THE LAWS OF HIGHER LIFE/PART 3
THE LAW OF
SACRIFICE
WE have
already seen that a man can only realize himself as a Higher Consciousness in
proportion as he tranquillises the senses, in proportion as he restrains the
mind. We have then seen that he advances towards the realisation of the Higher
Life in proportion as he obeys the Law of Duty, as he definitely and resolutely
sets himself to the payment of the obligations that he has incurred.
Tonight
we shall try to rise into a higher region, and see how, after he has practised
the Law of Duty, the Law of Sacrifice lifts him upwards and enables him to
reach union with the Divine. It is the Law of Sacrifice that we are now to
study.
It has
often been said, and truly said, that sacrifice is printed on the universe in
which we live. And why should it not be so, since the universe in which we live
itself originates in an act of sacrifice, in the limitation of the Logos in order
that the world may come forth? All the religions have on this point but a
single teaching, that manifestation began by an act of Divine Sacrifice. Each
Scripture may in turn be quoted to prove the point, but it is so familiar to
all of you that no proof is needed.
The
nature of that sacrifice is seen by us as consisting in this assumption of the
limitations of matter by the Immaterial, in the veiling of the Unconditioned in
conditions, in the binding of the Free within bonds. The first thought that we
have, as we watch the evolving of a universe, is that this manifestation of
life is only possible by its limitations, that these mark out the conditions of
its evolution; and that just as life becomes manifest by the taking of forms,
so by the breaking of form after form and the assuming of new ones does life
continually evolve. We see the life manifested in matter, drawing around itself
matter which it appropriates as form. As form wastes in the exercising of
life-functions, the life is ever engaged in drawing in fresh matter to replace
that which has been lost. We see that the form is always decaying and always
being renewed, and that the life can only find possibility of manifestation by
thus taking fresh matter continually into its decaying form, and thus
preserving it as the vehicle of manifestation; only by thus continually
grasping after un-appropriated matter, and appropriating it for the building up
and renewing of its form, can life evolve.
Thus
there comes to be implanted in the very nature of the growing being, the idea
that by taking, by grasping, by holding, the life is preserved, the life is
increased. This seems to be what the life is learning by its contact with
matter, and it does not realise, in the earlier stages, that taking, grasping,
holding, keeping, is not really the condition of the life; but the condition of
the maintenance of that form in which life is manifested. The form cannot
continue to exist, but by virtue of the taking in of fresh matter. As the life
goes on increasing, developing, this constant appropriation is the mark of the
evolving Jiva. Everywhere is he learning that on the path of Pravritti, the
path of forth-going, he must grasp, take, hold, and appropriate. Everywhere he
is learning to try to absorb into himself other forms, and by union of other
forms with his own to preserve the continuity of his existence in form.
When the
great Teachers began to give lessons to the evolving Jivatma, when he had
reached the necessary point of materiality, then strange teaching came to him,
contrary to all his preceding experience. The Teacher began to say to him:
“Life is preserved not simply by taking, but also by sacrificing that which you
had already appropriated. It is a mistake to think that you can live and grow,
simply by the appropriation of other forms into your own, simply by the
absorption of the life around you, that your own may continue to exist. All the
world is bound by a law of interdependence. All living things exist by virtue
of mutual exchange, by the recognition of the fact of mutual interdependence.
You cannot live alone in a world of forms; you cannot preserve your own form by
the appropriating of others, without contracting a debt, which must be paid by
the sacrifice of some of the appropriated object, for the maintenance of other
lives. All lives are bound together by a golden chain, and that golden chain is
the law of sacrifice, and not the law of grasping.”
The
universe emanated by an act of supreme sacrifice, and can only be preserved by
the continual renewal of sacrifice.
Hear
what Shri Krishna taught: “This world is not for the non-sacrificer, much less
the other, O best of the Kurus.”* [ * Bhagavad-Gita, iv. 31.]
Man,
then, cannot even live in the world of forms, save as he performs acts of
sacrifice. The revolving wheel of life cannot go on, unless each member, unless
each living creature, helps to turn it by the performance of acts of sacrifice.
Life is preserved by sacrifice, and in sacrifice all evolution is rooted.
In order
that this new lesson might be taught in the correct way, we find the great
Teachers insisting on acts of sacrifice, and showing that by virtue of these
acts does that wheel of life revolve, that brings to us all good things. Thus
we see established in the Hindu ritual, the well-known five sacrifices, which
include in their wide circle the sacrifices which are necessary for the due
maintenance of the lives of all the creatures in the world.
We are
taught that our relations with the world invisible, with the Deva world, can
only be preserved by the sacrifice to the Devas, in which we recognise this
interdependence. We give to them, they give to us, and thus nourishing one
another, we reap the highest good.* [ * Bhagavad-Gita, iii. 11.]
Then we
learn the sacrifice, which is called the sacrifice to the Rishis, the sacrifice
to the wise, the sacrifice to the Teachers. That is the sacrifice of study, by
the performance of which is paid one of our debts, by the performance of which
an obligation is discharged. For by study we learn in order to teach, and thus
we keep up the succession of knowledge, handing it down from generation to
generation.
Then we
learn that we must also pay the debt to the Elders, the sacrifice to the past,
the sacrifice to the Ancestors, to the Pitris; recognising in that that as we
received from the past, we must pay our debt by giving to the future.
Next we
learn to pay our debt to Humanity. We are taught that we must feed at least one
man every day. We know that the essence of that act is not in the simply
feeding one poor man. In that man who is fed, the Lord of sacrifice is also
fed; and when He is fed, all Humanity is fed in Him. Just as when Durvasa came
to the Pandavas in their exile, and the feast being over, demanded food where
no food then existed, and the Lord of sacrifice Himself came and told the
Pandavas to search for food, and one grain of rice was found, which He ate, and
His hunger was satisfied, and in the satisfaction of His hunger the great host
of ascetics found themselves filled; so in the sacrifice to man. In the feeding
of one starving beggar, He is fed who feels Himself in all, in every human
life, and thus feeding Him in the shape of one poor man, we feed humanity
itself.
Lastly,
we learn to sacrifice to animals. In the sacrifice to animals, in the two or
three animals that daily we are bound to feed, we are feeding the Lord of
animals in His animal creation, and by this sacrifice the animal world is
maintained.
Such the
old lessons given to young humanity, to teach it the form and essence of the
sacrificial act. And we learn that the spirit of the law of the five sacrifices
is far more valuable than the letter of the law; and we learn to extend to that
spirit of sacrifice the recognition of the law of the obligation, of the law of
duty. When the Law of Sacrifice is thus interwoven with and united to the Law
of Obligation, then the next step is placed before the evolving Jiva.
You have
learned to do some acts as acts of obligation. You now have to learn that the
world is bound by action, save by such action as is sacrifice.* [ *
Bhagavad-Gita, iii. 9.] You must learn that looking for the fruit of actions
binds us to the world of actions, and that if we would be free from such
binding we must learn to sacrifice everywhere the fruit of action: “With such
object, free from attachment, O son of Kunti, perform thou action.” [ * Ibid. ]
That is
the next step. It does not mean that some particular actions are to be
separated from a man’s scope of activity as sacrifices, but that all actions
are to be seen in the light of sacrifice, by the renunciation of the fruit of
action. When we sacrifice the fruit of action, we are beginning then to loosen
the bonds of action which bind us to the world. For have we not read: “that
with attachment dead, harmonious, his thoughts established in wisdom, his works
sacrifices, all action melts away”?* [ * Bhagavad-Gita, iv. 23. ]
The
world is bound by karma, by action, save that action which is sacrifice. That
is the lesson which begins to be breathed into our ears, as we approach the end
of the Pravritti Marga, as the time comes for turning homeward, for entering
the Path of Return, the Nivritti Marga. When a man begins to renounce the fruit
of action, when he has learnt to perform all his actions as duty, without
looking for their fruit, then comes the critical time in the history of the
evolution of the human soul; then, as he is sacrificing the fruit of action,
there sounds out to him a still higher note, a still higher lesson, which is to
lead him over into the Nivritti Marga, the Path of Return. “Better than the
sacrifice of wealth is the sacrifice of wisdom, O Parantapa,” says Shri
Krishna. “All actions in their entirety, O Partha, are contained in wisdom.
Learn thou this by discipleship, by questionings, and by worship. The wise, the
seers of the essence of things, will instruct thee in wisdom. And having known
this, thou shalt not again fall into this confusion, O Pandava, for by this
thou wilt see all beings without exception in the Self, and all in Me.”* [ *
Bhagavad Gita, iv. 34.]
There
strikes out the note that we have learnt to recognise as the note of
spirituality. By the “sacrifice of wisdom” we shall learn to see all beings in
the Self, and thus in God. That is the note of the Path of Return, of the
Nivritti Marga. That is the lesson which has now to be learnt by the evolving
man.
The
critical point comes now in the history of the evolving Jiva. He is trying to
sacrifice the fruit of action, trying to be dead to attachments. And what is
the inevitable result? The attachment to the fruit falls away, vairagya seizes
him, dispassion overcomes him, he finds himself hanging, as it were, in the
void. All motive for action has disappeared. He has lost the stimulus of the
Pravritti Marga. He has not yet found the stimulus of the Nivritti Marga.
Disgust of all objects is upon him. He seems to have wearied of the Law of Duty;
he has not yet seen the heart of the Law of Sacrifice. At this moment of pause,
at this moment of suspension in the void, he seems to have lost touch with the
world of forms and objects, but he has not yet found touch with the world of
life, with “the other side”.
It is as
though a man, crossing from precipice to precipice by a narrow bridge, suddenly
found the bridge yield beneath his steps; he cannot return, he cannot reach out
to the brink beyond. He seems to be hanging in the void, in mid-air, over the
chasm; he has lost touch with all.
Fear
not, O trembling soul, when that moment of utmost isolation cometh. Fear not to
lose touch with the transitory, ere thou findest touch with the Eternal. Listen
to those who have felt the same isolation, but have passed beyond, who have
found the seeming void to be a veritable fullness: hear them proclaiming the
Law of Life, upon which thou hast now to enter: “He that loveth his life shall
lose it, but he that loseth his life shall find it unto Life Eternal.”
This is
the test of the Inner Life. You cannot touch the higher until you have lost
grasp of the lower. You cannot feel the higher, the touch of the lower is
becoming that of a corpse. A child climbing up a ladder against a precipice
hears the voice of his father calling him from above. He wants to reach the
father, but he is clinging close to the ladder with both hands as he sees the
yawning gulf below. But the voice tells him: “Loose your grasp from the ladder
and stretch your hands out above your head.” But the child fears. If he looses
his grasp of the ladder, will he not fall into the yawning gulf below? He
cannot see above his head. The air seems empty, there is nought to grasp. Then
comes the supreme act of faith. He looses grasp of his ladder. He stretches up
his empty hands into the empty air above him; and lo! his father’s hands clasp
his own, and the strength of the father uplifts him to his own side. Such is
the law of the Higher Life. In giving up the lower, the higher is secured; and by
throwing up the life we know, the Life Eternal gains us as its own.
None but
those who have felt it may know the horror of that great emptiness, where the
world of form has vanished, but where the life of the Spirit is not yet felt.
But there is no other way between the life in form and the life in Spirit.
There between them stretches the gulf which must be crossed; and, strange as it
may seem, it is in the moment of uttermost isolation, when the man is thrown
back into himself, and there is nothing around him but the silent void, it is
then that from out that nothingness of being the Eternal Being arises; and he
who dared to spring from the foothold of the temporal finds himself on the sure
rock of the Eternal.
Such the
experience of all those who in the past have reached the spiritual life. Such
the record they have left us for our encouragement and cheering when, to us
too, this gulf presents itself for crossing. We read in the Shastras and in
those outer actions that are full of deepest meaning, that when the disciple
approaches his Teacher, he must ever come with sacrificial fuel in his hand.
What is the sacrificial fuel? It represents everything that belongs to the life
of form, everything that belongs to the personal lower self. All must be thrown
into the fire of sacrifice, nought must be kept back. He must burn his lower
nature, and his own hands must light the fire. He must sacrifice himself. None
else may do it for him. Give, then, the life, and surrender it utterly. Keep
not back alive anything, so far as you know it; cry aloud to the Lord of the
burning-ghat that the sacrifice is lying on the altar, and shrink not from the
consuming fire. In the blankness of isolation, trust the Law which cannot fail.
If the Law of Sacrifice be strong enough to uphold the weight of the universe,
will it break beneath the weight to an atom like myself? It is strong enough to
be trusted; it is the strongest thing there is. The Law of Sacrifice is that
the life of the Spirit consists in giving, and not in taking, in pouring itself
out and not in grasping, in self-surrender and not in self-appropriation, in
utterly giving all that one has, sure that the fullness of the Life Divine will
enter in. And see how natural it is. The Life inexhaustible is found, that is ever
bubbling up out of the illimitable fullness of the Self. Form is limited, life
is unlimited. Therefore the form lives by taking, and the life grows by giving.
Just in proportion as we empty ourselves of all that we have, is there room for
the Divine fullness to flow in, and fill us more than we were ever filled
before. Therefore the note of the Nivritti Marga is renunciation. Renunciation
is the secret of Life as appropriation is the secret of Form.
This,
then, is the Law of Sacrifice that we must learn. To give ungrudgingly, and
ever again o give by this and this alone we live.
On first
entering the Nivritti Marga, where Renunciation offers herself as our guide,
her voice may seem cold and stern, her aspect may seem almost menacing. Trust
her, none the less, whatever the outer appearance, and try to understand why
sacrifice at first sight gives us the idea of pain.
From the
standpoint of form, the aspect of sacrifice is the breaking up of forms, the
throwing away of things; and the form, which feels the life withdrawing from
it, cries out in its anguish, in its terror, towards the withdrawing life that
maintains its very existence; and so we come to think of sacrifice as an act of
pain, as an act accompanied with anguish and with terror, and this must be as
long as we identify ourselves with the form.
But when
we begin to live the life of Spirit, the life which recognises the One in the
manifold forms, then there begins to dawn upon us the supreme spiritual truth,
that sacrifice is not pain but joy, is not sorrow but delight, that that which
to the flesh is painful is bliss to the Spirit, which is our true life. Then we
see that the aspect of sacrifice that was sorrowful was an utter delusion, that
keener than any pleasure that the world can give, more joyous than any joy that
comes from wealth or position, more blissful than any bliss that the world can
offer, is the bliss of the free Spirit, which, by pouring itself out, finds the
union with the Self, and knows that it is living in many forms, flowing along
many channels, instead of following the limitation of a single form.
Here is
the joy of the Saviours of mankind, of Those who have risen to the knowledge of
unity, and have become the Guides, the Helpers, the Redeemers of the race. Step
by step, slowly and gradually, They have mounted upwards and upwards, They have
crossed the Gulf of Nothingness that I have spoken of, and have found a footing
on the other side. They have recovered the sense of the reality of life, and in
the Gulf of Nothingness, in which They for a time seemed to have lost
Themselves, They suddenly found Themselves above the world of forms. All forms
as seen from that higher level are the vessels of one informing Life and Self.
They have found with a sense of joy inexpressible, that the living Self can
pour itself out into all the innumerable forms, and know no difference between
form and form, but all as the channels of one Spirit.
That is
why the Saviour of the world can help the race and strengthen His weaker brethren.
Having risen to that great height where all selves are known as one, the
different forms are all His own. He knows Himself in each. He can be joyous
with the joyful, and feel sorrow with the sorrowful. He is weak with the weak
and strong with the strong - all are parts of Himself. Alike to Him the
righteous and the sinful. He feels no attraction to the one, nor any repulsion
from the other. He can see that in every stage the One Self is living that Life
which is Himself. He knows Himself in the stone, in the plant, in the brute, in
the savage, as in the Saint and the Sage, and He sees one Life everywhere and
knows Himself that Life. Where, then, is there room for fear; where, then, is
there room for reproach? There is nothing but One Self, and nothing outside It
either to fear or to challenge.
That is
the true Peace, and that and that alone is Wisdom. To know the Self is alone
the spiritual life, and that life is joy and peace.
Thus the
Law of Sacrifice, which is the Law of Life, is also the Law of Joy, and we know
that nothing has a keener pleasure than the pleasure of pouring out and not
taking in, and that no limited joy can be equal to the joy of self-surrender.
Were it
possible for each of us to catch for a moment a faint glimpse of the Spiritual
Life, then the transitory world would assume its true proportions, and we
should see the worthlessness of all that man accounts as precious. The Law of
Sacrifice, which is the Law of Life and the Law of Joy and the Law of Peace, is
summed up in this Mahavakya, this great Word; “I am thou; thou art I”.
And now
for a moment let us bring this lofty idea down to the level of our daily lives,
and see how the Law of Sacrifice, in its working in ourselves, will manifest in
the outer world of men.
We have
learnt to realise, if but for a moment, the unity of the Self. We have learnt a
word, a letter, of the Book of Wisdom. How then shall we behave ourselves to
our brother men? We see a man low,
degraded, ignorant, and foul. No special tie of kindred nor past karma binds us
to him, nor does anything that we regard as obligation join our form to his.
But, by the Law of Sacrifice, having realised the unity of the Self, when we
see that outcast member of the human family, we see the Self in him, and the
form vanishes, and we know that we are that man, and that man is our self.
Hence compassion takes the place of what in the man of the world is repulsion.
Love takes the place of hatred, and tenderness replaces indifference, and the
Sacrificer is marked in his attitude to those around him by this touch of
divine compassion, which cannot see the repulsiveness of the outer form, but
can only realise the beauty of the Self enshrined therein.
The
Sacrificer comes across a man who is ignorant, while he himself is wise. Does
he feel the contempt of the man of knowledge for the man of ignorance, and hold
himself above him as his superior and as separate? Nay, he does not feel his
wisdom as his own, but as common property belonging to all alike, and he shares
his wisdom in the separate form with the ignorance in the other separate form:
and he does it without feeling the difference, because of the unity of the
Self.
And so
with every other difference of the world of forms. The man who lives by the Law
of Sacrifice realises the unity of the Self, and recognises only a difference
in the containing vessel and not in the indwelling life; hence he only gathers
wisdom and knowledge into his separate vessel for the sake of sharing what he
gathers with others, and for others; and he loses utterly the sense of separate
life, and becomes part of the Life of the World.
As he
realises this, and knows that the only value of the body is to be a channel of
the higher, to be an instrument of that life, he slowly and gradually rises
above all thought, save the thought of unity, and feels himself a part of this
great suffering world. Then he feels that the griefs of humanity are his
griefs, the sins of humanity are his sins, the weaknesses of his brother are
his weaknesses, and thus he realises unity, and sees through all differences
the underlying One Self.
Only in
this way can we live in the Eternal.
“Those
who see differences pass from death to death”; thus speak the Shruti. The man
who sees difference is really continually dying, for he is living in the form,
which is decaying every moment and is therefore death, and not in the Spirit,
which is life.
Just,
then, in proportion as you and I, my brothers, do not recognise the difference
between each and each, but feel the unity of life, and know that that life is
common to all, and that none has a right to boast of his share of it, nor to be
proud that his share is different from the share of another, only thus and in
that proportion shall we live the Spiritual Life.
That is
the last word, it seems, of the Wisdom that the Sages have taught us. Nothing
less than this is spiritual, nothing less than this is wisdom, nothing less
than this is real life.
Oh! if
for one passing moment I could show to you, by any skill of tongue or passion
of emotion, one gleam of the faint glimpse - that by the grace of the Masters I
have caught - of the glory and the beauty of the Life that knows no difference
and recognises no separation, then the charm of that glory would so win your
hearts, that all earth’s beauty would seem but ugliness, all earth’s gold but
dross, all earth’s treasures but dust on the roadside, beside the inexpressible
joy of the life that knows itself as One.
Hard to
keep it, even when once seen, amidst the separated lives of men, amidst the
glamour of the senses, and the delusions of the mind. But once to have seen it,
though but for a moment, changes the whole world, and having beheld the majesty
of the Self, no life save that seems worth living.
How
shall we make it real, how shall we make it our own, this wonderful recognition
of the Life beyond all lives, of the Self beyond all selves? Only by daily acts
of renunciation in the little things of life; only by learning in every
thought, word, and action to live and love the Unity; and not only to speak it,
but to practise it on every occasion, by putting ourselves last and others
first, by always seeing the need of others and trying to supply it, by learning
to be indifferent to the claim of our own lower nature and refusing to listen
to it. I know of no road save this humble, patient, persevering endeavour, hour
after hour, day after day, year after year until at last the mountain tops are
climbed.
We talk
of the Great Renunciation. We speak of These, before whose Feet we bow, as
Those who have “made the Great Renunciation”. Do not dream that They made Their
Renunciation when, standing on the threshold of Nirvana, They heard the sobbing
of the world in anguish, and turned back to help. It was not then that the
real, the great, renunciation was made. They made it over and over again in the
hundreds of lives that lie behind Them; They made it by the constant practice
of the small renunciations of life, by continual pity, by daily sacrifices in common
human life. They did not make it at the last hour, when on the threshold of
Nirvana, but through the course of lives of sacrifice; until, at last, the Law
of Sacrifice became so much the law of Their being, that They could not do
anything at the last moment, when the choice was Theirs, save register on the
record of the universe the innumerable renunciations of the past.
You and
I my brothers, today, if we will, may begin to make the Great Renunciation; and
if we do not begin it in the daily life, in our hourly dealings with our
fellows, be assured we shall not be able to make it when we stand on the
mountain crest. The habit of daily sacrifice, the habit of thinking, the habit
of always giving and not taking, only thus shall we learn to make that which
the outer world calls the Great Renunciation. We dream of great deeds of
heroism, we dream of mighty ordeals, we think that the life of discipleship
consists in tremendous trials for which the disciple prepares himself, towards
which he marches with open vision, and then by one supreme effort, by one brave
struggle, gains his crown of victory.
Brothers, it is not so. The life of the disciple is one long series of
petty renunciations, one long series of daily sacrifices, one continual dying
in time in order that the higher may eternally live. It is not a single deed
that strikes the world with wonder which makes true discipleship, else were the
hero or the martyr greater than the disciple. The life of the disciple is lived
in the home, is lived in the town, is lived in the office, is lived in the
market place, yea, amid the common lives of men. The true life of sacrifice is
that which utterly forgets itself, in which renunciation becomes so common that
there is no effort, that it becomes a thing of course. If we lead that life of
sacrifice, if we lead that life of renunciation, if daily, perseveringly, we
pour out ourselves for others, we shall find ourselves one day on the summit of
the mountain, and shall discover that we have made the Great Renunciation,
without ever dreaming that any other act was possible.
PEACE TO ALL BEINGS
END OF THIS BOOK.
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