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CHAPTER XVI THE TRIPLE STATUS OF SUPERMIND My self-existent being is that which supports all existences and that which dwells in them and that which constitutes their existence. Gita Before we pass to this easier understanding of the world we inhabit from the standpoint of "an apprehending Truth-consciousness which sees things as would an individual soul freed from the limitations of mentality and admitted to participate in the action of the Divine Super-mind, we must pause and resume briefly what we have realised or can yet realise of the consciousness of the Lord, the Ishwara as He develops the world by His Maya out of the original concentrated unity of His being.
We have started with the assertion of all existence as one Being whose essential nature is Consciousness, one Consciousness whose active nature is Force or Will; and this Being is Delight, this Consciousness is Delight, this Force or W^ill is Delight. Eternal and inalienable Bliss of Existence, Bliss of Consciousness, Bliss of Force or Will whether concentrated in itself and at rest or active and creative, this is God and this is ourselves in our essential, our non-phenomenal being. Concentrated in itself, it possesses or rather is the essential, eternal, inalienable Bliss; active and creative, it possesses
or rather becomes the delight of the play of existence, the play of consciousness,
Page-193 the. play of force and will. That play is the universe and that delight is the sole cause, motive and object of cosmic existence. The Divine Consciousness possesses that play and delight eternally and inalienably; our essential being, our real self which is concealed from us by the false self or mental ego, also enjoys that play and delight eternally and inalienably and cannot indeed do otherwise since it is one in being. with the Divine Consciousness. If we aspire therefore to a divine life, we cannot attain to it by any other way than by unveiling this veiled self in us, by mounting from our present status in the false self or mental ego to a higher status in the true self, the Atman, by entering into that unity with the Divine Consciousness which something superconscient in us always enjoys,—otherwise we could not exist,—but which our conscious mentality has forfeited. But when we thus assert this unity of Sachchidananda on the one hand and this divided mentality on the other, we posit two opposite entities one of which must be false if the other is to be held as true, one of which must be abolished if the other is to be enjoyed. Yet it is in the mind and its form of life and body that we exist on earth and, if we must abolish the consciousness of mind, life and body in order to reach the one Existence, Consciousness and Bliss, then a divine life here is impossible. We must abandon cosmic existence utterly as an illusion in order to enjoy or re-become the Transcendent. From this solution there is no escape unless there be an intermediate link between the two which can explain them to each other and establish between them such a relation as will make it possible for us to realise the one Existence, Consciousness, Delight in the mould of the mind, life and body.
The intermediate link exists. We call it the Super-mind or the Truth-Consciousness, because it is a principle superior to mentality and exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of
tiling and not like the mind in their appearances and phenomenal divisions. The existence of the
Supermind is a logical necessity arising directly from the position with which we have started.
Page-194 For in itself Sachchidananda must be a space less and timeless absolute of conscious existence that is bliss; but the world is, on the contrary, an extension in Time and Space and a movement, a working out, a development of relations and possibilities by causality in Time and Space. The name of this Causality is Law and the essence of Law is an inevitable self-development of the truth of the thing that is, as Idea, in the very essence of what is developed; it is a previously -fix-id determination of relative movements out of the stuff of infinite possibility. That which thus develops must be a Knowledge-Will or Conscious-Force; for all existence is a play of the Conscious-Force which is the essential nature of existence. But the developing Knowledge-Will cannot be mental; for mind does not know, possess or govern this Law, but is governed by it, is one of its results, moves in the phenomena of the self-development and not at its root, observes as divided things the results of the development and strives in vain to arrive at their source and reality. Moreover this knowledge-will which develops must be in possession of the unity of things and must out of it manifest their multiplicity; but mind is not in possession of that unity, it has only an imperfect possession of a part of the multiplicity.
Therefore there must be a principle superior to the Mind which satisfies the conditions in which Mind fails. No
doubt, it is Sachchidananda itself that is this principle, but Sachchidananda not resting in its pure infinite invariable consciousness, but moving out into a subordinate movement which is its form and instrument. Consciousness and Force are the twin essential aspects of the pure Power of existence; Knowledge and Will must therefore be the form which that Power takes in creating a world of relations in the extension of Time and Space. This Knowledge and this Will must be one, infinite, all-embracing, all-possessing, all-forming, holding eternally in itself that which it casts into movement and form. The Super-mind then is Being moving out into a determinative self-knowledge which perceives certain truths of itself and wills to realise them in a temporal and spatial extension of
Page-195 its own timeless and space less existence. Whatever is in its’ own being, takes form as self-knowledge, as Truth-Cur.-sciousness, as Real-Idea, and, that self-knowledge being also self-force, fulfils or realise itself inevitably in Time and Space. This, then, is the nature of the Divine Consciousness which creates in itself all things by a movement of its conscious-force and governs their development through a self-evolution by inherent knowledge-will of the truth of existence or real-idea which has formed them. The Being that is thus conscient is what we call God; and He must obviously be omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent. Omnipresent, for all forms are forms of His conscious being created by its force of movement in its own extension as Space and Time; omniscient, for all things exist in His conscious-being, are formed by it and possessed by it; omnipotent, for this all-possessing consciousness is also an all-possessing Force and all-informing Will. And this Will and Knowledge are not at war with each other as our will and knowledge are capable of being at war with each other, because they are not different but are one movement of the same being. Nor can they be contradicted by any other will, force or consciousness from outside or within; for there is no consciousness or lore external to the One, and all energies and formations o’" knowledge within are not other than it, but are merely play of the one all-determining Will and the one all-harmonising knowledge. What we see as a clash of wills and forces, because we dwell in the particular and divided and cannot see the whole, the Supermind envisages as the conspiring elements of a predetermined harmony which is always present to it because the totality of things is eternally subject to its gaze.
Whatever be the poise or form its action takes, this will always be the nature of the divine Consciousness. But its existence being absolute in itself, its power of
exist. thence is also absolute in its extension, and it is not therefore limited to one poise or one from of action. We, human beings, are phenomenally a particular form of consciousness,
Page-196 subject to Time and Space, and can only be one thing at a time; and that one thing is for us the truth of ourselves which we acknowledge; all the rest is either not true or no longer true, because it has disappeared into the past out of our ken, or not yet true, because it is waiting in the future and not yet in our ken. But the Divine Consciousness is not so particularises, nor so limited; it cane many things at a time and take more than one enduring poise even for all time. We find that in the principle of Super-mind itself it has three such general poises or sessions of its world-founding consciousness. The first founds the inalienable unity of things, the second modifies that unity so as to support the manifestation of the Many in One and One in Many; the third father modifies it so as to support the evolution of a diversified individuality which, by the action of Ignorance, becomes in us the illusion of the separate ego.
We have seen what is the nature of this first and primary poise of the Supermind which founds the inalienable unity of things. It is not the pure
Unitarian consciousness; for that is a timeless and space less concentration of Sachchidananda in itself, in which Conscious Force does not cast itself out into any kind of extension and, if it contains the universe at all, contains it in eternal potentiality and not in temporal actuality. This, on the contrary, is an equal self-extension of Sachchidananda all-comprehending, all-possessing, all-constituting. But this all is one, not many; there is no individualisation. It is when the reflection of this Supermind falls upon our stilled and purified self that we lose all sense of individuality; for there is no concentration of consciousness there to support an individual development. All is developed in unity and as one; all is held by this Divine Consciousness as forms of its existence, not as in any degree separate existences. Somewhat as the thoughts and images that occur in our mind are not separate existences to us, but forms taken by our consciousness, so are all names and forms to this primary Supermind. It is the pure divine ideation and formation in the Infinite,—only an ideation and formation
Page-197 that is organised not as an unreal play of mental thought, but as a real play of conscious being. The divine soul in this poise would make no difference between Conscious-Soul and Force-Soul, for all force would be action of consciousness, nor between Matter and Spirit is nee all mould would be simply form of Spirit.
In the second poise of the Supermind the Divine Consciousness stands back in the idea from the movement which it contains, realising it by a sort of apprehending consciousness, following it, occupying and inhabiting its works, seeming to distribute itself in its forms. In each name and form it would realise itself as the stable Conscious-Soul, the same in all; but also it would realise itself as a concentration of conscious-soul following and supporting the individual play of movement and upholding its differentiation from other play of movement, —the same everywhere in soul-essence, but varying in soul-form. This concentration supporting the soul-form would be the individual Divine or
Jonathan as distinguished from the universal Divine or one all-constituting self. There would be no essential difference, but only a practical differentiation for the play which would not abrogate the real unity. The universal Divine would know all soul-forms as itself and yet establish a different relation with each separately and in each with all the others. The individual Divine would envisage its existence as a soul-form and soul-movement of the One and, while by the comprehending action of consciousness it would enjoy its unity with the One and with all soul-forms, it would also by a forward apprehending action support and enjoy its
individual movement and its relations of a free difference in unity both with the One and with all its forms. If our purified mind were to reflect this secondary poise of Supermind, our soul could support and occupy its individual existence and yet even there realise itself as the One that has become all, inhabits all, contains all, enjoying even in its particular modification its unity with God and its fellows. In no other circumstance of the supramental existence would there be any characteristic change; the only change would be this play of the One
Page-198 that has manifested its multiplicity and of the Man5T that are still one, with all that is necessary to maintain and conduct the play. A third poise of the Supermind would be attained if the supporting concentration were no longer to stand at the back, as it were, of the movement, inhabiting it with a certain superiority to it and so following and enjoying, but were to project itself into the movement and to be in a way involved in it. Here, the character of the play would be altered, but only in so far as the individual Divine would so predominantly make the play of relations with the universal and with its other forms the practical field of its conscious experience that the realisation of utter unity with them would be only a supreme culmination of experience, but in the higher poise unity would be the dominant and fundamental experience and variation would be only a play of the unity. This tertiary poise would be therefore that of a sort of blissful dualism between the individual Divine and its universal source, with all the consequences that would accrue from the maintenance and operation of such a dualism. It may be said that the first consequence would be a lapse into the ignorance of Avidya which takes the Many for the real fact of existence and views the One only as a sum of the Many. But there would not necessarily be any such lapse. For the individual Divine would still be conscious of itself as the result of the One and of its power of conscious self-creation, that is to say of its multiple self-centration conceived so as to govern and enjoy existence in the extension of Time and Space; it would not arrogate to itself an independent or separate existence. It would only affirm the truth of the differentiating movement along with the truth of the stable unity, regarding them as the upper and lower poles of the same truth, the foundation and culmination of the same divine play; and it would insist on the joy of the differentiation as necessary to the fullness of the joy of the unity.
Obviously, these three poises would be only different ways of dealing with the same Truth; the Truth of existence
Page-199 enjoyed would be the same, the way of enjoying it or rather the poise of the soul in enjoying it would be different. The delight, the Ananda would vary, but would abide always within the status of the Truth-consciousness and involve no lapse into the Falsehood and the Ignorance. For the secondary and tertiary Supermind would only develop and apply in the terms of the divine multiplicity what the primary Supermind had held in the terms of the divine unit5′. We cannot stamp any of these three poises with the stigma of falsehood and illusion. The language of the Upanishads, the supreme ancient authority for these truths of a higher experience, when they speak of the Divine existence which is manifesting itself, implies the validity of all these experiences. We can only asset the priority of the oneness to the multiplicity, a priority not in time but in relation of consciousness, and no statement of supreme spiritual experience, no Vedantic philosophy denies this priority or the eternal dependence of the Many on the One. It is because in Time the Many seem not to be eternal but to manifest out of the One and return into it as their essence that their reality is denied; but it might equally be noosed that the eternal persistence or, if you will, the eternal recurrence of the manifestation in Time is a proof that the divine multiplicity is an eternal fact of the Supreme beyond Time no less than the divine unity; otherwise it could not have this characteristic of inevitable eternal recurrence in Time.
It is indeed only when our human mentality lays an exclusive emphasis on one side of spiritual experience, affirms that to be the sole eternal truth and states it in the terms of our all-dividing mental logic that the necessity for mutually destructive schools of philosophy arises. Thus, emphasizing the sole truth of the
Unitarian consciousness we admit the play of the divine unity rendered by our mentality in the terms of real difference, but, not satisfied with correcting this error of the mind by the truth of a higher principle, we assert that the play itself is an illusion. Or, emphasizing the play of the One in the Many, we declare a qualified unity and regard the individual soul
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as a soul-form of the Supreme, but would assert the eternity of this qualified existence and deny altogether the unqualified oneness. Or, again, emphasizing the play of difference, we assert that the Supreme and the human soul are eternally different and reject the validity of an experience which exceeds and seems to abolish that difference. But the position that we have now firmly taken absolves us from the necessity of these negations and exclusions. Affirming the absolute absoluteness of That, not limited by our ideas of unity, not limited by our ideas of multiplicity, affirming the unity as a basis for the manifestation of the multiplicity and the multiplicity as a basis for the return to oneness and the enjoyment of unity in the divine manifestation, we need not enter farther into these discussions. We need not undertake the vain labour of enslaving to our mental distinctions and definitions the absolute freedom of the Divine.
Page-201 CHAPTER XII THE WORK. One question remains for the Karma yogin,— when equality is seated in the nature or lather governs the whole nature, when the entire self-consecration has been made not only in thought and heart but in all the complexities of the being, when the purity and transcendence of the three gunas has been completely and harmoniously established, when the soul has seen the Master of its works anilines in His presence, is consciously contained in His being or is unified with Him, what work remains for the worker in man and with what motive, to what end, in what spirit will it be done ?
There is one answer with which we are familiar
enough in India; it is that no work at all remains. When the soul can live in the eternal presence of the Supreme or unified with Him, the object of our existence in the world ceases; man is released from the curse of self-division, the curse of ignorance, the curse of works. All action will then be a derogation from the supreme state, a return into the ignorance. Even if this attitude towards life were well-founded, yet there is the ineffugable fact that while life remains, action is unavoidable, since mere thinking or, in the absence of thought, mere living is itself an act and a cause of many effects. All existence in the world is work, from that of the clod to that of the immobile Buddha on the verge of Nirvana, and the
ejection is only of the manner
Page-202 of the action, the instruments that are used and the spirit and knowledge of the worker. In reality, no man works, but Nature works through him. To know that and live in the presence and in the being of the Master of Nature free from desire and the illusion of personal impulsion, that and not the bodily cessation of action is the true release from the bondage to works. A man might sit still and motionless for ever and yet be as much bound to the ignorance as the animal or the insect; only Nature would be inhibited in him from her wholesome external action which is given us as a means of our self-development and self-fulfilment and as a means for the fulfilment of the divine intention in the world. In a certain sense, therefore, when the Yoga has reached this culmination , works cease for a man, but this is internally in the sense that he has no farther personal necessity of works and not externally in the sense that he flees from action and takes refuge in blissful inaction. He works as the Divine Existence works without any binding necessity or compelling ignorance, and even in doing works he does not work at all ; for he undertakes no personal initiative, but it is the Divine that works in him through his nature and the action develops out of him by the spontaneity of the supreme Force by which he is possessed without leaving behind any stain or compelling impression. He himself contains, supports, watches the action, presides over it in knowledge without being attached to the work itself or bound by desire of its fruit.
It is indeed a common error to suppose that action is impossible or at least meaningless without desire, and that, if desire ceases, action also must cease. But in fact there is no truth in this comprehensive generalisation. The major part of the work done in the universe is accomplished without any 1
interference of desire by the calm necessity and spontaneous law of Nature itself Even man constantly does work of various kinds thus spontaneously, instinctively or intuitively in obedience to such a necessity and law without mental planning or the lure of emotional desire. Often he acts contrary to his desire and in subjection Page-203 to a higher principle. Desire is only an additional lure to which Nature has given a great part in the life of animated beings in order to produce a certain kind of rajasic action necessary to certain intermediate ends . The Karma-yogin passes beyond this intermediate stage; the spur of desire is no longer necessary to him for any of his actions; what others do through that personal motive, he does with an impersonal mind and therefore with either a calm indifference or a joyous impartiality. Indeed, the very sign of successful Karma yoga is this, the entire capacity of action without desire or attachment. It follows that in the supreme stage it is indifferent to him what action he shall do or riot do or whether he shall act or no. He makes no personal choice, but is ready to do whatever the Divine demands from his nature. From this the conclusion is sometimes drawn that he should and must work in the field and cadre in which he finds himself, in the framework of the family, clan, caste, nation, occupation which are his Ly birth and circumstance and that he will not make any movement to exceed them or to pursue any great mundane end. For he has really no work to do ; he has only to use works, no matter what works, in order to arrive at liberation and, once free, to continue working in the sphere assigned to him by circumstances so long as he is in the body while awaiting the hour in which he shall disappear into the Infinite. To follow any particular end, to work for some great mundane object is, from this point of view, to fall into the illusion of works and the error that terrestrial life has an intelligible intention or contains objects worthy of pursuit. We are again in contact with the great theory of Illusion and the practical denial of God in the world.
No such narrow principle can be laid down; no such cabined action can be prescribed to the Karma yogin. It is perfectly true that no matter what kind of works, petty in scope or wide, small to man’s imagination or great, can be equally used for that self-discipline which attains to liberation. It is true also that after liberation a man may dwell in any sphere of life, do any kind of action and
Page-204 there fulfil his existence in the Divine. It may be that he will remain in the sphere, in the cadre assigned to him by birth and circumstances; but it may equally be that he will break that framework and go forth to an untrammelled action which shall arise from the new knowledge that has come to him. It may be that the inner liberation will make no apparent difference in his outward acts; but also it maybe that the freedom and infinity within will translate itself into a larger and freer action without. The liberated soul may, if such be the intention of the Supreme within it, content itself with a subtle and limited action within its old environment which will in no way seem to change the outward appearance of that environment; but equally it may be called to give itself to a working which shall not only alter the forms and sphere of its own external life but leave nothing around it unaffected or unchanged.
The idea of a great work to be done for humanity is the natural out flowering of the liberation which the Karma yogin achieves. The contrary notion is intimately bound up with the prevalent idea that the sole aim of liberation is to secure for the individual soul freedom from rebirth and that, this freedom once assured, there is no work for it in life except that which the continued existence of the body demands or the yet unfulfilled effects of past lives necessitate. This little that is left will exhaust itself rapidly and will cease finally with the departure from .the body. This aim of escape from rebirth has been long fixed in the Indian mentality as the highest object of the soul, even as the enjoyment of a heaven beyond was fixed in the mentality of the devout by other religions or even by the Indian religion when the gross external interpretation of the Vedic hymns was the dominant creed. It is necessary to emphasize the comparative
triviality of this aim of escape from rebirth. Undoubtedly it is an infinitely nobler lure than the offer of a heaven of mental joys or physical pleasures after death, but it is all the same a lure; it is not the true justification and should not be the supreme motive of the Karma yogin. The desire of per-
Page-205 sonal salvation, however high its form, is after all an egoism and rests on the idea of our own in vitality and of its desire or good as the aim of existence. To rise beyond the desire of personal salvation is necessary for the complete rejection of egoism. The pursuit of liberation, of the soul’s freedom is justified because it is the highest law of our nature, because it is the attraction of that which is lower in us to that which is highest. All other motives are excrescences or useful lures which the soul must abandon the moment their utility has passed. Often, we see this desire of personal salvation overcome by another attraction which also belongs to the highest law of our nature and which indicates the essential character of the action the liberated soul must pursue. It is that which is implied in the great legend of the Buddha who turned away when his spirit was on the threshold of Nirvana and took the vow never to cross it while a single being remained in the sorrow and the ignorance. It is that which underlies the sublime verse of the Bhoga, " I desire not the supreme state with all its eight sided his nor the cessation of rebirth; may I assume the sorrow of all creatures who suffer and enter into them so that they may be made free from grief." It is that which inspires a remarkable passage in a letter of Swami Vivekananda. " I have lost all wish for my salvation " wrote the great Vedantic; "may I be born again and again and suffer thousands of miseries so that I may worship the only God that exists, the only God I believe in, the sum-total of all souls,—and above all my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all species is the special object of my worship. He who is the high and low, the saint and the sinner, the god and the worm, Him worship, the visible, the knowable, the real, the omnipresent, break all other idols. In whom there is neither past life nor future birth, nor death nor going nor coming, in whom we always have been and always will be one, Him worship, break all other idols."
The last two sentences contain indeed the whole gist of the matter. The true freedom from the chain of rebirth
Page-206 is not the actual rejection of terrestrial life, even as the true renunciation is not the physical abandonment of family and society, but the inner identification with the Divine in whom is neither past life nor future birth but only eternal existence of the unborn soul. He who is free inwardly, even doing actions, does nothing at all, says the Gita; for it is Nature that works in him under the control of the Lord of Nature; and equally even if he assumes a hundred times the body, he is free from the chain since he lives in the unborn and undying spirit and not in the life of the body. Therefore the attachment to the escape from rebirth is one of the idols which, whoever keeps, the sadhak of the integral Yoga must break. For his Yoga is not limited to the realisation of the Transcendent beyond all world by the individual soul, but embraces also the realisation of the Universal, " the sum-total of all souls," and cannot therefore be confined to the movement of a personal salvation and escape. He must be one with all in God; and a divine work remains for him.
That work cannot be fixed by any external rule or standard. " Howsoever he lives and acts " says the Gita, "he lives and acts in Me.” The rules which the intellect of men lays down cannot apply to the liberated soul, by the external criteria and tests which their mental associations and prejudgments prescribe such a one cannot be judged. It is immaterial whether he wears the garb of the ascetic or lives the full life of the householder ; whether he spends his days in what men call holy works or in the many-sided activities of the world ; whether he devotes himself to the direct leading of men to the light like Buddha, Christ or
Shan Kara or governs kingdoms like Janice or stands before men like Srikrishna as a politician and a leader of armies; what he eats or drinks ; what are his habits or his pursuits; whether he fails or succeeds ; whether his work be one of construction or of destruction; whether he supports or restores an old order or labours to replace it by a new; whether his associates are those whom men delight to honour or those whom it
outcasts and reprobates; whether his life and deeds are approved by his contemporaries or
Page-207 he is condemned as a misleader of men and a fomenter of religious, moral or social heresies. He is not governed by the judgments of men or the laws laid down by the ignorant; he obeys an inner voice and is moved by an unseen Power. His real life is within and this is its description that he lives, moves and acts in God, in the Infinite, in the Divine. But if his’ action is governed by no external rule, one rule it will observe that is not external; it will be dictated by no personal desire or aim, but will be directed to a divine work in the world. The Gita declares that the action of the Karma yogin must be directed not by desire, but towards the keeping together of the world, its government, guidance, impulsion in the divine path appointed to it. This injunction has been interpreted in the sense that the world being an illusion in which most men must be kept, since they are unfit for liberation, he must so act outwardly as to cherish in them an attachment to their customary works laid down for them by the social law. If so, it would be a poor and petty rule and every noble heart would reject it to follow rather the divine vow of Amitabha Buddha, the sublime payer of the Bhagawat, the passionate aspiration of Vivekananda. But if rather we accept the view that the world is a divinely guided movement of Nature emerging in man towards God and that this is the work in which tile Lord of the Gita declares that he is ever occupied although he himself has nothing untainted that he has yet to win,—then a deep and true sense will appear for this great injunction. To participate in that divine work, to live for God in humanity will be the rule of the Karma yogin; to live for God in humanity and therefore to help by whatever way the world in its obscure pilgrimage to move forward to the divine ideal.
How he shall do this, in what particular way, can be decided by no general rule. It must come from within; the decision is between God and the soul that is the instrument of the work. It is altogether from within that there must come the knowledge of the work that has to be done. The phrase used in the Gita to express this work that
Page-208 has to be done, has been interpreted in the sense that we must do our duty without regard to the fruit. But this is a conception born of European culture which is ethical rather than spiritual and external rather than profound. No such general thing as duty exists; we have only duties, often in conflict with each other, and these are determined by our environment, our social relations, our external status in life. They are of great value in training the immature moral nature nod setting up a standard which discourages the action of selfish desire. It has already been said that so long as the sadhaka has not the inner light, he must govern himself by the best light he has, and duty, a principle, a cause are among the standards he may temporarily erect. But for all that duties are external things, not stuff of the soul and cannot be the ultimate standard of action in this path. It is the duty of the soldier to fight when called upon, even to fire upon his own kith and kin; but it would be absurd to set up such a standard for the liberated soul ! On the other hand, to love and help our fellow men is not a duty; it is a law of the nature as it rises towards the Divine, it is an out flowing of action from a state of the soul. And the action of the Karma yogin must be such an outflow no from the soul. It is this deeper sense in which we must accept the dictum of the Gita that action determined and governed by the nature must be- our law of works. It is not cue. thinly the superficial temperament or the character or habitual impulses that are meant, but in the literal seem of the Sanskrit word our " own-being," our essential nature, the divine stuff of our souls. Whatever springs from this root, flows from these sources, is profound, essential, right; the rest—opinions, impulses, habits, desires—maybe merely surface vagaries of the being or impositions from outside. They shift and change, but this remains constant.
We cannot, however, easily distinguish
this inner law of our being so long as the heart and intellect remain unpurified
from egoism. In proportion as we are purified, it declares itself more clearly
and less entangled with suggestions from outside and with car own suprficial
mental Page-209 constructions. Egoism renounced, action will come from the depths and will openly be governed by the Lord who was seated secretly within our hearts. The supreme and final word of the Gita for the Yogin is that he should leave all dharma, all conventional formulas of belief and action, all fixed and external rules of conduct and take refuge in the Divine alone. Free from desire and attachment, one with all beings, living in the infinite Truth and Purity and out of the profoundest depths of his inner being, governed by his. immortal, divine and highest self, all his works will be directed by the Power within through that essential nature in us which, knowing, warring, working, loving, serving is always divine, towards the fulfilment of God in the world.
The real reason why we must seek liberation, is not to be delivered, individually, from the sorrow of the world; the real reason why we must seek perfection, that is to say, a divine status, purity, knowledge, strength, love, capacity, is not that personally we may enjoy the divine Nature or be even as the gods; but because this liberation and perfection are God entirely manifested and it must be manifested in the individual in order that he may help to manifest it in the world. Even in the ignorance the individual lives really in and for the universal, for he is forced by Nature to contribute by his egoistic action to her work and purpose in the worlds; but it is imperfectly and to her imperfect and crude movement. Liberated, purified, perfected the individual Divine lives consciously and entirely, as was from the first intended, in and for the Divine in the universe.
Page-210 VII We arrive then at this affirmation of an all-cognitive Principle superior to Mind and exceeding it in nature, scope and capacity. For the Upanishad affirms a Mind beyond mind as the result of intuition and spiritual experience and its existence is equally a necessary conclusion from the facts of the cosmic evolution. What then is this Mind beyond mind ? how does it function ? or by what means shall we arrive at the knowledge of it or possess it ? The Upanishad asserts about this supreme cognitive principle, first, that it is beyond the reach of mind and the senses ; secondly, that it does not itself think with the mind ; thirdly , that it is that by which mind itself is thought or mentalised ; fourthly, that it is the very nature or description of the Brahman-consciousness.
When we say, however, that Mind of mind " is the nature or description of the Brahman-consciousness, we must not forget that the absolute Brahman in itself is unknowable and therefore beyond description. It is unknowable, not because it is a void and capable of no description except that of nothingness, nor because, although positive in existence, it has no content or quality, but because it is beyond all things that our knowledge can conceive and because the methods of ideation and expression proper to our mentality do not apply to it. It is the absolute of all things that we know and of each thing that we know and yet nothing nor any sum of things can exhaust or characterise its essential being. For its manner of being is other
Page-211 than that which we call existence; its unity resists all analysis, its multiple infinities exceed every synthesis. Therefore it is not in its absolute essentiality that it can be described as Mind of the mind, but in its fundamental nature in regard to our mental existence. Brahman-consciousness is the eternal outlook of the Absolute upon the relative. But even of this outlook we may say that it is beyond the reach of mind and speech and senses. Yet mind, speech and senses seem to be our only available means for acquiring and expressing knowledge. Must we not say then that this Brainpan consciousness also is unknowable and that we can never hope to know it or possess it while in this body ? Yet the Upanishad commands us to know this Brahman and by knowledge to possess it — for the knowledge intended by the words viddhi, avedlt, is a knowledge that discovers and takes possession,—and it declares later on that it is here, in this body and on this earth that we must thus possess Brahman in knowledge, otherwise great is the perdition. A good deal of confusion has been brought it o the interpretation of this Upanishad by a too trenchant dealing with the subtlety of its distinctions between the know ability and the unknowability of the Brahman. We mist
The Upanishad sets out by saying that this Ruler of the mind, senses, speech and life is Mind of our mind, Life of our life, Sense of our senses, Speech of our speech ; and it then proceeds to explain what it intends by these challenging phrases. But it introduces between the description and the explanation a warning that neither the description nor the explanation must be pushed beyond their proper limits or understood as more than guide-posts pointing us towards our goal. For neither Mind, Speech nor Sense can travel to the Brahman; therefore Brahman must be beyond all these things in its very nature, otherwise it would be attainable by them in their function. The Upanishad, although it is about to teach of the Brahman, yet affirms,
Page-212 we know not nor can discern how one should teach of it." The two Sanskrit words that are here used, vidmah an 1 vijanlmah, seem to indicate the one a general grasp and possession in knowledge, the other a total comprehension in whole and detail, by synthesis and analysis. The reason of this entire inability is next given, " because Brahman is other than the known and is there over the unknown," possessing it and, as it were, presiding over it. The known is all that we grasp and possess by our present mentality ; it is all that is not the supreme Brahman but only form and phenomenon of it to our sense and mental cognition. The unknown is that which is beyond the known and though unknown is not unknowable if we can enlarge our faculties or attain to others that we do not yet possess.
Yet the Upanishad next proceeds to maintain and explain its first description and to enjoin on us the knowledge of the Brahman which it so describes. This contradiction is not at once reconciled ; it is only in the second chapter that the difficulty is solved and only in the fourth that the means of knowledge are indicated. The contradiction arises from the nature of knowledge itself which is a relation between the consciousness that seeks and the consciousness that is sought; where that relation disappears, knowledge is replaced by sheer identity. In what we call existence, the highest knowledge can be no more than the highest relation between that which seeks and that which is sought, and it consists in a modified identity through which we may pass beyond knowledge to the absolute identity. This metaphysical distinction is of importance because it prevents us from mistaking any relation in knowledge for the absolute and from becoming so bound by our experience as to lose or miss the fundamental awareness of the absolute which is beyond all possible description and behind all formulated experience. But it does not render the highest relation in knowledge, the modified identity in experience worthless or otiose. On the contrary, it is that we must aim at as the consummation of our existence in the world. For if we possess it without being limited by it,—and if we are limited by it we have not true possession
Page-213 of-it,—then in and through it we shall, even while in this body, remain n touch with the Absolute. The means for the attainment of this highest knowledge is the constant preparation of the mind by the admission into it of a working higher than itself until the mind is capable of giving itself up to the supramental action which exceeds it and which will finally replace it. In tact. Mind also has to follow the law of natural progression which has governed our evolution in this world from matter into life and life into mind. For just as life-consciousness is beyond the imprisoned material being and unattainable by it though its own instruments, so this supramental consciousness is beyond the divided and dividing nature of Mind and unattainable by it through its own instruments. But as Matter is constantly prepared for the manifestation of Life until Life is able to move in it, possess it, manage in it its own action and reaction, and as Life is constantly prepared for the manifestation of Mind until Mind is able to use it, enlighten its actions and reactions by higher and higher mental values, so must it be with Mind and that which is beyond Mind. And all this progression is possible because these things are only different formations of one being and one consciousness. Life only reveals in Matter that which is involved in Matter, that which is the secret meaning and essence of Matter. It reveals, as it were, to material existence its own soul, its own end. So too Mind reveals in Life, all that Life means, all that it obscurely is in essence but cannot realise because it is absorbed in its own practical motion and its own characteristic form. So also Supermind must intervene to reveal Mind to itself, to liberate it from its absorption in its own practical motion and characteristic form and enable the mental being to realise that which is the hidden secret of all its formal practice and action. Thus shall man come to the knowledge of that which rules within him and missions his minds to its-mark; sends forth his speech, impels the life-force in its paths and sets his senses to their workings.
This supreme cognitive Principle does not think by the
Page-214 mind. Mind is to it an inferior and secondary action, not its own proper mode. For Mind, based on limitation and division, can act only from a given centre in the lower and obscured existence; but Supermind is founded on unity and it comprehends and pervades ; its action is in the universal and is in conscious communion with a transcendent source eternal and beyond the formations of the universe. Supermind regards the individual in the universal and does not begin with him or make of him a separate being. It starts from the Transcendent and sees the universal and individual as they are in relation to it, as it terms, as its formulas; it does not start from the individual and universal to arrive at the Transcendent. Mind acquires knowledge and mastery ; it reaches it by a constant mental sing and willing: Supermind possesses knowledge and mastery ; possessing, it throws itself out freely in various willing and knowing. Mind gropes by divided sensation ; it arrives at a sort of oneness through sympathy: Supermind possesses by a free and all-embracing sense ; it lives in the unity of which various love and sympathy are only a secondary play of manifestation. Supermind starts from the whole and sees in it its parts and properties, it does not build up the knowledge of the whole by an increasing knowledge of the parts and properties ; and even the whole is to it only a unity of sum, only a partial and inferior term of the higher unity of infinite essence. We see, then, that these two cognitive Principles start from two opposite poles and act in opposite directions by opposite methods. Yet it is by the higher cognitive that the lower is formed and governed. Mind is thought by that which is beyond Mind; the mental sing consciousness shapes and directs its movement according to the knowledge and impulse it receives from this higher Supermind and even the stuff of which it is formed belongs to that Principle. Mentality exists because that which is beyond Mind has conceived inverse action of itself founded upon its self-concentration on different points in its own being and in different forms of its own being. Supermind fixes these points, sees how consciousness must act them on other Page-215 forms of itself and in obedience to the pressure of those other forms, once a particular rhythm or law of universal action is given ; it governs the whole action of mentality according to what it thus fixes, and sees. Even our ignorance is only the distorted action of a truth projected from the Supermind and could not exist except as such a distortion; and so likewise all our dualities of knowledge, sensation, emotion, force proceed from that higher vision, obey it and are a secondary and, as one might say, perverse action of the concealed Supermind itself which governs always this lower a tion in harmony with its first conception of a located consciousness, divided indeed and therefore not in possession of its world or itself, but feeling out towards that possession and towards the unity which, because of the Supermind in is, it instinctively, if obscurely, knows to be its true nature and right.
But, for this very reason, the feeling out, the attempt at acquisition can only succeed in proportion as the mental being abandons his characteristic mentality and its limitations in order to rise beyond to that Mind of the mind which is his origin and his secret governing principle. His mentality must admit
Supramental as Life has admitted Mind. So long as he worships, follows after, adheres to all this that he now accepts as the object of his pursuit, to the mind and its aims, to its broken methods, its constructions of will and1 opinion and
emotion dependent on egoism, division anal ignorance, he cannot rise beyond this death to that immortality which the
Upanishad promises to the seeker. That Brahman we have to know and seek after and not this which men here adore and pursue.
Page-216 THE SECOND HYMN TO AGNI A HYMN OF THE LIBERATION OF THE DI VINE FORCE [ Nature in her ordinary limited and material workings holds the Divine Force concealed in her secret or Subconscient being; only when consciousness enlarges itself towards the One and Infinite, is it manifested, born for the conscient Mind. The clarities of the higher illumination cannot be kept so long as there is not this Strength to guard them, for hostile powers snatch them away and conceal them again in their secret cavern. Divine Will manifested in man, itself liberated, liberates him from the cords which bind him as a victim in the world-sacrifice; we attain to it by the teaching of Indra, the divine Mind, and it protects the uninterrupted play of the Light and destroys the powers of falsehood whose limitations cannot hem in its growth and its out-flaming; it brings the divine waters from the luminous Heaven, the divine wealth liberated from the attacks of the Enemy, and gives the final peace and perfection. ] 1. The young Mother 1 bears the Boy pressed down in her secret being and gives him not to the Father; but his force is not diminished, the peoples
1. The Mother and Father are always either Nature and the Soul or the material being and the pure mental being.
Page-217 behold him established in front 2 2. Who is this Boy whom thou bearest in thyself when thou art compressed into form, but thy vast-ness gives him birth ? For many seasons the Child grew in the womb; I saw him born when the Mother brought him forth. 3. I saw far off in the field of being one tusked with golden light and pure bright of hue who was shaping the weapons of his war. I give to him the immortality in me in all my separate parts 4. I saw in the field as though a happy herd that ranged continuously in many forms of luminous beauty. None could seize on them, for he was born ; even they that were old among them, grow young once more. 5. Who were they that divorced my strength from the herds of Light ? Against them there was no protector nor any worker in this war. Let those that took them from me, release them to me again; for he with his conscious perceptions comes driving to us our lost herds of the radiance. 6. The king of those who dwell in creatures, he in whom all creatures dwell, is hidden within mortals by hostile powers; let the soul-thoughts of the Katter of things release him, let the confiners be themselves confined.
2. As the Purohit who leads and conducts the work of the sacrifice. 3. Soma the wine of immortality, is given to the gods in three .parts, on three levels of our being, the mind, life and body- 4. The expressive Word which manifests that which is hidden, brings out into expression that which is unexpressed. Page-218 7. Çunahçepa too, head of delight, was bound to the thousand fold post of the sacrifice; him thou didst release,—yea, he accomplished perfection by his works; so do thou take thy seat here in us, O conscious seeing Flame, O Priest of our sacrifice, and loose from us the cords of our bondage. 8. Mayst thou not grow wroth and depart from me! He who guards the law of action of the godheads, told me of thee and, taught by him his knowledge, I came to thee. 9. This Flame of Will shines out with the vast light of Truth and makes all things manifest by the greatness of him. He overpowers the formations of knowledge 10. May the voices of the Flame in our heavens be sharp-weapon to slay the Rakshasa ! In his ecstasy his angry lustre’s break all that opposes his advance; the energies undivine that obstruct us from every side cannot pen him in. 11. O thou who art born in many forms, I illumined in mind, accomplished in understanding, perfect in works, have fashioned for thee this song of thy affirming to be as if thy chariot. If thou, O Strength, take an answering delight in it, by this we may conquer the waters that carry the light of the luminous heaven 12. The strong-necked
5. Maya. There are two kinds of Maya, the divine and Undivine, the formations of the truth and the formations of the falsehood. 6. Swar, the divine mind pure to the luminous Truth. 7. Or. many-necked. 8. The wealth of the luminous herds. Page-219 withheld by our enemy ; nor is there any to destroy it. For so have the Powers Immortal spoken to the Strength that he work out peace for the man who enlarges the seat of sacrifice, that he work out peace for the man who carries in his hand the oblation. THE DIVINE FORCE, CONQUEROR OK THE SUPREME GOOD, [The Divine Will-Force is that of which all the other godheads arc forms and he manifests all these powers of supreme Truth as he grows in us. Thus the supreme state of conscious being is attained and by that our complex and manifold-existence is maintained in the Light and the Joy. The Rishi prays thrift the evil may riot be allowed to express itself again in him, that the secret soul in us who is the Father of things but in us appears as the child of our works and our evolution, may open itself to the vast Truth-consciousness. The Divine Flame will destroy all the powers of falsehood and evil who seek to make us stumble and would rob us of our heavenly treasure. ] 1. Thou art he of the Wideness, 1 O Will, when thou art born ; thou becomes the Lord of Love 2 when thou art entirely kindled. In thee are all the gods, O son of Force ; thou art the Power-in-Mind for the mort 1 who gives the offering.
1. Varuna, who represents the ethereal purity and oceanic wideness of the infinite Truth. 2. Mitra, the all-embracing harmony of the Truth, the Friend of all beings, therefore the Lord of Love. 3. Indra, Ruler of tile being, Master of Swar which is the luminous world of the Divine Mind. Page-220 2. O thou who possesses self-ordering Nature, thou becomes the might of the Aspirer 3. For the glory of thee, O Violent One, the Thought-Powers make to shine out by their pressure that which is thy rich and beautiful birth. 4. By the glory of thee because thou hast right vision, O godhead, the gods holding all that multiple existence taste immortality and men take their seat in the Force that offers the oblation and, desiring, they distribute to the godheads the self-expression of the being. 5. There is none that precedent thee as the priest of the oblation nor any mightier for sacrifice ; O Flame, none is supreme over thee in the things of the Wisdom, thou who possesses the self-ordering
4. Aryaman, the aspiring power and action of the Truth. 5. Probably, the unripe Radiances that our aspiration has to prepare for their union with the higher power of the soul; Aryaman holds their secret sense, the Name or Numen, which is manifested when aspiration arrives at the light of knowledge and Mitra harmonises soul and nature. 6. Mitra. 7. The Soul and Nature. The mansion is the human body. 8. The supreme world of Light. Agni is said elsewhere to become in his being the highest of the shining worlds. 9. Vishnu has three strides or movements, earth, heaven and the supreme world of which Light, Truth and the Sun are the foundation. 10. The highest divine sense of the illuminations of Knowledge is found in the superconscient worlds of supreme Light. Page-221 power of Nature. The creature of whom thou becomes the guest, O godhead, prevails by sacrifice over all that belong to the mortality. 6. May we, O Flame, fostered by thee and awakened, seekers of the substance, prevail by the offering,—we in the great struggle, we in the comings of knowledge in our days, 11 we by the felicity, O son of Force, overcome all that are mortal. 7. The expresser of evil who seeks to bring sin and transgression into us, his own evil do thou return upon his head; slay, O conscious knower, this hostile self-expression of him who oppresses us with the duality. 8. Thee, O Godhead, in the dawning of this our Night the Ancients 9. Deliver the Father and in thy knowledge put away evil from him who is borne in us as thy son, O child of Force. When wilt thou have that vision for us, O conscious Knower ? when wilt thou, O Truth-conscious Will, impel us to the journey ? 10. Then indeed the Father adores and holds, O Dweller in the substance, the vast Name
11. The periods of Light visiting the soul. 12. The ancient seers who discovered the secret wisdom. 13. The supreme world of Truth and Bliss. 14. The world of Truth is also called the Wideness or the Vast or the Vast Truth. 15. The Deva, the supreme Deity, of whom all the gods are different Names and Powers. Page-222 11. Thou, O Will, O youngest vigour, carries thy adorer beyond all stumbling into grief and evil; for the creatures are seen of thee who would do hurt to us and are thieves in their hearts,—they whose perceptions are void of the knowledge and therefore they have fallen into the crookedness.
I 2. Lo, all these movements of our journeying have turned their faces towards thee, and for that evil in us, it is declared to the Dweller in our being. O never can this Will in his increasing betray us to the hurter of our self-expression ; he will not deliver us into the hands of our enemy !
Page-223 CHAPTER XII THE LOST SUN AND THE LOST COWS The conquest or recovery of the Sun and the Dawn is a frequent subject of allusion in the hymns of the Rig Veda. Sometimes it is the finding of Surya, sometimes the finding or conquest of Swar, the world of Surya. Sayana, indeed, takes the word Swar as a synonym of Surya; but it is perfectly clear from several passages that Swar is the name of a world or supreme Heaven above the ordinary heaven and earth. Sometimes indeed it is used for the solar light proper both to Surya and to the world which is formed by his illumination. We have seen that the waters which descend from Heaven or which are conquered and enjoyed by Indra and the mortals who are befriended by him, are described as svarvatîr apah. Sayana, taking these apah for physical waters, was bound to find another meaning for svarvatîh and he declares that it means saranavatîh, moving; but this is obviously a forced sense which the word itself does not suggest and can hardly bear. The thunderbolt of Indra is called the heavenly stone, svaryam açmânam ; its light, that is to say, is the light from this world of the solar splendours. Indra himself is svarpati, the master of Swar, of the luminous world.
Moreover, as we see that the finding and recovery of the Cows is usually described as the work of Indra, often with the aid of the Angirasa Rishis and by the instrumentality of the mantra and the sacrifice, of Agni and
Page-224 Soma, so also the finding and recovery of the sun is attributed to the same agencies. Moreover the two actions are continually associated together. We have, it seems to me, overwhelming evidence in the Veda itself that all these things constitute really one great action of which they are parts. The Cows are the hidden rays of the Dawn or of Surya; their rescue out of the darkness leads to or is the sign of the uprising of the sun that was hidden in the darkness; this again is the condition, always with the instrumentality of the sacrifice, its circumstances and its helping gods, of the conquest of Swar, the supreme world of Light. So much results beyond doubt, it seems to me, from the language of the Veda itself; but also that language points to this Sun being a symbol of the divine illumining Power, Swar the world of the divine Truth and the conquest of divine Truth the real aim of the Vedas Rishis and the subject of their hymns. I will now examine as rapidly as possible the evidence which points towards this conclusion.
First of all, we see that Swar and Surya are different conceptions in the minds of the Vedic Rishis, but always closely connected. We have for instance the verse in
Bharadwaja hymn to Soma and Indra. I. 72.1 "Ye found the Sun, ye found Swar, ye slew all darkness and limitations " and in a hymn of Vamadeva to Indra, V. 16. which celebrates this achievement of Indra and the Angirasa, " When by the hymns of illumination ( arkaih ) Swar was found, entirely visible, when they ( the Angirasas ) made to shine the great light out of the
north, he (Indra) made the darkness’s ill-assured (i. e. loosened their firm hold ) so that men might have vision." In the first passage we see that Swar and Surya are different from each other and that Swar is not merely another name for Surya; but at the same time the finding of Swar and the finding of Surya are represented as closely connected and indeed one movement and the result, is the slaying of all darkness and limitations. So in the second passage the finding and making visible of Swar is associated with the shining of a
Page-225 great light out of the darkness, which we find from parallel passages to be the recovery, by the Angirasas of the Sun that was lying concealed in the darkness. Surya is found by the Angirasas through the poser of their hymns or true mantras ; Swar also is found and made visible by the hymns of the Angirasas, arkaih. It is clear therefore that the substance of Swar is a great light and that that light is the light of Surya the Sun.
We might even suppose that Swar is a word for the sun, light or the sky if it were not clear from other passages that it is the name of a world. It is frequently alluded to as a world beyond the
Roads, beyond heaven and earth, and is otherwise called the wide world, uru loka, or the wide other world, uru u loka, or simply that ( other ) world, u loka. This world is described as one of vast light and of a wide freedom from fear where the cows, the rays of Surya, disport themselves freely. So in VI. 47.8, we have " Thou in thy knowledge leadest us on to the wide world, even Swar, the Light which is freedom from fear, with happy being," svar jyotir abhayam svasti. In III. 2. 6, Agni Vaiswanara is described as filling the earth and heaven and the vast Swar,
â rodasî apr’in’ad â svar mahat; and so also Vasishtha says in his hymn to Vishnu, VII. 99, " Thou didst support firmly, O Vishnu, this earth and heaven and uphold the earth all around by the rays (of Surya). Ye two created for the sacrifice ( i- e. as its result ) the wide other world ( arum u lokam), bringing into being the Sun, the Dawn and Agni," where we again see the close connection of Swar, the wide world, with the birth or appearance of the Sun and the Dawn. It is described as the result of the sacrifice, the end of our pilgrimage, the vast home to which we arrive, the other world to which those who do well the works of sacrifice attain,
sunr’itdndm u lokam. Agni goes as an envoy between earth and heaven and then encompasses with his being this vast home, kshayam brihantam pari bhûshati, ( III. 3. 2 ). It is a world of bliss and the fullness of all the riches to which the Vedic Rishi aspires: " He for whom, because he does well his
Page-226 works, O Agni Jatavedas, thou wiliest to make that other world of bliss, attains to a felicity full of the Horses, the Suns, the Heroes, the Cows, all happy being" (III." 4. 11). And it is by the Light that this Bliss is attained; it is by bringing to Birth the Sun and the Dawn and the Days that the Angirasas attain to it for the desiring human race; " Indra who winneth Swar, bringing to birth the days, has conquered by those who desire (uçigbhih, a word applied like ttt’4 to express men and gods, but, like nr’i also, sometimes especially indicating the Angirasas) the armies he attacks, and he has made to shine out for man the vision of the days ( ketum ahnâm ) and formed the Light for the great bliss," avindaj jyotir bri’hate ran’âya.
All this may very well be interpreted, so far as these and other isolated passages go, as a sort of Red Indian conception of a physical world beyond the sky and the earth, a world made out of the rays of the sun, in which the human being, freed from fear and limitation,—it is a wide world,—has his desires satisfied and possesses quite an unlimited number of horses, cows, sons and retainers. But what we have set out to prove is that it is not so, that on the contrary, this wide world, brihad dyau or Swar, which we have to attain by passing beyond heaven and earth,—for so it is more than once stated, e.g. I. 36. 8, "Human beings
(Manu shah) slaying the Coverer have crossed beyond both earth and heaven and made the wide world for their dwelling place, " ghnanto vr’itram ataran rodasî ubhe
ape uru kshayâya chakrire,—that this supra-celestial wideness, this illimitable light is a supramental heaven, the heaven of the supramental Truth, of the immortal Beatitude, and that the light which is its substance and constituent reality, is the light of Truth. But at present it is enough to
emphasised this point that it is a heaven concealed from our vision by a certain darkness, that it is has to be found and made visible, and that this seeing and finding depends on the birth of the Dawn, the rising of the Sun, the up surging of the Solar Herds out of their secret cave. The souls successful in sacrifice become svardr’iç and svarvid,
Page-227 seers of Swar and finders of Swar or its knower; for vid is a root which means both to find or get and to know and in one or two passages the less ambiguous root jrid is substituted for it and the Veda even speaks of m inking the light known out of the darkness. For the rest, this question of the nature of Swar or the wide world is of supreme importance for the interpretation of the Veda, since on it turns the whole difference between t he theory of a hymnal of barbarians and the theory of a book of ancient knowledge, a real Veda. It can only be entirely dealt with in a discussion of the hundred,, and more passages speaking of this wide world which would be quite beyond the scope of these chapters. We shall, however, have to return to this question while dealing with the Angirasa hymns and afterwards.
The birth of the Sun and the Dawn must therefore be regarded as the condition of seeing or attaining to Swar, and it is this which explains the immense importance attached to this legend or image in the Veda and to the conception of the illumining, finding, bringing to birth of the light out of the darkness by the true hymn, the satya mantra. This is done by Indra and the Angirasas, and numerous are the passages that allude to it. Indra and the Angirasas are described as finding Swar or the Sun, avidat, illumining or making it to shine, arochayat, bringing it to birth, ajanayat, ( we must
remember that in the Veda the manifestation of the gods in the sacrifice is constantly described as their birth ); and winning and possessing it, sanat. Often indeed India alone is mentioned. It is he who makes light from the nights and brings into birth the Sun, kshapâm vastâ janitâ silryasya ( III. 49. 4), he who has brought to their birth the Sun and the Dawn (II. 12. 7), or, in a more ample phrase, brings to birth together the Sun and Heaven and Dawn ( VI. 30. 5 ). By his shining he illumines the Dawn, by his shining he makes to blaze out the sun, haryann ushasam archayah sûryam haryanu arochayah ( III. 44. 2 ) These are his great achievements jajâna sûryam ushasam sudansâh (III. 32. 8), that with Page-228 his shining comrades he wins for possession the field ( is this not the field in which the Atri saw the shining cows?), wins the sun, wins the waters, sanat kshetram sakhibhih svitnyebhih sanat sûryam sanad apah suvajrah’( I. 100. 18 ). He is also he who winneth Swar, svarsha, as we have seen, by bringing to birth the days. In isolated passages we might take this birth of the Sun as referring to the original creation of the sun by the gods, but not when we take these and other passages together. This birth is his birth in conjunction with the Dawn, his birth out of the Night. It is by the sacrifice that this birth takes place,—indrah suyajna ushasah svar janat( II. 21. 4), "Indra sacrificing well brought to birth the Dawns and Swar " it is by human aid that it is done,—asmakebhir nr’ibhir stiryam sanat, by our " men " he. wins the sun ( I. 100-6 ); and in many hymns it is described as the result of the work of the Angirasas and is associated with the delivering of the cows or the breaking of the hill.
It is this circumstance among others that prevents us from taking, as we might otherwise have taken, the birth or finding of the Sun as simply a description of the sky (Indra) daily recovering the sun at dawn. "When it is said of him that he finds the light even in the blind darkness, so and he chit tamasi jyotir vidat, it is evident that the reference is to the same light which Agni and Soma found, one light for all these many creatures, avindatam jyotir ekam bahubhyah, when they stole the cows from the Panis (1.93.4), "the wakeful light which they who increase truth brought into birth, a god for the god "(VIII.8g.l), the secret light (gudham jyotih) which the fathers, the Angirasas, found when by their true mantras they brought to birth the Dawn. It is that which is referred to in the mystic hymn to all the gods (VIII.29.1) attributed to Manu Vaivaswata or to Kashyapa, in which it is said " certain of them singing the Rik thought out the mighty
Samna and by that they made the Sun to shine." This is not represented as being done previous to the creation, of man; for it is said in VII.91.1,1" The gods who increase by our obeisance
Page-229 and were of old, without blame, they for man beset (by the powers of darkness) made the Dawn to shine by the Sun." This is the finding of the Sun that was dwelling in the darkness by the Angirasas through their ten months’ sacrifice. Whatever may have been the origin of the image or legend, it is an old one and widespread and it supposes a long obscuration of the Sun during which man was beset by darkness. We find it not only among the Aryans of India, but among the Mayas of America whose civilisation was a ruder and perhaps earlier type of the Egyptian culture ; there too it is the same legend of the Sun concealed for many months in the darkness and recovered by the hymns and prayers of the wise men (the Angirasa Rishis ?). In the Veda the recovery of the Light is first effected by the Angirasas, the seven sages, the ancient human fathers and is then constantly repeated in human experience by their agency. It will appear from this analysis that the legend of the lost Sun and its recovery by sacrifice and by the mantra and the legend of the lost Cows and their recovery, also by the mantra, both carried out by Indra and the Angirasas, are not two different myths, they are one. We have already asserted this identity while discussing the relations of the Cows and the Dawn. The Cows are the rays of the Dawn, the herds of the Sun and not physical cattle. The lest Cows are the lost rays of the Sun ; their recovery is the forerunner of the recovery of the lost sun. But it is now necessary to put this identity beyond all possible doubt by the clear statement of the Veda itself. For the Veda does explicitly tell us that the cows are the Light and the pen in which they are hidden is the darkness. Not only have we the passage already quoted, 1.92.4, in which the purely metaphorical character of the cows and the pen is indicated, " Dawn uncovered the darkness like the pen of the cow " ; not only have we the constant connection of the image of the recovery of the cows with the finding of the light as in 1.93.3, " Ye two stole the cows from the Panis…Ye found the one light for Page-230 many", or in II. 24.3. " That is the work to be done for the most divine of the gods ; the firm places were cast down, the fortified places were made weak ; up Brihaspati drove he cows (rays), by the hymn (brahman’â) he broke Vala, he concealed the darkness, he made Swar visible"; not only are we told in V.3I.3, He impelled forward the good milers within the concealing pen, he opened up by the Light the all-concealing darkness"; but, in case any one should tell us that there is no connection in the Veda between one clause of a sentence and another and that the Rishis are hopping about with minds happily liberated from the bonds of sense and reason from the Cows to the Sun and from the darkness to the cave of the Dravidians, we have in answer the absolute identification in 1.33.10, " Indra the Bull made the thunderbolt his ally " or perhaps " made it applied (yujam), he by the Light milked the rays (cows) out of the darkness,"—we must remember that the thunderbolt is the svaryam acme and has the light of Swar in it,—and again in IV.5I.2, where there is question of the Panis, " They (the Dawns) breaking into, dawn pure, purifying, opened the doors of the. pen, even of the darkness," vrajasya tamaso dvârâ. If in face of all these passages we insist on making a historical myth of the Cows and the Panis, it will be because we are determined to make the Veda mean that in spite of the evidence of the Veda itself. Otherwise we must admit that this supreme hidden wealth of the Panis, nidhih panindm parama guhâhitam is not wealth of earthly herds, but, as is clearly stated by Puruchchhepa Daivodasi (1.130.3), " the treasure of heaven hidden in the secret cavern like the young of the Bird, within the infinite rock, like a pen of the cows", avindad divo nihitam gtihd nidhim veer an garbham parivîtam açhmani anante antar açhmani, vrajam vajrî gavâm iva sishasan.
The passages in which the connection of the two legends or their identity appear, are numerous ; I will only cite a few that are typical. We have in one of the hymns that speak at length of this legend, 1.62, " O Indra, O
Page-231 Puissant, thou with the Daçagwas (the Angirasas) didst tear Vala with the cry; hymned by the Angirasas, thou didst open the Dawns with the Sun and with the Cows the Soma." We have VI. 17.3, Hear the hymn and increase by the words; make manifest the Sun, slay the foe, cleave out the Cows, O Indra." We read in VII. 98.5 "All this wealth of cows that thou seest around thee by the eye of the Sun is-thane, thou art the sole lord of the cows, O Indra, " gavdm asi’ gopatir eka indra, and to show of what kind of cows Indra is the lord, we have in III.31, a hymn of Sarama and the Cows, " The victorious (Dawns) clove to him and they knew a great light out of the darkness ; knowing the Dawns went upward to him, Indra became the sole lord of the Cows," patir gavdm abhavad eka indrah, and the hymn goes on to tell how it was by the mind and by the discovery of the whole path of the Truth that the seven sages, the Angirasas drove up the Cows out of their strong prison and how Sarama, knowing, came to the cavern in the hill and to the voice of the imperishable herds. We have the same connection with the Dawns and the finding of the wide solar light of Swar in VII.90.1, "The Dawns broke forth perfect in light and unhurt, they (the Angirasas) meditating found the wide Light (uru jyetih) ; they who desire opened the wideness of the Cows, the waters flowed on them from heaven."
So too in II.19.3 we have the Days and the Sun and the Cows,—" He brought to its birth the Sun, found the Cows, effecting out of the Night the manifestations of the days." In IV.1, the Dawns and the Cows are identified, " The good
milers whose pen was the rock, the shining ones in their concealing prison they drove upward, the Dawns answering their call," unless this means, as is possible that the Dawns called by the Angirasas, "our human fathers," who are mentioned in the preceding verse, drove up for them the Cows. Then in VI.IV.4 we have the breaking of the pen as the means of the outshining of the Sun; " Thou didst make the Sun and the Dawn to shine, breaking the firm places ; thou didst move from its foundation
Page-232 the great hill that enveloped the Cows ;" and finally in 111.39 the absolute identification of the two images in their legendary form, " None is there among mortals who can blame ( or, as I should rather interpret, no mortal power that can confine or obstruct ) these our fathers who fought for the Cows (of the. Panis) ; Indra of the mightiness, Indra of the works released for them the strongly closed cow-pens; when a friend with his friends the navagvas, following on his knees the cows, when with the ten, the Daçagwas, Indra found the true Sun (or, as I render it, the Truth, the Sun,) dwelling in the darkness." The passage is conclusive ; the cows are the Cows of the Panis which the Angirasas pursue entering the cave on their hands and knees, the finders are Indra and the Angirasas who are spoken of in other hymns as Navagwas and Daçagwas, and that which is found by entering the cow-pens of the Panis in the cave of the hill is not the stolen wealth of the Aryans, but " the sun dwelling in the darkness."
Therefore it is established beyond question that the cows of the Veda, the cows of the Panis, the cows which are stolen, fought for, pursued, recovered, the cows which arc desired by the
Rishis, the ; cows which are won by the hymn and the sacrifice, by the blazing fire and the god-increasing verse and the god-intoxicating Soma, are symbolic cows, are the cows of Light, are, in the other and inner Vedic sense of the words go, usrâ, usriyâ, the shining ones, the radiances, the herds o! the Sun, the luminous forms of the Dawn. By this inevitable conclusion the corner-stone of Vedic interpretation is securely founded far above the gross materialism of a barbarous worship and the Veda reveals itself as a symbolic scripture, a sacred allegory whether of Sun-worship and Dawn-worship or of the cult of a higher and inner Light, of the true Sun, satyam sûryam, that dwells concealed in the darkness of our ignorance, hidden as the child of the Bird, the divine Hansa, in the infinite rock of this material existence,
an-ante antar açmani.
Page-233
Although in this chapter I have confined myself with some rigidity to the evidence that the cows are the light of the sun hid in darkness, yet their connection with the light of Truth and the sun of Knowledge has already shown itself in one or two of the verses cited. We shall see that when we examine, not separate verses, but whole passages of these Angirasa hymns the
hint thus given
develops into a clear certainty. But first we must cast a glance at these Angirasa Rishis and at the creatures of the cave, the friends of darkness from whom they recover the luminous herds and the lost Sun,—the enigmatic Panis.
Page-234 THE CONQUEST OF THE TRUTH TO RENOUNCE THE ILLUSION OF THE WORLD 1 A mind without wisdom remains the spoilt of illusion and miserable. 2 Men insensate enter into the world seduced by a false brilliance. But just as it is easier to enter into a net than to issue out of it, so is it easier to enter into the world than to renounce it when once one has entered in. 3 That man whose mind is solely attached to the objects of sense, him death drags with it as an impetuous torrent sweeps away a slumbering village. 4 The foolish follow after outward desires and they enter into the snare of death that is wide-extended for them; but the wise, having found immortality, know that which is sure and desire not here uncertain things. 5 The wise do not linger in the thicket of the senses, the wise heed not the honeyed voices of the illusion. 6 So long as we are attached to the form, we shall be unable to appreciate the substance, we shall have no notion of the causes the knowledge of which is the true knowing. 7 Before the soul can see, it must have acquired the inner harmony and made the eyes blind to all illusion.—
1) Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king— 2) Ramakrishna.— 3) Dhammapada__4) Katha Ur. anis had. IV. 2.— 5) The Book of Golden Precepts.— 6) Antoine the Healer: Revelations— 7) The Book of Golden Precepts. Page-235 8 He whose senses are not attached to name and form who is no longer troubled by transient things, 9 can be really called a disciple.—He who discerns the truth as truth and the illusion as an illusion, attains to the truth and is walking in the right road. 10 If you wish to know why we must renounce all semblances, the reason is this that they are only means to lend us to the simple and naked truth. If I wish, then, to arrive .at that truth I must leave behind me little by little the road which lends me to it. it The knowledge of the divine nature is the sole truth and this truth cannot be discovered, nor even its shadow, in this world full of les, of changing appearances and of errors. * * * 12 As clouds cover the sun, so the Illusion hides the Divinity. When the clouds recede, the sun becomes visible; even so when the Illusion is dissipated, the 13 Eternal can be seen.—You veil your eyes and complain that you cannot see the Eternal. If you wish to see 14 Him, tear from your eyes the veil of the illusion.—So and likewise, if you tear awn the veils of the heart, the light of the oneness will shine upon it. 15 O disciple, that which was not created dwells in thee. If thou wish to attain to it,…thou must strip 16 thyself of thy dark robes of illusion.—Flee the Ignorance and flee also the Illusion. Turn thy face torn the deceptions of the world ; distrust thy senses, they are liars. But in thy body which is the tabernacle of 17 sensation, seek the ” Eternal Man."—The world is a brilliant flame in which every moment a new creature comes to burn itself. Bravely turn thy eyes from it like the lion, if thou wouldst not burn thyself in it like the butterfly. The insensate who like that insect adores the flame, will surely be burned in it.
8) Dhammapada.— 9) id.— 10) Tauler; Institutions.— 11) Hermes: On Initiation.— 12)
Ramakrishna.— 13) id.— 14) Baha-ullah: The Seven Valleys.— IS) The Book of Golden Precepts.— 10; Farid-ud-din-attar: Mantic Uttair.—17) Harmes: On Rebirth.
Page-236 18 This is the new birth, my son, to turn one’s thought from the body that has the three dimensions. 19 What then is that which is true? That which is not troubled, my son, that which has no limits, colour nor form, the unmoving, the naked, the luminous; that which knows itself, the immutable, the good, the incorporeal. 20 In what then consists progress ? He who detaching himself from external things devotes himself entirely to the education and preparation of his faculty of judgment and will in older to put it into accord with Nature and give it elevation, freedom, independence, self-possession,—he it is who is really progressing. 21 Who truly travels beyond the Illusion ? He who renounces evil associations, who keeps company with lofty spirits, who has no longer the sense of possession; who frequents solitary places; who wrests himself out of slavery to the world, passes beyond the three qua. laities and abandons all anxiety about his existence ; renounces the fruits of works, renounces his works and becomes free from the opposites ; who renounces even the Vedas and aids others to travel beyond; he truly travels beyond and helps others to make the voyage. 22 He who has surmounted the furious waves of visible things, of him it is said "he is a master of the wisdom." He has attained the bank, he stands on firm ground. If thou hast traversed this sea with its abysms, full of waves, full of depths, full of monsters, then wisdom and holiness are thy portion. Thou hast attained to land, thou hast attained to the aim of the universe. 23 He alone traverses the current of the illusion who comes face to face with the Eternal and realise it. 24 1 will therefore make ready to lender my thought an alien to the illusion of the world.
18) id.— 20) Epictetus: Conversations.— 21) Narada Sutra.— 22) Sanyutta Nikaya.— 23) Hermes: On Rebirth. – 24) Ramakrishna. Page-237 [ Translated from the Tamil verses of Kulasekhara Alwar, the Cheri king and saint ] Though thou shouldst not spare me the roguish of the world, yet I have no refuge but thy feet. O Lord of the City of the wise begirt by gardens full of sweet flowers, if, in a keen-edged wrath, the mother cast off the babe, what can it do but cry for the mother’s love? I am like that babe. (l) If the man whom she loves subject her to contumely, the high-born wife still clings to him; for he is her chosen lord. And I, too, O Lord of the City of the wise whose walls reach up to Heaven, I will ever praise thy victorious feet, even if thou shouldst leave me unprotected. (2) Reject me, O Lord, and I will yet hold on to thee, not knowing another prop. O Lord of the City of the wise encircled by green fields with their glancing fish, the rightful king may cause much pain to his county’s heart, not looking at things with his own eyes, but still the country trusts in him. I am like that country. (3) The sufferer loves the wise physician even when his flesh is cut and burnt. O Lord of the City of the wise, let thy Illusion inflict on me an endless pain, I will yet remain thy servant, I will yet look up to thy feet. (4)
O Lord of the city of the wise, who didst slay the strong and cruel Beast, ah, where shall I
fly for refuge, if I leave
Page-238 thy feet? On the tossing sea the bird leaves the mast of the ship, he flies to all sides but no shore is visible, and he again returns to the mast. I am like that bird. (5) Let Fire himself assail with its heat the lotus-flower, it will blossom to none but the Sun. Even if thou shouldst refrain from healing its pain, my heart can be melted by nothing else as by thy unlimited beauty. ( 6 ) The Rain may forget the fields, but the fields will ever be thirsting for its coming. O Lord of the City of the wise, what care I whether thou heal my wound or no, my heart shall ever be thane. ( 7 ) The rivers course down through many lands but must yield themselves to the Sea, they cannot flow back. O sea-hued Lord of the Cit3r of the wise, even so must I ever be drawn to thy resplendent glory. (8)
Illusory Power ever seeks him who seecatch thee not, not seeking thy lasting Might. O Lord of the city of the wise whose discus flashes like the lightning, I must ever seek thee, who am thy servant. (9)
Page-239 The theory of rebirth is almost as ancient as thought itself and its origin is unknown. We may according to our prepossessions accept it as the fruit of ancient psychological experience always renewable and verifiable and therefore true or dismiss it as a philosophical dogma and ingenious speculation ; but in either case the doctrine, even as it is in all appearance well-nigh as old as human thought itself, is likely also to endure as long as human beings continue to think.
In former times the doctrine used, to pass in Europe under the grotesque name of transmigration which brought with it to the Western mind the humorous image of the soul of Pythagoras migrating, a haphazard bird of passage, from the human form divine into the body of a guinea-pig or an ass. The philosophical appreciation of the theory expressed itself in the admirable but rather unmanageable Greek word, metempsychosis, which means the
insulting of a new body by the same psychic individual. The Greek tongue is always happy in its marriage of thought and word and a better expression could not be found ; but forced into English speech the word becomes merely long and pedantic without any memory of its subtle Greek sense and has to be abandoned. Reincarnation is the now popular term, but the idea in the word leans to the gross or external view of the fact and begs many questions. I
prefer " rebirth," for it renders the sense of the wide,
colourless. but sufficient Sanskrit term,
panorama, "again-birth," and commits us to nothing but the fundamental Page-240 idea which is the essence and life of the doctrine. Rebirth is for the modern mind no more than a speculation and a theory ; it has never been proved by the methods of modern science or to the satisfaction of the new critical mind formed by a scientific culture. Neither has it been disproved ; for modern science knows nothing about a before-life or an after-life for the human soul !, knows nothing indeed about a soul at all, nor can know; its province stops with the flesh and brain and nerve, the embryo and its formation and development. Neither has modern criticism any apparatus by which the truth or untruth of rebirth can be established. In fact, modern criticism, with all its pretensions to searching investigation and scrupulous certainty, is no very efficient truth-finder. Outside the sphere of the immediate physical it is almost helpless. It is good at discovering data, but except where the data themselves bear on the surface their own conclusion, it has no means of being rightly sure of the generalisations it announces from them so confidently in one generation and destroys in the next. It has no means of finding out with surety the truth or untruth of a doubtful historical assertion ; after a century of dispute it has not even been able to tell us yes or no, whether Jesus Christ ever existed. How then shall it deal with such a matter as this of rebirth which is stuff of psychology and must be settled rather by psychological than physical evidence ?
The arguments which are usually put forward by supporters and opponents, are oft^n sufficiently futile and at their best certainly insufficient either to prove or to disprove anything in the world. One argument, for instance, often put forward triumphantly in disproof is this that we have no memory of our past lives and therefore there were no past lives ! One smiles to see such reasoning seriously used by those who imagine that they are something more than intellectual children. The argument proceeds on psychological grounds and yet it ignores the very nature of our ordinary or physical memory which is all that the normal man can employ. How much do we remember of our actual
Page-241 lives which we are undoubtedly living at the present moment? Our memory is normally good for what is near, becomes vaguer or less comprehensive as its objects recede into the distance, farther off seizes only some salient points and, finally, for the beginning of our lives falls into a mere blankness. Do we remember even the mere fact, the simple state of being an infant on the mother’s breast? and yet that state of infancy was, on any but a Buddhist theory, part of the same life and belonged to the same individual,—the very one who cannot remember it just as he cannot remember his past lives. Yet we demand that this physical memory, this memory of the brute brain of man which cannot remember our infancy and has lost so much of our later years, shall yet recall that which was before infancy, before birth, before itself was foamed. And if it cannot, we are to cry, "Disproved your reincarnation theory!" The sapient incipiency of our ordinal y human reasoning could go no farther than in this sort of ratiocination. Obviously, if our past lives are to be remembered whether as fact and state or in their events and images, it can only be by a psychical memory awaking which will overcome the limits of the physical tend resuscitate impressions other than those stamped on the physical being by physical cerebration.
I doubt whether, even if we could have evidence of the physical memory of past lives or of such a psychical awakening, the theory would be considered any better proved than before. We now hear of many such instances confidently alleged though without that apparatus of verified evidence responsibly examined which gives weight to the results of psychical research. The
septic can always challenge them as mere fiction and imagination unless and until they are placed on a firm basis of evidence. Even if the facts alleged are verified, he has the resource of affirming that they are not
really memories but were know to the person alleging them by
ordinary physical means or were suggested to him by other and have been
converted into reincarnate memory either by conscious deception Page-242 or by a process of self-deception and self-hallucination. And even supposing the evidence were too strong and unexceptionable to be got rid of by these familiar devices, they might yet not be accepted as proof of rebirth. Modern speculation and research have brought in this doubt to over hang all psychical theory and generalisation. We know for instance that in the phenomena, say, of automatic writing or of communication from the dead, it is disputed whether the phenomena proceed from outside from disembodied minds, or from within, from the subliminal consciousness, or whether the communication is actual and immediate from the released personality or is the uprising to the surface of a telepathic impression which came from the mind of the then living man but has remained submerged in our subliminal mentality. The same doubt might be opposed to the evidences of reincarnate memory. It might be maintained that they prove the power of a certain faculty in us to have knowledge of past events, but that these events belong to other personalities than ours and that our attribution of them to our own personality in past lives is an imagination, a hallucination, or else an instance of that self-appropriation of things and experiences perceived but not our own which is one out of the undoubted phenomena of mental error. Much would be proved by an accumulation of such evidences but not, to the sceptic at lea .t, rebirth. Certainly, if they were sufficiently ample, exact profuse, intimate, they would create an atmosphere which would lead in the end to a general acceptance of the theory by the human race as a moral certitude. But proof is a different matter.
After all, most of the things that we accept as truths are really no more then moral certitudes. We have all the profoundest
unshakeable teeth that the earth revolves on it own axis, but as has been pointed out by a great French mathematician, the fact has never been proved ; it is only a theory which accounts well for certain
observable facts, no more. Who knows whether it may not be replaced in this or another century by a better—or a worse ? All observed astronomical phenomena were admirably accounted for
Page-243 by theories of spheres and I know not what else, before Galileo came in with his " And yet it moves, " disturbing the infallibility of Popes and Bibles and the science and logic of the learned. One feels certain that admirable theories could be invented to account for the facts of gravitation if our intellects were not prejudiced and prepossessed by the anterior demonstrations of Newton. This is the ever-perplexing and inherent plague of our reason; for it starts by knowing nothing and has to deal with infinite possibilities, and the possible explanations of any given set of facts until we actually know what is behind them, are endless. In the end, we really know only what we observe and even that subject to a haunting question, for instance, that green is green and white is white, although it appears that colour is not colour but something else that creates the appearance of colour. Beyond observable fact w-e must be content with reasonable logical satisfaction, dominating probability and moral certitude,—at least until we have the sense to observe that there are faculties in us higher than the sense-dependent reason and awaiting development by which we can arrive at greater certainties.
We cannot really assert as against the sceptic any-such dominant probability or any such certitude on behalf of the theory of rebirth. The external evidence yet available is in the last degree rudimentary. Pythagoras was one of the greatest of sages, but his assertion that be fought at Troy under the name of the
Antennary and was
slain by the younger son of Art emus is an assertion only and his identification of the Trojan shield will convince no one who is not already convinced; the modem evidence is not as yet any more convincing than the proof of
Pythagoras. In absence of external proof which to our matter governed sensational intellects is alone conclusive, we have the argument of the
reincarnations that their theory accounts for all the facts better than any other yet advanced. The claim is just, but it does not create any kind of certitude. The theory of rebirth gives us a simple, symmetrical, beautiful explanation of things ; .but so too the theory of the spheres gave us once a simple, symmetrical, beautiful
Page-244 explanation of the heavenly movements. Yet we have now got quite another explanation, much more complex, much more Gothic and shaky in its symmetry, an inexplicable order evolved out of chaotic infinities, which we accept as the truth of the matter. And yet, if we will only think, we shall perhaps see that even this is not the whole truth ; there is much more behind we have not yet discovered. Therefore the simplicity, symmetry, beauty, satisfactoriness of the reincarnation theory is no warrant of its certitude. When we go into details, the uncertainty increases. Rebirth accounts, for example, for the phenomenon of genius, inborn faculty and so many other psychological mysteries. But then Science comes in with its all-sufficient explanation by heredity—though, like that of rebirth, all-sufficient only to these who already believe in it. Without doubt, the claims of heredity have been absurdly exaggerated. It has succeeded in accounting for much, not all, in our physical being, our temperament, our vital peculiarities. Its attempt to account for genius, inborn faculty and other psychological phenomena is a pretentious failure. But this may be because Science knows nothing at all that is fundamental about our psychology,— no more than primitive astronomers knew of the constitution and law of the stars whose movements they yet observed with a sufficient accuracy. I do not think that even when Science knows more and better, it will be able to explain these things by heredity; but the scientist may well argue that he is only at the beginning of his researches, that the generalisation which has explained so much may well explain all, and that at any rate his hypothesis has had a better start in its equipment of provable facts than the theory of reincarnation.
Nevertheless, the argument of the reincarnations is so far a good argument and respect-worthy, though not conclusive. But there is another more clamorously advanced which seems to me to be on a par with the hostile reasoning from absence of memory, at least in the form in which it is usually advanced to attract unripe minds. This is the ethical argument by which it is sought to justify God’s ways with the world or the world’s ways with itself.
Page-245 There must, it is thought, be a moral governance for the world; or at least some sanction of reward in the cosmos for virtue, some sanction of punishment for sin. But upon our perplexed and chaotic earth no such sanction appears. We see the good man thrust down into the press of miseries and the wicked flourishing like a green bay-tree and not cut down miserably in his end. Now this is into liable. It is a cruel anomaly, it is a reflection on God’s wisdom and justice, almost a proof that God is not; we must remedy that. Or if God is not, we must have some other sanction for righteousness.
How comforting it would be if we could tell a good man
and even the amount of his goodness,—for should not the Supreme be a strict and
honourable accountant ?—by the amount of ghee that he is allowed to put into his
stomach and the number of rupees he can jingle into his bank and the various
kinds of good luck that accrue to him. Yes, and how comforting too if we could
point our finger at the wicked stripped of all concealment and cry at him, ”O
thou wicked one ! for if thou wert not evil, wouldst thou in a world governed by
God or at least by good, be thus ragged, hungry, unfortunate, pursued by grief’s,
void of honour among men? Yes, thou art proved wicked, because thou art ragged.
God’s justice is established." The Supreme Intelligence being fortunately wiser and nobler than man’s childishness, this is impossible. But let us take comfort ! It appears that if the good man has not enough good luck and ghee and rupees, it is because he is really a scoundrel suffering for his crimes,—but a
scoundrel in his past life who has suddenly turned a new leaf in his mother’s womb; and if yonder wicked man flourishes and tramples gloriously on the world, it is because of his goodness—in a past life, the saint that was then having since been converted— was it by his experience of the temporal vanity of virtue?— to the cult of sin. All is explained, all is justified. We suffer for our sins in another body; we shall be rewarded in another body for our
virtues in this; and so it will go on ad infinitum. No wonder, the philosophers found this a bad business and proposed as a remedy to get rid of both sin
Page-246 and virtue and even as our highest good to scramble anyhow out of a world so amazingly governed. Obviously, this scheme of things is only’ a variation of the old spiritual-material bribe and menace, the bribe of a Heaven of fat joys for the good and the threat of a hell of eternal fire or bestial tortures for the wicked. The idea of the Law of the world as primarily a dispenser of rewards and punishments is cognate to the idea of the Supreme Being as a judge, " father " and school-master who is continually rewarding with lollipops his good boys and continually caning his naughty urchins. It is cognate also to the barbarous and in incautious system of savage and degrading punishment for social offences on which human society is still founded. Man insists continually on making God in his own image instead of seeking to make himself more and more in the image of God, and all these ideas are the reflection of the child and the savage and the animal in us which we have still failed to transform or outgrow. We should be inclined to wonder how these fancies of children found their way into such profound philosophical religions as Buddhism and Hinduism, if it were not so patent that men will not deny themselves the luxury of tacking on the rubbish from their past to the deeper thoughts of their sages.
No doubt, since these ideas were so
prominent, they must have had their use in training humanity. Perhaps even it is
true that the Supreme deals with the child soul according to its childishness
and allows it to continue its sensational imaginations of heaven and hell beyond
the death of the physical body. Perhaps both these ideas of after-life and of
rebirth as fields of punishment and reward were needed because suited to our
half-mentalised animality. But after a certain stage the system ceases to be really effective. Men believe in Heaven and Hell but go on sinning merrily, quit at last by a Papal indulgence or the final priestly absolution or a death-bed repentance or a bath in the Ganges or a sanctified death at
Beanies,—such are the childish devices by which we escape from our childishness ! And in the end the mind grows adult and puts the
Page-247 whole nursery nonsense away with contempt. The reward and punishment theory of rebirth, if a little more elevated or at least less crudely sensational, comes to be as ineffective. And it is good that it should be so. For it is intolerable that man with his divine capacity should continue to be virtuous fore reward and shun sin out of terror. Better a strong sinner than a selfish coward or a petty huckstered with God ; there is more divinity in him, more capacity of elevation. Truly the Gita has said w -11, Kripanâh phala-hetavah. And it is inconceivable that the system of this vast and majestic world should have been founded on these petty and paltry motives. There is reason in these theories ? then reason of the nursery, puerile. Ethics? then ethics of the mud, muddy.
The true foundation of the theory of rebirth is the evolution of the soul, or rather its efflorescence out of the veil of Matter and its gradual self-finding. Buddhism contained this truth involved in its theory of Karma and emergence out of Karma but failed to bring it to light; Hinduism knew it of old, but afterwards missed the right balance of its expression. Now we are again able to restate the ancient truth in a new language and this is already being done by certain schools of thought, though still the old incrustations tend to tack themselves on to the deeper wisdom. And if this gradual efflorescence be true, then the theory of rebirth is an intellectual necessity, a logically unavoidable corollary. But what is the aim of that evolution? Not conventional or interested virtue and the faultless counting out of the small coin of good in the hope of an apportioned
material reward, but the continual growth of a divine knowledge, strength, love and purity. These things alone are real virtue and this virtue is its own reward. The one true reward of the works of love is to grow ever in capacity and delight of love up to the ecstasy of the spirit’s all-seizing embrace and universal passion; the one reward of the works of right Knowledge is to grow perpetually into the infinite Light; the one reward of the works of right Power is to harbour more and more of the Force Divine, and of the works of purity to be freed more
Page-248 and more from egoism into that immaculate wideness where all things are transformed and reconciled into the divine equality7. To seek other reward is to bind oneself to a foolishness and a childish ignorance; and to regard even these things as a reward is an unripe ness and an imperfection. And what of suffering and happiness, misfortune and prosperity? These are experiences of the soul in its training, helps, props, means, disciplines, tests, ordeals,—and prosperity often a worse ordeal than suffering. Indeed, adversity, suffering may often be regarded rather as a reward to virtue than as a punishment for sin, since it turns out to be the greatest help and purifier of the soul struggling to unfold itself. To regard it merely as the stern award of a Judge, the anger of an irritated Ruler or even the mechanical recoil of result of evil upon cause of evil is to take the most superficial view possible of God’s dealings with the soul and the law of its evolution. And what of worldly prosperity, wealth, progeny, the outward enjoyment of art, beauty, power? Good, if they be achieved without loss to the soul and enjoyed only as the out flowing of the divine Joy and Grace upon our material existence. But let us seek them first for others or rather for all, and for ourselves only as a part of the universal condition or as one means of bringing perfection nearer.
The soul needs no proof of its rebirth any more than it needs proof of its immortality. For there comes a time when it is consciously immortal, aware of itself in its eternal and immutable essence. Once that realisation is accomplished, all intellectual questionings for and against the immortality of the soul fall away like a vain
clam our of ignorance around the sell-evident and ever-present truth. Tato na vichikitsale. That is the true; dynamic belief in immortality when it becomes to us not an intellectual dogma but a fact as evident as the physical fact of our
breathing and as little in need of proof c r argument. So also their comes a time when the
seal becomes aware of itself in its eternal and mutable movement ; it is then aware of the ages behind that constituted the present
or-
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ganisation of the movement, sees how this was prepared in art uninterrupted past, remembers the bygone soul-states, environments, particular forms of activity which built up its present constituents and knows to what it is moving by development in an uninterrupted future. This is the true dynamic belief in rebirth, and there too the play of the questioning intellect ceases; the soul’s vision and the soul’s memory are all. Certainly, there remains the question of the mechanism of the development and of the laws of rebirth where the intellect and its inquiries and generalisations can still have some play. And here the. more one thinks and experiences, the more the ordinary, simple, cut-and-dried account of reincarnation seems to be of doubtful validity. There is surely here a greater complexity, a law evolved with a more difficult movement and a more intricate harmony out of the possibilities of the Infinite. But this is a question which demands long and ample consideration ; for subtle is the law of it. Anur hyesha dharmah.
Page-250 III
It is a constant method of" Nature, when she has two elements of a harmony to reconcile, to proceed at first by a constant balancing in which she sometimes stems to lean entirely on one side, sometimes entirely to the other,
it others to correct both excesses by a more or less successful temporary adjustment and moderating compromise. The two elements appear then as opponents necessary to each other who therefore labour to arrive at some conclusion of their strife, but, each having its egoism and that innate tendency of all things which drives them not Only towards self-preservation but towards self-assertion in proportion to their available force, they seek each to arrive at a conclusion in which itself shall have the max-imam part, dominate utterly it possible or even swallow up entirely the egoism of the other in its own egoism. Thus the progress towards harmony accomplishes itself by a strife of forces and seems often to be no effort towards concord or mutual adjustment at all, but rather towards a mutual devouring. In effect, the swallowing up, not of one by the other, but of each by the other, so that both shall live entirely in the other and as the other, is our highest ideal of oneness. It is the last ideal of love at which strife tries to arrive ignorantly ; for by strife one can only arrive at an adjustment of the two opposite demands, not at a stable harmony, a compromise between two conflicting egoisms and not the fusing of them into each other. Still, strife does lead to an increasing mutual
Page-251 comprehension which eventually makes the attempt at real oneness possible. In the relations between the individual and the group this constant tendency of Nature represents itself as the strife between the two equally deep-rooted human tendencies of individualism and collectivism, the engrossing authority, perfection and development of the State, the distinctive freedom, perfection and development of the man. The State idea, the small or the vast living machine, and the human idea, the more and more distinct and luminous Person, the increasing God stand in perpetual opposition. The size of the State makes no difference to the essence of the struggle, need make none to its characteristic circumstances. It was. the family, the tribe or the city,, the polls; it became the clan, the caste and the class, the kula, the gens. It is now the nation. Tomorrow or the day after it may be all mankind, but even then the question will remain poised between man and humanity, between the self-liberating Person and the engrossing collectivity.
If we consult only the available facts of history and sociology we must suppose that our race began with the all-engrossing group to which the individual was entirely subservient and that in
ceasing individuality is a circumstance of human growth, of increasing Mind. Originally, we may suppose, man being gregarious, association being his first necessity for survival and survival being the first necessity of all being, the individual could be nothing but an instrument for the strength and safety of the group, and if we add to strength and safety growth, efficiency, self-assertion as well as self-preservation, this is still the dominant idea of all collectivism. This is the necessity born of circumstance and environment. Looking more into fundamental things we perceive that in Matter uniformity is the sign of the group, free
variant’ on and individual development progresses with the growth of Life and Mind. If then we suppose man to be an evolution of mental being in Matter and out of Matter, we must assume that he begins with uniformity and subservience, of the
Page-252 individual and proceeds towards variety and freedom of the individual. The necessity of circumstance and environment and the inevitable law of his fundamental principles of being would then point to the same conclusion, the same process of his historical and prehistoric evolution.
But there is also the ancient tradition of humanity, which it is never safe to ignore or treat as a mere fiction, that the social state was preceded by another, a free and unsocial. According to modern scientific ideas, if such a state ever existed and that is far from certain, it must have been not merely unsocial but antisocial ; it must have been the condition of man as an isolated animal, living as the beast of prey, before he became in the process of his development an animal of the pack. But the tradition is rather that of a golden age in which he was freely social without society, not bound by laws and institutions but living by natural instinct or free knowledge, holding the right law of his living in himself and not needing either to prey
on his fellow or to be restrained by the iron you Key of the collectivity. We may say, if we will, that here poetic or idealistic imagination played upon a deep-seated race-memory and that early man read his growing ideal of a free unorganised happy association into his race-memory of an unorganised anti-social existence. But it is also possible that our progress has .iota been a development in a straight line, but in cycles, and that in those cycles there have been periods of at leant partial realisation in which men did become able to live according to the high dream of philosophical Anarchism, associated by the inner law of love and light and right being, right thinking, right action and not coerced to unity by kings and parliaments, laws and
policing and punishments with all that tyrant unease, petty or great oppression and repression and ugly train of selfishnesses and corruptions which attend the forced government of man by man. It is even possible that our original state was that of an instinctive animal spontaneity of free and fluid association and that our final ideal state is that of an enlightened intuitive spontaneity of free and
Page-253 fluid association, the conversion of the animal state into that of the gods. Our progress may be perhaps a devious round leading from the easy and spontaneous uniformity and harmony which reflects Nature to the self-possessed unity which reflects the Divine.
However that may be, history and sociology tell us only—outside the attempts of
religious or other idealism to arrive either at a free solitude or a free association— of man as an individual in the more or less organised group. And in the group there are always two types, one which asserts the State-idea entirely at the expense of the individual,—ancient Sparta, modern Germany, another which asserts the supremacy of the State but seeks at the same time to give as much freedom, power and dignity as possible to the individuals who constitute it,—ancient Athens, modern France. And to these we may add a third type in which the State abdicates as much as possible to the individual, boldly asserts that it exists for his growth and to assure his freedom, dignity, successful manhood, experiments with a courageous faith whether after all it is not the utmost possible liberty, dignity and manhood of the individual which will best
assume the well-being, strength and
expansion of the State, Of this type England has been until recently the great
exemplar,—England rendered free, prosperous, energetic, invincible by nothing else but the strength of this idea within her, blest by the Gods with unexampled expansion, empire and good fortune because she has not feared at any time to obey this great tendency and take the risks of this great
endeavor and even often to employ it beyond the limits of her own insular egoism. Unfortunately, that egoism, the defects of the race and the exaggerated assertion of a limited idea which is the mark of our human ignorance have prevented her from giving it the noblest and richest possible expression or to realise by it other results which the more strictly organised States have attained or are attaining. And in consequence we find the collective or State idea breaking down the old English tradition and it is possible that before long the great experiment will have come to an end
Page-254 in a lamentable admission of failure by the adoption of that Germanic " discipline " and " efficient " organisation towards which all civilized humanity seems now to be tending. One may well ask oneself whether it was really necessary, whether by a more courageous faith enlightened by a more flexible and vigilant intelligence all the desirable results might not have been attained in a new and freer method that would yet keep intact the dharma of the race. We must, again, note one other fact in connection with the claim of the State to suppress the individual in its own interest, that it is quite immaterial to the principle what form the State may assume. The tyranny of the absolute king over all or the tyranny of the majority over the individual—which really converts itself by the paradox of human nature into a hypnotized oppression and repression of the majority by itself,—are equally forms of the same tendency. Each, when it declares itself to be the State with its absolute " Leapt, em’s moil ", is speaking a profound truth even while it bases that truth upon a falsehood. The truth is that each really is the self-expression of the State in its characteristic attempt to subordinate to itself the free will, the free action, the power, dignity and self-assertion of the individuals constituting it. The falsehood lies in the underlying idea that the State is something greater than the individuals constituting it and can with impunity to itself and to the hope of humanity arrogate this oppressive supremacy.
In modern times the State idea has after a long interval reasserted itself and is dominating the thought and action of the world. It supports itself on two motives, one appealing to the external interest of the race, the other to its highest moral tendencies. It demands that the individual egoism shall immolate itself to a collective interest, that man shall live not for himself but for the group, the community. It asserts that the hope of the good and progress of humanity lies in the efficiency and organisation of the State, in the ordering by it of all the economic and vital arrangements of the individual and the group, of the
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"mobilisation ", to use a specious expression the war has set in vogue, of the intellect, capacity, thought, emotion, life of the individual, of all that he is and has by the State in the interest of all. Pushed to its ultimate conclusion this means the socialistic ideal in full force and towards that conclusion humanity seems to be heading with a remarkable rapidity. The State idea is rushing towards possession with a great motor force and is prepared to crush under its wheels everything that conflicts with its force or asserts the right of other human tendencies. And yet the two ideas on which it bases itself are full of that fatal mixture of truth and falsehood which pursues all our human claims and assertions. It is necessary to apply to them the solvent of a searching and
unbiased thought which refuses to be cheated by words, if we are not to describe helplessly another circle of illusion before we return to the deep and complex truth of Nature which should rather be our light and guide.
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