DHARMA/PART 3
RIGHT AND WRONG
DURING the last two days of our study, we
have been giving our attention and fixing our thought on what I may call the
theoretical side, to a very great extent, of this complicated and difficult
problem. We have tried to understand how the differences of nature arise. We
have tried to grasp the sublime idea, that this world is intended to grow from
the mere germ of life given out by God into the image of Him who gave it forth.
The perfection of that image, we have seen, can only be gained by the multiplicity
of finite objects, and perfection lies in that multiplicity; but in that same
multiplicity we see is implied necessarily the limitation of each object. We
then found that by the law of growth, we must have existing in the universe, at
one and the same time, every variety of inner evolving nature. As these natures
are all at different stages of evolution, we cannot make on all of them the
same demands, nor expect from all of them the discharge of the same functions.
Morality must be studied in relation to the people who are to practice it. In
judging the standard of right and wrong for a particular individual, we must
consider at what stage of growth that individual has arrived. Absolute right
existeth in Ishvara alone; our right and wrong are relative and depend for each
of us very much on the stage of evolution that we have reached.
I am going to try this evening to apply this
theory to the conduct of life. We must see whether we have gained, by the line
of study that we have pursued, a rational and scientific idea of morality, so
that we may no longer have the same confusion that is seen today. For we see
that ideals are held up on one side as those which ought to be reproduced in
life, and on the other hand we find that there is an absolute failure even to
aim at these ideals; we behold a most unfortunate divergence between faith and
practice. Morality is not without its laws; like everything else in a universe
that is the expression of divine thought, morality has also its conditions and
limitations. In this way it may be possible to bring a cosmos out of the
present moral chaos, and to learn practical lessons in morality, which will
enable India to grow, to develop, to become again an example to the world,
reproducing her ancient grandeur, showing forth once more her ancient
spirituality.
There are three recognised schools of
morality existing among western people. We must remember that western thought
is very largely influencing India, and especially is it influencing the rising
generation, on which the hope of India rests. It is, therefore, necessary that
we should understand something of these schools of morality, differing in their
theories and teachings, that exist in the West, if it be only in order to learn
to avoid their limitations, and to take from them whatever of good they may
have to offer.
There is one school which says that
revelation from God is the basis of morality. The objection raised by opponents
to that statement is that in this world there are many religions, and every religion
has its own revelation. Looking at this variety of religious scriptures, it is
argued, it is difficult to say that one revelation is to be regarded as based
on supreme authority. That each religion will regard its own revelation as
supreme is natural, but in this conflict of tongues how shall a decision be
made by the student?
Then it is said again, that there is an
inherent defect in this theory, affecting all moral standards founded on a
revelation given once for all. In order that a scheme may be useful for the
time for which it is given, it must be of a nature suitable for the time. As a
nation evolves, and thousands upon thousands of years pass over the people, we
find that that which was suitable for the nation in its infancy, becomes unsuitable
for the nation in its manhood; many precepts once useful are no longer useful
today under the changed circumstances of the time. That difficulty is
recognised and met when we come to deal with the Hindu scriptures; for we find
there a vast variety of moral teachings, suitable for all grades of evolving
souls. There are precepts so simple, so clear, so definite, and so imperative,
that the youngest of souls may utilize them. But we find also that the Rishis
recognised that these precepts were not meant for the training of a highly
developed soul. We find in the Ancient Wisdom that teachings were also given to
a few advanced souls, teachings that at the time were utterly unintelligible to
the masses. Those teachings were restricted to an inner circle of those who had
reached the maturity of the human race. Different schools of morality have
always been recognised in Hinduism as necessary for human growth. But whenever,
in some great religion, that recognition is not found, you get a certain
theoretical morality, not suited to the growing needs of the people, and,
therefore, there is a sense of unreality, a feeling that it is not reasonable
to permit now what was permitted in the infancy of humanity. On the other hand,
you find here and there, in all scriptures, precepts of the loftiest character
which few can even strive to obey. When a command, suitable to the almost
savage, is made of universal obligation and is given on the same authority and
to the same people as the command given to the saint, there creeps in the
feeling of unreality, and confusion of thought is the result.
Another school has arisen, which bases
morality on intuition - which says that God speaks to every man through the
voice of conscience. It alleges that revelation is made to nation after nation,
but that we are not bound by any single book; conscience is the final arbiter.
The objection made to this theory is that one man’s conscience has the same
authority as another man’s. If your conscience differs from that of another,
then who may decide between conscience and conscience, between the conscience
of the ignorant rustic and the conscience of the illuminated mystic? If you say
that you admit the principle of evolution, and that you should take as your
judge the highest conscience in the race, then intuition fails as a solid basis
of morality, and the very element of variety destroys the rock on which you
intended to build. The conscience is the voice of the inner man, who remembers
the experiences of his past, and out of that immemorial experience judges a
given line of conduct today. This so-called intuition is the result of
countless incarnations, and according to the number of incarnations, the mind
is evolved on which the quality of the conscience of the present individual
depends; such intuition, pure and simple, cannot be taken as sufficient guide
in morality. We want a commanding voice, not a jangle of tongues. We need the
authority of the teacher, and not the confused gabbling of the crowd.
The third school of morality is the school
of utilitarianism. That school’s view is, as generally presented, neither
reasonable nor satisfactory. What is the maxim of this school? “That is right
which conduces to the greatest happiness of the greatest number.” It is a maxim
which will not bear analysis. Notice the words “greatest number”. Such a
limitation makes the maxim one which the illuminated intelligence must reject.
There is no question of majority, when we are dealing with mankind. One life is
its root, one God its goal; you cannot separate the happiness of one from that
of another. You cannot break up the solid unity, and, picking up the majority,
give happiness to them, and leave the minority disregarded. This theory does
not recognise the irrefragable unity of the human race, and consequently its
maxim fails as a basis of morality. It fails because, in consequence of this
unity, one man cannot be perfectly happy unless all men are perfectly happy.
His happiness fails in perfection so long as one unit is left out and is
unhappy. God does not make distinctions as to units and majorities, but gives
one life to humanity and to all creatures. The life of God is the only life in
the universe; and the perfect happiness of that life is the goal of the universe.
Then again, there is a failure in this maxim
as an impelling motive because it appeals only to the developed intelligence,
that is, to the highly evolved soul. If you go to the ordinary man of the
world, to a selfish person, and if you say to that man: “You must lead a life
of self-sacrifice and virtue and perfect morality, even though the leading it
may cost you your life,” what do you think would be his answer? Such a man
would say: “Why should I do this for the human race, for people in the future
whom I shall never see?” If you take this as the standard of right and wrong,
then the martyr becomes the greatest fool that humanity has ever produced, for
he throws away the possibility of happiness and gets nothing in return. You
cannot take this standard, save by limiting your view to the cases in which you
get a noble soul, highly developed, and, though not entirely spiritual, with
possibility of dawning spirituality. There are such as William Kingdom
Clifford, in whose hands the utilitarian doctrine has become inspired with a
sublime loftiness of tone. Clifford, in his essay on Ethics, appeals to the
highest ideals and gives the noblest teachings of self-sacrifice. He had no
belief in the immortality of the soul; approaching death, he could stand beside
his grave, believing that that ended all, and preach that the highest virtue is
the only thing that a true man can practice, since he owes it to a world which
has given him all. But very few will draw inspiration so noble from a prospect
so gloomy, and we need a view of right and wrong that shall inspire all, appeal
to all, and not merely to those who need its impulse least.
What has come out of all this quarrelling?
Confusion, and something worse. A lip-acceptance of revelation, with a
practical disregard of it. We have, in fact, a revelation modified by custom.
That is the standard which emerges from this confusion. Revelation is taken
theoretically as authority, but is disregarded in practice, because often found
imperfect. So that you have this unreasonable position, that that which is
declared as authority is rejected in the life, and a life of an illogical kind,
a happy-go-lucky life is led, without any logic or reason, without the basis of
any definite and rational system.
Can we find in this idea of Dharma a basis
more satisfactory, a basis on which the conduct of life may be intelligently
built? However low, or however high the stage of evolution occupied by the
individual, the idea of Dharma gives us the thought of an inner nature unfolding
itself in further growth, and we have found that the world is, as a whole,
evolving - evolving from the imperfect to the perfect, from the germ to the
divine man, stage by stage, in every grade of manifested life. That evolution
is by the divine will. God is the moving power, the guiding Spirit of the
whole. It is His way of building the world. It is the method that He has
adopted in order that the Spirits that are His children may reproduce the
likeness of their Parent. Does not that very statement hint at a law? That is
right, which works with the divine purpose in the evolution of the universe,
and forwards that evolution from the imperfect to the perfect. That is wrong,
which delays or frustrates that divine purpose, and tends to push the universe back
to the stage from which it is evolving. It is growing from the mineral to the
vegetable, from the vegetable to the animal, from the animal to the animal-man,
and from the animal-man to the divine man. That is right, which helps the
evolution towards divinity; that is wrong, which drags it backwards, or impedes
its progress.
Now if we look for a moment at that idea,
perhaps we shall acquire a clear view of this law, and no longer feel uneasy
over this relative aspect of right and wrong. Place a ladder with its foot on
the platform and let it rise to some place beyond the roof. Suppose that one of
you had climbed five steps up, another two steps, while a third was standing on
the platform. For the man who had climbed up five steps to stand beside the man
who was on the second step would be to descend; but for the man on the platform
to stand beside the man on the second step would to be ascend. Suppose that
every rung of the ladder represents an action: each would be moral and immoral
at the same time, according to the point of view from which we look at it. That
action which is moral for a brute-man, would be immoral for a highly cultivated
man. For a man on the higher rung of the ladder to come down to the lower is to
go against evolution, and, therefore, for him such action is immoral; but for a
man to rise from the lower stage to stand on that same rung is moral, because
it is in the line of his evolution. So that two persons may well stand on the
same rung of the ladder, but the one, having gone upwards and the other having
come downwards to reach it, the action for the one is moral and for the other
is immoral. Realise that and we shall begin to find our law.
You have two boys: one of them is a clever
and intellectual boy, but is very fond of the gratifications of the body, very
fond of food and of anything that gives him sensuous pleasure. The other boy
shows some dawning spirituality, is bright, quick and intellectual. We will
take a third boy who shows the spiritual nature unfolded to a considerable
extent. Here are three boys. What motive shall we use to help on the evolution
of each? We go to the young man who is very fond of sensual pleasure. If I say
to him: “My son, your life should be a life of perfect unselfishness, you
should lead an ascetic life,” he will shrug his shoulders and go away; and I
shall not have helped him up a single rung of the ladder. If I say to him: “My
lad, these pleasures of yours are pleasures which give you momentary delight
but they will ruin your body and shatter your health; look on that prematurely
old man, who has led a life of sensual indulgence; that will be your fate if
you go on thus; will it not be better to give a part of your time to the
cultivation of your mind, to learning something, so that you may be able to
write a book or compose a poem, or help on some of the world’s work? You may
earn money and get health and fame, and by this attempt you will gratify your
ambition; give a rupee now and then to buy a book, instead of buying a dinner”.
By so addressing him, I stir that youth with an idea of ambition; selfish
ambition I admit, but there is not there as yet the power to respond to the
appeal for self-sacrifice. The motive of ambition is selfish, but it is
selfishness of a higher kind than that sensual gratification, and as it gives
him something of the intellect, raises him out of the brute, puts him on the
level of the man who is developing the intellect, and thus helps him to rise
higher in the scale of evolution, that is a wiser teaching for him than the
impracticable selflessness. It gives him not a perfect ideal, but an ideal
suited to his capacity.
But when I come to my intellectual youth
with dawning spirituality, I shall put before him the ideal of serving his
country, of serving India; I shall make this his object and aim, partly selfish
and partly unselfish, thus widening his ambition and helping on his evolution.
And when I come to the youth of spiritual nature, I will drop all lower
motives, and appeal, on the contrary, to the eternal law of self-sacrifice, to
devotion to the one Life, the worship of the great Ones and of God. I shall
teach Discrimination and Dispassion, and thus help the spiritual nature to
unfold its infinite possibilities. Thus understanding morality as relative, we
are able to work effectively. If we fail to help every soul, in its own place,
it is because we are ill-trained teachers.
In every nation, there are certain definite
things which are marked as wrong, such as murder, theft, lying, vileness. All
these are recognised as crimes. That is the general view. But it is not wholly
borne out by facts. How far are these things recognised as moral and how far as
immoral in practice? Why are they recognised as wrong? Because the masses of
the nation have reached a certain stage of evolution. Because the majority of
the nation are at about the same level of growth, and at that level they
recognise these things as evil, as against progress. The result is that the
minority, being below this stage, is regarded as being made up of “criminals”.
The majority has reached a higher stage of evolution, and the majority makes
the law; then those who cannot come up even to the lowest level of the majority
are dubbed criminals. Two types of criminals present themselves to our view. One
type upon which we cannot make any impression by appealing to their sense of
right and wrong. They are spoken of by the ignorant public as hardened
criminals. But this view is a mistaken one, and leads to lamentable results.
They are merely ignorant, ungrown souls, child-souls, infants in the School of
Life, and we do not help them to grow by trampling them down and brutalizing
them further, because they are scarcely a grade removed from the brute. We
should use all the means in our power, all that our reason can suggest, to
guide and teach these child-souls, to discipline them into a better life; let
us not treat them as hardened criminals because they are mere babies in the
nursery.
The other type of criminals is made up of
those who feel a certain amount of remorse and repentance after the commission
of a crime, who know that they have done wrong. They stand on a higher level,
and can he helped to resist evil in future by the very suffering imposed on
them by human law. I spoke of the necessity of all experience, in order that
the soul might learn to discern between right and wrong. We need experience of
good and evil, until we can discriminate the good from the evil, but no
further. The moment the two lines of actions are distinct before you, and you know
that the one is right and the other is wrong, then if you choose the wrong road
you are committing sin, you are going against a law that you know and admit. A
man at this stage commits sin, because his desires are strong, prompting him to
choose the path which is wrong. He suffers, and it is well that he should
suffer, if he follows these desires. The moment the knowledge of wrong is
present, there at the moment also there is deliberate degradation in yielding
to the impulse. Experience of the wrong is only needed before the wrong is
recognised as wrong, and in order that it may come to he so recognised. When
two courses are before a man, neither of which appears to him to be morally
different from the other, then he may take either of those courses and commit
it no wrong. But the moment a thing is known to be wrong, it is a treason to
ourselves to allow the brute in us to overpower the God in us. That is what is
really sin; that is what is the condition of most, but not all, wrong-doers
today.
Let us pass front that and look at some
particular faults a little more closely. Take murder: we find that the common
sense of the community makes a distinction between killing and killing. If a
man takes up a knife in anger and stabs his enemy, the law calls him a murderer
and hangs him. If a thousand men take up knives and stab a thousand men, then
the killing is called war. Glory and not punishment is awarded to him who thus
kills. The same crowd who hoot the murderer of one enemy, cheer the men who
have killed ten thousand enemies. What is this strange anomaly? How can we
explain it? Is there anything to justify the verdict of the community? Is there
any distinction between the two acts, which justifies the difference of
treatment? There is. War is a thing against which the public conscience more
and more protests, and in a moment we shall have to look at this fact of the
growth of the public conscience. But while we should do all we can to prevent
war, should try to spread peace and to educate our children in the love of
peace, there is none the less a real distinction in the conduct of one who
kills through private malice, and the killing which takes place in war; this
difference is so far-reaching, that I shall dilate upon it a little. In the one
case, a personal grudge is satisfied, and personal satisfaction is found. In
the other case, one man in killing the other man is not gratifying a personal
feeling, is serving no personal object, is seeking no personal gain. The men
are killing each other as an act of obedience to a command laid on them by
their superiors, whose is the responsibility for the righteousness of the war.
All my life I have preached peace, and I have striven to show the evils of war.
But, none the less, I recognise that there is much in the mere discipline of
the military force, which is of vital importance to those who are subjected to
that training. What does the soldier learn? He learns obedience to order,
cleanliness, quickness, accuracy, promptness in action, and willingness to
undergo physical hardship without complaint or murmur. He learns to risk his
life, and to give it for an ideal cause. Is not that a training which has its
place in the evolution of the soul? Does not the soul profit by this training?
When the ideal of the country fires the heart, when life is sacrificed for it
gladly by rough, common and uneducated men, they may be rude, violent, drunken,
but they are passing through a training which, in lives to come, will make them
better and nobler men.
Then take a phrase used by an Englishman of
somewhat strange genius, Rudyard Kipling, who makes soldiers say that they will
fight “for the widow at Windsor”. That may sound a little rough, but it is well
for the man who starves, who suffers mutilation on the battlefield, if he sees
before him his Queen-Empress, mother of millions of people, and offers up his
life to her, learning for the first time the beauty of fidelity, of courage and
devotion. There is the distinction which, very dimly grasped by the public,
marks the distinction between private killing and war. For the interest of the
one is personal; that of the other belongs to a wider self - the self of the
nation.
In dealing with this question of morality,
we fall often practically below that view. There are many cases of theft, of
lying, of killing, that the law of man does not punish, but that the law of
karma notes and brings back to the doer. Many an act of theft is disguised as
commerce; many an act of cheating is disguised as trade; many a fine
arrangement of lies is classified as diplomacy. Crime reappears under startling
forms, disguised and hidden, and men have to learn self-purification in life
after life. Then comes in another consideration, before we come to the essence
of sin - one which I cannot entirely overpass - thought and action. There are
some actions which a man commits, which are inevitable. You do not understand
what you are doing, when you allow yourself to think along a line of wrong. You
covet in thought another man’s gold; you are grasping with your mind’s hands,
at every moment, what is not yours. You are building the Dharma of the thief.
The inner nature, the interior nature, is Dharma, and if you build that inner
nature by thoughts that are evil, you will be born with the Dharma that will carry
you to deeds of vice. Those deeds will then be done without thought. Have you
any idea how many thoughts in you have already gone towards the making of an
action? You may dam up water, and prevent it from flowing along a channel, but
the moment a hole is made in the dam, the pent-up water will flow through the
hole and sweep the dam away: so is it with thought and action. Thought
accumulates slowly behind the dam of absence of opportunity. As you think and
think, the stream of thought grows fuller and fuller behind the breastwork of
circumstances. In another life that breastwork of circumstances gives way, and
the action is committed before any new thought has occurred. Those are the
inevitable crimes, which sometimes blast a great career, when the thought of
the past finds its fruitage in the present, when the karma of accumulated
thought comes forth as action. If the opportunity comes to you, and you have
time to pause, time to say: “Shall I do it?” then that action is not inevitable
for you. The pause for thought means that you can put the thought on the other
side and so strengthen the barrier. There is no excuse for doing an action
which you have thought of as wrong. Those actions only are inevitable which are
done without thinking, where the thought belongs to the past and the action to
the present.
We come now to the great question of
separateness: there lies in every deed the essence of wrong. In the past,
separateness was right. The great course of the divine life-stream was dividing
itself into multiplicity; it was needed to build up individual centers of
consciousness. So long as a centre needs strengthening, separateness is on the
side of progress. Souls at one period need to be selfish; they cannot do
without selfishness in the early stages of growth. But now the law of
progressing life for the more advanced is the outgrowing of separateness, and
the seeking to realise unity. We are now on the path towards unity; we are
approaching nearer and nearer to each other. We must now unite, in order to
grow further. The purpose is the same, though the method has changed in the
evolution through the ages. The public conscience is beginning to recognise
that not in separateness but in unity, there lies the true growth of a nation.
We are trying to substitute arbitration for war, co-operation for competition,
protection of the weak for trampling them under foot, and all this, because the
line of evolution now goes towards unity and not towards separateness.
Separation is the mark of descent into matter, and unification is the mark of
the ascent to Spirit. The world is on the upward trend, although thousands of
souls may lag behind. The ideal now is peace, co-operation, protection,
brotherhood and helpfulness. The essence of sin now lies in separateness.
But
that thought leads us on to another test of conduct. Is the action we are doing
one which seeks our own gain, or which helps on the general good? Is our life a
self-seeking, useless life, or does it help humanity? If it is selfish, then it
is wrong, it is evil, it is against the growth of the world. If you be among
those who have seen the beauty of the ideal of unity, and have recognised the
perfection of the divine manhood that we seek, then you should kill out this
heresy of separateness in yourself.
When we look at much of the teaching of the
past and see the conduct of the Sages, certain questions in morality arise,
which some find it rather hard to answer. I raise this here, because I may
suggest to you the line of thought by which you may defend the Shastras from
carping critics and which may enable you to profit by their teachings, without
becoming confused. A great Sage is not always, in his conduct, an example that
an ordinary man should endeavour to follow. When I speak now of a great Sage, I
mean one in whom all personal desire is dead, who is not attracted to any
object in the world, whose only life is in obedience to the divine will, who
gives himself as one of the channels of divine force for the helping of the
world. He performs the functions of a God, and the functions of the Gods differ
much from the functions of men. The earth is full of all kinds of catastrophes
- wars, earthquakes, famine, pestilences, plagues. Who is their cause? There is
no cause in God’s universe save God Himself, and these things which seem so
terrible, so shocking; so painful, are His ways of teaching us when we are
going wrong. A plague sweeps off thousands of the men of a nation. A mighty war
scatters its thousands of dead on the field of carnage. Why? Because that
nation had disregarded the divine law of its growth, and must learn its lesson
by suffering, if it will not learn it by reason. Plague is the result of
disregarding the laws of health and of clean living. God is too merciful to
permit a law to be disregarded by the whims and fancies and feelings of slowly
evolving man, without calling attention to the disregarded. These catastrophes
are worked by the Gods, by the agents of Ishvara, who, invisible throughout the
world, administer the divine law, as a magistrate administers the civil laws.
Just because they are administrators of the law and are acting impersonally,
their actions are no more examples for us to follow, than the action of the
judge in imprisoning a criminal is an example to show that an ordinary man may
take revenge on his enemy. Look, for instance, at the great Sage Narada. We
find him stirring up war, when two nations have reached a point where the
higher good of each can only be gained by the struggles of war, and by the
conquest of one by the other. Bodies are killed, and it is the best help to the
men thus slain that their bodies should be struck away, and that, in new
bodies, they may have greater possibility of growth. Gods bring about the
battle in which thousands of men are slain. It would be wicked for us to
imitate them, because to stir up war for the sake of conquest or gain, or
ambition, or for some object where personality comes in, is sinful. But in the
case of Narada it is not so, because Devarshis such as he is are helping the world
along the path of evolution by striking away the obstacles. You will understand
something of the wonders and mysteries of the universe, when you know that
things that seem evil from the side of form are good from the side of life; all
that happens is working for the best. “There is a divinity that shapes our
ends, rough-hew them as we may.”
Religion is right when it says that the Gods rule over the world and
guide nations, and lead and even scourge them into the right path when they go
astray.
A man, full of personality and attracted by
the objects of desire, whose whole self is Kama, such a man, committing an
action instigated by Kama, often commits a crime; but the very same action
committed by a liberated soul, free from all desire, in carrying out the divine
order, would be rightly done. In the utter disbelief that men have fallen into
as to the working of thy Gods, such words may seem strange, but there is no
energy in nature, which is not the physical manifestation of a God carrying out
the will of the Supreme. That is the true view of nature. We see the side of
form, and, blinded by Maya, call it evil; but the Gods, as they break up forms,
are clearing away every obstacle that obstructs the way of evolution.
We may here understand one or two of those
other questions that are often thrown in our faces by those who take a
superficial view of things. Supposing a man, who is longing to commit a sin, is
prevented from committing it solely by the pressure of circumstances; suppose
that the longing is growing stronger and stronger; what is the best thing for
him? To have an opportunity to put his longing into action. To commit a crime?
Yes, even a crime is less injurious to the soul than a continued brooding over
it in the mind, the growing of a cancer at the heart of life. An action once
done is dead, and the suffering that follows it teaches the needed lesson, but
thought is generative and living.* [ * This does not mean that a man should
commit a sin rather than struggle against it. So long as he struggles, it is
well with him, and he is gaining strength. The case referred to is where there
is no struggle, but where the man is longing to do the action and only lacks
opportunity. In such case, the sooner the opportunity comes, the better for the
man; the pent-up longing breaks forth, the realized wish brings suffering, the
man learns a necessary lesson, and is purged of an ever-increasing moral
poison.] Do you understand that? If you
do, then you will also understand why you find in the scriptures a God putting
in the way of a man an opportunity of committing the sin that man is longing to
commit, and in fact has committed in his heart. He will suffer, no doubt, for
his sin, but he will learn by the suffering that falls on the wrong-doer. Had
that evil thought been left to grow in the heart, it would have grown stronger
and stronger, and would have gradually wrecked the whole moral nature of the
man. For it is like a cancer which, if not speedily removed, will poison the
whole body. Far more merciful it is, that such a man should sin and suffer
pain, than that he should long to sin and be held back by lack of opportunity
merely, and thus make inevitable degradation for lives to come.
So also if a man is making rapid progress,
and there is a hidden weakness in him, or some past Karma not exhausted, or
evil deed not expiated, that man cannot be liberated while that Karma remains
unexhausted, while there is a debt still unpaid. What is the most merciful
thing to do? To help that man to pay his debt in anguish and degradation, so
that the misery following on the fault may exhaust the Karma of the past. It
means that there is swept out of his way an obstacle that prevents his
liberation, and God puts that temptation in his way to break the last barrier down.
I have not time to work out the details of this most pregnant line of thought,
but I ask you to follow it for yourselves and see what it means, and how it
illuminates the dark problems of growth, the falls of the saints.
If, when you have assimilated it, you then
read such a book as the Mahabharata, you will understand the workings of the
Gods in the affairs of men; you will see the Gods working in storm and
sunshine, in peace and in war, and you will know that it is well with the man
and with the nation, whatever may occur to them; for the noblest wisdom and the
tenderest love are guiding them to their appointed goal.
I come now to the last word - a word I will
dare to speak to you, who have been listening to me patiently on a subject so
difficult and abstruse. There is a yet higher note: know that there is a
supreme goal, and the last steps on the path to it are not the steps where
Dharma can any longer guide us. Let us take some wonderful words from the great
Teacher, Shri Krishna, and let us see how in His final instruction, He speaks
of something loftier than anything on which we have dared to touch. Here is His
message of peace: “Listen thou again to My supreme word, most secret of all;
beloved art thou of Me, and steadfast of heart, therefore will I speak for thy
benefit. Merge the Manas in Me, be my devotee, sacrifice to Me, prostrate
thyself before Me, thou shalt come even to Me. Abandoning all Dharmas, come
unto Me alone for shelter; sorrow not, I will liberate thee from all sins”
(Bhagavad-Gita, xviii, 64-66.).
My last words are addressed only to those
who lead here a life of supreme longing to sacrifice themselves to Him; they
have a right to these last words of hope and peace. Then the end of Dharma is
reached. Then the man desires no longer anything save the Lord. When the soul
has reached that stage of evolution, where it asks nothing of the world, but
gives itself wholly to God, when it has outgrown all the promptings of desire,
when the heart has gained freedom by love, when the whole being throws itself
forward at the feet of the Lord - then abandon you all Dharmas; they are no
longer for you; no longer for you the law of growth, no longer for you that
balancing of duty, no longer for you that scrutiny of conduct. You have given yourself
to the Lord. There is nothing left in you that is not divine. What Dharma can
any longer remain for you, for, united to Him, you are no longer a separated
self. Your life is hid in Him, His life is yours; you may be living in the
world, you are but His instrument. You are His wholly. Your life is Ishvara’s,
and Dharma has no longer any claim on you. Your devotion has liberated you, for
your life is hid in God. That is the word of the Teacher. That is the last
thought I would leave with you.
And now, my brothers, farewell. Our work
together is done. After this imperfect presentation of a mighty subject, may I
say to you: listen to the thought in the message, and not to the speaker who is
the messenger; open your hearts to the thought, and forget the imperfection of
the lips that have spoken it. Remember that, as we climb to God, we must needs
try, however feebly, to pass on to our brothers some touch of that life we
reach after. Forget therefore the speaker, but remember the teaching. Forget
the imperfections which are in the messenger, not in the message. Worship the
God whose teaching we have been studying, and pardon in your charity the faults
of the servant who has given it utterance.
PEACE
TO ALL BEINGS
END OF
THIS BOOK
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