The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 4/Lectures and Discourses/The Great Teachers of the World
THE GREAT TEACHERS OF THE WORLD
(Delivered at the Shakespeare Club, Pasadena, California, February 3, 1900)
The universe, according to the theory of the Hindus, is moving in cycles of
wave forms. It rises, reaches its zenith, then falls and remains in the
hollow, as it were, for some time, once more to rise, and so on, in wave
after wave and fall after fall. What is true of the universe is true of
every part of it. The march of human affairs is like that. The history of
nations is like that: they rise and they fall; after the rise comes a fall,
again out of the fall comes a rise, with greater power. This motion is
always going on. In the religious world the same movement exists. In every
nation's spiritual life, there is a fall as well as a rise. The nation goes
down, and everything seems to go to pieces. Then, again, it gains strength,
rises; a huge wave comes, sometimes a tidal wave — and always on the topmost
crest of the wave is a shining soul, the Messenger. Creator and created by
turns, he is the impetus that makes the wave rise, the nation rise: at the
same time, he is created by the same forces which make the wave, acting and
interacting by turns. He puts forth his tremendous power upon society; and
society makes him what he is. These are the great world-thinkers. These are
the Prophets of the world, the Messengers of life, the Incarnations of God.
Man has an idea that there can be only one religion, that there can be only
one Prophet, and that there can be only one Incarnation; but that idea is
not true. By studying the lives of all these great Messengers, we find that
each, as it were, was destined to play a part, and a part only; that the
harmony consists in the sum total and not in one note. As in the life of
races — no race is born to alone enjoy the world. None dare say no. Each
race has a part to play in this divine harmony of nations. Each race has its
mission to perform, its duty to fulfil. The sum total is the great harmony.
So, not any one of these Prophets is born to rule the world for ever. None
has yet succeeded and none is going to be the ruler for ever. Each only
contributes a part; and, as to that part, it is true that in the long run
every Prophet will govern the world and its destinies.
Most of us are born believers in a personal religion. We talk of principles,
we think of theories, and that is all right; but every thought and every
movement, every one of our actions, shows that we can only understand the
principle when it comes to us through a person. We can grasp an idea only
when it comes to us through a materialised ideal person. We can understand
the precept only through the example. Would to God that all of us were so
developed that we would not require any example, would not require any
person. But that we are not; and, naturally, the vast majority of mankind
have put their souls at the feet of these extraordinary personalities, the
Prophets, the Incarnations of God — Incarnations worshipped by the
Christians, by the Buddhists, and by the Hindus. The Mohammedans from the
beginning stood against any such worship. They would have nothing to do with
worshipping the Prophets or the Messengers, or paying any homage to them;
but, practically, instead of one Prophet, thousands upon thousands of saints
are being worshipped. We cannot go against facts! We are bound to worship
personalities, and it is good. Remember that word from your great Prophet to
the query: "Lord, show us the Father", "He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father." Which of us can imagine anything except that He is a man? We can
only see Him in and through humanity. The vibration of light is everywhere
in this room: why cannot lie see it everywhere? You have to see it only in
that lamp. God is an Omnipresent Principle — everywhere: but we are so
constituted at present that we can see Him, feel Him, only in and through a
human God. And when these great Lights come, then man realises God. And they
come in a different way from what we come. We come as beggars; they come as
Emperors. We come here like orphans, as people who have lost their way and
do not know it. What are we to do? We do not know what is the meaning of our
lives. We cannot realise it. Today we are doing one thing, tomorrow another.
We are like little bits of straw rocking to and fro in water, like feathers
blown about in a hurricane.
But, in the history of mankind, you will find that there come these
Messengers, and that from their very birth their mission is found and
formed. The whole plan is there, laid down; and you see them swerving not
one inch from that. Because they come with a mission, they come with a
message, they do not want to reason. Did you ever hear or read of these
great Teachers, or Prophets, reasoning out what they taught? No, not one of
them did so. They speak direct. Why should they reason? They see the Truth.
And not only do they see it but they show it! If you ask me, "Is there any
God ?" and I say "Yes", you immediately ask my grounds for saying so, and
poor me has to exercise all his powers to provide you with some reason. If
you had come to Christ and said, "Is there any God? " he would have said,
"Yes"; and if you had asked, "Is there any proof?" he would have replied,
"Behold the Lord! " And thus, you see, it is a direct perception, and not at
all the ratiocination of reason. There is no groping in the dark, but there
is the strength of direct vision. I see this table; no amount of reason can
take that faith from me. It is a direct perception. Such is their faith —
faith in their ideals, faith in their mission, faith in themselves, above
all else. The great shining Ones believe in themselves as nobody else ever
does. The people say, "Do you believe in God? Do you believe in a future
life? Do you believe in this doctrine or that dogma?" But here the base is
wanting: this belief in oneself. Ay, the man who cannot believe in himself,
how can they expect him to believe in anything else? I am not sure of my own
existence. One moment I think that I am existing and nothing can destroy me;
the next moment I am quaking in fear of death. One minute I think I am
immortal; the next minute, a spook appears, and then I don't know what I am,
nor where I am. I don't know whether I am living or dead. One moment I think
that I am spiritual, that I am moral; and the next moment, a blow comes, and
I am thrown flat on my back. And why? — I have lost faith in myself, my
moral backbone is broken.
But in these great Teachers you will always find this sign: that they have
intense faith in themselves. Such intense faith is unique, and we cannot
understand it. That is why we try to explain away in various ways what these
Teachers speak of themselves; and people invent twenty thousand theories to
explain what they say about their realisation. We do not think of ourselves
in the same way, and, naturally, we cannot understand them.
Then again, when they speak, the world is bound to listen. When they speak,
each word is direct; it bursts like a bomb-shell. What is in the word,
unless it has the Power behind? What matters it what language you speak, and
how you arrange your language? What matters it whether you speak correct
grammar or with fine rhetoric? What matters it whether your language is
ornamental or not? The question is whether or not you have anything to give.
It is a question of giving and taking, and not listening. Have you anything
to give? — that is the first question. If you have, then give. Words but
convey the gift: it is but one of the many modes. Sometimes we do not speak
at all. There is an old Sanskrit verse which says, "I saw the Teacher
sitting under a tree. He was a young man of sixteen, and the disciple was an
old man of eighty. The preaching of the Teacher was silence, and the doubts
of the disciple departed."
Sometimes they do not speak at all, but vet they convey the Truth from mind
to mind. They come to give. They command, they are the Messengers; you have
to receive the Command. Do you not remember in your own scriptures the
authority with which Jesus speaks? "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations
. . . teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you."
It runs through all his utterances, that tremendous faith in his own
message. That you find in the life of all these great giants whom the world
worships as its Prophets.
These great Teachers are the living Gods on this earth. Whom else should we
worship? I try to get an idea of God in my mind, and I find what a false
little thing I conceive; it would be a sin to worship that God. I open my
eyes and look at the actual life of these great ones of the earth. They are
higher than any conception of God that I could ever form. For, what
conception of mercy could a man like me form who would go after a man if he
steals anything from me and send him to jail? And what can be my highest
idea of forgiveness? Nothing beyond myself. Which of you can jump out of
your own bodies? Which of you can jump out of your own minds? Not one of
you. What idea of divine love can you form except what you actually live?
What we have never experienced we can form no idea of. So, all my best
attempts at forming an idea of God would fail in every case. And here are
plain facts, and not idealism — actual facts of love, of mercy, of purity,
of which I can have no conception even. What wonder that I should fall at
the feet of these men and worship them as God? And what else can anyone do?
I should like to see the man who can do anything else, however much he may
talk. Talking is not actuality. Talking about God and the Impersonal, and
this and that is all very good; but these man-Gods are the real Gods of all
nations and all races. These divine men have been worshipped and will be
worshipped so long as man is man. Therein is our faith, therein is our hope,
of a reality. Of what avail is a mere mystical principle!
The purpose and intent of what I have to say to you is this, that I have
found it possible in my life to worship all of them, and to be ready for all
that are yet to come. A mother recognises her son in any dress in which he
may appear before her; and if one does not do so, I am sure she is not the
mother of that man. Now, as regards those of you that think that you
understand Truth and Divinity and God in only one Prophet in the world, and
not in any other, naturally, the conclusion which I draw is that you do not
understand Divinity in anybody; you have simply swallowed words and
identified yourself with one sect, just as you would in party politics, as a
matter of opinion; but that is no religion at all. There are some fools in
this world who use brackish water although there is excellent sweet water
near by, because, they say, the brackish-water well was dug by their father.
Now, in my little experience I have collected this knowledge — that for all
the devilry that religion is, blamed with, religion is not at all in fault:
no religion ever persecuted men, no religion ever burnt witches, no religion
ever did any of these things. What then incited people to do these things?
Politics, but never religion; and if such politics takes the name of
religion whose fault is that?
So, when each man stands and says "My Prophet is the only true Prophet," he
is not correct — he knows not the alpha of religion. Religion is neither
talk, nor theory, nor intellectual consent. It is realisation in the heart
of our hearts; it is touching God; it is feeling, realising that I am a
spirit in relation with the Universal Spirit and all Its great
manifestations. If you have really entered the house of the Father, how can
you have seen His children and not known them? And if you do not recognise
them, you have not entered the house of the Father. The mother recognises
her child in any dress and knows him however disguised. Recognise all the
great, spiritual men and women in every age and country, and see that they
are not really at variance with one another. Wherever there has been actual
religion — this touch of the Divine, the soul coming in direct sense-contact
with the Divine — there has always been a broadening of the mind which
enables it to see the light everywhere. Now, some Mohammedans are the
crudest in this respect, and the most sectarian. Their watchword is: "There
is one God, and Mohammed is His Prophet." Everything beyond that not only is
bad, but must be destroyed forthwith; at a moment's notice, every man or
woman who does not exactly believe in that must be killed; everything that
does not belong to this worship must be immediately broken; every book that
teaches any thing else must be burnt. From the Pacific to the Atlantic, for
five hundred years blood ran all over the world. That is Mohammedanism!
Nevertheless, among these Mohammedans, wherever there has a philosophic man,
he was sure to protest against these cruelties. In that he showed the touch
of the Divine and realised a fragment of the truth; he was not playing with
his religion; for it was not his father's religion he was talking, but spoke
the truth direct like a man.
Side by side with tie modern theory of evolution, there is another thing:
atavism. There is a tendency in us to revert to old ideas in religion. Let
us think something new, even if it be wrong. It is better to do that. Why
should you not try to hit the mark? We become wiser through failures. Time
is infinite. Look at the wall. Did the wall ever tell a lie? It is always
the wall. Man tells a lie — and becomes a god too. It is better to do
something; never mind even if it proves to be wrong it is better than doing
nothing. The cow never tells a lie, but she remains a cow, all the time. Do
something! Think some thought; it doesn't matter whether you are right or
wrong. But think something! Because my forefathers did not think this way,
shall I sit down quietly and gradually lose my sense of feeling and my own
thinking faculties? I may as well be dead! And what is life worth if we have
no living ideas, no convictions of our own about religion? There is some
hope for the atheists, because though they differ from others, they think
for themselves. The people who never think anything for themselves are not
yet born into the world of religion; they have a mere jelly-fish existence.
They will not think; they do not care for religion. But the disbeliever, the
atheist, cares, and he is struggling. So think something! Struggle Godward!
Never mind if you fail, never mind if you get hold of a queer theory. If you
are afraid to be called queer, keep it in your own mind — you need not go
and preach it to others. But do something! Struggle Godward! Light must
come. If a man feeds me every day of my life, in the long run I shall lose
the use of my hands. Spiritual death is the result of following each other
like a flock of sheep. Death is the result of inaction. Be active; and
wherever there is activity, there must be difference. Difference is the
sauce of life; it is the beauty, it is the art of everything. Difference
makes all beautiful here. It is variety that is the source of life, the sign
of life. Why should we be afraid of it?
Now, we are coming into a position to understand about the Prophets. Now, we
see that the historical evidence is — apart from the jelly-fish existence in
religion — that where there has been any real thinking, any real love for
God, the soul has grown Godwards and has got as it were, a glimpse now and
then, has come into direct perception, even for a second, even once in its
life. Immediately, "All doubts vanish for ever, and all the crookedness of
the heart is made straight, and all bondages vanish, and the results of
action and Karma fly when He is seen who is the nearest of the near and the
farthest of the far." That is religion, that is all of religion; the rest is
mere theory, dogma, so many ways of going to that state of direct
perception. Now we are fighting over the basket and the fruits have fallen
into the ditch.
If two men quarrel about religion, just ask them the question: "Have you
seen God? Have you seen these things?" One man says that Christ is the only
Prophet: well, has he seen Christ? "Has your father seen Him?" "No, Sir."
"Has your grandfather seen Him?" "No, Sir." "Have you seen Him?" "No, Sir."
"Then what are you quarrelling for? The fruits have fallen into the ditch,
and you are quarrelling over the basket!" Sensible men and women should be
ashamed to go on quarrelling in that way!
These great Messengers and Prophets are great and true. Why? Because, each
one has come to preach a great idea. Take the Prophets of India, for
instance. They are the oldest of the founders of religion. We takes first,
Krishna. You who have read the Gitâ see all through the book that the one
idea is non-attachment. Remain unattached. The heart's love is due to only
One. To whom? To Him who never changeth. Who is that One? It is God. Do not
make the mistake of giving the heart to anything that is changing, because
that is misery. You may give it to a man; but if he dies, misery is the
result. You may give it to a friend, but he may tomorrow become your enemy.
If you give it to your husband, he may one day quarrel with you. You may
give it to your wife, and she may die the day after tomorrow. Now, this is
the way the world is going on. So says Krishna in the Gita: The Lord is the
only One who never changes. His love never fails. Wherever we are and
whatever we do, He is ever and ever the same merciful, the same loving
heart. He never changes, He is never angry, whatever we do. How can God be
angry with us? Your babe does many mischievous things: are you angry with
that babe? Does not God know what we are going to be? He knows we are all
going to be perfect, sooner or later. He has patience, infinite patience. We
must love Him, and everyone that lives — only in and through Him. This is
the keynote. You must love the wife, but not for the wife's sake. "Never, O
Beloved, is the husband loved on account of the husband, but because the
Lord is in the husband." The Vedanta philosophy says that even in the love
of the husband and wife, although the wife is thinking that she is loving
the husband, the real attraction is the Lord, who is present there. He is
the only attraction, there is no other; but the wife in most cases does not
know that it is so, but ignorantly she is doing the right thing, which is,
loving the Lord. Only, when one does it ignorantly, it may bring pain. If
one does it knowingly, that is salvation. This is what our scriptures say.
Wherever there is love, wherever there is a spark of joy, know that to be a
spark of His presence because He is joy, blessedness, and love itself.
Without that there cannot be any love.
This is the trend of Krishna's instruction all the time. He has implanted
that upon his race, so that when a Hindu does anything, even if he drinks
water, he says "If there is virtue in it, let it go to the Lord." The
Buddhist says, if he does any good deed, "Let the merit of the good deed
belong to the world; if there is any virtue in what I do, let it go to the
world, and let the evils of the world come to me." The Hindu says he is a
great believer in God; the Hindu says that God is omnipotent and that He is
the Soul of every soul everywhere; the Hindu says, If I give all my virtues
unto Him, that is the greatest sacrifice, and they will go to the whole
universe."
Now, this is one phase; and what is the other message of Krishna? "Whosoever
lives in the midst of the world, and works, and gives up all the fruit of
his action unto the Lord, he is never touched with the evils of the world.
Just as the lotus, born under the water, rises up and blossoms above the
water, even so is the man who is engaged in the activities of the world,
giving up all the fruit of his activities unto the Lord" (Gita, V. 10).
Krishna strikes another note as a teacher of intense activity. Work, work,
work day and night, says the Gita. You may ask, "Then, where is peace? If
all through life I am to work like a cart-horse and die in harness, what am
I here for?" Krishna says, "Yes, you will find peace. Flying from work is
never the way to find peace." Throw off your duties if you can, and go to
the top of a mountain; even there the mind is going — whirling, whirling,
whirling. Someone asked a Sannyasin, "Sir, have you found a nice place? How
many years have you been travelling in the Himalayas?" "For forty years,"
replied the Sannyasin. "There are many beautiful spots to select from, and
to settle down in: why did you not do so?" "Because for these forty years my
mind would not allow me to do so." We all say, "Let us find peace"; but the
mind will not allow us to do so.
You know the story of the man who caught a Tartar. A soldier was outside the
town, and he cried out when be came near the barracks, "I have caught a
Tartar." A voice called out, "Bring him in." "He won't come in, sir." "Then
you come in." "He won't let me come in, sir." So, in this mind of ours, we
have "caught a Tartar": neither can we tone it down, nor will it let us be
toned down. We have all "caught Tartars". We all say, be quiet, and
peaceful, and so forth. But every baby can say that and thinks he can do it.
However, that is very difficult. I have tried. I threw overboard all my
duties and fled to the tops of mountains; I lived in caves and deep forests
— but all the same, I "caught a Tartar" because I had my world with me all
the time. The "Tartar" is what I have in my own mind, so we must not blame
poor people outside. "These circumstances are good, and these are bad," so
we say, while the "Tartar" is here, within; if we can quiet him down, we
shall be all right.
Therefore Krishna teaches us not to shirk our duties, but to take them up
manfully, and not think of the result. The servant has no right to question.
The soldier has no right to reason. Go forward, and do not pay too much
attention to the nature of the work you have to do. Ask your mind if you are
unselfish. If you are, never mind anything, nothing can resist you! Plunge
in! Do the duty at hand. And when you have done this, by degrees you will
realise the Truth: "Whosoever in the midst of intense activity finds intense
peace, whosoever in the midst of the greatest peace finds the greatest
activity, he is a Yogi, he is a great soul, he has arrived at perfection."
Now, you see that the result of this teaching is that all the duties of the
world are sanctified. There is no duty in this world which we have any right
to call menial: and each man's work is quite as good as that of the emperor
on his throne.
Listen to Buddha's message — a tremendous message. It has a place in our
heart. Says Buddha, "Root out selfishness, and everything that makes you
selfish. Have neither wife, child, nor family. Be not of the world; become
perfectly unselfish." A worldly man thinks he will be unselfish, but when he
looks at the face of his wife it makes him selfish. The mother thinks she
will be perfectly unselfish, but she looks at her baby, and immediately
selfishness comes. So with everything in this world. As soon as selfish
desires arise, as soon as some selfish pursuit is followed, immediately the
whole man, the real man, is gone: he is like a brute, he is a slave' he
forgets his fellow men. No more does he say, "You first and I afterwards,"
but it is "I first and let everyone else look out for himself."
We find that Krishna's message has also a place for us. Without that
message, we cannot move at all. We cannot conscientiously and with peace,
joy, and happiness, take up any duty of our lives without listening to the
message of Krishna: "Be not afraid even if there is evil in your work, for
there is no work which has no evil." "Leave it unto the Lord, and do not
look for the results."
On the other hand, there is a corner in the heart for the other message:
Time flies; this world is finite and all misery. With your good food, nice
clothes, and your comfortable home, O sleeping man and woman, do you ever
think of the millions that are starving and dying? Think of the great fact
that it is all misery, misery, misery! Note the first utterance of the
child: when it enters into the world, it weeps. That is the fact — the
child-weeps. This is a place for weeping! If we listen to the Messenger, we
should not be selfish.
Behold another Messenger, He of Nazareth. He teaches, "Be ready, for the
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." I have pondered over the message of Krishna,
and am trying to work without attachment, but sometimes I forget. Then,
suddenly, comes to me the message of Buddha: "Take care, for everything in
the world as evanescent, and there is always misery in this life." I listen
to that, and I am uncertain which to accept. Then again comes, like a
thunderbolt, the message: "Be ready, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."
Do not delay a moment. Leave nothing for tomorrow. Get ready for the final
event, which may overtake you immediately, even now. That message, also, has
a place, and we acknowledge it. We salute the Messenger, we salute the Lord.
And then comes Mohammed, the Messenger of equality. You ask, "What good can
there be in his religion?" If there were no good, how could it live? The
good alone lives, that alone survives; because the good alone is strong,
therefore it survives. How long is the life of an impure man, even in this
life? Is not the life of the pure man much longer? Without doubt, for purity
is strength, goodness is strength. How could Mohammedanism have lived, had
there been nothing good in its teaching? There is much good. Mohammed was
the Prophet of equality, of the brotherhood of man, the brotherhood of all
Mussulmans
So we see that each Prophet, each Messenger, has a particular message. When
you first listen to that message, and then look at his life, you see his
whole life stands explained, radiant.
Now, ignorant fools start twenty thousand theories, and put forward,
according to their own mental development, explanations to suit their own
ideas, and ascribe them to these great Teachers. They take their teachings
and put their misconstruction upon them. With every great Prophet his life
is the only commentary. Look at his life: what he did will bear out the
texts. Read the Gita, and you will find that it is exactly borne out by the
life of the Teacher.
Mohammed by his life showed that amongst Mohammedans there should be perfect
equality and brotherhood. There was no question of race, caste, creed,
colour, or sex. The Sultan of Turkey may buy a Negro from the mart of
Africa, and bring him in chains to Turkey; but should he become a Mohammedan
and have sufficient merit and abilities, he might even marry the daughter of
the Sultan. Compare this with the way in which the Negroes and the American
Indians are treated in this country! And what do Hindus do? If one of your
missionaries chance to touch the food of an orthodox person, he would throw
it away. Notwithstanding our grand philosophy, you note our weakness in
practice; but there You see the greatness of the Mohammedan beyond other
races, showing itself in equality, perfect equality regardless of race or
colour.
Will other and greater Prophets come? Certainly they will come in this
world. But do not look forward to that. I should better like that each one
of you became a Prophet of this real New Testament, which is made up of all
the Old Testaments. Take all the old messages, supplement them with your own
realisations, and become a Prophet unto others. Each one of these Teachers
has been great; each has left something for us; they have been our Gods. We
salute them, we are their servants; and, all the same, we salute ourselves;
for if they have been Prophets and children of God, we also are the same.
They reached their perfection, and we are going to attain ours now. Remember
the words of Jesus: "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" This very moment let
everyone of us make a staunch resolution: "I will become a Prophet, I will
become a messenger of Light, I will become a child of God, nay, I will
become a God!"