Freedom of the soul

[Guest guest]

It is exactly the same as the Brahman of the Vedantins, and the whole

system of the Buddhists is founded upon the idea of regaining that

lost state of Nirvana. In every system we find this doctrine present,

that you cannot get anything which is not yours already. You are

indebted to nobody in this universe. You claim your own birthright,

as it has been most poetically expressed by a great Vedantin

philosopher, in the title of one of his books-- " The attainment of our

own empire " . That empire is ours; we have lost it and we have to

regain it. The Mayavadin, however, says that this losing of the

empire was a hallucination; you never lost it. This is the only

difference.

 

Although all the systems agree so far that we had the empire, and

that we have lost it, they give us varied advice as to how to regain

it. One says that you must perform certain ceremonies, pay certain

sums of money to certain idols, eat certain sorts of food, live in a

peculiar fashion to regain that empire. Another says that if you weep

and prostrate yourselves and ask pardon of some Being beyond nature,

you will regain that empire. Again, another says if you love such a

Being with all your heart, you will regain that empire. All this

varied advice is in the Upanishads. As I go on, you will find it so.

But the last and greatest counsel is that you need not weep at all.

You need not go through all these ceremonies, and need not take any

notice of how to regain your empire, because you never lost it. Why

should you go to seek for what you never lost? You are pure already,

you are free already. If you think you are free, free you are this

moment, and if you think you are bound, bound you will be. This is a

very bold statement, and as I told you at the beginning of this

course, I shall have to speak to you very boldly. It may frighten you

now, but when you think over it, and realise it in your own life,

then you will come to know that what I say is true. For, supposing

that freedom is not your nature, by no manner of means can you become

free. Supposing you were free and in some way you lost that freedom,

that shows you were not free to begin with. Had you been free, what

could have made you lose it? The independent can never be made

dependent; if it is really dependent, its independence was a

hallucination.

 

- Swami Vivekananda

 

.... to be continued