Teachings of Swami Vivekananda - part 2

Swamiji provides us with means of embarking on this journey. These means are not at all theoretical. Even though both the means and ends are prescribed in countless scriptures, they are least understood and it only takes a spiritual giant like Swamiji to decipher it for the laymen and to make spiritual giants out of them. A world teacher like Swamiji only teaches what he himself realizes and only a person who has attained the summit like him can describe the summit as well as the steps to climb it. As Sri Ramakrishna said, only a prince can traverse throughout the palace. He can go up till the highest floor and come back to the lowermost one. Only one who can go to the roof and come down can know that both the roof and the stairs are made of the same material and can describe the steps leading to the roof. The roof is the goal – the knowledge of advaita, while the steps are the various states.

Swamiji therefore proclaimed that one only moves from lower truth to higher truth and not from error to truth. Every truth is relative till we have reached the absolute truth, only one being better than the other, just as one state in the entire spectrum is higher than the other, even though both are necessary. Unless we move from state to state our learning is incomplete as we come to this world to learn, through experience. When we have reached the highest state we have transcended the pairs of opposites like happiness and misery, pleasure and pain. Till we have reached the highest state,, such pairs of opposites will continue to dominate our lives and one cannot be obtained without the other. For instance whatever happiness that we derive from intellectual pursuits we cannot escape the associated miseries as all sense pleasures inevitably result in miseries. All sensual pleasures are transitory and therefore once they are exhausted misery continues to haunt us. It is only the happiness of selflessness in the divine state that results in less misery. 

Gita also talks about the same thing in its definition of the three types of Sukha or happiness – Sattvika, Rajasic and Tamasic. Sattvika happiness is is initially troublesome but in the end provides bliss. It is troublesome because it is difficult to embark into a endeavor that is devoid of any sense pleasure or selfish gain, but in the end such an endevour gives one maximum bliss. Rajasic happiness is blissful to begin with but in the end creates miseries – as in pleasures derived from some intellectual pursuits, sight seeing trips, business success and so on. Tamasic happiness is entirely in sense pleasures of the lowest order like sexual gratification, eating, sleeping, drinking and idleness. However he emphasizes and reemphasizes one central, pivotal point in his teachings – Renunciation. Renunciation is the key to realization. It is renunciation that is the core principle behind getting into the divine state. However just externals will not suffice and one has to have true detachment and dispassion as has been proclaimed loud and clear in Gita. True renunciation consists of not altogether giving up actions, but giving up all fruits of actions. Therefore Swamiji’s prescription was selfless work as worship, to look every being as manifestation of God and serve him or her to the best of one’s ability. In this way one is able to renounce all selfish desires and fruits (of the good work) and is able to perform true “nishkama karma”.

The reincarnation or the karma is a necessary aid in this journey as through many lives one is able to gain the knowledge to attain the highest state. The highest state, the kingdom of heaven, cannot be obtained in one life. The lessons learnt in one life are too inadequate for one to reach the greatest state. Only an avatar or a divine incarnation is capable of going through all these myriad states in one life and demonstrate them to the mankind.