part 3 four

The momentariness of knowledge

    The doctrine of momentary knowledge came up in one lecture. Our knowledge depends on qualities, but qualities are always changing. The permanent or eternal entity is not in the qualities. So our knowledge is coming in a momentary way. For a little while there is knowledge, but it cannot remain even for a moment. The qualities are under the power of time, space and causation and as these three are changing every moment, so must qualities be. So we know something one moment, but the very next moment it is erased and a new piece of knowledge arises. So an eternal ineradicable knowledge we cannot have.
    “But one may raise this objection: all this change that we see depends on knowledge; because there is knowledge, we are perceiving the change or changing objects. Due to the knowledge of an eternal unchanging, permanent entity, we are perceiving the momentary; without that, how could there be the knowledge of the active? Due to our present confusion it is supposed that we do not apprehend eternal and unbroken knowledge. But that is arising sui generis; just for the sake of reasoning and argumentation we are using the momentary knowledge. This is because of delusion.
    Swamiji used in his lectures many Indian philosophical terms. He would explain at length in English many technical words from Sanskrit philosophical texts. He would enliven any subject he took up.

History of Gaya and Bodh-Gaya

“When Buddha was after enlightenment, and was wandering under the name Gautama, he came to Gaya and studied for a while with a certain rishi. The name of the place was Gayasirsha. In the heyday of the Buddhists it was regarded as very sacred. Later when the Hindu revival came, the Hindus could not altogether obliterate the place. They respected it for its sanctity but gave their own explanations.
“In the Puranas there is the story of Vishnu’s battle with a daitya named Gayasura. The latter met defeat at the hands of Vishnu, who interred him in a mound of earth and kept him under it with his own foot. But between victor and vanquished, there was this bargain: that every day at this spot people would offer (the) rice balls (of sraddha rite) and if any day the offering was neglected, Gayasura would destroy the whole world. In this way the Hindus made use of Puranic stories about each Buddhist tirtha to dispel the Buddhist influence.

Recalling past lives

Swamiji told many stories from the “Jataka series” of Buddha’s former births, especially the one of the tigress. That day his face was very peaceful and he was full of love and bliss, as if experiencing fullness of love for all creatures. There was not a trace of hardness, only enthusiasm and bliss. His mood of joy became much more attractive than the Jataka tales. The appearance of his face became quite different; for Swamiji always used to say, “If I meditate on the brain of a Sankara, I become Sankara, if on the brain of a Buddha, I become Buddha.” In any case, that evening he seemed to be a new Buddha, recounting to his audience his own Jataka stories and the mood was much more than the lecture. He said that Lord Buddha was able to remember his previous lives. How many times he had been a wild animal, how many times a monkey, how many times one level of human being or another – all this he could recall.
He further said that Kapila, the “father of psychology,” also could recall his past births. People ordinarily make the chief object of meditation either the future or the transcendental. But there is another type of meditation which looks backward: what I did this morning, or yesterday, or in previous years. Usually this process takes one back only to the period of the three-or-four-year-old, and most people cannot go back of that. But if someone, with tremendous energy breaks through the barrier, then one-and-a-half years, one year, six months – these ages yield to him, and even the embryonic condition he can remember. If this happens, he can know all about his former lives. But to come to this point of polarization is very difficult.

The stories of Narada, and Hercules, deluded by maya.

[Here Mohendra attributes to Swamiji a long story in which the “Narada, bring me some water” story is mixed with the “Vishnu born as a pig” story; nothing in it about human wife and children. Narada dreams he is a pig. In a footnote Mohendra says the other version exists in the Puranas, but that Swamiji told it this way. So have editors “corrected” it in the Complete Works, or was this a different occasion? --Trs.]
    “Among the Greeks there is a story of Hercules which is quite similar to this. Hercules, performing twelve labors, got puffed up with pride. He took two peaks named Calpe and Abyla in his hands and separated them and ocean poured its waters over the feet of these two mountains. They are otherwise known as Gibraltar and Mt. Hacho. Proud Hercules was lying down on the far side of a mountain and began to rage and roar. ‘There is no hero like me; I can conquer anyone and can be conquered by none.’ Gradually his boasting increased until the heavens parted and Jupiter, king of gods, came overhead nearby. Jupiter asked everyone, ‘Where is this boasting coming from, and what does it mean?’
    “’Down on earth,’ the gods replied, ‘a hero has been born named Hercules. Having performed twelve heroic labors, he is proclaiming his own glory in a loud voice.’ When Jupiter heard this he smiled and said to the blind boy Cupid, ‘Vanquish this haughty man at once.’ Cupid went up to Hercules and sat down. Finding him asleep, the flower-armed Cupid shot Hercules with flower arrows. He fell into a profound sleep and Cupid fled.
    “When he awoke, thinking it was not right to stay in one place for many days, he decided to go somewhere else. In a certain place he saw a very attractive young maiden sitting in the sun. No one was with her. Hearing her piteous, grieving cry, Hercules’ heart filled with compassion, and, falling in love with her, he began to live with her in great happiness.
    “To keep house various things are needed. Hercules sometimes carried pots of water on his shoulders, gathered fuel for fire, and gladly performed other such duties as a householder. Several years passed in this way. The wife was in great happiness to get for husband such a hero, and asked of him anything she wanted; he happily obeyed her.
    “One day Hercules was bringing from the forest a heap of fuel on his shoulders. Just then Jupiter came upon him and asked him where he was going with that fuel. Hercules no longer had his former power. Like an ordinary man he replied, ‘Lord, when I take home this fuel my wife will be able to cook; otherwise the cooking will be much delayed.’ Jupiter asked him what other work he had to do.
    “’Sir,’ said Hercules, ‘I have to draw and bring water. My wife cannot always negotiate this rough and difficult path through the mountain, so I must carry water.’
    ‘What else?’ asked Jupiter.
    ‘Sir,’ replied Hercules, ‘all kinds of work a householder must do. My wife just goes to her place and cooks the food. I eat it.’ Then Jupiter laughed and said,
    ‘Hercules, did you not boast that you were all-conquering, that none could vanquish you? Now you have become a bond-servant and are working at the command of your wife like a slave. Where now is your heroic behavior? Your all-conquering mood?’ At these words Hercules’ consciousness awoke and his vision of the woman and home vanished.”

    During the Maya-lectures Swamiji said “It is impossible for us to understand what kind of thing this maya is. All the questions we ask or can ask are within maya. Remaining within maya to ask about it or size it up, is impossible, for the question too, is maya and no answer can be given. It is the same questioning the same. But if an individual, through sadhana, can go beyond maya, he or she will be able to understand what She is and She has no more reality. Then maya has dissolved.”

On individuality

One day the question of what individuality is, came up. Swamiji said, “Our mind is always scattered in various directions; it is not able to remain in a still or steady state. We are always in a state of divisibility. We cannot stay in an undivided condition. We are always trying to come from divisibility to indivisibility. It is only when we reach that, that we shall have our full manifestation of individuality; meanwhile we are always trying to reach that.” There were many new ideas in this lecture. It was very powerful and as if a new light had fallen upon him. Swamiji spoke with great vigor that night.

More on Swamiji’s lecture style

    When Swami Vivekananda’s mind would be raised to a very high state, he would say in a profound tone and with serious face, “It is so because it is so.” “I have seen Truth with perfect clarity, realized it. There is no need to doubt this. (i.e., “I am a truth-seer, I have found it; you try too; raise your mind to this plane and you will find it.)”
    He would speak in such a profound, unwavering, hushed and commanding voice that his whole audience was galvanized into accepting his word as truth. Such was the rhythmic vibration of his voice that at times it seemed the room would split open in that power; as if the brains of the listeners would be blasted in all directions. It was difficult to bear that power, as if a blazing unquenchable fire had appeared in the middle of the house. What spirit or power is, could clearly be understood. And, really, it was as if the room were flowing with Brahmajnana and wisdom, and Swamiji, smiling, was sprinkling it around, offering anjali with his two hands.
    Whatever the reasoning, whatever the illustration, in whatever language it was couched, or how perfectly it was put, no one cared about that; there was a power – tangible, graspable, holdable – this the audience seemed clearly to experience. It was as if there were some kind of power touching their skin and penetrating into their flesh. Language, reason, argument – these are all inferior things: from inside Swami Vivekananda a power would come out, a tangible living thing – that was t he main thing about his lectures. It was not book-learning power, a philosopher’s power. From his language and argument one can get many sorts of ideas, but that he could make flow a stream of power-rays: this was the life and soul of his lectures. As he himself was full of brahmajnana and wisdom, so he was able to share it with others. But to make others grasp these was not easy, so a few days afterwards that power would be withdrawn [or removed]. That is why he often would say,
“It is so because it is so.”

Story of a remarkable sadhu

    In an evening lecture Swamiji related the story of the sadhu killed in the “Indian Mutiny.” A certain sadhu had been doing tapas at Allahabad, at the time of the battle. He was elderly and a man of extremely peaceful nature. A Muslim ruffian found him and senselessly stabbed him to death. A short while before he expired, some Hindu sepoys who had taken part in the Mutiny came upon him and discovered what had happened. The sepoys found the Muslim and brought him to the sadhu, saying, “Maharaj, give the order and we will finish off this ruffian.”
    With their weapons at the ready, the sepoys awaited his command. The old monk was losing blood in unstinted flow, and his life had almost ebbed away. Smiling a little, he said to the sepoys, “Do not cherish hatred toward this person. He too is my God. He is the Beloved. Everyone is my Lord, everyone is the Beloved.” Saying so, the sadhu expired. The assembled soldiers were dumbfounded to see such love and adherence to God. They performed the sadhu’s obsequies and went on their way.

    Swamiji told this story with such feeling and pathos that all were much moved. What love, and seeing of the ishta in all, on the part of the monk! – Swamiji made everyone understand this. He told the story with such sweet devotion that the audience seemed to be seeing the series of events being enacted before their very eyes. The listeners, being Christians, remembered the crucifixion and heard this account with great feeling. Though it was only an incident, Swamji’s method of describing it with much facial expression and vocal inflection made it dramatically real to them.

APPENDIX

About the arrangement of subjects in this book.

    Although Swami Vivekananda at the time of Bhakti lectures spoke consistently about devotion and at the Advaita lectures only about monism, I [the author] have put different things in different places to give interest to the reader. But the daily events have been told sequentially.
    Goodwin did not really want to go to America, but agreed to Swamiji’s wish. He clearly said he did not have the fare. That day Swamiji had some pounds with him; he took them from his pocket and gave them to Goodwin, telling him to look after Swami Saradananda in every way. A newcomer in a foreign land, he was to be protected from difficulties. And he gave him many words of advice and told him whom to get in touch with. Goodwin agreed and bowed to the occasion.
    Fox wanted to go to Paris to see the city and was not acquainted with anyone there. So he requested of Miss Muller a letter of introduction. She knew French and wrote such a letter. Fox said that Miss Muller knew various languages and was quite learned, but due to her age [fifties] was very waspish, and no one could go on working with her.
    The following story Swamiji told at a Raja Yoga lecture and also in the dining room. Once in the United States an elderly lady came to him and asked what illness her mother had. Her mother was very aged and all her hair was white. When she sat at the dining-table she would see another old lady seated there, looking exactly like herself. When she extended her hand, there would be two hands, her own and that of the reflection lady. When she lay in bed she saw the double lying there. This lady told Swamiji all about her mother. Swamiji asked her to bring her mother there one day. When the old lady came she told it all to Swamiji herself. Then he taught her a special way to meditate; this much was all he told her. But the aged lady, in resorting to that method, had all her white hair turn black again, and all her facial wrinkles disappeared. The double that she used to see also underwent this transformation; she finally appeared younger than her own daughter.
All the ladies at the Yoga lecture liked this story.
    “Body is a magnet; whatever is in this universe is also in the human body. The human body, in attracting something outside, is trying to put it inside itself.”

    On his way to London, Mohendra had stopped in Colombo. There the father of Dharmapala, Don Carolis [has Mohendra spelled it right? Of what race?] ran a cabinet-maker’s shop, near the harbor. He was a fine man.

This concludes Swami Yogeshananda’s
English translation of relevant portions of
Londone Swami Vivekananda
by Mahendra Nath Datta