DHARMA/PART 2
EVOLUTION
WE shall deal this evening with the second
section of the subject commenced yesterday. You may remember I divided the
subject under three heads, for the sake of convenience - Differences,
Evolution, and the problem of Right and Wrong. Yesterday we studied the
question of Differences - how it came to pass that different men had different
Dharmas. I will venture to remind you of the definition of Dharma we adopted;
that it means the inner nature, marked by the stage of evolution, plus the law
of growth for the next stage of evolution. I will ask you to keep that
definition in your minds, for without it you will not be able to apply Dharma
to what we are to study under the third division of the subject.
Under the head “Evolution”, we are to study
the way in which the germ of life evolves to the perfect image of God,
remembering that we found that that image of God could only be represented by
the totality of the numerous objects making up the universe in their details,
and that the perfection of the individual depended on the completeness with
which he fulfilled his own part in the stupendous whole.
Before we can understand evolution, we must
find its spring and motive - a life which involves itself in matter, before it
evolves complicated organisms of every kind. We start with the principle that
all is from and in God. Nothing in the universe is to be excluded from Him. No
life save His life, no force save His force, no energy save His energy, no
forms save His forms - all are the results of His thought. That is our
fundamental position. That is the ground on which we must stand, daring to
accept everything that it implies, daring to recognise everything that it
connotes. “The seed of all beings,” says Shri Krishna, speaking as the supreme
Ishvara, “that am I, O Arjuna! nor is there aught, moving or unmoving, that may
exist bereft of Me” (Bhagavad-Gita, x. 39.). Do not let us fear to take that
central position. Do not, because of the imperfection of the evolving lives,
let us shrink from any conclusion to which this truth may lead us.
In another shloka He said: “I am the
gambling of the cheat, and the splendour of splendid things I” (x. 36.). What
is the meaning of these words that sound so strange? What is the explanation of
this phrase which appears almost as profanity? Not only in this discourse do we
find this position enunciated, but we find that Manu teaches exactly the same
truth: “From Himself He produces the universe”. The life coming forth from the
Supreme puts on veil after veil of Maya, in which that life is to evolve all
the perfections that lie latent within it.
Now the first question is: Does not this
life, which comes from Ishvara, already contain within itself everything
already developed, every manifested power, every possibility realized as
actuality? The answer to that question, spoken over and over again, in symbols,
allegories, and distinct words, is “No”. It contains everything in potency, but
nothing at first in manifestation. It contains everything in germ, but nothing
at first as developed organism. The seed is that which is placed in the mighty
waters of matter, the germ alone is given forth by the Life of the World. Those
germs, which come from the life of Ishvara, evolve - step by step, stage after
stage, on one rung of a ladder after another - all the powers that reside in
the generating Father, the name that Ishvara gives to Himself in the Gita. He
declares once more: “My womb is the Mahat-Brahma; in that I place the germ;
thence cometh the production of all beings, O Bharata. In whatsoever wombs
mortals are produced, O Kaunteya, the Mahat-Brahma is their womb, I their
generating Father” (xiv. 3-4.). From that seed - from that germ containing
everything in possibility but nothing as yet in manifestation - from that seed
is to evolve a life, stage by stage, rising higher and higher, until at last a
centre of consciousness is formed capable of expanding to the consciousness of
Ishvara, while remaining as a centre still, with the power to come forth as a
new Logos, or Ishvara, for the production of a new universe.
Let us take this vast sweep of thought in
detail. Life involved in matter - that is our beginning. These germs of life,
these myriad seeds, or to use the Upanishadic phrase, these numberless sparks,
all come forth from the one Flame which is the supreme Brahman. Qualities are
now to be brought out of these seeds. Those qualities are powers, but powers
manifested through matter. One by one those powers will be brought out - powers
which are the life of Ishvara as veiled in Maya. Slow is the growth in the
early stages, hidden as the seed underground is hidden, when first it strikes
its root downward, and sends its tender offshoot upward in order that later on
the growing tree may appear. In silence germinates this divine seed, and the
early beginnings are hidden in darkness, like the roots under the ground.
This power in the life, or rather these
innumerable powers which Ishvara manifests in order that the universe may be,
these myriad powers are at first unapparent in the germ – no sign of the mighty
possibilities, no trace of what it is hereafter to become. A word is spoken as
to this manifestation in matter, which throws much light on the subject, if we
can grasp its inner and subtler meaning. Shri Krishna, speaking of His lower
Prakriti, or inferior manifestation, says: “Earth, water, fire, air, ether,
Manas and Buddhi also and Ahamkara - these are the eightfold divisions of My
Prakriti. This the inferior”. Then He says what is His higher Prakriti: “Know
My other Prakriti, the higher, the life-element, O mightyarmed, by which the
universe is upheld” (vii. 4, 5.). Then a little later, separated by many
shlokas, so that sometimes the connecting link is missed, other words are
spoken: “This divine Maya of Mine, guna-made, is hard to pierce; they who come
to Me they cross over this Maya” (vii. 14.). This Yoga-Maya is, truly, hard to
pierce; many do not discover Him involved in Maya, so hard to pierce it is, so
difficult to discover. “Those without Buddhi think of Me, the unmanifest, as
having manifestation; knowing not My supreme nature, imperishable, most
excellent. Nor am I of all discovered, enveloped in My Yoga-Maya” (vii. 24,
25.). Then He further declares that by His unmanifested life it is that the
universe is pervaded. The life-element, or higher Prakriti, is unmanifested,
the lower Prakriti is manifested. Then He says: “From the unmanifested all the
manifested stream forth at the coming of day; at the coming of night they
dissolve, even in That called the unmanifested” (viii: 18.). This occurs over
and over again. Then further on He declares: “Therefore verily there existeth,
higher than that unmanifested, another unmanifested, eternal, which, in the
destroying of all beings, is not destroyed” (viii. 20.). There is a subtle
distinction between Ishvara and the image of Himself which He sends forth. The
image is the reflected unmanifest, but Himself is the higher unmanifest, the
eternal that never is destroyed.
Realizing that, we come to the drawing out
of powers. Here we begin really our evolution. The outpouring life was involved
in matter, in order to bring the seed into the matter-surrounded conditions
which should make evolution possible. When we come to the first germinating of
the seed, our difficulty comes in. For we must throw ourselves, in thought, to
the time when there was no reason in this embryonic self, no imaginative
faculty, no memory, no judgment, none of the conditioned faculties of the mind
that we know of; when all the life that was manifested was that which we find
in the mineral kingdom, with the lowest conditions of consciousness. The
minerals manifest consciousness by their attractions and repulsions, by their
holding together of particles, by their affinities for each other, by their repellings
of each other, but they show none of that consciousness that can be called the
recognition of the “I” and the “not-I”.
In every one of these lowest forms in the
mineral kingdom, Ishvara’s life is beginning to unfold. Not only is the germ of
life there evolving, but He, in all His might and power, is there in every atom
of His universe. His the moving life which makes evolution inevitable. His the
force expanding gently the walls of matter, with immense patience and watching
love, in order that they may not break under the strain. God, Himself the
Father of the life, holds that life within Himself as Mother, unfolding the
seed unto the likeness of Himself, never impatient, never hurrying, willing to
give as much time from the countless ages as the little germ may require. Time
is nothing to Ishvara, for He is eternal and to Him all Is. It is the
perfection of manifestation that He seeks, and there is no hurrying in His
work. And we shall see, later on, how this infinite patience works out. The
man, who is to be the image of his Father, shows within him the reflection of
the Self with which he is one, and whence he came.
The life is to be awakened, but how? By
blows, by vibrations, the inner essence is called into activity. Life is
stirred to activity by vibrations that touch it from outside. These myriad
seeds of life, not yet conscious of themselves, matter-enveloped, are thrown
against each other in the myriad processes of nature; but “nature” is only the
garment of God, is only the lowest manifestation in which He shows Himself on
the material plane. These forms strike against each other, shaking thus the
outer shells of matter in which the life is involved, and the life within gives
a quiver as the blow is delivered.
Now the nature of the blow is of no
importance. All that is important is that the blow shall be strong. Any
experience is useful. Anything which strikes that shell so forcibly that the
life within quivers in response is all that is wanted at first. The life within
must be made to quiver. That will awaken some dawning power in the life. At
first it is only a quiver within itself, and nothing more than a quiver, with
no result on its outer shell. But as blow after blow is repeated, and vibration
after vibration sends in its earthquake shocks, the life within sends out,
through its own enveloping shell, a thrill of answer. The blow has provoked an
answer. Another stage is thus touched - the answer comes forth from the hidden
life and goes out beyond the shell. This goes on through the mineral kingdom
and the vegetable kingdom. In the vegetable kingdom the answers to the
vibrations caused by contact begin to show a new power of the life - sensation.
The life begins to show out in itself what we call “feeling”; that is,
different answers are given to pleasure and to pain. Pleasure is fundamentally
harmonious. All that gives pleasure is harmonious. All that gives pain is
discordant. Think of music. Rhythmical notes, struck together as a chord, give
to the ear a sensation of pleasure. But if you strike your finger on the
strings without paying attention to the notes, you make a discord, which gives
pain to the ear. That which is true of music is true everywhere. Health is
harmony, disease is discord. Strength is harmony, weakness is discord. Beauty
is harmony, ugliness is discord. All through nature pleasure means the answer
of a sentient being to vibrations that are harmonious and rhythmical, and pain
means its answer to those that are discordant and unrhythmical. The rhythmical
vibrations make an outward channel through which the life can expand, and this
pouring forth is “pleasure”; the unrhythmical close up the channels and
frustrate the forth-pouring, and this frustration is “pain”.* [*The student
should work out in detail this fundamental principle; he will thereby much
clarify his thoughts.] The forth-pouring
of life towards objects is what we name “desire”; hence pleasure becomes the
gratification of desire. This difference begins to make itself felt in the
vegetable kingdom. A blow comes that is harmonious. The life answers to that in
harmonious vibrations and expands, feeling in that expansion “pleasure”. A blow
comes that is a jangle. Life answers to that discordantly, is checked, and
feels in that check “pain”. The blows are given over and over again, and not
until the repetition has occurred a myriad times does a recognition of the
distinction between the two begin to arise in that imprisoned life. Only by
making distinctions is our consciousness, as at present constituted, able to distinguish
objects from each other. Take a very common illustration. Let a piece of money
lie in the palm of the hand and close your fingers round it; you feel it; but
as the pressure is continued, without any variation, the sensation of feeling
in the hand disappears and you do not know that your hand is not empty. Move a
finger and you feel the money; keep the hand still, and the sensation vanishes.
Thus consciousness can only know things by differences. And when difference is
eliminated, consciousness ceases to respond.
We come to the next thing which is
manifested as the life evolves through the animal kingdom. Pleasure and pain
are now acutely felt, and a germ of recognition, connecting objects and
sensations, begins; we call it “perception”. What does this mean? It means that
the life develops the power of forming a link between the object that impresses
it and the sensation by which it responds to the object. When that dawning
life, contacting an external object, knows it as an object that gives pleasure
or pain, then we say that the object is perceived, and the faculty of
perception, or the making of links between the outer and the inner worlds, is
evolved when that is established; mental power begins to germinate and to grow
within that organism; we find it in the higher animals.
Let us take it in the savage man, where we
shall be able to pass more rapidly over these early stages. We find the
consciousness of “I” and “not-I” slowly establishing itself in him - the two
going together. “Not-I” touches him, and “I” feels it; “not-I” gives him
pleasure, and “I” knows it; “not-I” gives him pain, and “I” suffers it. A
distinction is now being made between the feeling, thought of as “I”, and all
that causes it, thought of as “not-I”. Here commences intelligence, and the
root of self-consciousness is beginning to develop. That is, a centre is being
formed, to which everything goes in and from which everything comes out.
I spoke of repetition of vibrations, and now
repetition produces results more rapidly. As repetition causes the perception
of pleasure-giving objects, the next stage is developed, the expectation of
pleasure before the contact takes place. The object is recognised as one that
has given pleasure on previous occasions; a repetition of the pleasure is
expected, and that expectation is the dawn of memory and the beginning of
imagination, the interweaving of intellect with desire. Because the object has
given pleasure before, it is expected to give pleasure again. Thus expectation
brings into manifestation another germinating quality of the mind. When we have
the recognition of the object and the expectation of pleasure from its return,
the next stage is the making and vivifying of a mental image of that object –
the memory of it - thus causing an outflow of desire, desire to have that
object, a longing for that object, and finally a going forth in search of that
object that gives pleasurable sensation. Thus the man becomes full of active
desires. He desires pleasure, and is moved to seek it by the mind. For a long
time he had remained in the animal stage, when he would never seek for a thing
unless the actual sensation in his inner body made him want something that the
outer world alone could satisfy. Just for one moment return to the animal;
think what stirs the animal to action. A craving to get rid of an unpleasant
sensation. He feels hunger, he desires food, and he goes in search of it; he
feels thirst, he desires to quench it, and he goes in search of water. Thus he
always goes in search of the object that will gratify the desire. Give him the
gratification of desire and he is quiet. There is no self-initiated motion in
the animal. The push must come from outside. True, the hunger is in the inner
body, but that is outside the centre of consciousness. The evolution of
consciousness may be traced by the proportion which the outside stimulus to
action bears to the self-initiated stimulus. The lower consciousness is
stimulated to activity by impulses coming from outside itself. The higher
consciousness is stimulated to activity by motion initiated within.
Now as we deal with our savage man, we find
that the gratification of desire is the law of his progress. How strange that
sounds to many of you. Says Manu: Seeking to get rid of desires by gratifying
them is like trying to quench the fire by pouring butter over it. Desire must
be curbed and restrained. Desire is to be extinguished utterly. This is most
certainly true, but only when a man has reached a certain stage of evolution.
In the early stages, the gratification of desires is the law of evolution. If
he does not gratify his desires, no growth for him is possible. You must
realise that at that stage there is nothing which can be called morality. There
is no distinction between right and wrong. Every desire should be gratified;
when this commencing centre of self-consciousness is seeking to gratify
desires, then alone it grows. In this lowest stage the Dharma of the savage
man, or of the higher animal, is imposed on him. He does not choose; his inner
nature, marked by the development of desire, demands gratification. The law of
his growth is the satisfaction of these desires. So that the Dharma of the
savage is the gratification of every desire. And you find in him no
consciousness of right or wrong, not the faintest dawning notion that the
gratification of desires is forbidden by some higher law.
Without that gratification of desires there
is no further growth. All that growth must precede the dawning of reason and
judgment and the development of the higher powers of memory and imagination.
All these things must be evolved by the gratification of desire. Experience is
the law of life, it is the law of growth. Unless he gathers experiences of
every kind, he cannot know that he lives in a world of Law. Two ways does the
law find for impressing itself on man: pleasure when the Law is followed, pain
when the Law is opposed. If men did not at that early stage have every sort of
experience, how could they learn of the existence of the Law? How can
discrimination grow between right and wrong, unless there is the experience of
both good and evil? A universe can never come into existence except by the
pairs of opposites, and these at one stage appear in the consciousness as good
and evil. You cannot know light without darkness, motion without rest, pleasure
without pain; so you cannot know the good that is harmony with the Law with out
knowing the evil that is discord with the Law. Good and evil are a pair of
opposites in the later evolution of man, and man cannot become conscious of the
difference between them unless he has experience of both.
Now we come to a change. Man has developed a
certain power of discrimination. Left to himself utterly, he would come to know
in time that some things help him on, that some things strengthen him, that
some things increase his life; also that other things weaken him and diminish
his life. Experience would teach him all that. Left only to the teaching of
experience he would come to know right from wrong, would identify the
pleasure-giving that increased life with the right, and the pain-giving that
diminished life with the wrong, and would thus reach the conclusion that all
happiness and growth lay in obeying the Law. But it would take a very long time
for this dawning intelligence to compare together experiences of pleasure and
pain, and the confusing experiences in which that which at first gave pleasure
became painful by excess, and then to deduce from them the principle of law. It
would be a very long time before he could put innumerable experiences together,
and deduce from them the idea that this thing is right, and that thing is
wrong. But he is not left unaided to make that deduction. There come to him,
from past worlds, Intelligences more highly evolved than his own, Teachers who
come to help on his evolution, to train his growth, to tell him of the
existence of a law determining that which will bring about his more rapid evolution,
increasing his happiness, intelligence and strength. In fact, revelation from
the mouth of a Teacher quickens evolution, and instead of man being left to the
slow teaching of experience, the expression of the law from the mouth of a
superior is made to assist his growth.
The Teacher comes and says to this dawning
intelligence: “If you kill that man, you are doing an action that I forbid on
divine authority. That action is wrong. It will bring misery”. The Teacher
says: “It is right to help the starving; that starving man is your brother;
feed him; do not let him starve; share with him what you have. That action is
right, and if you obey that law it will be well with you”. Rewards of actions
are held out to attract the dawning intelligence towards good, and punishments
and threats to warn him from wrong. Earthly prosperity is joined with obedience
of law, earthly misery with disobedience to law. This announcement of the law
that misery follows on that which the law forbids, and happiness on that which
the law commands, stimulates the dawning intelligence. He disregards the law,
the penalty follows, and he suffers; and he says: “The Teacher told me so”.
Memory of a command proved by experience makes an impression on the
consciousness far more quickly and more strongly than does experience alone
without the revealed law. By this declaration of what the learned call the
fundamental principles of morality, namely, that certain classes of actions
retard evolution and other classes of action quicken evolution - by this
declaration intelligence is immensely stimulated.
If a man will not obey the law declared, then
he is left to the hard teaching of experience. If he says: “I will have that
thing, though the law forbid it,” then he is left to the stern teaching of
pain, and the whip of suffering teaches the lesson that he would not learn from
the lips of love.
How often that happens now. How often a
young man, argumentative and self-conceited, will not listen to law, will not
listen to the experienced, pays no regard to the training of the past. Desire
conquers intelligence. His father is heart-broken. “My son is plunged into
vice,” says he; “my son is going into evil. I instructed him in right conduct,
and see, he has become a liar; my heart is broken for my son.” But Ishvara, the
Father more loving than any earthly father, has patience. For he is in the son
as much as in the father. He is in him teaching him a lesson, in the only way
by which that soul is willing to learn. He would not learn by authority or by
example. At all hazards that desire for the evil thing which is stopping his
evolution must be rooted out of his nature. If he will not learn by gentleness,
let him then learn by pain. Let him learn by experience; let him plunge into
vice, and reap the bitter pang that comes from trampling on the law. There is
time; he will learn the lesson surely though painfully. God is in him, and
still He lets him go that way; nay, He even opens the way that he may go along
it; when he demands it, the answer of God is: “My child, if you will not
listen, take your own way and learn your lesson in the fire of your agony and
in the bitterness of your degradation. I am with you still, watching over you
and your actions, the Fulfiller of the law and the Father of your life. You
shall learn in the mire of degradation that cessation of desire which you would
not learn from wisdom and from love”. That is why He says in the Gita: “I am
the gambling of the cheat”. For He is always patiently working for the glorious
end, by rough ways if we will not walk in smooth. We, unable to understand that
infinite compassion, misread Him, but He works on with the patience of
eternity, in order that desire may be utterly uprooted, and His son may be
perfect as his Father in heaven is perfect.
Let us go on the next stage. There are
certain great laws of growth that are general. We have learned to look upon
certain things as right and upon others as wrong. Every nation has its own
standard of morality. Only a few know how that standard was formed, and where
that standard fails. For ordinary affairs the standard is good enough. The
experience of the race has found out, under the guidance of law, that some
actions hold back evolution while others press it forward. The great law of the
orderly evolution that follows the earlier stages is the law of the four
successive steps in later human growth. This comes after a man has reached a
certain point, after the preliminary training is over. It is found in every
nation at a certain stage of evolution, but was proclaimed in ancient India as
the definite law of evolving life, as the sequential order of the growth of
soul, as the underlying principle by which Dharma may be understood and
followed. Dharma, remember, includes two things - the inner nature at the point
it has reached, and the law of its growth for the next stage. For every man
Dharma is to be declared. The first Dharma is that of service. No matter in
what land the souls may be born, when they have passed through the earlier
stages, then their inner nature demands the discipline of service, and that
they should learn by service the qualities that are needed for growth into the
next stage. At this stage the power of independent action is very limited. At
this comparatively early stage, there is more tendency to yield to impulse from
without, than to show a developed judgment, choosing a particular course from
within. In this class are seen all those who belong to the serving type.
Remember those wise words of Bhishma, that if the characteristics of a Brahmana
are found in a Shudra and are not found in a Brahmana, then that Brahamana is
not a Brahmana and that Shudra is not a Shudra. In other words, the
characteristics of the inner nature mark out the stage of that soul’s growth,
and stamp it as belonging to one great natural division or another. When the
power of initiation is small, where the judgment is untrained, where the reason
is poor and little developed, where the Self is unconscious of his high
destiny, where he is chiefly moved by desire, where he is still to grow by the
gratification of most but not all desires, that man is one whose Dharma is
service, and only by performing that Dharma can he follow the law of growth by
which he will reach perfection. And such a man is Shudra, by whatever name he
may be called in different countries. In ancient India, the souls bearing the
characteristics of this type were born into the classes that suited them, for
Devas guided their births. In this age, however, confusion has supervened.
What is the law of growth in that stage?
Obedience, devotion, fidelity. That is the law of growth for that stage.
Obedience, because the judgment is not developed. He whose Dharma is service
has to blindly obey the one to whom he renders service. His is not to challenge
the order of his superior, nor his to see that the commanded action is a wise
one. He has received an order to do a thing, and his Dharma is obedience, by
which alone he will be able to learn. People hesitate at that teaching, but it
is true. I will take an example, that will strike you most forcibly - that of
an army, of a private soldier under the command of his Captain. If every
private soldier were to use his own judgment as to the orders that came from
the General, and if he were to say: “This is not well, for in my judgment that
is the place where I shall be more serviceable”, what would become of the army?
The private soldier is shot if he disobeys, for his duty is obedience. When
your judgment is feeble, when you are chiefly moved by impulses from without,
when you cannot be happy without noise and clatter and jangle around you, then
your Dharma is service, wherever you may be born, and you are happy if your
karma leads you to a position where discipline will train you.
So the man learns to prepare for the next
stage. And the duty of all those who are in positions of authority is to
remember that the Dharma of a Shudra is fulfilled when he is obedient and
faithful to his master, and they should not expect one in that grade of
evolution to show forth the higher virtues. To demand from him cheerfulness in
suffering, purity of thought, and the power to suffer hardships ungrudgingly,
is to demand too much; for when we ourselves often do not show these qualities,
how can we expect them from those whom we call the lower classes? The duty of
the higher is to show forth the higher virtues, but he has no right to demand
them from his inferiors. If the servant shows fidelity and obedience, the
Dharma is perfectly performed, and other faults should not be punished, but
should be gently pointed out by the master, for by so doing he is training that
younger soul; for a child soul should be gently led along the path, and its
growth should not be stunted by harsh treatment, as we generally stunt it.
Then the soul, having learned this lesson in
many births, by learning the lesson has obeyed the law of growth, and by
following his Dharma has approached the next stage, in which he is to learn the
first use of power by acquiring wealth. Then the Dharma of that soul is to
evolve all the qualities which are now ready for evolution, and are brought out
by leading the life which the inner nature demands, i.e. by taking up some
occupation which the next stage requires, the stage where it is a merit to
acquire wealth. For the Dharma of a Vaishya all over the world is to evolve
certain definite faculties. The faculty of justice, just dealing between man
and man, the not swerving aside at the mere prompting of sentiment, the working
out of the qualities of shrewdness, keenness, and holding a just balance
between contending duties, fair payment in fair exchange, acuteness of insight,
frugality, absence of waste and extravagance, the exaction from every servant
of the service that should be given, the payment of just wages, but only of
just wages - these are the characteristics which fit him for higher growth. It
is a merit in the Vaishya to be frugal, to refuse to pay more than he should,
to insist on a just and fair exchange. All these things bring out qualities that
are wanted and will conduce to future perfection. In their early stages they
are sometimes unlovely, but from the higher standpoint they are the Dharma of
that man, and if it be not fulfilled, there will be weakness in the character,
which will come out later and injure his evolution. Liberality is indeed the
law of his further growth, but not the liberality of carelessness or of
over-payment. He is to gather wealth by the exercise of frugality and
strictness, and then to spend that wealth on noble objects and on learned men,
to bestow it upon worthy and well considered schemes for the public good. To
gather with energy and shrewdness, and to spend with careful discrimination and
liberality, that is the Dharma of a Vaishya, the outcome of his nature and the law
of his further growth.
This leads us to the next stage, that of the
rulers and warriors, of battles and struggles, where the inner nature is
combative, aggressive, quarrelsome, standing on its own ground and ready to
protect every one in the enjoyment of what is right. Courage, fearlessness,
splendid generosity, throwing away of life in the defense of the weak and in
the discharging of one’s duties - that is the Dharma of the Kshattriya. His
duty is to protect what is given him in charge against all aggression from
without. It may cost him life but never mind that. He must do his duty. To
protect, to guard, that is his work. His strength is to be a barrier between
the weak and the oppressive, between the helpless and those who would trample
them under foot. Right for him the following of war and the struggle in the
jungle with the wild beast. Because you do not understand what evolution is,
and what the law of growth, you stand aghast at the horrors of war. But the
great Rishis, who made this order, knew that a weak soul can never attain
perfection. You cannot get strength without courage, and firmness and courage
cannot be got without the facing of danger, and the readiness to throw away
life when duty demands the sacrifice.
Our sentimental, weak-kneed, pseudo-moralist
shrinks from that teaching. But he forgets that in every nation there are souls
that need that training, and whose further evolution depends upon their success
in attaining it. I appeal again to Bhishma, the incarnation of Dharma, and I
remember what he said, that it is the duty of the Kshattriya to slay thousands
of his enemies, if his duty in protection lies in that direction. War is
terrible, fighting is shocking, our hearts revolt from it, and we shrink before
the anguish of mutilated and mangled bodies. To a great extent this is because
we are utterly deluded by form. The one use of the body is to enable the life
within it to evolve. But the moment it has learned all that that body can give
it, let the body break away, and let the soul go free to take a new body that
will enable it to manifest higher powers. We cannot pierce the Maya of the
Lord. These bodies of ours may perish, time after time, but every death is a
resurrection to higher life. This body itself is nothing more than a garment
which the soul puts on, and no wise men would like the body to be eternal. We
clothe our child in a small coat and change it when the child grows. But will
you make the coat of iron, and cramp the growth of the child? So this body is
our coat. Shall it be then of iron that it should never perish? Does not the
soul require a new body for its higher growth? Let then the body go. This is
the hard lesson the Kshattriya learns, and so he throws away his bodily life,
and, in this throwing away, his soul gains the power of self-sacrifice, he
learns endurance, fortitude, courage, resource, devotion to an ideal, loyalty
to a cause, and he pays his body gladly as the price for these, the immortal
soul rising triumphant and preparing for a nobler life.
Then there comes the last stage, the stage
of teaching. The Dharma of that stage is to teach. The soul must have
assimilated all lower experiences before he can teach. If he had not been
through all those previous stages, and obtained wisdom through obedience and
exertion and combat, how could he be a teacher? He has reached the stage of
evolution where the natural expansion of his inner nature is to teach his more
ignorant brethren. These qualities are not artificial. They are inborn
qualities of nature and they show themselves wherever they exist. A Brahmana is
not a Brahmana if he is not a teacher by his Dharma. He has gained knowledge
and a favourable birth in order to make him a teacher.
The law of his growth is knowledge, piety,
forgiveness, being the friend of every creature. How the Dharma is changed! But
he could not be the friend of every creature if he had not learned to throw his
life away when duty called, and the very battle trained the Kshattriya to
become at a later stage the friend of every creature. What is the law of a
Brahmanas growth? He must never take offence. He must never lose self-control.
He must never be hasty. He must always be gentle: otherwise he falls from his
Dharma. He must be all purity. He must never lead an evil life. He must detach
himself from worldly things, if they have a hold upon him. Do I hold up an
impossible standard? I but speak the law as the Great Ones have spoken it, and
I but feebly re-echo their words. The law has laid down the standard, and who
shall dare to lower it? When Shri Krishna Himself proclaimed that as the Dharma
of the Brahmana, that must be the law of his growth, and the end of his growth
is liberation. For him is liberation, but only if he shows out the qualities
that he ought to have reached, and follows the lofty ideal that is his Dharma.
These are the only justification for the name of Brahmana.
This ideal is so beautiful that all earnest
and thoughtful men desire to reach it. But wisdom steps in and says: “Yes, it
shall be yours, but you must earn it. You must grow, you must labour; truly it
is yours, but it is not yours until you have paid the price”. Important is it
for our own growth, and the growth of the nations, that this distinction in
Dharmas should be understood as depending upon the stage of evolution, and that
we should be able to discriminate our own Dharma by the characteristics which
we find in our nature. If we set before an unprepared soul an ideal so lofty
that it does not move him, we check his evolution. If you give to a peasant the
ideal of a Brahmana you are placing before him an impossible ideal, and the
result is that he does nothing. When you tell a man a thing too high for him,
that man knows that you have been talking nonsense, for you have commanded him
to perform that which he has no power to perform; your folly has placed before
him motives which do not move him. But wise were the teachers of old. They gave
the children sugar-plums, and later the higher lessons. But we are so clever
that we appeal to the lowest sinner by motives which can stir only the highest
saint, and thus instead of furthering, we check his evolution. Place your own
ideal as high as you can set it. But do not impose your ideal upon your
brother, the law of whose growth may be entirely different from yours. Learn
the tolerance which helps each man to do in his place what it is good for him
to do, and what his nature impels him to do. Leaving him in his place, help
him. Learn that tolerance which is repelled by none, however sinful, which sees
in every man a divinity working, and stands beside him to help him. Instead of
standing off on some high peak of spirituality, and preaching a doctrine of
self-sacrifice which is utterly beyond his comprehension, in teaching his young
soul, use his higher selfishness to destroy the lower. Do not tell the peasant
that when he is not industrious he is falling from the ideal; but tell that
man: “There is your wife; you love that woman; she is starving. Set to work and
feed her”. By that motive, which is certainly selfish, you do more to raise
that man than if you preach to him about Brahman, the unconditioned and unmanifest.
Learn what Dharma means, and you will be of service to the world.
I do not wish to lower by one tiniest
fraction your own ideal; you cannot aim too high. The fact that you can
conceive it makes it yours, but does not make it that of your less developed
younger brother. Aim at the loftiest you are able to think and to love. But in
aiming, consider the means as well as the end, your powers as well as your
aspirations. Make your aspirations high. They are the germs of powers in your
next life. Through ever keeping the ideal high you will grow towards it, and
what you long for today you shall be in the days to come. But have the
tolerance of knowledge, and the patience which is divine. Each thing in its own
place is in its right place. As the higher nature develops you can appeal to
the qualities of self-sacrifice, purity and utter self-devotion, to the will
firmly fixed on God. That is the ideal for the highest to accomplish. Let us
climb towards it gradually, lest we fail to reach it at all.
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