Topical Musings

This month, let us open our hearts to Swami Vivekananda, as he sings about the unparalleled glory of man.

‘This human body is the greatest body in the universe, and a human being the greatest being. Man is higher than all animals, than all angels; none is greater than man. Even the Devas (gods) will have to come down again and attain to salvation through a human body. Man alone attains to perfection, not even the Devas.’ 1

‘The Real Man is one and infinite, the omnipresent Spirit. The apparent man is only a limitation of that Real Man. The Real Man, the Spirit, being beyond cause and effect, not bound by time and space, must, therefore, be free. He was never bound, and could not be bound. The apparent man, the reflection, is limited by time, space, and causation, and is, therefore, bound. Or in the language of some of our philosophers, he appears to be bound, but really is not. This is the reality in our souls, this omnipresence, this spiritual nature, this infinity. Every soul is infinite, therefore there is no question of birth and death.’ 2

‘I am omnipresent, eternal. Where can I go? Where am I not already? The Advaitist dethrones all the gods that ever existed, or ever will exist in the universe and places on that throne the Self of man, the Atman, higher than the sun and the moon, higher than the heavens, greater than this great universe itself. No books, no scriptures, no science can ever imagine the glory of the Self that appears as man, the most glorious God that ever was, the only God that ever existed, exists, or ever will exist. I am to worship, therefore, none but myself. “I worship my Self,” says the Advaitist. To whom shall I bow down? I salute my Self. To whom shall I go for help? Who can help me, the Infinite Being of the universe? These are foolish dreams, hallucinations; who ever helped any one? None. Wherever you see a weak man, a dualist, weeping and wailing for help from

What We Truly Are

somewhere above the skies, it is because he does not know that the skies also are in him. He wants help from the skies, and the help comes. We see that it comes; but it comes from within himself, and he mistakes it as coming from without. Man, after this vain search after various gods outside himself, completes the circle, and comes back to the point from which he started – the human soul, and he finds that the God whom he was searching in hill and dale, whom he was seeking in every brook, in every temple, in churches and heavens, that God whom he was even imagining as sitting in heaven and ruling the world, is his own Self. I am He, and He is I. None but I was God, and this little I never existed.’ 3

‘You may invent an image through which to worship God, but a better image already

exists, the living man. You may build a temple in which to worship God, and that may be good, but a better one, a much higher one, already exists, the human body.’ 4

‘The living God is within you, and yet you are building churches and temples and believing all sorts of imaginary nonsense. The only God to worship is the human soul in the human body. Of course all animals are temples too, but man is the highest, the Taj Mahal of temples. If I cannot worship in that, no other temple will be of any advantage. The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him – that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.’ 5

Compare these words with his scathing words that we presented in the last issue of Topical Musings. We saw Swamiji describing our actual state of existence, in the bluntest possible terms, without mincing any words. Now, we see the same Swami describe what we truly are! This forces us to see the huge gap between these two versions of man.

This bridge has to be gapped. Bridging this gap is the Sadhana, according to Swami Vivekananda. How shall we perform this Sadhana?

‘We should work in the best way we can, without dragging the ideal down. Here is the ideal. When a man has no more self in him, no possession, nothing to call ‘me’ or ‘mine’, has given himself up entirely, destroyed himself as it were – in that man is God Himself; for in him self-will is gone, crushed out, annihilated. That is the ideal man. We cannot reach that state yet; yet, let us worship the ideal, and slowly struggle to reach the ideal, though, maybe, with faltering steps. It may be tomorrow, or it may be a thousand years hence; but that ideal has to be reached. For it is not only the end, but also the means. To be unselfish, perfectly selfless, is salvation itself; for the man within dies, and God alone remains.’ 6

‘Men should be taught to be practical, physically strong. A dozen such lions will conquer the world, not millions of sheep. Men should not be taught to imitate a personal ideal, however great.’ 7 ‘We must strengthen our body and mind. First of all, our young men must be strong. Religion will come afterwards. Be strong, my young friends; that is my advice to you.’ 8

‘Who will give you strength? Let me tell you, strength, strength is what we want. And the first step in getting strength is to uphold the Upanishads, and believe – “I am the Soul”, “Me the sword cannot cut; nor weapons pierce; me the fire cannot burn; me the air cannot dry; I am the Omnipotent, I am the Omniscient.” Repeat these blessed, saving words. Do not say we are weak; we can do anything and everything.’ 9

‘India can only rise by sitting at the feet of Shri Ramakrishna.’ 10 ‘If this nation wants to rise, take my word for it, it will have to rally enthusiastically round this name.’ 11

References tt

1) The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. [hereafter CW]. Vol-1: Raja-Yoga: Ch-II: ‘The First

Steps’ 2) CW. Vol-2: Jnana-Yoga: Ch-II: ‘The Real Nature Of

Man’ 3) CW. Vol-2: Jnana-Yoga: Ch-XIII: ‘The Atman’ 4) CW. Vol-2: Practical Vedanta: Part II 5) Ibid.

6) CW. Vol-4: ‘Christ, The Messenger’ 7) CW. Vol-9: ‘Sayings and Utterances’ 8) CW. Vol-3: ‘Vedanta in Its application to Indian Life’ 9) Ibid. 10) CW. Vol-6: Epistles, 30 November, To Dr. Nanjunda

Rao 11) CW. Vol-3: ‘Reply to Address of Welcome Presented at Calcutta’