Social philosophy of Swami Vivekananda

by Baruah Debajit | 2017 | 87,227 words

This study deals with Swami Vivekananda’s social philosophy and his concept of religion. He was the disciple of the 19th-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna. Important subjects are discussed viz., nature of religion, reason and religion, goal of religion, religious experience, ways to God, etc. All in the context of Vivekananda....

Chapter 3.5 - Ways to God (Karma, Bhakti, Raja and Jnana Yoga)

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The ultimate goal of the whole human race, the aim of every religion is one-reunion with God. While the aim is one, the method of attaining may vary from person to person. For spiritual realization or God realization every man must develop according to his own nature. As every science has its methods, so has every religion. The methods of attaining the end of religion are called yoga in India and the different forms of yoga that we know, are adapted to the different natures and temperaments of men. We classify them in the following way, under the four heads:

(i) Karma yoga-the manner in which a man realizes his own divinity through works and duty.

(ii) Bhakti yoga-The realization of the divinity through devotion to, and love of a personal God.

(iii) Raja yoga-The realization of the divinity through the control of the mind.

(iv) Jnana yoga-The realization of the divinity through knowledge.

According to Vivekananda these are all different roads leading to the same centre-God. Now we discuss them one–by-one.

(i) Raja Yoga-

Raja Yoga consists in controlling and concentrating the mind on itself. Man has three levels of understanding. The First is instinct, which is most highly developed in animals. Instinct is the lowest instrument of knowledge. It is a kind of inherent, automatic and unconscious wisdom. The second is reason which is above instinct. Reason is found only in man. The scope of reason is much wider and is more flexible than instinct. It is the exercise of reason that has made man what he is. Yet reason is insufficient; it has also limitation. Vivekananda says “Reason can go only a little way and then stops, it can not go any further; if you try to push it, the result is helpless confusion, reason itself becomes unreasonable. Logic becomes argument in a circle.”^[1] Thus, as soon as reason has gone a little, it stops going forward and ends in the complication of ideas becoming mutually dependent and consequently degenerating into a cyclic movement. According to Vivekananda it is inspiration that surmounts this barrier and brings man face to face with ultimate Truth. So there are three instrument of knowledge and these are instinct, reason and inspiration. Instinct belongs to animals, reason to men, and inspiration to god-men. But in all human beings, in more or less developed condition, the germs of all these instruments of knowledge are to be found. It must be remembered that one is a development of the earlier, and not a contradiction or negation of it. Reason is the development of instinct and it is reason that develops into inspiration. It is therefore absurd to say that they are mutually contradictory. Just as an old man does not contradict the child, but fulfils the child, similarly, reason does not contradict instinct, nor inspiration contradicts reason, but fulfils it. But there is every likelihood of men mistaking the lower form of instrument for the higher. Very often instinct is put before men as inspiration, and the jargon of confused lunatic brains sometimes passes for the language of inspiration.

The function of Raja Yoga is to teach man concentration of the mind. By concentration alone man can gain knowledge and mastery of anything. In ordinary forms of concentration, the mind is made to dwell on an external object. But in Yoga mind is made to concentrate on the mind itself. In the present state of man’s body and mind, there is so much of distraction, and the mind fritters away its energy upon hundred sorts of things. As soon as one tries to calm one’s thoughts and tries to draw the mind inwards, it is distracted by innumerable thoughts. How to check it and bring the mind under control is the subject of Raja Yoga.

(ii) Karma Yoga-

Karma-Yoga is a path of attainment of God through work. It is evident that to many people in the world, work alone appeals and not any kind of meditative life. There are many persons who seem to be born for some sort of activity or other, whose mind can not be concentrated on the plane alone. Such persons have only one idea in their minds, concretized in work, visible and tangible. But the great majority fritters away their energies, because they do not know the secret of work. At this point Vivekananda says “Karma-Yoga explains this secret and teaches where and how to work, how to employ the greatest advantage the largest part of our energies in the work that is before us.”^[2] Karma Yoga therefore helps man to conserve his energies. Not only this, it gives them a spiritual turn. Karma Yoga teaches man to be unattached and work for work’s sake, even in the face of ungrateful and antagonistic attitude of those for whose benefit he works. A Karma Yogi works because it is his nature to work. He works because he feels that it is good for him to do so, and he has no object beyond that. His position in this world is that of a giver, not of a taker, and he never cares to receive anything in return. He therefore evades the grasp of misery which is the result of the reaction of ‘attachment’ entertained for work and for persons associated with oneself.

(iii) Bhakti Yoga-

Bhakti-Yoga is for men of a predominantly emotional nature, for the lover. A man with such nature personalizes God, uses human forms of relationship to symbolize his love for God. He also brings rituals, flowers, incense, beautiful buildings, and all such things in aid of his religious practice and as expressions of his love for God. At this point Vivekananda refers to one very interesting fact and that is world’s great spiritual giants have all been produced only by those religious sects which have been in possession of very rich mythology and ritual. Great mystics and saints have mostly come from the ranks of the followers of such Bhakti cult, and also that from their own ranks have come only either anaesthetic or atheistic fanatical puritans or men who have reduced religion into a branch of social reforms. For Bhakti, rituals and mythologies are forms that make God tangible to them. Men who have no sensitiveness to these have no right to condemn them. To the Bhaktas, the rationalists who try to find God in the net of their intellect, who try to break a beautiful statue to know what material it is made of seem senseless.

Bhakti Yoga teaches man how to love without any ulterior motives, loving God and loving the good because it is good to do so, not for going to heaven, nor to get children, or any other material wealth. It teaches them that love itself is the highest recompense of live-that God Himself is love. To quote Vivekananda “It teaches them to pay all kinds of tribute to God as the Creator, The Omnipresent, Omniscient, Almighty Ruler, the father and the mother. The highest phrase that can express Him, the highest idea that the human mind can conceive of Him, is that He is God of Love. Wherever there is love, it is He.”^[3]

(iv) Jnana Yoga-

Jnana Yoga is the way of the philosopher, the thinker who wants to go beyond the visible. He is the man who is not satisfied with the visible things of the world. His idea is to go beyond the daily routine of eating, drinking and so on. He is not satisfied with the teachings of thousands of book, nor is he satisfied with the sciences. By searching in the entire external world, even amidst the galaxies, we cannot get at the heart of reality. Nor can scientific technique achieve this. It can help us only to explore the periphery of existence. Philosopher’s soul wants to go beyond all that into the very heart of being, by seeing Reality as it is. He feels that we can not understand the universe if we keep ourselves aloof from it. So he wants to realize it, wants to be one with that Universal Being. Jnana Yogi wants to go beyond all forms of mediate knowledge and go into the heart of things by becoming one with the Universal Being. That alone would give the knowledge of Reality as it is. To say that God is the Father, or the Mother, the creator, and guide of the universe, is to him quite inadequate to express Him. To him God is the soul of his soul, the life of his life. God is his own self. All the mortal parts of Him become pounded by the stokes of philosophy and are brushed away. What at last truly remains is God Himself.

The Upanishadic similitude of two birds sitting on the same tree, gives a very good picture of the philosopher’s idea of spiritual progress and understanding. The higher bird, represents Iswara who is calm, motionless, self-satisfied and effulgent-sits on an upper branch of the tree. The lower one stands for the Jiva. It is restless and is engaged eating the fruits of the tree, some of them sweet, others bitter, and thereby feeling happy and miserable in alteration. But at some time when it eats an exceptionally bitter fruit, it feels very miserable. In the shock of that experience, it gazes up at the majesticlooking and calm bird above. But soon forgetting that bitter experience, it turns once again to the work of eating the fruits of the tree with the same result. As the lesson from his experiences becomes clearer and clearer to realize that he draws closer to the upper bird, when he begins to realize that he is only a faint and distorted reflection of that majestic bird who is calm and self-satisfied. He finds a change coming over him. And when he reaches very close to the higher bird, he finds himself merging in his matrix. The Jiva realizes his oneness with Iswara.

Vivekananda says that all these Yogas are not meant merely for intellectual assent. All these various Yogas should be carried out into practice. Mere theories about them will not do any good. Vivekananda has given us the way to practice these various Yogas in our lives. In his language “First we have to hear about them. We have to reason the thoughts out, impress them on our minds, and we have to mediate on them, realize them, until at last they become our whole life.”^[4] He again says “In matters of mere intellectual assent, we may subscribe to many foolish today, and change our mind altogether tomorrow. But true religion never changes. Religion is realization, not talk, not doctrine, nor theories. It is being and becoming, not hearing or acknowledging. It is the whole soul becoming changed into what it believes.”^[5]