Bab Bab 2 · SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS

. SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS

SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS

We have seen that it was the aspiration of ancient India to live

and move and have its joy in Brahma, the all-conscious and

all-pervading Spirit, by extending its field of consciousness over

all the world. But that, it may be urged, is an impossible task

for man to achieve. If this extension of consciousness be an

outward process, then it is endless; it is like attempting to

cross the ocean after ladling out its water. By beginning to try

to realise all, one has to end by realising nothing.

But, in reality, it is not so absurd as it sounds. Man has every

day to solve this problem of enlarging his region and adjusting

his burdens. His burdens are many, too numerous for him to

carry, but he knows that by adopting a system he can lighten the

weight of his load. Whenever they feel too complicated and

unwieldy, he knows it is because he has not been able to hit upon

the system which would have set everything in place and

distributed the weight evenly. This search for system is really

a search for unity, for synthesis; it is our attempt to harmonise

the heterogeneous complexity of outward materials by an inner

adjustment. In the search we gradually become aware that to find

out the One is to possess the All; that there, indeed, is our

last and highest privilege. It is based on the law of that unity

which is, if we only know it, our abiding strength. Its living

principle is the power that is in truth; the truth of that unity

which comprehends multiplicity. Facts are many, but the truth is

one. The animal intelligence knows facts, the human mind has

power to apprehend truth. The apple falls from the tree, the

rain descends upon the earth--you can go on burdening your memory

with such facts and never come to an end. But once you get hold

of the law of gravitation you can dispense with the necessity of

collecting facts _ad infinitum_. You have got at one truth

which governs numberless facts. This discovery of truth is pure

joy to man--it is a liberation of his mind. For, a mere fact is

like a blind lane, it leads only to itself--it has no beyond.

But a truth opens up a whole horizon, it leads us to the

infinite. That is the reason why, when a man like Darwin

discovers some simple general truth about Biology, it does not

stop there, but like a lamp shedding its light far beyond the

object for which it was lighted, it illumines the whole region of

human life and thought, transcending its original purpose. Thus

we find that truth, while investing all facts, is not a mere

aggregate of facts--it surpasses them on all sides and points to

the infinite reality.

As in the region of knowledge so in that of consciousness, man

must clearly realise some central truth which will give him an

outlook over the widest possible field. And that is the object

which the Upanishad has in view when it says, _Know thine own

Soul_. Or, in other words, realise the one great principal of

unity that there is in every man.

All our egoistic impulses, our selfish desires, obscure our true

vision of the soul. For they only indicate our own narrow self.

When we are conscious of our soul, we perceive the inner being

that transcends our ego and has its deeper affinity with the All.

Children, when they begin to learn each separate letter of the

alphabet, find no pleasure in it, because they miss the real

purpose of the lesson; in fact, while letters claim our attention

only in themselves and as isolated things, they fatigue us. They

become a source of joy to us only when they combine into words

and sentences and convey an idea.

Likewise, our soul when detached and imprisoned within the narrow

limits of a self loses its significance. For its very essence is

unity. It can only find out its truth by unifying itself with

others, and only then it has its joy. Man was troubled and he

lived in a state of fear so long as he had not discovered the

uniformity of law in nature; till then the world was alien to

him. The law that he discovered is nothing but the perception of

harmony that prevails between reason which is of the soul of man

and the workings of the world. This is the bond of union through

which man is related to the world in which he lives, and he feels

an exceeding joy when he finds this out, for then he realises

himself in his surroundings. To understand anything is to find

in it something which is our own, and it is the discovery of

ourselves outside us which makes us glad. This relation of

understanding is partial, but the relation of love is complete.

In love the sense of difference is obliterated and the human soul

fulfils its purpose in perfection, transcending the limits of

itself and reaching across the threshold of the infinite.

Therefore love is the highest bliss that man can attain to, for

through it alone he truly knows that he is more than himself, and

that he is at one with the All.

This principal of unity which man has in his soul is ever active,

establishing relations far and wide through literature, art, and

science, society, statecraft, and religion. Our great Revealers

are they who make manifest the true meaning of the soul by giving

up self for the love of mankind. They face calumny and

persecution, deprivation and death in their service of love.

They live the life of the soul, not of the self, and thus they

prove to us the ultimate truth of humanity. We call them

_Mahātmās,_ "the men of the great soul."

It is said in one of the Upanishads: _It is not that thou lovest

thy son because thou desirest him, but thou lovest thy son

because thou desirest thine own soul._ [Footnote: Na vā arē

putrasya kāmāya putrah priyō bhavati, ātmanastu kāmāya putrah

priyō bhavati.] The meaning of this is, that whomsoever we love,

in him we find our own soul in the highest sense. The final

truth of our existence lies in this. _Paramātmā_, the supreme

soul, is in me, as well as in my son, and my joy in my son is the

realisation of this truth. It has become quite a commonplace

fact, yet it is wonderful to think upon, that the joys and

sorrows of our loved ones are joys and sorrows to us--nay they

are more. Why so? Because in them we have grown larger, in

them we have touched that great truth which comprehends the whole

universe.

It very often happens that our love for our children, our

friends, or other loved ones, debars us from the further

realisation of our soul. It enlarges our scope of consciousness,

no doubt, yet it sets a limit to its freest expansion.

Nevertheless, it is the first step, and all the wonder lies in

this first step itself. It shows to us the true nature of our

soul. From it we know, for certain, that our highest joy is in

the losing of our egoistic self and in the uniting with others.

This love gives us a new power and insight and beauty of mind to

the extent of the limits we set around it, but ceases to do so if

those limits lose their elasticity, and militate against the

spirit of love altogether; then our friendships become exclusive,

our families selfish and inhospitable, our nations insular and

aggressively inimical to other races. It is like putting a

burning light within a sealed enclosure, which shines brightly

till the poisonous gases accumulate and smother the flame.

Nevertheless it has proved its truth before it dies, and made

known the joy of freedom from the grip of darkness, blind and

empty and cold.

According to the Upanishads, the key to cosmic consciousness, to

God-consciousness, is in the consciousness of the soul. To know

our soul apart from the self is the first step towards the

realisation of the supreme deliverance. We must know with

absolute certainty that essentially we are spirit. This we can

do by winning mastery over self, by rising above all pride and

greed and fear, by knowing that worldly losses and physical death

can take nothing away from the truth and the greatness of our

soul. The chick knows when it breaks through the self-centered

isolation of its egg that the hard shell which covered it so long

was not really a part of its life. That shell is a dead thing,

it has no growth, it affords no glimpse whatever of the vast

beyond that lies outside it. However pleasantly perfect and

rounded it may be, it must be given a blow to, it must be burst

through and thereby the freedom of light and air be won, and the

complete purpose of bird life be achieved. In Sanskrit, the bird

has been called the twice-born. So too the man who has gone

through the ceremony of the discipline of self-restraint and high

thinking for a period of at least twelve years; who has come out

simple in wants, pure in heart, and ready to take up all the

responsibilities of life in a disinterested largeness of spirit.

He is considered to have had his rebirth from the blind

envelopment of self to the freedom of soul life; to have come

into living relation with his surroundings; to have become at one

with the All.

I have already warned my hearers, and must once more warn them

against the idea that the teachers of India preached a

renunciation of the world and of self which leads only to the

blank emptiness of negation. Their aim was the realisation of

the soul, or, in other words, gaining the world in perfect truth.

When Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit

the earth," he meant this. He proclaimed the truth that when man

gets rid of his pride of self then he comes into his true

inheritance. No more has he to fight his way into his position

in the world; it is secure for him everywhere by the immortal

right of his soul. Pride of self interferes with the proper

function of the soul which is to realise itself by perfecting its

union with the world and the world's God.

In his sermon to Sádhu Simha Buddha says, _It is true, Simha,

that I denounce activities, but only the activities that lead to

the evil in words, thoughts, or deeds. It is true, Simha, that I

preach extinction, but only the extinction of pride, lust, evil

thought, and ignorance, not that of forgiveness, love, charity,

and truth._

The doctrine of deliverance that Buddha preached was the freedom

from the thraldom of _Avidyā_. _Avidyā_ is the ignorance that

darkens our consciousness, and tends to limit it within the

boundaries of our personal self. It is this _Avidyā_, this

ignorance, this limiting of consciousness that creates the hard

separateness of the ego, and thus becomes the source of all

pride and greed and cruelty incidental to self-seeking. When a

man sleeps he is shut up within the narrow activities of his

physical life. He lives, but he knows not the varied relations

of his life to his surroundings,--therefore he knows not

himself. So when a man lives the life of _Avidyā_ he is

confined within his self. It is a spiritual sleep; his

consciousness is not fully awake to the highest reality that

surrounds him, therefore he knows not the reality of his own

soul. When he attains _Bodhi_, i.e. the awakenment from the

sleep of self to the perfection of consciousness, he becomes

Buddha.

Once I met two ascetics of a certain religious sect in a village

of Bengal. "Can you tell me," I asked them, "wherein lies the

special features of your religion?" One of them hesitated for a

moment and answered, "It is difficult to define that." The other

said, "No, it is quite simple. We hold that we have first of all

to know our own soul under the guidance of our spiritual teacher,

and when we have done that we can find him, who is the Supreme

Soul, within us." "Why don't you preach your doctrine to all the

people of the world?" I asked. "Whoever feels thirsty will of

himself come to the river," was his reply. "But then, do you

find it so? Are they coming?" The man gave a gentle smile, and

with an assurance which had not the least tinge of impatience or

anxiety, he said, "They must come, one and all."

Yes, he is right, this simple ascetic of rural Bengal. Man is

indeed abroad to satisfy needs which are more to him than food

and clothing. He is out to find himself. Man's history is the

history of his journey to the unknown in quest of the realisation

of his immortal self--his soul. Through the rise and fall of

empires; through the building up gigantic piles of wealth and the

ruthless scattering of them upon the dust; through the creation

of vast bodies of symbols that give shape to his dreams and

aspirations, and the casting of them away like the playthings of

an outworn infancy; through his forging of magic keys with which

to unlock the mysteries of creation, and through his throwing

away of this labour of ages to go back to his workshop and work

up afresh some new form; yes, through it all man is marching from

epoch to epoch towards the fullest realisation of his soul,--the

soul which is greater than the things man accumulates, the deeds

he accomplishes, the theories he builds; the soul whose onward

course is never checked by death or dissolution. Man's mistakes

and failures have by no means been trifling or small, they have

strewn his path with colossal ruins; his sufferings have been

immense, like birth-pangs for a giant child; they are the prelude

of a fulfilment whose scope is infinite. Man has gone through

and is still undergoing martyrdoms in various ways, and his

institutions are the altars he has built whereto he brings his

daily sacrifices, marvellous in kind and stupendous in quantity.

All this would be absolutely unmeaning and unbearable if all

along he did not feel that deepest joy of the soul within him,

which tries its divine strength by suffering and proves its

exhaustless riches by renunciation. Yes, they are coming, the

pilgrims, one and all--coming to their true inheritance of the

world; they are ever broadening their consciousness, ever seeking

a higher and higher unity, ever approaching nearer to the one

central Truth which is all-comprehensive.

Man's poverty is abysmal, his wants are endless till he becomes

truly conscious of his soul. Till then, the world to him is in a

state of continual flux-- a phantasm that is and is not. For a

man who has realised his soul there is a determinate centre of

the universe around which all else can find its proper place, and

from thence only can he draw and enjoy the blessedness of a

harmonious life.

There was a time when the earth was only a nebulous mass whose

particles were scattered far apart through the expanding force of

heat; when she had not yet attained her definiteness of form and

had neither beauty nor purpose, but only heat and motion.

Gradually, when her vapours were condensed into a unified rounded

whole through a force that strove to bring all straggling matters

under the control of a centre, she occupied her proper place

among the planets of the solar system, like an emerald pendant in

a necklace of diamonds. So with our soul. When the heat and

motion of blind impulses and passions distract it on all sides,

we can neither give nor receive anything truly. But when we find

our centre in our soul by the power of self-restraint, by the

force that harmonises all warring elements and unifies those that

are apart, then all our isolated impressions reduce themselves to

wisdom, and all our momentary impulses of heart find their

completion in love; then all the petty details of our life reveal

an infinite purpose, and all our thoughts and deeds unite

themselves inseparably in an internal harmony.

The Upanishads say with great emphasis, _Know thou the One, the

Soul._ [Footnote: Tamēvaikam jānatha ātmānam.] _It is the bridge

leading to the immortal being._ [Footnote: Amritasyaisha sētuh.]

This is the ultimate end of man, to find the _One_ which is in

him; which is his truth, which is his soul; the key with which he

opens the gate of the spiritual life, the heavenly kingdom. His

desires are many, and madly they run after the varied objects of

the world, for therein they have their life and fulfilment. But

that which is _one_ in him is ever seeking for unity--unity in

knowledge, unity in love, unity in purposes of will; its highest

joy is when it reaches the infinite one within its eternal unity.

Hence the saying of the Upanishad, _Only those of tranquil minds,

and none else, can attain abiding joy, by realising within their

souls the Being who manifests one essence in a multiplicity of

forms._ [Footnote: Ēkam rūpam bahudhā yah karōti * * tam

ātmastham yē anupaçyanti dīhrāh, tēshām sukham çāçvatam

nētarēshām.]

[Transcriber's note: The above footnote contains the * mark in

the original printed version. This has been retained as is.]

Through all the diversities of the world the one in us is

threading its course towards the one in all; this is its nature

and this is its joy. But by that devious path it could never

reach its goal if it had not a light of its own by which it could

catch the sight of what it was seeking in a flash. The vision of

the Supreme One in our own soul is a direct and immediate

intuition, not based on any ratiocination or demonstration at

all. Our eyes naturally see an object as a whole, not by

breaking it up into parts, but by bringing all the parts together

into a unity with ourselves. So with the intuition of our

Soul-consciousness, which naturally and totally realises its unity in

the Supreme One.

Says the Upanishad: _This deity who is manifesting himself in the

activities of the universe always dwells in the heart of man as

the supreme soul. Those who realise him through the immediate

perception of the heart attain immortality._ [Footnote: Ēsha

dēvō vishvakarmā mahātmā sadā janānām hridayē sannivishtah.

Hridā manīsha manasābhiklriptō ya ētad viduramritāstē bhavanti.]

He is _Vishvakarma_; that is, in a multiplicity of forms and

forces lies his outward manifestation in nature; but his inner

manifestation in our soul is that which exists in unity. Our

pursuit of truth in the domain of nature therefore is through

analysis and the gradual methods of science, but our apprehension

of truth in our soul is immediate and through direct intuition.

We cannot attain the supreme soul by successive additions of

knowledge acquired bit by bit even through all eternity, because

he is one, he is not made up of parts; we can only know him as

heart of our hearts and soul of our soul; we can only know him in

the love and joy we feel when we give up our self and stand

before him face to face.

The deepest and the most earnest prayer that has ever risen from

the human heart has been uttered in our ancient tongue: _O thou

self-revealing one, reveal thyself in me._ [Footnote:

Āvirāvīrmayēdhi.] We are in misery because we are creatures of

self--the self that is unyielding and narrow, that reflects no

light, that is blind to the infinite. Our self is loud with its

own discordant clamour--it is not the tuned harp whose chords

vibrate with the music of the eternal. Sighs of discontent and

weariness of failure, idle regrets for the past and anxieties for

the future are troubling our shallow hearts because we have not

found our souls, and the self-revealing spirit has not been

manifest within us. Hence our cry, _O thou awful one, save me

with thy smile of grace ever and evermore._ [Footnote: Rudra

yat tē dakshinam mukham tēna mām pāhi nityam.] It is a stifling

shroud of death, this self-gratification, this insatiable greed,

this pride of possession, this insolent alienation of heart.

_Rudra, O thou awful one, rend this dark cover in twain and let

the saving beam of thy smile of grace strike through this night

of gloom and waken my soul._

_From unreality lead me to the real, from darkness to the light,

from death to immortality._ [Footnote: Asatōmā sadgamaya,

tamasōmā jyōtirgamaya, mrityōrma mritangamaya.] But how can one

hope to have this prayer granted? For infinite is the distance

that lies between truth and untruth, between death and

deathlessness. Yet this measureless gulf is bridged in a moment

when the self revealing one reveals himself in the soul. There

the miracle happens, for there is the meeting-ground of the

finite and infinite. _Father, completely sweep away all my

sins!_ [Footnote: Vishvānidēva savitar duratāni parāsuva.] For

in sin man takes part with the finite against the infinite that

is in him. It is the defeat of his soul by his self. It is a

perilously losing game, in which man stakes his all to gain a

part. Sin is the blurring of truth which clouds the purity of

our consciousness. In sin we lust after pleasures, not because

they are truly desirable, but because the red light of our

passions makes them appear desirable; we long for things not

because they are great in themselves, but because our greed

exaggerates them and makes them appear great. These

exaggerations, these falsifications of the perspective of things,

break the harmony of our life at every step; we lose the true

standard of values and are distracted by the false claims of the

varied interests of life contending with one another. It is this

failure to bring all the elements of his nature under the unity

and control of the Supreme One that makes man feel the pang of

his separation from God and gives rise to the earnest prayer,

_O God, O Father, completely sweep away all our sins._

[Footnote: Vishvāni dēva savitar duritāni parāsuva.] _Give

unto us that which is good_ [Footnote: Yad bhadram tanna

āsuva.], the good which is the daily bread of our souls. In our

pleasures we are confined to ourselves, in the good we are freed

and we belong to all. As the child in its mother's womb gets its

sustenance through the union of its life with the larger life of

its mother, so our soul is nourished only through the good which

is the recognition of its inner kinship, the channel of its

communication with the infinite by which it is surrounded and

fed. Hence it is said, "Blessed are they which do hunger and

thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." For

righteousness is the divine food of the soul; nothing but this

can fill him, can make him live the life of the infinite, can

help him in his growth towards the eternal. _We bow to thee

from whom come the enjoyments of our life._ [Footnote: Namah

sambhavāya.] _We bow also to thee from whom comes the good of

our soul._ [Footnote: Namah çankarāyacha.] _We bow to thee

who art good, the highest good [Footnote: Namah çivāyacha,

çivatarāya cha.], in whom we are united with everything, that is,

in peace and harmony, in goodness and love.

Man's cry is to reach his fullest expression. It is this desire

for self-expression that leads him to seek wealth and power. But

he has to discover that accumulation is not realisation. It is

the inner light that reveals him, not outer things. When this

light is lighted, then in a moment he knows that Man's highest

revelation is God's own revelation in him. And his cry is for

this--the manifestation of his soul, which is the manifestation

of God in his soul. Man becomes perfect man, he attains his

fullest expression, when his soul realises itself in the Infinite

being who is _Āvih_ whose very essence is expression.

The real misery of man is in the fact that he has not fully come

out, that he is self-obscured, lost in the midst of his own

desires. He cannot feel himself beyond his personal

surroundings, his greater self is blotted out, his truth is

unrealised. The prayer that rises up from his whole being is

therefore, _Thou, who art the spirit of manifestation, manifest

thyself in me._ [Footnote: Āvirāvīrmayēdhi.] This longing for

the perfect expression of his self is more deeply inherent in

man than his hunger and thirst for bodily sustenance, his lust

for wealth and distinction. This prayer is not merely one born

individually of him; it is in depth of all things, it is the

ceaseless urging in him of the _Āvih_, of the spirit of eternal

manifestation. The revealment of the infinite in the finite,

which is the motive of all creation, is not seen in its

perfection in the starry heavens, in the beauty of flowers. It

is in the soul of man. For there will seeks its manifestation in

will, and freedom turns to win its final prize in the freedom of

surrender.

Therefore, it is the self of man which the great King of the

universe has not shadowed with his throne--he has left it free.

In his physical and mental organism, where man is related with

nature, he has to acknowledge the rule of his King, but in his

self he is free to disown him. There our God must win his

entrance. There he comes as a guest, not as a king, and

therefore he has to wait till he is invited. It is the man's

self from which God has withdrawn his commands, for there he

comes to court our love. His armed force, the laws of nature,

stand outside its gate, and only beauty, the messenger of his

love, finds admission within its precincts.

It is only in this region of will that anarchy is permitted; only

in man's self that the discord of untruth and unrighteousness

hold its reign; and things can come to such a pass that we may

cry out in our anguish, "Such utter lawlessness could never

prevail if there were a God!" Indeed, God has stood aside from

our self, where his watchful patience knows no bounds, and where

he never forces open the doors if shut against him. For this

self of ours has to attain its ultimate meaning, which is the

soul, not through the compulsion of God's power but through love,

and thus become united with God in freedom.

He whose spirit has been made one with God stands before man as

the supreme flower of humanity. There man finds in truth what he

is; for there the _Āvih_ is revealed to him in the soul of man as

the most perfect revelation for him of God; for there we see the

union of the supreme will with our will, our love with the love

everlasting.

Therefore, in our country he who truly loves God receives such

homage from men as would be considered almost sacrilegious in the

west. We see in him God's wish fulfilled, the most difficult of

all obstacles to his revealment removed, and God's own perfect

joy fully blossoming in humanity. Through him we find the whole

world of man overspread with a divine homeliness. His life,

burning with God's love, makes all our earthly love resplendent.

All the intimate associations of our life, all its experience of

pleasure and pain, group themselves around this display of the

divine love, and from the drama that we witness in him. The

touch of an infinite mystery passes over the trivial and the

familiar, making it break out into ineffable music. The trees

and the stars and the blue hills appear to us as symbols aching

with a meaning which can never be uttered in words. We seem to

watch the Master in the very act of creation of a new world when

a man's soul draws her heavy curtain of self aside, when her veil

is lifted and she is face to face with her eternal lover.

But what is this state? It is like a morning of spring, varied

in its life and beauty, yet one and entire. When a man's life

rescued from distractions finds its unity in the soul, then the

consciousness of the infinite becomes at once direct and natural

to it as the light is to the flame. All the conflicts and

contradictions of life are reconciled; knowledge, love and action

harmonized; pleasure and pain become one in beauty, enjoyment and

renunciation equal in goodness; the breach between the finite and

the infinite fills with love and overflows; every moment carries

its message of the eternal; the formless appears to us in the

form of the flower, of the fruit; the boundless takes us up in

his arms as a father and walks by our side as a friend. It is

only the soul, the One in man which by its very nature can

overcome all limits, and finds its affinity with the Supreme One.

While yet we have not attained the internal harmony, and the

wholeness of our being, our life remains a life of habits. The

world still appears to us as a machine, to be mastered where it

is useful, to be guarded against where it is dangerous, and never

to be known in its full fellowship with us, alike in its physical

nature and in its spiritual life and beauty.