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# 2021-12-01 - Four Paths of Yoga by Swami Vivekananda
A friend gave me a printed book titled The Four Paths of
Self-Realization by Swami Vivekananda. The content of the book is
public domain and can be found in the first three volumes of The
Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. I have included download links
at the bottom of this log entry.
Swami Vivekananda wrote about these four paths of yoga:
* Bhakti Yoga -- The path of love, devotion & surrender.
* Jnâna Yoga -- The path of reason, knowledge & self-inquiry.
* Karma Yoga -- The path of service & work.
* Rāja Yoga -- The path of meditation & psychology.
Below are interesting excerpts from these books.
"The next point is, that ignorance is the great mother of all misery,
and this is the fundamental ignorance, to think that the Infinite
weeps and cries that he is finite, and this is the basis of all
ignorance, that we, the immortal, the ever pure, the perfect spirit,
think that we are little minds, that we are little bodies; this is
the mother of all selfishness. As soon as I am a little body I want
to preserve it, to protect it, to keep it nice, at the expense of
other bodies; you and I have become separate. As soon as this idea
of separation comes, it opens the door to all mischief and leads to
all misery. This is the utility, that if a very small fractional
part of the human beings living today can put aside this idea of
selfishness and narrowness and littleness, this earth will become a
paradise tomorrow, but with machines and improvements of material
knowledge it will never come. These only increase misery, as oil
poured on fire increases the flame all the more. Without the
knowledge of spirit, every bit of material knowledge is only adding
fuel to fire, only giving into the hands of selfish man one more
instrument to take what belongs to others, to live upon the life of
others, instead of giving up his life for others."
Is it practical, is another question. Can it be practiced in modern
society. Truth does not pay homage to any society, modern or
ancient. Society has to pay homage to Truth, or die. Societies and
all beings are molded upon truth, and truth has not to adjust itself
to society.
[This reminds me of Limits To Growth, the idea that the anthrosphere
has a cannibalist, parasitic relationship to the ecosphere and the
idea that advances in technology will only add fuel to the fire and
increase the upward transfer of wealth and centralization of power.
The evidence shows that is exactly what the last century of
automation has accomplished. As Vivekananda points out later, we no
longer literally eat one another's flesh, but by cheating each other,
entire countries are brought to ruin.]
Most of you are horrified when reading the old scriptures... to find
that the ancient gods sometimes did things which, to us, are very
repugnant. But when we read these books, we entirely forget that we
are persons of the nineteenth century, and these gods were beings
existing thousands of years ago. We also forget that the people who
worshipped these gods found nothing incongruous in their characters,
found nothing to frighten them, because they were very much like
themselves. I may also remark that that is the one great lesson we
have to learn throughout our lives.
In judging others we always judge them by our own ideals. That is
not as it should be. Every one must be judged according to his own
ideal, and not by that of any one else. In all our dealings with our
fellow-beings we constantly labor under this mistake, and I am of the
opinion that the vast majority of our quarrels with our fellow-beings
arise simply from this one cause, that we are always trying to judge
other gods by our own, other ideals by our ideals, and others'
motives from our motives. Under certain circumstances I might do a
certain thing, and when I see another person taking the same course I
think he has also the same motive actuating him, little dreaming that
although the effect may be the same, yet many thousands of causes may
produce the same effect. He may have performed the action with quite
a different motive from what would impel me to do the same thing.
So in judging of those ancient religions we must not take the
standpoint to which we incline, but must put ourselves into the
position of thought and life of those early times.
This again is a most curious fact; in every society you find it.
Supposing there is an evil in society. You will find immediately one
group rising up and beginning to denounce it in vindictive fashion.
This sometimes degenerates into fanaticism. You always find fanatics
in every society... Every fanatic who gets up and denounces
something secures a following. It is very easy to break down; a
maniac can break anything he likes, but it would be hard for him to
build anything in this world.
So there is this set of denouncers in every country, present in some
form or other, and they think they will mend this world by the sheer
power of denunciation and of exposing evil; they do some good,
according to their light, but much more harm, because things are not
done in a day. Social institutions are not made in a day, and to
change means removing the cause. Suppose there is evil here;
denouncing it will not do anything, but you must go to work at the
root. First find out the cause, then remove it, and the effect will
be removed also. All this outcry will not produce any effect, unless
indeed it produces misfortune.
There were others who had sympathy in their hearts and who understood
the idea that we must go deep into the cause, and these were the
great saints. One fact you must remember, that all the great
teachers of the world have declared that they came not to destroy but
to fulfill. ... Fanatics little understand the infinite power of love
in the hearts of these great sages. They looked upon the inhabitants
of this world as their children. They were the real fathers...
filled with infinite sympathy and patience for every one, they were
ready to bear and forbear. They knew how human society should grow,
and patiently, slowly, surely, went on applying their remedies, not
by denouncing and not by frightening people, but by gently and kindly
leading them step by step.
We never build anew, we simply change places, we cannot have anything
new, we only change the positions of things. The seed grows into the
tree, and patiently, gently, we must direct the energies towards
truth, and fulfill the truth that exists, not try to make new truths.
Thus, instead of denouncing these old ideas of God as unfit for
modern times, these ancient sages began to seek out the reality that
was in them, and the result was the Vedanta Philosophy, and out of
the old deities, out of the monotheistic God, Ruler of the Universe,
they found yet higher and higher ideas in what is called the
Impersonal Absolute; they found One-ness throughout the Universe.
[This reminds me of appreciative inquiry, and the idea that it is
much easier to destroy than to create.]
Materialism prevails in Europe today. You may pray for the salvation
of the modern skeptics, but they do not yield, they want reason. The
salvation of Europe depends on a rationalistic religion, the
Advaita--the non-duality, the Oneness, the idea of the Impersonal
God--is the only religion that can have any hold on any intellectual
people. It comes whenever religion seems to disappear and irreligion
seems to prevail, and that is why it has taken ground in Europe and
America.
In the old Upanishads we find sublime poetry; these "Seers of Truth"
were poets. Plato says, inspiration comes to people through poetry,
and it seemed as if these ancient Rishis were raised above humanity
to show these truths through poetry. They never preached, nor
philosophized, nor wrote. Strains of music came out of their lips.
In Buddha we had the great, universal heart, infinite patience making
religion practical, bringing it to every one's door; in Sankaracharya
we saw tremendous intellectual power, throwing the scorching light of
reason over everything. We want today that bright sun of
intellectuality, and joined to it the heart of Buddha, that
wonderful, infinite heart of love and mercy. This union will give us
the highest philosophy. Science and religion will meet and shake
hands. Poetry and philosophy will become friends. This will be the
religion of the future, and if we can work it out, we may be sure
that it will be for all times and professions. This is the one way
that will be acceptable to modern science, for it has almost fallen
into it. When a great scientific teacher asserts that all things are
the manifestation of one force, does it not remind you of the God of
whom you hear in the Upanishads: "As the one fire entering into the
universe is expressing itself in various forms, and yet is infinitely
more besides, even so that one Soul is expressing itself in every
soul and yet is infinitely more besides." Do you not see how science
is going? The Hindu nation proceeded through the study of the mind,
through metaphysics and logic. The European nations start from
external nature, and now they too, are coming to the same results.
We find that searching through the mind we at last come to that
Oneness, that Universal One, the Internal Soul of everything, the
Essence, the Reality of everything, the Ever-Free, the Ever-Blissful,
the Ever-Existing. Through material science we come to the same
Oneness. Science today is telling us that all things are but the
manifestation of one energy, which is the sum-total of everything
which exists, and the trend of humanity is towards freedom, and not
towards bondage. Why should men be moral? Because through morality
is the path towards freedom, and immorality leads to bondage.
It is thought which is the propelling force in us. Fill the mind
with the highest thoughts, hear them day after day, think of them
month after month. Never mind failures; they are quite natural, they
are the beauty of life, these failures. What would life be without
these failures? It would not be worth having if it were not for the
struggle. Where would be the poetry of life? Never mind the
struggles, the mistakes. ... So never mind these failures, these
little backslidings, hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail
a thousand times make the attempt once more. This is the ideal of
man, to see God in everything. If you cannot see Him in everything,
see Him in one, in that thing which you like best, and then see Him
in another. So on you can go. There is infinite life before the
soul. Take your time and you will achieve your desire.
So long as the vain desires of our senses are clamoring and, as it
were, dragging us every moment outward, making us slaves to
everything outside, a little bit of color, a little bit of taste, a
little bit of touch, dragging the human soul out, notwithstanding all
our pretensions, how can the truth express itself in our hearts? ...
To understand this truth is very difficult. Many, even hearing it
continually, do not understand, for the speaker must be wonderful, so
must be the hearer. The teacher must be wonderful, so must be the
taught. Neither is the mind to be disturbed by vain argument, for it
is no more a question of argument, it is a question of fact. We have
always heard that there is a path in every religion which insists on
our faith. We have been taught to believe blindly. Well, this idea
of blind faith is objectionable, no doubt--no doubt it is very
objectionable--but analyzing it we find that behind it is a very
great truth. What it really means is what we read now. The mind is
not to be ruffled by vain arguments, because argument will not bring
us to know God. It is a question of fact, and not of argument. All
argument and reasoning must be based upon certain principles.
Without these principles there cannot be any argument. Reasoning is
the method of comparison between certain facts which we have already
absolutely perceived. If these absolutely perceived facts are not
there already, there cannot be any reasoning. Just as it is true in
the external sense, why should it not be at the same time true in the
internal? The external sensations all depend on actual experiences.
You are not asked to believe in any assertions, but the rules become
established by actual demonstration, not in the form of argument, but
by actual perception.
All arguments are based upon certain perceptions. The chemist takes
certain things and certain results are produced. This is a fact; you
see it, sense it, and make that the basis on which to build all your
chemical arguments. So with the physicists, so with all other
sciences, all knowledge must stand on certain perception of facts,
and upon that we have to build, our reasoning. But, curiously
enough, the vast majority of mankind think, especially at the present
time, that no such perception is possible in religion, that religion
can only be apprehended by vain arguments outside. Therefore we are
told, the mind is not to be disturbed by vain arguments. Religion is
a question of fact, not of talk. We have to analyze our own souls
and to find what is there. We have to understand it and to realize
what is understood. That is religion. No amount of talk will make
religion. So the question of whether there is a God or not can never
be proved by argument, for the arguments are as much on one side as
the other. But if there be a God, He is in our own hearts. Have you
ever seen Him? Just as the question as to whether this world exists
or not has not yet been decided, so the debate between the idealists
and the realists is eternal. It is a fact, yet we only know that the
world exists, that it goes on. We only change the meaning of the
word. So with all the questions of life, we must come back to facts.
There are certain facts which are to be perceived, and there are
certain religious facts, as in external science, that have to be
perceived, and upon them religion will be built. Of course the
extreme claim that you must believe any dogma of a religion is
degrading to the human mind. That man who asks you to believe
anything degrades himself, and, if you believe, degrades you too.
The only right that the sages of the world have to tell us anything,
is that they have analyzed their own minds and have found these
facts, and if we do the same, we shall believe, and not before. That
is all that there is in religion. But you must always remember this,
that as a matter of fact 99.9 percent of those who attack religion
have never analyzed their minds, have never struggled to get at the
facts. So their arguments do not have any weight against religion,
any more than those of a blind man who cries against the sun, "You
are all fools who believe in the sun." That would have no weight
with us. So the arguments of these people who have not gone to work
to analyze their own minds, yet at the same time try to pull down
religion, should have no weight with us. ... See the Sermon on the
Mount. Any man who truly realized it would be a god immediately,
would be perfect, and yet it is said that there are many millions of
Christians in the world. Do you mean to say they are all Christians?
What is meant is, that mankind may at some time try to realize that
sermon. Not one in twenty millions is a real Christian.
So, in India, there are said to be three hundred millions of
Vedantins. If there were one in a thousand who had actually realized
religion, this world would soon be greatly changed. We are all
atheists, and yet we try to fight the man who admits it. We are all
in the dark; religion is to us a mere nothing, mere intellectual
assent, mere talk--this man talks well, and that man ill--this to us
is religion.
If a wave rises in the ocean it makes a hollow somewhere. If
happiness comes to a man unhappiness comes to some other, or to some
animal. Men are increasing [in number] and animals are vanishing; we
are killing them, and taking their land; we are taking all means of
sustenance from them. How can we say that happiness is increasing?
The strong race eats up the weaker, but do you think that the strong
race will be very happy? No; they will begin to kill each other.
[Here, Vivekananda confronts the myth of perpetual progress.]
There are Buddhists who deny the whole theory of the soul that I have
just now been propounding. "What use is there," says the Buddhist,
"to assume something as the substratum, as the background of this
body and mind? Why may we not allow thoughts to run on? Why admit
a third substance beyond this organism, composed of mind and body, a
third substance called soul? What is its use? Is not this organism
sufficient to explain itself? Why take anew a third something?"
These arguments are very powerful. This reasoning is very strong.
So far as outside research goes, we see that this organism is a
sufficient explanation of itself--at least, many of us see it in that
light. Why then need there be a soul as a substratum, as a something
which is neither mind nor body but stands as a background for both
mind and body? Let there be only mind and body. Body is the name of
a stream of matter continuously changing. Mind is the name of a
stream of consciousness or thought continuously changing. What
produces the apparent unity between these two? This unity does not
really exist, let us say. Take, for instance, a lighted torch, and
whirl it rapidly before you. You see a circle of fire. The circle
does not really exist, but because the torch is continuously moving,
it leaves the appearance of a circle. So there is no unity in this
life; it is a mass of matter continually rushing down, and the whole
of the matter you may call one unity but no more. So is mind; each
thought is separate from every other thought; it is only the rushing
current that leaves behind the illusion of unity; there is no need of
a third substance. This universal phenomenon of body and mind is all
that really is; do not posit something behind it. You will find that
this Buddhist thought has been taken up by certain sects and schools
in modern times, and all of them claim that it is new--their own
inventions. This has been the central idea of most of the Buddhistic
philosophies, that this world is itself all-sufficient; that you need
not ask for any background at all; all that is, is this
sense-universe: what is the use of thinking of something as a support
to this universe? Everything is the aggregate of qualities; why
should there be a hypothetical substance in which they should inhere?
The idea of substance comes from the rapid interchange of qualities,
not from something unchangeable which exists behind them. We see how
wonderful some of these arguments are, and they appeal easily to the
ordinary experience of humanity--in fact, not one in a million can
think of anything other than phenomena. To the vast majority of men,
nature appears to be only a changing, whirling, combining, mingling
mass of change. Few of us ever have a glimpse of the calm sea
behind. For us it is always lashed into waves; this universe appears
to us only a tossing mass of waves. Thus we find these two opinions.
One is that there is something behind both body and mind which is an
unchangeable and immovable substance; and the other is that there is
no such thing as immovability or unchangeability in the universe; it
is all change and nothing but change. The solution of this
difference comes in the next step of thought, namely, the
non-dualistic.
It says that the dualists are right in finding something behind all,
as a background which does not change; we cannot conceive change
without there being something unchangeable. We can only conceive of
anything that is changeable by knowing something which is less
changeable, and this also must appear more changeable in comparison
with something else which is less changeable, and so on and on, until
we are bound to admit that there must be something which never
changes at all. The whole of this manifestation must have been in a
state of non-manifestation, calm and silent, being the balance of
opposing forces, so to say, when no force operated, because force
acts when a disturbance of the equilibrium comes in. The universe is
ever hurrying on to return to that state of equilibrium again. If we
are certain of any fact whatsoever, we are certain of this. When the
dualists claim that there is a something which does not change, they
are perfectly right, but their analysis that it is an underlying
something which is neither body nor the mind, a something separate
from both, is wrong. So far as the Buddhists say that the whole
universe is a mass of change, they are perfectly right; so long as I
am separate from the universe, so long as I stand back and look at
something before me, so long as there are two things--the looker-on
and the thing looked upon--it will appear always that the universe is
one of change, continuously changing all the time. But the reality
is that there is both change and changelessness in this universe.
The science of Râja-Yoga proposes to put before humanity a practical
and scientifically worked out method of reaching this truth. In the
first place, every science must have its own method of investigation.
If you want to become an astronomy and sit down and cry "Astronomy!
Astronomy!" it will never come to you. The same with chemistry. A
certain method must be followed. You must go to a laboratory, take
different substances, mix them up, compound them, experiment with
them, and out of that will come a knowledge of chemistry. If you
want to be an astronomer, you must go to an observatory, take a
telescope, study the stars and planets, and then you will become an
astronomer. Each science must have its own methods. I could preach
you thousands of sermons and that would not make you religious, until
you practiced the method. These are the truths of the sages of all
countries, of all ages, of men pure and unselfish, who had no motive
but to do good to the world. They all declare that they have found
some truth higher than what the senses can bring to us, and they
invite verification. They ask us to take up the method and practice
honestly, and then, if we do not find this higher truth, we will have
the right to say there is no truth in the claim, but before we have
done that, we are not rational in denying the truth of their
assertions. So we must work faithfully using the prescribed methods,
and light will come.
In acquiring knowledge we make use of generalization, and
generalization is based on observation. We first observe facts, then
generalize, and then draw conclusions or principles. The knowledge
of the mind, of the internal nature of man, of thought, can never be
had until we have first the power of observing the facts that are
going on within. It is comparatively easy to observe facts in the
external world, for many instruments have been invented for the
purpose, but in the internal world we have no instrument to help us.
You know we must observe in order to have a real science. Without
proper analysis, any science will be hopeless--mere theorizing. And
that is why all psychologists have been quarreling among themselves
since the beginning of time, except those few who found out the means
of observation. ... The object is internal, the mind itself is the
object, and it is necessary to study the mind itself--mind studying
mind. We know that there is the power of the mind called reflection.
... The powers of the mind should be concentrated and turned back
upon itself, and as the darkest places reveal their secrets before
the penetrating rays of the sun, so will this concentrated mind
penetrate is own innermost secrets. ... It will all be revealed to
us. This is what Râja-Yoga proposes to teach. ... We are human
beings; that is sufficient. Every human being has the right to ask
the reason, why, and to have their question answered by themself, if
they only take the trouble. So far, then, we see that in the study
of this Râja-Yoga no faith or belief is necessary. Believe nothing
until you find it out for yourself; that is what it teaches us.
Anything that is secret and mysterious in these systems of Yoga
should be at once rejected. The best guide in life is strength. In
religion, as in all other matters, discard everything that weakens
you, have nothing to do with it. Mystery-mongering weakens the human
brain.
There was once a minister to a great king. He fell into disgrace.
The king, as a punishment, ordered him to be shut up in the top of a
very high tower. This was done, and the minister was left there to
perish. He had a faithful wife, however, who came to the tower at
night and called to her husband at the top to know what she could do
to help him. He told her to return to the tower the following night
and bring with her a long rope, some stout twine, pack thread, silken
thread, a beetle, and a little honey. Wondering much, the good wife
obeyed her husband, and brought him the desired articles. The
husband directed her to attach the silken thread firmly to the
beetle, then to smear its horns with a drop of honey, and to set it
free on the wall of the tower, with its head pointing upwards. She
obeyed all these instructions, and the beetle started on its long
journey. Smelling the honey ahead it slowly crept onward, in the
hope of reaching the honey, until at last it reached the top of the
tower, when the minister grasped the beetle, and got possession of
the silken thread. He had told his wife to tie the other end to the
pack thread, and after he had drawn up the pack thread, he repeated
the process with stout twine, and lastly with the rope. Then the
rest was easy. The minister descended from the tower by means of the
rope, and made his escape. In this body of ours the breath motion is
the "silken thread"; by laying hold of and learning to control it we
grasp the pack thread of the nerve currents, and from these the stout
twine of our thoughts, and lastly the rope of Prana, controlling
which, we reach freedom.
We do not know anything about our own bodies; we cannot know. Why do
we not? Because our attention is not discriminating enough to catch
the very fine movements that are going on within. We can know of
them only when the minds become more subtle and enters, as it were,
deeper into the body.
We hear "Be good," and "Be good," and "Be good," taught all over the
world. There is hardly a child born in any country in the world who
has not been told, "Do not steal," "Do not tell a lie," but nobody
tells the child how he can help doing them. ... Talking will not help
him.
He who has succeeded in attaching or detaching his mind to or from
the centers at will has succeeded in Pratyahara, which means,
"gathering towards," checking the outgoing powers of the mind,
freeing it from the thralldom of the senses.
The first lesson, then, is to sit for some time and let the mind run
on. The mind is bubbling up all the time. It is like that monkey
jumping about. Let the monkey jump as much as he can; you simply
wait and watch. Knowledge is power, says the proverb, and that is
true. Until you know what the mind is doing you cannot control it.
Give it the rein; many hideous thoughts may come into it; you will be
astonished that it was possible for you to think such thoughts. But
you will find that each day the mind's vagaries are becoming less and
less violent, that each day it is becoming calmer.
Yoga is divided into two parts. Where one's self is meditated upon
as zero, and bereft of qualities, that is called Abhava. That in
which one sees the self as full of bliss and bereft of all
impurities, and one with God, is called Mahayoga. The Yogi, by each
one, realizes his Self.
The word Karma is derived from the Kri, to do; all action is Karma.
Technically, this word also means the effects of actions.
If you take the character of any man, it really is but the aggregate
of tendencies, the sum total of the bent of his mind; you will find
that misery and happiness are equal factors in the formation of that
character.
So with all our feelings and actions we may find, if we calmly study
our own selves, to have been brought out from within ourselves by so
many blows. The result is what we are; all these blows taken
together are called Karma--work, action. Everything we do, physical
or mental, is Karma and it leaves its marks on us.
Karma in its effect on character is the most tremendous power that
man has to deal with. Man is, as it were, a center, and is
attracting all the powers of the universe towards himself, and in
this center is fusing them all and again sending them off in a big
current. Such a center is the real man, the almighty, the
omniscient, and he draws the whole universe towards him; good and
bad, misery and happiness, all are running towards him and clinging
round him; and out of them he fashions the mighty stream of tendency,
called character, and throws it outwards. As he has the power of
drawing in anything, so has he the power of throwing it out.
All actions that we see in the world, all the movements in human
society, all the weeks that we have around us, are simply the display
of thought, the manifestation of the will of man.
Work for work's sake. There are some who are really the salt of the
earth in every country, and who work for work's sake, who do not care
for name, or fame, or even to go to heaven. They work just because
good will come of it.
The ideal man is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and
solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the
intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert. He
has learned the secret of restraint; he has controlled himself. He
goes through the streets of a big city with all its traffic, and his
mind is as calm as if he were in a cave, where not a sound could
reach him; and he is intensely working all the time. That is the
ideal of Karma Yoga, and if you have attained to that, you have
really learned the secret of work.
Tamas is typified as darkness or inactivity; Rajas is activity,
expressed as attraction or repulsion; and Sattva is the equilibrium
of the two.
The important thing is to know that there are gradations of duty and
morality--that the duty of one state of life, in one set of
circumstances will not and cannot be that of another.
Our first duty is not to hate ourselves; because to advance we must
have faith in ourselves first and then in God. He who has no faith
in himself can never have faith in God.
The one who from weakness "resists not" commits a sin, and as such
cannot receive any benefit from the non-resistance; while the other
would commit a sin by offering resistance. ... We must first take
care to understand whether we have the power of resistance or not.
Then, having the power, if we renounce it and do not resist, we are
doing a grand act of love; but if we cannot resist, and at the same
time try to deceive ourselves into the belief that we are actuated by
the highest love, we are doing the exact opposite.
Plunge into the world, and then, after a time, when you have suffered
and enjoyed all that is in it, will renunciation come; then will
calmness come. So fulfill your desire for power and everything else,
and after you have fulfilled the desire, will come the time when you
will know that they are all very little things; but until you have
fulfilled this desire, until you have passed through that activity,
it is impossible for you to come to the state of calmness, serenity,
and self-surrender.
Every man should take up his own ideal and endeavor to accomplish it;
that is a surer way of progress than taking up other men's ideals,
which one can never hope to accomplish.
Unity in variety is the plan of creation. However men and women may
vary individually, there is unity in the background. The different
individual characters and classes of men and women are natural
variations in creation. Hence, we ought not to judge them by the
same standard or put the same ideal before [all of] them. Such a
course creates an unnatural struggle only and the result is that the
man begins to hate himself and is hindered from becoming religious
and good. Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live
up to his own highest ideal, and strive at the same time to make the
ideal as near as possible to the truth.
Helping others physically, by removing their physical needs, is
indeed great, but the help is greater, according as the need is
greater and according as the help is far-reaching. If a man's wants
can be removed for an hour, it is helping him indeed; if his wants
can be removed for a year it will be more help to him; but if his
wants can be removed forever, it is surely the greatest help that can
be given him. Spiritual knowledge is the only thing that can destroy
our miseries forever; any other knowledge satisfies wants only for a
time. It is only with the knowledge of the spirit that the faculty
of want is annihilated forever; so helping man spiritually is the
highest help that can be given to him; he who gives man spiritual
knowledge is the greatest benefactor of mankind, and as such we
always find that those were the most powerful of men who helped man
in his spiritual needs; because spirituality is the true basis of all
our activities in life. A spiritually strong and sound man will be
strong in every other respect, if he so wishes; until there is
spiritual strength in man even physical needs cannot be well
satisfied. Next to spiritual comes intellectual help; the gift of
knowledge is a far higher gift than that of food and clothes; it is
even higher than giving life to a man, because the real life of man
consists of knowledge; ignorance is death, knowledge is life. Life
is of very little value, if it is a life in the dark, groping through
ignorance and misery. Next in order comes, of course, helping a man
physically. Therefore, in considering the question of helping
others, we must always strive not to commit the mistake of thinking
that physical help is the only help that can be given. It is not
only the last but the least, because it cannot bring about permanent
satisfaction. The misery that I feel when I am hungry is satisfied
by eating, but hunger returns; my misery can cease only when I am
satisfied beyond all want. Then hunger will not make me miserable;
no distress, no sorrow will be able to move me. So that help which
tends to make us strong spiritually is the highest, next to it comes
intellectual help, and after that physical help.
The miseries of the world cannot be cured by physical help only;
until man's nature changes, these physical needs will always arise,
and miseries will always be felt, and no amount of physical help will
cure them completely. The only solution of this problem is to make
mankind pure. Ignorance is the mother of all the evil and all the
misery we see. Let men have light, let them be pure and spiritually
strong and educated, then alone will misery cease in the world, not
before.
Every work must necessarily be a mixture of good and evil; yet we are
commanded to work... Good action will entail upon us good effect, bad
action, bad. But good and bad are both bondages of the soul. The
solution reached in the Gita regarding this bondage-producing nature
of work is that if we do not attach ourselves to the work we do, it
will not have any binding effect on our soul.
"Samskara" can be translated very nearly as "inherent tendency."
As the tortoise tucks its feet and head inside the shell, and you may
kill it and break it in pieces, and yet it will not come out, even so
the character of that man who has control over his motives and organs
is unchangeably established.
By work along men may get to where Buddha got largely by meditation
or Christ by prayer. Buddha was a working Jnani; Christ was a
Bhakta, but the same goal was reached by both of them. The
difficulty is here: Liberation means entire freedom--freedom from the
bondage of good, as well as from the bondage of evil. A golden chain
is as much a chain as an iron one. So the bad tendencies are to be
counteracted by the good ones, and the bad impressions on the mind
should be removed by the fresh waves of good ones, until all that is
evil almost disappears, or is subdued and held in control in a corner
of the mind, but after that the good tendencies have also to be
conquered. Thus the "attached" becomes the "unattached."
Work as if you were a stranger in this land, a sojourner; work
incessantly, but do not bind yourselves; bondage is terrible. This
world is not our habitation, it is only one of the many stages
through which we are passing.
Do you see how everybody works? Nobody can be altogether at rest;
ninety-nine percent of mankind work like slaves, and the result is
misery; it is all selfish work. Work through freedom! Work through
love!
Do you ask anything from your children in return for what you have
given them? It is your duty to work for them, and there the matter
ends. In whatever you do for [someone else], assume the same
attitude towards it... If you can invariably take the position of a
giver, in which everything given by you is a free offering to the
world, without any thought of return, then will your work bring you
no attachment. Attachment comes only when we expect a return.
Now you see what Karma Yoga means; even at the point of death to help
everyone, without asking questions. Be cheated millions of times and
to never ask a question, and never think of what you are doing.
Never vaunt of your gifts to the poor or expect their gratitude, but
rather be grateful to them for giving you the occasion of practicing
charity to them. Thus it is plain that to be an ideal householder is
a much more difficult task than to be an ideal Sannyasin; the true
life of work is indeed as hard as, if not harder than, the equally
true life of renunciation.
The term "duty," like every other universal abstract term, is
impossible to clearly define; we can only get an idea of it by
knowing its practical operations and results. ... Therefore we see
that it is not the thing done that defines a duty. To give an
objective definition of duty is thus entirely impossible. Yet there
is duty from the subjective side. Any action that makes us go
Godward is a good action, and is our duty; any action that makes us
go downward is evil, and is not our duty. From the subjective
standpoint we may see that certain acts have a tendency to exalt and
ennoble us, while certain other acts have a tendency to degrade and
to brutalize us. But it is not possible to make out with certainty
which acts have which kind of tendency in relation to all persons,
all sorts and conditions.
It is therefore our duty to do that work which will exalt and ennoble
us in accordance with the ideals and activities with the society in
which we are born. But it must be particularly remembered that the
same ideals and activities do not prevail in all societies and
countries, our ignorance of this is the main cause of much of the
hatred of one nation towards another.
Therefore the one point we ought to remember is that we should always
try to see the duty of others through their own eyes, and never judge
the customs of other peoples by our own standard. I am not the
standard of the universe. I have to accommodate myself to the world,
and not the world to me.
Duty is seldom sweet. It is only when love greases its wheels that
it runs smoothly; it is a continuous friction otherwise.
In every religion there are three parts; philosophy, mythology, and
ritual. Philosophy of course is the essence of every religion;
mythology explains and illustrates it by meas of the more or less
legendary lives of great men, stories and fables of wonderful things
and so on; ritual gives to that philosophy a still more concrete
form, so that everyone may grab it--ritual is in fact concretized
philosophy. ... Therefore symbols are of great help and we cannot
dispense with the symbolical method of putting things before us.
It is not the receiver who is blessed, but it is the giver. Be
thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benevolence
and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and perfect.
You need not worry or make yourself sleepless about the world; it
will go on without you. It is the level-headed man, the calm man, of
good judgment and cool nerves, of great sympathy and love, who does
good work and so does good to himself. The fanatic is foolish and
has no sympathy; he can never straighten the world, nor himself
become pure and perfect.
We ought not to be fanatics of any kind because fanaticism is opposed
to love. You hear fanatics glibly saying, "I do not hate the sinner,
I hate the sin;" but I am prepared to go any distance to see the face
of that man who can really make a distinction between the sin and the
sinner. It is easier said than done.
We cannot breathe or live without injuring others, and every bit of
food we eat is taken away from another's mouth: our very lives are
crowding out other lives. It may be men, or animals, or small
microbes, but someone or other of these we have to crowd out.
The "revolving towards" is what we call the world, the "I and mine";
it includes all those things which are always enriching the "me" by
wealth, money, and power, and name and fame, and which are of a
grasping nature, always tending to accumulate everything in one
center, that center being "myself." That is the "Pravatti," the
natural tendency of every human being; taking everything from
everywhere and heaping it around one center, that center being one's
own sweet self. When this tendency begins to break, when it is
"Nivritti" or "going away from," then begin morality and religion.
Both are of the nature of work: the former is evil work, and the
latter is good work.
However much their systems of philosophy differ, all mankind stand in
reverence and awe before the man who is ready to sacrifice himself
for others. Here it is not at all any question of creed, or
doctrine--even men who are very much opposed to all religious ideas,
when they see one of these acts of complete self-sacrifice, feel that
they must revere it.
... as the old Christians used to say, "the old man must die." This
old man is the selfish idea that the whole world is made for our
enjoyment.
To those who have not controlled their own minds, the world is either
full of evil or at best a mixture of good and evil. This very world
will become to us an optimistic world when we become masters of our
own minds. Nothing will then work upon us as good or evil; we shall
find everything to be in its proper place, to be harmonious.
Perfect equilibrium, or what the Christians call the peace that
surpasses all understanding, cannot be had in this universe, nor in
heaven, nor in any place where our mind and thoughts can go, where
the senses can feel, or which the imagination can conceive. No such
place can give us that freedom, because all such places would be
within our universe, and it is limited by space, time, and causation.
... real religion begins where this little universe ends. These
little joys, and sorrows, and knowledge of things end there, and the
reality begins. Until we give up the thirst after life, the strong
attachment to our transient conditioned existence, we have no hope of
catching even a glimpse of that infinite freedom beyond.
But it is a most difficult thing to give up the clinging to this
universe; few ever attain to that. There are two ways to do that
mentioned in our books. One is called "neti neti" (not this, not
this), the other is called the "iti" (this); the former is the
negative and the latter is the positive way. The negative way is the
most difficult. It is only possible to the men of the very highest,
exceptional minds and gigantic wills who simply stand up and say,
"No, I will not have this," and the mind and body obey their will,
and they come out successful. But such people are very rare. The
vast majority of mankind choose the positive way, the way through the
world, making use of all the bondages themselves to break those very
bondages. This is also a kind of giving up; only it is done slowly
and gradually, by knowing things, enjoying things, and thus obtaining
experience, and knowing the nature of things until the mind lets them
all go at last and becomes unattached. The former way of obtaining
non-attachment is by reasoning, and the latter way is through work
and experience. The first is the path of Jnana Yoga, and is
characterized by the refusal to do any work; the second is that of
Karma Yoga, in which there is no cessation from work.
Non-attachment is the basis of all the Yogas.
Here are the two ways of giving up all attachment. The one is for
those who do not believe in God, or in any outside help. They are
left to their own devices; they have simply to work with their own
will, with the powers of their mind and determination, saying, "I
must be nonattached." For those who believe in God there is another
way, which is much less difficult. They give up the fruits of work
unto the Lord, they work and are never attached to the results.
Whatever they see, feel, hear, or do, is for Him.
This world's wheel within wheel is a terrible mechanism; if we put
our hands in it, as soon as we are caught we are gone. We all think
that when we have done a certain duty, we shall be at rest; but
before we have done a part of that duty another is already in
waiting. We are all being dragged along by this mighty, complex
world-machine. There are only two ways out of it; one is to give up
all concern with the machine, to let it go and stand aside, to give
up our desires. That is very easy to say, but is almost impossible
to do. I do not know whether one in twenty millions of men can do
that. The other way is to plunge into the world and learn the secret
of work, and that is the way of Karma Yoga. Do not fly away from the
wheels of the world-machine, but stand inside it and learn the secret
of work. Through proper work done inside, it is also possible to
come out. Through this machinery itself is the way out.
Bhakti Yoga is a real, genuine search after the Lord, a search
beginning, ending, and continuing in love. One single moment of the
madness of extreme love to God brings us eternal freedom.
The one great advantage of Bhakti is that it is the easiest and most
natural way to reach the great divine end in view; its great
disadvantage is that in its lower forms it often degenerates into
hideous fanaticism. All the weak and undeveloped minds in every
religion or country have only one way of loving their own ideal, i.e.
by hating every other ideal. But this danger exists only in that
stage of Bhakti which is called the preparatory (Gauni). When Bhakti
has become ripe and has passed into that form which is called the
supreme (Parâ), no more is there any fear of these hideous
manifestations of fanaticism; that soul which is overpowered by this
higher form of Bhakti is too near the God of Love to become an
instrument for the diffusion of hatred.
For it has been said by the Lord: "Those who are constantly attracted
to Me and worship Me with love--I give that direction to their will
by which they come to Me."
Bhakti is a series or succession of mental efforts at religious
realization beginning with ordinary worship and ending in a supreme
intensity of love for Ishvara.
It has always to be understood that the Personal God worshiped by the
Bhakta is not separate or different from the Brahman. All is
Brahman, the One without a second; only the Brahman, as unity or
absolute, is too much of an abstraction to be loved and worshiped; so
the Bhakta chooses the relative aspect of Brahman, that is, Ishvara,
the Supreme Ruler. Ishvara is the highest manifestation of the
Absolute Reality, or in other words, the highest possible reading of
the Absolute by the human mind.
[The Bhakta], soon, through the mercy of the Lord, reaches a plane
where pedantic and powerless reason is left far behind, and the mere
intellectual groping through the dark gives place to the daylight of
direct perception. He no more reasons and believes, he almost
perceives. He no more argues, he senses. And is not this seeing
God, and feeling God, and enjoying God higher than anything else?
Every soul is destined to be perfect, and every being, in the end,
will attain the state of perfection. Whatever we are now is the
result of our acts and thoughts in the past; and whatever we shall be
in the future will be the result of what we think and do now. But
this, the shaping of our own destinies, does not preclude our
receiving help from outside; nay, in the vast majority of cases such
help is absolutely necessary. When it comes, the higher powers and
possibilities of the soul are quickened, spiritual life is awakened,
growth is animated, and man becomes holy and perfect in the end.
To quicken the spirit, the impulse must come from another soul. The
person from whose soul such impulse comes is called the Guru--the
teacher; and the person to whose soul the impulse is conveyed is
called the Shishya--the student. To convey such an impulse to any
soul, in the first place, the soul from which it proceeds must
possess the power of transmitting it, as it were, to another; and in
the second place, the soul to which it is transmitted must be fit to
receive it.
... it is a mysterious law of nature that as soon as the field is
ready, the seed must and does come; as soon as the soul earnestly
desires to have religion, the transmitter of religious force must and
does appear to help that soul. When the power that attracts the
light of religion in the receiving soul is full and strong, the power
which answers that attraction and sends in light does come as a
matter of course.
There are, however, certain great dangers in the way. There is, for
instance, the danger to the receiving soul of its mistaking momentary
emotions for real religious yearning. So whenever we are tempted to
complain of our search after the truth that we desire so much,
proving vain, instead of so complaining, our first duty ought to be
to look into our own souls and find whether the craving in the heart
is real. Then in the vast majority of cases it would be discovered
that we were not fit for receiving the truth, that there was no real
thirst for spirituality.
The conditions necessary for the [student] are purity, a real thirst
after knowledge, and perseverance.
In regards to the teacher, we must see that he knows the spirit of
the scriptures. The second condition necessary in the teacher
is--sinlessness. The third condition [is that] the teacher must not
teach with any ulterior, selfish motive; his work must be simply out
of love, out of pure love for mankind at large.
When you see that in your teacher these conditions are fulfilled, you
are safe; if they are not, it is unsafe to allow yourself to be
taught by him, for there is the great danger that, if he cannot
convey goodness to your heart, he may convey wickedness. This danger
must by all means be guarded against.
Religion, which is the highest knowledge and the highest wisdom,
cannot be bought, nor can it be acquired from books. You may thrust
your head into all the corners of the world, you may explore the
Himalayas, the Alps, and the Caucasus, you may sound the bottom of
the sea and pry into every nook of Tibet and the desert of Gobi, you
will not find it anywhere until your heart is ready for receiving it
and your teacher has come. And when that divinely appointed teacher
comes, serve him with childlike confidence and simplicity, freely
open your heart to his influence, and see in him God manifested.
Those who come to seek truth with such a spirit of love and
veneration, to them the Lord of Truth reveals the most wonderful
things regarding truth, goodness, and beauty.
Now worshiping Ishvara and Him alone is Bhakti; the worship of
anything else--Deva, Priti, or other being--cannot be Bhakti.
One who aspires to be a Bhakta... must know that all the various
sects of the various religions are the various manifestations of the
glory of the same Lord. Not only this, the Bhakta must take care not
to hate, nor even to criticize those radiant sons of light who are
the founders of various sects; he must not even hear them spoken ill
of. Istha-Nishtha: steadfast devotion to the chosen ideal.
When the human soul draws back from the things of the world and tries
to go into deeper things; when man, the spirit which has here somehow
become concretized and materialized, understands that he is thereby
going to be destroyed and to be reduced almost into mere matter, and
turns his face away from matter--then begins renunciation, then
begins real spiritual growth. The Karma-Yogi's renunciation is in
the shape of giving up all the fruits of his action; he is not
attached to the results of his labor; he does not care for any reward
here or hereafter. The Râja-Yogi knows that the whole of nature is
intended for the soul to acquire experience, and the result of all
the experiences of the soul is for it to become aware of its eternal
separateness from nature. The human soul has to understand and
realize that it has been spirit, and not matter, through eternity,
and that this conjunction of it with matter is and can be only for a
time. The Râja-Yogi learns the lesson of renunciation through his
own experience of nature. The Jnâna-Yogi has the harshest of all
renunciations to go through, as he has to realize from the very first
that the whole of this solid-looking nature is all an illusion. He
has to understand that all that is any kind of manifestation of power
in nature belongs to the soul, and not to nature. He has to know
from the very start that all knowledge and all experience are in the
soul and not in nature; so he has at once and by sheer force of
rational conviction to tear himself away from all bondage to nature.
He lets nature and all that belongs to her go, he lets them vanish
and tries to stand alone!
Of all renunciations, the most natural, so to say, is that of the
Bhakti-Yogi. The Bhakta's renunciation is easy, smooth flowing, and
as natural as the things around us. When the moon shines brightly,
all the stars become dim, and when the sun shines, the moon herself
becomes dim. [Likewise] So this love of the pleasures of the senses
[is made dim by the pleasures of the intellect, and the pleasures of
the intellect is made dim] and cast into the shade by the love of God
Himself. The Bhakta has not to suppress any single one of his
emotions, he only strives to intensify them and direct them to God.
Stand as a witness, as a student, and observe the phenomena of
nature. Have the feeling of personal non-attachment with regard to
man, see how this mighty feeling of love is working itself out in the
world. Sometimes a little friction is produced, but that is only in
the course of the struggle to attain the higher real love. Sometimes
there is a little fight or a little fall; but it is all only by the
way. Stand aside, and freely let these frictions come.
In Bhakti Yoga the central secret is, therefore, to know that the
various passions and feelings and emotions in the human heart are not
wrong in themselves; only they have to be carefully controlled and
given a higher and higher direction, until they attain the very
highest condition of excellence. The highest direction is that which
takes us to God; every other direction is lower.
Tadiyatâ (His-ness) comes when a man becomes perfect according to
Bhakti--when he has become blessed, when he has attained God, when he
has touched the feet of God, as it were. Then his whole nature is
purified and completely changed. All his purpose in life then
becomes fulfilled.
It is impossible to express the nature of this supreme and absolute
ideal of love in human language. Even the highest flight of human
imagination is incapable of comprehending it in all its infinite
perfection and beauty. Nevertheless, the followers of the religion
of love, in its higher as well as its lower forms, in all countries,
have all along had to use the inadequate human language to comprehend
and to define their own ideal of love. Nay more, human love itself,
in all its varied forms has been made to typify this inexpressible
divine love. Man can think of divine things only in his own human
way, to us the Absolute can be expressed only in our relative
language. The whole universe is to us a writing of the Infinite in
the language of the finite. Therefore Bhaktas make use of all the
common terms associated with the common love of humanity in relation
to God and His worship through love.
If you want to be angry, be angry with Him. Chide your Beloved,
chide your Friend. Whom else can you safely chide? Mortal man will
not patiently put up with your anger; there will be a reaction.
[
> Dedicate all your actions to God and direct all your passions,
> such as lust, anger, pride, and so forth, toward God. --Narada
> Bhakti Sutra
]
When this highest ideal of love is reached, philosophy is thrown
away; who will then care for it? Freedom, Salvation, Nirvāna--all
are thrown away; who cares to become free while in the enjoyment of
divine love? "Lord, I do not want wealth, nor friends, nor beauty,
nor learning, nor even freedom; let me be born again and again, and
be Thou ever my Love. Be Thou ever and ever my Love." "Who cares to
become sugar?" says the Bhakta, "I want to taste sugar."
author: Vivekânanda, Swâmi, 1863-1902
(TXT) detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Swami_Vivekananda
title: Bhakti Yoga (path of love, devotion, & surrender)
(HTM) source: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.532735/page/n6/mode/1up
(TXT) detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Bhakti
title: Jnâna Yoga (path of reason, knowledge, & self-inquiry)
(HTM) source: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.99640/page/n9/mode/2up
(TXT) detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Jnana_yoga
title: Karma Yoga (path of service & work)
(HTM) source: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.94806/page/n49/mode/2up
(TXT) detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Karma_yoga
title: Rāja Yoga (path of meditation & psychology)
(HTM) source: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.94806/page/n143/mode/2up
(TXT) detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/R%C4%81ja_yoga
tags: ebook,non-fiction,spirit,yoga
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