Sadhana The Realisation of Life

sal law. That is where the foundation of my existence lies, deep down below. Its strength lies in its b

, I am I, I am incomparable. The whole weight of the universe cannot crush out this individuality of mine. I maintain it in spite of the tremendous gravitation of al

an atom destroyed, the creative joy which was crystallised therein is gone. We are absolutely bankrupt if we are deprived of this specialty, this individuality, which is the only thing we can call our own; and which, if lost, is also a loss to the whole world. It is most valuable because it is not universal. And therefore only through it can

mmits for its sake. But the consciousness of separation has come from the eating of the fruit of knowledge. It has led man to shame and crime a

hich represents how much the cost has been. The other side of it is the attainment, which represents how much has been gained. If the self meant nothing to us but pain and sacrifice, it could ha

s, its very sufferings and sacrifices, make it all the more precious. That it is so has been proved by those who have realised th

question once asked by one of my audience as to whether the annihilat

his thoughts the more have his words to be explained by the context of his life. Those who seek to know his meaning by the aid of the dictionary only technically reach the house, for they are stopped by the outside wall and find no entrance to the hall. This is the reason why the teachings of ou

preached with all fervour. In the last the symbol of death has been used for expressing the idea of man's deli

ot in destroying anything that is positive and real, for that cannot be possible, but that which is negative, which obstructs our v

ke the man who tries to reach his destination by firmly clutching the dust of the road. Our self has no means of holding us, for its own nature is to pass on; and by clinging to this thread of self which is passing through the loom of life we cannot make it serve the purpose of t

and then our mind will find its freedom in the inner idea. But it would be foolish to say that our ignorance of the language can be dispelled only by the destruction of the words. No,

nting our seeing that it contains the idea that transcends its limits. That is why the wise man comes and says, "Se

om when he finds his ideal of art. Then is he freed from laborious attempts at imitation, from the goad

is the innermost nature, the essence, the implicit truth, of all things. Dharma is the ultimate purpose that is working i

radicts its true nature? When you submit it to chemical analysis you may find in it carbon and proteid and a good many other things, but not the idea of a branching tree. Only when the tree begins to take shape do you come to see its dharma, and then you can affirm without doubt that the seed which has been wasted and allowed to rot in the ground has been thwarted in its dharma, in the fulfilment of its true nature. In the history of human

ee; it is the non-accomplishment which is its prison. The sacrifice by which a thing attains its fu

self gratification and self-aggrandisement. But surely this is not borne out by history. Our revelatory men have always been those who have lived the life of self-sacrifice. The higher nature in man always seeks for something which tr

eaning. To display itself it tries to be big, to stand upon the pedestal of its accumulations, and to retain everything to itself. To reveal itself it g

t separate from all other objects around it and is miserly. But when lighted it finds its meaning at once; its

for therein is its revelation. This revelation is the freedom which Buddha preached. He asked the lamp to give up its oil. But purposeless giving up is a still darker poverty which he never could have meant. The lamp must give up its oil to t

ghest culmination of love. For love is an end unto itself. Everything else raises the question "Why?" in our mind, and we

tree's surrender of the ripe fruit. All our belongings assume a weight by the ceaseless gravitation of our selfish desires; we cannot easily cast them away from us. They seem to belong to our very nature, to stick to us as a second skin, and we bleed as we detach them

ve is done freely, however much pain it may cause. Therefore working for love is fre

on is not free. In fact, our nature is obscured by work done by the compulsion of want or fear. The mother reveals herself in the service

om, and in his creation he realises himself. The same thing is said elsewhere in other words: From joy does spring all this creation, by joy is it maintained, towards joy does it progress, and into joy does it enter. [Footnote: ānandādhyēva khalvimā

to make it more perfectly our own. Hence there must be this separation, not a separation of repulsion but a separation of love. Repulsion has only the one element, the element of severance. But love has two, the element o

rom God and others, but in the ceaseless realisation of yoga, of union; not on the si

from the outside it has an aspect of a sudden disruption, rebellious and destructive; it is proud, domineering and wayward; it is ready to rob the world of all its wealth to gratify its craving of a moment; to pluck with a reckless, cruel hand all the plumes from the divine bird o

. But the wise man knows that the paper of the banknote is all māyā, and until it is given up to the bank it is futile. It is only avidyā, our ignorance, that makes us believe that the separateness of our self like the paper of the banknote is precious in itself, and by acting on this belief our self is rendered valueless. It is only when the avidyā is removed that this very self c

rrangement; it is deserted and left in ruins when necessity changes its course. But when his work is the outcome of joy,

se the infinite. It is death which is monistic, it has no life in it. But life is dualistic; it has an appearance as well as truth; and death is that appearance, that māyā, which is an inseparable companion to life. Our self to live must go through a continual change and growth of form, which may be termed a continual death and a continual life going on at the same time. It is really courting death when we refuse to accept death; when we wish to give the form

e one set of which we are conscious always. We wish to enjoy our food and drink, we hanker after bodily pleasure and comfort. These desires are s

ew adjustments in cases of accident, and skilfully restoring the balance wherever disturbed. It has no concern with the fulfilment of our immediate bodily desires, but it goes beyond the present time. It is

We want to pay less and gain more than anybody else. This causes scramblings and fights. But there is that other wish in us which does its work in the depths

ek for self-gratification with the wish for the soci

in its attempt to have more distinction than all others. But in its infinite aspect its w

is last is what Buddha describes as extinction-the extinction of selfishness-which is the function of love, and which does not lead to darkness

be reached through compulsion. So our will, in the history of its growth, must come through independence and rebellion to the ultimate complet

negative side. We must come to an end in our evil doing, in our career of discord. For evil is not infinite, and discord cannot be an end in itself. Our will has freedom in order that it may find out that its true course is towards goodness and love. For goodness and love are infinite, and only in the infinite is the perfect realisation of freedom possible. So our

and finite, they are satyam where they are ideas and infinite. Our self is māyā where it is merely individual and finite, where it considers its separateness as absolute; it is satyam where it recognises its essence in the universal and infinite, in the supreme self, in paramātman. This is what Christ means when he says, "Before Abraham was I am." This is the eternal I am that speaks through

regard to the moving of the chessmen. The player willingly enters into definite relations with each particular piece and realises the joy of his power by these very restrictions. It is not that he cannot move the chessmen just as he pleases, but if he does so then there can be no play. If God assumes his r?le of omnipotence, then

sciousness of his own necessity which makes him crush the will out of them, to make his self-interest absolutely secure. This self-interest cannot brook the least freedom in others, because it is not itself free. The tyrant is really dependent on his slaves, and therefore he tries to make them completely useful by making them subservient to his own will. But a lover must have two wills for the realisation of his love, because the consummation of love is in harmony, the harmony between freedom and freedom. So God's love from which our self has taken form has made it separate from God; and it is God's love which again establishes a reconciliation and unites God with ou

naked and white, fresh as a flower. But we know it is old. It is age itself. It is that very ancient day which took up the

nkles vanish from the forehead of creation. In the very core of the world's heart stands immortal youth. Death and decay

ad not the awful pause of its plunge in the abysmal darkness and its repeated rebirth in the life of the endless beginning, then it would gradually soil and bury truth with its dust and s

that death eternally dies, that the waves of turmoil are on the surface, and that the sea of tranquillity is fathomless. The cur

universe is not a mere echo, reverberating from sky to sky, like a homeless wanderer-the echo of an old song sung once for all in

its own accumulating weight. Hence the surprise of endless variations, the advent of the unaccountable, the ceaseless procession of individua

t of its life. It must break through all illusions that encase i

tries to clog its movements-age that belongs not to lif

nt that it has its unending opening towards the sea. It is a poem that strikes its metre at every step not to

d, and thus lead us, on the other, to the unlimited. Only when we try to make these limi

a violent wrench, stops it suddenly, and brings it to the dust. Whenever the individual tries to dam the ever-flowing current of the world-force and imprison it within the area of his part

ey are cut off at the root and suffer extinction. [Footnote: Adharmēnaidhatē tāvat tatō bahdrā?i pa?yati tatah sapatnān ja

rise by its surrender. His games would be a horror to the child if he could not come back to his mother, and our pride of personality will be a curse to us if we cannot give