Forthgoing and
Returning
It will help you, in
doing this and in changing your desire, if
you realise that the
great evolution of humanity goes on along
two paths--the Path of
Forthgoing, and the Path of Return.
On the Path, or marga,
of Pravritti--forthgoing on which are the
vast majority of human
beings, desires are necessary and useful.
On that path, the more
desire a man has, the better for his
evolution. They are
the motives that prompt to activity. Without
these the stagnates,
he is inert. Why should Isvara have filled
the worlds with
desirable objects if He did not intend that
desire should be an
ingredient in evolution? He deals with
humanity as a sensible
mother deals -with her child. She does not
give lectures to the
child on the advantages of walking nor
explain to it
learnedly the mechanism of the muscles of the leg.
She holds a bright
glittering toy before the child, and says:
"Come and get it."
Desire awakens, and the child begins to crawl,
and so it learns to
walk. So Isvara has put toys around us, but
always just out of our
reach, and He says: "Come, children, take
these. Here are love,
money, fame, social consideration; come and
get them. Walk, make
efforts for them." And we, like children,
make great efforts and
struggle along to snatch these toys. When
we seize the toy, it
breaks into pieces and is of no use. People
fight and struggle and
toil for wealth, and, when they become
multi-millionaires,
they ask: "How shall we spend this wealth?" I
read of a millionaire
in America, who was walking on foot from
city to city, in order
to distribute the vast wealth which he
accumulated. He
learned his lesson. Never in another life will
that man be induced to
put forth efforts for the toy of wealth.
Love of fame, love of
power, stimulate men to most strenuous
effort. But when they
are grasped and held in the hand, weariness
is the result. The
mighty statesman, the leader of the nation,
the man idolised by
millions--follow him home, and there you will
see the weariness of
power, the satiety that cloys passion. Does
then God mock us with
all the objects? No. The object has been to
bring out the power of
the Self to develop the capacity latent in
man, and in the
development of human faculty, the result of the
great lila may be
seen. That is the way in which we learn to
unfold the God within
us; that is the result of the play of the
divine Father with His
children.
But sometimes the
desire for objects is lost too early, and the
lesson is but half
learned. That is one of the difficulties in
the India of today.
You have a mighty spiritual philosophy, which
was the natural
expression for the souls who were born centuries
ago. They were ready
to throw away the fruit of action and to
work for the Supreme
to carry out His Will.
But the lesson for
India at the present time is to wake up the
desire. It may look
like going back, but it is really a going
forward. The
philosophy is true, but it belonged to those older
souls who were ready
for it, and the younger souls now being born
into the people are
not ready for that philosophy. They repeat it
by rote, they are
hypnotised by it, and they sink down into
inertia, because there
is nothing they desire enough to force
them to exertion. The
consequence is that the nation as a whole
is going downhill. The
old lesson of putting different objects
before souls of
different ages, is forgotten, and every one is
now nominally aiming
at ideal perfection, which can only be
reached when the
preliminary steps have been successfully
mounted. It is the
same as with the "Sermon on the Mount" in
Christian countries,
but there the practical common sense of the
people bows to it
and--ignores it. No nation tries to live by the
"Sermon on the
Mount " It is not meant for ordinary men and
women, but for the
saint. For all those who are on the Path of
Forthgoing, desire is
necessary for progress.
What is the Path of
Nivritti? It is the Path of Return. There
desire must cease; and
the Self-determined will must take its
place. The last object
of desire in a person commencing the Path
of Return is the
desire to work with the Will of the Supreme; he
harmonises his will
with the Supreme Will, renounces all separate
desires, and thus
works to turn the wheel of life as long as such
turning is needed by
the law of Life. Desire on the Path of
Forthgoing becomes
will on the Path of Return; the soul, in
harmony with the
Divine, works with the law. Thought on the Path
of Forthgoing is ever
alert, flighty and changing; it becomes
reason on the Path of
Return; the yoke of reason is placed on the
neck of the lower
mind, and reason guides the bull. Work,
activity, on the Path
of Forthgoing, is restless action by which
the ordinary man is
bound; on the Path of Return work becomes
sacrifice, and thus
its binding force is broken. These are, then,
the manifestations of
three aspects, as shown on the Paths of
Forthgoing and Return.
Bliss manifested as
desire is changed into will
Wisdom manifested as
thought is changed into reason.
Activity manifested as work is changed into sacrifice.
People very often ask
with regard to this: "Why is will placed in
the human being as the
correspondence of bliss in the Divine?"
The three great Divine
qualities are: chit or consciousness;
ananda or bliss; sat
or existence. Now it is quite clear that the
consciousness is
reflected in intelligence in man--the same
quality, only in
miniature. It is equally clear that existence
and activity belong to
each other. You can only exist as you act
outwards. The very
form of the word shows It --"ex, out of"; it
is manifested life.
That leaves the third, bliss, to correspond
with will, and some
people are rather puzzled with that, and they
ask: "What is the
correspondence between bliss and will?" But if
you come down to
desire, and the objects of desire, you will be
able to solve the
riddle. The nature of the Self is bliss. Throw
that nature down into
matter and what will be the expression of
the bliss nature?
Desire for happiness, the seeking after
desirable objects,
which it imagines will give it the happiness
which is of its own
essential nature, and which it is continually
seeking to realise
amid the obstacles of the world. Its nature
being bliss, it seeks
for happiness and that desire for happiness
is to be transmuted
into will. All these correspondences have a
profound meaning if
you will only look into them, and that
universal
"will-to-live" translates itself as the "desire for
happiness" that
you find in every man and woman, in every
sentient creature. Has
it ever struck you how surely you are
justifying that
analysis of your own nature by the way you accept
happiness as your
right, and resent misery, and ask what you have
done to deserve it?
You do not ask the same about happiness,
which is the natural
result of your own nature. The thing that
has to be explained is
not happiness but pain, the things that
are against the nature
of the Self that is bliss. And so, looking
into this, we see how
desire and will are both the determination
to be happy. But the
one is ignorant, drawn out by outer objects;
the other is
self-conscious, initiated and ruled from within.
Desire is evoked and
directed from outside; and when the same
aspect rules from
within, it is will. There is no difference in
their nature. Hence
desire on the Path of Forthgoing becomes will
on the Path of Return.
When desire, thought
and work are changed into will, reason and
sacrifice, then the
man is turning homewards, then he lives by
renunciation.
When a man has really
renounced, a strange change takes place. On
the Path of
Forthgoing, you must fight for everything you want to
get; on the Path of Return,
nature pours her treasures at your
feet. When a man has
ceased to desire them, then all treasures
pour down upon him,
for he has become a channel through which all
good gifts flow to
those around him. Seek the good, give up
grasping, and then
everything will be yours. Cease to ask that
your own little water
tank may be filled, and you will become a
pipe, joined to the
living source of all waters, the source which
never runs dry, the
waters which spring up unfailingly.
Renunciation means the
power of unceasing work for the good of
all, work which cannot
fail, because wrought by the Supreme
Worker through His
servant.
If you are engaged in
any true work of charity, and your means
are limited and the
wealth does not flow into your hands, what
does it mean? It means
that you have not yet learnt the true
renunciation. You are
clinging to the visible, to the fruit of
action, and so the
wealth does not pour through your hands.
