Forms and Symbols: Approaching the Abstract Through the
Concrete
The idea of a Personal God has obtained in almost every religion,
except a very few. With the exception of the Buddhist and the Jain, perhaps all
the religions of the world have the idea of a Personal God, and with it comes
the idea of devotion and worship. The Buddhists and the Jains, although they
have no Personal God, worship the founders of their religions in precisely the
same way as others worship a Personal God. This idea of devotion and worship to
some higher being who can reflect back the love to man is universal. In various
religions this love and devotion is manifested in various degrees, at different
states. The lowest stage is that of ritualism, when abstract ideas are almost
impossible, and are dragged down to the lowest plane, and made concrete. Forms
come into play, and, along with them, various symbols. Throughout the history
of the world, we find that man is trying to grasp the abstract through
thought-forms, or symbols. All the external manifestations of religion–bells,
music, rituals, books, and images–come under that head. Anything that appeals
to the senses, anything that helps man to form a concrete image of the
abstract, is taken hold of, and worshipped.
Symbolism is necessary for the beginner
From time to time, there have been reformers in every religion who
have stood against all symbols and rituals. But vain has been their opposition,
for so long as man will remain as he is, the vast majority will always want
something concrete to hold on to, something around which, as it were, to place
their ideas, something which will be the center of all the thought-forms in
their minds. The great attempts of the Mohammedans and of the Protestants have
been directed to this one end, of doing away with all rituals, and yet we find
that even with them, rituals have crept in. They cannot be kept out; after long
struggle, the masses simply change one symbol for another. The Mohammedan, who
thinks that every ritual, every form, image, or ceremony, used by a
non-Mohammedan is sinful, does not think so when he comes to his own shrine,
the Ka’aba. Every religious Mohammedan wherever he prays, must imagine that he
is standing before the Ka’aba. When he makes a pilgrimage there, he must kiss the
black stone in the wall of the shrine. All the kisses that have been imprinted
on that stone, by millions and millions of pilgrims, will stand up as witnesses
for the benefit of the faithful on the last day of judgment. Then, there is the
well of Zimzim. Mohammedans believe that whoever draws a little water out of
that well will have his sins pardoned, and he will, after the day of
resurrection, have a fresh body, and live for ever. In others, we find that the
symbology comes in the form of buildings. Protestants hold that churches are
more sacred than other places. The church, as it is, stands for a symbol. Or
there is the Book. The idea of the Book, to them, is much holier than any other
symbol.
It is vain to preach against the use of symbols, and why should we preach
against them? There is no reason why man should not use symbols. They have them
in order to represent the ideas signified behind them. This universe is a
symbol, in and through which we are trying to grasp the thing signified, which
is beyond and behind. The spirit is the goal, and not matter. Forms, images,
bells, candles, books, churches, temples, and all holy symbols are very good,
very helpful to the growing plant of spirituality, but thus far and no farther.
In the vast majority of cases, we find that the plant does not grow. It is very
good to be born in a church, but it is very bad to die in a church. It is very
good to be born within the limits of certain forms that help the little plant
of spirituality, but if a man dies within the bounds of these forms, it shows
that he has not grown, that there has been no development of the soul.
If, therefore, any one says that symbols, rituals, and forms are to be kept for
ever, he is wrong; but if he says, that these symbols and rituals are a help to
the growth of the soul, in its low and undeveloped state, he is right. But, you
must not mistake this development of the soul as meaning anything intellectual.
A man can be of gigantic intellect, yet spiritually he may be a baby. You can
verify it this minute. All of you have been taught to believe in an Omnipresent
God. Try to think of it. How few of you can have any idea of what omnipresence
means! If you struggle hard, you will get something like the idea of the ocean,
or of the sky, or of a vast stretch of green earth, or of a desert. All these
are material images, and so long as you cannot conceive of the abstract as
abstract, of the ideal as the ideal, you will have to resort to these
forms, these material images. It does not make much difference whether these
images are inside or outside the mind. We are all born idolaters, and idolatry
is good, because it is in the nature of man. Who can get beyond it? Only the
perfect man, the God-man. The rest are all idolaters. So long as we see this
universe before us, with its forms and shapes, we are all idolaters. This is a
gigantic symbol we are worshipping. He who says he is the body is a born
idolater. We are spirit, spirit that has no form or shape, spirit that is
infinite, and not matter. Therefore, anyone who cannot grasp the abstract, who
cannot think of himself as he is, except in and through matter, as the body, is
an idolater. And yet how people fight among themselves, calling one another
idolaters! In other words, each says, his idol is right, and the others’ are
wrong.
Therefore, we should get rid of these childish notions. We should get beyond
the prattle of men who think that religion is merely a mass of frothy words,
that it is only a system of doctrines; to whom religion is only a little intellectual
assent or dissent; to whom religion is believing in certain words which their
own priests tell them; to whom religion is something which their forefathers
believed; to whom religion is a certain form of ideas and superstitions to
which they cling because they are their national superstitions. We should get
beyond all these and look at humanity as one vast organism, slowly coming
towards light–a wonderful plant, slowly unfolding itself to that wonderful
truth which is called God–and the first gyrations, the first motions, towards
this are always through matter and through ritual.
Worship of God through Forms and Symbols, Names and
God-men
In the heart of all these ritualisms, there stands one idea prominent
above all the rest–the worship of a name. Those of you who have studied the
older forms of Christianity, those of you who have studied the other religions
of the world, perhaps have marked that there is this idea with them all, the
worship of a name. A name is said to be very sacred. In the Bible we read that
the holy name of God was considered sacred beyond compare, holy beyond
everything. It was the holiest of all names, and it was thought that this very
Word was God. This is quite true. What is this universe but name and form? Can
you think without words? Word and thought are inseparable. Try if any one of
you can separate them. Whenever you think, you are doing so through word forms.
The one brings the other; thought brings the word, and the word brings the
thought. Thus the whole universe is, as it were, the external symbol of God,
and behind that stands His grand name. Each particular body is a form, and
behind that particular body is its name. As soon as you think of your friend
So-and-so, there comes the idea of his body, and as soon as you think of your
friend’s body, you get the idea of his name. This is in the constitution of
man. That is to say, psychologically, in the mind-stuff of man, there cannot
come the idea of name without the idea of form, and there cannot come the idea
of form without the idea of name. They are inseparable; they are the external
and the internal sides of the same wave. As such, names have been exalted and
worshipped all over the world–consciously or unconsciously, man found the glory
of names.
Again, we find that in many different religions, holy personages have been
worshipped. They worship Krishna, they worship Buddha, they worship Jesus, and
so forth. Then, there is the worship of saints; hundreds of them have been
worshipped all over the world, and why not? The vibration of light is
everywhere. The owl sees it in the dark. That shows it is there, though man
cannot see it. To man, that vibration is only visible in the lamp, in the sun,
in the moon, etc. God is omnipresent, He is manifesting Himself in every being;
but for men, He is only visible, recognizable, in man. When His light, His
presence, His spirit, shines through the human face, then and then alone, can
man understand Him. Thus, man has been worshipping God through men all the
time, and must do so as long as he is a man. He may cry against it, struggle
against it, but as soon as he attempts to realize God, he will find the
constitutional necessity of thinking of God as a man.
So we find that in almost every religion these are the three primary things
which we have in the worship of God–forms or symbols, names, God-men. All
religions have these, but you find that they want to fight with each other. One
says, "My name is the only name; my form is the only form; and my God-men
are the only God-men in the world; yours are simply myths." In modern
times, Christian clergymen have become a little kinder, and they allow that in
the older religions, the different forms of worship were foreshadowings of
Christianity, which of course, they consider, is the only true form. God tested
Himself in older times, tested His powers by getting these things into shape
which culminated in Christianity. This, at least, is a great advance. Fifty
years ago they would not have said even that; nothing was true except their own
religion. This idea is not limited to any religion, nation, or class of
persons; people are always thinking that the only right thing to be done by
others is what they themselves are doing. And it is here that the study of
different religions helps us. It shows us that the same thoughts that we have
been calling ours, and ours alone, were present hundreds of years ago in
others, and sometimes even in a better form of expression than our own.
Religion Means Realization
These are the external forms of devotion, through which man has to
pass; but if he is sincere, if he really wants to reach the truth, he goes
higher than these, to a plane where forms are as nothing. Temples or churches,
books or forms, are simply the kindergarten of religion, to make the spiritual
child strong enough to take higher steps; and these first steps are necessary
if he wants religion. With the thirst, the longing for God, comes real
devotion, real Bhakti. Who has the longing? That is the question. Religion is
not in doctrines, in dogmas, nor in intellectual argumentation; it is being and
becoming, it is realization. We hear so many talking about God and the soul,
and all the mysteries of the universe, but if you take them one by one, and ask
them, "Have you realized God? Have you seen your Soul?"–how many can
say they have? And yet they are all fighting with one another!
At one time, in India, representatives of different sects met together and
began to dispute. One said that the only God was Shiva; another said, the only
God was Vishnu, and so on; and there was no end to their discussion. A sage was
passing that way, and was invited by the disputants to decide the matter. He
first asked the man who was claiming Shiva as the greatest God. "Have you
seen Shiva? Are you acquainted with Him? If not, how do you know He is the
greatest God?" Then turning to the worshipper of Vishnu, he asked,
"Have you seen Vishnu?" And after asking this question to all of
them, he found out that not one of them knew anything of God. That was why they
were disputing so much, for had they really known, they would not have argued.
When a jar is being filled with water, it makes a noise, but when it is full,
there is no noise. So, the very fact of these disputations and fighting among
sects shows that they do not know anything about religion. Religion to them is
a mere mass of frothy words, to be written in books. Each one hurries to write
a big book, to make it as massive as possible, stealing his materials from
every book he can lay his hands upon, and never acknowledging his indebtedness.
Then he launches his book upon the world, adding to the disturbance that is
already existing there.
The vast majority of men are atheists. I am glad that, in modern times, another
class of atheists has come into existence in the Western world–I mean the
materialists. They are sincere atheists. They are better than the religious
atheists, who are insincere, who fight and talk about religion, and yet do not
want it, never try to realize it, never try to understand it. Remember the
words of Christ: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you." These words are literally true,
not figures or fiction. They were the outflow of the heart’s blood of one the
greatest sons of God who have ever come to this world of ours; words which came
as the fruit of realization, from a man who had felt and realized God himself;
who had spoken with God, lived with God, a hundred times more intensely than
you or I see this building. Who wants God? That is the question. Do you think
that all this mass of people in the world want God, and cannot get Him? That
cannot be. What want is there without its object outside? Man wants to breathe,
and there is air for him to breathe. Man wants to eat, and there is food to
eat.
What creates these desires? The existence of external things. It was the light
that made the eyes; it was the sound that made the ears. So every desire in
human beings has been created by something which already existed outside. This
desire for perfection, for reaching the goal and getting beyond nature, how can
it be there, until something has created it and drilled it into the soul of
man, and makes it live there? He, therefore, in whom this desire is awakened,
will reach the goal. We want everything but God. This is not religion that you
see all around you. My lady has furniture in her parlor, from all over the
world, and now it is the fashion to have something Japanese; so she buys a vase
and puts it in her room. Such is religion with the vast majority; they have all
sorts of things for enjoyment, and unless they add a little flavor of religion,
life is not all right, because society would criticize them. Society expects
it; so they must have some religion. This is the present state of religion in
the world.
Longing and Awakening
A disciple went to his master and said to him, "Sir, I want
religion." The master looked at the young man, and did not speak, but only
smiled. The young man came every day, and insisted that he wanted religion. But
the old man knew better than the young man. One day, when it was very hot, he
asked the young man to go to the river with him and take a plunge. The young
man plunged in, and the old man followed him and held the young man down under
the water by force. After the young man had struggled for a while, he let him
go and asked him what he wanted most while he was under the water. "A
breath of air", the disciple answered. "Do you want God in that way?
if you do, you will get Him in a moment," said the master. Until you have
that thirst, that desire, you cannot get religion, however you may struggle
with your intellect, or your books, or your forms. Until that thirst is
awakened in you, you are no better than any atheist; only the atheist is
sincere, and you are not.
A great sage used to say, "Suppose there is a thief in a room, and somehow
he comes to know that there is a vast mass of gold in the next room, and that
there is only a thin partition between the two rooms. What would be the
condition of that thief? He would be sleepless, he would not be able to eat or
do anything. His whole mind would be on getting that gold. Do you mean to say
that, if all these people really believe that the Mine of Happiness, of
Blessedness, or Glory were here, they would act as they do in the world,
without trying to get God?" As soon as a man begins to believe there is a
God, he becomes mad with longing to get to Him. Others may go their way, but as
soon as a man is sure that there is a much higher life than that which he is leading
here, as soon as he feels sure that the senses are not all, that this limited,
material body is as nothing compared with the immortal, eternal, undying bliss
of the Self, he becomes mad until he finds out this bliss for himself. And this
madness, this thirst, this mania, is what is called the "awakening"
to religion, and when that has come, a man is beginning to be religious. But it
takes a long time. All these forms and ceremonies, these prayers and
pilgrimages, these books, bells, candles, and priests, are the preparations;
they take off the impurities from the soul. And when the soul has become pure,
it naturally wants to get to the mine of all purity, God Himself. Just as a
piece of iron, which had been covered with the dust of centuries, might be
lying near a magnet all the time, and yet not be attracted by it, but as soon
as the dust is cleared away, the iron is drawn by the magnet; so, when the
human soul, covered with the dust of ages, impurities, wickednesses, and sins,
after many births, becomes purified enough by these forms and ceremonies, by
doing good to others, loving other beings, its natural spiritual attraction
comes, it wakes up and struggles towards God.
Love Knows No Bargaining
Yet, all these forms and symbols are simply the beginning, not true
love of God. Love we hear spoken of everywhere. Everyone says, "Love
God." Men do not know what it is to love; if they did, they would not talk
so glibly about it. Every man says he can love, and then, in no time, finds out
that there is no love in his nature. Every woman says she can love and soon
finds out that she cannot. The world is full of the talk of love, but it is
hard to love. Where is love? How do you know that there is love? The first test
of love is that it knows no bargaining. So long as you see a man love another
only to get something from him, you know that that is not love; it is
shopkeeping. Wherever there is any question of buying and selling, it is not
love. So, when a man prays to God, "Give me this, and give me that",
it is not love. How can it be? I offer you a prayer, and you give me something
in return; that is what it is, mere shopkeeping.
A certain great king went to hunt in a forest, and there he happened to meet a
sage. He had a little conversation with him and became so pleased with him that
he asked him to accept a present from him. "No," said the sage,
"I am perfectly satisfied with my condition; these trees give me enough
fruit to eat; these beautiful pure streams supply me with all the water I want;
I sleep in these caves. What do I care for your presents, though you be an
emperor?" The emperor said, "Just to purify me, to gratify me, come
with me into the city and take some present." At last the sage consented
to go with the emperor, and he was taken into the emperor’s palace, where there
were gold, jewelry, marble, and the most wonderful things. Wealth and power
were manifest everywhere. The emperor asked the sage to wait a minute, while he
repeated his prayer, and he went into a corner and began to pray, "Lord,
give me more wealth, more children, more territory." In the meanwhile, the
sage got up and began to walk away. The emperor saw him going and went after
him. "Stay, Sir, you did not take my present and are going away." The
sage turned to him and said, "Beggar, I do not beg of beggars. What can
you give? You have been begging yourself all the time." That is not the
language of love. What is the difference between love and shopkeeping, if you
ask God to give you this, and give you that? The first test of love is that it
knows no bargaining. Love is always the giver, and never the taker. Says the
child of God, "If God wants, I give Him my everything, but I do not want
anything of Him. I want nothing in this universe. I love Him, because I want to
love Him, and I ask no favor in return. Who cares whether God is almighty or
not? I do not want any power from Him nor any manifestation of His power.
Sufficient for me that He is the God of love. I ask no more question."
Love Knows No Fear
The second test is that love knows no fear. So long as man
thinks of God as a Being sitting above the clouds, with rewards in one hand and
punishments in the other, there can be no love. Can you frighten one into love?
Does the lamb love the lion? The mouse, the cat? The slave, the master? Slaves
sometimes simulate love, but is it love? Where do you ever see love in fear? It
is always a sham. With love never comes the idea of fear. Think of a young
mother in the street: if a dog barks at her, she flees in to the nearest house.
The next day she is in the street with her child, and suppose a lion rushes
upon the child, where will be her position? Just at the mouth of the lion,
protecting her child. Love conquered all her fear. So also in the love of God.
Who cares whether God is a rewarder or a punisher? That is not the thought of a
lover. Think of a judge when he comes home, what does his wife see in him? Not
a judge, or a rewarder or punisher, but her husband, her love. What do his
children see in him? Their loving father, not the punisher or rewarder. So the
children of God never see in Him a punisher or a rewarder. It is only people
who have never tasted of love that fear and quake. Cast off all fear—though
these horrible ideas of God as a punisher or rewarder may have their use in
savage minds. Some men, even the most intellectual, are spiritual savages, and
these ideas may help them. But to men who are spiritual, men who are
approaching religion, in whom spiritual insight is awakened, such ideas are
simply childish, simply foolish. Such men reject all ideas of fear.
Love is the Highest Ideal
The third is a still higher test. Love is always the
highest ideal. When one has passed through the first two stages, when one has
thrown off all shopkeeping, and casts off all fear, one then begins to realize
that love is always the highest ideal. How many times in this world we see a
beautiful woman loving an ugly man? How many times we see a handsome man loving
an ugly woman! What is the attraction? Lookers-on only see the ugly man or the
ugly woman, but not so the lover; to the lover the beloved is the most
beautiful being that ever existed. How is it? The woman who loves the ugly man
takes, as it were, the ideal of beauty which is in her own mind, and projects
it on the ugly man; and what she worships and loves is not the ugly man, but
her own ideal. That man is, as it were, only the suggestion, and upon that
suggestion she throws her own ideal, and covers it; and it becomes her object
of worship. Now, this applies in every case where we love. Many of us have very
ordinary looking brothers or sisters; yet the very idea of their being brothers
or sisters makes them beautiful to us.
The philosophy in the background is that each one projects his own ideal and
worships that. This external world is only the world of suggestion. All that we
see, we project out of our own minds. A grain of sand gets washed into the
shell of an oyster and irritates it. The irritation produces a secretion in the
oyster, which covers the grain of sand and the beautiful pearl is the result.
Similarly, external things furnish us with suggestions, over which we project
our own ideals and make our objects. The wicked see this world as a perfect
hell, and the good as a perfect heaven. Lovers see this world as full of love,
and haters as full of hatred; fighters see nothing but strife, and the peaceful
nothing but peace. The perfect man sees nothing but God. So we always worship
our highest ideal, and when we have reached the point, when we love the ideal
as the ideal, all arguments and doubts vanish for ever. Who cares whether God
can be demonstrated or not? The ideal can never go, because it is a part of my
own nature. I shall only question the ideal when I question my own existence,
and as I cannot question the one, I cannot question the other. Who cares
whether God can be almighty and all-merciful at the same time or not? Who cares
whether He is the rewarder of mankind, whether He looks at us with the eyes of
a tyrant or with the eyes of a beneficent monarch?
Love Is the Motive Power of the Whole Universe
The lover has passed beyond all these things, beyond
rewards and punishments, beyond fears and doubts, beyond scientific or any
other demonstration. Sufficient unto him is the ideal of love, and is it not
self-evident that this universe is but a manifestation of this love? What is it
that makes the atoms unite with atoms, molecules with molecules, and causes
planets to fly towards each other? What is it that attracts man to man, man to
woman, woman to man, and animals to animals, drawing the whole universe, as it
were, towards one center? It is what is called love. Its manifestation is from
the lowest atom to the highest being: omnipotent, all-pervading, is this love.
What manifests itself as attraction in the sentient and the insentient, in the
particular and in the universal, is the love of God. It is the one motive power
that is in the universe. Under the impetus of that love, Christ gives his life
for humanity, Buddha even for an animal, the mother for the child, the husband
for the wife. It is under the impetus of the same love that men are ready to
give up their lives for their country, and strange to say, under the impetus of
the same love, the thief steals, the murderer murders. Even in these cases, the
spirit is the same, but the manifestation is different. This is the one motive
power in the universe. The thief has love for gold; the love is there, but it
is misdirected. So, in all crimes, as well as in all virtuous actions, behind
stands that eternal love. Suppose a man writes a check for a thousand dollars
for the poor of New York, and at the same time, in the same room, another man
forges the name of a friend. The light by which both of them write is the same,
but each one will be responsible for the use he makes of it. It is not the
light that is to be praised or blamed. Unattached, yet shining in everything,
is love, the motive power of the universe, without which the universe would
fall to pieces in a moment, and this love is God.
"None, O beloved, loves the husband for the husband’s sake, but for the
Self that is in the husband; none, O beloved, ever loves the wife for the
wife’s sake, but for the Self that is in the wife. None ever loves anything
else, except for the Self." Even this selfishness, which is so much
condemned, is but a manifestation of the same love. Stand aside from this play,
do not mix in it, but see this wonderful panorama, this grand drama, played
scene after scene, and hear this wonderful harmony; all are the manifestation
of the same love. Even in selfishness, that self will multiply, grow and grow.
That one self, the one man, will become two selves when he gets married;
several, when he gets children; and thus he grows until he feels the whole
world as his Self, the whole universe as his Self. He expands into one mass of
universal love, infinite love–the love that is God.
Supreme Love Is Love for the Sake of Love
Alone
Thus we come to what is called supreme Bhakti, supreme
devotion, in which forms and symbols fall off. One who has reached that cannot
belong to any sect, for all sects are in him. To what shall he belong? For all
churches and temples are in him. Where is the church big enough for him? Such a
man cannot bind himself down to certain limited forms. Where is the limit for
unlimited love, with which he has become one? In all religions which take up
this ideal of love, we find the struggle to express it. Although we understand
what this love means and see that everything in this world of affections and
attractions is a manifestation of that Infinite Love, the expression of which
has been attempted by sages and saints of different nations, yet we find them
using all the powers of language, transfiguring even the most carnal expression
into the divine.
Thus sang the royal Hebrew sage, thus sang they of India. "O beloved, one
kiss of Thy lips! Kissed by Thee, one’s thirst for Thee increaseth for ever!
All sorrows cease, one forgets the past, present, and future, and only thinks
of Thee alone." That is the madness of the lover, when all desires have
vanished. "Who cares for salvation? Who cares to be saved? Who cares to be
perfect even? Who cares for freedom?"–says the lover. "I do not want
wealth, nor even health; I do not want beauty, I do not want intellect: let me be
born again and again, amid all the evils that are in the world; I will not
complain, but let me love Thee, and that for love’s sake."
That is the madness of love which finds expression in these songs. The highest,
most expressive, strongest, and most attractive human love is that between man
and woman, and, therefore, that language was used in expressing the deepest
devotion. The madness of this human love was the faintest echo of the mad love
of the saints. The true lovers of God want to become mad, inebriated with the
love of God, to become "God-intoxicated men." They want to drink of
the cup of love which has been prepared by the saints and sages of every
religion, who have poured their heart’s blood into it, and in which have been
concentrated all the hopes of those who have loved God without seeking reward,
who wanted love for itself only. The reward of love is love, and what a reward
it is! It is the only thing that takes off all sorrows, the only cup, by the
drinking of which this disease of the world vanishes. Man becomes divinely mad
and forgets that he is man.
Love Leads to Union
Lastly, we find that all these various systems, in the
end, converge to that one point, that perfect union. We always begin as
dualists. God is a separate Being, and I am a separate being. Love comes
between, and man begins to approach God, and God, as it were, begins to
approach man. Man takes up all the various relationships of life, as father,
mother, friend, or lover; and the last point is reached when he becomes one
with the object of worship. "I am you, and you are I; and worshipping you,
I worship myself; and in worshipping myself, I worship you." There we find
the highest culmination of that with which man begins. At the beginning it was
love for the self, but the claims of the little self made love selfish; at the
end came the full blaze of light, when that self had become the Infinite. That
God who at first was a Being somewhere, became resolved, as it were, into
Infinite Love. Man himself was also transformed. He was approaching God, he was
throwing off the vain desires, of which he was full before. With desires
vanished selfishness, and, at the apex, he found that Love, Lover, and Beloved
were One.