VCRM

मनुस्मृति¹

The Vedic context of religions of man

a rewriting of wor(l)d history
by
Sri Purushottam Nagesh Oak

ॐ असतो मा सद्गमय ।
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय ।
मृत्योर्माऽमृतं गमय ॥
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥

Copyright

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, stored in a database and / or published in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in કલા નગરી, kalā nagarī: “city of art” by મન, man: “mind”²

Cataloging in Publication Data

Name: Sri Purushottam Nagesh Oak, 2023— author
Title: The Vedic context of religions of man/ Sri Purushottam Nagesh Oak
ASIN:
Subjects: 1. Religion 2. History

README

Ju. ‘Tis but thy name that is my Enemy: Thou art thy ſelfe, though not a Mountague, What’s Mountague? it is nor hand nor foote, Nor arme, nor face, O be ſome other name Belonging to a man. What? in a names that which we call a Roſe, By any other word would ſmell as ſweete, So Romeo would, were he not Romeo cal’d, Retaine that deare perfection which he owes, Without that title Romeo, doffe thy name, And for thy name which is no part of thee, Take all my ſelfe.

Ro. I take thee at thy word: Call me but loue, and Ile be new baptizde, Henceforth I neuer will be Romeo (Romeo and Juliet Act 2 Scene 2).³

Acknowledgement

To भरत, bharata: “intent upon (Knowledge) Light”⁴

Dedication

To गणराज्य, gaṇarājya: “a great multitude”⁵

Epigraph

Text: सत्यमेव जयते, satyameva jayate: “Truth alone triumphs”⁶

Context: मुण्डक उपनिषद्, muṇḍaka upaniṣad: “shaved (as in shaved head) to sit down near to”⁷:

सत्यमेव जयते नानृतं सत्येन पन्था विततो देवयानः ।
येनाक्रमन्त्यृषयो ह्याप्तकामा यत्र तत् सत्यस्य परमं निधानम् ॥⁸

satyam evajayate ndnrtam, satyena panthd vitato deva-yanah yenakramanty
rsayo hy dpta-kdmd yatra tat satyasya paramaiii nidlidnam.

Truth alone conquers, not untruth. By truth is laid out the path leading to the gods by which the sages who have their desires fulfilled travel to where is that supreme abode of truth. (The Principal Upaniṣads, Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 3.1.6).⁹

Meaning: the pursuit of Transcendence.¹⁰

Preface

A lake has several Ghats. At one, the Hindus take water in pitchers and call it ‘Jal’; at another the Mussalmans take water in leather bags and call it ‘pani.’ At a third the Christians call it ‘water.’ Can we imagine that it is not ‘Jal,’ but only ‘pani’ or ‘water’? How ridiculous! The substance is One under different names, and everyone is seeking the same substance; only climate, temperament, and name create differences. Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him! He will surely realize Him (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Introduction 25.10-19).¹¹

בְּרֵאשִׁית‎, B’reshith: “In the beginning”
ဓမ္မပဒ, dhammapada: “words of the doctrine”
श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता, śrīmadbhagavadgītā: “the song of god”
eὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, euangélion katà iōánnēn: “god’s good news according to john”
ٱلۡقُرۡءَانُ‎, al-qurʾān: “the recitation”
Declaration of Independence: “A Declaration By The Representatives Of The United States of America, In General Congress Assembled”
1788 The Federalist: “A Collection of Essays, Written in Favour of the New Constitution, as Agreed upon by the Federal Convention, September 17, 1787”
1789 Qu’est-ce que le Tiers-État?: “What Is the Third Estate?”
1848 Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei: “Manifesto of the Communist Party”
1932 La Dottrina del Fascismo: “The Doctrine of Fascism”
સર્વોદય, sarvōdaya: “the welfare of all”¹²
Atlas Shrugged: “the role of the mind in man’s existence”¹³
The Matrix: “the desire for transformation”¹⁴

Introduction or What is sāṅkhya?

Excerpt From The Complete Works of the Swami Vivekananda, Part 2: A Study of the Sāṅkhya Philosophy¹⁵

By Swami Vivekananda

Prakriti is called by the Sāṅkhya philosophers indiscrete, and defined as the perfect balance of the materials in it; and it naturally follows that in perfect balance there cannot be any motion. In the primal state before any manifestation, when there was no motion but perfect balance, this Prakriti was indestructible, because decomposition or death comes from instability or change. Again, according to the Sāṅkhya, atoms are not the primal state. This universe does not come out of atoms: they may be the secondary or the tertiary state. The primordial material may form into atoms and become grosser and bigger things; and as far as modern investigations go, they rather point towards the same conclusion. For instance, in the modern theory of ether, if you say ether is atomic, it will not solve anything. To make it clearer, say that air is composed of atoms, and we know that ether is everywhere, interpenetrating, omnipresent, and that these air atoms are floating, as it were, in ether. If ether again be composed of atoms, there will still be spaces between every two atoms of ether. What fills up these? If you suppose that there is another ether still finer which does this, there will again be other spaces between the atoms of that finer ether which require filling up, and so it will be regressus ad infinitum, what the Sāṅkhya philosophers call the "cause leading to nothing" So the atomic theory cannot be final. According to Sāṅkhya, nature is omnipresent, one omnipresent mass of nature, in which are the causes of everything that exists. What is meant by cause? Cause is the fine state of the manifested state; the unmanifested state of that which becomes manifested. What do you mean by destruction? It is reverting to the cause If you have a piece of pottery and give it a blow, it is destroyed. What is meant by this is that the effects go back to their own nature, they materials out of which the pottery was created go back into their original state. Beyond this idea of destruction, any idea such as annihilation is on the face of it absurd. According to modern physical science, it can be demonstrated that all destruction means that which Kapila said ages ago — simply reverting to the cause. Going back to the finer form is all that is meant by destruction. You know how it can be demonstrated in a laboratory that matter is indestructible. At this present stage of our knowledge, if any man stands up and says that matter or this soul becomes annihilated, he is only making himself, ridiculous; it is only uneducated, silly people who would advance such a proposition; and it is curious that modern knowledge coincides with what those old philosophers taught. It must be so, and that is the proof of truth. They proceeded in their inquiry, taking up mind as the basis; they analysed the mental part of this universe and came to certain conclusions, which we, analysing the physical part, must come to, for they both must lead to the same centre. You must remember that the first manifestation of this Prakriti in the cosmos is what the Sāṅkhya calls "Mahat". We may call it intelligence — the great principle, its literal meaning. The first change in Prakriti is this intelligence; I would not translate it by self-consciousness, because that would be wrong. Consciousness is only a part of this intelligence. Mahat is universal. It covers all the grounds of sub-consciousness, consciousness, and super-consciousness; so any one state of consciousness, as applied to this Mahat, would not be sufficient. In nature, for instance, you note certain changes going on before your eyes which you see and understand, but there are other changes, so much finer, that no human perception can catch them. The are from the same cause, the same Mahat is making these changes. Out of Mahat comes universal egoism. These are all substance. There is no difference between matter and mind, except in degree. The substance is the same in finer or grosser form; one changes into the other, and this exactly coincides with the conclusions of modern physiological research. By believing in the teaching that the mind is not separate from the brain, you will be saved from much fighting and struggling. Egoism again changes into two varieties. In one variety it changes into the organs. Organs are of two kinds, organs of sensation and organs of reaction. They are not the eyes or the ears, but back of those are what you call brain-centres, and nerve-centres, and so on. This egoism, this matter or substance, becomes changed, and out of this material are manufactured these centres. Of the same substance is manufactured the other variety, the Tanmatras, fine particles of matter, which strike our organs of perception and bring about sensations. You cannot perceive them but only know they are there. Out of the Tanmatras is manufactured the gross matter — earth, water, and all the things that we see and feel. I want to impress this on your mind. It is very, hard to grasp it, because in Western countries the ideas are so queer about mind and matter. It is hard to get those impressions out of our brains. I myself had a tremendous difficulty, being educated in Western philosophy in my boyhood. These are all cosmic things. Think of this universal extension of matter, unbroken, one substance, undifferentiated, which is the first state of everything, and which begins to change in the same way as milk becomes curd. This first change is called Mahat. The substance Mahat changes into the grosser matter called egoism. The third change is manifested as universal sense-organs, and universal fine particles, and these last again combine and become this gross universe which with eyes, nose, and ears, we see, smell, and hear. This is the cosmic plan according to the Sāṅkhya, and what is in the cosmos must also be microcosmic. Take an individual man. He has first a part of undifferentiated nature in him, and that material nature in him becomes changed into this Mahat, a small particle of this universal intelligence, and this particle of universal intelligence in him becomes changed into egoism, and then into the sense-organs and the fine particles of matter which combine and manufacture his body. I want this to be clear, because it is the stepping-stone to Sāṅkhya, and it is absolutely necessary for you to understand it, because this is the basis of the philosophy of the whole world. There is no philosophy in the world that is not indebted to Kapila. Pythagoras came to India and studied this philosophy, and that was the beginning of the philosophy of the Greeks. Later, it formed the Alexandrian school, and still later, the Gnostic. It became divided into two; one part went to Europe and Alexandria, and the other remained in India; and out of this, the system of Vyasa was developed. The Sāṅkhya philosophy of Kapila was the first rational system that the world ever saw. Every metaphysician in the world must pay homage to him. I want to impress on your mind that we are bound to listen to him as the great father of philosophy. This wonderful man, the most ancient of philosophers, is mentioned even in the Shruti: "O Lord, Thou who produced the sage Kapila in the Beginning." How wonderful his perceptions were, and if there is ant proof required of the extraordinary power of the perception of Yogis, such men are the proof. They had no microscopes or telescopes. Yet how fine their perception was, how perfect and wonderful their analysis of things! I will here point out the difference between Schopenhauer and the Indian philosophy. Schopenhauer says that desire, or will, is the cause of everything. It is the will to exist that make us manifest, but we deny this. The will is identical with the motor nerves. When I see an object there is no will; when its sensations are carried to the brain, there comes the reaction, which says "Do this", or "Do not do this", and this state of the ego-substance is what is called will. There cannot be a single particle of will which is not a reaction. So many things precede will. It is only a manufactured something out of the ego, and the ego is a manufacture of something still higher — the intelligence — and that again is a modification of the indiscrete nature. That was the Buddhistic idea, that whatever we see is the will. It is psychologically entirely wrong, because will can only be identified with the motor nerves. If you take out the motor nerves, a man has no will whatever. This fact, as is perhaps well known to you, has been found out after a long series of experiments made with the lower animals. We will take up this question. It is very important to understand this question of Mahat in man, the great principle, the intelligence. This intelligence itself is modified into what we call egoism, and this intelligence is the cause of all the powers in the body. It covers the whole ground, sub-consciousness, consciousness, and super-consciousness. What are these three states? The sub-conscious state we find in animals, which we call instinct. This is almost infallible, but very limited. Instinct rarely fails. An animal almost instinctively knows a poisonous herb from an edible one, but its instinct is very limited. As soon as something new comes, it is blind. It works like a machine. Then comes a higher state of knowledge which is fallible and makes mistakes often, but has a larger scope, although it is slow, and this you call reason. It is much larger than instinct, but instinct is surer than reason. There are more chances of mistakes in reasoning than in instinct. There is a still higher state of the mind, the super-conscious, which belongs only to Yogis, to men who have cultivated it. This is infallible and much more unlimited in its scope than reason. This is the highest state. So we must remember, this Mahat is the real cause of all that is here, that which manifests itself in various ways, covers the whole ground of sub-conscious, conscious, and super-conscious, the three states in which knowledge exists. Now comes a delicate question which is being always asked. If a perfect God created the universe, why is there imperfection in it? What we call the universe is what we see, and that is only this little plane of consciousness and reason; beyond that we do not see at all. Now the very question is an impossible one. If I take only a small portion out of a mass of something and look at it, it seems to be inharmonious. Naturally. The universe is inharmonious because we make it so. How? What is reason? What is knowledge? Knowledge is finding the association about things. You go into the street and see a man and say, I know this is a man; because you remember the impressions on your mind, the marks on the Chitta. You have seen many men, and each one has made an impression on your mind; and as you see this man, you refer this to your store and see many similar pictures there; and when you see them, you are satisfied, and you put this new one with the rest. When a new impression comes and it has associations in your mind, you are satisfied; and this state of association is called knowledge. Knowledge is, therefore, pigeon-holing one experience with the already existing fund of experience, and this is one of the great proofs of the fact that you cannot have any knowledge until you have already a fund in existence. If you are without experience, as some European philosophers think, and that your mind is a tabula rasa to begin with, you cannot get any knowledge, because the very fact of knowledge is the recognition of the new by means of associations already existing in the mind. There must be a store at hand to which to refer a new impression. Suppose a child is born into this world without such a fund, it would be impossible for him ever to get any knowledge. Therefore, the child must have been previously in a state in which he had a fund, and so knowledge is eternally increasing. Slow me a way of getting round this argument. It is a mathematical fact. Some Western schools of philosophy also hold that there cannot be any knowledge without a fund of past knowledge. They have framed the idea that the child is born with knowledge. These Western philosophers say that the impressions with which the child comes into the world are not due to the child's past, but to the experiences of his forefathers: it is only hereditary transmission. Soon they will find out that this idea is all wrong; some German philosophers are now giving hard blows to these heredity ideas. Heredity is very good, but incomplete, it only explains the physical side. How do you explain the environments influencing us? Many causes produce one effect. Environment is one of the modifying effects. We make our own environment: as our past is, so we find the present environment. A drunken man naturally gravitates to the lowest slums of the city. You understand what is meant by knowledge. Knowledge is pigeon-holing a new impression with old ones, recognising a new impression. What is meant by recognition? Finding associations with similar impressions that one already has. Nothing further is meant by knowledge. If that is the case, if knowledge means finding the associations, then it must be that to know anything we have to set the whole series of its similars. Is it not so? Suppose you take a pebble; to find the association, you have to see the whole series of pebbles similes to it. But with our perception of the universe as a whole we cannot do that, because in the pigeon-hole of our mind there is only one single record of the perception, we have no other perception of the same nature or class, we cannot compare it with any other. We cannot refer it to its associations. This bit of the universe, cut off by our consciousness, is a startling new thing, because we have not been able to find its associations. Therefore, we are struggling with it, and thinking it horrible, wicked, and bad; we may sometimes think it is good, but we always think it is imperfect. It is only when we find its associations that the universe can be known. We shall recognise it when we go beyond the universe and consciousness, and then the universe will stand explained. Until we can do that, all the knocking of our heads against a wall will never explain the universe, because knowledge is the finding of similars, and this conscious plane only gives us one single perception of it. So with our idea of God. All that we see of God is only a part just as we see only one portion of the universe, and all the rest is beyond human cognition. "I, the universal; so great am I that even this universe is but a part of Me." That is why we see God as imperfect, and do not understand Him. The only way to understand Him and the universe is to go beyond reason, beyond consciousness. "When thou goest beyond the heard and the hearing, the thought and the thinking, then alone wilt thou come to Truth." "Go thou beyond the scriptures, because they teach only up to nature, up to the three qualities." When we go beyond them, we find the harmony, and not before. The microcosm and the macrocosm are built on exactly the same plan, and in the microcosm we know only one part, the middle part. We know neither the sub-conscious, nor the super-conscious. We know the conscious only. If a man stands up and says, "I am a sinner", he makes an untrue statement because he does not know himself. He is the most ignorant of men; of himself he knows only one part, because his knowledge covers only a part of the ground he is on. So with this universe, it is possible to know only a part of it with the reason, not the whole of it; for the sub-conscious, the conscious and the super-conscious, the individual Mahat and the universal Mahat, and all the subsequent modifications, constitute the universe. What makes nature (Prakriti) change? We see so far that everything, all Prakriti, is Jada, insentient. It is all compound and insentient. Wherever there is law, it is proof that the region of its play is insentient. Mind, intelligence, will, and everything else is insentient. But they are all reflecting the sentiency, the "Chit" of some being who is beyond all this, whom the Sāṅkhya philosophers call "Purusha". The Purusha is the unwitting cause of all the changes in the universe. That is to say, this Purusha, taking Him in the universal sense, is the God of the universe. It is said that the will of the Lord created the universe. It is very good as a common expression, but we see it cannot be true. How could it be will? Will is the third or fourth manifestation in nature. Many things exist before it, and what created them? Will is a compound, and everything that is a compound is a product of nature. Will, therefore, could not create nature. So, to say that the will of the Lord created the universe is meaningless. Our will only covers a little portion of self-consciousness and moves our brain. It is not will that is working your body or that is working the universe. This body is being moved by a power of which will is only a manifestation in one part. Likewise in the universe there is will, but that is only one part of the universe. The whole of the universe is not guided by will; that is why we cannot explain it by the will theory. Suppose I take it for granted that it is will moving the body, then, when I find I cannot work it at will, I begin to fret and fume. It is my fault, because I had no right to take the will theory for granted. In the same way, if I take the universe and think it is will that moves it and find things which do not coincide, it is my fault. So the Purusha is not will; neither can it be intelligence, because intelligence itself is a compound. There cannot be any intelligence without some sort of matter corresponding to the brain. Wherever there is intelligence, there must be something akin to that matter which we call brain which becomes lumped together into a particular form and serves the purpose of the brain. Wherever there is intelligence, there must be that matter in some form or other. But intelligence itself is a compound. What then is this Purusha? It is neither intelligence nor will, but it is the cause of all these. It is its presence that sets them all going and combining. It does not mix with nature; it is not intelligence, or Mahat; but the Self, the pure, is Purusha. "I am the witness, and through my witnessing, nature is producing; all that is sentient and all that is insentient." What is this sentiency in nature? We find intelligence is this sentiency which is called Chit. The basis of sentiency is in the Purusha, it is the nature of Purusha. It is that which cannot be explained but which is the cause of all that we call knowledge. Purusha is not consciousness, because consciousness is a compound; buts whatever is light and good in consciousness belongs to Purusha. Purusha is not conscious, but whatever is light in intelligence belongs to Purusha. Sentiency is in the Purusha, but the Purusha is not intelligent, not knowing. The Chit in the Purusha plus Prakriti is what we see around us. Whatever is pleasure and happiness and light in the universe belongs to Purusha; but it is a compound, because it is Purusha plus Prakriti. "Wherever there is any happiness, wherever there is any bliss, there is a spark of that immortality which is God." "Purusha is the; great attraction of the universe; though untouched by and unconnected with the universe, yet it attracts the whole; universe." You see a man going after gold, because behind it is a spark of the Purusha though mixed up with a good deal of dirt. When a man loves his children or a woman her husband, what is the attracting power? A spark of Purusha behind them. It is there, only mixed up with "dirt". Nothing else can attract. "In this world of insentiency the Purusha alone is sentient." This is the Purusha of the Sāṅkhya. As such, it necessarily follows that the Purusha must be omnipresent. That which is not omnipresent must be limited. All limitations are caused; that which is caused must have a beginning and end. If the Purusha is limited, it will die, will not be free, will not be final, but must have some cause. Therefore it is omnipresent. According to Kapila, there are many Purushas; not one, but an infinite number of them. You and I have each of us one, and so has everyone else; an infinite number of circles, each one infinite, running through this universe. The Purusha is neither mind nor matter, the reflex from it is all that we know. We are sure if it is omnipresent it has neither death nor birth. Nature is casting her shadow upon it, the shadow of birth and death, but it is by its nature pure. So far we have found the philosophy of the Sāṅkhya wonderful. Next we shall take up the proofs against it. So far the analysis is perfect, the psychology incontrovertible. We find by the division of the senses into organs and instruments that they are not simple, but compound; by dividing egoism into sense and matter, we find that this is also material and that Mahat is also a state of matter, and finally we find the Purusha. So far there is no objection. But if we ask the Sāṅkhya the question, "Who created nature?" — the Sāṅkhya says that the Purusha and the Prakriti are uncreate and omnipresent, and that of this Purusha there is an infinite number. We shall have to controvert these propositions, and find a better solution, and by so doing we shall come to Advaitism. Our first objection is, how can there be these two infinites? Then our argument will be that the Sāṅkhya is not a perfect generalization, and that we have not found in it a perfect solution. And then we shall see how the Vedantists grope out of all these difficulties and reach a perfect solution, and yet all the glory really belongs to the Sāṅkhya. It is very easy to give a finishing touch to a building when it is constructed.

B’reshith

א בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ
ב והארץ, היתה תהו ובהו, וחשך, על-פני תהום; ורוח אלהים, מרחפת על-פני המים.¹⁶

Bə·rê·šîṯ bā·rā ’ĕ·lō·hîm; ’êṯ haš·šā·ma·yim wə·’êṯ hā·’ā·reṣ.
wə·hā·’ā·reṣ, hā·yə·ṯāh ṯō·hū wā·ḇō·hū, wə·ḥō·šeḵ ‘al- pə·nê ṯə·hō·wm; wə·rū·aḥ ’ĕ·lō·hîm, mə·ra·ḥe·p̄eṯ ‘al- pə·nê ham·mā·yim.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters (Holy Scriptures, Genesis 1.1).¹⁷

dhammapada

မနောပုဗ္ဗင်္ဂမာ ဓမ္မာ၊ မနောသေဋ္ဌာ မနောမယာ။
မနသာ စေ ပဒုဋ္ဌေန၊ ဘာသတိ ဝါ ကရောတိ ဝါ။
တတော နံ ဒုက္ခမနွေတိ၊ စက္ကံဝ ဝဟတော ပဒံ။

မနောပုဗ္ဗင်္ဂမာ ဓမ္မာ၊ မနောသေဋ္ဌာ မနောမယာ။
မနသာ စေ ပသန္နေန၊ ဘာသတိ ဝါ ကရောတိ ဝါ။
တတော နံ သုခမနွေတိ၊ ဆာယာဝ အနပါယိနီ [အနုပါယိနီ (က.)]။¹⁸

manopubbaṅgamā dhammā, manoseṭṭhā manomayā
manasā ce paduṭṭhena, bhāsati cā karoti vā
tato naṃ dukkhamanveti, cakkaṃ ’va vahato padaṃ.

manopubbaṅgamā dhammā, manoseṭṭhā manomayā
manasā ce pasannena, bhāsati Vā karoti vā
tato naṃ sukhamanveti, chāyā’va anapāyinī.

All mental phenomena have mind as their forerunner; they have mind as their chief; they are mind-made. If one speaks or acts with an evil mind, ‘dukkha’ follows him just as the wheel follows the hoof-print of the ox that draws the cart.

All mental phenomena have mind as their forerunner; they have mind as their chief; they are mind-made. If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness (sukha) follows him like a shadow that never leaves him (Dhammapada 1.1-2).¹⁹

śrīmadbhagavadgītā

धृतराष्ट्र उवाच |
धर्मक्षेत्रे कुरुक्षेत्रे समवेता युयुत्सवः |
मामकाः पाण्डवाश्चैव किमकुर्वत सञ्जय ||1||

सञ्जय उवाच |
दृष्ट्वा तु पाण्डवानीकं व्यूढं दुर्योधनस्तदा |
आचार्यमुपसङ्गम्य राजा वचनमब्रवीत् ||2||²⁰

dhṛitarāśhtra uvācha
dharma-kṣhetre kuru-kṣhetre samavetā yuyutsavaḥ
māmakāḥ pāṇḍavāśhchaiva kimakurvata sañjaya

sañjaya uvācha
dṛiṣhṭvā tu pāṇḍavānīkaṁ vyūḍhaṁ duryodhanastadā
āchāryamupasaṅgamya rājā vachanamabravīt

Dhritarashāra said:
What did Pându’s sons and mine do when they assembled together
on the sacred plain of Kurukshetra, eager for battle, O Samjaya ?

Samjaya said:
Having seen the army of the Pândavas drawn up in battle-array,
prince Duryodhana then approached his teacher and spoke (these) words (Bhagavad Gita 1.1-2):²¹

euangélion katà Iōánnēn

ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
οὖτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν.²²

en archê an ho logos, cae ho logos an pros ton theon, cae theos an ho logos.
outos an en archê pros ton theon.

In the beginning was the Word, & the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God (Holy Bible, Goſpel according to S. Iohn. 1.1-2).²³

al-qurʾān

بِسۡمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
ٱلۡحَمۡدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ ٱلۡعَٰلَمِينَ
ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
مَٰلِكِ يَوۡمِ ٱلدِّينِ
إِيَّاكَ نَعۡبُدُ وَإِيَّاكَ نَسۡتَعِينُ
ٱهۡدِنَا ٱلصِّرَٰطَ ٱلۡمُسۡتَقِيمَ
²⁴صِرَٰطَ ٱلَّذِينَ أَنۡعَمۡتَ عَلَيۡهِمۡ غَيۡرِ ٱلۡمَغۡضُوبِ عَلَيۡهِمۡ وَلَا ٱلضَّآلِّينَ

bismillah hir rahman nir raheem
alhamdu lillaahi rabbil ‘aalameen
ar-rahmaanir-raheem
maaliki yawmid-deen
iyyaaka na’budu wa lyyaaka nasta’een
ihdinas-siraatal-mustaqeem
siraatal-lazeena an’amta ‘alaihim ghayril-maghdoobi ‘alaihim wa
lad-daaalleen

IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE:
ALL PRAISE is due to God alone, the Sustainer of all the worlds,
the Most Gracious, the Dispenser of Grace,
Lord of the Day of Judgment!
Thee alone do we worship; and unto Thee alone do we turn for aid.
Guide us the straight way –
the way of those upon whom Thou hast bestowed Thy blessings, not of
those who have been condemned
[by Thee,] nor of those who go astray (Message of the Qurʼan 1.1-7)²⁵

Declaration of Independence

WHEN in the Courſe of human Events, it becomes neceſſary for one People to diſſolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to aſſume among the Powers of the Earth, the ſeparate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Reſpect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they ſhould declare the cauſes which impel them to the Separation (Declaration of Independence Preamble).²⁶

The Federalist

AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the ſubſiſting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new conſlitution for the United States of America. The ſubject ſpeaks its own importance ; comprehending in it’s conſequences, nothing leſs than the exigence of the UNION, the ſafety and welfare of the parts of which it is compoſed, the fate of an empire, in many reſpects, the moſt intereſting in the world (Publius Federalist A).²⁷

Qu’est-ce que le Tiers-État?

Le plan de cet écrit est assez simple. Nous avons trois questions à nous faire.
1º Qu’est-ce que le Tiers état? — TOUT.
2º Qu’a-t-il été jusqu’à présent dans l’ordre politique? — RIEN.
3º Que demande-t-il? — À ÊTRE QUELQUE CHOSE ²⁸

The plan of this book is fairly simple. We must ask ourselves three questions.
1) What is the Third Estate? Everything.
2) What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing.
3) What does it want to be? Something (Sieyès What Is the Third Estate? Page 43).²⁹

Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei

Die Geschichte aller bisherigen Gesellschaft ist die Geschichte von Klassenkämpfen.

Freier und Sklave, Patrizier und Plebejer, Baron und Leibeigener, Zunftbürger und Gesell, kurz, Unterdrücker und Unterdrückte standen in stetem Gegensatz zueinander, führten einen ununterbrochenen, bald versteckten, bald offenen Kampf, einen Kampf, der jedesmal mit einer revolutionären Umgestaltung der ganzen Gesellschaft endete oder mit dem gemeinsamen Untergang der kämpfenden Klassen.³⁰

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes (Marx and Engels Manifesto of the Communist Party 12).³¹

La dottrina del fascismo

Come ogni salda concezione politica, il fascismo è prassi ed è pensiero, azione a cui è immanente una dottrina, e dottrina che, sorgendo da un dato sistema di forze storiche, vi resta inserita e vi opera dal di dentro.³²

Like all sound political conceptions, Fascism is action and it is thought; action in which doctrine is immanent, and doctrine arising from a given system of historical forces in which it is inserted, and working on them from within (Mussolini and Gentile Fascism Doctrine and Institutions 1).³³

sarvōdaya

સૉક્રેટીસે માણસને શું કરવું ઘટે છે તેનું થોડુંક દર્શન કરાવ્યું. તેણે જેવું કહ્યું તેવું જ કર્યું. તેના વિચારોનું લંબાણ એ રસ્કિનના વિચારો છે એમકહી શકાય છે. સૉક્રેટીસના વિચારો પ્રમાણે ચાલવા ઇચ્છનાર માણસે જુદા જુદા ધંધામાં કેમ વર્તવું જોઈએ તે રસ્કિને આબેહૂબ રીતે બતાવી આપ્યું છે. તેના લખાણનો અમે જે સાર આપીએ છીએ તે તરજુમો નથી. તરજુમો આપતાં, કેટલાક બાઈબલ વગેરેમાંથી આપેલા દાખલાઓ વાંચનાર ન સમજી શકે એવો સંભવ છે. તેથી અમે રસ્કિનના લખાણનો સાર આપ્યો છે. તે પુસ્તકના નામનો પણ અમે અર્થ નથી આપ્યો, કેમકે તે જેણે અંગ્રેજેમાં બાઈબલ વાંચ્યું હોય તે જ સમજી શકે. પણ પુસ્તક લખવાનો હેતુ સર્વનું કલ્યાણ - સર્વનો ઉદય (માત્ર વધારેનો નહિ) - એવો હોવાથી અમે આ લખાણને ‘સર્વોદય’ એવું નામ આપ્યું છે.³⁴

Sŏkrēṭīsē māṇasanē śuṁ karavuṁ ghaṭē chē tēnuṁ thōḍuṅka darśana karāvyuṁ. Tēṇē jēvuṁ kahyuṁ tēvuṁ ja karyuṁ. Tēnā vicārōnuṁ lambāṇa ē raskinanā vicārō chē ēmakahī śakāya chē. Sŏkrēṭīsanā vicārō pramāṇē cālavā icchanāra māṇasē judā judā dhandhāmāṁ kēma vartavuṁ jō’ī’ē tē raskinē ābēhūba rītē batāvī āpyuṁ chē. Tēnā lakhāṇanō amē jē sāra āpī’ē chī’ē tē tarajumō nathī. Tarajumō āpatāṁ, kēṭalāka bā’ībala vagērēmānthī āpēlā dākhalā’ō vān̄canāra na samajī śakē ēvō sambhava chē. Tēthī amē raskinanā lakhāṇanō sāra āpyō chē. Tē pustakanā nāmanō paṇa amē artha nathī āpyō, kēmakē tē jēṇē aṅgrējēmāṁ bā’ībala vān̄cyuṁ hōya tē ja samajī śakē. Paṇa pustaka lakhavānō hētu sarvanuṁ kalyāṇa - sarvanō udaya (mātra vadhārēnō nahi) - ēvō hōvāthī amē ā lakhāṇanē’sarvōdaya’ ēvuṁ nāma āpyuṁ chē.

Socrates in Plato’s Apology gives us some idea of our duty as men. And he was as good as his word. I feel that Ruskin’s Unto This Last is an expansion of Socrates’ ideas; he tells us how men in various walks of life should behave if they intend to translate these ideas into action. What follows is not a translation of Unto This Last but a paraphrase, as a translation would not be particularly useful to the readers of Indian Opinion. Even the title has not been translated but paraphrased as Sarvodaya [the welfare of all], as that was what Rusking aimed at in writing this book (Ghandi Sarvodaya 5).³⁵

Atlas Shrugged

A savage is a being who has not grasped that A is A and that reality is real. He has arrested his mind at the level of a baby’s, at the state when a consciousness acquires its initial sensory perceptions and has not learned to distinguish solid objects. It is to a baby that the world appears as a blur of motion, without things that move—and the birth of his mind is the day when he grasps that the streak that keeps flickering past him is his mother and the whirl beyond her is a curtain, that the two are solid entities and neither can turn into the other, that they are what they are, that they exist. The day when he grasps that matter has no volition is the day when he grasps that he has—and this is his birth as a human being (Rand Atlas Shrugged 1040-41). ³⁶

The Matrix

Agent Smith: Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo (The Matrix Revolutions 1:52:03).³⁷

Conclusion or What is Religion?

Excerpt From The Complete Works of the Swami Vivekananda, Volume 1: What is Religion?³⁸

By Swami Vivekananda

A huge locomotive has rushed on over the line and a small worm that was creeping upon one of the rails saved its life by crawling out of the path of the locomotive. Yet this little worm, so insignificant that it can be crushed in a moment, is a living something, while this locomotive, so huge, so immense, is only an engine, a machine. You say the one has life and the other is only dead matter and all its powers and strength and speed are only those of a dead machine, a mechanical contrivance. Yet the poor little worm which moved upon the rail and which the least touch of the engine would have deprived of its life is a majestic being compared to that huge locomotive. It is a small part of the Infinite and, therefore, it is greater than this powerful engine. Why should that be so? How do we know the living from the dead? The machine mechanically performs all the movements its maker made it to perform, its movements are not those of life. How can we make the distinction between the living and the dead, then? In the living there is freedom, there is intelligence; in the dead all is bound and no freedom is possible, because there is no intelligence. This freedom that distinguishes us from mere machines is what we are all striving for. To be more free is the goal of all our efforts, for only in perfect freedom can there be perfection. This effort to attain freedom underlies all forms of worship, whether we know it or not. If we were to examine the various sorts of worship all over the world, we would see that the rudest of mankind are worshipping ghosts, demons, and the spirits of their forefathers — serpent worship, worship of tribal gods, and worship of the departed ones. Why do they do this? Because they feel that in some unknown way these beings are greater, more powerful than themselves, and limit their freedom. They, therefore, seek to propitiate these beings in order to prevent them from molesting them, in other words, to get more freedom. They also seek to win favour from these superior beings, to get by gift of the gods what ought to be earned by personal effort. On the whole, this shows that the world is expecting a miracle. This expectation never leaves us, and however we may try, we are all running after the miraculous and extraordinary. What is mind but that ceaseless inquiry into the meaning and mystery of life? We may say that only uncultivated people are going after all these things, but the question still is there: Why should it be so? The Jews were asking for a miracle. The whole world has been asking for the same these thousands of years. There is, again, the universal dissatisfaction. We make an ideal but we have rushed only half the way after it when we make a newer one. We struggle hard to attain to some goal and then discover we do not want it. This dissatisfaction we are having time after time, and what is there in the mind if there is to be only dissatisfaction? What is the meaning of this universal dissatisfaction? It is because freedom is every man's goal. He seeks it ever, his whole life is a struggle after it. The child rebels against law as soon as it is born. Its first utterance is a cry, a protest against the bondage in which it finds itself. This longing for freedom produces the idea of a Being who is absolutely free. The concept of God is a fundamental element in the human constitution. In the Vedanta, Sat-chit-ânanda (Existence-Knowledge-Bliss) is the highest concept of God possible to the mind. It is the essence of knowledge and is by its nature the essence of bliss. We have been stifling that inner voice long enough, seeking to follow law and quiet the human nature, but there is that human instinct to rebel against nature's laws. We may not understand what the meaning is, but there is that unconscious struggle of the human with the spiritual, of the lower with the higher mind, and the struggle attempts to preserve one's separate life, what we call our "individuality". Even hells stand out with this miraculous fact that we are born rebels; and the first fact of life — the inrushing of life itself — against this we rebel and cry out, "No law for us." As long as we obey the laws we are like machines, and on goes the universe, and we cannot break it. Laws as laws become man's nature. The first inkling of life on its higher level is in seeing this struggle within us to break the bond of nature and to be free. "Freedom, O Freedom! Freedom, O Freedom!" is the song of the soul. Bondage, alas, to be bound in nature, seems its fate. Why should there be serpent, or ghost, or demon worship and all these various creeds and forms for having miracles? Why do we say that there is life, there is being in anything? There must be a meaning in all this search, this endeavour to understand life, to explain being. It is not meaningless and vain. It is man's ceaseless endeavour to become free. The knowledge which we now call science has been struggling for thousands of years in its attempt to gain freedom, and people ask for freedom. Yet there is no freedom in nature. It is all law. Still the struggle goes on. Nay, the whole of nature from the very sun to the atoms is under law, and even for man there is no freedom. But we cannot believe it. We have been studying laws from the beginning and yet cannot — nay, will not — believe that man is under law. The soul cries ever, "Freedom, O Freedom!" With the conception of God as a perfectly free Being, man cannot rest eternally in this bondage. Higher he must go, and unless the struggle were for himself, he would think it too severe. Man says to himself, "I am a born slave, I am bound; nevertheless, there is a Being who is not bound by nature. He is free and Master of nature." The conception of God, therefore, is as essential and as fundamental a part of mind as is the idea of bondage. Both are the outcome of the idea of freedom. There cannot be life, even in the plant, without the idea of freedom. In the plant or in the worm, life has to rise to the individual concept. It is there, unconsciously working, the plant living its life to preserve the variety, principle, or form, not nature. The idea of nature controlling every step onward overrules the idea of freedom. Onward goes the idea of the material world, onward moves the idea of freedom. Still the fight goes on. We are hearing about all the quarrels of creeds and sects, yet creeds and sects are just and proper, they must be there. The chain is lengthening and naturally the struggle increases, but there need be no quarrels if we only knew that we are all striving to reach the same goal. The embodiment of freedom, the Master of nature, is what we call God. You cannot deny Him. No, because you cannot move or live without the idea of freedom. Would you come here if you did not believe you were free? It is quite possible that the biologist can and will give some explanation of this perpetual effort to be free. Take all that for granted, still the idea of freedom is there. It is a fact, as much so as the other fact that you cannot apparently get over, the fact of being under nature. Bondage and liberty, light and shadow, good and evil must be there, but the very fact of the bondage shows also this freedom hidden there. If one is a fact, the other is equally a fact. There must be this idea of freedom. While now we cannot see that this idea of bondage, in uncultivated man, is his struggle for freedom, yet the idea of freedom is there. The bondage of sin and impurity in the uncultivated savage is to his consciousness very small, for his nature is only a little higher than the animal's. What he struggles against is the bondage of physical nature, the lack of physical gratification, but out of this lower consciousness grows and broadens the higher conception of a mental or moral bondage and a longing for spiritual freedom. Here we see the divine dimly shining through the veil of ignorance. The veil is very dense at first and the light may be almost obscured, but it is there, ever pure and undimmed — the radiant fire of freedom and perfection. Man personifies this as the Ruler of the Universe, the One Free Being. He does not yet know that the universe is all one, that the difference is only in degree, in the concept. The whole of nature is worship of God. Wherever there is life, there is this search for freedom and that freedom is the same as God. Necessarily this freedom gives us mastery over all nature and is impossible without knowledge. The more we are knowing, the more we are becoming masters of nature. Mastery alone is making us strong and if there be some being entirely free and master of nature, that being must have a perfect knowledge of nature, must be omnipresent and omniscient. Freedom must go hand in hand with these, and that being alone who has acquired these will be beyond nature. Blessedness, eternal peace, arising from perfect freedom, is the highest concept of religion underlying all the ideas of God in Vedanta — absolutely free Existence, not bound by anything, no change, no nature, nothing that can produce a change in Him. This same freedom is in you and in me and is the only real freedom. God is still, established upon His own majestic changeless Self. You and I try to be one with Him, but plant ourselves upon nature, upon the trifles of daily life, on money, on fame, on human love, and all these changing forms in nature which make for bondage. When nature shines, upon what depends the shining? Upon God and not upon the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars. Wherever anything shines, whether it is the light in the sun or in our own consciousness, it is He. He shining, all shines after Him. Now we have seen that this God is self-evident, impersonal, omniscient, the Knower and Master of nature, the Lord of all. He is behind all worship and it is being done according to Him, whether we know it or not. I go one step further. That at which all marvel, that which we call evil, is His worship too. This too is a part of freedom. Nay, I will be terrible even and tell you that, when you are doing evil, the impulse behind is also that freedom. It may have been misguided and misled, but it was there; and there cannot be any life or any impulse unless that freedom be behind it. Freedom breathes in the throb of the universe. Unless there is unity at the universal heart, we cannot understand variety. Such is the conception of the Lord in the Upanishads. Sometimes it rises even higher, presenting to us an ideal before which at first we stand aghast — that we are in essence one with God. He who is the colouring in the wings of the butterfly, and the blossoming of the rose-bud, is the power that is in the plant and in the butterfly. He who gives us life is the power within us. Out of His fire comes life, and the direst death is also His power. He whose shadow is death, His shadow is immortality also. Take a still higher conception. See how we are flying like hunted hares from all that is terrible, and like them, hiding our heads and thinking we are safe. See how the whole world is flying from everything terrible. Once when I was in Varanasi, I was passing through a place where there was a large tank of water on one side and a high wall on the other. It was in the grounds where there were many monkeys. The monkeys of Varanasi are huge brutes and are sometimes surly. They now took it into their heads not to allow me to pass through their street, so they howled and shrieked and clutched at my feet as I passed. As they pressed closer, I began to run, but the faster I ran, the faster came the monkeys and they began to bite at me. It seemed impossible to escape, but just then I met a stranger who called out to me, "Face the brutes." I turned and faced the monkeys, and they fell back and finally fled. That is a lesson for all life — face the terrible, face it boldly. Like the monkeys, the hardships of life fall back when we cease to flee before them. If we are ever to gain freedom, it must be by conquering nature, never by running away. Cowards never win victories. We have to fight fear and troubles and ignorance if we expect them to flee before us. What is death? What are terrors? Do you not see the Lord's face in them? Fly from evil and terror and misery, and they will follow you. Face them, and they will flee. The whole world worships ease and pleasure, and very few dare to worship that which is painful. To rise above both is the idea of freedom. Unless man passes through this gate he cannot be free. We all have to face these. We strive to worship the Lord, but the body rises between, nature rises between Him and us and blinds our vision. We must learn how to worship and love Him in the thunderbolt, in shame, in sorrow, in sin. All the world has ever been preaching the God of virtue. I preach a God of virtue and a God of sin in one. Take Him if you dare — that is the one way to salvation; then alone will come to us the Truth Ultimate which comes from the idea of oneness. Then will be lost the idea that one is greater than another. The nearer we approach the law of freedom, the more we shall come under the Lord, and troubles will vanish. Then we shall not differentiate the door of hell from the gate of heaven, nor differentiate between men and say, "I am greater than any being in the universe." Until we see nothing in the world but the Lord Himself, all these evils will beset us and we shall make all these distinctions; because it is only in the Lord, in the Spirit, that we are all one; and until we see God everywhere, this unity will not exist for us. Two birds of beautiful plumage, inseparable companions, sat upon the same tree, one on the top and one below. The beautiful bird below was eating the fruits of the tree, sweet and bitter, one moment a sweet one and another a bitter. The moment he ate a bitter fruit, he was sorry, but after a while he ate another and when it too was bitter, he looked up and saw the other bird who ate neither the sweet nor the bitter, but was calm and majestic, immersed in his own glory. And then the poor lower bird forgot and went on eating the sweet and bitter fruits again, until at last he ate one that was extremely bitter; and then he stopped again and once more looked up at the glorious bird above. Then he came nearer and nearer to the other bird; and when he had come near enough, rays of light shone upon him and enveloped him, and he saw he was transformed into the higher bird. He became calm, majestic, free, and found that there had been but one bird all the time on the tree. The lower bird was but the reflection of the one above. So we are in reality one with the Lord, but the reflection makes us seem many, as when the one sun reflects in a million dew-drops and seems a million tiny suns. The reflection must vanish if we are to identify ourselves with our real nature which is divine. The universe itself can never be the limit of our satisfaction. That is why the miser gathers more and more money, that is why the robber robs, the sinner sins, that is why you are learning philosophy. All have one purpose. There is no other purpose in life, save to reach this freedom. Consciously or unconsciously, we are all striving for perfection. Every being must attain to it. The man who is groping through sin, through misery, the man who is choosing the path through hells, will reach it, but it will take time. We cannot save him. Some hard knocks on his head will help him to turn to the Lord. The path of virtue, purity, unselfishness, spirituality, becomes known at last and what all are doing unconsciously, we are trying to do consciously. The idea is expressed by St. Paul, "The God that ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you." This is the lesson for the whole world to learn. What have these philosophies and theories of nature to do, if not to help us to attain to this one goal in life? Let us come to that consciousness of the identity of everything and let man see himself in everything. Let us be no more the worshippers of creeds or sects with small limited notions of God, but see Him in everything in the universe. If you are knowers of God, you will everywhere find the same worship as in your own heart. Get rid, in the first place, of all these limited ideas and see God in every person — working through all hands, walking through all feet, and eating through every mouth. In every being He lives, through all minds He thinks. He is self-evident, nearer unto us than ourselves. To know this is religion, is faith, and may it please the Lord to give us this faith! When we shall feel that oneness, we shall be immortal. We are physically immortal even, one with the universe. So long as there is one that breathes throughout the universe, I live in that one. I am not this limited little being, I am the universal. I am the life of all the sons of the past. I am the soul of Buddha, of Jesus, of Mohammed. I am the soul of the teachers, and I am all the robbers that robbed, and all the murderers that were hanged, I am the universal. Stand up then; this is the highest worship. You are one with the universe. That only is humility — not crawling upon all fours and calling yourself a sinner. That is the highest evolution when this veil of differentiation is torn off. The highest creed is Oneness. I am so-and-so is a limited idea, not true of the real "I". I am the universal; stand upon that and ever worship the Highest through the highest form, for God is Spirit and should be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Through lower forms of worship, man's material thoughts rise to spiritual worship and the Universal Infinite One is at last worshipped in and through the spirit. That which is limited is material. The Spirit alone is infinite. God is Spirit, is infinite; man is Spirit and, therefore, infinite, and the Infinite alone can worship the Infinite. We will worship the Infinite; that is the highest spiritual worship. The grandeur of realising these ideas, how difficult it is! I theorise, talk, philosophize; and the next moment something comes against me, and I unconsciously become angry, I forget there is anything in the universe but this little limited self, I forget to say, "I am the Spirit, what is this trifle to me? I am the Spirit." I forget it is all myself playing, I forget God, I forget freedom. Sharp as the blade of a razor, long and difficult and hard to cross, is the way to freedom. The sages have declared this again and again. Yet do not let these weaknesses and failures bind you. The Upanishads have declared, "Arise ! Awake ! and stop not until the goal is reached." We will then certainly cross the path, sharp as it is like the razor, and long and distant and difficult though it be. Man becomes the master of gods and demons. No one is to blame for our miseries but ourselves. Do you think there is only a dark cup of poison if man goes to look for nectar? The nectar is there and is for every man who strives to reach it. The Lord Himself tells us, "Give up all these paths and struggles. Do thou take refuge in Me. I will take thee to the other shore, be not afraid." We hear that from all the scriptures of the world that come to us. The same voice teaches us to say, "Thy will be done upon earth, as it is in heaven," for "Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory." It is difficult, all very difficult. I say to myself, "This moment I will take refuge in Thee, O Lord. Unto Thy love I will sacrifice all, and on Thine altar I will place all that is good and virtuous. My sins, my sorrows, my actions, good and evil, I will offer unto Thee; do Thou take them and I will never forget." One moment I say, "Thy will be done," and the next moment something comes to try me and I spring up in a rage. The goal of all religions is the same, but the language of the teachers differs. The attempt is to kill the false "I", so that the real "I", the Lord, will reign. "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me," say the Hebrew scriptures. God must be there all alone. We must say, "Not I, but Thou," and then we should give up everything but the Lord. He, and He alone, should reign. Perhaps we struggle hard, and yet the next moment our feet slip, and then we try to stretch out our hands to Mother. We find we cannot stand alone. Life is infinite, one chapter of which is, "Thy will be done," and unless we realise all the chapters we cannot realise the whole. "Thy will be done" — every moment the traitor mind rebels against it, yet it must be said, again and again, if we are to conquer the lower self. We cannot serve a traitor and yet be saved. There is salvation for all except the traitor and we stand condemned as traitors, traitors against our own selves, against the majesty of Mother, when we refuse to obey the voice of our higher Self. Come what will, we must give our bodies and minds up to the Supreme Will. Well has it been said by the Hindu philosopher, "If man says twice, 'Thy will be done,' he commits sin." "Thy will be done," what more is needed, why say it twice? What is good is good. No more shall we take it back. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, for Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for evermore."

Appendix

Sahaja Subtle System³⁹⁴⁰

Postface

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom (Tryst With Destiny).⁴¹

Epliogue

Text: जन गण मन, jana gana mana: The Minds of All People

जन-गण-मन अधिनायक जय हे भारत भाग्य विधाता ।
जय हे, जय हे, जय हे, जय जय जय जय हे ।

jana-gaṇa-mana-adhināẏaka jaẏa hē Bhārata-bhāgya-bidhātā
jaẏa hē, jaẏa hē, jaẏa hē, jaẏa jaẏa jaẏa jaẏa hē.

Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people, dispenser of India’s destiny.
Victory, Victory, Victory to thee.⁴²

Context: ভারত ভাগ্য বিধাতা, bharoto bhagyo bidhata: “Dispenser of India’s destiny”

রাত্রি প্রভাতিল, উদিল রবিচ্ছবি পূর্ব-উদয়গিরিভালে –
গাহে বিহঙ্গম, পূণ্য সমীরণ নবজীবনরস ঢালে।
তব করুণারুণরাগে নিদ্রিত ভারত জাগে
তব চরণে নত মাথা।
জয় জয় জয় হে জয় রাজেশ্বর ভারতভাগ্যবিধাতা!
জয় হে, জয় হে, জয় হে, জয় জয় জয় জয় হে॥⁴³

ratri probhatilo, udilo robichchhobi purbo udōyo giri bhale
gahe bihōngōmo, punyo šomirōno nōbo jibōnorōšo dhale.
tōbo korunaruno rage nidrito bharōto jage
tōbo chōrone nōto matha.
jōyo jōyo jōyo he jōyo rajeshwōro bharōto bhagyo bidhata!
jōyo he, jōyo he, jōyo he, jōyo jōyo jōyo jōyo he.

The night fades; the light breaks over the peaks of the Eastern hills;
the birds begin to sing and the morning breeze carries the breath of
new life. The rays of thy mercy have touched the waking land with
their blessings. Victory to the King of Kings, Victory to thee,
dispenser of India’s destiny.
⁠Victory, Victory, victory to thee.⁴⁴

Meaning: Arise Mother India

About the Author

यथा नद्यः स्यन्दमानाः समुद्रेऽ स्तं गच्छन्ति नामरूपे विहाय ।
तथा विद्वान् नामरूपाद्विमुक्तः परात्परं पुरुषमुपैति दिव्यम् ॥ ८॥ ⁸

yathā nadyaḥ syandamānāḥ samudre’staṃ gacchanti nāmarūpe vihāya

tathā vidvānnāmarūpādvimuktaḥ parātparaṃ puruṣamupaiti divyam 8

Just as the flowing rivers disappear in the ocean casting off name and shape, even so the knower, freed from name and shape, attains to the divine person, higher than the high (Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 3.2.8).⁹

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Positively Not The End⁴⁵

Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2014 (HUDF 2014)⁴⁶⁴⁷

तिरंगा, tiraṅgā: “tricolour”⁴⁸

Flag of India — Construction Sheet⁴⁹⁵⁰

मनु, manu: “thinking creature (Monier-Williams 784)” + स्मृति, smṛti: “remembrance (Monier-Williams 1272)” ↩
તન-મન-ધન a. n. [See તન + મન + ધન] Lit. The body, the mind, and one’s wealth. Hence, 2. All that one loves; the highest object of one’s ambition (Belsare 577). ↩
Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet, Quarto 2. Thomas Creede, 1599. ↩
भा, bhā: “light or a beam of l°, lustre, splendour (Monier-Williams 747)” + रत, rata: “delighting in, intent upon, fond or enamoured of, devoted or attached or addicted or disposed to (Monier-Williams 867)” ↩
गण, gaṇa: “many (Monier-Williams 343)” + राज्य, rājya: “realm (Monier-Williams 875)” ibid. ↩
National Emblem of India ↩
Sir Monier Monier-Williams. A Sanskṛit-English dictionary etymologically and philologically arranged with special reference to Greek, Latin, Gothic, German, Anglo-Saxon, and other cognate Indo-European languages, The Clarendon Press, 1872. ↩
Mundakopanishad. Ministry of Culture, Government of India, 2023. ↩ ↩²
Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli. The Principal Upaniṣads. HarperCollins Publishers, 2020. ↩ ↩²
“Transcendence” is a word one is reluctant to use freely, for it has the tone, the imprint of the special, the holy. According to the dictionary, “to transcend” simply means “to rise above or go beyond a limit, exceed, excel”; also “to go beyond the universe and time.” “Transcendence” has placed itself in the domain of religion, where it is on holy ground and protected from casual usage. That the word is used in all religions is unsurprising since it covers an area passing human knowledge, while expressing the hopes and expectations of all true believers (Erikson, 124). ↩
Gupta, Mahendranath. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Edited by Mahendranath Gupta, Translated by Swami Nikhilananda, Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, 1942. ↩
Gandhi, Mohandas K. “The Magic Spell of a Book.” An Autobiography, or, the Story of My Experiments with Truth, translated by Mahadev Desai, Navajivan Trust, 1945, pp. 334-36. ↩
Rand, Ayn. For the New Intellectual. Penguin Publishing Group, 1963. ↩
“Why the Matrix Is a Trans Story According to Lilly Wachowski.” Netflix: Behind the Streams. reported by Lilly Wachowski, 4 August 2020, Netflix. ↩
Swami Vivekananda. “A Study of the Sāṅkhya Philosophy.” The Complete Works of the Swami Vivekananda, Part 2, edited by Swami Prajnananda, Mayavati Memorial Edition ed., Prabuddha Bharat Office, 1915, pp. 439-49. ↩
The Torah. Aleppo Codex, Shlomo ben Buya, 920, Aaron ben Moses ben Asher. ↩
The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text a New Translation with the Aid of Previous Versions and with Constant Consultation of Jewish Authorities. Jewish Publication Society of America, 1917, Max L. Margolis. ↩
Pali Tipiṭaka. Sixth Council Edition, Vipassana Research Institute, 1956, The Sixth Buddhist Council. ↩
The Dhammapada. Translated by Daw Mya Tin, Department for the Promotion and Propagation of the Sasana, 1993. ↩
Mahābhāratam. BORI Critical Edition, The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1966, Vishnu S. Sukhtankar. ↩
The Bhagavad Gita with the Commentary of Sri Sankaracharya. Translated by Alladi Mahadeva Sastri, Samata Books, 1897. ↩
The Christian Bible. Novum Testamentum Graece, Wurttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1898, Eberhard Nestle. ↩
The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Teſtament, and the New: Tranſlated out of the Original Tongues and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Reviſed, by His Majesty’s Speciall Comand. Oxford University Press, 1769, The Church of England. ↩
Al-Qurʾān. The Cairo Edition, Amiri Press, 1924, Al-Azhar University. ↩
The Message of the Qurʼan. Translated by Muhammad Asad, Book Foundation, 2004. ↩
Jefferson, Thomas. “Declaration of Independence.” Stone Engraving ed., William J. Stone, 1820 1776. general editor, Second Continental Congress. ↩
Publius. The Federalist. John and Andrew M’Lean, 1788. ↩
Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph. Qu’est-Ce Que Le Tiers-État? 1789. ↩
—. “What Is the Third Estate?” Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès: The Essential Political Writings, Brill, 2014, Oliver W. Lembcke and Florian Weber. ↩
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. Manifest Der Kommunistischen Partei: Veröffentlicht Im Februar 1848. Gedruckt in der Office der “Bildungs-Gesellschaft für Arbeiter” von J.E. Burghard, 1848. ↩
—. Manifesto of the Communist Party. Translated by Friedrich Engels, Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1906. ↩
Gentile, Benito Mussolini and Giovanni. La Dottrina Del Fascismo. Treccani, 1932, Enciclopedia Italiana. ↩
—. Fascism Doctrine and Institutions. Ardita Publishers, 1935. ↩
Gandhi, Mohandas K. સર્વોદય [Sarvodaya]. 1908. ↩
—. Sarvodaya. Translated by Vinoba Bhave, Jitendra T. Desai, 1956. ↩
Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. Random House, 1957. ↩
The Matrix. Directed By Wachowski, Lana and Lilly Wachowski, Warner Brothers, 1999. ↩
Swami Vivekananda. “What Is Religion?” The Complete Works of the Swami Vivekananda, Part 1, edited by Swami Prajnananda, Mayavati Memorial Edition ed., Prabuddha Bharat Office, 1915, pp. 333-43. ↩
1. The Muladhara Chakra. 1a. The Muladhara. 2. The Svadishthana Chakra. 3. The Nabhi Chakra. 3a. The Void. 4. The Anahata Chakra. 5. The Vishuddhi Chakra. 6. The Ajna Chakra. 7. The Sahasrara Chakra. A. Kundalini. B. Left channel (Ida nadi). C. Central channel (Sushumna nadi). D. Right channel (Pingala nadi). E. Spirit. F. Ego. G. Superego

Alex-engraver. “Sahaja Subtle System.” Wikimedia Foundation, 2011. ↩
“True it is, without falsehood, certain and most true. That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above, to accomplish the miracles of one thing by a single act of adaptation (Steel 486).“

Steele, Robert, and Dorothea Waley Singer. “The Emerald Table.” (1928): 485-501. ↩
Nehru, Jawaharlal. “Tryst with Destiny.” Constituent Assembly of India, 14 August 1947, The Council House, New Delhi. Keynote Address. ↩
National Anthem of India, Abridged Version. ↩
Tagore, Rabindranath. “Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata.” 1911. ↩
—. “The Morning Song of India.” 1919. ↩
Mera Naam Joker. Directed by Raj Kapoor, R.K. FIlms, 1970. ↩
NASA. “Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2014 (HUDF 2014).” Space Telescope Science Institute, 2014. ↩
The whole problem of speaking about the end (particularly the end of history) is that you have to speak of what lies beyond the end and also, at the same time, of the impossibility of ending. This paradox is produced by the fact that in a non-linear, non-Euclidean space of history the end cannot be located. The end is, in fact, only conceivable in a logical order of causality and continuity. Now, it is events themselves which, by their artificial production, their programmed occurrence or the anticipation of their effects - not to mention their transfiguration in the media - are suppressing the cause-effect relation and hence all historical continuity (Baudrillard 110). ↩
त्रि, tri “three” +‎ रङ्ग, raṅga: “colour (Monier-Williams 862)” ↩
MapGrid. “Flag of India — Construction Sheet.” Wikimedia Foundation, 2023. ↩
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan explained—”Bhagwa or the Saffron denotes renunciation or disinterestedness. Our leaders must be indifferent to material gains and dedicate themselves to their work. The white in the centre is light, the path of truth to guide our conduct. The green shows our relation to (the) soil, our relation to the plant life here, on which all other life depends. The “Ashoka Chakra” in the centre of the white is the wheel of the law of dharma. Truth or satya, dharma or virtue ought to be the controlling principle of those who work under this flag. Again, the wheel denotes motion. There is death in stagnation. There is life in movement. India should no more resist change, it must move and go forward. The wheel represents the dynamism of a peaceful change (Government of India).”

The Flag Code of India. Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, 2002. ↩

yathā nadyaḥ syandamānāḥ samudre’staṃ gacchanti nāmarūpe vihāya
tathā vidvānnāmarūpādvimuktaḥ parātparaṃ puruṣamupaiti divyam		8