The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 2/Jnana-Yoga/God in Everything
CHAPTER VII
GOD IN EVERYTHING
( Delivered in London, 27th October 1896 )
We have seen how the greater portion of our life must of necessity be filled
with evils, however we may resist, and that this mass of evil is practically
almost infinite for us. We have been struggling to remedy this since the
beginning of time, yet everything remains very much the same. The more we
discover remedies, the more we find ourselves beset by subtler evils. We
have also seen that all religions propose a God, as the one way of escaping
these difficulties. All religions tell us that if you take the world as it
is, as most practical people would advise us to do in this age, then nothing
would be left to us but evil. They further assert that there is something
beyond this world. This life in the five senses, life in the material world,
is not all; it is only a small portion, and merely superficial. Behind and
beyond is the Infinite in which there is no more evil. Some people call It
God, some Allah, some Jehovah, Jove, and so on. The Vedantin calls It
Brahman.
The first impression we get of the advice given by religions is that we had
better terminate our existence. To the question how to cure the evils of
life, the answer apparently is, give up life. It reminds one of the old
story. A mosquito settled on the head of a man, and a friend, wishing to
kill the mosquito, gave it such a blow that he killed both man and mosquito.
The remedy of evil seems to suggest a similar course of action. Life is full
of ills, the world is full of evils; that is a fact no one who is old enough
to know the world can deny.
But what is remedy proposed by all the religions? That this world is
nothing. Beyond this world is something which is very real. Here comes the
difficulty. The remedy seems to destroy everything. How can that be a
remedy? Is there no way out then? The Vedanta says that what all the
religions advance is perfectly true, but it should be properly understood.
Often it is misunderstood, because the religions are not very clear in their
meaning. What we really want is head and heart combined. The heart is great
indeed; it is through the heart that come the great inspirations of life. I
would a hundred times rather have a little heart and no brain, than be all
brains and no heart. Life is possible, progress is possible for him who has
heart, but he who has no heart and only brains dies of dryness.
At the same time we know that he who is carried along by his heart alone has
to undergo many ills, for now and then he is liable to tumble into pitfalls.
The combination of heart and head is what we want. I do not mean that a man
should compromise his heart for his brain or vice versa, but let everyone
have an infinite amount of heart and feeling, and at the same time an
infinite amount of reason. Is there any limit to what we want in this world?
Is not the world infinite? There is room for an infinite amount of feeling,
and so also for an infinite amount of culture and reason. Let them come
together without limit, let them be running together, as it were, in
parallel lines each with the other.
Most of the religions understand the fact, but the error into which they all
seem to fall is the same; they are carried away by the heart, the feelings.
There is evil in the world, give up the world; that is the great teaching,
and the only teaching, no doubt. Give up the world. There cannot be two
opinions that to understand the truth everyone of us has to give up error.
There cannot be two opinions that everyone of us in order to have good must
give up evil; there cannot be two opinions that everyone of us to have life
must give up what is death.
And yet, what remains to us, if this theory involves giving up the life of
the senses, the life as we know it? And what else do we mean by life? If we
give this up, what remains?
We shall understand this better, when, later on, we come to the more
philosophical portions of the Vedanta. But for the present I beg to state
that in Vedanta alone we find a rational solution of the problem. Here I can
only lay before you what the Vedanta seeks to teach, and that is the
deification of the world. The Vedanta does not in reality denounce the
world. The ideal of renunciation nowhere attains such a height as in the
teachings of the Vedanta. But, at the same time, dry suicidal advice is not
intended; it really means deification of the world — giving up the world as
we think of it, as we know it, as it appears to us — and to know what it
really is. Deify it; it is God alone. We read at the commencement of one of
the oldest of the Upanishads, "Whatever exists in this universe is to be
covered with the Lord."
We have to cover everything with the Lord Himself, not by a false sort of
optimism, not by blinding our eyes to the evil, but by really seeing God in
everything. Thus we have to give up the world, and when the world is given
up, what remains? God. What is meant? You can have your wife; it does not
mean that you are to abandon her, but that you are to see God in the wife.
Give up your children; what does that mean? To turn them out of doors, as
some human brutes do in every country? Certainly not. That is diabolism; it
is not religion. But see God in your children. So, in everything. In life
and in death, in happiness and in misery, the Lord is equally present. The
whole world is full of the Lord. Open your eyes and see Him. This is what
Vedanta teaches. Give up the world which you have conjectured, because your
conjecture was based upon a very partial experience, upon very poor
reasoning, and upon your own weakness. Give it up; the world we have been
thinking of so long, the world to which we have been clinging so long, is a
false world of our own creation. Give that up; open your eyes and see that
as such it never existed; it was a dream, Maya. What existed was the Lord
Himself. It is He who is in the child, in the wife, and in the husband; it
is He who is in the good and in the bad; He is in the sin and in the sinner;
He is in life and in death.
A tremendous assertion indeed! Yet that is the theme which the Vedanta wants
to demonstrate, to teach, and to preach. This is just the opening theme.
Thus we avoid the dangers of life and its evils. Do not desire anything.
What makes us miserable? The cause of all miseries from which we suffer is
desire. You desire something, and the desire is not fulfilled; the result is
distress. If there is no desire, there is no suffering. But here, too, there
is the danger of my being misunderstood. So it is necessary to explain what
I mean by giving up desire and becoming free from all misery. The walls have
no desire and they never suffer. True, but they never evolve. This chair has
no desires, it never suffers; but it is always a chair. There is a glory in
happiness, there is a glory in suffering. If I may dare to say so, there is
a utility in evil too. The great lesson in misery we all know. There are
hundreds of things we have done in our lives which we wish we had never
done, but which, at the same time, have been great teachers. As for me, I am
glad I have done something good and many things bad; glad I have done
something right, and glad I have committed many errors, because every one of
them has been a great lesson. I, as I am now, am the resultant of all I have
done, all I have thought. Every action and thought have had their effect,
and these effects are the sum total of my progress.
We all understand that desires are wrong, but what is meant by giving up
desires? How could life go on? It would be the same suicidal advice, killing
the desire and the man too. The solution is this. Not that you should not
have property, not that you should not have things which are necessary and
things which are even luxuries. Have all that you want, and more, only know
the truth and realise it. Wealth does not belong to anybody. Have no idea of
proprietorship, possessorship. You are nobody, nor am I, nor anyone else.
All belongs to the Lord, because the opening verse told us to put the Lord
in everything. God is in the wealth that you enjoy. He is in the desire that
rises in your mind. He is in the things you buy to satisfy your desire; He
is in your beautiful attire, in your beautiful ornaments. This is the line
of thought. All will be metamorphosed as soon as you begin to see things in
that light. If you put God in your every movement, in your conversation, in
your form, in everything, the whole scene changes, and the world, instead of
appearing as one of woe and misery, will become a heaven.
"The kingdom of heaven is within you," says Jesus; so says the Vedanta, and
every great teacher. "He that hath eyes to see, let him see, and he that
hath ears to hear, let him hear." The Vedanta proves that the truth for
which we have been searching all this time is present, and was all the time
with us. In our ignorance, we thought we had lost it, and went about the
world crying and weeping, struggling to find the truth, while all along it
was dwelling in our own hearts. There alone can we find it.
If we understand the giving up of the world in its old, crude sense, then it
would come to this: that we must not work, that we must be idle, sitting
like lumps of earth, neither thinking nor doing anything, but must become
fatalists, driven about by every circumstance, ordered about by the laws of
nature, drifting from place to place. That would be the result. But that is
not what is meant. We must work. Ordinary mankind, driven everywhere by
false desire, what do they know of work? The man propelled by his own
feelings and his own senses, what does he know about work? He works, who is
not propelled by his own desires, by any selfishness whatsoever. He works,
who has no ulterior motive in view. He works, who has nothing to gain from
work.
Who enjoys the picture, the seller or the seer? The seller is busy with his
accounts, computing what his gain will be, how much profit he will realise
on the picture. His brain is full of that. He is looking at the hammer, and
watching the bids. He is intent on hearing how fast the bids are rising.
That man is enjoying the picture who has gone there without any intention of
buying or selling. He looks at the picture and enjoys it. So this whole
universe is a picture, and when these desires have vanished, men will enjoy
the world, and then this buying and selling and these foolish ideas of
possession will be ended. The money-lender gone, the buyer gone, the seller
gone, this world remains the picture, a beautiful painting. I never read of
any more beautiful conception of God than the following: "He is the Great
Poet, the Ancient Poet; the whole universe is His poem, coming in verses and
rhymes and rhythms, written in infinite bliss." When we have given up
desires, then alone shall we be able to read and enjoy this universe of God.
Then everything will become deified. Nooks and corners, by-ways and shady
places, which we thought dark and unholy, will be all deified. They will all
reveal their true nature, and we shall smile at ourselves and think that all
this weeping and crying has been but child's play, and we were only standing
by, watching.
So, do your work, says the Vedanta. It first advises us how to work — by
giving up — giving up the apparent, illusive world. What is meant by that?
Seeing God everywhere. Thus do you work. Desire to live a hundred years,
have all earthly desires, if you wish, only deify them, convert them into
heaven. Have the desire to live a long life of helpfulness, of blissfulness
and activity on this earth. Thus working, you will find the way out. There
is no other way. If a man plunges headlong into foolish luxuries of the
world without knowing the truth, he has missed his footing, he cannot reach
the goal. And if a man curses the world, goes into a forest, mortifies his
flesh, and kills himself little by little by starvation, makes his heart a
barren waste, kills out all feelings, and becomes harsh, stern, and
dried-up, that man also has missed the way. These are the two extremes, the
two mistakes at either end. Both have lost the way, both have missed the
goal.
So work, says the Vedanta, putting God in everything, and knowing Him to be
in everything. Work incessantly, holding life as something deified, as God
Himself, and knowing that this is all we have to do, this is all we should
ask for. God is in everything, where else shall we go to find Him? He is
already in every work, in every thought, in every feeling. Thus knowing, we
must work — this is the only way, there is no other. Thus the effects of
work will not bind us. We have seen how false desires are the cause of all
the misery and evil we suffer, but when they are thus deified, purified,
through God, they bring no evil, they bring no misery. Those who have not
learnt this secret will have to live in a demoniacal world until they
discover it. Many do not know what an infinite mine of bliss is in them,
around them, everywhere; they have not yet discovered it. What is a
demoniacal world? The Vedanta says, ignorance.
We are dying of thirst sitting on the banks of the mightiest river. We are
dying of hunger sitting near heaps of food. Here is the blissful universe,
yet we do not find it. We are in it all the time, and we are always
mistaking it. Religion proposes to find this out for us. The longing for
this blissful universe is in all hearts. It has been the search of all
nations, it is the one goal of religion, and this ideal is expressed in
various languages in different religions. It is only the difference of
language that makes all these apparent divergences. One expresses a thought
in one way, another a little differently, yet perhaps each is meaning
exactly what the other is expressing in a different language.
More questions arise in connection with this. It is very easy to talk. From
my childhood I have heard of seeing God everywhere and in everything, and
then I can really enjoy the world, but as soon as I mix with the world, and
get a few blows from it, the idea vanishes. I am walking in the street
thinking that God is in every man, and a strong man comes along and gives me
a push and I fall flat on the footpath. Then I rise up quickly with clenched
fist, the blood has rushed to my head, and the reflection goes. Immediately
I have become mad. Everything is forgotten; instead of encountering God I
see the devil. Ever since we were born we have been told to see God in all.
Every religion teaches that — see God in everything and everywhere. Do you
not remember in the New Testament how Christ says so? We have all been
taught that; but it is when we come to the practical side, that the
difficulty begins. You all remember how in Æesop's Fables a fine stag is
looking at his form reflected in a lake and is saying to his young one, "How
powerful I am, look at my splendid head, look at my limbs, how strong and
muscular they are; and how swiftly I can run." In the meantime he hears the
barking of dogs in the distance, and immediately takes to his heels, and
after he has run several miles, he comes back panting. The young one says,
"You just told me how strong you were, how was it that when the dog barked,
you ran away?" "Yes, my son; but when the dogs bark all my confidence
vanishes." Such is the case with us. We think highly of humanity, we feel
ourselves strong and valiant, we make grand resolves; but when the "dogs" of
trial and temptation bark, we are like the stag in the fable. Then, if such
is the case, what is the use of teaching all these things? There is the
greatest use. The use is this, that perseverance will finally conquer.
Nothing can be done in a day.
"This Self is first to be heard, then to be thought upon, and then meditated
upon." Everyone can see the sky, even the very worm crawling upon the earth
sees the blue sky, but how very far away it is! So it is with our ideal. It
is far away, no doubt, but at the same time, we know that we must have it.
We must even have the highest ideal. Unfortunately in this life, the vast
majority of persons are groping through this dark life without any ideal at
all. If a man with an ideal makes a thousand mistakes, I am sure that the
man without an ideal makes fifty thousand. Therefore, it is better to have
an ideal. And this ideal we must hear about as much as we can, till it
enters into our hearts, into our brains, into our very veins, until it
tingles in every drop of our blood and permeates every pore in our body. We
must meditate upon it. "Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth
speaketh," and out of the fullness of the heart the hand works too.
It is thought which is the propelling force in us. Fill the mind with the
highest thoughts, hear them day after day, think them month after month.
Never mind failures; they are quite natural, they are the beauty of life,
these failures. What would life be without them? It would not be worth
having if it were not for struggles. Where would be the poetry of life?
Never mind the struggles, the mistakes. I never heard a cow tell a lie, but
it is only a cow — never a man. So never mind these failures, these little
backslidings; hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand
times, make the attempt once more. The ideal of man is to see God in
everything. But if you cannot see Him in everything, see Him in one thing,
in that thing which you like best, and then see Him in another. So on you
can go. There is infinite life before the soul. Take your time and you will
achieve your end.
"He, the One, who vibrates more quickly than mind, who attains to more speed
than mind can ever do, whom even the gods reach not, nor thought grasps, He
moving, everything moves. In Him all exists. He is moving. He is also
immovable. He is near and He is far. He is inside everything. He is outside
everything, interpenetrating everything. Whoever sees in every being that
same Atman, and whoever sees everything in that Atman, he never goes far
from that Atman. When all life and the whole universe are seen in this
Atman, then alone man has attained the secret. There is no more delusion for
him. Where is any more misery for him who sees this Oneness in the
universe?"
This is another great theme of the Vedanta, this Oneness of life, this
Oneness of everything. We shall see how it demonstrates that all our misery
comes through ignorance, and this ignorance is the idea of manifoldness,
this separation between man and man, between nation and nation, between
earth and moon, between moon and sun. Out of this idea of separation between
atom and atom comes all misery. But the Vedanta says this separation does
not exist, it is not real. It is merely apparent, on the surface. In the
heart of things there is Unity still. If you go below the surface, you find
that Unity between man and man, between races and races, high and low, rich
and poor, gods and men, and men and animals. If you go deep enough, all will
be seen as only variations of the One, and he who has attained to this
conception of Oneness has no more delusion. What can delude him? He knows
the reality of everything, the secret of everything. Where is there any more
misery for him? What does he desire? He has traced the reality of everything
to the Lord, the Centre, the Unity of everything, and that is Eternal
Existence, Eternal Knowledge, Eternal Bliss. Neither death nor disease, nor
sorrow, nor misery, nor discontent is there. All is Perfect Union and
Perfect Bliss. For whom should he mourn then? In the Reality, there is no
death, there is no misery; in the Reality, there is no one to mourn for, no
one to be sorry for. He has penetrated everything, the Pure One, the
Formless, the Bodiless, the Stainless. He the Knower, He the Great Poet, the
Self-Existent, He who is giving to everyone what he deserves. They grope in
darkness who worship this ignorant world, the world that is produced out of
ignorance, thinking of it as Existence, and those who live their whole lives
in this world, and never find anything better or higher, are groping in
still greater darkness. But he who knows the secret of nature, seeing That
which is beyond nature through the help of nature, he crosses death, and
through the help of That which is beyond nature, he enjoys Eternal Bliss.
"Thou sun, who hast covered the Truth with thy golden disc, do thou remove
the veil, so that I may see the Truth that is within thee. I have known the
Truth that is within thee, I have known what is the real meaning of thy rays
and thy glory and have seen That which shines in thee; the Truth in thee I
see, and That which is within thee is within me, and I am That."