“This earth is blissful (‘sweet’ is the literal translation) to all beings, and all beings are sweet to this earth; they all help each other. And all this sweetness is the Âtman, that effulgent, immortal One.” That one sweetness is manifesting itself in various ways. Wherever there is any love, any sweetness in any human being, either in a saint or a sinner, either in an angel or a murderer, either in the body or the mind or the senses, it is all He. How can there be anything but the One? Whatever is the lowest physical enjoyment is He, and the highest spiritual enjoyment is also He. There is no sweetness but He. Thus says Yajnavalkya. When you come to that state, and look upon all things with the same eyes; when you see in the drunkard’s pleasure in drink only that sweetness, or in the saints’ meditation only that sweetness, then you have got the truth, and then alone you will know what happiness means, what peace means, what love means. But as long as you make these vain distinctions, silly, childish, foolish superstitions, all sorts of misery will come. But that immortal One, the effulgent One, He is the background of the whole universe, it is all His sweetness. This body is a miniature universe, as it were; and through all the powers of the body, all the enjoyments of the mind, shines that effulgent One. That self-effulgent One who is in the body, He is the Âtman. “This world is so sweet to all beings, and every being is so sweet to it!” But the self-effulgent One, the Immortal is the bliss in this world. In us also, He is that bliss. He is the Brahman. “This air is so sweet to all beings, and all beings are so sweet to this air.” But He who is that self-effulgent immortal Being in the air, He is also in this body. He is expressing Himself as the life of all beings. “This sun is so sweet to all beings, and all beings are so sweet to this sun.” He who is the self-effulgent Being in the sun, Him we reflect as smaller lights. What can there be but His reflection? He is in the body, and it is His reflection which makes us see the light. “This moon is so sweet to all beings, and all beings are so sweet to this moon.” But that self-effulgent and immortal One who is the soul of that moon, He is in us expressing himself as mind. “This lightning is so sweet to all beings and all beings are sweet to this lightning,” but the self-effulgent and immortal One is the soul of this lightning, and is also in us, because all is that Brahman. This Brahman, this Âtman, this Self, is the King of all beings. These ideas are very helpful to men; they are for meditation. For instance, meditate on the earth, think of the earth, at the same time knowing that we have in us that which is in the earth, that both are the same. Identify the body with the earth, and identify the soul with the Soul behind. Identify the air with the soul that is in the air and that is in you and so on. All these are one, manifested in different forms. To realize this unity is the end and aim of all meditation, and this is what Yajnavalkya was trying to explain to Maitreyi.
VII
THE HIGHEST IDEAL OF JNÂNA YOGA
As this is the last of these classes it is better that I give a brief resumé of all that I have been trying to tell you. In the Vedas and Upanishads we find records of some of the very earliest religious ideas of the Hindus, ideas that long antedated the time of Kapila, ancient as this great sage is. He did not propound the Sânkhya philosophy as a new theory of his own. His task was to throw the light of his genius on the vast mass of religious theories that were existing in his time and bring out a rational and coherent system. He succeeded in giving India a psychology that is accepted to the present day by all the diverse and seemingly opposing philosophical systems to be found among the Hindus. His masterly analysis and his comprehensive statement of the processes of the human mind have not yet been surpassed by any later philosopher and he undoubtedly laid the foundation for the Advaita philosophy, which accepted his conclusions as far as they went and then pushed them a step farther, thus reaching a final unity beyond the duality that was the last word of the Sânkhyas.
Among the religious ideas that preceded the time of Kapila the first groups that we see coming up,—I mean among recognized religious ideas, and not the very low ones, which do not deserve the name of religion,—all include the idea of inspiration, and revealed book and so forth. In the earliest step, the idea of creation is very peculiar; it is that the whole universe is created out of zero, at the will of God; that all this universe did not exist, and out of nothingness all this has come. In the next stage we find this conclusion is questioned. The first step in Vedânta asks this question: How can existence be produced out of non-existence? If this universe is existent it must have come out of something, because it was easy for them to see that there is nothing coming out of nothing anywhere. All work that is going on by human hands requires materials. Naturally, therefore, the ancient Hindus rejected the first idea that this world was created out of nothing, and sought some material out of which this world was created. The whole history of religion, in fact, is this search for material. Out of what has all this been produced? Apart from the question of the efficient cause, or God, apart from the question whether God created the universe, the great question of all questions has been, out of what did God create it? All the philosophies are turning, as it were, on this question.
One solution is that nature and God and soul are eternal existences, as if three parallel lines are running eternally, of which nature and soul comprise what they call the dependent, and God the independent Being. Every soul, like every particle of matter, is perfectly dependent on the will of God. These and many other ideas we find already existing when the Sânkhya psychology was brought forward by Kapila. According to it, perception comes by the transmission of the suggestion, which causes perception first to the eyes, from the eyes to the organs, from the organs to the mind, the mind to the buddhi and from the buddhi to something which is a unit, which they call the Âtman. Coming to modern physiology we know that they have found centres for all the different sensations. First are found the lower centres, then a higher grade of centres, and these two will exactly correspond with the actions of the buddhi and the manas (mind), but not one centre has been found which controls all the other centres, so philosophy cannot answer what unifies all these centres. Where and how do the centres get unified? The centres in the brain are all different, and there is not one centre which controls all the others; therefore, so far as it goes, the Sânkhya psychology stands unchallenged upon this point. We must have this unification, something upon which the sensations will be reflected to form a complete whole. Until there is that something I cannot have any idea of you, or the picture, or anything else. If we had not that unifying something we would only see, then after a while hear, and then feel, and while we heard a man talking we should not see him at all, because all the centres are different.
This body is made of particles which we call matter, and it is dull and insentient. So is what is called the fine body. The fine body, according to the Sânkhyas is a little body, made of very fine particles, so fine that no microscope can see them. What is the use of it? It is the receptacle of what we call mind. Just as this gross body is the receptacle of the grosser forces, so the fine body is the receptacle of the finer forces, that which we call thought, in its various modifications. First is the body, which is gross matter, with gross force. Force cannot exist without matter. It can only manifest itself through matter, so the grosser forces work through the body and those very forces become finer; the very force which is working in a gross form works in a fine form and becomes thought. There is no real difference between them, simply one is the gross and the other the fine manifestation of the same thing. Neither is there any difference in substance between the fine body and the gross body. The fine body is also material, only very fine material.
Whence do all these forces come? According to the Vedânta philosophy there are two things in Nature, one of which they call Âkâsa, which is substance, or matter, infinitely fine, and the other they call Prâna. Whatever you see, or feel, or hear, as air or earth, or anything, is material. And everything is a form of this âkâsa. It becomes finer and finer, or grosser and grosser, and it changes under the action of Prâna (universal Energy). Like âkâsa, prâna is omnipresent, interpenetrating everything. Âkâsa is like the water, and everything else in the universe like blocks of ice, made out of that water and floating in it, and prâna is the power that changes the âkâsa into all these various forms. This body is the instrument made out of âkâsa for the manifestation of prâna in gross forms, as muscular motion, or walking, sitting, talking, and so on. The fine body also is made of âkâsa, a much finer form of âkâsa, for the manifestation of the same prâna in the finer form of thought. So, first there is this gross body, beyond that is the fine body, and beyond that is the jiva (soul), the real man. Just as these finger nails can be pared off a hundred times a year, and yet are still a part of our bodies, not different, so we have not two bodies. It is not that man has a fine and also a gross body; it is the one body, only it remains longer when it is a fine body, and the grosser it is the sooner it dissolves. Just as I can cut this nail a hundred times a year, so millions of times I can shed this body in one æon, but the fine body will remain. According to the dualists this jiva, or the real man, is very fine, minute.
So far we have seen that man is a being who has first a gross body which dissolves very quickly, then a fine body which remains through æons, and lastly a jiva. This jiva, according to the Vedânta philosophy, is eternal, just as God is eternal, and Nature is also eternal, but changefully eternal. The material of Nature, the prâna and the âkâsa, are eternal, but are changing into different forms eternally. Matter and force are eternal, but their combinations vary continually. The jiva is not manufactured, either of âkâsa, or of prâna; it is immaterial, and therefore will remain for ever. It is not the result of any combination of prâna and âkâsa, and whatever is not the result of combination will never be destroyed, because destruction is decomposition. That which is not a compound cannot be destroyed. The gross body is a compound of âkâsa and prâna in various forms and will be decomposed. The fine body will also be decomposed after a long time, but the jiva is a simple, and will never be destroyed. For the same reason, we cannot say it ever was born. Nothing simple can be born; the same argument applies. Only that which is a compound can be born. The whole of this nature combined in these millions of forms is under the will of God. God is all pervading, omniscient, formless, everywhere, and He is directing this nature day and night. The whole of it is under His control. There is no independence of any being. It cannot be. He is the Ruler. This is the teaching of dualistic Vedânta.
Then the question comes, if God be the Ruler of this universe, why did He create such a wicked universe, why must we suffer so much? The answer is made that it is not God’s fault. It is our own fault that we suffer. Whatever we sow that we reap. God does not do anything to punish us. If a man is born poor, or blind, or lame, he did something before he was born in that way, something that produced these results. The jiva has been existing for all time, was never created. It has been doing all sorts of things all the time. Whatever we do we suffer for. If we do good we shall have happiness, and if bad, unhappiness. This jiva is by its own nature pure, but ignorance covers its nature, says the dualist. As by evil deeds it has covered itself with ignorance, so by good deeds it can become conscious of its own nature again. Just as it is eternal, so its nature is pure. The nature of every being is pure. When through good deeds all its sins and misdeeds have been washed away, then the jiva becomes pure again, and when he becomes pure he goes after death by what is called Devayana (the path of the gods), to heaven, or the abode of the gods. If he has been only an ordinarily good man he goes to what is called the “Abode of the Fathers.”