The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 3/Lectures from Colombo to Almora/The Work before us
THE WORK BEFORE US
(Delivered at the Triplicane Literary Society, Madras)
The problem of life is becoming deeper and broader every day as the world
moves on. The watchword and the essence have been preached in the days of
yore when the Vedantic truth was first discovered, the solidarity of all
life. One atom in this universe cannot move without dragging the whole world
along with it. There cannot be any progress without the whole world
following in the wake, and it is becoming every day dearer that the solution
of any problem can never be attained on racial, or national, or narrow
grounds. Every idea has to become broad till it covers the whole of this
world, every aspiration must go on increasing till it has engulfed the whole
of humanity, nay, the whole of life, within its scope. This will explain why
our country for the last few centuries has not been what she was in the
past. We find that one of the causes which led to this degeneration was the
narrowing of our views narrowing the scope of our actions.
Two curious nations there have been — sprung of the same race, but placed in
different circumstances and environments, working put the problems of life
each in its own particular way. I mean the ancient Hindu and the ancient
Greek. The Indian Aryan — bounded on the north by the snow-caps of the
Himalayas, with fresh-water rivers like rolling oceans surrounding him in
the plains, with eternal forests which, to him, seemed to be the end of the
world — turned his vision inward; and given the natural instinct, the
superfine brain of the Aryan, with this sublime scenery surrounding him, the
natural result was that he became introspective. The analysis of his own
mind was the great theme of the Indo-Aryan. With the Greek, on the other
hand, who arrived at a part of the earth which was more beautiful than
sublime, the beautiful islands of the Grecian Archipelago, nature all around
him generous yet simple — his mind naturally went outside. It wanted to
analyse the external world. And as a result we find that from India have
sprung all the analytical sciences, and from Greece all the sciences of
generalization. The Hindu mind went on in its own direction and produced the
most marvellous results. Even at the present day, the logical capacity of
the Hindus, and the tremendous power which the Indian brain still possesses,
is beyond compare. We all know that our boys pitched against the boys of any
other country triumph always. At the same time when the national vigour
went, perhaps one or two centuries before the Mohammedan conquest of India,
this national faculty became so much exaggerated that it degraded itself,
and we find some of this degradation in everything in India, in art, in
music, in sciences, in everything. In art, no more was there a broad
conception, no more the symmetry of form and sublimity of conception, but
the tremendous attempt at the ornate and florid style had arisen. The
originality of the race seemed to have been lost. In music no more were
there the soul-stirring ideas of the ancient Sanskrit music, no more did
each note stand, as it were, on its own feet, and produce the marvellous
harmony, but each note had lost its individuality. The whole of modern music
is a jumble of notes, a confused mass of curves. That is a sign of
degradation in music. So, if you analyse your idealistic conceptions, you
will find the same attempt at ornate figures, and loss of originality. And
even in religion, your special field, there came the most horrible
degradations. What can you expect of a race which for hundreds of years has
been busy in discussing such momentous problems as whether we should drink a
glass of water with the right hand or the left? What more degradation can
there be than that the greatest minds of a country have been discussing
about the kitchen for several hundreds of years, discussing whether I may
touch you or you touch me, and what is the penance for this touching! The
themes of the Vedanta, the sublimest and the most glorious conceptions of
God and soul ever preached on earth, were half-lost, buried in the forests,
preserved by a few Sannyâsins, while the rest of the nation discussed the
momentous questions of touching each other, and dress, and food. The
Mohammedan conquest gave us many good things, no doubt; even the lowest man
in the world can teach something to the highest; at the same time it could
not bring vigour into the race. Then for good or evil, the English conquest
of India took place. Of course every conquest is bad, for conquest is an
evil, foreign government is an evil, no doubt; but even through evil comes
good sometimes, and the great good of the English conquest is this: England,
nay the whole of Europe, has to thank Greece for its civilization. It is
Greece that speaks through everything in Europe. Every building, every piece
of furniture has the impress of Greece upon it; European science and art are
nothing but Grecian. Today the ancient Greek is meeting the ancient Hindu on
the soil of India. Thus slowly and silently the leaven has come; the
broadening, the life-giving and the revivalist movement that we see all
around us has been worked out by these forces together. A broader and more
generous conception of life is before us; and although at first we have been
deluded a little and wanted to narrow things down, we are finding out today
that these generous impulses which are at work, these broader conceptions of
life, are the logical interpretation of what is in our ancient books. They
are the carrying out, to the rigorously logical effect, of the primary
conceptions of our own ancestors. To become broad, to go out, to amalgamate,
to universalist, is the end of our aims. And all the time we have been
making ourselves smaller and smaller, and dissociating ourselves, contrary
to the plans laid down our scriptures.
Several dangers are in the way, and one is that of the extreme conception
that we are the people in the world. With all my love for India, and with
all my patriotism and veneration for the ancients, I cannot but think that
we have to learn many things from other nations. We must be always ready to
sit at the feet of all, for, mark you, every one can teach us great lessons.
Says our great law-giver, Manu: "Receive some good knowledge even from the
low-born, and even from the man of lowest birth learn by service the road to
heaven." We, therefore, as true children of Manu, must obey his commands and
be ready to learn the lessons of this life or the life hereafter from any
one who can teach us. At the same time we must not forget that we have also
to teach a great lesson to the world. We cannot do without the world outside
India; it was our foolishness that we thought we could, and we have paid the
penalty by about a thousand years of slavery. That we did not go out to
compare things with other nations, did not mark the workings that have been
all around us, has been the one great cause of this degradation of the
Indian mind. We have paid the penalty; let us do it no more. All such
foolish ideas that Indians must not go out of India are childish. They must
be knocked on the head; the more you go out and travel among the nations of
the world, the better for you and for your country. If you had done that for
hundreds of years past, you would not be here today at the feet of every
nation that wants to rule India. The first manifest effect of life is
expansion. You must expand if you want to live. The moment you have ceased
to expand, death is upon you, danger is ahead. I went to America and Europe,
to which you so kindly allude; I have to, because that is the first sign of
the revival of national life, expansion. This reviving national life,
expanding inside, threw me off, and thousands will be thrown off in that
way. Mark my words, it has got to come if this nation lives at all. This
question, therefore, is the greatest of the signs of the revival of national
life, and through this expansion our quota of offering to the general mass
of human knowledge, our contribution to the general upheaval of the world,
is going out to the external world.
Again, this is not a new thing. Those of you who think that the Hindus have
been always confined within the four walls of their country through all
ages, are entirely mistaken; you have not studied the old books, you have
not studied the history of the race aright if you think so. Each nation must
give in order to live. When you give life, you will have life; when you
receive, you must pay for it by giving to all others; and that we have been
living for so many thousands of years is a fact that stares us in the face,
and the solution that remains is that we have been always giving to the
outside world, whatever the ignorant may think. But the gift of India is the
gift of religion and philosophy, and wisdom and spirituality. And religion
does not want cohorts to march before its path and clear its way. Wisdom and
philosophy do not want to be carried on floods of blood. Wisdom and
philosophy do not march upon bleeding human bodies, do not march with
violence but come on the wings of peace and love, and that has always been
so. Therefore we had to give. I was asked by a young lady in London, "What
have you Hindus done? You have never even conquered a single nation." That
is true from the point of view of the Englishman, the brave, the heroic, the
Kshatriya — conquest is the greatest glory that one man can have over
another. That is true from his point of view, but from ours it is quite the
opposite. If I ask myself what has been the cause of India's greatness, I
answer, because we have never conquered. That is our glory. You are hearing
every day, and sometimes, I am sorry to say, from men who ought to know
better, denunciations of our religion, because it is not at all a conquering
religion. To my mind that is the argument why our religion is truer than any
other religion, because it never conquered, because it never shed blood,
because its mouth always shed on all, words of blessing, of peace, words of
love and sympathy. It is here and here alone that the ideals of toleration
were first preached. And it is here and here alone that toleration and
sympathy have become practical it is theoretical in every other country, it
is here and here alone, that the Hindu builds mosques for the Mohammedans
and churches for the Christians.
So, you see, our message has gone out to the world many a time, but slowly,
silently, unperceived. It is on a par with everything in India. The one
characteristic of Indian thought is its silence, its calmness. At the same
time the tremendous power that is behind it is never expressed by violence.
It is always the silent mesmerism of Indian thought. If a foreigner takes up
our literature to study, at first it is disgusting to him; there is not the
same stir, perhaps, the same amount of go that rouses him instantly. Compare
the tragedies of Europe with our tragedies. The one is full of action, that
rouses you for the moment, but when it is over there comes the reaction, and
everything is gone, washed off as it were from your brains. Indian tragedies
are like the mesmerist's power, quiet, silent, but as you go on studying
them they fascinate you; you cannot move; you are bound; and whoever has
dared to touch our literature has felt the bondage, and is there bound for
ever. Like the gentle dew that falls unseen and unheard, and yet brings into
blossom the fairest of roses, has been the contribution of India to the
thought of the world. Silent, unperceived, yet omnipotent in its effect, it
has revolutionised the thought of the world, yet nobody knows when it did
so. It was once remarked to me, "How difficult it is to ascertain the name
of any writer in India", to which I replied, "That is the Indian idea."
Indian writers are not like modern writers who steal ninety percent of
their ideas from other authors, while only ten per cent is their own, and
they take care to write a preface in which they say, "For these ideas I am
responsible". Those great master minds producing momentous results in the
hearts of mankind were content to write their books without even putting
their names, and to die quietly, leaving the books to posterity. Who knows
the writers of our philosophy, who knows the writers of our Purânas? They
all pass under the generic name of Vyâsa, and Kapila, and so on. They have
been true children of Shri Krishna. They have been true followers of the
Gita; they practically carried out the great mandate, "To work you have the
right, but not to the fruits thereof."
Thus India is working upon the world, but one condition is necessary.
Thoughts like merchandise can only run through channels made by somebody.
Roads have to be made before even thought can travel from one place to
another, and whenever in the history of the world a great conquering nation
has arisen, linking the different parts of the world together, then has
poured through these channels the thought of India and thus entered into the
veins of every race. Before even the Buddhists were born, there are
evidences accumulating every day that Indian thought penetrated the world.
Before Buddhism, Vedanta had penetrated into China, into Persia, and the
Islands of the Eastern Archipelago. Again when the mighty mind of the Greek
had linked the different parts of the Eastern world together there came
Indian thought; and Christianity with all its boasted civilisation is but a
collection of little bits of Indian thought. Ours is the religion of which
Buddhism with all its greatness is a rebel child, and of which Christianity
is a very patchy imitation. One of these cycles has again arrived. There is
the tremendous power of England which has linked the different parts of the
world together. English roads no more are content like Roman roads to run
over lands, but they have also ploughed the deep in all directions. From
ocean to ocean run the roads of England. Every part of the world has been
linked to every other part, and electricity plays a most marvellous part as
the new messenger. Under all these circumstances we find again India
reviving and ready to give her own quota to the progress and civilisation of
the world. And that I have been forced, as it were, by nature, to go over
and preach to America and England is the result. Every one of us ought to
have seen that the time had arrived. Everything looks propitious, and Indian
thought, philosophical and spiritual, roast once more go over and conquer
the world. The problem before us, therefore, is assuming larger proportions
every day. It is not only that we must revive our own country — that is a
small matter; I am an imaginative man — and my idea is the conquest of the
whole world by the Hindu race.
There have been great conquering races in the world. We also have been great
conquerors. The story of our conquest has been described by that noble
Emperor of India, Asoka, as the conquest of religion and of spirituality.
Once more the world must be conquered by India. This is the dream of my
life, and I wish that each one of you who hear me today will have the same
dream in your minds, and stop not till you have realised the dream. They
will tell you every day that we had better look to our own homes first and
then go to work outside. But I will tell you in plain language that you work
best when you work for others. The best work that you ever did for
yourselves was when you worked for others, trying to disseminate your ideas
in foreign languages beyond the seas, and this very meeting is proof how the
attempt to enlighten other countries with your thoughts is helping your own
country. One-fourth of the effect that has been produced in this country by
my going to England and America would not have been brought about, had I
confined my ideas only to India. This is the great ideal before us, and
every one must be ready for it — the Conquest of the whole world by India
— nothing less than that, and we must all get ready for it, strain every
nerve for it. Let foreigners come and flood the land with their armies,
never mind. Up, India, and conquer the world with your spirituality! Ay, as
has been declared on this soil first, love must conquer hatred, hatred
cannot conquer itself. Materialism and all its miseries can never be
conquered by materialism. Armies when they attempt to conquer armies only
multiply and make brutes of humanity. Spirituality must conquer the West.
Slowly they are finding out that what they want is spirituality to preserve
them as nations. They are waiting for it, they are eager for it. Where is
the supply to come from? Where are the men ready to go out to every country
in the world with the messages of the great sages of India? Where are the
men who are ready to sacrifice everything, so that this message shall reach
every corner of the world? Such heroic spurs are wanted to help the spread
of truth. Such heroic workers are wanted to go abroad and help to
disseminate the great truths of the Vedanta. The world wants it; without it
the world will be destroyed. The whole of the Western world is on a volcano
which may burst tomorrow, go to pieces tomorrow. They have searched every
corner of the world and have found no respite. They have drunk deep of the
cup of pleasure and found it vanity. Now is the time to work so that India's
spiritual ideas may penetrate deep into the West. Therefore young men of
Madras, I specially ask you to remember this. We must go out, we must
conquer the world through our spirituality and philosophy. There is no other
alternative, we must do it or die. The only condition of national life, of
awakened and vigorous national life, is the conquest of the world by Indian
thought.
At the same time we must not forget that what I mean by the conquest of the
world by spiritual thought is the sending out of the life-giving principles,
not the hundreds of superstitions that we have been hugging to our breasts
for centuries. These have to be weeded out even on this soil, and thrown
aside, so that they may die for ever. These are the causes of the
degradation of the race and will lead to softening of the brain. That brain
which cannot think high and noble thoughts, which has lost all power of
originality, which has lost all vigour, that brain which is always poisoning
itself with all sorts of little superstitions passing under the name of
religion, we must beware of. In our sight, here in India, there are several
dangers. Of these, the two, Scylla and Charybdis, rank materialism and its
opposite arrant superstition, must be avoided. There is the man today who
after drinking the cup of Western wisdom, thinks that he knows everything.
He laughs at the ancient sages. All Hindu thought to him is arrant trash —
philosophy mere child's prattle, and religion the superstition of fools. On
the other hand, there is the man educated, but a sort of monomaniac, who
runs to the other extreme and wants to explain the omen of this and that. He
has philosophical and metaphysical, and Lord knows what other puerile
explanations for every superstition that belongs to his peculiar race, or
his peculiar gods, or his peculiar village. Every little village
superstition is to him a mandate of the Vedas, and upon the carrying out of
it, according to him, depends the national life. You must beware of this. I
would rather see every one of you rank atheists than superstitious fools,
for the atheist is alive and you can make something out of him. But if
superstition enters, the brain is gone, the brain is softening, degradation
has seized upon the life. Avoid these two. Brave, bold men, these are what
we want. What we want is vigour in the blood, strength in the nerves, iron
muscles and nerves of steel, not softening namby-pamby ideas. Avoid all
these. Avoid all mystery. There is no mystery in religion. Is there any
mystery in the Vedanta, or in the Vedas, or in the Samhitâs, or in the
Puranas? What secret societies did the sages of yore establish to preach
their religion? What sleight-of-hand tricks are there recorded as used by
them to bring their grand truths to humanity? Mystery mongering and
superstition are always signs of weakness. These are always signs of
degradation and of death. Therefore beware of them; be strong, and stand on
your own feet. Great things are there, most marvellous things. We may call
them supernatural things so far as our ideas of nature go, but not one of
these things is a mystery. It was never preached on this soil that the
truths of religion were mysteries or that they were the property of secret
societies sitting on the snow-caps of the Himalayas. I have been in the
Himalayas. You have not been there; it is several hundreds of miles from
your homes. I am a Sannyâsin, and I have been for the last fourteen years on
my feet. These mysterious societies do not exist anywhere. Do not run after
these superstitions. Better for you and for the race that you become rank
atheists, because you would have strength, but these are degradation and
death. Shame on humanity that strong men should spend their time on these
superstitions, spend all their time in inventing allegories to explain the
most rotten superstitions of the world. Be bold; do not try to explain
everything that way. The fact is that we have many superstitions, many bad
spots and sores on our body — these have to be excised, cut off, and
destroyed — but these do not destroy our religion, our national life, our
spirituality. Every principle of religion is safe, and the sooner these
black spots are purged away, the better the principles will shine, the more
gloriously. Stick to them.
You hear claims made by every religion as being the universal religion of
the world. Let me tell you in the first place that perhaps there never will
be such a thing, but if there is a religion which can lay claim to be that,
it is only our religion and no other, because every other religion depends
on some person or persons. All the other religions have been built round the
life of what they think a historical man; and what they think the strength
of religion is really the weakness, for disprove the historicity of the man
and the whole fabric tumbles to ground. Half the lives of these great
founders of religions have been broken into pieces, and the other half
doubted very seriously. As such, every truth that had its sanction only in
their words vanishes into air. But the truths of our religion, although we
have persons by the score, do not depend upon them. The glory of Krishna is
not that he was Krishna, but that he was the great teacher of Vedanta. If he
had not been so, his name would have died out of India in the same way as
the name of Buddha has done. Thus our allegiance is to the principles
always, and not to the persons. Persons are but the embodiments, the
illustrations of the principles. If the principles are there, the persons
will come by the thousands and millions. If the principle is safe, persons
like Buddha will be born by the hundreds and thousands. But if the principle
is lost and forgotten and the whole of national life tries to cling round a
so-called historical person, woe unto that religion, danger unto that
religion! Ours is the only religion that does not depend on a person or
persons; it is based upon principles. At the same time there is room for
millions of persons. There is ample ground for introducing persons, but each
one of them must be an illustration of the principles. We must not forget
that. These principles of our religion are all safe, and it should be the
life-work of everyone of us to keep then safe, and to keep them free from
the accumulating dirt and dust of ages. It is strange that in spite of the
degradation that seized upon the race again and again, these principles of
the Vedanta were never tarnished. No one, however wicked, ever dared to
throw dirt upon them. Our scriptures are the best preserved scriptures in
the world. Compared to other books there have been no interpolations, no
text-torturing, no destroying of the essence of the thought in them. It is
there just as it was first, directing the human mind towards the ideal, the
goal.
You find that these texts have been commented upon by different
commentators, preached by great teachers, and sects founded upon them; and
you find that in these books of the Vedas there are various apparently
contradictory ideas. There are certain texts which are entirely dualistic,
others are entirely monistic. The dualistic commentator, knowing no better,
wishes to knock the monistic texts on the head. Preachers and priests want
to explain them in the dualistic meaning. The monistic commentator serves
the dualistic texts in a similar fashion. Now this is not the fault of the
Vedas. It is foolish to attempt to prove that the whole of the Vedas is
dualistic. It is equally foolish to attempt to prove that the whole of the
Vedas is nondualistic. They are dualistic and non-dualistic both. We
understand them better today in the light of newer ideas. These are but
different conceptions leading to the final conclusion that both dualistic
and monistic conceptions are necessary for the evolution of the mind, and
therefore the Vedas preach them. In mercy to the human race the Vedas show
the various steps to the higher goal. Not that they are contradictory, vain
words used by the Vedas to delude children; they are necessary not only for
children, but for many a grown-up man. So long as we have a body and so long
as we are deluded by the idea of our identity with the body, so long as we
have five senses and see the external world, we must have a Personal God.
For if we have all these ideas, we must take as the great Râmânuja has
proved, all the ideas about God and nature and the individualized soul; when
you take the one you have to take the whole triangle — we cannot avoid it.
Therefore as long as you see the external world to avoid a Personal God and
a personal soul is arrant lunacy. But there may be times in the lives of
sages when the human mind transcends as it were its own limitations, man
goes even beyond nature, to the realm of which the Shruti declares, "whence
words fall back with the mind without reaching it"; "There the eyes cannot
reach nor speech nor mind"; "We cannot say that we know it, we cannot say
that we do not know it". There the human soul transcends all limitations,
and then and then alone flashes into the human soul the conception of
monism: I and the whole universe are one; I and Brahman are one. And this
conclusion you will find has not only been reached through knowledge and
philosophy, but parts of it through the power of love. You read in the
Bhâgavata, when Krishna disappeared and the Gopis bewailed his
disappearance, that at last the thought of Krishna became so prominent in
their minds that each one forgot her own body and thought she was Krishna,
and began to decorate herself and to play as he did. We understand,
therefore, that this identity comes even through love. There was an ancient
Persian Sufi poet, and one of his poems says, "I came to the Beloved and
beheld the door was closed; I knocked at the door and from inside a voice
came, 'Who is there?' I replied, 'I am'. The door did not open. A second
time I came and knocked at the door and the same voice asked, 'Who is
there?' 'I am so-and-so.' The door did not open. A third time I came and the
same voice asked, 'Who is there?' 'I am Thyself, my Love', and the door
opened."
There are, therefore, many stages, and we need not quarrel about them even
if there have been quarrels among the ancient commentators, whom all of us
ought to revere; for there is no limitation to knowledge, there is no
omniscience exclusively the property of any one in ancient or modern times.
If there have been sages and Rishis in the past, be sure that there will be
many now. If there have been Vyâsas and Vâlmikis and Shankarâchâryas in
ancient times, why may not each one of you become a Shankaracharya? This is
another point of our religion that you must always remember, that in all
other scriptures inspiration is quoted as their authority, but this
inspiration is limited to a very few persons, and through them the truth
came to the masses, and we have all to obey them. Truth came to Jesus of
Nazareth, and we must all obey him. But the truth came to the Rishis of
India — the Mantra-drashtâs, the seers of thought — and will come to all
Rishis in the future, not to talkers, not to book-swallowers, not to
scholars, not to philologists, but to seers of thought. The Self is not to
be reached by too much talking, not even by the highest intellects, not even
by the study of the scriptures. The scriptures themselves say so. Do you
find in any other scripture such a bold assertion as that — not even by the
study of the Vedas will you reach the Atman? You must open your heart.
Religion is not going to church, or putting marks on the forehead, or
dressing in a peculiar fashion; you may paint yourselves in all the colours
of the rainbow, but if the heart has not been opened, if you have not
realised God, it is all vain. If one has the colour of the heart, he does
not want any external colour. That is the true religious realisation. We
must not forget that colours and all these things are good so far as they
help; so far they are all welcome. But they are apt to degenerate and
instead of helping they retard, and a man identifies religion with
externalities. Going to the temple becomes tantamount to spiritual life.
Giving something to a priest becomes tantamount to religious life. These are
dangerous and pernicious, and should be at once checked. Our scriptures
declare again and again that even the knowledge of the external senses is
not religion. That is religion which makes us realise the Unchangeable One,
and that is the religion for every one. He who realises transcendental
truth, he who realises the Atman in his own nature, he who comes face to
face with God, sees God alone in everything, has become a Rishi. And there
is no religious life for you until you have become a Rishi. Then alone
religion begins for you, now is only the preparation. Then religion dawns
upon you, now you are only undergoing intellectual gymnastics and physical
tortures.
We must, therefore, remember that our religion lays down distinctly and
clearly that every one who wants salvation must pass through the stage of
Rishihood — must become a Mantra-drashta, must see God. That is salvation;
that is the law laid down by our scriptures. Then it becomes easy to look
into the scripture with our own eyes, understand the meaning for ourselves,
to analyse just what we want, and to understand the truth for ourselves.
This is what has to be done. At the same time we must pay all reverence to
the ancient sages for their work. They were great, these ancients, but we
want to be greater. They did great work in the past, but we must do greater
work than they. They had hundreds of Rishis in ancient India. We will have
millions — we are going to have, and the sooner every one of you believes in
this, the better for India and the better for the world. Whatever you
believe, that you will be. If you believe yourselves to be sages, sages you
will be tomorrow. There is nothing to obstruct you. For if there is one
common doctrine that runs through all our apparently fighting and
contradictory sects, it is that all glory, power, and purity are within the
soul already; only according to Ramanuja, the soul contracts and expands at
times, and according to Shankara, it comes under a delusion. Never mind
these differences. All admit the truth that the power is there -potential or
manifest it is there — and the sooner you believe that, the better for you.
All power is within you; you can do anything and everything. Believe in
that, do not believe that you are weak; do not believe that you are
half-crazy lunatics, as most of us do nowadays. You can do anything and
everything without even the guidance of any one. All power is there. Stand
up and express the divinity within you.