Each Soul is Potentially Divine - Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda, an inspiring soul of India needs no introduction across the globe. In Sept., 1893, an unknown Hindu monk from India suddenly leapt into spontaneous fame at the Parliament of Religions held in Chicago, where he represented India and Hinduism to the world. He roared like a lion but with great humbleness saying; S..i..s..t..e..r..s and B..r..o..t..h..e..r..s of America……..and there were unstoppable applause by the audience. This eloquent and most brilliant speech is reverberating since then on the canvas of the hearts and minds of the mankind.

Another brilliant quote by Swami Vivekananda has brought out an incredible and eternal truth hidden behind the curtain of human ignorance & ego. The true spiritual seekers of all ages are found struggling to lift this veil.

“Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy - by one, or more, or all of these - and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.”

If we analyze the above statement, we find that it consists of the following phrases;

·       Each soul is potentially divine. (in Hindi, प्रत्येक आत्मा संभावित परमात्मा है)

·       The goal is to manifest this divinity by controlling nature, external and internal.

·       Do this either by work,

·       or worship,

·       or psychic control,

·       or philosophy,

·       by one, or more, or all of these - and be free.

·       This is the whole of religion.

·       Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.”

Each of the phrases and words in the above statement has profound meaning on which one has to meditate constantly to be free from illusions.

Each soul is potentially divine: What is this divinity? Divinity can be expressed as an entity, an existence which is absolute, eternal, infinite, immortal, imperishable, all knowing, all powerful and ever blissful. It is an absolute, limitless and blissful existence which is infinite, eternal and beyond which is nothing is left to be known.  Therefore, the word divinity suggests a state which has absolute existence, limitless power, infinite knowledge and eternal bliss. When we talk of the philosophy of God, the God must also fulfill all these essential qualities and attributes. That is why in all religions, we always say that the God is omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful, almighty), and omnipresent (all-pervading). The Christianity says that there is nothing God can’t do and there is nothing He doesn’t know. He has ability and power to do whatever is He desires. He can heal the sick, give sight to the blind, and bless all who follow Him. He has raised people from the dead and promises eternal life to the faithful. He can move mountains and calm the seas. He can touch your heart and wants your love. The Hinduism also pronounces the same. These are just a few of God’s infinite attributes as He Himself is timeless and limitless in every way. God is timeless, having no beginning and no end.  When we say that each soul is potentially divine, our soul, which is our consciousness, has a potential to manifest all these divine attributes. If our consciousness unfolds, we will not have any defects, disease, suffering or limitations. We will have all the knowledge beyond which nothing will be left to be known, we will be absolute perfect and our happiness will have no end. As a human being, in our daily lives, each one of us in whatever way possible is striving for attainment of the ideal state of perfection, limitless existence, absolute knowledge and infinite happiness. It is our birth right and one must aspire for achieving this perfection. We do not want to die ever, we want to live till eternity, we want to be healthy, we want to be wealthy, we want to be disease free, we want to have all the knowledge, we want to have all the powers, we want to be always happy and we  want to have  all perfections. As all these absolute attributes are possessed by God, is it not true that we all want to be God? God does not become sick, He does not suffer, He does not die, He has all the knowledge and he is always happy, He is perfect and unaffected by anything. That is why in Hinduism, we always visualize idols and images of God as a young, charming, healthy, powerful and happy Person.

Now, let us come back to our own self. We believe that the God possesses all the above absolute attributes but we, the human beings apparently find ourselves limited, diseased, imperfect, unknowing and unhappy. If we expand the theory that the God is limitless, there cannot be any place or any object where His presence is not there. Is there any other entity which has divinity? It is not at all possible otherwise; the God cannot be infinite and limitless. What are we?  In general terms, we say about ourselves, that, this is my body, this is my hand, this is my head, this is my face or this is my dress. We never say that I am this dress, I am this hand, I am this head, I am this face or I am this body. Then where is that “I” we usually say and is the essence of our being? Is it beyond the body? It can’t be so! Is it within the body? Yes, we can say so but in the body where is it? It is everywhere, it is our consciousness. Is it outside the body? Yes!, Scriptures say that we can expand our consciousness outside. What is this “I”? If we say that the God is not within us, not within this “I”, not within our consciousness, then the God cannot be infinite, limitless, and all powerful and cannot be perfect. Then He is definitely within us.  If we are not happy, God’s happiness cannot be absolute happiness as it will put limits on His happiness. As a small child, we had many limitations, we were not able to walk, we were not able to talk, we did not have knowledge, and even after little growing up we used to ask all the silly questions to our parents. But, gradually, we grew up, acquired some knowledge, and got rid of some limitations & imperfections. It means, as a child we had all the potentialities of a grown up person. Similarly, we can also say that we are a child God today with certain limitations. When we grow spiritually, our child God acquires all the perfections and become the God. Similarly, we know that a dormant seed has all the potentiality of a tree. In the same way, we all are the seeds, possessing all the potentialities of the tree, the God, the potentialities of the divinity. The spiritual truth is that the absolute, eternal, infinite, immortal, imperishable, all knowing, all powerful and ever blissful God ever encompass us. The God ever encompass our consciousness.  The question is how to explore, unfold and acquire the potentialities of divinity of the God?  For this, we need sincere efforts like any other endeavor in life. There are many ways; many paths prescribed by scriptures to acquire the divinity. We can either go to a person, a Guru, a teacher who has all the knowledge and seek  his guidance to know the truth or we meditate deeply and strive ourselves for direct perception of the truth.

So, in essence, we are divine but we do not know it. Why we do not know our divinity? Why we are powerless to manifest our divinity? There must be some obstacles in our way due to which we are blinded to our divinity and we are not able to manifest it. Many sages have come to the truth that these obstacles are;

1.     Lack of knowledge

2.     Agitation of mind

3.     False consciousness

4.     Desire for possessions and attachment to them.

Lack of knowledge is Avidya, illusion, indiscrimination, misconception; it is beautifully illustrated by a story of a musk deer or Kasturi Mrig which most of the readers must be aware of.  A Kasturi Mrig produces an amazing scent in the world which is called Kasturi in India. This scent is produced by the deer in its naval area in a small pouch. When the musk is produced, the deer is attracted by the enchanting smell of the scent but it does not know from where the fragrance is coming. Musk deer madly  runs in forest from one end to another to find the source of the fragrance but it never finds the source. Most of the time, it destroys the musk pod by rubbing it upon the ground. The deer never knows that the scent lies inside its body pouch it is carrying within itself.

Agitation of mind is its nature itself, a disturbed muddy water cannot reflect an image properly. So is the mind. Its agitations, constant wandering cannot allow it to settle to know the image of self, the self consciousness. 

False consciousness is ego consciousness. We feel we are our body, we are our wealth, and we are our positions. In the process what the mind assumes a false identity, a false self consciousness or ego consciousness.There is a beautiful story about false consciousness. A pregnant tigress once attacked a flock of sheep. With exhaustion, she delivered a tiger cub and dies there. The tiger cub was raised by the flock of sheep. With time, it grew to a full grown tiger but it used to eat grass and live like the lamb. Once, another tiger from the forest attacked the flock of the sheep and killed a lamb and rest ran away. To the utmost surprise of the tiger, it saw the lamb tiger also running away in fear. The tiger followed it and caught hold of it. The tiger asked the lamb tiger why it was running away. The lamb tiger replied that he is a lamb and is afraid of tiger. The tiger said; no! You are not a lamb. You are a tiger. The tiger lamb won’t believe. So the tiger took the lamb tiger to a well and asked it to see in the water. The lamb tiger saw its image in the water and also saw the tiger near it. Gradually, his consciousness returned and it felt that it was not a lamb but a tiger. The tiger roared and so the new borne tiger also roared. It felt joy within as it realized its true identity. It stopped eating grass and went with the tiger hunting for fresh meat. Our consciousness is also like the lamb tiger. We never realize our true identity.

Desire for possessions and attachment to them is Vasna. We become so obsessed with wealth, materialistic objects that we run after it whole life to acquire it more and more and can’t think beyond this.

All the above obstacles cover our real identity, our real self and we forget this real self. We loose our divinity and act like the lamb tiger in the above story.

The goal is to manifest this divinity by controlling nature, external and internal. How to achieve this goal?  We can classify the humanity, hiding their divinity under the shadow of above obstacles, in three categories, the awakened, the half awakened or ready to be awakened and those who are sleeping. The awakened include those who are aware about their divinity to some extent but are not completely aware of it. Such people are in minority. The ready to be awakened are the aspirants in spiritual life and put increasing efforts to realize their divinity. Those who are sleeping are in majority and are quite happy with material world and what they are, without any inner will to know who they really they are. The spiritual aspirants are also classified further by their general characteristics, temperament and inquisitiveness. They are;  (1) discriminative or reasoning type, philosophical minds, (2) psychic type who respond more to mental stimuli than to sense stimuli; (3) the devotional, loving type with great capacity of feeling and (4) the active type who demonstrates energetic and outgoing qualities. All the four type are equally important. The systematic method of practice of each type leads to the achievement of the highest goal of knowing the real identity; knowing our divinity is called Science of Yoga. The active type, do this by work method is karma yoga, do worship is bhakti yoga, the psychic type control is Raj yoga and the discriminative or reasoning type or philosophy type is dgyan yoga. By practicing these yogic science steps, one, or more, or all of them, we can achieve our divinity and become free.

And finally, Swami Vivekananda says this is the whole of religion.  Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms; are but secondary details and are not that important in the path. They are just external stimuli to remind the right way, nothing else. This is the true religion, one can name it anything.

References: Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda