The Vedanta Philosophy

Answers of the Swami to questions at two afternoon talks with some Harvard students, on March 22 and 24. [i.e., before the lecture] These answers were stenographically reported, but the questions were not. There have also been added a few selections from unpublished lectures. Some of the answers and selections cover the same general ground, but they have all been retained on account of the variety in treatment.

1. Personally, I take as much of the Vedas as agrees with reason. Parts of the Vedas are apparently contradictory. They are not considered as inspired in the Western sense of the word, but as the sum total of the knowledge of God, omniscience. This knowledge comes out at the beginning of a cycle and manifests itself; and when the cycle ends, it goes down into minute form. When the cycle is projected again, that knowledge is projected again with it. So far the theory is all right. But [the claim] that only these books which are called the Vedas are this knowledge is mere sophistry. Manu says in one place that that part of the Vedas which agrees with reason is the Vedas, and nothing else. Many of our philosophers have taken this view.

2. All the criticism against the Adwaita philosophy can be summed up in this:— that it does not conduce to sense enjoyments; and we are glad to admit that.

3. The Vedanta system begins with tremendous pessimism, and ends with real optimism. We deny the sense optimism, but assert the real optimism of the super-sensuous. That real happiness is not in the senses, but above the sense; and it is in every man. The sort of optimism which we see in the world is what will lead to ruin through the senses.

4. Abnegation has the greatest importance in our philosophy. Negation implies affirmation of the Real Self. It is pessimistic as far as it negates the world of the senses, but it is optimistic in its assertion of the real world.

5. Of all the scriptures of the world, it is the Vedas alone that declare that even the study of the Vedas is secondary. The real study is that "by which we realize the Unchangeable." And that is neither reading, nor believing, nor reasoning, but super-conscious perception or Samadhi.

6. "What is the cause of the illusion?" The question has been asked for the last three thousand years; and the only answer is, when the world is able to formulate a logical question, we will answer it. The question is contradictory. Our position is that the Absolute has become this relative only apparently, that the unconditioned has become the conditioned only in Maya. By the very admission of the unconditioned, we admit that the Absolute cannot be acted upon by anything else. It is uncaused, which means that nothing outside itself can act upon it. First of all, if it is unconditioned, it cannot have been acted upon by anything else. In the unconditioned there cannot be time, space, or causation. That granted, your question will be: "What caused that which cannot be caused by anything to be changed into this?" Your question is only possible in the conditioned. But you take it out of the conditioned, and want to ask it in the unconditioned. Only when the unconditioned becomes conditioned, and space, time, and causation come in, can the question be asked.

We can only say ignorance makes the illusion. The question is impossible. Nothing can have worked in the Absolute. There was no cause. Not that we do not know, or that we are ignorant; but it is above knowledge, and cannot be brought down to the plane of knowledge. We can use the words, "I do not know," in two senses. In one way they mean that we are lower than knowledge, and in the other way that the thing is above knowledge. The X rays have become known now. The very causes of these are disputed, but we are sure that we shall know them. Here we can say we do not know about the X rays. But about the Absolute we cannot know. In the case of the X rays we do not know, although it is within the range of knowledge; only we do not know it yet. But, in the other case, it is so much beyond knowledge that it ceases to be a matter of knowing. "By what means can the knower be known?" You are always yourself, and cannot objectify yourself. This was one of the arguments used by our philosophers to prove immortality. If I try to think I am lying dead, what have I to imagine? That I am standing and looking down at myself, at some dead body. So that I cannot objectify myself.

7. "Evolution." In the matter of the projection of Akasha and Prana into manifested form, and the return to fine state, there is a good deal of similarity between Indian thought and modern science. The moderns have their evolution, and so have the Yogis. But I think that the Yogis explanation of evolution is the better one: "The change of one species into another is attained by the infilling of nature." The basic idea is that we are changing from one species to another, and that man is the highest species. Patanjali explains this "infilling of nature" by the simile of peasants irrigating fields. Our education and progression simply means taking away the obstacles, and by its own nature the divinity will manifest itself. This does away with all the struggle for existence. The miserable experiences of life are simply in the way, and can be eliminated entirely. They are not necessary for evolution. Even if they did not exist, we should progress.

It is in the very nature of things to manifest themselves. The momentum is not from outside, but comes from inside. Each soul is the sum total of the universal experiences already coiled up there; and of all these experiences only those will come out which find suitable circumstances. So the external things can only give us the environments. These competitions and struggles and evils that we see are not the effect of the involution or the cause, but they are in the way. If they did not exist, still man would go on and evolve as God, because it is the very nature of that God to come out and manifest Himself.

To my mind this seems very hopeful, instead of that horrible idea of competition. The more I study history, the more I find that idea to be wrong. Some say that if man did not fight with man he would not progress. I used to think so, but I find now that every war has thrown back human progress by fifty years instead of hurrying it forward. The day will come when men will study history from a different light, and find that competition is neither the cause nor the effect, simply things on the way, not necessary to evolution at all.

The theory of Patanjali is the only theory I think a rational man can accept. How much evil the modern system causes! Every wicked man has a license to be wicked under it. I have seen in this country physicists who say that all criminals ought to be exterminated, and that that is the only way in which criminality can be eliminated from society. These environments can hinder, but they are not necessary to progress. The most horrible thing about the way of competition is that one may conquer the environments, but that where one may conquer, thousands are crowded out. So it is evil at best. That cannot be good which helps only one and hinders the majority.

Patanjali says that these struggles remain only through our ignorance, and are not necessary, and are not part of the evolution of man. It is just our impatience which creates them. We have not the patience to go and work our way out. For instance, there is a fire in a theatre, and only a few escape. The rest in trying to rush out crush each other down. That crush was not necessary for the salvation of the building, nor of the two or three who escaped. If all had gone out slowly, not one would have been hurt. That is the case in life. The doors are open for us, and we can all get out without the competition and struggle; and yet we struggle. The struggle we create through our own ignorance, through impatience; we are in too great a hurry. The highest manifestation of strength is to keep ourselves calm and on our own feet.

8. Each soul is a circle. The centre is where the body is, and the activity is manifested there. You are omnipresent, though you have the consciousness of being concentrated in only one point. That point has taken up particles of matter, and formed them into a machine to express itself. That through which it expresses itself is called the body. You are everywhere. When one body or machine fails you, the centre moves on and takes up other particles of matter, finer or grosser, and works through them. Here is man, and what is God? God is a circle, with circumference nowhere, and centre everywhere. Every point in that circle is living. conscious, active, and equally working. With our limited souls, only one point is conscious, and that point moves forward and backward.

9. Soul is a circle whose circumference is nowhere (limitless) but whose centre is in some body. Death is but a change of centre. God is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, and whose centre is everywhere. When we can get out of the limited centre of body, we shall realize God, our true Self.

10. Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest the divinity within, by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy—by one or more or all these—and be free. This is all of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.

11. Jnanam (knowledge) is "creedlessness;" but that does not mean that it despises creeds. It only means that a stage above and beyond creeds has been gained. The jnani (true philosopher) strives to destroy nothing, but to help all. All rivers roll their waters into the sea and become one, so all creeds should lead to Jnanam and become one.

Jnanam teaches that the world should be renounced, but not on that account abandoned. To live in the world and be not of it, is the true test of renunciation.

12. The Vedantist says that a man neither is born nor dies nor goes to heaven, and that reincarnation is really a myth with regard to the soul. The example is given of a book being turned over. It is the book that evolves, not the man. Every soul is omnipresent, so where can it come or go? These births and deaths are changes in nature which we are mistaking for changes in us.

13. Reincarnation is the evolution of nature and the manifestation of the God within.

14. The Vedanta says that each life is built upon the past, and that when we can look back over the whole past we are free. The desire to be free will take the form of a religious disposition from childhood. A few years will, as it were, make all truth clear to one. After leaving this life, and while waiting for the next, a man is still in the phenomenal.

15. The struggle never had meaning for the man who is free. But for us it has a meaning, because it is name and form that creates the world.

16. I cannot see how it can be otherwise than that all knowledge is stored up in us from the beginning. If you and I are little waves in the ocean, then that ocean is the background.

17. We would describe the soul in these words:

"This soul the sword cannot cut, nor the spear pierce; him the fire cannot burn nor water melt; indestructible, omnipresent is this soul. Therefore weep not for it."

If it has been very bad, we believe that it will become good in the time to come. The fundamental principle is that there is eternal freedom for everyone. Everyone must come to it. We have to struggle, impelled by our desires to be free. Every other desire but that to be free is illusive. Every good action, the Vedantist says, is a manifestation of that freedom.

I do not believe that there will come a time when all the evil in the world will vanish. How could it be? This stream goes, on. Masses of water go out at one end, but masses are ready at the other end.

The Vedanta says that you are pure and perfect, and that there is a state beyond good and evil, and that is your own nature. It is higher even than good. Good is only a lesser differentiation than evil.

18. We have no theory of evil. We call it ignorance.

19. So far as it goes, all dealing with other people, all ethics, are in the phenomenal world. As a most complete statement of truth, we would not think of applying such things as ignorance to God. Of Him we say that He is Existence, Knowledge, and Bliss Absolute. Every effort of thought and speech will make the Absolute phenomenal, and break its character.

20. There is one thing to be remembered; that the assertion cannot be made with regard to the sense world. If you say in the sense world that you are God, what is to prevent your doing wrong? So the affirmation of your divinity applies only to the noumenal. If I am God, I am beyond the tendencies of the senses, and will not do evil. Morality of course, is not the goal of man, but the means through which this freedom is attained. The Vedanta says that Yoga is one way that makes men realize this divinity. The Vedanta says that this is done by the realization of the freedom within, and that everything will give way to that. Morality and ethics will all range themselves in their proper places.

21. We have a place for struggle in the Vedanta, but not for fear. All fears will vanish when you begin to assert your own nature. If you think that you are bound, bound you will remain. If you think you are free, free you will be.

22. That sort of freedom which we can feel when we are yet in the phenomenal is a glimpse of the real, but not yet the real.

23. There is really no difference between matter, mind, and spirit. They are only different phases of experiencing the one. This very world is seen by the five senses as matter, by the very wicked as hell, by the good as heaven, and by the perfect as God.

24. The Vedanta recognizes the reasoning power of man a good deal, although it says there is something higher than intellect; but the road lies through intellect.

25. If we can stop all thought, then we know that we are beyond thought. We come to this by negation. When every phenomenon has been negated, whatever remains, that is it. That cannot be expressed, cannot be manifested, because the manifestation will be again, will.