Maya and Illusion

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The Vedanta says, there must come a time when we shall look back and

laugh at the ideals which make us afraid of giving up our

individuality. Each one of us wants to keep this body for an

indefinite time, thinking we shall be very happy, but there will come

a time when we shall laugh at this idea. Now, if such be the truth,

we are in a state of hopeless contradiction--neither existence nor

non-existence, neither misery nor happiness, but a mixture of them.

What, then, is the use of Vedanta and all other philosophies and

religions? And, above all, what is the use of doing good work? This

is a question that comes to the mind. If it is true that you cannot

do good without doing evil, and whenever you try to create happiness

there will always be misery, people will ask you, " What is the use of

doing good? " The answer is in the first place, that we must work for

lessening misery, for that is the only way to make ourselves happy.

Every one of us finds it out sooner or later in our lives. The bright

ones find it out a little earlier, and the dull ones a little later.

The dull ones pay very dearly for the discovery and the bright ones

less dearly. In the second place, we must do our part, because that

is the only way of getting out of this life of contradiction. Both

the forces of good and evil will keep this universe alive for us,

until we awake from our dreams and give up this building of mud pies.

That lesson we shall have to learn, and it will take a long, long

time to learn it.

 

Attempts have been made in Germany to build a system of philosophy on

the basis that the Infinite has become the finite. Such attempts are

also made in England. And the analysis of the position of these

philosophers is this, that the Infinite is trying to express itself

in this universe, and that there will come a time when the Infinite

will succeed in doing so. It is all very well, and we have used the

words Infinite and manifestation and expression, and so on, but

philosophers naturally ask for a logical fundamental basis for the

statement that the finite can fully express the Infinite. The

Absolute and the Infinite can become this universe only by

limitation. Everything must be limited that comes through the senses,

or through the mind, or through the intellect; and for the limited to

be the unlimited is simply absurd, and can never be. The Vedanta, on

the other hand, says that it is true that the Absolute or the

Infinite is trying to express itself in the finite, but there will

come a time when it will find that it is impossible, and it will then

have to beat a retreat, and this beating a retreat means renunciation

which is the real beginning of religion. Nowadays it is very hard

even to talk of renunciation. It was said of me in America that I was

a man who came out of a land that had been dead and buried for five

thousand years, and talked of renunciation. So says, perhaps, the

English philosopher. Yet it is true that that is the only path to

religion. Renounce and give up. What did Christ say? " He that loseth

his life for my sake shall find it. " Again and again did he preach

renunciation as the only way to perfection. There comes a time when

the mind awakes from this long and dreary dream--the child gives up

its play and wants to go back to its mother. It finds the truth of

the statement, " Desire is never satisfied by the enjoyment of

desires, it only increases the more, as fire, when butter is poured

upon it. "

 

- Swami Vivekananda

 

.... to be continued