Sadhana | Page 8

and move and have its joy
in Brahma, the all-conscious and all- pervading Spirit, by extending its field of
consciousness over all the world. But that, it may be urged, is an impossible task for man
to achieve. If this extension of consciousness be an outward process, then it is endless; it
is like attempting to cross the ocean after ladling out its water. By beginning to try to
realise all, one has to end by realising nothing.
But, in reality, it is not so absurd as it sounds. Man has every day to solve this problem of
enlarging his region and adjusting his burdens. His burdens are many, too numerous for
him to carry, but he knows that by adopting a system he can lighten the weight of his load.
Whenever they feel too complicated and unwieldy, he knows it is because he has not
been able to hit upon the system which would have set everything in place and distributed
the weight evenly. This search for system is really a search for unity, for synthesis; it is
our attempt to harmonise the heterogeneous complexity of outward materials by an inner
adjustment. In the search we gradually become aware that to find out the One is to
possess the All; that there, indeed, is our last and highest privilege. It is based on the law
of that unity which is, if we only know it, our abiding strength. Its living principle is the
power that is in truth; the truth of that unity which comprehends multiplicity. Facts are
many, but the truth is one. The animal intelligence knows facts, the human mind has
power to apprehend truth. The apple falls from the tree, the rain descends upon the
earth--you can go on burdening your memory with such facts and never come to an end.
But once you get hold of the law of gravitation you can dispense with the necessity of
collecting facts ad infinitum. You have got at one truth which governs numberless facts.
This discovery of truth is pure joy to man--it is a liberation of his mind. For, a mere fact
is like a blind lane, it leads only to itself--it has no beyond. But a truth opens up a whole
horizon, it leads us to the infinite. That is the reason why, when a man like Darwin

discovers some simple general truth about Biology, it does not stop there, but like a lamp
shedding its light far beyond the object for which it was lighted, it illumines the whole
region of human life and thought, transcending its original purpose. Thus we find that
truth, while investing all facts, is not a mere aggregate of facts--it surpasses them on all
sides and points to the infinite reality.
As in the region of knowledge so in that of consciousness, man must clearly realise some
central truth which will give him an outlook over the widest possible field. And that is the
object which the Upanishad has in view when it says, Know thine own Soul. Or, in other
words, realise the one great principal of unity that there is in every man.
All our egoistic impulses, our selfish desires, obscure our true vision of the soul. For they
only indicate our own narrow self. When we are conscious of our soul, we perceive the
inner being that transcends our ego and has its deeper affinity with the All.
Children, when they begin to learn each separate letter of the alphabet, find no pleasure in
it, because they miss the real purpose of the lesson; in fact, while letters claim our
attention only in themselves and as isolated things, they fatigue us. They become a source
of joy to us only when they combine into words and sentences and convey an idea.
Likewise, our soul when detached and imprisoned within the narrow limits of a self loses
its significance. For its very essence is unity. It can only find out its truth by unifying
itself with others, and only then it has its joy. Man was troubled and he lived in a state of
fear so long as he had not discovered the uniformity of law in nature; till then the world
was alien to him. The law that he discovered is nothing but the perception of harmony
that prevails between reason which is of the soul of man and the workings of the world.
This is the bond of union through which man is related to the world in which he lives,
and he feels an exceeding joy when he finds this out, for then he realises himself in his
surroundings. To understand anything is to find in it something which is our own, and it
is the discovery of ourselves outside us which makes us glad. This