Vivekananda’s quest for God takes him to the nearby
lands, and to the distant hills and valleys, to the places of worship, to the
revered holy scriptures, leads him to every kind of religious practices; but in
the wilderness of life he seems to get lost and all is in vain. The quest
remains unfulfilled. When hope disappears in that state of total helplessness,
a gentle soft and soothing voice beckons him, striking the chords of his soul.
And the voice speaks and the heart opens wide. The countryside and the hills
and the rivers, the moon the stars in the night sky, and the glorious day,
morn, eve, the billowing sea, birds, trees, nature—all tell him it is He who is
behind them: “I see through them—it is He.” In the lap of the mother, in the
eye of the baby, in the mother’s kiss and the baby’s ‘mama’, it is He who is
present. What need then of the Vedas and the Bible and the Koran?
O'ver hill and dale and mountain range,
In temple, church, and mosque,
In Vedas, Bible, Al Koran
I had searched for Thee in vain.
Like a child in the wildest forest lost
I have cried and cried alone,
“Where art Thou gone, my God, my love?
The echo answered, “gone.”
And days and nights and years then passed
A fire was in the brain,
I knew not when day changed in night
The heart seemed rent in twain.
I laid me down on
Exposed to sun and rain;
With burning tears I laid the dust
And wailed with waters' roar.
I called on all the holy names
Of every clime and creed.
“Show me the way, in mercy, ye
Great ones who have reached the goal.”
Years then passed in bitter cry,
Each moment seemed an age,
Till one day midst my cries and groans
Some one seemed calling me.
A gentle soft and soothing voice
That said 'my son' 'my son',
That seemed to thrill in unison
With all the chords of my soul.
I stood on my feet and tried to find
The place the voice came from;
I searched and searched and turned to see
Round me, before, behind,
Again, again it seemed to speak
The voice divine to me.
In rapture all my soul was hushed,
Entranced, enthralled in bliss.
A flash illumined all my soul;
The heart of my heart opened wide.
O joy, O bliss, what do I find!
My love, my love you are here
And you are here, my love, my all!
And I was searching thee—
From all eternity you were there
Enthroned in majesty!
From that day forth, wherever I roam,
I feel Him standing by
O'ver hill and dale, high mount and vale,
Far far away and high.
The moon's soft light, the stars so bright,
The glorious orb of day,
He shines in them; His beauty—might—
Reflected lights are they.
The majestic morn, the melting eve,
The boundless billowing sea,
In nature's beauty, songs of birds,
I see through them—it is He.
When dire calamity seizes me,
The heart seems weak and faint,
All natures seems to crush me down,
With laws that never bend.
Meseems I hear Thee whispering sweet
My love, “I am near”, “I am near”.
My heart gets strong.
With thee, my love,
A thousand deaths no fear.
Thou speakest in the mother's lay
Thou shutst the baby’s eye,
When innocent children laugh and play,
I see Thee standing by.
When holy friendship shakes the hand,
He stands between them too;
He pours the nectar in mother's kiss
And the baby's sweet “mama”.
Thou wert my God with prophets old,
All creeds do come from Thee,
The Vedas, Bible, and Koran bold
Sing Thee in Harmony.
So where are the scriptures? The glorious scriptures
are in the mother’s kiss and in the sweet ‘mama’ of the child. Vivekananda had
put for himself the task of serving the poor man, darīdri nārāyaņa. He established the Ramakrishna Order and served
God the Poor, the Destitute. The Vedic ideal belonged to Satya Yuga and the Dharma,
the character of the present Yuga, of the present Age, is of a different kind.
There is also the Dharma of the Time, Kala Dharma, and the Dharma of the Place,
Sthana Dharma. A distinction has to be made between the social and spiritual
aspects, between the individual and the collective organisation of life. Most
of our confusion arises because of mixing up the two.
Let us just read Sri Aurobindo’s The Interpretation of Scripture as we have in his Essays Divine and Human:
What… are the standards of truth in the interpretation
of the Scripture? The standards are three, the knower, knowledge and the known.
The known is the text itself that we seek to interpret. We must be sure we have
the right word, not an emendation to suit the exigency of some individual or
sectarian opinion; the right etymology and shade of meaning, not one that is
traditional or forced to serve the ends of a commentator; the right spirit in
the sense, not an imported or too narrow or too elastic spirit.
The knower is the original drashta or seer of the mantra, with whom we ought to
be in spiritual contact. If knowledge is indeed a perishable thing in a
perishable instrument, such contact is impossible; but in that case the
Scripture itself must be false and not worth considering. If there is any truth
in what the Scripture says, knowledge is eternal and inherent in all of us and
what another saw I can see, what another realised I can realise. The drashta
was a soul in relation with the infinite Spirit, I am also a soul in relation
with the infinite Spirit. We have a meeting-place, a possibility of communion.
Knowledge is the eternal truth, part of which the drashta expresses to us.
Through the part he shows us, we must travel to the whole, otherwise we shall
be subject to the errors incidental to an imperfect knowledge. If even the part
is to be rightly understood, it must be viewed in the terms of the whole, not
the whole in the terms of the part. I am not limited by the Scriptures; on the
contrary I must exceed them in order to be master of their knowledge. It is
true that we are usually the slaves of our individual and limited outlook, but our
capacity is unlimited, and, if we can get rid of ahankara, if we can put
ourselves at the service of the Infinite without any reservation of
predilection or opinion, there is no reason why our realisation should be
limited. tasmin vijnāte sarvam vijnātam.
He being known, all can be known. To understand Scripture, it is not enough to
be a scholar, one must be a soul. To know what the drashta saw one must oneself
have drishti, sight, and be a student if not a master of the knowledge.Atha
para yaya tad aksharam adhigamyate. Grammar, etymology, prosody, astronomy,
metaphysics, logic, all that is good; but afterwards there is still needed the
higher knowledge by which the Immutable is known.