A number of passages, full of energy, and full of life, from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda has been compiled and published as a small booklet by ‘Sri Ramakrishna Ashrama.
1. It’s Personality that matters
You see what is happening all around us. The world is one of influence. Part of our energy is used up in the preservation of our own bodies. Beyond that, every particle of our energy is day and night being used in influencing others. Our bodies, our virtues, our intellect and our spirituality, all these are continuously influencing others; and so, conversely, we are being influenced by them. This is going on all around us. Now, to take a concrete example, a man comes; you know he is very learned, his language is beautiful, and he speaks to you by the hour; but he does not make any impression. Another man comes, and he speaks a few words, not well arranged, ungrammatical perhaps; all the same, he makes an immense impression. So it is evident that words alone cannot always produce an impression. Words, even thoughts, contribute only one third of the influence in making an impression, the man two thirds. What you call the personal magnetism of the man – that is what goes out and impresses you.
In our families, there are the heads; some of them are successful, others are not. Why? We complain of others in our failure. The moment I am unsuccessful, I say so-and-so is the cause for the failure. In failures, one does not like to confess one’s own faults and weaknesses. Each person tries to hold himself faultless and lay the blame upon somebody or something else, or even on bad luck. When heads of families fail, they should ask themselves, why is it that some persons manage a family so well and others do not then you will find that the difference is owing to the man – his presence, his personality.
Coming to great leaders of mankind, we always find that it was the personality of the man that counted. Now, take all the great authors of the past, the great thinkers. Really speaking, how many thoughts have they thought? Take all the writings that have been left to us by the past leaders of mankind; take each one of their books and appraise them. The real thoughts, new and genuine that have been thought in this world up to this time, amount only a handful. Read in their books the thoughts they have left to us. The authors do not appear to be giants to us, and yet, we know that they were great giants in their days. What made them so? Not simply the thoughts they thought, neither the books they wrote, nor the speeches they made, it was something else that is now gone, that is their personality. As I have already remarked, the personality of the man is two-thirds and his intellect, his words are but one-third. It is the real man, the personality of the man, that runs through us. Our actions are but effects. Actions must come when the man is there; the effect is bound to follow the cause.
The ideal of education, all training, should be this man-making. But instead of that, we are always trying to polish up the outside. What use in polishing up the outside when there is no inside? The end and aim of all training is to make the man grow. The man who influences, who throws his magic, as it were, upon his fellow-beings, is a dynamo of power, and when that man is ready, he can do anything and everything he likes; that personality put upon anything will make it work.
2. Have Control
The science of Yoga claims that it has discovered the laws which develop the personality and by proper attention to those laws and methods, each one can grow and strengthen his personality. This is one of the great practical things and this is the secret of all education. This has a universal application. In the life of the householder, in the life of the poor, the rich, the man of business, the spiritual man, in everyone’s life, it is a great thing, the strengthening of this personality. There are laws, very fine which are behind the physical laws as we know. That is to say, there are no such realities as a physical world, a mental world, a spiritual world. What ever is, is one. Let us say, it is a sort of tapering existence; the thickest part is here, it tapers and becomes finer and finer. The finest is what we call spirit; the grossest, the body. And just as it is herein microcosm, it is exactly the same in the macrocosm. The universe of ours is exactly like that; it is the gross external thickness, and it tapers into something finer and finer until it becomes God.
We also know that the greatest power is lodged in the fine, not in the coarse. We see a man take up a huge weight, we see his muscles swell, and all over his body we see signs of exertion, and we think the muscles are powerful things. But it is the thin thread like things, the nerves, which bring power to the muscles; the moment one of these threads is cut off from reaching the muscles, they are not able to work at all. These tiny nerves bring the power from something still finer; and that in its turn brings it from something finer still – thought and so on. So, it is the fine that is really the seat of power. Of course, we can see the movements in the gross; but when fine movements take place, we cannot see them. When a gross thing moves, we catch it, and thus we naturally identify movement with things which are gross. But all the power is really in the fine. We do not see any movement in the fine, perhaps, because the movement is so intense that we cannot perceive it. But if by any science, any investigation, we are helped to get hold of these finer forces which are the cause of the expression, the expression itself will be under control. There is a little bubble coming from the bottom of the lake; we do not see it coming all the time, we see it only when it bursts on the surface; so we can perceive thoughts only after they develop a great deal, or after they become actions, we constantly complain that we have no control over our actions, over our thoughts. But how can we have it? If we can get control over the fine movements, if we can get hold of thought at the root, before it has become thought, before it has become action, then it would be possible for us to control the whole. Now, if there is a method by which we can analyse, investigate, understand, and finally grapple with those fine powers, the finer causes, then alone it is possible to have control over ourselves, and the man who has control over his own mind assuredly will have control over every other mind. That is why purity and morality has been always the object of religion; a pure, moral man has control of himself. And all the minds are the same, different parts of one Mind. He who knows one lump of clay has known all the clay in the universe. He, who knows and controls his own mind, knows the secret of every mind and has power over every mind.
Now, a good deal of our physical evil we can get rid of, if we have control over the fine parts; a good many worries we can throw off, if we have control over the fine movements; a good many failures can be averted, if have control over these fine powers.
3. Man is Divine
“Children of immortal bliss” – what a sweet, what a hopeful name! Allow me to call you, brethren, by that sweet name – heirs of immortal bliss. Ye are the children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth – sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human nature. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.
Every human personality may be compared to a glass globe. There is the same pure white light – an emission of the divine being – in the centre of each, but the glass being of different colours and thickness, the rays assume diverse aspects in the transmission. The equality and beauty of each flame is the same, and the apparent inequality is only the imperfection of the temporal instrument of its expression. As we rise higher and higher in scale of being, the medium becomes more and more translucent.
Everything that is strong, and good, and powerful in human nature is the outcome of that divinity, and though potential is many, there is no difference between man and man essentially, all beings alike divine. There is, as it were, an infinite ocean behind, and you and I are so many waves, coming out of that infinite ocean; and each one of us is trying his best to manifest that infinite outside. So potentially, each one of us has that infinite ocean of Existence, Knowledge and Bliss as our birthright, our real nature and the difference between us is caused by the greater or lesser power to manifest that divine.
This infinite power of the spirit, brought to bear upon matter evolves material development, made to act upon thought evolves intellectuality, and made to act upon itself makes of man a God.
Manifest the divinity within you, and everything will be harmoniously arranged around it.
4. Habits and Character
Every work that we do, every movement of the body, every thought we think, leaves such an impression on the mind-stuff and even when such impressions are not obvious on the surface, they are sufficiently strong to work beneath the surface, subconsciously. What we are every moment is determined by the sum total of these impressions on the mind. What you are just at this moment is the effect of the sum total of all the impressions of your past life. This is really what is meant by character; each man’s character is determined by the sum total of these impressions. If good impressions prevail, the character becomes good; if bad, it becomes bad. If a man continuously hears bad words, thinks bad thoughts, does bad actions, his mind will be full of bad impressions; and they will influence his thought and work without his being conscious of the fact. In fact, these bad impressions are always working and their resultant must be evil, and that man will be a bad man; he cannot help it. The sum total of these impressions in him will create the strong motive power for doing bad actions. He will be like a machine in the hands of his impressions, and they will force him to do evil. Similarly, if a man thinks good thoughts and does good works, the sum total of these impressions will be good; and they in a similar manner, will force him to good even in spite of himself. When a man has done so much good work and thought so many good thoughts that there is an irresistible tendency in him to do good, in spite of himself and even if he wishes to do evil, his mind, as the sum total of all his tendencies, will not allow him to do so, the tendencies will turn him back; he is completely under the influence of the good tendencies. When such is the case, a man’s good character is said to be established.
If you really want to judge the character of a man, look not at his great performances. Every fool may become a hero at one time or another. Watch a man do his most common action; those are indeed the things that will tell you the real character of a great man. Great occasions rouse even the lowest of human beings to some kind of greatness, but he alone is the really great man, whose character is great always, the same wherever he is.
All the actions that we see in the world, all the movements in human society, and all the works that we have around us, are simply the display of thought, the manifestation of the will of man. Machines or instruments, microprocessors, cities or satellites, all these are simply the manifestations of the will of man; and this will is caused by character, and the character is caused by Karma – the impressions in the mind. As is Karma, so is the manifestation of the will. The men of mighty of mighty will the world has produced have all been tremendous workers – gigantic souls, with wills powerful enough to over-turn worlds, wills they got by persistent work, through ages and ages.
We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care of what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live, they travel so far. Each thought that we think is tinged with our own character, so that for the pure and holy man, even his jests or abuse will have the twist of his own love and purity and do good.
Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. Neither need we trouble ourselves if a few fail. It is the nature of things that so many should fall, that troubles should come, that tremendous difficulties should arise, that selfishness and all other devils in human heart should struggle hard when they are about to be driven out by the fire of spirituality. The road to the good is the roughest and steepest in the universe. It is a wonder that so many succeed no wonder that so many fall. Character has to be established through thousand stumbles.
The mind, to have non-attachment, must be clear, good and rational. Why should we practise? Because each action is like the pulsations quivering over the surface of the lake. The vibration dies out, and what is left? The impressions. When a large number of these impressions are left on the mind, they coalesce and become a habit. It is said, “Habit is second nature,” it is first nature also, and the whole nature of man; everything that we see is the result of habit. That gives us consolation, because, if it is only habit, we can make and unmake it at any time. The impressions are left by these vibrations passing out of our mind, each one of them having its result. Our character is the sum total of these marks, and according as some wave prevails, one takes that tone. If good prevails, one becomes good; if wickedness, one becomes wicked; if joyfulness, one becomes happy. The only remedy for bad habits is counter habits. All the bad habits that have left their impressions are to be controlled by good habits.
Go on doing good, thinking holy thoughts continuously. That is the only way to suppress base impressions. Never say a man is hopeless, because he only represents a character, a bundle of habits, which can be checked by new and better ones. Character is repeated habits, and repeated habits can alone reform character.
4. Habits and Character
Every work that we do, every movement of the body, every thought we think, leaves such an impression on the mind-stuff and even when such impressions are not obvious on the surface, they are sufficiently strong to work beneath the surface, subconsciously. What we are every moment is determined by the sum total of these impressions on the mind. What you are just at this moment is the effect of the sum total of all the impressions of your past life. This is really what is meant by character; each man’s character is determined by the sum total of these impressions. If good impressions prevail, the character becomes good; if bad, it becomes bad. If a man continuously hears bad words, thinks bad thoughts, does bad actions, his mind will be full of bad impressions; and they will influence his thought and work without his being conscious of the fact. In fact, these bad impressions are always working and their resultant must be evil, and that man will be a bad man; he cannot help it. The sum total of these impressions in him will create the strong motive power for doing bad actions. He will be like a machine in the hands of his impressions, and they will force him to do evil. Similarly, if a man thinks good thoughts and does good works, the sum total of these impressions will be good; and they in a similar manner, will force him to good even in spite of himself. When a man has done so much good work and thought so many good thoughts that there is an irresistible tendency in him to do good, in spite of himself and even if he wishes to do evil, his mind, as the sum total of all his tendencies, will not allow him to do so, the tendencies will turn him back; he is completely under the influence of the good tendencies. When such is the case, a man’s good character is said to be established.
If you really want to judge the character of a man, look not at his great performances. Every fool may become a hero at one time or another. Watch a man do his most common action; those are indeed the things that will tell you the real character of a great man. Great occasions rouse even the lowest of human beings to some kind of greatness, but he alone is the really great man, whose character is great always, the same wherever he is.
All the actions that we see in the world, all the movements in human society, and all the works that we have around us, are simply the display of thought, the manifestation of the will of man. Machines or instruments, microprocessors, cities or satellites, all these are simply the manifestations of the will of man; and this will is caused by character, and the character is caused by Karma – the impressions in the mind. As is Karma, so is the manifestation of the will. The men of mighty of mighty will the world has produced have all been tremendous workers – gigantic souls, with wills powerful enough to over-turn worlds, wills they got by persistent work, through ages and ages.
We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care of what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live, they travel so far. Each thought that we think is tinged with our own character, so that for the pure and holy man, even his jests or abuse will have the twist of his own love and purity and do good.
Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. Neither need we trouble ourselves if a few fail. It is the nature of things that so many should fall, that troubles should come, that tremendous difficulties should arise, that selfishness and all other devils in human heart should struggle hard when they are about to be driven out by the fire of spirituality. The road to the good is the roughest and steepest in the universe. It is a wonder that so many succeed no wonder that so many fall. Character has to be established through thousand stumbles.
The mind, to have non-attachment, must be clear, good and rational. Why should we practise? Because each action is like the pulsations quivering over the surface of the lake. The vibration dies out, and what is left? The impressions. When a large number of these impressions are left on the mind, they coalesce and become a habit. It is said, “Habit is second nature,” it is first nature also, and the whole nature of man; everything that we see is the result of habit. That gives us consolation, because, if it is only habit, we can make and unmake it at any time. The impressions are left by these vibrations passing out of our mind, each one of them having its result. Our character is the sum total of these marks, and according as some wave prevails, one takes that tone. If good prevails, one becomes good; if wickedness, one becomes wicked; if joyfulness, one becomes happy. The only remedy for bad habits is counter habits. All the bad habits that have left their impressions are to be controlled by good habits.
Go on doing good, thinking holy thoughts continuously. That is the only way to suppress base impressions. Never say a man is hopeless, because he only represents a character, a bundle of habits, which can be checked by new and better ones. Character is repeated habits, and repeated habits can alone reform character
5. Influence of Thought
Just as every action that emanates from us comes back to us as reaction, even so our actions may act on other people and theirs on us. Perhaps you might have observed the fact that when persons do evil actions, they become more and more evil, and when they begin to do good, they become stronger and stronger and learn to do good at all times. This intensification of the influence of action cannot be explained on any other ground than that we can act and react upon each other. To take an illustration from physical science, when I am doing a certain action, my mind may be said to be in a certain state of vibration; all minds, which are in similar circumstances will have the tendency to be affected by my mind. If there are different musical instruments tuned alike in one room, you might have noticed that when one is struck, the others have the tendency to vibrate so as to give the same note. So all minds that have the same tension, so to say, will be equally affected by the same thought. Of course, this effect of thought on mind will vary according to distance and other causes, but mind is always open to affection. Suppose I am doing an evil act, my mind is in a certain state of vibration, and all minds in the universe which are in similar state, will have the possibility of being affected by the vibration of my mind. So, when I am doing a good action, my mind is in another state of vibration; and all minds similarly strung have the possibility of being affected by my mind; and this power of mind upon mind is more or less according as the force of the tension is greater or less.
Following this simile further, it is quite possible that, just as light waves may travel for millions of years before they reach an object, so thought waves may also travel hundreds of years before they meet an object with which they vibrate in unison. It is quite possible, therefore that this atmosphere of ours is full of such thought pulsations, both good and evil. Every thought projected from every brain goes on pulsating until it meets a fit object that will receive it. Any mind which is open to receive some of these impulses will take them immediately. So, when a man is doing evil actions, he has brought his mind to a certain state of tension and all the waves which correspond to that state of tension, and which may be said to be already in the atmosphere, will struggle to enter into his mind. That is why an evil doer generally goes on doing more and more evil. His actions become intensified. Such, also will be the case with the doer of good; he will open himself to all the good waves that are in the atmosphere, and his good actions also will become intensified. We run, therefore, a twofold danger in doing evil: first, we open ourselves to all the evil influences surrounding us; secondly, we create evil which affects others, may be hundreds of years hence. In doing evil, we injure ourselves and others also. In doing good, we do good to ourselves and others as well; and, like all other forces in man, these forces of good and evil also gather strength from outside.
Fill yourselves with the ideal; whatever you do, think well on it. All your actions will be magnified, transformed, deified, by the very power of thought. If matter is powerful, thought is omnipotent. Bring this thought to bear upon your life, fill yourselves with the thought of your almightiness, your majesty and your glory. Would to God no superstitions had been put into your head! Would to God we had not been surrounded from our birth by all these superstitious influences and paralysing ideas of our weakness and vileness! Would to God that mankind had an easier path through which to attain the noblest and highest truths! But man had to pass through all this; do not make the path more difficult for those who are coming after you.
6. What should be the attitude?
We must have these four sorts of ideas. We must have friendship for all; we must be merciful to those who are in misery; when people are happy, we ought to be happy; and to the wicked, we must be indifferent. So with all the subjects those come before us. If the subject is a good one, we shall feel friendly towards it; if the subject of thought is one that is miserable, we must be merciful towards it. If it is good, we must be glad; if it is evil, we must be indifferent. These attitudes of the mind towards the different subjects that come before it will make the mind peaceful. Most of our difficulties in our daily lives come from being unable to hold our minds in this way. For instance, if a man does evil to us, instantly we want to react evil; and every reaction of evil shows that we are not able to hold the mind down; it comes out in waves towards the object and we lose our power. Every reaction in the form of hatred or evil is so much loss to the mind; and every evil thought or deed of hatred, or any thought of reaction, if it is controlled, will be laid in our favour. It is not that we lose thus by thus restraining ourselves; we are gaining infinitely more than we suspect. Each time we suppress hatred, or a feeling of anger, it is so much good energy stored up in our favour, that piece of energy will be converted into higher powers.
Every vicious thought will rebound every thought of hatred which you may have thought, in a cave even, is stored up, and one day come back to you with tremendous power in the form of some misery here. If you project hatred and jealousy, they will rebound on you with compound interest. No power can avert them; when once you have put them in motion, you will have to bear them. Remembering this will prevent you from doing wicked things.
I may remark that this idea explains the ethical theory that you must not hate, and must love. Because, just as in the case of electricity the modern theory is that the power leaves the dynamo and completes the circle back to the dynamo, so with hate and love; they must come back to the source. Therefore, do not hate anybody, because that hatred which comes out from you, in the long run, must come back to you. If you love, that love will come back to you, completing the circle. It is as certain as can be, that every bit of hatred that goes out of the heart of man comes back to him in full force, nothing can stop it; similarly every impulse of love comes back to him.
The great secret is – absence of jealousy. Be always ready to concede to the opinion of your brethren and try always to conciliate. That is the whole secret. Fight on Bravely! Life is short! Give it up to a great cause.
7. Change Yourself first
We have seen that it is the subjective world that rules the objective. Change the subject, and the object is bound to change; purify yourself, and the world is bound to be purified. This one thing requires to be taught now more than ever before. We are becoming more and more busy about our neighbours, and less and less about ourselves. The world will change if we change; if we are pure, the world will become pure. The question is, why should I see evil in others? I cannot see evil unless I am evil. I cannot be miserable unless I am weak. Things that used to make me miserable when I was a baby do not do so now. The subject has changed. So the object was bound to change; so says the Vedanta.
Thus the man who has practised control over himself cannot be acted upon by anything outside; there is no more slavery for him. His mind has become free. Such a man alone is fit to live well in the world. We generally find men holding two opinions regarding the world. Some are pessimists and say, “How horrible this world is, how wicked!” Some others are optimists and say, “How beautiful this world is, how wonderful!” To those who have not controlled their own minds, the world is either full of evil or at best, a mixture of good and evil. This very world would become to us an optimistic world when we become masters of our own minds. Nothing will then work upon us as good and evil; we shall find everything to be in its proper place, to be harmonious.
The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness, the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside. All condemnation of others really condemns ourselves. Adjust the microcosm (which is in your power to do) and the macrocosm will adjust itself for you. It is like the hydrostatic paradox, one drop of water can balance the universe. We cannot see outside what we are not inside. The universe is to us what the huge engine is to the miniature engine; and indication of any error in the tiny engine leads us to imagine trouble in the huge one.
Every step that has been really gained in the world has been gained by love; criticizing can never do any good, it has been tried for thousands of years. Condemnation accomplishes nothing.
8. Take the whole responsibility
We are responsible for what we are; and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by or present actions; so we have to know how to act.
We get only that for which we are fitted. Let us give up our pride and understand this, that never is misery undeserved. There never has been a blow undeserved; there never has been an evil for which I did not pave the way with my own hands. We ought to know that. Analyze yourselves and you will find that every blow you have received came to you because you prepared yourselves for it. You did half and the external world did the other half; that is how the blow came. That will sober us down. At the same time, from this very analysis will come a note of hope, and the note of hope is: “I have no control of the external world, but that which is in me and nearer unto me, my own world is in my control. If the two together are required to make a failure, if the two together are necessary to give me a blow, I will not contribute the one which is in my keeping; and how can the blow come? If I get real control of myself, the blow will never come.”
Nothing makes us work so well at our best and highest as when all the responsibility is thrown upon ourselves. I challenge you. How will you behave if a little baby is put on your hands? Your whole life will be changed for a moment; whatever you may be, you must become selfless for time being. You will give up all your criminal ideas as soon as responsibility is thrown upon you – your whole character will change. So if the whole responsibility is thrown upon our own shoulders, we shall be at our highest and best; when we have nobody to grope towards, no devil to lay or blame upon, no personal God to carry our burdens, when we are alone is responsible, then we shall rise to our highest and best. I am responsible for my fate, I am the bringer of good unto myself, I am the bringer of evil.
This life is a hard fact; work your way through it boldly, though it may be adamantine; no matter, the soul is stronger. It lays no responsibility on little Gods; for you are the makers of your own fortunes. You make yourselves suffer, you make good and evil, and it is you who put your hands before your eyes and say it is dark. Take your hands away and see the light; you are effulgent, you are perfect already, from the very beginning.
This is the only solution of the problem. Those that blame others – and, alas! The number of them is increasing every day – are generally miserable with helpless brains; they have brought themselves to that pass through their own mistakes and blame others, but this does not alter the position. It does not serve them in any way. This attempt to throw the blame upon others only weakens them more. Therefore, blame none for our own faults, stand upon your own feet, and take the whole responsibility upon yourselves. Say, “This misery that I am suffering is of my own doing, and that very thing proves that it will have to be undone by me alone.” That which I created, I can demolish; that which is created by someone else I shall never be able to destroy. Therefore, stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succour you want is within yourselves. Therefore, make your own future. “Let the dead past bury its dead.” The infinite future is before you, and you must always remember that each word, thought, and deed, lays up a store for you and that as the bad thoughts and bad works are ready to spring upon you like tigers, so also there is the inspiring hope that the good thoughts and good deeds are ready with the power of a hundred thousand angels to defend you always and for ever.
9. How to work
Real activity, which is the goal of Vedanta, is combined with eternal calmness, the calmness which cannot be ruffled, the balance of mind which is never disturbed, whatever happens. And we all know from our experience in life that is the best attitude for work.
The calmer we are, the better for us, and the more amount of work we can do. When we let loose our feelings, we waste so much energy, shatter our nerves, disturb our minds, and accomplish very littler work. The energy which ought to have gone out as work is spent as mere feeling, which counts for nothing. It is only when the mind is very calm and collected that the whole of its energy is spent in good work. And if you read the lives of the great workers the world have produced, you will find that they were wonderfully calm men. Nothing could throw them off their balance. That is why the man who becomes angry never does a great amount of work, and the man whom nothing can make angry accomplishes so much. The man who gives way to anger, or hatred, or any other passion, cannot work; he breaks only himself to pieces and does nothing practical. It is the calm, forgiving, equable, well balanced mind that does greatest amount of work.
You will say, “What is the use of learning how to work? Every one works in some way or other in this world.” But there is such a thing as frittering away our energies. With regard to Karma Yoga, the Gita says that it is doing work with cleverness and as a science; by knowing how to work, one can obtain the greatest results. You must remember that all work is simply to bring out the power of the mind which is already there, to wake up the soul. The power is inside every man, so is knowledge; the different works are like blows to bring them out, to cause these giants to wake up.
Inactivity should be avoided by all means. Activity always means resistance. Resist all evils, mental and physical; and when you have succeeded in resisting, then will calmness come. It is very easy to say, “Hate nobody, resist not evil,” but we know what that kind of thing generally means in practice. When the eyes of society are turned towards us, we may make a show of non resistance, but in our hearts it is canker all the time. We feel the utter want of the calm of non-resistance; we feel that it would be better for us to resist. If you desire wealth, and know at the same time that the whole world regards him who aims at wealth as a very wicked man, you perhaps will not dare to plunge into the struggle for wealth, yet your mind will be running day and night after money. This is hypocrisy and will serve no purpose. Plunge into the world, and then, after a time, when you have suffered and enjoyed all that is in it, then will calmness come.
He who always speculates as to what awaits him in future, accomplishes nothing whatsoever. What you have understood as true and good, just do that at once. What’s the good of calculating what may or may not befall in future? The span of life is so, so short – and can anything be accomplished in it if you go on forecasting and computing results. God is the only dispenser of results; leave it to him to do all that. What have you got to do with it? Don’t look that way, but go on working.
It is the worker who is attached to the results that grumbles about the nature of the duty which has fallen to his lot; to the unattached worker all the duties are equally good, and form efficient instruments with which selfishness and sensuality may be killed, and the freedom of the soul secured. We are all apt to think too highly of ourselves. Our duties are determined by our deserts to a much larger extent than we are willing to grant. Competition rouses envy, and it kills the kindliness of the heart. To the grumbler all duties are distasteful; nothing will ever satisfy him, and his whole life is doomed to prove a failure. Let us work on, doing as we go whatever happens to be our duty, and being ever ready to put our shoulders to the wheel. Then surely shall we see the Light!
Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it be after his heart. But the intelligent man is he who can convert every work into that suits his taste. No work is petty. Everything in this world is like a banyan-seed, which, though appearing tiny as a mustard-seed, has yet the gigantic banyan tree latent within it. He indeed is intelligent who notices this and succeeds in making all work truly great.
Duty of any kind is not to be slighted. A man who does the lower work is not, for that reason only, a lower man than he who does the higher work; a man should not be judged by the nature of his duties, but by the manner in which he does them. His manner of doing them and his power to do them are indeed the test of a man. A shoemaker who can turn out a strong, nice pair of shoes in the shortest possible time is a better man according to his profession and his work, than a professor who talks nonsense every day of his life.
Every duty is holy, and devotion to duty is the highest form of worship of God; it is certainly a source of great help in enlightening and emancipating the deluded and ignorance-encumbered souls of the Baddhas – the bound.
By doing well the duty which is nearest to us, the duty which is in our hands now, we make ourselves stronger; and improving our strength in this manner step by step, we may even reach a state in which it shall be our privilege to do the most coveted and honoured duties in life and in society.
10. Work like a Master
The whole gist of this teaching is that you should work like a master and not as a slave; work incessantly, but do not do slave’s work. Do you not see how everybody works? Nobody can be altogether at rest; ninety-nine percent of mankind work like slaves, and the result is misery; it is all selfish work. Work through freedom! Work through love! The word ‘Love’ is very difficult to understand; love never comes until there is freedom. There is no true love possible in the slave. If you buy a slave and tie him down in chains and make him work for you, he will work like a drudge, but there will be no love in him. So when we ourselves work for the things of the world as slaves, there can be no love in us, and our work is not true work. This is true of work done for relatives and friends, and is true of work done for our own selves. Selfish work is slave’s work; and here is a test. Every act of love brings happiness; there is no act of love which does not bring peace and blessedness as its reaction.
The man who works through freedom and love cares nothing for results. But the slave wants his whipping; the servant wants his pay. So with all life; take for instance the public life. The public speaker wants a little applause or a little hissing and hooting. If you keep him in a corner without it, you kill him, for he requires it. This is working through slavery. To expect something in return, under such conditions, becomes second nature. Next comes the work of a servant, who requires some pay; I give this, and you give me that. Nothing is easier to say, “I work for work’s sake”, but nothing is so difficult to attain.
We must work. Ordinary mankind, driven everywhere by false desire, what do they know of work? The man propelled by his own feelings and his own senses, what does he know about work? He works, who is not propelled by his own desires, by any selfishness whatsoever. He works, who has no ulterior motive in view. He works, who has nothing to gain from work.
11. Doing Good to the world
Our duty to others means helping others; doing good to the world. Why should we do good to the world? Apparently to help the world, but really to help ourselves. We should always try to help the world, that should be the highest motive in us; but if we consider well, we find that the world does not require our help at all. This world was not made that you or I should come and help it. I once read a sermon in which it was said, “All this beautiful world is very good, because it gives us time and opportunity to help others.” Apparently, this is a very beautiful sentiment, but is it not a blasphemy to say that the world needs our help? We cannot deny that there is much misery in it; to go out and help others is, therefore, the best thing we can do, although in the long run, we shall find that helping others is only helping ourselves.
Yet we must do good; the desire to do good is the highest motive power we have, if we know all the time that it is a privilege to help others. Do not stand on a high pedestal and take some cash in your hands and say, “Here, my poor man,” but be grateful that the poor man is there, so that by making a gift to him, you are able to help yourself. It is not the receiver that is blessed, but it is the giver. Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benevolence and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and perfect.
We become forgetful of the ego when we think of the body as dedicated to the service of others – the body with which most complacently, we identify the ego. And in the long run comes the consciousness of disembodied-ness. The more intently you think of the well being of others, the more oblivious of self you become. In this way, as gradually your heart gets purified by work, you will come to feel the truth that your own Self is pervading all beings and all things. Thus it is that doing good to others constitutes a way, a means of revealing one’s own Self or Atman. Know this also to be one of the spiritual practices, a discipline for God realization.
When you give something to a men and expect nothing – do not even expect the man to be grateful – his gratitude will not tell upon you, because you never expected anything, never thought you had any right to anything in the way of return. You gave him what he deserved; his own karma got it for him; your karma made you the carrier thereof. Why should you be proud of having given away something? You are the porter that carried the money or other kind of gift, and the world deserved it by its own Karma. Where is then the reason for pride in you? There is nothing very great in what you give to the world.
The forest is gone, but we get heat in return. This sun is taking up water from the ocean, to return it in showers. You are the machine for taking and giving; you take in order to give. Ask, therefore, nothing in return; but the more you give, the more will come to you. The quicker you can empty the air out of this room, the quicker it will be filled up by the external air; and if you close all the doors and every aperture, that which is within will remain, but that which is outside will never come in, and that which is within will stagnate, degenerate and become poisoned. A river is continually emptying itself to the ocean and is continually filling up again. Bar not the exit into the ocean. The moment you do that, death seizes you.
Wisdom, knowledge, wealth, men, strength, prowess, and whatever else nature gathers and provides us with, all are only for diffusion, when the moment of need is at hand. We often forget this fact, put the stamp of “mine only” upon the entrusted deposits, and we sow the seed of our own ruin!
12. Unselfishness brings Success
All outgoing energy following a selfish motive is frittered away; it will not cause power to return to you; but if restrained, it will result in development of power. This self control will tend to produce mighty will, a character which makes a Christ or a Buddha. Foolish men do not know this secret; they nevertheless want to rule mankind. Even a fool may rule the world if he works and waits. Let him wait a few years, restrain the foolish idea of governing; and when that idea is wholly gone, he will be a power in the world. The majority of us cannot see beyond a few steps. Just a little narrow circle – that is our world. We have not the patience to look beyond, and thus become immoral and wicked. This is our weakness, our powerlessness.
Selfishness is the chief sin, thinking of ourselves first. He who thinks, “I will eat first, I will have more money than others, and I will possess everything”, he who thinks, “I will get to heaven before others” is the selfish man. The unselfish man says, “I will be the last, I do not care to go to heaven, I will even go to hell if by doing do I can help my brother.” This unselfishness is the test of religion. He who has more of this unselfishness is more spiritual and nearer to God. Whether he is learned or ignorant, he is nearer to God than anybody else, whether he knows it or not. And if a man is selfish, even though he has visited all the temples, seen all the places of pilgrimage, and painted himself like a leopard, he is still further off from God.
Every successful man must have behind him somewhere tremendous integrity, tremendous sincerity, and that is the cause of his signal success in life. He may not have been perfectly unselfish; yet he was tending towards it. If he had been perfectly unselfish, his would have been as great a success as that of the Buddha or of the Christ. The degree of unselfishness marks the degree of success everywhere.
Life is ever expanding, contraction is death. The self seeking man who is looking after his personal comforts and leading a lazy life – there is no room for him even in hell.
13. It’s Love that pays
Nothing else is necessary but these three – love, sincerity and patience. What is life but growth, i.e. expansion, i.e. love? Therefore all love is life and the only law of life; all selfishness is death, and this is true here or hereafter. It is life to do good, it is death not to do good to others. Ninety percent of the human brutes you see are dead, are ghosts – for none lives, my friend, but he who loves. Feel, feel for the poor, the ignorant, the downtrodden; feel till the heart stops and the brain reels and you think you will go mad – then pour the soul at the feet of the Lord, and then will come power, help, and indomitable energy. Be not afraid. Look not up in that attitude of fear towards that infinite starry vault as if it would crush you. Wait! In a few hours more, the whole of it will be under your feet. Wait, money does not pay, nor learning. It is love that pays; it is character that cleaves its way through adamantine wall of difficulties.
Those who are men and yet have no feeling in the heart for man, are such to be counted as men at all?
Duty is seldom sweet. It is only when love greases its wheels that it runs smoothly; it is a continuous friction otherwise. How else could parents do their duties to their children, husbands to their wives, and vice versa? Do we not meet with cases of friction everyday in our lives? Duty is sweet only through love, and love shines in freedom alone. Yet is it freedom to be a slave to the senses, to anger, to jealousies and a hundred other petty things that must occur everyday in human life? In all these little roughness that we meet with in life, the highest expression of freedom is to forbear.
Love never fails; today or tomorrow or ages after, truth will conquer. Love shall win the victory. Do you love your fellow-humans? Where should you go to seek God – are not all the poor, the miserable, the weak, Gods? Why not worship them first? Believe in the omnipotent power of love. Have you love? You are omnipotent. Are you perfectly unselfish? If so, you are irresistible. It is character that pays everywhere. It is the Lord that protects its children in the depths of the sea.
The individual’s life is in the life of the whole, the individual’s happiness is in the happiness of the whole; apart from the whole, the individual’s existence is inconceivable – this is an eternal truth and is the bed-rock on which the universe is built. To move slowly towards the infinite whole, bearing a constant feeling of intense sympathy and sameness with it, being happy with its happiness and being distressed in its affliction, is the individual’s sole duty. Not only it is his duty, but in its transgression is its death, while compliance with this great truth leads to life immortal.
If in this hell of a world one can bring a little joy and peace even for a day into the heart of a single person, that much alone is true; all else is mere moonshine.
14. Be Strong
The weak have no place here, in this life or any other life. Weakness leads to slavery. Weakness leads to all kinds of misery, physical and mental. Weakness is death. There are hundreds of thousands of microbes surrounding you, but they cannot harm you unless you become weak, until your body is ready and predisposed to receive them. There may be a millions of microbes of misery floating around you. Never mind! They dare not approach you, they have no power to get a hold on you, until your mind is weakened. This is a great fact; Strength is life, weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery; weakness is death.
See how we are flying like hunted hares from all that is terrible, and like them, hiding our heads and thinking we are safe. See how the whole world is flying from everything terrible. Once, I was passing through a place where there was a large tank of water on one side and a high wall on the other. It was in the grounds where there were many monkeys. The monkeys were huge brutes and are sometimes surly. They now tool it into their heads not to allow me to pass through their streets, so they howled, and shrieked and clutched at my feet as I passed. As they presses closer, I began to run, but the faster I ran, the faster came the monkeys and they began to bite at me. It seemed impossible to escape, but just then I met a stranger who called out at me, “Face the brutes.” I turned and faced the monkeys, and they fell back and finally fled. That is a lesson for all life – face the terrible, face it boldly. Like the monkeys, the hardships of life fall back when we cease to flee before them. If we are ever to gain freedom, it must be by conquering nature, never by running away. Cowards never win victories. We have to fight fear and troubles and ignorance if we expect them to flee before us.
Strength, strength is what we want so much in this life, for what we call sin and sorrow have all one cause, and that is our weakness. With weakness comes ignorance, and with ignorance comes misery. It will make us strong. Then miseries will be laughed at, then the violence of the vile will be smiled at, and the ferocious tiger will reveal, behind its tiger’s nature, my own self.
Be strong; that is my advice to you. You will be nearer to heaven through football than through the study of Gita. These are bold words; but I have to say them, for I love you. I know where the shoe pinches. I have gained a little experience. You will understand Gita better with your biceps, your muscles, a little stronger. You will understand the mighty genius and the mighty strength of Krishna better with a little strong blood in you. You will understand the Upanishads better and the glory of Atman when your body stands firm your feet and you feel yourselves as men.
Do not talk of the wickedness of the world and all its sins. Weep that you are bound to see wickedness yet. Weep that you are bound to see sin everywhere, and if you want to help the world, do not condemn it. Do not weaken it more. For what is sin and what is misery, and what are all these but the result of weakness? The world is made weaker and weaker everyday by such teachings. Men are taught from childhood that they are weak and sinners. Teach them that they are all glorious children of immortality, even those who are weakest in manifestation. Let positive strong, helpful thought enter into their brains from their very childhood. Lay yourself open to these thoughts, and not to weakening and paralyzing ones. The infinite strength of the world is yours. Drive out the superstitions that have covered your minds. Let us be brave. Know the truth and practise the truth. The goal may be distant, but awake, arise, and stop not till the goal is reached.
Weak men, when they lose everything and feel themselves weak, try all sorts of uncanny methods of making money, and come to astrology and all these things. “It is the coward and the fool who says, `this is fate’” – so says the Sanskrit proverb. But it is the strong man who stands up and says, “I will make my own fate.” It is people who are old, who talk of fate. Young men generally do not come to astrology. We may be under planetary influence, but it should not matter much to us.
Let stars come, what harm is there? If a star disturbs my life, it would not be worth a Paise. You will find that astrology and all these mystical things are generally signs of a weak mind; therefore as soon as they are becoming prominent in our minds, we should see a physician, take good food and rest.
Anything tht brings spiritual, mental, or physical weakness, touch it not with the toes of your feet. Religion is the manifestation of the natural strength that is in man. A spring of infinite power is coiled up and is inside this little body, and that spring is spreading itself. And as it goes on spreading, body after body is found insufficient; it throws them off and takes higher bodies. This is the history of man, of religion, civilization, of progress. That giant Prometheus, who is bound, is getting himself unbound. It is always a manifestation of strength, and all these ideas such as astrology, although there may be a grain of truth in them, should be avoided.
15. Be Brave
Whenever darkness comes, assert the reality and everything adverse must vanish. For, after all, it is but a dream. Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but delusions. Fear not – it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies. Be not afraid. Think not how many times you fail. Never mind. Time is infinite. Go forward: assert yourself again and again, and light must come. You may pray to everyone that was ever born, but who will come to help you? And what of the way of death from which none knows to escape? Help thyself out by thyself. None else can help thee, friend. For thou alone art thy greatest enemy, thou alone art thy greatest friend. Get hold of the self, then. Stand up. Don’t be afraid.
Go on bravely. Do not expect success in a day or a year. Always hold on to the highest. Be steady. Avoid jealousy and selfishness. Be obedient and eternally faithful to the cause of truth, humanity, and your country, and you will move the world. Remember it is the person, the life, which is the secret of power – nothing else. Jealousy is the bane of all slaves. It is the bane of our nation. Avoid that always. All blessings attend you and all success.
16. Be a Hero!
“When you first came into this world, the world rejoiced and you cried; now live your life in doing such acts that when you will leave this world, the world will cry for you and you will leave it laughing.” If you can do that, then you are a human.
Let the world say what it chooses, I shall tread the path of duty – know this to be the line of action for a hero. Otherwise, if one has to attend day and might to what this man says or that man writes, no great work is achieved in this world. “Let those who are versed in the ethical codes praise or blame, let the goddess of fortune, come or go wherever she wisheth, let death overtake him today or after a century, the wise man never swerves from the path of rectitude.”
Let people praise you or blame you, let fortune smile or frown upon you, let your body fall today or after millions of years, see that you do not deviate from the path of Truth. How much of tempests and waves one has to weather, before one reaches the heaven of Peace! The greater a man has become, the fiercer ordeal he has had to pass through. Their lives have been tested true by the touchstone of practical life, and only then have they been acknowledged great by the world. Those who are faint-hearted and cowardly sink their barks near the shore, frightened by the raging of waves on the sea. He who is a hero never casts a glance at these. Come what may, I must attain my ideal first – this is manly endeavour; without such manly endeavour, no amount of Divine help will be of any avail to banish your inertia.
Those who are always down-hearted and dispirited in this life can do no work; from life to life they come and go wailing and moaning. “The earth is enjoyed by heroes” – this is the unfailing truth. Be a hero. Always say, “I have no fear.” Tell this to everybody – “Have no fear.” Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in this world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.
In this embodied existence, you will be tossed again and again on the waves of happiness and misery, prosperity and adversity – but know them all to be of momentary duration. Never care for them.
17. Faith in Oneself
The ideal of faith in ourselves is of the greatest help to us. If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practised, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished. Throughout the history of mankind, if any motive power has been more potent than another in the lives of all great men and women, it is that faith in themselves. Born with the consciousness that they were to be great, they become great. Let a man go down as low as possible; there must come a time when out of sheer desperation he will take an upward curve and will learn to have faith in himself. But it is better for us that we should know it from the very first.
To the man who has begun to hate himself the gate of degeneration has already opened; and the same is true of a nation.
Our first duty is not to hate ourselves, because to advance, we must have faith in ourselves first and then in God. He who has no faith in himself can never have faith in God.
Whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourself weak, weak you will be; if you think yourself strong, strong you will be; if you think yourself impure, impure you will be; if you think yourself pure, pure you will be. This teaches us not to think ourselves as weak, but as strong, omnipotent and omniscient. No matter that I have not expressed it yet, it is in me. All knowledge is in me, all power, all purity, all freedom. Why cannot I express this knowledge? Because I do not believe in it. Let me believe in it, and it must and will come out.
The history of the world is the history of a few men who had faith in themselves. That faith calls out the divinity within. You can do anything. You fail only when you do not strive sufficiently to manifest infinite power. As soon as a man or a nation loses faith, death comes.
18. Imitation is Bad
Next, you must understand this, my friend, that we have many things to learn from others. The man who says he has nothing more to learn is already at his last grasp. The nation that says it knows everything is on the very brink of destruction! “As long as I live, so long do I learn.” But one point to know here is that when we take anything from others, we must mould it in our own way. We shall add to our stock what others have to teach, but we must always be careful to keep intact what is essentially our own.
None can teach another. You have to realise truth and work it out for yourself according to your own nature. all must struggle to be individuals – strong, standing on your own feet, thinking your own thoughts, realising your own Self. No use swallowing doctrines others pass on – standing up together like soldiers in jail, sitting down together, all eating the same food, all nodding their heads in the same time. Variation is the sign of life. Sameness is the sign of death.
Another great lesson we have to remember: imitation is not civilization. Imitation, cowardly imitation, never makes for progress. It is verily the sign of awful degradation in a man. We have indeed many things to learn from others, yea, that man who refuses to learn is already dead. Learn everything that is good from others, but bring it in, and in your own way, absorb it; do not become others.
The seed is put in the ground, and earth, and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth, or air, or water? No. It becomes a plant, it develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant. Similarly, each must assimilate the spirit of others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to their own law of growth.
19. What is Ethics?
One idea stands out as the centre of all ethical systems, expressed in various forms, namely doing good to others. The guiding motive of mankind should be charity towards men, charity towards all animals. But these are all various expressions of that eternal truth that, “I am the universe; this universe is one.” Or else, where is reason? Why should I do good to my fellowmen? Why should I do good to others? What compels me? It is sympathy, the feeling of sameness everywhere. The hardest hearts feel sympathy for other beings sometimes. Even the man who gets frightened if he is told that this assumed individuality is a delusion, that it is ignoble to try to cling to this apparent individuality, that very man will tell you that extreme self abnegation is the centre of all morality. And what is perfect self abnegation? It means the abnegation of this apparent self, the abnegation of all selfishness. This idea of “me and mine” is the result of proper past superstition, and the more this present self passes away, the more the real self becomes manifest. This is true self abnegation, the centre, the basis, the gist of all moral teaching; and whether a man knows it or not, the whole world is slowly going towards it, practising it more or less. Only, the vast majority of mankind are doing it unconsciously. Let them do it consciously. Let them make the sacrifice, knowing that this “me and mine” is not the real self, but only a limitation. But one glimpse of that infinite reality which is behind – but one spark of that infinite fire that is the All – represents the present man; the infinite is his true nature.
Doing good to others is virtue; injuring others is sin. Strength and manliness are virtue; weakness and cowardice are sin. Independence is virtue; dependence is sin. Loving others is virtue; hating others is sin. Faith in God and one’s own Self is virtue; doubt is sin. Knowledge of oneness is virtue; seeing diversity is sin.
It is the quintessence of all ethics, preached in any language, or in any religion, or by any prophet in the world. “Be thou unselfish”, “Not ‘I’, but ‘thou’” – that is the background of all ethical codes. And what is meant by this is the recognition of non-individuality – that you are a part of me, and I of you; the recognition that in hurting you I hurt myself, and in helping you I help myself; the recognition that there cannot possibly be death for me when you live. When one worm lives in this universe, how can I die? For my life is in the life of that worm. At the same time it will teach us that we cannot leave one of our fellow-beings without helping him, that in his good consists my good.
Why should a man be moral and pure? Because this strengthens his will. Everything that strengthens the will by revealing the real nature is moral. Everything that does the reverse is immoral.
20. Hold On to the Ideal
That is the one great first step — the real desire for the ideal — everything else comes after that. The struggle is the great lesson. Mind you, the great benefit in this life is struggle. It is through that we pass. If there is any road to heaven, it is through hell. Through hell to heaven is always the way.
There is nothing that is absolutely evil. The devil had a place here as well as God, else he would not be here. Just as I told you, it is through hell that we pass to heaven. Our mistakes have places here. Go on! Do not look back if you think you have done something that is not right. Now, do you believe you could be what you are today, had you not made those mistakes before? Bless your mistakes, then. They have been angels unawares. Blessed be torture! Blessed be happiness! Do not care what be your lot. Hold on to the ideal. March on! Do not look back upon little mistakes and things. In this battlefield of ours, the dust of mistakes must be raised. Those who are so thin-skinned that they cannot bear the dust, let them get out of the ranks.
If a man with an ideal makes a thousand mistakes, I am sure that the man without an ideal makes fifty thousand. Therefore, it is better to have an ideal. And this ideal we must hear about as much as we can, till it enters into our hearts, into our very veins, until it tingles in every drop of our blood and permeates every pore in our body. We must meditate upon it. “Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh,” and out of the fullness of the heart the hand works too.
It is thought which is propelling force in us. Fill the mind with the highest thoughts, hear them day after day, think them month after month. Never mind failures; they are quite natural, they are the beauty of life, these failures. What would life be without them? It would not be worth having if it were not for struggles. Where would be the poetry of life? Never mind the struggles, the mistakes. I never heard a cow tell a lie, but it is only a cow – never a man. So never mind these failures, these little backslidings; hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more.There is infinite life before the soul. Take your time and you will achieve your end.
Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced. Others are mere talking machines.
The life of the practical is in the ideal. It is the ideal that has penetrated the whole of our lives, whether we philosophise, or perform the hard, everyday duties of life. The rays of the ideal, reflected and reflected in various straight or tortuous lines, are pouring in through every aperture and windhole, and consciously or unconsciously, every function has to be performed in its light, every object has to be seen transformed, heightened, or deformed by it. It is the ideal that has made us what we are, and will make us what we are going to be. It is the power of the ideal that has enshrouded us, and is felt in our joys or sorrows, in our great acts or mean doings, in our virtues and vices.
21. Power of Concentration
The main difference between men and the animals is the difference in their power of concentration. All success in any line of work is the result of this. Everybody knows something about concentration. We see its results everyday. High achievements in art, music, etc. are the results of concentration. An animal has very little power of concentration. Those who have trained animals find much difficulty in the fact that the animal is constantly forgetting what is told him. He cannot concentrate his mind long upon anything at a time. Herein is the difference between man and the animals – man has the greater power of concentration. The difference in their power of concentration also constitutes the difference between man and man. Compare the lowest with the highest man. The difference is in the degree of concentration. This is the only difference.
Everybody’s mind becomes concentrated at times. We all concentrate upon those things we love, and we love those things upon which we concentrate our minds. What mother is there that does not love the face of her homeliest child? That face is to her the most beautiful in the world. She loves it because she concentrates her mind on it; and everyone could concentrate their mind on that same face, everyone would love it. It would be to all the most beautiful face. We all concentrate our minds upon those things we love.
The great trouble with such concentration is that we do not control the mind; it controls us. Something outside of it as it were, draws the mind into it and holds it as long as it chooses. We hear melodious tones or see a beautiful painting, and the mind is held fast! We cannot take it away.
If I speak to you well upon a subject you like, your mind becomes concentrated upon what I am saying. I draw your mind away from yourself and hold it upon the subject in spite of yourself. Thus your attention is held, our minds are concentrated upon various things in spite of ourselves. We cannot help it.
Now the question is: can this concentration be developed and can we become masters of it? The yogis say, yes. The yogis say that we can get perfect control of the mind. On the ethical side, there is danger in the development of the power of concentration – the danger of concentrating the mind upon an object and then being unable to detach it at will. This state causes great suffering. Almost all our suffering is caused by our not having the power of detachment. So along with the development of concentration we must develop the power of detachment. We must learn not only to attach the mind to one thing exclusively, but also to detach it at a moment’s notice and place it upon something else. These two should be practiced together to make it safe.
How has all the knowledge in the world has been gained but by the concentration of the powers of the mind? The world is ready to give up its secrets if only we know how to knock, how to give the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration. There is no limit to the power of human mind. The more concentrated it is, the more power is brought to bear on one point; that is the secret.
In training the mind the first step is to begin with breathing. Regular breathing puts the body in a harmonious condition; and it is then easier to reach the mind. In practicing breathing, the first thing to consider is Asana or posture. Any posture in which a person can sit easily is his proper position. The spine should be kept free, and the weight of the body should be supported by the ribs. Do not try by contrivances to control the mind; simple breathing is all that is necessary in this line.
22. The Sense of Equality
Do not pity anyone. Look upon all as your equal. Cleanse yourself of the primal sin of inequality. We are all equal and must not think, “I am good and you are bad, and I am trying to reclaim you.” Equality is the sign of the free.
Only sinners see sin, see not man, see only the Lord. We manufacture our own heaven and can make a heaven even in hell. Sinners are only to be found in hell, and as long as we see them around us, we are there ourselves.
Men must have education. They speak of democracy, of the equality of all men. But how will a man know he is equal with all? He must have a strong brain, a clear brain of nonsensical ideas; he must pierce through the mass of superstitions encrusting his mind to the pure truth that is in his innermost Self. Then he will know that all the perfections, all powers are already within him, that these have not to be given him by others. When he realises this, he becomes free that moment, he achieves equality. He also realises that everyone else is equally as perfect as he, and he does not have to exercise any power, physical, mental, or moral, over his brother man. He abandons the idea that there was ever any man who was lower than himself. Then he can talk of equality; not until then.
23. Be Free
Learn to feel yourself in other bodies, to know that we are all one. Throw all other nonsense to the winds. Spit out your actions, good or bad, and never think of them again. What is done is done. Throw off superstition. Have no weakness even in the face of death. Do not repent, do not brood over past deeds, and do not remember your good deeds; be free. The weak, the fearful, the ignorant will never reach the goal. You cannot undo, the effect must come, face it, but be careful never to do the same thing again. Give up the burden of all deeds to the Lord; give all, both good and bad.
It is only selfishness that causes the difference between good and evil. It is a very hard thing to understand, but you will come to learn in time that nothing in the universe has power over you until you allow it to exercise such a power. Nothing has power over the self of man, until the self becomes a fool and loses independence. So, by non-attachment, you overcome and deny the power of anything to act upon you. It is very easy to say that nothing has the right to act upon you until you allow it to do so; but what is the true sign of a man who is neither happy nor unhappy when acted upon by the external world? The sign is that good or ill fortune causes no change in his mind; in all conditions, he continues to remain the same.
All these things which we call causes of misery and evil, we shall laugh at when we arrive at that wonderful state of equality, that sameness. This is what is called in Vedanta attaining freedom. The sign of approaching that freedom is more and more of this sameness and equality. In misery and happiness the same, in success and defeat the same – such a mind is nearing the state of freedom.
The majority of people are just like a flock of sheep. If the leading sheep falls in a ditch, all the rest will follow and break their necks. In the same way, what one leading member of a society does, all the others do, without thinking what they are doing. When a man begins to see the vanity of worldly things, he will feel he ought not to be thus played upon or borne along by nature. That is slavery. If a man has a few kind words said to him, he begins to smile, and when he hears a few harsh words, he begins to weep. He is a slave to a bit of bread, to a breath of air; a slave to dress, a slave to patriotism, to country, to name, and to fame. He is thus in the midst of slavery and the real man has become buried within, through his bondage. What you call man is a slave. When one realises all this slavery, then comes the desire to be free; and intense desire comes. If a piece of burning charcoal be placed on a man’s head, see how he struggles to throw it off. Similar will be the struggles for freedom of a man who really understands that he is a slave of nature.
Be free, and then have any number of personalities you like. Then we will play like the actor who comes upon the stage and plays the part of a beggar. Contrast him with the actual beggar walking in the streets. The scene is perhaps the same in both the cases, the words are perhaps, the same, but yet what difference! The one enjoys his beggary while the other is suffering misery from it. And what makes this difference? The one is free and the other is bound. The actor knows his beggary is not true, but that he has assumed it for play, while the real beggar thinks that it is his too familiar state and that he has to bear it whether he wills it or not. This is the law. So long as we have no knowledge of our real nature, we are beggars, jostled about by every force in nature; and made slaves of by everything in nature; we cry all over the world for help, but help never comes to us; we cry to imaginary beings and yet it never comes. But still we hope help will come, and thus in weeping, wailing and hoping, ones life is passed, and the same play goes on and on.
24. March On!
Advance like a hero. Don’t be thwarted by anything. How many days will this body last, with its happiness and misery? When you have got the human body, then rouse the Atman within and say – I have reached the state of fearlessness! And then as long as the body endures, speak unto others this message of fearlessness; “Thou art That”, “Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached!”
from www. srinivasbonam.tripod.com
