The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 4/Addresses on Bhakti-Yoga/The First Steps
THE FIRST STEPS
The philosophers who wrote on Bhakti defined it as extreme love for God. Why
a man should love God is the question to be solved; and until we understand
that, we shall not be able to grasp the subject at all. There are two
entirely different ideals of life. A man of any country who has any religion
knows that he is a body and a spirit also. But there is a great deal of
difference as to the goal of human life.
In Western countries, as a rule, people lay more stress on the body aspect
of man; those philosophers who wrote on Bhakti in India laid stress on the
spiritual side of man; and this difference seems to be typical of the
Oriental and Occidental nations. It is so even in common language. In
England, when speaking of death it is said, a man gave up his ghost; in
India, a man gave up his body. The one idea is that man is a body and has a
soul; the other that man is a soul and has a body. More intricate problems
arise out of this. It naturally follows that the ideal which holds that man
is a body and has a soul lays all the stress on the body. If you ask why man
lives, you will be told it is to enjoy the senses, to enjoy possessions and
wealth. He cannot dream of anything beyond even if he is told of it; his
idea of a future life would be a continuation of this enjoyment. He is very
sorry that it cannot continue all the time here, but he has to depart; and
he thinks that somehow or other he will go to some place where the same
thing will be renewed. He will have the same enjoyments, the same senses,
only heightened and strengthened. He wants to worship God, because God is
the means to attain this end. The goal of his life is enjoyment of
sense-objects, and he comes to know there is a Being who can give him a very
long lease of these enjoyments, and that is why he worships God.
On the other hand the Indian idea is that God is the goal of life; there is
nothing beyond God, and the sense-enjoyments are simply something through
which we are passing now in the hope of getting better things. Not only so;
it would be disastrous and terrible if man had nothing but sense-enjoyments.
In our everyday life we find that the less the sense-enjoyments, the higher
the life of the man. Look at the dog when he eats. No man ever ate with the
same satisfaction. Observe the pig giving grunts of satisfaction as he eats;
it is his heaven, and if the greatest archangel came and looked on, the pig
would not even notice him. His whole existence is in his eating. No man was
ever born who could eat that way. Think of the power of hearing in the lower
animals, the power of seeing; all their senses are highly developed. Their
enjoyment of the senses is extreme; they become simply mad with delight and
pleasure. And the lower the man also, the more delight he finds in the
senses. As he gets higher, the goal becomes reason and love. In proportion
as these faculties develop, he loses the power of enjoying the senses.
For illustration's sake, if we take for granted that a certain amount of
power is given to man, and that that can be spent either on the body, or the
mind, or the spirit, then all the powers spent on any one of these leaves
just so much less to be expended on the others. The ignorant or savage races
have much stronger sensual faculties than the civilised races, and this is,
in fact, one of the lessons we learn from history that as a nation becomes
civilised the nerve organisation becomes finer, and they become physically
weaker. Civilise a savage race, and you will find the same thing; another
barbarian race comes up and conquers it. It is nearly always the barbarian
race that conquers. We see then that if we desire only to have
sense-enjoyments all the time, we
degrade ourselves to the brute state. A man does not know what he is asking
for when he says, he wants to go to a place where his sense-enjoyments will
be intensified; that he can only have by going down to the brutes.
So with men desiring a heaven full of sense-pleasures. They are like swine
wallowing in the mire of the senses, unable to see anything beyond. This
sense-enjoyment is what they want, and the loss of it is the loss of heaven
to them. These can never be Bhaktas in the highest sense of the word; they
can never be true lovers of God. At the same time, though this lower ideal
be followed for a time, it will also in course of time change, each man will
find that there is something higher, of which he did not know, and so this
clinging to life and to things of the senses will gradually die away. When I
was a little boy at school, I had a fight with another schoolfellow about
some sweetmeats, and he being the stronger boy snatched them from my hand. I
remember the feeling I had; I thought that boy was the most wicked boy ever
born, and that as soon as I grew strong enough I would punish him; there was
no punishment sufficient for his wickedness. We have both grown up now, and
we are fast friends. This world is full of babies to whom eating and
drinking, and all these little cakes are everything. They will dream of
these cakes, and their idea of future life is where these cakes will be
plentiful. Think of the American Indian who believes that his future life
will be in a place which is a very good hunting ground. Each one of us has
an idea of a heaven just as we want it to be; but in course of time, as we
grow older and see higher things, we catch higher glimpses beyond. But let
us not dispense with our ideas of future life in the ordinary way of modern
times, by not believing in anything — that is destruction. The agnostic who
thus destroys everything is mistaken, the Bhakta sees higher. The agnostic
does not want to go to heaven, because he has none; while the Bhakta does
not want to go to heaven, because he thinks it is child's play. What he
wants is God.
What can be a higher end than God? God Himself is the highest goal of man;
see Him, enjoy Him. We can never conceive anything higher, because God is
perfection. We cannot conceive of any higher enjoyment than that of love,
but this word love has different meanings. It does not mean the ordinary
selfish love of the world; it is blasphemy to call that love. The love for
our children and our wives is mere animal love; that love which is perfectly
unselfish is the only love, and that is of God. It is a very difficult thing
to attain to. We are passing through all these different loves — love of
children, father, mother, and so forth. We slowly exercise the faculty of
love; but in the majority of cases we never learn anything from it, we
become bound to one step, to one person. In some cases men come out of this
bondage. Men are ever running after wives and wealth and fame in this world;
sometimes they are hit very hard on the head, and they find out what this
world really is. No one in this world can really love anything but God. Man
finds out that human love is all hollow. Men cannot love though they talk of
it. The wife says she loves her husband and kisses him; but as soon as he
dies, the first thing she thinks about is the bank account, and what she
shall do the next day. The husband loves the wife; but when she becomes sick
and loses her beauty, or becomes haggard, or makes a mistake, he ceases to
care for her. All the love of the world is hypocrisy and hollowness.
A finite subject cannot love, nor a finite object be loved. When the object
of the love of a man is dying every moment, and his mind also is constantly
changing as he grows, what eternal love can you expect to find in the world?
There cannot be any real love but in God: why then all these loves? These
are mere stages. There is a power behind impelling us forward, we do not
know where to seek for the real object, but this love is sending us forward
in search of it. Again and again we find out our mistake. We grasp
something, and find it slips through our fingers, and then we grasp
something else. Thus on and on we go, till at last comes light; we come to
God, the only One who loves. His love knows no change and is ever ready to
take us in. How long would any of you bear with me if I injured you? He in
whose mind is no anger, hatred, or envy, who never loses his balance, dies,
or is born, who is he but God? But the path to God is long and difficult,
and very few people attain Him. We are all babies struggling. Millions of
people make a trade of religion. A few men in a century attain to that love
of God, and the whole country becomes blessed and hallowed. When a son of
God appears, a whole country becomes blessed. It is true that few such are
born in any one century in the whole world, but all should strive to attain
that love of God. Who knows but you or I may be the next to attain? Let us
struggle therefore.
We say that a wife loves her husband. She thinks that her whole soul is
absorbed in him: a baby comes and half of it goes out to the baby, or more.
She herself will feel that the same love of husband does not exist now. So
with the father. We always find that when more intense objects of love come
to us, the previous love slowly vanishes. Children at school think that some
of their schoolfellows are the dearest beings that they have in life, or
their fathers or mothers are so; then comes the husband or wife, and
immediately the old feeling disappears, and the new love becomes uppermost.
One star arises, another bigger one comes, and then a still bigger one, and
at last the sun comes, and all the lesser lights vanish. That sun is God.
The stars are the smaller loves. When that Sun bursts upon him, a man
becomes mad what Emerson calls "a God-intoxicated man". Man becomes
transfigured into God, everything is merged in that one ocean of love.
Ordinary love is mere animal attraction. Otherwise why is the distinction
between the sexes? If one kneels before an image, it is dreadful idolatry;
but if one kneels before husband or wife, it is quite permissible!
The world presents to us manifold stages of love. We have first to clear the
ground. Upon our view of life the whole theory of love will rest. To think
that this world is the aim and end of life is brutal and degenerating. Any
man who starts in life with that idea degenerates himself He will never rise
higher, he will never catch this glimpse from behind, he will always be a
slave to the senses. He will struggle for the dollar that will get him a few
cakes to eat. Better die than live that life. Slaves of this world, slaves
of the senses, let us rouse ourselves; there is something higher than this
sense-life. Do you think that man, the Infinite Spirit was born to be a
slave to his eyes, his nose, and his ears? There is an Infinite, Omniscient
Spirit behind that can do everything, break every bond; and that Spirit we
are, and we get that power through love. This is the ideal we must remember.
We cannot, of course, get it in a day. We may fancy that we have it, but it
is a fancy after all; it is a long, long way off. We must take man where he
stands, and help him upwards. Man stands in materialism; you and I are
materialists. Our talking about God and Spirit is good; but it is simply the
vogue in our society to talk thus: we have learnt it parrot-like and repeat
it. So we have to take ourselves where we are as materialists, and must take
the help of matter and go on slowly until we become real spiritualists, and
feel ourselves spirits, understand the spirit, and find that this world
which we call the infinite is but a gross external form of that world which
is behind.
But something besides that is necessary. You read in the Sermon on the
Mount, "Ask, and it shall be given (to) you; seek, and ye shall find; knock,
and it shall be opened unto you." The difficulty is, who seeks, who wants?
We all say we know God. One man writes a book to disprove God, another to
prove Him. One man thinks it his duty to prove Him all his life; another, to
disprove Him, and he goes about to teach man there is no God. What is the
use of writing a book either to prove or disprove God? What does it matter
to most people whether there is a God or not ? The majority of men work just
like a machine with no thought of God and feeling no need of Him. Then one
day comes Death and says, "Come." The man says, "Wait a little, I want a
little more time. I want to see my son grow a little bigger." But Death
says, "Come at once." So it goes on. So goes poor John. What shall we say to
poor John? He never found anything in which God was the highest; perhaps he
was a pig in the past, and he is much better as a man. But there are some
who get a little awakening. Some misery comes, someone whom we love most
dies, that upon which we had bent our whole soul, that for which we had
cheated the whole world and perhaps our own brother, that vanishes, and a
blow comes to us. Perhaps a voice comes in our soul and asks, "What after
this?" Sometimes death comes without a blow, but such cases are few. Most of
us, when anything slips through our fingers, say, "What next?" How we cling
to the senses! You have heard of a drowning man clutching at a straw; a man
will clutch at a straw first, and when it fails, he will say someone must
help him. Still people must, as the English phrase goes, "sow their wild
oats", before they can rise to higher things.
Bhakti is a religion. Religion is not for the many, that is impossible. A
sort of knee-drill, standing up and sitting down, may be suited for the
many; but religion is for the few. There are in every country only a few
hundreds who can be, and will be religious. The others cannot be religious,
because they will not be awakened, and they do not want to be. The chief
thing is to want God. We want everything except God, because our ordinary
wants are supplied by the external world; it is only when our necessities
have gone beyond the external world that we want a supply from the internal,
from God. So long as our needs are confined within the narrow limits of this
physical universe, we cannot have any need for God; it is only when we have
become satiated with everything here that we look beyond for a supply. It is
only when the need is there that the demand will come. Have done with this
child's play of the world as soon as you can, and then you will feel the
necessity of something beyond the world, and the first step in religion will
come.
There is a form of religion which is fashionable. My friend has much
furniture in her parlour; it is the fashion to have a Japanese vase, so she
must have one even if it costs a thousand dollars. In the same way she will
have a little religion and join a church. Bhakti is not for such. That is
not want. Want is that without which we cannot live. We want breath, we want
food, we want clothes; without them we cannot live. When a man loves a woman
in this world, there are times when he feels that without her he cannot
live, although that is a mistake. When a husband dies, the wife thinks she
cannot live without him; but she lives all the same. This is the secret of
necessity: it is that without which we cannot live; either it must come to
us or we die. When the time comes that we feel the same about God, or in
other words, we want something beyond this world, something above all
material forces, then we may become Bhaktas. What are our little lives when
for a moment the cloud passes away, and we get one glimpse from beyond, and
for that moment all these lower desires seem like a drop in the ocean? Then
the soul grows, and feels the want of God, and must have Him.
The first step is: What do we want? Let us ask ourselves this question every
day, do we want God? You may read all the books in the universe, but this
love is not to be had by the power of speech, not by the highest intellect,
not by the study of various sciences. He who desires God will get Love, unto
him God gives Himself. Love is always mutual, reflective. You may hate me,
and if I want to love you, you repulse me. But if I persist, in a month or a
year you are bound to love me. It is a wellknown psychological phenomenon.
As the loving wife thinks of her departed husband, with the same love we
must desire the Lord, and then we will find God, and all books and the
various sciences would not be able to teach us anything. By reading books we
become parrots; no one becomes learned by reading books. If a man reads but
one word of love, he indeed becomes learned. So we want first to get that
desire.
Let us ask ourselves each day, "Do we want Gods" When we begin to talk
religion, and especially when we take a high position and begin to teach
others, we must ask ourselves the same question. I find many times that I
don't want God, I want bread more. I may go mad if I don't get a piece of
bread; many ladies will go mad if they don't get a diamond pin, but they do
not have the same desire for God; they do not know the only Reality that is
in the universe. There is a proverb in our language — If I want to be a
hunter, I'll hunt the rhinoceros; if I want to be a robber, I'll rob the
king's treasury. What is the use of robbing beggars or hunting ants? So if
you want to love, love God. Who cares for these things of the world? This
world is utterly false; all the great teachers of the world found that out;
there is no way out of it but through God. He is the goal of our life; all
ideas that the world is the goal of life are pernicious. This world and this
body have their own value, a secondary value, as a means to an end; but the
world should not be the end. Unfortunately, too often we make the world the
end and God the means. We find people going to church and saying, "God, give
me such and such; God, heal my disease." They want nice healthy bodies; and
because they hear that someone will do this work for them, they go and pray
to Him. It is better to be an atheist than to have such an idea of religion.
As I have told you, this Bhakti is the highest ideal; I don't know whether
we shall reach it or not in millions of years to come, but we must make it
our highest ideal, make our senses aim at the highest. If we cannot get to
the end, we shall at least come nearer to it. We have slowly to work through
the world and the senses to reach God.