The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 2/Jnana-Yoga/Maya and the Evolution of the Conception of God
CHAPTER IV
MAYA AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPTION OF GOD
( Delivered in London, 20th October 1896 )
We have seen how the idea of Mâyâ, which forms, as it were, one of the basic
doctrines of the Advaita Vedanta, is, in its germs, found even in the
Samhitâs, and that in reality all the ideas which are developed in the
Upanishads are to be found already in the Samhitas in some form or other.
Most of you are by this time familiar with the idea of Maya, and know that
it is sometimes erroneously explained as illusion, so that when the universe
is said to be Maya, that also has to be explained as being illusion. The
translation of the word is neither happy nor correct. Maya is not a theory;
it is simply a statement of facts about the universe as it exists, and to
understand Maya we must go back to the Samhitas and begin with the
conception in the germ.
We have seen how the idea of the Devas came. At the same time we know that
these Devas were at first only powerful beings, nothing more. Most of you
are horrified when reading the old scriptures, whether of the Greeks, the
Hebrews, the Persians, or others, 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. Everyone must be judged according
to his own ideal, and not by that of anyone else. In our dealings with our
fellow-beings we constantly labour under this mistake, and I am of opinion
that the vast majority of our quarrels with one another arise simply from
this one cause that we are always trying to judge others' gods by our own,
others' ideals by our ideals, and others' motives by 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
other causes may produce the same thing. He may have performed the action
with quite a different motive from that which impelled me to do it. 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.
The idea of the cruel and ruthless Jehovah in the Old Testament has
frightened many — but why? What right have they to assume that the Jehovah
of the ancient Jews must represent the conventional idea of the God of the
present day? And at the same time, we must not forget that there will come
men after us who will laugh at our ideas of religion and God in the same way
that we laugh at those of the ancients. Yet, through all these various
conceptions runs the golden thread of unity, and it is the purpose of the
Vedanta to discover this thread. "I am the thread that runs through all
these various ideas, each one of which is; like a pearl," says the Lord
Krishna; and it is the duty of Vedanta to establish this connecting thread,
how ever incongruous or disgusting may seem these ideas when judged
according to the conceptions of today. These ideas, in the setting of past
times, were harmonious and not more hideous than our present ideas. It is
only when we try to take them out of their settings and apply to our own
present circumstances that the hideousness becomes obvious. For the old
surroundings are dead and gone. Just as the ancient Jew has developed into
the keen, modern, sharp Jew, and the ancient Aryan into the intellectual
Hindu similarly Jehovah has grown, and Devas have grown.
The great mistake is in recognising the evolution of the worshippers, while
we do not acknowledge the evolution of the Worshipped. He is not credited
with the advance that his devotees have made. That is to say, you and I,
representing ideas, have grown; these gods also, as representing ideas, have
grown. This may seem somewhat curious to you — that God can grow. He cannot.
He is unchangeable. In the same sense the real man never grows. But man's
ideas of God are constantly changing and expanding. We shall see later on
how the real man behind each one of these human manifestations is immovable,
unchangeable, pure, and always perfect; and in the same way the idea that we
form of God is a mere manifestation, our own creation. Behind that is the
real God who never changes, the ever pure, the immutable. But the
manifestation is always changing revealing the reality behind more and more.
When it reveals more of the fact behind, it is called progression, when it
hides more of the fact behind, it is called retrogression. Thus, as we grow,
so the gods grow. From the ordinary point of view, just as we reveal
ourselves as we evolve, so the gods reveal themselves.
We shall now be in a position to understand the theory of Maya. In all the
regions of the world the one question they propose to discuss is this: Why
is there disharmony in the universe? Why is there this evil in the universe?
We do not find this question in the very inception of primitive religious
ideas, because the world did not appear incongruous to the primitive man.
Circumstances were not inharmonious for him; there was no dash of opinions;
to him there was no antagonism of good and evil. There was merely a feeling
in his own heart of something which said yea, and something which said nay.
The primitive man was a man of impulse. He did what occurred to him, and
tried to bring out through his muscles whatever thought came into his mind,
and he never stopped to judge, and seldom tried to check his impulses. So
with the gods, they were also creatures of impulse. Indra comes and shatters
the forces of the demons. Jehovah is pleased with one person and displeased
with another, for what reason no one knows or asks. The habit of inquiry had
not then arisen, and whatever he did was regarded as right. There was no
idea of good or evil. The Devas did many wicked things in our sense of the
word; again and again Indra and other gods committed very wicked deeds, but
to the worshippers of Indra the ideas of wickedness and evil did not occur,
so they did not question them.
With the advance of ethical ideas came the fight. There arose a certain
sense in man, called in different languages and nations by different names.
Call it the voice of God, or the result of past education, or whatever else
you like, but the effect was this that it had a checking power upon the
natural impulses of man. There is one impulse in our minds which says, do.
Behind it rises another voice which says, do not. There is one set of ideas
in our mind which is always struggling to get outside through the channels
of the senses, and behind that, although it may be thin and weak, there is
an infinitely small voice which says, do not go outside. The two beautiful
Sanskrit words for these phenomena are Pravritti and Nivritti, "circling
forward" and "circling inward". It is the circling forward which usually
governs our actions. Religion begins with this circling inward. Religion
begins with this "do not". Spirituality begins with this "do not". When the
"do not" is not there, religion has not begun. And this "do not" came,
causing men's ideas to grow, despite the fighting gods which they had
worshipped.
A little love awoke in the hearts of mankind. It was very small indeed, and
even now it is not much greater. It was at first confined to a tribe
embracing perhaps members of the same tribe; these gods loved their tribes
and each god was a tribal god, the protector of that tribe. And sometimes
the members of a tribe would think of themselves as the descendants of their
god, just as the clans in different nations think that they are the common
descendants of the man who was the founder of the clan. There were in
ancient times, and are even now, some people who claim to be descendants not
only of these tribal gods, but also of the Sun and the Moon. You read in the
ancient Sanskrit books of the great heroic emperors of the solar and the
lunar dynasties. They were first worshippers of the Sun and the Moon, and
gradually came to think of themselves as descendants of the god of the Sun
of the Moon, and so forth. So when these tribal ideas began to grow there
came a little love, some slight idea of duty towards each other, a little
social organisation. Then, naturally, the idea came: How can we live
together without bearing and forbearing? How can one man live with another
without having some time or other to check his impulses, to restrain
himself, to forbear from doing things which his mind would prompt him to do?
It is impossible. Thus comes the idea of restraint. The whole social fabric
is based upon that idea of restraint, and we all know that the man or woman
who has not learnt the great lesson of bearing and forbearing leads a most
miserable life.
Now, when these ideas of religion came, a glimpse of something higher, more
ethical, dawned upon the intellect of mankind. The old gods were found to be
incongruous — these boisterous, fighting, drinking, beef-eating gods of the
ancients — whose delight was in the smell of burning flesh and libations of
strong liquor. Sometimes Indra drank so much that he fell upon the ground
and talked unintelligibly. These gods could no longer be tolerated. The
notion had arisen of inquiring into motives, and the gods had to come in for
their share of inquiry. Reason for such-and-such actions was demanded and
the reason was wanting. Therefore man gave up these gods, or rather they
developed higher ideas concerning them. They took a survey, as it were, of
all the actions and qualities of the gods and discarded those which they
could not harmonise, and kept those which they could understand, and
combined them, labelling them with one name, Deva-deva, the God of gods. The
god to be worshipped was no more a simple symbol of power; something more
was required than that. He was an ethical god; he loved mankind, and did
good to mankind. But the idea of god still remained. They increased his
ethical significance, and increased also his power. He became the most
ethical being in the universe, as well as almost almighty.
But all this patchwork would not do. As the explanation assumed greater
proportions, the difficulty which it sought to solve did the same. If the
qualities of the god increased in arithmetical progression, the difficulty
and doubt increased in geometrical progression. The difficulty of Jehovah
was very little beside the difficulty of the God of the universe, and this
question remains to the present day. Why under the reign of an almighty and
all-loving God of the universe should diabolical things be allowed to
remain? Why so much more misery than happiness, and so much more wickedness
than good? We may shut our eyes to all these things, but the fact still
remains that this world is a hideous world. At best, it is the hell of
Tantalus. Here we are with strong impulses and stronger cravings for
sense-enjoyments, but cannot satisfy them. There rises a wave which impels
us forward in spite of our own will, and as soon as we move one step, comes
a blow. We are all doomed to live here like Tantalus. Ideals come into our
head far beyond the limit of our sense-ideals, but when we seek to express
them, we cannot do so. On the other hand, we are crushed by the surging mass
around us. Yet if I give up all ideality and merely struggle through this
world, my existence is that of a brute, and I degenerate and degrade myself.
Neither way is happiness. Unhappiness is the fate of those who are content
to live in this world, born as they are. A thousand times greater misery is
the fate of those who dare to stand forth for truth and for higher things
and who dare to ask for something higher than mere brute existence here.
These are facts; but there is no explanation — there cannot be any
explanation. But the Vedanta shows the way out. You must bear in mind that I
have to tell you facts that will frighten you sometimes, but if you remember
what I say, think of it, and digest it, it will be yours, it will raise you
higher, and make you capable of understanding and living in truth.
Now, it is a statement of fact that this world is a Tantalus's hell, that we
do not know anything about this universe, yet at the same time we cannot say
that we do not know. I cannot say that this chain exists, when I think that
I do not know it. It may be an entire delusion of my brain. I may be
dreaming all the time. I am dreaming that I am talking to you, and that you
are listening to me. No one can prove that it is not a dream. My brain
itself may be a dream, and as to that no one has ever seen his own brain. We
all take it for granted. So it is with everything. My own body I take for
granted. At the same time I cannot say, I do not know. This standing between
knowledge and ignorance, this mystic twilight, the mingling of truth and
falsehood — and where they meet — no one knows. We are walking in the midst
of a dream. Half sleeping, half waking, passing all our lives in a haze;
this is the fate of everyone of us. This is the fate of all sense-knowledge.
This is the fate of all philosophy, of all boasted science, of all boasted
human knowledge. This is the universe.
What you call matter, or spirit, or mind, or anything else you may like to
call them, the fact remains the same: we cannot say that they are, we cannot
say that they are not. We cannot say they are one, we cannot say they are
many. This eternal play of light and darkness — indiscriminate,
indistinguishable, inseparable — is always there. A fact, yet at the same
time not a fact; awake and at the same time asleep. This is a statement of
facts, and this is what is called Maya. We are born in this Maya, we live in
it, we think in it, we dream in it. We are philosophers in it, we are
spiritual men in it, nay, we are devils in this Maya, and we are gods in
this Maya. Stretch your ideas as far as you can make them higher and higher,
call them infinite or by any other name you please, even these ideas are
within this Maya. It cannot be otherwise, and the whole of human knowledge
is a generalization of this Maya trying to know it as it appears to be. This
is the work of Nâma-Rupa — name and form. Everything that has form,
everything that calls up an idea in your mind, is within Maya; for
everything that is bound by the laws of time, space, and causation is within
Maya.
Let us go back a little to those early ideas of God and see what became of
them. We perceive at once that the idea of some Being who is eternally
loving us — eternally unselfish and almighty, ruling this universe — could
not satisfy. "Where is the just, merciful God?" asked the philosopher. Does
He not see millions and millions of His children perish, in the form of men
and animals; for who can live one moment here without killing others? Can
you draw a breath without destroying thousands of lives? You live, because,
millions die. Every moment of your life, every breath that you breathe, is
death to thousands; every movement that you make is death to millions. Every
morsel that you eat is death to millions. Why should they die? There is an
old sophism that they are very low existences. Supposing they are — which is
questionable, for who knows whether the ant is greater than the man, or the
man than the ant — who can prove one way or the other? Apart from that
question, even taking it for granted that these are very low beings, still
why should they die? If they are low, they have more reason to live. Why
not? Because they live more in the senses, they feel pleasure and pain a
thousandfold more than you or I can do. Which of us eats a dinner with the
same gusto as a dog or wolf? None, because our energies are not in the
senses; they are in the intellect, in the spirit. But in animals, their
whole soul is in the senses, and they become mad and enjoy things which we
human beings never dream of, and the pain is commensurate with the pleasure.
Pleasure and pain are meted out in equal measure. If the pleasure felt by
animals is so much keener than that felt by man, it follows that the
animals' sense of pain is as keen, if not keener than man's. So the fact is,
the pain and misery men feel in dying is intensified a thousandfold in
animals, and yet we kill them without troubling ourselves about their
misery. This is Maya. And if we suppose there is a Personal God like a human
being, who made everything, these so-called explanations and theories which
try to prove that out of evil comes good are not sufficient. Let twenty
thousand good things come, but why should they come from evil? On that
principle, I might cut the throats of others because I want the full
pleasure of my five senses. That is no reason. Why should good come through
evil? The question remains to be answered, and it cannot be answered. The
philosophy of India was compelled to admit this.
The Vedanta was (and is) the boldest system of religion. It stopped nowhere,
and it had one advantage. There was no body of priests who sought to
suppress every man who tried to tell the truth. There was always absolute
religious freedom. In India the bondage of superstition is a social one;
here in the West society is very free. Social matters in India are very
strict, but religious opinion is free. In England a man may dress any way he
likes, or eat what he lilies — no one objects; but if he misses attending
church, then Mrs. Grundy is down on him. He has to conform first to what
society says on religion, and then he may think of the truth. In India, on
the other hand, if a man dines with one who does not belong to his own
caste, down comes society with all its terrible powers and crushes him then
and there. If he wants to dress a little differently from the way in which
his ancestor dressed ages ago, he is done for. I have heard of a man who was
cast out by society because he went several miles to see the first railway
train. Well, we shall presume that was not true! But in religion, we find
atheists, materialists, and Buddhists, creeds, opinions, and speculations of
every phase and variety, some of a most startling character, living side by
side. Preachers of all sects go about reaching and getting adherents, and at
the very gates of the temples of gods, the Brâhmins — to their credit be it
said — allow even the materialists to stand and give forth their opinions.
Buddha died at a ripe old age. I remember a friend of mine, a great American
scientist, who was fond of reading his life. He did not like the death of
Buddha, because he was not crucified. What a false idea! For a man to be
great he must be murdered! Such ideas never prevailed in India. This great
Buddha travelled all over India, denouncing her gods and even the God of the
universe, and yet he lived to a good old age. For eighty years he lived, and
had converted half the country.
Then, there were the Chârvâkas, who preached horrible things, the most rank,
undisguised materialism, such as in the nineteenth century they dare not
openly preach. These Charvakas were allowed to preach from temple to temple,
and city to city, that religion was all nonsense, that it was priestcraft,
that the Vedas were the words and writings of fools, rogues, and demons, and
that there was neither God nor an eternal soul. If there was a soul, why did
it not come back after death drawn by the love of wife and child. Their idea
was that if there was a soul it must still love after death, and want good
things to eat and nice dress. Yet no one hurt these Charvakas.
Thus India has always had this magnificent idea of religious freedom, and
you must remember that freedom is the first condition of growth. What you do
not make free, will never grow. The idea that you can make others grow and
help their growth, that you can direct and guide them, always retaining for
yourself the freedom of the teacher, is nonsense, a dangerous lie which has
retarded the growth of millions and millions of human beings in this world.
Let men have the light of liberty. That is the only condition of growth.
We, in India, allowed liberty in spiritual matters, and we have a tremendous
spiritual power in religious thought even today. You grant the same liberty
in social matters, and so have a splendid social organisation. We have not
given any freedom to the expansion of social matters, and ours is a cramped
society. You have never given any freedom in religious matters but with fire
and sword have enforced your beliefs, and the result is that religion is a
stunted, degenerated growth in the European mind. In India, we have to take
off the shackles from society; in Europe, the chains must be taken from the
feet of spiritual progress. Then will come a wonderful growth and
development of man. If we discover that there is one unity running through
all these developments, spiritual, moral, and social, we shall find that
religion, in the fullest sense of the word, must come into society, and into
our everyday life. In the light of Vedanta you will Understand that all
sciences are but manifestations of religion, and so is everything that
exists in this world.
We see, then, that through freedom the sciences were built; and in them we
have two sets of opinions, the one the materialistic and denouncing, and the
other the positive and constructive. It is a most curious fact that in every
society you find them. Supposing there is an evil in society, you will find
immediately one group rise up and denounce it in vindictive fashion, which
sometimes degenerates into fanaticism. There are fanatics in every society,
and women frequently join in these outcries, because of their impulsive
nature. Every fanatic who gets up and denounces something can secure 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 up anything. These fanatics may
do some good, according to their light, but much morn harm. Because social
institutions are not made in a day, and to change them means removing the
cause. Suppose there is an evil; denouncing it will not remove it, but you
must go to work at the root. First find out the cause, then remove it, and
the effect will be removed also. Mere outcry not produce any effect, unless
indeed it produces misfortune.
There are others who had sympathy in their hearts and who understood the
idea that we must go deep into the cause, 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 fulfil. Many times his has not
been understood, and their forbearance has been thought to be an unworthy
compromise with existing popular opinions. Even now, you occasionally hear
that these prophets and great teachers were rather cowardly, and dared not
say and do what they thought was right; but that was not so. Fanatics little
understand the infinite power of love in the hearts of these great sages who
looked upon the inhabitants of this world as their children. They were the
real fathers, the real gods, filled with infinite sympathy and patience for
everyone; 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 frightening people, but by gently and kindly leading
them upwards step by step. Such were the writers of the Upanishads. They
knew full well how the old ideas of God were not reconcilable with the
advanced ethical ideas of the time; they knew full well that what the
atheists were preaching contained a good deal of truth, nay, great nuggets
of truth; but at the same time, they understood that those who wished to
sever the thread that bound the beads, who wanted to build a new society in
the air, would entirely fail.
We never build anew, we simply change places; we cannot have anything new,
we only change the position of things. The seed grows into the tree,
patiently and gently; we must direct our energies towards the truth and
fulfil the truth that exists, not try to make new truths. Thus, instead of
denouncing these old ideas of God as unfit for modern times, the ancient
sages began to seek out the reality that was in them. The result was the
Vedanta philosophy, and out of the old deities, out of the monotheistic God,
the Ruler of the universe, they found yet higher and higher ideas in what is
called the Impersonal Absolute; they found oneness throughout the universe.
He who sees in this world of manifoldness that One running through all, in
this world of death he who finds that One Infinite Life, and in this world
of insentience and ignorance he who finds that One Light and Knowledge, unto
him belongs eternal peace. Unto none else, unto none else.