印度教论文
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中文
印度教演讲稿（一）
当今世界，有三大宗教自远古流传至今——印度教、琐罗亚斯德教与犹太教。三者皆历经剧烈冲击，然其生命力之顽强，恰由此得以明证。然而，犹太教未能融摄基督教，反被其势如破竹的女儿宗教逐出发祥之地；帕西人的残存已是寥若晨星，仅能昭示那昔日辉煌宗教的遗迹。在印度，派系接连涌现，似欲将吠陀（Vedas）之宗教撼动至根基，然而一如大地震中海岸的浪涛，潮水不过暂时退去，旋即以千倍的磅礴之势席卷而来，将一切尽收其中。喧嚣平息之后，各派尽皆被汲纳、消融、同化于母体信仰的浩瀚怀抱之中。
从吠檀多（Vedanta）哲学的高妙灵性之境——近代科学的新发现不过是其回响——到形形色色的偶像崇拜，从佛教徒的不可知论到耆那教徒的无神论，每一种思想，无论高下，皆在印度教徒的宗教体系中各得其所。
那么，问题随之而来：这诸多辐射各异的射线，究竟汇聚于何处？这些表面上难以调和的矛盾，究竟共同建立于怎样的基础之上？这正是我此番所欲解答的问题。
印度教徒通过启示领受其宗教——即吠陀。他们认为吠陀无始无终。或许这对在座诸位而言听来荒诞：一部书如何能无始无终？然而吠陀所指并非书籍。它所指的是不同时代、不同人物所发现的灵性法则之积累宝库。正如万有引力定律在被发现之前便已存在，即便人类将其遗忘，它依然长存；统御灵性世界的法则亦然。灵魂与灵魂之间、个体灵魂与万灵之父之间的道德、伦理与灵性关系，在被发现之前便已存在，纵使我们将其遗忘，它们依然长存。
发现这些法则者被称为仙人（Rishis），我们尊其为完美之人。我欣然告知在座诸位，其中一些最伟大者正是女性。此处或有人说：这些法则作为法则或许无终，但必有其起始。吠陀教导我们，创造本身无始无终。科学据说已证明宇宙能量的总量恒常不变。那么，若存在一个万物皆无的时刻，这一切显现的能量究竟在何处？有人说，它以潜能形态蕴藏于神之中。若如此，则神有时潜伏，有时运动，神便是可变的。凡可变者皆是复合体，凡复合体皆必经历那被称为毁灭的变化。如此则神亦会死亡，此乃荒谬之论。因此，从不曾存在过一个没有创造的时刻。
若允许我借用一个比喻：创造与造物主犹如两条平行线，无始无终，相伴而行。神是永恒运作的天意，凭借祂的力量，一个又一个世界系统从混沌中演化而出，运行一段时日，复又归于毁灭。这正是婆罗门少年每日诵念的内容：「太阳与月亮，乃主所创造，一如往昔劫数中的日月。」此言与现代科学相符。
我站在这里，若我闭上双眼，试图体认自身的存在——「我」、「我」、「我」——我意识中呈现的是什么？是一个身体的观念。那么，我不过是物质元素的组合吗？吠陀宣告：「不。」我是一个居于肉身中的灵。我不是这肉身。肉身终将消亡，但我不会消亡。我在此身之中；此身终将朽坏，但我将继续生存。我也曾有过去。灵魂并非被创造而来，因为创造意味着组合，而组合意味着必然的未来解体。若灵魂是被创造的，它便必然消亡。有人生而幸福，体健貌美，心智充沛，万事皆顺；另有人生而悲苦，或缺手足，或为痴呆，仅以悲惨度日。若众生皆出于同一创造，为何一位公正慈悲的神会创造一人幸福、另一人悲苦，为何祂如此偏颇？即便认为今生悲苦者来世将得幸福，也无济于事。在一位公正慈悲的神的统治下，为何人甚至在此世便要受苦？
其次，一位造物主神的观念根本无法解释这一反常现象，不过是表达了一位全能者的残酷命令而已。在人出生之前，必有其因，使人或悲苦或幸福，而那便是他过去的行为——业（karma）。
身心一切倾向，难道不皆可以遗传禀赋加以解释吗？此处有两条平行的存在线索——一为心，一为物。若物质及其变化足以解释我们所有的一切，则无须假设灵魂的存在。然而，思想出于物质之说无法得到证明；若哲学一元论不可避免，则灵性一元论在逻辑上无疑与唯物一元论同等成立，也同样令人向往——但此处两者皆非必需。
我们不能否认，身体由遗传而获得某些倾向，但这些倾向不过意味着特定的生理结构，唯有特定的心灵方能通过此结构以特定方式运作。此外，灵魂还有其过去行为所致的特有倾向。一个具有特定倾向的灵魂，依照亲和律，将投生于最适合彰显该倾向的肉身之中。这与科学相符，因为科学力图以习惯解释一切，而习惯乃是通过反复实践而养成的。因此，反复实践对于解释一个新生灵魂的天然习性不可或缺。既然这些习性并非得自今生，必是从往世传承而来。
另有一说。假设以上皆为真，我为何对过去世毫无记忆？这不难解释。我此刻以英语讲话，英语并非我的母语，实则此刻我的意识中并无母语的词语；然而若我试图唤起它们，它们便会涌现。这说明意识不过是心灵之海的表面，而我们所有的经历皆储存于其深处。试加探寻与努力，它们必将浮现，你甚至能对过去世有所忆念。
这是直接而具说服力的证据。验证是理论的完美证明，而这正是仙人向世界抛出的挑战：我们已发现可以搅动记忆之海深处的秘密——加以尝试，你将获得对过去世的完整追忆。
印度教徒因此相信自己是一个灵。利刃不能刺穿他——烈火不能焚烧他——洪水不能浸润他——风声不能使他干竭。印度教徒相信，每一个灵魂都是一个圆，其圆周无处不在，而圆心则位于肉身之中；死亡意味着这圆心由一个肉身迁移至另一个肉身。灵魂亦不受物质条件的束缚。就其本质而言，它是自由的、无拘的、神圣的、纯洁的、完美的。然而，它以某种方式发现自身被物质束缚，并以为自己就是物质。
为何自由、完美、纯洁的存在竟受制于物质，这是接下来的问题。完美的灵魂如何可能被诱入相信自己是不完美的？我们被告知，印度教徒回避此问题，宣称此问题根本不应存在。某些思想家试图通过设定一个或多个近似完美的存在来回答此问题，并以高深的科学名词填补空缺。然而，命名并非解释。问题依然如故：完美如何能变为近似完美？纯粹的、绝对的，如何能改变哪怕其本质的一丁点？然而印度教徒是诚实的。他不愿躲入诡辩的庇护之中。他有足够的勇气以坦诚的态度直面这一问题，他的回答是：「我不知道。我不知道，这完美的存在——灵魂——如何开始以为自己是不完美的，如何与物质相结合并受其制约。」然而，这一事实终究是事实。在每个人的意识中，这是一个事实：人以肉身自认。印度教徒并不试图解释人为何以肉身自认。「此乃神之旨意」这一回答并非解释，它与印度教徒所说的「我不知道」并无二致。
那么，人的灵魂是永恒而不朽的，是完美而无限的；死亡不过意味着圆心由一个肉身迁至另一个肉身。现在由过去的行为（业）决定，未来由现在决定。灵魂将在一次次出生与死亡之间不断演化向上，或在轮回（samsara）中退转。然而此处又有一问：人是否只是风暴中的一叶扁舟，时而被浪涛高高托起，时而跌入深渊，在善业与恶业的摆弄下颠沛流离——在永无止息的因果洪流中无能为力、任人宰割的残骸，如同置于命运之轮下的小蛾，而那车轮辗过一切，对寡妇的泪水与孤儿的哭声漠然置之？这一念头令人心寒，然而这正是自然之律。难道没有希望？难道没有出路？——这声声呼喊从绝望的心底升腾而起，上达慈悲之座，希望与安慰之言降临下来，启示了一位吠陀圣哲，他挺身而立，向世界以号角般的声音宣扬这福音：「听啊，不朽者的子孙！甚至你们居于更高天界者！我已找到那超越一切黑暗、一切幻妄的太古之一；唯有认识祂，你们方能从死亡中得救。」「不朽者的子孙」——何等甘美，何等充满希望的称谓！请允许我以那甜美的名字称呼你们，我的兄弟姐妹——不朽福祉的继承者——印度教徒拒绝称你们为罪人。你们是神的子女，是不朽福祉的分享者，是神圣而完美的存在。你们是世间的神明——罪人！称一个人为罪人，乃是一种罪过；这是对人性的永久诽谤。起来吧，雄狮，抖落你们不过是绵羊的幻妄；你们是不朽的灵魂，是自由的、蒙福的、永恒的灵；你们不是物质，你们不是肉身；物质是你们的仆人，而非你们是物质的仆人。
如此，吠陀宣告的不是令人胆寒的、无情法则的组合，不是因果的无尽囹圄，而是在这一切法则的统御之处，在物质与力的每一粒子之中、之间，屹立着那位「依其命令，风儿吹拂、火焰燃烧、云朵降雨、死亡行于大地之上」的存在。
祂的本性为何？
祂无处不在，是那纯洁无形的一，是全能而全慈的。「你是我们的父，你是我们的母，你是我们的挚友，你是一切力量的源泉；赐予我们力量。你是承担宇宙重担者；助我承担此生这微小的负担。」吠陀的仙人如是吟诵。如何礼拜祂？通过爱。「祂应被礼拜为那唯一的挚爱，在今生与来世胜过一切的珍宝。」
这便是吠陀中宣说的爱的教义，让我们来看奎师那（Krishna）是如何将其充分发展与传授的——印度教徒相信奎师那是神的化身降临人间。
他教导，一个人在这世界中应如莲叶般生活，莲叶生于水中却不为水所沾湿；一个人在世界中亦应如此——心系于神，手从事工作。
为了来生或今生的酬报而爱神固然是好的，但为爱而爱神则更为崇高。有一祷告这样说：「主啊，我不求财富，不求子嗣，不求学问。若是你的旨意，我将从一世轮转至另一世，但请赐予我这一件事：让我能无求于报酬地爱你——为爱而无私地爱。」奎师那的一位弟子，时为印度之皇，被仇敌逐出王国，不得不携王后在喜马拉雅山林中避难。一日，王后问他，为何他这最具德行之人竟遭受如此深重的苦难。坚战王（Yudhishthira）答道：「王后，请看喜马拉雅山，何等雄伟壮丽；我爱它。它不给我任何东西，但我的本性是爱那雄伟、壮美之物，因此我爱它。同样，我爱主。祂是一切美之源，一切崇高之源。祂是唯一值得爱慕的对象；我的本性是爱祂，因此我爱。我不求任何东西，不乞任何东西。任祂将我置于祂所愿之处。我必须为爱而爱祂。我不能以爱进行交易。」
吠陀教导，灵魂本是神圣的，只是被束缚于物质之中；当此束缚破除，便将达致完美——他们为此所用的词是解脱（Moksha）——自由，从不完美的束缚中获得自由，从死亡与痛苦中获得自由。
此种束缚只能通过神的慈悲而脱落，而此慈悲降临于纯洁之人。所以，纯洁是得蒙其慈悲的条件。这慈悲如何运作？神向纯洁的心灵显现；纯洁而无瑕者见到神，是的，甚至在此生；唯在那时，心中一切弯曲皆得以伸直。那时，一切疑惑皆告消散。神不再是那可怕因果律的随意摆布者。这是印度教最核心、最根本的理念。印度教徒不愿依赖文字和理论而活。若存在超越普通感官的境界，他便要与之面对面相遇。若他内在有一个非物质的灵魂，若存在一个全慈的宇宙灵魂，他将直接前往祂处。他必须亲见祂，唯此才能消除一切疑惑。所以，一位印度教圣人关于灵魂、关于神所给出的最有力证明是：「我已见到灵魂；我已见到神。」而这是完美的唯一条件。印度教宗教并不在于努力相信某种教义或教条，而在于实现——不在于信，而在于成为与变成。
如此，他们整个体系的目标，便是通过不断的努力，成为完美，成为神圣，达到神并见到神；而这——达到神、见到神、成为完美，如同天父的完美——便构成了印度教徒的宗教。
当一个人达致完美，他将如何？他将生活于无尽的至福之中。他享有无限而完美的至福，已获得了人所唯一值得喜悦的那唯一之物，即神，并与神同享此至福。
印度教演讲稿（二）
迄此，所有印度教徒皆意见一致。这是印度所有派系的共同宗教。然而，完美是绝对的，而绝对者不可能有二有三。它不能具有任何属性，不能是一个个体。因此，当一个灵魂达致完美而成为绝对，它必与梵（Brahman）合而为一，并将认识到主乃是自身本性与存在之完美、之实在——绝对的存在、绝对的智慧、绝对的至福。我们曾一再听闻，此称之为丧失个体性，化为一根木头或一块石头。
「未尝受伤者，才会嘲笑伤疤。」
我告诉你们，事实全然不是这样。若享受此小小肉身的意识是一种幸福，那么享受两个肉身的意识必是更大的幸福，幸福的程度随着所意识的肉身数目的增加而增长，当意识扩展至宇宙普遍之时，幸福的极致便臻于实现。
因此，为了获得这无限普遍的个体性，这可悲的小小囚笼般的个体性必须消亡。唯当我与生命本身合而为一，死亡方才止息；唯当我与幸福本身合而为一，苦难方才止息；唯当我与智慧本身合而为一，一切错误方才止息——这是必然的科学结论。科学已向我证明，物质的个体性是一种幻妄，实则我的身体不过是无边物质之海中一个不断变化的小小涟漪；而不二（Advaita，合一）则是关于我另一面——灵魂——的必然结论。
科学不过是对统一性的探寻。一旦科学达致完全的统一，它便将停止进一步的前进，因为它已抵达目的地。化学若能发现一种元素，使所有其他元素皆由此衍生，便无从再进一步；物理学若能完成其使命，发现一种能量，使所有其他能量不过是其显现，便将止步；宗教之学问，若能发现那在死亡的宇宙中是唯一生命的祂，那在不断变化的世界中是永恒基础的祂，那是唯一真我（Atman/Self）而所有灵魂不过是其幻妄显现的祂，便将臻于完美。如此，通过多样性与二元性，终极的统一性得以实现。宗教至此无从再进一步——这是一切科学的目标。
一切科学终将归向这一结论。今日科学的词汇是「显现」，而非「创造」；印度教徒为此感到由衷的欣慰——他在胸中珍藏了数千年的东西，如今将以更有力的语言、借助最新科学结论所带来的进一步光明而被宣扬。
让我们从哲学的高妙抱负，降落至无知者的宗教。首先，我要告诉诸位：印度并无多神崇拜。在每一座庙宇里，若驻足聆听，便会发现礼拜者将神的一切属性——包括无处不在——皆赋予所礼拜的神像。这不是多神崇拜，甚至「一神论」这个名称也无法解释这一现象。「玫瑰换了任何名字，芬芳依旧。」名称并非解释。
我记得少年时，曾在印度听一位基督教传教士向人群布道。他所讲的诸多内容之一是：若他以手杖击打他们的偶像，偶像能奈他何？听众中有人当即反问：「若我亵渎你的神，祂能奈我何？」「你死后将受惩罚，」传教士答道。「那么我的偶像也将在你死后惩罚你，」那位印度教徒反驳道。
树因其果实而被认识。当我在那些被称为偶像崇拜者的人中间，见到了在道德、灵性与爱方面我从未在任何地方见过的人物，我便驻足自问：「罪孽能孕育圣洁吗？」
迷信是人类的大敌，但偏执更甚。为何基督徒去教堂礼拜？为何十字架是神圣的？为何祈祷时面朝天空？为何天主教教堂中有那么多圣像？为何新教徒祈祷时心中有那么多意象？我的兄弟姐妹，我们对任何事物的思考，都离不开心灵中的意象，正如我们的生命离不开呼吸。依照联想之律，有形的图像会唤起心中的观念，反之亦然。这正是印度教徒在礼拜时使用外在象征的缘故。他会告诉你，这有助于使他的心专注于他所祈祷的那位存在。他和你一样清楚地知道，那神像不是神，不是无处不在的。毕竟，「无处不在」对于这个世界的绝大多数人意味着什么？它不过是一个词语，一个象征。神有表面积吗？若无，那么当我们重复「无处不在」这个词时，我们脑中所想的不过是广阔的天空或空间，如此而已。
正如我们发现，依照心理构造的规律，我们不得不将无限的观念与蓝天或大海的意象联系起来，我们自然也将神圣的观念与教堂、清真寺或十字架的意象联系起来。印度教徒将神圣、纯洁、真理、无所不在等观念与各种意象和形式相联系。然而有一点不同：某些人将其一生全部献给教堂的偶像，却从未更进一步，因为对他们而言，宗教意味着对某些教义的理智认可以及行善于邻人；而印度教徒的整个宗教则以实现为核心。人应通过实现神圣而成为神圣。偶像、庙宇、教堂或书籍，不过是他灵性童年期的支撑与辅助；但他必须一路前行。
他不能在任何地方停步。「外在礼拜、物质礼拜，」经典说道，「是最低的阶段；努力上升，心灵祷告是更高的阶段，但最高的阶段是已经实现了主。」请注意，同一位诚挚地跪拜在神像前的人会告诉你：「日月无法表达祂，星辰无法表达祂，闪电无法表达祂，我们所说的火焰亦无法表达祂；万物皆因祂而光耀。」但他不会辱骂任何人的偶像，也不会称其礼拜为罪。他承认这是生命必经的阶段。「孩子是大人的父亲。」一位老人说童年是罪，或青年是罪，这难道是正确的吗？
若一个人借助神像便能实现其神圣的本性，称此为罪难道是正确的吗？甚至当他已超越这一阶段，也不应称之为错误。对印度教徒而言，人不是从错误走向真理，而是从真理走向真理，从较低的真理走向较高的真理。在他看来，所有宗教——从最低级的拜物崇拜到最高层次的绝对论——都是人类灵魂试图把握和实现无限的种种尝试，每一种皆由其出生与经历的条件所决定，每一种皆标志着进步的一个阶段；每一个灵魂都是一只年轻的雄鹰，越飞越高，积聚着越来越多的力量，直至抵达那光辉灿烂的太阳。
多样性中的统一性是自然的计划，印度教徒已认识到这一点。其他每一种宗教都规定了某些固定的教条，并试图强迫社会接受。它只为社会提供一件外衣，必须同时适合约翰、杰克和亨利所有人。若它不合约翰或亨利的身，他便只能无衣遮体。印度教徒已发现，绝对者只能通过相对者来实现、思考或表达；神像、十字架和新月不过是诸多象征——悬挂灵性观念的挂钩。并非人人都需要这种辅助，但那些不需要它的人无权说它是错的。在印度教中，它也非强制性的。
有一件事我必须告诉你们。印度的偶像崇拜并不意味着任何可怖之事。它不是淫乱之母。恰恰相反，它是未开化心灵把握高妙灵性真理的尝试。印度教徒有其缺点，有时也有其例外；但请注意这一点：他们总是惩罚自己的身体，而从不割断邻人的喉咙。若印度教狂热者在柴堆上自焚，他从不点燃宗教裁判所的火刑柱。即便是这一点，也不能归咎于其宗教，正如焚烧女巫不能归咎于基督教一样。
对印度教徒而言，整个宗教世界不过是不同的男男女女，历经各种条件与情境，走向同一目标的旅程。每一种宗教都不过是从物质的人中演化出神，而那同一位神正是所有宗教的启示者。那么，为何有那么多矛盾？印度教徒说，这些矛盾只是表面的。矛盾来自同一真理适应于不同本性的各异情境。
这是同一道光，透过不同颜色的玻璃而射出。这些细微的差异，对于适应的目的而言是必要的。但在一切事物的核心，同一真理统御着一切。主在祂作为奎师那的化身中向印度教徒宣告：「我存在于每一种宗教之中，犹如串联珍珠的那根线。无论你在何处见到非凡的圣洁与非凡的力量，提升并净化人类，你当知道我就在那里。」其结果如何？我向全世界挑战，在整个梵文哲学体系中，找不出任何这样的表达：唯有印度教徒将得救，其他人则不然。毗耶娑（Vyasa）说：「我们甚至在我们的种姓与信仰的范围之外，也发现了完美之人。」还有一事。那么，整个思想体系以神为中心的印度教徒，如何能相信不依赖神的佛教，或无神论的耆那教呢？
佛教徒或耆那教徒并不依赖神；但他们宗教的全部力量指向每一种宗教的伟大核心真理，即从人中演化出神。他们没有见到父，但他们见到了子。见过子的，也就见过父了。
我的兄弟姐妹，以上便是印度教徒宗教理念的简要素描。印度教徒或许未能将其所有计划付诸实现，但若世间曾有一种普世宗教，它必须是这样一种宗教：在时间与空间上没有固定的地点；如同它所宣扬的神一般无限；其阳光照耀于奎师那的信徒与基督的信徒之上，照耀于圣人与罪人之上；它不是婆罗门教、佛教、基督教或伊斯兰教，而是所有这些之总和，并且仍有无限的发展空间；它以其广博的胸怀，张开无限的臂膀，为每一个人寻得一席之地——从最低的、距禽兽不远的匍匐野蛮人，到那以头脑与心灵的美德而几乎超越人类、令社会肃然起敬、令人怀疑其人性的最高尚之人。它将是一种宗教，其施政中没有迫害与不宽容的容身之所，它承认每个男女的神性，其全部范围、全部力量，将在于帮助人类实现其真实的、神圣的本性。
奉献这样一种宗教，所有民族都将追随你。阿育王（Asoka）的会议是佛教信仰的会议。阿克巴尔（Akbar）的会议虽更接近于此目的，不过也只是一次沙龙聚会。向全球四方宣告主存在于每一种宗教之中，这一荣耀留给了美洲。
愿祂——印度教徒之梵（Brahman）、琐罗亚斯德教徒之阿胡拉·马兹达（Ahura-Mazda）、佛教徒之佛陀、犹太人之耶和华、基督徒之天父——赐予你们力量，以实现你们崇高的理想！那颗星从东方升起，稳步向西运行，时而黯淡，时而灿烂，直至绕行世界一周；如今，它又在遥远的东方、雅鲁藏布江（Sanpo）边境的地平线上重新升起，其光辉千倍于昔日。
哥伦比亚，自由之母邦，万岁！赐予你的，是你——从未将手浸入邻人之血的你，从未发现致富之最短途径乃是劫夺邻人的你——以和谐的旗帜，走在文明之先锋队伍中。
English
Three religions now stand in the world which have come down to us from time prehistoric — Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Judaism. They have all received tremendous shocks and all of them prove by their survival their internal strength. But while Judaism failed to absorb Christianity and was driven out of its place of birth by its all-conquering daughter, and a handful of Parsees is all that remains to tell the tale of their grand religion, sect after sect arose in India and seemed to shake the religion of the Vedas to its very foundations, but like the waters of the seashore in a tremendous earthquake it receded only for a while, only to return in an all-absorbing flood, a thousand times more vigorous, and when the tumult of the rush was over, these sects were all sucked in, absorbed, and assimilated into the immense body of the mother faith.
From the high spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science seem like echoes, to the low ideas of idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists, and the atheism of the Jains, each and all have a place in the Hindu's religion.
Where then, the question arises, where is the common centre to which all these widely diverging radii converge? Where is the common basis upon which all these seemingly hopeless contradictions rest? And this is the question I shall attempt to answer.
The Hindus have received their religion through revelation, the Vedas. They hold that the Vedas are without beginning and without end. It may sound ludicrous to this audience, how a book can be without beginning or end. But by the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times. Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery, and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical, and spiritual relations between soul and soul and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits, were there before their discovery, and would remain even if we forgot them.
The discoverers of these laws are called Rishis, and we honour them as perfected beings. I am glad to tell this audience that some of the very greatest of them were women. Here it may be said that these laws as laws may be without end, but they must have had a beginning. The Vedas teach us that creation is without beginning or end. Science is said to have proved that the sum total of cosmic energy is always the same. Then, if there was a time when nothing existed, where was all this manifested energy? Some say it was in a potential form in God. In that case God is sometimes potential and sometimes kinetic, which would make Him mutable. Everything mutable is a compound, and everything compound must undergo that change which is called destruction. So God would die, which is absurd. Therefore there never was a time when there was no creation.
If I may be allowed to use a simile, creation and creator are two lines, without beginning and without end, running parallel to each other. God is the ever active providence, by whose power systems after systems are being evolved out of chaos, made to run for a time and again destroyed. This is what the Brâhmin boy repeats every day: "The sun and the moon, the Lord created like the suns and moons of previous cycles." And this agrees with modern science.
Here I stand and if I shut my eyes, and try to conceive my existence, "I", "I", "I", what is the idea before me? The idea of a body. Am I, then, nothing but a combination of material substances? The Vedas declare, “No”. I am a spirit living in a body. I am not the body. The body will die, but I shall not die. Here am I in this body; it will fall, but I shall go on living. I had also a past. The soul was not created, for creation means a combination which means a certain future dissolution. If then the soul was created, it must die. Some are born happy, enjoy perfect health, with beautiful body, mental vigour and all wants supplied. Others are born miserable, some are without hands or feet, others again are idiots and only drag on a wretched existence. Why, if they are all created, why does a just and merciful God create one happy and another unhappy, why is He so partial? Nor would it mend matters in the least to hold that those who are miserable in this life will be happy in a future one. Why should a man be miserable even here in the reign of a just and merciful God?
In the second place, the idea of a creator God does not explain the anomaly, but simply expresses the cruel fiat of an all-powerful being. There must have been causes, then, before his birth, to make a man miserable or happy and those were his past actions.
Are not all the tendencies of the mind and the body accounted for by inherited aptitude? Here are two parallel lines of existence — one of the mind, the other of matter. If matter and its transformations answer for all that we have, there is no necessity for supposing the existence of a soul. But it cannot be proved that thought has been evolved out of matter, and if a philosophical monism is inevitable, spiritual monism is certainly logical and no less desirable than a materialistic monism; but neither of these is necessary here.
We cannot deny that bodies acquire certain tendencies from heredity, but those tendencies only mean the physical configuration, through which a peculiar mind alone can act in a peculiar way. There are other tendencies peculiar to a soul caused by its past actions. And a soul with a certain tendency would by the laws of affinity take birth in a body which is the fittest instrument for the display of that tendency. This is in accord with science, for science wants to explain everything by habit, and habit is got through repetitions. So repetitions are necessary to explain the natural habits of a new-born soul. And since they were not obtained in this present life, they must have come down from past lives.
There is another suggestion. Taking all these for granted, how is it that I do not remember anything of my past life ? This can be easily explained. I am now speaking English. It is not my mother tongue, in fact no words of my mother tongue are now present in my consciousness; but let me try to bring them up, and they rush in. That shows that consciousness is only the surface of the mental ocean, and within its depths are stored up all our experiences. Try and struggle, they would come up and you would be conscious even of your past life.
This is direct and demonstrative evidence. Verification is the perfect proof of a theory, and here is the challenge thrown to the world by the Rishis. We have discovered the secret by which the very depths of the ocean of memory can be stirred up — try it and you would get a complete reminiscence of your past life.
So then the Hindu believes that he is a spirit. Him the sword cannot pierce — him the fire cannot burn — him the water cannot melt — him the air cannot dry. The Hindu believes that every soul is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose centre is located in the body, and that death means the change of this centre from body to body. Nor is the soul bound by the conditions of matter. In its very essence it is free, unbounded, holy, pure, and perfect. But somehow or other it finds itself tied down to matter, and thinks of itself as matter.
Why should the free, perfect, and pure being be thus under the thraldom of matter, is the next question. How can the perfect soul be deluded into the belief that it is imperfect? We have been told that the Hindus shirk the question and say that no such question can be there. Some thinkers want to answer it by positing one or more quasi-perfect beings, and use big scientific names to fill up the gap. But naming is not explaining. The question remains the same. How can the perfect become the quasi-perfect; how can the pure, the absolute, change even a microscopic particle of its nature? But the Hindu is sincere. He does not want to take shelter under sophistry. He is brave enough to face the question in a manly fashion; and his answer is: “I do not know. I do not know how the perfect being, the soul, came to think of itself as imperfect, as joined to and conditioned by matter." But the fact is a fact for all that. It is a fact in everybody's consciousness that one thinks of oneself as the body. The Hindu does not attempt to explain why one thinks one is the body. The answer that it is the will of God is no explanation. This is nothing more than what the Hindu says, "I do not know."
Well, then, the human soul is eternal and immortal, perfect and infinite, and death means only a change of centre from one body to another. The present is determined by our past actions, and the future by the present. The soul will go on evolving up or reverting back from birth to birth and death to death. But here is another question: Is man a tiny boat in a tempest, raised one moment on the foamy crest of a billow and dashed down into a yawning chasm the next, rolling to and fro at the mercy of good and bad actions — a powerless, helpless wreck in an ever-raging, ever-rushing, uncompromising current of cause and effect; a little moth placed under the wheel of causation which rolls on crushing everything in its way and waits not for the widow's tears or the orphan's cry? The heart sinks at the idea, yet this is the law of Nature. Is there no hope? Is there no escape? — was the cry that went up from the bottom of the heart of despair. It reached the throne of mercy, and words of hope and consolation came down and inspired a Vedic sage, and he stood up before the world and in trumpet voice proclaimed the glad tidings: "Hear, ye children of immortal bliss! even ye that reside in higher spheres! I have found the Ancient One who is beyond all darkness, all delusion: knowing Him alone you shall be saved from death over again." "Children of immortal bliss" — what a sweet, what a hopeful name! Allow me to call you, brethren, by that sweet name — heirs of immortal bliss — yea, the Hindu refuses to call you sinners. Ye are the Children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth — sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human nature. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.
Thus it is that the Vedas proclaim not a dreadful combination of unforgiving laws, not an endless prison of cause and effect, but that at the head of all these laws, in and through every particle of matter and force, stands One "by whose command the wind blows, the fire burns, the clouds rain, and death stalks upon the earth."
And what is His nature?
He is everywhere, the pure and formless One, the Almighty and the All-merciful. "Thou art our father, Thou art our mother, Thou art our beloved friend, Thou art the source of all strength; give us strength. Thou art He that beareth the burdens of the universe; help me bear the little burden of this life." Thus sang the Rishis of the Vedas. And how to worship Him? Through love. "He is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and the next life."
This is the doctrine of love declared in the Vedas, and let us see how it is fully developed and taught by Krishna, whom the Hindus believe to have been God incarnate on earth.
He taught that a man ought to live in this world like a lotus leaf, which grows in water but is never moistened by water; so a man ought to live in the world — his heart to God and his hands to work.
It is good to love God for hope of reward in this or the next world, but it is better to love God for love's sake, and the prayer goes: "Lord, I do not want wealth, nor children, nor learning. If it be Thy will, I shall go from birth to birth, but grant me this, that I may love Thee without the hope of reward — love unselfishly for love's sake." One of the disciples of Krishna, the then Emperor of India, was driven from his kingdom by his enemies and had to take shelter with his queen in a forest in the Himalayas, and there one day the queen asked him how it was that he, the most virtuous of men, should suffer so much misery. Yudhishthira answered, "Behold, my queen, the Himalayas, how grand and beautiful they are; I love them. They do not give me anything, but my nature is to love the grand, the beautiful, therefore I love them. Similarly, I love the Lord. He is the source of all beauty, of all sublimity. He is the only object to be loved; my nature is to love Him, and therefore I love. I do not pray for anything; I do not ask for anything. Let Him place me wherever He likes. I must love Him for love's sake. I cannot trade in love."
The Vedas teach that the soul is divine, only held in the bondage of matter; perfection will be reached when this bond will burst, and the word they use for it is therefore, Mukti — freedom, freedom from the bonds of imperfection, freedom from death and misery.
And this bondage can only fall off through the mercy of God, and this mercy comes on the pure. So purity is the condition of His mercy. How does that mercy act? He reveals Himself to the pure heart; the pure and the stainless see God, yea, even in this life; then and then only all the crookedness of the heart is made straight. Then all doubt ceases. He is no more the freak of a terrible law of causation. This is the very centre, the very vital conception of Hinduism. The Hindu does not want to live upon words and theories. If there are existences beyond the ordinary sensuous existence, he wants to come face to face with them. If there is a soul in him which is not matter, if there is an all-merciful universal Soul, he will go to Him direct. He must see Him, and that alone can destroy all doubts. So the best proof a Hindu sage gives about the soul, about God, is: "I have seen the soul; I have seen God." And that is the only condition of perfection. The Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realising — not in believing, but in being and becoming.
Thus the whole object of their system is by constant struggle to become perfect, to become divine, to reach God and see God, and this reaching God, seeing God, becoming perfect even as the Father in Heaven is perfect, constitutes the religion of the Hindus.
And what becomes of a man when he attains perfection? He lives a life of bliss infinite. He enjoys infinite and perfect bliss, having obtained the only thing in which man ought to have pleasure, namely God, and enjoys the bliss with God.
So far all the Hindus are agreed. This is the common religion of all the sects of India; but, then, perfection is absolute, and the absolute cannot be two or three. It cannot have any qualities. It cannot be an individual. And so when a soul becomes perfect and absolute, it must become one with Brahman, and it would only realise the Lord as the perfection, the reality, of its own nature and existence, the existence absolute, knowledge absolute, and bliss absolute. We have often and often read this called the losing of individuality and becoming a stock or a stone.
“He jests at scars that never felt a wound.”
I tell you it is nothing of the kind. If it is happiness to enjoy the consciousness of this small body, it must be greater happiness to enjoy the consciousness of two bodies, the measure of happiness increasing with the consciousness of an increasing number of bodies, the aim, the ultimate of happiness being reached when it would become a universal consciousness.
Therefore, to gain this infinite universal individuality, this miserable little prison-individuality must go. Then alone can death cease when I am alone with life, then alone can misery cease when I am one with happiness itself, then alone can all errors cease when I am one with knowledge itself; and this is the necessary scientific conclusion. Science has proved to me that physical individuality is a delusion, that really my body is one little continuously changing body in an unbroken ocean of matter; and Advaita (unity) is the necessary conclusion with my other counterpart, soul.
Science is nothing but the finding of unity. As soon as science would reach perfect unity, it would stop from further progress, because it would reach the goal. Thus Chemistry could not progress farther when it would discover one element out of which all other could be made. Physics would stop when it would be able to fulfill its services in discovering one energy of which all others are but manifestations, and the science of religion become perfect when it would discover Him who is the one life in a universe of death, Him who is the constant basis of an ever-changing world. One who is the only Soul of which all souls are but delusive manifestations. Thus is it, through multiplicity and duality, that the ultimate unity is reached. Religion can go no farther. This is the goal of all science.
All science is bound to come to this conclusion in the long run. Manifestation, and not creation, is the word of science today, and the Hindu is only glad that what he has been cherishing in his bosom for ages is going to be taught in more forcible language, and with further light from the latest conclusions of science.
Descend we now from the aspirations of philosophy to the religion of the ignorant. At the very outset, I may tell you that there is no polytheism in India. In every temple, if one stands by and listens, one will find the worshippers applying all the attributes of God, including omnipresence, to the images. It is not polytheism, nor would the name henotheism explain the situation. "The rose called by any other name would smell as sweet." Names are not explanations.
I remember, as a boy, hearing a Christian missionary preach to a crowd in India. Among other sweet things he was telling them was that if he gave a blow to their idol with his stick, what could it do? One of his hearers sharply answered, "If I abuse your God, what can He do?" “You would be punished,” said the preacher, "when you die." "So my idol will punish you when you die," retorted the Hindu.
The tree is known by its fruits. When I have seen amongst them that are called idolaters, men, the like of whom in morality and spirituality and love I have never seen anywhere, I stop and ask myself, "Can sin beget holiness?"
Superstition is a great enemy of man, but bigotry is worse. Why does a Christian go to church? Why is the cross holy? Why is the face turned toward the sky in prayer? Why are there so many images in the Catholic Church? Why are there so many images in the minds of Protestants when they pray? My brethren, we can no more think about anything without a mental image than we can live without breathing. By the law of association, the material image calls up the mental idea and vice versa. This is why the Hindu uses an external symbol when he worships. He will tell you, it helps to keep his mind fixed on the Being to whom he prays. He knows as well as you do that the image is not God, is not omnipresent. After all, how much does omnipresence mean to almost the whole world? It stands merely as a word, a symbol. Has God superficial area? If not, when we repeat that word "omnipresent", we think of the extended sky or of space, that is all.
As we find that somehow or other, by the laws of our mental constitution, we have to associate our ideas of infinity with the image of the blue sky, or of the sea, so we naturally connect our idea of holiness with the image of a church, a mosque, or a cross. The Hindus have associated the idea of holiness, purity, truth, omnipresence, and such other ideas with different images and forms. But with this difference that while some people devote their whole lives to their idol of a church and never rise higher, because with them religion means an intellectual assent to certain doctrines and doing good to their fellows, the whole religion of the Hindu is centred in realisation. Man is to become divine by realising the divine. Idols or temples or churches or books are only the supports, the helps, of his spiritual childhood: but on and on he must progress.
He must not stop anywhere. "External worship, material worship," say the scriptures, "is the lowest stage; struggling to rise high, mental prayer is the next stage, but the highest stage is when the Lord has been realised." Mark, the same earnest man who is kneeling before the idol tells you, "Him the Sun cannot express, nor the moon, nor the stars, the lightning cannot express Him, nor what we speak of as fire; through Him they shine." But he does not abuse any one's idol or call its worship sin. He recognises in it a necessary stage of life. "The child is father of the man." Would it be right for an old man to say that childhood is a sin or youth a sin?
If a man can realise his divine nature with the help of an image, would it be right to call that a sin? Nor even when he has passed that stage, should he call it an error. To the Hindu, man is not travelling from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lower to higher truth. To him all the religions, from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism, mean so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and realise the Infinite, each determined by the conditions of its birth and association, and each of these marks a stage of progress; and every soul is a young eagle soaring higher and higher, gathering more and more strength, till it reaches the Glorious Sun.
Unity in variety is the plan of nature, and the Hindu has recognised it. Every other religion lays down certain fixed dogmas, and tries to force society to adopt them. It places before society only one coat which must fit Jack and John and Henry, all alike. If it does not fit John or Henry, he must go without a coat to cover his body. The Hindus have discovered that the absolute can only be realised, or thought of, or stated, through the relative, and the images, crosses, and crescents are simply so many symbols — so many pegs to hang the spiritual ideas on. It is not that this help is necessary for every one, but those that do not need it have no right to say that it is wrong. Nor is it compulsory in Hinduism.
One thing I must tell you. Idolatry in India does not mean anything horrible. It is not the mother of harlots. On the other hand, it is the attempt of undeveloped minds to grasp high spiritual truths. The Hindus have their faults, they sometimes have their exceptions; but mark this, they are always for punishing their own bodies, and never for cutting the throats of their neighbours. If the Hindu fanatic burns himself on the pyre, he never lights the fire of Inquisition. And even this cannot be laid at the door of his religion any more than the burning of witches can be laid at the door of Christianity.
To the Hindu, then, the whole world of religions is only a travelling, a coming up, of different men and women, through various conditions and circumstances, to the same goal. Every religion is only evolving a God out of the material man, and the same God is the inspirer of all of them. Why, then, are there so many contradictions? They are only apparent, says the Hindu. The contradictions come from the same truth adapting itself to the varying circumstances of different natures.
It is the same light coming through glasses of different colours. And these little variations are necessary for purposes of adaptation. But in the heart of everything the same truth reigns. The Lord has declared to the Hindu in His incarnation as Krishna, "I am in every religion as the thread through a string of pearls. Wherever thou seest extraordinary holiness and extraordinary power raising and purifying humanity, know thou that I am there." And what has been the result? I challenge the world to find, throughout the whole system of Sanskrit philosophy, any such expression as that the Hindu alone will be saved and not others. Says Vyasa, "We find perfect men even beyond the pale of our caste and creed." One thing more. How, then, can the Hindu, whose whole fabric of thought centres in God, believe in Buddhism which is agnostic, or in Jainism which is atheistic?
The Buddhists or the Jains do not depend upon God; but the whole force of their religion is directed to the great central truth in every religion, to evolve a God out of man. They have not seen the Father, but they have seen the Son. And he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father also.
This, brethren, is a short sketch of the religious ideas of the Hindus. The Hindu may have failed to carry out all his plans, but if there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will have no location in place or time; which will be infinite like the God it will preach, and whose sun will shine upon the followers of Krishna and of Christ, on saints and sinners alike; which will not be Brahminic or Buddhistic, Christian or Mohammedan, but the sum total of all these, and still have infinite space for development; which in its catholicity will embrace in its infinite arms, and find a place for, every human being, from the lowest grovelling savage not far removed from the brute, to the highest man towering by the virtues of his head and heart almost above humanity, making society stand in awe of him and doubt his human nature. It will be a religion which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognise divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be created in aiding humanity to realise its own true, divine nature.
Offer such a religion, and all the nations will follow you. Asoka's council was a council of the Buddhist faith. Akbar's, though more to the purpose, was only a parlour-meeting. It was reserved for America to proclaim to all quarters of the globe that the Lord is in every religion.
May He who is the Brahman of the Hindus, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in Heaven of the Christians, give strength to you to carry out your noble idea! The star arose in the East; it travelled steadily towards the West, sometimes dimmed and sometimes effulgent, till it made a circuit of the world; and now it is again rising on the very horizon of the East, the borders of the Sanpo, a thousandfold more effulgent than it ever was before.
Hail, Columbia, motherland of liberty! It has been given to thee, who never dipped her hand in her neighbour’s blood, who never found out that the shortest way of becoming rich was by robbing one’s neighbours, it has been given to thee to march at the vanguard of civilisation with the flag of harmony.
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文本来自Wikisource公共领域。原版由阿德瓦伊塔修道院出版。