved. Then it begins its up-climbing, bringing
out one phase after another of the life that it is gradually becoming able to
express.
As we study the Universe, we find that its
varieties differ in their age. This is a thought which bears upon our problem.
This world was not brought into its present condition by one creative word.
Slowly and gradually and by prolonged meditation did Brâhma
make the world. One after another living forms came
forth. One after another the seeds of life were sown. If you look at any
Universe at any point of time, you will find that the variety of that Universe
has Time for its chief factor. The age of the developing germ will mark the
stage at which that germ has arrived. In a Universe, at one and the same time,
there are germs of various ages and stages of development. There are germs
younger than minerals, making what are called elemental kingdoms. The
developing germs called the mineral kingdom are older than these. Germs
evolving as the vegetable world are older than those of the mineral, that is,
they have a longer stretch of evolution behind them; the animals are germs with
a yet longer past, and the germs we call humanity have the longest past of all.
Each great class has this diversity as to its
beginning in time. So also the separated individual life in one man - not the
essential life, but the individual and separated life - is different from that
of another, and we differ in the age of our individual existences as we differ
in the age of our bodies. The life is one - one life in all; but it is infolded
at different stages of time, as regards the starting-point of the seed that
there is growing. You should grasp that idea clearly. When a Universe comes to
its ending, there will be present in it entities at every stage of growth. I
have already said that world is linked to world, and Universe linked to
Universe. Some units at the beginning will be at an early stage of evolution;
some will be ready to expand ere long into the consciousness of God. In that
Universe, when its life-period is over, there will be all the differences of
growth dependent upon differences in time. There is one life in all, but the
stage of unfoldment of a particular life depends upon the time through which it
has been separately evolving. There you grasp the very root of our problem -
one life, undying, eternal, infinite as to its source
and goal; but that life manifesting itself in different grades of evolution and
at different stages of unfoldment, different, amounts of its inherent power
showing forth according to the age of the separated life. Those are the two
thoughts to grasp, and then you can take the other portion of the definition of
Dharma.
Dharma may now be defined as the "inner
nature of a thing at any given stage of evolution, and the law of the next
stage of its unfolding" - the nature at the point it has reached in
unfolding, and then the law which brings about its next stage of unfolding. The
nature itself marks out the point in evolution it has reached; then comes what
it must do in order to evolve further along its road. Take those two thoughts
together, and then you will understand why perfection must be reached by
following one's own Dharma. My Dharma is the stage of evolution which my nature
has reached in unfolding the seed of divine life which is myself,
plus the law of life according to which the next stage is to be performed by
me. It belongs to this separated self. I must know the stage of my growth, and
I must know the law which will enable me to grow further; then I know my
Dharma, and by following that Dharma I am going towards perfection.
It is clear then, realizing what this means,
why we should each of us study this present condition and this next stage. If we
do not know the present stage, we must be ignorant of the next stage which we
should aim at, and we may be going against our Dharma and thus delaying our
evolution. Or, knowing both, we may work with our Dharma and quicken our
evolution. Here comes a great pitfall. We see that a thing is good, noble and
great, and we long to accomplish in ourselves that thing. Is it for us the next
stage of evolution? Is it the thing which the law of our unfolding life
demands, in order that that life may unfold harmoniously? Our immediate aim is
not that which is best in itself, but that which is best for us in our present
stage, and carries us one step onward. Take a child. There is no doubt that if
you take a woman-child, she has before her a future nobler, higher, and more
beautiful than the present when she is playing with her dolls; she will be a
mother with a baby in her arms instead of a doll; for that is the ideal of
perfect womanhood - the mother with the child. But while that is the ideal of a
perfect woman, to grasp at that ideal before the time is ripe will do harm and
not good. Everything must come in its proper time and place. If that mother is
to be developed to the perfection of womanhood, and is to be mother of a
family, healthy, strong, able to bear the pressure of the great life-stream,
then there must be the period when that child must play with her dolls, must
learn lessons, must develop the body. But if, thinking that motherhood is
higher and nobler than play, that motherhood should be grasped before its time,
and a child be born from a child, the babe suffers, the mother suffers, the
nation suffers; and this because the season has not been regarded, the law of
unfolding life is violated. All sorts of suffering arise from grasping the
fruit ere the fruit is ripe.
I take that example because it is a striking
one. It will help you to see why our own Dharma is better for us than the well
executed Dharma of another that is not in the line of our unfolding life. That
lofty post may be for us in the future, but the time must come, the fruit must
ripen. Pluck it ere it is ripe, and your teeth are set on edge. Let it remain
on the tree, obeying the law of time and sequential evolution, and the soul
will grow according to the power of an endless life.
That then gives us another key to the problem
- function is in relation to power. Function grasped before power is developed
is mischievous in the extreme to the organism. So we learn the lessons of
patience and of waiting on the Good Law. You might judge the progress of a man
by his willingness to work with nature and to submit to the law. That is why
Dharma is spoken of as law, and sometimes as duty; for both these ideas grow
out of the root-thought that it is the inner nature at a given stage of
evolution and the law of the next stage of its development. This explains why
morality is relative, why duty must differ for every soul, according to the
stage of its evolution. When we come to apply this to questions of right and
wrong, we shall find that we can solve some of the subtlest problems of
morality by dealing with them on this principle. In a conditioned universe,
absolute right and wrong are not to be found, but only relative rights and
wrongs. The absolute is in Ishvara alone, where it
will for ever be found.
Differences are thus necessary for our
conditioned consciousness. We think by differences, we feel by differences, and
we know by differences. It is only by differences that we know that we are
living and thinking men. Unity makes on consciousness no impression.
Differences and diversities - those are the things which make the growth of
consciousness possible. The unconditioned consciousness is beyond our thinking.
We can only think within the limits of the separated and the conditioned.
We can now see how differences in nature come
to be, how the time factor comes in, and how, though all have the same nature
and will reach the same goal, yet there are differences in the stages of
manifestation, and therefore in the laws appropriate for every stage. That is
what we need to grasp tonight, before we deal with the complex problem, how
this inner nature develops. Truly difficult is the subject, yet the mysteries
of the path of action may be cleared for us as we grasp the underlying law, as
we recognise the principle of the unfolding life.
May He, who gave Dharma to India as her
keynote, illuminate with His unfolding and immortal life, with His light
effulgent and unchangeable, these dark minds of ours that dimly try to grasp
His law; for only as His blessing falls upon the suppliant seeker, will His law
be understood by the mind, will His law be engraven
in the heart.
EVOLUTION
WE
shall deal this evening with the second section of the subject commenced
yesterday. You may remember I divided the subject under three heads, for the
sake of convenience - Differences, Evolution, and the problem of Right and
Wrong. Yesterday we studied the question of Differences - how it came to pass that different men had different Dharmas.
I will venture to remind you of the definition of Dharma we adopted; that it
means the inner nature, marked by the stage of evolution, plus the law of
growth for the next stage of evolution. I will ask you to keep that definition
in your minds, for without it you will not be able to apply Dharma to what we
are to study under the third division of the subject.
Under the head "Evolution", we are
to study the way in which the germ of life evolves to the perfect image of God,
remembering that we found that that image of God could only be represented by
the totality of the numerous objects making up the universe in their details,
and that the perfection of the individual depended on the completeness with
which he fulfilled his own part in the stupendous whole.
Before we can understand evolution, we must
find its spring and motive - a life which involves itself in matter, before it
evolves complicated organisms of every kind. We start with the principle that
all is from and in God. Nothing in the universe is to be excluded from Him. No life
save His life, no force save His force, no energy save His energy, no forms
save His forms - all are the results of His thought. That is our fundamental
position. That is the ground on which we must stand, daring to accept
everything that it implies, daring to recognise
everything that it connotes. "The seed of all beings," says Shri Krishna, speaking as the supreme Ishvara,
"that am I, O Arjuna! nor is there aught, moving or unmoving, that may exist
bereft of Me" (Bhagavad-Gita, x. 39.). Do not let us fear to take that
central position. Do not, because of the imperfection of the evolving lives,
let us shrink from any conclusion to which this truth may lead us.
In another shloka
He said: "I am the gambling of the cheat, and the
splendour of splendid things I" (x. 36.). What
is the meaning of these words that sound so strange? What is the explanation of
this phrase which appears almost as profanity? Not only in this discourse do we
find this position enunciated, but we find that Manu teaches exactly the same
truth: "From Himself He produces the universe". The life coming forth
from the Supreme puts on veil after veil of Mâyâ, in
which that life is to evolve all the perfections that lie latent within it.
Now the first question is: Does not this
life, which comes from Ishvara, already contain
within itself everything already developed, every manifested power, every
possibility realized as actuality? The answer to that question, spoken over and
over again, in symbols, allegories, and distinct words, is "No". It
contains everything in potency, but nothing at first in manifestation. It
contains everything in germ, but nothing at first as developed organism. The
seed is that which is placed in the mighty waters of matter, the germ alone is
given forth by the Life of the World. Those germs, which come from the life of Ishvara, evolve - step by step, stage after stage, on one
rung of a ladder after another - all the powers that reside in the generating
Father, the name that Ishvara gives to Himself in the
Gitâ. He declares once more: "My womb is the Mahat-Brahma; in that I place the germ; thence cometh the
production of all beings, O Bhârata. In whatsoever wombs mortals are produced, O Kaunteya,
the Mahat-Brâhma is their womb, I their generating
Father" (xiv. 3-4.). From that seed - from that germ containing
everything in possibility but nothing as yet in manifestation - from that seed
is to evolve a life, stage by stage, rising higher and higher, until at last a
centre of consciousness is formed capable of expanding to the consciousness of Ishvara, while remaining as a centre still, with the power
to come forth as a new Logos, or Ishvara, for the
production of a new universe.
Let us take this vast sweep of thought in
detail. Life involved in matter - that is our beginning. These germs of life,
these myriad seeds, or to use the Upanishadic phrase,
these numberless sparks, all come forth from the one Flame which is the supreme
Brahman. Qualities are now to be brought out of these seeds. Those qualities
are powers, but powers manifested through matter. One by one those powers will
be brought out - powers which are the life of Ishvara as veiled in Mâyâ. Slow
is the growth in the early stages, hidden as the seed underground is hidden,
when first it strikes its root downward, and sends its tender offshoot upward
in order that later on the growing tree may appear. In silence germinates this
divine seed, and the early beginnings are hidden in darkness, like the roots
under the ground.
This power in the life, or rather these
innumerable powers which Ishvara manifests in order
that the universe may be, these myriad powers are at first unapparent in the
germ - no sign of the mighty possibilities, no trace of what it is hereafter to
become. A word is spoken as to this manifestation in matter, which throws much
light on the subject, if we can grasp its inner and subtler meaning. Shri Krishna, speaking of His lower Prakriti,
or inferior manifestation, says: "Earth, water, fire, air, ether, Manas
and Buddhi also and Ahankara - these are the eightfold
divisions of My Prakriti. This the
inferior". Then He says what is His higher Prakriti: "Know My other Prakriti,
the higher, the life-element, O mightyarmed, by
which the universe is upheld" (vii. 4, 5.). Then a little later, separated
by many shlokas, so that sometimes the connecting
link is missed, other words are spoken: "This divine Mâyâ
of Mine, guna-made, is hard to pierce; they who come
to Me they cross over this Mâyâ" (vii. 14.).
This Yoga-Mâyâ is, truly, hard to pierce; many do not
discover Him involved in Mâyâ, so hard to pierce it
is, so difficult to discover. "Those without Buddhi think of Me, the unmanifest, as having
manifestation; knowing not My supreme nature, imperishable, most excellent. Nor
am I of all discovered, enveloped in My Yoga-Mâyâ"
(vii. 24, 25.). Then He further declares that by His unmanifested
life it is that the universe is pervaded. The life-element, or higher Prakriti, is unmanifested, the
lower Prakriti is manifested. Then He says:
"From the unmanifested all the
manifested stream forth at the coming of day; at the coming of night they
dissolve, even in That called the unmanifested"
(viii: 18.). This occurs over and over again. Then further on He declares: "Therefore verily there existeth, higher than that unmanifested,
another unmanifested, eternal, which, in the
destroying of all beings, is not destroyed" (viii. 20.). There is a subtle
distinction between Ishvara and the image of Himself
which He sends forth. The image is the reflected unmanifest,
but Himself is the higher unmanifest, the eternal
that never is destroyed.
Realizing that, we come to the drawing out of
powers. Here we begin really our evolution. The outpouring life was involved in
matter, in order to bring the seed into the matter-surrounded conditions which
should make evolution possible. When we come to the first germinating of the
seed, our difficulty comes in. For we must throw ourselves, in thought, to the
time when there was no reason in this embryonic self, no imaginative faculty,
no memory, no judgment, none of the conditioned faculties of the mind that we
know of; when all the life that was manifested was that which we find in the
mineral kingdom, with the lowest conditions of consciousness. The minerals
manifest consciousness by their attractions and repulsions, by their holding
together of particles, by their affinities for each other, by their repellings of each other, but they show none of that
consciousness that can be called the recognition of the "I" and the
"not-I".
In every one of these lowest forms in the
mineral kingdom, Ishvara's life is beginning to
unfold. Not only is the germ of life there evolving, but He, in all His might
and power, is there in every atom of His universe. His the
moving life which makes evolution inevitable. His the
force expanding gently the walls of matter, with immense patience and watching
love, in order that they may not break under the strain. God, Himself the
Father of the life, holds that life within Himself as Mother, unfolding the
seed unto the likeness of Himself, never impatient, never hurrying, willing to
give as much time from the countless ages as the little germ may require. Time
is nothing to Ishvara, for He is eternal and to Him
all is. It is the perfection of manifestation that He seeks, and there is no
hurrying in His work. And we shall see, later on, how this infinite patience
works out. The man, who is to be the image of his Father, shows within him the
reflection of the Self with which he is one, and whence he came.
The life is to be awakened, but how? By
blows, by vibrations, the inner essence is called into activity. Life is
stirred to activity by vibrations that touch it from outside. These myriad
seeds of life, not yet conscious of themselves, matter-enveloped, are thrown
against each other in the myriad processes of nature; but "nature" is
only the garment of God, is only the lowest manifestation in which He shows
Himself on the material plane. These forms strike against each other, shaking
thus the outer shells of matter in which the life is involved, and the life
within gives a quiver as the blow is delivered.
Now the nature of the blow is of no
importance. All that is important is that the blow shall be strong. Any
experience is useful. Anything which strikes that shell so forcibly that the
life within quivers in response is all that is wanted at first. The life within
must be made to quiver. That will awaken some dawning power in the life. At
first it is only a quiver within itself, and nothing more than a quiver, with
no result on its outer shell. But as blow after blow is repeated, and vibration
after vibration sends in its earthquake shocks, the life within sends out,
through its own enveloping shell, a thrill of answer. The blow has provoked an
answer. Another stage is thus touched - the answer comes forth from the hidden
life and goes out beyond the shell. This goes on through the mineral kingdom
and the vegetable kingdom. In the vegetable kingdom the answers to the
vibrations caused by contact begin to show a new power of the life - sensation.
The life begins to show out in itself what we call "feeling"; that
is, different answers are given to pleasure and to pain. Pleasure is
fundamentally harmonious. All that gives pleasure is harmonious. All that gives
pain is discordant. Think of music. Rhythmical notes, struck together as a
chord, give to the ear a sensation of pleasure. But if you strike your finger
on the strings without paying attention to the notes, you make a discord, which
gives pain to the ear. That which is true of music is true
everywhere. Health is harmony, disease is discord. Strength is harmony,
weakness is discord. Beauty is harmony, ugliness is discord. All through nature
pleasure means the answer of a sentient being to vibrations that are harmonious
and rhythmical, and pain means its answer to those that are discordant and unrhythmical. The rhythmical vibrations make an outward channel through which the life can expand, and this pouring
forth is "pleasure"; the unrhythmical close
up the channels and frustrate the forth-pouring, and this frustration is
"pain". [ The student should work out in
detail this fundamental principle; he will thereby much clarify his
thoughts] The forth-pouring of life
towards objects is what we name "desire"; hence pleasure becomes the
gratification of desire. This difference begins to make itself felt in the
vegetable kingdom. A blow comes that is harmonious. The life answers to that in
harmonious vibrations and expands, feeling in that expansion
"pleasure". A blow comes that is a jangle. Life answers to that
discordantly, is checked, and feels in that check "pain". The blows
are given over and over again, and not until the repetition has occurred a myriad times does a recognition of the distinction between
the two begin to arise in that imprisoned life. Only by making distinctions is
our consciousness, as at present constituted, able to distinguish objects from
each other. Take a very common illustration. Let a piece of money lie in the
palm of the hand and close your fingers round it; you feel it; but as the
pressure is continued, without any variation, the sensation of feeling in the
hand disappears and you do not know that your hand is not empty. Move a finger
and you feel the money; keep the hand still, and the sensation vanishes. Thus
consciousness can only know things by differences. And when difference is
eliminated, consciousness ceases to respond.
We come to the next thing which is manifested
as the life evolves through the animal kingdom. Pleasure and pain are now
acutely felt, and a germ of recognition, connecting objects and sensations,
begins; we call it "perception". What does this mean? It means that
the life develops the power of forming a link between the object that impresses
it and the sensation by which it responds to the object. When that dawning
life, contacting an external object, knows it as an object that gives pleasure
or pain, then we say that the object is perceived, and the faculty of perception,
or the making of links between the outer and the inner worlds, is evolved when
that is established; mental power begins to germinate and to grow within that
organism; we find it in the higher animals.
Let us take it in the savage man, where we shall
be able to pass more rapidly over these early stages. We find the consciousness
of "I" and "not-I" slowly establishing itself in him - the
two going together. "Not-I" touches him, and "I" feels it;
"not-I" gives him pleasure, and "I" knows it; "not-I"
gives him pain, and "I" suffers it. A distinction is now being made
between the feeling, thought of as "I", and all that causes it,
thought of as "not-I". Here commences intelligence, and the root of
self-consciousness is beginning to develop. That is, a centre is being formed,
to which everything goes in and from which everything comes out.
I spoke of repetition of vibrations, and now
repetition produces results more rapidly. As repetition causes the perception
of pleasure-giving objects, the next stage is developed, the expectation of
pleasure before the contact takes place. The object is recognised
as one that has given pleasure on previous occasions; a repetition of the
pleasure is expected,
and that expectation is the dawn of memory and the beginning of
imagination, the interweaving of intellect with desire. Because the object has
given pleasure before, it is expected to give pleasure again. Thus expectation
brings into manifestation another germinating quality of the mind. When we have
the recognition of the object and the expectation of pleasure from its return,
the next stage is the making and vivifying of a mental image of that object -
the memory of it - thus causing an outflow of desire, desire to have that
object, a longing for that object, and finally a going forth in search of that
object that gives pleasurable sensation. Thus the man becomes full of active
desires. He desires pleasure, and is moved to seek it by the mind. For a long
time he had remained in the animal stage, when he would never seek for a thing
unless the actual sensation in his inner body made him want something that the
outer world alone could satisfy. Just for one moment return to the animal;
think what stirs the animal to action. A craving to get rid
of an unpleasant sensation. He feels hunger, he desires food, and he
goes in search of it; he feels thirst, he desires to quench it, and he goes in
search of water. Thus he always goes in search of the object that will gratify
the desire. Give him the gratification of desire and he is quiet. There is no
self-initiated motion in the animal. The push must come from outside. True, the
hunger is in the inner body, but that is outside the centre of consciousness.
The evolution of consciousness may be traced by the proportion which the
outside stimulus to action bears to the self-initiated stimulus. The lower
consciousness is stimulated to activity by impulses coming from outside itself. The higher consciousness is stimulated to activity
by motion initiated within.
Now as we deal with our savage man, we find
that the gratification of desire is the law of his progress. How strange that
sounds to many of you. Says Manu: Seeking to get rid
of desires by gratifying them is like trying to quench the fire by pouring
butter over it. Desire must be curbed and restrained. Desire is to be
extinguished utterly. This is most certainly true, but only when a man has
reached a certain stage of evolution. In the early stages, the gratification of
desires is the law of evolution. If he does not gratify his desires, no growth
for him is possible. You must realise that at that
stage there is nothing which can be called morality. There is no distinction
between right and wrong. Every desire should be gratified; when this commencing
centre of self-consciousness is seeking to gratify desires, then alone it
grows. In this lowest stage the Dharma of the savage man, or of the higher
animal, is imposed on him. He does not choose; his inner nature, marked by the
development of desire, demands gratification. The law of his growth is the
satisfaction of these desires. So that the Dharma of the
savage is the gratification of every desire. And you find in him no
consciousness of right or wrong, not the faintest dawning notion that the
gratification of desires is forbidden by some higher law.
Without that gratification of desires there
is no further growth. All that growth must precede the dawning of reason and
judgment and the development of the higher powers of memory and imagination.
All these things must be evolved by the gratification of desire. Experience is
the law of life, it is the law of growth. Unless he
gathers experiences of every kind, he cannot know that he lives in a world of
Law. Two ways does the law find for impressing itself on man: pleasure when the
Law is followed, pain when the Law is opposed. If men
did not at that early stage have every sort of experience, how could they learn
of the existence of the Law? How can discrimination grow between right and
wrong, unless there is the experience of both good and evil? A universe can
never come into existence except by the pairs of opposites, and these at one
stage appear in the consciousness as good and evil. You cannot know light
without darkness, motion without rest, pleasure without pain; so you cannot
know the good that is harmony with the Law with out knowing the evil that is
discord with the Law. Good and evil are a pair of
opposites in the later evolution of man, and man cannot become conscious of the
difference between them unless he has experience of both.
Now we come to a change. Man has developed a
certain power of discrimination. Left to himself utterly, he would come to know
in time that some things help him on, that some things strengthen him, that
some things increase his life; also that other things weaken him and diminish
his life. Experience would teach him all that. Left only to the teaching of
experience he would come to know right from wrong, would identify the
pleasure-giving that increased life with the right, and the pain-giving that
diminished life with the wrong, and would thus reach the conclusion that all
happiness and growth lay in obeying the Law. But it would take a very long time
for this dawning intelligence to compare together experiences of pleasure and
pain, and the confusing experiences in which that which at first gave pleasure
became painful by excess, and then to deduce from them the principle of law. It
would be a very long time before he could put innumerable experiences together,
and deduce from them the idea that this thing is right, and that thing is
wrong. But he is not left unaided to make that deduction. There come to him,
from past worlds, Intelligences more highly evolved than his own, Teachers who
come to help on his evolution, to train his growth, to tell him of the
existence of a law determining that which will bring about his more rapid
evolution, increasing his happiness, intelligence and strength. In fact,
revelation from the mouth of a Teacher quickens evolution, and instead of man
being left to the slow teaching of experience, the expression of the law from
the mouth of a superior is made to assist his growth.
The Teacher comes and says to this dawning
intelligence: "If you kill that man, you are doing an action that I forbid
on divine authority. That action is wrong. It will bring misery". The
Teacher says: "It is right to help the starving; that starving man is your
brother; feed him; do not let him starve; share with him what you have. That
action is right, and if you obey that law it will be well with you".
Rewards of actions are held out to attract the dawning intelligence towards
good, and punishments and threats to warn him from wrong. Earthly prosperity is
joined with obedience of law, earthly misery with disobedience to law. This announcement
of the law that misery follows on that which the law forbids, and happiness on
that which the law commands, stimulates the dawning intelligence. He disregards
the law, the penalty follows, and he suffers; and he says: "The Teacher
told me so". Memory of a command proved by experience makes an impression
on the consciousness far more quickly and more strongly than does experience
alone without the revealed law. By this declaration of what the learned call
the fundamental principles of morality, namely, that certain classes of actions
retard evolution and other classes of action quicken evolution - by this
declaration intelligence is immensely stimulated.
If a man will not obey the law declared, then
he is left to the hard teaching of experience. If he says: "I will have
that thing, though the law forbid it," then he is
left to the stern teaching of pain, and the whip of suffering teaches the
lesson that he would not learn from the lips of love.
How often that happens now. How often a young
man, argumentative and self-conceited, will not listen to law, will not listen
to the experienced, pays no regard to the training of
the past. Desire conquers intelligence. His father is heart-broken. "My
son is plunged into vice," says he; "my son is going into evil. I
instructed him in right conduct, and see, he has become a liar; my heart is
broken for my son." But Ishvara, the Father more
loving than any earthly father, has patience. For he is in
the son as much as in the father. He is in him teaching him a lesson, in
the only way by which that soul is willing to learn. He would not learn by
authority or by example. At all hazards that desire for the evil thing which is
stopping his evolution must be rooted out of his nature. If he will not learn
by gentleness, let him then learn by pain. Let him learn by experience; let him
plunge into vice, and reap the bitter pang that comes from trampling on the
law. There is time; he will learn the lesson surely though painfully. God is in
him, and still He lets him go that way; nay, He even opens the way that he may
go along it; when he demands it, the answer of God is: "My child, if you
will not listen, take your own way and learn your lesson in the fire of your
agony and in the bitterness of your degradation. I am with you still, watching
over you and your actions, the Fulfiller of the law and the Father of your
life. You shall learn in the mire of degradation that cessation of desire which
you would not learn from wisdom and from love". That is why He says in the
Gitâ: "I am the gambling of the cheat". For He is always patiently working for the glorious end, by rough
ways if we will not walk in smooth. We, unable to understand that
infinite compassion, misread Him, but He works on with the patience of
eternity, in order that desire may be utterly uprooted, and His son may be
perfect as his Father in heaven is perfect.
Let us go on the next stage. There are
certain great laws of growth that are general. We have learned to look upon
certain things as right and upon others as wrong. Every nation has its own
standard of morality. Only a few know how that standard was formed, and where
that standard fails. For ordinary affairs the standard is good enough. The
experience of the race has found out, under the guidance of law, that some
actions hold back evolution while others press it forward. The great law of the
orderly evolution that follows the earlier stages is the law of the four
successive steps in later human growth. This comes after a man has reached a
certain point, after the preliminary training is over. It is found in every
nation at a certain stage of evolution, but was proclaimed in ancient
What is the law of growth in that stage? Obedience, devotion, fidelity. That is the law of growth for
that stage. Obedience, because the judgment is not developed.
He whose Dharma is service has to blindly obey the one to whom he renders
service. His is not to challenge the order of his superior, nor his to see that
the commanded action is a wise one. He has received an order to do a thing, and
his Dharma is obedience, by which alone he will be able to learn. People
hesitate at that teaching, but it is true. I will take an example,
that will strike you most forcibly - that of an army, of a private
soldier under the command of his Captain. If every private soldier were to use
his own judgment as to the orders that came from the General, and if he were to
say: "This is not well, for in my judgment that is the place where I shall
be more serviceable", what would become of the army? The private soldier
is shot if he disobeys, for his duty is obedience. When your judgment is
feeble, when you are chiefly moved by impulses from without, when you cannot be
happy without noise and clatter and jangle around you, then your Dharma is
service, wherever you may be [39] born, and you are happy if your karma leads
you to a position where discipline will train you.
So the man learns to prepare for the next
stage. And the duty of all those who are in positions of authority is to
remember that the Dharma of a Shudra is fulfilled
when he is obedient and faithful to his master, and they should not expect one
in that grade of evolution to show forth the higher virtues. To demand from him
cheerfulness in suffering, purity of thought, and the power to suffer hardships
ungrudgingly, is to demand too much; for when we ourselves often do not show
these qualities, how can we expect them from those whom we call the lower
classes? The duty of the higher is to show forth the higher virtues, but he has
no right to demand them from his inferiors. If the servant shows fidelity and
obedience, the Dharma is perfectly performed, and other faults should not be
punished, but should be gently pointed out by the master, for by so doing he is
training that younger soul; for a child soul should be gently led along the
path, and its growth should not be stunted by harsh treatment, as we generally
stunt it.
Then the soul, having learned this lesson in
many births, by learning the lesson has obeyed the law of growth, and by
following his Dharma has approached the next stage, in which he is to learn the
first use of power by acquiring wealth. Then the Dharma of that soul is to
evolve all the qualities which are now ready for evolution, and are brought out
by leading the life which the inner nature demands, i.e. by taking up some
occupation which the next stage requires, the stage where it is a merit to
acquire wealth. For the Dharma of a Vaishya all over
the world is to evolve certain definite faculties. The faculty of justice, just
dealing between man and man, the not swerving aside at the mere prompting of
sentiment, the working out of the qualities of shrewdness, keenness, and
holding a just balance between contending duties, fair payment in fair
exchange, acuteness of insight, frugality, absence of waste and extravagance,
the exaction from every servant of the service that should be given, the
payment of just wages, but only of just wages - these are the characteristics
which fit him for higher growth. It is a merit in the Vaishya
to be frugal, to refuse to pay more than he should, to insist on a just and
fair exchange. All these things bring out qualities that are wanted and will
conduce to future perfection. In their early stages they are sometimes
unlovely, but from the higher standpoint they are the Dharma of that man, and
if it be not fulfilled, there will be weakness in the character, which will
come out later and injure his evolution. Liberality is indeed the law of his
further growth, but not the liberality of carelessness or of over-payment. He
is to gather wealth by the exercise of frugality and strictness, and then to
spend that wealth on noble objects and on learned men, to bestow it upon worthy
and well considered schemes for the public good. To gather with energy and
shrewdness, and to spend with careful discrimination and liberality, that is
the Dharma of a Vaishya, the outcome of his nature,
and the law of his further growth.
This leads us to the next stage,
that of the rulers and warriors, of battles and struggles, where the
inner nature is combative, aggressive, quarrelsome, standing on its own ground
and ready to protect every one in the enjoyment of what is right. Courage,
fearlessness, splendid generosity, throwing away of life in the defense of the
weak and in the discharging of one's duties - that is the Dharma of the Kshattriya. His duty is to protect what is given him in
charge against all aggression from without. It may cost him life, but never
mind that. He must do his duty. To protect, to guard, that is his work. His
strength is to be a barrier between the weak and the oppressive, between the
helpless and those who would trample them under foot. Right for him the
following of war and the struggle in the jungle with the wild beast. Because
you do not understand what evolution is, and what the law of growth, you stand
aghast at the horrors of war. But the great Rishis,
who made this order, knew that a weak soul can never attain perfection. You
cannot get strength without courage, and firmness and courage cannot be got
without the facing of danger, and the readiness to throw away life when duty
demands the sacrifice.
Our sentimental, weak-kneed, pseudo-moralist
shrinks from that teaching. But he forgets that in every nation there are souls
that need that training, and whose further evolution depends upon their success
in attaining it. I appeal again to Bhishma, the
incarnation of Dharma, and I remember what he said, that it is the duty of the Kshattriya to slay thousands of his enemies, if his duty in
protection lies in that direction. War is terrible, fighting is shocking, our
hearts revolt from it, and we shrink before the anguish of mutilated and
mangled bodies. To a great extent this is because we are utterly deluded by
form. The one use of the body is to enable the life within it to evolve. But
the moment it has learned all that that body can give it, let the body break
away, and let the soul go free to take a new body that will enable it to
manifest higher powers. We cannot pierce the Mâyâ of
the Lord. These bodies of ours may perish, time after time, but every death is
a resurrection to higher life. This body itself is nothing more than a garment
which the soul puts on, and no wise men would like the body to be eternal. We
clothe our child in a small coat and change it when the child grows. But will
you make the coat of iron, and cramp the growth of the child? So this body is
our coat. Shall it be then of iron that it should never perish? Does not the
soul require a new body for its higher growth? Let then the body go. This is
the hard lesson the Kshattriya learns, and so he
throws away his bodily life, and, in this throwing away, his soul gains the
power of self-sacrifice, he learns endurance, fortitude, courage, resource,
devotion to an ideal, loyalty to a cause, and he pays his body gladly as the
price for these, the immortal soul rising triumphant and preparing for a nobler
life.
Then there comes the last stage, the stage of
teaching. The Dharma of that stage is to teach. The soul must have assimilated
all lower experiences before he can teach. If he had not been through all those
previous stages, and obtained wisdom through obedience and exertion and combat,
how could he be a teacher? He has reached the stage of evolution where the
natural expansion of his inner nature is to teach his more ignorant brethren.
These qualities are not artificial. They are inborn qualities of nature and
they show themselves wherever they exist. A Brâhmana
is not a Brâhmana if he is not a teacher by his
Dharma. He has gained knowledge and a favourable
birth in order to make him a teacher.
The law of his growth is knowledge, piety,
forgiveness, being the friend of every creature. How the Dharma is changed! But
he could not be the friend of every creature if he had not learned to throw his
life away when duty called, and the very battle trained the Kshattriya
to become at a later stage the friend of every creature. What is the law of a Brâhmanas growth? He must never take offence. He must never
lose self-control. He must never be hasty. He must always be gentle: otherwise
he falls from his Dharma. He must be all purity. He must never lead an evil
life. He must detach himself from worldly things, if they have a hold upon him.
Do I hold up an impossible standard? I but speak the law as the Great Ones have
spoken it, and I but feebly re-echo their words. The law has laid down the
standard, and who shall dare to lower it? When Shri
Krishna Himself proclaimed that as the Dharma of the Brâhmana,
that must be the law of his growth, and the end of his growth is liberation.
For him is liberation, but only if he shows out the qualities that he ought to
have reached, and follows the lofty ideal that is his Dharma. These are the
only justification for the name of Brâhmana.
This ideal is so beautiful that all earnest
and thoughtful men desire to reach it. But wisdom steps in and says: "Yes,
it shall be yours, but you must earn it. You must grow, you must labour; truly
it is yours, but it is not yours until you have paid the price". Important
is it for our own growth, and the growth of the nations, that this distinction
in Dharmas should be understood as depending upon the
stage of evolution, and that we should be able to discriminate our own Dharma
by the characteristics which we find in our nature. If we set before an unprepared
soul an ideal so lofty that it does not move him, we check his evolution. If
you give to a peasant the ideal of a Brâhmana you are
placing before him an impossible ideal, and the result
is that he does nothing. When you tell a man a thing too high for him, that man
knows that you have been talking nonsense, for you have commanded him to
perform that which he has no power to perform; your folly has placed before him
motives which do not move him. But wise were the teachers of old. They gave the
children sugar-plums, and later the higher lessons. But we are so clever that
we appeal to the lowest sinner by motives which can stir only the highest
saint, and thus instead of furthering, we check his evolution. Place your own
ideal as high as you can set it. But do not impose your ideal upon your
brother, the law of whose growth may be entirely different from yours. Learn
the tolerance which helps each man to do in his place what it is good for him
to do, and what his nature impels him to do. Leaving him in his place, help
him. Learn that tolerance which is repelled by none, however sinful, which sees
in every man a divinity working, and stands beside him to help him. Instead of
standing off on some high peak of spirituality, and preaching a doctrine of
self-sacrifice which is utterly beyond his comprehension, in teaching his young
soul, use his higher selfishness to destroy the lower. Do not tell the peasant
that when he is not industrious he is falling from the ideal; but tell that
man: "There is your wife; you love that woman; she is starving. Set to
work and feed her". By that motive, which is certainly selfish, you do
more to raise that man than if you preach to him about Brahman, the
unconditioned and unmanifest. Learn what Dharma
means, and you will be of service to the world.
I do not wish to lower by one tiniest
fraction your own ideal; you cannot aim too high. The fact that you can
conceive it makes it yours, but does not make it that of your less developed
younger brother. Aim at the loftiest you are able to think and to love. But in
aiming, consider the means as well as the end, your powers as well as your
aspirations. Make your aspirations high. They are the germs of powers in your
next life. Through ever keeping the ideal high you will grow towards it, and
what you long for today you shall be in the days to come. But have the
tolerance of knowledge, and the patience which is divine. Each thing in its own
place is in its right place. As the higher nature develops you can appeal to
the qualities of self-sacrifice, purity and utter self-devotion, to the will
firmly fixed on God. That is the ideal for the highest to accomplish. Let us
climb towards it gradually, lest we fail to reach it at all.
RIGHT AND WRONG
DURING
the last two days of our study, we have been giving our attention and fixing
our thought on what I may call the theoretical side, to a very great extent, of
this complicated and difficult problem. We have tried to understand how the
differences of nature arise. We have tried to grasp the sublime idea, that this world is intended to grow from the mere germ
of life given out by God into the image of Him who gave it forth. The
perfection of that image, we have seen, can only be gained by the multiplicity
of finite objects, and perfection lies in that multiplicity; but in that same
multiplicity we see is implied necessarily the limitation of each object. We
then found that by the law of growth, we must have existing in the universe, at
one and the same time, every variety of inner evolving nature. As these natures
are all at different stages of evolution, we cannot make on all of them the
same demands, nor expect from all of them the discharge of the same functions.
Morality must be studied in relation to the people who are to practice it. In judging
the standard of right and wrong for a particular individual, we must consider
at what stage of growth that individual has arrived. Absolute right existeth in Ishvara alone; [Page
48] our right and wrong are relative and depend for each of us very much on the
stage of evolution that we have reached.
I am going to try this evening to apply this
theory to the conduct of life. We must see whether we have gained, by the line
of study that we have pursued, a rational and scientific idea of morality, so that
we may no longer have the same confusion that is seen today. For we see that
ideals are held up on one side as those which ought to be reproduced in life,
and on the other hand we find that there is an absolute failure even to aim at
these ideals; we behold a most unfortunate divergence between faith and
practice. Morality is not without its laws; like everything else in a universe
that is the expression of divine thought, morality has also its conditions and
limitations. In this way it may be possible to bring a cosmos out of the
present moral chaos, and to learn practical lessons in morality, which will
enable
There are three recognised
schools of morality existing among western people. We must remember that
western thought is very largely influencing
There is one school which says that
revelation from God is the basis of morality. The objection raised by opponents
to that statement is that in this world there are many religions, and every
religion has its own revelation. Looking at this variety of religious
scriptures, it is argued, it is difficult to say that one revelation is to be
regarded as based on supreme authority. That each religion will regard its own
revelation as supreme is natural, but in this conflict of tongues how shall a
decision be made by the student?
Then it is said again, that there is an
inherent defect in this theory, affecting all moral standards founded on a
revelation given once for all. In order that a scheme may be useful for the
time for which it is given, it must be of a nature suitable for the time. As a
nation evolves, and thousands upon thousands of years pass over the people, we
find that that which was suitable for the nation in its infancy, becomes
unsuitable for the nation in its manhood; many precepts once useful are no
longer useful today under the changed circumstances of the time. That
difficulty is recognised and met when we come to deal
with the Hindu scriptures; for we find there a vast variety of moral teachings,
suitable for all grades of evolving souls. There are [Page 50] precepts so
simple, so clear, so definite, and so imperative, that the youngest of souls
may utilize them. But we find also that the Rishis recognised that these precepts were not meant for the
training of a highly developed soul. We find in the Ancient Wisdom that
teachings were also given to a few advanced souls, teachings that at the time
were utterly unintelligible to the masses. Those teachings were restricted to
an inner circle of those who had reached the maturity of the human race.
Different schools of morality have always been recognised
in Hinduism as necessary for human growth. But whenever, in some great
religion, that recognition is not found, you get a certain theoretical
morality, not suited to the growing needs of the people, and, therefore, there
is a sense of unreality, a feeling that it is not reasonable to permit now what
was permitted in the infancy of humanity. On the other hand, you find here and
there, in all scriptures, precepts of the loftiest character which few can even
strive to obey. When a command, suitable to the almost savage, is made of
universal obligation and is given on the same authority and to the same people
as the command given to the saint, there creeps in the feeling of unreality,
and confusion of thought is the result.
Another school has arisen, which bases
morality on intuition - which says that God speaks to every man through the
voice of conscience. It alleges that revelation is made to nation after nation,
but that we are not bound by any single book; conscience is the [Page 51] final
arbiter. The objection made to this theory is that one man's conscience has the
same authority as another man's. If your conscience differs from that of
another, then who may decide between conscience and conscience, between the
conscience of the ignorant rustic and the conscience of the illuminated mystic?
If you say that you admit the principle of evolution, and that you should take
as your judge the highest conscience in the race, then intuition fails as a
solid basis of morality, and the very element of variety destroys the rock on
which you intended to build. The conscience is the voice of the inner man, who
remembers the experiences of his past, and out of that immemorial experience
judges a given line of conduct today. This so-called intuition is the result of
countless incarnations, and according to the number of incarnations, the mind
is evolved on which the quality of the conscience of the present individual
depends; such intuition, pure and simple, cannot be taken as sufficient guide
in morality. We want a commanding voice, not a jangle of tongues. We need the
authority of the teacher, and not the confused gabbling of the crowd.
The third school of morality is the school of
utilitarianism. That school's view is, as generally presented, neither
reasonable nor satisfactory. What is the maxim of this school? "That is
right which conduces to the greatest happiness of the greatest number." It
is a maxim which will not bear analysis. Notice the words "greatest number".It is a maxim which will not bear analysis.
Notice the words "greatest happiness of the greatest number. Such a [Page
52] limitation makes the maxim one which the illuminated intelligence must
reject. There is no question of majority, when we are dealing with mankind. One
life is its root, one God its goal; you cannot separate the happiness of one
from that of another. You cannot break up the solid unity, and, picking up the
majority, give happiness to them, and leave the minority disregarded. This
theory does not recognise the irrefragable unity of
the human race, and consequently its maxim fails as a basis of morality. It
fails because, in consequence of this unity, one man cannot be perfectly happy
unless all men are perfectly happy. His happiness fails in perfection so long
as one unit is left out and is unhappy. God does not make distinctions as to
units and majorities, but gives one life to humanity and to all creatures. The
life of God is the only life in the universe; and the perfect happiness of that
life is the goal of the universe.
Then again, there is a failure in this maxim
as an impelling motive because it appeals only to the developed intelligence,
that is, to the highly evolved soul. If you go to the ordinary man of the
world, to a selfish person, and if you say to that man: "You must lead a
life of self-sacrifice and virtue and perfect morality, even though the leading
it may cost you your life," what do you think would be his answer? Such a
man would say: "Why should I do this for the human race, for people in the
future whom I shall never see?" If you take this as [Page 53] the standard
of right and wrong, then the martyr becomes the greatest fool that humanity has
ever produced, for he throws away the possibility of happiness and gets nothing
in return. You cannot take this standard, save by limiting your view to the
cases in which you get a noble soul, highly developed, and, though not entirely
spiritual, with possibility of dawning spirituality. There are such as William
Kingdom Clifford, in whose hands the utilitarian doctrine has become inspired
with a sublime loftiness of tone. Clifford, in his essay on Ethics, appeals to the
highest ideals and gives the noblest teachings of self-sacrifice. He had no
belief in the immortality of the soul; approaching death, he could stand beside
his grave, believing that that ended all, and preach that the highest virtue is
the only thing that a true man can practice, since he owes it to a world which
has given him all. But very few will draw inspiration so noble from a prospect
so gloomy, and we need a view of right and wrong that shall inspire all, appeal
to all, and not merely to those who need its impulse least.
What has come out of all this quarrelling? Confusion, and something worse. A
lip-acceptance of revelation, with a practical disregard of it. We have,
in fact, a revelation modified by custom. That is the standard which emerges from
this confusion. Revelation is taken theoretically as authority, but is
disregarded in practice, because often found imperfect. So that you have this
[Page 54] unreasonable position, that that which is declared as authority is
rejected in the life, and a life of an illogical kind, a happy-go-lucky life is
led, without any logic or reason, without the basis of any definite and
rational system.
Can we find in this idea of Dharma a basis
more satisfactory, a basis on which the conduct of life may be intelligently
built? However low, or however high the stage of evolution occupied by the
individual, the idea of Dharma gives us the thought of an inner nature
unfolding itself in further growth, and we have found that the world is, as a
whole, evolving - evolving from the imperfect to the perfect, from the germ to
the divine man, stage by stage, in every grade of manifested life. That
evolution is by the divine will. God is the moving power, the guiding Spirit of
the whole. It is His way of building the world. It is the method that He has
adopted in order that the Spirits that are His children may reproduce the
likeness of their Parent. Does not that very statement hint at a law? That is
right, which works with the divine purpose in the evolution of the universe,
and forwards that evolution from the imperfect to the perfect. That is wrong,
which delays or frustrates that divine purpose, and tends to push the universe
back to the stage from which it is evolving. It is growing from the mineral to
the vegetable, from the vegetable to the animal, from the animal to the
animal-man, and from the animal-man to the divine man. That is right, [Page 55]
which helps the evolution towards divinity; that is wrong, which drags it
backwards, or impedes its progress.
Now if we look for a moment at that idea,
perhaps we shall acquire a clear view of this law, and no longer feel uneasy
over this relative aspect of right and wrong. Place a ladder with its foot on
the platform and let it rise to some place beyond the roof. Suppose that one of
you had climbed five steps up, another two steps, while a third was standing on
the platform. For the man who had climbed up five steps to stand beside the man
who was on the second step would be to descend; but for the man on the platform
to stand beside the man on the second step would to be ascend. Suppose that
every rung of the ladder represents an action: each would be moral and immoral
at the same time, according to the point of view from which we look at it. That
action which is moral for a brute-man, would be
immoral for a highly cultivated man. For a man on the higher rung of the ladder
to come down to the lower is to go against evolution, and, therefore, for him
such action is immoral; but for a man to rise from the lower stage to stand on
that same rung is moral, because it is in the line of his evolution. So that
two persons may well stand on the same rung of the ladder, but the one, having
gone upwards and the other having come downwards to reach it, the action for
the one is moral and for the other is immoral. Realise
that and we shall begin to find our law. [Page 56]
You have two boys: one of them is a clever
and intellectual boy, but is very fond of the gratifications of the body, very
fond of food and of anything that gives him sensuous pleasure. The other boy
shows some dawning spirituality, is bright, quick and intellectual. We will
take a third boy who shows the spiritual nature unfolded to a considerable
extent. Here are three boys. What motive shall we use to help on the evolution
of each? We go to the young man who is very fond of sensual pleasure. If I say
to him: "My son, your life should be a life of perfect unselfishness, you
should lead an ascetic life," he will shrug his shoulders and go away; and
I shall not have helped him up a single rung of the ladder. If I say to him:
"My lad, these pleasures of yours are pleasures which give you momentary
delight but they will ruin your body and shatter your health; look on that
prematurely old man, who has led a life of sensual indulgence; that will be
your fate if you go on thus; will it not be better to give a part of your time
to the cultivation of your mind, to learning something, so that you may be able
to write a book or compose a poem, or help on some of the world's work? You may
earn money and get health and fame, and by this attempt you will gratify your
ambition; give a rupee now and then to buy a book, instead of buying a
dinner". By so addressing him, I stir that youth with an idea of ambition;
selfish ambition I admit, but there is not there as yet the power to respond to
the appeal for self-sacrifice. [Page 57] The motive of ambition is selfish, but
it is selfishness of a higher kind than that sensual gratification, and as it
gives him something of the intellect, raises him out, of the brute, puts him on
the level of the man who is developing the intellect, and thus helps him to
rise higher in the scale of evolution, that is a wiser teaching for him than
the impracticable selflessness. It gives him not a perfect ideal, but an ideal
suited to his capacity.
But when I come to my intellectual youth with
dawning spirituality, I shall put before him the ideal of serving his country,
of serving India; I shall make this his object and aim, partly selfish and
partly unselfish, thus widening his ambition and helping on his evolution. And
when I come to the youth of spiritual nature, I will drop all lower motives,
and appeal, on the contrary, to the eternal law of self-sacrifice, to devotion
to the one Life, the worship of the great Ones and of God. I shall teach
Discrimination [Vivekah] and Dispassion [Vairagya], and thus help the spiritual nature to unfold its
infinite possibilities. Thus understanding morality as relative, we are able to
work effectively. If we fail to help every soul, in its own place, it is
because we are ill-trained teachers.
In every nation, there are certain definite
things which are marked as wrong, such as murder, theft, lying, vileness. All these are recognised
as crimes. That is the general view. But it is not wholly borne out by facts.
How far are these things recognised [Page 58] as
moral and how far as immoral in practice? Why are they recognised
as wrong? Because the masses of the nation have reached a
certain stage of evolution. Because the majority of
the nation are at about the same level of growth, and at that level they recognise these things as evil, as against progress.
The result is that the minority, being below this stage, is regarded as being
made up of "criminals". The majority has reached a higher stage of
evolution, and the majority makes the law; then those who cannot come up even
to the lowest level of the majority are dubbed criminals. Two types of
criminals present themselves to our view. One type upon which
we cannot make any impression by appealing to their sense of right and wrong.
They are spoken of by the ignorant public as hardened criminals. But this view
is a mistaken one, and leads to lamentable results. They are merely ignorant, ungrown souls, child-souls, infants in the
The other type of criminals is made up of
those who feel a certain amount of remorse and repentance after the commission
of a crime, who know that they [Page 59] have done wrong. They stand on a
higher level, and can he helped to resist evil in
future by the very suffering imposed on them by human law. I spoke of the
necessity of all experience, in order that the soul might learn to discern
between right and wrong. We need experience of good and evil, until we can
discriminate the good from the evil, but no further. The moment the two lines
of actions are distinct before you, and you know that
the one is right and the other is wrong, then if you choose the wrong road you
are committing sin, you are going against a law that you know and admit. A man
at this stage commits sin, because his desires are strong, prompting him to
choose the path which is wrong. He suffers, and it is well that he should
suffer, if he follows these desires. The moment the knowledge of wrong is
present, there at the moment also there is deliberate degradation in yielding
to the impulse. Experience of the wrong is only needed before the wrong is recognised as wrong, and in order that it may come to he so recognised. When two courses
are before a man, neither of which appears to him to be morally different from
the other, then he may take either of those courses and commit no wrong. But
the moment a thing is known to be wrong, it is a treason
to ourselves to allow the brute in us to overpower the God in us. That is what
is really sin; that is what is the condition of most, but not
all, wrong-doers today.
Let us pass front that and look at some
particular faults a little more closely. Take murder: we find [Page 60] that
the common sense of the community makes a distinction between killing and
killing. If a man takes up a knife in anger and stabs his enemy, the law calls
him a murderer and hangs him. If a thousand men take up knives and stab a
thousand men, then the killing is called war. Glory and not punishment is
awarded to him who thus kills. The same crowd who hoot the murderer of one
enemy, cheer the men who have killed ten thousand enemies. What is this strange
anomaly? How can we explain it? Is there anything to justify the verdict of the
community? Is there any distinction between the two acts, which justifies the
difference of treatment? There is. War is a thing against which the public
conscience more and more protests, and in a moment we shall have to look at
this fact of the growth of the public conscience. But while we should do all we
can to prevent war, should try to spread peace and to educate our children in
the love of peace, there is none the less a real distinction in the conduct of
one who kills through private malice, and the killing which takes place in war;
this difference is so far-reaching, that I shall dilate upon it a little. In
the one case, a personal grudge is satisfied, and personal satisfaction is
found. In the other case, one man in killing the other man is not gratifying a
personal feeling, is serving no personal object, is
seeking no personal gain. The men are killing each other as an act of obedience
to a command laid on them by their superiors, whose is the responsibility [Page
61] for the righteousness of the war. All my life I have preached peace, and I
have striven to show the evils of war. But, none the less, I recognise that there is much in the mere discipline of the
military force, which is of vital importance to those who are subjected to that
training. What does the soldier learn? He learns obedience to order,
cleanliness, quickness, accuracy, promptness in action, and willingness to
undergo physical hardship without complaint or murmur. He learns to risk his
life, and to give it for an ideal cause. Is not that a training which has its
place in the evolution of the soul? Does not the soul profit by this training?
When the ideal of the country fires the heart, when life is sacrificed for it
gladly by rough, common and uneducated men, they may be rude, violent, drunken,
but they are passing through a training which, in lives to come, will make them
better and nobler men.
Then take a phrase used by an Englishman of
somewhat strange genius, Rudyard Kipling, who makes soldiers say that they will
fight "for the widow at
In dealing with this question of morality, we
fall often practically below that view. There are many cases of theft, of
lying, of killing, that the law of man does not punish, but that the law of
karma notes and brings back to the doer. Many an act of theft is disguised as
commerce; many an act of cheating is disguised as trade; many a fine
arrangement of lies is classified as diplomacy. Crime reappears under startling
forms, disguised and hidden, and men have to learn self-purification in life
after life. Then comes in another consideration, before we
come to the essence of sin - one which I cannot entirely overpass - thought and
action. There are some actions which a man commits, which are
inevitable. You do not understand what you are doing, when you allow yourself
to think along a line of wrong. You covet in thought another man's gold; you
are grasping with your mind's hands, at every moment, what is not yours. You
are building the Dharma of the thief. The inner nature, the interior nature, is
Dharma, and if you build that inner nature by thoughts that are evil, you will
be born with the Dharma that will carry you to deeds of vice. Those deeds will
then be done without thought. Have you any idea how many thoughts in you have
already gone towards the making of an action? You may dam up water, and prevent
it from flowing along a channel, but the moment a hole is made in the dam,
[Page 63] the pent-up water will flow through the hole and sweep the dam away:
so is it with thought and action. Thought accumulates slowly behind the dam of
absence of opportunity. As you think and think, the
stream of thought grows fuller and fuller behind the breastwork of
circumstances. In another life that breastwork of circumstances gives way, and
the action is committed before any new thought has occurred. Those are the
inevitable crimes, which sometimes blast a great career, when the thought of
the past finds its fruitage in the present, when the karma of accumulated
thought comes forth as action. If the opportunity comes to you, and you have
time to pause, time to say: "Shall I do it?" then that action is not
inevitable for you. The pause for thought means that you can put the thought on
the other side and so strengthen the barrier. There is no excuse for doing an
action which you have thought of as wrong. Those actions only are inevitable
which are done without thinking, where the thought belongs to the past and the
action to the present.
We come now to the great question of
separateness: there lies in every deed the essence of wrong. In the past,
separateness was right. The great course of the divine life-stream was dividing
itself into multiplicity; it was needed to build up individual centers of
consciousness. So long as a centre needs strengthening, separateness is on the
side of progress. Souls at one period need to be selfish; they cannot do
without selfishness in the early stages of growth. [Page 64] But now the law of
progressing life for the more advanced is the outgrowing of separateness, and
the seeking to realise unity. We are now on the path
towards unity; we are approaching nearer and nearer to each other. We must now unite,
in order to grow further. The purpose is the same, though the method has
changed in the evolution through the ages. The public conscience is beginning
to recognise that not in separateness but in unity,
there lies the true growth of a nation. We are trying to substitute arbitration
for war, co-operation for competition, protection of the weak for trampling
them under foot, and all this, because the line of evolution now goes towards
unity and not towards separateness. Separation is the mark of descent into
matter, and unification is the mark of the ascent to Spirit. The world is on
the upward trend, although thousands of souls may lag behind. The ideal now is
peace, co-operation, protection, brotherhood and helpfulness. The essence of
sin now lies in separateness.
But that thought leads us on to another test
of conduct. Is the action we are doing one which seeks our own gain, or which
helps on the general good? Is our life a self-seeking, useless life, or does it
help humanity? If it is selfish, then it is wrong, it is evil,
it is against the growth of the world. If you be among those who have seen the
beauty of the ideal of unity, and have recognised the
perfection of the divine manhood that we seek, then you should kill out this
heresy of separateness in yourself. [Page 65]
When we look at much of the teaching of the
past and see the conduct of the Sages, certain questions in morality arise,
which some find it rather hard to answer. I raise this question here, because I
may suggest to you the line of thought by which you may defend the Shâstras from carping critics and which may enable you to
profit by their teachings, without becoming confused. A great Sage is not
always, in his conduct, an example that an ordinary man should endeavour to follow. When I speak now of a great Sage, I
mean one in whom all personal desire is dead, who is not attracted to any
object in the world, whose only life is in obedience to the divine will, who
gives himself as one of the channels of divine force for the helping of the
world. He performs the functions of a God, and the functions of the Gods differ
much from the functions of men. The earth is full of all kinds of catastrophes
- wars, earthquakes, famine, pestilences, plagues. Who is their cause? There is
no cause in God's universe save God Himself, and these things which seem so
terrible, so shocking, so painful, are His ways of
teaching us when we are going wrong. A plague sweeps off thousands of the men
of a nation. A mighty war scatters its thousands of dead on the field of
carnage. Why? Because that nation had disregarded the divine law of its growth,
and must learn its lesson by suffering, if it will not learn it by reason.
Plague is the result of disregarding the laws of health and of clean living.
God is too merciful to permit a law to be disregarded by [Page 66] the whims
and fancies and feelings of slowly evolving man, without calling attention to
the disregarded. These catastrophes are worked by the Gods, by the agents of Ishvara, who, invisible throughout the world, administer
the divine law, as a magistrate administers the civil laws. Just because they
are administrators of the law and are acting impersonally, their actions are no
more examples for us to follow, than the action of the judge in imprisoning a
criminal is an example to show that an ordinary man may take revenge on his
enemy. Look, for instance, at the great Sage Nârada.
We find him stirring up war, when two nations have reached a point where the
higher good of each can only be gained by the struggles of war, and by the
conquest of one by the other. Bodies are killed, and it is the best help to the
men thus slain that their bodies should be struck away, and that, in new
bodies, they may have greater possibility of growth. Gods bring about the
battle in which thousands of men are slain. It would be wicked for us to
imitate them, because to stir up war for the sake of conquest or gain, or
ambition, or for some object where personality comes in, is sinful. But in the
case of Nârada it is not so, because Devarshis such as he is are
helping the world along the path of evolution by striking away the obstacles.
You will understand something of the wonders and mysteries of the Universe,
when you know that things that seem evil from the side of form are good from
the [Page 67] side of life; all that happens is working for the best.
"There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we may."
Religion is right when it says that the Gods rule over the world and guide
nations, and lead and even scourge them into the right path when they go
astray.
A man, full of personality and attracted by
the objects of desire, whose whole self is Kâma, such a man, committing an
action instigated by Kama, often commits a crime; but the very same action
committed by a liberated soul, free from all desire, in carrying out the divine
order, would be rightly done. In the utter disbelief that men have fallen into
as to the working of thy Gods, such words may seem strange, but there is no
energy in nature, which is not the physical manifestation of a God carrying out
the will of the Supreme. That is the true view of nature. We see the side of
form, and, blinded by Mâyâ, call it evil; but the
Gods, as they break up forms, are clearing away every obstacle that obstructs
the way of evolution.
We may here understand one or two of those
other questions that are often thrown in our faces by those who take a
superficial view of things. Supposing a man, who is longing to commit a sin, is
prevented from committing it solely by the pressure of circumstances; suppose
that the longing is growing stronger and stronger; what is the best thing for
him? To have an opportunity to put his longing into action.
To commit a crime? Yes, even a crime is [Page 68] less
injurious to the soul than a continued brooding over it in the mind, the
growing of a cancer at the heart of life. An action once done is dead, and the
suffering that follows it teaches the needed lesson, but thought is generative
and living.[ This does not mean that a man should
commit a sin rather than struggle against it. So long as he struggles, it is
well with him, and he is gaining strength. The case referred to is where there
is no struggle, but where the man is longing to do the action and only lacks
opportunity. In such case, the sooner the opportunity comes, the better for the
man; the pent-up longing breaks forth, the realized wish brings suffering, the
man learns a necessary lesson, and is purged of an ever-increasing moral poison] Do you understand
that? If you do, then you will also understand why you find in the scriptures a
God putting in the way of a man an opportunity of committing the sin that man
is longing to commit, and in fact has committed in his heart. He will suffer,
no doubt, for his sin, but he will learn by the suffering that falls on the
wrong-doer. Had that evil thought been left to grow in the heart, it would have
grown stronger and stronger, and would have gradually wrecked the whole moral
nature of the man. For it is like a cancer which, if not
speedily removed, will poison the whole body. Far more merciful it is, that such a man should sin and suffer pain, than that he
should long to sin and be held back by lack of opportunity merely, and thus
make inevitable degradation for lives to come.
So also if a man is making rapid progress,
and there is a hidden weakness in him, or some past Karma not exhausted, or
evil deed not expiated, [Page 69] that man cannot be liberated while that Karma
remains unexhausted, while there is a debt still unpaid. What is the most
merciful thing to do? To help that man to pay his debt in
anguish and degradation, so that the misery following on the fault may exhaust
the Karma of the past. It means that there is swept out of his way an obstacle
that prevents his liberation, and God puts that temptation in his way to break
the last barrier down. I have not time to work out the details of this most
pregnant line of thought, but I ask you to follow it for yourselves and see
what it means, and how it illuminates the dark problems of growth, the falls of
the saints.
If, when you have assimilated it, you then
read such a book as the Mahabharata, you will understand the workings of the
Gods in the affairs of men; you will see the Gods working in storm and
sunshine, in peace and in war, and you will know that it is well with the man
and with the nation, whatever may occur to them; for the noblest wisdom and the
tenderest love are guiding them to their appointed
goal.
I come now to the last word - a word I will
dare to speak to you, who have been listening to me patiently on a subject so
difficult and abstruse. There is a yet higher note: know that there is a
supreme goal, and the last steps on the path to it are not the steps where
Dharma can any longer guide us. Let us take some wonderful words from the great
Teacher, Shri Krishna, and let us see how in His
final instruction, He speaks of something loftier than anything on [Page 70]
which we have dared to touch. Here is His message of peace: "Listen thou
again to My supreme word, most secret of all; beloved
art thou of Me, and steadfast of heart, therefore will I speak for thy benefit.
Merge the Manas in Me, be my devotee, sacrifice to Me,
prostrate thyself before Me, thou shalt come even to
Me. Abandoning all Dharmas, come unto Me alone for
shelter; sorrow not, I will liberate thee from all sins" (Bhagavad-Gita,
xviii, 64-66.).
My last words are addressed only to those who
lead here a life of supreme longing to sacrifice themselves
to Him; they have a right to these last words of hope and peace. Then the end
of Dharma is reached. Then the man desires no longer anything save the Lord.
When the soul has reached that stage of evolution, where it asks nothing of the
world, but gives itself wholly to God, when it has outgrown all the promptings
of desire, when the heart has gained freedom by love, when the whole being
throws itself forward at the feet of the Lord - then abandon you all Dharmas; they are no longer for you; no longer for you the
law of growth, no longer for you that balancing of duty, no longer for you that
scrutiny of conduct. You have given yourself to the Lord. There is nothing left
in you that is not divine. What Dharma can any longer
remain for you, for, united to Him, you are no longer
a separated self. Your life is hid in Him, His life is yours; you may be living
in the world, you are but His instrument. You are His wholly. Your life is Ishvara's, and [Page 71] Dharma has no longer any claim on
you. Your devotion has liberated you, for your life is hid in God. That is the
word of the Teacher. That is the last thought I would leave with you.
And now, my brothers, farewell. Our work
together is done. After this imperfect presentation of a mighty subject, may I
say to you: listen to the thought in the message, and not to the speaker who is
the messenger; open your hearts to the thought, and forget the imperfection of
the lips that have spoken it. Remember that, as we
climb to God, we must needs try, however feebly, to
pass on to our brothers some touch of that life we reach after. Forget
therefore the speaker, but remember the teaching. Forget the imperfections
which are in the messenger, not in the message. Worship the God whose teaching
we have been studying, and pardon in your charity the faults of the servant who
has given it utterance.
PEACE TO
ALL BEINGS.
The Theosophical Society,
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