fv,/ ADDRESS ON Vedanta Philosophy BY SWAMI VIVEKANANDA “The Ideal of a Universal Religion” DELIVERED AT HARDMAN HALL NEW YORK SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 1896 . 3 ^ address ON Vedanta Philosophy BY SWAMl VIVEKANANDA % “The Ideal of a Universal Religion” DELIVERED AT HARDMAN HALL NEW YORK SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 1896 Hartrs & Wright, Printers and Stationers, 532 Sixth Avenie. THE IDEAL OF A UNIVERSAL RELIGION. HOW IT MUST EMBRACE DIFEERENT TYPES OF MINDS AND METHODS. W HERESOVER our sen.ses reach, or our iniiids can iniagine, we find action and reaction of the two forces, one counter- acting the other, causing the constant play of these two, the mixed phenomena that we see around us or feel in our mind. In the external world, it is expressing itself in physical matter, as attraction and repulsion, centripetal and centrifugal. In the internal world, it explains the various mixed feelings of our nature, the opposites, love and haired, good and evil. We repel some things, we attract some things. We are attracted by someone, w'e are repelled by someone. Many times in our lives we find without any reason whatsoever we, as it were, are attracted toward certain persons; at other times, similarly, mysteriously, we are repelled bj' others. This is patent to all, and the higher the field of action, the more potent, the more remarkable, are the actions of these forces. Religion is the highest plane of human thought, and herein we find that the actions of these two forces have been most marked. The intensest love that humanit}’ has ever known has come from religion, and the most diabolical hatred that humanity has known has come from religion. The noblest words of peace that the world has ever heard have come from men on this plane, and the bitterest denunciation that the world has ever known has sprung from religious men. The higher the object, the 4 finer the organization, the more remarkable are its actions. So we find that in religion these two forces are very remarkable in their actions. No other human intere.st has deluged the world so much in blood, as religion ; at the same time nothing has built so manj* hospitals and asylums for the poor; no other human influence has taken such care, not onh- of humanity, but of the lowest animals, as religion. Nothing makes us so cruel as religion, nothing makes us so tender as religion. This has been in the past, and will be in the future. Yet from the midst of this din and turmoil, and strife, and struggling, the hatred and jealousy of religions and sects, from time to time, arise potent voices, ciying above all this noise, mak- ing themselves heard from pole to pole, as it were, for peace, for harmony. Will it ever come ? Our subject for discussion is, is it possible that there ever should come harmonj- in this tremendous plane of struggle ? The world is agitated in the latter part of this century by questions of har- mony; in society, various plans are being proposed, various attempts are made to carrj- them into practice, but we know how diSi- cult that is. People find it is almost impossible to mitigate the furj- of the struggle of life, to tone down the tremendous ner\-ous tension that is in man. Now, if it is so difficult to bring harmony and peace and love in this little bit of our life which deals with the physical plane of man, the external, gross, outward side, a thous- and times more difficult is it, to bring peace and harmony in that internal nature of man. I would ask you for the time being to come out of the network of words ; we are hearing from cliildhood such words as love and peace and brotherhood, and equality, and uni- versal brotherhood. But they have become words without meaning, which we repeat like parrots, and it is natural for us to do so. We cannot help it. Great gigantic souls, who felt in their hearts these great ideas, fir.st manufactured these words, and at that time 5 many understood their meaning. Later, ignorant people take the words and plaj- upon them, and religion becomes a play in their hands, mere frothy words, not to be carried into practice. It Ije- comes ‘ my father’s religion,” “our nation s religion,” ‘‘your coun- try’s religion,” and so forth. It becomes only a phase of patriot- ism. To bring harmony in religion, therefore, must be most diffi- cult. Yet we will try to study this phenomenon. We see that in every religion there are three parts — I mean in every great and recognized religion. First there is the philosophy, the doctrines, the ideals of that religion, which embodies the goal, embodies, as it were, the whole scope of that religion, lays before its votaries and followers, the principle of that religion, the way to reach the goal ; next that philosophy is embodied in mythology. So the second part is mythology. This mythology’ comes in the form of lives of men, or of supernatural beings, and so forth. It is the same thing as philosophy made a little more con- crete, the abstractions of philosophy become concretized in the lives of men and supernatural beings. The last portion is the ritual. This is still more concrete, forms and ceremonies, various physical attitudes, flowers and incense, and everj-thing that appeals to the senses. In this consists the ritual. You will find that everywhere, recognized religions have all these three. Some lay more stress on one side, some on the other. We will take the first part, philos- ophy. Is there any universal philosophy for the world ? Not yet. Each religion brings out its own doctrines, and insists upon them as being the only real ones. And not onlj- does it do that, but it thinks that the man who does not believe them, must go to some horrible place. Some of them will not stop there ; they will draw the sword to compel others to believe as they do. This is not through wickedness, but through a particular disease of the human brain called fanaticism. They are very sincere, these fanatics. 6 the most sincere of human beings, but they are not more respon- sible than any other lunatics in the world. This disease of fanaticism is one of the most dangerous of all diseases. All the wickedness of human nature is aroused bj- it. Anger is stirred up, nerves are strung high, and human beings become like tigers. Is there any similarit}-, is there any hannon}-, any universal mythology ? Certainly not. Each religion has its own mydholog}’, with only this difference, that each one says ^'My stories are not mythologies.” For instance take the question home. I simply mean to illustrate it; I do not mean any criticism of any religion. The Christian believes that God took the shape of a dove, and came down, and they think this is history, and not mydholog}'. But the Hindu believes that God is manifested in the cow. Christians say that is mythology, and not hLstory; superstition. The Jews think that if an image be made in the form of a box, or a chest, with an angel on either side, then it is to be placed in the Holy’ of Holies; it is sacred to Jehovah; but if the image be made in the form of a beautiful man or woman, they say ‘‘This horrible idol; break it down!” This isourunityin myth- ology! If a man stands up and say’s ‘‘My’ prophet did such and such a wonderful thing, ’ ’ others say that is superstition; but their prophet did a still more wonderful thing; they’ say that this is historical. Nobody in the world as far as I have seen, is able to find out the fine distinction between history’ and mythology in the brains of these gentlemen. All these stories are mythologieal, mixed up with a little history. Next come the rituals. One sect has one particular form of ritual, and thinks that is the holy form, and that the rituals of another sect are simply’ arrant superstition. If one sect wor.ships a peculiar sort of symbol, another sect says “Oh, it’s horrible.” Take for instance the most general form of symbol. The Phallas svinbol is certainly a sexual syml)ol, hut j'raclually that part of it was forjjotten , aud it stands as a symbol of the Creator. Those nations which have this as tlieir symlxjl never think of it as the I’hallas; it is just a .synil)ol, and there it ends. But a man from another race sees in it nothing but the Phallas, and begins to condemn it. vet at the same time may be doing something that to the I’liallic worshipper appears mo.st horrible. I will take two points, the Phallas symbol and the sacrament of the Christians. To the Christians the Phallas is horrible, and to the Hindus the Christian sacrament is horrible. They say that the Christian sacrament, the killing of a man and eating his flesh and blood to get the good qualities of that man, is cannibalism. This is what some of the savage tribes do; if a man is brave they kill him and eat his heart, because they think it will give them the qualities of bravery pos- sessed by that man Even such a devout Christian as Sir John Lubbock admits this, and says the origin of this symbol is in this savage idea. The Christians generally do not admit this idea of its origin; and what it ma}- imply never comes to their mind. It stands for a holy thing, and that is all they want to know. So even in rituals there is no universal symbol, which can lead to general recognition. Where then is this universalit}- ? How is it po.ssible then to have a universal form of religion ? That already exists. We all hear about universal brotherhood, and how societies stand up and want to preach this. I remember an old story. In India, wine drinking is considered very horrible. There were two brothers who wanted to drink some wine, secretly, in the night, and their uncle, who was a very strongly old-fashioned man. was sleeping in a room quite near where they were going to have their drinking. So before thej- began to drink, each one said to the other, ‘-Silence ! uncle will wake up. ’ As they went on drinking. they began to shout to each other, “Silence ! uncle will wake up.’’ So, as the shouting increased, uncle woke up, and he came into the room, and found out the whole thing. Universal brotherhood. “ we are all equal, therefore make a sect.’’ As soon as you make a sect you protest against equality, and thus it is no more. INIoham- medans say universal brotherhood, but what comes in reality? Nobody who is not a Mohammedan will be admitted ; he will have his throat cut. The Christians say universal brotherhood ; but anyone who is not a Christian must go to that place and be eter- nally barbecued. So we are being carried on in this world after universal brother- hood and equality, universal equality of property', aiid thought, and everything. And I would simply ask j'ou to look askance, and be a little reticent, and take a little care of yourselves when you hear such talk in this world ; behind it man^' times comes intensest selfishness. “ In the winter sometimes a cloud comes ; it roars and roars, but it does not rain ; but in the rainy season the clouds speak not, but deluge the world with water. ’ ’ So those who are really workers, and really feel the universal brotherhood of man, do not talk much, do not make little sects for universal brotherhood, but their acts, their whole body, their posture, their movements, their walk, eating, drinking, their whole life, show that brotherhood for mankhid, that love and sympathy for all. They do not speak, they do. This world is getting full of blu.steriug talk. We want a little more work, and less talk. So far we see that it is hard to find any universal ideas in this, and yet we know the}' exist. We are all human beings, but are we all equal? Certainly not. Who says we are ecjual ? Only the man who is a lunatic ; he alone can say we are all equal. Are we all equal in our brains, in our powers, in our bodies ? One man is stronger than another, one man has more brain power than another. If we are all 9 equal, wli}' is this iiicajualily? W’ho made it? //V. Hecause we have more or less i>ovvers, more brain, more jdiysical streiij'th ; it must make a dilFerence. Yet we know that the doctrine ajjpeals to us. Take another case. We are all human beinj's here, but there are some men, and some women. Here is a black man, there a white man, but all are men, all humanity. Various faces ; I see no two faces here the same, yet we are all human beings. Where is this humanity ? I cannot find it. When I trj- to analyze it, I do not find where it is. Either I find a man or a woman ; either dark or fair ; and among all these faces, that abstract humanity which is the common thing, I do not find when I trt- to grasp, to sense, and actualize it, and think of it. It is beyond the senses ; it is beyond thought, beyond the mind. Yet I know, and am certain it is there. If I am certain of anything here, it is this humaniU- which is a common quality among all. And yet I cannot find it. This hu- manity is what you call God. “ In Him we live and move and have our being.” In Him and through Him we have our being. It is through this I see you as a man or a woman, yet, when I waiit to catch or formulate it, it is nowhere, because it is beyond the .senses, and yet we know that in it, and through it, everything ex- ists. So with this universal one-ness and sympathy, this universal religion which runs through all these various religions as God ; it must and does exist through eternity. “ I am the thread that runs through all these pearls.” and each pearl is one of these sects. They are all the different pearls, but the Lord is the thread that runs through all of them, only the majority of mankind are entirely unconscious of it ; yet they are working in it, and through it ; not a moment can they stand outside it, because all work is only pos- sible through and in it ; yet we cannot formulate it, it is God Him- self. 16 Unity in variety is the plan of the universe. Just as we are all men, yet we are all separate. As humanity I am one with you. and as Mr. So-and-so I am different from you. As a man you are >sep- arate from the woman; as a human being you are one with the woman. As a man you are separate from the animal, but as a liv- ing being, the man, the woman, the animal, the plant, are all one, and as existence, you are one with the whole universe. That exist- ence is God, the ultimate Unity in this universe. In Him we are all one. At the same time, in manifestation, these differences must always remain. In our work, in our energies that are being mani- fested outside, these differences must remain always. We find then that if by the idea of a universal religion is meant one set of doctrines should be believed by all mankind, it is impossible, it can never be, any more than there will be a time when all faces will be the same. Again if we expect that there will be one universal my. thology, that is also impossible, it cannot be. Neither can there be one universal ritual. This cannot be. When that time will come, this world will be destroyed, because variety is the first principle of life. What makes us formed beings? Differentiation. Perfect balance will be destruction. Suppose the amount of heat in this room, whose tendency is perfect diffusion, gets that diffusion, that heat will cease to be. What makes motion in this universe? Lost balance. That is all. That sort of unity can only come when this universe will be destroyed, but in the world such a thing is impo.s- sible. Not only so, it is dangerous. We must not seek that all of us should think alike. There would then be no thought to think. We would be all alike, like I-Cgyptian mummies in a museum, look- ing at each other without thought to think. It is this difference of thought, this differentiation, losing of the balance of thought, which is the very .soul of our progre.ss, the soul of thought. This must always be. What then do I mean hy the itleal of a universal relijfion ? I do not mean a universal i)hilosoj)hy, or a universiil mylholofjy, or a universal ritual, but I mean that this world must jjo on wheel with- in wheel, this intricate mass of jnachinery, most intricate, most wonderful. What can we do? We can make it run .smoothly, we can les.sen the friction, we can grease the wheels, as it were. Ily what ? By recognizing variation. J u.st as we have recognized unity, by our very nature, so we must also recognize variation. W’e must learn that truth may be expressed in a hundred thousand ways, and each one vet be true. We must learn that the same thing can be viewed from a hundred different standpoints, and yet be the same thing. Take for instance the sun. Suppose a man standing on the earth looks at the .sun when it rises in the morning; he sees a big ball. Suppase he starts toward the .sun and takes a camera with him, taking photographs at every stage of his journey, at every thousand miles he takes a fresh photograph, until he reaches the sun. ,\t each .stage, each photograph was different from the other photographs: in fact when he gets back, he brings with him .so many thou.sands of photographs of so many different .suns, as it were, and yet we know it was the same sun photographed bj' the man at every stage of his progress. Even so with the Lord. Greater or less, tlirough high philosophy or low, through the highest or lowest doctrines, through the most refined mythology or the most gross, through the most refined ritualism or the grossest, everj- sect, ever5' soul, every nation, every religion, conscipusl}' or unconsciously, is struggling upward, Godward, and each vision is that of Him and of none else. Suppose we each one of us go with a particular pot in our hand to fetch water from a lake. Suppose one has a cup, another a jar. another a bigger jar, and so forth, and we all fill them. When we take them up, the water in each case has got into the fonn of the vessel. He who brought the cup. has water in the 12 form of a cup, he who brought the jar, his water is in the shape of ajar, and so forth; but, in every case, water, and nothing but water is in the vessel. So, in the case of religion, our minds are like these little pots, and each one of us is seeing God. God is like that water filling these different vessels, and in each vessel, the vis- ion of God conies in the form of the vessel. Yet He is One. He is God in every case. This is the recognition that we can get. So far it is all right theoretically, l)ut is there any way of prac- tically working it out? We find that this recognition that all the.se various views are true, has been very, very old. Hundreds of attempts have been made in India, in Alexandria, in Europe, in China, in Japan, in Thibet, latest in America, in various countries attempts have been made to formulate a harmonious religious creed to make all come together in love, instead of fighting. And yet the}' have all failed. Because there was no practical plan. They admitted that all these religions were right, but they had no practical way of bringing them together, and yet keeping that individuality. That ])lan alone will be practical, which does not destroy the individuality of any man in religion, and at the same time shows him a point of union. But so far, all these plans that have been tried, while proposing to take in all these various views, have in practice, tried to bring them down to a few doctrines, and so' have produced merely a fre.sli sect, fighting, struggling and pushing. I have also my little plan. 1 do not know whether it will work or not and I want to present it to you for di.scussion. What is my plan? In the fir.st place I would ask mankind to recognize this ma.xini — ‘‘ Do not destroy. ’’ Iconoclastic reformers do no good to the world. Break not anything down, but build. Help, if you can, if you cannot fold your hands and stand bj'. and see things go on. Do not injure, if you cannot helj). Therefore destroy not, sa}' not 13 a word against any man’s convictions so far as they are sincere- Secondly, take man where he stands, and from thence give him a lift. If the theorj’ be right, that God is the centre, and each one of us individuals is moving along one of the lines of the radii, it is then perfectly true that each one of us musl come to the centre, and at the centre, where all these radii meet, all differences will cease, but until we have come there, differences mu.st be. .-Xnd yet all these radii converge to the same centre. One of us is by nature travelling in one of these lines, and another in another, ami ■SO we only want a pn.sh along the line we are in, and we will come to the centre, because “all roads lead to Rome. ” Therefore, de- stroy not. Kach one of us is naturally developing according to our own nature; each nature will come to the highest truth, and men must teach themselves. What can you and I do? Do you think you can teach even a child ? You cannot. A child teaches himself. Your duty is to remove the obstacles?. plant grows. Do you make the plant grow? Yonr duty is to put a hedge round, and see that no animal eats up the plant, and there it ends. The jilant must grow it.self. So in the spiritual growth of every man. None can teach you ; none can make you spiritual ; you have to teach j-ourselves ; the growth mu.st come from inside, out. What can an external teacher do? lie can remove the obstructions a little, and there his duty ends. Therefore help, if you can, but do not destroy. Give up all such ideas that you can make men spiritual. It is impossible. There is no other teacher but your own soul. Admit this. What conies? In society we see so many various natures of mankind. There are thousands and thousands of varieties of minds and inclinations. A practical generalization will be impossible, but for my purpose I have .sufficiently characterized them into four. First the active workingman; he wants work; tremendous energ\- in his muscles 14 and his nerves. He likes to work, build hospitals, do charitable works, make streets, and do all sorts of work, planning, organiz- ing; an active man. There is then the emotional man, who loves the sublime and the beautiful to an excessive degree. He wants to think of the beautiful, the mild part of nature. Love, and the God of love, and all these things he likes. He loves with his whole heart those great souls of ancient times, the prophets of religions, the incarnations of God on earth; he does not care whether rea.son can prove that Christ existed, or Buddha existed; he does not care for the exact date when the Sermon on the Mount was preached, or the exact moment of Christ’s birth; what he cares for is His per- sonality, the figure before him. He does not even care whether it can be proved that such-and-such men existed or not. Such is his ideal. Such a nature as I have pictured, is the lover; he is the emotional man. Then again there is the mystic man, whose mind wants to analyze its own self, undenstand the workings of the human mind, the psycholog}’, what are the forces that are working inside, how to manipulate and know and get control over them. This is the mystical mind. There is then the philosopher, who wants to weigh everything, and use his intellect even beyond the philosophy. Now a religion to satisfy the largest portion of mankind, must be able to supply food for all the.se various minds, and this is want- ing, the existing sects are all one-sided. You go to one .sect. Suppose they preach love and emotion. They begin to sing and weep, and they preach love and all sorts of good things in life, but as soon as you say “My friend, that is all right, but 1 want some- thing .stronger than that; give me an ounce of reason, a little phil- osophy; I want to handle things more gradually.’’ “Get out,’’ they say, and they not only .say get out, but want to send you to the other ]>lace, if they can. The result is. that .sect can only help people of an emotional iiiiiul, and none else; others, they not only do not help, but try to destroy, and the most wicked part of the whole thinj? is, that they will not only not help others, but do not believe that they are sincere, and the sooner they get out the better. There is the failing of the whole thing. Sui>po.se you are in a sect of philosophers, talking of the mystic wisdom of India and the Kast, and all these big jxsychological terms fd'ty syllables long, and suppose a man like me, a common everj'-day m.an, goes there and says “Can you tell me anything to make me spiritual ? ” The first thing they do is to smile and Siiy “Oh you are too far below us in reason, to exist ! What do you know of spirituality ? ” They are high up philosophers. They show you the door. Then there are the mystical sects, who are talking all sorts of things about different planes of existence, different states of mind, and what the power of the mind can do, and if you are an ordinary man and say “Show me anything good that I can do; I am not given much to that sort of speculation; can you give me anj-thing that fits me?’’ The}’ will smile, and say “Look at that fool: he is nobody; the only thing we advise you to do is to commit suicide; your existence is for nothing.” And this is going on in the world. 1 would like to get extreme exponents of all these different sects, and shut them up in a room, and photograph that beautiful derisive smile of theirs. This is the existing human nature, the existing condition of things. What I want to propose, is a religion that will be equally acceptable to all minds, it must be equally philosophic, equally emotional, equally mystic, and equally active. If }*our professors from the colleges come, your scientific men and physicists, they will want reason. Let them have it as much as they want: There will be a point where they will all give up, and say go not beyond this. If they say give up this thing, it is superstitious, these ideas i6 of God and salvation, are superstition, I say ‘Mr. Philosopher, this is a bigger superstition, this body. Give it up, don’t go home to dinner or your philosophic chair. Give up the body, and if you cannot, cry quarter, and sit down there.” In religion there must be that side, and we must be able to show how to realize the phil- osophy which teaches that this world is one, that there is but one existence in the universe. Similarly, if the mystic comes, we must be ready to show him the science of mental analysis, practi- cally demonstrate it before him. Here you are, come, learn, nothing is “done in a corner.’’ And if emotional people come, we will sit with them and weep and weep in the name of the Lord; we will “drink the cup of love and become mad.’’ If the worker comes we will go and work with him, work with all the energj- that he has. And this will be the ideal of the nearest approach to a universal religion. Would to God that all men were so harmoni- ously blended, that in their minds, all these various elements of philosophy, of mysticism, of emotion, and work were present, and yet that is the ideal, my ideal of a man. Ever}-one who has only one or two of these, I call ‘ ‘one-sided” and that is why this world is almost fidl of these ‘‘one-sided” men, with only one road in which they can move, and anything else is dangerous and horrible to them. The attempt to help mankind to become wonderfully balanced, in these four directions, is my ideal of religion. And this religion is what we, in India, call “Yoga, ’’union between God and man, union between the lower self and the higher self. To the worker, it is union between men and the whole of humanity. To the mystic between his lower and higher self. To the lover, union between him and the God of love, and to the philosopher, it is union of all existence. This is what is meant by Yoga. This is a Sanscrit term, and these four divisions in Sanskrit have different names. The man who seeks after this union is called Yogi. The 17 worker is called Kaniia Yogi, He who seeks it through love is called Bhakti Yogi; he who seeks it through mysticism is called Raja Yogi, and he who seeks it through philosophy is called Guana Yogi. So this word Yoga comprises them all. Now first of all I will take up Raja Yoga. What is this Raja Yoga, controlling the mind ? In this country you are associating all sorts of hobgoblins with the word Yoga. I am afraid therefore, I must start by telling you that it has nothing to do with such things. No one of these Yogas, gives up reason, no one of them asks you to deliver your reason, hocKlwiuke