Sadhana | Page 7

giving away [Footnote: Tyaktena bhunjithah], _Thou shalt not covet._ [Footnote: Ma gridhah]
In Gita we are advised to work disinterestedly, abandoning all lust for the result. Many outsiders conclude from this teaching that the conception of the world as something unreal lies at the root of the so-called disinterestedness preached in India. But the reverse is true.
The man who aims at his own aggrandisement underrates everything else. Compared to his ego the rest of the world is unreal. Thus in order to be fully conscious of the reality of all, one has to be free himself from the bonds of personal desires. This discipline we have to go through to prepare ourselves for our social duties--for sharing the burdens of our fellow-beings. Every endeavour to attain a larger life requires of man "to gain by giving away, and not to be greedy." And thus to expand gradually the consciousness of one's unity with all is the striving of humanity.
The Infinite in India was not a thin nonentity, void of all content. The Rishis of India asserted emphatically, "To know him in this life is to be true; not to know him in this life is the desolation of death." [Footnote: Iha chet avedit atha satyamasti, nachet iha avedit mahati vinashtih.] How to know him then? "By realising him in each and all." [Footnote: Bhuteshu bhuteshu vichintva.] Not only in nature but in the family, in society, and in the state, the more we realise the World- conscious in all, the better for us. Failing to realise it, we turn our faces to destruction.
It fills me with great joy and a high hope for the future of humanity when I realise that there was a time in the remote past when our poet-prophets stood under the lavish sunshine of an Indian sky and greeted the world with the glad recognition of kindred. It was not an anthropomorphic hallucination. It was not seeing man reflected everywhere in grotesquely exaggerated images, and witnessing the human drama acted on a gigantic scale in nature's arena of flitting lights and shadows. On the contrary, it meant crossing the limiting barriers of the individual, to become more than man, to become one with the All. It was not a mere play of the imagination, but it was the liberation of consciousness from all the mystifications and exaggerations of the self. These ancient seers felt in the serene depth of their mind that the same energy which vibrates and passes into the endless forms of the world manifests itself in our inner being as consciousness; and there is no break in unity. For these seers there was no gap in their luminous vision of perfection. They never acknowledged even death itself as creating a chasm in the field of reality. They said, _His reflection is death as well as immortality._ [Footnote: Yasya chhayamritam yasya mrityuh.] They did not recognise any essential opposition between life and death, and they said with absolute assurance, "It is life that is death." [Footnote: Prano mrityuh.] They saluted with the same serenity of gladness "life in its aspect of appearing and in its aspect of departure"-- _That which is past is hidden in life, and that which is to come._ [Footnote: Namo astu ayate namo astu parayate. Prane ha bhutam bhavyancha.] They knew that mere appearance and disappearance are on the surface like waves on the sea, but life which is permanent knows no decay or diminution.
_Everything has sprung from immortal life and is vibrating with life_, [Footnote: Yadidan kincha prana ejati nihsritam.] _for life is immense._ [Footnote: Prano virat.]
This is the noble heritage from our forefathers waiting to be claimed by us as our own, this ideal of the supreme freedom of consciousness. It is not merely intellectual or emotional, it has an ethical basis, and it must be translated into action. In the Upanishad it is said, _The supreme being is all-pervading, therefore he is the innate good in all._ [Footnote: Sarvavyapi sa bhagavan tasmat sarvagatah civah.] To be truly united in knowledge, love, and service with all beings, and thus to realise one's self in the all-pervading God is the essence of goodness, and this is the keynote of the teachings of the Upanishads: _Life is immense!_ [Footnote: Prano virat.]

II
SOUL CONSCIOUSNESS
We have seen that it was the aspiration of ancient India to live 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