The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 6/Lectures and Discourses/Introduction to Jnana-Yoga
INTRODUCTION TO JNANA-YOGA
This is the rational and philosophic side of Yoga and very difficult, but I
will take you slowly through it.
Yoga means the method of joining man and God. When you understand this, you
can go on with your own definitions of man and God, and you will find the
term Yoga fits in with every definition. Remember always, there are
different Yogas for different minds, and that if one does not suit you,
another may. All religions are divided into theory and practice. The Western
mind has given itself up to the theory and only sees the practical part of
religion as good works. Yoga is the practical part of religion and shows
that religion is a practical power apart from good works.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century man tried to find God through
reason, and Deism was the result. What little was left of God by this
process was destroyed by Darwinism and Millism. Men were then thrown back
upon historical and comparative religion. They thought, religion was derived
from element worship (see Max Müller on the sun myths etc.); others thought
that religion was derived from ancestor worship (see Herbert Spencer). But
taken as a whole, these methods have proved a failure. Man cannot get at
Truth by external methods.
"If I know one lump of clay, I know the whole mass of clay." The universe is
all built on the same plan. The individual is only a part, like the lump of
clay. If we know the human soul—which is one atom—its beginning and
general history, we know the whole of nature. Birth, growth, development,
decay, death—this is the sequence in all nature and is the same in the
plant and the man. The difference is only in time. The whole cycle may be
completed in one case in a day, in the other in three score years and ten;
the methods are the same. The only way to reach a sure analysis of the
universe is by the analysis of our own minds. A proper psychology is
essential to the understanding of religion. To reach Truth by reason alone
is impossible, because imperfect reason cannot study its own fundamental
basis. Therefore the only way to study the mind is to get at facts, and then
intellect will arrange them and deduce the principles. The intellect has to
build the house; but it cannot do so without bricks and it cannot make
bricks. Jnana-Yoga is the surest way of arriving at facts.
First we have the physiology of mind. We have organs of the senses, which
are divided into organs of action and organs of perception. By organs I do
not mean the external sense-instruments. The ophthalmic centre in the brain
is the organ of sight, not the eye alone. So with every organ, the function
is internal. Only when the mind reacts, is the object truly perceived. The
sensory and motor nerves are necessary to perception.
Then there is the mind itself. It is like a smooth lake which when struck,
say by a stone, vibrates. The vibrations gather together and react on the
stone, and all through the lake they will spread and be felt. The mind is
like the lake; it is constantly being set in vibrations, which leave an
impression on the mind; and the idea of the Ego, or personal self, the "I",
is the result of these impressions. This "I" therefore is only the very
rapid transmission of force and is in itself no reality.
The mind-stuff is a very fine material instrument used for taking up the
Prâna. When a man dies, the body dies; but a little bit of the mind, the
seed, is left when all else is shattered; and this is the seed of the new
body called by St. Paul "the spiritual body". This theory of the materiality
of the mind accords with all modern theories. The idiot is lacking in
intelligence because his mind-stuff is injured. Intelligence cannot be in
matter nor can it be produced by any combinations of matter. Where then is
intelligence? It is behind matter; it is the Jiva, the real Self, working
through the instrument of matter. Transmission of force is not possible
without matter, and as the Jiva cannot travel alone, some part of mind is
left as a transmitting medium when all else is shattered by death.
How are perceptions made? The wall opposite sends an impression to me, but I
do not see the wall until my mind reacts, that is to say, the mind cannot
know the wall by mere sight. The reaction that enables the mind to get a
perception of the wall is an intellectual process. In this way the whole
universe is seen through our eyes plus mind (or perceptive faculty); it is
necessarily coloured by our own individual tendencies. The real wall, or the
real universe, is outside the mind, and is unknown and unknowable. Call this
universe X, and our statement is that the seen universe is X plus mind.
What is true of the external must also apply to the internal world. Mind
also wants to know itself, but this Self can only be known through the
medium of the mind and is, like the wall, unknown. This self we may call Y.
and the statement would then be, Y plus mind is the inner self. Kant was the
first to arrive at this analysis of mind, but it was long ago stated in the
Vedas. We have thus, as it were, mind standing between X and Y and reacting
on both.
If X is unknown, then any qualities we give to it are only derived from our
own mind. Time, space, and causation are the three conditions through which
mind perceives. Time is the condition for the transmission of thought, and
space for the vibration of grosser matter. Causation is the sequence in
which vibrations come. Mind can only cognise through these. Anything
therefore, beyond mind must be beyond time, space, and causation.
To the blind man the world is perceived by touch and sound. To us with five
senses it is another world. If any of us developed an electric sense and the
faculty seeing electric waves, the world would appear different. Yet the
world, as the X to all of these, is still the same. As each one brings his
own mind, he sees his own world. There is X plus one sense; X plus two
senses, up to five, as we know humanity. The result is constantly varied,
yet X remains always unchanged. Y is also beyond our minds and beyond time,
space, and causation.
But, you may ask, "How do we know there are two things (X and Y) beyond
time, space, and causation?" Quite true, time makes differentiation, so
that, as both are really beyond time, they must be really one. When mind
sees this one, it calls it variously—X, when it is the outside world, and
Y, when it is the inside world. This unit exists and is looked at through
the lens of minds.
The Being of perfect nature, universally appearing to us, is God, is
Absolute. The undifferentiated is the perfect condition; all others must be
lower and not permanent.
What makes the undifferentiated appear differentiated to mind? This is the
same kind of question as what is the origin of evil and free will? The
question itself is contradictory and impossible, because the question takes
for granted cause and effect. There is no cause and effect in the
undifferentiated; the question assumes that the undifferentiated is in the
same condition as the differentiated. "Whys" and "wherefores" are in mind
only. The Self is beyond causation, and It alone is free. Its light it is
which percolates through every form of mind. With every action I assert I am
free, and yet every action proves that I am bound. The real Self is free,
yet when mixed with mind and body, It is not free. The will is the first
manifestation of the real Self; the first limitation therefore of this real
Self is the will. Will is a compound of Self and mind. Now, no compound can
be permanent, so that when we will to live, we must die. Immortal life is a
contradiction in terms, for life, being a compound, cannot be immortal. True
Being is undifferentiated and eternal. How does this Perfect Being become
mixed up with will, mind, thought—all defective things? It never has
become mixed. You are the real you (the Y of our former statement); you
never were will; you never have changed; you as a person never existed; It
is illusion. Then on what, you will say, do the phenomena of illusion rest?
This is a bad question. Illusion never rests on Truth, but only on illusion.
Everything struggles to go back to what was before these illusions, to be
free in fact. What then is the value of life? It is to give us experience.
Does this view do away with evolution? On the contrary, it explains it. It
is really the process of refinement of matter allowing the real Self to
manifest Itself. It is as if a screen or a veil were between us and some
other object. The object becomes clear as the screen is gradually withdrawn.
The question is simply one of manifestation of the higher Self.