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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sadhana, by Rabindranath Tagore
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sadhana
+       The Realisation of Life
+
+Author: Rabindranath Tagore
+
+Posting Date: January 25, 2013 [EBook #6842]
+Release Date: November, 2004
+First Posted: January 31, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SADHANA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chetan Jain at BharatLiterature
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SĀDHANĀ
+
+
+THE REALISATION OF LIFE
+
+
+By
+
+Rabindranath Tagore
+
+Author of 'Gitanjali'
+
+
+1916
+
+
+
+To
+
+Ernest Rhys
+
+
+
+Author's Preface
+
+
+Perhaps it is well for me to explain that the subject-matter of
+the papers published in this book has not been philosophically
+treated, nor has it been approached from the scholar's point of
+view.  The writer has been brought up in a family where texts of
+the Upanishads are used in daily worship; and he has had before
+him the example of his father, who lived his long life in the
+closest communion with God, while not neglecting his duties to
+the world, or allowing his keen interest in all human affairs to
+suffer any abatement.  So in these papers, it may be hoped,
+western readers will have an opportunity of coming into touch
+with the ancient spirit of India as revealed in our sacred texts
+and manifested in the life of to-day.
+
+All the great utterances of man have to be judged not by the
+letter but by the spirit--the spirit which unfolds itself with
+the growth of life in history.  We get to know the real meaning
+of Christianity by observing its living aspect at the present
+moment--however different that may be, even in important
+respects, from the Christianity of earlier periods.
+
+For western scholars the great religious scriptures of India seem
+to possess merely a retrospective and archælogical interest; but
+to us they are of living importance, and we cannot help thinking
+that they lose their significance when exhibited in labelled
+cases--mummied specimens of human thought and aspiration,
+preserved for all time in the wrappings of erudition.
+
+The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences
+of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of
+logical interpretation.  They have to be endlessly explained by
+the commentaries of individual lives, and they gain an added
+mystery in each new revelation.  To me the verses of the
+Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha have ever been things of
+the spirit, and therefore endowed with boundless vital growth;
+and I have used them, both in my own life and in my preaching, as
+being instinct with individual meaning for me, as for others, and
+awaiting for their confirmation, my own special testimony, which
+must have its value because of its individuality.
+
+I should add perhaps that these papers embody in a connected
+form, suited to this publication, ideas which have been culled
+from several of the Bengali discourses which I am in the habit of
+giving to my students in my school at Bolpur in Bengal; and I
+have used here and there translations of passages from these done
+by my friends, Babu Satish Chandra Roy and Babu Ajit Kumar
+Chakravarti.  The last paper of this series, "Realisation in
+Action," has been translated from my Bengali discourse on
+"Karma-yoga" by my nephew, Babu Surendra Nath Tagore.
+
+I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to Professor
+James H. Woods, of Harvard University, for his generous
+appreciation which encouraged me to complete this series of
+papers and read most of them before the Harvard University.  And
+I offer my thanks to Mr. Ernest Rhys for his kindness in helping
+me with suggestions and revisions, and in going through the
+proofs.
+
+A word may be added about the pronouncing of Sādhanā: the accent
+falls decisively on the first ā, which has the broad sound of the
+letter.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I. THE RELATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO THE UNIVERSE
+II. SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS
+III. THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
+IV. THE PROBLEM OF SELF
+V. REALISATION IN LOVE
+VI. REALISATION IN ACTION
+VII. THE REALISATION OF BEAUTY
+VIII. THE REALISATION OF THE INFINITE
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+THE RELATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO THE UNIVERSE
+
+
+The civilisation of ancient Greece was nurtured within city
+walls.  In fact, all the modern civilisations have their cradles
+of brick and mortar.
+
+These walls leave their mark deep in the minds of men.  They set
+up a principle of "divide and rule" in our mental outlook, which
+begets in us a habit of securing all our conquests by fortifying
+them and separating them from one another.  We divide nation and
+nation, knowledge and knowledge, man and nature.  It breeds in us
+a strong suspicion of whatever is beyond the barriers we have
+built, and everything has to fight hard for its entrance into our
+recognition.
+
+When the first Aryan invaders appeared in India it was a vast
+land of forests, and the new-comers rapidly took advantage of
+them.  These forests afforded them shelter from the fierce heat
+of the sun and the ravages of tropical storms, pastures for
+cattle, fuel for sacrificial fire, and materials for building
+cottages.  And the different Aryan clans with their patriarchal
+heads settled in the different forest tracts which had some
+special advantage of natural protection, and food and water in
+plenty.
+
+Thus in India it was in the forests that our civilisation had its
+birth, and it took a distinct character from this origin and
+environment.  It was surrounded by the vast life of nature, was
+fed and clothed by her, and had the closest and most constant
+intercourse with her varying aspects.
+
+Such a life, it may be thought, tends to have the effect of
+dulling human intelligence and dwarfing the incentives to
+progress by lowering the standards of existence.  But in ancient
+India we find that the circumstances of forest life did not
+overcome man's mind, and did not enfeeble the current of his
+energies, but only gave to it a particular direction.  Having
+been in constant contact with the living growth of nature, his
+mind was free from the desire to extend his dominion by erecting
+boundary walls around his acquisitions.  His aim was not to
+acquire but to realise, to enlarge his consciousness by growing
+with and growing into his surroundings.  He felt that truth is
+all-comprehensive, that there is no such thing as absolute
+isolation in existence, and the only way of attaining truth is
+through the interpenetration of our being into all objects.  To
+realise this great harmony between man's spirit and the spirit of
+the world was the endeavour of the forest-dwelling sages of
+ancient India.
+
+In later days there came a time when these primeval forests gave
+way to cultivated fields, and wealthy cities sprang up on all
+sides.  Mighty kingdoms were established, which had
+communications with all the great powers of the world.  But even
+in the heyday of its material prosperity the heart of India ever
+looked back with adoration upon the early ideal of strenuous
+self-realisation, and the dignity of the simple life of the
+forest hermitage, and drew its best inspiration from the wisdom
+stored there.
+
+The west seems to take a pride in thinking that it is subduing
+nature; as if we are living in a hostile world where we have to
+wrest everything we want from an unwilling and alien arrangement
+of things.  This sentiment is the product of the city-wall habit
+and training of mind.  For in the city life man naturally directs
+the concentrated light of his mental vision upon his own life and
+works, and this creates an artificial dissociation between
+himself and the Universal Nature within whose bosom he lies.
+
+But in India the point of view was different; it included the
+world with the man as one great truth.  India put all her
+emphasis on the harmony that exists between the individual and
+the universal.  She felt we could have no communication whatever
+with our surroundings if they were absolutely foreign to us.
+Man's complaint against nature is that he has to acquire most of
+his necessaries by his own efforts.  Yes, but his efforts are not
+in vain; he is reaping success every day, and that shows there is
+a rational connection between him and nature, for we never can
+make anything our own except that which is truly related to us.
+
+We can look upon a road from two different points of view.  One
+regards it as dividing us from the object of our desire; in that
+case we count every step of our journey over it as something
+attained by force in the face of obstruction.  The other sees it
+as the road which leads us to our destination; and as such it is
+part of our goal.  It is already the beginning of our attainment,
+and by journeying over it we can only gain that which in itself
+it offers to us.  This last point of view is that of India with
+regard to nature.  For her, the great fact is that we are in
+harmony with nature; that man can think because his thoughts are
+in harmony with things; that he can use the forces of nature for
+his own purpose only because his power is in harmony with the
+power which is universal, and that in the long run his purpose
+never can knock against the purpose which works through nature.
+
+In the west the prevalent feeling is that nature belongs
+exclusively to inanimate things and to beasts, that there is a
+sudden unaccountable break where human-nature begins.  According
+to it, everything that is low in the scale of beings is merely
+nature, and whatever has the stamp of perfection on it,
+intellectual or moral, is human-nature.  It is like dividing the
+bud and the blossom into two separate categories, and putting
+their grace to the credit of two different and antithetical
+principles.  But the Indian mind never has any hesitation in
+acknowledging its kinship with nature, its unbroken relation with
+all.
+
+The fundamental unity of creation was not simply a philosophical
+speculation for India; it was her life-object to realise this
+great harmony in feeling and in action.  With mediation and
+service, with a regulation of life, she cultivated her
+consciousness in such a way that everything had a spiritual
+meaning to her.  The earth, water and light, fruits and flowers,
+to her were not merely physical phenomena to be turned to use and
+then left aside.  They were necessary to her in the attainment of
+her ideal of perfection, as every note is necessary to the
+completeness of the symphony.  India intuitively felt that the
+essential fact of this world has a vital meaning for us; we have
+to be fully alive to it and establish a conscious relation with
+it, not merely impelled by scientific curiosity or greed of
+material advantage, but realising it in the spirit of sympathy,
+with a large feeling of joy and peace.
+
+The man of science knows, in one aspect, that the world is not
+merely what it appears to be to our senses; he knows that earth
+and water are really the play of forces that manifest themselves
+to us as earth and water--how, we can but partially apprehend.
+Likewise the man who has his spiritual eyes open knows that the
+ultimate truth about earth and water lies in our apprehension of
+the eternal will which works in time and takes shape in the
+forces we realise under those aspects.  This is not mere
+knowledge, as science is, but it is a preception of the soul by
+the soul.  This does not lead us to power, as knowledge does, but
+it gives us joy, which is the product of the union of kindred
+things.  The man whose acquaintance with the world does not lead
+him deeper than science leads him, will never understand what it
+is that the man with the spiritual vision finds in these natural
+phenomena.  The water does not merely cleanse his limbs, but it
+purifies his heart; for it touches his soul.  The earth does not
+merely hold his body, but it gladdens his mind; for its contact
+is more than a physical contact--it is a living presence.  When a
+man does not realise his kinship with the world, he lives in a
+prison-house whose walls are alien to him.  When he meets the
+eternal spirit in all objects, then is he emancipated, for then
+he discovers the fullest significance of the world into which he
+is born; then he finds himself in perfect truth, and his harmony
+with the all is established.  In India men are enjoined to be
+fully awake to the fact that they are in the closest relation to
+things around them, body and soul, and that they are to hail the
+morning sun, the flowing water, the fruitful earth, as the
+manifestation of the same living truth which holds them in its
+embrace.  Thus the text of our everyday meditation is the
+_Gayathri_, a verse which is considered to be the epitome of all
+the Vedas.  By its help we try to realise the essential unity of
+the world with the conscious soul of man; we learn to perceive
+the unity held together by the one Eternal Spirit, whose power
+creates the earth, the sky, and the stars, and at the same time
+irradiates our minds with the light of a consciousness that moves
+and exists in unbroken continuity with the outer world.
+
+It is not true that India has tried to ignore differences of
+value in different things, for she knows that would make life
+impossible.  The sense of the superiority of man in the scale of
+creation has not been absent from her mind.  But she has had her
+own idea as to that in which his superiority really consists.  It
+is not in the power of possession but in the power of union.
+Therefore India chose her places of pilgrimage wherever there was
+in nature some special grandeur or beauty, so that her mind could
+come out of its world of narrow necessities and realise its place
+in the infinite.  This was the reason why in India a whole
+people who once were meat-eaters gave up taking animal food to
+cultivate the sentiment of universal sympathy for life, an event
+unique in the history of mankind.
+
+India knew that when by physical and mental barriers we violently
+detach ourselves from the inexhaustible life of nature; when we
+become merely man, but not man-in-the-universe, we create
+bewildering problems, and having shut off the source of their
+solution, we try all kinds of artificial methods each of which
+brings its own crop of interminable difficulties.  When man
+leaves his resting-place in universal nature, when he walks on
+the single rope of humanity, it means either a dance or a fall
+for him, he has ceaselessly to strain every nerve and muscle to
+keep his balance at each step, and then, in the intervals of his
+weariness, he fulminates against Providence and feels a secret
+pride and satisfaction in thinking that he has been unfairly
+dealt with by the whole scheme of things.
+
+But this cannot go on for ever.  Man must realise the wholeness
+of his existence, his place in the infinite; he must know that
+hard as he may strive he can never create his honey within the
+cells of his hive; for the perennial supply of his life food is
+outside their walls.  He must know that when man shuts himself
+out from the vitalising and purifying touch of the infinite, and
+falls back upon himself for his sustenance and his healing, then
+he goads himself into madness, tears himself into shreds, and
+eats his own substance.  Deprived of the background of the whole,
+his poverty loses its one great quality, which is simplicity, and
+becomes squalid and shamefaced.  His wealth is no longer
+magnanimous; it grows merely extravagant.  His appetites do not
+minister to his life, keeping to the limits of their purpose;
+they become an end in themselves and set fire to his life and
+play the fiddle in the lurid light of the conflagration.  Then it
+is that in our self-expression we try to startle and not to
+attract; in art we strive for originality and lose sight of truth
+which is old and yet ever new; in literature we miss the complete
+view of man which is simple and yet great, but he appears as a
+psychological problem or the embodiment of a passion that is
+intense because abnormal and because exhibited in the glare of a
+fiercely emphatic light which is artificial.  When man's
+consciousness is restricted only to the immediate vicinity of his
+human self, the deeper roots of his nature do not find their
+permanent soil, his spirit is ever on the brink of starvation,
+and in the place of healthful strength he substitutes rounds of
+stimulation.  Then it is that man misses his inner perspective
+and measures his greatness by its bulk and not by its vital link
+with the infinite, judges his activity by its movement and not by
+the repose of perfection--the repose which is in the starry
+heavens, in the ever-flowing rhythmic dance of creation.
+
+The first invasion of India has its exact parallel in the
+invasion of America by the European settlers.  They also were
+confronted with primeval forests and a fierce struggle with
+aboriginal races.  But this struggle between man and man, and man
+and nature lasted till the very end; they never came to any
+terms.  In India the forests which were the habitation of the
+barbarians became the sanctuary of sages, but in America these
+great living cathedrals of nature had no deeper significance to
+man.  The brought wealth and power to him, and perhaps at times
+they ministered to his enjoyment of beauty, and inspired a
+solitary poet.  They never acquired a sacred association in the
+hearts of men as the site of some great spiritual reconcilement
+where man's soul has its meeting-place with the soul of the
+world.
+
+I do not for a moment wish to suggest that these things should
+have been otherwise.  It would be an utter waste of opportunities
+if history were to repeat itself exactly in the same manner in
+every place.  It is best for the commerce of the spirit that
+people differently situated should bring their different products
+into the market of humanity, each of which is complementary and
+necessary to the others.  All that I wish to say is that India at
+the outset of her career met with a special combination of
+circumstances which was not lost upon her.  She had, according to
+her opportunities, thought and pondered, striven and suffered,
+dived into the depths of existence, and achieved something which
+surely cannot be without its value to people whose evolution in
+history took a different way altogether.  Man for his perfect
+growth requires all the living elements that constitute his
+complex life; that is why his food has to be cultivated in
+different fields and brought from different sources.
+
+Civilisation is a kind of mould that each nation is busy making
+for itself to shape its men and women according to its best
+ideal.  All its institutions, its legislature, its standard of
+approbation and condemnation, its conscious and unconscious
+teachings tend toward that object.  The modern civilisation of
+the west, by all its organised efforts, is trying to turn out men
+perfect in physical, intellectual, and moral efficiency.  There
+the vast energies of the nations are employed in extending man's
+power over his surroundings, and people are combining and
+straining every faculty to possess and to turn to account all
+that they can lay their hands upon, to overcome every obstacle on
+their path of conquest.  They are ever disciplining themselves to
+fight nature and other races; their armaments are getting more
+and more stupendous every day; their machines, their appliances,
+their organisations go on multiplying at an amazing rate.  This
+is a splendid achievement, no doubt, and a wonderful
+manifestation of man's masterfulness which knows no obstacle, and
+which has for its object the supremacy of himself over everything
+else.
+
+The ancient civilisation of India had its own ideal of perfection
+towards which its efforts were directed.  Its aim was not
+attaining power, and it neglected to cultivate to the utmost its
+capacities, and to organise men for defensive and offensive
+purposes, for co-operation in the acquisition of wealth and for
+military and political ascendancy.  The ideal that India tried to
+realise led her best men to the isolation of a contemplative
+life, and the treasures that she gained for mankind by
+penetrating into the mysteries of reality cost her dear in the
+sphere of worldly success.  Yet, this also was a sublime
+achievement,--it was a supreme manifestation of that human
+aspiration which knows no limit, and which has for its object
+nothing less than the realisation of the Infinite.
+
+There were the virtuous, the wise, the courageous; there were the
+statesmen, kings and emperors of India; but whom amongst all
+these classes did she look up to and choose to be the
+representative of men?
+
+They were the rishis.  What were the rishis?  _They who having
+attained the supreme soul in knowledge were filled with wisdom,
+and having found him in union with the soul were in perfect
+harmony with the inner self; they having realised him in the
+heart were free from all selfish desires, and having experienced
+him in all the activities of the world, had attained calmness.
+The rishis were they who having reached the supreme God from all
+sides had found abiding peace, had become united with all, had
+entered into the life of the Universe._ [Footnote:
+/**
+  Samprāpyainam rishayo jñānatripatāh
+  Kritātmānō vītarāgāh praçantāh
+  tē sarvagam sarvatah prāpya dhīrāh
+  Yuktātmānah sarvamēvāviçanti.
+*/
+]
+
+Thus the state of realising our relationship with all, of
+entering into everything through union with God, was considered
+in India to be the ultimate end and fulfilment of humanity.
+
+Man can destroy and plunder, earn and accumulate, invent and
+discover, but he is great because his soul comprehends all.  It
+is dire destruction for him when he envelopes his soul in a dead
+shell of callous habits, and when a blind fury of works whirls
+round him like an eddying dust storm, shutting out the horizon.
+That indeed kills the very spirit of his being, which is the
+spirit of comprehension.  Essentially man is not a slave either
+of himself or of the world; but he is a lover.  His freedom and
+fulfilment is in love, which is another name for perfect
+comprehension.  By this power of comprehension, this permeation
+of his being, he is united with the all-pervading Spirit, who is
+also the breath of his soul.  Where a man tries to raise himself
+to eminence by pushing and jostling all others, to achieve a
+distinction by which he prides himself to be more than everybody
+else, there he is alienated from that Spirit.  This is why the
+Upanishads describe those who have attained the goal of human
+life as "_peaceful_" [Footnote: Praçantāh] and as "_at-one-with-God_,"
+[Footnote: Yuktātmānah] meaning that they are in perfect
+harmony with man and nature, and therefore in undisturbed union
+with God.
+
+We have a glimpse of the same truth in the teachings of Jesus
+when he says, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye
+of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven"--which
+implies that whatever we treasure for ourselves separates
+us from others; our possessions are our limitations.  He who is
+bent upon accumulating riches is unable, with his ego continually
+bulging, to pass through the gates of comprehension of the
+spiritual world, which is the world of perfect harmony; he is
+shut up within the narrow walls of his limited acquisitions.
+
+Hence the spirit of the teachings of Upanishad is: In order to
+find him you must embrace all.  In the pursuit of wealth you
+really give up everything to gain a few things, and that is not
+the way to attain him who is completeness.
+
+Some modern philosophers of Europe, who are directly or
+indirectly indebted to the Upanishads, far from realising their
+debt, maintain that the Brahma of India is a mere abstraction, a
+negation of all that is in the world.  In a word, that the
+Infinite Being is to be found nowhere except in metaphysics.  It
+may be, that such a doctrine has been and still is prevalent with
+a section of our countrymen.  But this is certainly not in accord
+with the pervading spirit of the Indian mind.  Instead, it is the
+practice of realising and affirming the presence of the infinite
+in all things which has been its constant inspiration.
+
+We are enjoined to see _whatever there is in the world as being
+enveloped by God._
+[Footnote: Içāvāsyamidam sarvam yat kiñcha jagatyāñ jagat.]
+
+_I bow to God over and over again who is in fire and in water, who
+permeates the whole world, who is in the annual crops as well as
+in the perennial trees._  [Footnote: Yo dēvō'gnau y'ōpsu y'ō
+viçvambhuvanamāvivēça ya ōshadhishu yō  vanaspatishu tasmai dēvāya
+namōnamah.]
+
+Can this be God abstracted from the world?  Instead, it signifies
+not merely seeing him in all things, but saluting him in all the
+objects of the world.  The attitude of the God-conscious man of
+the Upanishad towards the universe is one of a deep feeling of
+adoration.  His object of worship is present everywhere.  It is
+the one living truth that makes all realities true.  This truth
+is not only of knowledge but of devotion.  '_Namonamah_,'--we bow
+to him everywhere, and over and over again.  It is recognised in
+the outburst of the Rishi, who addresses the whole world in a
+sudden ecstasy of joy: _Listen to me, ye sons of the immortal
+spirit, ye who live in the heavenly abode, I have known the
+Supreme Person whose light shines forth from beyond the darkness._
+[Footnote: Çrinvantu viçve amritasya putrā ā ye divya dhāmāni
+tasthuh vedāhametam purusham mahāntam āditya varņam tamasah
+parastāt.]  Do we not find the overwhelming delight of a direct
+and positive experience where there is not the least trace of
+vagueness or passivity?
+
+Buddha who developed the practical side of the teaching of
+Upanishads, preached the same message when he said, _With
+everything, whether it is above or below, remote or near, visible
+or invisible, thou shalt preserve a relation of unlimited love
+without any animosity or without a desire to kill.  To live in
+such a consciousness while standing or walking, sitting or lying
+down till you are asleep, is Brahma vihāra, or, in other words,
+is living and moving and having your joy in the spirit of
+Brahma._
+
+What is that spirit?  The Upanishad says, _The being who is in
+his essence the light and life of all, who is world-conscious, is
+Brahma._  [Footnote: Yaçchāyamasminnākāçē tējōmayō'mritamayah
+purushah sarvānubhūh.]  To feel all, to be conscious of
+everything, is his spirit.  We are immersed in his consciousness
+body and soul.  It is through his consciousness that the sun
+attracts the earth; it is through his consciousness that the
+light-waves are being transmitted from planet to planet.
+
+Not only in space, but _this light and life, this all-feeling
+being is in our souls._  [Footnote: Yaçchāyamasminnātmani
+tējōmayō'mritamayah purushah sarvānubhūh.]  He is all-conscious
+in space, or the world of extension; and he is all-conscious in
+soul, or the world of intension.
+
+Thus to attain our world-consciousness, we have to unite our
+feeling with this all-pervasive infinite feeling.  In fact, the
+only true human progress is coincident with this widening of the
+range of feeling.  All our poetry, philosophy, science, art and
+religion are serving to extend the scope of our consciousness
+towards higher and larger spheres.  Man does not acquire rights
+through occupation of larger space, nor through external conduct,
+but his rights extend only so far as he is real, and his reality
+is measured by the scope of his consciousness.
+
+We have, however, to pay a price for this attainment of the
+freedom of consciousness.  What is the price?  It is to give
+one's self away.  Our soul can realise itself truly only by
+denying itself.  The Upanishad says, _Thou shalt gain by giving
+away_ [Footnote: Tyaktēna bhuñjīthāh], _Thou shalt not covet._
+[Footnote: Mā gridhah]
+
+In Gita we are advised to work disinterestedly, abandoning all
+lust for the result.  Many outsiders conclude from this teaching
+that the conception of the world as something unreal lies at the
+root of the so-called disinterestedness preached in India.  But
+the reverse is true.
+
+The man who aims at his own aggrandisement underrates everything
+else.  Compared to his ego the rest of the world is unreal.  Thus
+in order to be fully conscious of the reality of all, one has to
+be free himself from the bonds of personal desires.  This
+discipline we have to go through to prepare ourselves for our
+social duties--for sharing the burdens of our fellow-beings.
+Every endeavour to attain a larger life requires of man "to gain
+by giving away, and not to be greedy."  And thus to expand
+gradually the consciousness of one's unity with all is the
+striving of humanity.
+
+The Infinite in India was not a thin nonentity, void of all
+content.  The Rishis of India asserted emphatically, "To know him
+in this life is to be true; not to know him in this life is the
+desolation of death."  [Footnote: Iha chēt avēdit atha
+satyamasti, nachēt iha avēdit mahatī vinashtih.]  How to know him
+then?  "By realising him in each and all."  [Footnote: Bhūtēshu
+bhūtēshu vichintva.]  Not only in nature but in the family, in
+society, and in the state, the more we realise the World-conscious
+in all, the better for us.  Failing to realise it, we
+turn our faces to destruction.
+
+It fills me with great joy and a high hope for the future of
+humanity when I realise that there was a time in the remote past
+when our poet-prophets stood under the lavish sunshine of an
+Indian sky and greeted the world with the glad recognition of
+kindred.  It was not an anthropomorphic hallucination.  It was
+not seeing man reflected everywhere in grotesquely exaggerated
+images, and witnessing the human drama acted on a gigantic scale
+in nature's arena of flitting lights and shadows.  On the
+contrary, it meant crossing the limiting barriers of the
+individual, to become more than man, to become one with the All.
+It was not a mere play of the imagination, but it was the
+liberation of consciousness from all the mystifications and
+exaggerations of the self.  These ancient seers felt in the
+serene depth of their mind that the same energy which vibrates
+and passes into the endless forms of the world manifests itself
+in our inner being as consciousness; and there is no break in
+unity.  For these seers there was no gap in their luminous vision
+of perfection.  They never acknowledged even death itself as
+creating a chasm in the field of reality.  They said, _His
+reflection is death as well as immortality._  [Footnote: Yasya
+chhāyāmritam yasya mrityuh.]  They did not recognise any
+essential opposition between life and death, and they said with
+absolute assurance, "It is life that is death."  [Footnote: Prāno
+mrityuh.]  They saluted with the same serenity of gladness "life
+in its aspect of appearing and in its aspect of departure"--_That
+which is past is hidden in life, and that which is to come._
+[Footnote: Namō astu āyatē namō astu parāyatē.  Prānē ha bhūtam
+bhavyañcha.]  They knew that mere appearance and disappearance are
+on the surface like waves on the sea, but life which is permanent
+knows no decay or diminution.
+
+_Everything has sprung from immortal life and is vibrating with
+life_, [Footnote: Yadidan kiñcha praņa ejati nihsritam.] _for life
+is immense._  [Footnote: Prāno virāt.]
+
+This is the noble heritage from our forefathers waiting to be
+claimed by us as our own, this ideal of the supreme freedom of
+consciousness.  It is not merely intellectual or emotional, it
+has an ethical basis, and it must be translated into action.  In
+the Upanishad it is said, _The supreme being is all-pervading,
+therefore he is the innate good in all._  [Footnote: Sarvavyāpī
+sa bhagavān tasmāt sarvagatah çivah.]  To be truly united in
+knowledge, love, and service with all beings, and thus to
+realise one's self in the all-pervading God is the essence of
+goodness, and this is the keynote of the teachings of the
+Upanishads: _Life is immense!_  [Footnote: Prāņo virāt.]
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS
+
+
+We have seen that it was the aspiration of ancient India to live
+and move and have its joy in Brahma, the all-conscious and
+all-pervading Spirit, by extending its field of consciousness over
+all the world.  But that, it may be urged, is an impossible task
+for man to achieve.  If this extension of consciousness be an
+outward process, then it is endless; it is like attempting to
+cross the ocean after ladling out its water.  By beginning to try
+to realise all, one has to end by realising nothing.
+
+But, in reality, it is not so absurd as it sounds.  Man has every
+day to solve this problem of enlarging his region and adjusting
+his burdens.  His burdens are many, too numerous for him to
+carry, but he knows that by adopting a system he can lighten the
+weight of his load.  Whenever they feel too complicated and
+unwieldy, he knows it is because he has not been able to hit upon
+the system which would have set everything in place and
+distributed the weight evenly.  This search for system is really
+a search for unity, for synthesis; it is our attempt to harmonise
+the heterogeneous complexity of outward materials by an inner
+adjustment.  In the search we gradually become aware that to find
+out the One is to possess the All; that there, indeed, is our
+last and highest privilege.  It is based on the law of that unity
+which is, if we only know it, our abiding strength.  Its living
+principle is the power that is in truth; the truth of that unity
+which comprehends multiplicity.  Facts are many, but the truth is
+one.  The animal intelligence knows facts, the human mind has
+power to apprehend truth.  The apple falls from the tree, the
+rain descends upon the earth--you can go on burdening your memory
+with such facts and never come to an end.  But once you get hold
+of the law of gravitation you can dispense with the necessity of
+collecting facts _ad infinitum_.  You have got at one truth
+which governs numberless facts.  This discovery of truth is pure
+joy to man--it is a liberation of his mind.  For, a mere fact is
+like a blind lane, it leads only to itself--it has no beyond.
+But a truth opens up a whole horizon, it leads us to the
+infinite.  That is the reason why, when a man like Darwin
+discovers some simple general truth about Biology, it does not
+stop there, but like a lamp shedding its light far beyond the
+object for which it was lighted, it illumines the whole region of
+human life and thought, transcending its original purpose.  Thus
+we find that truth, while investing all facts, is not a mere
+aggregate of facts--it surpasses them on all sides and points to
+the infinite reality.
+
+As in the region of knowledge so in that of consciousness, man
+must clearly realise some central truth which will give him an
+outlook over the widest possible field.  And that is the object
+which the Upanishad has in view when it says, _Know thine own
+Soul_.  Or, in other words, realise the one great principal of
+unity that there is in every man.
+
+All our egoistic impulses, our selfish desires, obscure our true
+vision of the soul.  For they only indicate our own narrow self.
+When we are conscious of our soul, we perceive the inner being
+that transcends our ego and has its deeper affinity with the All.
+
+Children, when they begin to learn each separate letter of the
+alphabet, find no pleasure in it, because they miss the real
+purpose of the lesson; in fact, while letters claim our attention
+only in themselves and as isolated things, they fatigue us.  They
+become a source of joy to us only when they combine into words
+and sentences and convey an idea.
+
+Likewise, our soul when detached and imprisoned within the narrow
+limits of a self loses its significance.  For its very essence is
+unity.  It can only find out its truth by unifying itself with
+others, and only then it has its joy.  Man was troubled and he
+lived in a state of fear so long as he had not discovered the
+uniformity of law in nature; till then the world was alien to
+him.  The law that he discovered is nothing but the perception of
+harmony that prevails between reason which is of the soul of man
+and the workings of the world.  This is the bond of union through
+which man is related to the world in which he lives, and he feels
+an exceeding joy when he finds this out, for then he realises
+himself in his surroundings.  To understand anything is to find
+in it something which is our own, and it is the discovery of
+ourselves outside us which makes us glad.  This relation of
+understanding is partial, but the relation of love is complete.
+In love the sense of difference is obliterated and the human soul
+fulfils its purpose in perfection, transcending the limits of
+itself and reaching across the threshold of the infinite.
+Therefore love is the highest bliss that man can attain to, for
+through it alone he truly knows that he is more than himself, and
+that he is at one with the All.
+
+This principal of unity which man has in his soul is ever active,
+establishing relations far and wide through literature, art, and
+science, society, statecraft, and religion.  Our great Revealers
+are they who make manifest the true meaning of the soul by giving
+up self for the love of mankind.  They face calumny and
+persecution, deprivation and death in their service of love.
+They live the life of the soul, not of the self, and thus they
+prove to us the ultimate truth of humanity.  We call them
+_Mahātmās,_ "the men of the great soul."
+
+It is said in one of the Upanishads: _It is not that thou lovest
+thy son because thou desirest him, but thou lovest thy son
+because thou desirest thine own soul._  [Footnote: Na vā arē
+putrasya kāmāya putrah priyō bhavati, ātmanastu kāmāya putrah
+priyō bhavati.]  The meaning of this is, that whomsoever we love,
+in him we find our own soul in the highest sense.  The final
+truth of our existence lies in this.  _Paramātmā_, the supreme
+soul, is in me, as well as in my son, and my joy in my son is the
+realisation of this truth.  It has become quite a commonplace
+fact, yet it is wonderful to think upon, that the joys and
+sorrows of our loved ones are joys and sorrows to us--nay they
+are more.  Why so?  Because in them we have grown larger, in
+them we have touched that great truth which comprehends the whole
+universe.
+
+It very often happens that our love for our children, our
+friends, or other loved ones, debars us from the further
+realisation of our soul.  It enlarges our scope of consciousness,
+no doubt, yet it sets a limit to its freest expansion.
+Nevertheless, it is the first step, and all the wonder lies in
+this first step itself.  It shows to us the true nature of our
+soul.  From it we know, for certain, that our highest joy is in
+the losing of our egoistic self and in the uniting with others.
+This love gives us a new power and insight and beauty of mind to
+the extent of the limits we set around it, but ceases to do so if
+those limits lose their elasticity, and militate against the
+spirit of love altogether; then our friendships become exclusive,
+our families selfish and inhospitable, our nations insular and
+aggressively inimical to other races.  It is like putting a
+burning light within a sealed enclosure, which shines brightly
+till the poisonous gases accumulate and smother the flame.
+Nevertheless it has proved its truth before it dies, and made
+known the joy of freedom from the grip of darkness, blind and
+empty and cold.
+
+According to the Upanishads, the key to cosmic consciousness, to
+God-consciousness, is in the consciousness of the soul.  To know
+our soul apart from the self is the first step towards the
+realisation of the supreme deliverance.  We must know with
+absolute certainty that essentially we are spirit.  This we can
+do by winning mastery over self, by rising above all pride and
+greed and fear, by knowing that worldly losses and physical death
+can take nothing away from the truth and the greatness of our
+soul.  The chick knows when it breaks through the self-centered
+isolation of its egg that the hard shell which covered it so long
+was not really a part of its life.  That shell is a dead thing,
+it has no growth, it affords no glimpse whatever of the vast
+beyond that lies outside it.  However pleasantly perfect and
+rounded it may be, it must be given a blow to, it must be burst
+through and thereby the freedom of light and air be won, and the
+complete purpose of bird life be achieved.  In Sanskrit, the bird
+has been called the twice-born.  So too the man who has gone
+through the ceremony of the discipline of self-restraint and high
+thinking for a period of at least twelve years; who has come out
+simple in wants, pure in heart, and ready to take up all the
+responsibilities of life in a disinterested largeness of spirit.
+He is considered to have had his rebirth from the blind
+envelopment of self to the freedom of soul life; to have come
+into living relation with his surroundings; to have become at one
+with the All.
+
+I have already warned my hearers, and must once more warn them
+against the idea that the teachers of India preached a
+renunciation of the world and of self which leads only to the
+blank emptiness of negation.  Their aim was the realisation of
+the soul, or, in other words, gaining the world in perfect truth.
+When Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
+the earth," he meant this.  He proclaimed the truth that when man
+gets rid of his pride of self then he comes into his true
+inheritance.  No more has he to fight his way into his position
+in the world; it is secure for him everywhere by the immortal
+right of his soul.  Pride of self interferes with the proper
+function of the soul which is to realise itself by perfecting its
+union with the world and the world's God.
+
+In his sermon to Sádhu Simha Buddha says, _It is true, Simha,
+that I denounce activities, but only the activities that lead to
+the evil in words, thoughts, or deeds.  It is true, Simha, that I
+preach extinction, but only the extinction of pride, lust, evil
+thought, and ignorance, not that of forgiveness, love, charity,
+and truth._
+
+The doctrine of deliverance that Buddha preached was the freedom
+from the thraldom of _Avidyā_.  _Avidyā_ is the ignorance that
+darkens our consciousness, and tends to limit it within the
+boundaries of our personal self.  It is this _Avidyā_, this
+ignorance, this limiting of consciousness that creates the hard
+separateness of the ego, and thus becomes the source of all
+pride and greed and cruelty incidental to self-seeking.  When a
+man sleeps he is shut up within the narrow activities of his
+physical life.  He lives, but he knows not the varied relations
+of his life to his surroundings,--therefore he knows not
+himself.  So when a man lives the life of _Avidyā_ he is
+confined within his self.  It is a spiritual sleep; his
+consciousness is not fully awake to the highest reality that
+surrounds him, therefore he knows not the reality of his own
+soul.  When he attains _Bodhi_, i.e. the awakenment from the
+sleep of self to the perfection of consciousness, he becomes
+Buddha.
+
+Once I met two ascetics of a certain religious sect in a village
+of Bengal.  "Can you tell me," I asked them, "wherein lies the
+special features of your religion?"  One of them hesitated for a
+moment and answered, "It is difficult to define that."  The other
+said, "No, it is quite simple.  We hold that we have first of all
+to know our own soul under the guidance of our spiritual teacher,
+and when we have done that we can find him, who is the Supreme
+Soul, within us."  "Why don't you preach your doctrine to all the
+people of the world?" I asked.  "Whoever feels thirsty will of
+himself come to the river," was his reply.  "But then, do you
+find it so?  Are they coming?"  The man gave a gentle smile, and
+with an assurance which had not the least tinge of impatience or
+anxiety, he said, "They must come, one and all."
+
+Yes, he is right, this simple ascetic of rural Bengal.  Man is
+indeed abroad to satisfy needs which are more to him than food
+and clothing.  He is out to find himself.  Man's history is the
+history of his journey to the unknown in quest of the realisation
+of his immortal self--his soul.  Through the rise and fall of
+empires; through the building up gigantic piles of wealth and the
+ruthless scattering of them upon the dust; through the creation
+of vast bodies of symbols that give shape to his dreams and
+aspirations, and the casting of them away like the playthings of
+an outworn infancy; through his forging of magic keys with which
+to unlock the mysteries of creation, and through his throwing
+away of this labour of ages to go back to his workshop and work
+up afresh some new form; yes, through it all man is marching from
+epoch to epoch towards the fullest realisation of his soul,--the
+soul which is greater than the things man accumulates, the deeds
+he accomplishes, the theories he builds; the soul whose onward
+course is never checked by death or dissolution.  Man's mistakes
+and failures have by no means been trifling or small, they have
+strewn his path with colossal ruins; his sufferings have been
+immense, like birth-pangs for a giant child; they are the prelude
+of a fulfilment whose scope is infinite.  Man has gone through
+and is still undergoing martyrdoms in various ways, and his
+institutions are the altars he has built whereto he brings his
+daily sacrifices, marvellous in kind and stupendous in quantity.
+All this would be absolutely unmeaning and unbearable if all
+along he did not feel that deepest joy of the soul within him,
+which tries its divine strength by suffering and proves its
+exhaustless riches by renunciation.  Yes, they are coming, the
+pilgrims, one and all--coming to their true inheritance of the
+world; they are ever broadening their consciousness, ever seeking
+a higher and higher unity, ever approaching nearer to the one
+central Truth which is all-comprehensive.
+
+Man's poverty is abysmal, his wants are endless till he becomes
+truly conscious of his soul.  Till then, the world to him is in a
+state of continual flux-- a phantasm that is and is not.  For a
+man who has realised his soul there is a determinate centre of
+the universe around which all else can find its proper place, and
+from thence only can he draw and enjoy the blessedness of a
+harmonious life.
+
+There was a time when the earth was only a nebulous mass whose
+particles were scattered far apart through the expanding force of
+heat; when she had not yet attained her definiteness of form and
+had neither beauty nor purpose, but only heat and motion.
+Gradually, when her vapours were condensed into a unified rounded
+whole through a force that strove to bring all straggling matters
+under the control of a centre, she occupied her proper place
+among the planets of the solar system, like an emerald pendant in
+a necklace of diamonds.  So with our soul.  When the heat and
+motion of blind impulses and passions distract it on all sides,
+we can neither give nor receive anything truly.  But when we find
+our centre in our soul by the power of self-restraint, by the
+force that harmonises all warring elements and unifies those that
+are apart, then all our isolated impressions reduce themselves to
+wisdom, and all our momentary impulses of heart find their
+completion in love; then all the petty details of our life reveal
+an infinite purpose, and all our thoughts and deeds unite
+themselves inseparably in an internal harmony.
+
+The Upanishads say with great emphasis, _Know thou the One, the
+Soul._  [Footnote: Tamēvaikam jānatha ātmānam.]  _It is the bridge
+leading to the immortal being._  [Footnote: Amritasyaisha sētuh.]
+
+This is the ultimate end of man, to find the _One_ which is in
+him; which is his truth, which is his soul; the key with which he
+opens the gate of the spiritual life, the heavenly kingdom.  His
+desires are many, and madly they run after the varied objects of
+the world, for therein they have their life and fulfilment.  But
+that which is _one_ in him is ever seeking for unity--unity in
+knowledge, unity in love, unity in purposes of will; its highest
+joy is when it reaches the infinite one within its eternal unity.
+Hence the saying of the Upanishad, _Only those of tranquil minds,
+and none else, can attain abiding joy, by realising within their
+souls the Being who manifests one essence in a multiplicity of
+forms._  [Footnote: Ēkam rūpam bahudhā yah karōti * * tam
+ātmastham yē anupaçyanti dīhrāh, tēshām sukham çāçvatam
+nētarēshām.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: The above footnote contains the * mark in
+the original printed version.  This has been retained as is.]
+
+Through all the diversities of the world the one in us is
+threading its course towards the one in all; this is its nature
+and this is its joy.  But by that devious path it could never
+reach its goal if it had not a light of its own by which it could
+catch the sight of what it was seeking in a flash.  The vision of
+the Supreme One in our own soul is a direct and immediate
+intuition, not based on any ratiocination or demonstration at
+all.  Our eyes naturally see an object as a whole, not by
+breaking it up into parts, but by bringing all the parts together
+into a unity with ourselves.  So with the intuition of our
+Soul-consciousness, which naturally and totally realises its unity in
+the Supreme One.
+
+Says the Upanishad: _This deity who is manifesting himself in the
+activities of the universe always dwells in the heart of man as
+the supreme soul.  Those who realise him through the immediate
+perception of the heart attain immortality._  [Footnote: Ēsha
+dēvō vishvakarmā mahātmā sadā janānām hridayē sannivishtah.
+Hridā manīsha manasābhiklriptō ya ētad viduramritāstē bhavanti.]
+
+He is _Vishvakarma_; that is, in a multiplicity of forms and
+forces lies his outward manifestation in nature; but his inner
+manifestation in our soul is that which exists in unity.  Our
+pursuit of truth in the domain of nature therefore is through
+analysis and the gradual methods of science, but our apprehension
+of truth in our soul is immediate and through direct intuition.
+We cannot attain the supreme soul by successive additions of
+knowledge acquired bit by bit even through all eternity, because
+he is one, he is not made up of parts; we can only know him as
+heart of our hearts and soul of our soul; we can only know him in
+the love and joy we feel when we give up our self and stand
+before him face to face.
+
+The deepest and the most earnest prayer that has ever risen from
+the human heart has been uttered in our ancient tongue: _O thou
+self-revealing one, reveal thyself in me._  [Footnote:
+Āvirāvīrmayēdhi.]  We are in misery because we are creatures of
+self--the self that is unyielding and narrow, that reflects no
+light, that is blind to the infinite.  Our self is loud with its
+own discordant clamour--it is not the tuned harp whose chords
+vibrate with the music of the eternal.  Sighs of discontent and
+weariness of failure, idle regrets for the past and anxieties for
+the future are troubling our shallow hearts because we have not
+found our souls, and the self-revealing spirit has not been
+manifest within us.  Hence our cry, _O thou awful one, save me
+with thy smile of grace ever and evermore._  [Footnote: Rudra
+yat tē dakshinam mukham tēna mām pāhi nityam.]  It is a stifling
+shroud of death, this self-gratification, this insatiable greed,
+this pride of possession, this insolent alienation of heart.
+_Rudra, O thou awful one, rend this dark cover in twain and let
+the saving beam of thy smile of grace strike through this night
+of gloom and waken my soul._
+
+_From unreality lead me to the real, from darkness to the light,
+from death to immortality._  [Footnote: Asatōmā sadgamaya,
+tamasōmā jyōtirgamaya, mrityōrma mritangamaya.]  But how can one
+hope to have this prayer granted?  For infinite is the distance
+that lies between truth and untruth, between death and
+deathlessness.  Yet this measureless gulf is bridged in a moment
+when the self revealing one reveals himself in the soul.  There
+the miracle happens, for there is the meeting-ground of the
+finite and infinite.  _Father, completely sweep away all my
+sins!_  [Footnote: Vishvānidēva savitar duratāni parāsuva.]  For
+in sin man takes part with the finite against the infinite that
+is in him.  It is the defeat of his soul by his self.  It is a
+perilously losing game, in which man stakes his all to gain a
+part.  Sin is the blurring of truth which clouds the purity of
+our consciousness.  In sin we lust after pleasures, not because
+they are truly desirable, but because the red light of our
+passions makes them appear desirable; we long for things not
+because they are great in themselves, but because our greed
+exaggerates them and makes them appear great.  These
+exaggerations, these falsifications of the perspective of things,
+break the harmony of our life at every step; we lose the true
+standard of values and are distracted by the false claims of the
+varied interests of life contending with one another.  It is this
+failure to bring all the elements of his nature under the unity
+and control of the Supreme One that makes man feel the pang of
+his separation from God and gives rise to the earnest prayer,
+_O God, O Father, completely sweep away all our sins._
+[Footnote: Vishvāni dēva savitar duritāni parāsuva.]  _Give
+unto us that which is good_ [Footnote: Yad bhadram tanna
+āsuva.], the good which is the daily bread of our souls.  In our
+pleasures we are confined to ourselves, in the good we are freed
+and we belong to all.  As the child in its mother's womb gets its
+sustenance through the union of its life with the larger life of
+its mother, so our soul is nourished only through the good which
+is the recognition of its inner kinship, the channel of its
+communication with the infinite by which it is surrounded and
+fed.  Hence it is said, "Blessed are they which do hunger and
+thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."  For
+righteousness is the divine food of the soul; nothing but this
+can fill him, can make him live the life of the infinite, can
+help him in his growth towards the eternal.  _We bow to thee
+from whom come the enjoyments of our life._  [Footnote: Namah
+sambhavāya.]  _We bow also to thee from whom comes the good of
+our soul._  [Footnote: Namah çankarāyacha.]  _We bow to thee
+who art good, the highest good [Footnote: Namah çivāyacha,
+çivatarāya cha.], in whom we are united with everything, that is,
+in peace and harmony, in goodness and love.
+
+Man's cry is to reach his fullest expression.  It is this desire
+for self-expression that leads him to seek wealth and power.  But
+he has to discover that accumulation is not realisation.  It is
+the inner light that reveals him, not outer things.  When this
+light is lighted, then in a moment he knows that Man's highest
+revelation is God's own revelation in him.  And his cry is for
+this--the manifestation of his soul, which is the manifestation
+of God in his soul.  Man becomes perfect man, he attains his
+fullest expression, when his soul realises itself in the Infinite
+being who is _Āvih_ whose very essence is expression.
+
+The real misery of man is in the fact that he has not fully come
+out, that he is self-obscured, lost in the midst of his own
+desires.  He cannot feel himself beyond his personal
+surroundings, his greater self is blotted out, his truth is
+unrealised.  The prayer that rises up from his whole being is
+therefore, _Thou, who art the spirit of manifestation, manifest
+thyself in me._  [Footnote: Āvirāvīrmayēdhi.]  This longing for
+the perfect expression of his self is more deeply inherent in
+man than his hunger and thirst for bodily sustenance, his lust
+for wealth and distinction.  This prayer is not merely one born
+individually of him; it is in depth of all things, it is the
+ceaseless urging in him of the _Āvih_, of the spirit of eternal
+manifestation.  The revealment of the infinite in the finite,
+which is the motive of all creation, is not seen in its
+perfection in the starry heavens, in the beauty of flowers.  It
+is in the soul of man.  For there will seeks its manifestation in
+will, and freedom turns to win its final prize in the freedom of
+surrender.
+
+Therefore, it is the self of man which the great King of the
+universe has not shadowed with his throne--he has left it free.
+In his physical and mental organism, where man is related with
+nature, he has to acknowledge the rule of his King, but in his
+self he is free to disown him.  There our God must win his
+entrance.  There he comes as a guest, not as a king, and
+therefore he has to wait till he is invited.  It is the man's
+self from which God has withdrawn his commands, for there he
+comes to court our love.  His armed force, the laws of nature,
+stand outside its gate, and only beauty, the messenger of his
+love, finds admission within its precincts.
+
+It is only in this region of will that anarchy is permitted; only
+in man's self that the discord of untruth and unrighteousness
+hold its reign; and things can come to such a pass that we may
+cry out in our anguish, "Such utter lawlessness could never
+prevail if there were a God!"  Indeed, God has stood aside from
+our self, where his watchful patience knows no bounds, and where
+he never forces open the doors if shut against him.  For this
+self of ours has to attain its ultimate meaning, which is the
+soul, not through the compulsion of God's power but through love,
+and thus become united with God in freedom.
+
+He whose spirit has been made one with God stands before man as
+the supreme flower of humanity.  There man finds in truth what he
+is; for there the _Āvih_ is revealed to him in the soul of man as
+the most perfect revelation for him of God; for there we see the
+union of the supreme will with our will, our love with the love
+everlasting.
+
+Therefore, in our country he who truly loves God receives such
+homage from men as would be considered almost sacrilegious in the
+west.  We see in him God's wish fulfilled, the most difficult of
+all obstacles to his revealment removed, and God's own perfect
+joy fully blossoming in humanity.  Through him we find the whole
+world of man overspread with a divine homeliness.  His life,
+burning with God's love, makes all our earthly love resplendent.
+All the intimate associations of our life, all its experience of
+pleasure and pain, group themselves around this display of the
+divine love, and from the drama that we witness in him.  The
+touch of an infinite mystery passes over the trivial and the
+familiar, making it break out into ineffable music.  The trees
+and the stars and the blue hills appear to us as symbols aching
+with a meaning which can never be uttered in words.  We seem to
+watch the Master in the very act of creation of a new world when
+a man's soul draws her heavy curtain of self aside, when her veil
+is lifted and she is face to face with her eternal lover.
+
+But what is this state?  It is like a morning of spring, varied
+in its life and beauty, yet one and entire.  When a man's life
+rescued from distractions finds its unity in the soul, then the
+consciousness of the infinite becomes at once direct and natural
+to it as the light is to the flame.  All the conflicts and
+contradictions of life are reconciled; knowledge, love and action
+harmonized; pleasure and pain become one in beauty, enjoyment and
+renunciation equal in goodness; the breach between the finite and
+the infinite fills with love and overflows; every moment carries
+its message of the eternal; the formless appears to us in the
+form of the flower, of the fruit; the boundless takes us up in
+his arms as a father and walks by our side as a friend.  It is
+only the soul, the One in man which by its very nature can
+overcome all limits, and finds its affinity with the Supreme One.
+While yet we have not attained the internal harmony, and the
+wholeness of our being, our life remains a life of habits.  The
+world still appears to us as a machine, to be mastered where it
+is useful, to be guarded against where it is dangerous, and never
+to be known in its full fellowship with us, alike in its physical
+nature and in its spiritual life and beauty.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
+
+
+The question why there is evil in existence is the same as why
+there is imperfection, or, in other words, why there is creation
+at all.  We must take it for granted that it could not be
+otherwise; that creation must be imperfect, must be gradual, and
+that it is futile to ask the question, Why we are?
+
+But this is the real question we ought to ask: Is this
+imperfection the final truth, is evil absolute and ultimate?  The
+river has its boundaries, its banks, but is a river all banks? or
+are the banks the final facts about the river?  Do not these
+obstructions themselves give its water an onward motion?  The
+towing rope binds a boat, but is the bondage its meaning?  Does
+it not at the same time draw the boat forward?
+
+The current of the world has its boundaries, otherwise it could
+have no existence, but its purpose is not shown in the boundaries
+which restrain it, but in its movement, which is towards
+perfection.  The wonder is not that there should be obstacles and
+sufferings in this world, but that there should be law and order,
+beauty and joy, goodness and love.  The idea of God that man has
+in his being is the wonder of all wonders.  He has felt in the
+depths of his life that what appears as imperfect is the
+manifestation of the perfect; just as a man who has an ear for
+music realises the perfection of a song, while in fact he is only
+listening to a succession of notes.  Man has found out the great
+paradox that what is limited is not imprisoned within its limits;
+it is ever moving, and therewith shedding its finitude every
+moment.  In fact, imperfection is not a negation of perfectness;
+finitude is not contradictory to infinity: they are but
+completeness manifested in parts, infinity revealed within
+bounds.
+
+Pain, which is the feeling of our finiteness, is not a fixture in
+our life.  It is not an end in itself, as joy is.  To meet with
+it is to know that it has no part in the true permanence of
+creation.  It is what error is in our intellectual life.  To go
+through the history of the development of science is to go
+through the maze of mistakes it made current at different times.
+Yet no one really believes that science is the one perfect mode
+of disseminating mistakes.  The progressive ascertainment of
+truth is the important thing to remember in the history of
+science, not its innumerable mistakes.  Error, by its nature,
+cannot be stationary; it cannot remain with truth; like a tramp,
+it must quit its lodging as soon as it fails to pay its score to
+the full.
+
+As in intellectual error, so in evil of any other form, its
+essence is impermanence, for it cannot accord with the whole.
+Every moment it is being corrected by the totality of things and
+keeps changing its aspect.  We exaggerate its importance by
+imagining it as a standstill.  Could we collect the statistics of
+the immense amount of death and putrefaction happening every
+moment in this earth, they would appal us.  But evil is ever
+moving; with all its incalculable immensity it does not
+effectually clog the current of our life; and we find that the
+earth, water, and air remain sweet and pure for living beings.
+All statistics consist of our attempts to represent statistically
+what is in motion; and in the process things assume a weight in
+our mind which they have not in reality.  For this reason a man,
+who by his profession is concerned with any particular aspect of
+life, is apt to magnify its proportions; in laying undue stress
+upon facts he loses his hold upon truth.  A detective may have
+the opportunity of studying crimes in detail, but he loses his
+sense of their relative places in the whole social economy.  When
+science collects facts to illustrate the struggle for existence
+that is going on in the kingdom of life, it raises a picture in
+our minds of "nature red in tooth and claw."  But in these mental
+pictures we give a fixity to colours and forms which are really
+evanescent.  It is like calculating the weight of the air on each
+square inch of our body to prove that it must be crushingly heavy
+for us.  With every weight, however, there is an adjustment, and
+we lightly bear our burden.  With the struggle for existence in
+nature there is reciprocity.  There is the love for children and
+for comrades; there is the sacrifice of self, which springs from
+love; and this love is the positive element in life.
+
+If we kept the search-light of our observation turned upon the
+fact of death, the world would appear to us like a huge
+charnel-house; but in the world of life the thought of death has, we
+find, the least possible hold upon our minds.  Not because it is
+the least apparent, but because it is the negative aspect of
+life; just as, in spite of the fact that we shut our eyelids
+every second, it is the openings of the eye that count.  Life as
+a whole never takes death seriously.  It laughs, dances and
+plays, it builds, hoards and loves in death's face.  Only when we
+detach one individual fact of death do we see its blankness and
+become dismayed.  We lose sight of the wholeness of a life of
+which death is part.  It is like looking at a piece of cloth
+through a microscope.  It appears like a net; we gaze at the big
+holes and shiver in imagination.  But the truth is, death is not
+the ultimate reality.  It looks black, as the sky looks blue; but
+it does not blacken existence, just as the sky does not leave its
+stain upon the wings of the bird.
+
+When we watch a child trying to walk, we see its countless
+failures; its successes are but few.  If we had to limit our
+observation within a narrow space of time, the sight would be
+cruel.  But we find that in spite of its repeated failures there
+is an impetus of joy in the child which sustains it in its
+seemingly impossible task.  We see it does not think of its falls
+so much as of its power to keep its balance though for only a
+moment.
+
+Like these accidents in a child's attempts to walk, we meet with
+sufferings in various forms in our life every day, showing the
+imperfections in our knowledge and our available power, and in
+the application of our will.  But if these revealed our weakness
+to us only, we should die of utter depression.  When we select
+for observation a limited area of our activities, our individual
+failures and miseries loom large in our minds; but our life leads
+us instinctively to take a wider view.  It gives us an ideal of
+perfection which ever carries us beyond our present limitations.
+Within us we have a hope which always walks in front of our
+present narrow experience; it is the undying faith in the
+infinite in us; it will never accept any of our disabilities as a
+permanent fact; it sets no limit to its own scope; it dares to
+assert that man has oneness with God; and its wild dreams become
+true every day.
+
+We see the truth when we set our mind towards the infinite.  The
+ideal of truth is not in the narrow present, not in our immediate
+sensations, but in the consciousness of the whole which give us a
+taste of what we _should_ have in what we _do_ have.  Consciously
+or unconsciously we have in our life this feeling of Truth which
+is ever larger than its appearance; for our life is facing the
+infinite, and it is in movement.  Its aspiration is therefore
+infinitely more than its achievement, and as it goes on it finds
+that no realisation of truth ever leaves it stranded on the
+desert of finality, but carries it to a region beyond.  Evil
+cannot altogether arrest the course of life on the highway and
+rob it of its possessions.  For the evil has to pass on, it has
+to grow into good; it cannot stand and give battle to the All.
+If the least evil could stop anywhere indefinitely, it would sink
+deep and cut into the very roots of existence.  As it is, man
+does not really believe in evil, just as he cannot believe that
+violin strings have been purposely made to create the exquisite
+torture of discordant notes, though by the aid of statistics it
+can be mathematically proved that the probability of discord is
+far greater than that of harmony, and for one who can play the
+violin there are thousands who cannot.  The potentiality of
+perfection outweighs actual contradictions.  No doubt there have
+been people who asserted existence to be an absolute evil, but
+man can never take them seriously.  Their pessimism is a mere
+pose, either intellectual or sentimental; but life itself is
+optimistic: it wants to go on.  Pessimism is a form of mental
+dipsomania, it disdains healthy nourishment, indulges in the
+strong drink of denunciation, and creates an artificial dejection
+which thirsts for a stronger draught.  If existence were an evil,
+it would wait for no philosopher to prove it.  It is like
+convicting a man of suicide, while all the time he stands before
+you in the flesh.  Existence itself is here to prove that it
+cannot be an evil.
+
+An imperfection which is not all imperfection, but which has
+perfection for its ideal, must go through a perpetual
+realisation.  Thus, it is the function of our intellect to
+realise the truth through untruths, and knowledge is nothing but
+the continually burning up of error to set free the light of
+truth.  Our will, our character, has to attain perfection by
+continually overcoming evils, either inside or outside us, or
+both; our physical life is consuming bodily materials every
+moment to maintain the life fire; and our moral life too has its
+fuel to burn.  This life process is going on--we know it, we have
+felt it; and we have a faith which no individual instances to the
+contrary can shake, that the direction of humanity is from evil
+to good.  For we feel that good is the positive element in man's
+nature, and in every age and every clime what man values most is
+his ideals of goodness.  We have known the good, we have loved
+it, and we have paid our highest reverence to men who have shown
+in their lives what goodness is.
+
+The question will be asked, What is goodness; what does our moral
+nature mean?  My answer is, that when a man begins to have an
+extended vision of his self, when he realises that he is much
+more than at present he seems to be, he begins to get conscious
+of his moral nature.  Then he grows aware of that which he is yet
+to be, and the state not yet experienced by him becomes more real
+than that under his direct experience.  Necessarily, his
+perspective of life changes, and his will takes the place of his
+wishes.  For will is the supreme wish of the larger life, the
+life whose greater portion is out of our present reach, most of
+whose objects are not before our sight.  Then comes the conflict
+of our lesser man with our greater man, of our wishes with our
+will, of the desire for things affecting our senses with the
+purpose that is within our heart.  Then we begin to distinguish
+between what we immediately desire and what is good.  For good is
+that which is desirable for our greater self.  Thus the sense of
+goodness comes out of a truer view of our life, which is the
+connected view of the wholeness of the field of life, and which
+takes into account not only what is present before us but what is
+not, and perhaps never humanly can be.  Man, who is provident,
+feels for that life of his which is not yet existent, feels much
+more that than for the life that is with him; therefore he is
+ready to sacrifice his present inclination for the unrealised
+future.  In this he becomes great, for he realises truth.  Even
+to be efficiently selfish one has to recognise this truth, and
+has to curb his immediate impulses--in other words, has to be
+moral.  For our moral faculty is the faculty by which we know
+that life is not made up of fragments, purposeless and
+discontinuous.  This moral sense of man not only gives him the
+power to see that the self has a continuity in time, but it also
+enables him to see that he is not true when he is only restricted
+to his own self.  He is more in truth than he is in fact.  He
+truly belongs to individuals who are not included in his own
+individuality, and whom he is never even likely to know.  As he
+has a feeling for his future self which is outside his present
+consciousness, so he has a feeling for his greater self which is
+outside the limits of his personality.  There is no man who has
+not this feeling to some extent, who has never sacrificed his
+selfish desire for the sake of some other person, who has never
+felt a pleasure in undergoing some loss or trouble because it
+pleased somebody else.  It is a truth that man is not a detached
+being, that he has a universal aspect; and when he recognises
+this he becomes great.  Even the most evilly-disposed selfishness
+has to recognise this when it seeks the power to do evil; for it
+cannot ignore truth and yet be strong.  So in order to claim the
+aid of truth, selfishness has to be unselfish to some extent.  A
+band of robbers must be moral in order to hold together as a
+band; they may rob the whole world but not each other.  To make
+an immoral intention successful, some of its weapons must be
+moral.  In fact, very often it is our very moral strength which
+gives us most effectively the power to do evil, to exploit other
+individuals for our own benefit, to rob other people of their
+rights.  The life of an animal is unmoral, for it is aware only
+of an immediate present; the life of a man can be immoral, but
+that only means that it must have a moral basis.  What is immoral
+is imperfectly moral, just as what is false is true to a small
+extent, or it cannot even be false.  Not to see is to be blind,
+but to see wrongly is to see only in an imperfect manner.  Man's
+selfishness is a beginning to see some connection, some purpose
+in life; and to act in accordance with its dictates requires
+self-restraint and regulation of conduct.  A selfish man
+willingly undergoes troubles for the sake of the self, he suffers
+hardship and privation without a murmur, simply because he knows
+that what is pain and trouble, looked at from the point of view
+of a short space of time, are just the opposite when seen in a
+larger perspective.  Thus what is a loss to the smaller man is a
+gain to the greater, and _vice versa_.
+
+To the man who lives for an idea, for his country, for the good
+of humanity, life has an extensive meaning, and to that extent
+pain becomes less important to him.  To live the life of goodness
+is to live the life of all.  Pleasure is for one's own self, but
+goodness is concerned with the happiness of all humanity and for
+all time.  From the point of view of the good, pleasure and pain
+appear in a different meaning; so much so, that pleasure may be
+shunned, and pain be courted in its place, and death itself be
+made welcome as giving a higher value to life.  From these higher
+standpoints of a man's life, the standpoints of the good,
+pleasure and pain lose their absolute value.  Martyrs prove it in
+history, and we prove it every day in our life in our little
+martyrdoms.  When we take a pitcherful of water from the sea it
+has its weight, but when we take a dip into the sea itself a
+thousand pitchersful of water flow above our head, and we do not
+feel their weight.  We have to carry the pitcher of self with our
+strength; and so, while on the plane of selfishness pleasure and
+pain have their full weight, on the moral plane they are so much
+lightened that the man who has reached it appears to us almost
+superhuman in his patience under crushing trails, and his
+forbearance in the face of malignant persecution.
+
+To live in perfect goodness is to realise one's life in the
+infinitive.  This is the most comprehensive view of life which we
+can have by our inherent power of the moral vision of the
+wholeness of life.  And the teaching of Buddha is to cultivate
+this moral power to the highest extent, to know that our field of
+activities is not bound to the plane of our narrow self.  This is
+the vision of the heavenly kingdom of Christ.  When we attain to
+that universal life, which is the moral life, we become freed
+from the bonds of pleasure and pain, and the place vacated by our
+self becomes filled with an unspeakable joy which springs from
+measureless love.  In this state the soul's activity is all the
+more heightened, only its motive power is not from desires, but
+in its own joy.  This is the _Karma-yoga_ of the _Gita_, the way
+to become one with the infinite activity by the exercise of the
+activity of disinterested goodness.
+
+When Buddha mentioned upon the way of realising mankind from the
+grip of misery he came to this truth: that when man attains his
+highest end by merging the individual in the universal, he
+becomes free from the thraldom of pain.  Let us consider this
+point more fully.
+
+A student of mine once related to me his adventure in a storm,
+and complained that all the time he was troubled with the feeling
+that this great commotion in nature behaved to him as if he were
+no more than a mere handful of dust.  That he was a distinct
+personality with a will of his own had not the least influence
+upon what was happening.
+
+I said, "If consideration for our individuality could sway nature
+from her path, then it would be the individuals who would suffer
+most."
+
+But he persisted in his doubt, saying that there was this fact
+which could not be ignored--the feeling that I am.  The "I" in us
+seeks for a relation which is individual to it.
+
+I replied that the relation of the "I" is with something which is
+"not-I."  So we must have a medium which is common to both, and
+we must be absolutely certain that it is the same to the "I" as
+it is to the "not-I."
+
+This is what needs repeating here.  We have to keep in mind that
+our individuality by its nature is impelled to seek for the
+universal.  Our body can only die if it tries to eat its own
+substance, and our eye loses the meaning of its function if it
+can only see itself.
+
+Just as we find that the stronger the imagination the less is it
+merely imaginary and the more is it in harmony with truth, so we
+see the more vigorous our individuality the more does it widen
+towards the universal.  For the greatness of a personality is not
+in itself but in its content, which is universal, just as the
+depth of a lake is judged not by the size of its cavity but by
+the depth of its water.
+
+So, if it is a truth that the yearning of our nature is for
+reality, and that our personality cannot be happy with a
+fantastic universe of its own creation, then it is clearly best
+for it that our will can only deal with things by following their
+law, and cannot do with them just as it pleases.  This unyielding
+sureness of reality sometimes crosses our will, and very often
+leads us to disaster, just as the firmness of the earth
+invariably hurts the falling child who is learning to walk.
+Nevertheless it is the same firmness that hurts him which makes
+his walking possible.  Once, while passing under a bridge, the
+mast of my boat got stuck in one of its girders.  If only for a
+moment the mast would have bent an inch or two, or the bridge
+raised its back like a yawning cat, or the river given in, it
+would have been all right with me.  But they took no notice of my
+helplessness.  That is the very reason why I could make use of
+the river, and sail upon it with the help of the mast, and that
+is why, when its current was inconvenient, I could rely upon the
+bridge.  Things are what they are, and we have to know them if we
+would deal with them, and knowledge of them is possible because
+our wish is not their law.  This knowledge is a joy to us, for
+the knowledge is one of the channels of our relation with the
+things outside us; it is making them our own, and thus widening
+the limit of our self.
+
+At every step we have to take into account others than ourselves.
+For only in death are we alone.  A poet is a true poet when he
+can make his personal idea joyful to all men, which he could not
+do if he had not a medium common to all his audience.  This
+common language has its own law which the poet must discover and
+follow, by doing which he becomes true and attains poetical
+immortality.
+
+We see then that man's individuality is not his highest truth;
+there is that in him which is universal.  If he were made to live
+in a world where his own self was the only factor to consider,
+then that would be the worst prison imaginable to him, for man's
+deepest joy is in growing greater and greater by more and more
+union with the all.  This, as we have seen, would be an
+impossibility if there were no law common to all.  Only by
+discovering the law and following it, do we become great, do we
+realise the universal; while, so long as our individual desires
+are at conflict with the universal law, we suffer pain and are
+futile.
+
+There was a time when we prayed for special concessions, we
+expected that the laws of nature should be held in abeyance for
+our own convenience.  But now we know better.  We know that law
+cannot be set aside, and in this knowledge we have become strong.
+For this law is not something apart from us; it is our own.  The
+universal power which is manifested in the universal law is one
+with our own power.  It will thwart us where we are small, where
+we are against the current of things; but it will help us where
+we are great, where we are in unison with the all.  Thus, through
+the help of science, as we come to know more of the laws of
+nature, we gain in power; we tend to attain a universal body.
+Our organ of sight, our organ of locomotion, our physical
+strength becomes world-wide; steam and electricity become our
+nerve and muscle.  Thus we find that, just as throughout our
+bodily organisation there is a principle of relation by virtue of
+which we can call the entire body our own, and can use it as
+such, so all through the universe there is that principle of
+uninterrupted relation by virtue of which we can call the whole
+world our extended body and use it accordingly.  And in this age
+of science it is our endeavour fully to establish our claim to
+our world-self.  We know all our poverty and sufferings are owing
+to our inability to realise this legitimate claim of ours.
+Really, there is no limit to our powers, for we are not outside
+the universal power which is the expression of universal law.  We
+are on our way to overcome disease and death, to conquer pain and
+poverty; for through scientific knowledge we are ever on our way
+to realise the universal in its physical aspect.  And as we make
+progress we find that pain, disease, and poverty of power are not
+absolute, but that is only the want of adjustment of our
+individual self to our universal self which gives rise to them.
+
+It is the same with our spiritual life.  When the individual man
+in us chafes against the lawful rule of the universal man we
+become morally small, and we must suffer.  In such a condition
+our successes are our greatest failures, and the very fulfilment
+of our desires leaves us poorer.  We hanker after special gains
+for ourselves, we want to enjoy privileges which none else can
+share with us.  But everything that is absolutely special must
+keep up a perpetual warfare with what is general.  In such a
+state of civil war man always lives behind barricades, and in any
+civilisation which is selfish our homes are not real homes, but
+artificial barriers around us.  Yet we complain that we are not
+happy, as if there were something inherent in the nature of
+things to make us miserable.  The universal spirit is waiting to
+crown us with happiness, but our individual spirit would not
+accept it.  It is our life of the self that causes conflicts and
+complications everywhere, upsets the normal balance of society
+and gives rise to miseries of all kinds.  It brings things to
+such a pass that to maintain order we have to create artificial
+coercions and organised forms of tyranny, and tolerate infernal
+institutions in our midst, whereby at every moment humanity is
+humiliated.
+
+We have seen that in order to be powerful we have to submit to
+the laws of the universal forces, and to realise in practice that
+they are our own.  So, in order to be happy, we have to submit
+our individual will to the sovereignty of the universal will, and
+to feel in truth that it is our own will.  When we reach that
+state wherein the adjustment of the finite in us to the infinite
+is made perfect, then pain itself becomes a valuable asset.  It
+becomes a measuring rod with which to gauge the true value of our
+joy.
+
+The most important lesson that man can learn from his life is not
+that there _is_ pain in this world, but that it depends upon him
+to turn it into good account, that it is possible for him to
+transmute it into joy.  The lesson has not been lost altogether
+to us, and there is no man living who would willingly be deprived
+of his right to suffer pain, for that is his right to be a man.
+One day the wife of a poor labourer complained bitterly to me
+that her eldest boy was going to be sent away to a rich relative's
+house for part of the year.  It was the implied kind intention of
+trying to relieve her of her trouble that gave her the shock, for
+a mother's trouble is a mother's own by her inalienable right of
+love, and she was not going to surrender it to any dictates of
+expediency.  Man's freedom is never in being saved troubles, but
+it is the freedom to take trouble for his own good, to make the
+trouble an element in his joy.  It can be made so only when we
+realise that our individual self is not the highest meaning of our
+being, that in us we have the world-man who is immortal, who is
+not afraid of death or sufferings, and who looks upon pain as only
+the other side of joy.  He who has realised this knows that it is
+pain which is our true wealth as imperfect beings, and has made us
+great and worthy to take our seat with the perfect.  He knows that
+we are not beggars; that it is the hard coin which must be paid
+for everything valuable in this life, for our power, our wisdom,
+our love; that in pain is symbolised the infinite possibility of
+perfection, the eternal unfolding of joy; and the man who loses all
+pleasure in accepting pain sinks down and down to the lowest depth
+of penury and degradation.  It is only when we invoke the aid of
+pain for our self-gratification that she becomes evil and takes her
+vengeance for the insult done to her by hurling us into misery.
+For she is the vestal virgin consecrated to the service of the
+immortal perfection, and when she takes her true place before the
+altar of the infinite she casts off her dark veil and bares her
+face to the beholder as a revelation of supreme joy.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+THE PROBLEM OF SELF
+
+
+At one pole of my being I am one with stocks and stones.  There I
+have to acknowledge the rule of universal law.  That is where the
+foundation of my existence lies, deep down below.  Its strength
+lies in its being held firm in the clasp of comprehensive world,
+and in the fullness of its community with all things.
+
+But at the other pole of my being I am separate from all.  There
+I have broken through the cordon of equality and stand alone as
+an individual.  I am absolutely unique, I am I, I am
+incomparable.  The whole weight of the universe cannot crush out
+this individuality of mine.  I maintain it in spite of the
+tremendous gravitation of all things.  It is small in appearance
+but great in reality.  For it holds its own against the forces
+that would rob it of its distinction and make it one with the
+dust.
+
+This is the superstructure of the self which rises from the
+indeterminate depth and darkness of its foundation into the open,
+proud of its isolation, proud of having given shape to a single
+individual idea of the architect's which has no duplicate in the
+whole universe.  If this individuality be demolished, then though
+no material be lost, not an atom destroyed, the creative joy
+which was crystallised therein is gone.  We are absolutely
+bankrupt if we are deprived of this specialty, this
+individuality, which is the only thing we can call our own; and
+which, if lost, is also a loss to the whole world.  It is most
+valuable because it is not universal.  And therefore only through
+it can we gain the universe more truly than if we were lying
+within its breast unconscious of our distinctiveness.  The
+universal is ever seeking its consummation in the unique.  And
+the desire we have to keep our uniqueness intact is really the
+desire of the universe acting in us.  It is our joy of the
+infinite in us that gives us our joy in ourselves.
+
+That this separateness of self is considered by man as his most
+precious possession is proved by the sufferings he undergoes and
+the sins he commits for its sake.  But the consciousness of
+separation has come from the eating of the fruit of knowledge.
+It has led man to shame and crime and death; yet it is dearer to
+him than any paradise where the self lies, securely slumbering in
+perfect innocence in the womb of mother nature.
+
+It is a constant striving and suffering for us to maintain the
+separateness of this self of ours.  And in fact it is this
+suffering which measures its value.  One side of the value is
+sacrifice, which represents how much the cost has been.  The
+other side of it is the attainment, which represents how much has
+been gained.  If the self meant nothing to us but pain and
+sacrifice, it could have no value for us, and on no account would
+we willingly undergo such sacrifice.  In such case there could be
+no doubt at all that the highest object of humanity would be the
+annihilation of self.
+
+But if there is a corresponding gain, if it does not end in a
+void but in a fullness, then it is clear that its negative
+qualities, its very sufferings and sacrifices, make it all the
+more precious.  That it is so has been proved by those who have
+realised the positive significance of self, and have accepted its
+responsibilities with eagerness and undergone sacrifices without
+flinching.
+
+With the foregoing introduction it will be easy for me to answer
+the question once asked by one of my audience as to whether the
+annihilation of self has not been held by India as the supreme
+goal of humanity?
+
+In the first place we must keep in mind the fact that man is
+never literal in the expression of his ideas, except in matters
+most trivial.  Very often man's words are not a language at all,
+but merely a vocal gesture of the dumb.  They may indicate, but
+do not express his thoughts.  The more vital his thoughts the
+more have his words to be explained by the context of his life.
+Those who seek to know his meaning by the aid of the dictionary
+only technically reach the house, for they are stopped by the
+outside wall and find no entrance to the hall.  This is the
+reason why the teachings of our greatest prophets give rise to
+endless disputations when we try to understand them by following
+their words and not be realising them in our own lives.  The men
+who are cursed with the gift of the literal mind are the
+unfortunate ones who are always busy with their nets and neglect
+the fishing.
+
+It is not only in Buddhism and the Indian religions, but in
+Christianity too, that the ideal of selflessness is preached with
+all fervour.  In the last the symbol of death has been used for
+expressing the idea of man's deliverance from the life which is
+not true.  This is the same as Nirvnāna, the symbol of the
+extinction of the lamp.
+
+In the typical thought of India it is held that the true
+deliverance of man is the deliverance from _avidyā_, from
+ignorance.  It is not in destroying anything that is positive and
+real, for that cannot be possible, but that which is negative,
+which obstructs our vision of truth.  When this obstruction,
+which is ignorance, is removed, then only is the eyelid drawn up
+which is no loss to the eye.
+
+It is our ignorance which makes us think that our self, as self,
+is real, that it has its complete meaning in itself.  When we
+take that wrong view of self then we try to live in such a manner
+as to make self the ultimate object of our life.  Then we are
+doomed to disappointment like the man who tries to reach his
+destination by firmly clutching the dust of the road.  Our self
+has no means of holding us, for its own nature is to pass on; and
+by clinging to this thread of self which is passing through the
+loom of life we cannot make it serve the purpose of the cloth
+into which it is being woven.  When a man, with elaborate care,
+arranges for an enjoyment of the self, he lights a fire but has
+no dough to make his bread with; the fire flares up and consumes
+itself to extinction, like an unnatural beast that eats its own
+progeny and dies.
+
+In an unknown language the words are tyrannically prominent.
+They stop us but say nothing.  To be rescued from this fetter of
+words we must rid ourselves of the _avidyā_, our ignorance, and
+then our mind will find its freedom in the inner idea.  But it
+would be foolish to say that our ignorance of the language can
+be dispelled only by the destruction of the words.  No, when the
+perfect knowledge comes, every word remains in its place, only
+they do not bind us to themselves, but let us pass through them
+and lead us to the idea which is emancipation.
+
+Thus it is only _avidyā_ which makes the self our fetter by
+making us think that it is an end in itself, and by preventing
+our seeing that it contains the idea that transcends its limits.
+That is why the wise man comes and says, "Set yourselves free
+from the _avidyā_; know your true soul and be saved from the
+grasp of the self which imprisons you."
+
+We gain our freedom when we attain our truest nature.  The man
+who is an artist finds his artistic freedom when he finds his
+ideal of art.  Then is he freed from laborious attempts at
+imitation, from the goadings of popular approbation.  It is the
+function of religion not to destroy our nature but to fulfil it.
+
+The Sanskrit word _dharma_ which is usually translated into
+English as religion has a deeper meaning in our language.
+_Dharma_ is the innermost nature, the essence, the implicit
+truth, of all things.  _Dharma_ is the ultimate purpose that
+is working in our self.  When any wrong is done we say that
+_dharma_ is violated, meaning that the lie has been given to
+our true nature.
+
+But this _dharma_, which is the truth in us, is not apparent,
+because it is inherent.  So much so, that it has been held that
+sinfulness is the nature of man, and only by the special grace
+of God can a particular person be saved.  This is like saying
+that the nature of the seed is to remain enfolded within its
+shell, and it is only by some special miracle that it can be
+grown into a tree.  But do we not know that the _appearance_ of
+the seed contradicts its true nature?  When you submit it to
+chemical analysis you may find in it carbon and proteid and a
+good many other things, but not the idea of a branching tree.
+Only when the tree begins to take shape do you come to see its
+_dharma_, and then you can affirm without doubt that the seed
+which has been wasted and allowed to rot in the ground has been
+thwarted in its _dharma_, in the fulfilment of its true nature.
+In the history of humanity we have known the living seed in us
+to sprout.  We have seen the great purpose in us taking shape
+in the lives of our greatest men, and have felt certain that
+though there are numerous individual lives that seem ineffectual,
+still it is not their _dharma_ to remain barren; but it is for
+them to burst their cover and transform themselves into a
+vigorous spiritual shoot, growing up into the air and light, and
+branching out in all directions.
+
+The freedom of the seed is in the attainment of its
+_dharma_, its nature and destiny of becoming a tree; it is the
+non-accomplishment which is its prison.  The sacrifice by which
+a thing attains its fulfilment is not a sacrifice which ends in
+death; it is the casting-off of bonds which wins freedom.
+
+When we know the highest ideal of freedom which a man has, we
+know his _dharma_, the essence of his nature, the real meaning of
+his self.  At first sight it seems that man counts that as
+freedom by which he gets unbounded opportunities of self
+gratification and self-aggrandisement.  But surely this is not
+borne out by history.  Our revelatory men have always been those
+who have lived the life of self-sacrifice.  The higher nature in
+man always seeks for something which transcends itself and yet is
+its deepest truth; which claims all its sacrifice, yet makes this
+sacrifice its own recompense.  This is man's _dharma_, man's
+religion, and man's self is the vessel which is to carry this
+sacrifice to the altar.
+
+We can look at our self in its two different aspects.  The self
+which displays itself, and the self which transcends itself and
+thereby reveals its own meaning.  To display itself it tries to
+be big, to stand upon the pedestal of its accumulations, and to
+retain everything to itself.  To reveal itself it gives up
+everything it has; thus becoming perfect like a flower that has
+blossomed out from the bud, pouring from its chalice of beauty
+all its sweetness.
+
+The lamp contains its oil, which it holds securely in its close
+grasp and guards from the least loss.  Thus is it separate from
+all other objects around it and is miserly.  But when lighted it
+finds its meaning at once; its relation with all things far and
+near is established, and it freely sacrifices its fund of oil to
+feed the flame.
+
+Such a lamp is our self.  So long as it hoards its possessions it
+keeps itself dark, its conduct contradicts its true purpose.
+When it finds illumination it forgets itself in a moment, holds
+the light high, and serves it with everything it has; for therein
+is its revelation.  This revelation is the freedom which Buddha
+preached.  He asked the lamp to give up its oil.  But purposeless
+giving up is a still darker poverty which he never could have
+meant.  The lamp must give up its oil to the light and thus set
+free the purpose it has in its hoarding.  This is emancipation.
+The path Buddha pointed out was not merely the practice of
+self-abnegation, but the widening of love.  And therein lies the true
+meaning of Buddha's preaching.
+
+When we find that the state of _Nirvāna_ preached by Buddha is
+through love, then we know for certain that _Nirvāna_ is the
+highest culmination of love.  For love is an end unto itself.
+Everything else raises the question "Why?" in our mind, and we
+require a reason for it.  But when we say, "I love," then there
+is no room for the "why"; it is the final answer in itself.
+
+Doubtless, even selfishness impels one to give away.  But the
+selfish man does it on compulsion.  That is like plucking fruit
+when it is unripe; you have to tear it from the tree and bruise
+the branch.  But when a man loves, giving becomes a matter of joy
+to him, like the tree's surrender of the ripe fruit.  All our
+belongings assume a weight by the ceaseless gravitation of our
+selfish desires; we cannot easily cast them away from us.  They
+seem to belong to our very nature, to stick to us as a second
+skin, and we bleed as we detach them.  But when we are possessed
+by love, its force acts in the opposite direction.  The things
+that closely adhered to us lose their adhesion and weight, and we
+find that they are not of us.  Far from being a loss to give them
+away, we find in that the fulfilment of our being.
+
+Thus we find in perfect love the freedom of our self.  That only
+which is done for love is done freely, however much pain it may
+cause.  Therefore working for love is freedom in action.  This is
+the meaning of the teaching of disinterested work in the _Gīta_.
+
+The _Gīta_ says action we must have, for only in action do we
+manifest our nature.  But this manifestation is not perfect so
+long as our action is not free.  In fact, our nature is obscured
+by work done by the compulsion of want or fear.  The mother
+reveals herself in the service of her children, so our true
+freedom is not the freedom _from_ action but freedom _in_ action,
+which can only be attained in the work of love.
+
+God's manifestation is in his work of creation and it is said in
+the Upanishad, _Knowledge, power, and action are of his nature_
+[Footnote: "Svābhāvikī jnāna bala kriyācha."]; they are not
+imposed upon him from outside.  Therefore his work is his
+freedom, and in his creation he realises himself.  The same thing
+is said elsewhere in other words: _From joy does spring all this
+creation, by joy is it maintained, towards joy does it progress,
+and into joy does it enter_.  [Footnote: Ānandādhyēva khalvimāni
+bhūtāni jāyantē, ānandēna jātāni jīvanti,
+ānandamprayantyabhisamviçanti.]  It means that God's creation has
+not its source in any necessity; it comes from his fullness of
+joy; it is his love that creates, therefore in creation is his
+own revealment.
+
+The artist who has a joy in the fullness of his artistic idea
+objectifies it and thus gains it more fully by holding it afar.
+It is joy which detaches ourselves from us, and then gives it
+form in creations of love in order to make it more perfectly our
+own.  Hence there must be this separation, not a separation of
+repulsion but a separation of love.  Repulsion has only the one
+element, the element of severance.  But love has two, the element
+of severance, which is only an appearance, and the element of
+union which is the ultimate truth.  Just as when the father
+tosses his child up from his arms it has the appearance of
+rejection but its truth is quite the reverse.
+
+So we must know that the meaning of our self is not to be found
+in its separateness from God and others, but in the ceaseless
+realisation of _yoga_, of union; not on the side of the canvas
+where it is blank, but on the side where the picture is being
+painted.
+
+This is the reason why the separateness of our self has been
+described by our philosophers as _māyā_, as an illusion, because
+it has no intrinsic reality of its own.  It looks perilous; it
+raises its isolation to a giddy height and casts a black shadow
+upon the fair face of existence; from the outside it has an
+aspect of a sudden disruption, rebellious and destructive; it is
+proud, domineering and wayward; it is ready to rob the world of
+all its wealth to gratify its craving of a moment; to pluck with
+a reckless, cruel hand all the plumes from the divine bird of
+beauty to deck its ugliness for a day; indeed man's legend has it
+that it bears the black mark of disobedience stamped on its
+forehead for ever; but still all this _māyā_, envelopment of
+_avidyā_; it is the mist, it is not the sun; it is the black
+smoke that presages the fire of love.
+
+Imagine some savage who, in his ignorance, thinks that it is the
+paper of the banknote that has the magic, by virtue of which the
+possessor of it gets all he wants.  He piles up the papers, hides
+them, handles them in all sorts of absurd ways, and then at last,
+wearied by his efforts, comes to the sad conclusion that they are
+absolutely worthless, only fit to be thrown into the fire.  But
+the wise man knows that the paper of the banknote is all _māyā_,
+and until it is given up to the bank it is futile.  It is only
+_avidyā_, our ignorance, that makes us believe that the
+separateness of our self like the paper of the banknote is
+precious in itself, and by acting on this belief our self is
+rendered valueless.  It is only when the _avidyā_ is removed that
+this very self comes to us with a wealth which is priceless.  For
+_He manifests Himself in forms which His joy assumes_.  [Footnote:
+Ānandarūpamamritam yadvibhāti.]  These forms are separate from
+Him, and the value that these forms have is only what his joy has
+imparted to them.  When we transfer back these forms into that
+original joy, which is love, then we cash them in the bank and we
+find their truth.
+
+When pure necessity drives man to his work it takes an accidental
+and contingent character, it becomes a mere makeshift
+arrangement; it is deserted and left in ruins when necessity
+changes its course.  But when his work is the outcome of joy, the
+forms that it takes have the elements of immortality.  The
+immortal in man imparts to it its own quality of permanence.
+
+Our self, as a form of God's joy, is deathless.  For his joy is
+_amritham_, eternal.  This it is in us which makes us sceptical of
+death, even when the fact of death cannot be doubted.  In
+reconcilement of this contradiction in us we come to the truth that
+in the dualism of death and life there is a harmony.  We know that
+the life of a soul, which is finite in its expression and infinite
+in its principle, must go through the portals of death in its
+journey to realise the infinite.  It is death which is monistic, it
+has no life in it.  But life is dualistic; it has an appearance as
+well as truth; and death is that appearance, that _māyā_, which is
+an inseparable companion to life.  Our self to live must go through
+a continual change and growth of form, which may be termed a
+continual death and a continual life going on at the same time.  It
+is really courting death when we refuse to accept death; when we
+wish to give the form of the self some fixed changelessness; when
+the self feels no impulse which urges it to grow out of itself;
+when it treats its limits as final and acts accordingly.  Then comes
+our teacher's call to die to this death; not a call to annihilation
+but to eternal life.  It is the extinction of the lamp in the
+morning light; not the abolition of the sun.  It is really asking us
+consciously to give effect to the innermost wish that we have in the
+depths of our nature.
+
+We have a dual set of desires in our being, which it should be
+our endeavour to bring into a harmony.  In the region of our
+physical nature we have one set of which we are conscious always.
+We wish to enjoy our food and drink, we hanker after bodily
+pleasure and comfort.  These desires are self-centered; they are
+solely concerned with their respective impulses.  The wishes of
+our palate often run counter to what our stomach can allow.
+
+But we have another set, which is the desire of our physical
+system as a whole, of which we are usually unconscious.  It is
+the wish for health.  This is always doing its work, mending and
+repairing, making new adjustments in cases of accident, and
+skilfully restoring the balance wherever disturbed.  It has no
+concern with the fulfilment of our immediate bodily desires, but
+it goes beyond the present time.  It is the principle of our
+physical wholeness, it links our life with its past and its
+future and maintains the unity of its parts.  He who is wise
+knows it, and makes his other physical wishes harmonise with it.
+
+We have a greater body which is the social body.  Society is an
+organism, of which we as parts have our individual wishes.  We
+want our own pleasure and license.  We want to pay less and gain
+more than anybody else.  This causes scramblings and fights.  But
+there is that other wish in us which does its work in the depths
+of the social being.  It is the wish for the welfare of the
+society.  It transcends the limits of the present and the
+personal.  It is on the side of the infinite.
+
+He who is wise tries to harmonise the wishes that seek for
+self-gratification with the wish for the social good, and only thus
+can he realise his higher self.
+
+In its finite aspect the self is conscious of its separateness,
+and there it is ruthless in its attempt to have more distinction
+than all others.  But in its infinite aspect its wish is to gain
+that harmony which leads to its perfection and not its mere
+aggrandisement.
+
+The emancipation of our physical nature is in attaining health,
+of our social being in attaining goodness, and of our self in
+attaining love.  This last is what Buddha describes as
+extinction--the extinction of selfishness--which is the function
+of love, and which does not lead to darkness but to illumination.
+This is the attainment of _bodhi_, or the true awakening; it is
+the revealing in us of the infinite joy by the light of love.
+
+The passage of our self is through its selfhood, which is
+independent, to its attainment of soul, which is harmonious.
+This harmony can never be reached through compulsion.  So our
+will, in the history of its growth, must come through
+independence and rebellion to the ultimate completion.  We must
+have the possibility of the negative form of freedom, which is
+licence, before we can attain the positive freedom, which is
+love.
+
+This negative freedom, the freedom of self-will, can turn its
+back upon its highest realisation, but it cannot cut itself away
+from it altogether, for then it will lose its own meaning.  Our
+self-will has freedom up to a certain extent; it can know what it
+is to break away from the path, but it cannot continue in that
+direction indefinitely.  For we are finite on our negative side.
+We must come to an end in our evil doing, in our career of
+discord.  For evil is not infinite, and discord cannot be an end
+in itself.  Our will has freedom in order that it may find out
+that its true course is towards goodness and love.  For goodness
+and love are infinite, and only in the infinite is the perfect
+realisation of freedom possible.  So our will can be free not
+towards the limitations of our self, not where it is _māyā_ and
+negation, but towards the unlimited, where is truth and love.
+Our freedom cannot go against its own principle of freedom and
+yet be free; it cannot commit suicide and yet live.  We cannot
+say that we should have infinite freedom to fetter ourselves, for
+the fettering ends the freedom.
+
+So in the freedom of our will, we have the same dualism of
+appearance and truth--our self-will is only the appearance of
+freedom and love is the truth.  When we try to make this
+appearance independent of truth, then our attempt brings misery
+and proves its own futility in the end.  Everything has this
+dualism of _māyā_ and _satyam_, appearance and truth.  Words are
+_māyā_ where they are merely sounds and finite, they are _satyam_
+where they are ideas and infinite.  Our self is _māyā_ where it
+is merely individual and finite, where it considers its
+separateness as absolute; it is _satyam_ where it recognises its
+essence in the universal and infinite, in the supreme self, in
+_paramātman_.  This is what Christ means when he says, "Before
+Abraham was I am."  This is the eternal _I am_ that speaks
+through the _I am_ that is in me.  The individual _I am_ attains
+its perfect end when it realises its freedom of harmony in the
+infinite _I am_.  Then is it _mukti_, its deliverance from the
+thraldom of _māyā_, of appearance, which springs from _avidyā_,
+from ignorance; its emancipation in _çāntam çivam advaitam_, in
+the perfect repose in truth, in the perfect activity in goodness,
+and in the perfect union in love.
+
+Not only in our self but also in nature is there this
+separateness from God, which has been described as _māyā_ by our
+philosophers, because the separateness does not exist by itself,
+it does not limit God's infinity from outside.  It is his own
+will that has imposed limits to itself, just as the chess-player
+restricts his will with regard to the moving of the chessmen.
+The player willingly enters into definite relations with each
+particular piece and realises the joy of his power by these very
+restrictions.  It is not that he cannot move the chessmen just as
+he pleases, but if he does so then there can be no play.  If God
+assumes his rôle of omnipotence, then his creation is at an end
+and his power loses all its meaning.  For power to be a power must
+act within limits.  God's water must be water, his earth can never
+be other than earth.  The law that has made them water and earth
+is his own law by which he has separated the play from the player,
+for therein the joy of the player consists.
+
+As by the limits of law nature is separated from God, so it is
+the limits of its egoism which separates the self from him.  He
+has willingly set limits to his will, and has given us mastery
+over the little world of our own.  It is like a father's settling
+upon his son some allowance within the limit of which he is free
+to do what he likes.  Though it remains a portion of the father's
+own property, yet he frees it from the operation of his own will.
+The reason of it is that the will, which is love's will and
+therefore free, can have its joy only in a union with another
+free will.  The tyrant who must have slaves looks upon them as
+instruments of his purpose.  It is the consciousness of his own
+necessity which makes him crush the will out of them, to make his
+self-interest absolutely secure.  This self-interest cannot brook
+the least freedom in others, because it is not itself free.  The
+tyrant is really dependent on his slaves, and therefore he tries
+to make them completely useful by making them subservient to his
+own will.  But a lover must have two wills for the realisation of
+his love, because the consummation of love is in harmony, the
+harmony between freedom and freedom.  So God's love from which
+our self has taken form has made it separate from God; and it is
+God's love which again establishes a reconciliation and unites
+God with our self through the separation.  That is why our self
+has to go through endless renewals.  For in its career of
+separateness it cannot go on for ever.  Separateness is the
+finitude where it finds its barriers to come back again and again
+to its infinite source.  Our self has ceaselessly to cast off its
+age, repeatedly shed its limits in oblivion and death, in order
+to realise its immortal youth.  Its personality must merge in the
+universal time after time, in fact pass through it every moment,
+ever to refresh its individual life.  It must follow the eternal
+rhythm and touch the fundamental unity at every step, and thus
+maintain its separation balanced in beauty and strength.
+
+The play of life and death we see everywhere--this transmutation
+of the old into the new.  The day comes to us every morning,
+naked and white, fresh as a flower.  But we know it is old.  It
+is age itself.  It is that very ancient day which took up the
+newborn earth in its arms, covered it with its white mantle of
+light, and sent it forth on its pilgrimage among the stars.
+
+Yet its feet are untired and its eyes undimmed.  It carries the
+golden amulet of ageless eternity, at whose touch all wrinkles
+vanish from the forehead of creation.  In the very core of the
+world's heart stands immortal youth.  Death and decay cast over
+its face momentary shadows and pass on; they leave no marks of
+their steps--and truth remains fresh and young.
+
+This old, old day of our earth is born again and again every
+morning.  It comes back to the original refrain of its music.  If
+its march were the march of an infinite straight line, if it had
+not the awful pause of its plunge in the abysmal darkness and its
+repeated rebirth in the life of the endless beginning, then it
+would gradually soil and bury truth with its dust and spread
+ceaseless aching over the earth under its heavy tread.  Then
+every moment would leave its load of weariness behind, and
+decrepitude would reign supreme on its throne of eternal dirt.
+
+But every morning the day is reborn among the newly-blossomed
+flowers with the same message retold and the same assurance
+renewed that death eternally dies, that the waves of turmoil are
+on the surface, and that the sea of tranquillity is fathomless.
+The curtain of night is drawn aside and truth emerges without a
+speck of dust on its garment, without a furrow of age on its
+lineaments.
+
+We see that he who is before everything else is the same to-day.
+Every note of the song of creation comes fresh from his voice.
+The universe is not a mere echo, reverberating from sky to sky,
+like a homeless wanderer--the echo of an old song sung once for
+all in the dim beginning of things and then left orphaned.  Every
+moment it comes from the heart of the master, it is breathed in
+his breath.
+
+And that is the reason why it overspreads the sky like a thought
+taking shape in a poem, and never has to break into pieces with
+the burden of its own accumulating weight.  Hence the surprise of
+endless variations, the advent of the unaccountable, the
+ceaseless procession of individuals, each of whom is without a
+parallel in creation.  As at the first so to the last, the
+beginning never ends--the world is ever old and ever new.
+
+It is for our self to know that it must be born anew every moment
+of its life.  It must break through all illusions that encase it
+in their crust to make it appear old, burdening it with death.
+
+For life is immortal youthfulness, and it hates age that tries to
+clog its movements--age that belongs not to life in truth, but
+follows it as the shadow follows the lamp.
+
+Our life, like a river, strikes its banks not to find itself
+closed in by them, but to realise anew every moment that it has
+its unending opening towards the sea.  It is a poem that strikes
+its metre at every step not to be silenced by its rigid
+regulations, but to give expression every moment to the inner
+freedom of its harmony.
+
+The boundary walls of our individuality thrust us back within our
+limits, on the one hand, and thus lead us, on the other, to the
+unlimited.  Only when we try to make these limits infinite are we
+launched into an impossible contradiction and court miserable
+failure.
+
+This is the cause which leads to the great revolutions in human
+history.  Whenever the part, spurning the whole, tries to run a
+separate course of its own, the great pull of the all gives it a
+violent wrench, stops it suddenly, and brings it to the dust.
+Whenever the individual tries to dam the ever-flowing current of
+the world-force and imprison it within the area of his particular
+use, it brings on disaster.  However powerful a king may be, he
+cannot raise his standard or rebellion against the infinite
+source of strength, which is unity, and yet remain powerful.
+
+It has been said, _By unrighteousness men prosper, gain what they
+desire, and triumph over their enemies, but at the end they are
+cut off at the root and suffer extinction._  [Footnote:
+Adharmēnaidhatē tāvat tatō bahdrāņi paçyati tatah sapatnān jayati
+samūlastu vinaçyati.]  Our roots must go deep down into the
+universal if we would attain the greatness of personality.
+
+It is the end of our self to seek that union.  It must bend its
+head low in love and meekness and take its stand where great and
+small all meet.  It has to gain by its loss and rise by its
+surrender.  His games would be a horror to the child if he could
+not come back to his mother, and our pride of personality will be
+a curse to us if we cannot give it up in love.  We must know that
+it is only the revelation of the Infinite which is endlessly new
+and eternally beautiful in us, and which gives the only meaning
+to our self.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+REALISATION IN LOVE
+
+
+We come now to the eternal problem of co-existence of the
+infinite and the finite, of the supreme being and our soul.
+There is a sublime paradox that lies at the root of existence.
+We never can go round it, because we never can stand outside the
+problem and weigh it against any other possible alternative.  But
+the problem exists in logic only; in reality it does not offer us
+any difficulty at all.  Logically speaking, the distance between
+two points, however near, may be said to be infinite because it
+is infinitely divisible.  But we _do_ cross the infinite at every
+step, and meet the eternal in every second.  Therefore some of our
+philosophers say there is no such thing as finitude; it is but a
+_māyā_, an illusion.  The real is the infinite, and it is only
+_māyā_, the unreality, which causes the appearance of the finite.
+But the word _māyā_ is a mere name, it is no explanation.  It is
+merely saying that with truth there is this appearance which is
+the opposite of truth; but how they come to exist at one and the
+same time is incomprehensible.
+
+We have what we call in Sanskrit _dvandva_, a series of opposites
+in creation; such as, the positive pole and the negative, the
+centripetal force and the centrifugal, attraction and repulsion.
+These are also mere names, they are no explanations.  They are
+only different ways of asserting that the world in its essence is
+a reconciliation of pairs of opposing forces.  These forces, like
+the left and the right hands of the creator, are acting in
+absolute harmony, yet acting from opposite directions.
+
+There is a bond of harmony between our two eyes, which makes them
+act in unison.  Likewise there is an unbreakable continuity of
+relation in the physical world between heat and cold, light and
+darkness, motion and rest, as between the bass and treble notes
+of a piano.  That is why these opposites do not bring confusion
+in the universe, but harmony.  If creation were but a chaos, we
+should have to imagine the two opposing principles as trying to
+get the better of each other.  But the universe is not under
+martial law, arbitrary and provisional.  Here we find no force
+which can run amok, or go on indefinitely in its wild road, like
+an exiled outlaw, breaking all harmony with its surroundings;
+each force, on the contrary, has to come back in a curved line to
+its equilibrium.  Waves rise, each to its individual height in a
+seeming attitude of unrelenting competition, but only up to a
+certain point; and thus we know of the great repose of the sea to
+which they are all related, and to which they must all return in
+a rhythm which is marvellously beautiful.
+
+In fact, these undulations and vibrations, these risings and
+fallings, are not due to the erratic contortions of disparate
+bodies, they are a rhythmic dance.  Rhythm never can be born of
+the haphazard struggle of combat.  Its underlying principle must
+be unity, not opposition.
+
+This principle of unity is the mystery of all mysteries.  The
+existence of a duality at once raises a question in our minds,
+and we seek its solution in the One.  When at last we find a
+relation between these two, and thereby see them as one in
+essence, we feel that we have come to the truth.  And then we
+give utterance to this most startling of all paradoxes, that the
+One appears as many, that the appearance is the opposite of truth
+and yet is inseparably related to it.
+
+Curiously enough, there are men who lose that feeling of mystery,
+which is at the root of all our delights, when they discover the
+uniformity of law among the diversity of nature.  As if
+gravitation is not more of a mystery than the fall of an apple,
+as if the evolution from one scale of being to the other is not
+something which is even more shy of explanation than a succession
+of creations.  The trouble is that we very often stop at such a
+law as if it were the final end of our search, and then we find
+that it does not even begin to emancipate our spirit.  It only
+gives satisfaction to our intellect, and as it does not appeal to
+our whole being it only deadens in us the sense of the infinite.
+
+A great poem, when analysed, is a set of detached sounds.  The
+reader who finds out the meaning, which is the inner medium that
+connects these outer sounds, discovers a perfect law all through,
+which is never violated in the least; the law of the evolution of
+ideas, the law of the music and the form.
+
+But law in itself is a limit.  It only shows that whatever is can
+never be otherwise.  When a man is exclusively occupied with the
+search for the links of causality, his mind succumbs to the
+tyranny of law in escaping from the tyranny of facts.  In
+learning a language, when from mere words we reach the laws of
+words we have gained a great deal.  But if we stop at that point,
+and only concern ourselves with the marvels of the formation of a
+language, seeking the hidden reason of all its apparent caprices,
+we do not reach the end--for grammar is not literature, prosody
+is not a poem.
+
+When we come to literature we find that though it conforms to
+rules of grammar it is yet a thing of joy, it is freedom itself.
+The beauty of a poem is bound by strict laws, yet it transcends
+them.  The laws are its wings, they do not keep it weighed down,
+they carry it to freedom.  Its form is in law but its spirit is
+in beauty.  Law is the first step towards freedom, and beauty is
+the complete liberation which stands on the pedestal of law.
+Beauty harmonises in itself the limit and the beyond, the law and
+the liberty.
+
+In the world-poem, the discovery of the law of its rhythms, the
+measurement of its expansion and contraction, movement and pause,
+the pursuit of its evolution of forms and characters, are true
+achievements of the mind; but we cannot stop there.  It is like a
+railway station; but the station platform is not our home.  Only
+he has attained the final truth who knows that the whole world is
+a creation of joy.
+
+This leads me to think how mysterious the relation of the human
+heart with nature must be.  In the outer world of activity nature
+has one aspect, but in our hearts, in the inner world, it
+presents an altogether different picture.
+
+Take an instance--the flower of a plant.  However fine and dainty
+it may look, it is pressed to do a great service, and its colours
+and forms are all suited to its work.  It must bring forth the
+fruit, or the continuity of plant life will be broken and the
+earth will be turned into a desert ere long.  The colour and the
+smell of the flower are all for some purpose therefore; no sooner
+is it fertilised by the bee, and the time of its fruition
+arrives, than it sheds its exquisite petals and a cruel economy
+compels it to give up its sweet perfume.  It has no time to
+flaunt its finery, for it is busy beyond measure.  Viewed from
+without, necessity seems to be the only factor in nature for
+which everything works and moves.  There the bud develops into
+the flower, the flower into the fruit, the fruit into the seed,
+the seed into a new plant again, and so forth, the chain of
+activity running on unbroken.  Should there crop up any
+disturbance or impediment, no excuse would be accepted, and the
+unfortunate thing thus choked in its movement would at once be
+labelled as rejected, and be bound to die and disappear
+post-haste.  In the great office of nature there are innumerable
+departments with endless work going on, and the fine flower that
+you behold there, gaudily attired and scented like a dandy, is by
+no means what it appears to be, but rather, is like a labourer
+toiling in sun and shower, who has to submit a clear account of
+his work and has no breathing space to enjoy himself in playful
+frolic.
+
+But when this same flower enters the heart of men its aspect of
+busy practicality is gone, and it becomes the very emblem of
+leisure and repose.  The same object that is the embodiment of
+endless activity without is the perfect expression of beauty and
+peace within.
+
+Science here warns us that we are mistaken, that the purpose of a
+flower is nothing but what is outwardly manifested, and that the
+relation of beauty and sweetness which we think it bears to us is
+all our own making, gratuitous and imaginary.
+
+But our heart replies that we are not in the least mistaken.  In
+the sphere of nature the flower carries with it a certificate
+which recommends it as having immense capacity for doing useful
+work, but it brings an altogether different letter of
+introduction when it knocks at the door of our hearts.  Beauty
+becomes its only qualification.  At one place it comes as a
+slave, and at another as a free thing.  How, then, should we give
+credit to its first recommendation and disbelieve the second one?
+That the flower has got its being in the unbroken chain of
+causation is true beyond doubt; but that is an outer truth.  The
+inner truth is: _Verily from the everlasting joy do all objects
+have their birth._  [Footnote: Ānandādhyēva khalvimāni bhūtāni
+jāyantē.]
+
+A flower, therefore, has not its only function in nature, but has
+another great function to exercise in the mind of man.  And what
+is that function?  In nature its work is that of a servant who
+has to make his appearance at appointed times, but in the heart
+of man it comes like a messenger from the King.  In the
+_Rāmāyana_, when _Sītā,_ forcibly separated from her husband, was
+bewailing her evil fate in _Ravana's_ golden palace, she was met
+by a messenger who brought with him a ring of her beloved
+_Rāmachandra_ himself.  The very sight of it convinced _Sītā_ of
+the truth of tidings he bore.  She was at once reassured that he
+came indeed from her beloved one, who had not forgotten her and
+was at hand to rescue her.
+
+Such a messenger is a flower from our great lover.  Surrounded
+with the pomp and pageantry of worldliness, which may be linked
+to Ravana's golden city, we still live in exile, while the
+insolent spirit of worldly prosperity tempts us with allurements
+and claims us as its bride.  In the meantime the flower comes
+across with a message from the other shore, and whispers in our
+ears, "I am come.  He has sent me.  I am a messenger of the
+beautiful, the one whose soul is the bliss of love.  This island
+of isolation has been bridged over by him, and he has not
+forgotten thee, and will rescue thee even now.  He will draw thee
+unto him and make thee his own.  This illusion will not hold thee
+in thraldom for ever."
+
+If we happen to be awake then, we question him: "How are we to
+know that thou art come from him indeed?"  The messenger says,
+"Look!  I have this ring from him.  How lovely are its hues and
+charms!"
+
+Ah, doubtless it is his--indeed, it is our wedding ring.  Now all
+else passes into oblivion, only this sweet symbol of the touch of
+the eternal love fills us with a deep longing.  We realise that
+the palace of gold where we are has nothing to do with us--our
+deliverance is outside it--and there our love has its fruition
+and our life its fulfilment.
+
+What to the bee in nature is merely colour and scent, and the
+marks or spots which show the right track to the honey, is to the
+human heart beauty and joy untrammelled by necessity.  They bring
+a love letter to the heart written in many-coloured inks.
+
+I was telling you, therefore, that however busy our active nature
+outwardly may be, she has a secret chamber within the heart where
+she comes and goes freely, without any design whatsoever.  There
+the fire of her workshop is transformed into lamps of a festival,
+the noise of her factory is heard like music.  The iron chain of
+cause and effect sounds heavily outside in nature, but in the
+human heart its unalloyed delight seems to sound, as it were,
+like the golden strings of a harp.
+
+It indeed seems to be wonderful that nature has these two aspects
+at one and the same time, and so antithetical--one being of
+thraldom and the other of freedom.  In the same form, sound,
+colour, and taste two contrary notes are heard, one of necessity
+and the other of joy.  Outwardly nature is busy and restless,
+inwardly she is all silence and peace.  She has toil on one side
+and leisure on the other.  You see her bondage only when you see
+her from without, but within her heart is a limitless beauty.
+
+Our seer says, "From joy are born all creatures, by joy they are
+sustained, towards joy they progress, and into joy they enter."
+
+Not that he ignores law, or that his contemplation of this
+infinite joy is born of the intoxication produced by an
+indulgence in abstract thought.  He fully recognises the
+inexorable laws of nature, and says, "Fire burns for fear of him
+(i.e. by his law); the sun shines by fear of him; and for fear of
+him the wind, the clouds, and death perform their offices."  It
+is a reign of iron rule, ready to punish the least transgression.
+Yet the poet chants the glad song, "From joy are born all
+creatures, by joy they are sustained, towards joy they progress,
+and into joy they enter."
+
+_The immortal being manifests himself in joy-form._  [Footnote:
+Ānandarūpamamritam yad vibhāti.]  His manifestation in creation
+is out of his fullness of joy.  It is the nature of this
+abounding joy to realise itself in form which is law.  The joy,
+which is without form, must create, must translate itself into
+forms.  The joy of the singer is expressed in the form of a song,
+that of the poet in the form of a poem.  Man in his rôle of a
+creator is ever creating forms, and they come out of his
+abounding joy.
+
+This joy, whose other name is love, must by its very nature have
+duality for its realisation.  When the singer has his inspiration
+he makes himself into two; he has within him his other self as
+the hearer, and the outside audience is merely an extension of
+this other self of his.  The lover seeks his own other self in
+his beloved.  It is the joy that creates this separation, in
+order to realise through obstacles of union.
+
+The _amritam_, the immortal bliss, has made himself into two.
+Our soul is the loved one, it is his other self.  We are
+separate; but if this separation were absolute, then there would
+have been absolute misery and unmitigated evil in this world.
+Then from untruth we never could reach truth, and from sin we
+never could hope to attain purity of heart; then all opposites
+would ever remain opposites, and we could never find a medium
+through which our differences could ever tend to meet.  Then we
+could have no language, no understanding, no blending of hearts,
+no co-operation in life.  But on the contrary, we find that the
+separateness of objects is in a fluid state.  Their
+individualities are even changing, they are meeting and merging
+into each other, till science itself is turning into metaphysics,
+matter losing its boundaries, and the definition of life becoming
+more and more indefinite.
+
+Yes, our individual soul has been separated from the supreme
+soul, but this has not been from alienation but from the fullness
+of love.  It is for that reason that untruths, sufferings, and
+evils are not at a standstill; the human soul can defy them, can
+overcome them, nay, can altogether transform them into new power
+and beauty.
+
+The singer is translating his song into singing, his joy into
+forms, and the hearer has to translate back the singing into the
+original joy; then the communion between the singer and the
+hearer is complete.  The infinite joy is manifesting itself in
+manifold forms, taking upon itself the bondage of law, and we
+fulfil our destiny when we go back from forms to joy, from law to
+the love, when we untie the knot of the finite and hark back to
+the infinite.
+
+The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from
+discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual.
+Buddha preached the discipline of self-restraint and moral life;
+it is a complete acceptance of law.  But this bondage of law
+cannot be an end by itself; by mastering it thoroughly we acquire
+the means of getting beyond it.  It is going back to Brahma, to
+the infinite love, which is manifesting itself through the finite
+forms of law.  Buddha names it _Brahma-vihāra_, the joy of living
+in Brahma.  He who wants to reach this stage, according to Buddha,
+"shall deceive none, entertain no hatred for anybody, and never
+wish to injure through anger.  He shall have measureless love for
+all creatures, even as a mother has for her only child, whom she
+protects with her own life.  Up above, below, and all around him
+he shall extend his love, which is without bounds and obstacles,
+and which is free from all cruelty and antagonism.  While
+standing, sitting, walking, lying down, till he fall asleep, he
+shall keep his mind active in this exercise of universal goodwill."
+
+Want of love is a degree of callousness; for love is the
+perfection of consciousness.  We do not love because we do not
+comprehend, or rather we do not comprehend because we do not
+love.  For love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us.
+It is not a mere sentiment; it is truth; it is the joy that is at
+the root of all creation.  It is the white light of pure
+consciousness that emanates from Brahma.  So, to be one with this
+_sarvānubhūh_, this all-feeling being who is in the external sky,
+as well as in our inner soul, we must attain to that summit of
+consciousness, which is love: _Who could have breathed or moved
+if the sky were not filled with joy, with love?_  [Footnote: Ko
+hyēvānyāt kah prānyāt yadēsha ākāça ānandō na syāt.]  It is
+through the heightening of our consciousness into love, and
+extending it all over the world, that we can attain
+_Brahma-vihāra,_ communion with this infinite joy.
+
+Love spontaneously gives itself in endless gifts.  But these
+gifts lose their fullest significance if through them we do not
+reach that love, which is the giver.  To do that, we must have
+love in our own heart.  He who has no love in him values the
+gifts of his lover only according to their usefulness.  But
+utility is temporary and partial.  It can never occupy our whole
+being; what is useful only touches us at the point where we have
+some want.  When the want is satisfied, utility becomes a burden
+if it still persists.  On the other hand, a mere token is of
+permanent worth to us when we have love in our heart.  For it is
+not for any special use.  It is an end in itself; it is for our
+whole being and therefore can never tire us.
+
+The question is, In what manner do we accept this world, which is
+a perfect gift of joy?  Have we been able to receive it in our
+heart where we keep enshrined things that are of deathless value
+to us?  We are frantically busy making use of the forces of the
+universe to gain more and more power; we feed and we clothe
+ourselves from its stores, we scramble for its riches, and it
+becomes for us a field of fierce competition.  But were we born
+for this, to extend our proprietary rights over this world and
+make of it a marketable commodity?  When our whole mind is bent
+only upon making use of this world it loses for us its true
+value.  We make it cheap by our sordid desires; and thus to the
+end of our days we only try to feed upon it and miss its truth,
+just like the greedy child who tears leaves from a precious book
+and tries to swallow them.
+
+In the lands where cannibalism is prevalent man looks upon man as
+his food.  In such a country civilisation can never thrive, for
+there man loses his higher value and is made common indeed.  But
+there are other kinds of cannibalism, perhaps not so gross, but
+not less heinous, for which one need not travel far.  In
+countries higher in the scale of civilisation we find sometimes
+man looked upon as a mere body, and he is bought and sold in the
+market by the price of his flesh only.  And sometimes he gets his
+sole value from being useful; he is made into a machine, and is
+traded upon by the man of money to acquire for him more money.
+Thus our lust, our greed, our love of comfort result in
+cheapening man to his lowest value.  It is self deception on a
+large scale.  Our desires blind us to the _truth_ that there is
+in man, and this is the greatest wrong done by ourselves to our
+own soul.  It deadens our consciousness, and is but a gradual
+method of spiritual suicide.  It produces ugly sores in the body
+of civilisation, gives rise to its hovels and brothels, its
+vindictive penal codes, its cruel prison systems, its organised
+method of exploiting foreign races to the extent of permanently
+injuring them by depriving them of the discipline of
+self-government and means of self-defence.
+
+Of course man is useful to man, because his body is a marvellous
+machine and his mind an organ of wonderful efficiency.  But he is
+a spirit as well, and this spirit is truly known only by love.
+When we define a man by the market value of the service we can
+expect of him, we know him imperfectly.  With this limited
+knowledge of him it becomes easy for us to be unjust to him and
+to entertain feelings of triumphant self-congratulation when, on
+account of some cruel advantage on our side, we can get out of
+him much more than we have paid for.  But when we know him as a
+spirit we know him as our own.  We at once feel that cruelty to
+him is cruelty to ourselves, to make him small is stealing from
+our own humanity, and in seeking to make use of him solely for
+personal profit we merely gain in money or comfort what we pay in
+truth.
+
+One day I was out in a boat on the Ganges.  It was a beautiful
+evening in autumn.  The sun had just set; the silence of the sky
+was full to the brim with ineffable peace and beauty.  The vast
+expanse of water was without a ripple, mirroring all the changing
+shades of the sunset glow.  Miles and miles of a desolate
+sandbank lay like a huge amphibious reptile of some antediluvian
+age, with its scales glistening in shining colours.  As our boat
+was silently gliding by the precipitous river-bank, riddled with
+the nest-holes of a colony of birds, suddenly a big fish leapt up
+to the surface of the water and then disappeared, displaying on
+its vanishing figure all the colours of the evening sky.  It drew
+aside for a moment the many-coloured screen behind which there
+was a silent world full of the joy of life.  It came up from the
+depths of its mysterious dwelling with a beautiful dancing motion
+and added its own music to the silent symphony of the dying day.
+I felt as if I had a friendly greeting from an alien world in its
+own language, and it touched my heart with a flash of gladness.
+Then suddenly the man at the helm exclaimed with a distinct note
+of regret, "Ah, what a big fish!"  It at once brought before his
+vision the picture of the fish caught and made ready for his
+supper.  He could only look at the fish through his desire, and
+thus missed the whole truth of its existence.  But man is not
+entirely an animal.  He aspires to a spiritual vision, which is
+the vision of the whole truth.  This gives him the highest
+delight, because it reveals to him the deepest harmony that
+exists between him and his surroundings.  It is our desires that
+limit the scope of our self-realisation, hinder our extension of
+consciousness, and give rise to sin, which is the innermost
+barrier that keeps us apart from our God, setting up disunion and
+the arrogance of exclusiveness.  For sin is not one mere action,
+but it is an attitude of life which takes for granted that our
+goal is finite, that our self is the ultimate truth, and that we
+are not all essentially one but exist each for his own separate
+individual existence.
+
+So I repeat we never can have a true view of man unless we have a
+love for him.  Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the
+amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved
+and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love
+of humanity.  The first question and the last which it has to
+answer is, Whether and how far it recognises man more as a spirit
+than a machine?  Whenever some ancient civilisation fell into
+decay and died, it was owing to causes which produced callousness
+of heart and led to the cheapening of man's worth; when either
+the state or some powerful group of men began to look upon the
+people as a mere instrument of their power; when, by compelling
+weaker races to slavery and trying to keep them down by every
+means, man struck at the foundation of his greatness, his own
+love of freedom and fair-play.  Civilisation can never sustain
+itself upon cannibalism of any form.  For that by which alone man
+is true can only be nourished by love and justice.
+
+As with man, so with this universe.  When we look at the world
+through the veil of our desires we make it small and narrow, and
+fail to perceive its full truth.  Of course it is obvious that
+the world serves us and fulfils our needs, but our relation to it
+does not end there.  We are bound to it with a deeper and truer
+bond than that of necessity.  Our soul is drawn to it; our love
+of life is really our wish to continue our relation with this
+great world.  This relation is one of love.  We are glad that we
+are in it; we are attached to it with numberless threads, which
+extend from this earth to the stars.  Man foolishly tries to
+prove his superiority by imagining his radical separateness from
+what he calls his physical world, which, in his blind fanaticism,
+he sometimes goes to the extent of ignoring altogether, holding
+it at his direst enemy.  Yet the more his knowledge progresses,
+the more it becomes difficult for man to establish this
+separateness, and all the imaginary boundaries he had set up
+around himself vanish one after another.  Every time we lose some
+of our badges of absolute distinction by which we conferred upon
+our humanity the right to hold itself apart from its surroundings,
+it gives us a shock of humiliation.  But we have to submit to
+this.  If we set up our pride on the path of our self-realisation
+to create divisions and disunion, then it must sooner or later
+come under the wheels of truth and be ground to dust.  No, we are
+not burdened with some monstrous superiority, unmeaning in its
+singular abruptness.  It would be utterly degrading for us to
+live in a world immeasurably less than ourselves in the quality of
+soul, just as it would be repulsive and degrading to be surrounded
+and served by a host of slaves, day and night, from birth to the
+moment of death.  On the contrary, this world is our compeer, nay,
+we are one with it.
+
+Through our progress in science the wholeness of the world and
+our oneness with it is becoming clearer to our mind.  When this
+perception of the perfection of unity is not merely intellectual,
+when it opens out our whole being into a luminous consciousness
+of the all, then it becomes a radiant joy, an overspreading love.
+Our spirit finds its larger self in the whole world, and is
+filled with an absolute certainty that it is immortal.  It dies a
+hundred times in its enclosures of self; for separateness is
+doomed to die, it cannot be made eternal.  But it never can die
+where it is one with the all, for there is its truth, its joy.
+When a man feels the rhythmic throb of the soul-life of the whole
+world in his own soul, then is he free.  Then he enters into the
+secret courting that goes on between this beautiful world-bride,
+veiled with the veil of the many-coloured finiteness, and the
+_paramatmam_, the bridegroom, in his spotless white.  Then he
+knows that he is the partaker of this gorgeous love festival, and
+he is the honoured guest at the feast of immortality.  Then he
+understands the meaning of the seer-poet who sings, "From love the
+world is born, by love it is sustained, towards love it moves, and
+into love it enters."
+
+In love all the contradictions of existence merge themselves and
+are lost.  Only in love are unity and duality not at variance.
+Love must be one and two at the same time.
+
+Only love is motion and rest in one.  Our heart ever changes its
+place till it finds love, and then it has its rest.  But this
+rest itself is an intense form of activity where utter quiescence
+and unceasing energy meet at the same point in love.
+
+In love, loss and gain are harmonised.  In its balance-sheet,
+credit and debit accounts are in the same column, and gifts are
+added to gains.  In this wonderful festival of creation, this
+great ceremony of self-sacrifice of God, the lover constantly
+gives himself up to gain himself in love.  Indeed, love is what
+brings together and inseparably connects both the act of
+abandoning and that of receiving.
+
+In love, at one of its poles you find the personal, and at the
+other the impersonal.  At one you have the positive assertion--Here
+I am; at the other the equally strong denial--I am not.
+Without this ego what is love?  And again, with only this ego how
+can love be possible?
+
+Bondage and liberation are not antagonistic in love.  For love is
+most free and at the same time most bound.  If God were
+absolutely free there would be no creation.  The infinite being
+has assumed unto himself the mystery of finitude.  And in him who
+is love the finite and the infinite are made one.
+
+Similarly, when we talk about the relative values of freedom and
+non-freedom, it becomes a mere play of words.  It is not that we
+desire freedom alone, we want thraldom as well.  It is the high
+function of love to welcome all limitations and to transcend
+them.  For nothing is more independent than love, and where else,
+again, shall we find so much of dependence?  In love, thraldom is
+as glorious as freedom.
+
+The _Vaishnava_ religion has boldly declared that God has bound
+himself to man, and in that consists the greatest glory of human
+existence.  In the spell of the wonderful rhythm of the finite he
+fetters himself at every step, and thus gives his love out in
+music in his most perfect lyrics of beauty.  Beauty is his wooing
+of our heart; it can have no other purpose.  It tells us
+everywhere that the display of power is not the ultimate meaning
+of creation; wherever there is a bit of colour, a note of song, a
+grace of form, there comes the call for our love.  Hunger compels
+us to obey its behests, but hunger is not the last word for a man.
+There have been men who have deliberately defied its commands to
+show that the human soul is not to be led by the pressure of wants
+and threat of pain.  In fact, to live the life of man we have to
+resist its demands every day, the least of us as well as the
+greatest.  But, on the other hand, there is a beauty in the world
+which never insults our freedom, never raises even its little
+finger to make us acknowledge its sovereignty.  We can absolutely
+ignore it and suffer no penalty in consequence.  It is a call to
+us, but not a command.  It seeks for love in us, and love can
+never be had by compulsion.  Compulsion is not indeed the final
+appeal to man, but joy is.  Any joy is everywhere; it is in the
+earth's green covering of grass; in the blue serenity of the sky;
+in the reckless exuberance of spring; in the severe abstinence of
+grey winter; in the living flesh that animates our bodily frame;
+in the perfect poise of the human figure, noble and upright; in
+living; in the exercise of all our powers; in the acquisition of
+knowledge; in fighting evils; in dying for gains we never can
+share.  Joy is there everywhere; it is superfluous, unnecessary;
+nay, it very often contradicts the most peremptory behests of
+necessity.  It exists to show that the bonds of law can only be
+explained by love; they are like body and soul.  Joy is the
+realisation of the truth of oneness, the oneness of our soul with
+the world and of the world-soul with the supreme lover.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+REALISATION IN ACTION
+
+
+It is only those who have known that joy expresses itself through
+law who have learnt to transcend the law.  Not that the bonds of
+law have ceased to exist for them--but that the bonds have become
+to them as the form of freedom incarnate.  The freed soul
+delights in accepting bonds, and does not seek to evade any of
+them, for in each does it feel the manifestation of an infinite
+energy whose joy is in creation.
+
+As a matter of fact, where there are no bonds, where there is the
+madness of license, the soul ceases to be free.  There is its
+hurt; there is its separation from the infinite, its agony of
+sin.  Whenever at the call of temptation the soul falls away from
+the bondage of law, then, like a child deprived of the support of
+its mother's arms, it cries out, _Smite me not!_  [Footnote: Mā mā
+himsīh.]  "Bind me," it prays, "oh, bind me in the bonds of thy
+law; bind me within and without; hold me tight; let me in the clasp
+of thy law be bound up together with thy joy; protect me by thy
+firm hold from the deadly laxity of sin."
+
+As some, under the idea that law is the opposite of joy, mistake
+intoxication for joy, so there are many in our country who
+imagine action to be opposed to freedom.  They think that
+activity being in the material plane is a restriction of the free
+spirit of the soul.  But we must remember that as joy expresses
+itself in law, so the soul finds its freedom in action.  It is
+because joy cannot find expression in itself alone that it
+desires the law which is outside.  Likewise it is because the
+soul cannot find freedom within itself that it wants external
+action.  The soul of man is ever freeing itself from its own
+folds by its activity; had it been otherwise it could not have
+done any voluntary work.
+
+The more man acts and makes actual what was latent in him, the
+nearer does he bring the distant Yet-to-be.  In that
+actualisation man is ever making himself more and yet more
+distinct, and seeing himself clearly under newer and newer
+aspects in the midst of his varied activities, in the state, in
+society.  This vision makes for freedom.
+
+Freedom is not in darkness, nor in vagueness.  There is no
+bondage so fearful as that of obscurity.  It is to escape from
+this obscurity that the seed struggles to sprout, the bud to
+blossom.  It is to rid itself of this envelope of vagueness that
+the ideas in our mind are constantly seeking opportunities to
+take on outward form.  In the same way our soul, in order to
+release itself from the mist of indistinctness and come out into
+the open, is continually creating for itself fresh fields of
+action, and is busy contriving new forms of activity, even such
+as are not needful for the purposes of its earthly life.  And
+why?  Because it wants freedom.  It wants to see itself, to
+realise itself.
+
+When man cuts down the pestilential jungle and makes unto himself
+a garden, the beauty that he thus sets free from within its
+enclosure of ugliness is the beauty of his own soul: without
+giving it this freedom outside, he cannot make it free within.
+When he implants law and order in the midst of the waywardness of
+society, the good which he sets free from the obstruction of the
+bad is the goodness of his own soul: without being thus made free
+outside it cannot find freedom within.  Thus is man continually
+engaged in setting free in action his powers, his beauty, his
+goodness, his very soul.  And the more he succeeds in so doing,
+the greater does he see himself to be, the broader becomes the
+field of his knowledge of self.
+
+The Upanishad says: _In the midst of activity alone wilt thou
+desire to live a hundred years._  [Footnote:  Kurvannēvēha
+karmāni jijīvishet çatam samāh.]  It is the saying of those who
+had amply tasted of the joy of the soul.  Those who have fully
+realised the soul have never talked in mournful accents of the
+sorrowfulness of life or of the bondage of action.  They are not
+like the weakling flower whose stem-hold is so light that it
+drops away before attaining fruition.  They hold on to life with
+all their might and say, "never will we let go till the fruit is
+ripe."  They desire in their joy to express themselves
+strenuously in their life and in their work.  Pain and sorrow
+dismay them not, they are not bowed down to the dust by the
+weight of their own heart.  With the erect head of the victorious
+hero they march through life seeing themselves and showing
+themselves in increasing resplendence of soul through both joys
+and sorrows.  The joy of their life keeps step with the joy of
+that energy which is playing at building and breaking throughout
+the universe.  The joy of the sunlight, the joy of the free air,
+mingling with the joy of their lives, makes one sweet harmony
+reign within and without.  It is they who say, _In the midst of
+activity alone wilt thou desire to live a hundred years._
+
+This joy of life, this joy of work, in man is absolutely true.
+It is no use saying that it is a delusion of ours; that unless we
+cast it away we cannot enter upon the path of self-realisation.
+It will never do the least good to attempt the realisation of the
+infinite apart from the world of action.
+
+It is not the truth that man is active on compulsion.  If there
+is compulsion on one side, on the other there is pleasure; on the
+one hand action is spurred on by want, on the other it hies to
+its natural fulfilment.  That is why, as man's civilisation
+advances, he increases his obligations and the work that he
+willingly creates for himself.  One should have thought that
+nature had given him quite enough to do to keep him busy, in fact
+that it was working him to death with the lash of hunger and
+thirst,--but no.  Man does not think that sufficient; he cannot
+rest content with only doing the work that nature prescribes for
+him in common with the birds and beasts.  He needs must surpass
+all, even in activity.  No creature has to work so hard as man;
+he has been impelled to contrive for himself a vast field of
+action in society; and in this field he is for every building up
+and pulling down, making and unmaking laws, piling up heaps of
+material, and incessantly thinking, seeking and suffering.  In
+this field he has fought his mightiest battles, gained continual
+new life, made death glorious, and, far from evading troubles,
+has willingly and continually taken up the burden of fresh
+trouble.  He has discovered the truth that he is not complete in
+the cage of his immediate surroundings, that he is greater than
+his present, and that while to stand still in one place may be
+comforting, the arrest of life destroys his true function and the
+real purpose of his existence.
+
+This _mahatī vinashtih--this great destruction_ he cannot bear,
+and accordingly he toils and suffers in order that he may gain in
+stature by transcending his present, in order to become that
+which he yet is not.  In this travail is man's glory, and it is
+because he knows it, that he has not sought to circumscribe his
+field of action, but is constantly occupied in extending the
+bounds.  Sometimes he wanders so far that his work tends to lose
+its meaning, and his rushings to and fro create fearful eddies
+round different centres--eddies of self-interest, of pride of
+power.  Still, so long as the strength of the current is not lost,
+there is no fear; the obstructions and the dead accumulations of
+his activity are dissipated and carried away; the impetus corrects
+its own mistakes.  Only when the soul sleeps in stagnation do its
+enemies gain overmastering strength, and these obstructions become
+too clogging to be fought through.  Hence have we been warned by
+our teachers that to work we must live, to live we must work; that
+life and activity are inseparably connected.
+
+It is very characteristic of life that it is not complete within
+itself; it must come out.  Its truth is in the commerce of the
+inside and the outside.  In order to live, the body must maintain
+its various relations with the outside light and air--not only to
+gain life-force, but also to manifest it.  Consider how fully
+employed the body is with its own inside activities; its heart-beat
+must not stop for a second, its stomach, its brain, must be
+ceaselessly working.  Yet this is not enough; the body is
+outwardly restless all the while.  Its life leads it to an
+endless dance of work and play outside; it cannot be satisfied
+with the circulations of its internal economy, and only finds the
+fulfilment of joy in its outward excursions.
+
+The same with the soul.  It cannot live on its own internal
+feelings and imaginings.  It is ever in need of external objects;
+not only to feed its inner consciousness but to apply itself in
+action, not only to receive but also to give.
+
+The real truth is, we cannot live if we divide him who is truth
+itself into two parts.  We must abide in him within as well as
+without.  In whichever aspect we deny him we deceive ourselves
+and incur a loss.  _Brahma has not left me, let me not leave
+Brahma._  [Footnote:  Māham brahma nirākuryyām mā mā brahma
+nirākarōt.]  If we say that we would realise him in introspection
+alone and leave him out of our external activity, that we would
+enjoy him by the love in our heart, but not worship him by
+outward ministrations; or if we say the opposite, and overweight
+ourselves on one side in the journey of our life's quest, we
+shall alike totter to our downfall.
+
+In the great western continent we see that the soul of man is
+mainly concerned with extending itself outwards; the open field
+of the exercise of power is its field.  Its partiality is
+entirely for the world of extension, and it would leave aside--nay,
+hardly believe in--that field of inner consciousness which
+is the field of fulfilment.  It has gone so far in this that the
+perfection of fulfilment seems to exist for it nowhere.  Its
+science has always talked of the never-ending evolution of the
+world.  Its metaphysic has now begun to talk of the evolution of
+God himself.  They will not admit that he _is_; they would have
+it that he also is _becoming._
+
+They fail to realise that while the infinite is always greater
+than any assignable limit, it is also complete; that on the one
+hand Brahma is evolving, on the other he is perfection; that in
+the one aspect he is essence, in the other manifestation--both
+together at the same time, as is the song and the act of singing.
+This is like ignoring the consciousness of the singer and saying
+that only the singing is in progress, that there is no song.
+Doubtless we are directly aware only of the singing, and never at
+any one time of the song as a whole; but do we not all the time
+know that the complete song is in the soul of the singer?
+
+It is because of this insistence on the doing and the becoming
+that we perceive in the west the intoxication of power.  These
+men seem to have determined to despoil and grasp everything by
+force.  They would always obstinately be doing and never be done--they
+would not allow to death its natural place in the scheme of
+things--they know not the beauty of completion.
+
+In our country the danger comes from the opposite side.  Our
+partiality is for the internal world.  We would cast aside with
+contumely the field of power and of extension.  We would realise
+Brahma in mediation only in his aspect of completeness, we have
+determined not to see him in the commerce of the universe in his
+aspect of evolution.  That is why in our seekers we so often find
+the intoxication of the spirit and its consequent degradation.
+Their faith would acknowledge no bondage of law, their
+imagination soars unrestricted, their conduct disdains to offer
+any explanation to reason.  Their intellect, in its vain attempts
+to see Brahma inseparable from his creation, works itself stone-dry,
+and their heart, seeking to confine him within its own
+outpourings, swoons in a drunken ecstasy of emotion.  They have
+not even kept within reach any standard whereby they can measure
+the loss of strength and character which manhood sustains by thus
+ignoring the bonds of law and the claims of action in the
+external universe.
+
+But true spirituality, as taught in our sacred lore, is calmly
+balanced in strength, in the correlation of the within and the
+without.  The truth has its law, it has its joy.  On one side of
+it is being chanted the _Bhayādasyāgnistapati_ [Footnote: "For
+fear of him the fire doth burn," etc], on the other the
+_Ānandādhyeva khalvimāni bhūtāni jāyante._  [Footnote: "From Joy
+are born all created things," etc.]  Freedom is impossible of
+attainment without submission to law, for Brahma is in one aspect
+bound by his truth, in the other free in his joy.
+
+As for ourselves, it is only when we wholly submit to the bonds
+of truth that we fully gain the joy of freedom.  And how?  As
+does the string that is bound to the harp.  When the harp is
+truly strung, when there is not the slightest laxity in the
+strength of the bond, then only does music result; and the string
+transcending itself in its melody finds at every chord its true
+freedom.  It is because it is bound by such hard and fast rules
+on the one side that it can find this range of freedom in music
+on the other.  While the string was not true, it was indeed
+merely bound; but a loosening of its bondage would not have been
+the way to freedom, which it can only fully achieve by being
+bound tighter and tighter till it has attained the true pitch.
+
+The bass and treble strings of our duty are only bonds so long as
+we cannot maintain them steadfastly attuned according to the law
+of truth; and we cannot call by the name of freedom the loosening
+of them into the nothingness of inaction.  That is why I would
+say that the true striving in the quest of truth, of _dharma_,
+consists not in the neglect of action but in the effort to attune
+it closer and closer to the eternal harmony.  The text of this
+striving should be, _Whatever works thou doest, consecrate them
+to Brahma._  [Footnote:  Yadyat karma prakurvīta tadbrahmani
+samarpayet.]  That is to say, the soul is to dedicate itself to
+Brahma through all its activities.  This dedication is the song
+of the soul, in this is its freedom.  Joy reigns when all work
+becomes the path to the union with Brahma; when the soul ceases
+to return constantly to its own desires; when in it our self-offering
+grows more and more intense.  Then there is completion,
+then there is freedom, then, in this world, comes the kingdom of
+God.
+
+Who is there that, sitting in his corner, would deride this grand
+self-expression of humanity in action, this incessant
+self-consecration?  Who is there that thinks the union of God and man
+is to be found in some secluded enjoyment of his own imaginings,
+away from the sky-towering temple of the greatness of humanity,
+which the whole of mankind, in sunshine and storm, is toiling to
+erect through the ages?  Who is there that thinks this secluded
+communion is the highest form of religion?
+
+O thou distraught wanderer, thou _Sannyasin_, drunk in the wine of
+self-intoxication, dost thou not already hear the progress of the
+human soul along the highway traversing the wide fields of
+humanity--the thunder of its progress in the car of its
+achievements, which is destined to overpass the bounds that
+prevent its expansion into the universe?  The very mountains are
+cleft asunder and give way before the march of its banners waving
+triumphantly in the heavens; as the mist before the rising sun,
+the tangled obscurities of material things vanish at its
+irresistible approach.  Pain, disease, and disorder are at every
+step receding before its onset; the obstructions of ignorance are
+being thrust aside; the darkness of blindness is being pierced
+through; and behold, the promised land of wealth and health, of
+poetry and art, of knowledge and righteousness is gradually being
+revealed to view.  Do you in your lethargy desire to say that
+this car of humanity, which is shaking the very earth with the
+triumph of its progress along the mighty vistas of history, has
+no charioteer leading it on to its fulfilment?  Who is there who
+refuses to respond to his call to join in this triumphal progress?
+Who so foolish as to run away from the gladsome throng and seek
+him in the listlessness of inaction?  Who so steeped in untruth as
+to dare to call all this untrue--this great world of men, this
+civilisation of expanding humanity, this eternal effort of man,
+through depths of sorrow, through heights of gladness, through
+innumerable impediments within and without, to win victory for his
+powers?  He who can think of this immensity of achievement as an
+immense fraud, can he truly believe in God who is the truth?  He
+who thinks to reach God by running away from the world, when and
+where does he expect to meet him?  How far can he fly--can he fly
+and fly, till he flies into nothingness itself?  No, the coward
+who would fly can nowhere find him.  We must be brave enough to
+be able to say: We are reaching him here in this very spot, now
+at this very moment.  We must be able to assure ourselves that as
+in our actions we are realising ourselves, so in ourselves we are
+realising him who is the self of self.  We must earn the right to
+say so unhesitatingly by clearing away with our own effort all
+obstruction, all disorder, all discords from our path of activity;
+we must be able to say, "In my work is my joy, and in that joy
+does the joy of my joy abide."
+
+Whom does the Upanishad call _The chief among the knowers of
+Brahma?_  [Footnote: Brahmavidāmvaristhah.]  He is defined as _He
+whose joy is in Brahma, whose play is in Brahma, the active one._
+[Footnote: Ātmakrīrha ātmaratih kriyāvān.]  Joy without the play
+of joy is no joy at all--play without activity is no play.
+Activity is the play of joy.  He whose joy is in Brahma, how can
+he live in inaction?  For must he not by his activity provide
+that in which the joy of Brahma is to take form and manifest
+itself?  That is why he who knows Brahma, who has his joy in
+Brahma, must also have all his activity in Brahma--his eating
+and drinking, his earning of livelihood and his beneficence.
+Just as the joy of the poet in his poem, of the artist in his
+art, of the brave man in the output of his courage, of the wise
+man in his discernment of truths, ever seeks expression in their
+several activities, so the joy of the knower of Brahma, in the
+whole of his everyday work, little and big, in truth, in beauty,
+in orderliness and in beneficence, seeks to give expression to
+the infinite.
+
+Brahma himself gives expression to his joy in just the same way.
+_By his many-sided activity, which radiates in all directions,
+does he fulfil the inherent want of his different creatures._
+[Footnote: Bahudhā çakti yogāt varņānanekān nihitārtho dadhāti.]
+That inherent want is he himself, and so he is in so many ways,
+in so many forms, giving himself.  He works, for without working
+how could he give himself.  His joy is ever dedicating itself in
+the dedication which is his creation.
+
+In this very thing does our own true meaning lie, in this is our
+likeness to our father.  We must also give up ourselves in
+many-sided variously aimed activity.  In the Vedas he is called _the
+giver of himself, the giver of strength._  [Footnote:  Ātmadā
+baladā.]  He is not content with giving us himself, but he gives
+us strength that we may likewise give ourselves.  That is why the
+seer of the Upanishad prays to him who is thus fulfilling our
+wants, _May he grant us the beneficent mind_ [Footnote: Sa no
+buddhya çubhayā samyunaktu.], may he fulfil that uttermost want
+of ours by granting us the beneficent mind.  That is to say, it
+is not enough he should alone work to remove our want, but he
+should give us the desire and the strength to work with him in
+his activity and in the exercise of the goodness.  Then, indeed,
+will our union with him alone be accomplished.  The beneficent
+mind is that which shows us the want (_swārtha_) of another self
+to be the inherent want (_nihitārtha_) of our own self; that
+which shows that our joy consists in the varied aiming of our
+many-sided powers in the work of humanity.  When we work under
+the guidance of this beneficent mind, then our activity is
+regulated, but does not become mechanical; it is action not
+goaded on by want, but stimulated by the satisfaction of the
+soul.  Such activity ceases to be a blind imitation of that of
+the multitude, a cowardly following of the dictates of fashion.
+Therein we begin to see that _He is in the beginning and in the
+end of the universe_ [Footnote: Vichaiti chāntē viçvamādau.],
+and likewise see that of our own work is he the fount and the
+inspiration, and at the end thereof is he, and therefore that all
+our activity is pervaded by peace and good and joy.
+
+The Upanishad says: _Knowledge, power, and action are of his
+nature._ [Footnote: Svābhāvikījnāna bala kriyā cha.]  It is
+because this naturalness has not yet been born in us that we tend
+to divide joy from work.  Our day of work is not our day of
+joy--for that we require a holiday; for, miserable that we are, we
+cannot find our holiday in our work.  The river finds its holiday
+in its onward flow, the fire in its outburst of flame, the scent
+of the flower in its permeation of the atmosphere; but in our
+everyday work there is no such holiday for us.  It is because we
+do not let ourselves go, because we do not give ourselves
+joyously and entirely up to it, that our work overpowers us.
+
+O giver of thyself! at the vision of thee as joy let our souls
+flame up to thee as the fire, flow on to thee as the river,
+permeate thy being as the fragrance of the flower.  Give us
+strength to love, to love fully, our life in its joys and
+sorrows, in its gains and losses, in its rise and fall.  Let us
+have strength enough fully to see and hear thy universe, and to
+work with full vigour therein.  Let us fully live the life thou
+hast given us, let us bravely take and bravely give.  This is our
+prayer to thee.  Let us once for all dislodge from our minds the
+feeble fancy that would make out thy joy to be a thing apart from
+action, thin, formless, and unsustained.  Wherever the peasant
+tills the hard earth, there does thy joy gush out in the green of
+the corn, wherever man displaces the entangled forest, smooths
+the stony ground, and clears for himself a homestead, there does
+thy joy enfold it in orderliness and peace.
+
+O worker of the universe!  We would pray to thee to let the
+irresistible current of thy universal energy come like the
+impetuous south wind of spring, let it come rushing over the vast
+field of the life of man, let it bring the scent of many flowers,
+the murmurings of many woodlands, let it make sweet and vocal the
+lifelessness of our dried-up soul-life.  Let our newly awakened
+powers cry out for unlimited fulfilment in leaf and flower and
+fruit.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+THE REALISATION OF BEAUTY
+
+
+Things in which we do not take joy are either a burden upon our
+minds to be got rid of at any cost; or they are useful, and
+therefore in temporary and partial relation to us, becoming
+burdensome when their utility is lost; or they are like wandering
+vagabonds, loitering for a moment on the outskirts of our
+recognition, and then passing on.  A thing is only completely our
+own when it is a thing of joy to us.
+
+The greater part of this world is to us as if it were nothing.
+But we cannot allow it to remain so, for thus it belittles our
+own self.  The entire world is given to us, and all our powers
+have their final meaning in the faith that by their help we are
+to take possession of our patrimony.
+
+But what is the function of our sense of beauty in this process
+of the extension of our consciousness?  Is it there to separate
+truth into strong lights and shadows, and bring it before us in
+its uncompromising distinction of beauty and ugliness?  If that
+were so, then we would have had to admit that this sense of
+beauty creates a dissension in our universe and sets up a wall of
+hindrance across the highway of communication that leads from
+everything to all things.
+
+But that cannot be true.  As long as our realisation is
+incomplete a division necessarily remains between things known
+and unknown, pleasant and unpleasant.  But in spite of the dictum
+of some philosophers man does not accept any arbitrary and
+absolute limit to his knowable world.  Every day his science is
+penetrating into the region formerly marked in his map as
+unexplored or inexplorable.  Our sense of beauty is similarly
+engaged in ever pushing on its conquests.  Truth is everywhere,
+therefore everything is the object of our knowledge.  Beauty is
+omnipresent, therefore everything is capable of giving us joy.
+
+In the early days of his history man took everything as a
+phenomenon of life.  His science of life began by creating a
+sharp distinction between life and non-life.  But as it is
+proceeding farther and farther the line of demarcation between
+the animate and inanimate is growing more and more dim.  In the
+beginning of our apprehension these sharp lines of contrast are
+helpful to us, but as our comprehension becomes clearer they
+gradually fade away.
+
+The Upanishads have said that all things are created and
+sustained by an infinite joy.  To realise this principle of
+creation we have to start with a division--the division into the
+beautiful and the non-beautiful.  Then the apprehension of beauty
+has to come to us with a vigorous blow to awaken our
+consciousness from its primitive lethargy, and it attains its
+object by the urgency of the contrast.  Therefore our first
+acquaintance with beauty is in her dress of motley colours, that
+affects us with its stripes and feathers, nay, with its
+disfigurements.  But as our acquaintance ripens, the apparent
+discords are resolved into modulations of rhythm.  At first we
+detach beauty from its surroundings, we hold it apart from the
+rest, but at the end we realise its harmony with all.  Then the
+music of beauty has no more need of exciting us with loud noise;
+it renounces violence, and appeals to our heart with the truth
+that it is meekness inherits the earth.
+
+In some stage of our growth, in some period of our history, we
+try to set up a special cult of beauty, and pare it down to a
+narrow circuit, so as to make it a matter of pride for a chosen
+few.  Then it breeds in its votaries affections and
+exaggerations, as it did with the Brahmins in the time of the
+decadence of Indian civilisation, when the perception of the
+higher truth fell away and superstitions grew up unchecked.
+
+In the history of æsthetics there also comes an age of
+emancipation when the recognition of beauty in things great and
+small become easy, and when we see it more in the unassuming
+harmony of common objects than in things startling in their
+singularity.  So much so, that we have to go through the stages
+of reaction when in the representation of beauty we try to avoid
+everything that is obviously pleasing and that has been crowned
+by the sanction of convention.  We are then tempted in defiance
+to exaggerate the commonness of commonplace things, thereby
+making them aggressively uncommon.  To restore harmony we create
+the discords which are a feature of all reactions.  We already
+see in the present age the sign of this æsthetic reaction, which
+proves that man has at last come to know that it is only the
+narrowness of perception which sharply divides the field of his
+æsthetic consciousness into ugliness and beauty.  When he has the
+power to see things detached from self-interest and from the
+insistent claims of the lust of the senses, then alone can he
+have the true vision of the beauty that is everywhere.  Then only
+can he see that what is unpleasant to us is not necessarily
+unbeautiful, but has its beauty in truth.
+
+When we say that beauty is everywhere we do not mean that the
+word ugliness should be abolished from our language, just as it
+would be absurd to say that there is no such thing as untruth.
+Untruth there certainly is, not in the system of the universe,
+but in our power of comprehension, as its negative element.  In
+the same manner there is ugliness in the distorted expression of
+beauty in our life and in our art which comes from our imperfect
+realisation of Truth.  To a certain extent we can set our life
+against the law of truth which is in us and which is in all, and
+likewise we can give rise to ugliness by going counter to the
+eternal law of harmony which is everywhere.
+
+Through our sense of truth we realise law in creation, and
+through our sense of beauty we realise harmony in the universe.
+When we recognise the law in nature we extend our mastery over
+physical forces and become powerful; when we recognise the law in
+our moral nature we attain mastery over self and become free.  In
+like manner the more we comprehend the harmony in the physical
+world the more our life shares the gladness of creation, and our
+expression of beauty in art becomes more truly catholic.  As we
+become conscious of the harmony in our soul, our apprehension of
+the blissfulness of the spirit of the world becomes universal,
+and the expression of beauty in our life moves in goodness and
+love towards the infinite.  This is the ultimate object of our
+existence, that we must ever know that "beauty is truth, truth
+beauty"; we must realise the whole world in love, for love gives
+it birth, sustains it, and takes it back to its bosom.  We must
+have that perfect emancipation of heart which gives us the power
+to stand at the innermost centre of things and have the taste of
+that fullness of disinterested joy which belongs to Brahma.
+
+Music is the purest form of art, and therefore the most direct
+expression of beauty, with a form and spirit which is one and
+simple, and least encumbered with anything extraneous.  We seem
+to feel that the manifestation of the infinite in the finite
+forms of creation is music itself, silent and visible.  The
+evening sky, tirelessly repeating the starry constellations,
+seems like a child struck with wonder at the mystery of its own
+first utterance, lisping the same word over and over again, and
+listening to it in unceasing joy.  When in the rainy night of
+July the darkness is thick upon the meadows and the pattering
+rain draws veil upon veil over the stillness of the slumbering
+earth, this monotony of the rain patter seems to be the darkness
+of sound itself.  The gloom of the dim and dense line of trees,
+the thorny bushes scattered in the bare heath like floating heads
+of swimmers with bedraggled hair, the smell of the damp grass and
+the wet earth, the spire of the temple rising above the undefined
+mass of blackness grouped around the village huts--everything
+seems like notes rising from the heart of the night, mingling and
+losing themselves in the one sound of ceaseless rain filling the
+sky.
+
+Therefore the true poets, they who are seers, seek to express the
+universe in terms of music.
+
+They rarely use symbols of painting to express the unfolding of
+forms, the mingling of endless lines and colours that goes on
+every moment on the canvas of the blue sky.
+
+They have their reason.  For the man who paints must have canvas,
+brush and colour-box.  The first touch of his brush is very far
+from the complete idea.  And then when the work is finished the
+artist is gone, the windowed picture stands alone, the incessant
+touches of love of the creative hand are withdrawn.
+
+But the singer has everything within him.  The notes come out
+from his very life.  They are not materials gathered from
+outside.  His idea and his expression are brother and sister;
+very often they are born as twins.  In music the heart reveals
+itself immediately; it suffers not from any barrier of alien
+material.
+
+Therefore though music has to wait for its completeness like any
+other art, yet at every step it gives out the beauty of the
+whole.  As the material of expression even words are barriers,
+for their meaning has to be constructed by thought.  But music
+never has to depend upon any obvious meaning; it expresses what
+no words can ever express.
+
+What is more, music and the musician are inseparable.  When the
+singer departs, his singing dies with him; it is in eternal union
+with the life and joy of the master.
+
+This world-song is never for a moment separated from its singer.
+It is not fashioned from any outward material.  It is his joy
+itself taking never-ending form.  It is the great heart sending
+the tremor of its thrill over the sky.
+
+There is a perfection in each individual strain of this music,
+which is the revelation of completion in the incomplete.  No one of
+its notes is final, yet each reflects the infinite.
+
+What does it matter if we fail to derive the exact meaning of
+this great harmony?  Is it not like the hand meeting the string
+and drawing out at once all its tones at the touch?  It is the
+language of beauty, the caress, that comes from the heart of the
+world straightway reaches our heart.
+
+Last night, in the silence which pervaded the darkness, I stood
+alone and heard the voice of the singer of eternal melodies.
+When I went to sleep I closed my eyes with this last thought in
+my mind, that even when I remain unconscious in slumber the dance
+of life will still go on in the hushed arena of my sleeping body,
+keeping step with the stars.  The heart will throb, the blood
+will leap in the veins, and the millions of living atoms of my
+body will vibrate in tune with the note of the harp-string that
+thrills at the touch of the master.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+THE REALISATION OF THE INFINITE
+
+
+The Upanishads say: "Man becomes true if in this life he can
+apprehend God; if not, it is the greatest calamity for him."
+
+But what is the nature of this attainment of God?  It is quite
+evident that the infinite is not like one object among many, to
+be definitely classified and kept among our possessions, to be
+used as an ally specially favouring us in our politics, warfare,
+money-making, or in social competitions.  We cannot put our God
+in the same list with our summer-houses, motor-cars, or our
+credit at the bank, as so many people seem to want to do.
+
+We must try to understand the true character of the desire that a
+man has when his soul longs for his God.  Does it consist of his
+wish to make an addition, however valuable, to his belongings?
+Emphatically no!  It is an endlessly wearisome task, this
+continual adding to our stores.  In fact, when the soul seeks God
+she seeks her final escape from this incessant gathering and
+heaping and never coming to an end.  It is not an additional
+object the she seeks, but it is the _nityo 'nityānām_, the
+permanent in all that is impermanent, the _rasānām rasatamah_,
+the highest abiding joy unifying all enjoyments.  Therefore when
+the Upanishads teach us to realise everything in Brahma, it is
+not to seek something extra, not to manufacture something new.
+
+_Know everything that there is in the universe as enveloped by
+God._  [Footnote: Īçhāvāsyamdiam sarvam yat kincha
+jagatyānjagat.]  _Enjoy whatever is given by him and harbour not
+in your mind the greed for wealth which is not your own._
+[Footnoe: Tēna tyaktēna bhunjīţhā mā gŗidhah kasyasviddhanam.]
+
+When you know that whatever there is is filled by him and
+whatever you have is his gift, then you realise the infinite in
+the finite, and the giver in the gifts.  Then you know that all
+the facts of the reality have their only meaning in the
+manifestation of the one truth, and all your possessions have
+their only significance for you, not in themselves but in the
+relation they establish with the infinite.
+
+So it cannot be said that we can find Brahma as we find other
+objects; there is no question of searching from him in one thing
+in preference to another, in one place instead of somewhere else.
+We do not have to run to the grocer's shop for our morning light;
+we open our eyes and there it is; so we need only give ourselves
+up to find that Brahma is everywhere.
+
+This is the reason why Buddha admonished us to free ourselves
+from the confinement of the life of the self.  If there were
+nothing else to take its place more positively perfect and
+satisfying, then such admonition would be absolutely unmeaning.
+No man can seriously consider the advice, much less have any
+enthusiasm for it, of surrendering everything one has for gaining
+nothing whatever.
+
+So our daily worship of God is not really the process of gradual
+acquisition of him, but the daily process of surrendering
+ourselves, removing all obstacles to union and extending our
+consciousness of him in devotion and service, in goodness and in
+love.
+
+The Upanishads say: _Be lost altogether in Brahma like an arrow
+that has completely penetrated its target._  Thus to be conscious
+of being absolutely enveloped by Brahma is not an act of mere
+concentration of mind.  It must be the aim of the whole of our
+life.  In all our thoughts and deeds we must be conscious of the
+infinite.  Let the realisation of this truth become easier every
+day of our life, that _none could live or move if the energy of
+the all-pervading joy did not fill the sky._  [Footnote: Ko
+hyevānyāt kah prānyāt yadesha ākāçha ānando na syāt.]  In all our
+actions let us feel that impetus of the infinite energy and be
+glad.
+
+It may be said that the infinite is beyond our attainment, so it
+is for us as if it were naught.  Yes, if the word attainment
+implies any idea of possession, then it must be admitted that the
+infinite is unattainable.  But we must keep in mind that the
+highest enjoyment of man is not in the having but in a getting,
+which is at the same time not getting.  Our physical pleasures
+leave no margin for the unrealised.  They, like the dead
+satellite of the earth, have but little atmosphere around them.
+When we take food and satisfy our hunger it is a complete act of
+possession.  So long as the hunger is not satisfied it is a
+pleasure to eat.  For then our enjoyment of eating touches at
+every point the infinite.  But, when it attains completion, or in
+other words, when our desire for eating reaches the end of the
+stage of its non-realisation, it reaches the end of its pleasure.
+In all our intellectual pleasures the margin is broader, the
+limit is far off.  In all our deeper love getting and non-getting
+run ever parallel.  In one of our Vaishnava lyrics the lover says
+to his beloved: "I feel as if I have gazed upon the beauty of thy
+face from my birth, yet my eyes are hungry still: as if I have
+kept thee pressed to my heart for millions of years, yet my heart
+is not satisfied."
+
+This makes it clear that it is really the infinite whom we seek
+in our pleasures.  Our desire for being wealthy is not a desire
+for a particular sum of money but it is indefinite, and the most
+fleeting of our enjoyments are but the momentary touches of the
+eternal.  The tragedy of human life consists in our vain attempts
+to stretch the limits of things which can never become
+unlimited,--to reach the infinite by absurdly adding to the rungs
+of the ladder of the finite.
+
+It is evident from this that the real desire of our soul is to
+get beyond all our possessions.  Surrounded by things she can
+touch and feel, she cries, "I am weary of getting; ah, where is
+he who is never to be got?"
+
+We see everywhere in the history of man that the spirit of
+renunciation is the deepest reality of the human soul.  When the
+soul says of anything, "I do not want it, for I am above it," she
+gives utterance to the highest truth that is in her.  When a
+girl's life outgrows her doll, when she realises that in every
+respect she is more than her doll is, then she throws it away.
+By the very act of possession we know that we are greater than
+the things we possess.  It is a perfect misery to be kept bound
+up with things lesser than ourselves.  This it is that Maitreyī
+felt when her husband gave her his property on the eve of leaving
+home.  She asked him, "Would these material things help one to
+attain the highest?"--or, in other words, "Are they more than my
+soul to me?"  When her husband answered, "They will make you rich
+in worldly possessions," she said at once, "then what am I to do
+with these?"  It is only when a man truly realises what his
+possessions are that he has no more illusions about them; then he
+knows his soul is far above these things and he becomes free from
+their bondage.  Thus man truly realises his soul by outgrowing
+his possessions, and man's progress in the path of eternal life
+is through a series of renunciations.
+
+That we cannot absolutely possess the infinite being is not a
+mere intellectual proposition.  It has to be experienced, and
+this experience is bliss.  The bird, while taking its flight in
+the sky, experiences at every beat of its wings that the sky is
+boundless, that its wings can never carry it beyond.  Therein
+lies its joy.  In the cage the sky is limited; it may be quite
+enough for all the purposes of the bird's life, only it is not
+more than is necessary.  The bird cannot rejoice within the
+limits of the necessary.  It must feel that what it has is
+immeasurably more than it ever can want or comprehend, and then
+only can it be glad.
+
+Thus our soul must soar in the infinite, and she must feel every
+moment that in the sense of not being able to come to the end of
+her attainment is her supreme joy, her final freedom.
+
+Man's abiding happiness is not in getting anything but in giving
+himself up to what is greater than himself, to ideas which are
+larger than his individual life, the idea of his country, of
+humanity, of God.  They make it easier for him to part with all
+that he has, not expecting his life.  His existence is miserable
+and sordid till he finds some great idea which can truly claim
+his all, which can release him from all attachment to his
+belongings.  Buddha and Jesus, and all our great prophets,
+represent such great ideas.  They hold before us opportunities
+for surrendering our all.  When they bring forth their divine
+alms-bowl we feel we cannot help giving, and we find that in
+giving is our truest joy and liberation, for it is uniting
+ourselves to that extent with the infinite.
+
+Man is not complete; he is yet to be.  In what he _is_ he is
+small, and if we could conceive him stopping there for eternity
+we should have an idea of the most awful hell that man can
+imagine.  In his _to be_ he is infinite, there is his heaven,
+his deliverance.  His _is_ is occupied every moment with what it
+can get and have done with; his _to be_ is hungering for
+something which is more than can be got, which he never can lose
+because he never has possessed.
+
+The finite pole of our existence has its place in the world of
+necessity.  There man goes about searching for food to live,
+clothing to get warmth.  In this region--the region of nature--it
+is his function to get things.  The natural man is occupied with
+enlarging his possessions.
+
+But this act of getting is partial.  It is limited to man's
+necessities.  We can have a thing only to the extent of our
+requirements, just as a vessel can contain water only to the
+extent of its emptiness.  Our relation to food is only in
+feeding, our relation to a house is only in habitation.  We call
+it a benefit when a thing is fitted only to some particular want
+of ours.  Thus to get is always to get partially, and it never
+can be otherwise.  So this craving for acquisition belongs to our
+finite self.
+
+But that side of our existence whose direction is towards the
+infinite seeks not wealth, but freedom and joy.  There the reign
+of necessity ceases, and there our function is not to get but to
+be.  To be what?  To be one with Brahma.  For the region of the
+infinite is the region of unity.  Therefore the Upanishads say:
+_If man apprehends God he becomes true._  Here it is becoming,
+it is not having more.  Words do no gather bulk when you know
+their meaning; they become true by being one with the idea.
+
+Though the West has accepted as its teacher him who boldly
+proclaimed his oneness with his Father, and who exhorted his
+followers to be perfect as God, it has never been reconciled to
+this idea of our unity with the infinite being.  It condemns, as
+a piece of blasphemy, any implication of man's becoming God.
+This is certainly not the idea that Christ preached, nor perhaps
+the idea of the Christian mystics, but this seems to be the idea
+that has become popular in the Christian west.
+
+But the highest wisdom in the East holds that it is not the
+function of our soul to _gain_ God, to utilise him for any
+special material purpose.  All that we can ever aspire to is to
+become more and more one with God.  In the region of nature,
+which is the region of diversity, we grow by acquisition; in the
+spiritual world, which is the region of unity, we grow by losing
+ourselves, by uniting.  Gaining a thing, as we have said, is by
+its nature partial, it is limited only to a particular want; but
+_being_ is complete, it belongs to our wholeness, it springs not
+from any necessity but from our affinity with the infinite, which
+is the principle of perfection that we have in our soul.
+
+Yes, we must become Brahma.  We must not shrink to avow this.
+Our existence is meaningless if we never can expect to realise
+the highest perfection that there is.  If we have an aim and yet
+can never reach it, then it is no aim at all.
+
+But can it then be said that there is no difference between
+Brahma and our individual soul?  Of course the difference is
+obvious.  Call it illusion or ignorance, or whatever name you may
+give it, it is there.  You can offer explanations but you cannot
+explain it away.  Even illusion is true an illusion.
+
+Brahma is Brahma, he is the infinite ideal of perfection.  But we
+are not what we truly are; we are ever to become true, ever to
+become Brahma.  There is the eternal play of love in the relation
+between this being and the becoming; and in the depth of this
+mystery is the source of all truth and beauty that sustains the
+endless march of creation.
+
+In the music of the rushing stream sounds the joyful assurance,
+"I shall become the sea."  It is not a vain assumption; it is
+true humility, for it is the truth.  The river has no other
+alternative.  On both sides of its banks it has numerous fields
+and forests, villages and towns; it can serve them in various
+ways, cleanse them and feed them, carry their produce from place
+to place.  But it can have only partial relations with these, and
+however long it may linger among them it remains separate; it
+never can become a town or a forest.
+
+But it can and does become the sea.  The lesser moving water has
+its affinity with the great motionless water of the ocean.  It
+moves through the thousand objects on its onward course, and its
+motion finds its finality when it reaches the sea.
+
+The river can become the sea, but she can never make the sea part
+and parcel of herself.  If, by some chance, she has encircled
+some broad sheet of water and pretends that she has made the sea
+a part of herself, we at once know that it is not so, that her
+current is still seeking rest in the great ocean to which it can
+never set boundaries.
+
+In the same manner, our soul can only become Brahma as the river
+can become the sea.  Everything else she touches at one of her
+points, then leaves and moves on, but she never can leave Brahma
+and move beyond him.  Once our soul realises her ultimate object
+of repose in Brahma, all her movements acquire a purpose.  It is
+this ocean of infinite rest which gives significance to endless
+activities.  It is this perfectness of being that lends to the
+imperfection of becoming that quality of beauty which finds its
+expression in all poetry, drama and art.
+
+There must be a complete idea that animates a poem.  Every
+sentence of the poem touches that idea.  When the reader realises
+that pervading idea, as he reads on, then the reading of the poem
+is full of joy to him.  Then every part of the poem becomes
+radiantly significant by the light of the whole.  But if the poem
+goes on interminably, never expressing the idea of the whole,
+only throwing off disconnected images, however beautiful, it
+becomes wearisome and unprofitable in the extreme.  The progress
+of our soul is like a perfect poem.  It has an infinite idea
+which once realised makes all movements full of meaning and joy.
+But if we detach its movements from that ultimate idea, if we do
+not see the infinite rest and only see the infinite motion, then
+existence appears to us a monstrous evil, impetuously rushing
+towards an unending aimlessness.
+
+I remember in our childhood we had a teacher who used to make us
+learn by heart the whole book of Sanskrit grammer, which is
+written in symbols, without explaining their meaning to us.  Day
+after day we went toiling on, but on towards what, we had not the
+least notion.  So, as regards our lessons, we were in the
+position of the pessimist who only counts the breathless
+activities of the world, but cannot see the infinite repose of
+the perfection whence these activities are gaining their
+equilibrium every moment in absolute fitness and harmony.  We
+lose all joy in thus contemplating existence, because we miss the
+truth.  We see the gesticulations of the dancer, and we imagine
+these are directed by a ruthless tyranny of chance, while we are
+deaf to the eternal music which makes every one of these gestures
+inevitably spontaneous and beautiful.  These motions are ever
+growing into that music of perfection, becoming one with it,
+dedicating to that melody at every step the multitudinous forms
+they go on creating.
+
+And this is the truth of our soul, and this is her joy, that she
+must ever be growing into Brahma, that all her movements should
+be modulated by this ultimate idea, and all her creations should
+be given as offerings to the supreme spirit of perfection.
+
+There is a remarkable saying in the Upanishads: _I think not that
+I know him well, or that I know him, or even that I know him not._
+[Footnote: Nāham manye suvedeti no na vedeti vedacha.]
+
+By the process of knowledge we can never know the infinite being.
+But if he is altogether beyond our reach, then he is absolutely
+nothing to us.  The truth is that we know him not, yet we know
+him.
+
+This has been explained in another saying of the Upanishads:
+_From Brahma words come back baffled, as well as the mind, but he
+who knows him by the joy of him is free from all fears._
+[Footnote: Yato vācho nivartante aprāpya manasā saha ānandam
+brahmaņo vidvān na vibheti kutaçchana.]
+
+Knowledge is partial, because our intellect is an instrument, it
+is only a part of us, it can give us information about things
+which can be divided and analysed, and whose properties can be
+classified part by part.  But Brahma is perfect, and knowledge
+which is partial can never be a knowledge of him.
+
+But he can be known by joy, by love.  For joy is knowledge in its
+completeness, it is knowing by our whole being.  Intellect sets
+us apart from the things to be known, but love knows its object
+by fusion.  Such knowledge is immediate and admits no doubt.  It
+is the same as knowing our own selves, only more so.
+
+Therefore, as the Upanishads say, mind can never know Brahma,
+words can never describe him; he can only be known by our soul,
+by her joy in him, by her love.  Or, in other words, we can only
+come into relation with him by union--union of our whole being.
+We must be one with our Father, we must be perfect as he is.
+
+But how can that be?  There can be no grade in infinite
+perfection.  We cannot grow more and more into Brahma.  He is the
+absolute one, and there can be no more or less in him.
+
+Indeed, the realisation of the _paramātman_, the supreme soul,
+within our _antarātman_, our inner individual soul, is in a
+state of absolute completion.  We cannot think of it as
+non-existent and depending on our limited powers for its gradual
+construction.  If our relation with the divine were all a thing
+of our own making, how should we rely on it as true, and how
+should it lend us support?
+
+Yes, we must know that within us we have that where space and
+time cease to rule and where the links of evolution are merged in
+unity.  In that everlasting abode of the _ātaman_, the soul, the
+revelation of the _paramātman_, the supreme soul, is already
+complete.  Therefore the Upanishads say: _He who knows Brahman,
+the true, the all-conscious, and the infinite as hidden in the
+depths of the soul, which is the supreme sky (the inner sky of
+consciousness), enjoys all objects of desire in union with the
+all-knowing Brahman._  [Footnote: Satyam jñānam anantam brahma yo
+veda nihitam guhāyām paramo vyoman so'çnute sarvān kāmān saha
+brahmaņa vipasçhite.]
+
+The union is already accomplished.  The _paramātman_, the supreme
+soul, has himself chosen this soul of ours as his bride and the
+marriage has been completed.  The solemn _mantram_ has been
+uttered: _Let thy heart be even as my heart is._ [Footnote:
+Yadetat hŗidayam mama tadastu hŗidayan tava.]  There is no room
+in this marriage for evolution to act the part of the master of
+ceremonies.  The _eshah_, who cannot otherwise be described than
+as _This_, the nameless immediate presence, is ever here in our
+innermost being.  "This _eshah_, or _This_, is the supreme end of
+the other this"; [Footnote: Eshāsya paramā gatih] "this _This_ is
+the supreme treasure of the other this"; [Footnote: Eshāsya paramā
+sampat.] "this _This_ is the supreme dwelling of the other this";
+[Footnote: Eshāsya paramo lokah] "this _This_ is the supreme joy
+of the other this."  [Footnote: Eshāsya parama ānandah]  Because
+the marriage of supreme love has been accomplished in timeless
+time.  And now goes on the endless _līlā_, the play of love.  He
+who has been gained in eternity is now being pursued in time and
+space, in joys and sorrows, in this world and in the worlds beyond.
+When the soul-bride understands this well, her heart is blissful
+and at rest.  She knows that she, like a river, has attained the
+ocean of her fulfilment at one end of her being, and at the other
+end she is ever attaining it; at one end it is eternal rest and
+completion, at the other it is incessant movement and change.
+When she knows both ends as inseparably connected, then she knows
+the world as her own household by the right of knowing the master
+of the world as her own lord.  Then all her services becomes
+services of love, all the troubles and tribulations of life come
+to her as trials triumphantly borne to prove the strength of her
+love, smilingly to win the wager from her lover.  But so long as
+she remains obstinately in the dark, lifts not her veil, does not
+recognise her lover, and only knows the world dissociated from
+him, she serves as a handmaid here, where by right she might
+reign as a queen; she sways in doubt, and weeps in sorrow and
+dejection.  _She passes from starvation to starvation, from
+trouble to trouble, and from fear to fear._  [Footnote:
+Daurbhikshāt yāti daurbhiksham kleçāt kleçam bhayāt bhayam.]
+
+I can never forget that scrap of a song I once heard in the early
+dawn in the midst of the din of the crowd that had collected for
+a festival the night before: "Ferryman, take me across to the
+other shore!"
+
+In the bustle of all our work there comes out this cry, "Take me
+across."  The carter in India sings while driving his cart, "Take
+me across."  The itinerant grocer deals out his goods to his
+customers and sings, "Take me across".
+
+What is the meaning of this cry?  We feel we have not reached our
+goal; and we know with all our striving and toiling we do not
+come to the end, we do not attain our object.  Like a child
+dissatisfied with its dolls, our heart cries, "Not this, not
+this."  But what is that other?  Where is the further shore?
+
+Is it something else than what we have?  Is it somewhere else
+than where we are?  Is it to take rest from all our works, to be
+relieved from all the responsibilities of life?
+
+No, in the very heart of our activities we are seeking for our
+end.  We are crying for the across, even where we stand.  So,
+while our lips utter their prayer to be carried away, our busy
+hands are never idle.
+
+In truth, thou ocean of joy, this shore and the other shore are
+one and the same in thee.  When I call this my own, the other
+lies estranged; and missing the sense of that completeness which
+is in me, my heart incessantly cries out for the other.  All my
+this, and that other, are waiting to be completely reconciled in
+thy love.
+
+This "I" of mine toils hard, day and night, for a home which it
+knows as its own.  Alas, there will be no end of its sufferings
+so long as it is not able to call this home thine.  Till then it
+will struggle on, and its heart will ever cry, "Ferryman, lead me
+across."  When this home of mine is made thine, that very moment
+is it taken across, even while its old walls enclose it.  This
+"I" is restless.  It is working for a gain which can never be
+assimilated with its spirit, which it never can hold and retain.
+In its efforts to clasp in its own arms that which is for all, it
+hurts others and is hurt in its turn, and cries, "Lead me across".
+But as soon as it is able to say, "All my work is thine," everything
+remains the same, only it is taken across.
+
+Where can I meet thee unless in this mine home made thine?  Where
+can I join thee unless in this my work transformed into thy work?
+If I leave my home I shall not reach thy home; if I cease my work
+I can never join thee in thy work.  For thou dwellest in me and I
+in thee.  Thou without me or I without thee are nothing.
+
+Therefore, in the midst of our home and our work, the prayer
+rises, "Lead me across!"  For here rolls the sea, and even here
+lies the other shore waiting to be reached--yes, here is this
+everlasting present, not distant, not anywhere else.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sadhana, by Rabindranath Tagore
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sadhana, by Rabindranath Tagore
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sadhana
+       The Realisation of Life
+
+Author: Rabindranath Tagore
+
+Posting Date: January 25, 2013 [EBook #6842]
+Release Date: November, 2004
+First Posted: January 31, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SADHANA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chetan Jain at BharatLiterature
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SADHANA
+
+
+THE REALISATION OF LIFE
+
+
+By
+
+Rabindranath Tagore
+
+Author of 'Gitanjali'
+
+
+1916
+
+
+
+To
+
+Ernest Rhys
+
+
+
+Author's Preface
+
+
+Perhaps it is well for me to explain that the subject-matter of
+the papers published in this book has not been philosophically
+treated, nor has it been approached from the scholar's point of
+view.  The writer has been brought up in a family where texts of
+the Upanishads are used in daily worship; and he has had before
+him the example of his father, who lived his long life in the
+closest communion with God, while not neglecting his duties to
+the world, or allowing his keen interest in all human affairs to
+suffer any abatement.  So in these papers, it may be hoped,
+western readers will have an opportunity of coming into touch
+with the ancient spirit of India as revealed in our sacred texts
+and manifested in the life of to-day.
+
+All the great utterances of man have to be judged not by the
+letter but by the spirit--the spirit which unfolds itself with
+the growth of life in history.  We get to know the real meaning
+of Christianity by observing its living aspect at the present
+moment--however different that may be, even in important
+respects, from the Christianity of earlier periods.
+
+For western scholars the great religious scriptures of India seem
+to possess merely a retrospective and archaelogical interest; but
+to us they are of living importance, and we cannot help thinking
+that they lose their significance when exhibited in labelled
+cases--mummied specimens of human thought and aspiration,
+preserved for all time in the wrappings of erudition.
+
+The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences
+of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of
+logical interpretation.  They have to be endlessly explained by
+the commentaries of individual lives, and they gain an added
+mystery in each new revelation.  To me the verses of the
+Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha have ever been things of
+the spirit, and therefore endowed with boundless vital growth;
+and I have used them, both in my own life and in my preaching, as
+being instinct with individual meaning for me, as for others, and
+awaiting for their confirmation, my own special testimony, which
+must have its value because of its individuality.
+
+I should add perhaps that these papers embody in a connected
+form, suited to this publication, ideas which have been culled
+from several of the Bengali discourses which I am in the habit of
+giving to my students in my school at Bolpur in Bengal; and I
+have used here and there translations of passages from these done
+by my friends, Babu Satish Chandra Roy and Babu Ajit Kumar
+Chakravarti.  The last paper of this series, "Realisation in
+Action," has been translated from my Bengali discourse on
+"Karma-yoga" by my nephew, Babu Surendra Nath Tagore.
+
+I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to Professor
+James H. Woods, of Harvard University, for his generous
+appreciation which encouraged me to complete this series of
+papers and read most of them before the Harvard University.  And
+I offer my thanks to Mr. Ernest Rhys for his kindness in helping
+me with suggestions and revisions, and in going through the
+proofs.
+
+A word may be added about the pronouncing of Sadhana: the accent
+falls decisively on the first a, which has the broad sound of the
+letter.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I. THE RELATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO THE UNIVERSE
+II. SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS
+III. THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
+IV. THE PROBLEM OF SELF
+V. REALISATION IN LOVE
+VI. REALISATION IN ACTION
+VII. THE REALISATION OF BEAUTY
+VIII. THE REALISATION OF THE INFINITE
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+THE RELATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO THE UNIVERSE
+
+
+The civilisation of ancient Greece was nurtured within city
+walls.  In fact, all the modern civilisations have their cradles
+of brick and mortar.
+
+These walls leave their mark deep in the minds of men.  They set
+up a principle of "divide and rule" in our mental outlook, which
+begets in us a habit of securing all our conquests by fortifying
+them and separating them from one another.  We divide nation and
+nation, knowledge and knowledge, man and nature.  It breeds in us
+a strong suspicion of whatever is beyond the barriers we have
+built, and everything has to fight hard for its entrance into our
+recognition.
+
+When the first Aryan invaders appeared in India it was a vast
+land of forests, and the new-comers rapidly took advantage of
+them.  These forests afforded them shelter from the fierce heat
+of the sun and the ravages of tropical storms, pastures for
+cattle, fuel for sacrificial fire, and materials for building
+cottages.  And the different Aryan clans with their patriarchal
+heads settled in the different forest tracts which had some
+special advantage of natural protection, and food and water in
+plenty.
+
+Thus in India it was in the forests that our civilisation had its
+birth, and it took a distinct character from this origin and
+environment.  It was surrounded by the vast life of nature, was
+fed and clothed by her, and had the closest and most constant
+intercourse with her varying aspects.
+
+Such a life, it may be thought, tends to have the effect of
+dulling human intelligence and dwarfing the incentives to
+progress by lowering the standards of existence.  But in ancient
+India we find that the circumstances of forest life did not
+overcome man's mind, and did not enfeeble the current of his
+energies, but only gave to it a particular direction.  Having
+been in constant contact with the living growth of nature, his
+mind was free from the desire to extend his dominion by erecting
+boundary walls around his acquisitions.  His aim was not to
+acquire but to realise, to enlarge his consciousness by growing
+with and growing into his surroundings.  He felt that truth is
+all-comprehensive, that there is no such thing as absolute
+isolation in existence, and the only way of attaining truth is
+through the interpenetration of our being into all objects.  To
+realise this great harmony between man's spirit and the spirit of
+the world was the endeavour of the forest-dwelling sages of
+ancient India.
+
+In later days there came a time when these primeval forests gave
+way to cultivated fields, and wealthy cities sprang up on all
+sides.  Mighty kingdoms were established, which had
+communications with all the great powers of the world.  But even
+in the heyday of its material prosperity the heart of India ever
+looked back with adoration upon the early ideal of strenuous
+self-realisation, and the dignity of the simple life of the
+forest hermitage, and drew its best inspiration from the wisdom
+stored there.
+
+The west seems to take a pride in thinking that it is subduing
+nature; as if we are living in a hostile world where we have to
+wrest everything we want from an unwilling and alien arrangement
+of things.  This sentiment is the product of the city-wall habit
+and training of mind.  For in the city life man naturally directs
+the concentrated light of his mental vision upon his own life and
+works, and this creates an artificial dissociation between
+himself and the Universal Nature within whose bosom he lies.
+
+But in India the point of view was different; it included the
+world with the man as one great truth.  India put all her
+emphasis on the harmony that exists between the individual and
+the universal.  She felt we could have no communication whatever
+with our surroundings if they were absolutely foreign to us.
+Man's complaint against nature is that he has to acquire most of
+his necessaries by his own efforts.  Yes, but his efforts are not
+in vain; he is reaping success every day, and that shows there is
+a rational connection between him and nature, for we never can
+make anything our own except that which is truly related to us.
+
+We can look upon a road from two different points of view.  One
+regards it as dividing us from the object of our desire; in that
+case we count every step of our journey over it as something
+attained by force in the face of obstruction.  The other sees it
+as the road which leads us to our destination; and as such it is
+part of our goal.  It is already the beginning of our attainment,
+and by journeying over it we can only gain that which in itself
+it offers to us.  This last point of view is that of India with
+regard to nature.  For her, the great fact is that we are in
+harmony with nature; that man can think because his thoughts are
+in harmony with things; that he can use the forces of nature for
+his own purpose only because his power is in harmony with the
+power which is universal, and that in the long run his purpose
+never can knock against the purpose which works through nature.
+
+In the west the prevalent feeling is that nature belongs
+exclusively to inanimate things and to beasts, that there is a
+sudden unaccountable break where human-nature begins.  According
+to it, everything that is low in the scale of beings is merely
+nature, and whatever has the stamp of perfection on it,
+intellectual or moral, is human-nature.  It is like dividing the
+bud and the blossom into two separate categories, and putting
+their grace to the credit of two different and antithetical
+principles.  But the Indian mind never has any hesitation in
+acknowledging its kinship with nature, its unbroken relation with
+all.
+
+The fundamental unity of creation was not simply a philosophical
+speculation for India; it was her life-object to realise this
+great harmony in feeling and in action.  With mediation and
+service, with a regulation of life, she cultivated her
+consciousness in such a way that everything had a spiritual
+meaning to her.  The earth, water and light, fruits and flowers,
+to her were not merely physical phenomena to be turned to use and
+then left aside.  They were necessary to her in the attainment of
+her ideal of perfection, as every note is necessary to the
+completeness of the symphony.  India intuitively felt that the
+essential fact of this world has a vital meaning for us; we have
+to be fully alive to it and establish a conscious relation with
+it, not merely impelled by scientific curiosity or greed of
+material advantage, but realising it in the spirit of sympathy,
+with a large feeling of joy and peace.
+
+The man of science knows, in one aspect, that the world is not
+merely what it appears to be to our senses; he knows that earth
+and water are really the play of forces that manifest themselves
+to us as earth and water--how, we can but partially apprehend.
+Likewise the man who has his spiritual eyes open knows that the
+ultimate truth about earth and water lies in our apprehension of
+the eternal will which works in time and takes shape in the
+forces we realise under those aspects.  This is not mere
+knowledge, as science is, but it is a preception of the soul by
+the soul.  This does not lead us to power, as knowledge does, but
+it gives us joy, which is the product of the union of kindred
+things.  The man whose acquaintance with the world does not lead
+him deeper than science leads him, will never understand what it
+is that the man with the spiritual vision finds in these natural
+phenomena.  The water does not merely cleanse his limbs, but it
+purifies his heart; for it touches his soul.  The earth does not
+merely hold his body, but it gladdens his mind; for its contact
+is more than a physical contact--it is a living presence.  When a
+man does not realise his kinship with the world, he lives in a
+prison-house whose walls are alien to him.  When he meets the
+eternal spirit in all objects, then is he emancipated, for then
+he discovers the fullest significance of the world into which he
+is born; then he finds himself in perfect truth, and his harmony
+with the all is established.  In India men are enjoined to be
+fully awake to the fact that they are in the closest relation to
+things around them, body and soul, and that they are to hail the
+morning sun, the flowing water, the fruitful earth, as the
+manifestation of the same living truth which holds them in its
+embrace.  Thus the text of our everyday meditation is the
+_Gayathri_, a verse which is considered to be the epitome of all
+the Vedas.  By its help we try to realise the essential unity of
+the world with the conscious soul of man; we learn to perceive
+the unity held together by the one Eternal Spirit, whose power
+creates the earth, the sky, and the stars, and at the same time
+irradiates our minds with the light of a consciousness that moves
+and exists in unbroken continuity with the outer world.
+
+It is not true that India has tried to ignore differences of
+value in different things, for she knows that would make life
+impossible.  The sense of the superiority of man in the scale of
+creation has not been absent from her mind.  But she has had her
+own idea as to that in which his superiority really consists.  It
+is not in the power of possession but in the power of union.
+Therefore India chose her places of pilgrimage wherever there was
+in nature some special grandeur or beauty, so that her mind could
+come out of its world of narrow necessities and realise its place
+in the infinite.  This was the reason why in India a whole
+people who once were meat-eaters gave up taking animal food to
+cultivate the sentiment of universal sympathy for life, an event
+unique in the history of mankind.
+
+India knew that when by physical and mental barriers we violently
+detach ourselves from the inexhaustible life of nature; when we
+become merely man, but not man-in-the-universe, we create
+bewildering problems, and having shut off the source of their
+solution, we try all kinds of artificial methods each of which
+brings its own crop of interminable difficulties.  When man
+leaves his resting-place in universal nature, when he walks on
+the single rope of humanity, it means either a dance or a fall
+for him, he has ceaselessly to strain every nerve and muscle to
+keep his balance at each step, and then, in the intervals of his
+weariness, he fulminates against Providence and feels a secret
+pride and satisfaction in thinking that he has been unfairly
+dealt with by the whole scheme of things.
+
+But this cannot go on for ever.  Man must realise the wholeness
+of his existence, his place in the infinite; he must know that
+hard as he may strive he can never create his honey within the
+cells of his hive; for the perennial supply of his life food is
+outside their walls.  He must know that when man shuts himself
+out from the vitalising and purifying touch of the infinite, and
+falls back upon himself for his sustenance and his healing, then
+he goads himself into madness, tears himself into shreds, and
+eats his own substance.  Deprived of the background of the whole,
+his poverty loses its one great quality, which is simplicity, and
+becomes squalid and shamefaced.  His wealth is no longer
+magnanimous; it grows merely extravagant.  His appetites do not
+minister to his life, keeping to the limits of their purpose;
+they become an end in themselves and set fire to his life and
+play the fiddle in the lurid light of the conflagration.  Then it
+is that in our self-expression we try to startle and not to
+attract; in art we strive for originality and lose sight of truth
+which is old and yet ever new; in literature we miss the complete
+view of man which is simple and yet great, but he appears as a
+psychological problem or the embodiment of a passion that is
+intense because abnormal and because exhibited in the glare of a
+fiercely emphatic light which is artificial.  When man's
+consciousness is restricted only to the immediate vicinity of his
+human self, the deeper roots of his nature do not find their
+permanent soil, his spirit is ever on the brink of starvation,
+and in the place of healthful strength he substitutes rounds of
+stimulation.  Then it is that man misses his inner perspective
+and measures his greatness by its bulk and not by its vital link
+with the infinite, judges his activity by its movement and not by
+the repose of perfection--the repose which is in the starry
+heavens, in the ever-flowing rhythmic dance of creation.
+
+The first invasion of India has its exact parallel in the
+invasion of America by the European settlers.  They also were
+confronted with primeval forests and a fierce struggle with
+aboriginal races.  But this struggle between man and man, and man
+and nature lasted till the very end; they never came to any
+terms.  In India the forests which were the habitation of the
+barbarians became the sanctuary of sages, but in America these
+great living cathedrals of nature had no deeper significance to
+man.  The brought wealth and power to him, and perhaps at times
+they ministered to his enjoyment of beauty, and inspired a
+solitary poet.  They never acquired a sacred association in the
+hearts of men as the site of some great spiritual reconcilement
+where man's soul has its meeting-place with the soul of the
+world.
+
+I do not for a moment wish to suggest that these things should
+have been otherwise.  It would be an utter waste of opportunities
+if history were to repeat itself exactly in the same manner in
+every place.  It is best for the commerce of the spirit that
+people differently situated should bring their different products
+into the market of humanity, each of which is complementary and
+necessary to the others.  All that I wish to say is that India at
+the outset of her career met with a special combination of
+circumstances which was not lost upon her.  She had, according to
+her opportunities, thought and pondered, striven and suffered,
+dived into the depths of existence, and achieved something which
+surely cannot be without its value to people whose evolution in
+history took a different way altogether.  Man for his perfect
+growth requires all the living elements that constitute his
+complex life; that is why his food has to be cultivated in
+different fields and brought from different sources.
+
+Civilisation is a kind of mould that each nation is busy making
+for itself to shape its men and women according to its best
+ideal.  All its institutions, its legislature, its standard of
+approbation and condemnation, its conscious and unconscious
+teachings tend toward that object.  The modern civilisation of
+the west, by all its organised efforts, is trying to turn out men
+perfect in physical, intellectual, and moral efficiency.  There
+the vast energies of the nations are employed in extending man's
+power over his surroundings, and people are combining and
+straining every faculty to possess and to turn to account all
+that they can lay their hands upon, to overcome every obstacle on
+their path of conquest.  They are ever disciplining themselves to
+fight nature and other races; their armaments are getting more
+and more stupendous every day; their machines, their appliances,
+their organisations go on multiplying at an amazing rate.  This
+is a splendid achievement, no doubt, and a wonderful
+manifestation of man's masterfulness which knows no obstacle, and
+which has for its object the supremacy of himself over everything
+else.
+
+The ancient civilisation of India had its own ideal of perfection
+towards which its efforts were directed.  Its aim was not
+attaining power, and it neglected to cultivate to the utmost its
+capacities, and to organise men for defensive and offensive
+purposes, for co-operation in the acquisition of wealth and for
+military and political ascendancy.  The ideal that India tried to
+realise led her best men to the isolation of a contemplative
+life, and the treasures that she gained for mankind by
+penetrating into the mysteries of reality cost her dear in the
+sphere of worldly success.  Yet, this also was a sublime
+achievement,--it was a supreme manifestation of that human
+aspiration which knows no limit, and which has for its object
+nothing less than the realisation of the Infinite.
+
+There were the virtuous, the wise, the courageous; there were the
+statesmen, kings and emperors of India; but whom amongst all
+these classes did she look up to and choose to be the
+representative of men?
+
+They were the rishis.  What were the rishis?  _They who having
+attained the supreme soul in knowledge were filled with wisdom,
+and having found him in union with the soul were in perfect
+harmony with the inner self; they having realised him in the
+heart were free from all selfish desires, and having experienced
+him in all the activities of the world, had attained calmness.
+The rishis were they who having reached the supreme God from all
+sides had found abiding peace, had become united with all, had
+entered into the life of the Universe._ [Footnote:
+/**
+  Samprapyainam rishayo jnanatripatah
+  Kritatmano vitaragah pracantah
+  te sarvagam sarvatah prapya dhirah
+  Yuktatmanah sarvamevavicanti.
+*/
+]
+
+Thus the state of realising our relationship with all, of
+entering into everything through union with God, was considered
+in India to be the ultimate end and fulfilment of humanity.
+
+Man can destroy and plunder, earn and accumulate, invent and
+discover, but he is great because his soul comprehends all.  It
+is dire destruction for him when he envelopes his soul in a dead
+shell of callous habits, and when a blind fury of works whirls
+round him like an eddying dust storm, shutting out the horizon.
+That indeed kills the very spirit of his being, which is the
+spirit of comprehension.  Essentially man is not a slave either
+of himself or of the world; but he is a lover.  His freedom and
+fulfilment is in love, which is another name for perfect
+comprehension.  By this power of comprehension, this permeation
+of his being, he is united with the all-pervading Spirit, who is
+also the breath of his soul.  Where a man tries to raise himself
+to eminence by pushing and jostling all others, to achieve a
+distinction by which he prides himself to be more than everybody
+else, there he is alienated from that Spirit.  This is why the
+Upanishads describe those who have attained the goal of human
+life as "_peaceful_" [Footnote: Pracantah] and as "_at-one-with-God_,"
+[Footnote: Yuktatmanah] meaning that they are in perfect
+harmony with man and nature, and therefore in undisturbed union
+with God.
+
+We have a glimpse of the same truth in the teachings of Jesus
+when he says, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye
+of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven"--which
+implies that whatever we treasure for ourselves separates
+us from others; our possessions are our limitations.  He who is
+bent upon accumulating riches is unable, with his ego continually
+bulging, to pass through the gates of comprehension of the
+spiritual world, which is the world of perfect harmony; he is
+shut up within the narrow walls of his limited acquisitions.
+
+Hence the spirit of the teachings of Upanishad is: In order to
+find him you must embrace all.  In the pursuit of wealth you
+really give up everything to gain a few things, and that is not
+the way to attain him who is completeness.
+
+Some modern philosophers of Europe, who are directly or
+indirectly indebted to the Upanishads, far from realising their
+debt, maintain that the Brahma of India is a mere abstraction, a
+negation of all that is in the world.  In a word, that the
+Infinite Being is to be found nowhere except in metaphysics.  It
+may be, that such a doctrine has been and still is prevalent with
+a section of our countrymen.  But this is certainly not in accord
+with the pervading spirit of the Indian mind.  Instead, it is the
+practice of realising and affirming the presence of the infinite
+in all things which has been its constant inspiration.
+
+We are enjoined to see _whatever there is in the world as being
+enveloped by God._
+[Footnote: Icavasyamidam sarvam yat kincha jagatyan jagat.]
+
+_I bow to God over and over again who is in fire and in water, who
+permeates the whole world, who is in the annual crops as well as
+in the perennial trees._  [Footnote: Yo devo'gnau y'opsu y'o
+vicvambhuvanamaviveca ya oshadhishu yo  vanaspatishu tasmai devaya
+namonamah.]
+
+Can this be God abstracted from the world?  Instead, it signifies
+not merely seeing him in all things, but saluting him in all the
+objects of the world.  The attitude of the God-conscious man of
+the Upanishad towards the universe is one of a deep feeling of
+adoration.  His object of worship is present everywhere.  It is
+the one living truth that makes all realities true.  This truth
+is not only of knowledge but of devotion.  '_Namonamah_,'--we bow
+to him everywhere, and over and over again.  It is recognised in
+the outburst of the Rishi, who addresses the whole world in a
+sudden ecstasy of joy: _Listen to me, ye sons of the immortal
+spirit, ye who live in the heavenly abode, I have known the
+Supreme Person whose light shines forth from beyond the darkness._
+[Footnote: Crinvantu vicve amritasya putra a ye divya dhamani
+tasthuh vedahametam purusham mahantam aditya varnam tamasah
+parastat.]  Do we not find the overwhelming delight of a direct
+and positive experience where there is not the least trace of
+vagueness or passivity?
+
+Buddha who developed the practical side of the teaching of
+Upanishads, preached the same message when he said, _With
+everything, whether it is above or below, remote or near, visible
+or invisible, thou shalt preserve a relation of unlimited love
+without any animosity or without a desire to kill.  To live in
+such a consciousness while standing or walking, sitting or lying
+down till you are asleep, is Brahma vihara, or, in other words,
+is living and moving and having your joy in the spirit of
+Brahma._
+
+What is that spirit?  The Upanishad says, _The being who is in
+his essence the light and life of all, who is world-conscious, is
+Brahma._  [Footnote: Yacchayamasminnakace tejomayo'mritamayah
+purushah sarvanubhuh.]  To feel all, to be conscious of
+everything, is his spirit.  We are immersed in his consciousness
+body and soul.  It is through his consciousness that the sun
+attracts the earth; it is through his consciousness that the
+light-waves are being transmitted from planet to planet.
+
+Not only in space, but _this light and life, this all-feeling
+being is in our souls._  [Footnote: Yacchayamasminnatmani
+tejomayo'mritamayah purushah sarvanubhuh.]  He is all-conscious
+in space, or the world of extension; and he is all-conscious in
+soul, or the world of intension.
+
+Thus to attain our world-consciousness, we have to unite our
+feeling with this all-pervasive infinite feeling.  In fact, the
+only true human progress is coincident with this widening of the
+range of feeling.  All our poetry, philosophy, science, art and
+religion are serving to extend the scope of our consciousness
+towards higher and larger spheres.  Man does not acquire rights
+through occupation of larger space, nor through external conduct,
+but his rights extend only so far as he is real, and his reality
+is measured by the scope of his consciousness.
+
+We have, however, to pay a price for this attainment of the
+freedom of consciousness.  What is the price?  It is to give
+one's self away.  Our soul can realise itself truly only by
+denying itself.  The Upanishad says, _Thou shalt gain by giving
+away_ [Footnote: Tyaktena bhunjithah], _Thou shalt not covet._
+[Footnote: Ma gridhah]
+
+In Gita we are advised to work disinterestedly, abandoning all
+lust for the result.  Many outsiders conclude from this teaching
+that the conception of the world as something unreal lies at the
+root of the so-called disinterestedness preached in India.  But
+the reverse is true.
+
+The man who aims at his own aggrandisement underrates everything
+else.  Compared to his ego the rest of the world is unreal.  Thus
+in order to be fully conscious of the reality of all, one has to
+be free himself from the bonds of personal desires.  This
+discipline we have to go through to prepare ourselves for our
+social duties--for sharing the burdens of our fellow-beings.
+Every endeavour to attain a larger life requires of man "to gain
+by giving away, and not to be greedy."  And thus to expand
+gradually the consciousness of one's unity with all is the
+striving of humanity.
+
+The Infinite in India was not a thin nonentity, void of all
+content.  The Rishis of India asserted emphatically, "To know him
+in this life is to be true; not to know him in this life is the
+desolation of death."  [Footnote: Iha chet avedit atha
+satyamasti, nachet iha avedit mahati vinashtih.]  How to know him
+then?  "By realising him in each and all."  [Footnote: Bhuteshu
+bhuteshu vichintva.]  Not only in nature but in the family, in
+society, and in the state, the more we realise the World-conscious
+in all, the better for us.  Failing to realise it, we
+turn our faces to destruction.
+
+It fills me with great joy and a high hope for the future of
+humanity when I realise that there was a time in the remote past
+when our poet-prophets stood under the lavish sunshine of an
+Indian sky and greeted the world with the glad recognition of
+kindred.  It was not an anthropomorphic hallucination.  It was
+not seeing man reflected everywhere in grotesquely exaggerated
+images, and witnessing the human drama acted on a gigantic scale
+in nature's arena of flitting lights and shadows.  On the
+contrary, it meant crossing the limiting barriers of the
+individual, to become more than man, to become one with the All.
+It was not a mere play of the imagination, but it was the
+liberation of consciousness from all the mystifications and
+exaggerations of the self.  These ancient seers felt in the
+serene depth of their mind that the same energy which vibrates
+and passes into the endless forms of the world manifests itself
+in our inner being as consciousness; and there is no break in
+unity.  For these seers there was no gap in their luminous vision
+of perfection.  They never acknowledged even death itself as
+creating a chasm in the field of reality.  They said, _His
+reflection is death as well as immortality._  [Footnote: Yasya
+chhayamritam yasya mrityuh.]  They did not recognise any
+essential opposition between life and death, and they said with
+absolute assurance, "It is life that is death."  [Footnote: Prano
+mrityuh.]  They saluted with the same serenity of gladness "life
+in its aspect of appearing and in its aspect of departure"--_That
+which is past is hidden in life, and that which is to come._
+[Footnote: Namo astu ayate namo astu parayate.  Prane ha bhutam
+bhavyancha.]  They knew that mere appearance and disappearance are
+on the surface like waves on the sea, but life which is permanent
+knows no decay or diminution.
+
+_Everything has sprung from immortal life and is vibrating with
+life_, [Footnote: Yadidan kincha prana ejati nihsritam.] _for life
+is immense._  [Footnote: Prano virat.]
+
+This is the noble heritage from our forefathers waiting to be
+claimed by us as our own, this ideal of the supreme freedom of
+consciousness.  It is not merely intellectual or emotional, it
+has an ethical basis, and it must be translated into action.  In
+the Upanishad it is said, _The supreme being is all-pervading,
+therefore he is the innate good in all._  [Footnote: Sarvavyapi
+sa bhagavan tasmat sarvagatah civah.]  To be truly united in
+knowledge, love, and service with all beings, and thus to
+realise one's self in the all-pervading God is the essence of
+goodness, and this is the keynote of the teachings of the
+Upanishads: _Life is immense!_  [Footnote: Prano virat.]
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS
+
+
+We have seen that it was the aspiration of ancient India to live
+and move and have its joy in Brahma, the all-conscious and
+all-pervading Spirit, by extending its field of consciousness over
+all the world.  But that, it may be urged, is an impossible task
+for man to achieve.  If this extension of consciousness be an
+outward process, then it is endless; it is like attempting to
+cross the ocean after ladling out its water.  By beginning to try
+to realise all, one has to end by realising nothing.
+
+But, in reality, it is not so absurd as it sounds.  Man has every
+day to solve this problem of enlarging his region and adjusting
+his burdens.  His burdens are many, too numerous for him to
+carry, but he knows that by adopting a system he can lighten the
+weight of his load.  Whenever they feel too complicated and
+unwieldy, he knows it is because he has not been able to hit upon
+the system which would have set everything in place and
+distributed the weight evenly.  This search for system is really
+a search for unity, for synthesis; it is our attempt to harmonise
+the heterogeneous complexity of outward materials by an inner
+adjustment.  In the search we gradually become aware that to find
+out the One is to possess the All; that there, indeed, is our
+last and highest privilege.  It is based on the law of that unity
+which is, if we only know it, our abiding strength.  Its living
+principle is the power that is in truth; the truth of that unity
+which comprehends multiplicity.  Facts are many, but the truth is
+one.  The animal intelligence knows facts, the human mind has
+power to apprehend truth.  The apple falls from the tree, the
+rain descends upon the earth--you can go on burdening your memory
+with such facts and never come to an end.  But once you get hold
+of the law of gravitation you can dispense with the necessity of
+collecting facts _ad infinitum_.  You have got at one truth
+which governs numberless facts.  This discovery of truth is pure
+joy to man--it is a liberation of his mind.  For, a mere fact is
+like a blind lane, it leads only to itself--it has no beyond.
+But a truth opens up a whole horizon, it leads us to the
+infinite.  That is the reason why, when a man like Darwin
+discovers some simple general truth about Biology, it does not
+stop there, but like a lamp shedding its light far beyond the
+object for which it was lighted, it illumines the whole region of
+human life and thought, transcending its original purpose.  Thus
+we find that truth, while investing all facts, is not a mere
+aggregate of facts--it surpasses them on all sides and points to
+the infinite reality.
+
+As in the region of knowledge so in that of consciousness, man
+must clearly realise some central truth which will give him an
+outlook over the widest possible field.  And that is the object
+which the Upanishad has in view when it says, _Know thine own
+Soul_.  Or, in other words, realise the one great principal of
+unity that there is in every man.
+
+All our egoistic impulses, our selfish desires, obscure our true
+vision of the soul.  For they only indicate our own narrow self.
+When we are conscious of our soul, we perceive the inner being
+that transcends our ego and has its deeper affinity with the All.
+
+Children, when they begin to learn each separate letter of the
+alphabet, find no pleasure in it, because they miss the real
+purpose of the lesson; in fact, while letters claim our attention
+only in themselves and as isolated things, they fatigue us.  They
+become a source of joy to us only when they combine into words
+and sentences and convey an idea.
+
+Likewise, our soul when detached and imprisoned within the narrow
+limits of a self loses its significance.  For its very essence is
+unity.  It can only find out its truth by unifying itself with
+others, and only then it has its joy.  Man was troubled and he
+lived in a state of fear so long as he had not discovered the
+uniformity of law in nature; till then the world was alien to
+him.  The law that he discovered is nothing but the perception of
+harmony that prevails between reason which is of the soul of man
+and the workings of the world.  This is the bond of union through
+which man is related to the world in which he lives, and he feels
+an exceeding joy when he finds this out, for then he realises
+himself in his surroundings.  To understand anything is to find
+in it something which is our own, and it is the discovery of
+ourselves outside us which makes us glad.  This relation of
+understanding is partial, but the relation of love is complete.
+In love the sense of difference is obliterated and the human soul
+fulfils its purpose in perfection, transcending the limits of
+itself and reaching across the threshold of the infinite.
+Therefore love is the highest bliss that man can attain to, for
+through it alone he truly knows that he is more than himself, and
+that he is at one with the All.
+
+This principal of unity which man has in his soul is ever active,
+establishing relations far and wide through literature, art, and
+science, society, statecraft, and religion.  Our great Revealers
+are they who make manifest the true meaning of the soul by giving
+up self for the love of mankind.  They face calumny and
+persecution, deprivation and death in their service of love.
+They live the life of the soul, not of the self, and thus they
+prove to us the ultimate truth of humanity.  We call them
+_Mahatmas,_ "the men of the great soul."
+
+It is said in one of the Upanishads: _It is not that thou lovest
+thy son because thou desirest him, but thou lovest thy son
+because thou desirest thine own soul._  [Footnote: Na va are
+putrasya kamaya putrah priyo bhavati, atmanastu kamaya putrah
+priyo bhavati.]  The meaning of this is, that whomsoever we love,
+in him we find our own soul in the highest sense.  The final
+truth of our existence lies in this.  _Paramatma_, the supreme
+soul, is in me, as well as in my son, and my joy in my son is the
+realisation of this truth.  It has become quite a commonplace
+fact, yet it is wonderful to think upon, that the joys and
+sorrows of our loved ones are joys and sorrows to us--nay they
+are more.  Why so?  Because in them we have grown larger, in
+them we have touched that great truth which comprehends the whole
+universe.
+
+It very often happens that our love for our children, our
+friends, or other loved ones, debars us from the further
+realisation of our soul.  It enlarges our scope of consciousness,
+no doubt, yet it sets a limit to its freest expansion.
+Nevertheless, it is the first step, and all the wonder lies in
+this first step itself.  It shows to us the true nature of our
+soul.  From it we know, for certain, that our highest joy is in
+the losing of our egoistic self and in the uniting with others.
+This love gives us a new power and insight and beauty of mind to
+the extent of the limits we set around it, but ceases to do so if
+those limits lose their elasticity, and militate against the
+spirit of love altogether; then our friendships become exclusive,
+our families selfish and inhospitable, our nations insular and
+aggressively inimical to other races.  It is like putting a
+burning light within a sealed enclosure, which shines brightly
+till the poisonous gases accumulate and smother the flame.
+Nevertheless it has proved its truth before it dies, and made
+known the joy of freedom from the grip of darkness, blind and
+empty and cold.
+
+According to the Upanishads, the key to cosmic consciousness, to
+God-consciousness, is in the consciousness of the soul.  To know
+our soul apart from the self is the first step towards the
+realisation of the supreme deliverance.  We must know with
+absolute certainty that essentially we are spirit.  This we can
+do by winning mastery over self, by rising above all pride and
+greed and fear, by knowing that worldly losses and physical death
+can take nothing away from the truth and the greatness of our
+soul.  The chick knows when it breaks through the self-centered
+isolation of its egg that the hard shell which covered it so long
+was not really a part of its life.  That shell is a dead thing,
+it has no growth, it affords no glimpse whatever of the vast
+beyond that lies outside it.  However pleasantly perfect and
+rounded it may be, it must be given a blow to, it must be burst
+through and thereby the freedom of light and air be won, and the
+complete purpose of bird life be achieved.  In Sanskrit, the bird
+has been called the twice-born.  So too the man who has gone
+through the ceremony of the discipline of self-restraint and high
+thinking for a period of at least twelve years; who has come out
+simple in wants, pure in heart, and ready to take up all the
+responsibilities of life in a disinterested largeness of spirit.
+He is considered to have had his rebirth from the blind
+envelopment of self to the freedom of soul life; to have come
+into living relation with his surroundings; to have become at one
+with the All.
+
+I have already warned my hearers, and must once more warn them
+against the idea that the teachers of India preached a
+renunciation of the world and of self which leads only to the
+blank emptiness of negation.  Their aim was the realisation of
+the soul, or, in other words, gaining the world in perfect truth.
+When Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
+the earth," he meant this.  He proclaimed the truth that when man
+gets rid of his pride of self then he comes into his true
+inheritance.  No more has he to fight his way into his position
+in the world; it is secure for him everywhere by the immortal
+right of his soul.  Pride of self interferes with the proper
+function of the soul which is to realise itself by perfecting its
+union with the world and the world's God.
+
+In his sermon to Sadhu Simha Buddha says, _It is true, Simha,
+that I denounce activities, but only the activities that lead to
+the evil in words, thoughts, or deeds.  It is true, Simha, that I
+preach extinction, but only the extinction of pride, lust, evil
+thought, and ignorance, not that of forgiveness, love, charity,
+and truth._
+
+The doctrine of deliverance that Buddha preached was the freedom
+from the thraldom of _Avidya_.  _Avidya_ is the ignorance that
+darkens our consciousness, and tends to limit it within the
+boundaries of our personal self.  It is this _Avidya_, this
+ignorance, this limiting of consciousness that creates the hard
+separateness of the ego, and thus becomes the source of all
+pride and greed and cruelty incidental to self-seeking.  When a
+man sleeps he is shut up within the narrow activities of his
+physical life.  He lives, but he knows not the varied relations
+of his life to his surroundings,--therefore he knows not
+himself.  So when a man lives the life of _Avidya_ he is
+confined within his self.  It is a spiritual sleep; his
+consciousness is not fully awake to the highest reality that
+surrounds him, therefore he knows not the reality of his own
+soul.  When he attains _Bodhi_, i.e. the awakenment from the
+sleep of self to the perfection of consciousness, he becomes
+Buddha.
+
+Once I met two ascetics of a certain religious sect in a village
+of Bengal.  "Can you tell me," I asked them, "wherein lies the
+special features of your religion?"  One of them hesitated for a
+moment and answered, "It is difficult to define that."  The other
+said, "No, it is quite simple.  We hold that we have first of all
+to know our own soul under the guidance of our spiritual teacher,
+and when we have done that we can find him, who is the Supreme
+Soul, within us."  "Why don't you preach your doctrine to all the
+people of the world?" I asked.  "Whoever feels thirsty will of
+himself come to the river," was his reply.  "But then, do you
+find it so?  Are they coming?"  The man gave a gentle smile, and
+with an assurance which had not the least tinge of impatience or
+anxiety, he said, "They must come, one and all."
+
+Yes, he is right, this simple ascetic of rural Bengal.  Man is
+indeed abroad to satisfy needs which are more to him than food
+and clothing.  He is out to find himself.  Man's history is the
+history of his journey to the unknown in quest of the realisation
+of his immortal self--his soul.  Through the rise and fall of
+empires; through the building up gigantic piles of wealth and the
+ruthless scattering of them upon the dust; through the creation
+of vast bodies of symbols that give shape to his dreams and
+aspirations, and the casting of them away like the playthings of
+an outworn infancy; through his forging of magic keys with which
+to unlock the mysteries of creation, and through his throwing
+away of this labour of ages to go back to his workshop and work
+up afresh some new form; yes, through it all man is marching from
+epoch to epoch towards the fullest realisation of his soul,--the
+soul which is greater than the things man accumulates, the deeds
+he accomplishes, the theories he builds; the soul whose onward
+course is never checked by death or dissolution.  Man's mistakes
+and failures have by no means been trifling or small, they have
+strewn his path with colossal ruins; his sufferings have been
+immense, like birth-pangs for a giant child; they are the prelude
+of a fulfilment whose scope is infinite.  Man has gone through
+and is still undergoing martyrdoms in various ways, and his
+institutions are the altars he has built whereto he brings his
+daily sacrifices, marvellous in kind and stupendous in quantity.
+All this would be absolutely unmeaning and unbearable if all
+along he did not feel that deepest joy of the soul within him,
+which tries its divine strength by suffering and proves its
+exhaustless riches by renunciation.  Yes, they are coming, the
+pilgrims, one and all--coming to their true inheritance of the
+world; they are ever broadening their consciousness, ever seeking
+a higher and higher unity, ever approaching nearer to the one
+central Truth which is all-comprehensive.
+
+Man's poverty is abysmal, his wants are endless till he becomes
+truly conscious of his soul.  Till then, the world to him is in a
+state of continual flux-- a phantasm that is and is not.  For a
+man who has realised his soul there is a determinate centre of
+the universe around which all else can find its proper place, and
+from thence only can he draw and enjoy the blessedness of a
+harmonious life.
+
+There was a time when the earth was only a nebulous mass whose
+particles were scattered far apart through the expanding force of
+heat; when she had not yet attained her definiteness of form and
+had neither beauty nor purpose, but only heat and motion.
+Gradually, when her vapours were condensed into a unified rounded
+whole through a force that strove to bring all straggling matters
+under the control of a centre, she occupied her proper place
+among the planets of the solar system, like an emerald pendant in
+a necklace of diamonds.  So with our soul.  When the heat and
+motion of blind impulses and passions distract it on all sides,
+we can neither give nor receive anything truly.  But when we find
+our centre in our soul by the power of self-restraint, by the
+force that harmonises all warring elements and unifies those that
+are apart, then all our isolated impressions reduce themselves to
+wisdom, and all our momentary impulses of heart find their
+completion in love; then all the petty details of our life reveal
+an infinite purpose, and all our thoughts and deeds unite
+themselves inseparably in an internal harmony.
+
+The Upanishads say with great emphasis, _Know thou the One, the
+Soul._  [Footnote: Tamevaikam janatha atmanam.]  _It is the bridge
+leading to the immortal being._  [Footnote: Amritasyaisha setuh.]
+
+This is the ultimate end of man, to find the _One_ which is in
+him; which is his truth, which is his soul; the key with which he
+opens the gate of the spiritual life, the heavenly kingdom.  His
+desires are many, and madly they run after the varied objects of
+the world, for therein they have their life and fulfilment.  But
+that which is _one_ in him is ever seeking for unity--unity in
+knowledge, unity in love, unity in purposes of will; its highest
+joy is when it reaches the infinite one within its eternal unity.
+Hence the saying of the Upanishad, _Only those of tranquil minds,
+and none else, can attain abiding joy, by realising within their
+souls the Being who manifests one essence in a multiplicity of
+forms._  [Footnote: Ekam rupam bahudha yah karoti * * tam
+atmastham ye anupacyanti dihrah, tesham sukham cacvatam
+netaresham.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: The above footnote contains the * mark in
+the original printed version.  This has been retained as is.]
+
+Through all the diversities of the world the one in us is
+threading its course towards the one in all; this is its nature
+and this is its joy.  But by that devious path it could never
+reach its goal if it had not a light of its own by which it could
+catch the sight of what it was seeking in a flash.  The vision of
+the Supreme One in our own soul is a direct and immediate
+intuition, not based on any ratiocination or demonstration at
+all.  Our eyes naturally see an object as a whole, not by
+breaking it up into parts, but by bringing all the parts together
+into a unity with ourselves.  So with the intuition of our
+Soul-consciousness, which naturally and totally realises its unity in
+the Supreme One.
+
+Says the Upanishad: _This deity who is manifesting himself in the
+activities of the universe always dwells in the heart of man as
+the supreme soul.  Those who realise him through the immediate
+perception of the heart attain immortality._  [Footnote: Esha
+devo vishvakarma mahatma sada jananam hridaye sannivishtah.
+Hrida manisha manasabhiklripto ya etad viduramritaste bhavanti.]
+
+He is _Vishvakarma_; that is, in a multiplicity of forms and
+forces lies his outward manifestation in nature; but his inner
+manifestation in our soul is that which exists in unity.  Our
+pursuit of truth in the domain of nature therefore is through
+analysis and the gradual methods of science, but our apprehension
+of truth in our soul is immediate and through direct intuition.
+We cannot attain the supreme soul by successive additions of
+knowledge acquired bit by bit even through all eternity, because
+he is one, he is not made up of parts; we can only know him as
+heart of our hearts and soul of our soul; we can only know him in
+the love and joy we feel when we give up our self and stand
+before him face to face.
+
+The deepest and the most earnest prayer that has ever risen from
+the human heart has been uttered in our ancient tongue: _O thou
+self-revealing one, reveal thyself in me._  [Footnote:
+Aviravirmayedhi.]  We are in misery because we are creatures of
+self--the self that is unyielding and narrow, that reflects no
+light, that is blind to the infinite.  Our self is loud with its
+own discordant clamour--it is not the tuned harp whose chords
+vibrate with the music of the eternal.  Sighs of discontent and
+weariness of failure, idle regrets for the past and anxieties for
+the future are troubling our shallow hearts because we have not
+found our souls, and the self-revealing spirit has not been
+manifest within us.  Hence our cry, _O thou awful one, save me
+with thy smile of grace ever and evermore._  [Footnote: Rudra
+yat te dakshinam mukham tena mam pahi nityam.]  It is a stifling
+shroud of death, this self-gratification, this insatiable greed,
+this pride of possession, this insolent alienation of heart.
+_Rudra, O thou awful one, rend this dark cover in twain and let
+the saving beam of thy smile of grace strike through this night
+of gloom and waken my soul._
+
+_From unreality lead me to the real, from darkness to the light,
+from death to immortality._  [Footnote: Asatoma sadgamaya,
+tamasoma jyotirgamaya, mrityorma mritangamaya.]  But how can one
+hope to have this prayer granted?  For infinite is the distance
+that lies between truth and untruth, between death and
+deathlessness.  Yet this measureless gulf is bridged in a moment
+when the self revealing one reveals himself in the soul.  There
+the miracle happens, for there is the meeting-ground of the
+finite and infinite.  _Father, completely sweep away all my
+sins!_  [Footnote: Vishvanideva savitar duratani parasuva.]  For
+in sin man takes part with the finite against the infinite that
+is in him.  It is the defeat of his soul by his self.  It is a
+perilously losing game, in which man stakes his all to gain a
+part.  Sin is the blurring of truth which clouds the purity of
+our consciousness.  In sin we lust after pleasures, not because
+they are truly desirable, but because the red light of our
+passions makes them appear desirable; we long for things not
+because they are great in themselves, but because our greed
+exaggerates them and makes them appear great.  These
+exaggerations, these falsifications of the perspective of things,
+break the harmony of our life at every step; we lose the true
+standard of values and are distracted by the false claims of the
+varied interests of life contending with one another.  It is this
+failure to bring all the elements of his nature under the unity
+and control of the Supreme One that makes man feel the pang of
+his separation from God and gives rise to the earnest prayer,
+_O God, O Father, completely sweep away all our sins._
+[Footnote: Vishvani deva savitar duritani parasuva.]  _Give
+unto us that which is good_ [Footnote: Yad bhadram tanna
+asuva.], the good which is the daily bread of our souls.  In our
+pleasures we are confined to ourselves, in the good we are freed
+and we belong to all.  As the child in its mother's womb gets its
+sustenance through the union of its life with the larger life of
+its mother, so our soul is nourished only through the good which
+is the recognition of its inner kinship, the channel of its
+communication with the infinite by which it is surrounded and
+fed.  Hence it is said, "Blessed are they which do hunger and
+thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."  For
+righteousness is the divine food of the soul; nothing but this
+can fill him, can make him live the life of the infinite, can
+help him in his growth towards the eternal.  _We bow to thee
+from whom come the enjoyments of our life._  [Footnote: Namah
+sambhavaya.]  _We bow also to thee from whom comes the good of
+our soul._  [Footnote: Namah cankarayacha.]  _We bow to thee
+who art good, the highest good [Footnote: Namah civayacha,
+civataraya cha.], in whom we are united with everything, that is,
+in peace and harmony, in goodness and love.
+
+Man's cry is to reach his fullest expression.  It is this desire
+for self-expression that leads him to seek wealth and power.  But
+he has to discover that accumulation is not realisation.  It is
+the inner light that reveals him, not outer things.  When this
+light is lighted, then in a moment he knows that Man's highest
+revelation is God's own revelation in him.  And his cry is for
+this--the manifestation of his soul, which is the manifestation
+of God in his soul.  Man becomes perfect man, he attains his
+fullest expression, when his soul realises itself in the Infinite
+being who is _Avih_ whose very essence is expression.
+
+The real misery of man is in the fact that he has not fully come
+out, that he is self-obscured, lost in the midst of his own
+desires.  He cannot feel himself beyond his personal
+surroundings, his greater self is blotted out, his truth is
+unrealised.  The prayer that rises up from his whole being is
+therefore, _Thou, who art the spirit of manifestation, manifest
+thyself in me._  [Footnote: Aviravirmayedhi.]  This longing for
+the perfect expression of his self is more deeply inherent in
+man than his hunger and thirst for bodily sustenance, his lust
+for wealth and distinction.  This prayer is not merely one born
+individually of him; it is in depth of all things, it is the
+ceaseless urging in him of the _Avih_, of the spirit of eternal
+manifestation.  The revealment of the infinite in the finite,
+which is the motive of all creation, is not seen in its
+perfection in the starry heavens, in the beauty of flowers.  It
+is in the soul of man.  For there will seeks its manifestation in
+will, and freedom turns to win its final prize in the freedom of
+surrender.
+
+Therefore, it is the self of man which the great King of the
+universe has not shadowed with his throne--he has left it free.
+In his physical and mental organism, where man is related with
+nature, he has to acknowledge the rule of his King, but in his
+self he is free to disown him.  There our God must win his
+entrance.  There he comes as a guest, not as a king, and
+therefore he has to wait till he is invited.  It is the man's
+self from which God has withdrawn his commands, for there he
+comes to court our love.  His armed force, the laws of nature,
+stand outside its gate, and only beauty, the messenger of his
+love, finds admission within its precincts.
+
+It is only in this region of will that anarchy is permitted; only
+in man's self that the discord of untruth and unrighteousness
+hold its reign; and things can come to such a pass that we may
+cry out in our anguish, "Such utter lawlessness could never
+prevail if there were a God!"  Indeed, God has stood aside from
+our self, where his watchful patience knows no bounds, and where
+he never forces open the doors if shut against him.  For this
+self of ours has to attain its ultimate meaning, which is the
+soul, not through the compulsion of God's power but through love,
+and thus become united with God in freedom.
+
+He whose spirit has been made one with God stands before man as
+the supreme flower of humanity.  There man finds in truth what he
+is; for there the _Avih_ is revealed to him in the soul of man as
+the most perfect revelation for him of God; for there we see the
+union of the supreme will with our will, our love with the love
+everlasting.
+
+Therefore, in our country he who truly loves God receives such
+homage from men as would be considered almost sacrilegious in the
+west.  We see in him God's wish fulfilled, the most difficult of
+all obstacles to his revealment removed, and God's own perfect
+joy fully blossoming in humanity.  Through him we find the whole
+world of man overspread with a divine homeliness.  His life,
+burning with God's love, makes all our earthly love resplendent.
+All the intimate associations of our life, all its experience of
+pleasure and pain, group themselves around this display of the
+divine love, and from the drama that we witness in him.  The
+touch of an infinite mystery passes over the trivial and the
+familiar, making it break out into ineffable music.  The trees
+and the stars and the blue hills appear to us as symbols aching
+with a meaning which can never be uttered in words.  We seem to
+watch the Master in the very act of creation of a new world when
+a man's soul draws her heavy curtain of self aside, when her veil
+is lifted and she is face to face with her eternal lover.
+
+But what is this state?  It is like a morning of spring, varied
+in its life and beauty, yet one and entire.  When a man's life
+rescued from distractions finds its unity in the soul, then the
+consciousness of the infinite becomes at once direct and natural
+to it as the light is to the flame.  All the conflicts and
+contradictions of life are reconciled; knowledge, love and action
+harmonized; pleasure and pain become one in beauty, enjoyment and
+renunciation equal in goodness; the breach between the finite and
+the infinite fills with love and overflows; every moment carries
+its message of the eternal; the formless appears to us in the
+form of the flower, of the fruit; the boundless takes us up in
+his arms as a father and walks by our side as a friend.  It is
+only the soul, the One in man which by its very nature can
+overcome all limits, and finds its affinity with the Supreme One.
+While yet we have not attained the internal harmony, and the
+wholeness of our being, our life remains a life of habits.  The
+world still appears to us as a machine, to be mastered where it
+is useful, to be guarded against where it is dangerous, and never
+to be known in its full fellowship with us, alike in its physical
+nature and in its spiritual life and beauty.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
+
+
+The question why there is evil in existence is the same as why
+there is imperfection, or, in other words, why there is creation
+at all.  We must take it for granted that it could not be
+otherwise; that creation must be imperfect, must be gradual, and
+that it is futile to ask the question, Why we are?
+
+But this is the real question we ought to ask: Is this
+imperfection the final truth, is evil absolute and ultimate?  The
+river has its boundaries, its banks, but is a river all banks? or
+are the banks the final facts about the river?  Do not these
+obstructions themselves give its water an onward motion?  The
+towing rope binds a boat, but is the bondage its meaning?  Does
+it not at the same time draw the boat forward?
+
+The current of the world has its boundaries, otherwise it could
+have no existence, but its purpose is not shown in the boundaries
+which restrain it, but in its movement, which is towards
+perfection.  The wonder is not that there should be obstacles and
+sufferings in this world, but that there should be law and order,
+beauty and joy, goodness and love.  The idea of God that man has
+in his being is the wonder of all wonders.  He has felt in the
+depths of his life that what appears as imperfect is the
+manifestation of the perfect; just as a man who has an ear for
+music realises the perfection of a song, while in fact he is only
+listening to a succession of notes.  Man has found out the great
+paradox that what is limited is not imprisoned within its limits;
+it is ever moving, and therewith shedding its finitude every
+moment.  In fact, imperfection is not a negation of perfectness;
+finitude is not contradictory to infinity: they are but
+completeness manifested in parts, infinity revealed within
+bounds.
+
+Pain, which is the feeling of our finiteness, is not a fixture in
+our life.  It is not an end in itself, as joy is.  To meet with
+it is to know that it has no part in the true permanence of
+creation.  It is what error is in our intellectual life.  To go
+through the history of the development of science is to go
+through the maze of mistakes it made current at different times.
+Yet no one really believes that science is the one perfect mode
+of disseminating mistakes.  The progressive ascertainment of
+truth is the important thing to remember in the history of
+science, not its innumerable mistakes.  Error, by its nature,
+cannot be stationary; it cannot remain with truth; like a tramp,
+it must quit its lodging as soon as it fails to pay its score to
+the full.
+
+As in intellectual error, so in evil of any other form, its
+essence is impermanence, for it cannot accord with the whole.
+Every moment it is being corrected by the totality of things and
+keeps changing its aspect.  We exaggerate its importance by
+imagining it as a standstill.  Could we collect the statistics of
+the immense amount of death and putrefaction happening every
+moment in this earth, they would appal us.  But evil is ever
+moving; with all its incalculable immensity it does not
+effectually clog the current of our life; and we find that the
+earth, water, and air remain sweet and pure for living beings.
+All statistics consist of our attempts to represent statistically
+what is in motion; and in the process things assume a weight in
+our mind which they have not in reality.  For this reason a man,
+who by his profession is concerned with any particular aspect of
+life, is apt to magnify its proportions; in laying undue stress
+upon facts he loses his hold upon truth.  A detective may have
+the opportunity of studying crimes in detail, but he loses his
+sense of their relative places in the whole social economy.  When
+science collects facts to illustrate the struggle for existence
+that is going on in the kingdom of life, it raises a picture in
+our minds of "nature red in tooth and claw."  But in these mental
+pictures we give a fixity to colours and forms which are really
+evanescent.  It is like calculating the weight of the air on each
+square inch of our body to prove that it must be crushingly heavy
+for us.  With every weight, however, there is an adjustment, and
+we lightly bear our burden.  With the struggle for existence in
+nature there is reciprocity.  There is the love for children and
+for comrades; there is the sacrifice of self, which springs from
+love; and this love is the positive element in life.
+
+If we kept the search-light of our observation turned upon the
+fact of death, the world would appear to us like a huge charnel-house;
+but in the world of life the thought of death has, we
+find, the least possible hold upon our minds.  Not because it is
+the least apparent, but because it is the negative aspect of
+life; just as, in spite of the fact that we shut our eyelids
+every second, it is the openings of the eye that count.  Life as
+a whole never takes death seriously.  It laughs, dances and
+plays, it builds, hoards and loves in death's face.  Only when we
+detach one individual fact of death do we see its blankness and
+become dismayed.  We lose sight of the wholeness of a life of
+which death is part.  It is like looking at a piece of cloth
+through a microscope.  It appears like a net; we gaze at the big
+holes and shiver in imagination.  But the truth is, death is not
+the ultimate reality.  It looks black, as the sky looks blue; but
+it does not blacken existence, just as the sky does not leave its
+stain upon the wings of the bird.
+
+When we watch a child trying to walk, we see its countless
+failures; its successes are but few.  If we had to limit our
+observation within a narrow space of time, the sight would be
+cruel.  But we find that in spite of its repeated failures there
+is an impetus of joy in the child which sustains it in its
+seemingly impossible task.  We see it does not think of its falls
+so much as of its power to keep its balance though for only a
+moment.
+
+Like these accidents in a child's attempts to walk, we meet with
+sufferings in various forms in our life every day, showing the
+imperfections in our knowledge and our available power, and in
+the application of our will.  But if these revealed our weakness
+to us only, we should die of utter depression.  When we select
+for observation a limited area of our activities, our individual
+failures and miseries loom large in our minds; but our life leads
+us instinctively to take a wider view.  It gives us an ideal of
+perfection which ever carries us beyond our present limitations.
+Within us we have a hope which always walks in front of our
+present narrow experience; it is the undying faith in the
+infinite in us; it will never accept any of our disabilities as a
+permanent fact; it sets no limit to its own scope; it dares to
+assert that man has oneness with God; and its wild dreams become
+true every day.
+
+We see the truth when we set our mind towards the infinite.  The
+ideal of truth is not in the narrow present, not in our immediate
+sensations, but in the consciousness of the whole which give us a
+taste of what we _should_ have in what we _do_ have.  Consciously
+or unconsciously we have in our life this feeling of Truth which
+is ever larger than its appearance; for our life is facing the
+infinite, and it is in movement.  Its aspiration is therefore
+infinitely more than its achievement, and as it goes on it finds
+that no realisation of truth ever leaves it stranded on the
+desert of finality, but carries it to a region beyond.  Evil
+cannot altogether arrest the course of life on the highway and
+rob it of its possessions.  For the evil has to pass on, it has
+to grow into good; it cannot stand and give battle to the All.
+If the least evil could stop anywhere indefinitely, it would sink
+deep and cut into the very roots of existence.  As it is, man
+does not really believe in evil, just as he cannot believe that
+violin strings have been purposely made to create the exquisite
+torture of discordant notes, though by the aid of statistics it
+can be mathematically proved that the probability of discord is
+far greater than that of harmony, and for one who can play the
+violin there are thousands who cannot.  The potentiality of
+perfection outweighs actual contradictions.  No doubt there have
+been people who asserted existence to be an absolute evil, but
+man can never take them seriously.  Their pessimism is a mere
+pose, either intellectual or sentimental; but life itself is
+optimistic: it wants to go on.  Pessimism is a form of mental
+dipsomania, it disdains healthy nourishment, indulges in the
+strong drink of denunciation, and creates an artificial dejection
+which thirsts for a stronger draught.  If existence were an evil,
+it would wait for no philosopher to prove it.  It is like
+convicting a man of suicide, while all the time he stands before
+you in the flesh.  Existence itself is here to prove that it
+cannot be an evil.
+
+An imperfection which is not all imperfection, but which has
+perfection for its ideal, must go through a perpetual
+realisation.  Thus, it is the function of our intellect to
+realise the truth through untruths, and knowledge is nothing but
+the continually burning up of error to set free the light of
+truth.  Our will, our character, has to attain perfection by
+continually overcoming evils, either inside or outside us, or
+both; our physical life is consuming bodily materials every
+moment to maintain the life fire; and our moral life too has its
+fuel to burn.  This life process is going on--we know it, we have
+felt it; and we have a faith which no individual instances to the
+contrary can shake, that the direction of humanity is from evil
+to good.  For we feel that good is the positive element in man's
+nature, and in every age and every clime what man values most is
+his ideals of goodness.  We have known the good, we have loved
+it, and we have paid our highest reverence to men who have shown
+in their lives what goodness is.
+
+The question will be asked, What is goodness; what does our moral
+nature mean?  My answer is, that when a man begins to have an
+extended vision of his self, when he realises that he is much
+more than at present he seems to be, he begins to get conscious
+of his moral nature.  Then he grows aware of that which he is yet
+to be, and the state not yet experienced by him becomes more real
+than that under his direct experience.  Necessarily, his
+perspective of life changes, and his will takes the place of his
+wishes.  For will is the supreme wish of the larger life, the
+life whose greater portion is out of our present reach, most of
+whose objects are not before our sight.  Then comes the conflict
+of our lesser man with our greater man, of our wishes with our
+will, of the desire for things affecting our senses with the
+purpose that is within our heart.  Then we begin to distinguish
+between what we immediately desire and what is good.  For good is
+that which is desirable for our greater self.  Thus the sense of
+goodness comes out of a truer view of our life, which is the
+connected view of the wholeness of the field of life, and which
+takes into account not only what is present before us but what is
+not, and perhaps never humanly can be.  Man, who is provident,
+feels for that life of his which is not yet existent, feels much
+more that than for the life that is with him; therefore he is
+ready to sacrifice his present inclination for the unrealised
+future.  In this he becomes great, for he realises truth.  Even
+to be efficiently selfish one has to recognise this truth, and
+has to curb his immediate impulses--in other words, has to be
+moral.  For our moral faculty is the faculty by which we know
+that life is not made up of fragments, purposeless and
+discontinuous.  This moral sense of man not only gives him the
+power to see that the self has a continuity in time, but it also
+enables him to see that he is not true when he is only restricted
+to his own self.  He is more in truth than he is in fact.  He
+truly belongs to individuals who are not included in his own
+individuality, and whom he is never even likely to know.  As he
+has a feeling for his future self which is outside his present
+consciousness, so he has a feeling for his greater self which is
+outside the limits of his personality.  There is no man who has
+not this feeling to some extent, who has never sacrificed his
+selfish desire for the sake of some other person, who has never
+felt a pleasure in undergoing some loss or trouble because it
+pleased somebody else.  It is a truth that man is not a detached
+being, that he has a universal aspect; and when he recognises
+this he becomes great.  Even the most evilly-disposed selfishness
+has to recognise this when it seeks the power to do evil; for it
+cannot ignore truth and yet be strong.  So in order to claim the
+aid of truth, selfishness has to be unselfish to some extent.  A
+band of robbers must be moral in order to hold together as a
+band; they may rob the whole world but not each other.  To make
+an immoral intention successful, some of its weapons must be
+moral.  In fact, very often it is our very moral strength which
+gives us most effectively the power to do evil, to exploit other
+individuals for our own benefit, to rob other people of their
+rights.  The life of an animal is unmoral, for it is aware only
+of an immediate present; the life of a man can be immoral, but
+that only means that it must have a moral basis.  What is immoral
+is imperfectly moral, just as what is false is true to a small
+extent, or it cannot even be false.  Not to see is to be blind,
+but to see wrongly is to see only in an imperfect manner.  Man's
+selfishness is a beginning to see some connection, some purpose
+in life; and to act in accordance with its dictates requires
+self-restraint and regulation of conduct.  A selfish man
+willingly undergoes troubles for the sake of the self, he suffers
+hardship and privation without a murmur, simply because he knows
+that what is pain and trouble, looked at from the point of view
+of a short space of time, are just the opposite when seen in a
+larger perspective.  Thus what is a loss to the smaller man is a
+gain to the greater, and _vice versa_.
+
+To the man who lives for an idea, for his country, for the good
+of humanity, life has an extensive meaning, and to that extent
+pain becomes less important to him.  To live the life of goodness
+is to live the life of all.  Pleasure is for one's own self, but
+goodness is concerned with the happiness of all humanity and for
+all time.  From the point of view of the good, pleasure and pain
+appear in a different meaning; so much so, that pleasure may be
+shunned, and pain be courted in its place, and death itself be
+made welcome as giving a higher value to life.  From these higher
+standpoints of a man's life, the standpoints of the good,
+pleasure and pain lose their absolute value.  Martyrs prove it in
+history, and we prove it every day in our life in our little
+martyrdoms.  When we take a pitcherful of water from the sea it
+has its weight, but when we take a dip into the sea itself a
+thousand pitchersful of water flow above our head, and we do not
+feel their weight.  We have to carry the pitcher of self with our
+strength; and so, while on the plane of selfishness pleasure and
+pain have their full weight, on the moral plane they are so much
+lightened that the man who has reached it appears to us almost
+superhuman in his patience under crushing trails, and his
+forbearance in the face of malignant persecution.
+
+To live in perfect goodness is to realise one's life in the
+infinitive.  This is the most comprehensive view of life which we
+can have by our inherent power of the moral vision of the
+wholeness of life.  And the teaching of Buddha is to cultivate
+this moral power to the highest extent, to know that our field of
+activities is not bound to the plane of our narrow self.  This is
+the vision of the heavenly kingdom of Christ.  When we attain to
+that universal life, which is the moral life, we become freed
+from the bonds of pleasure and pain, and the place vacated by our
+self becomes filled with an unspeakable joy which springs from
+measureless love.  In this state the soul's activity is all the
+more heightened, only its motive power is not from desires, but
+in its own joy.  This is the _Karma-yoga_ of the _Gita_, the way
+to become one with the infinite activity by the exercise of the
+activity of disinterested goodness.
+
+When Buddha mentioned upon the way of realising mankind from the
+grip of misery he came to this truth: that when man attains his
+highest end by merging the individual in the universal, he
+becomes free from the thraldom of pain.  Let us consider this
+point more fully.
+
+A student of mine once related to me his adventure in a storm,
+and complained that all the time he was troubled with the feeling
+that this great commotion in nature behaved to him as if he were
+no more than a mere handful of dust.  That he was a distinct
+personality with a will of his own had not the least influence
+upon what was happening.
+
+I said, "If consideration for our individuality could sway nature
+from her path, then it would be the individuals who would suffer
+most."
+
+But he persisted in his doubt, saying that there was this fact
+which could not be ignored--the feeling that I am.  The "I" in us
+seeks for a relation which is individual to it.
+
+I replied that the relation of the "I" is with something which is
+"not-I."  So we must have a medium which is common to both, and
+we must be absolutely certain that it is the same to the "I" as
+it is to the "not-I."
+
+This is what needs repeating here.  We have to keep in mind that
+our individuality by its nature is impelled to seek for the
+universal.  Our body can only die if it tries to eat its own
+substance, and our eye loses the meaning of its function if it
+can only see itself.
+
+Just as we find that the stronger the imagination the less is it
+merely imaginary and the more is it in harmony with truth, so we
+see the more vigorous our individuality the more does it widen
+towards the universal.  For the greatness of a personality is not
+in itself but in its content, which is universal, just as the
+depth of a lake is judged not by the size of its cavity but by
+the depth of its water.
+
+So, if it is a truth that the yearning of our nature is for
+reality, and that our personality cannot be happy with a
+fantastic universe of its own creation, then it is clearly best
+for it that our will can only deal with things by following their
+law, and cannot do with them just as it pleases.  This unyielding
+sureness of reality sometimes crosses our will, and very often
+leads us to disaster, just as the firmness of the earth
+invariably hurts the falling child who is learning to walk.
+Nevertheless it is the same firmness that hurts him which makes
+his walking possible.  Once, while passing under a bridge, the
+mast of my boat got stuck in one of its girders.  If only for a
+moment the mast would have bent an inch or two, or the bridge
+raised its back like a yawning cat, or the river given in, it
+would have been all right with me.  But they took no notice of my
+helplessness.  That is the very reason why I could make use of
+the river, and sail upon it with the help of the mast, and that
+is why, when its current was inconvenient, I could rely upon the
+bridge.  Things are what they are, and we have to know them if we
+would deal with them, and knowledge of them is possible because
+our wish is not their law.  This knowledge is a joy to us, for
+the knowledge is one of the channels of our relation with the
+things outside us; it is making them our own, and thus widening
+the limit of our self.
+
+At every step we have to take into account others than ourselves.
+For only in death are we alone.  A poet is a true poet when he
+can make his personal idea joyful to all men, which he could not
+do if he had not a medium common to all his audience.  This
+common language has its own law which the poet must discover and
+follow, by doing which he becomes true and attains poetical
+immortality.
+
+We see then that man's individuality is not his highest truth;
+there is that in him which is universal.  If he were made to live
+in a world where his own self was the only factor to consider,
+then that would be the worst prison imaginable to him, for man's
+deepest joy is in growing greater and greater by more and more
+union with the all.  This, as we have seen, would be an
+impossibility if there were no law common to all.  Only by
+discovering the law and following it, do we become great, do we
+realise the universal; while, so long as our individual desires
+are at conflict with the universal law, we suffer pain and are
+futile.
+
+There was a time when we prayed for special concessions, we
+expected that the laws of nature should be held in abeyance for
+our own convenience.  But now we know better.  We know that law
+cannot be set aside, and in this knowledge we have become strong.
+For this law is not something apart from us; it is our own.  The
+universal power which is manifested in the universal law is one
+with our own power.  It will thwart us where we are small, where
+we are against the current of things; but it will help us where
+we are great, where we are in unison with the all.  Thus, through
+the help of science, as we come to know more of the laws of
+nature, we gain in power; we tend to attain a universal body.
+Our organ of sight, our organ of locomotion, our physical
+strength becomes world-wide; steam and electricity become our
+nerve and muscle.  Thus we find that, just as throughout our
+bodily organisation there is a principle of relation by virtue of
+which we can call the entire body our own, and can use it as
+such, so all through the universe there is that principle of
+uninterrupted relation by virtue of which we can call the whole
+world our extended body and use it accordingly.  And in this age
+of science it is our endeavour fully to establish our claim to
+our world-self.  We know all our poverty and sufferings are owing
+to our inability to realise this legitimate claim of ours.
+Really, there is no limit to our powers, for we are not outside
+the universal power which is the expression of universal law.  We
+are on our way to overcome disease and death, to conquer pain and
+poverty; for through scientific knowledge we are ever on our way
+to realise the universal in its physical aspect.  And as we make
+progress we find that pain, disease, and poverty of power are not
+absolute, but that is only the want of adjustment of our
+individual self to our universal self which gives rise to them.
+
+It is the same with our spiritual life.  When the individual man
+in us chafes against the lawful rule of the universal man we
+become morally small, and we must suffer.  In such a condition
+our successes are our greatest failures, and the very fulfilment
+of our desires leaves us poorer.  We hanker after special gains
+for ourselves, we want to enjoy privileges which none else can
+share with us.  But everything that is absolutely special must
+keep up a perpetual warfare with what is general.  In such a
+state of civil war man always lives behind barricades, and in any
+civilisation which is selfish our homes are not real homes, but
+artificial barriers around us.  Yet we complain that we are not
+happy, as if there were something inherent in the nature of
+things to make us miserable.  The universal spirit is waiting to
+crown us with happiness, but our individual spirit would not
+accept it.  It is our life of the self that causes conflicts and
+complications everywhere, upsets the normal balance of society
+and gives rise to miseries of all kinds.  It brings things to
+such a pass that to maintain order we have to create artificial
+coercions and organised forms of tyranny, and tolerate infernal
+institutions in our midst, whereby at every moment humanity is
+humiliated.
+
+We have seen that in order to be powerful we have to submit to
+the laws of the universal forces, and to realise in practice that
+they are our own.  So, in order to be happy, we have to submit
+our individual will to the sovereignty of the universal will, and
+to feel in truth that it is our own will.  When we reach that
+state wherein the adjustment of the finite in us to the infinite
+is made perfect, then pain itself becomes a valuable asset.  It
+becomes a measuring rod with which to gauge the true value of our
+joy.
+
+The most important lesson that man can learn from his life is not
+that there _is_ pain in this world, but that it depends upon him
+to turn it into good account, that it is possible for him to
+transmute it into joy.  The lesson has not been lost altogether
+to us, and there is no man living who would willingly be deprived
+of his right to suffer pain, for that is his right to be a man.
+One day the wife of a poor labourer complained bitterly to me
+that her eldest boy was going to be sent away to a rich relative's
+house for part of the year.  It was the implied kind intention of
+trying to relieve her of her trouble that gave her the shock, for
+a mother's trouble is a mother's own by her inalienable right of
+love, and she was not going to surrender it to any dictates of
+expediency.  Man's freedom is never in being saved troubles, but
+it is the freedom to take trouble for his own good, to make the
+trouble an element in his joy.  It can be made so only when we
+realise that our individual self is not the highest meaning of our
+being, that in us we have the world-man who is immortal, who is
+not afraid of death or sufferings, and who looks upon pain as only
+the other side of joy.  He who has realised this knows that it is
+pain which is our true wealth as imperfect beings, and has made us
+great and worthy to take our seat with the perfect.  He knows that
+we are not beggars; that it is the hard coin which must be paid
+for everything valuable in this life, for our power, our wisdom,
+our love; that in pain is symbolised the infinite possibility of
+perfection, the eternal unfolding of joy; and the man who loses all
+pleasure in accepting pain sinks down and down to the lowest depth
+of penury and degradation.  It is only when we invoke the aid of
+pain for our self-gratification that she becomes evil and takes her
+vengeance for the insult done to her by hurling us into misery.
+For she is the vestal virgin consecrated to the service of the
+immortal perfection, and when she takes her true place before the
+altar of the infinite she casts off her dark veil and bares her
+face to the beholder as a revelation of supreme joy.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+THE PROBLEM OF SELF
+
+
+At one pole of my being I am one with stocks and stones.  There I
+have to acknowledge the rule of universal law.  That is where the
+foundation of my existence lies, deep down below.  Its strength
+lies in its being held firm in the clasp of comprehensive world,
+and in the fullness of its community with all things.
+
+But at the other pole of my being I am separate from all.  There
+I have broken through the cordon of equality and stand alone as
+an individual.  I am absolutely unique, I am I, I am
+incomparable.  The whole weight of the universe cannot crush out
+this individuality of mine.  I maintain it in spite of the
+tremendous gravitation of all things.  It is small in appearance
+but great in reality.  For it holds its own against the forces
+that would rob it of its distinction and make it one with the
+dust.
+
+This is the superstructure of the self which rises from the
+indeterminate depth and darkness of its foundation into the open,
+proud of its isolation, proud of having given shape to a single
+individual idea of the architect's which has no duplicate in the
+whole universe.  If this individuality be demolished, then though
+no material be lost, not an atom destroyed, the creative joy
+which was crystallised therein is gone.  We are absolutely
+bankrupt if we are deprived of this specialty, this
+individuality, which is the only thing we can call our own; and
+which, if lost, is also a loss to the whole world.  It is most
+valuable because it is not universal.  And therefore only through
+it can we gain the universe more truly than if we were lying
+within its breast unconscious of our distinctiveness.  The
+universal is ever seeking its consummation in the unique.  And
+the desire we have to keep our uniqueness intact is really the
+desire of the universe acting in us.  It is our joy of the
+infinite in us that gives us our joy in ourselves.
+
+That this separateness of self is considered by man as his most
+precious possession is proved by the sufferings he undergoes and
+the sins he commits for its sake.  But the consciousness of
+separation has come from the eating of the fruit of knowledge.
+It has led man to shame and crime and death; yet it is dearer to
+him than any paradise where the self lies, securely slumbering in
+perfect innocence in the womb of mother nature.
+
+It is a constant striving and suffering for us to maintain the
+separateness of this self of ours.  And in fact it is this
+suffering which measures its value.  One side of the value is
+sacrifice, which represents how much the cost has been.  The
+other side of it is the attainment, which represents how much has
+been gained.  If the self meant nothing to us but pain and
+sacrifice, it could have no value for us, and on no account would
+we willingly undergo such sacrifice.  In such case there could be
+no doubt at all that the highest object of humanity would be the
+annihilation of self.
+
+But if there is a corresponding gain, if it does not end in a
+void but in a fullness, then it is clear that its negative
+qualities, its very sufferings and sacrifices, make it all the
+more precious.  That it is so has been proved by those who have
+realised the positive significance of self, and have accepted its
+responsibilities with eagerness and undergone sacrifices without
+flinching.
+
+With the foregoing introduction it will be easy for me to answer
+the question once asked by one of my audience as to whether the
+annihilation of self has not been held by India as the supreme
+goal of humanity?
+
+In the first place we must keep in mind the fact that man is
+never literal in the expression of his ideas, except in matters
+most trivial.  Very often man's words are not a language at all,
+but merely a vocal gesture of the dumb.  They may indicate, but
+do not express his thoughts.  The more vital his thoughts the
+more have his words to be explained by the context of his life.
+Those who seek to know his meaning by the aid of the dictionary
+only technically reach the house, for they are stopped by the
+outside wall and find no entrance to the hall.  This is the
+reason why the teachings of our greatest prophets give rise to
+endless disputations when we try to understand them by following
+their words and not be realising them in our own lives.  The men
+who are cursed with the gift of the literal mind are the
+unfortunate ones who are always busy with their nets and neglect
+the fishing.
+
+It is not only in Buddhism and the Indian religions, but in
+Christianity too, that the ideal of selflessness is preached with
+all fervour.  In the last the symbol of death has been used for
+expressing the idea of man's deliverance from the life which is
+not true.  This is the same as Nirvnana, the symbol of the
+extinction of the lamp.
+
+In the typical thought of India it is held that the true
+deliverance of man is the deliverance from _avidya_, from
+ignorance.  It is not in destroying anything that is positive and
+real, for that cannot be possible, but that which is negative,
+which obstructs our vision of truth.  When this obstruction,
+which is ignorance, is removed, then only is the eyelid drawn up
+which is no loss to the eye.
+
+It is our ignorance which makes us think that our self, as self,
+is real, that it has its complete meaning in itself.  When we
+take that wrong view of self then we try to live in such a manner
+as to make self the ultimate object of our life.  Then we are
+doomed to disappointment like the man who tries to reach his
+destination by firmly clutching the dust of the road.  Our self
+has no means of holding us, for its own nature is to pass on; and
+by clinging to this thread of self which is passing through the
+loom of life we cannot make it serve the purpose of the cloth
+into which it is being woven.  When a man, with elaborate care,
+arranges for an enjoyment of the self, he lights a fire but has
+no dough to make his bread with; the fire flares up and consumes
+itself to extinction, like an unnatural beast that eats its own
+progeny and dies.
+
+In an unknown language the words are tyrannically prominent.
+They stop us but say nothing.  To be rescued from this fetter of
+words we must rid ourselves of the _avidya_, our ignorance, and
+then our mind will find its freedom in the inner idea.  But it
+would be foolish to say that our ignorance of the language can
+be dispelled only by the destruction of the words.  No, when the
+perfect knowledge comes, every word remains in its place, only
+they do not bind us to themselves, but let us pass through them
+and lead us to the idea which is emancipation.
+
+Thus it is only _avidya_ which makes the self our fetter by
+making us think that it is an end in itself, and by preventing
+our seeing that it contains the idea that transcends its limits.
+That is why the wise man comes and says, "Set yourselves free
+from the _avidya_; know your true soul and be saved from the
+grasp of the self which imprisons you."
+
+We gain our freedom when we attain our truest nature.  The man
+who is an artist finds his artistic freedom when he finds his
+ideal of art.  Then is he freed from laborious attempts at
+imitation, from the goadings of popular approbation.  It is the
+function of religion not to destroy our nature but to fulfil it.
+
+The Sanskrit word _dharma_ which is usually translated into
+English as religion has a deeper meaning in our language.
+_Dharma_ is the innermost nature, the essence, the implicit
+truth, of all things.  _Dharma_ is the ultimate purpose that
+is working in our self.  When any wrong is done we say that
+_dharma_ is violated, meaning that the lie has been given to
+our true nature.
+
+But this _dharma_, which is the truth in us, is not apparent,
+because it is inherent.  So much so, that it has been held that
+sinfulness is the nature of man, and only by the special grace
+of God can a particular person be saved.  This is like saying
+that the nature of the seed is to remain enfolded within its
+shell, and it is only by some special miracle that it can be
+grown into a tree.  But do we not know that the _appearance_ of
+the seed contradicts its true nature?  When you submit it to
+chemical analysis you may find in it carbon and proteid and a
+good many other things, but not the idea of a branching tree.
+Only when the tree begins to take shape do you come to see its
+_dharma_, and then you can affirm without doubt that the seed
+which has been wasted and allowed to rot in the ground has been
+thwarted in its _dharma_, in the fulfilment of its true nature.
+In the history of humanity we have known the living seed in us
+to sprout.  We have seen the great purpose in us taking shape
+in the lives of our greatest men, and have felt certain that
+though there are numerous individual lives that seem ineffectual,
+still it is not their _dharma_ to remain barren; but it is for
+them to burst their cover and transform themselves into a
+vigorous spiritual shoot, growing up into the air and light, and
+branching out in all directions.
+
+The freedom of the seed is in the attainment of its
+_dharma_, its nature and destiny of becoming a tree; it is the
+non-accomplishment which is its prison.  The sacrifice by which
+a thing attains its fulfilment is not a sacrifice which ends in
+death; it is the casting-off of bonds which wins freedom.
+
+When we know the highest ideal of freedom which a man has, we
+know his _dharma_, the essence of his nature, the real meaning of
+his self.  At first sight it seems that man counts that as
+freedom by which he gets unbounded opportunities of self
+gratification and self-aggrandisement.  But surely this is not
+borne out by history.  Our revelatory men have always been those
+who have lived the life of self-sacrifice.  The higher nature in
+man always seeks for something which transcends itself and yet is
+its deepest truth; which claims all its sacrifice, yet makes this
+sacrifice its own recompense.  This is man's _dharma_, man's
+religion, and man's self is the vessel which is to carry this
+sacrifice to the altar.
+
+We can look at our self in its two different aspects.  The self
+which displays itself, and the self which transcends itself and
+thereby reveals its own meaning.  To display itself it tries to
+be big, to stand upon the pedestal of its accumulations, and to
+retain everything to itself.  To reveal itself it gives up
+everything it has; thus becoming perfect like a flower that has
+blossomed out from the bud, pouring from its chalice of beauty
+all its sweetness.
+
+The lamp contains its oil, which it holds securely in its close
+grasp and guards from the least loss.  Thus is it separate from
+all other objects around it and is miserly.  But when lighted it
+finds its meaning at once; its relation with all things far and
+near is established, and it freely sacrifices its fund of oil to
+feed the flame.
+
+Such a lamp is our self.  So long as it hoards its possessions it
+keeps itself dark, its conduct contradicts its true purpose.
+When it finds illumination it forgets itself in a moment, holds
+the light high, and serves it with everything it has; for therein
+is its revelation.  This revelation is the freedom which Buddha
+preached.  He asked the lamp to give up its oil.  But purposeless
+giving up is a still darker poverty which he never could have
+meant.  The lamp must give up its oil to the light and thus set
+free the purpose it has in its hoarding.  This is emancipation.
+The path Buddha pointed out was not merely the practice of
+self-abnegation, but the widening of love.  And therein lies the true
+meaning of Buddha's preaching.
+
+When we find that the state of _Nirvana_ preached by Buddha is
+through love, then we know for certain that _Nirvana_ is the
+highest culmination of love.  For love is an end unto itself.
+Everything else raises the question "Why?" in our mind, and we
+require a reason for it.  But when we say, "I love," then there
+is no room for the "why"; it is the final answer in itself.
+
+Doubtless, even selfishness impels one to give away.  But the
+selfish man does it on compulsion.  That is like plucking fruit
+when it is unripe; you have to tear it from the tree and bruise
+the branch.  But when a man loves, giving becomes a matter of joy
+to him, like the tree's surrender of the ripe fruit.  All our
+belongings assume a weight by the ceaseless gravitation of our
+selfish desires; we cannot easily cast them away from us.  They
+seem to belong to our very nature, to stick to us as a second
+skin, and we bleed as we detach them.  But when we are possessed
+by love, its force acts in the opposite direction.  The things
+that closely adhered to us lose their adhesion and weight, and we
+find that they are not of us.  Far from being a loss to give them
+away, we find in that the fulfilment of our being.
+
+Thus we find in perfect love the freedom of our self.  That only
+which is done for love is done freely, however much pain it may
+cause.  Therefore working for love is freedom in action.  This is
+the meaning of the teaching of disinterested work in the _Gita_.
+
+The _Gita_ says action we must have, for only in action do we
+manifest our nature.  But this manifestation is not perfect so
+long as our action is not free.  In fact, our nature is obscured
+by work done by the compulsion of want or fear.  The mother
+reveals herself in the service of her children, so our true
+freedom is not the freedom _from_ action but freedom _in_ action,
+which can only be attained in the work of love.
+
+God's manifestation is in his work of creation and it is said in
+the Upanishad, _Knowledge, power, and action are of his nature_
+[Footnote: "Svabhaviki jnana bala kriyacha."]; they are not
+imposed upon him from outside.  Therefore his work is his
+freedom, and in his creation he realises himself.  The same thing
+is said elsewhere in other words: _From joy does spring all this
+creation, by joy is it maintained, towards joy does it progress,
+and into joy does it enter_.  [Footnote: Anandadhyeva khalvimani
+bhutani jayante, anandena jatani jivanti,
+anandamprayantyabhisamvicanti.]  It means that God's creation has
+not its source in any necessity; it comes from his fullness of
+joy; it is his love that creates, therefore in creation is his
+own revealment.
+
+The artist who has a joy in the fullness of his artistic idea
+objectifies it and thus gains it more fully by holding it afar.
+It is joy which detaches ourselves from us, and then gives it
+form in creations of love in order to make it more perfectly our
+own.  Hence there must be this separation, not a separation of
+repulsion but a separation of love.  Repulsion has only the one
+element, the element of severance.  But love has two, the element
+of severance, which is only an appearance, and the element of
+union which is the ultimate truth.  Just as when the father
+tosses his child up from his arms it has the appearance of
+rejection but its truth is quite the reverse.
+
+So we must know that the meaning of our self is not to be found
+in its separateness from God and others, but in the ceaseless
+realisation of _yoga_, of union; not on the side of the canvas
+where it is blank, but on the side where the picture is being
+painted.
+
+This is the reason why the separateness of our self has been
+described by our philosophers as _maya_, as an illusion, because
+it has no intrinsic reality of its own.  It looks perilous; it
+raises its isolation to a giddy height and casts a black shadow
+upon the fair face of existence; from the outside it has an
+aspect of a sudden disruption, rebellious and destructive; it is
+proud, domineering and wayward; it is ready to rob the world of
+all its wealth to gratify its craving of a moment; to pluck with
+a reckless, cruel hand all the plumes from the divine bird of
+beauty to deck its ugliness for a day; indeed man's legend has it
+that it bears the black mark of disobedience stamped on its
+forehead for ever; but still all this _maya_, envelopment of
+_avidya_; it is the mist, it is not the sun; it is the black
+smoke that presages the fire of love.
+
+Imagine some savage who, in his ignorance, thinks that it is the
+paper of the banknote that has the magic, by virtue of which the
+possessor of it gets all he wants.  He piles up the papers, hides
+them, handles them in all sorts of absurd ways, and then at last,
+wearied by his efforts, comes to the sad conclusion that they are
+absolutely worthless, only fit to be thrown into the fire.  But
+the wise man knows that the paper of the banknote is all _maya_,
+and until it is given up to the bank it is futile.  It is only
+_avidya_, our ignorance, that makes us believe that the
+separateness of our self like the paper of the banknote is
+precious in itself, and by acting on this belief our self is
+rendered valueless.  It is only when the _avidya_ is removed that
+this very self comes to us with a wealth which is priceless.  For
+_He manifests Himself in forms which His joy assumes_.  [Footnote:
+Anandarupamamritam yadvibhati.]  These forms are separate from
+Him, and the value that these forms have is only what his joy has
+imparted to them.  When we transfer back these forms into that
+original joy, which is love, then we cash them in the bank and we
+find their truth.
+
+When pure necessity drives man to his work it takes an accidental
+and contingent character, it becomes a mere makeshift
+arrangement; it is deserted and left in ruins when necessity
+changes its course.  But when his work is the outcome of joy, the
+forms that it takes have the elements of immortality.  The
+immortal in man imparts to it its own quality of permanence.
+
+Our self, as a form of God's joy, is deathless.  For his joy is
+_amritham_, eternal.  This it is in us which makes us sceptical of
+death, even when the fact of death cannot be doubted.  In
+reconcilement of this contradiction in us we come to the truth that
+in the dualism of death and life there is a harmony.  We know that
+the life of a soul, which is finite in its expression and infinite
+in its principle, must go through the portals of death in its
+journey to realise the infinite.  It is death which is monistic, it
+has no life in it.  But life is dualistic; it has an appearance as
+well as truth; and death is that appearance, that _maya_, which is
+an inseparable companion to life.  Our self to live must go through
+a continual change and growth of form, which may be termed a
+continual death and a continual life going on at the same time.  It
+is really courting death when we refuse to accept death; when we
+wish to give the form of the self some fixed changelessness; when
+the self feels no impulse which urges it to grow out of itself;
+when it treats its limits as final and acts accordingly.  Then comes
+our teacher's call to die to this death; not a call to annihilation
+but to eternal life.  It is the extinction of the lamp in the
+morning light; not the abolition of the sun.  It is really asking us
+consciously to give effect to the innermost wish that we have in the
+depths of our nature.
+
+We have a dual set of desires in our being, which it should be
+our endeavour to bring into a harmony.  In the region of our
+physical nature we have one set of which we are conscious always.
+We wish to enjoy our food and drink, we hanker after bodily
+pleasure and comfort.  These desires are self-centered; they are
+solely concerned with their respective impulses.  The wishes of
+our palate often run counter to what our stomach can allow.
+
+But we have another set, which is the desire of our physical
+system as a whole, of which we are usually unconscious.  It is
+the wish for health.  This is always doing its work, mending and
+repairing, making new adjustments in cases of accident, and
+skilfully restoring the balance wherever disturbed.  It has no
+concern with the fulfilment of our immediate bodily desires, but
+it goes beyond the present time.  It is the principle of our
+physical wholeness, it links our life with its past and its
+future and maintains the unity of its parts.  He who is wise
+knows it, and makes his other physical wishes harmonise with it.
+
+We have a greater body which is the social body.  Society is an
+organism, of which we as parts have our individual wishes.  We
+want our own pleasure and license.  We want to pay less and gain
+more than anybody else.  This causes scramblings and fights.  But
+there is that other wish in us which does its work in the depths
+of the social being.  It is the wish for the welfare of the
+society.  It transcends the limits of the present and the
+personal.  It is on the side of the infinite.
+
+He who is wise tries to harmonise the wishes that seek for
+self-gratification with the wish for the social good, and only thus
+can he realise his higher self.
+
+In its finite aspect the self is conscious of its separateness,
+and there it is ruthless in its attempt to have more distinction
+than all others.  But in its infinite aspect its wish is to gain
+that harmony which leads to its perfection and not its mere
+aggrandisement.
+
+The emancipation of our physical nature is in attaining health,
+of our social being in attaining goodness, and of our self in
+attaining love.  This last is what Buddha describes as
+extinction--the extinction of selfishness--which is the function
+of love, and which does not lead to darkness but to illumination.
+This is the attainment of _bodhi_, or the true awakening; it is
+the revealing in us of the infinite joy by the light of love.
+
+The passage of our self is through its selfhood, which is
+independent, to its attainment of soul, which is harmonious.
+This harmony can never be reached through compulsion.  So our
+will, in the history of its growth, must come through
+independence and rebellion to the ultimate completion.  We must
+have the possibility of the negative form of freedom, which is
+licence, before we can attain the positive freedom, which is
+love.
+
+This negative freedom, the freedom of self-will, can turn its
+back upon its highest realisation, but it cannot cut itself away
+from it altogether, for then it will lose its own meaning.  Our
+self-will has freedom up to a certain extent; it can know what it
+is to break away from the path, but it cannot continue in that
+direction indefinitely.  For we are finite on our negative side.
+We must come to an end in our evil doing, in our career of
+discord.  For evil is not infinite, and discord cannot be an end
+in itself.  Our will has freedom in order that it may find out
+that its true course is towards goodness and love.  For goodness
+and love are infinite, and only in the infinite is the perfect
+realisation of freedom possible.  So our will can be free not
+towards the limitations of our self, not where it is _maya_ and
+negation, but towards the unlimited, where is truth and love.
+Our freedom cannot go against its own principle of freedom and
+yet be free; it cannot commit suicide and yet live.  We cannot
+say that we should have infinite freedom to fetter ourselves, for
+the fettering ends the freedom.
+
+So in the freedom of our will, we have the same dualism of
+appearance and truth--our self-will is only the appearance of
+freedom and love is the truth.  When we try to make this
+appearance independent of truth, then our attempt brings misery
+and proves its own futility in the end.  Everything has this
+dualism of _maya_ and _satyam_, appearance and truth.  Words are
+_maya_ where they are merely sounds and finite, they are _satyam_
+where they are ideas and infinite.  Our self is _maya_ where it
+is merely individual and finite, where it considers its
+separateness as absolute; it is _satyam_ where it recognises its
+essence in the universal and infinite, in the supreme self, in
+_paramatman_.  This is what Christ means when he says, "Before
+Abraham was I am."  This is the eternal _I am_ that speaks
+through the _I am_ that is in me.  The individual _I am_ attains
+its perfect end when it realises its freedom of harmony in the
+infinite _I am_.  Then is it _mukti_, its deliverance from the
+thraldom of _maya_, of appearance, which springs from _avidya_,
+from ignorance; its emancipation in _cantam civam advaitam_, in
+the perfect repose in truth, in the perfect activity in goodness,
+and in the perfect union in love.
+
+Not only in our self but also in nature is there this
+separateness from God, which has been described as _maya_ by our
+philosophers, because the separateness does not exist by itself,
+it does not limit God's infinity from outside.  It is his own
+will that has imposed limits to itself, just as the chess-player
+restricts his will with regard to the moving of the chessmen.
+The player willingly enters into definite relations with each
+particular piece and realises the joy of his power by these very
+restrictions.  It is not that he cannot move the chessmen just as
+he pleases, but if he does so then there can be no play.  If God
+assumes his role of omnipotence, then his creation is at an end
+and his power loses all its meaning.  For power to be a power must
+act within limits.  God's water must be water, his earth can never
+be other than earth.  The law that has made them water and earth
+is his own law by which he has separated the play from the player,
+for therein the joy of the player consists.
+
+As by the limits of law nature is separated from God, so it is
+the limits of its egoism which separates the self from him.  He
+has willingly set limits to his will, and has given us mastery
+over the little world of our own.  It is like a father's settling
+upon his son some allowance within the limit of which he is free
+to do what he likes.  Though it remains a portion of the father's
+own property, yet he frees it from the operation of his own will.
+The reason of it is that the will, which is love's will and
+therefore free, can have its joy only in a union with another
+free will.  The tyrant who must have slaves looks upon them as
+instruments of his purpose.  It is the consciousness of his own
+necessity which makes him crush the will out of them, to make his
+self-interest absolutely secure.  This self-interest cannot brook
+the least freedom in others, because it is not itself free.  The
+tyrant is really dependent on his slaves, and therefore he tries
+to make them completely useful by making them subservient to his
+own will.  But a lover must have two wills for the realisation of
+his love, because the consummation of love is in harmony, the
+harmony between freedom and freedom.  So God's love from which
+our self has taken form has made it separate from God; and it is
+God's love which again establishes a reconciliation and unites
+God with our self through the separation.  That is why our self
+has to go through endless renewals.  For in its career of
+separateness it cannot go on for ever.  Separateness is the
+finitude where it finds its barriers to come back again and again
+to its infinite source.  Our self has ceaselessly to cast off its
+age, repeatedly shed its limits in oblivion and death, in order
+to realise its immortal youth.  Its personality must merge in the
+universal time after time, in fact pass through it every moment,
+ever to refresh its individual life.  It must follow the eternal
+rhythm and touch the fundamental unity at every step, and thus
+maintain its separation balanced in beauty and strength.
+
+The play of life and death we see everywhere--this transmutation
+of the old into the new.  The day comes to us every morning,
+naked and white, fresh as a flower.  But we know it is old.  It
+is age itself.  It is that very ancient day which took up the
+newborn earth in its arms, covered it with its white mantle of
+light, and sent it forth on its pilgrimage among the stars.
+
+Yet its feet are untired and its eyes undimmed.  It carries the
+golden amulet of ageless eternity, at whose touch all wrinkles
+vanish from the forehead of creation.  In the very core of the
+world's heart stands immortal youth.  Death and decay cast over
+its face momentary shadows and pass on; they leave no marks of
+their steps--and truth remains fresh and young.
+
+This old, old day of our earth is born again and again every
+morning.  It comes back to the original refrain of its music.  If
+its march were the march of an infinite straight line, if it had
+not the awful pause of its plunge in the abysmal darkness and its
+repeated rebirth in the life of the endless beginning, then it
+would gradually soil and bury truth with its dust and spread
+ceaseless aching over the earth under its heavy tread.  Then
+every moment would leave its load of weariness behind, and
+decrepitude would reign supreme on its throne of eternal dirt.
+
+But every morning the day is reborn among the newly-blossomed
+flowers with the same message retold and the same assurance
+renewed that death eternally dies, that the waves of turmoil are
+on the surface, and that the sea of tranquillity is fathomless.
+The curtain of night is drawn aside and truth emerges without a
+speck of dust on its garment, without a furrow of age on its
+lineaments.
+
+We see that he who is before everything else is the same to-day.
+Every note of the song of creation comes fresh from his voice.
+The universe is not a mere echo, reverberating from sky to sky,
+like a homeless wanderer--the echo of an old song sung once for
+all in the dim beginning of things and then left orphaned.  Every
+moment it comes from the heart of the master, it is breathed in
+his breath.
+
+And that is the reason why it overspreads the sky like a thought
+taking shape in a poem, and never has to break into pieces with
+the burden of its own accumulating weight.  Hence the surprise of
+endless variations, the advent of the unaccountable, the
+ceaseless procession of individuals, each of whom is without a
+parallel in creation.  As at the first so to the last, the
+beginning never ends--the world is ever old and ever new.
+
+It is for our self to know that it must be born anew every moment
+of its life.  It must break through all illusions that encase it
+in their crust to make it appear old, burdening it with death.
+
+For life is immortal youthfulness, and it hates age that tries to
+clog its movements--age that belongs not to life in truth, but
+follows it as the shadow follows the lamp.
+
+Our life, like a river, strikes its banks not to find itself
+closed in by them, but to realise anew every moment that it has
+its unending opening towards the sea.  It is a poem that strikes
+its metre at every step not to be silenced by its rigid
+regulations, but to give expression every moment to the inner
+freedom of its harmony.
+
+The boundary walls of our individuality thrust us back within our
+limits, on the one hand, and thus lead us, on the other, to the
+unlimited.  Only when we try to make these limits infinite are we
+launched into an impossible contradiction and court miserable
+failure.
+
+This is the cause which leads to the great revolutions in human
+history.  Whenever the part, spurning the whole, tries to run a
+separate course of its own, the great pull of the all gives it a
+violent wrench, stops it suddenly, and brings it to the dust.
+Whenever the individual tries to dam the ever-flowing current of
+the world-force and imprison it within the area of his particular
+use, it brings on disaster.  However powerful a king may be, he
+cannot raise his standard or rebellion against the infinite
+source of strength, which is unity, and yet remain powerful.
+
+It has been said, _By unrighteousness men prosper, gain what they
+desire, and triumph over their enemies, but at the end they are
+cut off at the root and suffer extinction._  [Footnote:
+Adharmenaidhate tavat tato bahdrani pacyati tatah sapatnan jayati
+samulastu vinacyati.]  Our roots must go deep down into the
+universal if we would attain the greatness of personality.
+
+It is the end of our self to seek that union.  It must bend its
+head low in love and meekness and take its stand where great and
+small all meet.  It has to gain by its loss and rise by its
+surrender.  His games would be a horror to the child if he could
+not come back to his mother, and our pride of personality will be
+a curse to us if we cannot give it up in love.  We must know that
+it is only the revelation of the Infinite which is endlessly new
+and eternally beautiful in us, and which gives the only meaning
+to our self.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+REALISATION IN LOVE
+
+
+We come now to the eternal problem of co-existence of the
+infinite and the finite, of the supreme being and our soul.
+There is a sublime paradox that lies at the root of existence.
+We never can go round it, because we never can stand outside the
+problem and weigh it against any other possible alternative.  But
+the problem exists in logic only; in reality it does not offer us
+any difficulty at all.  Logically speaking, the distance between
+two points, however near, may be said to be infinite because it
+is infinitely divisible.  But we _do_ cross the infinite at every
+step, and meet the eternal in every second.  Therefore some of our
+philosophers say there is no such thing as finitude; it is but a
+_maya_, an illusion.  The real is the infinite, and it is only
+_maya_, the unreality, which causes the appearance of the finite.
+But the word _maya_ is a mere name, it is no explanation.  It is
+merely saying that with truth there is this appearance which is
+the opposite of truth; but how they come to exist at one and the
+same time is incomprehensible.
+
+We have what we call in Sanskrit _dvandva_, a series of opposites
+in creation; such as, the positive pole and the negative, the
+centripetal force and the centrifugal, attraction and repulsion.
+These are also mere names, they are no explanations.  They are
+only different ways of asserting that the world in its essence is
+a reconciliation of pairs of opposing forces.  These forces, like
+the left and the right hands of the creator, are acting in
+absolute harmony, yet acting from opposite directions.
+
+There is a bond of harmony between our two eyes, which makes them
+act in unison.  Likewise there is an unbreakable continuity of
+relation in the physical world between heat and cold, light and
+darkness, motion and rest, as between the bass and treble notes
+of a piano.  That is why these opposites do not bring confusion
+in the universe, but harmony.  If creation were but a chaos, we
+should have to imagine the two opposing principles as trying to
+get the better of each other.  But the universe is not under
+martial law, arbitrary and provisional.  Here we find no force
+which can run amok, or go on indefinitely in its wild road, like
+an exiled outlaw, breaking all harmony with its surroundings;
+each force, on the contrary, has to come back in a curved line to
+its equilibrium.  Waves rise, each to its individual height in a
+seeming attitude of unrelenting competition, but only up to a
+certain point; and thus we know of the great repose of the sea to
+which they are all related, and to which they must all return in
+a rhythm which is marvellously beautiful.
+
+In fact, these undulations and vibrations, these risings and
+fallings, are not due to the erratic contortions of disparate
+bodies, they are a rhythmic dance.  Rhythm never can be born of
+the haphazard struggle of combat.  Its underlying principle must
+be unity, not opposition.
+
+This principle of unity is the mystery of all mysteries.  The
+existence of a duality at once raises a question in our minds,
+and we seek its solution in the One.  When at last we find a
+relation between these two, and thereby see them as one in
+essence, we feel that we have come to the truth.  And then we
+give utterance to this most startling of all paradoxes, that the
+One appears as many, that the appearance is the opposite of truth
+and yet is inseparably related to it.
+
+Curiously enough, there are men who lose that feeling of mystery,
+which is at the root of all our delights, when they discover the
+uniformity of law among the diversity of nature.  As if
+gravitation is not more of a mystery than the fall of an apple,
+as if the evolution from one scale of being to the other is not
+something which is even more shy of explanation than a succession
+of creations.  The trouble is that we very often stop at such a
+law as if it were the final end of our search, and then we find
+that it does not even begin to emancipate our spirit.  It only
+gives satisfaction to our intellect, and as it does not appeal to
+our whole being it only deadens in us the sense of the infinite.
+
+A great poem, when analysed, is a set of detached sounds.  The
+reader who finds out the meaning, which is the inner medium that
+connects these outer sounds, discovers a perfect law all through,
+which is never violated in the least; the law of the evolution of
+ideas, the law of the music and the form.
+
+But law in itself is a limit.  It only shows that whatever is can
+never be otherwise.  When a man is exclusively occupied with the
+search for the links of causality, his mind succumbs to the
+tyranny of law in escaping from the tyranny of facts.  In
+learning a language, when from mere words we reach the laws of
+words we have gained a great deal.  But if we stop at that point,
+and only concern ourselves with the marvels of the formation of a
+language, seeking the hidden reason of all its apparent caprices,
+we do not reach the end--for grammar is not literature, prosody
+is not a poem.
+
+When we come to literature we find that though it conforms to
+rules of grammar it is yet a thing of joy, it is freedom itself.
+The beauty of a poem is bound by strict laws, yet it transcends
+them.  The laws are its wings, they do not keep it weighed down,
+they carry it to freedom.  Its form is in law but its spirit is
+in beauty.  Law is the first step towards freedom, and beauty is
+the complete liberation which stands on the pedestal of law.
+Beauty harmonises in itself the limit and the beyond, the law and
+the liberty.
+
+In the world-poem, the discovery of the law of its rhythms, the
+measurement of its expansion and contraction, movement and pause,
+the pursuit of its evolution of forms and characters, are true
+achievements of the mind; but we cannot stop there.  It is like a
+railway station; but the station platform is not our home.  Only
+he has attained the final truth who knows that the whole world is
+a creation of joy.
+
+This leads me to think how mysterious the relation of the human
+heart with nature must be.  In the outer world of activity nature
+has one aspect, but in our hearts, in the inner world, it
+presents an altogether different picture.
+
+Take an instance--the flower of a plant.  However fine and dainty
+it may look, it is pressed to do a great service, and its colours
+and forms are all suited to its work.  It must bring forth the
+fruit, or the continuity of plant life will be broken and the
+earth will be turned into a desert ere long.  The colour and the
+smell of the flower are all for some purpose therefore; no sooner
+is it fertilised by the bee, and the time of its fruition
+arrives, than it sheds its exquisite petals and a cruel economy
+compels it to give up its sweet perfume.  It has no time to
+flaunt its finery, for it is busy beyond measure.  Viewed from
+without, necessity seems to be the only factor in nature for
+which everything works and moves.  There the bud develops into
+the flower, the flower into the fruit, the fruit into the seed,
+the seed into a new plant again, and so forth, the chain of
+activity running on unbroken.  Should there crop up any
+disturbance or impediment, no excuse would be accepted, and the
+unfortunate thing thus choked in its movement would at once be
+labelled as rejected, and be bound to die and disappear
+post-haste.  In the great office of nature there are innumerable
+departments with endless work going on, and the fine flower that
+you behold there, gaudily attired and scented like a dandy, is by
+no means what it appears to be, but rather, is like a labourer
+toiling in sun and shower, who has to submit a clear account of
+his work and has no breathing space to enjoy himself in playful
+frolic.
+
+But when this same flower enters the heart of men its aspect of
+busy practicality is gone, and it becomes the very emblem of
+leisure and repose.  The same object that is the embodiment of
+endless activity without is the perfect expression of beauty and
+peace within.
+
+Science here warns us that we are mistaken, that the purpose of a
+flower is nothing but what is outwardly manifested, and that the
+relation of beauty and sweetness which we think it bears to us is
+all our own making, gratuitous and imaginary.
+
+But our heart replies that we are not in the least mistaken.  In
+the sphere of nature the flower carries with it a certificate
+which recommends it as having immense capacity for doing useful
+work, but it brings an altogether different letter of
+introduction when it knocks at the door of our hearts.  Beauty
+becomes its only qualification.  At one place it comes as a
+slave, and at another as a free thing.  How, then, should we give
+credit to its first recommendation and disbelieve the second one?
+That the flower has got its being in the unbroken chain of
+causation is true beyond doubt; but that is an outer truth.  The
+inner truth is: _Verily from the everlasting joy do all objects
+have their birth._  [Footnote: Anandadhyeva khalvimani bhutani
+jayante.]
+
+A flower, therefore, has not its only function in nature, but has
+another great function to exercise in the mind of man.  And what
+is that function?  In nature its work is that of a servant who
+has to make his appearance at appointed times, but in the heart
+of man it comes like a messenger from the King.  In the
+_Ramayana_, when _Sita,_ forcibly separated from her husband, was
+bewailing her evil fate in _Ravana's_ golden palace, she was met
+by a messenger who brought with him a ring of her beloved
+_Ramachandra_ himself.  The very sight of it convinced _Sita_ of
+the truth of tidings he bore.  She was at once reassured that he
+came indeed from her beloved one, who had not forgotten her and
+was at hand to rescue her.
+
+Such a messenger is a flower from our great lover.  Surrounded
+with the pomp and pageantry of worldliness, which may be linked
+to Ravana's golden city, we still live in exile, while the
+insolent spirit of worldly prosperity tempts us with allurements
+and claims us as its bride.  In the meantime the flower comes
+across with a message from the other shore, and whispers in our
+ears, "I am come.  He has sent me.  I am a messenger of the
+beautiful, the one whose soul is the bliss of love.  This island
+of isolation has been bridged over by him, and he has not
+forgotten thee, and will rescue thee even now.  He will draw thee
+unto him and make thee his own.  This illusion will not hold thee
+in thraldom for ever."
+
+If we happen to be awake then, we question him: "How are we to
+know that thou art come from him indeed?"  The messenger says,
+"Look!  I have this ring from him.  How lovely are its hues and
+charms!"
+
+Ah, doubtless it is his--indeed, it is our wedding ring.  Now all
+else passes into oblivion, only this sweet symbol of the touch of
+the eternal love fills us with a deep longing.  We realise that
+the palace of gold where we are has nothing to do with us--our
+deliverance is outside it--and there our love has its fruition
+and our life its fulfilment.
+
+What to the bee in nature is merely colour and scent, and the
+marks or spots which show the right track to the honey, is to the
+human heart beauty and joy untrammelled by necessity.  They bring
+a love letter to the heart written in many-coloured inks.
+
+I was telling you, therefore, that however busy our active nature
+outwardly may be, she has a secret chamber within the heart where
+she comes and goes freely, without any design whatsoever.  There
+the fire of her workshop is transformed into lamps of a festival,
+the noise of her factory is heard like music.  The iron chain of
+cause and effect sounds heavily outside in nature, but in the
+human heart its unalloyed delight seems to sound, as it were,
+like the golden strings of a harp.
+
+It indeed seems to be wonderful that nature has these two aspects
+at one and the same time, and so antithetical--one being of
+thraldom and the other of freedom.  In the same form, sound,
+colour, and taste two contrary notes are heard, one of necessity
+and the other of joy.  Outwardly nature is busy and restless,
+inwardly she is all silence and peace.  She has toil on one side
+and leisure on the other.  You see her bondage only when you see
+her from without, but within her heart is a limitless beauty.
+
+Our seer says, "From joy are born all creatures, by joy they are
+sustained, towards joy they progress, and into joy they enter."
+
+Not that he ignores law, or that his contemplation of this
+infinite joy is born of the intoxication produced by an
+indulgence in abstract thought.  He fully recognises the
+inexorable laws of nature, and says, "Fire burns for fear of him
+(i.e. by his law); the sun shines by fear of him; and for fear of
+him the wind, the clouds, and death perform their offices."  It
+is a reign of iron rule, ready to punish the least transgression.
+Yet the poet chants the glad song, "From joy are born all
+creatures, by joy they are sustained, towards joy they progress,
+and into joy they enter."
+
+_The immortal being manifests himself in joy-form._  [Footnote:
+Anandarupamamritam yad vibhati.]  His manifestation in creation
+is out of his fullness of joy.  It is the nature of this
+abounding joy to realise itself in form which is law.  The joy,
+which is without form, must create, must translate itself into
+forms.  The joy of the singer is expressed in the form of a song,
+that of the poet in the form of a poem.  Man in his role of a
+creator is ever creating forms, and they come out of his
+abounding joy.
+
+This joy, whose other name is love, must by its very nature have
+duality for its realisation.  When the singer has his inspiration
+he makes himself into two; he has within him his other self as
+the hearer, and the outside audience is merely an extension of
+this other self of his.  The lover seeks his own other self in
+his beloved.  It is the joy that creates this separation, in
+order to realise through obstacles of union.
+
+The _amritam_, the immortal bliss, has made himself into two.
+Our soul is the loved one, it is his other self.  We are
+separate; but if this separation were absolute, then there would
+have been absolute misery and unmitigated evil in this world.
+Then from untruth we never could reach truth, and from sin we
+never could hope to attain purity of heart; then all opposites
+would ever remain opposites, and we could never find a medium
+through which our differences could ever tend to meet.  Then we
+could have no language, no understanding, no blending of hearts,
+no co-operation in life.  But on the contrary, we find that the
+separateness of objects is in a fluid state.  Their
+individualities are even changing, they are meeting and merging
+into each other, till science itself is turning into metaphysics,
+matter losing its boundaries, and the definition of life becoming
+more and more indefinite.
+
+Yes, our individual soul has been separated from the supreme
+soul, but this has not been from alienation but from the fullness
+of love.  It is for that reason that untruths, sufferings, and
+evils are not at a standstill; the human soul can defy them, can
+overcome them, nay, can altogether transform them into new power
+and beauty.
+
+The singer is translating his song into singing, his joy into
+forms, and the hearer has to translate back the singing into the
+original joy; then the communion between the singer and the
+hearer is complete.  The infinite joy is manifesting itself in
+manifold forms, taking upon itself the bondage of law, and we
+fulfil our destiny when we go back from forms to joy, from law to
+the love, when we untie the knot of the finite and hark back to
+the infinite.
+
+The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from
+discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual.
+Buddha preached the discipline of self-restraint and moral life;
+it is a complete acceptance of law.  But this bondage of law
+cannot be an end by itself; by mastering it thoroughly we acquire
+the means of getting beyond it.  It is going back to Brahma, to
+the infinite love, which is manifesting itself through the finite
+forms of law.  Buddha names it _Brahma-vihara_, the joy of living
+in Brahma.  He who wants to reach this stage, according to Buddha,
+"shall deceive none, entertain no hatred for anybody, and never
+wish to injure through anger.  He shall have measureless love for
+all creatures, even as a mother has for her only child, whom she
+protects with her own life.  Up above, below, and all around him
+he shall extend his love, which is without bounds and obstacles,
+and which is free from all cruelty and antagonism.  While
+standing, sitting, walking, lying down, till he fall asleep, he
+shall keep his mind active in this exercise of universal goodwill."
+
+Want of love is a degree of callousness; for love is the
+perfection of consciousness.  We do not love because we do not
+comprehend, or rather we do not comprehend because we do not
+love.  For love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us.
+It is not a mere sentiment; it is truth; it is the joy that is at
+the root of all creation.  It is the white light of pure
+consciousness that emanates from Brahma.  So, to be one with this
+_sarvanubhuh_, this all-feeling being who is in the external sky,
+as well as in our inner soul, we must attain to that summit of
+consciousness, which is love: _Who could have breathed or moved
+if the sky were not filled with joy, with love?_  [Footnote: Ko
+hyevanyat kah pranyat yadesha akaca anando na syat.]  It is
+through the heightening of our consciousness into love, and
+extending it all over the world, that we can attain
+_Brahma-vihara,_ communion with this infinite joy.
+
+Love spontaneously gives itself in endless gifts.  But these
+gifts lose their fullest significance if through them we do not
+reach that love, which is the giver.  To do that, we must have
+love in our own heart.  He who has no love in him values the
+gifts of his lover only according to their usefulness.  But
+utility is temporary and partial.  It can never occupy our whole
+being; what is useful only touches us at the point where we have
+some want.  When the want is satisfied, utility becomes a burden
+if it still persists.  On the other hand, a mere token is of
+permanent worth to us when we have love in our heart.  For it is
+not for any special use.  It is an end in itself; it is for our
+whole being and therefore can never tire us.
+
+The question is, In what manner do we accept this world, which is
+a perfect gift of joy?  Have we been able to receive it in our
+heart where we keep enshrined things that are of deathless value
+to us?  We are frantically busy making use of the forces of the
+universe to gain more and more power; we feed and we clothe
+ourselves from its stores, we scramble for its riches, and it
+becomes for us a field of fierce competition.  But were we born
+for this, to extend our proprietary rights over this world and
+make of it a marketable commodity?  When our whole mind is bent
+only upon making use of this world it loses for us its true
+value.  We make it cheap by our sordid desires; and thus to the
+end of our days we only try to feed upon it and miss its truth,
+just like the greedy child who tears leaves from a precious book
+and tries to swallow them.
+
+In the lands where cannibalism is prevalent man looks upon man as
+his food.  In such a country civilisation can never thrive, for
+there man loses his higher value and is made common indeed.  But
+there are other kinds of cannibalism, perhaps not so gross, but
+not less heinous, for which one need not travel far.  In
+countries higher in the scale of civilisation we find sometimes
+man looked upon as a mere body, and he is bought and sold in the
+market by the price of his flesh only.  And sometimes he gets his
+sole value from being useful; he is made into a machine, and is
+traded upon by the man of money to acquire for him more money.
+Thus our lust, our greed, our love of comfort result in
+cheapening man to his lowest value.  It is self deception on a
+large scale.  Our desires blind us to the _truth_ that there is
+in man, and this is the greatest wrong done by ourselves to our
+own soul.  It deadens our consciousness, and is but a gradual
+method of spiritual suicide.  It produces ugly sores in the body
+of civilisation, gives rise to its hovels and brothels, its
+vindictive penal codes, its cruel prison systems, its organised
+method of exploiting foreign races to the extent of permanently
+injuring them by depriving them of the discipline of
+self-government and means of self-defence.
+
+Of course man is useful to man, because his body is a marvellous
+machine and his mind an organ of wonderful efficiency.  But he is
+a spirit as well, and this spirit is truly known only by love.
+When we define a man by the market value of the service we can
+expect of him, we know him imperfectly.  With this limited
+knowledge of him it becomes easy for us to be unjust to him and
+to entertain feelings of triumphant self-congratulation when, on
+account of some cruel advantage on our side, we can get out of
+him much more than we have paid for.  But when we know him as a
+spirit we know him as our own.  We at once feel that cruelty to
+him is cruelty to ourselves, to make him small is stealing from
+our own humanity, and in seeking to make use of him solely for
+personal profit we merely gain in money or comfort what we pay in
+truth.
+
+One day I was out in a boat on the Ganges.  It was a beautiful
+evening in autumn.  The sun had just set; the silence of the sky
+was full to the brim with ineffable peace and beauty.  The vast
+expanse of water was without a ripple, mirroring all the changing
+shades of the sunset glow.  Miles and miles of a desolate
+sandbank lay like a huge amphibious reptile of some antediluvian
+age, with its scales glistening in shining colours.  As our boat
+was silently gliding by the precipitous river-bank, riddled with
+the nest-holes of a colony of birds, suddenly a big fish leapt up
+to the surface of the water and then disappeared, displaying on
+its vanishing figure all the colours of the evening sky.  It drew
+aside for a moment the many-coloured screen behind which there
+was a silent world full of the joy of life.  It came up from the
+depths of its mysterious dwelling with a beautiful dancing motion
+and added its own music to the silent symphony of the dying day.
+I felt as if I had a friendly greeting from an alien world in its
+own language, and it touched my heart with a flash of gladness.
+Then suddenly the man at the helm exclaimed with a distinct note
+of regret, "Ah, what a big fish!"  It at once brought before his
+vision the picture of the fish caught and made ready for his
+supper.  He could only look at the fish through his desire, and
+thus missed the whole truth of its existence.  But man is not
+entirely an animal.  He aspires to a spiritual vision, which is
+the vision of the whole truth.  This gives him the highest
+delight, because it reveals to him the deepest harmony that
+exists between him and his surroundings.  It is our desires that
+limit the scope of our self-realisation, hinder our extension of
+consciousness, and give rise to sin, which is the innermost
+barrier that keeps us apart from our God, setting up disunion and
+the arrogance of exclusiveness.  For sin is not one mere action,
+but it is an attitude of life which takes for granted that our
+goal is finite, that our self is the ultimate truth, and that we
+are not all essentially one but exist each for his own separate
+individual existence.
+
+So I repeat we never can have a true view of man unless we have a
+love for him.  Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the
+amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved
+and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love
+of humanity.  The first question and the last which it has to
+answer is, Whether and how far it recognises man more as a spirit
+than a machine?  Whenever some ancient civilisation fell into
+decay and died, it was owing to causes which produced callousness
+of heart and led to the cheapening of man's worth; when either
+the state or some powerful group of men began to look upon the
+people as a mere instrument of their power; when, by compelling
+weaker races to slavery and trying to keep them down by every
+means, man struck at the foundation of his greatness, his own
+love of freedom and fair-play.  Civilisation can never sustain
+itself upon cannibalism of any form.  For that by which alone man
+is true can only be nourished by love and justice.
+
+As with man, so with this universe.  When we look at the world
+through the veil of our desires we make it small and narrow, and
+fail to perceive its full truth.  Of course it is obvious that
+the world serves us and fulfils our needs, but our relation to it
+does not end there.  We are bound to it with a deeper and truer
+bond than that of necessity.  Our soul is drawn to it; our love
+of life is really our wish to continue our relation with this
+great world.  This relation is one of love.  We are glad that we
+are in it; we are attached to it with numberless threads, which
+extend from this earth to the stars.  Man foolishly tries to
+prove his superiority by imagining his radical separateness from
+what he calls his physical world, which, in his blind fanaticism,
+he sometimes goes to the extent of ignoring altogether, holding
+it at his direst enemy.  Yet the more his knowledge progresses,
+the more it becomes difficult for man to establish this
+separateness, and all the imaginary boundaries he had set up
+around himself vanish one after another.  Every time we lose some
+of our badges of absolute distinction by which we conferred upon
+our humanity the right to hold itself apart from its surroundings,
+it gives us a shock of humiliation.  But we have to submit to
+this.  If we set up our pride on the path of our self-realisation
+to create divisions and disunion, then it must sooner or later
+come under the wheels of truth and be ground to dust.  No, we are
+not burdened with some monstrous superiority, unmeaning in its
+singular abruptness.  It would be utterly degrading for us to
+live in a world immeasurably less than ourselves in the quality of
+soul, just as it would be repulsive and degrading to be surrounded
+and served by a host of slaves, day and night, from birth to the
+moment of death.  On the contrary, this world is our compeer, nay,
+we are one with it.
+
+Through our progress in science the wholeness of the world and
+our oneness with it is becoming clearer to our mind.  When this
+perception of the perfection of unity is not merely intellectual,
+when it opens out our whole being into a luminous consciousness
+of the all, then it becomes a radiant joy, an overspreading love.
+Our spirit finds its larger self in the whole world, and is
+filled with an absolute certainty that it is immortal.  It dies a
+hundred times in its enclosures of self; for separateness is
+doomed to die, it cannot be made eternal.  But it never can die
+where it is one with the all, for there is its truth, its joy.
+When a man feels the rhythmic throb of the soul-life of the whole
+world in his own soul, then is he free.  Then he enters into the
+secret courting that goes on between this beautiful world-bride,
+veiled with the veil of the many-coloured finiteness, and the
+_paramatmam_, the bridegroom, in his spotless white.  Then he
+knows that he is the partaker of this gorgeous love festival, and
+he is the honoured guest at the feast of immortality.  Then he
+understands the meaning of the seer-poet who sings, "From love the
+world is born, by love it is sustained, towards love it moves, and
+into love it enters."
+
+In love all the contradictions of existence merge themselves and
+are lost.  Only in love are unity and duality not at variance.
+Love must be one and two at the same time.
+
+Only love is motion and rest in one.  Our heart ever changes its
+place till it finds love, and then it has its rest.  But this
+rest itself is an intense form of activity where utter quiescence
+and unceasing energy meet at the same point in love.
+
+In love, loss and gain are harmonised.  In its balance-sheet,
+credit and debit accounts are in the same column, and gifts are
+added to gains.  In this wonderful festival of creation, this
+great ceremony of self-sacrifice of God, the lover constantly
+gives himself up to gain himself in love.  Indeed, love is what
+brings together and inseparably connects both the act of
+abandoning and that of receiving.
+
+In love, at one of its poles you find the personal, and at the
+other the impersonal.  At one you have the positive assertion--Here
+I am; at the other the equally strong denial--I am not.
+Without this ego what is love?  And again, with only this ego how
+can love be possible?
+
+Bondage and liberation are not antagonistic in love.  For love is
+most free and at the same time most bound.  If God were
+absolutely free there would be no creation.  The infinite being
+has assumed unto himself the mystery of finitude.  And in him who
+is love the finite and the infinite are made one.
+
+Similarly, when we talk about the relative values of freedom and
+non-freedom, it becomes a mere play of words.  It is not that we
+desire freedom alone, we want thraldom as well.  It is the high
+function of love to welcome all limitations and to transcend
+them.  For nothing is more independent than love, and where else,
+again, shall we find so much of dependence?  In love, thraldom is
+as glorious as freedom.
+
+The _Vaishnava_ religion has boldly declared that God has bound
+himself to man, and in that consists the greatest glory of human
+existence.  In the spell of the wonderful rhythm of the finite he
+fetters himself at every step, and thus gives his love out in
+music in his most perfect lyrics of beauty.  Beauty is his wooing
+of our heart; it can have no other purpose.  It tells us
+everywhere that the display of power is not the ultimate meaning
+of creation; wherever there is a bit of colour, a note of song, a
+grace of form, there comes the call for our love.  Hunger compels
+us to obey its behests, but hunger is not the last word for a man.
+There have been men who have deliberately defied its commands to
+show that the human soul is not to be led by the pressure of wants
+and threat of pain.  In fact, to live the life of man we have to
+resist its demands every day, the least of us as well as the
+greatest.  But, on the other hand, there is a beauty in the world
+which never insults our freedom, never raises even its little
+finger to make us acknowledge its sovereignty.  We can absolutely
+ignore it and suffer no penalty in consequence.  It is a call to
+us, but not a command.  It seeks for love in us, and love can
+never be had by compulsion.  Compulsion is not indeed the final
+appeal to man, but joy is.  Any joy is everywhere; it is in the
+earth's green covering of grass; in the blue serenity of the sky;
+in the reckless exuberance of spring; in the severe abstinence of
+grey winter; in the living flesh that animates our bodily frame;
+in the perfect poise of the human figure, noble and upright; in
+living; in the exercise of all our powers; in the acquisition of
+knowledge; in fighting evils; in dying for gains we never can
+share.  Joy is there everywhere; it is superfluous, unnecessary;
+nay, it very often contradicts the most peremptory behests of
+necessity.  It exists to show that the bonds of law can only be
+explained by love; they are like body and soul.  Joy is the
+realisation of the truth of oneness, the oneness of our soul with
+the world and of the world-soul with the supreme lover.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+REALISATION IN ACTION
+
+
+It is only those who have known that joy expresses itself through
+law who have learnt to transcend the law.  Not that the bonds of
+law have ceased to exist for them--but that the bonds have become
+to them as the form of freedom incarnate.  The freed soul
+delights in accepting bonds, and does not seek to evade any of
+them, for in each does it feel the manifestation of an infinite
+energy whose joy is in creation.
+
+As a matter of fact, where there are no bonds, where there is the
+madness of license, the soul ceases to be free.  There is its
+hurt; there is its separation from the infinite, its agony of
+sin.  Whenever at the call of temptation the soul falls away from
+the bondage of law, then, like a child deprived of the support of
+its mother's arms, it cries out, _Smite me not!_  [Footnote: Ma ma
+himsih.]  "Bind me," it prays, "oh, bind me in the bonds of thy
+law; bind me within and without; hold me tight; let me in the clasp
+of thy law be bound up together with thy joy; protect me by thy
+firm hold from the deadly laxity of sin."
+
+As some, under the idea that law is the opposite of joy, mistake
+intoxication for joy, so there are many in our country who
+imagine action to be opposed to freedom.  They think that
+activity being in the material plane is a restriction of the free
+spirit of the soul.  But we must remember that as joy expresses
+itself in law, so the soul finds its freedom in action.  It is
+because joy cannot find expression in itself alone that it
+desires the law which is outside.  Likewise it is because the
+soul cannot find freedom within itself that it wants external
+action.  The soul of man is ever freeing itself from its own
+folds by its activity; had it been otherwise it could not have
+done any voluntary work.
+
+The more man acts and makes actual what was latent in him, the
+nearer does he bring the distant Yet-to-be.  In that
+actualisation man is ever making himself more and yet more
+distinct, and seeing himself clearly under newer and newer
+aspects in the midst of his varied activities, in the state, in
+society.  This vision makes for freedom.
+
+Freedom is not in darkness, nor in vagueness.  There is no
+bondage so fearful as that of obscurity.  It is to escape from
+this obscurity that the seed struggles to sprout, the bud to
+blossom.  It is to rid itself of this envelope of vagueness that
+the ideas in our mind are constantly seeking opportunities to
+take on outward form.  In the same way our soul, in order to
+release itself from the mist of indistinctness and come out into
+the open, is continually creating for itself fresh fields of
+action, and is busy contriving new forms of activity, even such
+as are not needful for the purposes of its earthly life.  And
+why?  Because it wants freedom.  It wants to see itself, to
+realise itself.
+
+When man cuts down the pestilential jungle and makes unto himself
+a garden, the beauty that he thus sets free from within its
+enclosure of ugliness is the beauty of his own soul: without
+giving it this freedom outside, he cannot make it free within.
+When he implants law and order in the midst of the waywardness of
+society, the good which he sets free from the obstruction of the
+bad is the goodness of his own soul: without being thus made free
+outside it cannot find freedom within.  Thus is man continually
+engaged in setting free in action his powers, his beauty, his
+goodness, his very soul.  And the more he succeeds in so doing,
+the greater does he see himself to be, the broader becomes the
+field of his knowledge of self.
+
+The Upanishad says: _In the midst of activity alone wilt thou
+desire to live a hundred years._  [Footnote:  Kurvanneveha
+karmani jijivishet catam samah.]  It is the saying of those who
+had amply tasted of the joy of the soul.  Those who have fully
+realised the soul have never talked in mournful accents of the
+sorrowfulness of life or of the bondage of action.  They are not
+like the weakling flower whose stem-hold is so light that it
+drops away before attaining fruition.  They hold on to life with
+all their might and say, "never will we let go till the fruit is
+ripe."  They desire in their joy to express themselves
+strenuously in their life and in their work.  Pain and sorrow
+dismay them not, they are not bowed down to the dust by the
+weight of their own heart.  With the erect head of the victorious
+hero they march through life seeing themselves and showing
+themselves in increasing resplendence of soul through both joys
+and sorrows.  The joy of their life keeps step with the joy of
+that energy which is playing at building and breaking throughout
+the universe.  The joy of the sunlight, the joy of the free air,
+mingling with the joy of their lives, makes one sweet harmony
+reign within and without.  It is they who say, _In the midst of
+activity alone wilt thou desire to live a hundred years._
+
+This joy of life, this joy of work, in man is absolutely true.
+It is no use saying that it is a delusion of ours; that unless we
+cast it away we cannot enter upon the path of self-realisation.
+It will never do the least good to attempt the realisation of the
+infinite apart from the world of action.
+
+It is not the truth that man is active on compulsion.  If there
+is compulsion on one side, on the other there is pleasure; on the
+one hand action is spurred on by want, on the other it hies to
+its natural fulfilment.  That is why, as man's civilisation
+advances, he increases his obligations and the work that he
+willingly creates for himself.  One should have thought that
+nature had given him quite enough to do to keep him busy, in fact
+that it was working him to death with the lash of hunger and
+thirst,--but no.  Man does not think that sufficient; he cannot
+rest content with only doing the work that nature prescribes for
+him in common with the birds and beasts.  He needs must surpass
+all, even in activity.  No creature has to work so hard as man;
+he has been impelled to contrive for himself a vast field of
+action in society; and in this field he is for every building up
+and pulling down, making and unmaking laws, piling up heaps of
+material, and incessantly thinking, seeking and suffering.  In
+this field he has fought his mightiest battles, gained continual
+new life, made death glorious, and, far from evading troubles,
+has willingly and continually taken up the burden of fresh
+trouble.  He has discovered the truth that he is not complete in
+the cage of his immediate surroundings, that he is greater than
+his present, and that while to stand still in one place may be
+comforting, the arrest of life destroys his true function and the
+real purpose of his existence.
+
+This _mahati vinashtih--this great destruction_ he cannot bear,
+and accordingly he toils and suffers in order that he may gain in
+stature by transcending his present, in order to become that
+which he yet is not.  In this travail is man's glory, and it is
+because he knows it, that he has not sought to circumscribe his
+field of action, but is constantly occupied in extending the
+bounds.  Sometimes he wanders so far that his work tends to lose
+its meaning, and his rushings to and fro create fearful eddies
+round different centres--eddies of self-interest, of pride of
+power.  Still, so long as the strength of the current is not lost,
+there is no fear; the obstructions and the dead accumulations of
+his activity are dissipated and carried away; the impetus corrects
+its own mistakes.  Only when the soul sleeps in stagnation do its
+enemies gain overmastering strength, and these obstructions become
+too clogging to be fought through.  Hence have we been warned by
+our teachers that to work we must live, to live we must work; that
+life and activity are inseparably connected.
+
+It is very characteristic of life that it is not complete within
+itself; it must come out.  Its truth is in the commerce of the
+inside and the outside.  In order to live, the body must maintain
+its various relations with the outside light and air--not only to
+gain life-force, but also to manifest it.  Consider how fully
+employed the body is with its own inside activities; its heart-beat
+must not stop for a second, its stomach, its brain, must be
+ceaselessly working.  Yet this is not enough; the body is
+outwardly restless all the while.  Its life leads it to an
+endless dance of work and play outside; it cannot be satisfied
+with the circulations of its internal economy, and only finds the
+fulfilment of joy in its outward excursions.
+
+The same with the soul.  It cannot live on its own internal
+feelings and imaginings.  It is ever in need of external objects;
+not only to feed its inner consciousness but to apply itself in
+action, not only to receive but also to give.
+
+The real truth is, we cannot live if we divide him who is truth
+itself into two parts.  We must abide in him within as well as
+without.  In whichever aspect we deny him we deceive ourselves
+and incur a loss.  _Brahma has not left me, let me not leave
+Brahma._  [Footnote:  Maham brahma nirakuryyam ma ma brahma
+nirakarot.]  If we say that we would realise him in introspection
+alone and leave him out of our external activity, that we would
+enjoy him by the love in our heart, but not worship him by
+outward ministrations; or if we say the opposite, and overweight
+ourselves on one side in the journey of our life's quest, we
+shall alike totter to our downfall.
+
+In the great western continent we see that the soul of man is
+mainly concerned with extending itself outwards; the open field
+of the exercise of power is its field.  Its partiality is
+entirely for the world of extension, and it would leave aside--nay,
+hardly believe in--that field of inner consciousness which
+is the field of fulfilment.  It has gone so far in this that the
+perfection of fulfilment seems to exist for it nowhere.  Its
+science has always talked of the never-ending evolution of the
+world.  Its metaphysic has now begun to talk of the evolution of
+God himself.  They will not admit that he _is_; they would have
+it that he also is _becoming._
+
+They fail to realise that while the infinite is always greater
+than any assignable limit, it is also complete; that on the one
+hand Brahma is evolving, on the other he is perfection; that in
+the one aspect he is essence, in the other manifestation--both
+together at the same time, as is the song and the act of singing.
+This is like ignoring the consciousness of the singer and saying
+that only the singing is in progress, that there is no song.
+Doubtless we are directly aware only of the singing, and never at
+any one time of the song as a whole; but do we not all the time
+know that the complete song is in the soul of the singer?
+
+It is because of this insistence on the doing and the becoming
+that we perceive in the west the intoxication of power.  These
+men seem to have determined to despoil and grasp everything by
+force.  They would always obstinately be doing and never be
+done--they would not allow to death its natural place in the scheme of
+things--they know not the beauty of completion.
+
+In our country the danger comes from the opposite side.  Our
+partiality is for the internal world.  We would cast aside with
+contumely the field of power and of extension.  We would realise
+Brahma in mediation only in his aspect of completeness, we have
+determined not to see him in the commerce of the universe in his
+aspect of evolution.  That is why in our seekers we so often find
+the intoxication of the spirit and its consequent degradation.
+Their faith would acknowledge no bondage of law, their
+imagination soars unrestricted, their conduct disdains to offer
+any explanation to reason.  Their intellect, in its vain attempts
+to see Brahma inseparable from his creation, works itself stone-dry,
+and their heart, seeking to confine him within its own
+outpourings, swoons in a drunken ecstasy of emotion.  They have
+not even kept within reach any standard whereby they can measure
+the loss of strength and character which manhood sustains by thus
+ignoring the bonds of law and the claims of action in the
+external universe.
+
+But true spirituality, as taught in our sacred lore, is calmly
+balanced in strength, in the correlation of the within and the
+without.  The truth has its law, it has its joy.  On one side of
+it is being chanted the _Bhayadasyagnistapati_ [Footnote: "For
+fear of him the fire doth burn," etc], on the other the
+_Anandadhyeva khalvimani bhutani jayante._  [Footnote: "From Joy
+are born all created things," etc.]  Freedom is impossible of
+attainment without submission to law, for Brahma is in one aspect
+bound by his truth, in the other free in his joy.
+
+As for ourselves, it is only when we wholly submit to the bonds
+of truth that we fully gain the joy of freedom.  And how?  As
+does the string that is bound to the harp.  When the harp is
+truly strung, when there is not the slightest laxity in the
+strength of the bond, then only does music result; and the string
+transcending itself in its melody finds at every chord its true
+freedom.  It is because it is bound by such hard and fast rules
+on the one side that it can find this range of freedom in music
+on the other.  While the string was not true, it was indeed
+merely bound; but a loosening of its bondage would not have been
+the way to freedom, which it can only fully achieve by being
+bound tighter and tighter till it has attained the true pitch.
+
+The bass and treble strings of our duty are only bonds so long as
+we cannot maintain them steadfastly attuned according to the law
+of truth; and we cannot call by the name of freedom the loosening
+of them into the nothingness of inaction.  That is why I would
+say that the true striving in the quest of truth, of _dharma_,
+consists not in the neglect of action but in the effort to attune
+it closer and closer to the eternal harmony.  The text of this
+striving should be, _Whatever works thou doest, consecrate them
+to Brahma._  [Footnote:  Yadyat karma prakurvita tadbrahmani
+samarpayet.]  That is to say, the soul is to dedicate itself to
+Brahma through all its activities.  This dedication is the song
+of the soul, in this is its freedom.  Joy reigns when all work
+becomes the path to the union with Brahma; when the soul ceases
+to return constantly to its own desires; when in it our
+self-offering grows more and more intense.  Then there is completion,
+then there is freedom, then, in this world, comes the kingdom of
+God.
+
+Who is there that, sitting in his corner, would deride this grand
+self-expression of humanity in action, this incessant
+self-consecration?  Who is there that thinks the union of God and man
+is to be found in some secluded enjoyment of his own imaginings,
+away from the sky-towering temple of the greatness of humanity,
+which the whole of mankind, in sunshine and storm, is toiling to
+erect through the ages?  Who is there that thinks this secluded
+communion is the highest form of religion?
+
+O thou distraught wanderer, thou _Sannyasin_, drunk in the wine of
+self-intoxication, dost thou not already hear the progress of the
+human soul along the highway traversing the wide fields of
+humanity--the thunder of its progress in the car of its
+achievements, which is destined to overpass the bounds that
+prevent its expansion into the universe?  The very mountains are
+cleft asunder and give way before the march of its banners waving
+triumphantly in the heavens; as the mist before the rising sun,
+the tangled obscurities of material things vanish at its
+irresistible approach.  Pain, disease, and disorder are at every
+step receding before its onset; the obstructions of ignorance are
+being thrust aside; the darkness of blindness is being pierced
+through; and behold, the promised land of wealth and health, of
+poetry and art, of knowledge and righteousness is gradually being
+revealed to view.  Do you in your lethargy desire to say that
+this car of humanity, which is shaking the very earth with the
+triumph of its progress along the mighty vistas of history, has
+no charioteer leading it on to its fulfilment?  Who is there who
+refuses to respond to his call to join in this triumphal progress?
+Who so foolish as to run away from the gladsome throng and seek
+him in the listlessness of inaction?  Who so steeped in untruth as
+to dare to call all this untrue--this great world of men, this
+civilisation of expanding humanity, this eternal effort of man,
+through depths of sorrow, through heights of gladness, through
+innumerable impediments within and without, to win victory for his
+powers?  He who can think of this immensity of achievement as an
+immense fraud, can he truly believe in God who is the truth?  He
+who thinks to reach God by running away from the world, when and
+where does he expect to meet him?  How far can he fly--can he fly
+and fly, till he flies into nothingness itself?  No, the coward
+who would fly can nowhere find him.  We must be brave enough to
+be able to say: We are reaching him here in this very spot, now
+at this very moment.  We must be able to assure ourselves that as
+in our actions we are realising ourselves, so in ourselves we are
+realising him who is the self of self.  We must earn the right to
+say so unhesitatingly by clearing away with our own effort all
+obstruction, all disorder, all discords from our path of activity;
+we must be able to say, "In my work is my joy, and in that joy
+does the joy of my joy abide."
+
+Whom does the Upanishad call _The chief among the knowers of
+Brahma?_  [Footnote: Brahmavidamvaristhah.]  He is defined as _He
+whose joy is in Brahma, whose play is in Brahma, the active one._
+[Footnote: Atmakrirha atmaratih kriyavan.]  Joy without the play
+of joy is no joy at all--play without activity is no play.
+Activity is the play of joy.  He whose joy is in Brahma, how can
+he live in inaction?  For must he not by his activity provide
+that in which the joy of Brahma is to take form and manifest
+itself?  That is why he who knows Brahma, who has his joy in
+Brahma, must also have all his activity in Brahma--his eating
+and drinking, his earning of livelihood and his beneficence.
+Just as the joy of the poet in his poem, of the artist in his
+art, of the brave man in the output of his courage, of the wise
+man in his discernment of truths, ever seeks expression in their
+several activities, so the joy of the knower of Brahma, in the
+whole of his everyday work, little and big, in truth, in beauty,
+in orderliness and in beneficence, seeks to give expression to
+the infinite.
+
+Brahma himself gives expression to his joy in just the same way.
+_By his many-sided activity, which radiates in all directions,
+does he fulfil the inherent want of his different creatures._
+[Footnote: Bahudha cakti yogat varnananekan nihitartho dadhati.]
+That inherent want is he himself, and so he is in so many ways,
+in so many forms, giving himself.  He works, for without working
+how could he give himself.  His joy is ever dedicating itself in
+the dedication which is his creation.
+
+In this very thing does our own true meaning lie, in this is our
+likeness to our father.  We must also give up ourselves in
+many-sided variously aimed activity.  In the Vedas he is called _the
+giver of himself, the giver of strength._  [Footnote:  Atmada
+balada.]  He is not content with giving us himself, but he gives
+us strength that we may likewise give ourselves.  That is why the
+seer of the Upanishad prays to him who is thus fulfilling our
+wants, _May he grant us the beneficent mind_ [Footnote: Sa no
+buddhya cubhaya samyunaktu.], may he fulfil that uttermost want
+of ours by granting us the beneficent mind.  That is to say, it
+is not enough he should alone work to remove our want, but he
+should give us the desire and the strength to work with him in
+his activity and in the exercise of the goodness.  Then, indeed,
+will our union with him alone be accomplished.  The beneficent
+mind is that which shows us the want (_swartha_) of another self
+to be the inherent want (_nihitartha_) of our own self; that
+which shows that our joy consists in the varied aiming of our
+many-sided powers in the work of humanity.  When we work under
+the guidance of this beneficent mind, then our activity is
+regulated, but does not become mechanical; it is action not
+goaded on by want, but stimulated by the satisfaction of the
+soul.  Such activity ceases to be a blind imitation of that of
+the multitude, a cowardly following of the dictates of fashion.
+Therein we begin to see that _He is in the beginning and in the
+end of the universe_ [Footnote: Vichaiti chante vicvamadau.],
+and likewise see that of our own work is he the fount and the
+inspiration, and at the end thereof is he, and therefore that all
+our activity is pervaded by peace and good and joy.
+
+The Upanishad says: _Knowledge, power, and action are of his
+nature._ [Footnote: Svabhavikijnana bala kriya cha.]  It is
+because this naturalness has not yet been born in us that we tend
+to divide joy from work.  Our day of work is not our day of
+joy--for that we require a holiday; for, miserable that we are, we
+cannot find our holiday in our work.  The river finds its holiday
+in its onward flow, the fire in its outburst of flame, the scent
+of the flower in its permeation of the atmosphere; but in our
+everyday work there is no such holiday for us.  It is because we
+do not let ourselves go, because we do not give ourselves
+joyously and entirely up to it, that our work overpowers us.
+
+O giver of thyself! at the vision of thee as joy let our souls
+flame up to thee as the fire, flow on to thee as the river,
+permeate thy being as the fragrance of the flower.  Give us
+strength to love, to love fully, our life in its joys and
+sorrows, in its gains and losses, in its rise and fall.  Let us
+have strength enough fully to see and hear thy universe, and to
+work with full vigour therein.  Let us fully live the life thou
+hast given us, let us bravely take and bravely give.  This is our
+prayer to thee.  Let us once for all dislodge from our minds the
+feeble fancy that would make out thy joy to be a thing apart from
+action, thin, formless, and unsustained.  Wherever the peasant
+tills the hard earth, there does thy joy gush out in the green of
+the corn, wherever man displaces the entangled forest, smooths
+the stony ground, and clears for himself a homestead, there does
+thy joy enfold it in orderliness and peace.
+
+O worker of the universe!  We would pray to thee to let the
+irresistible current of thy universal energy come like the
+impetuous south wind of spring, let it come rushing over the vast
+field of the life of man, let it bring the scent of many flowers,
+the murmurings of many woodlands, let it make sweet and vocal the
+lifelessness of our dried-up soul-life.  Let our newly awakened
+powers cry out for unlimited fulfilment in leaf and flower and
+fruit.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+THE REALISATION OF BEAUTY
+
+
+Things in which we do not take joy are either a burden upon our
+minds to be got rid of at any cost; or they are useful, and
+therefore in temporary and partial relation to us, becoming
+burdensome when their utility is lost; or they are like wandering
+vagabonds, loitering for a moment on the outskirts of our
+recognition, and then passing on.  A thing is only completely our
+own when it is a thing of joy to us.
+
+The greater part of this world is to us as if it were nothing.
+But we cannot allow it to remain so, for thus it belittles our
+own self.  The entire world is given to us, and all our powers
+have their final meaning in the faith that by their help we are
+to take possession of our patrimony.
+
+But what is the function of our sense of beauty in this process
+of the extension of our consciousness?  Is it there to separate
+truth into strong lights and shadows, and bring it before us in
+its uncompromising distinction of beauty and ugliness?  If that
+were so, then we would have had to admit that this sense of
+beauty creates a dissension in our universe and sets up a wall of
+hindrance across the highway of communication that leads from
+everything to all things.
+
+But that cannot be true.  As long as our realisation is
+incomplete a division necessarily remains between things known
+and unknown, pleasant and unpleasant.  But in spite of the dictum
+of some philosophers man does not accept any arbitrary and
+absolute limit to his knowable world.  Every day his science is
+penetrating into the region formerly marked in his map as
+unexplored or inexplorable.  Our sense of beauty is similarly
+engaged in ever pushing on its conquests.  Truth is everywhere,
+therefore everything is the object of our knowledge.  Beauty is
+omnipresent, therefore everything is capable of giving us joy.
+
+In the early days of his history man took everything as a
+phenomenon of life.  His science of life began by creating a
+sharp distinction between life and non-life.  But as it is
+proceeding farther and farther the line of demarcation between
+the animate and inanimate is growing more and more dim.  In the
+beginning of our apprehension these sharp lines of contrast are
+helpful to us, but as our comprehension becomes clearer they
+gradually fade away.
+
+The Upanishads have said that all things are created and
+sustained by an infinite joy.  To realise this principle of
+creation we have to start with a division--the division into the
+beautiful and the non-beautiful.  Then the apprehension of beauty
+has to come to us with a vigorous blow to awaken our
+consciousness from its primitive lethargy, and it attains its
+object by the urgency of the contrast.  Therefore our first
+acquaintance with beauty is in her dress of motley colours, that
+affects us with its stripes and feathers, nay, with its
+disfigurements.  But as our acquaintance ripens, the apparent
+discords are resolved into modulations of rhythm.  At first we
+detach beauty from its surroundings, we hold it apart from the
+rest, but at the end we realise its harmony with all.  Then the
+music of beauty has no more need of exciting us with loud noise;
+it renounces violence, and appeals to our heart with the truth
+that it is meekness inherits the earth.
+
+In some stage of our growth, in some period of our history, we
+try to set up a special cult of beauty, and pare it down to a
+narrow circuit, so as to make it a matter of pride for a chosen
+few.  Then it breeds in its votaries affections and
+exaggerations, as it did with the Brahmins in the time of the
+decadence of Indian civilisation, when the perception of the
+higher truth fell away and superstitions grew up unchecked.
+
+In the history of aesthetics there also comes an age of
+emancipation when the recognition of beauty in things great and
+small become easy, and when we see it more in the unassuming
+harmony of common objects than in things startling in their
+singularity.  So much so, that we have to go through the stages
+of reaction when in the representation of beauty we try to avoid
+everything that is obviously pleasing and that has been crowned
+by the sanction of convention.  We are then tempted in defiance
+to exaggerate the commonness of commonplace things, thereby
+making them aggressively uncommon.  To restore harmony we create
+the discords which are a feature of all reactions.  We already
+see in the present age the sign of this aesthetic reaction, which
+proves that man has at last come to know that it is only the
+narrowness of perception which sharply divides the field of his
+aesthetic consciousness into ugliness and beauty.  When he has the
+power to see things detached from self-interest and from the
+insistent claims of the lust of the senses, then alone can he
+have the true vision of the beauty that is everywhere.  Then only
+can he see that what is unpleasant to us is not necessarily
+unbeautiful, but has its beauty in truth.
+
+When we say that beauty is everywhere we do not mean that the
+word ugliness should be abolished from our language, just as it
+would be absurd to say that there is no such thing as untruth.
+Untruth there certainly is, not in the system of the universe,
+but in our power of comprehension, as its negative element.  In
+the same manner there is ugliness in the distorted expression of
+beauty in our life and in our art which comes from our imperfect
+realisation of Truth.  To a certain extent we can set our life
+against the law of truth which is in us and which is in all, and
+likewise we can give rise to ugliness by going counter to the
+eternal law of harmony which is everywhere.
+
+Through our sense of truth we realise law in creation, and
+through our sense of beauty we realise harmony in the universe.
+When we recognise the law in nature we extend our mastery over
+physical forces and become powerful; when we recognise the law in
+our moral nature we attain mastery over self and become free.  In
+like manner the more we comprehend the harmony in the physical
+world the more our life shares the gladness of creation, and our
+expression of beauty in art becomes more truly catholic.  As we
+become conscious of the harmony in our soul, our apprehension of
+the blissfulness of the spirit of the world becomes universal,
+and the expression of beauty in our life moves in goodness and
+love towards the infinite.  This is the ultimate object of our
+existence, that we must ever know that "beauty is truth, truth
+beauty"; we must realise the whole world in love, for love gives
+it birth, sustains it, and takes it back to its bosom.  We must
+have that perfect emancipation of heart which gives us the power
+to stand at the innermost centre of things and have the taste of
+that fullness of disinterested joy which belongs to Brahma.
+
+Music is the purest form of art, and therefore the most direct
+expression of beauty, with a form and spirit which is one and
+simple, and least encumbered with anything extraneous.  We seem
+to feel that the manifestation of the infinite in the finite
+forms of creation is music itself, silent and visible.  The
+evening sky, tirelessly repeating the starry constellations,
+seems like a child struck with wonder at the mystery of its own
+first utterance, lisping the same word over and over again, and
+listening to it in unceasing joy.  When in the rainy night of
+July the darkness is thick upon the meadows and the pattering
+rain draws veil upon veil over the stillness of the slumbering
+earth, this monotony of the rain patter seems to be the darkness
+of sound itself.  The gloom of the dim and dense line of trees,
+the thorny bushes scattered in the bare heath like floating heads
+of swimmers with bedraggled hair, the smell of the damp grass and
+the wet earth, the spire of the temple rising above the undefined
+mass of blackness grouped around the village huts--everything
+seems like notes rising from the heart of the night, mingling and
+losing themselves in the one sound of ceaseless rain filling the
+sky.
+
+Therefore the true poets, they who are seers, seek to express the
+universe in terms of music.
+
+They rarely use symbols of painting to express the unfolding of
+forms, the mingling of endless lines and colours that goes on
+every moment on the canvas of the blue sky.
+
+They have their reason.  For the man who paints must have canvas,
+brush and colour-box.  The first touch of his brush is very far
+from the complete idea.  And then when the work is finished the
+artist is gone, the windowed picture stands alone, the incessant
+touches of love of the creative hand are withdrawn.
+
+But the singer has everything within him.  The notes come out
+from his very life.  They are not materials gathered from
+outside.  His idea and his expression are brother and sister;
+very often they are born as twins.  In music the heart reveals
+itself immediately; it suffers not from any barrier of alien
+material.
+
+Therefore though music has to wait for its completeness like any
+other art, yet at every step it gives out the beauty of the
+whole.  As the material of expression even words are barriers,
+for their meaning has to be constructed by thought.  But music
+never has to depend upon any obvious meaning; it expresses what
+no words can ever express.
+
+What is more, music and the musician are inseparable.  When the
+singer departs, his singing dies with him; it is in eternal union
+with the life and joy of the master.
+
+This world-song is never for a moment separated from its singer.
+It is not fashioned from any outward material.  It is his joy
+itself taking never-ending form.  It is the great heart sending
+the tremor of its thrill over the sky.
+
+There is a perfection in each individual strain of this music,
+which is the revelation of completion in the incomplete.  No one of
+its notes is final, yet each reflects the infinite.
+
+What does it matter if we fail to derive the exact meaning of
+this great harmony?  Is it not like the hand meeting the string
+and drawing out at once all its tones at the touch?  It is the
+language of beauty, the caress, that comes from the heart of the
+world straightway reaches our heart.
+
+Last night, in the silence which pervaded the darkness, I stood
+alone and heard the voice of the singer of eternal melodies.
+When I went to sleep I closed my eyes with this last thought in
+my mind, that even when I remain unconscious in slumber the dance
+of life will still go on in the hushed arena of my sleeping body,
+keeping step with the stars.  The heart will throb, the blood
+will leap in the veins, and the millions of living atoms of my
+body will vibrate in tune with the note of the harp-string that
+thrills at the touch of the master.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+THE REALISATION OF THE INFINITE
+
+
+The Upanishads say: "Man becomes true if in this life he can
+apprehend God; if not, it is the greatest calamity for him."
+
+But what is the nature of this attainment of God?  It is quite
+evident that the infinite is not like one object among many, to
+be definitely classified and kept among our possessions, to be
+used as an ally specially favouring us in our politics, warfare,
+money-making, or in social competitions.  We cannot put our God
+in the same list with our summer-houses, motor-cars, or our
+credit at the bank, as so many people seem to want to do.
+
+We must try to understand the true character of the desire that a
+man has when his soul longs for his God.  Does it consist of his
+wish to make an addition, however valuable, to his belongings?
+Emphatically no!  It is an endlessly wearisome task, this
+continual adding to our stores.  In fact, when the soul seeks God
+she seeks her final escape from this incessant gathering and
+heaping and never coming to an end.  It is not an additional
+object the she seeks, but it is the _nityo 'nityanam_, the
+permanent in all that is impermanent, the _rasanam rasatamah_,
+the highest abiding joy unifying all enjoyments.  Therefore when
+the Upanishads teach us to realise everything in Brahma, it is
+not to seek something extra, not to manufacture something new.
+
+_Know everything that there is in the universe as enveloped by
+God._  [Footnote: Ichavasyamdiam sarvam yat kincha
+jagatyanjagat.]  _Enjoy whatever is given by him and harbour not
+in your mind the greed for wealth which is not your own._
+[Footnoe: Tena tyaktena bhunjitha ma gridhah kasyasviddhanam.]
+
+When you know that whatever there is is filled by him and
+whatever you have is his gift, then you realise the infinite in
+the finite, and the giver in the gifts.  Then you know that all
+the facts of the reality have their only meaning in the
+manifestation of the one truth, and all your possessions have
+their only significance for you, not in themselves but in the
+relation they establish with the infinite.
+
+So it cannot be said that we can find Brahma as we find other
+objects; there is no question of searching from him in one thing
+in preference to another, in one place instead of somewhere else.
+We do not have to run to the grocer's shop for our morning light;
+we open our eyes and there it is; so we need only give ourselves
+up to find that Brahma is everywhere.
+
+This is the reason why Buddha admonished us to free ourselves
+from the confinement of the life of the self.  If there were
+nothing else to take its place more positively perfect and
+satisfying, then such admonition would be absolutely unmeaning.
+No man can seriously consider the advice, much less have any
+enthusiasm for it, of surrendering everything one has for gaining
+nothing whatever.
+
+So our daily worship of God is not really the process of gradual
+acquisition of him, but the daily process of surrendering
+ourselves, removing all obstacles to union and extending our
+consciousness of him in devotion and service, in goodness and in
+love.
+
+The Upanishads say: _Be lost altogether in Brahma like an arrow
+that has completely penetrated its target._  Thus to be conscious
+of being absolutely enveloped by Brahma is not an act of mere
+concentration of mind.  It must be the aim of the whole of our
+life.  In all our thoughts and deeds we must be conscious of the
+infinite.  Let the realisation of this truth become easier every
+day of our life, that _none could live or move if the energy of
+the all-pervading joy did not fill the sky._  [Footnote: Ko
+hyevanyat kah pranyat yadesha akacha anando na syat.]  In all our
+actions let us feel that impetus of the infinite energy and be
+glad.
+
+It may be said that the infinite is beyond our attainment, so it
+is for us as if it were naught.  Yes, if the word attainment
+implies any idea of possession, then it must be admitted that the
+infinite is unattainable.  But we must keep in mind that the
+highest enjoyment of man is not in the having but in a getting,
+which is at the same time not getting.  Our physical pleasures
+leave no margin for the unrealised.  They, like the dead
+satellite of the earth, have but little atmosphere around them.
+When we take food and satisfy our hunger it is a complete act of
+possession.  So long as the hunger is not satisfied it is a
+pleasure to eat.  For then our enjoyment of eating touches at
+every point the infinite.  But, when it attains completion, or in
+other words, when our desire for eating reaches the end of the
+stage of its non-realisation, it reaches the end of its pleasure.
+In all our intellectual pleasures the margin is broader, the
+limit is far off.  In all our deeper love getting and non-getting
+run ever parallel.  In one of our Vaishnava lyrics the lover says
+to his beloved: "I feel as if I have gazed upon the beauty of thy
+face from my birth, yet my eyes are hungry still: as if I have
+kept thee pressed to my heart for millions of years, yet my heart
+is not satisfied."
+
+This makes it clear that it is really the infinite whom we seek
+in our pleasures.  Our desire for being wealthy is not a desire
+for a particular sum of money but it is indefinite, and the most
+fleeting of our enjoyments are but the momentary touches of the
+eternal.  The tragedy of human life consists in our vain attempts
+to stretch the limits of things which can never become
+unlimited,--to reach the infinite by absurdly adding to the rungs
+of the ladder of the finite.
+
+It is evident from this that the real desire of our soul is to
+get beyond all our possessions.  Surrounded by things she can
+touch and feel, she cries, "I am weary of getting; ah, where is
+he who is never to be got?"
+
+We see everywhere in the history of man that the spirit of
+renunciation is the deepest reality of the human soul.  When the
+soul says of anything, "I do not want it, for I am above it," she
+gives utterance to the highest truth that is in her.  When a
+girl's life outgrows her doll, when she realises that in every
+respect she is more than her doll is, then she throws it away.
+By the very act of possession we know that we are greater than
+the things we possess.  It is a perfect misery to be kept bound
+up with things lesser than ourselves.  This it is that Maitreyi
+felt when her husband gave her his property on the eve of leaving
+home.  She asked him, "Would these material things help one to
+attain the highest?"--or, in other words, "Are they more than my
+soul to me?"  When her husband answered, "They will make you rich
+in worldly possessions," she said at once, "then what am I to do
+with these?"  It is only when a man truly realises what his
+possessions are that he has no more illusions about them; then he
+knows his soul is far above these things and he becomes free from
+their bondage.  Thus man truly realises his soul by outgrowing
+his possessions, and man's progress in the path of eternal life
+is through a series of renunciations.
+
+That we cannot absolutely possess the infinite being is not a
+mere intellectual proposition.  It has to be experienced, and
+this experience is bliss.  The bird, while taking its flight in
+the sky, experiences at every beat of its wings that the sky is
+boundless, that its wings can never carry it beyond.  Therein
+lies its joy.  In the cage the sky is limited; it may be quite
+enough for all the purposes of the bird's life, only it is not
+more than is necessary.  The bird cannot rejoice within the
+limits of the necessary.  It must feel that what it has is
+immeasurably more than it ever can want or comprehend, and then
+only can it be glad.
+
+Thus our soul must soar in the infinite, and she must feel every
+moment that in the sense of not being able to come to the end of
+her attainment is her supreme joy, her final freedom.
+
+Man's abiding happiness is not in getting anything but in giving
+himself up to what is greater than himself, to ideas which are
+larger than his individual life, the idea of his country, of
+humanity, of God.  They make it easier for him to part with all
+that he has, not expecting his life.  His existence is miserable
+and sordid till he finds some great idea which can truly claim
+his all, which can release him from all attachment to his
+belongings.  Buddha and Jesus, and all our great prophets,
+represent such great ideas.  They hold before us opportunities
+for surrendering our all.  When they bring forth their divine
+alms-bowl we feel we cannot help giving, and we find that in
+giving is our truest joy and liberation, for it is uniting
+ourselves to that extent with the infinite.
+
+Man is not complete; he is yet to be.  In what he _is_ he is
+small, and if we could conceive him stopping there for eternity
+we should have an idea of the most awful hell that man can
+imagine.  In his _to be_ he is infinite, there is his heaven,
+his deliverance.  His _is_ is occupied every moment with what it
+can get and have done with; his _to be_ is hungering for
+something which is more than can be got, which he never can lose
+because he never has possessed.
+
+The finite pole of our existence has its place in the world of
+necessity.  There man goes about searching for food to live,
+clothing to get warmth.  In this region--the region of nature--it
+is his function to get things.  The natural man is occupied with
+enlarging his possessions.
+
+But this act of getting is partial.  It is limited to man's
+necessities.  We can have a thing only to the extent of our
+requirements, just as a vessel can contain water only to the
+extent of its emptiness.  Our relation to food is only in
+feeding, our relation to a house is only in habitation.  We call
+it a benefit when a thing is fitted only to some particular want
+of ours.  Thus to get is always to get partially, and it never
+can be otherwise.  So this craving for acquisition belongs to our
+finite self.
+
+But that side of our existence whose direction is towards the
+infinite seeks not wealth, but freedom and joy.  There the reign
+of necessity ceases, and there our function is not to get but to
+be.  To be what?  To be one with Brahma.  For the region of the
+infinite is the region of unity.  Therefore the Upanishads say:
+_If man apprehends God he becomes true._  Here it is becoming,
+it is not having more.  Words do no gather bulk when you know
+their meaning; they become true by being one with the idea.
+
+Though the West has accepted as its teacher him who boldly
+proclaimed his oneness with his Father, and who exhorted his
+followers to be perfect as God, it has never been reconciled to
+this idea of our unity with the infinite being.  It condemns, as
+a piece of blasphemy, any implication of man's becoming God.
+This is certainly not the idea that Christ preached, nor perhaps
+the idea of the Christian mystics, but this seems to be the idea
+that has become popular in the Christian west.
+
+But the highest wisdom in the East holds that it is not the
+function of our soul to _gain_ God, to utilise him for any
+special material purpose.  All that we can ever aspire to is to
+become more and more one with God.  In the region of nature,
+which is the region of diversity, we grow by acquisition; in the
+spiritual world, which is the region of unity, we grow by losing
+ourselves, by uniting.  Gaining a thing, as we have said, is by
+its nature partial, it is limited only to a particular want; but
+_being_ is complete, it belongs to our wholeness, it springs not
+from any necessity but from our affinity with the infinite, which
+is the principle of perfection that we have in our soul.
+
+Yes, we must become Brahma.  We must not shrink to avow this.
+Our existence is meaningless if we never can expect to realise
+the highest perfection that there is.  If we have an aim and yet
+can never reach it, then it is no aim at all.
+
+But can it then be said that there is no difference between
+Brahma and our individual soul?  Of course the difference is
+obvious.  Call it illusion or ignorance, or whatever name you may
+give it, it is there.  You can offer explanations but you cannot
+explain it away.  Even illusion is true an illusion.
+
+Brahma is Brahma, he is the infinite ideal of perfection.  But we
+are not what we truly are; we are ever to become true, ever to
+become Brahma.  There is the eternal play of love in the relation
+between this being and the becoming; and in the depth of this
+mystery is the source of all truth and beauty that sustains the
+endless march of creation.
+
+In the music of the rushing stream sounds the joyful assurance,
+"I shall become the sea."  It is not a vain assumption; it is
+true humility, for it is the truth.  The river has no other
+alternative.  On both sides of its banks it has numerous fields
+and forests, villages and towns; it can serve them in various
+ways, cleanse them and feed them, carry their produce from place
+to place.  But it can have only partial relations with these, and
+however long it may linger among them it remains separate; it
+never can become a town or a forest.
+
+But it can and does become the sea.  The lesser moving water has
+its affinity with the great motionless water of the ocean.  It
+moves through the thousand objects on its onward course, and its
+motion finds its finality when it reaches the sea.
+
+The river can become the sea, but she can never make the sea part
+and parcel of herself.  If, by some chance, she has encircled
+some broad sheet of water and pretends that she has made the sea
+a part of herself, we at once know that it is not so, that her
+current is still seeking rest in the great ocean to which it can
+never set boundaries.
+
+In the same manner, our soul can only become Brahma as the river
+can become the sea.  Everything else she touches at one of her
+points, then leaves and moves on, but she never can leave Brahma
+and move beyond him.  Once our soul realises her ultimate object
+of repose in Brahma, all her movements acquire a purpose.  It is
+this ocean of infinite rest which gives significance to endless
+activities.  It is this perfectness of being that lends to the
+imperfection of becoming that quality of beauty which finds its
+expression in all poetry, drama and art.
+
+There must be a complete idea that animates a poem.  Every
+sentence of the poem touches that idea.  When the reader realises
+that pervading idea, as he reads on, then the reading of the poem
+is full of joy to him.  Then every part of the poem becomes
+radiantly significant by the light of the whole.  But if the poem
+goes on interminably, never expressing the idea of the whole,
+only throwing off disconnected images, however beautiful, it
+becomes wearisome and unprofitable in the extreme.  The progress
+of our soul is like a perfect poem.  It has an infinite idea
+which once realised makes all movements full of meaning and joy.
+But if we detach its movements from that ultimate idea, if we do
+not see the infinite rest and only see the infinite motion, then
+existence appears to us a monstrous evil, impetuously rushing
+towards an unending aimlessness.
+
+I remember in our childhood we had a teacher who used to make us
+learn by heart the whole book of Sanskrit grammer, which is
+written in symbols, without explaining their meaning to us.  Day
+after day we went toiling on, but on towards what, we had not the
+least notion.  So, as regards our lessons, we were in the
+position of the pessimist who only counts the breathless
+activities of the world, but cannot see the infinite repose of
+the perfection whence these activities are gaining their
+equilibrium every moment in absolute fitness and harmony.  We
+lose all joy in thus contemplating existence, because we miss the
+truth.  We see the gesticulations of the dancer, and we imagine
+these are directed by a ruthless tyranny of chance, while we are
+deaf to the eternal music which makes every one of these gestures
+inevitably spontaneous and beautiful.  These motions are ever
+growing into that music of perfection, becoming one with it,
+dedicating to that melody at every step the multitudinous forms
+they go on creating.
+
+And this is the truth of our soul, and this is her joy, that she
+must ever be growing into Brahma, that all her movements should
+be modulated by this ultimate idea, and all her creations should
+be given as offerings to the supreme spirit of perfection.
+
+There is a remarkable saying in the Upanishads: _I think not that
+I know him well, or that I know him, or even that I know him not._
+[Footnote: Naham manye suvedeti no na vedeti vedacha.]
+
+By the process of knowledge we can never know the infinite being.
+But if he is altogether beyond our reach, then he is absolutely
+nothing to us.  The truth is that we know him not, yet we know
+him.
+
+This has been explained in another saying of the Upanishads:
+_From Brahma words come back baffled, as well as the mind, but he
+who knows him by the joy of him is free from all fears._
+[Footnote: Yato vacho nivartante aprapya manasa saha anandam
+brahmano vidvan na vibheti kutacchana.]
+
+Knowledge is partial, because our intellect is an instrument, it
+is only a part of us, it can give us information about things
+which can be divided and analysed, and whose properties can be
+classified part by part.  But Brahma is perfect, and knowledge
+which is partial can never be a knowledge of him.
+
+But he can be known by joy, by love.  For joy is knowledge in its
+completeness, it is knowing by our whole being.  Intellect sets
+us apart from the things to be known, but love knows its object
+by fusion.  Such knowledge is immediate and admits no doubt.  It
+is the same as knowing our own selves, only more so.
+
+Therefore, as the Upanishads say, mind can never know Brahma,
+words can never describe him; he can only be known by our soul,
+by her joy in him, by her love.  Or, in other words, we can only
+come into relation with him by union--union of our whole being.
+We must be one with our Father, we must be perfect as he is.
+
+But how can that be?  There can be no grade in infinite
+perfection.  We cannot grow more and more into Brahma.  He is the
+absolute one, and there can be no more or less in him.
+
+Indeed, the realisation of the _paramatman_, the supreme soul,
+within our _antaratman_, our inner individual soul, is in a
+state of absolute completion.  We cannot think of it as
+non-existent and depending on our limited powers for its gradual
+construction.  If our relation with the divine were all a thing
+of our own making, how should we rely on it as true, and how
+should it lend us support?
+
+Yes, we must know that within us we have that where space and
+time cease to rule and where the links of evolution are merged in
+unity.  In that everlasting abode of the _ataman_, the soul, the
+revelation of the _paramatman_, the supreme soul, is already
+complete.  Therefore the Upanishads say: _He who knows Brahman,
+the true, the all-conscious, and the infinite as hidden in the
+depths of the soul, which is the supreme sky (the inner sky of
+consciousness), enjoys all objects of desire in union with the
+all-knowing Brahman._  [Footnote: Satyam jnanam anantam brahma yo
+veda nihitam guhayam paramo vyoman so'cnute sarvan kaman saha
+brahmana vipaschite.]
+
+The union is already accomplished.  The _paramatman_, the supreme
+soul, has himself chosen this soul of ours as his bride and the
+marriage has been completed.  The solemn _mantram_ has been
+uttered: _Let thy heart be even as my heart is._ [Footnote:
+Yadetat hridayam mama tadastu hridayan tava.]  There is no room
+in this marriage for evolution to act the part of the master of
+ceremonies.  The _eshah_, who cannot otherwise be described than
+as _This_, the nameless immediate presence, is ever here in our
+innermost being.  "This _eshah_, or _This_, is the supreme end of
+the other this"; [Footnote: Eshasya parama gatih] "this _This_ is
+the supreme treasure of the other this"; [Footnote: Eshasya parama
+sampat.] "this _This_ is the supreme dwelling of the other this";
+[Footnote: Eshasya paramo lokah] "this _This_ is the supreme joy
+of the other this."  [Footnote: Eshasya parama anandah]  Because
+the marriage of supreme love has been accomplished in timeless
+time.  And now goes on the endless _lila_, the play of love.  He
+who has been gained in eternity is now being pursued in time and
+space, in joys and sorrows, in this world and in the worlds beyond.
+When the soul-bride understands this well, her heart is blissful
+and at rest.  She knows that she, like a river, has attained the
+ocean of her fulfilment at one end of her being, and at the other
+end she is ever attaining it; at one end it is eternal rest and
+completion, at the other it is incessant movement and change.
+When she knows both ends as inseparably connected, then she knows
+the world as her own household by the right of knowing the master
+of the world as her own lord.  Then all her services becomes
+services of love, all the troubles and tribulations of life come
+to her as trials triumphantly borne to prove the strength of her
+love, smilingly to win the wager from her lover.  But so long as
+she remains obstinately in the dark, lifts not her veil, does not
+recognise her lover, and only knows the world dissociated from
+him, she serves as a handmaid here, where by right she might
+reign as a queen; she sways in doubt, and weeps in sorrow and
+dejection.  _She passes from starvation to starvation, from
+trouble to trouble, and from fear to fear._  [Footnote:
+Daurbhikshat yati daurbhiksham klecat klecam bhayat bhayam.]
+
+I can never forget that scrap of a song I once heard in the early
+dawn in the midst of the din of the crowd that had collected for
+a festival the night before: "Ferryman, take me across to the
+other shore!"
+
+In the bustle of all our work there comes out this cry, "Take me
+across."  The carter in India sings while driving his cart, "Take
+me across."  The itinerant grocer deals out his goods to his
+customers and sings, "Take me across".
+
+What is the meaning of this cry?  We feel we have not reached our
+goal; and we know with all our striving and toiling we do not
+come to the end, we do not attain our object.  Like a child
+dissatisfied with its dolls, our heart cries, "Not this, not
+this."  But what is that other?  Where is the further shore?
+
+Is it something else than what we have?  Is it somewhere else
+than where we are?  Is it to take rest from all our works, to be
+relieved from all the responsibilities of life?
+
+No, in the very heart of our activities we are seeking for our
+end.  We are crying for the across, even where we stand.  So,
+while our lips utter their prayer to be carried away, our busy
+hands are never idle.
+
+In truth, thou ocean of joy, this shore and the other shore are
+one and the same in thee.  When I call this my own, the other
+lies estranged; and missing the sense of that completeness which
+is in me, my heart incessantly cries out for the other.  All my
+this, and that other, are waiting to be completely reconciled in
+thy love.
+
+This "I" of mine toils hard, day and night, for a home which it
+knows as its own.  Alas, there will be no end of its sufferings
+so long as it is not able to call this home thine.  Till then it
+will struggle on, and its heart will ever cry, "Ferryman, lead me
+across."  When this home of mine is made thine, that very moment
+is it taken across, even while its old walls enclose it.  This
+"I" is restless.  It is working for a gain which can never be
+assimilated with its spirit, which it never can hold and retain.
+In its efforts to clasp in its own arms that which is for all, it
+hurts others and is hurt in its turn, and cries, "Lead me across".
+But as soon as it is able to say, "All my work is thine," everything
+remains the same, only it is taken across.
+
+Where can I meet thee unless in this mine home made thine?  Where
+can I join thee unless in this my work transformed into thy work?
+If I leave my home I shall not reach thy home; if I cease my work
+I can never join thee in thy work.  For thou dwellest in me and I
+in thee.  Thou without me or I without thee are nothing.
+
+Therefore, in the midst of our home and our work, the prayer
+rises, "Lead me across!"  For here rolls the sea, and even here
+lies the other shore waiting to be reached--yes, here is this
+everlasting present, not distant, not anywhere else.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sadhana, by Rabindranath Tagore
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sadhana, by Rabindranath Tagore
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+Title: Sadhana
+       The Realisation of Life
+
+Author: Rabindranath Tagore
+
+Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6842]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on January 31, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SADHANA ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Chetan Jain at BharatLiterature.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SADHANA
+
+
+THE REALISATION OF LIFE
+
+
+By
+
+Rabindranath Tagore
+
+Author of 'Gitanjali'
+
+
+1916
+
+
+
+To
+
+Ernest Rhys
+
+
+
+Author's Preface
+
+
+Perhaps it is well for me to explain that the subject-matter of
+the papers published in this book has not been philosophically
+treated, nor has it been approached from the scholar's point of
+view.  The writer has been brought up in a family where texts of
+the Upanishads are used in daily worship; and he has had before
+him the example of his father, who lived his long life in the
+closest communion with God, while not neglecting his duties to
+the world, or allowing his keen interest in all human affairs to
+suffer any abatement.  So in these papers, it may be hoped,
+western readers will have an opportunity of coming into touch
+with the ancient spirit of India as revealed in our sacred texts
+and manifested in the life of to-day.
+
+All the great utterances of man have to be judged not by the
+letter but by the spirit--the spirit which unfolds itself with
+the growth of life in history.  We get to know the real meaning
+of Christianity by observing its living aspect at the present
+moment--however different that may be, even in important
+respects, from the Christianity of earlier periods.
+
+For western scholars the great religious scriptures of India seem
+to possess merely a retrospective and archaelogical interest; but
+to us they are of living importance, and we cannot help thinking
+that they lose their significance when exhibited in labelled
+cases--mummied specimens of human thought and aspiration,
+preserved for all time in the wrappings of erudition.
+
+The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences
+of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of
+logical interpretation.  They have to be endlessly explained by
+the commentaries of individual lives, and they gain an added
+mystery in each new revelation.  To me the verses of the
+Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha have ever been things of
+the spirit, and therefore endowed with boundless vital growth;
+and I have used them, both in my own life and in my preaching, as
+being instinct with individual meaning for me, as for others, and
+awaiting for their confirmation, my own special testimony, which
+must have its value because of its individuality.
+
+I should add perhaps that these papers embody in a connected
+form, suited to this publication, ideas which have been culled
+from several of the Bengali discourses which I am in the habit of
+giving to my students in my school at Bolpur in Bengal; and I
+have used here and there translations of passages from these done
+by my friends, Babu Satish Chandra Roy and Babu Ajit Kumar
+Chakravarti.  The last paper of this series, "Realisation in
+Action," has been translated from my Bengali discourse on "Karma-
+yoga" by my nephew, Babu Surendra Nath Tagore.
+
+I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to Professor
+James H. Woods, of Harvard University, for his generous
+appreciation which encouraged me to complete this series of
+papers and read most of them before the Harvard University.  And
+I offer my thanks to Mr. Ernest Rhys for his kindness in helping
+me with suggestions and revisions, and in going through the
+proofs.
+
+A word may be added about the pronouncing of Sadhana: the accent
+falls decisively on the first a, which has the broad sound of the
+letter.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I. THE RELATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO THE UNIVERSE
+II. SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS
+III. THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
+IV. THE PROBLEM OF SELF
+V. REALISATION IN LOVE
+VI. REALISATION IN ACTION
+VII. THE REALISATION OF BEAUTY
+VIII. THE REALISATION OF THE INFINITE
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+THE RELATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO THE UNIVERSE
+
+
+The civilisation of ancient Greece was nurtured within city
+walls.  In fact, all the modern civilisations have their cradles
+of brick and mortar.
+
+These walls leave their mark deep in the minds of men.  They set
+up a principle of "divide and rule" in our mental outlook, which
+begets in us a habit of securing all our conquests by fortifying
+them and separating them from one another.  We divide nation and
+nation, knowledge and knowledge, man and nature.  It breeds in us
+a strong suspicion of whatever is beyond the barriers we have
+built, and everything has to fight hard for its entrance into our
+recognition.
+
+When the first Aryan invaders appeared in India it was a vast
+land of forests, and the new-comers rapidly took advantage of
+them.  These forests afforded them shelter from the fierce heat
+of the sun and the ravages of tropical storms, pastures for
+cattle, fuel for sacrificial fire, and materials for building
+cottages.  And the different Aryan clans with their patriarchal
+heads settled in the different forest tracts which had some
+special advantage of natural protection, and food and water in
+plenty.
+
+Thus in India it was in the forests that our civilisation had its
+birth, and it took a distinct character from this origin and
+environment.  It was surrounded by the vast life of nature, was
+fed and clothed by her, and had the closest and most constant
+intercourse with her varying aspects.
+
+Such a life, it may be thought, tends to have the effect of
+dulling human intelligence and dwarfing the incentives to
+progress by lowering the standards of existence.  But in ancient
+India we find that the circumstances of forest life did not
+overcome man's mind, and did not enfeeble the current of his
+energies, but only gave to it a particular direction.  Having
+been in constant contact with the living growth of nature, his
+mind was free from the desire to extend his dominion by erecting
+boundary walls around his acquisitions.  His aim was not to
+acquire but to realise, to enlarge his consciousness by growing
+with and growing into his surroundings.  He felt that truth is
+all-comprehensive, that there is no such thing as absolute
+isolation in existence, and the only way of attaining truth is
+through the interpenetration of our being into all objects.  To
+realise this great harmony between man's spirit and the spirit of
+the world was the endeavour of the forest-dwelling sages of
+ancient India.
+
+In later days there came a time when these primeval forests gave
+way to cultivated fields, and wealthy cities sprang up on all
+sides.  Mighty kingdoms were established, which had
+communications with all the great powers of the world.  But even
+in the heyday of its material prosperity the heart of India ever
+looked back with adoration upon the early ideal of strenuous
+self-realisation, and the dignity of the simple life of the
+forest hermitage, and drew its best inspiration from the wisdom
+stored there.
+
+The west seems to take a pride in thinking that it is subduing
+nature; as if we are living in a hostile world where we have to
+wrest everything we want from an unwilling and alien arrangement
+of things.  This sentiment is the product of the city-wall habit
+and training of mind.  For in the city life man naturally directs
+the concentrated light of his mental vision upon his own life and
+works, and this creates an artificial dissociation between
+himself and the Universal Nature within whose bosom he lies.
+
+But in India the point of view was different; it included the
+world with the man as one great truth.  India put all her
+emphasis on the harmony that exists between the individual and
+the universal.  She felt we could have no communication whatever
+with our surroundings if they were absolutely foreign to us.
+Man's complaint against nature is that he has to acquire most of
+his necessaries by his own efforts.  Yes, but his efforts are not
+in vain; he is reaping success every day, and that shows there is
+a rational connection between him and nature, for we never can
+make anything our own except that which is truly related to us.
+
+We can look upon a road from two different points of view.  One
+regards it as dividing us from the object of our desire; in that
+case we count every step of our journey over it as something
+attained by force in the face of obstruction.  The other sees it
+as the road which leads us to our destination; and as such it is
+part of our goal.  It is already the beginning of our attainment,
+and by journeying over it we can only gain that which in itself
+it offers to us.  This last point of view is that of India with
+regard to nature.  For her, the great fact is that we are in
+harmony with nature; that man can think because his thoughts are
+in harmony with things; that he can use the forces of nature for
+his own purpose only because his power is in harmony with the
+power which is universal, and that in the long run his purpose
+never can knock against the purpose which works through nature.
+
+In the west the prevalent feeling is that nature belongs
+exclusively to inanimate things and to beasts, that there is a
+sudden unaccountable break where human-nature begins.  According
+to it, everything that is low in the scale of beings is merely
+nature, and whatever has the stamp of perfection on it,
+intellectual or moral, is human-nature.  It is like dividing the
+bud and the blossom into two separate categories, and putting
+their grace to the credit of two different and antithetical
+principles.  But the Indian mind never has any hesitation in
+acknowledging its kinship with nature, its unbroken relation with
+all.
+
+The fundamental unity of creation was not simply a philosophical
+speculation for India; it was her life-object to realise this
+great harmony in feeling and in action.  With mediation and
+service, with a regulation of life, she cultivated her
+consciousness in such a way that everything had a spiritual
+meaning to her.  The earth, water and light, fruits and flowers,
+to her were not merely physical phenomena to be turned to use and
+then left aside.  They were necessary to her in the attainment of
+her ideal of perfection, as every note is necessary to the
+completeness of the symphony.  India intuitively felt that the
+essential fact of this world has a vital meaning for us; we have
+to be fully alive to it and establish a conscious relation with
+it, not merely impelled by scientific curiosity or greed of
+material advantage, but realising it in the spirit of sympathy,
+with a large feeling of joy and peace.
+
+The man of science knows, in one aspect, that the world is not
+merely what it appears to be to our senses; he knows that earth
+and water are really the play of forces that manifest themselves
+to us as earth and water--how, we can but partially apprehend.
+Likewise the man who has his spiritual eyes open knows that the
+ultimate truth about earth and water lies in our apprehension of
+the eternal will which works in time and takes shape in the
+forces we realise under those aspects.  This is not mere
+knowledge, as science is, but it is a preception of the soul by
+the soul.  This does not lead us to power, as knowledge does, but
+it gives us joy, which is the product of the union of kindred
+things.  The man whose acquaintance with the world does not lead
+him deeper than science leads him, will never understand what it
+is that the man with the spiritual vision finds in these natural
+phenomena.  The water does not merely cleanse his limbs, but it
+purifies his heart; for it touches his soul.  The earth does not
+merely hold his body, but it gladdens his mind; for its contact
+is more than a physical contact--it is a living presence.  When a
+man does not realise his kinship with the world, he lives in a
+prison-house whose walls are alien to him.  When he meets the
+eternal spirit in all objects, then is he emancipated, for then
+he discovers the fullest significance of the world into which he
+is born; then he finds himself in perfect truth, and his harmony
+with the all is established.  In India men are enjoined to be
+fully awake to the fact that they are in the closest relation to
+things around them, body and soul, and that they are to hail the
+morning sun, the flowing water, the fruitful earth, as the
+manifestation of the same living truth which holds them in its
+embrace.  Thus the text of our everyday meditation is the
+_Gayathri_, a verse which is considered to be the epitome of all
+the Vedas.  By its help we try to realise the essential unity of
+the world with the conscious soul of man; we learn to perceive
+the unity held together by the one Eternal Spirit, whose power
+creates the earth, the sky, and the stars, and at the same time
+irradiates our minds with the light of a consciousness that moves
+and exists in unbroken continuity with the outer world.
+
+It is not true that India has tried to ignore differences of
+value in different things, for she knows that would make life
+impossible.  The sense of the superiority of man in the scale of
+creation has not been absent from her mind.  But she has had her
+own idea as to that in which his superiority really consists.  It
+is not in the power of possession but in the power of union.
+Therefore India chose her places of pilgrimage wherever there was
+in nature some special grandeur or beauty, so that her mind could
+come out of its world of narrow necessities and realise its place
+in the infinite.  This was the reason why in India a whole
+people who once were meat-eaters gave up taking animal food to
+cultivate the sentiment of universal sympathy for life, an event
+unique in the history of mankind.
+
+India knew that when by physical and mental barriers we violently
+detach ourselves from the inexhaustible life of nature; when we
+become merely man, but not man-in-the-universe, we create
+bewildering problems, and having shut off the source of their
+solution, we try all kinds of artificial methods each of which
+brings its own crop of interminable difficulties.  When man
+leaves his resting-place in universal nature, when he walks on
+the single rope of humanity, it means either a dance or a fall
+for him, he has ceaselessly to strain every nerve and muscle to
+keep his balance at each step, and then, in the intervals of his
+weariness, he fulminates against Providence and feels a secret
+pride and satisfaction in thinking that he has been unfairly
+dealt with by the whole scheme of things.
+
+But this cannot go on for ever.  Man must realise the wholeness
+of his existence, his place in the infinite; he must know that
+hard as he may strive he can never create his honey within the
+cells of his hive; for the perennial supply of his life food is
+outside their walls.  He must know that when man shuts himself
+out from the vitalising and purifying touch of the infinite, and
+falls back upon himself for his sustenance and his healing, then
+he goads himself into madness, tears himself into shreds, and
+eats his own substance.  Deprived of the background of the whole,
+his poverty loses its one great quality, which is simplicity, and
+becomes squalid and shamefaced.  His wealth is no longer
+magnanimous; it grows merely extravagant.  His appetites do not
+minister to his life, keeping to the limits of their purpose;
+they become an end in themselves and set fire to his life and
+play the fiddle in the lurid light of the conflagration.  Then it
+is that in our self-expression we try to startle and not to
+attract; in art we strive for originality and lose sight of truth
+which is old and yet ever new; in literature we miss the complete
+view of man which is simple and yet great, but he appears as a
+psychological problem or the embodiment of a passion that is
+intense because abnormal and because exhibited in the glare of a
+fiercely emphatic light which is artificial.  When man's
+consciousness is restricted only to the immediate vicinity of his
+human self, the deeper roots of his nature do not find their
+permanent soil, his spirit is ever on the brink of starvation,
+and in the place of healthful strength he substitutes rounds of
+stimulation.  Then it is that man misses his inner perspective
+and measures his greatness by its bulk and not by its vital link
+with the infinite, judges his activity by its movement and not by
+the repose of perfection--the repose which is in the starry
+heavens, in the ever-flowing rhythmic dance of creation.
+
+The first invasion of India has its exact parallel in the
+invasion of America by the European settlers.  They also were
+confronted with primeval forests and a fierce struggle with
+aboriginal races.  But this struggle between man and man, and man
+and nature lasted till the very end; they never came to any
+terms.  In India the forests which were the habitation of the
+barbarians became the sanctuary of sages, but in America these
+great living cathedrals of nature had no deeper significance to
+man.  The brought wealth and power to him, and perhaps at times
+they ministered to his enjoyment of beauty, and inspired a
+solitary poet.  They never acquired a sacred association in the
+hearts of men as the site of some great spiritual reconcilement
+where man's soul has its meeting-place with the soul of the
+world.
+
+I do not for a moment wish to suggest that these things should
+have been otherwise.  It would be an utter waste of opportunities
+if history were to repeat itself exactly in the same manner in
+every place.  It is best for the commerce of the spirit that
+people differently situated should bring their different products
+into the market of humanity, each of which is complementary and
+necessary to the others.  All that I wish to say is that India at
+the outset of her career met with a special combination of
+circumstances which was not lost upon her.  She had, according to
+her opportunities, thought and pondered, striven and suffered,
+dived into the depths of existence, and achieved something which
+surely cannot be without its value to people whose evolution in
+history took a different way altogether.  Man for his perfect
+growth requires all the living elements that constitute his
+complex life; that is why his food has to be cultivated in
+different fields and brought from different sources.
+
+Civilisation is a kind of mould that each nation is busy making
+for itself to shape its men and women according to its best
+ideal.  All its institutions, its legislature, its standard of
+approbation and condemnation, its conscious and unconscious
+teachings tend toward that object.  The modern civilisation of
+the west, by all its organised efforts, is trying to turn out men
+perfect in physical, intellectual, and moral efficiency.  There
+the vast energies of the nations are employed in extending man's
+power over his surroundings, and people are combining and
+straining every faculty to possess and to turn to account all
+that they can lay their hands upon, to overcome every obstacle on
+their path of conquest.  They are ever disciplining themselves to
+fight nature and other races; their armaments are getting more
+and more stupendous every day; their machines, their appliances,
+their organisations go on multiplying at an amazing rate.  This
+is a splendid achievement, no doubt, and a wonderful
+manifestation of man's masterfulness which knows no obstacle, and
+which has for its object the supremacy of himself over everything
+else.
+
+The ancient civilisation of India had its own ideal of perfection
+towards which its efforts were directed.  Its aim was not
+attaining power, and it neglected to cultivate to the utmost its
+capacities, and to organise men for defensive and offensive
+purposes, for co-operation in the acquisition of wealth and for
+military and political ascendancy.  The ideal that India tried to
+realise led her best men to the isolation of a contemplative
+life, and the treasures that she gained for mankind by
+penetrating into the mysteries of reality cost her dear in the
+sphere of worldly success.  Yet, this also was a sublime
+achievement,--it was a supreme manifestation of that human
+aspiration which knows no limit, and which has for its object
+nothing less than the realisation of the Infinite.
+
+There were the virtuous, the wise, the courageous; there were the
+statesmen, kings and emperors of India; but whom amongst all
+these classes did she look up to and choose to be the
+representative of men?
+
+They were the rishis.  What were the rishis?  _They who having
+attained the supreme soul in knowledge were filled with wisdom,
+and having found him in union with the soul were in perfect
+harmony with the inner self; they having realised him in the
+heart were free from all selfish desires, and having experienced
+him in all the activities of the world, had attained calmness.
+The rishis were they who having reached the supreme God from all
+sides had found abiding peace, had become united with all, had
+entered into the life of the Universe._ [Footnote:
+/**
+  Samprapyainam rishayo jnanatripatah
+  Kritatmano vitaragah pracantah
+  te sarvagam sarvatah prapya dhirah
+  Yuktatmanah sarvamevavicanti.
+*/
+]
+
+Thus the state of realising our relationship with all, of
+entering into everything through union with God, was considered
+in India to be the ultimate end and fulfilment of humanity.
+
+Man can destroy and plunder, earn and accumulate, invent and
+discover, but he is great because his soul comprehends all.  It
+is dire destruction for him when he envelopes his soul in a dead
+shell of callous habits, and when a blind fury of works whirls
+round him like an eddying dust storm, shutting out the horizon.
+That indeed kills the very spirit of his being, which is the
+spirit of comprehension.  Essentially man is not a slave either
+of himself or of the world; but he is a lover.  His freedom and
+fulfilment is in love, which is another name for perfect
+comprehension.  By this power of comprehension, this permeation
+of his being, he is united with the all-pervading Spirit, who is
+also the breath of his soul.  Where a man tries to raise himself
+to eminence by pushing and jostling all others, to achieve a
+distinction by which he prides himself to be more than everybody
+else, there he is alienated from that Spirit.  This is why the
+Upanishads describe those who have attained the goal of human
+life as "_peaceful_" [Footnote: Pracantah] and as "_at-one-with-
+God_," [Footnote: Yuktatmanah] meaning that they are in perfect
+harmony with man and nature, and therefore in undisturbed union
+with God.
+
+We have a glimpse of the same truth in the teachings of Jesus
+when he says, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye
+of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven"--
+which implies that whatever we treasure for ourselves separates
+us from others; our possessions are our limitations.  He who is
+bent upon accumulating riches is unable, with his ego continually
+bulging, to pass through the gates of comprehension of the
+spiritual world, which is the world of perfect harmony; he is
+shut up within the narrow walls of his limited acquisitions.
+
+Hence the spirit of the teachings of Upanishad is: In order to
+find him you must embrace all.  In the pursuit of wealth you
+really give up everything to gain a few things, and that is not
+the way to attain him who is completeness.
+
+Some modern philosophers of Europe, who are directly or
+indirectly indebted to the Upanishads, far from realising their
+debt, maintain that the Brahma of India is a mere abstraction, a
+negation of all that is in the world.  In a word, that the
+Infinite Being is to be found nowhere except in metaphysics.  It
+may be, that such a doctrine has been and still is prevalent with
+a section of our countrymen.  But this is certainly not in accord
+with the pervading spirit of the Indian mind.  Instead, it is the
+practice of realising and affirming the presence of the infinite
+in all things which has been its constant inspiration.
+
+We are enjoined to see _whatever there is in the world as being
+enveloped by God._
+[Footnote: Icavasyamidam sarvam yat kincha jagatyan jagat.]
+
+_I bow to God over and over again who is in fire and in water, who
+permeates the whole world, who is in the annual crops as well as
+in the perennial trees._  [Footnote: Yo devo'gnau y'opsu y'o
+vicvambhuvanamaviveca ya oshadhishu yo  vanaspatishu tasmai devaya
+namonamah.]
+
+Can this be God abstracted from the world?  Instead, it signifies
+not merely seeing him in all things, but saluting him in all the
+objects of the world.  The attitude of the God-conscious man of
+the Upanishad towards the universe is one of a deep feeling of
+adoration.  His object of worship is present everywhere.  It is
+the one living truth that makes all realities true.  This truth
+is not only of knowledge but of devotion.  '_Namonamah_,'--we bow
+to him everywhere, and over and over again.  It is recognised in
+the outburst of the Rishi, who addresses the whole world in a
+sudden ecstasy of joy: _Listen to me, ye sons of the immortal
+spirit, ye who live in the heavenly abode, I have known the
+Supreme Person whose light shines forth from beyond the darkness._
+[Footnote: Crinvantu vicve amritasya putra a ye divya dhamani
+tasthuh vedahametam purusham mahantam aditya varnam tamasah
+parastat.]  Do we not find the overwhelming delight of a direct
+and positive experience where there is not the least trace of
+vagueness or passivity?
+
+Buddha who developed the practical side of the teaching of
+Upanishads, preached the same message when he said, _With
+everything, whether it is above or below, remote or near, visible
+or invisible, thou shalt preserve a relation of unlimited love
+without any animosity or without a desire to kill.  To live in
+such a consciousness while standing or walking, sitting or lying
+down till you are asleep, is Brahma vihara, or, in other words,
+is living and moving and having your joy in the spirit of
+Brahma._
+
+What is that spirit?  The Upanishad says, _The being who is in
+his essence the light and life of all, who is world-conscious, is
+Brahma._  [Footnote: Yacchayamasminnakace tejomayo'mritamayah
+purushah sarvanubhuh.]  To feel all, to be conscious of
+everything, is his spirit.  We are immersed in his consciousness
+body and soul.  It is through his consciousness that the sun
+attracts the earth; it is through his consciousness that the
+light-waves are being transmitted from planet to planet.
+
+Not only in space, but _this light and life, this all-feeling
+being is in our souls._  [Footnote: Yacchayamasminnatmani
+tejomayo'mritamayah purushah sarvanubhuh.]  He is all-conscious
+in space, or the world of extension; and he is all-conscious in
+soul, or the world of intension.
+
+Thus to attain our world-consciousness, we have to unite our
+feeling with this all-pervasive infinite feeling.  In fact, the
+only true human progress is coincident with this widening of the
+range of feeling.  All our poetry, philosophy, science, art and
+religion are serving to extend the scope of our consciousness
+towards higher and larger spheres.  Man does not acquire rights
+through occupation of larger space, nor through external conduct,
+but his rights extend only so far as he is real, and his reality
+is measured by the scope of his consciousness.
+
+We have, however, to pay a price for this attainment of the
+freedom of consciousness.  What is the price?  It is to give
+one's self away.  Our soul can realise itself truly only by
+denying itself.  The Upanishad says, _Thou shalt gain by giving
+away_ [Footnote: Tyaktena bhunjithah], _Thou shalt not covet._
+[Footnote: Ma gridhah]
+
+In Gita we are advised to work disinterestedly, abandoning all
+lust for the result.  Many outsiders conclude from this teaching
+that the conception of the world as something unreal lies at the
+root of the so-called disinterestedness preached in India.  But
+the reverse is true.
+
+The man who aims at his own aggrandisement underrates everything
+else.  Compared to his ego the rest of the world is unreal.  Thus
+in order to be fully conscious of the reality of all, one has to
+be free himself from the bonds of personal desires.  This
+discipline we have to go through to prepare ourselves for our
+social duties--for sharing the burdens of our fellow-beings.
+Every endeavour to attain a larger life requires of man "to gain
+by giving away, and not to be greedy."  And thus to expand
+gradually the consciousness of one's unity with all is the
+striving of humanity.
+
+The Infinite in India was not a thin nonentity, void of all
+content.  The Rishis of India asserted emphatically, "To know him
+in this life is to be true; not to know him in this life is the
+desolation of death."  [Footnote: Iha chet avedit atha
+satyamasti, nachet iha avedit mahati vinashtih.]  How to know him
+then?  "By realising him in each and all."  [Footnote: Bhuteshu
+bhuteshu vichintva.]  Not only in nature but in the family, in
+society, and in the state, the more we realise the World-
+conscious in all, the better for us.  Failing to realise it, we
+turn our faces to destruction.
+
+It fills me with great joy and a high hope for the future of
+humanity when I realise that there was a time in the remote past
+when our poet-prophets stood under the lavish sunshine of an
+Indian sky and greeted the world with the glad recognition of
+kindred.  It was not an anthropomorphic hallucination.  It was
+not seeing man reflected everywhere in grotesquely exaggerated
+images, and witnessing the human drama acted on a gigantic scale
+in nature's arena of flitting lights and shadows.  On the
+contrary, it meant crossing the limiting barriers of the
+individual, to become more than man, to become one with the All.
+It was not a mere play of the imagination, but it was the
+liberation of consciousness from all the mystifications and
+exaggerations of the self.  These ancient seers felt in the
+serene depth of their mind that the same energy which vibrates
+and passes into the endless forms of the world manifests itself
+in our inner being as consciousness; and there is no break in
+unity.  For these seers there was no gap in their luminous vision
+of perfection.  They never acknowledged even death itself as
+creating a chasm in the field of reality.  They said, _His
+reflection is death as well as immortality._  [Footnote: Yasya
+chhayamritam yasya mrityuh.]  They did not recognise any
+essential opposition between life and death, and they said with
+absolute assurance, "It is life that is death."  [Footnote: Prano
+mrityuh.]  They saluted with the same serenity of gladness "life
+in its aspect of appearing and in its aspect of departure"--
+_That which is past is hidden in life, and that which is to come._
+[Footnote: Namo astu ayate namo astu parayate.  Prane ha bhutam
+bhavyancha.]  They knew that mere appearance and disappearance are
+on the surface like waves on the sea, but life which is permanent
+knows no decay or diminution.
+
+_Everything has sprung from immortal life and is vibrating with
+life_, [Footnote: Yadidan kincha prana ejati nihsritam.] _for life
+is immense._  [Footnote: Prano virat.]
+
+This is the noble heritage from our forefathers waiting to be
+claimed by us as our own, this ideal of the supreme freedom of
+consciousness.  It is not merely intellectual or emotional, it
+has an ethical basis, and it must be translated into action.  In
+the Upanishad it is said, _The supreme being is all-pervading,
+therefore he is the innate good in all._  [Footnote: Sarvavyapi
+sa bhagavan tasmat sarvagatah civah.]  To be truly united in
+knowledge, love, and service with all beings, and thus to
+realise one's self in the all-pervading God is the essence of
+goodness, and this is the keynote of the teachings of the
+Upanishads: _Life is immense!_  [Footnote: Prano virat.]
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS
+
+
+We have seen that it was the aspiration of ancient India to live
+and move and have its joy in Brahma, the all-conscious and all-
+pervading Spirit, by extending its field of consciousness over
+all the world.  But that, it may be urged, is an impossible task
+for man to achieve.  If this extension of consciousness be an
+outward process, then it is endless; it is like attempting to
+cross the ocean after ladling out its water.  By beginning to try
+to realise all, one has to end by realising nothing.
+
+But, in reality, it is not so absurd as it sounds.  Man has every
+day to solve this problem of enlarging his region and adjusting
+his burdens.  His burdens are many, too numerous for him to
+carry, but he knows that by adopting a system he can lighten the
+weight of his load.  Whenever they feel too complicated and
+unwieldy, he knows it is because he has not been able to hit upon
+the system which would have set everything in place and
+distributed the weight evenly.  This search for system is really
+a search for unity, for synthesis; it is our attempt to harmonise
+the heterogeneous complexity of outward materials by an inner
+adjustment.  In the search we gradually become aware that to find
+out the One is to possess the All; that there, indeed, is our
+last and highest privilege.  It is based on the law of that unity
+which is, if we only know it, our abiding strength.  Its living
+principle is the power that is in truth; the truth of that unity
+which comprehends multiplicity.  Facts are many, but the truth is
+one.  The animal intelligence knows facts, the human mind has
+power to apprehend truth.  The apple falls from the tree, the
+rain descends upon the earth--you can go on burdening your memory
+with such facts and never come to an end.  But once you get hold
+of the law of gravitation you can dispense with the necessity of
+collecting facts _ad infinitum_.  You have got at one truth
+which governs numberless facts.  This discovery of truth is pure
+joy to man--it is a liberation of his mind.  For, a mere fact is
+like a blind lane, it leads only to itself--it has no beyond.
+But a truth opens up a whole horizon, it leads us to the
+infinite.  That is the reason why, when a man like Darwin
+discovers some simple general truth about Biology, it does not
+stop there, but like a lamp shedding its light far beyond the
+object for which it was lighted, it illumines the whole region of
+human life and thought, transcending its original purpose.  Thus
+we find that truth, while investing all facts, is not a mere
+aggregate of facts--it surpasses them on all sides and points to
+the infinite reality.
+
+As in the region of knowledge so in that of consciousness, man
+must clearly realise some central truth which will give him an
+outlook over the widest possible field.  And that is the object
+which the Upanishad has in view when it says, _Know thine own
+Soul_.  Or, in other words, realise the one great principal of
+unity that there is in every man.
+
+All our egoistic impulses, our selfish desires, obscure our true
+vision of the soul.  For they only indicate our own narrow self.
+When we are conscious of our soul, we perceive the inner being
+that transcends our ego and has its deeper affinity with the All.
+
+Children, when they begin to learn each separate letter of the
+alphabet, find no pleasure in it, because they miss the real
+purpose of the lesson; in fact, while letters claim our attention
+only in themselves and as isolated things, they fatigue us.  They
+become a source of joy to us only when they combine into words
+and sentences and convey an idea.
+
+Likewise, our soul when detached and imprisoned within the narrow
+limits of a self loses its significance.  For its very essence is
+unity.  It can only find out its truth by unifying itself with
+others, and only then it has its joy.  Man was troubled and he
+lived in a state of fear so long as he had not discovered the
+uniformity of law in nature; till then the world was alien to
+him.  The law that he discovered is nothing but the perception of
+harmony that prevails between reason which is of the soul of man
+and the workings of the world.  This is the bond of union through
+which man is related to the world in which he lives, and he feels
+an exceeding joy when he finds this out, for then he realises
+himself in his surroundings.  To understand anything is to find
+in it something which is our own, and it is the discovery of
+ourselves outside us which makes us glad.  This relation of
+understanding is partial, but the relation of love is complete.
+In love the sense of difference is obliterated and the human soul
+fulfils its purpose in perfection, transcending the limits of
+itself and reaching across the threshold of the infinite.
+Therefore love is the highest bliss that man can attain to, for
+through it alone he truly knows that he is more than himself, and
+that he is at one with the All.
+
+This principal of unity which man has in his soul is ever active,
+establishing relations far and wide through literature, art, and
+science, society, statecraft, and religion.  Our great Revealers
+are they who make manifest the true meaning of the soul by giving
+up self for the love of mankind.  They face calumny and
+persecution, deprivation and death in their service of love.
+They live the life of the soul, not of the self, and thus they
+prove to us the ultimate truth of humanity.  We call them
+_Mahatmas,_ "the men of the great soul."
+
+It is said in one of the Upanishads: _It is not that thou lovest
+thy son because thou desirest him, but thou lovest thy son
+because thou desirest thine own soul._  [Footnote: Na va are
+putrasya kamaya putrah priyo bhavati, atmanastu kamaya putrah
+priyo bhavati.]  The meaning of this is, that whomsoever we love,
+in him we find our own soul in the highest sense.  The final
+truth of our existence lies in this.  _Paramatma_, the supreme
+soul, is in me, as well as in my son, and my joy in my son is the
+realisation of this truth.  It has become quite a commonplace
+fact, yet it is wonderful to think upon, that the joys and
+sorrows of our loved ones are joys and sorrows to us--nay they
+are more.  Why so?  Because in them we have grown larger, in
+them we have touched that great truth which comprehends the whole
+universe.
+
+It very often happens that our love for our children, our
+friends, or other loved ones, debars us from the further
+realisation of our soul.  It enlarges our scope of consciousness,
+no doubt, yet it sets a limit to its freest expansion.
+Nevertheless, it is the first step, and all the wonder lies in
+this first step itself.  It shows to us the true nature of our
+soul.  From it we know, for certain, that our highest joy is in
+the losing of our egoistic self and in the uniting with others.
+This love gives us a new power and insight and beauty of mind to
+the extent of the limits we set around it, but ceases to do so if
+those limits lose their elasticity, and militate against the
+spirit of love altogether; then our friendships become exclusive,
+our families selfish and inhospitable, our nations insular and
+aggressively inimical to other races.  It is like putting a
+burning light within a sealed enclosure, which shines brightly
+till the poisonous gases accumulate and smother the flame.
+Nevertheless it has proved its truth before it dies, and made
+known the joy of freedom from the grip of darkness, blind and
+empty and cold.
+
+According to the Upanishads, the key to cosmic consciousness, to
+God-consciousness, is in the consciousness of the soul.  To know
+our soul apart from the self is the first step towards the
+realisation of the supreme deliverance.  We must know with
+absolute certainty that essentially we are spirit.  This we can
+do by winning mastery over self, by rising above all pride and
+greed and fear, by knowing that worldly losses and physical death
+can take nothing away from the truth and the greatness of our
+soul.  The chick knows when it breaks through the self-centered
+isolation of its egg that the hard shell which covered it so long
+was not really a part of its life.  That shell is a dead thing,
+it has no growth, it affords no glimpse whatever of the vast
+beyond that lies outside it.  However pleasantly perfect and
+rounded it may be, it must be given a blow to, it must be burst
+through and thereby the freedom of light and air be won, and the
+complete purpose of bird life be achieved.  In Sanskrit, the bird
+has been called the twice-born.  So too the man who has gone
+through the ceremony of the discipline of self-restraint and high
+thinking for a period of at least twelve years; who has come out
+simple in wants, pure in heart, and ready to take up all the
+responsibilities of life in a disinterested largeness of spirit.
+He is considered to have had his rebirth from the blind
+envelopment of self to the freedom of soul life; to have come
+into living relation with his surroundings; to have become at one
+with the All.
+
+I have already warned my hearers, and must once more warn them
+against the idea that the teachers of India preached a
+renunciation of the world and of self which leads only to the
+blank emptiness of negation.  Their aim was the realisation of
+the soul, or, in other words, gaining the world in perfect truth.
+When Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
+the earth," he meant this.  He proclaimed the truth that when man
+gets rid of his pride of self then he comes into his true
+inheritance.  No more has he to fight his way into his position
+in the world; it is secure for him everywhere by the immortal
+right of his soul.  Pride of self interferes with the proper
+function of the soul which is to realise itself by perfecting its
+union with the world and the world's God.
+
+In his sermon to Sadhu Simha Buddha says, _It is true, Simha,
+that I denounce activities, but only the activities that lead to
+the evil in words, thoughts, or deeds.  It is true, Simha, that I
+preach extinction, but only the extinction of pride, lust, evil
+thought, and ignorance, not that of forgiveness, love, charity,
+and truth._
+
+The doctrine of deliverance that Buddha preached was the freedom
+from the thraldom of _Avidya_.  _Avidya_ is the ignorance that
+darkens our consciousness, and tends to limit it within the
+boundaries of our personal self.  It is this _Avidya_, this
+ignorance, this limiting of consciousness that creates the hard
+separateness of the ego, and thus becomes the source of all
+pride and greed and cruelty incidental to self-seeking.  When a
+man sleeps he is shut up within the narrow activities of his
+physical life.  He lives, but he knows not the varied relations
+of his life to his surroundings,--therefore he knows not
+himself.  So when a man lives the life of _Avidya_ he is
+confined within his self.  It is a spiritual sleep; his
+consciousness is not fully awake to the highest reality that
+surrounds him, therefore he knows not the reality of his own
+soul.  When he attains _Bodhi_, i.e. the awakenment from the
+sleep of self to the perfection of consciousness, he becomes
+Buddha.
+
+Once I met two ascetics of a certain religious sect in a village
+of Bengal.  "Can you tell me," I asked them, "wherein lies the
+special features of your religion?"  One of them hesitated for a
+moment and answered, "It is difficult to define that."  The other
+said, "No, it is quite simple.  We hold that we have first of all
+to know our own soul under the guidance of our spiritual teacher,
+and when we have done that we can find him, who is the Supreme
+Soul, within us."  "Why don't you preach your doctrine to all the
+people of the world?" I asked.  "Whoever feels thirsty will of
+himself come to the river," was his reply.  "But then, do you
+find it so?  Are they coming?"  The man gave a gentle smile, and
+with an assurance which had not the least tinge of impatience or
+anxiety, he said, "They must come, one and all."
+
+Yes, he is right, this simple ascetic of rural Bengal.  Man is
+indeed abroad to satisfy needs which are more to him than food
+and clothing.  He is out to find himself.  Man's history is the
+history of his journey to the unknown in quest of the realisation
+of his immortal self--his soul.  Through the rise and fall of
+empires; through the building up gigantic piles of wealth and the
+ruthless scattering of them upon the dust; through the creation
+of vast bodies of symbols that give shape to his dreams and
+aspirations, and the casting of them away like the playthings of
+an outworn infancy; through his forging of magic keys with which
+to unlock the mysteries of creation, and through his throwing
+away of this labour of ages to go back to his workshop and work
+up afresh some new form; yes, through it all man is marching from
+epoch to epoch towards the fullest realisation of his soul,--the
+soul which is greater than the things man accumulates, the deeds
+he accomplishes, the theories he builds; the soul whose onward
+course is never checked by death or dissolution.  Man's mistakes
+and failures have by no means been trifling or small, they have
+strewn his path with colossal ruins; his sufferings have been
+immense, like birth-pangs for a giant child; they are the prelude
+of a fulfilment whose scope is infinite.  Man has gone through
+and is still undergoing martyrdoms in various ways, and his
+institutions are the altars he has built whereto he brings his
+daily sacrifices, marvellous in kind and stupendous in quantity.
+All this would be absolutely unmeaning and unbearable if all
+along he did not feel that deepest joy of the soul within him,
+which tries its divine strength by suffering and proves its
+exhaustless riches by renunciation.  Yes, they are coming, the
+pilgrims, one and all--coming to their true inheritance of the
+world; they are ever broadening their consciousness, ever seeking
+a higher and higher unity, ever approaching nearer to the one
+central Truth which is all-comprehensive.
+
+Man's poverty is abysmal, his wants are endless till he becomes
+truly conscious of his soul.  Till then, the world to him is in a
+state of continual flux-- a phantasm that is and is not.  For a
+man who has realised his soul there is a determinate centre of
+the universe around which all else can find its proper place, and
+from thence only can he draw and enjoy the blessedness of a
+harmonious life.
+
+There was a time when the earth was only a nebulous mass whose
+particles were scattered far apart through the expanding force of
+heat; when she had not yet attained her definiteness of form and
+had neither beauty nor purpose, but only heat and motion.
+Gradually, when her vapours were condensed into a unified rounded
+whole through a force that strove to bring all straggling matters
+under the control of a centre, she occupied her proper place
+among the planets of the solar system, like an emerald pendant in
+a necklace of diamonds.  So with our soul.  When the heat and
+motion of blind impulses and passions distract it on all sides,
+we can neither give nor receive anything truly.  But when we find
+our centre in our soul by the power of self-restraint, by the
+force that harmonises all warring elements and unifies those that
+are apart, then all our isolated impressions reduce themselves to
+wisdom, and all our momentary impulses of heart find their
+completion in love; then all the petty details of our life reveal
+an infinite purpose, and all our thoughts and deeds unite
+themselves inseparably in an internal harmony.
+
+The Upanishads say with great emphasis, _Know thou the One, the
+Soul._  [Footnote: Tamevaikam janatha atmanam.]  _It is the bridge
+leading to the immortal being._  [Footnote: Amritasyaisha setuh.]
+
+This is the ultimate end of man, to find the _One_ which is in
+him; which is his truth, which is his soul; the key with which he
+opens the gate of the spiritual life, the heavenly kingdom.  His
+desires are many, and madly they run after the varied objects of
+the world, for therein they have their life and fulfilment.  But
+that which is _one_ in him is ever seeking for unity--unity in
+knowledge, unity in love, unity in purposes of will; its highest
+joy is when it reaches the infinite one within its eternal unity.
+Hence the saying of the Upanishad, _Only those of tranquil minds,
+and none else, can attain abiding joy, by realising within their
+souls the Being who manifests one essence in a multiplicity of
+forms._  [Footnote: Ekam rupam bahudha yah karoti * * tam
+atmastham ye anupacyanti dihrah, tesham sukham cacvatam
+netaresham.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: The above footnote contains the * mark in
+the original printed version.  This has been retained as is.]
+
+Through all the diversities of the world the one in us is
+threading its course towards the one in all; this is its nature
+and this is its joy.  But by that devious path it could never
+reach its goal if it had not a light of its own by which it could
+catch the sight of what it was seeking in a flash.  The vision of
+the Supreme One in our own soul is a direct and immediate
+intuition, not based on any ratiocination or demonstration at
+all.  Our eyes naturally see an object as a whole, not by
+breaking it up into parts, but by bringing all the parts together
+into a unity with ourselves.  So with the intuition of our Soul-
+consciousness, which naturally and totally realises its unity in
+the Supreme One.
+
+Says the Upanishad: _This deity who is manifesting himself in the
+activities of the universe always dwells in the heart of man as
+the supreme soul.  Those who realise him through the immediate
+perception of the heart attain immortality._  [Footnote: Esha
+devo vishvakarma mahatma sada jananam hridaye sannivishtah.
+Hrida manisha manasabhiklripto ya etad viduramritaste bhavanti.]
+
+He is _Vishvakarma_; that is, in a multiplicity of forms and
+forces lies his outward manifestation in nature; but his inner
+manifestation in our soul is that which exists in unity.  Our
+pursuit of truth in the domain of nature therefore is through
+analysis and the gradual methods of science, but our apprehension
+of truth in our soul is immediate and through direct intuition.
+We cannot attain the supreme soul by successive additions of
+knowledge acquired bit by bit even through all eternity, because
+he is one, he is not made up of parts; we can only know him as
+heart of our hearts and soul of our soul; we can only know him in
+the love and joy we feel when we give up our self and stand
+before him face to face.
+
+The deepest and the most earnest prayer that has ever risen from
+the human heart has been uttered in our ancient tongue: _O thou
+self-revealing one, reveal thyself in me._  [Footnote:
+Aviravirmayedhi.]  We are in misery because we are creatures of
+self--the self that is unyielding and narrow, that reflects no
+light, that is blind to the infinite.  Our self is loud with its
+own discordant clamour--it is not the tuned harp whose chords
+vibrate with the music of the eternal.  Sighs of discontent and
+weariness of failure, idle regrets for the past and anxieties for
+the future are troubling our shallow hearts because we have not
+found our souls, and the self-revealing spirit has not been
+manifest within us.  Hence our cry, _O thou awful one, save me
+with thy smile of grace ever and evermore._  [Footnote: Rudra
+yat te dakshinam mukham tena mam pahi nityam.]  It is a stifling
+shroud of death, this self-gratification, this insatiable greed,
+this pride of possession, this insolent alienation of heart.
+_Rudra, O thou awful one, rend this dark cover in twain and let
+the saving beam of thy smile of grace strike through this night
+of gloom and waken my soul._
+
+_From unreality lead me to the real, from darkness to the light,
+from death to immortality._  [Footnote: Asatoma sadgamaya,
+tamasoma jyotirgamaya, mrityorma mritangamaya.]  But how can one
+hope to have this prayer granted?  For infinite is the distance
+that lies between truth and untruth, between death and
+deathlessness.  Yet this measureless gulf is bridged in a moment
+when the self revealing one reveals himself in the soul.  There
+the miracle happens, for there is the meeting-ground of the
+finite and infinite.  _Father, completely sweep away all my
+sins!_  [Footnote: Vishvanideva savitar duratani parasuva.]  For
+in sin man takes part with the finite against the infinite that
+is in him.  It is the defeat of his soul by his self.  It is a
+perilously losing game, in which man stakes his all to gain a
+part.  Sin is the blurring of truth which clouds the purity of
+our consciousness.  In sin we lust after pleasures, not because
+they are truly desirable, but because the red light of our
+passions makes them appear desirable; we long for things not
+because they are great in themselves, but because our greed
+exaggerates them and makes them appear great.  These
+exaggerations, these falsifications of the perspective of things,
+break the harmony of our life at every step; we lose the true
+standard of values and are distracted by the false claims of the
+varied interests of life contending with one another.  It is this
+failure to bring all the elements of his nature under the unity
+and control of the Supreme One that makes man feel the pang of
+his separation from God and gives rise to the earnest prayer,
+_O God, O Father, completely sweep away all our sins._
+[Footnote: Vishvani deva savitar duritani parasuva.]  _Give
+unto us that which is good_ [Footnote: Yad bhadram tanna
+asuva.], the good which is the daily bread of our souls.  In our
+pleasures we are confined to ourselves, in the good we are freed
+and we belong to all.  As the child in its mother's womb gets its
+sustenance through the union of its life with the larger life of
+its mother, so our soul is nourished only through the good which
+is the recognition of its inner kinship, the channel of its
+communication with the infinite by which it is surrounded and
+fed.  Hence it is said, "Blessed are they which do hunger and
+thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."  For
+righteousness is the divine food of the soul; nothing but this
+can fill him, can make him live the life of the infinite, can
+help him in his growth towards the eternal.  _We bow to thee
+from whom come the enjoyments of our life._  [Footnote: Namah
+sambhavaya.]  _We bow also to thee from whom comes the good of
+our soul._  [Footnote: Namah cankarayacha.]  _We bow to thee
+who art good, the highest good [Footnote: Namah civayacha,
+civataraya cha.], in whom we are united with everything, that is,
+in peace and harmony, in goodness and love.
+
+Man's cry is to reach his fullest expression.  It is this desire
+for self-expression that leads him to seek wealth and power.  But
+he has to discover that accumulation is not realisation.  It is
+the inner light that reveals him, not outer things.  When this
+light is lighted, then in a moment he knows that Man's highest
+revelation is God's own revelation in him.  And his cry is for
+this--the manifestation of his soul, which is the manifestation
+of God in his soul.  Man becomes perfect man, he attains his
+fullest expression, when his soul realises itself in the Infinite
+being who is _Avih_ whose very essence is expression.
+
+The real misery of man is in the fact that he has not fully come
+out, that he is self-obscured, lost in the midst of his own
+desires.  He cannot feel himself beyond his personal
+surroundings, his greater self is blotted out, his truth is
+unrealised.  The prayer that rises up from his whole being is
+therefore, _Thou, who art the spirit of manifestation, manifest
+thyself in me._  [Footnote: Aviravirmayedhi.]  This longing for
+the perfect expression of his self is more deeply inherent in
+man than his hunger and thirst for bodily sustenance, his lust
+for wealth and distinction.  This prayer is not merely one born
+individually of him; it is in depth of all things, it is the
+ceaseless urging in him of the _Avih_, of the spirit of eternal
+manifestation.  The revealment of the infinite in the finite,
+which is the motive of all creation, is not seen in its
+perfection in the starry heavens, in the beauty of flowers.  It
+is in the soul of man.  For there will seeks its manifestation in
+will, and freedom turns to win its final prize in the freedom of
+surrender.
+
+Therefore, it is the self of man which the great King of the
+universe has not shadowed with his throne--he has left it free.
+In his physical and mental organism, where man is related with
+nature, he has to acknowledge the rule of his King, but in his
+self he is free to disown him.  There our God must win his
+entrance.  There he comes as a guest, not as a king, and
+therefore he has to wait till he is invited.  It is the man's
+self from which God has withdrawn his commands, for there he
+comes to court our love.  His armed force, the laws of nature,
+stand outside its gate, and only beauty, the messenger of his
+love, finds admission within its precincts.
+
+It is only in this region of will that anarchy is permitted; only
+in man's self that the discord of untruth and unrighteousness
+hold its reign; and things can come to such a pass that we may
+cry out in our anguish, "Such utter lawlessness could never
+prevail if there were a God!"  Indeed, God has stood aside from
+our self, where his watchful patience knows no bounds, and where
+he never forces open the doors if shut against him.  For this
+self of ours has to attain its ultimate meaning, which is the
+soul, not through the compulsion of God's power but through love,
+and thus become united with God in freedom.
+
+He whose spirit has been made one with God stands before man as
+the supreme flower of humanity.  There man finds in truth what he
+is; for there the _Avih_ is revealed to him in the soul of man as
+the most perfect revelation for him of God; for there we see the
+union of the supreme will with our will, our love with the love
+everlasting.
+
+Therefore, in our country he who truly loves God receives such
+homage from men as would be considered almost sacrilegious in the
+west.  We see in him God's wish fulfilled, the most difficult of
+all obstacles to his revealment removed, and God's own perfect
+joy fully blossoming in humanity.  Through him we find the whole
+world of man overspread with a divine homeliness.  His life,
+burning with God's love, makes all our earthly love resplendent.
+All the intimate associations of our life, all its experience of
+pleasure and pain, group themselves around this display of the
+divine love, and from the drama that we witness in him.  The
+touch of an infinite mystery passes over the trivial and the
+familiar, making it break out into ineffable music.  The trees
+and the stars and the blue hills appear to us as symbols aching
+with a meaning which can never be uttered in words.  We seem to
+watch the Master in the very act of creation of a new world when
+a man's soul draws her heavy curtain of self aside, when her veil
+is lifted and she is face to face with her eternal lover.
+
+But what is this state?  It is like a morning of spring, varied
+in its life and beauty, yet one and entire.  When a man's life
+rescued from distractions finds its unity in the soul, then the
+consciousness of the infinite becomes at once direct and natural
+to it as the light is to the flame.  All the conflicts and
+contradictions of life are reconciled; knowledge, love and action
+harmonized; pleasure and pain become one in beauty, enjoyment and
+renunciation equal in goodness; the breach between the finite and
+the infinite fills with love and overflows; every moment carries
+its message of the eternal; the formless appears to us in the
+form of the flower, of the fruit; the boundless takes us up in
+his arms as a father and walks by our side as a friend.  It is
+only the soul, the One in man which by its very nature can
+overcome all limits, and finds its affinity with the Supreme One.
+While yet we have not attained the internal harmony, and the
+wholeness of our being, our life remains a life of habits.  The
+world still appears to us as a machine, to be mastered where it
+is useful, to be guarded against where it is dangerous, and never
+to be known in its full fellowship with us, alike in its physical
+nature and in its spiritual life and beauty.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
+
+
+The question why there is evil in existence is the same as why
+there is imperfection, or, in other words, why there is creation
+at all.  We must take it for granted that it could not be
+otherwise; that creation must be imperfect, must be gradual, and
+that it is futile to ask the question, Why we are?
+
+But this is the real question we ought to ask: Is this
+imperfection the final truth, is evil absolute and ultimate?  The
+river has its boundaries, its banks, but is a river all banks? or
+are the banks the final facts about the river?  Do not these
+obstructions themselves give its water an onward motion?  The
+towing rope binds a boat, but is the bondage its meaning?  Does
+it not at the same time draw the boat forward?
+
+The current of the world has its boundaries, otherwise it could
+have no existence, but its purpose is not shown in the boundaries
+which restrain it, but in its movement, which is towards
+perfection.  The wonder is not that there should be obstacles and
+sufferings in this world, but that there should be law and order,
+beauty and joy, goodness and love.  The idea of God that man has
+in his being is the wonder of all wonders.  He has felt in the
+depths of his life that what appears as imperfect is the
+manifestation of the perfect; just as a man who has an ear for
+music realises the perfection of a song, while in fact he is only
+listening to a succession of notes.  Man has found out the great
+paradox that what is limited is not imprisoned within its limits;
+it is ever moving, and therewith shedding its finitude every
+moment.  In fact, imperfection is not a negation of perfectness;
+finitude is not contradictory to infinity: they are but
+completeness manifested in parts, infinity revealed within
+bounds.
+
+Pain, which is the feeling of our finiteness, is not a fixture in
+our life.  It is not an end in itself, as joy is.  To meet with
+it is to know that it has no part in the true permanence of
+creation.  It is what error is in our intellectual life.  To go
+through the history of the development of science is to go
+through the maze of mistakes it made current at different times.
+Yet no one really believes that science is the one perfect mode
+of disseminating mistakes.  The progressive ascertainment of
+truth is the important thing to remember in the history of
+science, not its innumerable mistakes.  Error, by its nature,
+cannot be stationary; it cannot remain with truth; like a tramp,
+it must quit its lodging as soon as it fails to pay its score to
+the full.
+
+As in intellectual error, so in evil of any other form, its
+essence is impermanence, for it cannot accord with the whole.
+Every moment it is being corrected by the totality of things and
+keeps changing its aspect.  We exaggerate its importance by
+imagining it as a standstill.  Could we collect the statistics of
+the immense amount of death and putrefaction happening every
+moment in this earth, they would appal us.  But evil is ever
+moving; with all its incalculable immensity it does not
+effectually clog the current of our life; and we find that the
+earth, water, and air remain sweet and pure for living beings.
+All statistics consist of our attempts to represent statistically
+what is in motion; and in the process things assume a weight in
+our mind which they have not in reality.  For this reason a man,
+who by his profession is concerned with any particular aspect of
+life, is apt to magnify its proportions; in laying undue stress
+upon facts he loses his hold upon truth.  A detective may have
+the opportunity of studying crimes in detail, but he loses his
+sense of their relative places in the whole social economy.  When
+science collects facts to illustrate the struggle for existence
+that is going on in the kingdom of life, it raises a picture in
+our minds of "nature red in tooth and claw."  But in these mental
+pictures we give a fixity to colours and forms which are really
+evanescent.  It is like calculating the weight of the air on each
+square inch of our body to prove that it must be crushingly heavy
+for us.  With every weight, however, there is an adjustment, and
+we lightly bear our burden.  With the struggle for existence in
+nature there is reciprocity.  There is the love for children and
+for comrades; there is the sacrifice of self, which springs from
+love; and this love is the positive element in life.
+
+If we kept the search-light of our observation turned upon the
+fact of death, the world would appear to us like a huge charnel-
+house; but in the world of life the thought of death has, we
+find, the least possible hold upon our minds.  Not because it is
+the least apparent, but because it is the negative aspect of
+life; just as, in spite of the fact that we shut our eyelids
+every second, it is the openings of the eye that count.  Life as
+a whole never takes death seriously.  It laughs, dances and
+plays, it builds, hoards and loves in death's face.  Only when we
+detach one individual fact of death do we see its blankness and
+become dismayed.  We lose sight of the wholeness of a life of
+which death is part.  It is like looking at a piece of cloth
+through a microscope.  It appears like a net; we gaze at the big
+holes and shiver in imagination.  But the truth is, death is not
+the ultimate reality.  It looks black, as the sky looks blue; but
+it does not blacken existence, just as the sky does not leave its
+stain upon the wings of the bird.
+
+When we watch a child trying to walk, we see its countless
+failures; its successes are but few.  If we had to limit our
+observation within a narrow space of time, the sight would be
+cruel.  But we find that in spite of its repeated failures there
+is an impetus of joy in the child which sustains it in its
+seemingly impossible task.  We see it does not think of its falls
+so much as of its power to keep its balance though for only a
+moment.
+
+Like these accidents in a child's attempts to walk, we meet with
+sufferings in various forms in our life every day, showing the
+imperfections in our knowledge and our available power, and in
+the application of our will.  But if these revealed our weakness
+to us only, we should die of utter depression.  When we select
+for observation a limited area of our activities, our individual
+failures and miseries loom large in our minds; but our life leads
+us instinctively to take a wider view.  It gives us an ideal of
+perfection which ever carries us beyond our present limitations.
+Within us we have a hope which always walks in front of our
+present narrow experience; it is the undying faith in the
+infinite in us; it will never accept any of our disabilities as a
+permanent fact; it sets no limit to its own scope; it dares to
+assert that man has oneness with God; and its wild dreams become
+true every day.
+
+We see the truth when we set our mind towards the infinite.  The
+ideal of truth is not in the narrow present, not in our immediate
+sensations, but in the consciousness of the whole which give us a
+taste of what we _should_ have in what we _do_ have.  Consciously
+or unconsciously we have in our life this feeling of Truth which
+is ever larger than its appearance; for our life is facing the
+infinite, and it is in movement.  Its aspiration is therefore
+infinitely more than its achievement, and as it goes on it finds
+that no realisation of truth ever leaves it stranded on the
+desert of finality, but carries it to a region beyond.  Evil
+cannot altogether arrest the course of life on the highway and
+rob it of its possessions.  For the evil has to pass on, it has
+to grow into good; it cannot stand and give battle to the All.
+If the least evil could stop anywhere indefinitely, it would sink
+deep and cut into the very roots of existence.  As it is, man
+does not really believe in evil, just as he cannot believe that
+violin strings have been purposely made to create the exquisite
+torture of discordant notes, though by the aid of statistics it
+can be mathematically proved that the probability of discord is
+far greater than that of harmony, and for one who can play the
+violin there are thousands who cannot.  The potentiality of
+perfection outweighs actual contradictions.  No doubt there have
+been people who asserted existence to be an absolute evil, but
+man can never take them seriously.  Their pessimism is a mere
+pose, either intellectual or sentimental; but life itself is
+optimistic: it wants to go on.  Pessimism is a form of mental
+dipsomania, it disdains healthy nourishment, indulges in the
+strong drink of denunciation, and creates an artificial dejection
+which thirsts for a stronger draught.  If existence were an evil,
+it would wait for no philosopher to prove it.  It is like
+convicting a man of suicide, while all the time he stands before
+you in the flesh.  Existence itself is here to prove that it
+cannot be an evil.
+
+An imperfection which is not all imperfection, but which has
+perfection for its ideal, must go through a perpetual
+realisation.  Thus, it is the function of our intellect to
+realise the truth through untruths, and knowledge is nothing but
+the continually burning up of error to set free the light of
+truth.  Our will, our character, has to attain perfection by
+continually overcoming evils, either inside or outside us, or
+both; our physical life is consuming bodily materials every
+moment to maintain the life fire; and our moral life too has its
+fuel to burn.  This life process is going on--we know it, we have
+felt it; and we have a faith which no individual instances to the
+contrary can shake, that the direction of humanity is from evil
+to good.  For we feel that good is the positive element in man's
+nature, and in every age and every clime what man values most is
+his ideals of goodness.  We have known the good, we have loved
+it, and we have paid our highest reverence to men who have shown
+in their lives what goodness is.
+
+The question will be asked, What is goodness; what does our moral
+nature mean?  My answer is, that when a man begins to have an
+extended vision of his self, when he realises that he is much
+more than at present he seems to be, he begins to get conscious
+of his moral nature.  Then he grows aware of that which he is yet
+to be, and the state not yet experienced by him becomes more real
+than that under his direct experience.  Necessarily, his
+perspective of life changes, and his will takes the place of his
+wishes.  For will is the supreme wish of the larger life, the
+life whose greater portion is out of our present reach, most of
+whose objects are not before our sight.  Then comes the conflict
+of our lesser man with our greater man, of our wishes with our
+will, of the desire for things affecting our senses with the
+purpose that is within our heart.  Then we begin to distinguish
+between what we immediately desire and what is good.  For good is
+that which is desirable for our greater self.  Thus the sense of
+goodness comes out of a truer view of our life, which is the
+connected view of the wholeness of the field of life, and which
+takes into account not only what is present before us but what is
+not, and perhaps never humanly can be.  Man, who is provident,
+feels for that life of his which is not yet existent, feels much
+more that than for the life that is with him; therefore he is
+ready to sacrifice his present inclination for the unrealised
+future.  In this he becomes great, for he realises truth.  Even
+to be efficiently selfish one has to recognise this truth, and
+has to curb his immediate impulses--in other words, has to be
+moral.  For our moral faculty is the faculty by which we know
+that life is not made up of fragments, purposeless and
+discontinuous.  This moral sense of man not only gives him the
+power to see that the self has a continuity in time, but it also
+enables him to see that he is not true when he is only restricted
+to his own self.  He is more in truth than he is in fact.  He
+truly belongs to individuals who are not included in his own
+individuality, and whom he is never even likely to know.  As he
+has a feeling for his future self which is outside his present
+consciousness, so he has a feeling for his greater self which is
+outside the limits of his personality.  There is no man who has
+not this feeling to some extent, who has never sacrificed his
+selfish desire for the sake of some other person, who has never
+felt a pleasure in undergoing some loss or trouble because it
+pleased somebody else.  It is a truth that man is not a detached
+being, that he has a universal aspect; and when he recognises
+this he becomes great.  Even the most evilly-disposed selfishness
+has to recognise this when it seeks the power to do evil; for it
+cannot ignore truth and yet be strong.  So in order to claim the
+aid of truth, selfishness has to be unselfish to some extent.  A
+band of robbers must be moral in order to hold together as a
+band; they may rob the whole world but not each other.  To make
+an immoral intention successful, some of its weapons must be
+moral.  In fact, very often it is our very moral strength which
+gives us most effectively the power to do evil, to exploit other
+individuals for our own benefit, to rob other people of their
+rights.  The life of an animal is unmoral, for it is aware only
+of an immediate present; the life of a man can be immoral, but
+that only means that it must have a moral basis.  What is immoral
+is imperfectly moral, just as what is false is true to a small
+extent, or it cannot even be false.  Not to see is to be blind,
+but to see wrongly is to see only in an imperfect manner.  Man's
+selfishness is a beginning to see some connection, some purpose
+in life; and to act in accordance with its dictates requires
+self-restraint and regulation of conduct.  A selfish man
+willingly undergoes troubles for the sake of the self, he suffers
+hardship and privation without a murmur, simply because he knows
+that what is pain and trouble, looked at from the point of view
+of a short space of time, are just the opposite when seen in a
+larger perspective.  Thus what is a loss to the smaller man is a
+gain to the greater, and _vice versa_.
+
+To the man who lives for an idea, for his country, for the good
+of humanity, life has an extensive meaning, and to that extent
+pain becomes less important to him.  To live the life of goodness
+is to live the life of all.  Pleasure is for one's own self, but
+goodness is concerned with the happiness of all humanity and for
+all time.  From the point of view of the good, pleasure and pain
+appear in a different meaning; so much so, that pleasure may be
+shunned, and pain be courted in its place, and death itself be
+made welcome as giving a higher value to life.  From these higher
+standpoints of a man's life, the standpoints of the good,
+pleasure and pain lose their absolute value.  Martyrs prove it in
+history, and we prove it every day in our life in our little
+martyrdoms.  When we take a pitcherful of water from the sea it
+has its weight, but when we take a dip into the sea itself a
+thousand pitchersful of water flow above our head, and we do not
+feel their weight.  We have to carry the pitcher of self with our
+strength; and so, while on the plane of selfishness pleasure and
+pain have their full weight, on the moral plane they are so much
+lightened that the man who has reached it appears to us almost
+superhuman in his patience under crushing trails, and his
+forbearance in the face of malignant persecution.
+
+To live in perfect goodness is to realise one's life in the
+infinitive.  This is the most comprehensive view of life which we
+can have by our inherent power of the moral vision of the
+wholeness of life.  And the teaching of Buddha is to cultivate
+this moral power to the highest extent, to know that our field of
+activities is not bound to the plane of our narrow self.  This is
+the vision of the heavenly kingdom of Christ.  When we attain to
+that universal life, which is the moral life, we become freed
+from the bonds of pleasure and pain, and the place vacated by our
+self becomes filled with an unspeakable joy which springs from
+measureless love.  In this state the soul's activity is all the
+more heightened, only its motive power is not from desires, but
+in its own joy.  This is the _Karma-yoga_ of the _Gita_, the way
+to become one with the infinite activity by the exercise of the
+activity of disinterested goodness.
+
+When Buddha mentioned upon the way of realising mankind from the
+grip of misery he came to this truth: that when man attains his
+highest end by merging the individual in the universal, he
+becomes free from the thraldom of pain.  Let us consider this
+point more fully.
+
+A student of mine once related to me his adventure in a storm,
+and complained that all the time he was troubled with the feeling
+that this great commotion in nature behaved to him as if he were
+no more than a mere handful of dust.  That he was a distinct
+personality with a will of his own had not the least influence
+upon what was happening.
+
+I said, "If consideration for our individuality could sway nature
+from her path, then it would be the individuals who would suffer
+most."
+
+But he persisted in his doubt, saying that there was this fact
+which could not be ignored--the feeling that I am.  The "I" in us
+seeks for a relation which is individual to it.
+
+I replied that the relation of the "I" is with something which is
+"not-I."  So we must have a medium which is common to both, and
+we must be absolutely certain that it is the same to the "I" as
+it is to the "not-I."
+
+This is what needs repeating here.  We have to keep in mind that
+our individuality by its nature is impelled to seek for the
+universal.  Our body can only die if it tries to eat its own
+substance, and our eye loses the meaning of its function if it
+can only see itself.
+
+Just as we find that the stronger the imagination the less is it
+merely imaginary and the more is it in harmony with truth, so we
+see the more vigorous our individuality the more does it widen
+towards the universal.  For the greatness of a personality is not
+in itself but in its content, which is universal, just as the
+depth of a lake is judged not by the size of its cavity but by
+the depth of its water.
+
+So, if it is a truth that the yearning of our nature is for
+reality, and that our personality cannot be happy with a
+fantastic universe of its own creation, then it is clearly best
+for it that our will can only deal with things by following their
+law, and cannot do with them just as it pleases.  This unyielding
+sureness of reality sometimes crosses our will, and very often
+leads us to disaster, just as the firmness of the earth
+invariably hurts the falling child who is learning to walk.
+Nevertheless it is the same firmness that hurts him which makes
+his walking possible.  Once, while passing under a bridge, the
+mast of my boat got stuck in one of its girders.  If only for a
+moment the mast would have bent an inch or two, or the bridge
+raised its back like a yawning cat, or the river given in, it
+would have been all right with me.  But they took no notice of my
+helplessness.  That is the very reason why I could make use of
+the river, and sail upon it with the help of the mast, and that
+is why, when its current was inconvenient, I could rely upon the
+bridge.  Things are what they are, and we have to know them if we
+would deal with them, and knowledge of them is possible because
+our wish is not their law.  This knowledge is a joy to us, for
+the knowledge is one of the channels of our relation with the
+things outside us; it is making them our own, and thus widening
+the limit of our self.
+
+At every step we have to take into account others than ourselves.
+For only in death are we alone.  A poet is a true poet when he
+can make his personal idea joyful to all men, which he could not
+do if he had not a medium common to all his audience.  This
+common language has its own law which the poet must discover and
+follow, by doing which he becomes true and attains poetical
+immortality.
+
+We see then that man's individuality is not his highest truth;
+there is that in him which is universal.  If he were made to live
+in a world where his own self was the only factor to consider,
+then that would be the worst prison imaginable to him, for man's
+deepest joy is in growing greater and greater by more and more
+union with the all.  This, as we have seen, would be an
+impossibility if there were no law common to all.  Only by
+discovering the law and following it, do we become great, do we
+realise the universal; while, so long as our individual desires
+are at conflict with the universal law, we suffer pain and are
+futile.
+
+There was a time when we prayed for special concessions, we
+expected that the laws of nature should be held in abeyance for
+our own convenience.  But now we know better.  We know that law
+cannot be set aside, and in this knowledge we have become strong.
+For this law is not something apart from us; it is our own.  The
+universal power which is manifested in the universal law is one
+with our own power.  It will thwart us where we are small, where
+we are against the current of things; but it will help us where
+we are great, where we are in unison with the all.  Thus, through
+the help of science, as we come to know more of the laws of
+nature, we gain in power; we tend to attain a universal body.
+Our organ of sight, our organ of locomotion, our physical
+strength becomes world-wide; steam and electricity become our
+nerve and muscle.  Thus we find that, just as throughout our
+bodily organisation there is a principle of relation by virtue of
+which we can call the entire body our own, and can use it as
+such, so all through the universe there is that principle of
+uninterrupted relation by virtue of which we can call the whole
+world our extended body and use it accordingly.  And in this age
+of science it is our endeavour fully to establish our claim to
+our world-self.  We know all our poverty and sufferings are owing
+to our inability to realise this legitimate claim of ours.
+Really, there is no limit to our powers, for we are not outside
+the universal power which is the expression of universal law.  We
+are on our way to overcome disease and death, to conquer pain and
+poverty; for through scientific knowledge we are ever on our way
+to realise the universal in its physical aspect.  And as we make
+progress we find that pain, disease, and poverty of power are not
+absolute, but that is only the want of adjustment of our
+individual self to our universal self which gives rise to them.
+
+It is the same with our spiritual life.  When the individual man
+in us chafes against the lawful rule of the universal man we
+become morally small, and we must suffer.  In such a condition
+our successes are our greatest failures, and the very fulfilment
+of our desires leaves us poorer.  We hanker after special gains
+for ourselves, we want to enjoy privileges which none else can
+share with us.  But everything that is absolutely special must
+keep up a perpetual warfare with what is general.  In such a
+state of civil war man always lives behind barricades, and in any
+civilisation which is selfish our homes are not real homes, but
+artificial barriers around us.  Yet we complain that we are not
+happy, as if there were something inherent in the nature of
+things to make us miserable.  The universal spirit is waiting to
+crown us with happiness, but our individual spirit would not
+accept it.  It is our life of the self that causes conflicts and
+complications everywhere, upsets the normal balance of society
+and gives rise to miseries of all kinds.  It brings things to
+such a pass that to maintain order we have to create artificial
+coercions and organised forms of tyranny, and tolerate infernal
+institutions in our midst, whereby at every moment humanity is
+humiliated.
+
+We have seen that in order to be powerful we have to submit to
+the laws of the universal forces, and to realise in practice that
+they are our own.  So, in order to be happy, we have to submit
+our individual will to the sovereignty of the universal will, and
+to feel in truth that it is our own will.  When we reach that
+state wherein the adjustment of the finite in us to the infinite
+is made perfect, then pain itself becomes a valuable asset.  It
+becomes a measuring rod with which to gauge the true value of our
+joy.
+
+The most important lesson that man can learn from his life is not
+that there _is_ pain in this world, but that it depends upon him
+to turn it into good account, that it is possible for him to
+transmute it into joy.  The lesson has not been lost altogether
+to us, and there is no man living who would willingly be deprived
+of his right to suffer pain, for that is his right to be a man.
+One day the wife of a poor labourer complained bitterly to me
+that her eldest boy was going to be sent away to a rich relative's
+house for part of the year.  It was the implied kind intention of
+trying to relieve her of her trouble that gave her the shock, for
+a mother's trouble is a mother's own by her inalienable right of
+love, and she was not going to surrender it to any dictates of
+expediency.  Man's freedom is never in being saved troubles, but
+it is the freedom to take trouble for his own good, to make the
+trouble an element in his joy.  It can be made so only when we
+realise that our individual self is not the highest meaning of our
+being, that in us we have the world-man who is immortal, who is
+not afraid of death or sufferings, and who looks upon pain as only
+the other side of joy.  He who has realised this knows that it is
+pain which is our true wealth as imperfect beings, and has made us
+great and worthy to take our seat with the perfect.  He knows that
+we are not beggars; that it is the hard coin which must be paid
+for everything valuable in this life, for our power, our wisdom,
+our love; that in pain is symbolised the infinite possibility of
+perfection, the eternal unfolding of joy; and the man who loses all
+pleasure in accepting pain sinks down and down to the lowest depth
+of penury and degradation.  It is only when we invoke the aid of
+pain for our self-gratification that she becomes evil and takes her
+vengeance for the insult done to her by hurling us into misery.
+For she is the vestal virgin consecrated to the service of the
+immortal perfection, and when she takes her true place before the
+altar of the infinite she casts off her dark veil and bares her
+face to the beholder as a revelation of supreme joy.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+THE PROBLEM OF SELF
+
+
+At one pole of my being I am one with stocks and stones.  There I
+have to acknowledge the rule of universal law.  That is where the
+foundation of my existence lies, deep down below.  Its strength
+lies in its being held firm in the clasp of comprehensive world,
+and in the fullness of its community with all things.
+
+But at the other pole of my being I am separate from all.  There
+I have broken through the cordon of equality and stand alone as
+an individual.  I am absolutely unique, I am I, I am
+incomparable.  The whole weight of the universe cannot crush out
+this individuality of mine.  I maintain it in spite of the
+tremendous gravitation of all things.  It is small in appearance
+but great in reality.  For it holds its own against the forces
+that would rob it of its distinction and make it one with the
+dust.
+
+This is the superstructure of the self which rises from the
+indeterminate depth and darkness of its foundation into the open,
+proud of its isolation, proud of having given shape to a single
+individual idea of the architect's which has no duplicate in the
+whole universe.  If this individuality be demolished, then though
+no material be lost, not an atom destroyed, the creative joy
+which was crystallised therein is gone.  We are absolutely
+bankrupt if we are deprived of this specialty, this
+individuality, which is the only thing we can call our own; and
+which, if lost, is also a loss to the whole world.  It is most
+valuable because it is not universal.  And therefore only through
+it can we gain the universe more truly than if we were lying
+within its breast unconscious of our distinctiveness.  The
+universal is ever seeking its consummation in the unique.  And
+the desire we have to keep our uniqueness intact is really the
+desire of the universe acting in us.  It is our joy of the
+infinite in us that gives us our joy in ourselves.
+
+That this separateness of self is considered by man as his most
+precious possession is proved by the sufferings he undergoes and
+the sins he commits for its sake.  But the consciousness of
+separation has come from the eating of the fruit of knowledge.
+It has led man to shame and crime and death; yet it is dearer to
+him than any paradise where the self lies, securely slumbering in
+perfect innocence in the womb of mother nature.
+
+It is a constant striving and suffering for us to maintain the
+separateness of this self of ours.  And in fact it is this
+suffering which measures its value.  One side of the value is
+sacrifice, which represents how much the cost has been.  The
+other side of it is the attainment, which represents how much has
+been gained.  If the self meant nothing to us but pain and
+sacrifice, it could have no value for us, and on no account would
+we willingly undergo such sacrifice.  In such case there could be
+no doubt at all that the highest object of humanity would be the
+annihilation of self.
+
+But if there is a corresponding gain, if it does not end in a
+void but in a fullness, then it is clear that its negative
+qualities, its very sufferings and sacrifices, make it all the
+more precious.  That it is so has been proved by those who have
+realised the positive significance of self, and have accepted its
+responsibilities with eagerness and undergone sacrifices without
+flinching.
+
+With the foregoing introduction it will be easy for me to answer
+the question once asked by one of my audience as to whether the
+annihilation of self has not been held by India as the supreme
+goal of humanity?
+
+In the first place we must keep in mind the fact that man is
+never literal in the expression of his ideas, except in matters
+most trivial.  Very often man's words are not a language at all,
+but merely a vocal gesture of the dumb.  They may indicate, but
+do not express his thoughts.  The more vital his thoughts the
+more have his words to be explained by the context of his life.
+Those who seek to know his meaning by the aid of the dictionary
+only technically reach the house, for they are stopped by the
+outside wall and find no entrance to the hall.  This is the
+reason why the teachings of our greatest prophets give rise to
+endless disputations when we try to understand them by following
+their words and not be realising them in our own lives.  The men
+who are cursed with the gift of the literal mind are the
+unfortunate ones who are always busy with their nets and neglect
+the fishing.
+
+It is not only in Buddhism and the Indian religions, but in
+Christianity too, that the ideal of selflessness is preached with
+all fervour.  In the last the symbol of death has been used for
+expressing the idea of man's deliverance from the life which is
+not true.  This is the same as Nirvnana, the symbol of the
+extinction of the lamp.
+
+In the typical thought of India it is held that the true
+deliverance of man is the deliverance from _avidya_, from
+ignorance.  It is not in destroying anything that is positive and
+real, for that cannot be possible, but that which is negative,
+which obstructs our vision of truth.  When this obstruction,
+which is ignorance, is removed, then only is the eyelid drawn up
+which is no loss to the eye.
+
+It is our ignorance which makes us think that our self, as self,
+is real, that it has its complete meaning in itself.  When we
+take that wrong view of self then we try to live in such a manner
+as to make self the ultimate object of our life.  Then we are
+doomed to disappointment like the man who tries to reach his
+destination by firmly clutching the dust of the road.  Our self
+has no means of holding us, for its own nature is to pass on; and
+by clinging to this thread of self which is passing through the
+loom of life we cannot make it serve the purpose of the cloth
+into which it is being woven.  When a man, with elaborate care,
+arranges for an enjoyment of the self, he lights a fire but has
+no dough to make his bread with; the fire flares up and consumes
+itself to extinction, like an unnatural beast that eats its own
+progeny and dies.
+
+In an unknown language the words are tyrannically prominent.
+They stop us but say nothing.  To be rescued from this fetter of
+words we must rid ourselves of the _avidya_, our ignorance, and
+then our mind will find its freedom in the inner idea.  But it
+would be foolish to say that our ignorance of the language can
+be dispelled only by the destruction of the words.  No, when the
+perfect knowledge comes, every word remains in its place, only
+they do not bind us to themselves, but let us pass through them
+and lead us to the idea which is emancipation.
+
+Thus it is only _avidya_ which makes the self our fetter by
+making us think that it is an end in itself, and by preventing
+our seeing that it contains the idea that transcends its limits.
+That is why the wise man comes and says, "Set yourselves free
+from the _avidya_; know your true soul and be saved from the
+grasp of the self which imprisons you."
+
+We gain our freedom when we attain our truest nature.  The man
+who is an artist finds his artistic freedom when he finds his
+ideal of art.  Then is he freed from laborious attempts at
+imitation, from the goadings of popular approbation.  It is the
+function of religion not to destroy our nature but to fulfil it.
+
+The Sanskrit word _dharma_ which is usually translated into
+English as religion has a deeper meaning in our language.
+_Dharma_ is the innermost nature, the essence, the implicit
+truth, of all things.  _Dharma_ is the ultimate purpose that
+is working in our self.  When any wrong is done we say that
+_dharma_ is violated, meaning that the lie has been given to
+our true nature.
+
+But this _dharma_, which is the truth in us, is not apparent,
+because it is inherent.  So much so, that it has been held that
+sinfulness is the nature of man, and only by the special grace
+of God can a particular person be saved.  This is like saying
+that the nature of the seed is to remain enfolded within its
+shell, and it is only by some special miracle that it can be
+grown into a tree.  But do we not know that the _appearance_ of
+the seed contradicts its true nature?  When you submit it to
+chemical analysis you may find in it carbon and proteid and a
+good many other things, but not the idea of a branching tree.
+Only when the tree begins to take shape do you come to see its
+_dharma_, and then you can affirm without doubt that the seed
+which has been wasted and allowed to rot in the ground has been
+thwarted in its _dharma_, in the fulfilment of its true nature.
+In the history of humanity we have known the living seed in us
+to sprout.  We have seen the great purpose in us taking shape
+in the lives of our greatest men, and have felt certain that
+though there are numerous individual lives that seem ineffectual,
+still it is not their _dharma_ to remain barren; but it is for
+them to burst their cover and transform themselves into a
+vigorous spiritual shoot, growing up into the air and light, and
+branching out in all directions.
+
+The freedom of the seed is in the attainment of its
+_dharma_, its nature and destiny of becoming a tree; it is the
+non-accomplishment which is its prison.  The sacrifice by which
+a thing attains its fulfilment is not a sacrifice which ends in
+death; it is the casting-off of bonds which wins freedom.
+
+When we know the highest ideal of freedom which a man has, we
+know his _dharma_, the essence of his nature, the real meaning of
+his self.  At first sight it seems that man counts that as
+freedom by which he gets unbounded opportunities of self
+gratification and self-aggrandisement.  But surely this is not
+borne out by history.  Our revelatory men have always been those
+who have lived the life of self-sacrifice.  The higher nature in
+man always seeks for something which transcends itself and yet is
+its deepest truth; which claims all its sacrifice, yet makes this
+sacrifice its own recompense.  This is man's _dharma_, man's
+religion, and man's self is the vessel which is to carry this
+sacrifice to the altar.
+
+We can look at our self in its two different aspects.  The self
+which displays itself, and the self which transcends itself and
+thereby reveals its own meaning.  To display itself it tries to
+be big, to stand upon the pedestal of its accumulations, and to
+retain everything to itself.  To reveal itself it gives up
+everything it has; thus becoming perfect like a flower that has
+blossomed out from the bud, pouring from its chalice of beauty
+all its sweetness.
+
+The lamp contains its oil, which it holds securely in its close
+grasp and guards from the least loss.  Thus is it separate from
+all other objects around it and is miserly.  But when lighted it
+finds its meaning at once; its relation with all things far and
+near is established, and it freely sacrifices its fund of oil to
+feed the flame.
+
+Such a lamp is our self.  So long as it hoards its possessions it
+keeps itself dark, its conduct contradicts its true purpose.
+When it finds illumination it forgets itself in a moment, holds
+the light high, and serves it with everything it has; for therein
+is its revelation.  This revelation is the freedom which Buddha
+preached.  He asked the lamp to give up its oil.  But purposeless
+giving up is a still darker poverty which he never could have
+meant.  The lamp must give up its oil to the light and thus set
+free the purpose it has in its hoarding.  This is emancipation.
+The path Buddha pointed out was not merely the practice of self-
+abnegation, but the widening of love.  And therein lies the true
+meaning of Buddha's preaching.
+
+When we find that the state of _Nirvana_ preached by Buddha is
+through love, then we know for certain that _Nirvana_ is the
+highest culmination of love.  For love is an end unto itself.
+Everything else raises the question "Why?" in our mind, and we
+require a reason for it.  But when we say, "I love," then there
+is no room for the "why"; it is the final answer in itself.
+
+Doubtless, even selfishness impels one to give away.  But the
+selfish man does it on compulsion.  That is like plucking fruit
+when it is unripe; you have to tear it from the tree and bruise
+the branch.  But when a man loves, giving becomes a matter of joy
+to him, like the tree's surrender of the ripe fruit.  All our
+belongings assume a weight by the ceaseless gravitation of our
+selfish desires; we cannot easily cast them away from us.  They
+seem to belong to our very nature, to stick to us as a second
+skin, and we bleed as we detach them.  But when we are possessed
+by love, its force acts in the opposite direction.  The things
+that closely adhered to us lose their adhesion and weight, and we
+find that they are not of us.  Far from being a loss to give them
+away, we find in that the fulfilment of our being.
+
+Thus we find in perfect love the freedom of our self.  That only
+which is done for love is done freely, however much pain it may
+cause.  Therefore working for love is freedom in action.  This is
+the meaning of the teaching of disinterested work in the _Gita_.
+
+The _Gita_ says action we must have, for only in action do we
+manifest our nature.  But this manifestation is not perfect so
+long as our action is not free.  In fact, our nature is obscured
+by work done by the compulsion of want or fear.  The mother
+reveals herself in the service of her children, so our true
+freedom is not the freedom _from_ action but freedom _in_ action,
+which can only be attained in the work of love.
+
+God's manifestation is in his work of creation and it is said in
+the Upanishad, _Knowledge, power, and action are of his nature_
+[Footnote: "Svabhaviki jnana bala kriyacha."]; they are not
+imposed upon him from outside.  Therefore his work is his
+freedom, and in his creation he realises himself.  The same thing
+is said elsewhere in other words: _From joy does spring all this
+creation, by joy is it maintained, towards joy does it progress,
+and into joy does it enter_.  [Footnote: Anandadhyeva khalvimani
+bhutani jayante, anandena jatani jivanti,
+anandamprayantyabhisamvicanti.]  It means that God's creation has
+not its source in any necessity; it comes from his fullness of
+joy; it is his love that creates, therefore in creation is his
+own revealment.
+
+The artist who has a joy in the fullness of his artistic idea
+objectifies it and thus gains it more fully by holding it afar.
+It is joy which detaches ourselves from us, and then gives it
+form in creations of love in order to make it more perfectly our
+own.  Hence there must be this separation, not a separation of
+repulsion but a separation of love.  Repulsion has only the one
+element, the element of severance.  But love has two, the element
+of severance, which is only an appearance, and the element of
+union which is the ultimate truth.  Just as when the father
+tosses his child up from his arms it has the appearance of
+rejection but its truth is quite the reverse.
+
+So we must know that the meaning of our self is not to be found
+in its separateness from God and others, but in the ceaseless
+realisation of _yoga_, of union; not on the side of the canvas
+where it is blank, but on the side where the picture is being
+painted.
+
+This is the reason why the separateness of our self has been
+described by our philosophers as _maya_, as an illusion, because
+it has no intrinsic reality of its own.  It looks perilous; it
+raises its isolation to a giddy height and casts a black shadow
+upon the fair face of existence; from the outside it has an
+aspect of a sudden disruption, rebellious and destructive; it is
+proud, domineering and wayward; it is ready to rob the world of
+all its wealth to gratify its craving of a moment; to pluck with
+a reckless, cruel hand all the plumes from the divine bird of
+beauty to deck its ugliness for a day; indeed man's legend has it
+that it bears the black mark of disobedience stamped on its
+forehead for ever; but still all this _maya_, envelopment of
+_avidya_; it is the mist, it is not the sun; it is the black
+smoke that presages the fire of love.
+
+Imagine some savage who, in his ignorance, thinks that it is the
+paper of the banknote that has the magic, by virtue of which the
+possessor of it gets all he wants.  He piles up the papers, hides
+them, handles them in all sorts of absurd ways, and then at last,
+wearied by his efforts, comes to the sad conclusion that they are
+absolutely worthless, only fit to be thrown into the fire.  But
+the wise man knows that the paper of the banknote is all _maya_,
+and until it is given up to the bank it is futile.  It is only
+_avidya_, our ignorance, that makes us believe that the
+separateness of our self like the paper of the banknote is
+precious in itself, and by acting on this belief our self is
+rendered valueless.  It is only when the _avidya_ is removed that
+this very self comes to us with a wealth which is priceless.  For
+_He manifests Himself in forms which His joy assumes_.  [Footnote:
+Anandarupamamritam yadvibhati.]  These forms are separate from
+Him, and the value that these forms have is only what his joy has
+imparted to them.  When we transfer back these forms into that
+original joy, which is love, then we cash them in the bank and we
+find their truth.
+
+When pure necessity drives man to his work it takes an accidental
+and contingent character, it becomes a mere makeshift
+arrangement; it is deserted and left in ruins when necessity
+changes its course.  But when his work is the outcome of joy, the
+forms that it takes have the elements of immortality.  The
+immortal in man imparts to it its own quality of permanence.
+
+Our self, as a form of God's joy, is deathless.  For his joy is
+_amritham_, eternal.  This it is in us which makes us sceptical of
+death, even when the fact of death cannot be doubted.  In
+reconcilement of this contradiction in us we come to the truth that
+in the dualism of death and life there is a harmony.  We know that
+the life of a soul, which is finite in its expression and infinite
+in its principle, must go through the portals of death in its
+journey to realise the infinite.  It is death which is monistic, it
+has no life in it.  But life is dualistic; it has an appearance as
+well as truth; and death is that appearance, that _maya_, which is
+an inseparable companion to life.  Our self to live must go through
+a continual change and growth of form, which may be termed a
+continual death and a continual life going on at the same time.  It
+is really courting death when we refuse to accept death; when we
+wish to give the form of the self some fixed changelessness; when
+the self feels no impulse which urges it to grow out of itself;
+when it treats its limits as final and acts accordingly.  Then comes
+our teacher's call to die to this death; not a call to annihilation
+but to eternal life.  It is the extinction of the lamp in the
+morning light; not the abolition of the sun.  It is really asking us
+consciously to give effect to the innermost wish that we have in the
+depths of our nature.
+
+We have a dual set of desires in our being, which it should be
+our endeavour to bring into a harmony.  In the region of our
+physical nature we have one set of which we are conscious always.
+We wish to enjoy our food and drink, we hanker after bodily
+pleasure and comfort.  These desires are self-centered; they are
+solely concerned with their respective impulses.  The wishes of
+our palate often run counter to what our stomach can allow.
+
+But we have another set, which is the desire of our physical
+system as a whole, of which we are usually unconscious.  It is
+the wish for health.  This is always doing its work, mending and
+repairing, making new adjustments in cases of accident, and
+skilfully restoring the balance wherever disturbed.  It has no
+concern with the fulfilment of our immediate bodily desires, but
+it goes beyond the present time.  It is the principle of our
+physical wholeness, it links our life with its past and its
+future and maintains the unity of its parts.  He who is wise
+knows it, and makes his other physical wishes harmonise with it.
+
+We have a greater body which is the social body.  Society is an
+organism, of which we as parts have our individual wishes.  We
+want our own pleasure and license.  We want to pay less and gain
+more than anybody else.  This causes scramblings and fights.  But
+there is that other wish in us which does its work in the depths
+of the social being.  It is the wish for the welfare of the
+society.  It transcends the limits of the present and the
+personal.  It is on the side of the infinite.
+
+He who is wise tries to harmonise the wishes that seek for self-
+gratification with the wish for the social good, and only thus
+can he realise his higher self.
+
+In its finite aspect the self is conscious of its separateness,
+and there it is ruthless in its attempt to have more distinction
+than all others.  But in its infinite aspect its wish is to gain
+that harmony which leads to its perfection and not its mere
+aggrandisement.
+
+The emancipation of our physical nature is in attaining health,
+of our social being in attaining goodness, and of our self in
+attaining love.  This last is what Buddha describes as
+extinction--the extinction of selfishness--which is the function
+of love, and which does not lead to darkness but to illumination.
+This is the attainment of _bodhi_, or the true awakening; it is
+the revealing in us of the infinite joy by the light of love.
+
+The passage of our self is through its selfhood, which is
+independent, to its attainment of soul, which is harmonious.
+This harmony can never be reached through compulsion.  So our
+will, in the history of its growth, must come through
+independence and rebellion to the ultimate completion.  We must
+have the possibility of the negative form of freedom, which is
+licence, before we can attain the positive freedom, which is
+love.
+
+This negative freedom, the freedom of self-will, can turn its
+back upon its highest realisation, but it cannot cut itself away
+from it altogether, for then it will lose its own meaning.  Our
+self-will has freedom up to a certain extent; it can know what it
+is to break away from the path, but it cannot continue in that
+direction indefinitely.  For we are finite on our negative side.
+We must come to an end in our evil doing, in our career of
+discord.  For evil is not infinite, and discord cannot be an end
+in itself.  Our will has freedom in order that it may find out
+that its true course is towards goodness and love.  For goodness
+and love are infinite, and only in the infinite is the perfect
+realisation of freedom possible.  So our will can be free not
+towards the limitations of our self, not where it is _maya_ and
+negation, but towards the unlimited, where is truth and love.
+Our freedom cannot go against its own principle of freedom and
+yet be free; it cannot commit suicide and yet live.  We cannot
+say that we should have infinite freedom to fetter ourselves, for
+the fettering ends the freedom.
+
+So in the freedom of our will, we have the same dualism of
+appearance and truth--our self-will is only the appearance of
+freedom and love is the truth.  When we try to make this
+appearance independent of truth, then our attempt brings misery
+and proves its own futility in the end.  Everything has this
+dualism of _maya_ and _satyam_, appearance and truth.  Words are
+_maya_ where they are merely sounds and finite, they are _satyam_
+where they are ideas and infinite.  Our self is _maya_ where it
+is merely individual and finite, where it considers its
+separateness as absolute; it is _satyam_ where it recognises its
+essence in the universal and infinite, in the supreme self, in
+_paramatman_.  This is what Christ means when he says, "Before
+Abraham was I am."  This is the eternal _I am_ that speaks
+through the _I am_ that is in me.  The individual _I am_ attains
+its perfect end when it realises its freedom of harmony in the
+infinite _I am_.  Then is it _mukti_, its deliverance from the
+thraldom of _maya_, of appearance, which springs from _avidya_,
+from ignorance; its emancipation in _cantam civam advaitam_, in
+the perfect repose in truth, in the perfect activity in goodness,
+and in the perfect union in love.
+
+Not only in our self but also in nature is there this
+separateness from God, which has been described as _maya_ by our
+philosophers, because the separateness does not exist by itself,
+it does not limit God's infinity from outside.  It is his own
+will that has imposed limits to itself, just as the chess-player
+restricts his will with regard to the moving of the chessmen.
+The player willingly enters into definite relations with each
+particular piece and realises the joy of his power by these very
+restrictions.  It is not that he cannot move the chessmen just as
+he pleases, but if he does so then there can be no play.  If God
+assumes his role of omnipotence, then his creation is at an end
+and his power loses all its meaning.  For power to be a power must
+act within limits.  God's water must be water, his earth can never
+be other than earth.  The law that has made them water and earth
+is his own law by which he has separated the play from the player,
+for therein the joy of the player consists.
+
+As by the limits of law nature is separated from God, so it is
+the limits of its egoism which separates the self from him.  He
+has willingly set limits to his will, and has given us mastery
+over the little world of our own.  It is like a father's settling
+upon his son some allowance within the limit of which he is free
+to do what he likes.  Though it remains a portion of the father's
+own property, yet he frees it from the operation of his own will.
+The reason of it is that the will, which is love's will and
+therefore free, can have its joy only in a union with another
+free will.  The tyrant who must have slaves looks upon them as
+instruments of his purpose.  It is the consciousness of his own
+necessity which makes him crush the will out of them, to make his
+self-interest absolutely secure.  This self-interest cannot brook
+the least freedom in others, because it is not itself free.  The
+tyrant is really dependent on his slaves, and therefore he tries
+to make them completely useful by making them subservient to his
+own will.  But a lover must have two wills for the realisation of
+his love, because the consummation of love is in harmony, the
+harmony between freedom and freedom.  So God's love from which
+our self has taken form has made it separate from God; and it is
+God's love which again establishes a reconciliation and unites
+God with our self through the separation.  That is why our self
+has to go through endless renewals.  For in its career of
+separateness it cannot go on for ever.  Separateness is the
+finitude where it finds its barriers to come back again and again
+to its infinite source.  Our self has ceaselessly to cast off its
+age, repeatedly shed its limits in oblivion and death, in order
+to realise its immortal youth.  Its personality must merge in the
+universal time after time, in fact pass through it every moment,
+ever to refresh its individual life.  It must follow the eternal
+rhythm and touch the fundamental unity at every step, and thus
+maintain its separation balanced in beauty and strength.
+
+The play of life and death we see everywhere--this transmutation
+of the old into the new.  The day comes to us every morning,
+naked and white, fresh as a flower.  But we know it is old.  It
+is age itself.  It is that very ancient day which took up the
+newborn earth in its arms, covered it with its white mantle of
+light, and sent it forth on its pilgrimage among the stars.
+
+Yet its feet are untired and its eyes undimmed.  It carries the
+golden amulet of ageless eternity, at whose touch all wrinkles
+vanish from the forehead of creation.  In the very core of the
+world's heart stands immortal youth.  Death and decay cast over
+its face momentary shadows and pass on; they leave no marks of
+their steps--and truth remains fresh and young.
+
+This old, old day of our earth is born again and again every
+morning.  It comes back to the original refrain of its music.  If
+its march were the march of an infinite straight line, if it had
+not the awful pause of its plunge in the abysmal darkness and its
+repeated rebirth in the life of the endless beginning, then it
+would gradually soil and bury truth with its dust and spread
+ceaseless aching over the earth under its heavy tread.  Then
+every moment would leave its load of weariness behind, and
+decrepitude would reign supreme on its throne of eternal dirt.
+
+But every morning the day is reborn among the newly-blossomed
+flowers with the same message retold and the same assurance
+renewed that death eternally dies, that the waves of turmoil are
+on the surface, and that the sea of tranquillity is fathomless.
+The curtain of night is drawn aside and truth emerges without a
+speck of dust on its garment, without a furrow of age on its
+lineaments.
+
+We see that he who is before everything else is the same to-day.
+Every note of the song of creation comes fresh from his voice.
+The universe is not a mere echo, reverberating from sky to sky,
+like a homeless wanderer--the echo of an old song sung once for
+all in the dim beginning of things and then left orphaned.  Every
+moment it comes from the heart of the master, it is breathed in
+his breath.
+
+And that is the reason why it overspreads the sky like a thought
+taking shape in a poem, and never has to break into pieces with
+the burden of its own accumulating weight.  Hence the surprise of
+endless variations, the advent of the unaccountable, the
+ceaseless procession of individuals, each of whom is without a
+parallel in creation.  As at the first so to the last, the
+beginning never ends--the world is ever old and ever new.
+
+It is for our self to know that it must be born anew every moment
+of its life.  It must break through all illusions that encase it
+in their crust to make it appear old, burdening it with death.
+
+For life is immortal youthfulness, and it hates age that tries to
+clog its movements--age that belongs not to life in truth, but
+follows it as the shadow follows the lamp.
+
+Our life, like a river, strikes its banks not to find itself
+closed in by them, but to realise anew every moment that it has
+its unending opening towards the sea.  It is a poem that strikes
+its metre at every step not to be silenced by its rigid
+regulations, but to give expression every moment to the inner
+freedom of its harmony.
+
+The boundary walls of our individuality thrust us back within our
+limits, on the one hand, and thus lead us, on the other, to the
+unlimited.  Only when we try to make these limits infinite are we
+launched into an impossible contradiction and court miserable
+failure.
+
+This is the cause which leads to the great revolutions in human
+history.  Whenever the part, spurning the whole, tries to run a
+separate course of its own, the great pull of the all gives it a
+violent wrench, stops it suddenly, and brings it to the dust.
+Whenever the individual tries to dam the ever-flowing current of
+the world-force and imprison it within the area of his particular
+use, it brings on disaster.  However powerful a king may be, he
+cannot raise his standard or rebellion against the infinite
+source of strength, which is unity, and yet remain powerful.
+
+It has been said, _By unrighteousness men prosper, gain what they
+desire, and triumph over their enemies, but at the end they are
+cut off at the root and suffer extinction._  [Footnote:
+Adharmenaidhate tavat tato bahdrani pacyati tatah sapatnan jayati
+samulastu vinacyati.]  Our roots must go deep down into the
+universal if we would attain the greatness of personality.
+
+It is the end of our self to seek that union.  It must bend its
+head low in love and meekness and take its stand where great and
+small all meet.  It has to gain by its loss and rise by its
+surrender.  His games would be a horror to the child if he could
+not come back to his mother, and our pride of personality will be
+a curse to us if we cannot give it up in love.  We must know that
+it is only the revelation of the Infinite which is endlessly new
+and eternally beautiful in us, and which gives the only meaning
+to our self.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+REALISATION IN LOVE
+
+
+We come now to the eternal problem of co-existence of the
+infinite and the finite, of the supreme being and our soul.
+There is a sublime paradox that lies at the root of existence.
+We never can go round it, because we never can stand outside the
+problem and weigh it against any other possible alternative.  But
+the problem exists in logic only; in reality it does not offer us
+any difficulty at all.  Logically speaking, the distance between
+two points, however near, may be said to be infinite because it
+is infinitely divisible.  But we _do_ cross the infinite at every
+step, and meet the eternal in every second.  Therefore some of our
+philosophers say there is no such thing as finitude; it is but a
+_maya_, an illusion.  The real is the infinite, and it is only
+_maya_, the unreality, which causes the appearance of the finite.
+But the word _maya_ is a mere name, it is no explanation.  It is
+merely saying that with truth there is this appearance which is
+the opposite of truth; but how they come to exist at one and the
+same time is incomprehensible.
+
+We have what we call in Sanskrit _dvandva_, a series of opposites
+in creation; such as, the positive pole and the negative, the
+centripetal force and the centrifugal, attraction and repulsion.
+These are also mere names, they are no explanations.  They are
+only different ways of asserting that the world in its essence is
+a reconciliation of pairs of opposing forces.  These forces, like
+the left and the right hands of the creator, are acting in
+absolute harmony, yet acting from opposite directions.
+
+There is a bond of harmony between our two eyes, which makes them
+act in unison.  Likewise there is an unbreakable continuity of
+relation in the physical world between heat and cold, light and
+darkness, motion and rest, as between the bass and treble notes
+of a piano.  That is why these opposites do not bring confusion
+in the universe, but harmony.  If creation were but a chaos, we
+should have to imagine the two opposing principles as trying to
+get the better of each other.  But the universe is not under
+martial law, arbitrary and provisional.  Here we find no force
+which can run amok, or go on indefinitely in its wild road, like
+an exiled outlaw, breaking all harmony with its surroundings;
+each force, on the contrary, has to come back in a curved line to
+its equilibrium.  Waves rise, each to its individual height in a
+seeming attitude of unrelenting competition, but only up to a
+certain point; and thus we know of the great repose of the sea to
+which they are all related, and to which they must all return in
+a rhythm which is marvellously beautiful.
+
+In fact, these undulations and vibrations, these risings and
+fallings, are not due to the erratic contortions of disparate
+bodies, they are a rhythmic dance.  Rhythm never can be born of
+the haphazard struggle of combat.  Its underlying principle must
+be unity, not opposition.
+
+This principle of unity is the mystery of all mysteries.  The
+existence of a duality at once raises a question in our minds,
+and we seek its solution in the One.  When at last we find a
+relation between these two, and thereby see them as one in
+essence, we feel that we have come to the truth.  And then we
+give utterance to this most startling of all paradoxes, that the
+One appears as many, that the appearance is the opposite of truth
+and yet is inseparably related to it.
+
+Curiously enough, there are men who lose that feeling of mystery,
+which is at the root of all our delights, when they discover the
+uniformity of law among the diversity of nature.  As if
+gravitation is not more of a mystery than the fall of an apple,
+as if the evolution from one scale of being to the other is not
+something which is even more shy of explanation than a succession
+of creations.  The trouble is that we very often stop at such a
+law as if it were the final end of our search, and then we find
+that it does not even begin to emancipate our spirit.  It only
+gives satisfaction to our intellect, and as it does not appeal to
+our whole being it only deadens in us the sense of the infinite.
+
+A great poem, when analysed, is a set of detached sounds.  The
+reader who finds out the meaning, which is the inner medium that
+connects these outer sounds, discovers a perfect law all through,
+which is never violated in the least; the law of the evolution of
+ideas, the law of the music and the form.
+
+But law in itself is a limit.  It only shows that whatever is can
+never be otherwise.  When a man is exclusively occupied with the
+search for the links of causality, his mind succumbs to the
+tyranny of law in escaping from the tyranny of facts.  In
+learning a language, when from mere words we reach the laws of
+words we have gained a great deal.  But if we stop at that point,
+and only concern ourselves with the marvels of the formation of a
+language, seeking the hidden reason of all its apparent caprices,
+we do not reach the end--for grammar is not literature, prosody
+is not a poem.
+
+When we come to literature we find that though it conforms to
+rules of grammar it is yet a thing of joy, it is freedom itself.
+The beauty of a poem is bound by strict laws, yet it transcends
+them.  The laws are its wings, they do not keep it weighed down,
+they carry it to freedom.  Its form is in law but its spirit is
+in beauty.  Law is the first step towards freedom, and beauty is
+the complete liberation which stands on the pedestal of law.
+Beauty harmonises in itself the limit and the beyond, the law and
+the liberty.
+
+In the world-poem, the discovery of the law of its rhythms, the
+measurement of its expansion and contraction, movement and pause,
+the pursuit of its evolution of forms and characters, are true
+achievements of the mind; but we cannot stop there.  It is like a
+railway station; but the station platform is not our home.  Only
+he has attained the final truth who knows that the whole world is
+a creation of joy.
+
+This leads me to think how mysterious the relation of the human
+heart with nature must be.  In the outer world of activity nature
+has one aspect, but in our hearts, in the inner world, it
+presents an altogether different picture.
+
+Take an instance--the flower of a plant.  However fine and dainty
+it may look, it is pressed to do a great service, and its colours
+and forms are all suited to its work.  It must bring forth the
+fruit, or the continuity of plant life will be broken and the
+earth will be turned into a desert ere long.  The colour and the
+smell of the flower are all for some purpose therefore; no sooner
+is it fertilised by the bee, and the time of its fruition
+arrives, than it sheds its exquisite petals and a cruel economy
+compels it to give up its sweet perfume.  It has no time to
+flaunt its finery, for it is busy beyond measure.  Viewed from
+without, necessity seems to be the only factor in nature for
+which everything works and moves.  There the bud develops into
+the flower, the flower into the fruit, the fruit into the seed,
+the seed into a new plant again, and so forth, the chain of
+activity running on unbroken.  Should there crop up any
+disturbance or impediment, no excuse would be accepted, and the
+unfortunate thing thus choked in its movement would at once be
+labelled as rejected, and be bound to die and disappear post-
+haste.  In the great office of nature there are innumerable
+departments with endless work going on, and the fine flower that
+you behold there, gaudily attired and scented like a dandy, is by
+no means what it appears to be, but rather, is like a labourer
+toiling in sun and shower, who has to submit a clear account of
+his work and has no breathing space to enjoy himself in playful
+frolic.
+
+But when this same flower enters the heart of men its aspect of
+busy practicality is gone, and it becomes the very emblem of
+leisure and repose.  The same object that is the embodiment of
+endless activity without is the perfect expression of beauty and
+peace within.
+
+Science here warns us that we are mistaken, that the purpose of a
+flower is nothing but what is outwardly manifested, and that the
+relation of beauty and sweetness which we think it bears to us is
+all our own making, gratuitous and imaginary.
+
+But our heart replies that we are not in the least mistaken.  In
+the sphere of nature the flower carries with it a certificate
+which recommends it as having immense capacity for doing useful
+work, but it brings an altogether different letter of
+introduction when it knocks at the door of our hearts.  Beauty
+becomes its only qualification.  At one place it comes as a
+slave, and at another as a free thing.  How, then, should we give
+credit to its first recommendation and disbelieve the second one?
+That the flower has got its being in the unbroken chain of
+causation is true beyond doubt; but that is an outer truth.  The
+inner truth is: _Verily from the everlasting joy do all objects
+have their birth._  [Footnote: Anandadhyeva khalvimani bhutani
+jayante.]
+
+A flower, therefore, has not its only function in nature, but has
+another great function to exercise in the mind of man.  And what
+is that function?  In nature its work is that of a servant who
+has to make his appearance at appointed times, but in the heart
+of man it comes like a messenger from the King.  In the
+_Ramayana_, when _Sita,_ forcibly separated from her husband, was
+bewailing her evil fate in _Ravana's_ golden palace, she was met
+by a messenger who brought with him a ring of her beloved
+_Ramachandra_ himself.  The very sight of it convinced _Sita_ of
+the truth of tidings he bore.  She was at once reassured that he
+came indeed from her beloved one, who had not forgotten her and
+was at hand to rescue her.
+
+Such a messenger is a flower from our great lover.  Surrounded
+with the pomp and pageantry of worldliness, which may be linked
+to Ravana's golden city, we still live in exile, while the
+insolent spirit of worldly prosperity tempts us with allurements
+and claims us as its bride.  In the meantime the flower comes
+across with a message from the other shore, and whispers in our
+ears, "I am come.  He has sent me.  I am a messenger of the
+beautiful, the one whose soul is the bliss of love.  This island
+of isolation has been bridged over by him, and he has not
+forgotten thee, and will rescue thee even now.  He will draw thee
+unto him and make thee his own.  This illusion will not hold thee
+in thraldom for ever."
+
+If we happen to be awake then, we question him: "How are we to
+know that thou art come from him indeed?"  The messenger says,
+"Look!  I have this ring from him.  How lovely are its hues and
+charms!"
+
+Ah, doubtless it is his--indeed, it is our wedding ring.  Now all
+else passes into oblivion, only this sweet symbol of the touch of
+the eternal love fills us with a deep longing.  We realise that
+the palace of gold where we are has nothing to do with us--our
+deliverance is outside it--and there our love has its fruition
+and our life its fulfilment.
+
+What to the bee in nature is merely colour and scent, and the
+marks or spots which show the right track to the honey, is to the
+human heart beauty and joy untrammelled by necessity.  They bring
+a love letter to the heart written in many-coloured inks.
+
+I was telling you, therefore, that however busy our active nature
+outwardly may be, she has a secret chamber within the heart where
+she comes and goes freely, without any design whatsoever.  There
+the fire of her workshop is transformed into lamps of a festival,
+the noise of her factory is heard like music.  The iron chain of
+cause and effect sounds heavily outside in nature, but in the
+human heart its unalloyed delight seems to sound, as it were,
+like the golden strings of a harp.
+
+It indeed seems to be wonderful that nature has these two aspects
+at one and the same time, and so antithetical--one being of
+thraldom and the other of freedom.  In the same form, sound,
+colour, and taste two contrary notes are heard, one of necessity
+and the other of joy.  Outwardly nature is busy and restless,
+inwardly she is all silence and peace.  She has toil on one side
+and leisure on the other.  You see her bondage only when you see
+her from without, but within her heart is a limitless beauty.
+
+Our seer says, "From joy are born all creatures, by joy they are
+sustained, towards joy they progress, and into joy they enter."
+
+Not that he ignores law, or that his contemplation of this
+infinite joy is born of the intoxication produced by an
+indulgence in abstract thought.  He fully recognises the
+inexorable laws of nature, and says, "Fire burns for fear of him
+(i.e. by his law); the sun shines by fear of him; and for fear of
+him the wind, the clouds, and death perform their offices."  It
+is a reign of iron rule, ready to punish the least transgression.
+Yet the poet chants the glad song, "From joy are born all
+creatures, by joy they are sustained, towards joy they progress,
+and into joy they enter."
+
+_The immortal being manifests himself in joy-form._  [Footnote:
+Anandarupamamritam yad vibhati.]  His manifestation in creation
+is out of his fullness of joy.  It is the nature of this
+abounding joy to realise itself in form which is law.  The joy,
+which is without form, must create, must translate itself into
+forms.  The joy of the singer is expressed in the form of a song,
+that of the poet in the form of a poem.  Man in his role of a
+creator is ever creating forms, and they come out of his
+abounding joy.
+
+This joy, whose other name is love, must by its very nature have
+duality for its realisation.  When the singer has his inspiration
+he makes himself into two; he has within him his other self as
+the hearer, and the outside audience is merely an extension of
+this other self of his.  The lover seeks his own other self in
+his beloved.  It is the joy that creates this separation, in
+order to realise through obstacles of union.
+
+The _amritam_, the immortal bliss, has made himself into two.
+Our soul is the loved one, it is his other self.  We are
+separate; but if this separation were absolute, then there would
+have been absolute misery and unmitigated evil in this world.
+Then from untruth we never could reach truth, and from sin we
+never could hope to attain purity of heart; then all opposites
+would ever remain opposites, and we could never find a medium
+through which our differences could ever tend to meet.  Then we
+could have no language, no understanding, no blending of hearts,
+no co-operation in life.  But on the contrary, we find that the
+separateness of objects is in a fluid state.  Their
+individualities are even changing, they are meeting and merging
+into each other, till science itself is turning into metaphysics,
+matter losing its boundaries, and the definition of life becoming
+more and more indefinite.
+
+Yes, our individual soul has been separated from the supreme
+soul, but this has not been from alienation but from the fullness
+of love.  It is for that reason that untruths, sufferings, and
+evils are not at a standstill; the human soul can defy them, can
+overcome them, nay, can altogether transform them into new power
+and beauty.
+
+The singer is translating his song into singing, his joy into
+forms, and the hearer has to translate back the singing into the
+original joy; then the communion between the singer and the
+hearer is complete.  The infinite joy is manifesting itself in
+manifold forms, taking upon itself the bondage of law, and we
+fulfil our destiny when we go back from forms to joy, from law to
+the love, when we untie the knot of the finite and hark back to
+the infinite.
+
+The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from
+discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual.
+Buddha preached the discipline of self-restraint and moral life;
+it is a complete acceptance of law.  But this bondage of law
+cannot be an end by itself; by mastering it thoroughly we acquire
+the means of getting beyond it.  It is going back to Brahma, to
+the infinite love, which is manifesting itself through the finite
+forms of law.  Buddha names it _Brahma-vihara_, the joy of living
+in Brahma.  He who wants to reach this stage, according to Buddha,
+"shall deceive none, entertain no hatred for anybody, and never
+wish to injure through anger.  He shall have measureless love for
+all creatures, even as a mother has for her only child, whom she
+protects with her own life.  Up above, below, and all around him
+he shall extend his love, which is without bounds and obstacles,
+and which is free from all cruelty and antagonism.  While
+standing, sitting, walking, lying down, till he fall asleep, he
+shall keep his mind active in this exercise of universal goodwill."
+
+Want of love is a degree of callousness; for love is the
+perfection of consciousness.  We do not love because we do not
+comprehend, or rather we do not comprehend because we do not
+love.  For love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us.
+It is not a mere sentiment; it is truth; it is the joy that is at
+the root of all creation.  It is the white light of pure
+consciousness that emanates from Brahma.  So, to be one with this
+_sarvanubhuh_, this all-feeling being who is in the external sky,
+as well as in our inner soul, we must attain to that summit of
+consciousness, which is love: _Who could have breathed or moved
+if the sky were not filled with joy, with love?_  [Footnote: Ko
+hyevanyat kah pranyat yadesha akaca anando na syat.]  It is
+through the heightening of our consciousness into love, and
+extending it all over the world, that we can attain
+_Brahma-vihara,_ communion with this infinite joy.
+
+Love spontaneously gives itself in endless gifts.  But these
+gifts lose their fullest significance if through them we do not
+reach that love, which is the giver.  To do that, we must have
+love in our own heart.  He who has no love in him values the
+gifts of his lover only according to their usefulness.  But
+utility is temporary and partial.  It can never occupy our whole
+being; what is useful only touches us at the point where we have
+some want.  When the want is satisfied, utility becomes a burden
+if it still persists.  On the other hand, a mere token is of
+permanent worth to us when we have love in our heart.  For it is
+not for any special use.  It is an end in itself; it is for our
+whole being and therefore can never tire us.
+
+The question is, In what manner do we accept this world, which is
+a perfect gift of joy?  Have we been able to receive it in our
+heart where we keep enshrined things that are of deathless value
+to us?  We are frantically busy making use of the forces of the
+universe to gain more and more power; we feed and we clothe
+ourselves from its stores, we scramble for its riches, and it
+becomes for us a field of fierce competition.  But were we born
+for this, to extend our proprietary rights over this world and
+make of it a marketable commodity?  When our whole mind is bent
+only upon making use of this world it loses for us its true
+value.  We make it cheap by our sordid desires; and thus to the
+end of our days we only try to feed upon it and miss its truth,
+just like the greedy child who tears leaves from a precious book
+and tries to swallow them.
+
+In the lands where cannibalism is prevalent man looks upon man as
+his food.  In such a country civilisation can never thrive, for
+there man loses his higher value and is made common indeed.  But
+there are other kinds of cannibalism, perhaps not so gross, but
+not less heinous, for which one need not travel far.  In
+countries higher in the scale of civilisation we find sometimes
+man looked upon as a mere body, and he is bought and sold in the
+market by the price of his flesh only.  And sometimes he gets his
+sole value from being useful; he is made into a machine, and is
+traded upon by the man of money to acquire for him more money.
+Thus our lust, our greed, our love of comfort result in
+cheapening man to his lowest value.  It is self deception on a
+large scale.  Our desires blind us to the _truth_ that there is
+in man, and this is the greatest wrong done by ourselves to our
+own soul.  It deadens our consciousness, and is but a gradual
+method of spiritual suicide.  It produces ugly sores in the body
+of civilisation, gives rise to its hovels and brothels, its
+vindictive penal codes, its cruel prison systems, its organised
+method of exploiting foreign races to the extent of permanently
+injuring them by depriving them of the discipline of self-
+government and means of self-defence.
+
+Of course man is useful to man, because his body is a marvellous
+machine and his mind an organ of wonderful efficiency.  But he is
+a spirit as well, and this spirit is truly known only by love.
+When we define a man by the market value of the service we can
+expect of him, we know him imperfectly.  With this limited
+knowledge of him it becomes easy for us to be unjust to him and
+to entertain feelings of triumphant self-congratulation when, on
+account of some cruel advantage on our side, we can get out of
+him much more than we have paid for.  But when we know him as a
+spirit we know him as our own.  We at once feel that cruelty to
+him is cruelty to ourselves, to make him small is stealing from
+our own humanity, and in seeking to make use of him solely for
+personal profit we merely gain in money or comfort what we pay in
+truth.
+
+One day I was out in a boat on the Ganges.  It was a beautiful
+evening in autumn.  The sun had just set; the silence of the sky
+was full to the brim with ineffable peace and beauty.  The vast
+expanse of water was without a ripple, mirroring all the changing
+shades of the sunset glow.  Miles and miles of a desolate
+sandbank lay like a huge amphibious reptile of some antediluvian
+age, with its scales glistening in shining colours.  As our boat
+was silently gliding by the precipitous river-bank, riddled with
+the nest-holes of a colony of birds, suddenly a big fish leapt up
+to the surface of the water and then disappeared, displaying on
+its vanishing figure all the colours of the evening sky.  It drew
+aside for a moment the many-coloured screen behind which there
+was a silent world full of the joy of life.  It came up from the
+depths of its mysterious dwelling with a beautiful dancing motion
+and added its own music to the silent symphony of the dying day.
+I felt as if I had a friendly greeting from an alien world in its
+own language, and it touched my heart with a flash of gladness.
+Then suddenly the man at the helm exclaimed with a distinct note
+of regret, "Ah, what a big fish!"  It at once brought before his
+vision the picture of the fish caught and made ready for his
+supper.  He could only look at the fish through his desire, and
+thus missed the whole truth of its existence.  But man is not
+entirely an animal.  He aspires to a spiritual vision, which is
+the vision of the whole truth.  This gives him the highest
+delight, because it reveals to him the deepest harmony that
+exists between him and his surroundings.  It is our desires that
+limit the scope of our self-realisation, hinder our extension of
+consciousness, and give rise to sin, which is the innermost
+barrier that keeps us apart from our God, setting up disunion and
+the arrogance of exclusiveness.  For sin is not one mere action,
+but it is an attitude of life which takes for granted that our
+goal is finite, that our self is the ultimate truth, and that we
+are not all essentially one but exist each for his own separate
+individual existence.
+
+So I repeat we never can have a true view of man unless we have a
+love for him.  Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the
+amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved
+and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love
+of humanity.  The first question and the last which it has to
+answer is, Whether and how far it recognises man more as a spirit
+than a machine?  Whenever some ancient civilisation fell into
+decay and died, it was owing to causes which produced callousness
+of heart and led to the cheapening of man's worth; when either
+the state or some powerful group of men began to look upon the
+people as a mere instrument of their power; when, by compelling
+weaker races to slavery and trying to keep them down by every
+means, man struck at the foundation of his greatness, his own
+love of freedom and fair-play.  Civilisation can never sustain
+itself upon cannibalism of any form.  For that by which alone man
+is true can only be nourished by love and justice.
+
+As with man, so with this universe.  When we look at the world
+through the veil of our desires we make it small and narrow, and
+fail to perceive its full truth.  Of course it is obvious that
+the world serves us and fulfils our needs, but our relation to it
+does not end there.  We are bound to it with a deeper and truer
+bond than that of necessity.  Our soul is drawn to it; our love
+of life is really our wish to continue our relation with this
+great world.  This relation is one of love.  We are glad that we
+are in it; we are attached to it with numberless threads, which
+extend from this earth to the stars.  Man foolishly tries to
+prove his superiority by imagining his radical separateness from
+what he calls his physical world, which, in his blind fanaticism,
+he sometimes goes to the extent of ignoring altogether, holding
+it at his direst enemy.  Yet the more his knowledge progresses,
+the more it becomes difficult for man to establish this
+separateness, and all the imaginary boundaries he had set up
+around himself vanish one after another.  Every time we lose some
+of our badges of absolute distinction by which we conferred upon
+our humanity the right to hold itself apart from its surroundings,
+it gives us a shock of humiliation.  But we have to submit to
+this.  If we set up our pride on the path of our self-realisation
+to create divisions and disunion, then it must sooner or later
+come under the wheels of truth and be ground to dust.  No, we are
+not burdened with some monstrous superiority, unmeaning in its
+singular abruptness.  It would be utterly degrading for us to
+live in a world immeasurably less than ourselves in the quality of
+soul, just as it would be repulsive and degrading to be surrounded
+and served by a host of slaves, day and night, from birth to the
+moment of death.  On the contrary, this world is our compeer, nay,
+we are one with it.
+
+Through our progress in science the wholeness of the world and
+our oneness with it is becoming clearer to our mind.  When this
+perception of the perfection of unity is not merely intellectual,
+when it opens out our whole being into a luminous consciousness
+of the all, then it becomes a radiant joy, an overspreading love.
+Our spirit finds its larger self in the whole world, and is
+filled with an absolute certainty that it is immortal.  It dies a
+hundred times in its enclosures of self; for separateness is
+doomed to die, it cannot be made eternal.  But it never can die
+where it is one with the all, for there is its truth, its joy.
+When a man feels the rhythmic throb of the soul-life of the whole
+world in his own soul, then is he free.  Then he enters into the
+secret courting that goes on between this beautiful world-bride,
+veiled with the veil of the many-coloured finiteness, and the
+_paramatmam_, the bridegroom, in his spotless white.  Then he
+knows that he is the partaker of this gorgeous love festival, and
+he is the honoured guest at the feast of immortality.  Then he
+understands the meaning of the seer-poet who sings, "From love the
+world is born, by love it is sustained, towards love it moves, and
+into love it enters."
+
+In love all the contradictions of existence merge themselves and
+are lost.  Only in love are unity and duality not at variance.
+Love must be one and two at the same time.
+
+Only love is motion and rest in one.  Our heart ever changes its
+place till it finds love, and then it has its rest.  But this
+rest itself is an intense form of activity where utter quiescence
+and unceasing energy meet at the same point in love.
+
+In love, loss and gain are harmonised.  In its balance-sheet,
+credit and debit accounts are in the same column, and gifts are
+added to gains.  In this wonderful festival of creation, this
+great ceremony of self-sacrifice of God, the lover constantly
+gives himself up to gain himself in love.  Indeed, love is what
+brings together and inseparably connects both the act of
+abandoning and that of receiving.
+
+In love, at one of its poles you find the personal, and at the
+other the impersonal.  At one you have the positive assertion--
+Here I am; at the other the equally strong denial--I am not.
+Without this ego what is love?  And again, with only this ego how
+can love be possible?
+
+Bondage and liberation are not antagonistic in love.  For love is
+most free and at the same time most bound.  If God were
+absolutely free there would be no creation.  The infinite being
+has assumed unto himself the mystery of finitude.  And in him who
+is love the finite and the infinite are made one.
+
+Similarly, when we talk about the relative values of freedom and
+non-freedom, it becomes a mere play of words.  It is not that we
+desire freedom alone, we want thraldom as well.  It is the high
+function of love to welcome all limitations and to transcend
+them.  For nothing is more independent than love, and where else,
+again, shall we find so much of dependence?  In love, thraldom is
+as glorious as freedom.
+
+The _Vaishnava_ religion has boldly declared that God has bound
+himself to man, and in that consists the greatest glory of human
+existence.  In the spell of the wonderful rhythm of the finite he
+fetters himself at every step, and thus gives his love out in
+music in his most perfect lyrics of beauty.  Beauty is his wooing
+of our heart; it can have no other purpose.  It tells us
+everywhere that the display of power is not the ultimate meaning
+of creation; wherever there is a bit of colour, a note of song, a
+grace of form, there comes the call for our love.  Hunger compels
+us to obey its behests, but hunger is not the last word for a man.
+There have been men who have deliberately defied its commands to
+show that the human soul is not to be led by the pressure of wants
+and threat of pain.  In fact, to live the life of man we have to
+resist its demands every day, the least of us as well as the
+greatest.  But, on the other hand, there is a beauty in the world
+which never insults our freedom, never raises even its little
+finger to make us acknowledge its sovereignty.  We can absolutely
+ignore it and suffer no penalty in consequence.  It is a call to
+us, but not a command.  It seeks for love in us, and love can
+never be had by compulsion.  Compulsion is not indeed the final
+appeal to man, but joy is.  Any joy is everywhere; it is in the
+earth's green covering of grass; in the blue serenity of the sky;
+in the reckless exuberance of spring; in the severe abstinence of
+grey winter; in the living flesh that animates our bodily frame;
+in the perfect poise of the human figure, noble and upright; in
+living; in the exercise of all our powers; in the acquisition of
+knowledge; in fighting evils; in dying for gains we never can
+share.  Joy is there everywhere; it is superfluous, unnecessary;
+nay, it very often contradicts the most peremptory behests of
+necessity.  It exists to show that the bonds of law can only be
+explained by love; they are like body and soul.  Joy is the
+realisation of the truth of oneness, the oneness of our soul with
+the world and of the world-soul with the supreme lover.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+REALISATION IN ACTION
+
+
+It is only those who have known that joy expresses itself through
+law who have learnt to transcend the law.  Not that the bonds of
+law have ceased to exist for them--but that the bonds have become
+to them as the form of freedom incarnate.  The freed soul
+delights in accepting bonds, and does not seek to evade any of
+them, for in each does it feel the manifestation of an infinite
+energy whose joy is in creation.
+
+As a matter of fact, where there are no bonds, where there is the
+madness of license, the soul ceases to be free.  There is its
+hurt; there is its separation from the infinite, its agony of
+sin.  Whenever at the call of temptation the soul falls away from
+the bondage of law, then, like a child deprived of the support of
+its mother's arms, it cries out, _Smite me not!_  [Footnote: Ma ma
+himsih.]  "Bind me," it prays, "oh, bind me in the bonds of thy
+law; bind me within and without; hold me tight; let me in the clasp
+of thy law be bound up together with thy joy; protect me by thy
+firm hold from the deadly laxity of sin."
+
+As some, under the idea that law is the opposite of joy, mistake
+intoxication for joy, so there are many in our country who
+imagine action to be opposed to freedom.  They think that
+activity being in the material plane is a restriction of the free
+spirit of the soul.  But we must remember that as joy expresses
+itself in law, so the soul finds its freedom in action.  It is
+because joy cannot find expression in itself alone that it
+desires the law which is outside.  Likewise it is because the
+soul cannot find freedom within itself that it wants external
+action.  The soul of man is ever freeing itself from its own
+folds by its activity; had it been otherwise it could not have
+done any voluntary work.
+
+The more man acts and makes actual what was latent in him, the
+nearer does he bring the distant Yet-to-be.  In that
+actualisation man is ever making himself more and yet more
+distinct, and seeing himself clearly under newer and newer
+aspects in the midst of his varied activities, in the state, in
+society.  This vision makes for freedom.
+
+Freedom is not in darkness, nor in vagueness.  There is no
+bondage so fearful as that of obscurity.  It is to escape from
+this obscurity that the seed struggles to sprout, the bud to
+blossom.  It is to rid itself of this envelope of vagueness that
+the ideas in our mind are constantly seeking opportunities to
+take on outward form.  In the same way our soul, in order to
+release itself from the mist of indistinctness and come out into
+the open, is continually creating for itself fresh fields of
+action, and is busy contriving new forms of activity, even such
+as are not needful for the purposes of its earthly life.  And
+why?  Because it wants freedom.  It wants to see itself, to
+realise itself.
+
+When man cuts down the pestilential jungle and makes unto himself
+a garden, the beauty that he thus sets free from within its
+enclosure of ugliness is the beauty of his own soul: without
+giving it this freedom outside, he cannot make it free within.
+When he implants law and order in the midst of the waywardness of
+society, the good which he sets free from the obstruction of the
+bad is the goodness of his own soul: without being thus made free
+outside it cannot find freedom within.  Thus is man continually
+engaged in setting free in action his powers, his beauty, his
+goodness, his very soul.  And the more he succeeds in so doing,
+the greater does he see himself to be, the broader becomes the
+field of his knowledge of self.
+
+The Upanishad says: _In the midst of activity alone wilt thou
+desire to live a hundred years._  [Footnote:  Kurvanneveha
+karmani jijivishet catam samah.]  It is the saying of those who
+had amply tasted of the joy of the soul.  Those who have fully
+realised the soul have never talked in mournful accents of the
+sorrowfulness of life or of the bondage of action.  They are not
+like the weakling flower whose stem-hold is so light that it
+drops away before attaining fruition.  They hold on to life with
+all their might and say, "never will we let go till the fruit is
+ripe."  They desire in their joy to express themselves
+strenuously in their life and in their work.  Pain and sorrow
+dismay them not, they are not bowed down to the dust by the
+weight of their own heart.  With the erect head of the victorious
+hero they march through life seeing themselves and showing
+themselves in increasing resplendence of soul through both joys
+and sorrows.  The joy of their life keeps step with the joy of
+that energy which is playing at building and breaking throughout
+the universe.  The joy of the sunlight, the joy of the free air,
+mingling with the joy of their lives, makes one sweet harmony
+reign within and without.  It is they who say, _In the midst of
+activity alone wilt thou desire to live a hundred years._
+
+This joy of life, this joy of work, in man is absolutely true.
+It is no use saying that it is a delusion of ours; that unless we
+cast it away we cannot enter upon the path of self-realisation.
+It will never do the least good to attempt the realisation of the
+infinite apart from the world of action.
+
+It is not the truth that man is active on compulsion.  If there
+is compulsion on one side, on the other there is pleasure; on the
+one hand action is spurred on by want, on the other it hies to
+its natural fulfilment.  That is why, as man's civilisation
+advances, he increases his obligations and the work that he
+willingly creates for himself.  One should have thought that
+nature had given him quite enough to do to keep him busy, in fact
+that it was working him to death with the lash of hunger and
+thirst,--but no.  Man does not think that sufficient; he cannot
+rest content with only doing the work that nature prescribes for
+him in common with the birds and beasts.  He needs must surpass
+all, even in activity.  No creature has to work so hard as man;
+he has been impelled to contrive for himself a vast field of
+action in society; and in this field he is for every building up
+and pulling down, making and unmaking laws, piling up heaps of
+material, and incessantly thinking, seeking and suffering.  In
+this field he has fought his mightiest battles, gained continual
+new life, made death glorious, and, far from evading troubles,
+has willingly and continually taken up the burden of fresh
+trouble.  He has discovered the truth that he is not complete in
+the cage of his immediate surroundings, that he is greater than
+his present, and that while to stand still in one place may be
+comforting, the arrest of life destroys his true function and the
+real purpose of his existence.
+
+This _mahati vinashtih--this great destruction_ he cannot bear,
+and accordingly he toils and suffers in order that he may gain in
+stature by transcending his present, in order to become that
+which he yet is not.  In this travail is man's glory, and it is
+because he knows it, that he has not sought to circumscribe his
+field of action, but is constantly occupied in extending the
+bounds.  Sometimes he wanders so far that his work tends to lose
+its meaning, and his rushings to and fro create fearful eddies
+round different centres--eddies of self-interest, of pride of
+power.  Still, so long as the strength of the current is not lost,
+there is no fear; the obstructions and the dead accumulations of
+his activity are dissipated and carried away; the impetus corrects
+its own mistakes.  Only when the soul sleeps in stagnation do its
+enemies gain overmastering strength, and these obstructions become
+too clogging to be fought through.  Hence have we been warned by
+our teachers that to work we must live, to live we must work; that
+life and activity are inseparably connected.
+
+It is very characteristic of life that it is not complete within
+itself; it must come out.  Its truth is in the commerce of the
+inside and the outside.  In order to live, the body must maintain
+its various relations with the outside light and air--not only to
+gain life-force, but also to manifest it.  Consider how fully
+employed the body is with its own inside activities; its heart-
+beat must not stop for a second, its stomach, its brain, must be
+ceaselessly working.  Yet this is not enough; the body is
+outwardly restless all the while.  Its life leads it to an
+endless dance of work and play outside; it cannot be satisfied
+with the circulations of its internal economy, and only finds the
+fulfilment of joy in its outward excursions.
+
+The same with the soul.  It cannot live on its own internal
+feelings and imaginings.  It is ever in need of external objects;
+not only to feed its inner consciousness but to apply itself in
+action, not only to receive but also to give.
+
+The real truth is, we cannot live if we divide him who is truth
+itself into two parts.  We must abide in him within as well as
+without.  In whichever aspect we deny him we deceive ourselves
+and incur a loss.  _Brahma has not left me, let me not leave
+Brahma._  [Footnote:  Maham brahma nirakuryyam ma ma brahma
+nirakarot.]  If we say that we would realise him in introspection
+alone and leave him out of our external activity, that we would
+enjoy him by the love in our heart, but not worship him by
+outward ministrations; or if we say the opposite, and overweight
+ourselves on one side in the journey of our life's quest, we
+shall alike totter to our downfall.
+
+In the great western continent we see that the soul of man is
+mainly concerned with extending itself outwards; the open field
+of the exercise of power is its field.  Its partiality is
+entirely for the world of extension, and it would leave aside--
+nay, hardly believe in--that field of inner consciousness which
+is the field of fulfilment.  It has gone so far in this that the
+perfection of fulfilment seems to exist for it nowhere.  Its
+science has always talked of the never-ending evolution of the
+world.  Its metaphysic has now begun to talk of the evolution of
+God himself.  They will not admit that he _is_; they would have
+it that he also is _becoming._
+
+They fail to realise that while the infinite is always greater
+than any assignable limit, it is also complete; that on the one
+hand Brahma is evolving, on the other he is perfection; that in
+the one aspect he is essence, in the other manifestation--both
+together at the same time, as is the song and the act of singing.
+This is like ignoring the consciousness of the singer and saying
+that only the singing is in progress, that there is no song.
+Doubtless we are directly aware only of the singing, and never at
+any one time of the song as a whole; but do we not all the time
+know that the complete song is in the soul of the singer?
+
+It is because of this insistence on the doing and the becoming
+that we perceive in the west the intoxication of power.  These
+men seem to have determined to despoil and grasp everything by
+force.  They would always obstinately be doing and never be done--
+they would not allow to death its natural place in the scheme of
+things--they know not the beauty of completion.
+
+In our country the danger comes from the opposite side.  Our
+partiality is for the internal world.  We would cast aside with
+contumely the field of power and of extension.  We would realise
+Brahma in mediation only in his aspect of completeness, we have
+determined not to see him in the commerce of the universe in his
+aspect of evolution.  That is why in our seekers we so often find
+the intoxication of the spirit and its consequent degradation.
+Their faith would acknowledge no bondage of law, their
+imagination soars unrestricted, their conduct disdains to offer
+any explanation to reason.  Their intellect, in its vain attempts
+to see Brahma inseparable from his creation, works itself stone-
+dry, and their heart, seeking to confine him within its own
+outpourings, swoons in a drunken ecstasy of emotion.  They have
+not even kept within reach any standard whereby they can measure
+the loss of strength and character which manhood sustains by thus
+ignoring the bonds of law and the claims of action in the
+external universe.
+
+But true spirituality, as taught in our sacred lore, is calmly
+balanced in strength, in the correlation of the within and the
+without.  The truth has its law, it has its joy.  On one side of
+it is being chanted the _Bhayadasyagnistapati_ [Footnote: "For
+fear of him the fire doth burn," etc], on the other the
+_Anandadhyeva khalvimani bhutani jayante._  [Footnote: "From Joy
+are born all created things," etc.]  Freedom is impossible of
+attainment without submission to law, for Brahma is in one aspect
+bound by his truth, in the other free in his joy.
+
+As for ourselves, it is only when we wholly submit to the bonds
+of truth that we fully gain the joy of freedom.  And how?  As
+does the string that is bound to the harp.  When the harp is
+truly strung, when there is not the slightest laxity in the
+strength of the bond, then only does music result; and the string
+transcending itself in its melody finds at every chord its true
+freedom.  It is because it is bound by such hard and fast rules
+on the one side that it can find this range of freedom in music
+on the other.  While the string was not true, it was indeed
+merely bound; but a loosening of its bondage would not have been
+the way to freedom, which it can only fully achieve by being
+bound tighter and tighter till it has attained the true pitch.
+
+The bass and treble strings of our duty are only bonds so long as
+we cannot maintain them steadfastly attuned according to the law
+of truth; and we cannot call by the name of freedom the loosening
+of them into the nothingness of inaction.  That is why I would
+say that the true striving in the quest of truth, of _dharma_,
+consists not in the neglect of action but in the effort to attune
+it closer and closer to the eternal harmony.  The text of this
+striving should be, _Whatever works thou doest, consecrate them
+to Brahma._  [Footnote:  Yadyat karma prakurvita tadbrahmani
+samarpayet.]  That is to say, the soul is to dedicate itself to
+Brahma through all its activities.  This dedication is the song
+of the soul, in this is its freedom.  Joy reigns when all work
+becomes the path to the union with Brahma; when the soul ceases
+to return constantly to its own desires; when in it our self-
+offering grows more and more intense.  Then there is completion,
+then there is freedom, then, in this world, comes the kingdom of
+God.
+
+Who is there that, sitting in his corner, would deride this grand
+self-expression of humanity in action, this incessant self-
+consecration?  Who is there that thinks the union of God and man
+is to be found in some secluded enjoyment of his own imaginings,
+away from the sky-towering temple of the greatness of humanity,
+which the whole of mankind, in sunshine and storm, is toiling to
+erect through the ages?  Who is there that thinks this secluded
+communion is the highest form of religion?
+
+O thou distraught wanderer, thou _Sannyasin_, drunk in the wine of
+self-intoxication, dost thou not already hear the progress of the
+human soul along the highway traversing the wide fields of
+humanity--the thunder of its progress in the car of its
+achievements, which is destined to overpass the bounds that
+prevent its expansion into the universe?  The very mountains are
+cleft asunder and give way before the march of its banners waving
+triumphantly in the heavens; as the mist before the rising sun,
+the tangled obscurities of material things vanish at its
+irresistible approach.  Pain, disease, and disorder are at every
+step receding before its onset; the obstructions of ignorance are
+being thrust aside; the darkness of blindness is being pierced
+through; and behold, the promised land of wealth and health, of
+poetry and art, of knowledge and righteousness is gradually being
+revealed to view.  Do you in your lethargy desire to say that
+this car of humanity, which is shaking the very earth with the
+triumph of its progress along the mighty vistas of history, has
+no charioteer leading it on to its fulfilment?  Who is there who
+refuses to respond to his call to join in this triumphal progress?
+Who so foolish as to run away from the gladsome throng and seek
+him in the listlessness of inaction?  Who so steeped in untruth as
+to dare to call all this untrue--this great world of men, this
+civilisation of expanding humanity, this eternal effort of man,
+through depths of sorrow, through heights of gladness, through
+innumerable impediments within and without, to win victory for his
+powers?  He who can think of this immensity of achievement as an
+immense fraud, can he truly believe in God who is the truth?  He
+who thinks to reach God by running away from the world, when and
+where does he expect to meet him?  How far can he fly--can he fly
+and fly, till he flies into nothingness itself?  No, the coward
+who would fly can nowhere find him.  We must be brave enough to
+be able to say: We are reaching him here in this very spot, now
+at this very moment.  We must be able to assure ourselves that as
+in our actions we are realising ourselves, so in ourselves we are
+realising him who is the self of self.  We must earn the right to
+say so unhesitatingly by clearing away with our own effort all
+obstruction, all disorder, all discords from our path of activity;
+we must be able to say, "In my work is my joy, and in that joy
+does the joy of my joy abide."
+
+Whom does the Upanishad call _The chief among the knowers of
+Brahma?_  [Footnote: Brahmavidamvaristhah.]  He is defined as _He
+whose joy is in Brahma, whose play is in Brahma, the active one._
+[Footnote: Atmakrirha atmaratih kriyavan.]  Joy without the play
+of joy is no joy at all--play without activity is no play.
+Activity is the play of joy.  He whose joy is in Brahma, how can
+he live in inaction?  For must he not by his activity provide
+that in which the joy of Brahma is to take form and manifest
+itself?  That is why he who knows Brahma, who has his joy in
+Brahma, must also have all his activity in Brahma--his eating
+and drinking, his earning of livelihood and his beneficence.
+Just as the joy of the poet in his poem, of the artist in his
+art, of the brave man in the output of his courage, of the wise
+man in his discernment of truths, ever seeks expression in their
+several activities, so the joy of the knower of Brahma, in the
+whole of his everyday work, little and big, in truth, in beauty,
+in orderliness and in beneficence, seeks to give expression to
+the infinite.
+
+Brahma himself gives expression to his joy in just the same way.
+_By his many-sided activity, which radiates in all directions,
+does he fulfil the inherent want of his different creatures._
+[Footnote: Bahudha cakti yogat varnananekan nihitartho dadhati.]
+That inherent want is he himself, and so he is in so many ways,
+in so many forms, giving himself.  He works, for without working
+how could he give himself.  His joy is ever dedicating itself in
+the dedication which is his creation.
+
+In this very thing does our own true meaning lie, in this is our
+likeness to our father.  We must also give up ourselves in many-
+sided variously aimed activity.  In the Vedas he is called _the
+giver of himself, the giver of strength._  [Footnote:  Atmada
+balada.]  He is not content with giving us himself, but he gives
+us strength that we may likewise give ourselves.  That is why the
+seer of the Upanishad prays to him who is thus fulfilling our
+wants, _May he grant us the beneficent mind_ [Footnote: Sa no
+buddhya cubhaya samyunaktu.], may he fulfil that uttermost want
+of ours by granting us the beneficent mind.  That is to say, it
+is not enough he should alone work to remove our want, but he
+should give us the desire and the strength to work with him in
+his activity and in the exercise of the goodness.  Then, indeed,
+will our union with him alone be accomplished.  The beneficent
+mind is that which shows us the want (_swartha_) of another self
+to be the inherent want (_nihitartha_) of our own self; that
+which shows that our joy consists in the varied aiming of our
+many-sided powers in the work of humanity.  When we work under
+the guidance of this beneficent mind, then our activity is
+regulated, but does not become mechanical; it is action not
+goaded on by want, but stimulated by the satisfaction of the
+soul.  Such activity ceases to be a blind imitation of that of
+the multitude, a cowardly following of the dictates of fashion.
+Therein we begin to see that _He is in the beginning and in the
+end of the universe_ [Footnote: Vichaiti chante vicvamadau.],
+and likewise see that of our own work is he the fount and the
+inspiration, and at the end thereof is he, and therefore that all
+our activity is pervaded by peace and good and joy.
+
+The Upanishad says: _Knowledge, power, and action are of his
+nature._ [Footnote: Svabhavikijnana bala kriya cha.]  It is
+because this naturalness has not yet been born in us that we tend
+to divide joy from work.  Our day of work is not our day of joy--
+for that we require a holiday; for, miserable that we are, we
+cannot find our holiday in our work.  The river finds its holiday
+in its onward flow, the fire in its outburst of flame, the scent
+of the flower in its permeation of the atmosphere; but in our
+everyday work there is no such holiday for us.  It is because we
+do not let ourselves go, because we do not give ourselves
+joyously and entirely up to it, that our work overpowers us.
+
+O giver of thyself! at the vision of thee as joy let our souls
+flame up to thee as the fire, flow on to thee as the river,
+permeate thy being as the fragrance of the flower.  Give us
+strength to love, to love fully, our life in its joys and
+sorrows, in its gains and losses, in its rise and fall.  Let us
+have strength enough fully to see and hear thy universe, and to
+work with full vigour therein.  Let us fully live the life thou
+hast given us, let us bravely take and bravely give.  This is our
+prayer to thee.  Let us once for all dislodge from our minds the
+feeble fancy that would make out thy joy to be a thing apart from
+action, thin, formless, and unsustained.  Wherever the peasant
+tills the hard earth, there does thy joy gush out in the green of
+the corn, wherever man displaces the entangled forest, smooths
+the stony ground, and clears for himself a homestead, there does
+thy joy enfold it in orderliness and peace.
+
+O worker of the universe!  We would pray to thee to let the
+irresistible current of thy universal energy come like the
+impetuous south wind of spring, let it come rushing over the vast
+field of the life of man, let it bring the scent of many flowers,
+the murmurings of many woodlands, let it make sweet and vocal the
+lifelessness of our dried-up soul-life.  Let our newly awakened
+powers cry out for unlimited fulfilment in leaf and flower and
+fruit.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+THE REALISATION OF BEAUTY
+
+
+Things in which we do not take joy are either a burden upon our
+minds to be got rid of at any cost; or they are useful, and
+therefore in temporary and partial relation to us, becoming
+burdensome when their utility is lost; or they are like wandering
+vagabonds, loitering for a moment on the outskirts of our
+recognition, and then passing on.  A thing is only completely our
+own when it is a thing of joy to us.
+
+The greater part of this world is to us as if it were nothing.
+But we cannot allow it to remain so, for thus it belittles our
+own self.  The entire world is given to us, and all our powers
+have their final meaning in the faith that by their help we are
+to take possession of our patrimony.
+
+But what is the function of our sense of beauty in this process
+of the extension of our consciousness?  Is it there to separate
+truth into strong lights and shadows, and bring it before us in
+its uncompromising distinction of beauty and ugliness?  If that
+were so, then we would have had to admit that this sense of
+beauty creates a dissension in our universe and sets up a wall of
+hindrance across the highway of communication that leads from
+everything to all things.
+
+But that cannot be true.  As long as our realisation is
+incomplete a division necessarily remains between things known
+and unknown, pleasant and unpleasant.  But in spite of the dictum
+of some philosophers man does not accept any arbitrary and
+absolute limit to his knowable world.  Every day his science is
+penetrating into the region formerly marked in his map as
+unexplored or inexplorable.  Our sense of beauty is similarly
+engaged in ever pushing on its conquests.  Truth is everywhere,
+therefore everything is the object of our knowledge.  Beauty is
+omnipresent, therefore everything is capable of giving us joy.
+
+In the early days of his history man took everything as a
+phenomenon of life.  His science of life began by creating a
+sharp distinction between life and non-life.  But as it is
+proceeding farther and farther the line of demarcation between
+the animate and inanimate is growing more and more dim.  In the
+beginning of our apprehension these sharp lines of contrast are
+helpful to us, but as our comprehension becomes clearer they
+gradually fade away.
+
+The Upanishads have said that all things are created and
+sustained by an infinite joy.  To realise this principle of
+creation we have to start with a division--the division into the
+beautiful and the non-beautiful.  Then the apprehension of beauty
+has to come to us with a vigorous blow to awaken our
+consciousness from its primitive lethargy, and it attains its
+object by the urgency of the contrast.  Therefore our first
+acquaintance with beauty is in her dress of motley colours, that
+affects us with its stripes and feathers, nay, with its
+disfigurements.  But as our acquaintance ripens, the apparent
+discords are resolved into modulations of rhythm.  At first we
+detach beauty from its surroundings, we hold it apart from the
+rest, but at the end we realise its harmony with all.  Then the
+music of beauty has no more need of exciting us with loud noise;
+it renounces violence, and appeals to our heart with the truth
+that it is meekness inherits the earth.
+
+In some stage of our growth, in some period of our history, we
+try to set up a special cult of beauty, and pare it down to a
+narrow circuit, so as to make it a matter of pride for a chosen
+few.  Then it breeds in its votaries affections and
+exaggerations, as it did with the Brahmins in the time of the
+decadence of Indian civilisation, when the perception of the
+higher truth fell away and superstitions grew up unchecked.
+
+In the history of aesthetics there also comes an age of
+emancipation when the recognition of beauty in things great and
+small become easy, and when we see it more in the unassuming
+harmony of common objects than in things startling in their
+singularity.  So much so, that we have to go through the stages
+of reaction when in the representation of beauty we try to avoid
+everything that is obviously pleasing and that has been crowned
+by the sanction of convention.  We are then tempted in defiance
+to exaggerate the commonness of commonplace things, thereby
+making them aggressively uncommon.  To restore harmony we create
+the discords which are a feature of all reactions.  We already
+see in the present age the sign of this aesthetic reaction, which
+proves that man has at last come to know that it is only the
+narrowness of perception which sharply divides the field of his
+aesthetic consciousness into ugliness and beauty.  When he has the
+power to see things detached from self-interest and from the
+insistent claims of the lust of the senses, then alone can he
+have the true vision of the beauty that is everywhere.  Then only
+can he see that what is unpleasant to us is not necessarily
+unbeautiful, but has its beauty in truth.
+
+When we say that beauty is everywhere we do not mean that the
+word ugliness should be abolished from our language, just as it
+would be absurd to say that there is no such thing as untruth.
+Untruth there certainly is, not in the system of the universe,
+but in our power of comprehension, as its negative element.  In
+the same manner there is ugliness in the distorted expression of
+beauty in our life and in our art which comes from our imperfect
+realisation of Truth.  To a certain extent we can set our life
+against the law of truth which is in us and which is in all, and
+likewise we can give rise to ugliness by going counter to the
+eternal law of harmony which is everywhere.
+
+Through our sense of truth we realise law in creation, and
+through our sense of beauty we realise harmony in the universe.
+When we recognise the law in nature we extend our mastery over
+physical forces and become powerful; when we recognise the law in
+our moral nature we attain mastery over self and become free.  In
+like manner the more we comprehend the harmony in the physical
+world the more our life shares the gladness of creation, and our
+expression of beauty in art becomes more truly catholic.  As we
+become conscious of the harmony in our soul, our apprehension of
+the blissfulness of the spirit of the world becomes universal,
+and the expression of beauty in our life moves in goodness and
+love towards the infinite.  This is the ultimate object of our
+existence, that we must ever know that "beauty is truth, truth
+beauty"; we must realise the whole world in love, for love gives
+it birth, sustains it, and takes it back to its bosom.  We must
+have that perfect emancipation of heart which gives us the power
+to stand at the innermost centre of things and have the taste of
+that fullness of disinterested joy which belongs to Brahma.
+
+Music is the purest form of art, and therefore the most direct
+expression of beauty, with a form and spirit which is one and
+simple, and least encumbered with anything extraneous.  We seem
+to feel that the manifestation of the infinite in the finite
+forms of creation is music itself, silent and visible.  The
+evening sky, tirelessly repeating the starry constellations,
+seems like a child struck with wonder at the mystery of its own
+first utterance, lisping the same word over and over again, and
+listening to it in unceasing joy.  When in the rainy night of
+July the darkness is thick upon the meadows and the pattering
+rain draws veil upon veil over the stillness of the slumbering
+earth, this monotony of the rain patter seems to be the darkness
+of sound itself.  The gloom of the dim and dense line of trees,
+the thorny bushes scattered in the bare heath like floating heads
+of swimmers with bedraggled hair, the smell of the damp grass and
+the wet earth, the spire of the temple rising above the undefined
+mass of blackness grouped around the village huts--everything
+seems like notes rising from the heart of the night, mingling and
+losing themselves in the one sound of ceaseless rain filling the
+sky.
+
+Therefore the true poets, they who are seers, seek to express the
+universe in terms of music.
+
+They rarely use symbols of painting to express the unfolding of
+forms, the mingling of endless lines and colours that goes on
+every moment on the canvas of the blue sky.
+
+They have their reason.  For the man who paints must have canvas,
+brush and colour-box.  The first touch of his brush is very far
+from the complete idea.  And then when the work is finished the
+artist is gone, the windowed picture stands alone, the incessant
+touches of love of the creative hand are withdrawn.
+
+But the singer has everything within him.  The notes come out
+from his very life.  They are not materials gathered from
+outside.  His idea and his expression are brother and sister;
+very often they are born as twins.  In music the heart reveals
+itself immediately; it suffers not from any barrier of alien
+material.
+
+Therefore though music has to wait for its completeness like any
+other art, yet at every step it gives out the beauty of the
+whole.  As the material of expression even words are barriers,
+for their meaning has to be constructed by thought.  But music
+never has to depend upon any obvious meaning; it expresses what
+no words can ever express.
+
+What is more, music and the musician are inseparable.  When the
+singer departs, his singing dies with him; it is in eternal union
+with the life and joy of the master.
+
+This world-song is never for a moment separated from its singer.
+It is not fashioned from any outward material.  It is his joy
+itself taking never-ending form.  It is the great heart sending
+the tremor of its thrill over the sky.
+
+There is a perfection in each individual strain of this music,
+which is the revelation of completion in the incomplete.  No one of
+its notes is final, yet each reflects the infinite.
+
+What does it matter if we fail to derive the exact meaning of
+this great harmony?  Is it not like the hand meeting the string
+and drawing out at once all its tones at the touch?  It is the
+language of beauty, the caress, that comes from the heart of the
+world straightway reaches our heart.
+
+Last night, in the silence which pervaded the darkness, I stood
+alone and heard the voice of the singer of eternal melodies.
+When I went to sleep I closed my eyes with this last thought in
+my mind, that even when I remain unconscious in slumber the dance
+of life will still go on in the hushed arena of my sleeping body,
+keeping step with the stars.  The heart will throb, the blood
+will leap in the veins, and the millions of living atoms of my
+body will vibrate in tune with the note of the harp-string that
+thrills at the touch of the master.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+THE REALISATION OF THE INFINITE
+
+
+The Upanishads say: "Man becomes true if in this life he can
+apprehend God; if not, it is the greatest calamity for him."
+
+But what is the nature of this attainment of God?  It is quite
+evident that the infinite is not like one object among many, to
+be definitely classified and kept among our possessions, to be
+used as an ally specially favouring us in our politics, warfare,
+money-making, or in social competitions.  We cannot put our God
+in the same list with our summer-houses, motor-cars, or our
+credit at the bank, as so many people seem to want to do.
+
+We must try to understand the true character of the desire that a
+man has when his soul longs for his God.  Does it consist of his
+wish to make an addition, however valuable, to his belongings?
+Emphatically no!  It is an endlessly wearisome task, this
+continual adding to our stores.  In fact, when the soul seeks God
+she seeks her final escape from this incessant gathering and
+heaping and never coming to an end.  It is not an additional
+object the she seeks, but it is the _nityo 'nityanam_, the
+permanent in all that is impermanent, the _rasanam rasatamah_,
+the highest abiding joy unifying all enjoyments.  Therefore when
+the Upanishads teach us to realise everything in Brahma, it is
+not to seek something extra, not to manufacture something new.
+
+_Know everything that there is in the universe as enveloped by
+God._  [Footnote: Ichavasyamdiam sarvam yat kincha
+jagatyanjagat.]  _Enjoy whatever is given by him and harbour not
+in your mind the greed for wealth which is not your own._
+[Footnoe: Tena tyaktena bhunjitha ma gridhah kasyasviddhanam.]
+
+When you know that whatever there is is filled by him and
+whatever you have is his gift, then you realise the infinite in
+the finite, and the giver in the gifts.  Then you know that all
+the facts of the reality have their only meaning in the
+manifestation of the one truth, and all your possessions have
+their only significance for you, not in themselves but in the
+relation they establish with the infinite.
+
+So it cannot be said that we can find Brahma as we find other
+objects; there is no question of searching from him in one thing
+in preference to another, in one place instead of somewhere else.
+We do not have to run to the grocer's shop for our morning light;
+we open our eyes and there it is; so we need only give ourselves
+up to find that Brahma is everywhere.
+
+This is the reason why Buddha admonished us to free ourselves
+from the confinement of the life of the self.  If there were
+nothing else to take its place more positively perfect and
+satisfying, then such admonition would be absolutely unmeaning.
+No man can seriously consider the advice, much less have any
+enthusiasm for it, of surrendering everything one has for gaining
+nothing whatever.
+
+So our daily worship of God is not really the process of gradual
+acquisition of him, but the daily process of surrendering
+ourselves, removing all obstacles to union and extending our
+consciousness of him in devotion and service, in goodness and in
+love.
+
+The Upanishads say: _Be lost altogether in Brahma like an arrow
+that has completely penetrated its target._  Thus to be conscious
+of being absolutely enveloped by Brahma is not an act of mere
+concentration of mind.  It must be the aim of the whole of our
+life.  In all our thoughts and deeds we must be conscious of the
+infinite.  Let the realisation of this truth become easier every
+day of our life, that _none could live or move if the energy of
+the all-pervading joy did not fill the sky._  [Footnote: Ko
+hyevanyat kah pranyat yadesha akacha anando na syat.]  In all our
+actions let us feel that impetus of the infinite energy and be
+glad.
+
+It may be said that the infinite is beyond our attainment, so it
+is for us as if it were naught.  Yes, if the word attainment
+implies any idea of possession, then it must be admitted that the
+infinite is unattainable.  But we must keep in mind that the
+highest enjoyment of man is not in the having but in a getting,
+which is at the same time not getting.  Our physical pleasures
+leave no margin for the unrealised.  They, like the dead
+satellite of the earth, have but little atmosphere around them.
+When we take food and satisfy our hunger it is a complete act of
+possession.  So long as the hunger is not satisfied it is a
+pleasure to eat.  For then our enjoyment of eating touches at
+every point the infinite.  But, when it attains completion, or in
+other words, when our desire for eating reaches the end of the
+stage of its non-realisation, it reaches the end of its pleasure.
+In all our intellectual pleasures the margin is broader, the
+limit is far off.  In all our deeper love getting and non-getting
+run ever parallel.  In one of our Vaishnava lyrics the lover says
+to his beloved: "I feel as if I have gazed upon the beauty of thy
+face from my birth, yet my eyes are hungry still: as if I have
+kept thee pressed to my heart for millions of years, yet my heart
+is not satisfied."
+
+This makes it clear that it is really the infinite whom we seek
+in our pleasures.  Our desire for being wealthy is not a desire
+for a particular sum of money but it is indefinite, and the most
+fleeting of our enjoyments are but the momentary touches of the
+eternal.  The tragedy of human life consists in our vain attempts
+to stretch the limits of things which can never become
+unlimited,--to reach the infinite by absurdly adding to the rungs
+of the ladder of the finite.
+
+It is evident from this that the real desire of our soul is to
+get beyond all our possessions.  Surrounded by things she can
+touch and feel, she cries, "I am weary of getting; ah, where is
+he who is never to be got?"
+
+We see everywhere in the history of man that the spirit of
+renunciation is the deepest reality of the human soul.  When the
+soul says of anything, "I do not want it, for I am above it," she
+gives utterance to the highest truth that is in her.  When a
+girl's life outgrows her doll, when she realises that in every
+respect she is more than her doll is, then she throws it away.
+By the very act of possession we know that we are greater than
+the things we possess.  It is a perfect misery to be kept bound
+up with things lesser than ourselves.  This it is that Maitreyi
+felt when her husband gave her his property on the eve of leaving
+home.  She asked him, "Would these material things help one to
+attain the highest?"--or, in other words, "Are they more than my
+soul to me?"  When her husband answered, "They will make you rich
+in worldly possessions," she said at once, "then what am I to do
+with these?"  It is only when a man truly realises what his
+possessions are that he has no more illusions about them; then he
+knows his soul is far above these things and he becomes free from
+their bondage.  Thus man truly realises his soul by outgrowing
+his possessions, and man's progress in the path of eternal life
+is through a series of renunciations.
+
+That we cannot absolutely possess the infinite being is not a
+mere intellectual proposition.  It has to be experienced, and
+this experience is bliss.  The bird, while taking its flight in
+the sky, experiences at every beat of its wings that the sky is
+boundless, that its wings can never carry it beyond.  Therein
+lies its joy.  In the cage the sky is limited; it may be quite
+enough for all the purposes of the bird's life, only it is not
+more than is necessary.  The bird cannot rejoice within the
+limits of the necessary.  It must feel that what it has is
+immeasurably more than it ever can want or comprehend, and then
+only can it be glad.
+
+Thus our soul must soar in the infinite, and she must feel every
+moment that in the sense of not being able to come to the end of
+her attainment is her supreme joy, her final freedom.
+
+Man's abiding happiness is not in getting anything but in giving
+himself up to what is greater than himself, to ideas which are
+larger than his individual life, the idea of his country, of
+humanity, of God.  They make it easier for him to part with all
+that he has, not expecting his life.  His existence is miserable
+and sordid till he finds some great idea which can truly claim
+his all, which can release him from all attachment to his
+belongings.  Buddha and Jesus, and all our great prophets,
+represent such great ideas.  They hold before us opportunities
+for surrendering our all.  When they bring forth their divine
+alms-bowl we feel we cannot help giving, and we find that in
+giving is our truest joy and liberation, for it is uniting
+ourselves to that extent with the infinite.
+
+Man is not complete; he is yet to be.  In what he _is_ he is
+small, and if we could conceive him stopping there for eternity
+we should have an idea of the most awful hell that man can
+imagine.  In his _to be_ he is infinite, there is his heaven,
+his deliverance.  His _is_ is occupied every moment with what it
+can get and have done with; his _to be_ is hungering for
+something which is more than can be got, which he never can lose
+because he never has possessed.
+
+The finite pole of our existence has its place in the world of
+necessity.  There man goes about searching for food to live,
+clothing to get warmth.  In this region--the region of nature--it
+is his function to get things.  The natural man is occupied with
+enlarging his possessions.
+
+But this act of getting is partial.  It is limited to man's
+necessities.  We can have a thing only to the extent of our
+requirements, just as a vessel can contain water only to the
+extent of its emptiness.  Our relation to food is only in
+feeding, our relation to a house is only in habitation.  We call
+it a benefit when a thing is fitted only to some particular want
+of ours.  Thus to get is always to get partially, and it never
+can be otherwise.  So this craving for acquisition belongs to our
+finite self.
+
+But that side of our existence whose direction is towards the
+infinite seeks not wealth, but freedom and joy.  There the reign
+of necessity ceases, and there our function is not to get but to
+be.  To be what?  To be one with Brahma.  For the region of the
+infinite is the region of unity.  Therefore the Upanishads say:
+_If man apprehends God he becomes true._  Here it is becoming,
+it is not having more.  Words do no gather bulk when you know
+their meaning; they become true by being one with the idea.
+
+Though the West has accepted as its teacher him who boldly
+proclaimed his oneness with his Father, and who exhorted his
+followers to be perfect as God, it has never been reconciled to
+this idea of our unity with the infinite being.  It condemns, as
+a piece of blasphemy, any implication of man's becoming God.
+This is certainly not the idea that Christ preached, nor perhaps
+the idea of the Christian mystics, but this seems to be the idea
+that has become popular in the Christian west.
+
+But the highest wisdom in the East holds that it is not the
+function of our soul to _gain_ God, to utilise him for any
+special material purpose.  All that we can ever aspire to is to
+become more and more one with God.  In the region of nature,
+which is the region of diversity, we grow by acquisition; in the
+spiritual world, which is the region of unity, we grow by losing
+ourselves, by uniting.  Gaining a thing, as we have said, is by
+its nature partial, it is limited only to a particular want; but
+_being_ is complete, it belongs to our wholeness, it springs not
+from any necessity but from our affinity with the infinite, which
+is the principle of perfection that we have in our soul.
+
+Yes, we must become Brahma.  We must not shrink to avow this.
+Our existence is meaningless if we never can expect to realise
+the highest perfection that there is.  If we have an aim and yet
+can never reach it, then it is no aim at all.
+
+But can it then be said that there is no difference between
+Brahma and our individual soul?  Of course the difference is
+obvious.  Call it illusion or ignorance, or whatever name you may
+give it, it is there.  You can offer explanations but you cannot
+explain it away.  Even illusion is true an illusion.
+
+Brahma is Brahma, he is the infinite ideal of perfection.  But we
+are not what we truly are; we are ever to become true, ever to
+become Brahma.  There is the eternal play of love in the relation
+between this being and the becoming; and in the depth of this
+mystery is the source of all truth and beauty that sustains the
+endless march of creation.
+
+In the music of the rushing stream sounds the joyful assurance,
+"I shall become the sea."  It is not a vain assumption; it is
+true humility, for it is the truth.  The river has no other
+alternative.  On both sides of its banks it has numerous fields
+and forests, villages and towns; it can serve them in various
+ways, cleanse them and feed them, carry their produce from place
+to place.  But it can have only partial relations with these, and
+however long it may linger among them it remains separate; it
+never can become a town or a forest.
+
+But it can and does become the sea.  The lesser moving water has
+its affinity with the great motionless water of the ocean.  It
+moves through the thousand objects on its onward course, and its
+motion finds its finality when it reaches the sea.
+
+The river can become the sea, but she can never make the sea part
+and parcel of herself.  If, by some chance, she has encircled
+some broad sheet of water and pretends that she has made the sea
+a part of herself, we at once know that it is not so, that her
+current is still seeking rest in the great ocean to which it can
+never set boundaries.
+
+In the same manner, our soul can only become Brahma as the river
+can become the sea.  Everything else she touches at one of her
+points, then leaves and moves on, but she never can leave Brahma
+and move beyond him.  Once our soul realises her ultimate object
+of repose in Brahma, all her movements acquire a purpose.  It is
+this ocean of infinite rest which gives significance to endless
+activities.  It is this perfectness of being that lends to the
+imperfection of becoming that quality of beauty which finds its
+expression in all poetry, drama and art.
+
+There must be a complete idea that animates a poem.  Every
+sentence of the poem touches that idea.  When the reader realises
+that pervading idea, as he reads on, then the reading of the poem
+is full of joy to him.  Then every part of the poem becomes
+radiantly significant by the light of the whole.  But if the poem
+goes on interminably, never expressing the idea of the whole,
+only throwing off disconnected images, however beautiful, it
+becomes wearisome and unprofitable in the extreme.  The progress
+of our soul is like a perfect poem.  It has an infinite idea
+which once realised makes all movements full of meaning and joy.
+But if we detach its movements from that ultimate idea, if we do
+not see the infinite rest and only see the infinite motion, then
+existence appears to us a monstrous evil, impetuously rushing
+towards an unending aimlessness.
+
+I remember in our childhood we had a teacher who used to make us
+learn by heart the whole book of Sanskrit grammer, which is
+written in symbols, without explaining their meaning to us.  Day
+after day we went toiling on, but on towards what, we had not the
+least notion.  So, as regards our lessons, we were in the
+position of the pessimist who only counts the breathless
+activities of the world, but cannot see the infinite repose of
+the perfection whence these activities are gaining their
+equilibrium every moment in absolute fitness and harmony.  We
+lose all joy in thus contemplating existence, because we miss the
+truth.  We see the gesticulations of the dancer, and we imagine
+these are directed by a ruthless tyranny of chance, while we are
+deaf to the eternal music which makes every one of these gestures
+inevitably spontaneous and beautiful.  These motions are ever
+growing into that music of perfection, becoming one with it,
+dedicating to that melody at every step the multitudinous forms
+they go on creating.
+
+And this is the truth of our soul, and this is her joy, that she
+must ever be growing into Brahma, that all her movements should
+be modulated by this ultimate idea, and all her creations should
+be given as offerings to the supreme spirit of perfection.
+
+There is a remarkable saying in the Upanishads: _I think not that
+I know him well, or that I know him, or even that I know him not._
+[Footnote: Naham manye suvedeti no na vedeti vedacha.]
+
+By the process of knowledge we can never know the infinite being.
+But if he is altogether beyond our reach, then he is absolutely
+nothing to us.  The truth is that we know him not, yet we know
+him.
+
+This has been explained in another saying of the Upanishads:
+_From Brahma words come back baffled, as well as the mind, but he
+who knows him by the joy of him is free from all fears._
+[Footnote: Yato vacho nivartante aprapya manasa saha anandam
+brahmano vidvan na vibheti kutacchana.]
+
+Knowledge is partial, because our intellect is an instrument, it
+is only a part of us, it can give us information about things
+which can be divided and analysed, and whose properties can be
+classified part by part.  But Brahma is perfect, and knowledge
+which is partial can never be a knowledge of him.
+
+But he can be known by joy, by love.  For joy is knowledge in its
+completeness, it is knowing by our whole being.  Intellect sets
+us apart from the things to be known, but love knows its object
+by fusion.  Such knowledge is immediate and admits no doubt.  It
+is the same as knowing our own selves, only more so.
+
+Therefore, as the Upanishads say, mind can never know Brahma,
+words can never describe him; he can only be known by our soul,
+by her joy in him, by her love.  Or, in other words, we can only
+come into relation with him by union--union of our whole being.
+We must be one with our Father, we must be perfect as he is.
+
+But how can that be?  There can be no grade in infinite
+perfection.  We cannot grow more and more into Brahma.  He is the
+absolute one, and there can be no more or less in him.
+
+Indeed, the realisation of the _paramatman_, the supreme soul,
+within our _antaratman_, our inner individual soul, is in a
+state of absolute completion.  We cannot think of it as non-
+existent and depending on our limited powers for its gradual
+construction.  If our relation with the divine were all a thing
+of our own making, how should we rely on it as true, and how
+should it lend us support?
+
+Yes, we must know that within us we have that where space and
+time cease to rule and where the links of evolution are merged in
+unity.  In that everlasting abode of the _ataman_, the soul, the
+revelation of the _paramatman_, the supreme soul, is already
+complete.  Therefore the Upanishads say: _He who knows Brahman,
+the true, the all-conscious, and the infinite as hidden in the
+depths of the soul, which is the supreme sky (the inner sky of
+consciousness), enjoys all objects of desire in union with the
+all-knowing Brahman._  [Footnote: Satyam jnanam anantam brahma yo
+veda nihitam guhayam paramo vyoman so'cnute sarvan kaman saha
+brahmana vipaschite.]
+
+The union is already accomplished.  The _paramatman_, the supreme
+soul, has himself chosen this soul of ours as his bride and the
+marriage has been completed.  The solemn _mantram_ has been
+uttered: _Let thy heart be even as my heart is._ [Footnote:
+Yadetat hridayam mama tadastu hridayan tava.]  There is no room
+in this marriage for evolution to act the part of the master of
+ceremonies.  The _eshah_, who cannot otherwise be described than
+as _This_, the nameless immediate presence, is ever here in our
+innermost being.  "This _eshah_, or _This_, is the supreme end of
+the other this"; [Footnote: Eshasya parama gatih] "this _This_ is
+the supreme treasure of the other this"; [Footnote: Eshasya parama
+sampat.] "this _This_ is the supreme dwelling of the other this";
+[Footnote: Eshasya paramo lokah] "this _This_ is the supreme joy
+of the other this."  [Footnote: Eshasya parama anandah]  Because
+the marriage of supreme love has been accomplished in timeless
+time.  And now goes on the endless _lila_, the play of love.  He
+who has been gained in eternity is now being pursued in time and
+space, in joys and sorrows, in this world and in the worlds beyond.
+When the soul-bride understands this well, her heart is blissful
+and at rest.  She knows that she, like a river, has attained the
+ocean of her fulfilment at one end of her being, and at the other
+end she is ever attaining it; at one end it is eternal rest and
+completion, at the other it is incessant movement and change.
+When she knows both ends as inseparably connected, then she knows
+the world as her own household by the right of knowing the master
+of the world as her own lord.  Then all her services becomes
+services of love, all the troubles and tribulations of life come
+to her as trials triumphantly borne to prove the strength of her
+love, smilingly to win the wager from her lover.  But so long as
+she remains obstinately in the dark, lifts not her veil, does not
+recognise her lover, and only knows the world dissociated from
+him, she serves as a handmaid here, where by right she might
+reign as a queen; she sways in doubt, and weeps in sorrow and
+dejection.  _She passes from starvation to starvation, from
+trouble to trouble, and from fear to fear._  [Footnote:
+Daurbhikshat yati daurbhiksham klecat klecam bhayat bhayam.]
+
+I can never forget that scrap of a song I once heard in the early
+dawn in the midst of the din of the crowd that had collected for
+a festival the night before: "Ferryman, take me across to the
+other shore!"
+
+In the bustle of all our work there comes out this cry, "Take me
+across."  The carter in India sings while driving his cart, "Take
+me across."  The itinerant grocer deals out his goods to his
+customers and sings, "Take me across".
+
+What is the meaning of this cry?  We feel we have not reached our
+goal; and we know with all our striving and toiling we do not
+come to the end, we do not attain our object.  Like a child
+dissatisfied with its dolls, our heart cries, "Not this, not
+this."  But what is that other?  Where is the further shore?
+
+Is it something else than what we have?  Is it somewhere else
+than where we are?  Is it to take rest from all our works, to be
+relieved from all the responsibilities of life?
+
+No, in the very heart of our activities we are seeking for our
+end.  We are crying for the across, even where we stand.  So,
+while our lips utter their prayer to be carried away, our busy
+hands are never idle.
+
+In truth, thou ocean of joy, this shore and the other shore are
+one and the same in thee.  When I call this my own, the other
+lies estranged; and missing the sense of that completeness which
+is in me, my heart incessantly cries out for the other.  All my
+this, and that other, are waiting to be completely reconciled in
+thy love.
+
+This "I" of mine toils hard, day and night, for a home which it
+knows as its own.  Alas, there will be no end of its sufferings
+so long as it is not able to call this home thine.  Till then it
+will struggle on, and its heart will ever cry, "Ferryman, lead me
+across."  When this home of mine is made thine, that very moment
+is it taken across, even while its old walls enclose it.  This
+"I" is restless.  It is working for a gain which can never be
+assimilated with its spirit, which it never can hold and retain.
+In its efforts to clasp in its own arms that which is for all, it
+hurts others and is hurt in its turn, and cries, "Lead me across".
+But as soon as it is able to say, "All my work is thine," everything
+remains the same, only it is taken across.
+
+Where can I meet thee unless in this mine home made thine?  Where
+can I join thee unless in this my work transformed into thy work?
+If I leave my home I shall not reach thy home; if I cease my work
+I can never join thee in thy work.  For thou dwellest in me and I
+in thee.  Thou without me or I without thee are nothing.
+
+Therefore, in the midst of our home and our work, the prayer
+rises, "Lead me across!"  For here rolls the sea, and even here
+lies the other shore waiting to be reached--yes, here is this
+everlasting present, not distant, not anywhere else.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sadhana, by Rabindranath Tagore
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sadhana, by Rabindranath Tagore
+#10 in our series by Rabindranath Tagore
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Sadhana
+       The Realisation of Life
+
+Author: Rabindranath Tagore
+
+Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6842]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on January 31, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: Unicode UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SADHANA ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Chetan Jain at BharatLiterature.
+
+
+
+
+
+SĀDHANĀ
+
+
+THE REALISATION OF LIFE
+
+
+By
+
+Rabindranath Tagore
+
+Author of 'Gitanjali'
+
+
+1916
+
+
+
+To
+
+Ernest Rhys
+
+
+
+Author's Preface
+
+
+Perhaps it is well for me to explain that the subject-matter of
+the papers published in this book has not been philosophically
+treated, nor has it been approached from the scholar's point of
+view.  The writer has been brought up in a family where texts of
+the Upanishads are used in daily worship; and he has had before
+him the example of his father, who lived his long life in the
+closest communion with God, while not neglecting his duties to
+the world, or allowing his keen interest in all human affairs to
+suffer any abatement.  So in these papers, it may be hoped,
+western readers will have an opportunity of coming into touch
+with the ancient spirit of India as revealed in our sacred texts
+and manifested in the life of to-day.
+
+All the great utterances of man have to be judged not by the
+letter but by the spirit--the spirit which unfolds itself with
+the growth of life in history.  We get to know the real meaning
+of Christianity by observing its living aspect at the present
+moment--however different that may be, even in important
+respects, from the Christianity of earlier periods.
+
+For western scholars the great religious scriptures of India seem
+to possess merely a retrospective and archælogical interest; but
+to us they are of living importance, and we cannot help thinking
+that they lose their significance when exhibited in labelled
+cases--mummied specimens of human thought and aspiration,
+preserved for all time in the wrappings of erudition.
+
+The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences
+of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of
+logical interpretation.  They have to be endlessly explained by
+the commentaries of individual lives, and they gain an added
+mystery in each new revelation.  To me the verses of the
+Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha have ever been things of
+the spirit, and therefore endowed with boundless vital growth;
+and I have used them, both in my own life and in my preaching, as
+being instinct with individual meaning for me, as for others, and
+awaiting for their confirmation, my own special testimony, which
+must have its value because of its individuality.
+
+I should add perhaps that these papers embody in a connected
+form, suited to this publication, ideas which have been culled
+from several of the Bengali discourses which I am in the habit of
+giving to my students in my school at Bolpur in Bengal; and I
+have used here and there translations of passages from these done
+by my friends, Babu Satish Chandra Roy and Babu Ajit Kumar
+Chakravarti.  The last paper of this series, "Realisation in
+Action," has been translated from my Bengali discourse on "Karma-
+yoga" by my nephew, Babu Surendra Nath Tagore.
+
+I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to Professor
+James H. Woods, of Harvard University, for his generous
+appreciation which encouraged me to complete this series of
+papers and read most of them before the Harvard University.  And
+I offer my thanks to Mr. Ernest Rhys for his kindness in helping
+me with suggestions and revisions, and in going through the
+proofs.
+
+A word may be added about the pronouncing of Sādhanā: the accent
+falls decisively on the first ā, which has the broad sound of the
+letter.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I. THE RELATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO THE UNIVERSE
+II. SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS
+III. THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
+IV. THE PROBLEM OF SELF
+V. REALISATION IN LOVE
+VI. REALISATION IN ACTION
+VII. THE REALISATION OF BEAUTY
+VIII. THE REALISATION OF THE INFINITE
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+THE RELATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL TO THE UNIVERSE
+
+
+The civilisation of ancient Greece was nurtured within city
+walls.  In fact, all the modern civilisations have their cradles
+of brick and mortar.
+
+These walls leave their mark deep in the minds of men.  They set
+up a principle of "divide and rule" in our mental outlook, which
+begets in us a habit of securing all our conquests by fortifying
+them and separating them from one another.  We divide nation and
+nation, knowledge and knowledge, man and nature.  It breeds in us
+a strong suspicion of whatever is beyond the barriers we have
+built, and everything has to fight hard for its entrance into our
+recognition.
+
+When the first Aryan invaders appeared in India it was a vast
+land of forests, and the new-comers rapidly took advantage of
+them.  These forests afforded them shelter from the fierce heat
+of the sun and the ravages of tropical storms, pastures for
+cattle, fuel for sacrificial fire, and materials for building
+cottages.  And the different Aryan clans with their patriarchal
+heads settled in the different forest tracts which had some
+special advantage of natural protection, and food and water in
+plenty.
+
+Thus in India it was in the forests that our civilisation had its
+birth, and it took a distinct character from this origin and
+environment.  It was surrounded by the vast life of nature, was
+fed and clothed by her, and had the closest and most constant
+intercourse with her varying aspects.
+
+Such a life, it may be thought, tends to have the effect of
+dulling human intelligence and dwarfing the incentives to
+progress by lowering the standards of existence.  But in ancient
+India we find that the circumstances of forest life did not
+overcome man's mind, and did not enfeeble the current of his
+energies, but only gave to it a particular direction.  Having
+been in constant contact with the living growth of nature, his
+mind was free from the desire to extend his dominion by erecting
+boundary walls around his acquisitions.  His aim was not to
+acquire but to realise, to enlarge his consciousness by growing
+with and growing into his surroundings.  He felt that truth is
+all-comprehensive, that there is no such thing as absolute
+isolation in existence, and the only way of attaining truth is
+through the interpenetration of our being into all objects.  To
+realise this great harmony between man's spirit and the spirit of
+the world was the endeavour of the forest-dwelling sages of
+ancient India.
+
+In later days there came a time when these primeval forests gave
+way to cultivated fields, and wealthy cities sprang up on all
+sides.  Mighty kingdoms were established, which had
+communications with all the great powers of the world.  But even
+in the heyday of its material prosperity the heart of India ever
+looked back with adoration upon the early ideal of strenuous
+self-realisation, and the dignity of the simple life of the
+forest hermitage, and drew its best inspiration from the wisdom
+stored there.
+
+The west seems to take a pride in thinking that it is subduing
+nature; as if we are living in a hostile world where we have to
+wrest everything we want from an unwilling and alien arrangement
+of things.  This sentiment is the product of the city-wall habit
+and training of mind.  For in the city life man naturally directs
+the concentrated light of his mental vision upon his own life and
+works, and this creates an artificial dissociation between
+himself and the Universal Nature within whose bosom he lies.
+
+But in India the point of view was different; it included the
+world with the man as one great truth.  India put all her
+emphasis on the harmony that exists between the individual and
+the universal.  She felt we could have no communication whatever
+with our surroundings if they were absolutely foreign to us.
+Man's complaint against nature is that he has to acquire most of
+his necessaries by his own efforts.  Yes, but his efforts are not
+in vain; he is reaping success every day, and that shows there is
+a rational connection between him and nature, for we never can
+make anything our own except that which is truly related to us.
+
+We can look upon a road from two different points of view.  One
+regards it as dividing us from the object of our desire; in that
+case we count every step of our journey over it as something
+attained by force in the face of obstruction.  The other sees it
+as the road which leads us to our destination; and as such it is
+part of our goal.  It is already the beginning of our attainment,
+and by journeying over it we can only gain that which in itself
+it offers to us.  This last point of view is that of India with
+regard to nature.  For her, the great fact is that we are in
+harmony with nature; that man can think because his thoughts are
+in harmony with things; that he can use the forces of nature for
+his own purpose only because his power is in harmony with the
+power which is universal, and that in the long run his purpose
+never can knock against the purpose which works through nature.
+
+In the west the prevalent feeling is that nature belongs
+exclusively to inanimate things and to beasts, that there is a
+sudden unaccountable break where human-nature begins.  According
+to it, everything that is low in the scale of beings is merely
+nature, and whatever has the stamp of perfection on it,
+intellectual or moral, is human-nature.  It is like dividing the
+bud and the blossom into two separate categories, and putting
+their grace to the credit of two different and antithetical
+principles.  But the Indian mind never has any hesitation in
+acknowledging its kinship with nature, its unbroken relation with
+all.
+
+The fundamental unity of creation was not simply a philosophical
+speculation for India; it was her life-object to realise this
+great harmony in feeling and in action.  With mediation and
+service, with a regulation of life, she cultivated her
+consciousness in such a way that everything had a spiritual
+meaning to her.  The earth, water and light, fruits and flowers,
+to her were not merely physical phenomena to be turned to use and
+then left aside.  They were necessary to her in the attainment of
+her ideal of perfection, as every note is necessary to the
+completeness of the symphony.  India intuitively felt that the
+essential fact of this world has a vital meaning for us; we have
+to be fully alive to it and establish a conscious relation with
+it, not merely impelled by scientific curiosity or greed of
+material advantage, but realising it in the spirit of sympathy,
+with a large feeling of joy and peace.
+
+The man of science knows, in one aspect, that the world is not
+merely what it appears to be to our senses; he knows that earth
+and water are really the play of forces that manifest themselves
+to us as earth and water--how, we can but partially apprehend.
+Likewise the man who has his spiritual eyes open knows that the
+ultimate truth about earth and water lies in our apprehension of
+the eternal will which works in time and takes shape in the
+forces we realise under those aspects.  This is not mere
+knowledge, as science is, but it is a preception of the soul by
+the soul.  This does not lead us to power, as knowledge does, but
+it gives us joy, which is the product of the union of kindred
+things.  The man whose acquaintance with the world does not lead
+him deeper than science leads him, will never understand what it
+is that the man with the spiritual vision finds in these natural
+phenomena.  The water does not merely cleanse his limbs, but it
+purifies his heart; for it touches his soul.  The earth does not
+merely hold his body, but it gladdens his mind; for its contact
+is more than a physical contact--it is a living presence.  When a
+man does not realise his kinship with the world, he lives in a
+prison-house whose walls are alien to him.  When he meets the
+eternal spirit in all objects, then is he emancipated, for then
+he discovers the fullest significance of the world into which he
+is born; then he finds himself in perfect truth, and his harmony
+with the all is established.  In India men are enjoined to be
+fully awake to the fact that they are in the closest relation to
+things around them, body and soul, and that they are to hail the
+morning sun, the flowing water, the fruitful earth, as the
+manifestation of the same living truth which holds them in its
+embrace.  Thus the text of our everyday meditation is the
+_Gayathri_, a verse which is considered to be the epitome of all
+the Vedas.  By its help we try to realise the essential unity of
+the world with the conscious soul of man; we learn to perceive
+the unity held together by the one Eternal Spirit, whose power
+creates the earth, the sky, and the stars, and at the same time
+irradiates our minds with the light of a consciousness that moves
+and exists in unbroken continuity with the outer world.
+
+It is not true that India has tried to ignore differences of
+value in different things, for she knows that would make life
+impossible.  The sense of the superiority of man in the scale of
+creation has not been absent from her mind.  But she has had her
+own idea as to that in which his superiority really consists.  It
+is not in the power of possession but in the power of union.
+Therefore India chose her places of pilgrimage wherever there was
+in nature some special grandeur or beauty, so that her mind could
+come out of its world of narrow necessities and realise its place
+in the infinite.  This was the reason why in India a whole
+people who once were meat-eaters gave up taking animal food to
+cultivate the sentiment of universal sympathy for life, an event
+unique in the history of mankind.
+
+India knew that when by physical and mental barriers we violently
+detach ourselves from the inexhaustible life of nature; when we
+become merely man, but not man-in-the-universe, we create
+bewildering problems, and having shut off the source of their
+solution, we try all kinds of artificial methods each of which
+brings its own crop of interminable difficulties.  When man
+leaves his resting-place in universal nature, when he walks on
+the single rope of humanity, it means either a dance or a fall
+for him, he has ceaselessly to strain every nerve and muscle to
+keep his balance at each step, and then, in the intervals of his
+weariness, he fulminates against Providence and feels a secret
+pride and satisfaction in thinking that he has been unfairly
+dealt with by the whole scheme of things.
+
+But this cannot go on for ever.  Man must realise the wholeness
+of his existence, his place in the infinite; he must know that
+hard as he may strive he can never create his honey within the
+cells of his hive; for the perennial supply of his life food is
+outside their walls.  He must know that when man shuts himself
+out from the vitalising and purifying touch of the infinite, and
+falls back upon himself for his sustenance and his healing, then
+he goads himself into madness, tears himself into shreds, and
+eats his own substance.  Deprived of the background of the whole,
+his poverty loses its one great quality, which is simplicity, and
+becomes squalid and shamefaced.  His wealth is no longer
+magnanimous; it grows merely extravagant.  His appetites do not
+minister to his life, keeping to the limits of their purpose;
+they become an end in themselves and set fire to his life and
+play the fiddle in the lurid light of the conflagration.  Then it
+is that in our self-expression we try to startle and not to
+attract; in art we strive for originality and lose sight of truth
+which is old and yet ever new; in literature we miss the complete
+view of man which is simple and yet great, but he appears as a
+psychological problem or the embodiment of a passion that is
+intense because abnormal and because exhibited in the glare of a
+fiercely emphatic light which is artificial.  When man's
+consciousness is restricted only to the immediate vicinity of his
+human self, the deeper roots of his nature do not find their
+permanent soil, his spirit is ever on the brink of starvation,
+and in the place of healthful strength he substitutes rounds of
+stimulation.  Then it is that man misses his inner perspective
+and measures his greatness by its bulk and not by its vital link
+with the infinite, judges his activity by its movement and not by
+the repose of perfection--the repose which is in the starry
+heavens, in the ever-flowing rhythmic dance of creation.
+
+The first invasion of India has its exact parallel in the
+invasion of America by the European settlers.  They also were
+confronted with primeval forests and a fierce struggle with
+aboriginal races.  But this struggle between man and man, and man
+and nature lasted till the very end; they never came to any
+terms.  In India the forests which were the habitation of the
+barbarians became the sanctuary of sages, but in America these
+great living cathedrals of nature had no deeper significance to
+man.  The brought wealth and power to him, and perhaps at times
+they ministered to his enjoyment of beauty, and inspired a
+solitary poet.  They never acquired a sacred association in the
+hearts of men as the site of some great spiritual reconcilement
+where man's soul has its meeting-place with the soul of the
+world.
+
+I do not for a moment wish to suggest that these things should
+have been otherwise.  It would be an utter waste of opportunities
+if history were to repeat itself exactly in the same manner in
+every place.  It is best for the commerce of the spirit that
+people differently situated should bring their different products
+into the market of humanity, each of which is complementary and
+necessary to the others.  All that I wish to say is that India at
+the outset of her career met with a special combination of
+circumstances which was not lost upon her.  She had, according to
+her opportunities, thought and pondered, striven and suffered,
+dived into the depths of existence, and achieved something which
+surely cannot be without its value to people whose evolution in
+history took a different way altogether.  Man for his perfect
+growth requires all the living elements that constitute his
+complex life; that is why his food has to be cultivated in
+different fields and brought from different sources.
+
+Civilisation is a kind of mould that each nation is busy making
+for itself to shape its men and women according to its best
+ideal.  All its institutions, its legislature, its standard of
+approbation and condemnation, its conscious and unconscious
+teachings tend toward that object.  The modern civilisation of
+the west, by all its organised efforts, is trying to turn out men
+perfect in physical, intellectual, and moral efficiency.  There
+the vast energies of the nations are employed in extending man's
+power over his surroundings, and people are combining and
+straining every faculty to possess and to turn to account all
+that they can lay their hands upon, to overcome every obstacle on
+their path of conquest.  They are ever disciplining themselves to
+fight nature and other races; their armaments are getting more
+and more stupendous every day; their machines, their appliances,
+their organisations go on multiplying at an amazing rate.  This
+is a splendid achievement, no doubt, and a wonderful
+manifestation of man's masterfulness which knows no obstacle, and
+which has for its object the supremacy of himself over everything
+else.
+
+The ancient civilisation of India had its own ideal of perfection
+towards which its efforts were directed.  Its aim was not
+attaining power, and it neglected to cultivate to the utmost its
+capacities, and to organise men for defensive and offensive
+purposes, for co-operation in the acquisition of wealth and for
+military and political ascendancy.  The ideal that India tried to
+realise led her best men to the isolation of a contemplative
+life, and the treasures that she gained for mankind by
+penetrating into the mysteries of reality cost her dear in the
+sphere of worldly success.  Yet, this also was a sublime
+achievement,--it was a supreme manifestation of that human
+aspiration which knows no limit, and which has for its object
+nothing less than the realisation of the Infinite.
+
+There were the virtuous, the wise, the courageous; there were the
+statesmen, kings and emperors of India; but whom amongst all
+these classes did she look up to and choose to be the
+representative of men?
+
+They were the rishis.  What were the rishis?  _They who having
+attained the supreme soul in knowledge were filled with wisdom,
+and having found him in union with the soul were in perfect
+harmony with the inner self; they having realised him in the
+heart were free from all selfish desires, and having experienced
+him in all the activities of the world, had attained calmness.
+The rishis were they who having reached the supreme God from all
+sides had found abiding peace, had become united with all, had
+entered into the life of the Universe._ [Footnote:
+/**
+  Samprāpyainam rishayo jñānatripatāh
+  Kritātmānō vītarāgāh praçantāh
+  tē sarvagam sarvatah prāpya dhīrāh
+  Yuktātmānah sarvamēvāviçanti.
+*/
+]
+
+Thus the state of realising our relationship with all, of
+entering into everything through union with God, was considered
+in India to be the ultimate end and fulfilment of humanity.
+
+Man can destroy and plunder, earn and accumulate, invent and
+discover, but he is great because his soul comprehends all.  It
+is dire destruction for him when he envelopes his soul in a dead
+shell of callous habits, and when a blind fury of works whirls
+round him like an eddying dust storm, shutting out the horizon.
+That indeed kills the very spirit of his being, which is the
+spirit of comprehension.  Essentially man is not a slave either
+of himself or of the world; but he is a lover.  His freedom and
+fulfilment is in love, which is another name for perfect
+comprehension.  By this power of comprehension, this permeation
+of his being, he is united with the all-pervading Spirit, who is
+also the breath of his soul.  Where a man tries to raise himself
+to eminence by pushing and jostling all others, to achieve a
+distinction by which he prides himself to be more than everybody
+else, there he is alienated from that Spirit.  This is why the
+Upanishads describe those who have attained the goal of human
+life as "_peaceful_" [Footnote: Praçantāh] and as "_at-one-with-
+God_," [Footnote: Yuktātmānah] meaning that they are in perfect
+harmony with man and nature, and therefore in undisturbed union
+with God.
+
+We have a glimpse of the same truth in the teachings of Jesus
+when he says, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye
+of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven"--
+which implies that whatever we treasure for ourselves separates
+us from others; our possessions are our limitations.  He who is
+bent upon accumulating riches is unable, with his ego continually
+bulging, to pass through the gates of comprehension of the
+spiritual world, which is the world of perfect harmony; he is
+shut up within the narrow walls of his limited acquisitions.
+
+Hence the spirit of the teachings of Upanishad is: In order to
+find him you must embrace all.  In the pursuit of wealth you
+really give up everything to gain a few things, and that is not
+the way to attain him who is completeness.
+
+Some modern philosophers of Europe, who are directly or
+indirectly indebted to the Upanishads, far from realising their
+debt, maintain that the Brahma of India is a mere abstraction, a
+negation of all that is in the world.  In a word, that the
+Infinite Being is to be found nowhere except in metaphysics.  It
+may be, that such a doctrine has been and still is prevalent with
+a section of our countrymen.  But this is certainly not in accord
+with the pervading spirit of the Indian mind.  Instead, it is the
+practice of realising and affirming the presence of the infinite
+in all things which has been its constant inspiration.
+
+We are enjoined to see _whatever there is in the world as being
+enveloped by God._
+[Footnote: Içāvāsyamidam sarvam yat kiñcha jagatyāñ jagat.]
+
+_I bow to God over and over again who is in fire and in water, who
+permeates the whole world, who is in the annual crops as well as
+in the perennial trees._  [Footnote: Yo dēvō'gnau y'ōpsu y'ō
+viçvambhuvanamāvivēça ya ōshadhishu yō  vanaspatishu tasmai dēvāya
+namōnamah.]
+
+Can this be God abstracted from the world?  Instead, it signifies
+not merely seeing him in all things, but saluting him in all the
+objects of the world.  The attitude of the God-conscious man of
+the Upanishad towards the universe is one of a deep feeling of
+adoration.  His object of worship is present everywhere.  It is
+the one living truth that makes all realities true.  This truth
+is not only of knowledge but of devotion.  '_Namonamah_,'--we bow
+to him everywhere, and over and over again.  It is recognised in
+the outburst of the Rishi, who addresses the whole world in a
+sudden ecstasy of joy: _Listen to me, ye sons of the immortal
+spirit, ye who live in the heavenly abode, I have known the
+Supreme Person whose light shines forth from beyond the darkness._
+[Footnote: Çrinvantu viçve amritasya putrā ā ye divya dhāmāni
+tasthuh vedāhametam purusham mahāntam āditya varņam tamasah
+parastāt.]  Do we not find the overwhelming delight of a direct
+and positive experience where there is not the least trace of
+vagueness or passivity?
+
+Buddha who developed the practical side of the teaching of
+Upanishads, preached the same message when he said, _With
+everything, whether it is above or below, remote or near, visible
+or invisible, thou shalt preserve a relation of unlimited love
+without any animosity or without a desire to kill.  To live in
+such a consciousness while standing or walking, sitting or lying
+down till you are asleep, is Brahma vihāra, or, in other words,
+is living and moving and having your joy in the spirit of
+Brahma._
+
+What is that spirit?  The Upanishad says, _The being who is in
+his essence the light and life of all, who is world-conscious, is
+Brahma._  [Footnote: Yaçchāyamasminnākāçē tējōmayō'mritamayah
+purushah sarvānubhūh.]  To feel all, to be conscious of
+everything, is his spirit.  We are immersed in his consciousness
+body and soul.  It is through his consciousness that the sun
+attracts the earth; it is through his consciousness that the
+light-waves are being transmitted from planet to planet.
+
+Not only in space, but _this light and life, this all-feeling
+being is in our souls._  [Footnote: Yaçchāyamasminnātmani
+tējōmayō'mritamayah purushah sarvānubhūh.]  He is all-conscious
+in space, or the world of extension; and he is all-conscious in
+soul, or the world of intension.
+
+Thus to attain our world-consciousness, we have to unite our
+feeling with this all-pervasive infinite feeling.  In fact, the
+only true human progress is coincident with this widening of the
+range of feeling.  All our poetry, philosophy, science, art and
+religion are serving to extend the scope of our consciousness
+towards higher and larger spheres.  Man does not acquire rights
+through occupation of larger space, nor through external conduct,
+but his rights extend only so far as he is real, and his reality
+is measured by the scope of his consciousness.
+
+We have, however, to pay a price for this attainment of the
+freedom of consciousness.  What is the price?  It is to give
+one's self away.  Our soul can realise itself truly only by
+denying itself.  The Upanishad says, _Thou shalt gain by giving
+away_ [Footnote: Tyaktēna bhuñjīthāh], _Thou shalt not covet._
+[Footnote: Mā gridhah]
+
+In Gita we are advised to work disinterestedly, abandoning all
+lust for the result.  Many outsiders conclude from this teaching
+that the conception of the world as something unreal lies at the
+root of the so-called disinterestedness preached in India.  But
+the reverse is true.
+
+The man who aims at his own aggrandisement underrates everything
+else.  Compared to his ego the rest of the world is unreal.  Thus
+in order to be fully conscious of the reality of all, one has to
+be free himself from the bonds of personal desires.  This
+discipline we have to go through to prepare ourselves for our
+social duties--for sharing the burdens of our fellow-beings.
+Every endeavour to attain a larger life requires of man "to gain
+by giving away, and not to be greedy."  And thus to expand
+gradually the consciousness of one's unity with all is the
+striving of humanity.
+
+The Infinite in India was not a thin nonentity, void of all
+content.  The Rishis of India asserted emphatically, "To know him
+in this life is to be true; not to know him in this life is the
+desolation of death."  [Footnote: Iha chēt avēdit atha
+satyamasti, nachēt iha avēdit mahatī vinashtih.]  How to know him
+then?  "By realising him in each and all."  [Footnote: Bhūtēshu
+bhūtēshu vichintva.]  Not only in nature but in the family, in
+society, and in the state, the more we realise the World-
+conscious in all, the better for us.  Failing to realise it, we
+turn our faces to destruction.
+
+It fills me with great joy and a high hope for the future of
+humanity when I realise that there was a time in the remote past
+when our poet-prophets stood under the lavish sunshine of an
+Indian sky and greeted the world with the glad recognition of
+kindred.  It was not an anthropomorphic hallucination.  It was
+not seeing man reflected everywhere in grotesquely exaggerated
+images, and witnessing the human drama acted on a gigantic scale
+in nature's arena of flitting lights and shadows.  On the
+contrary, it meant crossing the limiting barriers of the
+individual, to become more than man, to become one with the All.
+It was not a mere play of the imagination, but it was the
+liberation of consciousness from all the mystifications and
+exaggerations of the self.  These ancient seers felt in the
+serene depth of their mind that the same energy which vibrates
+and passes into the endless forms of the world manifests itself
+in our inner being as consciousness; and there is no break in
+unity.  For these seers there was no gap in their luminous vision
+of perfection.  They never acknowledged even death itself as
+creating a chasm in the field of reality.  They said, _His
+reflection is death as well as immortality._  [Footnote: Yasya
+chhāyāmritam yasya mrityuh.]  They did not recognise any
+essential opposition between life and death, and they said with
+absolute assurance, "It is life that is death."  [Footnote: Prāno
+mrityuh.]  They saluted with the same serenity of gladness "life
+in its aspect of appearing and in its aspect of departure"--
+_That which is past is hidden in life, and that which is to come._
+[Footnote: Namō astu āyatē namō astu parāyatē.  Prānē ha bhūtam
+bhavyañcha.]  They knew that mere appearance and disappearance are
+on the surface like waves on the sea, but life which is permanent
+knows no decay or diminution.
+
+_Everything has sprung from immortal life and is vibrating with
+life_, [Footnote: Yadidan kiñcha praņa ejati nihsritam.] _for life
+is immense._  [Footnote: Prāno virāt.]
+
+This is the noble heritage from our forefathers waiting to be
+claimed by us as our own, this ideal of the supreme freedom of
+consciousness.  It is not merely intellectual or emotional, it
+has an ethical basis, and it must be translated into action.  In
+the Upanishad it is said, _The supreme being is all-pervading,
+therefore he is the innate good in all._  [Footnote: Sarvavyāpī
+sa bhagavān tasmāt sarvagatah çivah.]  To be truly united in
+knowledge, love, and service with all beings, and thus to
+realise one's self in the all-pervading God is the essence of
+goodness, and this is the keynote of the teachings of the
+Upanishads: _Life is immense!_  [Footnote: Prāņo virāt.]
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS
+
+
+We have seen that it was the aspiration of ancient India to live
+and move and have its joy in Brahma, the all-conscious and all-
+pervading Spirit, by extending its field of consciousness over
+all the world.  But that, it may be urged, is an impossible task
+for man to achieve.  If this extension of consciousness be an
+outward process, then it is endless; it is like attempting to
+cross the ocean after ladling out its water.  By beginning to try
+to realise all, one has to end by realising nothing.
+
+But, in reality, it is not so absurd as it sounds.  Man has every
+day to solve this problem of enlarging his region and adjusting
+his burdens.  His burdens are many, too numerous for him to
+carry, but he knows that by adopting a system he can lighten the
+weight of his load.  Whenever they feel too complicated and
+unwieldy, he knows it is because he has not been able to hit upon
+the system which would have set everything in place and
+distributed the weight evenly.  This search for system is really
+a search for unity, for synthesis; it is our attempt to harmonise
+the heterogeneous complexity of outward materials by an inner
+adjustment.  In the search we gradually become aware that to find
+out the One is to possess the All; that there, indeed, is our
+last and highest privilege.  It is based on the law of that unity
+which is, if we only know it, our abiding strength.  Its living
+principle is the power that is in truth; the truth of that unity
+which comprehends multiplicity.  Facts are many, but the truth is
+one.  The animal intelligence knows facts, the human mind has
+power to apprehend truth.  The apple falls from the tree, the
+rain descends upon the earth--you can go on burdening your memory
+with such facts and never come to an end.  But once you get hold
+of the law of gravitation you can dispense with the necessity of
+collecting facts _ad infinitum_.  You have got at one truth
+which governs numberless facts.  This discovery of truth is pure
+joy to man--it is a liberation of his mind.  For, a mere fact is
+like a blind lane, it leads only to itself--it has no beyond.
+But a truth opens up a whole horizon, it leads us to the
+infinite.  That is the reason why, when a man like Darwin
+discovers some simple general truth about Biology, it does not
+stop there, but like a lamp shedding its light far beyond the
+object for which it was lighted, it illumines the whole region of
+human life and thought, transcending its original purpose.  Thus
+we find that truth, while investing all facts, is not a mere
+aggregate of facts--it surpasses them on all sides and points to
+the infinite reality.
+
+As in the region of knowledge so in that of consciousness, man
+must clearly realise some central truth which will give him an
+outlook over the widest possible field.  And that is the object
+which the Upanishad has in view when it says, _Know thine own
+Soul_.  Or, in other words, realise the one great principal of
+unity that there is in every man.
+
+All our egoistic impulses, our selfish desires, obscure our true
+vision of the soul.  For they only indicate our own narrow self.
+When we are conscious of our soul, we perceive the inner being
+that transcends our ego and has its deeper affinity with the All.
+
+Children, when they begin to learn each separate letter of the
+alphabet, find no pleasure in it, because they miss the real
+purpose of the lesson; in fact, while letters claim our attention
+only in themselves and as isolated things, they fatigue us.  They
+become a source of joy to us only when they combine into words
+and sentences and convey an idea.
+
+Likewise, our soul when detached and imprisoned within the narrow
+limits of a self loses its significance.  For its very essence is
+unity.  It can only find out its truth by unifying itself with
+others, and only then it has its joy.  Man was troubled and he
+lived in a state of fear so long as he had not discovered the
+uniformity of law in nature; till then the world was alien to
+him.  The law that he discovered is nothing but the perception of
+harmony that prevails between reason which is of the soul of man
+and the workings of the world.  This is the bond of union through
+which man is related to the world in which he lives, and he feels
+an exceeding joy when he finds this out, for then he realises
+himself in his surroundings.  To understand anything is to find
+in it something which is our own, and it is the discovery of
+ourselves outside us which makes us glad.  This relation of
+understanding is partial, but the relation of love is complete.
+In love the sense of difference is obliterated and the human soul
+fulfils its purpose in perfection, transcending the limits of
+itself and reaching across the threshold of the infinite.
+Therefore love is the highest bliss that man can attain to, for
+through it alone he truly knows that he is more than himself, and
+that he is at one with the All.
+
+This principal of unity which man has in his soul is ever active,
+establishing relations far and wide through literature, art, and
+science, society, statecraft, and religion.  Our great Revealers
+are they who make manifest the true meaning of the soul by giving
+up self for the love of mankind.  They face calumny and
+persecution, deprivation and death in their service of love.
+They live the life of the soul, not of the self, and thus they
+prove to us the ultimate truth of humanity.  We call them
+_Mahātmās,_ "the men of the great soul."
+
+It is said in one of the Upanishads: _It is not that thou lovest
+thy son because thou desirest him, but thou lovest thy son
+because thou desirest thine own soul._  [Footnote: Na vā arē
+putrasya kāmāya putrah priyō bhavati, ātmanastu kāmāya putrah
+priyō bhavati.]  The meaning of this is, that whomsoever we love,
+in him we find our own soul in the highest sense.  The final
+truth of our existence lies in this.  _Paramātmā_, the supreme
+soul, is in me, as well as in my son, and my joy in my son is the
+realisation of this truth.  It has become quite a commonplace
+fact, yet it is wonderful to think upon, that the joys and
+sorrows of our loved ones are joys and sorrows to us--nay they
+are more.  Why so?  Because in them we have grown larger, in
+them we have touched that great truth which comprehends the whole
+universe.
+
+It very often happens that our love for our children, our
+friends, or other loved ones, debars us from the further
+realisation of our soul.  It enlarges our scope of consciousness,
+no doubt, yet it sets a limit to its freest expansion.
+Nevertheless, it is the first step, and all the wonder lies in
+this first step itself.  It shows to us the true nature of our
+soul.  From it we know, for certain, that our highest joy is in
+the losing of our egoistic self and in the uniting with others.
+This love gives us a new power and insight and beauty of mind to
+the extent of the limits we set around it, but ceases to do so if
+those limits lose their elasticity, and militate against the
+spirit of love altogether; then our friendships become exclusive,
+our families selfish and inhospitable, our nations insular and
+aggressively inimical to other races.  It is like putting a
+burning light within a sealed enclosure, which shines brightly
+till the poisonous gases accumulate and smother the flame.
+Nevertheless it has proved its truth before it dies, and made
+known the joy of freedom from the grip of darkness, blind and
+empty and cold.
+
+According to the Upanishads, the key to cosmic consciousness, to
+God-consciousness, is in the consciousness of the soul.  To know
+our soul apart from the self is the first step towards the
+realisation of the supreme deliverance.  We must know with
+absolute certainty that essentially we are spirit.  This we can
+do by winning mastery over self, by rising above all pride and
+greed and fear, by knowing that worldly losses and physical death
+can take nothing away from the truth and the greatness of our
+soul.  The chick knows when it breaks through the self-centered
+isolation of its egg that the hard shell which covered it so long
+was not really a part of its life.  That shell is a dead thing,
+it has no growth, it affords no glimpse whatever of the vast
+beyond that lies outside it.  However pleasantly perfect and
+rounded it may be, it must be given a blow to, it must be burst
+through and thereby the freedom of light and air be won, and the
+complete purpose of bird life be achieved.  In Sanskrit, the bird
+has been called the twice-born.  So too the man who has gone
+through the ceremony of the discipline of self-restraint and high
+thinking for a period of at least twelve years; who has come out
+simple in wants, pure in heart, and ready to take up all the
+responsibilities of life in a disinterested largeness of spirit.
+He is considered to have had his rebirth from the blind
+envelopment of self to the freedom of soul life; to have come
+into living relation with his surroundings; to have become at one
+with the All.
+
+I have already warned my hearers, and must once more warn them
+against the idea that the teachers of India preached a
+renunciation of the world and of self which leads only to the
+blank emptiness of negation.  Their aim was the realisation of
+the soul, or, in other words, gaining the world in perfect truth.
+When Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
+the earth," he meant this.  He proclaimed the truth that when man
+gets rid of his pride of self then he comes into his true
+inheritance.  No more has he to fight his way into his position
+in the world; it is secure for him everywhere by the immortal
+right of his soul.  Pride of self interferes with the proper
+function of the soul which is to realise itself by perfecting its
+union with the world and the world's God.
+
+In his sermon to Sádhu Simha Buddha says, _It is true, Simha,
+that I denounce activities, but only the activities that lead to
+the evil in words, thoughts, or deeds.  It is true, Simha, that I
+preach extinction, but only the extinction of pride, lust, evil
+thought, and ignorance, not that of forgiveness, love, charity,
+and truth._
+
+The doctrine of deliverance that Buddha preached was the freedom
+from the thraldom of _Avidyā_.  _Avidyā_ is the ignorance that
+darkens our consciousness, and tends to limit it within the
+boundaries of our personal self.  It is this _Avidyā_, this
+ignorance, this limiting of consciousness that creates the hard
+separateness of the ego, and thus becomes the source of all
+pride and greed and cruelty incidental to self-seeking.  When a
+man sleeps he is shut up within the narrow activities of his
+physical life.  He lives, but he knows not the varied relations
+of his life to his surroundings,--therefore he knows not
+himself.  So when a man lives the life of _Avidyā_ he is
+confined within his self.  It is a spiritual sleep; his
+consciousness is not fully awake to the highest reality that
+surrounds him, therefore he knows not the reality of his own
+soul.  When he attains _Bodhi_, i.e. the awakenment from the
+sleep of self to the perfection of consciousness, he becomes
+Buddha.
+
+Once I met two ascetics of a certain religious sect in a village
+of Bengal.  "Can you tell me," I asked them, "wherein lies the
+special features of your religion?"  One of them hesitated for a
+moment and answered, "It is difficult to define that."  The other
+said, "No, it is quite simple.  We hold that we have first of all
+to know our own soul under the guidance of our spiritual teacher,
+and when we have done that we can find him, who is the Supreme
+Soul, within us."  "Why don't you preach your doctrine to all the
+people of the world?" I asked.  "Whoever feels thirsty will of
+himself come to the river," was his reply.  "But then, do you
+find it so?  Are they coming?"  The man gave a gentle smile, and
+with an assurance which had not the least tinge of impatience or
+anxiety, he said, "They must come, one and all."
+
+Yes, he is right, this simple ascetic of rural Bengal.  Man is
+indeed abroad to satisfy needs which are more to him than food
+and clothing.  He is out to find himself.  Man's history is the
+history of his journey to the unknown in quest of the realisation
+of his immortal self--his soul.  Through the rise and fall of
+empires; through the building up gigantic piles of wealth and the
+ruthless scattering of them upon the dust; through the creation
+of vast bodies of symbols that give shape to his dreams and
+aspirations, and the casting of them away like the playthings of
+an outworn infancy; through his forging of magic keys with which
+to unlock the mysteries of creation, and through his throwing
+away of this labour of ages to go back to his workshop and work
+up afresh some new form; yes, through it all man is marching from
+epoch to epoch towards the fullest realisation of his soul,--the
+soul which is greater than the things man accumulates, the deeds
+he accomplishes, the theories he builds; the soul whose onward
+course is never checked by death or dissolution.  Man's mistakes
+and failures have by no means been trifling or small, they have
+strewn his path with colossal ruins; his sufferings have been
+immense, like birth-pangs for a giant child; they are the prelude
+of a fulfilment whose scope is infinite.  Man has gone through
+and is still undergoing martyrdoms in various ways, and his
+institutions are the altars he has built whereto he brings his
+daily sacrifices, marvellous in kind and stupendous in quantity.
+All this would be absolutely unmeaning and unbearable if all
+along he did not feel that deepest joy of the soul within him,
+which tries its divine strength by suffering and proves its
+exhaustless riches by renunciation.  Yes, they are coming, the
+pilgrims, one and all--coming to their true inheritance of the
+world; they are ever broadening their consciousness, ever seeking
+a higher and higher unity, ever approaching nearer to the one
+central Truth which is all-comprehensive.
+
+Man's poverty is abysmal, his wants are endless till he becomes
+truly conscious of his soul.  Till then, the world to him is in a
+state of continual flux-- a phantasm that is and is not.  For a
+man who has realised his soul there is a determinate centre of
+the universe around which all else can find its proper place, and
+from thence only can he draw and enjoy the blessedness of a
+harmonious life.
+
+There was a time when the earth was only a nebulous mass whose
+particles were scattered far apart through the expanding force of
+heat; when she had not yet attained her definiteness of form and
+had neither beauty nor purpose, but only heat and motion.
+Gradually, when her vapours were condensed into a unified rounded
+whole through a force that strove to bring all straggling matters
+under the control of a centre, she occupied her proper place
+among the planets of the solar system, like an emerald pendant in
+a necklace of diamonds.  So with our soul.  When the heat and
+motion of blind impulses and passions distract it on all sides,
+we can neither give nor receive anything truly.  But when we find
+our centre in our soul by the power of self-restraint, by the
+force that harmonises all warring elements and unifies those that
+are apart, then all our isolated impressions reduce themselves to
+wisdom, and all our momentary impulses of heart find their
+completion in love; then all the petty details of our life reveal
+an infinite purpose, and all our thoughts and deeds unite
+themselves inseparably in an internal harmony.
+
+The Upanishads say with great emphasis, _Know thou the One, the
+Soul._  [Footnote: Tamēvaikam jānatha ātmānam.]  _It is the bridge
+leading to the immortal being._  [Footnote: Amritasyaisha sētuh.]
+
+This is the ultimate end of man, to find the _One_ which is in
+him; which is his truth, which is his soul; the key with which he
+opens the gate of the spiritual life, the heavenly kingdom.  His
+desires are many, and madly they run after the varied objects of
+the world, for therein they have their life and fulfilment.  But
+that which is _one_ in him is ever seeking for unity--unity in
+knowledge, unity in love, unity in purposes of will; its highest
+joy is when it reaches the infinite one within its eternal unity.
+Hence the saying of the Upanishad, _Only those of tranquil minds,
+and none else, can attain abiding joy, by realising within their
+souls the Being who manifests one essence in a multiplicity of
+forms._  [Footnote: Ēkam rūpam bahudhā yah karōti * * tam
+ātmastham yē anupaçyanti dīhrāh, tēshām sukham çāçvatam
+nētarēshām.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: The above footnote contains the * mark in
+the original printed version.  This has been retained as is.]
+
+Through all the diversities of the world the one in us is
+threading its course towards the one in all; this is its nature
+and this is its joy.  But by that devious path it could never
+reach its goal if it had not a light of its own by which it could
+catch the sight of what it was seeking in a flash.  The vision of
+the Supreme One in our own soul is a direct and immediate
+intuition, not based on any ratiocination or demonstration at
+all.  Our eyes naturally see an object as a whole, not by
+breaking it up into parts, but by bringing all the parts together
+into a unity with ourselves.  So with the intuition of our Soul-
+consciousness, which naturally and totally realises its unity in
+the Supreme One.
+
+Says the Upanishad: _This deity who is manifesting himself in the
+activities of the universe always dwells in the heart of man as
+the supreme soul.  Those who realise him through the immediate
+perception of the heart attain immortality._  [Footnote: Ēsha
+dēvō vishvakarmā mahātmā sadā janānām hridayē sannivishtah.
+Hridā manīsha manasābhiklriptō ya ētad viduramritāstē bhavanti.]
+
+He is _Vishvakarma_; that is, in a multiplicity of forms and
+forces lies his outward manifestation in nature; but his inner
+manifestation in our soul is that which exists in unity.  Our
+pursuit of truth in the domain of nature therefore is through
+analysis and the gradual methods of science, but our apprehension
+of truth in our soul is immediate and through direct intuition.
+We cannot attain the supreme soul by successive additions of
+knowledge acquired bit by bit even through all eternity, because
+he is one, he is not made up of parts; we can only know him as
+heart of our hearts and soul of our soul; we can only know him in
+the love and joy we feel when we give up our self and stand
+before him face to face.
+
+The deepest and the most earnest prayer that has ever risen from
+the human heart has been uttered in our ancient tongue: _O thou
+self-revealing one, reveal thyself in me._  [Footnote:
+Āvirāvīrmayēdhi.]  We are in misery because we are creatures of
+self--the self that is unyielding and narrow, that reflects no
+light, that is blind to the infinite.  Our self is loud with its
+own discordant clamour--it is not the tuned harp whose chords
+vibrate with the music of the eternal.  Sighs of discontent and
+weariness of failure, idle regrets for the past and anxieties for
+the future are troubling our shallow hearts because we have not
+found our souls, and the self-revealing spirit has not been
+manifest within us.  Hence our cry, _O thou awful one, save me
+with thy smile of grace ever and evermore._  [Footnote: Rudra
+yat tē dakshinam mukham tēna mām pāhi nityam.]  It is a stifling
+shroud of death, this self-gratification, this insatiable greed,
+this pride of possession, this insolent alienation of heart.
+_Rudra, O thou awful one, rend this dark cover in twain and let
+the saving beam of thy smile of grace strike through this night
+of gloom and waken my soul._
+
+_From unreality lead me to the real, from darkness to the light,
+from death to immortality._  [Footnote: Asatōmā sadgamaya,
+tamasōmā jyōtirgamaya, mrityōrma mritangamaya.]  But how can one
+hope to have this prayer granted?  For infinite is the distance
+that lies between truth and untruth, between death and
+deathlessness.  Yet this measureless gulf is bridged in a moment
+when the self revealing one reveals himself in the soul.  There
+the miracle happens, for there is the meeting-ground of the
+finite and infinite.  _Father, completely sweep away all my
+sins!_  [Footnote: Vishvānidēva savitar duratāni parāsuva.]  For
+in sin man takes part with the finite against the infinite that
+is in him.  It is the defeat of his soul by his self.  It is a
+perilously losing game, in which man stakes his all to gain a
+part.  Sin is the blurring of truth which clouds the purity of
+our consciousness.  In sin we lust after pleasures, not because
+they are truly desirable, but because the red light of our
+passions makes them appear desirable; we long for things not
+because they are great in themselves, but because our greed
+exaggerates them and makes them appear great.  These
+exaggerations, these falsifications of the perspective of things,
+break the harmony of our life at every step; we lose the true
+standard of values and are distracted by the false claims of the
+varied interests of life contending with one another.  It is this
+failure to bring all the elements of his nature under the unity
+and control of the Supreme One that makes man feel the pang of
+his separation from God and gives rise to the earnest prayer,
+_O God, O Father, completely sweep away all our sins._
+[Footnote: Vishvāni dēva savitar duritāni parāsuva.]  _Give
+unto us that which is good_ [Footnote: Yad bhadram tanna
+āsuva.], the good which is the daily bread of our souls.  In our
+pleasures we are confined to ourselves, in the good we are freed
+and we belong to all.  As the child in its mother's womb gets its
+sustenance through the union of its life with the larger life of
+its mother, so our soul is nourished only through the good which
+is the recognition of its inner kinship, the channel of its
+communication with the infinite by which it is surrounded and
+fed.  Hence it is said, "Blessed are they which do hunger and
+thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."  For
+righteousness is the divine food of the soul; nothing but this
+can fill him, can make him live the life of the infinite, can
+help him in his growth towards the eternal.  _We bow to thee
+from whom come the enjoyments of our life._  [Footnote: Namah
+sambhavāya.]  _We bow also to thee from whom comes the good of
+our soul._  [Footnote: Namah çankarāyacha.]  _We bow to thee
+who art good, the highest good [Footnote: Namah çivāyacha,
+çivatarāya cha.], in whom we are united with everything, that is,
+in peace and harmony, in goodness and love.
+
+Man's cry is to reach his fullest expression.  It is this desire
+for self-expression that leads him to seek wealth and power.  But
+he has to discover that accumulation is not realisation.  It is
+the inner light that reveals him, not outer things.  When this
+light is lighted, then in a moment he knows that Man's highest
+revelation is God's own revelation in him.  And his cry is for
+this--the manifestation of his soul, which is the manifestation
+of God in his soul.  Man becomes perfect man, he attains his
+fullest expression, when his soul realises itself in the Infinite
+being who is _Āvih_ whose very essence is expression.
+
+The real misery of man is in the fact that he has not fully come
+out, that he is self-obscured, lost in the midst of his own
+desires.  He cannot feel himself beyond his personal
+surroundings, his greater self is blotted out, his truth is
+unrealised.  The prayer that rises up from his whole being is
+therefore, _Thou, who art the spirit of manifestation, manifest
+thyself in me._  [Footnote: Āvirāvīrmayēdhi.]  This longing for
+the perfect expression of his self is more deeply inherent in
+man than his hunger and thirst for bodily sustenance, his lust
+for wealth and distinction.  This prayer is not merely one born
+individually of him; it is in depth of all things, it is the
+ceaseless urging in him of the _Āvih_, of the spirit of eternal
+manifestation.  The revealment of the infinite in the finite,
+which is the motive of all creation, is not seen in its
+perfection in the starry heavens, in the beauty of flowers.  It
+is in the soul of man.  For there will seeks its manifestation in
+will, and freedom turns to win its final prize in the freedom of
+surrender.
+
+Therefore, it is the self of man which the great King of the
+universe has not shadowed with his throne--he has left it free.
+In his physical and mental organism, where man is related with
+nature, he has to acknowledge the rule of his King, but in his
+self he is free to disown him.  There our God must win his
+entrance.  There he comes as a guest, not as a king, and
+therefore he has to wait till he is invited.  It is the man's
+self from which God has withdrawn his commands, for there he
+comes to court our love.  His armed force, the laws of nature,
+stand outside its gate, and only beauty, the messenger of his
+love, finds admission within its precincts.
+
+It is only in this region of will that anarchy is permitted; only
+in man's self that the discord of untruth and unrighteousness
+hold its reign; and things can come to such a pass that we may
+cry out in our anguish, "Such utter lawlessness could never
+prevail if there were a God!"  Indeed, God has stood aside from
+our self, where his watchful patience knows no bounds, and where
+he never forces open the doors if shut against him.  For this
+self of ours has to attain its ultimate meaning, which is the
+soul, not through the compulsion of God's power but through love,
+and thus become united with God in freedom.
+
+He whose spirit has been made one with God stands before man as
+the supreme flower of humanity.  There man finds in truth what he
+is; for there the _Āvih_ is revealed to him in the soul of man as
+the most perfect revelation for him of God; for there we see the
+union of the supreme will with our will, our love with the love
+everlasting.
+
+Therefore, in our country he who truly loves God receives such
+homage from men as would be considered almost sacrilegious in the
+west.  We see in him God's wish fulfilled, the most difficult of
+all obstacles to his revealment removed, and God's own perfect
+joy fully blossoming in humanity.  Through him we find the whole
+world of man overspread with a divine homeliness.  His life,
+burning with God's love, makes all our earthly love resplendent.
+All the intimate associations of our life, all its experience of
+pleasure and pain, group themselves around this display of the
+divine love, and from the drama that we witness in him.  The
+touch of an infinite mystery passes over the trivial and the
+familiar, making it break out into ineffable music.  The trees
+and the stars and the blue hills appear to us as symbols aching
+with a meaning which can never be uttered in words.  We seem to
+watch the Master in the very act of creation of a new world when
+a man's soul draws her heavy curtain of self aside, when her veil
+is lifted and she is face to face with her eternal lover.
+
+But what is this state?  It is like a morning of spring, varied
+in its life and beauty, yet one and entire.  When a man's life
+rescued from distractions finds its unity in the soul, then the
+consciousness of the infinite becomes at once direct and natural
+to it as the light is to the flame.  All the conflicts and
+contradictions of life are reconciled; knowledge, love and action
+harmonized; pleasure and pain become one in beauty, enjoyment and
+renunciation equal in goodness; the breach between the finite and
+the infinite fills with love and overflows; every moment carries
+its message of the eternal; the formless appears to us in the
+form of the flower, of the fruit; the boundless takes us up in
+his arms as a father and walks by our side as a friend.  It is
+only the soul, the One in man which by its very nature can
+overcome all limits, and finds its affinity with the Supreme One.
+While yet we have not attained the internal harmony, and the
+wholeness of our being, our life remains a life of habits.  The
+world still appears to us as a machine, to be mastered where it
+is useful, to be guarded against where it is dangerous, and never
+to be known in its full fellowship with us, alike in its physical
+nature and in its spiritual life and beauty.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
+
+
+The question why there is evil in existence is the same as why
+there is imperfection, or, in other words, why there is creation
+at all.  We must take it for granted that it could not be
+otherwise; that creation must be imperfect, must be gradual, and
+that it is futile to ask the question, Why we are?
+
+But this is the real question we ought to ask: Is this
+imperfection the final truth, is evil absolute and ultimate?  The
+river has its boundaries, its banks, but is a river all banks? or
+are the banks the final facts about the river?  Do not these
+obstructions themselves give its water an onward motion?  The
+towing rope binds a boat, but is the bondage its meaning?  Does
+it not at the same time draw the boat forward?
+
+The current of the world has its boundaries, otherwise it could
+have no existence, but its purpose is not shown in the boundaries
+which restrain it, but in its movement, which is towards
+perfection.  The wonder is not that there should be obstacles and
+sufferings in this world, but that there should be law and order,
+beauty and joy, goodness and love.  The idea of God that man has
+in his being is the wonder of all wonders.  He has felt in the
+depths of his life that what appears as imperfect is the
+manifestation of the perfect; just as a man who has an ear for
+music realises the perfection of a song, while in fact he is only
+listening to a succession of notes.  Man has found out the great
+paradox that what is limited is not imprisoned within its limits;
+it is ever moving, and therewith shedding its finitude every
+moment.  In fact, imperfection is not a negation of perfectness;
+finitude is not contradictory to infinity: they are but
+completeness manifested in parts, infinity revealed within
+bounds.
+
+Pain, which is the feeling of our finiteness, is not a fixture in
+our life.  It is not an end in itself, as joy is.  To meet with
+it is to know that it has no part in the true permanence of
+creation.  It is what error is in our intellectual life.  To go
+through the history of the development of science is to go
+through the maze of mistakes it made current at different times.
+Yet no one really believes that science is the one perfect mode
+of disseminating mistakes.  The progressive ascertainment of
+truth is the important thing to remember in the history of
+science, not its innumerable mistakes.  Error, by its nature,
+cannot be stationary; it cannot remain with truth; like a tramp,
+it must quit its lodging as soon as it fails to pay its score to
+the full.
+
+As in intellectual error, so in evil of any other form, its
+essence is impermanence, for it cannot accord with the whole.
+Every moment it is being corrected by the totality of things and
+keeps changing its aspect.  We exaggerate its importance by
+imagining it as a standstill.  Could we collect the statistics of
+the immense amount of death and putrefaction happening every
+moment in this earth, they would appal us.  But evil is ever
+moving; with all its incalculable immensity it does not
+effectually clog the current of our life; and we find that the
+earth, water, and air remain sweet and pure for living beings.
+All statistics consist of our attempts to represent statistically
+what is in motion; and in the process things assume a weight in
+our mind which they have not in reality.  For this reason a man,
+who by his profession is concerned with any particular aspect of
+life, is apt to magnify its proportions; in laying undue stress
+upon facts he loses his hold upon truth.  A detective may have
+the opportunity of studying crimes in detail, but he loses his
+sense of their relative places in the whole social economy.  When
+science collects facts to illustrate the struggle for existence
+that is going on in the kingdom of life, it raises a picture in
+our minds of "nature red in tooth and claw."  But in these mental
+pictures we give a fixity to colours and forms which are really
+evanescent.  It is like calculating the weight of the air on each
+square inch of our body to prove that it must be crushingly heavy
+for us.  With every weight, however, there is an adjustment, and
+we lightly bear our burden.  With the struggle for existence in
+nature there is reciprocity.  There is the love for children and
+for comrades; there is the sacrifice of self, which springs from
+love; and this love is the positive element in life.
+
+If we kept the search-light of our observation turned upon the
+fact of death, the world would appear to us like a huge charnel-
+house; but in the world of life the thought of death has, we
+find, the least possible hold upon our minds.  Not because it is
+the least apparent, but because it is the negative aspect of
+life; just as, in spite of the fact that we shut our eyelids
+every second, it is the openings of the eye that count.  Life as
+a whole never takes death seriously.  It laughs, dances and
+plays, it builds, hoards and loves in death's face.  Only when we
+detach one individual fact of death do we see its blankness and
+become dismayed.  We lose sight of the wholeness of a life of
+which death is part.  It is like looking at a piece of cloth
+through a microscope.  It appears like a net; we gaze at the big
+holes and shiver in imagination.  But the truth is, death is not
+the ultimate reality.  It looks black, as the sky looks blue; but
+it does not blacken existence, just as the sky does not leave its
+stain upon the wings of the bird.
+
+When we watch a child trying to walk, we see its countless
+failures; its successes are but few.  If we had to limit our
+observation within a narrow space of time, the sight would be
+cruel.  But we find that in spite of its repeated failures there
+is an impetus of joy in the child which sustains it in its
+seemingly impossible task.  We see it does not think of its falls
+so much as of its power to keep its balance though for only a
+moment.
+
+Like these accidents in a child's attempts to walk, we meet with
+sufferings in various forms in our life every day, showing the
+imperfections in our knowledge and our available power, and in
+the application of our will.  But if these revealed our weakness
+to us only, we should die of utter depression.  When we select
+for observation a limited area of our activities, our individual
+failures and miseries loom large in our minds; but our life leads
+us instinctively to take a wider view.  It gives us an ideal of
+perfection which ever carries us beyond our present limitations.
+Within us we have a hope which always walks in front of our
+present narrow experience; it is the undying faith in the
+infinite in us; it will never accept any of our disabilities as a
+permanent fact; it sets no limit to its own scope; it dares to
+assert that man has oneness with God; and its wild dreams become
+true every day.
+
+We see the truth when we set our mind towards the infinite.  The
+ideal of truth is not in the narrow present, not in our immediate
+sensations, but in the consciousness of the whole which give us a
+taste of what we _should_ have in what we _do_ have.  Consciously
+or unconsciously we have in our life this feeling of Truth which
+is ever larger than its appearance; for our life is facing the
+infinite, and it is in movement.  Its aspiration is therefore
+infinitely more than its achievement, and as it goes on it finds
+that no realisation of truth ever leaves it stranded on the
+desert of finality, but carries it to a region beyond.  Evil
+cannot altogether arrest the course of life on the highway and
+rob it of its possessions.  For the evil has to pass on, it has
+to grow into good; it cannot stand and give battle to the All.
+If the least evil could stop anywhere indefinitely, it would sink
+deep and cut into the very roots of existence.  As it is, man
+does not really believe in evil, just as he cannot believe that
+violin strings have been purposely made to create the exquisite
+torture of discordant notes, though by the aid of statistics it
+can be mathematically proved that the probability of discord is
+far greater than that of harmony, and for one who can play the
+violin there are thousands who cannot.  The potentiality of
+perfection outweighs actual contradictions.  No doubt there have
+been people who asserted existence to be an absolute evil, but
+man can never take them seriously.  Their pessimism is a mere
+pose, either intellectual or sentimental; but life itself is
+optimistic: it wants to go on.  Pessimism is a form of mental
+dipsomania, it disdains healthy nourishment, indulges in the
+strong drink of denunciation, and creates an artificial dejection
+which thirsts for a stronger draught.  If existence were an evil,
+it would wait for no philosopher to prove it.  It is like
+convicting a man of suicide, while all the time he stands before
+you in the flesh.  Existence itself is here to prove that it
+cannot be an evil.
+
+An imperfection which is not all imperfection, but which has
+perfection for its ideal, must go through a perpetual
+realisation.  Thus, it is the function of our intellect to
+realise the truth through untruths, and knowledge is nothing but
+the continually burning up of error to set free the light of
+truth.  Our will, our character, has to attain perfection by
+continually overcoming evils, either inside or outside us, or
+both; our physical life is consuming bodily materials every
+moment to maintain the life fire; and our moral life too has its
+fuel to burn.  This life process is going on--we know it, we have
+felt it; and we have a faith which no individual instances to the
+contrary can shake, that the direction of humanity is from evil
+to good.  For we feel that good is the positive element in man's
+nature, and in every age and every clime what man values most is
+his ideals of goodness.  We have known the good, we have loved
+it, and we have paid our highest reverence to men who have shown
+in their lives what goodness is.
+
+The question will be asked, What is goodness; what does our moral
+nature mean?  My answer is, that when a man begins to have an
+extended vision of his self, when he realises that he is much
+more than at present he seems to be, he begins to get conscious
+of his moral nature.  Then he grows aware of that which he is yet
+to be, and the state not yet experienced by him becomes more real
+than that under his direct experience.  Necessarily, his
+perspective of life changes, and his will takes the place of his
+wishes.  For will is the supreme wish of the larger life, the
+life whose greater portion is out of our present reach, most of
+whose objects are not before our sight.  Then comes the conflict
+of our lesser man with our greater man, of our wishes with our
+will, of the desire for things affecting our senses with the
+purpose that is within our heart.  Then we begin to distinguish
+between what we immediately desire and what is good.  For good is
+that which is desirable for our greater self.  Thus the sense of
+goodness comes out of a truer view of our life, which is the
+connected view of the wholeness of the field of life, and which
+takes into account not only what is present before us but what is
+not, and perhaps never humanly can be.  Man, who is provident,
+feels for that life of his which is not yet existent, feels much
+more that than for the life that is with him; therefore he is
+ready to sacrifice his present inclination for the unrealised
+future.  In this he becomes great, for he realises truth.  Even
+to be efficiently selfish one has to recognise this truth, and
+has to curb his immediate impulses--in other words, has to be
+moral.  For our moral faculty is the faculty by which we know
+that life is not made up of fragments, purposeless and
+discontinuous.  This moral sense of man not only gives him the
+power to see that the self has a continuity in time, but it also
+enables him to see that he is not true when he is only restricted
+to his own self.  He is more in truth than he is in fact.  He
+truly belongs to individuals who are not included in his own
+individuality, and whom he is never even likely to know.  As he
+has a feeling for his future self which is outside his present
+consciousness, so he has a feeling for his greater self which is
+outside the limits of his personality.  There is no man who has
+not this feeling to some extent, who has never sacrificed his
+selfish desire for the sake of some other person, who has never
+felt a pleasure in undergoing some loss or trouble because it
+pleased somebody else.  It is a truth that man is not a detached
+being, that he has a universal aspect; and when he recognises
+this he becomes great.  Even the most evilly-disposed selfishness
+has to recognise this when it seeks the power to do evil; for it
+cannot ignore truth and yet be strong.  So in order to claim the
+aid of truth, selfishness has to be unselfish to some extent.  A
+band of robbers must be moral in order to hold together as a
+band; they may rob the whole world but not each other.  To make
+an immoral intention successful, some of its weapons must be
+moral.  In fact, very often it is our very moral strength which
+gives us most effectively the power to do evil, to exploit other
+individuals for our own benefit, to rob other people of their
+rights.  The life of an animal is unmoral, for it is aware only
+of an immediate present; the life of a man can be immoral, but
+that only means that it must have a moral basis.  What is immoral
+is imperfectly moral, just as what is false is true to a small
+extent, or it cannot even be false.  Not to see is to be blind,
+but to see wrongly is to see only in an imperfect manner.  Man's
+selfishness is a beginning to see some connection, some purpose
+in life; and to act in accordance with its dictates requires
+self-restraint and regulation of conduct.  A selfish man
+willingly undergoes troubles for the sake of the self, he suffers
+hardship and privation without a murmur, simply because he knows
+that what is pain and trouble, looked at from the point of view
+of a short space of time, are just the opposite when seen in a
+larger perspective.  Thus what is a loss to the smaller man is a
+gain to the greater, and _vice versa_.
+
+To the man who lives for an idea, for his country, for the good
+of humanity, life has an extensive meaning, and to that extent
+pain becomes less important to him.  To live the life of goodness
+is to live the life of all.  Pleasure is for one's own self, but
+goodness is concerned with the happiness of all humanity and for
+all time.  From the point of view of the good, pleasure and pain
+appear in a different meaning; so much so, that pleasure may be
+shunned, and pain be courted in its place, and death itself be
+made welcome as giving a higher value to life.  From these higher
+standpoints of a man's life, the standpoints of the good,
+pleasure and pain lose their absolute value.  Martyrs prove it in
+history, and we prove it every day in our life in our little
+martyrdoms.  When we take a pitcherful of water from the sea it
+has its weight, but when we take a dip into the sea itself a
+thousand pitchersful of water flow above our head, and we do not
+feel their weight.  We have to carry the pitcher of self with our
+strength; and so, while on the plane of selfishness pleasure and
+pain have their full weight, on the moral plane they are so much
+lightened that the man who has reached it appears to us almost
+superhuman in his patience under crushing trails, and his
+forbearance in the face of malignant persecution.
+
+To live in perfect goodness is to realise one's life in the
+infinitive.  This is the most comprehensive view of life which we
+can have by our inherent power of the moral vision of the
+wholeness of life.  And the teaching of Buddha is to cultivate
+this moral power to the highest extent, to know that our field of
+activities is not bound to the plane of our narrow self.  This is
+the vision of the heavenly kingdom of Christ.  When we attain to
+that universal life, which is the moral life, we become freed
+from the bonds of pleasure and pain, and the place vacated by our
+self becomes filled with an unspeakable joy which springs from
+measureless love.  In this state the soul's activity is all the
+more heightened, only its motive power is not from desires, but
+in its own joy.  This is the _Karma-yoga_ of the _Gita_, the way
+to become one with the infinite activity by the exercise of the
+activity of disinterested goodness.
+
+When Buddha mentioned upon the way of realising mankind from the
+grip of misery he came to this truth: that when man attains his
+highest end by merging the individual in the universal, he
+becomes free from the thraldom of pain.  Let us consider this
+point more fully.
+
+A student of mine once related to me his adventure in a storm,
+and complained that all the time he was troubled with the feeling
+that this great commotion in nature behaved to him as if he were
+no more than a mere handful of dust.  That he was a distinct
+personality with a will of his own had not the least influence
+upon what was happening.
+
+I said, "If consideration for our individuality could sway nature
+from her path, then it would be the individuals who would suffer
+most."
+
+But he persisted in his doubt, saying that there was this fact
+which could not be ignored--the feeling that I am.  The "I" in us
+seeks for a relation which is individual to it.
+
+I replied that the relation of the "I" is with something which is
+"not-I."  So we must have a medium which is common to both, and
+we must be absolutely certain that it is the same to the "I" as
+it is to the "not-I."
+
+This is what needs repeating here.  We have to keep in mind that
+our individuality by its nature is impelled to seek for the
+universal.  Our body can only die if it tries to eat its own
+substance, and our eye loses the meaning of its function if it
+can only see itself.
+
+Just as we find that the stronger the imagination the less is it
+merely imaginary and the more is it in harmony with truth, so we
+see the more vigorous our individuality the more does it widen
+towards the universal.  For the greatness of a personality is not
+in itself but in its content, which is universal, just as the
+depth of a lake is judged not by the size of its cavity but by
+the depth of its water.
+
+So, if it is a truth that the yearning of our nature is for
+reality, and that our personality cannot be happy with a
+fantastic universe of its own creation, then it is clearly best
+for it that our will can only deal with things by following their
+law, and cannot do with them just as it pleases.  This unyielding
+sureness of reality sometimes crosses our will, and very often
+leads us to disaster, just as the firmness of the earth
+invariably hurts the falling child who is learning to walk.
+Nevertheless it is the same firmness that hurts him which makes
+his walking possible.  Once, while passing under a bridge, the
+mast of my boat got stuck in one of its girders.  If only for a
+moment the mast would have bent an inch or two, or the bridge
+raised its back like a yawning cat, or the river given in, it
+would have been all right with me.  But they took no notice of my
+helplessness.  That is the very reason why I could make use of
+the river, and sail upon it with the help of the mast, and that
+is why, when its current was inconvenient, I could rely upon the
+bridge.  Things are what they are, and we have to know them if we
+would deal with them, and knowledge of them is possible because
+our wish is not their law.  This knowledge is a joy to us, for
+the knowledge is one of the channels of our relation with the
+things outside us; it is making them our own, and thus widening
+the limit of our self.
+
+At every step we have to take into account others than ourselves.
+For only in death are we alone.  A poet is a true poet when he
+can make his personal idea joyful to all men, which he could not
+do if he had not a medium common to all his audience.  This
+common language has its own law which the poet must discover and
+follow, by doing which he becomes true and attains poetical
+immortality.
+
+We see then that man's individuality is not his highest truth;
+there is that in him which is universal.  If he were made to live
+in a world where his own self was the only factor to consider,
+then that would be the worst prison imaginable to him, for man's
+deepest joy is in growing greater and greater by more and more
+union with the all.  This, as we have seen, would be an
+impossibility if there were no law common to all.  Only by
+discovering the law and following it, do we become great, do we
+realise the universal; while, so long as our individual desires
+are at conflict with the universal law, we suffer pain and are
+futile.
+
+There was a time when we prayed for special concessions, we
+expected that the laws of nature should be held in abeyance for
+our own convenience.  But now we know better.  We know that law
+cannot be set aside, and in this knowledge we have become strong.
+For this law is not something apart from us; it is our own.  The
+universal power which is manifested in the universal law is one
+with our own power.  It will thwart us where we are small, where
+we are against the current of things; but it will help us where
+we are great, where we are in unison with the all.  Thus, through
+the help of science, as we come to know more of the laws of
+nature, we gain in power; we tend to attain a universal body.
+Our organ of sight, our organ of locomotion, our physical
+strength becomes world-wide; steam and electricity become our
+nerve and muscle.  Thus we find that, just as throughout our
+bodily organisation there is a principle of relation by virtue of
+which we can call the entire body our own, and can use it as
+such, so all through the universe there is that principle of
+uninterrupted relation by virtue of which we can call the whole
+world our extended body and use it accordingly.  And in this age
+of science it is our endeavour fully to establish our claim to
+our world-self.  We know all our poverty and sufferings are owing
+to our inability to realise this legitimate claim of ours.
+Really, there is no limit to our powers, for we are not outside
+the universal power which is the expression of universal law.  We
+are on our way to overcome disease and death, to conquer pain and
+poverty; for through scientific knowledge we are ever on our way
+to realise the universal in its physical aspect.  And as we make
+progress we find that pain, disease, and poverty of power are not
+absolute, but that is only the want of adjustment of our
+individual self to our universal self which gives rise to them.
+
+It is the same with our spiritual life.  When the individual man
+in us chafes against the lawful rule of the universal man we
+become morally small, and we must suffer.  In such a condition
+our successes are our greatest failures, and the very fulfilment
+of our desires leaves us poorer.  We hanker after special gains
+for ourselves, we want to enjoy privileges which none else can
+share with us.  But everything that is absolutely special must
+keep up a perpetual warfare with what is general.  In such a
+state of civil war man always lives behind barricades, and in any
+civilisation which is selfish our homes are not real homes, but
+artificial barriers around us.  Yet we complain that we are not
+happy, as if there were something inherent in the nature of
+things to make us miserable.  The universal spirit is waiting to
+crown us with happiness, but our individual spirit would not
+accept it.  It is our life of the self that causes conflicts and
+complications everywhere, upsets the normal balance of society
+and gives rise to miseries of all kinds.  It brings things to
+such a pass that to maintain order we have to create artificial
+coercions and organised forms of tyranny, and tolerate infernal
+institutions in our midst, whereby at every moment humanity is
+humiliated.
+
+We have seen that in order to be powerful we have to submit to
+the laws of the universal forces, and to realise in practice that
+they are our own.  So, in order to be happy, we have to submit
+our individual will to the sovereignty of the universal will, and
+to feel in truth that it is our own will.  When we reach that
+state wherein the adjustment of the finite in us to the infinite
+is made perfect, then pain itself becomes a valuable asset.  It
+becomes a measuring rod with which to gauge the true value of our
+joy.
+
+The most important lesson that man can learn from his life is not
+that there _is_ pain in this world, but that it depends upon him
+to turn it into good account, that it is possible for him to
+transmute it into joy.  The lesson has not been lost altogether
+to us, and there is no man living who would willingly be deprived
+of his right to suffer pain, for that is his right to be a man.
+One day the wife of a poor labourer complained bitterly to me
+that her eldest boy was going to be sent away to a rich relative's
+house for part of the year.  It was the implied kind intention of
+trying to relieve her of her trouble that gave her the shock, for
+a mother's trouble is a mother's own by her inalienable right of
+love, and she was not going to surrender it to any dictates of
+expediency.  Man's freedom is never in being saved troubles, but
+it is the freedom to take trouble for his own good, to make the
+trouble an element in his joy.  It can be made so only when we
+realise that our individual self is not the highest meaning of our
+being, that in us we have the world-man who is immortal, who is
+not afraid of death or sufferings, and who looks upon pain as only
+the other side of joy.  He who has realised this knows that it is
+pain which is our true wealth as imperfect beings, and has made us
+great and worthy to take our seat with the perfect.  He knows that
+we are not beggars; that it is the hard coin which must be paid
+for everything valuable in this life, for our power, our wisdom,
+our love; that in pain is symbolised the infinite possibility of
+perfection, the eternal unfolding of joy; and the man who loses all
+pleasure in accepting pain sinks down and down to the lowest depth
+of penury and degradation.  It is only when we invoke the aid of
+pain for our self-gratification that she becomes evil and takes her
+vengeance for the insult done to her by hurling us into misery.
+For she is the vestal virgin consecrated to the service of the
+immortal perfection, and when she takes her true place before the
+altar of the infinite she casts off her dark veil and bares her
+face to the beholder as a revelation of supreme joy.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+THE PROBLEM OF SELF
+
+
+At one pole of my being I am one with stocks and stones.  There I
+have to acknowledge the rule of universal law.  That is where the
+foundation of my existence lies, deep down below.  Its strength
+lies in its being held firm in the clasp of comprehensive world,
+and in the fullness of its community with all things.
+
+But at the other pole of my being I am separate from all.  There
+I have broken through the cordon of equality and stand alone as
+an individual.  I am absolutely unique, I am I, I am
+incomparable.  The whole weight of the universe cannot crush out
+this individuality of mine.  I maintain it in spite of the
+tremendous gravitation of all things.  It is small in appearance
+but great in reality.  For it holds its own against the forces
+that would rob it of its distinction and make it one with the
+dust.
+
+This is the superstructure of the self which rises from the
+indeterminate depth and darkness of its foundation into the open,
+proud of its isolation, proud of having given shape to a single
+individual idea of the architect's which has no duplicate in the
+whole universe.  If this individuality be demolished, then though
+no material be lost, not an atom destroyed, the creative joy
+which was crystallised therein is gone.  We are absolutely
+bankrupt if we are deprived of this specialty, this
+individuality, which is the only thing we can call our own; and
+which, if lost, is also a loss to the whole world.  It is most
+valuable because it is not universal.  And therefore only through
+it can we gain the universe more truly than if we were lying
+within its breast unconscious of our distinctiveness.  The
+universal is ever seeking its consummation in the unique.  And
+the desire we have to keep our uniqueness intact is really the
+desire of the universe acting in us.  It is our joy of the
+infinite in us that gives us our joy in ourselves.
+
+That this separateness of self is considered by man as his most
+precious possession is proved by the sufferings he undergoes and
+the sins he commits for its sake.  But the consciousness of
+separation has come from the eating of the fruit of knowledge.
+It has led man to shame and crime and death; yet it is dearer to
+him than any paradise where the self lies, securely slumbering in
+perfect innocence in the womb of mother nature.
+
+It is a constant striving and suffering for us to maintain the
+separateness of this self of ours.  And in fact it is this
+suffering which measures its value.  One side of the value is
+sacrifice, which represents how much the cost has been.  The
+other side of it is the attainment, which represents how much has
+been gained.  If the self meant nothing to us but pain and
+sacrifice, it could have no value for us, and on no account would
+we willingly undergo such sacrifice.  In such case there could be
+no doubt at all that the highest object of humanity would be the
+annihilation of self.
+
+But if there is a corresponding gain, if it does not end in a
+void but in a fullness, then it is clear that its negative
+qualities, its very sufferings and sacrifices, make it all the
+more precious.  That it is so has been proved by those who have
+realised the positive significance of self, and have accepted its
+responsibilities with eagerness and undergone sacrifices without
+flinching.
+
+With the foregoing introduction it will be easy for me to answer
+the question once asked by one of my audience as to whether the
+annihilation of self has not been held by India as the supreme
+goal of humanity?
+
+In the first place we must keep in mind the fact that man is
+never literal in the expression of his ideas, except in matters
+most trivial.  Very often man's words are not a language at all,
+but merely a vocal gesture of the dumb.  They may indicate, but
+do not express his thoughts.  The more vital his thoughts the
+more have his words to be explained by the context of his life.
+Those who seek to know his meaning by the aid of the dictionary
+only technically reach the house, for they are stopped by the
+outside wall and find no entrance to the hall.  This is the
+reason why the teachings of our greatest prophets give rise to
+endless disputations when we try to understand them by following
+their words and not be realising them in our own lives.  The men
+who are cursed with the gift of the literal mind are the
+unfortunate ones who are always busy with their nets and neglect
+the fishing.
+
+It is not only in Buddhism and the Indian religions, but in
+Christianity too, that the ideal of selflessness is preached with
+all fervour.  In the last the symbol of death has been used for
+expressing the idea of man's deliverance from the life which is
+not true.  This is the same as Nirvnāna, the symbol of the
+extinction of the lamp.
+
+In the typical thought of India it is held that the true
+deliverance of man is the deliverance from _avidyā_, from
+ignorance.  It is not in destroying anything that is positive and
+real, for that cannot be possible, but that which is negative,
+which obstructs our vision of truth.  When this obstruction,
+which is ignorance, is removed, then only is the eyelid drawn up
+which is no loss to the eye.
+
+It is our ignorance which makes us think that our self, as self,
+is real, that it has its complete meaning in itself.  When we
+take that wrong view of self then we try to live in such a manner
+as to make self the ultimate object of our life.  Then we are
+doomed to disappointment like the man who tries to reach his
+destination by firmly clutching the dust of the road.  Our self
+has no means of holding us, for its own nature is to pass on; and
+by clinging to this thread of self which is passing through the
+loom of life we cannot make it serve the purpose of the cloth
+into which it is being woven.  When a man, with elaborate care,
+arranges for an enjoyment of the self, he lights a fire but has
+no dough to make his bread with; the fire flares up and consumes
+itself to extinction, like an unnatural beast that eats its own
+progeny and dies.
+
+In an unknown language the words are tyrannically prominent.
+They stop us but say nothing.  To be rescued from this fetter of
+words we must rid ourselves of the _avidyā_, our ignorance, and
+then our mind will find its freedom in the inner idea.  But it
+would be foolish to say that our ignorance of the language can
+be dispelled only by the destruction of the words.  No, when the
+perfect knowledge comes, every word remains in its place, only
+they do not bind us to themselves, but let us pass through them
+and lead us to the idea which is emancipation.
+
+Thus it is only _avidyā_ which makes the self our fetter by
+making us think that it is an end in itself, and by preventing
+our seeing that it contains the idea that transcends its limits.
+That is why the wise man comes and says, "Set yourselves free
+from the _avidyā_; know your true soul and be saved from the
+grasp of the self which imprisons you."
+
+We gain our freedom when we attain our truest nature.  The man
+who is an artist finds his artistic freedom when he finds his
+ideal of art.  Then is he freed from laborious attempts at
+imitation, from the goadings of popular approbation.  It is the
+function of religion not to destroy our nature but to fulfil it.
+
+The Sanskrit word _dharma_ which is usually translated into
+English as religion has a deeper meaning in our language.
+_Dharma_ is the innermost nature, the essence, the implicit
+truth, of all things.  _Dharma_ is the ultimate purpose that
+is working in our self.  When any wrong is done we say that
+_dharma_ is violated, meaning that the lie has been given to
+our true nature.
+
+But this _dharma_, which is the truth in us, is not apparent,
+because it is inherent.  So much so, that it has been held that
+sinfulness is the nature of man, and only by the special grace
+of God can a particular person be saved.  This is like saying
+that the nature of the seed is to remain enfolded within its
+shell, and it is only by some special miracle that it can be
+grown into a tree.  But do we not know that the _appearance_ of
+the seed contradicts its true nature?  When you submit it to
+chemical analysis you may find in it carbon and proteid and a
+good many other things, but not the idea of a branching tree.
+Only when the tree begins to take shape do you come to see its
+_dharma_, and then you can affirm without doubt that the seed
+which has been wasted and allowed to rot in the ground has been
+thwarted in its _dharma_, in the fulfilment of its true nature.
+In the history of humanity we have known the living seed in us
+to sprout.  We have seen the great purpose in us taking shape
+in the lives of our greatest men, and have felt certain that
+though there are numerous individual lives that seem ineffectual,
+still it is not their _dharma_ to remain barren; but it is for
+them to burst their cover and transform themselves into a
+vigorous spiritual shoot, growing up into the air and light, and
+branching out in all directions.
+
+The freedom of the seed is in the attainment of its
+_dharma_, its nature and destiny of becoming a tree; it is the
+non-accomplishment which is its prison.  The sacrifice by which
+a thing attains its fulfilment is not a sacrifice which ends in
+death; it is the casting-off of bonds which wins freedom.
+
+When we know the highest ideal of freedom which a man has, we
+know his _dharma_, the essence of his nature, the real meaning of
+his self.  At first sight it seems that man counts that as
+freedom by which he gets unbounded opportunities of self
+gratification and self-aggrandisement.  But surely this is not
+borne out by history.  Our revelatory men have always been those
+who have lived the life of self-sacrifice.  The higher nature in
+man always seeks for something which transcends itself and yet is
+its deepest truth; which claims all its sacrifice, yet makes this
+sacrifice its own recompense.  This is man's _dharma_, man's
+religion, and man's self is the vessel which is to carry this
+sacrifice to the altar.
+
+We can look at our self in its two different aspects.  The self
+which displays itself, and the self which transcends itself and
+thereby reveals its own meaning.  To display itself it tries to
+be big, to stand upon the pedestal of its accumulations, and to
+retain everything to itself.  To reveal itself it gives up
+everything it has; thus becoming perfect like a flower that has
+blossomed out from the bud, pouring from its chalice of beauty
+all its sweetness.
+
+The lamp contains its oil, which it holds securely in its close
+grasp and guards from the least loss.  Thus is it separate from
+all other objects around it and is miserly.  But when lighted it
+finds its meaning at once; its relation with all things far and
+near is established, and it freely sacrifices its fund of oil to
+feed the flame.
+
+Such a lamp is our self.  So long as it hoards its possessions it
+keeps itself dark, its conduct contradicts its true purpose.
+When it finds illumination it forgets itself in a moment, holds
+the light high, and serves it with everything it has; for therein
+is its revelation.  This revelation is the freedom which Buddha
+preached.  He asked the lamp to give up its oil.  But purposeless
+giving up is a still darker poverty which he never could have
+meant.  The lamp must give up its oil to the light and thus set
+free the purpose it has in its hoarding.  This is emancipation.
+The path Buddha pointed out was not merely the practice of self-
+abnegation, but the widening of love.  And therein lies the true
+meaning of Buddha's preaching.
+
+When we find that the state of _Nirvāna_ preached by Buddha is
+through love, then we know for certain that _Nirvāna_ is the
+highest culmination of love.  For love is an end unto itself.
+Everything else raises the question "Why?" in our mind, and we
+require a reason for it.  But when we say, "I love," then there
+is no room for the "why"; it is the final answer in itself.
+
+Doubtless, even selfishness impels one to give away.  But the
+selfish man does it on compulsion.  That is like plucking fruit
+when it is unripe; you have to tear it from the tree and bruise
+the branch.  But when a man loves, giving becomes a matter of joy
+to him, like the tree's surrender of the ripe fruit.  All our
+belongings assume a weight by the ceaseless gravitation of our
+selfish desires; we cannot easily cast them away from us.  They
+seem to belong to our very nature, to stick to us as a second
+skin, and we bleed as we detach them.  But when we are possessed
+by love, its force acts in the opposite direction.  The things
+that closely adhered to us lose their adhesion and weight, and we
+find that they are not of us.  Far from being a loss to give them
+away, we find in that the fulfilment of our being.
+
+Thus we find in perfect love the freedom of our self.  That only
+which is done for love is done freely, however much pain it may
+cause.  Therefore working for love is freedom in action.  This is
+the meaning of the teaching of disinterested work in the _Gīta_.
+
+The _Gīta_ says action we must have, for only in action do we
+manifest our nature.  But this manifestation is not perfect so
+long as our action is not free.  In fact, our nature is obscured
+by work done by the compulsion of want or fear.  The mother
+reveals herself in the service of her children, so our true
+freedom is not the freedom _from_ action but freedom _in_ action,
+which can only be attained in the work of love.
+
+God's manifestation is in his work of creation and it is said in
+the Upanishad, _Knowledge, power, and action are of his nature_
+[Footnote: "Svābhāvikī jnāna bala kriyācha."]; they are not
+imposed upon him from outside.  Therefore his work is his
+freedom, and in his creation he realises himself.  The same thing
+is said elsewhere in other words: _From joy does spring all this
+creation, by joy is it maintained, towards joy does it progress,
+and into joy does it enter_.  [Footnote: Ānandādhyēva khalvimāni
+bhūtāni jāyantē, ānandēna jātāni jīvanti,
+ānandamprayantyabhisamviçanti.]  It means that God's creation has
+not its source in any necessity; it comes from his fullness of
+joy; it is his love that creates, therefore in creation is his
+own revealment.
+
+The artist who has a joy in the fullness of his artistic idea
+objectifies it and thus gains it more fully by holding it afar.
+It is joy which detaches ourselves from us, and then gives it
+form in creations of love in order to make it more perfectly our
+own.  Hence there must be this separation, not a separation of
+repulsion but a separation of love.  Repulsion has only the one
+element, the element of severance.  But love has two, the element
+of severance, which is only an appearance, and the element of
+union which is the ultimate truth.  Just as when the father
+tosses his child up from his arms it has the appearance of
+rejection but its truth is quite the reverse.
+
+So we must know that the meaning of our self is not to be found
+in its separateness from God and others, but in the ceaseless
+realisation of _yoga_, of union; not on the side of the canvas
+where it is blank, but on the side where the picture is being
+painted.
+
+This is the reason why the separateness of our self has been
+described by our philosophers as _māyā_, as an illusion, because
+it has no intrinsic reality of its own.  It looks perilous; it
+raises its isolation to a giddy height and casts a black shadow
+upon the fair face of existence; from the outside it has an
+aspect of a sudden disruption, rebellious and destructive; it is
+proud, domineering and wayward; it is ready to rob the world of
+all its wealth to gratify its craving of a moment; to pluck with
+a reckless, cruel hand all the plumes from the divine bird of
+beauty to deck its ugliness for a day; indeed man's legend has it
+that it bears the black mark of disobedience stamped on its
+forehead for ever; but still all this _māyā_, envelopment of
+_avidyā_; it is the mist, it is not the sun; it is the black
+smoke that presages the fire of love.
+
+Imagine some savage who, in his ignorance, thinks that it is the
+paper of the banknote that has the magic, by virtue of which the
+possessor of it gets all he wants.  He piles up the papers, hides
+them, handles them in all sorts of absurd ways, and then at last,
+wearied by his efforts, comes to the sad conclusion that they are
+absolutely worthless, only fit to be thrown into the fire.  But
+the wise man knows that the paper of the banknote is all _māyā_,
+and until it is given up to the bank it is futile.  It is only
+_avidyā_, our ignorance, that makes us believe that the
+separateness of our self like the paper of the banknote is
+precious in itself, and by acting on this belief our self is
+rendered valueless.  It is only when the _avidyā_ is removed that
+this very self comes to us with a wealth which is priceless.  For
+_He manifests Himself in forms which His joy assumes_.  [Footnote:
+Ānandarūpamamritam yadvibhāti.]  These forms are separate from
+Him, and the value that these forms have is only what his joy has
+imparted to them.  When we transfer back these forms into that
+original joy, which is love, then we cash them in the bank and we
+find their truth.
+
+When pure necessity drives man to his work it takes an accidental
+and contingent character, it becomes a mere makeshift
+arrangement; it is deserted and left in ruins when necessity
+changes its course.  But when his work is the outcome of joy, the
+forms that it takes have the elements of immortality.  The
+immortal in man imparts to it its own quality of permanence.
+
+Our self, as a form of God's joy, is deathless.  For his joy is
+_amritham_, eternal.  This it is in us which makes us sceptical of
+death, even when the fact of death cannot be doubted.  In
+reconcilement of this contradiction in us we come to the truth that
+in the dualism of death and life there is a harmony.  We know that
+the life of a soul, which is finite in its expression and infinite
+in its principle, must go through the portals of death in its
+journey to realise the infinite.  It is death which is monistic, it
+has no life in it.  But life is dualistic; it has an appearance as
+well as truth; and death is that appearance, that _māyā_, which is
+an inseparable companion to life.  Our self to live must go through
+a continual change and growth of form, which may be termed a
+continual death and a continual life going on at the same time.  It
+is really courting death when we refuse to accept death; when we
+wish to give the form of the self some fixed changelessness; when
+the self feels no impulse which urges it to grow out of itself;
+when it treats its limits as final and acts accordingly.  Then comes
+our teacher's call to die to this death; not a call to annihilation
+but to eternal life.  It is the extinction of the lamp in the
+morning light; not the abolition of the sun.  It is really asking us
+consciously to give effect to the innermost wish that we have in the
+depths of our nature.
+
+We have a dual set of desires in our being, which it should be
+our endeavour to bring into a harmony.  In the region of our
+physical nature we have one set of which we are conscious always.
+We wish to enjoy our food and drink, we hanker after bodily
+pleasure and comfort.  These desires are self-centered; they are
+solely concerned with their respective impulses.  The wishes of
+our palate often run counter to what our stomach can allow.
+
+But we have another set, which is the desire of our physical
+system as a whole, of which we are usually unconscious.  It is
+the wish for health.  This is always doing its work, mending and
+repairing, making new adjustments in cases of accident, and
+skilfully restoring the balance wherever disturbed.  It has no
+concern with the fulfilment of our immediate bodily desires, but
+it goes beyond the present time.  It is the principle of our
+physical wholeness, it links our life with its past and its
+future and maintains the unity of its parts.  He who is wise
+knows it, and makes his other physical wishes harmonise with it.
+
+We have a greater body which is the social body.  Society is an
+organism, of which we as parts have our individual wishes.  We
+want our own pleasure and license.  We want to pay less and gain
+more than anybody else.  This causes scramblings and fights.  But
+there is that other wish in us which does its work in the depths
+of the social being.  It is the wish for the welfare of the
+society.  It transcends the limits of the present and the
+personal.  It is on the side of the infinite.
+
+He who is wise tries to harmonise the wishes that seek for self-
+gratification with the wish for the social good, and only thus
+can he realise his higher self.
+
+In its finite aspect the self is conscious of its separateness,
+and there it is ruthless in its attempt to have more distinction
+than all others.  But in its infinite aspect its wish is to gain
+that harmony which leads to its perfection and not its mere
+aggrandisement.
+
+The emancipation of our physical nature is in attaining health,
+of our social being in attaining goodness, and of our self in
+attaining love.  This last is what Buddha describes as
+extinction--the extinction of selfishness--which is the function
+of love, and which does not lead to darkness but to illumination.
+This is the attainment of _bodhi_, or the true awakening; it is
+the revealing in us of the infinite joy by the light of love.
+
+The passage of our self is through its selfhood, which is
+independent, to its attainment of soul, which is harmonious.
+This harmony can never be reached through compulsion.  So our
+will, in the history of its growth, must come through
+independence and rebellion to the ultimate completion.  We must
+have the possibility of the negative form of freedom, which is
+licence, before we can attain the positive freedom, which is
+love.
+
+This negative freedom, the freedom of self-will, can turn its
+back upon its highest realisation, but it cannot cut itself away
+from it altogether, for then it will lose its own meaning.  Our
+self-will has freedom up to a certain extent; it can know what it
+is to break away from the path, but it cannot continue in that
+direction indefinitely.  For we are finite on our negative side.
+We must come to an end in our evil doing, in our career of
+discord.  For evil is not infinite, and discord cannot be an end
+in itself.  Our will has freedom in order that it may find out
+that its true course is towards goodness and love.  For goodness
+and love are infinite, and only in the infinite is the perfect
+realisation of freedom possible.  So our will can be free not
+towards the limitations of our self, not where it is _māyā_ and
+negation, but towards the unlimited, where is truth and love.
+Our freedom cannot go against its own principle of freedom and
+yet be free; it cannot commit suicide and yet live.  We cannot
+say that we should have infinite freedom to fetter ourselves, for
+the fettering ends the freedom.
+
+So in the freedom of our will, we have the same dualism of
+appearance and truth--our self-will is only the appearance of
+freedom and love is the truth.  When we try to make this
+appearance independent of truth, then our attempt brings misery
+and proves its own futility in the end.  Everything has this
+dualism of _māyā_ and _satyam_, appearance and truth.  Words are
+_māyā_ where they are merely sounds and finite, they are _satyam_
+where they are ideas and infinite.  Our self is _māyā_ where it
+is merely individual and finite, where it considers its
+separateness as absolute; it is _satyam_ where it recognises its
+essence in the universal and infinite, in the supreme self, in
+_paramātman_.  This is what Christ means when he says, "Before
+Abraham was I am."  This is the eternal _I am_ that speaks
+through the _I am_ that is in me.  The individual _I am_ attains
+its perfect end when it realises its freedom of harmony in the
+infinite _I am_.  Then is it _mukti_, its deliverance from the
+thraldom of _māyā_, of appearance, which springs from _avidyā_,
+from ignorance; its emancipation in _çāntam çivam advaitam_, in
+the perfect repose in truth, in the perfect activity in goodness,
+and in the perfect union in love.
+
+Not only in our self but also in nature is there this
+separateness from God, which has been described as _māyā_ by our
+philosophers, because the separateness does not exist by itself,
+it does not limit God's infinity from outside.  It is his own
+will that has imposed limits to itself, just as the chess-player
+restricts his will with regard to the moving of the chessmen.
+The player willingly enters into definite relations with each
+particular piece and realises the joy of his power by these very
+restrictions.  It is not that he cannot move the chessmen just as
+he pleases, but if he does so then there can be no play.  If God
+assumes his rôle of omnipotence, then his creation is at an end
+and his power loses all its meaning.  For power to be a power must
+act within limits.  God's water must be water, his earth can never
+be other than earth.  The law that has made them water and earth
+is his own law by which he has separated the play from the player,
+for therein the joy of the player consists.
+
+As by the limits of law nature is separated from God, so it is
+the limits of its egoism which separates the self from him.  He
+has willingly set limits to his will, and has given us mastery
+over the little world of our own.  It is like a father's settling
+upon his son some allowance within the limit of which he is free
+to do what he likes.  Though it remains a portion of the father's
+own property, yet he frees it from the operation of his own will.
+The reason of it is that the will, which is love's will and
+therefore free, can have its joy only in a union with another
+free will.  The tyrant who must have slaves looks upon them as
+instruments of his purpose.  It is the consciousness of his own
+necessity which makes him crush the will out of them, to make his
+self-interest absolutely secure.  This self-interest cannot brook
+the least freedom in others, because it is not itself free.  The
+tyrant is really dependent on his slaves, and therefore he tries
+to make them completely useful by making them subservient to his
+own will.  But a lover must have two wills for the realisation of
+his love, because the consummation of love is in harmony, the
+harmony between freedom and freedom.  So God's love from which
+our self has taken form has made it separate from God; and it is
+God's love which again establishes a reconciliation and unites
+God with our self through the separation.  That is why our self
+has to go through endless renewals.  For in its career of
+separateness it cannot go on for ever.  Separateness is the
+finitude where it finds its barriers to come back again and again
+to its infinite source.  Our self has ceaselessly to cast off its
+age, repeatedly shed its limits in oblivion and death, in order
+to realise its immortal youth.  Its personality must merge in the
+universal time after time, in fact pass through it every moment,
+ever to refresh its individual life.  It must follow the eternal
+rhythm and touch the fundamental unity at every step, and thus
+maintain its separation balanced in beauty and strength.
+
+The play of life and death we see everywhere--this transmutation
+of the old into the new.  The day comes to us every morning,
+naked and white, fresh as a flower.  But we know it is old.  It
+is age itself.  It is that very ancient day which took up the
+newborn earth in its arms, covered it with its white mantle of
+light, and sent it forth on its pilgrimage among the stars.
+
+Yet its feet are untired and its eyes undimmed.  It carries the
+golden amulet of ageless eternity, at whose touch all wrinkles
+vanish from the forehead of creation.  In the very core of the
+world's heart stands immortal youth.  Death and decay cast over
+its face momentary shadows and pass on; they leave no marks of
+their steps--and truth remains fresh and young.
+
+This old, old day of our earth is born again and again every
+morning.  It comes back to the original refrain of its music.  If
+its march were the march of an infinite straight line, if it had
+not the awful pause of its plunge in the abysmal darkness and its
+repeated rebirth in the life of the endless beginning, then it
+would gradually soil and bury truth with its dust and spread
+ceaseless aching over the earth under its heavy tread.  Then
+every moment would leave its load of weariness behind, and
+decrepitude would reign supreme on its throne of eternal dirt.
+
+But every morning the day is reborn among the newly-blossomed
+flowers with the same message retold and the same assurance
+renewed that death eternally dies, that the waves of turmoil are
+on the surface, and that the sea of tranquillity is fathomless.
+The curtain of night is drawn aside and truth emerges without a
+speck of dust on its garment, without a furrow of age on its
+lineaments.
+
+We see that he who is before everything else is the same to-day.
+Every note of the song of creation comes fresh from his voice.
+The universe is not a mere echo, reverberating from sky to sky,
+like a homeless wanderer--the echo of an old song sung once for
+all in the dim beginning of things and then left orphaned.  Every
+moment it comes from the heart of the master, it is breathed in
+his breath.
+
+And that is the reason why it overspreads the sky like a thought
+taking shape in a poem, and never has to break into pieces with
+the burden of its own accumulating weight.  Hence the surprise of
+endless variations, the advent of the unaccountable, the
+ceaseless procession of individuals, each of whom is without a
+parallel in creation.  As at the first so to the last, the
+beginning never ends--the world is ever old and ever new.
+
+It is for our self to know that it must be born anew every moment
+of its life.  It must break through all illusions that encase it
+in their crust to make it appear old, burdening it with death.
+
+For life is immortal youthfulness, and it hates age that tries to
+clog its movements--age that belongs not to life in truth, but
+follows it as the shadow follows the lamp.
+
+Our life, like a river, strikes its banks not to find itself
+closed in by them, but to realise anew every moment that it has
+its unending opening towards the sea.  It is a poem that strikes
+its metre at every step not to be silenced by its rigid
+regulations, but to give expression every moment to the inner
+freedom of its harmony.
+
+The boundary walls of our individuality thrust us back within our
+limits, on the one hand, and thus lead us, on the other, to the
+unlimited.  Only when we try to make these limits infinite are we
+launched into an impossible contradiction and court miserable
+failure.
+
+This is the cause which leads to the great revolutions in human
+history.  Whenever the part, spurning the whole, tries to run a
+separate course of its own, the great pull of the all gives it a
+violent wrench, stops it suddenly, and brings it to the dust.
+Whenever the individual tries to dam the ever-flowing current of
+the world-force and imprison it within the area of his particular
+use, it brings on disaster.  However powerful a king may be, he
+cannot raise his standard or rebellion against the infinite
+source of strength, which is unity, and yet remain powerful.
+
+It has been said, _By unrighteousness men prosper, gain what they
+desire, and triumph over their enemies, but at the end they are
+cut off at the root and suffer extinction._  [Footnote:
+Adharmēnaidhatē tāvat tatō bahdrāņi paçyati tatah sapatnān jayati
+samūlastu vinaçyati.]  Our roots must go deep down into the
+universal if we would attain the greatness of personality.
+
+It is the end of our self to seek that union.  It must bend its
+head low in love and meekness and take its stand where great and
+small all meet.  It has to gain by its loss and rise by its
+surrender.  His games would be a horror to the child if he could
+not come back to his mother, and our pride of personality will be
+a curse to us if we cannot give it up in love.  We must know that
+it is only the revelation of the Infinite which is endlessly new
+and eternally beautiful in us, and which gives the only meaning
+to our self.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+REALISATION IN LOVE
+
+
+We come now to the eternal problem of co-existence of the
+infinite and the finite, of the supreme being and our soul.
+There is a sublime paradox that lies at the root of existence.
+We never can go round it, because we never can stand outside the
+problem and weigh it against any other possible alternative.  But
+the problem exists in logic only; in reality it does not offer us
+any difficulty at all.  Logically speaking, the distance between
+two points, however near, may be said to be infinite because it
+is infinitely divisible.  But we _do_ cross the infinite at every
+step, and meet the eternal in every second.  Therefore some of our
+philosophers say there is no such thing as finitude; it is but a
+_māyā_, an illusion.  The real is the infinite, and it is only
+_māyā_, the unreality, which causes the appearance of the finite.
+But the word _māyā_ is a mere name, it is no explanation.  It is
+merely saying that with truth there is this appearance which is
+the opposite of truth; but how they come to exist at one and the
+same time is incomprehensible.
+
+We have what we call in Sanskrit _dvandva_, a series of opposites
+in creation; such as, the positive pole and the negative, the
+centripetal force and the centrifugal, attraction and repulsion.
+These are also mere names, they are no explanations.  They are
+only different ways of asserting that the world in its essence is
+a reconciliation of pairs of opposing forces.  These forces, like
+the left and the right hands of the creator, are acting in
+absolute harmony, yet acting from opposite directions.
+
+There is a bond of harmony between our two eyes, which makes them
+act in unison.  Likewise there is an unbreakable continuity of
+relation in the physical world between heat and cold, light and
+darkness, motion and rest, as between the bass and treble notes
+of a piano.  That is why these opposites do not bring confusion
+in the universe, but harmony.  If creation were but a chaos, we
+should have to imagine the two opposing principles as trying to
+get the better of each other.  But the universe is not under
+martial law, arbitrary and provisional.  Here we find no force
+which can run amok, or go on indefinitely in its wild road, like
+an exiled outlaw, breaking all harmony with its surroundings;
+each force, on the contrary, has to come back in a curved line to
+its equilibrium.  Waves rise, each to its individual height in a
+seeming attitude of unrelenting competition, but only up to a
+certain point; and thus we know of the great repose of the sea to
+which they are all related, and to which they must all return in
+a rhythm which is marvellously beautiful.
+
+In fact, these undulations and vibrations, these risings and
+fallings, are not due to the erratic contortions of disparate
+bodies, they are a rhythmic dance.  Rhythm never can be born of
+the haphazard struggle of combat.  Its underlying principle must
+be unity, not opposition.
+
+This principle of unity is the mystery of all mysteries.  The
+existence of a duality at once raises a question in our minds,
+and we seek its solution in the One.  When at last we find a
+relation between these two, and thereby see them as one in
+essence, we feel that we have come to the truth.  And then we
+give utterance to this most startling of all paradoxes, that the
+One appears as many, that the appearance is the opposite of truth
+and yet is inseparably related to it.
+
+Curiously enough, there are men who lose that feeling of mystery,
+which is at the root of all our delights, when they discover the
+uniformity of law among the diversity of nature.  As if
+gravitation is not more of a mystery than the fall of an apple,
+as if the evolution from one scale of being to the other is not
+something which is even more shy of explanation than a succession
+of creations.  The trouble is that we very often stop at such a
+law as if it were the final end of our search, and then we find
+that it does not even begin to emancipate our spirit.  It only
+gives satisfaction to our intellect, and as it does not appeal to
+our whole being it only deadens in us the sense of the infinite.
+
+A great poem, when analysed, is a set of detached sounds.  The
+reader who finds out the meaning, which is the inner medium that
+connects these outer sounds, discovers a perfect law all through,
+which is never violated in the least; the law of the evolution of
+ideas, the law of the music and the form.
+
+But law in itself is a limit.  It only shows that whatever is can
+never be otherwise.  When a man is exclusively occupied with the
+search for the links of causality, his mind succumbs to the
+tyranny of law in escaping from the tyranny of facts.  In
+learning a language, when from mere words we reach the laws of
+words we have gained a great deal.  But if we stop at that point,
+and only concern ourselves with the marvels of the formation of a
+language, seeking the hidden reason of all its apparent caprices,
+we do not reach the end--for grammar is not literature, prosody
+is not a poem.
+
+When we come to literature we find that though it conforms to
+rules of grammar it is yet a thing of joy, it is freedom itself.
+The beauty of a poem is bound by strict laws, yet it transcends
+them.  The laws are its wings, they do not keep it weighed down,
+they carry it to freedom.  Its form is in law but its spirit is
+in beauty.  Law is the first step towards freedom, and beauty is
+the complete liberation which stands on the pedestal of law.
+Beauty harmonises in itself the limit and the beyond, the law and
+the liberty.
+
+In the world-poem, the discovery of the law of its rhythms, the
+measurement of its expansion and contraction, movement and pause,
+the pursuit of its evolution of forms and characters, are true
+achievements of the mind; but we cannot stop there.  It is like a
+railway station; but the station platform is not our home.  Only
+he has attained the final truth who knows that the whole world is
+a creation of joy.
+
+This leads me to think how mysterious the relation of the human
+heart with nature must be.  In the outer world of activity nature
+has one aspect, but in our hearts, in the inner world, it
+presents an altogether different picture.
+
+Take an instance--the flower of a plant.  However fine and dainty
+it may look, it is pressed to do a great service, and its colours
+and forms are all suited to its work.  It must bring forth the
+fruit, or the continuity of plant life will be broken and the
+earth will be turned into a desert ere long.  The colour and the
+smell of the flower are all for some purpose therefore; no sooner
+is it fertilised by the bee, and the time of its fruition
+arrives, than it sheds its exquisite petals and a cruel economy
+compels it to give up its sweet perfume.  It has no time to
+flaunt its finery, for it is busy beyond measure.  Viewed from
+without, necessity seems to be the only factor in nature for
+which everything works and moves.  There the bud develops into
+the flower, the flower into the fruit, the fruit into the seed,
+the seed into a new plant again, and so forth, the chain of
+activity running on unbroken.  Should there crop up any
+disturbance or impediment, no excuse would be accepted, and the
+unfortunate thing thus choked in its movement would at once be
+labelled as rejected, and be bound to die and disappear post-
+haste.  In the great office of nature there are innumerable
+departments with endless work going on, and the fine flower that
+you behold there, gaudily attired and scented like a dandy, is by
+no means what it appears to be, but rather, is like a labourer
+toiling in sun and shower, who has to submit a clear account of
+his work and has no breathing space to enjoy himself in playful
+frolic.
+
+But when this same flower enters the heart of men its aspect of
+busy practicality is gone, and it becomes the very emblem of
+leisure and repose.  The same object that is the embodiment of
+endless activity without is the perfect expression of beauty and
+peace within.
+
+Science here warns us that we are mistaken, that the purpose of a
+flower is nothing but what is outwardly manifested, and that the
+relation of beauty and sweetness which we think it bears to us is
+all our own making, gratuitous and imaginary.
+
+But our heart replies that we are not in the least mistaken.  In
+the sphere of nature the flower carries with it a certificate
+which recommends it as having immense capacity for doing useful
+work, but it brings an altogether different letter of
+introduction when it knocks at the door of our hearts.  Beauty
+becomes its only qualification.  At one place it comes as a
+slave, and at another as a free thing.  How, then, should we give
+credit to its first recommendation and disbelieve the second one?
+That the flower has got its being in the unbroken chain of
+causation is true beyond doubt; but that is an outer truth.  The
+inner truth is: _Verily from the everlasting joy do all objects
+have their birth._  [Footnote: Ānandādhyēva khalvimāni bhūtāni
+jāyantē.]
+
+A flower, therefore, has not its only function in nature, but has
+another great function to exercise in the mind of man.  And what
+is that function?  In nature its work is that of a servant who
+has to make his appearance at appointed times, but in the heart
+of man it comes like a messenger from the King.  In the
+_Rāmāyana_, when _Sītā,_ forcibly separated from her husband, was
+bewailing her evil fate in _Ravana's_ golden palace, she was met
+by a messenger who brought with him a ring of her beloved
+_Rāmachandra_ himself.  The very sight of it convinced _Sītā_ of
+the truth of tidings he bore.  She was at once reassured that he
+came indeed from her beloved one, who had not forgotten her and
+was at hand to rescue her.
+
+Such a messenger is a flower from our great lover.  Surrounded
+with the pomp and pageantry of worldliness, which may be linked
+to Ravana's golden city, we still live in exile, while the
+insolent spirit of worldly prosperity tempts us with allurements
+and claims us as its bride.  In the meantime the flower comes
+across with a message from the other shore, and whispers in our
+ears, "I am come.  He has sent me.  I am a messenger of the
+beautiful, the one whose soul is the bliss of love.  This island
+of isolation has been bridged over by him, and he has not
+forgotten thee, and will rescue thee even now.  He will draw thee
+unto him and make thee his own.  This illusion will not hold thee
+in thraldom for ever."
+
+If we happen to be awake then, we question him: "How are we to
+know that thou art come from him indeed?"  The messenger says,
+"Look!  I have this ring from him.  How lovely are its hues and
+charms!"
+
+Ah, doubtless it is his--indeed, it is our wedding ring.  Now all
+else passes into oblivion, only this sweet symbol of the touch of
+the eternal love fills us with a deep longing.  We realise that
+the palace of gold where we are has nothing to do with us--our
+deliverance is outside it--and there our love has its fruition
+and our life its fulfilment.
+
+What to the bee in nature is merely colour and scent, and the
+marks or spots which show the right track to the honey, is to the
+human heart beauty and joy untrammelled by necessity.  They bring
+a love letter to the heart written in many-coloured inks.
+
+I was telling you, therefore, that however busy our active nature
+outwardly may be, she has a secret chamber within the heart where
+she comes and goes freely, without any design whatsoever.  There
+the fire of her workshop is transformed into lamps of a festival,
+the noise of her factory is heard like music.  The iron chain of
+cause and effect sounds heavily outside in nature, but in the
+human heart its unalloyed delight seems to sound, as it were,
+like the golden strings of a harp.
+
+It indeed seems to be wonderful that nature has these two aspects
+at one and the same time, and so antithetical--one being of
+thraldom and the other of freedom.  In the same form, sound,
+colour, and taste two contrary notes are heard, one of necessity
+and the other of joy.  Outwardly nature is busy and restless,
+inwardly she is all silence and peace.  She has toil on one side
+and leisure on the other.  You see her bondage only when you see
+her from without, but within her heart is a limitless beauty.
+
+Our seer says, "From joy are born all creatures, by joy they are
+sustained, towards joy they progress, and into joy they enter."
+
+Not that he ignores law, or that his contemplation of this
+infinite joy is born of the intoxication produced by an
+indulgence in abstract thought.  He fully recognises the
+inexorable laws of nature, and says, "Fire burns for fear of him
+(i.e. by his law); the sun shines by fear of him; and for fear of
+him the wind, the clouds, and death perform their offices."  It
+is a reign of iron rule, ready to punish the least transgression.
+Yet the poet chants the glad song, "From joy are born all
+creatures, by joy they are sustained, towards joy they progress,
+and into joy they enter."
+
+_The immortal being manifests himself in joy-form._  [Footnote:
+Ānandarūpamamritam yad vibhāti.]  His manifestation in creation
+is out of his fullness of joy.  It is the nature of this
+abounding joy to realise itself in form which is law.  The joy,
+which is without form, must create, must translate itself into
+forms.  The joy of the singer is expressed in the form of a song,
+that of the poet in the form of a poem.  Man in his rôle of a
+creator is ever creating forms, and they come out of his
+abounding joy.
+
+This joy, whose other name is love, must by its very nature have
+duality for its realisation.  When the singer has his inspiration
+he makes himself into two; he has within him his other self as
+the hearer, and the outside audience is merely an extension of
+this other self of his.  The lover seeks his own other self in
+his beloved.  It is the joy that creates this separation, in
+order to realise through obstacles of union.
+
+The _amritam_, the immortal bliss, has made himself into two.
+Our soul is the loved one, it is his other self.  We are
+separate; but if this separation were absolute, then there would
+have been absolute misery and unmitigated evil in this world.
+Then from untruth we never could reach truth, and from sin we
+never could hope to attain purity of heart; then all opposites
+would ever remain opposites, and we could never find a medium
+through which our differences could ever tend to meet.  Then we
+could have no language, no understanding, no blending of hearts,
+no co-operation in life.  But on the contrary, we find that the
+separateness of objects is in a fluid state.  Their
+individualities are even changing, they are meeting and merging
+into each other, till science itself is turning into metaphysics,
+matter losing its boundaries, and the definition of life becoming
+more and more indefinite.
+
+Yes, our individual soul has been separated from the supreme
+soul, but this has not been from alienation but from the fullness
+of love.  It is for that reason that untruths, sufferings, and
+evils are not at a standstill; the human soul can defy them, can
+overcome them, nay, can altogether transform them into new power
+and beauty.
+
+The singer is translating his song into singing, his joy into
+forms, and the hearer has to translate back the singing into the
+original joy; then the communion between the singer and the
+hearer is complete.  The infinite joy is manifesting itself in
+manifold forms, taking upon itself the bondage of law, and we
+fulfil our destiny when we go back from forms to joy, from law to
+the love, when we untie the knot of the finite and hark back to
+the infinite.
+
+The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from
+discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual.
+Buddha preached the discipline of self-restraint and moral life;
+it is a complete acceptance of law.  But this bondage of law
+cannot be an end by itself; by mastering it thoroughly we acquire
+the means of getting beyond it.  It is going back to Brahma, to
+the infinite love, which is manifesting itself through the finite
+forms of law.  Buddha names it _Brahma-vihāra_, the joy of living
+in Brahma.  He who wants to reach this stage, according to Buddha,
+"shall deceive none, entertain no hatred for anybody, and never
+wish to injure through anger.  He shall have measureless love for
+all creatures, even as a mother has for her only child, whom she
+protects with her own life.  Up above, below, and all around him
+he shall extend his love, which is without bounds and obstacles,
+and which is free from all cruelty and antagonism.  While
+standing, sitting, walking, lying down, till he fall asleep, he
+shall keep his mind active in this exercise of universal goodwill."
+
+Want of love is a degree of callousness; for love is the
+perfection of consciousness.  We do not love because we do not
+comprehend, or rather we do not comprehend because we do not
+love.  For love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us.
+It is not a mere sentiment; it is truth; it is the joy that is at
+the root of all creation.  It is the white light of pure
+consciousness that emanates from Brahma.  So, to be one with this
+_sarvānubhūh_, this all-feeling being who is in the external sky,
+as well as in our inner soul, we must attain to that summit of
+consciousness, which is love: _Who could have breathed or moved
+if the sky were not filled with joy, with love?_  [Footnote: Ko
+hyēvānyāt kah prānyāt yadēsha ākāça ānandō na syāt.]  It is
+through the heightening of our consciousness into love, and
+extending it all over the world, that we can attain
+_Brahma-vihāra,_ communion with this infinite joy.
+
+Love spontaneously gives itself in endless gifts.  But these
+gifts lose their fullest significance if through them we do not
+reach that love, which is the giver.  To do that, we must have
+love in our own heart.  He who has no love in him values the
+gifts of his lover only according to their usefulness.  But
+utility is temporary and partial.  It can never occupy our whole
+being; what is useful only touches us at the point where we have
+some want.  When the want is satisfied, utility becomes a burden
+if it still persists.  On the other hand, a mere token is of
+permanent worth to us when we have love in our heart.  For it is
+not for any special use.  It is an end in itself; it is for our
+whole being and therefore can never tire us.
+
+The question is, In what manner do we accept this world, which is
+a perfect gift of joy?  Have we been able to receive it in our
+heart where we keep enshrined things that are of deathless value
+to us?  We are frantically busy making use of the forces of the
+universe to gain more and more power; we feed and we clothe
+ourselves from its stores, we scramble for its riches, and it
+becomes for us a field of fierce competition.  But were we born
+for this, to extend our proprietary rights over this world and
+make of it a marketable commodity?  When our whole mind is bent
+only upon making use of this world it loses for us its true
+value.  We make it cheap by our sordid desires; and thus to the
+end of our days we only try to feed upon it and miss its truth,
+just like the greedy child who tears leaves from a precious book
+and tries to swallow them.
+
+In the lands where cannibalism is prevalent man looks upon man as
+his food.  In such a country civilisation can never thrive, for
+there man loses his higher value and is made common indeed.  But
+there are other kinds of cannibalism, perhaps not so gross, but
+not less heinous, for which one need not travel far.  In
+countries higher in the scale of civilisation we find sometimes
+man looked upon as a mere body, and he is bought and sold in the
+market by the price of his flesh only.  And sometimes he gets his
+sole value from being useful; he is made into a machine, and is
+traded upon by the man of money to acquire for him more money.
+Thus our lust, our greed, our love of comfort result in
+cheapening man to his lowest value.  It is self deception on a
+large scale.  Our desires blind us to the _truth_ that there is
+in man, and this is the greatest wrong done by ourselves to our
+own soul.  It deadens our consciousness, and is but a gradual
+method of spiritual suicide.  It produces ugly sores in the body
+of civilisation, gives rise to its hovels and brothels, its
+vindictive penal codes, its cruel prison systems, its organised
+method of exploiting foreign races to the extent of permanently
+injuring them by depriving them of the discipline of self-
+government and means of self-defence.
+
+Of course man is useful to man, because his body is a marvellous
+machine and his mind an organ of wonderful efficiency.  But he is
+a spirit as well, and this spirit is truly known only by love.
+When we define a man by the market value of the service we can
+expect of him, we know him imperfectly.  With this limited
+knowledge of him it becomes easy for us to be unjust to him and
+to entertain feelings of triumphant self-congratulation when, on
+account of some cruel advantage on our side, we can get out of
+him much more than we have paid for.  But when we know him as a
+spirit we know him as our own.  We at once feel that cruelty to
+him is cruelty to ourselves, to make him small is stealing from
+our own humanity, and in seeking to make use of him solely for
+personal profit we merely gain in money or comfort what we pay in
+truth.
+
+One day I was out in a boat on the Ganges.  It was a beautiful
+evening in autumn.  The sun had just set; the silence of the sky
+was full to the brim with ineffable peace and beauty.  The vast
+expanse of water was without a ripple, mirroring all the changing
+shades of the sunset glow.  Miles and miles of a desolate
+sandbank lay like a huge amphibious reptile of some antediluvian
+age, with its scales glistening in shining colours.  As our boat
+was silently gliding by the precipitous river-bank, riddled with
+the nest-holes of a colony of birds, suddenly a big fish leapt up
+to the surface of the water and then disappeared, displaying on
+its vanishing figure all the colours of the evening sky.  It drew
+aside for a moment the many-coloured screen behind which there
+was a silent world full of the joy of life.  It came up from the
+depths of its mysterious dwelling with a beautiful dancing motion
+and added its own music to the silent symphony of the dying day.
+I felt as if I had a friendly greeting from an alien world in its
+own language, and it touched my heart with a flash of gladness.
+Then suddenly the man at the helm exclaimed with a distinct note
+of regret, "Ah, what a big fish!"  It at once brought before his
+vision the picture of the fish caught and made ready for his
+supper.  He could only look at the fish through his desire, and
+thus missed the whole truth of its existence.  But man is not
+entirely an animal.  He aspires to a spiritual vision, which is
+the vision of the whole truth.  This gives him the highest
+delight, because it reveals to him the deepest harmony that
+exists between him and his surroundings.  It is our desires that
+limit the scope of our self-realisation, hinder our extension of
+consciousness, and give rise to sin, which is the innermost
+barrier that keeps us apart from our God, setting up disunion and
+the arrogance of exclusiveness.  For sin is not one mere action,
+but it is an attitude of life which takes for granted that our
+goal is finite, that our self is the ultimate truth, and that we
+are not all essentially one but exist each for his own separate
+individual existence.
+
+So I repeat we never can have a true view of man unless we have a
+love for him.  Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the
+amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved
+and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love
+of humanity.  The first question and the last which it has to
+answer is, Whether and how far it recognises man more as a spirit
+than a machine?  Whenever some ancient civilisation fell into
+decay and died, it was owing to causes which produced callousness
+of heart and led to the cheapening of man's worth; when either
+the state or some powerful group of men began to look upon the
+people as a mere instrument of their power; when, by compelling
+weaker races to slavery and trying to keep them down by every
+means, man struck at the foundation of his greatness, his own
+love of freedom and fair-play.  Civilisation can never sustain
+itself upon cannibalism of any form.  For that by which alone man
+is true can only be nourished by love and justice.
+
+As with man, so with this universe.  When we look at the world
+through the veil of our desires we make it small and narrow, and
+fail to perceive its full truth.  Of course it is obvious that
+the world serves us and fulfils our needs, but our relation to it
+does not end there.  We are bound to it with a deeper and truer
+bond than that of necessity.  Our soul is drawn to it; our love
+of life is really our wish to continue our relation with this
+great world.  This relation is one of love.  We are glad that we
+are in it; we are attached to it with numberless threads, which
+extend from this earth to the stars.  Man foolishly tries to
+prove his superiority by imagining his radical separateness from
+what he calls his physical world, which, in his blind fanaticism,
+he sometimes goes to the extent of ignoring altogether, holding
+it at his direst enemy.  Yet the more his knowledge progresses,
+the more it becomes difficult for man to establish this
+separateness, and all the imaginary boundaries he had set up
+around himself vanish one after another.  Every time we lose some
+of our badges of absolute distinction by which we conferred upon
+our humanity the right to hold itself apart from its surroundings,
+it gives us a shock of humiliation.  But we have to submit to
+this.  If we set up our pride on the path of our self-realisation
+to create divisions and disunion, then it must sooner or later
+come under the wheels of truth and be ground to dust.  No, we are
+not burdened with some monstrous superiority, unmeaning in its
+singular abruptness.  It would be utterly degrading for us to
+live in a world immeasurably less than ourselves in the quality of
+soul, just as it would be repulsive and degrading to be surrounded
+and served by a host of slaves, day and night, from birth to the
+moment of death.  On the contrary, this world is our compeer, nay,
+we are one with it.
+
+Through our progress in science the wholeness of the world and
+our oneness with it is becoming clearer to our mind.  When this
+perception of the perfection of unity is not merely intellectual,
+when it opens out our whole being into a luminous consciousness
+of the all, then it becomes a radiant joy, an overspreading love.
+Our spirit finds its larger self in the whole world, and is
+filled with an absolute certainty that it is immortal.  It dies a
+hundred times in its enclosures of self; for separateness is
+doomed to die, it cannot be made eternal.  But it never can die
+where it is one with the all, for there is its truth, its joy.
+When a man feels the rhythmic throb of the soul-life of the whole
+world in his own soul, then is he free.  Then he enters into the
+secret courting that goes on between this beautiful world-bride,
+veiled with the veil of the many-coloured finiteness, and the
+_paramatmam_, the bridegroom, in his spotless white.  Then he
+knows that he is the partaker of this gorgeous love festival, and
+he is the honoured guest at the feast of immortality.  Then he
+understands the meaning of the seer-poet who sings, "From love the
+world is born, by love it is sustained, towards love it moves, and
+into love it enters."
+
+In love all the contradictions of existence merge themselves and
+are lost.  Only in love are unity and duality not at variance.
+Love must be one and two at the same time.
+
+Only love is motion and rest in one.  Our heart ever changes its
+place till it finds love, and then it has its rest.  But this
+rest itself is an intense form of activity where utter quiescence
+and unceasing energy meet at the same point in love.
+
+In love, loss and gain are harmonised.  In its balance-sheet,
+credit and debit accounts are in the same column, and gifts are
+added to gains.  In this wonderful festival of creation, this
+great ceremony of self-sacrifice of God, the lover constantly
+gives himself up to gain himself in love.  Indeed, love is what
+brings together and inseparably connects both the act of
+abandoning and that of receiving.
+
+In love, at one of its poles you find the personal, and at the
+other the impersonal.  At one you have the positive assertion--
+Here I am; at the other the equally strong denial--I am not.
+Without this ego what is love?  And again, with only this ego how
+can love be possible?
+
+Bondage and liberation are not antagonistic in love.  For love is
+most free and at the same time most bound.  If God were
+absolutely free there would be no creation.  The infinite being
+has assumed unto himself the mystery of finitude.  And in him who
+is love the finite and the infinite are made one.
+
+Similarly, when we talk about the relative values of freedom and
+non-freedom, it becomes a mere play of words.  It is not that we
+desire freedom alone, we want thraldom as well.  It is the high
+function of love to welcome all limitations and to transcend
+them.  For nothing is more independent than love, and where else,
+again, shall we find so much of dependence?  In love, thraldom is
+as glorious as freedom.
+
+The _Vaishnava_ religion has boldly declared that God has bound
+himself to man, and in that consists the greatest glory of human
+existence.  In the spell of the wonderful rhythm of the finite he
+fetters himself at every step, and thus gives his love out in
+music in his most perfect lyrics of beauty.  Beauty is his wooing
+of our heart; it can have no other purpose.  It tells us
+everywhere that the display of power is not the ultimate meaning
+of creation; wherever there is a bit of colour, a note of song, a
+grace of form, there comes the call for our love.  Hunger compels
+us to obey its behests, but hunger is not the last word for a man.
+There have been men who have deliberately defied its commands to
+show that the human soul is not to be led by the pressure of wants
+and threat of pain.  In fact, to live the life of man we have to
+resist its demands every day, the least of us as well as the
+greatest.  But, on the other hand, there is a beauty in the world
+which never insults our freedom, never raises even its little
+finger to make us acknowledge its sovereignty.  We can absolutely
+ignore it and suffer no penalty in consequence.  It is a call to
+us, but not a command.  It seeks for love in us, and love can
+never be had by compulsion.  Compulsion is not indeed the final
+appeal to man, but joy is.  Any joy is everywhere; it is in the
+earth's green covering of grass; in the blue serenity of the sky;
+in the reckless exuberance of spring; in the severe abstinence of
+grey winter; in the living flesh that animates our bodily frame;
+in the perfect poise of the human figure, noble and upright; in
+living; in the exercise of all our powers; in the acquisition of
+knowledge; in fighting evils; in dying for gains we never can
+share.  Joy is there everywhere; it is superfluous, unnecessary;
+nay, it very often contradicts the most peremptory behests of
+necessity.  It exists to show that the bonds of law can only be
+explained by love; they are like body and soul.  Joy is the
+realisation of the truth of oneness, the oneness of our soul with
+the world and of the world-soul with the supreme lover.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+REALISATION IN ACTION
+
+
+It is only those who have known that joy expresses itself through
+law who have learnt to transcend the law.  Not that the bonds of
+law have ceased to exist for them--but that the bonds have become
+to them as the form of freedom incarnate.  The freed soul
+delights in accepting bonds, and does not seek to evade any of
+them, for in each does it feel the manifestation of an infinite
+energy whose joy is in creation.
+
+As a matter of fact, where there are no bonds, where there is the
+madness of license, the soul ceases to be free.  There is its
+hurt; there is its separation from the infinite, its agony of
+sin.  Whenever at the call of temptation the soul falls away from
+the bondage of law, then, like a child deprived of the support of
+its mother's arms, it cries out, _Smite me not!_  [Footnote: Mā mā
+himsīh.]  "Bind me," it prays, "oh, bind me in the bonds of thy
+law; bind me within and without; hold me tight; let me in the clasp
+of thy law be bound up together with thy joy; protect me by thy
+firm hold from the deadly laxity of sin."
+
+As some, under the idea that law is the opposite of joy, mistake
+intoxication for joy, so there are many in our country who
+imagine action to be opposed to freedom.  They think that
+activity being in the material plane is a restriction of the free
+spirit of the soul.  But we must remember that as joy expresses
+itself in law, so the soul finds its freedom in action.  It is
+because joy cannot find expression in itself alone that it
+desires the law which is outside.  Likewise it is because the
+soul cannot find freedom within itself that it wants external
+action.  The soul of man is ever freeing itself from its own
+folds by its activity; had it been otherwise it could not have
+done any voluntary work.
+
+The more man acts and makes actual what was latent in him, the
+nearer does he bring the distant Yet-to-be.  In that
+actualisation man is ever making himself more and yet more
+distinct, and seeing himself clearly under newer and newer
+aspects in the midst of his varied activities, in the state, in
+society.  This vision makes for freedom.
+
+Freedom is not in darkness, nor in vagueness.  There is no
+bondage so fearful as that of obscurity.  It is to escape from
+this obscurity that the seed struggles to sprout, the bud to
+blossom.  It is to rid itself of this envelope of vagueness that
+the ideas in our mind are constantly seeking opportunities to
+take on outward form.  In the same way our soul, in order to
+release itself from the mist of indistinctness and come out into
+the open, is continually creating for itself fresh fields of
+action, and is busy contriving new forms of activity, even such
+as are not needful for the purposes of its earthly life.  And
+why?  Because it wants freedom.  It wants to see itself, to
+realise itself.
+
+When man cuts down the pestilential jungle and makes unto himself
+a garden, the beauty that he thus sets free from within its
+enclosure of ugliness is the beauty of his own soul: without
+giving it this freedom outside, he cannot make it free within.
+When he implants law and order in the midst of the waywardness of
+society, the good which he sets free from the obstruction of the
+bad is the goodness of his own soul: without being thus made free
+outside it cannot find freedom within.  Thus is man continually
+engaged in setting free in action his powers, his beauty, his
+goodness, his very soul.  And the more he succeeds in so doing,
+the greater does he see himself to be, the broader becomes the
+field of his knowledge of self.
+
+The Upanishad says: _In the midst of activity alone wilt thou
+desire to live a hundred years._  [Footnote:  Kurvannēvēha
+karmāni jijīvishet çatam samāh.]  It is the saying of those who
+had amply tasted of the joy of the soul.  Those who have fully
+realised the soul have never talked in mournful accents of the
+sorrowfulness of life or of the bondage of action.  They are not
+like the weakling flower whose stem-hold is so light that it
+drops away before attaining fruition.  They hold on to life with
+all their might and say, "never will we let go till the fruit is
+ripe."  They desire in their joy to express themselves
+strenuously in their life and in their work.  Pain and sorrow
+dismay them not, they are not bowed down to the dust by the
+weight of their own heart.  With the erect head of the victorious
+hero they march through life seeing themselves and showing
+themselves in increasing resplendence of soul through both joys
+and sorrows.  The joy of their life keeps step with the joy of
+that energy which is playing at building and breaking throughout
+the universe.  The joy of the sunlight, the joy of the free air,
+mingling with the joy of their lives, makes one sweet harmony
+reign within and without.  It is they who say, _In the midst of
+activity alone wilt thou desire to live a hundred years._
+
+This joy of life, this joy of work, in man is absolutely true.
+It is no use saying that it is a delusion of ours; that unless we
+cast it away we cannot enter upon the path of self-realisation.
+It will never do the least good to attempt the realisation of the
+infinite apart from the world of action.
+
+It is not the truth that man is active on compulsion.  If there
+is compulsion on one side, on the other there is pleasure; on the
+one hand action is spurred on by want, on the other it hies to
+its natural fulfilment.  That is why, as man's civilisation
+advances, he increases his obligations and the work that he
+willingly creates for himself.  One should have thought that
+nature had given him quite enough to do to keep him busy, in fact
+that it was working him to death with the lash of hunger and
+thirst,--but no.  Man does not think that sufficient; he cannot
+rest content with only doing the work that nature prescribes for
+him in common with the birds and beasts.  He needs must surpass
+all, even in activity.  No creature has to work so hard as man;
+he has been impelled to contrive for himself a vast field of
+action in society; and in this field he is for every building up
+and pulling down, making and unmaking laws, piling up heaps of
+material, and incessantly thinking, seeking and suffering.  In
+this field he has fought his mightiest battles, gained continual
+new life, made death glorious, and, far from evading troubles,
+has willingly and continually taken up the burden of fresh
+trouble.  He has discovered the truth that he is not complete in
+the cage of his immediate surroundings, that he is greater than
+his present, and that while to stand still in one place may be
+comforting, the arrest of life destroys his true function and the
+real purpose of his existence.
+
+This _mahatī vinashtih--this great destruction_ he cannot bear,
+and accordingly he toils and suffers in order that he may gain in
+stature by transcending his present, in order to become that
+which he yet is not.  In this travail is man's glory, and it is
+because he knows it, that he has not sought to circumscribe his
+field of action, but is constantly occupied in extending the
+bounds.  Sometimes he wanders so far that his work tends to lose
+its meaning, and his rushings to and fro create fearful eddies
+round different centres--eddies of self-interest, of pride of
+power.  Still, so long as the strength of the current is not lost,
+there is no fear; the obstructions and the dead accumulations of
+his activity are dissipated and carried away; the impetus corrects
+its own mistakes.  Only when the soul sleeps in stagnation do its
+enemies gain overmastering strength, and these obstructions become
+too clogging to be fought through.  Hence have we been warned by
+our teachers that to work we must live, to live we must work; that
+life and activity are inseparably connected.
+
+It is very characteristic of life that it is not complete within
+itself; it must come out.  Its truth is in the commerce of the
+inside and the outside.  In order to live, the body must maintain
+its various relations with the outside light and air--not only to
+gain life-force, but also to manifest it.  Consider how fully
+employed the body is with its own inside activities; its heart-
+beat must not stop for a second, its stomach, its brain, must be
+ceaselessly working.  Yet this is not enough; the body is
+outwardly restless all the while.  Its life leads it to an
+endless dance of work and play outside; it cannot be satisfied
+with the circulations of its internal economy, and only finds the
+fulfilment of joy in its outward excursions.
+
+The same with the soul.  It cannot live on its own internal
+feelings and imaginings.  It is ever in need of external objects;
+not only to feed its inner consciousness but to apply itself in
+action, not only to receive but also to give.
+
+The real truth is, we cannot live if we divide him who is truth
+itself into two parts.  We must abide in him within as well as
+without.  In whichever aspect we deny him we deceive ourselves
+and incur a loss.  _Brahma has not left me, let me not leave
+Brahma._  [Footnote:  Māham brahma nirākuryyām mā mā brahma
+nirākarōt.]  If we say that we would realise him in introspection
+alone and leave him out of our external activity, that we would
+enjoy him by the love in our heart, but not worship him by
+outward ministrations; or if we say the opposite, and overweight
+ourselves on one side in the journey of our life's quest, we
+shall alike totter to our downfall.
+
+In the great western continent we see that the soul of man is
+mainly concerned with extending itself outwards; the open field
+of the exercise of power is its field.  Its partiality is
+entirely for the world of extension, and it would leave aside--
+nay, hardly believe in--that field of inner consciousness which
+is the field of fulfilment.  It has gone so far in this that the
+perfection of fulfilment seems to exist for it nowhere.  Its
+science has always talked of the never-ending evolution of the
+world.  Its metaphysic has now begun to talk of the evolution of
+God himself.  They will not admit that he _is_; they would have
+it that he also is _becoming._
+
+They fail to realise that while the infinite is always greater
+than any assignable limit, it is also complete; that on the one
+hand Brahma is evolving, on the other he is perfection; that in
+the one aspect he is essence, in the other manifestation--both
+together at the same time, as is the song and the act of singing.
+This is like ignoring the consciousness of the singer and saying
+that only the singing is in progress, that there is no song.
+Doubtless we are directly aware only of the singing, and never at
+any one time of the song as a whole; but do we not all the time
+know that the complete song is in the soul of the singer?
+
+It is because of this insistence on the doing and the becoming
+that we perceive in the west the intoxication of power.  These
+men seem to have determined to despoil and grasp everything by
+force.  They would always obstinately be doing and never be done--
+they would not allow to death its natural place in the scheme of
+things--they know not the beauty of completion.
+
+In our country the danger comes from the opposite side.  Our
+partiality is for the internal world.  We would cast aside with
+contumely the field of power and of extension.  We would realise
+Brahma in mediation only in his aspect of completeness, we have
+determined not to see him in the commerce of the universe in his
+aspect of evolution.  That is why in our seekers we so often find
+the intoxication of the spirit and its consequent degradation.
+Their faith would acknowledge no bondage of law, their
+imagination soars unrestricted, their conduct disdains to offer
+any explanation to reason.  Their intellect, in its vain attempts
+to see Brahma inseparable from his creation, works itself stone-
+dry, and their heart, seeking to confine him within its own
+outpourings, swoons in a drunken ecstasy of emotion.  They have
+not even kept within reach any standard whereby they can measure
+the loss of strength and character which manhood sustains by thus
+ignoring the bonds of law and the claims of action in the
+external universe.
+
+But true spirituality, as taught in our sacred lore, is calmly
+balanced in strength, in the correlation of the within and the
+without.  The truth has its law, it has its joy.  On one side of
+it is being chanted the _Bhayādasyāgnistapati_ [Footnote: "For
+fear of him the fire doth burn," etc], on the other the
+_Ānandādhyeva khalvimāni bhūtāni jāyante._  [Footnote: "From Joy
+are born all created things," etc.]  Freedom is impossible of
+attainment without submission to law, for Brahma is in one aspect
+bound by his truth, in the other free in his joy.
+
+As for ourselves, it is only when we wholly submit to the bonds
+of truth that we fully gain the joy of freedom.  And how?  As
+does the string that is bound to the harp.  When the harp is
+truly strung, when there is not the slightest laxity in the
+strength of the bond, then only does music result; and the string
+transcending itself in its melody finds at every chord its true
+freedom.  It is because it is bound by such hard and fast rules
+on the one side that it can find this range of freedom in music
+on the other.  While the string was not true, it was indeed
+merely bound; but a loosening of its bondage would not have been
+the way to freedom, which it can only fully achieve by being
+bound tighter and tighter till it has attained the true pitch.
+
+The bass and treble strings of our duty are only bonds so long as
+we cannot maintain them steadfastly attuned according to the law
+of truth; and we cannot call by the name of freedom the loosening
+of them into the nothingness of inaction.  That is why I would
+say that the true striving in the quest of truth, of _dharma_,
+consists not in the neglect of action but in the effort to attune
+it closer and closer to the eternal harmony.  The text of this
+striving should be, _Whatever works thou doest, consecrate them
+to Brahma._  [Footnote:  Yadyat karma prakurvīta tadbrahmani
+samarpayet.]  That is to say, the soul is to dedicate itself to
+Brahma through all its activities.  This dedication is the song
+of the soul, in this is its freedom.  Joy reigns when all work
+becomes the path to the union with Brahma; when the soul ceases
+to return constantly to its own desires; when in it our self-
+offering grows more and more intense.  Then there is completion,
+then there is freedom, then, in this world, comes the kingdom of
+God.
+
+Who is there that, sitting in his corner, would deride this grand
+self-expression of humanity in action, this incessant self-
+consecration?  Who is there that thinks the union of God and man
+is to be found in some secluded enjoyment of his own imaginings,
+away from the sky-towering temple of the greatness of humanity,
+which the whole of mankind, in sunshine and storm, is toiling to
+erect through the ages?  Who is there that thinks this secluded
+communion is the highest form of religion?
+
+O thou distraught wanderer, thou _Sannyasin_, drunk in the wine of
+self-intoxication, dost thou not already hear the progress of the
+human soul along the highway traversing the wide fields of
+humanity--the thunder of its progress in the car of its
+achievements, which is destined to overpass the bounds that
+prevent its expansion into the universe?  The very mountains are
+cleft asunder and give way before the march of its banners waving
+triumphantly in the heavens; as the mist before the rising sun,
+the tangled obscurities of material things vanish at its
+irresistible approach.  Pain, disease, and disorder are at every
+step receding before its onset; the obstructions of ignorance are
+being thrust aside; the darkness of blindness is being pierced
+through; and behold, the promised land of wealth and health, of
+poetry and art, of knowledge and righteousness is gradually being
+revealed to view.  Do you in your lethargy desire to say that
+this car of humanity, which is shaking the very earth with the
+triumph of its progress along the mighty vistas of history, has
+no charioteer leading it on to its fulfilment?  Who is there who
+refuses to respond to his call to join in this triumphal progress?
+Who so foolish as to run away from the gladsome throng and seek
+him in the listlessness of inaction?  Who so steeped in untruth as
+to dare to call all this untrue--this great world of men, this
+civilisation of expanding humanity, this eternal effort of man,
+through depths of sorrow, through heights of gladness, through
+innumerable impediments within and without, to win victory for his
+powers?  He who can think of this immensity of achievement as an
+immense fraud, can he truly believe in God who is the truth?  He
+who thinks to reach God by running away from the world, when and
+where does he expect to meet him?  How far can he fly--can he fly
+and fly, till he flies into nothingness itself?  No, the coward
+who would fly can nowhere find him.  We must be brave enough to
+be able to say: We are reaching him here in this very spot, now
+at this very moment.  We must be able to assure ourselves that as
+in our actions we are realising ourselves, so in ourselves we are
+realising him who is the self of self.  We must earn the right to
+say so unhesitatingly by clearing away with our own effort all
+obstruction, all disorder, all discords from our path of activity;
+we must be able to say, "In my work is my joy, and in that joy
+does the joy of my joy abide."
+
+Whom does the Upanishad call _The chief among the knowers of
+Brahma?_  [Footnote: Brahmavidāmvaristhah.]  He is defined as _He
+whose joy is in Brahma, whose play is in Brahma, the active one._
+[Footnote: Ātmakrīrha ātmaratih kriyāvān.]  Joy without the play
+of joy is no joy at all--play without activity is no play.
+Activity is the play of joy.  He whose joy is in Brahma, how can
+he live in inaction?  For must he not by his activity provide
+that in which the joy of Brahma is to take form and manifest
+itself?  That is why he who knows Brahma, who has his joy in
+Brahma, must also have all his activity in Brahma--his eating
+and drinking, his earning of livelihood and his beneficence.
+Just as the joy of the poet in his poem, of the artist in his
+art, of the brave man in the output of his courage, of the wise
+man in his discernment of truths, ever seeks expression in their
+several activities, so the joy of the knower of Brahma, in the
+whole of his everyday work, little and big, in truth, in beauty,
+in orderliness and in beneficence, seeks to give expression to
+the infinite.
+
+Brahma himself gives expression to his joy in just the same way.
+_By his many-sided activity, which radiates in all directions,
+does he fulfil the inherent want of his different creatures._
+[Footnote: Bahudhā çakti yogāt varņānanekān nihitārtho dadhāti.]
+That inherent want is he himself, and so he is in so many ways,
+in so many forms, giving himself.  He works, for without working
+how could he give himself.  His joy is ever dedicating itself in
+the dedication which is his creation.
+
+In this very thing does our own true meaning lie, in this is our
+likeness to our father.  We must also give up ourselves in many-
+sided variously aimed activity.  In the Vedas he is called _the
+giver of himself, the giver of strength._  [Footnote:  Ātmadā
+baladā.]  He is not content with giving us himself, but he gives
+us strength that we may likewise give ourselves.  That is why the
+seer of the Upanishad prays to him who is thus fulfilling our
+wants, _May he grant us the beneficent mind_ [Footnote: Sa no
+buddhya çubhayā samyunaktu.], may he fulfil that uttermost want
+of ours by granting us the beneficent mind.  That is to say, it
+is not enough he should alone work to remove our want, but he
+should give us the desire and the strength to work with him in
+his activity and in the exercise of the goodness.  Then, indeed,
+will our union with him alone be accomplished.  The beneficent
+mind is that which shows us the want (_swārtha_) of another self
+to be the inherent want (_nihitārtha_) of our own self; that
+which shows that our joy consists in the varied aiming of our
+many-sided powers in the work of humanity.  When we work under
+the guidance of this beneficent mind, then our activity is
+regulated, but does not become mechanical; it is action not
+goaded on by want, but stimulated by the satisfaction of the
+soul.  Such activity ceases to be a blind imitation of that of
+the multitude, a cowardly following of the dictates of fashion.
+Therein we begin to see that _He is in the beginning and in the
+end of the universe_ [Footnote: Vichaiti chāntē viçvamādau.],
+and likewise see that of our own work is he the fount and the
+inspiration, and at the end thereof is he, and therefore that all
+our activity is pervaded by peace and good and joy.
+
+The Upanishad says: _Knowledge, power, and action are of his
+nature._ [Footnote: Svābhāvikījnāna bala kriyā cha.]  It is
+because this naturalness has not yet been born in us that we tend
+to divide joy from work.  Our day of work is not our day of joy--
+for that we require a holiday; for, miserable that we are, we
+cannot find our holiday in our work.  The river finds its holiday
+in its onward flow, the fire in its outburst of flame, the scent
+of the flower in its permeation of the atmosphere; but in our
+everyday work there is no such holiday for us.  It is because we
+do not let ourselves go, because we do not give ourselves
+joyously and entirely up to it, that our work overpowers us.
+
+O giver of thyself! at the vision of thee as joy let our souls
+flame up to thee as the fire, flow on to thee as the river,
+permeate thy being as the fragrance of the flower.  Give us
+strength to love, to love fully, our life in its joys and
+sorrows, in its gains and losses, in its rise and fall.  Let us
+have strength enough fully to see and hear thy universe, and to
+work with full vigour therein.  Let us fully live the life thou
+hast given us, let us bravely take and bravely give.  This is our
+prayer to thee.  Let us once for all dislodge from our minds the
+feeble fancy that would make out thy joy to be a thing apart from
+action, thin, formless, and unsustained.  Wherever the peasant
+tills the hard earth, there does thy joy gush out in the green of
+the corn, wherever man displaces the entangled forest, smooths
+the stony ground, and clears for himself a homestead, there does
+thy joy enfold it in orderliness and peace.
+
+O worker of the universe!  We would pray to thee to let the
+irresistible current of thy universal energy come like the
+impetuous south wind of spring, let it come rushing over the vast
+field of the life of man, let it bring the scent of many flowers,
+the murmurings of many woodlands, let it make sweet and vocal the
+lifelessness of our dried-up soul-life.  Let our newly awakened
+powers cry out for unlimited fulfilment in leaf and flower and
+fruit.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+THE REALISATION OF BEAUTY
+
+
+Things in which we do not take joy are either a burden upon our
+minds to be got rid of at any cost; or they are useful, and
+therefore in temporary and partial relation to us, becoming
+burdensome when their utility is lost; or they are like wandering
+vagabonds, loitering for a moment on the outskirts of our
+recognition, and then passing on.  A thing is only completely our
+own when it is a thing of joy to us.
+
+The greater part of this world is to us as if it were nothing.
+But we cannot allow it to remain so, for thus it belittles our
+own self.  The entire world is given to us, and all our powers
+have their final meaning in the faith that by their help we are
+to take possession of our patrimony.
+
+But what is the function of our sense of beauty in this process
+of the extension of our consciousness?  Is it there to separate
+truth into strong lights and shadows, and bring it before us in
+its uncompromising distinction of beauty and ugliness?  If that
+were so, then we would have had to admit that this sense of
+beauty creates a dissension in our universe and sets up a wall of
+hindrance across the highway of communication that leads from
+everything to all things.
+
+But that cannot be true.  As long as our realisation is
+incomplete a division necessarily remains between things known
+and unknown, pleasant and unpleasant.  But in spite of the dictum
+of some philosophers man does not accept any arbitrary and
+absolute limit to his knowable world.  Every day his science is
+penetrating into the region formerly marked in his map as
+unexplored or inexplorable.  Our sense of beauty is similarly
+engaged in ever pushing on its conquests.  Truth is everywhere,
+therefore everything is the object of our knowledge.  Beauty is
+omnipresent, therefore everything is capable of giving us joy.
+
+In the early days of his history man took everything as a
+phenomenon of life.  His science of life began by creating a
+sharp distinction between life and non-life.  But as it is
+proceeding farther and farther the line of demarcation between
+the animate and inanimate is growing more and more dim.  In the
+beginning of our apprehension these sharp lines of contrast are
+helpful to us, but as our comprehension becomes clearer they
+gradually fade away.
+
+The Upanishads have said that all things are created and
+sustained by an infinite joy.  To realise this principle of
+creation we have to start with a division--the division into the
+beautiful and the non-beautiful.  Then the apprehension of beauty
+has to come to us with a vigorous blow to awaken our
+consciousness from its primitive lethargy, and it attains its
+object by the urgency of the contrast.  Therefore our first
+acquaintance with beauty is in her dress of motley colours, that
+affects us with its stripes and feathers, nay, with its
+disfigurements.  But as our acquaintance ripens, the apparent
+discords are resolved into modulations of rhythm.  At first we
+detach beauty from its surroundings, we hold it apart from the
+rest, but at the end we realise its harmony with all.  Then the
+music of beauty has no more need of exciting us with loud noise;
+it renounces violence, and appeals to our heart with the truth
+that it is meekness inherits the earth.
+
+In some stage of our growth, in some period of our history, we
+try to set up a special cult of beauty, and pare it down to a
+narrow circuit, so as to make it a matter of pride for a chosen
+few.  Then it breeds in its votaries affections and
+exaggerations, as it did with the Brahmins in the time of the
+decadence of Indian civilisation, when the perception of the
+higher truth fell away and superstitions grew up unchecked.
+
+In the history of æsthetics there also comes an age of
+emancipation when the recognition of beauty in things great and
+small become easy, and when we see it more in the unassuming
+harmony of common objects than in things startling in their
+singularity.  So much so, that we have to go through the stages
+of reaction when in the representation of beauty we try to avoid
+everything that is obviously pleasing and that has been crowned
+by the sanction of convention.  We are then tempted in defiance
+to exaggerate the commonness of commonplace things, thereby
+making them aggressively uncommon.  To restore harmony we create
+the discords which are a feature of all reactions.  We already
+see in the present age the sign of this æsthetic reaction, which
+proves that man has at last come to know that it is only the
+narrowness of perception which sharply divides the field of his
+æsthetic consciousness into ugliness and beauty.  When he has the
+power to see things detached from self-interest and from the
+insistent claims of the lust of the senses, then alone can he
+have the true vision of the beauty that is everywhere.  Then only
+can he see that what is unpleasant to us is not necessarily
+unbeautiful, but has its beauty in truth.
+
+When we say that beauty is everywhere we do not mean that the
+word ugliness should be abolished from our language, just as it
+would be absurd to say that there is no such thing as untruth.
+Untruth there certainly is, not in the system of the universe,
+but in our power of comprehension, as its negative element.  In
+the same manner there is ugliness in the distorted expression of
+beauty in our life and in our art which comes from our imperfect
+realisation of Truth.  To a certain extent we can set our life
+against the law of truth which is in us and which is in all, and
+likewise we can give rise to ugliness by going counter to the
+eternal law of harmony which is everywhere.
+
+Through our sense of truth we realise law in creation, and
+through our sense of beauty we realise harmony in the universe.
+When we recognise the law in nature we extend our mastery over
+physical forces and become powerful; when we recognise the law in
+our moral nature we attain mastery over self and become free.  In
+like manner the more we comprehend the harmony in the physical
+world the more our life shares the gladness of creation, and our
+expression of beauty in art becomes more truly catholic.  As we
+become conscious of the harmony in our soul, our apprehension of
+the blissfulness of the spirit of the world becomes universal,
+and the expression of beauty in our life moves in goodness and
+love towards the infinite.  This is the ultimate object of our
+existence, that we must ever know that "beauty is truth, truth
+beauty"; we must realise the whole world in love, for love gives
+it birth, sustains it, and takes it back to its bosom.  We must
+have that perfect emancipation of heart which gives us the power
+to stand at the innermost centre of things and have the taste of
+that fullness of disinterested joy which belongs to Brahma.
+
+Music is the purest form of art, and therefore the most direct
+expression of beauty, with a form and spirit which is one and
+simple, and least encumbered with anything extraneous.  We seem
+to feel that the manifestation of the infinite in the finite
+forms of creation is music itself, silent and visible.  The
+evening sky, tirelessly repeating the starry constellations,
+seems like a child struck with wonder at the mystery of its own
+first utterance, lisping the same word over and over again, and
+listening to it in unceasing joy.  When in the rainy night of
+July the darkness is thick upon the meadows and the pattering
+rain draws veil upon veil over the stillness of the slumbering
+earth, this monotony of the rain patter seems to be the darkness
+of sound itself.  The gloom of the dim and dense line of trees,
+the thorny bushes scattered in the bare heath like floating heads
+of swimmers with bedraggled hair, the smell of the damp grass and
+the wet earth, the spire of the temple rising above the undefined
+mass of blackness grouped around the village huts--everything
+seems like notes rising from the heart of the night, mingling and
+losing themselves in the one sound of ceaseless rain filling the
+sky.
+
+Therefore the true poets, they who are seers, seek to express the
+universe in terms of music.
+
+They rarely use symbols of painting to express the unfolding of
+forms, the mingling of endless lines and colours that goes on
+every moment on the canvas of the blue sky.
+
+They have their reason.  For the man who paints must have canvas,
+brush and colour-box.  The first touch of his brush is very far
+from the complete idea.  And then when the work is finished the
+artist is gone, the windowed picture stands alone, the incessant
+touches of love of the creative hand are withdrawn.
+
+But the singer has everything within him.  The notes come out
+from his very life.  They are not materials gathered from
+outside.  His idea and his expression are brother and sister;
+very often they are born as twins.  In music the heart reveals
+itself immediately; it suffers not from any barrier of alien
+material.
+
+Therefore though music has to wait for its completeness like any
+other art, yet at every step it gives out the beauty of the
+whole.  As the material of expression even words are barriers,
+for their meaning has to be constructed by thought.  But music
+never has to depend upon any obvious meaning; it expresses what
+no words can ever express.
+
+What is more, music and the musician are inseparable.  When the
+singer departs, his singing dies with him; it is in eternal union
+with the life and joy of the master.
+
+This world-song is never for a moment separated from its singer.
+It is not fashioned from any outward material.  It is his joy
+itself taking never-ending form.  It is the great heart sending
+the tremor of its thrill over the sky.
+
+There is a perfection in each individual strain of this music,
+which is the revelation of completion in the incomplete.  No one of
+its notes is final, yet each reflects the infinite.
+
+What does it matter if we fail to derive the exact meaning of
+this great harmony?  Is it not like the hand meeting the string
+and drawing out at once all its tones at the touch?  It is the
+language of beauty, the caress, that comes from the heart of the
+world straightway reaches our heart.
+
+Last night, in the silence which pervaded the darkness, I stood
+alone and heard the voice of the singer of eternal melodies.
+When I went to sleep I closed my eyes with this last thought in
+my mind, that even when I remain unconscious in slumber the dance
+of life will still go on in the hushed arena of my sleeping body,
+keeping step with the stars.  The heart will throb, the blood
+will leap in the veins, and the millions of living atoms of my
+body will vibrate in tune with the note of the harp-string that
+thrills at the touch of the master.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+THE REALISATION OF THE INFINITE
+
+
+The Upanishads say: "Man becomes true if in this life he can
+apprehend God; if not, it is the greatest calamity for him."
+
+But what is the nature of this attainment of God?  It is quite
+evident that the infinite is not like one object among many, to
+be definitely classified and kept among our possessions, to be
+used as an ally specially favouring us in our politics, warfare,
+money-making, or in social competitions.  We cannot put our God
+in the same list with our summer-houses, motor-cars, or our
+credit at the bank, as so many people seem to want to do.
+
+We must try to understand the true character of the desire that a
+man has when his soul longs for his God.  Does it consist of his
+wish to make an addition, however valuable, to his belongings?
+Emphatically no!  It is an endlessly wearisome task, this
+continual adding to our stores.  In fact, when the soul seeks God
+she seeks her final escape from this incessant gathering and
+heaping and never coming to an end.  It is not an additional
+object the she seeks, but it is the _nityo 'nityānām_, the
+permanent in all that is impermanent, the _rasānām rasatamah_,
+the highest abiding joy unifying all enjoyments.  Therefore when
+the Upanishads teach us to realise everything in Brahma, it is
+not to seek something extra, not to manufacture something new.
+
+_Know everything that there is in the universe as enveloped by
+God._  [Footnote: Īçhāvāsyamdiam sarvam yat kincha
+jagatyānjagat.]  _Enjoy whatever is given by him and harbour not
+in your mind the greed for wealth which is not your own._
+[Footnoe: Tēna tyaktēna bhunjīţhā mā gŗidhah kasyasviddhanam.]
+
+When you know that whatever there is is filled by him and
+whatever you have is his gift, then you realise the infinite in
+the finite, and the giver in the gifts.  Then you know that all
+the facts of the reality have their only meaning in the
+manifestation of the one truth, and all your possessions have
+their only significance for you, not in themselves but in the
+relation they establish with the infinite.
+
+So it cannot be said that we can find Brahma as we find other
+objects; there is no question of searching from him in one thing
+in preference to another, in one place instead of somewhere else.
+We do not have to run to the grocer's shop for our morning light;
+we open our eyes and there it is; so we need only give ourselves
+up to find that Brahma is everywhere.
+
+This is the reason why Buddha admonished us to free ourselves
+from the confinement of the life of the self.  If there were
+nothing else to take its place more positively perfect and
+satisfying, then such admonition would be absolutely unmeaning.
+No man can seriously consider the advice, much less have any
+enthusiasm for it, of surrendering everything one has for gaining
+nothing whatever.
+
+So our daily worship of God is not really the process of gradual
+acquisition of him, but the daily process of surrendering
+ourselves, removing all obstacles to union and extending our
+consciousness of him in devotion and service, in goodness and in
+love.
+
+The Upanishads say: _Be lost altogether in Brahma like an arrow
+that has completely penetrated its target._  Thus to be conscious
+of being absolutely enveloped by Brahma is not an act of mere
+concentration of mind.  It must be the aim of the whole of our
+life.  In all our thoughts and deeds we must be conscious of the
+infinite.  Let the realisation of this truth become easier every
+day of our life, that _none could live or move if the energy of
+the all-pervading joy did not fill the sky._  [Footnote: Ko
+hyevānyāt kah prānyāt yadesha ākāçha ānando na syāt.]  In all our
+actions let us feel that impetus of the infinite energy and be
+glad.
+
+It may be said that the infinite is beyond our attainment, so it
+is for us as if it were naught.  Yes, if the word attainment
+implies any idea of possession, then it must be admitted that the
+infinite is unattainable.  But we must keep in mind that the
+highest enjoyment of man is not in the having but in a getting,
+which is at the same time not getting.  Our physical pleasures
+leave no margin for the unrealised.  They, like the dead
+satellite of the earth, have but little atmosphere around them.
+When we take food and satisfy our hunger it is a complete act of
+possession.  So long as the hunger is not satisfied it is a
+pleasure to eat.  For then our enjoyment of eating touches at
+every point the infinite.  But, when it attains completion, or in
+other words, when our desire for eating reaches the end of the
+stage of its non-realisation, it reaches the end of its pleasure.
+In all our intellectual pleasures the margin is broader, the
+limit is far off.  In all our deeper love getting and non-getting
+run ever parallel.  In one of our Vaishnava lyrics the lover says
+to his beloved: "I feel as if I have gazed upon the beauty of thy
+face from my birth, yet my eyes are hungry still: as if I have
+kept thee pressed to my heart for millions of years, yet my heart
+is not satisfied."
+
+This makes it clear that it is really the infinite whom we seek
+in our pleasures.  Our desire for being wealthy is not a desire
+for a particular sum of money but it is indefinite, and the most
+fleeting of our enjoyments are but the momentary touches of the
+eternal.  The tragedy of human life consists in our vain attempts
+to stretch the limits of things which can never become
+unlimited,--to reach the infinite by absurdly adding to the rungs
+of the ladder of the finite.
+
+It is evident from this that the real desire of our soul is to
+get beyond all our possessions.  Surrounded by things she can
+touch and feel, she cries, "I am weary of getting; ah, where is
+he who is never to be got?"
+
+We see everywhere in the history of man that the spirit of
+renunciation is the deepest reality of the human soul.  When the
+soul says of anything, "I do not want it, for I am above it," she
+gives utterance to the highest truth that is in her.  When a
+girl's life outgrows her doll, when she realises that in every
+respect she is more than her doll is, then she throws it away.
+By the very act of possession we know that we are greater than
+the things we possess.  It is a perfect misery to be kept bound
+up with things lesser than ourselves.  This it is that Maitreyī
+felt when her husband gave her his property on the eve of leaving
+home.  She asked him, "Would these material things help one to
+attain the highest?"--or, in other words, "Are they more than my
+soul to me?"  When her husband answered, "They will make you rich
+in worldly possessions," she said at once, "then what am I to do
+with these?"  It is only when a man truly realises what his
+possessions are that he has no more illusions about them; then he
+knows his soul is far above these things and he becomes free from
+their bondage.  Thus man truly realises his soul by outgrowing
+his possessions, and man's progress in the path of eternal life
+is through a series of renunciations.
+
+That we cannot absolutely possess the infinite being is not a
+mere intellectual proposition.  It has to be experienced, and
+this experience is bliss.  The bird, while taking its flight in
+the sky, experiences at every beat of its wings that the sky is
+boundless, that its wings can never carry it beyond.  Therein
+lies its joy.  In the cage the sky is limited; it may be quite
+enough for all the purposes of the bird's life, only it is not
+more than is necessary.  The bird cannot rejoice within the
+limits of the necessary.  It must feel that what it has is
+immeasurably more than it ever can want or comprehend, and then
+only can it be glad.
+
+Thus our soul must soar in the infinite, and she must feel every
+moment that in the sense of not being able to come to the end of
+her attainment is her supreme joy, her final freedom.
+
+Man's abiding happiness is not in getting anything but in giving
+himself up to what is greater than himself, to ideas which are
+larger than his individual life, the idea of his country, of
+humanity, of God.  They make it easier for him to part with all
+that he has, not expecting his life.  His existence is miserable
+and sordid till he finds some great idea which can truly claim
+his all, which can release him from all attachment to his
+belongings.  Buddha and Jesus, and all our great prophets,
+represent such great ideas.  They hold before us opportunities
+for surrendering our all.  When they bring forth their divine
+alms-bowl we feel we cannot help giving, and we find that in
+giving is our truest joy and liberation, for it is uniting
+ourselves to that extent with the infinite.
+
+Man is not complete; he is yet to be.  In what he _is_ he is
+small, and if we could conceive him stopping there for eternity
+we should have an idea of the most awful hell that man can
+imagine.  In his _to be_ he is infinite, there is his heaven,
+his deliverance.  His _is_ is occupied every moment with what it
+can get and have done with; his _to be_ is hungering for
+something which is more than can be got, which he never can lose
+because he never has possessed.
+
+The finite pole of our existence has its place in the world of
+necessity.  There man goes about searching for food to live,
+clothing to get warmth.  In this region--the region of nature--it
+is his function to get things.  The natural man is occupied with
+enlarging his possessions.
+
+But this act of getting is partial.  It is limited to man's
+necessities.  We can have a thing only to the extent of our
+requirements, just as a vessel can contain water only to the
+extent of its emptiness.  Our relation to food is only in
+feeding, our relation to a house is only in habitation.  We call
+it a benefit when a thing is fitted only to some particular want
+of ours.  Thus to get is always to get partially, and it never
+can be otherwise.  So this craving for acquisition belongs to our
+finite self.
+
+But that side of our existence whose direction is towards the
+infinite seeks not wealth, but freedom and joy.  There the reign
+of necessity ceases, and there our function is not to get but to
+be.  To be what?  To be one with Brahma.  For the region of the
+infinite is the region of unity.  Therefore the Upanishads say:
+_If man apprehends God he becomes true._  Here it is becoming,
+it is not having more.  Words do no gather bulk when you know
+their meaning; they become true by being one with the idea.
+
+Though the West has accepted as its teacher him who boldly
+proclaimed his oneness with his Father, and who exhorted his
+followers to be perfect as God, it has never been reconciled to
+this idea of our unity with the infinite being.  It condemns, as
+a piece of blasphemy, any implication of man's becoming God.
+This is certainly not the idea that Christ preached, nor perhaps
+the idea of the Christian mystics, but this seems to be the idea
+that has become popular in the Christian west.
+
+But the highest wisdom in the East holds that it is not the
+function of our soul to _gain_ God, to utilise him for any
+special material purpose.  All that we can ever aspire to is to
+become more and more one with God.  In the region of nature,
+which is the region of diversity, we grow by acquisition; in the
+spiritual world, which is the region of unity, we grow by losing
+ourselves, by uniting.  Gaining a thing, as we have said, is by
+its nature partial, it is limited only to a particular want; but
+_being_ is complete, it belongs to our wholeness, it springs not
+from any necessity but from our affinity with the infinite, which
+is the principle of perfection that we have in our soul.
+
+Yes, we must become Brahma.  We must not shrink to avow this.
+Our existence is meaningless if we never can expect to realise
+the highest perfection that there is.  If we have an aim and yet
+can never reach it, then it is no aim at all.
+
+But can it then be said that there is no difference between
+Brahma and our individual soul?  Of course the difference is
+obvious.  Call it illusion or ignorance, or whatever name you may
+give it, it is there.  You can offer explanations but you cannot
+explain it away.  Even illusion is true an illusion.
+
+Brahma is Brahma, he is the infinite ideal of perfection.  But we
+are not what we truly are; we are ever to become true, ever to
+become Brahma.  There is the eternal play of love in the relation
+between this being and the becoming; and in the depth of this
+mystery is the source of all truth and beauty that sustains the
+endless march of creation.
+
+In the music of the rushing stream sounds the joyful assurance,
+"I shall become the sea."  It is not a vain assumption; it is
+true humility, for it is the truth.  The river has no other
+alternative.  On both sides of its banks it has numerous fields
+and forests, villages and towns; it can serve them in various
+ways, cleanse them and feed them, carry their produce from place
+to place.  But it can have only partial relations with these, and
+however long it may linger among them it remains separate; it
+never can become a town or a forest.
+
+But it can and does become the sea.  The lesser moving water has
+its affinity with the great motionless water of the ocean.  It
+moves through the thousand objects on its onward course, and its
+motion finds its finality when it reaches the sea.
+
+The river can become the sea, but she can never make the sea part
+and parcel of herself.  If, by some chance, she has encircled
+some broad sheet of water and pretends that she has made the sea
+a part of herself, we at once know that it is not so, that her
+current is still seeking rest in the great ocean to which it can
+never set boundaries.
+
+In the same manner, our soul can only become Brahma as the river
+can become the sea.  Everything else she touches at one of her
+points, then leaves and moves on, but she never can leave Brahma
+and move beyond him.  Once our soul realises her ultimate object
+of repose in Brahma, all her movements acquire a purpose.  It is
+this ocean of infinite rest which gives significance to endless
+activities.  It is this perfectness of being that lends to the
+imperfection of becoming that quality of beauty which finds its
+expression in all poetry, drama and art.
+
+There must be a complete idea that animates a poem.  Every
+sentence of the poem touches that idea.  When the reader realises
+that pervading idea, as he reads on, then the reading of the poem
+is full of joy to him.  Then every part of the poem becomes
+radiantly significant by the light of the whole.  But if the poem
+goes on interminably, never expressing the idea of the whole,
+only throwing off disconnected images, however beautiful, it
+becomes wearisome and unprofitable in the extreme.  The progress
+of our soul is like a perfect poem.  It has an infinite idea
+which once realised makes all movements full of meaning and joy.
+But if we detach its movements from that ultimate idea, if we do
+not see the infinite rest and only see the infinite motion, then
+existence appears to us a monstrous evil, impetuously rushing
+towards an unending aimlessness.
+
+I remember in our childhood we had a teacher who used to make us
+learn by heart the whole book of Sanskrit grammer, which is
+written in symbols, without explaining their meaning to us.  Day
+after day we went toiling on, but on towards what, we had not the
+least notion.  So, as regards our lessons, we were in the
+position of the pessimist who only counts the breathless
+activities of the world, but cannot see the infinite repose of
+the perfection whence these activities are gaining their
+equilibrium every moment in absolute fitness and harmony.  We
+lose all joy in thus contemplating existence, because we miss the
+truth.  We see the gesticulations of the dancer, and we imagine
+these are directed by a ruthless tyranny of chance, while we are
+deaf to the eternal music which makes every one of these gestures
+inevitably spontaneous and beautiful.  These motions are ever
+growing into that music of perfection, becoming one with it,
+dedicating to that melody at every step the multitudinous forms
+they go on creating.
+
+And this is the truth of our soul, and this is her joy, that she
+must ever be growing into Brahma, that all her movements should
+be modulated by this ultimate idea, and all her creations should
+be given as offerings to the supreme spirit of perfection.
+
+There is a remarkable saying in the Upanishads: _I think not that
+I know him well, or that I know him, or even that I know him not._
+[Footnote: Nāham manye suvedeti no na vedeti vedacha.]
+
+By the process of knowledge we can never know the infinite being.
+But if he is altogether beyond our reach, then he is absolutely
+nothing to us.  The truth is that we know him not, yet we know
+him.
+
+This has been explained in another saying of the Upanishads:
+_From Brahma words come back baffled, as well as the mind, but he
+who knows him by the joy of him is free from all fears._
+[Footnote: Yato vācho nivartante aprāpya manasā saha ānandam
+brahmaņo vidvān na vibheti kutaçchana.]
+
+Knowledge is partial, because our intellect is an instrument, it
+is only a part of us, it can give us information about things
+which can be divided and analysed, and whose properties can be
+classified part by part.  But Brahma is perfect, and knowledge
+which is partial can never be a knowledge of him.
+
+But he can be known by joy, by love.  For joy is knowledge in its
+completeness, it is knowing by our whole being.  Intellect sets
+us apart from the things to be known, but love knows its object
+by fusion.  Such knowledge is immediate and admits no doubt.  It
+is the same as knowing our own selves, only more so.
+
+Therefore, as the Upanishads say, mind can never know Brahma,
+words can never describe him; he can only be known by our soul,
+by her joy in him, by her love.  Or, in other words, we can only
+come into relation with him by union--union of our whole being.
+We must be one with our Father, we must be perfect as he is.
+
+But how can that be?  There can be no grade in infinite
+perfection.  We cannot grow more and more into Brahma.  He is the
+absolute one, and there can be no more or less in him.
+
+Indeed, the realisation of the _paramātman_, the supreme soul,
+within our _antarātman_, our inner individual soul, is in a
+state of absolute completion.  We cannot think of it as non-
+existent and depending on our limited powers for its gradual
+construction.  If our relation with the divine were all a thing
+of our own making, how should we rely on it as true, and how
+should it lend us support?
+
+Yes, we must know that within us we have that where space and
+time cease to rule and where the links of evolution are merged in
+unity.  In that everlasting abode of the _ātaman_, the soul, the
+revelation of the _paramātman_, the supreme soul, is already
+complete.  Therefore the Upanishads say: _He who knows Brahman,
+the true, the all-conscious, and the infinite as hidden in the
+depths of the soul, which is the supreme sky (the inner sky of
+consciousness), enjoys all objects of desire in union with the
+all-knowing Brahman._  [Footnote: Satyam jñānam anantam brahma yo
+veda nihitam guhāyām paramo vyoman so'çnute sarvān kāmān saha
+brahmaņa vipasçhite.]
+
+The union is already accomplished.  The _paramātman_, the supreme
+soul, has himself chosen this soul of ours as his bride and the
+marriage has been completed.  The solemn _mantram_ has been
+uttered: _Let thy heart be even as my heart is._ [Footnote:
+Yadetat hŗidayam mama tadastu hŗidayan tava.]  There is no room
+in this marriage for evolution to act the part of the master of
+ceremonies.  The _eshah_, who cannot otherwise be described than
+as _This_, the nameless immediate presence, is ever here in our
+innermost being.  "This _eshah_, or _This_, is the supreme end of
+the other this"; [Footnote: Eshāsya paramā gatih] "this _This_ is
+the supreme treasure of the other this"; [Footnote: Eshāsya paramā
+sampat.] "this _This_ is the supreme dwelling of the other this";
+[Footnote: Eshāsya paramo lokah] "this _This_ is the supreme joy
+of the other this."  [Footnote: Eshāsya parama ānandah]  Because
+the marriage of supreme love has been accomplished in timeless
+time.  And now goes on the endless _līlā_, the play of love.  He
+who has been gained in eternity is now being pursued in time and
+space, in joys and sorrows, in this world and in the worlds beyond.
+When the soul-bride understands this well, her heart is blissful
+and at rest.  She knows that she, like a river, has attained the
+ocean of her fulfilment at one end of her being, and at the other
+end she is ever attaining it; at one end it is eternal rest and
+completion, at the other it is incessant movement and change.
+When she knows both ends as inseparably connected, then she knows
+the world as her own household by the right of knowing the master
+of the world as her own lord.  Then all her services becomes
+services of love, all the troubles and tribulations of life come
+to her as trials triumphantly borne to prove the strength of her
+love, smilingly to win the wager from her lover.  But so long as
+she remains obstinately in the dark, lifts not her veil, does not
+recognise her lover, and only knows the world dissociated from
+him, she serves as a handmaid here, where by right she might
+reign as a queen; she sways in doubt, and weeps in sorrow and
+dejection.  _She passes from starvation to starvation, from
+trouble to trouble, and from fear to fear._  [Footnote:
+Daurbhikshāt yāti daurbhiksham kleçāt kleçam bhayāt bhayam.]
+
+I can never forget that scrap of a song I once heard in the early
+dawn in the midst of the din of the crowd that had collected for
+a festival the night before: "Ferryman, take me across to the
+other shore!"
+
+In the bustle of all our work there comes out this cry, "Take me
+across."  The carter in India sings while driving his cart, "Take
+me across."  The itinerant grocer deals out his goods to his
+customers and sings, "Take me across".
+
+What is the meaning of this cry?  We feel we have not reached our
+goal; and we know with all our striving and toiling we do not
+come to the end, we do not attain our object.  Like a child
+dissatisfied with its dolls, our heart cries, "Not this, not
+this."  But what is that other?  Where is the further shore?
+
+Is it something else than what we have?  Is it somewhere else
+than where we are?  Is it to take rest from all our works, to be
+relieved from all the responsibilities of life?
+
+No, in the very heart of our activities we are seeking for our
+end.  We are crying for the across, even where we stand.  So,
+while our lips utter their prayer to be carried away, our busy
+hands are never idle.
+
+In truth, thou ocean of joy, this shore and the other shore are
+one and the same in thee.  When I call this my own, the other
+lies estranged; and missing the sense of that completeness which
+is in me, my heart incessantly cries out for the other.  All my
+this, and that other, are waiting to be completely reconciled in
+thy love.
+
+This "I" of mine toils hard, day and night, for a home which it
+knows as its own.  Alas, there will be no end of its sufferings
+so long as it is not able to call this home thine.  Till then it
+will struggle on, and its heart will ever cry, "Ferryman, lead me
+across."  When this home of mine is made thine, that very moment
+is it taken across, even while its old walls enclose it.  This
+"I" is restless.  It is working for a gain which can never be
+assimilated with its spirit, which it never can hold and retain.
+In its efforts to clasp in its own arms that which is for all, it
+hurts others and is hurt in its turn, and cries, "Lead me across".
+But as soon as it is able to say, "All my work is thine," everything
+remains the same, only it is taken across.
+
+Where can I meet thee unless in this mine home made thine?  Where
+can I join thee unless in this my work transformed into thy work?
+If I leave my home I shall not reach thy home; if I cease my work
+I can never join thee in thy work.  For thou dwellest in me and I
+in thee.  Thou without me or I without thee are nothing.
+
+Therefore, in the midst of our home and our work, the prayer
+rises, "Lead me across!"  For here rolls the sea, and even here
+lies the other shore waiting to be reached--yes, here is this
+everlasting present, not distant, not anywhere else.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sadhana, by Rabindranath Tagore
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SADHANA ***
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