The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 2/Jnana-Yoga/The Necessity of Religion
CHAPTER I
THE NECESSITY OF RELIGION
( Delivered in London )
Of all the forces that have worked and are still working to mould the
destinies of the human race, none, certainly, is more potent than that, the
manifestation of which we call religion. All social organisations have as a
background, somewhere, the workings of that peculiar force, and the greatest
cohesive impulse ever brought into play amongst human units has been derived
from this power. It is obvious to all of us that in very many cases the
bonds of religion have proved stronger than the bonds of race, or climate,
or even of descent. It is a well-known fact that persons worshipping the
same God, believing in the same religion, have stood by each other, with
much greater strength and constancy, than people of merely the same descent,
or even brothers. Various attempts have been made to trace the beginnings of
religion. In all the ancient religions which have come down to us at the
present day, we find one claim made — that they are all supernatural, that
their genesis is not, as it were, in the human brain, but that they have
originated somewhere outside of it.
Two theories have gained some acceptance amongst modern scholars. One is the
spirit theory of religion, the other the evolution of the idea of the
Infinite. One party maintains that ancestor worship is the beginning of
religious ideas; the other, that religion originates in the personification
of the powers of nature. Man wants to keep up the memory of his dead
relatives and thinks they are living even when the body is dissolved, and he
wants to place food for them and, in a certain sense, to worship them. Out
of that came the growth we call religion.
Studying the ancient religions of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Chinese, and
many other races in America and elsewhere, we find very clear traces of this
ancestor worship being the beginning of religion. With the ancient
Egyptians, the first idea of the soul was that of a double. Every human body
contained in it another being very similar to it; and when a man died, this
double went out of the body and yet lived on. But the life of the double
lasted only so long as the dead body remained intact, and that is why we
find among the Egyptians so much solicitude to keep the body uninjured. And
that is why they built those huge pyramids in which they preserved the
bodies. For, if any portion of the external body was hurt, the double would
be correspondingly injured. This is clearly ancestor worship. With the
ancient Babylonians we find the same idea of the double, but with a
variation. The double lost all sense of love; it frightened the living to
give it food and drink, and to help it in various ways. It even lost all
affection for its own children and its own wife. Among the ancient Hindus
also, we find traces of this ancestor worship. Among the Chinese, the basis
of their religion may also be said to be ancestor worship, and it still
permeates the length and breadth of that vast country. In fact, the only
religion that can really be said to flourish in China is that of ancestor
worship. Thus it seems, on the one hand, a very good position is made out
for those who hold the theory of ancestor worship as the beginning of
religion.
On the other hand, there are scholars who from the ancient Aryan literature
show that religion originated in nature worship. Although in India we find
proofs of ancestor worship everywhere, yet in the oldest records there is no
trace of it whatsoever. In the Rig-Veda Samhitâ, the most ancient record of
the Aryan race, we do not find any trace of it. Modern scholars think, it is
the worship of nature that they find there. The human mind seems to struggle
to get a peep behind the scenes. The dawn, the evening, the hurricane, the
stupendous and gigantic forces of nature, its beauties, these have exercised
the human mind, and it aspires to go beyond, to understand something about
them. In the struggle they endow these phenomena with personal attributes,
giving them souls and bodies, sometimes beautiful, sometimes transcendent.
Every attempt ends by these phenomena becoming abstractions whether
personalised or not. So also it is found with the ancient Greeks; their
whole mythology is simply this abstracted nature worship. So also with the
ancient Germans, the Scandinavians, and all the other Aryan races. Thus, on
this side, too, a very strong case has been made out, that religion has its
origin in the personification of the powers of nature.
These two views, though they seem to be contradictory, can be reconciled on
a third basis, which, to my mind, is the real germ of religion, and that I
propose to call the struggle to transcend the limitations of the senses.
Either, man goes to seek for the spirits of his ancestors, the spirits of
the dead, that is, he wants to get a glimpse of what there is after the body
is dissolved, or, he desires to understand the power working behind the
stupendous phenomena of nature. Whichever of these is the case, one thing is
certain, that he tries to transcend the limitations of the senses. He cannot
remain satisfied with his senses; he wants to go beyond them. The
explanation need not be mysterious. To me it seems very natural that the
first glimpse of religion should come through dreams. The first idea of
immortality man may well get through dreams. Is that not a most wonderful
state? And we know that children and untutored minds find very little
difference between dreaming and their awakened state. What can be more
natural than that they find, as natural logic, that even during the sleep
state when the body is apparently dead, the mind goes on with all its
intricate workings? What wonder that men will at once come to the conclusion
that when this body is dissolved for ever, the same working will go on?
This, to my mind, would be a more natural explanation of the supernatural,
and through this dream idea the human mind rises to higher and higher
conceptions. Of course, in time, the vast majority of mankind found out that
these dreams are not verified by their waking states, and that during the
dream state it is not that man has a fresh existence, but simply that he
recapitulates the experiences of the awakened state.
But by this time the search had begun, and the search was inward, arid man
continued inquiring more deeply into the different stages of the mind and
discovered higher states than either the waking or the dreaming. This state
of things we find in all the organised religions of the world, called either
ecstasy or inspiration. In all organised religions, their founders,
prophets, and messengers are declared to have gone into states of mind that
were neither waking nor sleeping, in which they came face to face with a new
series of facts relating to what is called the spiritual kingdom. They
realised things there much more intensely than we realise facts around us in
our waking state. Take, for instance, the religions of the Brahmins. The
Vedas are said to be written by Rishis. These Rishis were sages who realised
certain facts. The exact definition of the Sanskrit word Rishi is a Seer of
Mantras — of the thoughts conveyed in the Vedic hymns. These men declared
that they had realised — sensed, if that word can be used with regard to the
supersensuous — certain facts, and these facts they proceeded to put on
record. We find the same truth declared amongst both the Jews and the
Christians.
Some exceptions may be taken in the case of the Buddhists as represented by
the Southern sect. It may be asked — if the Buddhists do not believe in any
God or soul, how can their religion be derived from the supersensuous state
of existence? The answer to this is that even the Buddhists find an eternal
moral law, and that moral law was not reasoned out in our sense of the word
But Buddha found it, discovered it, in a supersensuous state. Those of you
who have studied the life of Buddha even as briefly given in that beautiful
poem, The Light of Asia, may remember that Buddha is represented as sitting
under the Bo-tree until he reached that supersensuous state of mind. All his
teachings came through this, and not through intellectual cogitations.
Thus, a tremendous statement is made by all religions; that the human mind,
at certain moments, transcends not only the limitations of the senses, but
also the power of reasoning. It then comes face to face with facts which it
could never have sensed, could never hive reasoned out. These facts are the
basis of all the religions of the world. Of course we have the right to
challenge these facts, to put them to the test of reason. Nevertheless, all
the existing religions of the world claim for the human mind this peculiar
power of transcending the limits of the senses and the limits of reason; and
this power they put forward as a statement of fact.
Apart from the consideration of tie question how far these facts claimed by
religions are true, we find one characteristic common to them all. They are
all abstractions as contrasted with the concrete discoveries of physics, for
instance; and in all the highly organised religions they take the purest
form of Unit Abstraction, either in the form of an Abstracted Presence, as
an Omnipresent Being, as an Abstract Personality called God, as a Moral Law,
or in the form of an Abstract Essence underlying every existence. In modern
times, too, the attempts made to preach religions without appealing to the
supersensuous state if the mind have had to take up the old abstractions of
the Ancients and give different names to them as "Moral Law", the "Ideal
Unity", and so forth, thus showing that these abstractions are not in the
senses. None of us have yet seen an "Ideal Human Being", and yet we are told
to believe in it. None of us have yet seen an ideally perfect man, and yet
without that ideal we cannot progress. Thus, this one fact stands out from
all these different religions, that there is an Ideal Unit Abstraction,
which is put before us, either in the form of a Person or an Impersonal
Being, or a Law, or a Presence, or an Essence. We are always struggling to
raise ourselves up to that ideal. Every human being, whosoever and
wheresoever he may be, has an ideal of infinite power. Every human being has
an ideal of infinite pleasure. Most of the works that we find around us, the
activities displayed everywhere, are due to the struggle for this infinite
power or this infinite pleasure. But a few quickly discover that although
they are struggling for infinite power, it is not through the senses that it
can be reached. They find out very soon that that infinite pleasure is not
to be got through the senses, or, in other words, the senses are too
limited, and the body is too limited, to express the Infinite. To manifest
the Infinite through the finite is impossible, and sooner or later, man
learns to give up the attempt to express the Infinite through the finite.
This giving up, this renunciation of the attempt, is the background of
ethics. Renunciation is the very basis upon which ethics stands. There never
was an ethical code preached which had not renunciation for its basis.
Ethics always says, "Not I, but thou." Its motto is, "Not self, but
non-self." The vain ideas of individualism, to which man clings when he is
trying to find that Infinite Power or that Infinite Pleasure through the
senses, have to be given up — say the laws of ethics. You have to put
yourself last, and others before you. The senses say, "Myself first." Ethics
says, "I must hold myself last." Thus, all codes of ethics are based upon
this renunciation; destruction, not construction, of the individual on the
material plane. That Infinite will never find expression upon the material
plane, nor is it possible or thinkable.
So, man has to give up the plane of matter and rise to other spheres to seek
a deeper expression of that Infinite. In this way the various ethical laws
are being moulded, but all have that one central idea, eternal
self-abnegation. Perfect self-annihilation is the ideal of ethics. People
are startled if they are asked not to think of their individualities. They
seem so very much afraid of losing what they call their individuality. At
the same time, the same men would declare the highest ideals of ethics to be
right, never for a moment thinking that the scope, the goal, the idea of all
ethics is the destruction, and not the building up, of the individual.
Utilitarian standards cannot explain the ethical relations of men, for, in
the first place, we cannot derive any ethical laws from considerations of
utility. Without the supernatural sanction as it is called, or the
perception of the superconscious as I prefer to term it, there can be no
ethics. Without the struggle towards the Infinite there can be no ideal. Any
system that wants to bind men down to the limits of their own societies is
not able to find an explanation for the ethical laws of mankind. The
Utilitarian wants us to give up the struggle after the Infinite, the
reaching-out for the Supersensuous, as impracticable and absurd, and, in the
same breath, asks us to take up ethics and do good to society. Why should we
do good? Doing good is a secondary consideration. We must have an ideal.
Ethics itself is not the end, but the means to the end. If the end is not
there, why should we be ethical? Why should I do good to other men, and not
injure them? If happiness is the goal of mankind, why should I not make
myself happy and others unhappy? What prevents me? In the second place, the
basis of utility is too narrow. All the current social forms and methods are
derived from society as it exists, but what right has the Utilitarian to
assume that society is eternal? Society did not exist ages ago, possibly
will not exist ages hence. Most probably it is one of the passing stages
through which we are going towards a higher evolution, and any law that is
derived from society alone cannot be eternal, cannot cover the whole ground
of man's nature. At best, therefore, Utilitarian theories can only work
under present social conditions. Beyond that they have no value. But a
morality an ethical code, derived from religion and spirituality, has the
whole of infinite man for its scope. It takes up the individual, but its
relations are to the Infinite, and it takes up society also — because
society is nothing but numbers of these individuals grouped together; and as
it applies to the individual and his eternal relations, it must necessarily
apply to the whole of society, in whatever condition it may be at any given
time. Thus we see that there is always the necessity of spiritual religion
for mankind. Man cannot always think of matter, however pleasurable it may
be.
It has been said that too much attention to things spiritual disturbs our
practical relations in this world. As far back as in the days of the Chinese
sage Confucius, it was said, "Let us take care of this world: and then, when
we have finished with this world, we will take care of other world." It is
very well that we should take care of this world. But if too much attention
to the spiritual may affect a little our practical relations, too much
attention to the so-called practical hurts us here and hereafter. It makes
us materialistic. For man is not to regard nature as his goal, but something
higher.
Man is man so long as he is struggling to rise above nature, and this nature
is both internal and external. Not only does it comprise the laws that
govern the particles of matter outside us and in our bodies, but also the
more subtle nature within, which is, in fact, the motive power governing the
external. It is good and very grand to conquer external nature, but grander
still to conquer our internal nature. It is grand and good to know the laws
that govern the stars and planets; it is infinitely grander and better to
know the laws that govern the passions, the feelings, the will, of mankind.
This conquering of the inner man, understanding the secrets of the subtle
workings that are within the human mind, and knowing its wonderful secrets,
belong entirely to religion. Human nature — the ordinary human nature, I
mean — wants to see big material facts. The ordinary man cannot understand
anything that is subtle. Well has it been said that the masses admire the
lion that kills a thousand lambs, never for a moment thinking that it is
death to the lambs. Although a momentary triumph for the lion; because they
find pleasure only in manifestations of physical strength. Thus it is with
the ordinary run of mankind. They understand and find pleasure in everything
that is external. But in every society there is a section whose pleasures
are not in the senses, but beyond, and who now and then catch glimpses of
something higher than matter and struggle to reach it. And if we read the
history of nations between the lines, we shall always find that the rise of
a nation comes with an increase in the number of such men; and the fall
begins when this pursuit after the Infinite, however vain Utilitarians may
call it, has ceased. That is to say, the mainspring of the strength Of every
race lies in its spirituality, and the death of that race begins the day
that spirituality wanes and materialism gains ground.
Thus, apart from the solid facts and truths that we may learn from religion,
apart from the comforts that we may gain from it, religion, as a science, as
a study, is the greatest and healthiest exercise that the human mind can
have. This pursuit of the Infinite, this struggle to grasp the Infinite,
this effort to get beyond the limitations of the senses — out of matter, as
it were — and to evolve the spiritual man — this striving day and night to
make the Infinite one with our being — this struggle itself is the grandest
and most glorious that man can make. Some persons find the greatest pleasure
in eating. We have no right to say that they should not. Others find the
greatest pleasure in possessing certain things. We have no right to say that
they should not. But they also have no right to say "no" to the man who
finds his highest pleasure in spiritual thought. The lower the organisation,
the greater the pleasure in the senses. Very few men can eat a meal with the
same gusto as a dog or a wolf. But all the pleasures of the dog or the wolf
have gone, as it were into the senses. The lower types of humanity in all
nations find pleasure in the senses, while the cultured and the educated
find it in thought, in philosophy, in arts and sciences. Spirituality is a
still higher plane. The subject being infinite, that plane is the highest,
and the pleasure there is the highest for those who can appreciate it. So,
even on the utilitarian ground that man is to seek for pleasure, he should
cultivate religious thought, for it is the highest pleasure that exists.
Thus religion, as a study, seems to me to be absolutely necessary.
We can see it in its effects. It is the greatest motive power that moves the
human mind No other ideal can put into us the same mass of energy as the
spiritual. So far as human history goes, it is obvious to all of us that
this has been the case and that its powers are not dead. I do not deny that
men, on simply utilitarian grounds, can be very good and moral. There have
been many great men in this world perfectly sound, moral, and good, simply
on utilitarian grounds. But the world-movers, men who bring, as It were, a
mass of magnetism into the world whose spirit works in hundreds and in
thousands, whose life ignites others with a spiritual fire — such men, we
always find, have that spiritual background. Their motive power came from
religion. Religion is the greatest motive power for realising that infinite
energy which is the birthright and nature of every man. In building up
character in making for everything that is good and great, in bringing peace
to others and peace to one's own self, religion is the highest motive power
and, therefore, ought to be studied from that standpoint. Religion must be
studied on a broader basis than formerly. All narrow limited, fighting ideas
of religion have to go. All sect ideas and tribal or national ideas of
religion must be given up. That each tribe or nation should have its own
particular God and think that every other is wrong is a superstition that
should belong to the past. All such ideas must be abandoned.
As the human mind broadens, its spiritual steps broaden too. The time has
already come when a man cannot record a thought without its reaching to all
corners of the earth; by merely physical means, we have come into touch with
the whole world; so the future religions of the world have to become as
universal, as wide.
The religious ideals of the future must embrace all that exists in the world
and is good and great, and, at the same time, have infinite scope for future
development. All that was good in the past must be preserved; and the doors
must be kept open for future additions to the already existing store.
Religions must also be inclusive and not look down with contempt upon one
another because their particular ideals of God are different. In my life I
have seen a great many spiritual men, a great many sensible persons, who did
not believe in God at all that is to say, not in our sense of the word.
Perhaps they understood God better than we can ever do. The Personal idea of
God or the Impersonal, the Infinite, Moral Law, or the Ideal Man — these all
have to come under the definition of religion. And when religions have
become thus broadened, their power for good will have increased a
hundredfold. Religions, having tremendous power in them, have often done
more injury to the world than good, simply on account of their narrowness
and limitations.
Even at the present time we find many sects and societies, with almost the
same ideas, fighting each other, because one does not want to set forth
those ideas in precisely the same way as another. Therefore, religions will
have to broaden. Religious ideas will have to become universal, vast, and
infinite; and then alone we shall have the fullest play of religion, for the
power of religion has only just begun to manifest in the world. It is
sometimes said that religions are dying out, that spiritual ideas are dying
out of the world. To me it seems that they have just begun to grow. The
power of religion, broadened and purified, is going to penetrate every part
of human life. So long as religion was in the hands of a chosen few or of a
body of priests, it was in temples, churches, books, dogmas, ceremonials,
forms, and rituals. But when we come to the real, spiritual, universal
concept, then, and then alone religion will become real and living; it will
come into our very nature, live in our every movement, penetrate every pore
of our society, and be infinitely more a power for good than it has ever
been before.
What is needed is a fellow-feeling between the different types of religion,
seeing that they all stand or fall together, a fellow-feeling which springs
from mutual esteem and mutual respect, and not the condescending,
patronising, niggardly expression of goodwill, unfortunately in vogue at the
present time with many. And above all, this is needed between types of
religious expression coming from the study of mental phenomena —
unfortunately, even now laying exclusive claim to the name of religion — and
those expressions of religion whose heads, as it were, are penetrating more
into the secrets of heaven though their feet are clinging to earth, I mean
the so-called materialistic sciences.
To bring about this harmony, both will have to make concessions, sometimes
very large, nay more, sometimes painful, but each will find itself the
better for the sacrifice and more advanced in truth. And in the end, the
knowledge which is confined within the domain of time and space will meet
and become one with that which is beyond them both, where the mind and
senses cannot reach — the Absolute, the Infinite, the One without a second.