Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, December 2002

A former Editor of Prabuddha Bharata, Swami Satyapriyananda is presently the Rector of the Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith, Chennai.

Once a person asked Swami Vijnananandaji Maharaj for some advice. Being a man of few words, the Swami said, 'Practise what you studied in the primary book in your childhood days: Always speak the truth and do not steal or covet others' things. Follow these two moral principles, and then everything will take care of itself.'

If we analyse the above simple incident, a great truth emerges: It is not always that we do not know what we should do in a given circumstance. Even from childhood our parents and elders have taught us the simple rules of behaviour. And experience also ought to teach us. Yet we have not understood these guidelines in all seriousness.

In olden days, at the end of receiving education in a gurukulavasa, the teacher gave a simple and concise set of meaningful guidance, which is valid even for the modern age:

'Speak the truth. Live by the Moral Law. Neglect not the pursuit of wisdom. Fulfil the expectations of the Teachers. Ensure the continuance of the lineage (through children and/or discipleship). Swerve not from Truth. Forsake not the Moral Law. Forsake not welfare. Neglect not prosperity. Neglect not the learning and teaching of the Scripture.

'Neglect not your duties to Gods and ancestors. Look upon your mother as God. Look upon your father as God. Look upon your teacher as God. Look upon your guest as God.

'Irreproachable deeds alone are to be performed; not others. Whatever is good in your teacher's conduct, that alone is to be followed; not the rest. Men of wisdom who are superior to us should be received with reverence and treated with hospitality. Give with faith. Give not without faith. Give in plenty. Give with humility. Give in fear of God. Give with sympathy.

'When in doubt regarding any act or conduct, follow the example of wise men nearby, who judge impartially, who by themselves are devoted to good deeds, who are without harshness, and who love Dharma. With regard to those who are accused of erring, follow the example of wise men nearby, who judge impartially, who by themselves are devoted to good deeds, who are without harshness and who love Dharma.

'This is the rule. This is the teaching. This is the secret knowledge. This is the command. Thus should you act. Thus alone should it be done.'¹

What a fine garland of advice! And yet we in the modern age go about erring. The problem usually is not our ignorance of how we should act. Either we have not given a careful thought to these words and tried to build our lives on the basis of these words of advicein which case no amount of sane advice will help such people, or we know what is to be done but we do not do that, and we know what is to be avoided but are drawn into those very deeds. This latter is the well-known Duryodana's dilemma: 'I know what is dharma, yet there is no inclination to do it; I know what is adharma, yet there is not sufficient will for practising restraint.'

In either case, man learns by making mistakes. Life's pathway is always a bifurcation. There is a road that takes one to the left and there is another that takes to the right. It is not which is the right road to tread; only, one of these roads is pleasurable (gives short range benefits) and the other is preferable (gives long range benefits). Whichever path is chosen, we find yet another bifurcation. And so the life's journey goes on.

What matters is that we recognize the journey, and the goal to be reached. If we do not forget the goal, then we will be able to decide better at every step. From time immemorial, sages at different times codified these decision-making steps. These are the duties arising from different circumstances. These treatises were called Smritis. Swami Vivekananda is the Rishi of this age and to him we turn for understanding how we are to conduct our lives in the present age.

The advent of Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother and Swami Vivekananda was to remove the suffering and miseries of all humanity. The cause of suffering and misery is wrong perception and wrong striving. If you ask any student the goal of human life, he or she would be utterly confused and consider, in this material world, the pursuit of materialistic comforts and enjoyment to be life's goal. It takes many years before one realizes that the journey had started off on a wrong note. It is to incarnations such as Sri Ramakrishna and the Holy Mother that we must turn for finding out that the goal of human life is God realization.

Sankaracharya said that a human birth, desire for liberation and the contact of great personalities are difficult to come by and happen only by the grace of God. By His grace we all have a human birth, and if we pray for either of the other two, we are sure to get both. It is then that our eyes open to the purpose of human life. Only then can we understand how we are to act in a particular situation, that is, we learn to act in such a way that it is conducive to the attainment of the human goal.

Swami Vivekananda defines Truth: 'And here is the test of truthanything that makes you weak physically, intellectually, and spiritually, reject as poison; there is no life in it, it cannot be true. Truth is strengthening. Truth is purity, truth is all-knowledge; truth must be strengthening, must be enlightening, must be invigorating.'²

By defining Truth in this manner, Swami Vivekananda gives it an expansive view far beyond verbal speech. Says he, 'It is the one test, that truth must make you strong and put you above superstition.'³ Both body and mind are superstitions only. The Atman alone is real and beyond all superstition. To be established in Atman is real strength. So rather than simply uttering truth, we have to go to the root of the matter and live in Brahman and not in our body and mind.

This is again difficult to understand without interpretation. What is moral? Swami Vivekananda defines it in these terms: 'That which is selfish is immoral, and that which is unselfish is moral.'⁴ Be moral, therefore, means, be unselfish, place everyone's interests above your own. 'The history of the world shows that those who never thought of their little individuality were the greatest benefactors of the human race, and that the more men and women think of themselves, the less are they able to do for others.'⁵

It is a small difference between the gods in heaven and the demons in hell. This was pointed out in a very small play I witnessed twenty-five years ago in Narendrapur, and I recall it here. When the demons complained to Brahma that he was partial to gods in providing them a convenient environment, he asked the demons to stretch out their hands and had their hands tied stiff with heavy rods. They were offered delicious fruits to eat, which they could not do because they could not bend their hands at the elbow. The same experiment was repeated in the presence of the ridiculing demons with the gods who, however, filled their stomachs by feeding one another. It is this unselfishness that made the gods the enjoyers of plenty. In a similar manner, we could convert this very earth into heaven if we knew how to be unselfish and share the earth's gifts and produce with others. Doing good to others is virtue and injuring others is sin.

Though Moksha is a higher ideal than Dharma, we must live by Dharma first, for it is essential for making the social fabric strong. After being established in Dharma, we should strive for Moksha. That is why Dharma was taught in the Gurukula to the students. Based on this concept of Dharma which was ingrained in the students, they were to seek righteously both Artha and Kâma. Then they were to take resort to higher Dharma during the Vânaprastha stage in preparation for the life of Moksha during Sannyasa. There was meaning and plan in this concept of Varnâshrama.

Give and take is the law. Centralisation and decentralisation is the method of functioning. Accumulation and redistribution is the rule. The blood that flows in our body must become centralised and reach the heart. But that is not enough; this blood must again flow out as pure blood to the different parts of the body. Swamiji says, 'In the world take always the position of the giver. Give everything and look for no return. Give love, give help, give service, give any little thing you can, but keep out barter. Make no conditions, and none will be imposed. Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us.'⁶

The question arises, what to give, how to give, and to whom to give. Regarding the types of gifts one can make, Swamiji quotes Vyâsa:

'"In the Kali Yuga there is one Karma left. Sacrifices and tremendous Tapasyas are of no avail now. Of Karma one remains, and that is the Karma of giving." And of these gifts, the gift of spirituality and spiritual knowledge is the highest; the next gift is the gift of secular knowledge; the next is the gift of life; and the fourth is the gift of food. Look at this wonderfully charitable race; look at the amount of gifts that are made in this poor, poor country; look at the hospitality where a man can travel from the north to the south, having the best in the land, being treated always by everyone as if he were a friend, and where no beggar starves so long as there is a piece of bread anywhere!

'In this land of charity, let us take up the energy of the first charity, the diffusion of spiritual knowledge. And that diffusion should not be confined within the bounds of India; it must go out all over the world. This has been the custom. &Again and again this phenomenon has happened. Whenever the world has required it, this perennial flood of spirituality has overflowed and deluged the world. Gifts of political knowledge can be made with the blast of trumpets and the march of cohorts. Gifts of secular knowledge and social knowledge can be made with fire and sword. But spiritual knowledge can only be given in silence like the dew that falls unseen and unheard, yet bringing into bloom masses of roses. This has been the gift of India to the world again and again.'⁷

Gift of food is the lowest, because hunger is not quenched once and for all. Gift of life is a little higher and yet not the highest because danger to life lurks at every corner. Gift of secular knowledge is still higher, but knowledge in one or more fields only makes a shining contrast of our ignorance in many other fields of study. Gift of spiritual knowledge is the highest, for when the prime ignorance is removed, it does not blind our vision ever more. It is like seeing a mirage of which we had studied. We see the mirage but we are not fooled by it any more.

To give any of the gifts mentioned above, we must have them before we can give them. So, first have. As Swamiji said, 'Be and make.' It has been our folly to attempt to make before being! So, let us strive hard to increase the produce of the land through technological innovations. Strive hard to bring into existence life saving drugs. Strive for the spread of knowledge among the masses. Especially give knowledge on health and hygiene, on science and technology, on the arts, and on the essentials of working in an organized way as a team. Strive to gather spiritual knowledge for your own emancipation and for the dissemination of knowledge to the future generation. Forget not what Swamiji has said: 'Whenever there has been a great conquering race, bringing the nations of the world together, making roads and transit possible, immediately India arose and gave her quota of spiritual power to the sum total of the progress to the world.' Speaking of the grand truths of religion, Swami Vivekananda said, 'Instead of living in monasteries, instead of being confined to books of philosophy to be studied only by the learned, instead of being the exclusive possession of sects and of a few of the learned, they [the wonderful spiritual truths] will all be sown broadcast over the whole world, so that they may become the common property of the saint and the sinner, of men and women and children, of the learned and of the ignorant.'⁸

On how to give, Swamiji says: 'Let the giver kneel down and give, and let the receiver stand up and receive.' 'Look upon every man, woman, and every one as God. You cannot help anyone, you can only serve: serve the children of the Lord, serve the Lord Himself, if you have the privilege. If the Lord grants that you can help any one of his children, blessed you are; do not think too much of yourselves. Blessed you are that that privilege was given to you when others had it not. Do it only as a worship. I should see God in the poor, and it is for my salvation that I go and worship them. The poor and the miserable are for our salvation, so that we may serve the Lord, coming in the shape of the diseased, coming in the shape of the lunatic, the leper, and the sinner! Bold are my words; and let me repeat that it is the greatest privilege in our life that we are allowed to serve the Lord in all these shapes.'⁹

This world is writhing in misery. There are so many forms of the divine seeking our service that it sometimes becomes too difficult for us. A very interesting and illuminating situation arose in the charitable dispensary at Koalpara Ashrama during the Holy Mother's time. Many patients who had the means to purchase medicines came to that charitable dispensary for obtaining free medicines. The Head of that centre approached Holy Mother with the request that such a practice might be discontinued. Stretching her vision beyond that of an ordinary mortal, the Holy Mother held that 'any one who came to beg must be considered needy and as such should not be turned out.'¹⁰ Thus, any one who needs our service must be served with the vision that we are serving the divine in those various forms. Our attitude of service should not be stifled by considerations of who is needy in truth.

'It is not compassion to Jivas, but service to God in the Jivas', observed Sri Ramakrishna. This was the truth about Swamiji's service activities. Once the people of the 'Cow Protection Samiti' approached Swami Vivekananda for donations.The Swami placed before them the ideal of serving needy men and women first. It must not be interpreted that Swamiji did not have a kind feeling for animals, for he had many pets. Indeed he said openly, 'So long as even a dog in my country remains without food, my religion would be to feed it.' But certainly mankind deserved the first service because Nature has gone through several millennia of cosmic, organic and biological evolution to bring forth the human organism.

Marriage and the condition of women in India came up for discussion many times. About marriage Swamiji said, 'You weaken men and women physically by child-marriage.'¹¹ When asked about widow remarriage, Swamiji pointed out that it is an issue to be tackled by women. What is needed is the mere imparting of education, and women are to settle issues that concern them. He pointed out that, 'The question of widow marriage would not touch seventy per cent of the Indian women, and all such questions only reach the higher castes of Indian people who are educated, mark you, at the expense of the masses.'¹²

A visit to the Mahâkâli Pâthasâla gave Swami Vivekananda immense satisfaction. He said after seeing it, 'The Mahâkâli Pâthasâla is to a great extent moving in the right direction.'¹³ This gives us an idea of what Swami Vivekananda had in mind for raising the women of India. He said:

'Studying the present needs of the age, it seems imperative to train some women up in the ideal of renunciation, so that they will take up the vow of lifelong virginity, fired with the strength of that virtue of chastity which is innate in their life-blood from hoary antiquity.'¹⁴

In many parts of the world, religion is a weekly affair, like going to Church on a Sunday or going for a confession. In some cases, it is seasonal, like the Durga Puja, Sivaratri vigilance, Ramzan, etc. In many cases, it is a daily visit to the temples and/or going to places of pilgrimage. It is often symbolized by applying varied marks on the body to show one's belonging to a particular belief in God. Rarely does one appreciate what Bhagavan Kapila told his mother Devahuti:¹⁵

'I abide in all beings as their innermost soul. Disregarding My presence within them, men make a show of worshipping Me through images.

'If one disregards Me present in all as their soul and Lord but ignorantly offers worship only to images, such worship is as ineffective as sacrificial offerings made in ashes.

'If a man disregards and persecutes fellow beings, but worships Me in images with numerous rituals and rich offerings, I am not at all pleased with him for proffering such worship.

'A man should, however, worship Me in images, side by side with discharging his duties, which include the love of all beings, until he actually realizes My presence in himself and in all beings.

'So, overcoming the separativeness of a self-centred life, one should serve all beings with gifts, honour, and love, recognizing that such service is really being rendered to Me who reside in all beings as their innermost soul.'

This is spirituality for twenty-four hours in a day. This is how one spiritualizes one's everyday life. This is what Swamiji wanted when he said, 'My ideal can indeed be put in a few words: And that is to preach unto mankind the divinity within and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.' This is how to lift the barricade between spiritual and secular dimensions in our life.

It is in the nature of society to divide itself into castes. It is a distinction based on the nature of work one does. And the nature of work that falls to one's lot depends on the attitude, aptitude and abilities of that person. It is not the nature of work that should bother one, for if one can mend shoes better, another can rule a kingdom. How indeed they would fare with the roles reversed is anybody's guess. What really matters is that we should cherish the right attitude towards work. As Sri Krishna said in the Gita:'By worshipping the Lord through one's own actions, men and women attain to perfection.'

Let not the person of the lower caste be in a hurry to grab the position of the higher caste, Swamiji would say, and point out that it was his or her folly that he or she neglected culture. Poignantly he would observe, Sanskrit and culture go together, and therefore study Sanskrit. What a wealth of knowledge lies in that wonderful language! Likewise he would also advise the people of higher castes to involve themselves in the task of raising the people belonging to the lower castes.

The Holy Mother observed that devotees of God belonged to a caste by themselvesthe caste of being a devotee. There is no other distinction to be observed if one becomes truly a devotee of God. Such a person becomes pure. This is a simple way to erase all ideas of caste distinction from the human mind.

'Each soul is potentially divine.
'The goal is to manifest this divine within by controlling nature, both internal and external.
'Do this either by work or by worship or psychic control or philosophy, by one or more or all of these and be free.
'Doctrines or dogmas or rituals or books or temples or forms are but secondary details.'

In the above, Swamiji cautions against the divisive elements in our religious practice and brings to focus the essentials of religion and spirituality. The four Yogas mentioned by him may be taken up one or more at a time. However, he emphasised elsewhere that he or she is 'a true follower of Sri Ramakrishna who combines in oneself all the four Yogas'. Therein one gets a harmonious development and not a lop-sided growth.

'With the kindest solicitude, the Vedanta points out to aspiring men and women the numerous roads, hewn out of the solid rock of the realities of human life, by the glorious sons, or human manifestations, of God, in the past and in the present, and stands with outstretched arms to welcome allto welcome even those that are yet to beto that Home of Truth and that Ocean of Bliss, wherein the human soul, liberated from the net of Maya, may transport itself with perfect freedom and with eternal joy.'¹⁶

This is what Swami Vivekananda wanted Indian men and women to do: 'A hundred thousand men and women, fired with the zeal of holiness, fortified with eternal faith in the Lord, and nerved to lion's courage by their sympathy for the poor and the fallen and the downtrodden, will go over the length and breadth of the land, preaching the gospel of salvation, the gospel of help, the gospel of social raising-upthe gospel of equality.'¹⁷

1. Taittiriya Upanishad
2. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 3. 224-225; hereafter CW
3. CW, 8. 186
4. CW, 1.110
5. CW, 2.350
6. CW, 7.5
7. CW, 3.222
8. CW, 2.287
9. CW, 3.246-47
10. Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, Madras Math, 1977, p. 337
11.CW, 2.101
12.CW, 3.216
13.CW, 6.490-94
14.CW, 5.342
15.The Bhagavatam, III.29, 21-22, 24-25, and 27
16.CW, 3.63
17.CW, 5.15