The lectures given in this volume were originally delivered by Swâmi Vivekânanda in New York in the beginning of 1896, and were received with the greatest enthusiasm. Their purely philosophical character, however, made it doubtful as to whether they would appeal to the general public, and for that reason they were not brought out in book form at once. The great success of the London lectures on Jnâna Yoga, which were published several years ago and which have already gone through two editions, now encourages the belief that this series will meet with an equally favorable reception. The conception of Jnâna according to Vedânta is a bold and daring one, and reaches the highest possible ideal, for it teaches the absolute unity of all existence. As will be easily understood by the students of the former volume, Jnâna Yoga is purely monistic on the highest spiritual plane. Speaking about this phase of Vedânta, Prof. Max Müller writes: “None of our philosophers, not excepting Heraclitus, Plato, Kant, or Hegel has ventured to erect such a spire, never frightened by storms or lightnings. Stone follows on stone in regular succession after once the first step has been made, after once it has been clearly seen that in the beginning there can have been but One, as there will be but One in the end, whether we call It Âtman or Brahman.” This may be a difficult thought for many to grasp at the outset, but it is worth careful study, and once understood will be a never-failing light to guide the enquiring soul to the crowning truth of all philosophy.
CONTENTS.
Jnâna Yoga—Part II.
| Introduction | [9] | |
| I. | ||
| The Sânkhya Cosmology | [21] | |
| II. | ||
| Prakriti and Purusha | [44] | |
| III. | ||
| Sânkhya and Advaita | [69] | |
| IV. | ||
| The Free Soul | [94] | |
| V. | ||
| One Existence Appearing as Many | [121] | |
| VI. | ||
| Unity of the Self | [141] | |
| VII. | ||
| The Highest Ideal of Jnâna Yoga | [157] |
INTRODUCTION
This universe of ours, the universe of the senses, the rational, the intellectual, is bounded on both sides by the illimitable, the unknowable, the ever unknown. Herein is the search, herein are the inquiries, here are the facts, from this comes the light which is known to the world as religion. Essentially, however, religion belongs to the supersensuous and not to the sense plane. It is beyond all reasoning and is not on the plane of intellect. It is a vision, an inspiration, a plunge into the unknown and unknowable, making the unknowable more than known, for it can never be “known.” This search has been in the human mind, as I believe, from the very beginning of humanity. There cannot have been human reasoning and intellect in any period of the world’s history without this struggle, this search beyond. In our little universe, this human mind, we see a thought arise. Whence it arises we do not know, and when it disappears, where it goes we know not either. The macrocosm and the microcosm are, as it were, in the same groove, passing through the same stages, vibrating in the same key.
In these lectures I shall try to bring before you the Hindu theory that religions do not come from without, but from within. It is my belief that religious thought is in man’s very constitution, so much so that it is impossible for him to give up religion until he can give up his mind and body, until he can give up thought and life. As long as a man thinks, this struggle must go on, and so long man must have some form of religion. Thus we see various forms of religion in the world. It is a bewildering study, but it is not, as many of us think, a vain speculation. Amidst this chaos there is harmony, throughout these discordant sounds there is a note of concord, and he who is prepared to listen to it will catch the tone.
The great question of all questions at the present time is this: Taking for granted that the known and the knowable are bounded on both sides by the unknowable and the infinitely unknown, why struggle for that infinite unknown? Why shall we not be content with the known? Why shall we not rest satisfied with eating, drinking, and doing a little good to society? This idea is in the air. From the most learned professor to the prattling baby, we are told to do good to the world, that is all of religion, and that it is useless to trouble ourselves about questions of the beyond. So much is this the case that it has become a truism. But fortunately we must question the beyond. This present, this expressed, is only one part of that unexpressed. The sense universe is, as it were, only one portion, one bit of that infinite spiritual universe projected into the plane of sense consciousness. How can this little bit of projection be explained, be understood, without knowing that which is beyond? It is said of Socrates that one day while lecturing at Athens, he met a Brahmin who had travelled into Greece, and Socrates told the Brahmin that the greatest study for mankind is man. The Brahmin sharply retorted: “How can you know man until you know God?” This God, this eternally unknowable, or absolute, or infinite, or without name,—you may call Him by what name you like,—is the rational, the only explanation, the raison d’être of that which is known and knowable, this present life. Take anything before you, the most material thing; take one of the most material sciences, as chemistry or physics, astronomy or biology, study it, push the study forward and forward, and the gross forms will begin to melt and become finer and finer, until they come to a point where you are bound to make a tremendous leap from these material things into the immaterial. The gross melts into the fine, physics into metaphysics, in every department of knowledge.
Thus man finds himself driven to a study of the beyond. Life will be a desert, human life will be vain if we cannot know the beyond. It is very well to say: Be contented with the things of the present; the cows and the dogs are, and all animals, and that is what makes them animals. So if man rests content with the present and gives up all search into the beyond, mankind will have to go back to the animal plane again. It is religion, the inquiry into the beyond, that makes the difference between man and an animal. Well has it been said that man is the only animal that naturally looks upwards; every other animal naturally looks prone. That looking upward and going upward and seeking perfection are what is called salvation, and the sooner a man begins to go higher, the sooner he raises himself towards this idea of truth as salvation. It does not consist in the amount of money in your pocket, or the dress you wear, or the house you live in, but in the wealth of spiritual thought in your brain. That is what makes for human progress, that is the source of all material and intellectual progress, the motive power behind, the enthusiasm that pushes mankind forward.
Religion does not live in bread, does not dwell in a house. Again and again you hear this objection advanced, “What good can religion do? Can it take away the poverty of the poor”? Supposing it cannot, would that prove the untruth of religion? Suppose a baby stands up among you when you are trying to demonstrate an astronomical theorem, and says: “Does it bring gingerbread?” “No, it does not,” you answer. “Then,” says the baby, “it is useless.” Babies judge the whole universe from their own standpoint, that of producing gingerbread, and so are the babies of the world. We must not judge of higher things from a low standpoint. Everything must be judged by its own standard and the infinite must be judged by an infinite standard. Religion permeates the whole of man’s life, not only the present, but the past, present, and future. It is therefore the eternal relation between the eternal soul and the eternal God. Is it logical to measure its value by its action upon five minutes of human life? Certainly not. These are all negative arguments.