Theosophical
Society President
The
Writings of
The God without and
the God within
by
C.Jinarajadasa
First Published July 1930
WHEN the
doctrine of Evolution received an impetus with the work of Darwin, two great
deductions were made which affected profoundly our conception of man. The first
was the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. This presumed a struggle for
existence in nature, and since that struggle is obvious to all, the doctrine of
survival was easily accepted. The law of competition seemed absolute everywhere
in nature; in plant and in animal, it is that individual who adapts himself
best to his environment who survives. It appeared therefore logical that only
the individual who struggles every moment of time to adapt himself to his
environment survives, and so proves himself to be the fittest.
But the idea
that the individual must spend all his energies in a perpetual watchfulness to
crush his competitors was modified by a second deduction from the same facts
regarding evolution. It was pointed out by Herbert Spencer that Nature does not
spend all her energies only on a fierce competition to survive; she spends some
of her energies in modes which appear to have no relation to survival. The two
instincts to find food and to satisfy sexual cravings are very prominent in all
animals, and certainly they are primary activities in the struggle for
existence. But no less prominent is a third instinct, which is for play. When
the appetites for food and for sex are satisfied, Nature still has a
residuum of
energy, and this she expresses in play.
There are then
three instincts - for food, for sex, and for play - which characterise animals.
They characterise men also, though their manifestations undergo subtle
transformations. As human societies organise themselves for communal life, the
brutalities of the perpetual struggle for existence become softened bit by bit;
not all the hours of the day are necessary to find food, because, by a pooling
of labour, energy is saved, and so there is time free for other purposes.
Similarly, the violent forms of the sex instinct are curbed in civilisation,
and a sense for propriety modifies the natural instincts of the brute.
It is when
communities are highly organised, that is, when they use less and less energy
to find food, and when they steadily refine the expressions of the sex
instinct, that an increasing amount of their energy is devoted to play. This
play too undergoes transformation. Two children playing are not different from
two puppies playing; the same energy of Nature manifests through them. But this
energy has undergone a transformation when a spectator looks at a play.
A play of his
mind replaces the play of muscle and limb; but fundamentally it is the same
instinct in Nature to play. So everything which is creative in civilisation,
like poetry, music, sculpture, the dance, are but sublimations of the
primordial instinct for play.
Sometimes this
instinct for play undergoes a degeneration, as in gambling, whether with cards
or dice, or with stocks and shares; it is also the play instinct which
manifests in such degenerate forms as society chatter and spiteful gossip.
Perhaps it is more true that it is not the play instinct which manifests as criticism
or gossip, but rather the instinct to kill a rival; as Kipling remarks, there
is little difference between the men of the Neolithic age
and men of
to-day ; they killed with the spear, we try to stab with the tongue or the pen.
I have taken
you into the field of Biology in order to draw attention to three fundamental
modes of the natural energies which operate in man—to satisfy the craving for
food, the craving for sex expression and the craving for play. But
there is a
fourth mode of expression of which evolutionary science has so far taken no
account, though that mode is basic in the understanding of man both in Hinduism
and Buddhism. This is the craving in man to understand.
It is that
fundamental instinct in men, to understand what they are and what is their
environment, which is implied in the term Moksha. You are well aware that
Moksha is the third in the triplicity of Artha, Râga, and Moksha. Artha is the
desire for possessions, and he who possesses wealth need never starve; Râga is
desire in every form, from that fiercely sexual to that of mere personal
vanity. Moksha means Liberation, and an innate desire in man for Liberation is
postulated both in Hinduism and Buddhism, as residing at the root of human
nature.
Such a
conception, that man is not merely the brute, whose savageries are slowly being
refined by social organisation, but also the angel, a Divine Spark, imbedded
and imprisoned in matter, but ever seeking his release, is utterly foreign to
the Darwinian theories of evolution. Nevertheless, that conception is
absolutely
necessary, as I hope to show, if we are to profess a theory of life which is
not only in accord with Nature's facts, but is also full of inspiration for our
daily lives.
It is obvious
that all men are not bothering their heads about understanding what life is;
the vast majority take life as it comes, and it is only a small number who ask
questions. Yet the fact that the desire to understand is deeply rooted in us
all is evinced by the existence of religions. Even the savage has a religion.
Today we can prove that his religion is based on an ignorance of
Nature's facts
and laws. But this does not annul the fact that the savage with his religion
tries to understand, and therewith to state a solution. Certainly, when we look
around us, the many do not feel that they are surrounded by puzzles and
mysteries; the few of us here present today are indeed only a few.
But why are we
only a few ?
Perhaps the reason
is that the vast majority of mankind are still being pushed hither and thither,
as pawns in a game, by Nature's primary forces which underlie the instincts of
survival and of play. It is only a few at a time who throw off the thralldom to
these two instincts; then it is that the third instinct, that for Liberation,
begins to affect them. Sometimes, a calamity of
some kind is
necessary to make us sensitive to the voice within which bids us enquire and
understand; sometimes, our awareness begins only when old age begins, and the
clamours of the body die down. Undoubtedly it is only the few who respond to
the call, "Arise, awake, seek out the Great Ones, and get
understanding";but
those few are nevertheless as "the first fruits of them that slept".
Some day, as evolution advances, the many too will arise and awake and get
understanding, as the few do today.
When the man
who desires to understand himself and his environment looks about him for
explanations, he finds solutions offered to him in religion, philosophy and
science. Those of religion are offered to him as revelations; they are
authoritative, and each religion declares that its solution is the final. The
philosophers
too pronounce their solutions as final, though they do not invest them as do
the religions with divine sanctions. Science offers her solutions too, but the
critical scientist knows that every solution offered by science is only
tentative. From among these contradictory solutions, the seeker has to find
truth, and the
problem is not an easy one.
Theosophy here
enters on the scene to help the inquirer. There has always existed in the
world, if not openly then in secret gatherings, a tradition as to truth.
Distinct and apart from the orthodox revelation of religion, each religion has
had, at some time or other, a secret tradition, which attempts to formulate
other truths than those proclaimed to the masses. Theosophy is a
compilation of
these hidden truths, and the study of them gives to many a clearer
understanding of life's problems, and therefore a more intimate realisation
where the final solution is to be found.
When we
analyse the various solutions offered, especially in religions, those solutions
fall into two groups. One group asserts that the key to the whole problem is God.
Man must discover the supreme fact that God exists, the Author of all things,
and their final Abode. Exoteric Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity and
Mohammedanism all proclaim the existence of a Creator; they assert that all
human problems can be solved only with the recognition that man depends upon
God. Until the soul discovers that he is dependent upon God, until he turns to
his Maker in humility and adoration, not only can there be no peace, there is
also no real understanding. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
Wisdom" ,says Christianity, and in one form or another this same thought
appears in all the theistic religions. In some, it is less the fear of the Lord
and more the love of the Lord ; but all of them asseverate that no problem of man
can be understood, unless man starts with the recognition that he is dependent
upon a Godhead external to him, and whom he must worship and serve. " Seek
the God without" is the message of those religions which teach the
existence of a Creator.
But there is
another group of solutions which equally offer to teach man the one true way to
peace and understanding. These solutions are found in esoteric Hinduism, in
Buddhism, and in Confucianism and Taoism. In the Upanishads, especially in the
older ones, their principal doctrine of Atman proclaims the
existence of
God, but He is not a Personal God whose nature is in some manner different from
that of man. The most vital of all truths in esoteric Hinduism is that God and
man are one and not two. "THAT art thou, 0 Shvetaketu", is the ever
insistent teaching of the Upanishads. It is only in the discovery of the God
within that
the way is found to solve all problems; this is the clear teaching of esoteric
Hinduism.
When we
approach Buddhism, it is once again the path to the God within which is its
characteristic, though the Buddha never proclaimed the existence of God.
Neither did He deny God's existence; for to the Buddhist, the problem whether
God exists or
not has no relation to the problem of man's suffering. The way within is the
sole discovery, necessary to solve all problems, and so the Buddha's message to
all men was, " Work out your salvation with diligence". In a similar
manner, Confucianism builds an ethical system which ignores God.
It is only as
a man strives to be perfect, to be the " superior man", by embodying
in himself all that is best in the moral code of his ancestors, that man
achieves his goal of perfect peace and freedom.
It is this
same doctrine of the God within that we have once again proclaimed to-day by
Krishnamurti. He never uses the word God, and the conception of a Personal God,
an extra-cosmic God, a Deity who is in some manner different from man, is alien
to his thought. He proclaims the existence of an absolute
Perfection,
but he terms this "the Beloved", and he ever insists that Liberation
means to become one with "the Beloved". To "see the Goal",
to be "one with Life", " to enter the Kingdom of Happiness"
are phrases which ho uses to describe the summum bonum for all men ; and those
familiar with the Upanishads realise that the ancient teaching of the Atman
proclaimed of old by the Rishis to the few as a " Rahasya", as a
"Secret", is now being proclaimed by Krishnamurti today to the whole
world.
Are these two
groups of solutions, one which proclaims the God without, and the other the God
within, contradictory one of the other? It would certainly appear so. If in
man, if in all men, the Perfect Godhead exists even now in His perfection, as
the Upanishads teach, what has an evolutionary process of births
and deaths to
do with the souls liberation ? What is the use of the gathering of experience,
the acquirement of virtues, the performing of duties and the aspiring after
ideals, if the goal of them all, which is to become one with God, Is already
accomplished ?
There is no
use whatsoever in the world process, asserts boldly the Sankhya philosophy; and
the same reply is given by the Advaita or Pure Vedanta. The wheel of births and
deaths, the climbing from imperfection to perfection, all these are purely
Maya, an illusion which envelops us. Let us but tear aside the
stifling folds
of the illusion which enwraps us, and we shall swiftly find ourselves once
again as our true self, the Atman, the Godhead who never descended from his
pure and perfect serenity and happiness into an imperfect evolutionary world.
The only God who exists is in man himself, say the
Upanishads ;
and they go so far as to assert that the Divine Nature is all things, not
merely in all things. God is not in the stone as a Divine Immanence, but is the
stone itself - this is the esoteric teaching of Hinduism.
In the light
of these teachings, which proclaim everything a Mâyâ, except the eternal and
unchanging Spirit, there is no practical value to the soul in the process of
evolution. Why the soul ever allows himself to be entangled in it is a mystery
which is not explained ; what forces all souls to put on the mantle of
matter is a
problem to which no solution is offered in the Vedanta. It is quite clear, when
one arrives at the logical conclusion from the premisses of esoteric Hinduism,
that there is no such thing as evolution or progress, so far at least as the
soul is concerned. The soul is always Atman, and needs only to step
outside the
illusion which hypnotises it to believe that it is not Atman at all. Ever the
serene spirit, pure Sat, Chit and Ananda, it is the power of Mâyâ which deludes
the soul to regard itself as an evolving soul who is struggling to pay his
debts to Karma.
The insistence
by Krishnamurti that Liberation or Perfection is possible, even now, to every
individual, however ignorant or however primitive and simple-minded, almost
leads one to imagine that he too, like the Upanishads and the Vedanta, ignores
the bonds of helpfulness and compassion which in the minds of the humanitarian
bind all men in a common destiny. In the doctrine of the pure Vedanta, man's
sole duty is to himself ; he has but one work, which is to tear the veil of
illusion. Such ideals as Brotherhood and Social Service are mere sentiment,
compared to the supreme task before each soul of Liberation.
It is true
that charity is enjoined on all, but such teachings are a compromise offered to
our limited human nature. Men suffer - and so need charity - only because they
insist on being bound on the wheel of birth and death; to shod tears over a
soul who prefers to remain bound is sheer sentimentality. What he
needs is not
sympathy but to be led towards illumination so that he discovers that he is not
bound.
Similarly in
Buddhism, where the sole task is to escape from the "wheel", the
doctrine of compassion seems illogical. It is Avidya or ignorance which drives
a soul to drink deep at the well of sensation; and though intense compassion is
inculcated as a virtue, no clue is given how compassion can help in the
acquisition of
wisdom. In the list of virtues, with which the Buddha is described in one of
the most famous of Buddhist verses, compassion is not mentioned. He is called
"that Blessed One, Exalted, Omniscient, Endowed with knowledge and virtue,
Auspicious, Knower of worlds, a Guide incomparable for the training of
individuals, Teacher of Gods and humans, Enlightened and Holy".
But not a word
about Him as full of pity for all mankind. Yet Buddhist tradition asserts that
so great was His compassion even as long ago as in the dispensation of the
Buddha Dipankara - the fourth in the list of twenty-eight Buddhas which closes
with the Buddha Gautama - that He determined to tread the long and
painful road
to Buddhahood in order to lead men to Liberation. Buddhism however does insist
that compassion is necessary, as in some way stilling the craving to live,
which is at the root of misery. But both in the Vedanta and in Buddhism, the
emphasis laid upon understanding, contemplation and withdrawal as requisite for
Liberation has led to an overemphasis upon individual salvation, to such an
extent indeed as to lead sometimes to an ignoring of the collective betterment
of mankind.
Krishnamurti's
teachings, at first sight, would also appear to ignore collective salvation,
because he is so insistent upon what be terms the "direct path". He
insists that there is no need for any organisation of spiritual effort into
such gradations as of teacher and pupil - the one to instruct, the other to
learn,
the science
which teaches where is the "Way". Since within each man resides the
power to see "the Goal", no external aid is necessary, if only the
seeker will believe that he can come to the Goal unaided. Above all, his
insistent declaration that "the individual problem is the world
problem" is being construed as a warning to desist from activities which
hide their meddlesome and wasteful nature under the guise of philanthropy and
service. But though Krishnamurti calls upon us to go the direct road, and to
seek no other God but the God within, it is very clear that the thought of the
Liberation of the soul is not dissociated in his mind from that of the service
of all men. While in one sentence he sternly challenges: "What have you,
with your phrases, with your labels, with your books, achieved ?", in the
sentences immediately following, he tells us what we should have done.
"How
many people have you made happy, not in the passing things, but in the ways of
the Eternal ?" " Have you given the Happiness that lasts, the
Happiness that is never failing,
the
Happiness that cannot he dimmed by a passing cloud ?"
" In
what way have you created a protecting wall, so that people shall not slip into
pitfalls ?"
" How
far have you built a railing along that deep river into which every human being
is liable to fall ?"
" How
far have you helped these people who want to climb ?"
" How
far has it been your ambition to lead someone to that Kingdom of Happiness,
that garden where there is unchanging light, unchanging beauty ?"
" But,
if you are all these things, have you saved one from sorrow ?"
"Have
any of you given me happiness - ' me' the ordinary person ?"
"Have any
of you given me the nourishment of heaven when I was hungry ?"
"Have
any of you felt so deeply that you could throw yourself into the place of the
person who is suffering ?"
"What
have you produced, what have you brought forth ?"
"In
what manner have you brought forth that precious jewel, so that it shall shine
and guide the whole world ? "
These words of
Krishnamurti show that his gospel is not a gospel of isolation. While he
challenges us as to our ways of service, he insists that he who is truly intent
on Liberation is equally bent on service. He tells us that when we shall enter
the Kingdom of Happiness that then "you will lose the identity of your
separate self; and there you will create new worlds, new kingdoms, new
abodes for
others". Again he insists,
And because
I really love,
I want you
to love ;
Because I
really feel,
I want you
to feel;
Because I
hold every thing dear,
I want you
to hold all things dear;
Because I
want to protect,
You should
protect.
And this is
the only life worth living,
And the
only happiness worth possessing.
When, in
another address, he asks us to "open the gate of your hearts that you may
enter into Liberation", he makes clear that the individual who liberates
himself can have but one motive, which is to "become in yourselves the
true of mankind, so that you will go out and show to the people that are in
sorrow and pain that their salvation, their happiness, their Liberation, lies
within
themselves".
It is this
inseparableness of Liberation and Service which has ever been the theme of
Theosophy as a code of ethics. Modern Theosophy has used less the word
"Liberation" and more the word "Perfection", but the
thought is the same.
The value of
the study of Theosophy lies in that each student can construct for himself a
frame work of the world's events of the past, the present and the future, into
which he can set in an appropriate setting whatsoever he examines of events in
the domains of religion and science, philosophy and art,
philanthropy
and world development. Thus it is that, with the aid of Theosophy, we can
synthesise truth after truth out of the contradictions between those religions
and cults which proclaim the God without, and the philosophies and sciences
which proclaim the God within. And the way of that synthesis is as
follows.
The first
great truth which must never for one instant be obscured or forgotten is that
the Divine Nature resides in man. Call that Divine Nature by any name we will -
God, Atman, the Christ, Sammâsambodhi, the Perfect Wisdom - its totality
resides in man. In the wickedest sinner that Godhead resides in the inmost
heart of his being, with as perfect a fulness of the Godhead as in the heart of
the greatest of saints. Brahmana and Pariah are equally divine; and the
Brahmana who spurns the Pariah but spurns the Godhead dwelling in his own self.
This is the supreme truth of Theosophy, which, as applied to daily conduct, is
the soul and essence of Brotherhood. To find the God within is the sole task of
life; for when that Godhead is found in stone and in plant, in sinner as in
saint, all life's processes are linked into one meaning, which ever guides to
happiness and peace.
But there is a
second truth which is less easy to understand ; it is, that the Divine Nature
is as if imprisoned in man, and not utterly free to manifest in freedom all its
perfections. That Divine Nature abides equally in the sinner as in the saint.
Yet there is a difference as the Divine Nature energises or operates in the
encasement which holds it. When the Hindu Sâdhu intent on God saw the British
soldier coming to bayonet him, and said, " Even thou art He !", he
truly saw the Divine Nature in all things, even in his assassin. But yet surely
there was a difference as that Divine Nature energised in the heart of the
Sâdhu and in the heart of the soldier ? We can, if we will, say with the
Upanishad,
"If slayer thinks he slays, if slain thinks he is slain, both these know
naught; THIS slays not, nor is slain"; but we are also forced by our moral
conscience to say that the Sadhu did good and the soldier did evil.
But since both
Sâdhu and soldier are, in their inmost natures, God, how can the one
indivisible Divine Nature be at one and the same time good and evil ? Unless we
adopt the solution of a Mâyâ, which makes the Divine Nature appear other than
it truly is, there is only one other line of solution, so far as I know. That
solution is what Theosophy offers - that the world process, even if it
enshrines a Mâyâ, is of use to the Divine Nature, in enabling it to release
Itself from Its imprisonment.
Strangely
enough, this conception, that the world process is a releasing of perfection
from an imprisonment, is suggested by modern Biology. As the Mendelian theory
of heredity came to the front, one of its leaders, Bateson, said at the meeting
of British Association in 1914 that Shakespeare lived in a pinhead of
protoplasm. All that we know as the genius of Shakespeare existed in the first
speck of protoplasm; but it existed there as if imprisoned. Now, without a
particular arrangement of Mendelian "factors" in the first cell which
was the embryo of Shakespeare, his creative ability could not manifest;
therefore rearrangement after rearrangement had taken place of the
"factors" in every one of the myriads of cells which were the
successive progenitors of that one zygote or embryo cell which finally became
Shakespeare.
An
evolutionary process stretching over millions of years was necessary for this
continuous rearrangement of " factors", which was needed to bring
about just that one grouping of factors which alone could produce Shakespeare.
Yet, all the time, in the first speck of protoplasm, which somehow arose by a
chance
juxtaposition
of certain colloidal substances, Shakespeare was sleeping, waiting to be
awakened. The God within, Shakespeare, was there in the protoplasm; but the God
without, that is, all Nature's processes which we term evolution, was also
necessary in order to make Shakespeare dynamic and creative.
It is this
conception which Theosophy gives - that there is a God without, a process of
evolution in a foreordained Divine Plan, calling to a God within, the Divine
Nature of the soul—which enables us to harmonise all the contradictory theories
of the religions among themselves, and of modern science which stands
opposed to all
religions. From the moment we accept that the Divine Nature in man, the God
within, is imprisoned at the beginning of time, our next problem is to
understand what is the process of his release. The answer can be summed up in
one word - Life. It is Life, in all its forms, in all its kingdoms visible and
invisible, Life manifesting from eternity to eternity; it is this Life which
ever strives to create, and to destroy in order to create again, that is the
instrument of release of the imprisoned Godhead.
The long
process of the release of Divinity by Life is the theme of all Theosophical
study. That study describes the details of the process, using special technical
terms - a "jargon" if you like - such as Life and Form, Karma,
Reincarnation, Root and Sub-races, Principles, Planes, Rays, Discipleship,
Initiation, Adeptship, and others. But all such terms are like the terms of any
other study like Chemistry or Botany. They serve to arrange into categories
those facts which must be examined in order to come to a broad grasp of the
subject.
True, Life's
activities can be watched with the eye of the poet or artist, and not with the
eye of the analytical observer like the Theosophist. Then no "jargon"
of technical terms is required; then it is that we have such a description of
Life as Krishnamurti gives in his poems.[The Search, pp. 9 -12. ]
I have been
a wanderer long
In this
world of transient things.
I have
known the passing pleasures thereof.
As the
rainbow is beautiful,
But soon
vanishes into nothingness,
So have I
known,
From the
very foundation of the world,
The passing
away of all things
Beautiful,
joyous and pleasurable.
In search
of the eternal
I lost myself
in the fleeting.
All things
have I tasted in search of Truth.
In bygone
ages
Have I
known the pleasures of the transient world -
The tender
mother with her children,
The
arrogant and the free,
The beggar
that wanders the face of the earth,
The
contentment of the wealthy,
The woman
of enticements,
The
beautiful and the ugly,
The man of
authority, the man of power,
The man of
consequence, the bestower and the guardian,
The
oppressed and the oppressor,
The
liberator and the tyrant,
The man of
great possessions,
The man of
renunciation, the sannyasi,
The man of
activity and the man of dreams.
The
arrogant priest in gorgeous robes and the humble worshipper,
The poet,
the artist and the creator.
At all the
altars of the world have I worshipped,
All
religions have known me,
Many
ceremonies have I performed,
In the pomp
of the world have I rejoiced,
In the
battles of defeat and victory have I fought,
The
despiser and the despised,
The man
acquainted with grief
And agonies
of many sorrows,
The man of
pleasure and abundance.
In the
secret recesses of my heart have I danced,
Many births
and deaths have I known,
In all
these fleeting realms have I wandered,
In passing
ecstasies, certain of their endurance,
And yet I never
found that eternal Kingdom of Happiness.
But why must
the soul thus wander from life to life, urged on by the God-given instinct for
Liberation, and yet miss time after time the entrance to the true path ? There
are indeed some philosophies, like that of Christianity, Zoroastrianism and
Muhammedanism, which insist that the soul does not so wander, and that within
the brief period of one life the ultimate goal of Liberation or Redemption can
be achieved. For this, an utter subservience to the will of God is necessary ;
a perfect life so subservient to God gains the recompense of an eternal heaven.
But such a solution, which denies to Life its repeated
transformations
by Reincarnation, brings in its train a host of problems which are difficult of
solution. The doctrine of a perfection which must be achieved in one life-time
promptly raises question after question, such as, why God permits evil to
exist, why if He is good some souls must be condemned to
perdition, why
if He is omnipotent He does not arrange for all to be born in an environment
favourable to the building of their character towards perfection.
I cannot
myself think of any scheme of things which is just - and here I can speak for
all Theosophists - unless Reincarnation is a part of that scheme. It is far
easier for me to believe that God's love and compassion are real, just because
Reincarnation is a fact, than to believe that there is no Reincarnation, and
yet that God expects all in one life-time to understand His will and to
co-operate
with it.
I said a while
ago, Why must the soul wander from life to life, missing the entrance to the
true path ? But in reality that question of mine is not based on fact. For, the
moment we realise that Life is a dual process, that of the God without knocking
at the door of the God within, then every experience is an
entrance on
the path. It is this which Theosophy makes clear.
The intricate
scheme describing the soul's evolution and unfoldment which is found in
theosophical text-books can easily be swept aside by saying that in order to be
good and noble, it is not necessary to have experience after experience. For
goodness is innate in man, because the God within resides in man. Whence then
the need to struggle in order to be good, when goodness is of the very nature
of the soul ?
Here each of
us must determine what line of thought he will follow; no one, least of all a
Theosophist, desires to impose a particular creed as the one and only solution.
I can only say, speaking for most Theosophists, that every scrap of reason
disappears from the universe if evolution is considered unnecessary.
On the other
hand, a most inspiring sweet reasonableness is clearly seen in the world
process, when we admit that evolution by experience is the way to Liberation.
William James once defined experience as "becoming expert by
experiment". If we accept Life as the laboratory for the soul's
experiments in
order to be
liberated, then, the environment which surrounds the soul in its many
migrations begins to have a meaning.
Like as the
dull uncut diamond dug from the bowels of the earth, so is the God within
before experience moulds him; but like as the cut diamond flashing all the
colours of the rainbow, so is the God within when he has undergone experience
after experience which the God without sends him. This is Life, deep calling
unto deep. Within our inmost nature is "the Way, the Truth and the
Life"; within ourselves are all the Kingdoms - the Kingdom of Happiness of
Krishnamurti, the Kingdom of Heaven of the Christ, and the Kingdom of the Law
of the Buddha. But it is only when a Buddha, or a Christ, or a Krishnamurti
reveals the Kingdom in which Hewells, that then we are aware that we too are
God, and that every possible Kingdom dwells within us also.
Deep calling
unto deep, Godhead calling to Godhead, this is the solution of the mystery of
misery dogging at the heels of joy, of death ever the shadow of life. But life
and death, joy and misery, the friend and the enemy, are not contrasted
opposites; they are the one and the same Godhead, both equally divine when we
understand.
So experience,
coming with the message of the God without, knocks at the doors of the soul,
the God within. When the soul's dwelling place is the savage, then experience
brings hatreds and battles, in order to call out from the God within his hidden
attributes of courage and decision. When the soul passes to dwell as the
civilised man, then experience knocks to release the virtues of industry and
efficiency, of learning and judgment, of comradeship and self-sacrifice. As
child, as youth, as maid, as man, as woman, as husband and father, as wife and
mother, at each stage some hidden capacity within the soul is released, at the
bidding of the environment and of the experiences which it brings. So, in the
long pilgrimage of the soul to discover himself as the God, each, religion
comes to him in turn to teach one word of the Mantram with which the God
without created the world. Science reveals the framework of that creation, Art
the joy which it conceals, and Philosophy the inspiration which it brings.
No fact in
life, no event anywhere in the world but has a meaning for the soul; that
meaning is that the God without ever calls to the God within to be one.This is the
lesson which we all have to learn. And it is difficult, because the trend of
our thinking and feeling is to make a duality of what we are, contrasted with
what we are not. It is far easier to divide the world into what
" I
like" and what "I do not like" than to be beyond both like and
dislike, and to contemplate the world as it is, irrespective of its relation to
oneself. It is far easier to divide life into good and evil than to see life
just as it is, and place no labels whatsoever on it. It is only as we
"cast out the self " and see things "as they are", and so
pass on to see "the things-in-themselves", the
Archetypes of
Plato, that for the first time we gain a glimpse of our true self.
It is such a
glimpse of the truth that reveals to man that the suffering which crushes him
is only himself at work, purifying himself. The moment we enter a world of
duality and say, when we suffer, that it is God who sends us suffering,
suffering does not end. For then suffering, as it discharges its force, creates
new force to
issue later in new suffering. But when we refuse to accept any duality, and say
either, "It is Life releasing Life", - or "It is I the God
without releasing myself the God within", then for the first time peace
enters the heart.
It is then that
we shall know that Liberation is not an event at the end of time, but a
continuous happening which steadily brings nearer and nearer the God without to
the God within. When once these two poles of Being commence to approach each
other, Liberation has begun. Thenceforth 'the time factor is
within the
soul, and is the soul's agent, not the soul's master.
Less important
is when the soul shall achieve Mukti or Nirvana, and more important the fact
that the soul shall know, and never cease from rejoicing, that the twain are
becoming one. This is the most direct of all paths, and none can prevent the
swiftness of the union except the soul himself.
This truth is
our Ariadne's thread in the maze of life. And we shall learn this truth in
myriads of ways, according as we have eyes to see, and ears to hear. Thus
speaks Light on the Path.
Inquire of the
earth, the air and the water, of the secrets they hold for you. Inquire of the
Holy Ones of the earth of the secrets they hold for you.Inquire of the inmost,
the One, of its final secret, which it holds for you through the ages.
And as we
attempt to understand the meaning of it all, none can help us or guide. When
Krishnamurti says that no Guru or teacher is needed for the soul who is intent
on Liberation, he is only uttering once again what other teachers have said
before him. "THAT art thou" is the axiom of esoteric Hinduism, and
the Upanishads which proclaim this teaching have not insisted on any need of a
Guru in order to achieve the Unity. You know the immemorial tradition in India
- first the student, then the householder, then the hermit, lastly the
sannyasi, the " renouncer" of ceremonies and creeds, who goes out
alone into the world, without a Guru, to find the Unity directly for himself.
So too, during
the forty-five years of service rendered by the Lord Buddha, never once did He
put Himself as a Guru whose aid was necessary in order to enter on the Path.
His
last charge to
His Sangha or Order was to emphasise the "individual uniqueness" of
each who treads the Way. As He lay dying, He said: " It may be, Ananda,
that some of you will think. 'The word of the Teacher is a thing of the past;
we have
now no
Teacher.' But that, Ananda, is not the correct view. The Doctrine and
Discipline, Ananda, which I have taught and enjoined upon you is to be your
teacher when I am gone."And His last words were", And now, O monks, I
take my leave of you ; all the constituents of being are transitory; work out
your
salvation with
diligence".
It is never
the Guru who says "Guru is Brahma, Guru is Vishnu, Guru is
Maheshvara"; that is the phrase invented by the Sishya or pupil. No Guru
has claimed to be what the pupil in his gratitude asserts of his teacher.
tvam eva
mata ca pita tvam eva,
tvam eva
bandhuscha sakha tvam eva;
tvam eva
vidya dravinam tvam eva,
tvam eva
sarvam mama deva deva.
Thou art
verily my mother, Thou art the father indeed, my friend also art Thou, and
companion as well. Thou indeed art my learning and possessions, Thou art my all
in all, O God of Gods.
But all this
is what the disciple says as to the Guru, but not what the Guru says concerning
himself. What, then, does the Guru say ? We have that in what the Guru of H. P.
Blavatsky, H. S. Olcott and Annie Besant once said concerning Himself, and
these are His words: "I am as I was, and as I was and am, so am I likely
always to be - the slave of my duty to the Lodge and mankind; not only taught,
but desirous to subordinate every preference for individuals to a love for the
human race"' That even a Guru himself, even when liberated, is still
striving for a yet larger love for the human race is shown in the words of the
same Master: "The mark of the adept is kept at [Shamballa] not at Simla,
and I try to keep up to it." It is His brother, the Master K.H., who has
described Him as a man as stern for himself, as severe for his shortcomings, as
he is indulgent for the defects of other people, not in words but in the
innermost
feelings of
his heart".
And I desire
here to give my testimony that the Master whom I have followed this life for
the last forty-one years has never been to me a "crutch" on which I
could lean in any one of my weaknesses. Never once has he made my path easier
for me, nor helped me to climb over stiles and obstacles; never once has he
prevented me from committing mistakes due to my stupidity or selfishness.
But he has
ever been to me what a lighthouse is to a ship in a stormy sea - a flashing
blinding beam cleaving the dark of the storm clouds to show that the harbour is
not far away, and so not to despair but to take courage. If I offer Him all my
love and service, it is because He is the living symbol of what I hope to
become someday ; if I bend the knee before Him in gratitude and utmost
reverence, it is because He is to me the glorious promise that I too shall some
day love all mankind with the wondrous intensity of love with which He loves
all men to-day.
He is the God
without rousing the God within me to be aware of my destiny, which is to strive
through the ages to establish a Kingdom of Joy for all men. I close this
dissertation on the theme of the God without and the God within by reading to
you two extracts from the Upanishads, one describing the God without, and the
other the God within.
THE GOD
WITHOUT
[Shvetâshvatara
Upanishad.(Mead's translation). ]
This God, in
sooth, in all the quarters is long, long ago, indeed, he had his birth, he
verily is now within the germ. He has been born, he will be born; behind all
who have birth he stands, with face on every side.
He hath eyes
on all sides, on all sides surely hath faces, arms surely on all sides, on all
sides feet. With arms, with wings, he tricks them out, creating heaven and
earth, the only God.
Whose faces,
heads and necks, are those of all, who lieth in the secret place of every soul,
spread o'er the universe is He, the Lord. Therefore as all-pervader, He's
benign.
Blue fly,
green bird, and red-eyed beast, the cloud that bears the lightning in its womb,
the seasons, and the seas, art thou. In omnipresent power thou hast thy home,
whence all the worlds are born.
Eternal of
eternals, the consciousness which every being's consciousness contains, who,
one, of many the desires dispenses - knowing that cause, the God to be
approached by sacred science and holy art, the mortal from all bonds is free.
I know this
mighty Man, sun-like, beyond the darkness; Him and Him only knowing, one
crosseth over death ; no other path at all is to go.
THE GOD WITHIN
[Kenn, Taittiriya,
Mundaka and Mândűkya Upanishads]
What no word
can reveal, what revealeth the word, that know as Brahman indeed, not this
which I they worship below.
What none
thinks with the mind, but what thinks-out the mind, that know thou as Brahman
indeed, not this which thy worship below. What none sees with the eye, whereby
seeing is seen, that know thou as Brahman indeed, not this which they worship
below
Who knows this
thus, indeed, destroying sin, in endless highest heaven-world he stands
immovable, immovable he stands.
From whom the
whole world comes, to whom indeed it goes again, by whom this is supported
surely too -to Him, the Self that knows, all honour be !
Truth,
wisdom, endless, Brahm,
Source of
all bliss, immortal, shining forth,
Peaceful,
benign, and secondless !
Om ! Peace,
Peace, Peace! Om !
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