Swami Vivekananda says to become the witness of this universe

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THE VEDANTA (Delivered at Lahore on 12th November, 1897)

Volume 3, Lectures from Colombo to Almora

 

How is it possible that my soul can act upon your soul, where is the medium

through which it can work, where is the medium through which it can act? How

is it I can feel anything about your souls? What is it that is in touch both

with your soul and with my soul? Therefore there is a metaphysical necessity

of admitting another soul, for it must be a soul which acts in contact all

the different souls, and in and through matter — one Soul which covers and

interpenetrates all the infinite number of souls in the world, in and

through which they live, in and through which they sympathise, and love, and

work for one another. And this universal Soul is Paramâtman, the Lord God of

the universe. Again, it follows that because the soul is not made of matter,

since it is spiritual, it cannot obey the laws of matter, it cannot be

judged by the laws of matter. It is, therefore, unconquerable, birthless,

deathless, and changeless.

 

If the Buddha is the evolved amoeba, the amoeba was the involved Buddha

also. If this universe is the manifestation of an almost infinite amount of

energy, when this universe was in a state of Pralaya, it must have

represented the same amount of involved energy. It cannot have been

otherwise. As such, it follows that every soul is infinite. From the lowest

worm that crawls under our feet to the noblest and greatest saints, all have

this infinite power, infinite purity, and infinite everything. Only the

difference is in the degree of manifestation. The worm is only manifesting

just a little bit of that energy, you have manifested more, another god-man

has manifested still more: that is all the difference. But that infinite

power is there all the same. Says Patanjali: — " Like the peasant irrigating

his field. "

 

Next the Buddhist says, you have been perfectly rational up to this point,

that everything is the result of the law of Karma. You believe in an

infinity of souls, and that souls are without birth or death, and this

infinity of souls and the belief in the law of Karma are perfectly logical

no doubt. There cannot be a cause without an effect, the present must have

had its cause in the past and will have its effect in the future. The Hindu

says the Karma is Jada (inert) and not Chaitanya (Spirit), therefore some

Chaitanya is necessary to bring this cause to fruition. Is it so, that

Chaitanya is necessary to bring the plant to fruition? If I plant the seed

and add water, no Chaitanya is necessary. You may say there was some

original Chaitanya there, but the souls themselves were the Chaitanya,

nothing else is necessary.

 

There is no such thing as individuality in this little world of ours, the

Jagat. Thought and feeling, mind and body, men and animals and plants are in

a continuous state of flux. But suppose you take the universe as a unit

whole; can it change or move? Certainly not. Motion is possible in

comparison with something which is a little less in motion or entirely

motionless. The universe as a whole, therefore, is motionless, unchangeable.

You are therefore, an individual then and then alone when you are the whole

of it, when the realization of " I am the universe " comes. That is why the

Vedantist says that so long as there are two, fear does not cease. It is

only when one does not see another, does not feel another, when it is all

one — then alone fear ceases, then alone death vanishes, then alone Samsara

vanishes.

 

If there is a wrestling match, who enjoys it, those who take part in it, or

those who are looking on — the outsiders? The more and more you are the

witness of anything in life, the more you enjoy it. And this is Ânanda; and,

therefore, infinite bliss can only be yours when you have become the witness

of this universe; then alone you are a Mukta Purusha. It is the witness

alone that can work without any desire, without any idea of going to heaven,

without any idea of blame, without any idea of praise. The witness alone

enjoys, and none else.

 

 

Believe, therefore, in yourselves. The secret of Advaita is: Believe in

yourselves first, and then believe in anything else. In the history of the

world, you will find that only those nations that have believed in

themselves have become great and strong. In the history of each nation, you

will always find that only those individuals who have believed in themselves

have become great and strong. Here, to India, came an Englishman who was

only a clerk, and for want of funds and other reasons he twice tried to blow

his brains out; and when he failed, he believed in himself, he believed that

he was born to do great things; and that man became Lord Clive, the founder

of the Empire.

 

This is teaching on the practical side. Believe, therefore, in yourselves,

and if you want material wealth, work it out; it will come to you. If you

want to be intellectual, work it out on the intellectual plane, and

intellectual giants you shall be. And if you want to attain to freedom, work

it out on the spiritual plane, and free you shall be and shall enter into

Nirvana, the Eternal Bliss.

 

Young men of Lahore, understand this, therefore, this great sin hereditary

and national, is on our shoulders. There is no hope for us. You may make

thousands of societies, twenty thousand political assemblages, fifty

thousand institutions. These will be of no use until there is that sympathy,

that love, that heart that thinks for all; until Buddha's heart comes once

more into India, until the words of the Lord Krishna are brought to their

practical use, there is no hope for us.

 

What matters it if this little life goes? Everyone has to die, the saint or

the sinner, the rich or the poor. The body never remains for anyone. Arise

and awake and be perfectly sincere. Our insincerity in India is awful; what

we want is character, that steadiness and character that make a man cling on

to a thing like grim death.

 

" Let the sages blame or let them praise, let Lakshmi come today or let her

go away, let death come just now or in a hundred years; he indeed is the

sage who does not make one false step from the right path. " Arise and awake,

for the time is passing and all our energies will be: frittered away in vain

talking. Arise and awake, let minor things, and quarrels over little details

and fights over little doctrines be thrown aside, for here is the greatest

of all works, here are the sinking millions.

 

When the Mohammedans first came into India, what a great number of Hindus

were here; but mark, how today they have dwindled down! Every day they will

become less and less till they wholly disappear. Let them disappear, but

with them will disappear the marvellous ideas, of which, with all their

defects and all their misrepresentations, they still stand as

representatives. And with them will disappear this marvellous Advaita, the

crest-jewel of all spiritual thought. Therefore, arise, awake, with your

hands stretched out to protect the spirituality of the world. And first of

all, work it out for your own country. What we want is not so much

spirituality as a little of the bringing down of the Advaita into the

material world. First bread and then religion.

 

Therefore preach the Advaita to every one, so that religion may withstand

the shock of modern science. Not only so, you will have to help others; your

thought will help out Europe and America. But above all, let me once more

remind you that here is need of practical work, and the first part of that

is that you should go to the sinking millions of India, and take them by the

hand, remembering the words of the Lord Krishna:

 

" Even in this life they have conquered relative existence whose minds are

firm-fixed on the sameness of everything, for God is pure and the same to

all; therefore, such are said to be living in God. "

 

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Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prashant Jalasutram