The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 3/Para-Bhakti or Supreme Devotion/Universal Love and How it Leads to Self Surrender
CHAPTER V
UNIVERSAL LOVE AND HOW IT LEADS TO SELF-SURRENDER
How can we love the Vyashti, the particular, without first loving the
Samashti, the universal? God is the Samashti, the generalised and the
abstract universal whole; and the universe that we see is the Vyashti, the
particularised thing. To love the whole universe is possible only by way of
loving the Samashti — the universal — which is, as it were, the one unity in
which are to be found millions and millions of smaller unities. The
philosophers of India do not stop at the particulars; they cast a hurried
glance at the particulars and immediately start to find the generalised
forms which will include all the particulars. The search after the universal
is the one search of Indian philosophy and religion. The Jnâni aims at the
wholeness of things, at that one absolute and; generalised Being, knowing
which he knows everything. The Bhakta wishes to realise that one generalised
abstract Person, in loving whom he loves the whole universe. The Yogi wishes
to have possession of that one generalised form of power, by controlling
which he controls this whole universe. The Indian mind, throughout its
history, has been directed to this kind of singular search after the
universal in everything — in science, in psychology, in love, in philosophy.
So the conclusion to which the Bhakta comes is that, if you go on merely
loving one, person after another, you may go on loving them so for an
infinite length of time, without being in the least able to love the world
as a whole. When, at last, the central idea is, however, arrived at that the
sum total of all love is God, that the sum total of the aspirations of all
the souls in the universe, whether they be free, or bound, or struggling
towards liberation, is God, then alone it becomes possible for any one to
put forth universal love. God is the Samashti, and this visible universe is
God differentiated and made manifest. If we love this sum total, we love
everything. Loving the world doing it good will all come easily then; we
have to obtain this power only by loving God first; otherwise it is no joke
to do good to the world. "Everything is His and He is my Lover; I love Him,"
says the Bhakta. In this way everything becomes sacred to the Bhakta,
because all things are His. All are His children, His body, His
manifestation. How then may we hurt any one? How then may we not love any
one? With the love of God will come, as a sure effect, the love of every one
in the universe. The nearer we approach God, the more do we begin to see
that all things are in Him. When the soul succeeds in appropriating the
bliss of this supreme love, it also begins to see Him in everything. Our
heart will thus become an eternal fountain of love. And when we reach even
higher states of this love, all the little differences between the things of
the world are entirely lost; man is seen no more as man, but only as God;
the animal is seen no more as animal, but as God; even the tiger is no more
a tiger, but a manifestation of God. Thus in this intense state of Bhakti,
worship is offered to every one, to every life, and to every being.
— "Knowing that Hari, the Lord, is in every being, the wise have thus to manifest unswerving love towards all beings."
As a result of this kind of intense all-absorbing love, comes the feeling of
perfect self-surrender, the conviction that nothing that happens is against
us, Aprâtikulya. Then the loving soul is able to say, if pain comes,
"Welcome pain." If misery comes, it will say, "Welcome misery, you are also
from the Beloved." If a serpent comes, it will say, "Welcome serpent." If
death comes, such a Bhakta will welcome it with a smile. "Blessed am I that
they all come to me; they are all welcome." The Bhakta in this state of
perfect resignation, arising out of intense love to God and to all that are
His, ceases to distinguish between pleasure and pain in so far as they
affect him. He does not know what it is to complain of pain or misery; and
this kind of uncomplaining resignation to the will of God, who is all love,
is indeed a worthier acquisition than all the glory of grand and heroic
performances.
To the vast majority of mankind, the body is everything; the body is all the
universe to them; bodily enjoyment is their all in all. This demon of the
worship of the body and of the things of the body has entered into us all.
We may indulge in tall talk and take very high flights, but we are like
vultures all the same; our mind is directed to the piece of carrion down
below. Why should our body be saved, say, from the tiger? Why may we not
give it over to the tiger? The tiger will thereby be pleased, and that is
not altogether so very far from self-sacrifice and worship. Can you reach
the realization of such an idea in which all sense of self is completely
lost? It is a very dizzy height on the pinnacle of the religion of love, and
few in this world have ever climbed up to it; but until a man reaches that
highest point of ever-ready and ever-willing self-sacrifice, he cannot
become a perfect Bhakta. We may all manage to maintain our bodies more or
less satisfactorily and for longer or shorter intervals of time.
Nevertheless, our bodies have to go; there is no permanence about them.
Blessed are they whose bodies get destroyed in the service of others.
"Wealth, and even life itself, the sage always holds ready for the service
of others. In this world, there being one thing certain, viz death, it is
far better that this body dies in a good cause than in a bad one." We may
drag our life on for fifty years or a hundred years; but after that, what is
it that happens? Everything that is the result of combination must get
dissolved and die. There must and will come a time for it to be decomposed.
Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed are all dead; all the great Prophets and
Teachers of the world are dead.
"In this evanescent world, where everything is falling to pieces, we have to
make the highest use of what time we have," says the Bhakta; and really the
highest use of life is to hold it at the service of all beings. It is the
horrible body-idea that breeds all the selfishness in the world, just this
one delusion that we are wholly the body we own, and that we must by all
possible means try our very best to preserve and to please it. If you know
that you are positively other than your body, you have then none to fight
with or struggle against; you are dead to all ideas of selfishness. So the
Bhakta declares that we have to hold ourselves as if we are altogether dead
to all the things of the world; and that is indeed self-surrender. Let
things come as they may. This is the meaning of "Thy will be done" — not
going about fighting and struggling and thinking all the while that God
wills all our own weaknesses and worldly ambitions. It may be that good
comes even out of our selfish struggles; that is, however, God's look-out.
The perfected Bhakta's idea must be never to will and work for himself.
"Lord, they build high temples in Your name; they make large gifts in Your
name; I am poor; I have nothing; so I take this body of mine and place it at
Your feet. Do not give me up, O Lord." Such is the prayer proceeding out of
the depths of the Bhakta's heart. To him who has experienced it, this
eternal sacrifice of the self unto the Beloved Lord is higher by far than
all wealth and power, than even all soaring thoughts of renown and
enjoyment. The peace of the Bhakta's calm resignation is a peace that
passeth all understanding and is of incomparable value. His Apratikulya is a
state of the mind in which it has no interests and naturally knows nothing
that is opposed to it. In this state of sublime resignation everything in
the shape of attachment goes away completely, except that one all-absorbing
love to Him in whom all things live and move and have their being. This
attachment of love to God is indeed one that does not bind the soul but
effectively breaks all its bondages.