We came to enjoy; we are being enjoyed. We came to rule; we are being ruled. We came to work; we are being worked. All the time, we find that. And this comes into every detail of our life. We are being worked upon by other minds, and we are always struggling to work on other minds. We want to enjoy the pleasures of life; and they eat into our vitals. We want to get everything from nature, but we find in the long run that nature takes everything from us - depletes us, and casts us aside.
. . .
The weak have no place here, in this life or in any other life. Weakness leads to slavery.
. . .
Give what you have to give; it will come back to you - but do not think of that now, it will come back multiplied a thousandfold - but the attention must not be on that.
. . .
I know the difficulties. Tremendous they are, and ninety percent of us become discouraged and lose heart, and in our turn, often become pessimists and cease to believe in sincerity, love, and all that is grand and noble. So, we find...[people]...who in the freshness of their lives have been forgiving, kind, simple, and guileless, become in old age lying masks.... Their minds are a mass of intricacy. There may be a good deal of external policy, possibly. They are not hot-headed, they do not speak, but it would be better for them to do so; their hearts are dead and, therefore, they do not speak. They do not curse, nor become angry; but it would be better for them to be able to be angry, a thousand times better, to be able to curse. They cannot. There is death in the heart, for cold hands have seized upon it, and it can no more act, even to utter a curse, even to use a harsh word.
. . .
We may be cut to pieces, torn asunder, yet our hearts must grow nobler and nobler all the time.
. . .
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 are always standing up to set right other people, and not ourselves. If we are miserable, we say, "Oh, the world is a devil's world." ...But why should we be in such a world, if we really are so good? If this is a devil's world, we must be devils also; why else should we be here? "Oh, the people of the world are so selfish!" True enough; but why should we be found in that company, if we be better? Just think of that.
We only get what we deserve. It is a lie when we say, the world is bad and we are good. It can never be so. It is a terrible lie we tell ourselves.
. . .
All over the world there has been the belief in the supernatural throughout the ages. All of us have heard of extraordinary happenings, and many of us have had some personal experience of them. I would rather introduce the subject by telling you certain facts which have come within my own experience. I once heard of a man who, if any one went to him with questions in him mind, would answer them immediately; and I was also informed that he foretold events. I was curious and went to see him with a few friends. We each had something in our minds to ask, and, to avoid mistakes, we wrote down our questions and put them in our pockets. As soon as the man saw one of us, he repeated our questions and gave the answers to them. Then he wrote something on paper, which he folded up, asked me to sign on the back, and said, "Don't look at it; put it in your pocket and keep it there till I ask for it again." And so on to each one of us. He next told us about some events that would happen to us in the future. Then he said, "Now, think of a word or a sentence, from any language you like." I thought of a long sentence from Sanskrit, a language of which he was entirely ignorant. "Now, take out the paper from your pocket," he said. The Sanskrit sentence was written there! He had written it an hour before with the remark, "In confirmation of what I have written, this man will think of this sentence." It was correct. Another of us who had been given a similar paper which he had signed and placed in his pocket, was also asked to think, of a sentence. He thought of a sentence in Arabic, which it was still less possible for the man to know; it was some passage from the Koran. And my friend found this written down on the paper.
Another of us was a physician. He thought of a sentence from a German medical book. It was written on his paper.
Several days later I went to this man again, thinking possibly I had been deluded somehow before I took other friends, and on this occasion also he came out wonderfully triumphant.
Another time I was in the city of Hyderabad in India, and I was told of a Brahmin there who could produce numbers of things from where, nobody knew. This man was in business there; he was a respectable gentleman. And I asked him to show me his tricks. It so happened that this man had a fever, and in India there is a general belief that if a holy...[person]...puts his hand on a sick...[one, they]...would be well. This Brahmin came to me and said, "Sir, put your hand on my head, so that my fever may be cured." I said, "Very good; but you show me your tricks." He promised. I put my hand on his head as desired, and later he came to fulfil his promise. He had only a strip of cloth about his loins, we took off everything else from him. I had a blanket which I gave him to wrap round himself, because it was cold, and made him sit in a corner. Twenty-five paris of eyes were looking at him. And he said, "Now, look, write down anything you want." We all wrote down names of fruits that never grew in that country, bunches of grapes, oranges, and so on. And we gave him those bits of paper. And there came from under his blanket, bushels of grapes, and oranges, and so forth, so much that if all that fruit was weighed, it would have been twice as heavy as the man. He asked us to eat the fruit. Some of us objected, thinking it was hypnotism; but the man began eating himself - so we all ate. It was all right.
He ended by producing a mass of roses. Each flower was perfect, with dew-drops on petals, not one crushed, not one injured. And masses of them! When I asked the man for an explanation, he said, "It is all sleight of hand."
. . .
(Quantum Non-locality)
This mind is a part of the universal mind. Each mind is connected with every other mind. And each mind, wherever it is located, is in actual communication with the whole world.
Have you ever noticed the phenomenon that is called thought-transference? [Someone]...here is thinking something, and that thought is manifested in somebody else, in some other place. With preparations - not by chance - [one person]...wants to send a thought to another mind at a distance, and this other mind knows that a thought is coming, and...[they]...receive it exactly as it is sent out. Distance makes no difference. The thought goes and reaches the other...[person]...and...[they]...understand it. If your mind were an isolated something here, and my mind were an isolated something there, and there were no connection between the two, how would it be possible for my thought to reach you? In the ordinary cases, it is not my thought that is reaching you direct; but my thought has got to be dissolved into ethereal vibrations and those ethereal vibrations go into your brain, and they have to be resolved again into your own thoughts. Here is a dissolution of thought, and there is a resolution of thought. It is a roundabout process. But in telepathy, there is no such thing; it is direct.
This shows that there is a continuity of mind, as the Yogis call it. There mind is universal. Your mind, my mind, all these little minds, are fragments of that universal mind, little waves in the ocean; and on account of this continuity, we can convey our thoughts directly to one another.
. . .
...there are no such realities as a physical world, a mental world, a spiritual world. Whatever 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 here in 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.
. . .
I can see only at a distance of so many feet. But I have seen a...[person]...close...[their]...eyes and see what is happening in another room. If you say you do not believe it, perhaps in three weeks that...[person]...can make you do the same. It can be taught to anybody. Some persons, in five minutes even, can be made to read what is happening in another...[person's]...mind. These facts can be demonstrated.
. . .
...gravitation was known to the Indians thousands of years before Newton was born.
. . .
...as with every other science it is very difficult to make any great achievement, so also with this, nay much more. Yet most people think that these powers can be easily gained. How many are the years you take to make a fortune? Think of that. First, how many years do you take to learn electrical science or engineering? And then you have to work all the rest of your life.
Again, most of the other sciences deal with things that do not move, that are fixed. You can analyse the chair, the chair does not fly from you. But this science deals with the mind, which moves all the time; the moment you want to study it, it slips. Now the mind is in one mood, the next moment, perhaps, it is different, changing, changing all the time. In the midst of all this change it has to be studied, understood, grasped, and controlled. How much more difficult, then, is this science. It requires rigorous training. People ask me why I do not give them practical training. People ask me why I do not give them practical lessons. Why, it is no joke. I stand upon this platform talking to you and you go home and find no benefit. Nor do I. Then you say, "It is all bosh." It is because you wanted to make a bosh of it. I know very little of this science, but the little that I gained I worked for thirty years of my life, and for six years I have been telling people the little that I know. It took me thirty years to learn it; thirty years of hard struggle. Sometimes I worked whole nights; sometimes I lived in places where there was hardly a sound, hardly a breath; sometimes I had to live in caves. Think of that. And yet I know little or nothing; I have barely touched the hem of the garment of this science.
. . .
...a sect is started to teach that if...[one]...stands on one leg for twelve years, day and night, ...[they]...will get salvation - there will be hundreds ready to stand on one leg. All the suffering will be quietly borne. There are people who keep their arms upraised for years to gain religious merit. I have seen hundreds of them. And, mind you, they are not always ignorant fools, but are...[people]...who will astonish you with the depth and breadth of their intellect.
. . .
Often I think that my judgment and my criticism do not proceed from any dislike of torture, but from sheer cowardice - because I cannot do it - I dare not do it.
. . .
I do not know, but some day we may wake up and find that the mere worm has something which balances...[humanity].
. . .
Even in such a science as mathematics, the vast majority of its theories are only working hyphotheses. With the advent of greater knowledge they will be thrown away.
. . .
You will be astonished to hear that they have no churches, no Common Prayers, or anything of the kind; but they, every day, still practise the breathings and try to concentrate the mind; and that is the chief part of their devotion.
. . .
[Each one of us]...is an infinite circle whose circumference is nowhere, but...[whose]...centre is located in one spot; and God is an infinite circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose centre is everywhere. [God]...works through all hands, sees through all eyes,walks on all feet, breathes through all bodies, lives in all life, speaks through every mouth, and thinks through every brain.
. . .
Temples or churches, books or forms, are simply the kindergarten of religion, to make the spiritual child strong enough to take higher steps; ...Religion is not in doctrines, in dogmas, nor in intellectual argumentation; it is being and becoming, it is realisation.
. . .
Religion to them is a mere mass of frothy words, to be written in books. Each one hurries to write a big book, to make it as massive as possible, stealing...[their]...materials from every book...[they]...can lay...[their]...hands upon, and never acknowledging...[their]...indebtedness. Then...[they launch]...this book upon the world, adding to the disturbance that is already existing there.
. . .
Just as a piece of iron, which had been covered with the dust of centuries, might be lying near a magnet all the time, and yet not be attracted by it, but as soon as the dust is cleared away, the iron is drawn by the magnet; so, when the human soul, covered with the dust of ages, impurities, wickednesses, and sins, after many births, becomes purified enough by these forms and ceremonies, by doing good to others, loving other beings, its natural spiritual attraction comes, it wakes up and struggles toward God.
. . .
I am you, and you are I; and worshipping you, I worship myself; and in worshipping myself, I worship you.
. . .
Ethics itself is not the end, but the means to the end.
. . .
Society did not exist ages ago, possibly will not exist ages hence. Most probably it is one of the passing stages through which we are going towards a higher evolution, and any law that is derived from society alone cannot be eternal, cannot cover the whole ground of..[our]...nature.
. . .
Well has it been said that the masses admire the lion that kills a thousand lambs, never for a moment thinking that it is death to the lambs.
. . .
...apart from the solid facts and truths that we may learn from religion, apart from the comforts that we may gain from it, religion, as a science, as a study, is the greatest and healthiest exercise that the human mind can have. This pursuit of the Infinite, this struggle to grasp the Infinite, this effort to get beyond the limitations of the senses - out of matter, as it were - and to evolve the spiritual...[self]... - this striving day and night to make the Infinite one with our being - this struggle itself is the grandest and most glorious that...[we]...can make.
. . .
Those moments alone we live when our lives are in the universe, in others; and living this little life is death, simply death, and that is why the fear of death comes.
. . .
To stop death, we shall have to stop life also.
. . .
Both the forces of good and evil will keep the universe alive for us, until we awake from our dreams and give up this building of mud pies.
. . .
...the first death-sign of a nation has been unchastity... When that has entered, the end of the race is in sight.
. . .
...in this life, with all its miseries and sorrows, its joys and smiles and tears, one thing is certain, that all things are rushing toward their goal, and it is only a question of time when you and I, and plants and animals, and every particle of life that exists must reach the Infinite Ocean of Perfection, must attain to Freedom, to God.
. . .
The idea grows and grows until the Vedantist finds that...[this God]...who...[they]...thought was standing outside, is...[their very self]...and is in reality within. [They themselves are]...the one who is free, but who through limitation thought...[they]...were bound.
. . .
Unhappiness is the fate of those who are content to live in this world, born as they are.
. . .
We perceive at once that the idea of some Being who is eternally loving us - eternally unselfish and almighty, ruling this universe - could not satisfy. "Where is the just, merciful God?" asked the philosopher. Does...[God]...not see millions and millions of...[Its]...children perish, in the form of...[humans]...and animals; for who can live one moment here without killing others? Can you draw a breath without destroying thousands of lives? You live, because millions die. Every moment of your life, every breath that you breathe, is death to thousands; every movement that you make is death to millions. Every morsel that you eat is death to millions. Why should they die? There is an old sophism that they are very low existences. Supposing they are - which is questionable, for who knows whether the ant is greater than the...[human]..., or the...[human]...than the ant - who can prove one way or the other? Apart from that question, even taking it for granted that these are very low beings, still why should they die? If they are low, they have more reason to live. Why not? Because they live more in the senses, they feel pleasure and pain a thousandfold more than you or I can do. Which of us eats a dinner with the same gusto as a dog or wolf? None, because our energies are not in the senses; they are in the intellect, in the spirit. But in animals, their whole soul is in the senses, and they become mad and enjoy things which we human beings never dream of, and the pain is commensurate with the pleasure. Pleasure and pain are meted out in equal measure. If the pleasure felt by animals is so much keener than that felt by...[the human]..., it follows that the animals' sense of pain is as keen, if not kenner than...[ours]. So the fact is, the pain and misery...[we]...feel in dying is intensified a thousandfold in animals, and yet we kill them without troubling ourselves about their misery.
. . .
"Trailing clouds of glory we come," says the poet. Not all of us come as trailing clouds of glory however; some of us come as trailing black fogs; there can be no question about that. But every one of us comes into this world to fight, as on a battlefield. We come here weeping, to fight our way, as well as we can, and to make a path for ourselves through this infinite ocean of life; forward we go, having long ages behind us and an immense expanse beyond. So on we go, till death comes and takes us off the field - victorious or defeated, we do not know. And this is Maya.
Hope is dominant in the heart of childhood. The whole world is a golden vision to the opening eyes of the child; ...[they]...think...[their]...will is supreme. As...[they]...move onward, at every step nature stands as an adamantine wall, barring...[their]...future progress. [They]...may hurl...[themselves]...against it again and again, striving to break through. The further...[they]...go, the further recedes the ideal, till death comes, and there is release, perhaps. And this is Maya.
[A person]...of science rises, ...[they are]...thirsting after knowledge. No sacrifice is too great, no struggle too hopeless for...[them]. [They]...move onward discovering secret after secret of nature, searching out the secrets from her innermost heart, and what for? What is it all for? Why should we give...[this person]...glory? Why should...[they]...acquire fame? Does not nature do infinitely more than any human being can do? - and nature is dull, insentient. Why should it be glory to imitate the dull, the insentient? Nature can hurl a thunderbolt of any magnitude to any distance. If a...[person]...can do one small part as much, we praise...[them]...and laud...[them]...to the skies. Why? Why should we praise...[them]...for imitating nature, imitating death, imitating dullness, imitating insentience? The force of gravitation can pull to pieces the biggest mass that ever existed; yet it is insentient. What glory is there in imitating the insentient? Yet we are all struggling after that. And this is maya.
The senses drag the human soul out. [We are]...seeking for pleasure and for happiness where it can never be found. For countless ages we are all taught that this is futile and vain, there is no happiness here. But we cannot learn; it is impossible for us to do so, except through our own experiences. We try them, and a blow comes. Do we learn then? Not even then. Like moths hurling themselves against the flame, we are hurling ourselves again and again into sense-pleasures, hoping to find satisfaction there. We return again and again with freshened energy; thus we go on, till crippled and cheated we die. And this is Maya.
.....With every breath, with every pulsation of the heart, with every one of our movements, we think we are free, and the very same moment we are shown that we are not. Bound slaves, nature's bond-slaves, in body, in mind, in all our thoughts, in all our feelings. And this is Maya.
There was never a mother who did not think her child was a born genius, the most extraordinary child that was ever born; she dotes upon her child. Her whole soul is in the child. The child grows up, perhaps becomes a drunkard, a brute, ill-treats the mother, and the more...[they]...ill-treat her, the more her love increases. The world lauds it as the unselfish love of the mother, little dreaming that the mother is a born slave, she cannot help it. She would a thousand times rather throw off the burden, but she cannot. So she covers it with a mass of flowers, which she calls wonderful love. And this is Maya.
. . .
We cannot hide a carrion with roses; it is impossible. It would not avail long; for soon the roses would fade, and the carrion would be worse than ever before.
. . .
...practical...[people]...tell us, "Don't bother your heads about such nonsense as religion and metaphysics. Live here; this is a very bad world indeed, but make the best of it." Which put in plain language means, live a hypocritical, lying life, a life of continuous fraud, covering all sores in the best way you can. Go on putting patch after patch, until everything is lost, and you are a mass of patchwork. This is what is called practical life. ...Religion begins with a tremendous dissatisfaction with the present state of things, with our lives, and a hatred, an intense hatred, for this patching up of life, an unbounded disgust for fraud and lies.
. . .
The God of heaven becomes the God in nature, and the God in nature becomes the God who is nature, and the God who is nature becomes the God within this temple of the body, and the God dwelling in the temple of the body at last becomes the temple itself, become the soul and...[the person themselves]... . and there it reaches the last words it can teach.
. . .
We have to understand this, and impress it on our minds, that what we call causation begins after, if we may be permitted to say so, the degeneration of the Absolute into the phenomenal, and not before...
. . .
A God known is no more God.
. . .
God is more than known. This chair is known, but God is intensely more than that, because in and through...[God]...we have to know this chair itself. [God]...is the Witness, the eternal Witness of all knowledge. Whatever we know we have to know, in and through...[God]. [God]...is the Essence of our own Self.
. . .
...there is a wave on the ocean. The wave is the same as the ocean certainly, and yet we know it is a wave, and as such different from the ocean. What makes this difference? The name and the form; that is, the idea in the mind and the form. Now, can we think of a wave-form as something separate from the ocean? Certainly not. It is always associated with the ocean idea. If the wave subsides, the form vanishes in a moment, and yet the form was not a delusion. So long as the wave existed the form was there, and you were bound to see the form. This is Maya.
The whole of this universe, therefore, is, as it were, a peculiar form; the Absolute is that ocean while you and I, and suns and stars, and everything else are various waves of that ocean.
. . .
...these dualists win the popular favour by appealing to the vanity of the uneducated.
. . .
If...[someone]...plunges headlong into foolish luxuries of the world without knowing the truth, ...[they have]...missed...[their]...footing, ...[they]...cannot reach the goal. And if...[someone]...curses the world, goes into a forest, mortifies...[their]...flesh, and kills...[themselves]...little by little by starvation, makes...[their]...heart a barren waste, kills out all feelings, and becomes harsh, stern, and dried-up, that...[person]...also has missed the way. These are the two extremes, the two mistakes at either end. Both have lost the way, both have missed the goal.
. . .
We are dying of thirst sitting on the banks of the mightiest river. We are dying of hunger sitting near heaps of food.
. . .
If...[someone]...with an ideal makes a thousand mistakes, I am sure that the...[person]...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 brains, 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.
. . .
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...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. The ideal...is to see God in everything. But if you cannot see...[God]...in everything, see...[God]...in one thing, in that thing which you like best, and then see...[God]...in another. So on you can go. There is infinite life before the soul. Take your time and you will achieve your end.
. . .
We see this universe as human beings, and our God is our human explanation of the universe.
Suppose a cow were philosophical and had religion, it would have a cow universe, and a cow solution of the problem, and it would not be possible that it should see our God. Suppose cats became philosophers, they would see a cat universe and have a cat solution of the problem of the universe, and a cat ruling it.
. . .
Our senses are limited, very limited indeed; and within these limitations exists what we call our universe...
. . .
...99.9 percent of those who attack religion have never analysed their minds, have never struggled to get at the facts. So their arguments do not have any weight against religion, any more than the words of a blind man who cries out, "You are all fools who believe in the sun," would effect us.
. . .
Only the...[person]...who has actually perceived God and soul has religion. There is no real difference between the highest ecclesiastical giant who can talk by the volume, and the lowest, most ignorant materialist. We are all atheists; let us confess it. Mere intellectual assent does not make us religious.
. . .
We are all atheists, and yet we try to fight the...[person]...who admits it. We are all in the dark; religion is to us a mere intellectual assent, a mere talk, a mere nothing. We often consider a...[person]...religious who can talk well. But this is not religion. "Wonderful methods of joining words, rhetorical powers, and explaining texts of the books in various ways - these are only for the enjoyment of the learned, and not religion." Religion comes when that actual realisation in our own souls begins. That will be the dawn of religion; and then alone we shall be moral. Now we are not much more moral than the animals. We are only held down by the whips of society. If society said today, "I will not punish you if you steal", we should just make a rush for each other's property. It is the policeman that makes us moral. It is social opinion that makes us moral, and really we are little better than animals. We understand how much this is so in the secret of our own hearts. So let us not be hypocrites.
. . .
If we had a heaven like that desired by those to whom sense-enjoyment is the very end of existence, then we would not progress. That would be the most terrible curse we could pronounce on the soul. Is that all we can come to? A little weeping and dancing, and then to die like a dog. What a curse you pronounce on the head of humanity when you long for these things.
. . .
The difference between...all things in the whole creation, is not in kind but only in degree.
. . .
This world is nothing. It is at best only a hideous caricature, a shadow of the Reality.
. . .
...the higher the ideal you have in the brain, the greater is your enjoyment, and the more profound your misery.
. . .
...this nature, infinite as you may think it, is only finite, a drop in the ocean, and your Soul is the ocean.
. . .
This life is a hard fact; work your way through it boldly, though it may be adamantine...
. . .
...says the Upanishad..."As the sun is the cause of the eyesight of every being, yet is not made defective by the defect in any eye, even so the Self of all is not affected by the miseries of the body, or by any misery that is around you."
. . .
[You are]...only apparently a person, but in reality...[are]...the Impersonal Being.
. . .
The difference in knowledge between the lowest worm that crawls under our feet and the highest genius that the world may produce is only one of degree, and not of kind.
. . .
Weakness is the one cause of suffering. We become miserable because we are weak. We lie, steal, kill, and commit other crimes, because we are weak. We suffer because we are weak. We die because we are weak.
. . .
It is all very well to say, "I am the Pure, the Blessed," but I cannot show it always in my life. That is true; the ideal is always very hard. Every child that is born sees the sky overhead very far away, but is that any reason why we should not look towards the sky? Would it mend matters to go towards superstition? If we cannot get nectar, would it mend matters for us to drink poison? Would it be any help for us, because we cannot realise the truth immediately, to go into darkness and yield to weakness and superstition?
. . .
Nothing makes us work so well at our best and highest as when all the responsibility is thrown upon ourselves.
. . .
Everything that you see, feel, or hear, the whole universe, is...[God's]...creation, or to be a little more accurate, is...[God's]...projection; or to be still more accurate, is the Lord...[Itself]. It is...[God]...who is working as force in the body. [God]...is the speech that is uttered, ...[God]...is the...[person]...who is talking. [God]...is the audience that is here. [God]...is the light that enables me to see your faces. It is all...[God].
. . .
If you are going to exist in eternity hereafter, it must be that you have existed through eternity in the past; it cannot be otherwise. I will try to answer a few objections that are generally brought against the theory. Although many of you will think they are very silly objections, still we have to answer them, for sometimes we find that the most thoughtful...[people]...are ready to advance the silliest ideas. Well has it been said that there never was an idea so absurd that it did not find philosophers to defend it. The first objection is, why do we not remember our past? Do we remember all our past in this life? How many of you remember what you did when you were babies? None of you remember your early childhood, and if upon memory depends your existence, then this argument proves that you did not exist as babies, because you do not remember your babyhood. It is simply unmitigated nonsense to say that our existence depends on our remembering it. Why should we remember the past? That brain is gone, broken into pieces, and a new brain has been manufactured. What has come to this brain is the resultant, the sum total of the impressions acquired in our past, with which the mind has come to inhabit the new body.
I, as I stand here, am the effect, the result, of all the infinite past which is tacked on to me. And why is it necessary for me to remember all the past? ...Although we have seen that it is not necessary for the theory that there shall be the memory of past lives, yet at the same time, we are in a position to assert that there are instances which show that this memory does come, and that each one of us will get back this memory in that life in which...[they]...will become free. Then alone you will find that this world is but a dream...
. . .
...what we now call instinct is degeneration of voluntary actions.
. . .
...what directs the soul when the body dies? The resultant, the sum total of all the works it has done, of the thoughts it has thought. If the resultant is such that it has to manufacture a new body for further experience, it will go to those parents who are ready to supply it with suitable material for that body.
. . .
We human beings are very slow to recognise our own weakness, our own faults, so long as we can lay the blame upon somebody else.
. . .
We are like little puppies, making life-and-death struggles here, and foolishly thinking that even God...[Itself]...will take it as seriously as we do.
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When you find yourselves suffering, blame yourselves, and try to do better.
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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.
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From the lowest protoplasm to the most perfect human being there is really but one life.
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You are everywhere in the universe. ...You are everywhere. Then what is this coming and going? It is the hallucination produced by the change of this fine body which you call the mind. That is going on. Just a little speck of cloud passing before the sky. As it moves on and on, it may create the delusion that the sky moves. ...You are only one; there is only one such Self, and that One Self is you.
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If the suns come down, and the moons crumble into dust, and systems after systems are hurled into annihilation, what is that to you?
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If...[someone]...cuts your throat, do not say no, for you are cutting your own throat.
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The vast mass of Indian people are dualists. Human nature ordinarily cannot conceive of anything higher. We find that ninety per cent of the population of the earth who believe in any religion are dualists.
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The number of souls that are to be saved, that are to be perfected, is infinite. Some are in plants, some are in the lower animals, some are in...[humans]...some are in gods, but all of them, even the highest gods, are imperfect, are in bondage.
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Now we come to Advaitism, the last and, what we think, the fairest flower of philosophy and religion that any country in any age has produced, where human thought attains its highest expression and even goes beyond the mystery which seems to be impenetrable. ...It is too abstruse, too elevated to be the religion of the masses. ...it is difficult for even the most thoughtful man and woman in any country to understand Advaitism. We have made ourselves so weak; we have made ourselves so low. We may make great claims, but naturally we want to lean on somebody else. We are like little, weak plants, always wanting a support. How many times I have been asked for a "comfortable religion!" Very few...ask for the truth, fewer still dare to learn the truth, and fewest of all dare to follow it in all its practical bearings. It is not their fault; it is all weakness of the brain. Any new thought, especially of a high kind, creates a disturbance, tries to make a new channel, as it were, in the brain matter, and that unhinges the system, throws...[them]...off their balance. They are used to certain surroundings, and have to overcome a huge mass of ancient superstitions, ancestral superstition, class superstition, city superstition, country superstition, and behind all, the vast mass of superstition that is innate in every human being. Yet there are a few brave souls in the world who dare to conceive of truth, who dare to take it up, and who dare to follow it to the end.
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What are you and I and all these things we see? Mere self-hypnotism; there is but one Existence...
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Take away the form of the table, take away the name; what remains is It. The Vedantist does not call It either He or She - these are fictions, delusions of the human brain... People who are under illusion, who have become like animals, see a woman or a man.
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The whole of this universe is one Unity, one Existence, physically, mentally, morally and spiritually.
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...who ever helped any one? None. Wherever you seek a weak...[person]..., a dualist weeping and wailing for help from somewhere above the skies, it is because...[they do]...not know that the skies also are in...[they themselves]. [They]...want help from the skies, and the help comes. We see that it comes; but it comes from within...[themselves]..., and...[they]...mistake it as coming from without.
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None but I was God, and this little I never existed.
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Why is it that every one says, "Do good to others?" Where is the explanation? Why is it that all great...[people]...have preached the...[unity of humanity]...and greater...[still]...the...[unity]...of all lives? Because whether they were conscious of it or not, behind all that, through all their irrational and personal superstitions, was peering forth the eternal light of the Self denying all manifoldness, and asserting that the whole universe is but one.
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You are as much in the sun now as in this earth, as much in England as in America.
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People in this country think it too horrible that...[we humans]...should come up from the animal. Why? What will be the end of these millions of animals? Are they nothing? If we have a soul, so have they, and if they have none, neither have we. It is absurd to say that...[we]...alone...[have]...a soul, and the animals none. I have seen...[people]...much worse than animals.
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In the universe, behind the universal mind, there is a Soul that exists, and it is called God.
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Body is the name of a stream of matter continuously changing. Mind is the name of a stream of consciousness or thought continuously changing.
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As when the sun shines upon millions of globules of water, upon each particle is seen a most perfect representation of the sun, so the one Soul, the one Self, the one Existence of the universe, being reflected on all these numerous globules of varying names and forms, appears to be various.
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...you and I, the sun, the moon, and the stars are but the different names of different spots in the same ocean of matter.... This particle of energy that was in the sun several months ago may be in the human being now; tomorrow it may be in an animal, the day after tomorrow it may be in a plant. ...It is all one unbroken, infinite mass of matter, only differentiated by names and forms. One point is called the sun; another, the moon; another, the stars; another, ...[human]; another, animal; another, plant; and so on. And all these names are fictitious; they have no reality, because the whole is a continuously changing mass of matter.
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...all this childish dream and puerile illusion of birth and death, of heavens and higher heavens and lower worlds, all vanish immediately for the perfect. For the nearly perfect it vanishes after showing them the several scenes up to Brahmaloka. It continues for the ignorant.
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Between you and me there may be millions of beings on different planes of existence. They will never see us, nor we them; we only see those who are in the same state of mind and on the same plane with us. Those musical instruments respond which have the same attunement of vibration, as it were; if the state of vibration, which they call "[human]-vibration" should be changed, no longer would...[people]...be seen here; the whole "[human]-universe" would vanish, and instead of that, other scenery would come before us, perhaps gods and the god-universe, or perhaps, for the wicked..., devils and the diabolic world...
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It is the greatest of all lies that we are mere...[humans]... we are the God of the universe. In worshiping God we have been always worshiping our own hidden Self.
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So is it with this universe. We are all traveling in this mirage of the world day after day, month after month, year after year, not knowing that it is a mirage.
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Until you have attained realisation there is no difference between you and atheists. The atheists are sincere, but the...[one]...who says that...[they]...believe in religion and never attempts to realise it is not sincere.
The next question is to know what comes after realisation. ....."What good will it do to the world?" That old question! In the first place, why should it do good to the world? Is there any reason why it should? What right has any one to ask the question, "What good will it do to the world?" What is meant by that? A baby likes candies. Suppose you are conducting investigations in connection with some subject of electricity and the baby asks you, "Does it buy candies?" "No" you answer. "Then what good will it do?" says the baby. So...[we]...stand up and say, "What good will this do to the world; will it give us money?" "No." "Then what good is there in it?" That is what...[most of us]...mean by doing good to the world.
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Then alone does...[one]...love when...[they]...find that the object of...[their]...love is not a clod of earth, but it is the veritable God...[Itself]. The wife will love the husband the more when she thinks that the husband is God...[Itself]. The husband will love the wife more when he knows that the wife is God...[Itself].
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If one millionth part of the men and women who live in this world simply sit down and for a few minutes say, "You are all God, O ye...[people]...and O ye animals and living beings, you are all the manifestations of the one living Deity." the whole world will be changed in half an hour.
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It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark. ...We who are fools cry that we are weak...
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The Vedanta entirely denies such ideas as that animals are separate from...[humans]...and that they were made and created by God to be used for our food.
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Oneness includes all animals. If...[our]...life is immortal, so also is the animal's. The difference is only in degree and not in kind. The amoeba and I are the same, the difference is only in degree; and from the standpoint of the highest life, all these differences vanish. ...from the standpoint of the highest ideal, the lowest animal and the highest...[human being]... are the same. If you believe there is a God, the animals and the highest creatures must be the same. A God who is partial to...[Its]...children called...[humans]...and cruel to...[Its]...children called...beasts, is worse than a demon. I would rather die a hundred times than worship such a God. My whole life would be a fight with such a God. ...there is no difference, and those who say there is, are irresponsible, heartless people who do know know.
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I myself may not be a very strict vegetarian, but I understand the ideal. When I eat meat I know it is wrong. Even if I am bound to eat it under certain circumstances, I know it is cruel. I must not drag my ideal down to the actual and apologise for my weak conduct in this way. The ideal is not to eat flesh, not to injure any being, for all animals are my...[kin]. If you can think of them as your...[kin]...you have made a little headway toward the...[kinship]...of all souls, not to speak of the...[kinship]...of...[humanity].
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The Infinite has been covered up, as it were, and a little of It is manifested as the I.
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It is through the heart that the Lord is seen, and not through the intellect. The intellect is only the street-cleaner, cleansing the path for us, a secondary worker, the policeman; but the polliceman is not a positive necessity for the workings of society. [The policeman]...is only to stop disturbances, to check wrong-doing, and that is all the work required of the intellect. When you read intellectual books, you think when you have mastered them, "Bless the Lord that I am out of them", because the intellect is blind and cannot move of itself, it has neither hands nor feet. It is feeling that works, that moves with speed infinitely superior to that of electricity or anything else. Do you feel? - that is the question. If you do, you will see the Lord: It is the feeling that you have today that will be intensified, deified, raised to the highest platform, until it feels everything, the oneness in everything, till it feels God in itself and in others. The intellect can never do that. ...Intellect is necessary, for without it we fall into crude errors and make all sorts or mistakes. Intellect checks these; but beyond that, do not try to build anything upon it. It is an inactive, secondary help; the real help is feeling, love.
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Intellect is like limbs without the power of locomotion. It is only when feeling enters and gives them motion that they move and work on others.
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...truth is one thing and comfort is another. There are cases where truth is not comfortable until we reach its climax.
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Suppose I am a very wicked...[person]...doing evil every minute of my life. Still, my whole life here, compared with my eternal life, is nothing. If there be an eternal punishment, it will mean that there is an infinite effect produced by a finite cause, which cannot be. If I do good all my life, I cannot have an infinite heaven; it would be making the same mistake.
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God...is the angel, the...[human], the animal, and yet something more which we cannot see, because impersonality includes all personalities, in the sum total of everything in the universe, and infinitely more besides.
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Where shall we go to find God if we cannot see...[God]...in our own hearts and in every living being?
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...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, one life is passed, and the same play goes on and on.
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If a king goes mad, and runs about trying to find the king of his country, he will never find him, because he is the king himself.
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Calling God Mother is a higher ideal than calling...[God]...Father.
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...that God for whom you have been searching all over the universe is all the time yourself - yourself not in the personal sense but in the Impersonal.
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...it is better that...[we]...should become atheist by following reason than blindly believing in two hundred millions of gods on the authority of anybody.
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This very universe, as we have seen, is the same Impersonal Being read by our intellect.
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We are in reality that Infinite Being, and our personalities represent so many channels through which this Infinite Reality is manifesting Itself...
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The world with all its enjoyments is a mere mud-puddle.
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...what we call mistakes or evil, we commit because we are weak, and we are weak because we are ignorant.
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We put our hands over our eyes and weep that it is dark.
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You only get what you deserve.
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As a man you are separate from the woman; as a human being you are one with the woman. As a man you are separate from the animal, but as living beings, man, woman, animal, and plant are all one; and as existence, you are one with the whole universe. That universal existence is God, the ultimate Unity in the universe.
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...the same thing can be viewed from a hundred different standpoints, and yet be the same thing.
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This world, this universe which our senses feel, or our mind thinks, is but one atom, so to say, of the Infinite, projected on to the plane of consciousness; and within that narrow limit, defined by the network of consciousness, works our reason, and not beyond.
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I want to do work, I want to do good to a human being; and it is ninety to one that that human being whom I have helped will prove ungrateful and go against me...
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Upon the same tree there are two birds, one on the top, the other below. The one on the top is calm, silent, and majestic, immersed in...[its]...own glory; the one on the lower branches, eating sweet and bitter fruits by turns, hopping from branch to branch, is becoming happy and miserable by turns. After a time the lower bird eats an exceptionally bitter fruit and gets disgusted and looks up and sees the other bird, that wondrous one of golden plumage, who eats neither sweet nor bitter fruit, who is neither happy nor miserable, but calm, Self-centered, and sees nothing beyond...[its]...Self. The lower bird longs for this condition but soon forgets it, and again begins to eat the fruits. In a little while...[it]...eats another exceptionally bitter fruit, which makes...[it]...feel miserable, and...[it]...again looks up, and tries to get nearer to the upper bird. Once more...[it]...forgets and after a time...looks up, and so on...[it]...goes again and again, until...[it]...comes very near to the beautiful bird and sees the reflection of light from...[its]...plumage playing around...[its]...own body, and...[the lower bird]...feels a change and seems to melt away; still nearer...[it]...comes, and everything about...[it]...melts away, and at last...[it]...understands this wonderful change. The lower bird was, as it were, only the substantial-looking shadow, the reflection of the higher; ...[the lower bird itself]...was in essence the upper bird all the time. This eating of fruits, sweet and bitter, this lower, little bird, weeping and happy by turns, was the vain chimera, a dream; all along, the real bird was there above, calm and silent, glorious and majestic, beyond grief, beyond sorrow. The upper bird is God, the Lord of this universe; and the lower bird is the human soul, eating the sweet and bitter fruits of this world. Now and then comes a heavy blow to the soul. For a time...[it]...stops the eating and goes toward the unknown God, and a flood of light comes. [It]...thinks that this world is a vain show. Yet again the senses drag...[it]...down, and...[it]...begins as before to eat the sweet and bitter fruits of the world. Again an exceptionally hard blow comes. [The]...heart becomes open again to divine light; thus gradually...[the soul]...approaches God, and as...[it]...gets nearer and nearer...[it]...finds...[its]...old self melting away. When...[it]...has come near enough...[it]...sees that...[it]...is no other than God, and...[it]...exclaims, "[That]...whom I have described to you as the Life of the universe, as present in the atom, and in suns and moons - [That]...is the basis of our own life, the Soul of our soul. Nay, thou art That." ...All of us, from the lowest worm that crawls under our feet to the highest beings to whom we look up with wonder and awe - all are manifestations of the same Lord.
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...the...[one]...who lives in ignorance and enjoys, is not different from the brute beast. Yet there are many who, though steeped in ignorance, in the pride of their hearts, think that they are great sages and go round and round in many crooked ways, like the blind led by the blind.
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If the speaker is...[one]...who is not highly advanced, then even a hundred times heard, and a hundred times taught, the truth never illumines the soul.
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[They who are]...continuously doing evil deeds, ...[they]...whose mind is not calm, ...[they]...who cannot meditate, ...[they who are]...always disturbed and fickle [ [they]...cannot understand and realise this Atman who has entered the cave of the heart.
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...there is really only one Self, and you, I, and the whole universe are but one, appearing as many.
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This is the one fundamental idea in the Vedas, that our search in the stars, the nebulae, the Milky Way, in the whole of this external universe leads to nothing, never solves the problem of life and death.
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...that Soul which is the universal is you; you are not a part but the whole of It. You are the whole of God. ...If the sun reflects upon millions of globules of water, in each globule is the form, the perfect image of the sun; but they are only images, and the real sun is only one.
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If a thunderbolt falls on my head, it was I who was the thunderbolt, because I am the only existence. If a plague comes, it is I; if a tiger comes, it is I. If death comes, it is I.
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From the lowest worm that crawls under our feet to the highest beings that ever lived - all have various bodies, but are the one Soul.
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Yajnavalkya...said, "It is not for the sake of the husband that the wife loves the husband, but for the sake of the Atman that she loves the husband, because she loves the Self. None loves the wife for the sake of the wife; but it is because one loves the Self that one loves the wife. ..."
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...it is all One Infinite Being. That is the real individuality, when there is no more division, and no more parts; these little ideas are very low, illusive...
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Infinity cannot be divided, it always remains infinite. If it could be divided, each part would be infinite. And there cannot be two infinites. Suppose there were, one would limit the other, and both would be finite. Infinity can only be one, undivided. Thus the conclusion will be reached that the infinite is one and not many, and that one Infinite Soul is reflecting itself through thousands and thousands of mirrors, appearing as so many different souls.
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This immense book which we call the universe is stretched out before...[us]...so that...[we]...may read.
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...real knowledge is not what we know, not intuition, nor reason, nor instinct. When that degenerates and is confused, we call it intuition; when it degenerates more, we call it reason; and when it degenerates still more, we call it instinct.
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The universe is you yourself, the unbroken you... You are God, you are the angeles, you are the minerals, you are everything.
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As...[one]...appears to the senses is not the same as...[they]...really...[are]. [We]...began to [search] inside of...[ourselves]...and found out that...the same ideal...[we]...[had placed] outside of...[ourselves]...is all the time within; what...[we were]...worshipping outside was...[our]...own real inner nature. The difference between dualism and monism is that when the ideal is outside [of oneself], it is dualism. When God is [sought] within, it is monism.
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You and I are not free. ...You are a slave. You never do anything of your own will because you are forced to do everything. Your only motive for action is some force.
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...you are not separate [from this universe]; [just as your Spirit] is [not] separate from the rest of you. ...Our bodies are simply little whirlpools in the ocean of matter. ...The sun, the moon, the stars, you and I are mere whirlpools. Why did I select [a particular mind as mine? It is] simply a mental whirlpool in the ocean of mind.
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Some people are so afraid of losing their individuality. Wouldn't it be better for the pig to lose...[its]...pig-individuality if...[it]...can become God?
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Whatever we [think] that we become. If you think you are poor sinners you hypnotise yourselves: "I am a miserable, crawling worm." Those who believe in hell are in hell when they die.
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I...believe in a past and a hereafter as necessary to the existence of the present. And if we go on from here, we must go in other forms, and so comes my belief in reincarnation. But I can prove nothing, and any one is welcome to deprive me of the theory of reincarnation provided they will show me something better to replace it. Only up to the present I have found nothing that offers so satisfactory an explanation to me.
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