The World's Greatest Books - Volume 13 Part 7

Whatsover is not of faith is sin (Rom. xiv. 23).

Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of G.o.d (1 Cor. x. 31).

_OUTLINE OF THE BHAGAVAD-GITA_

The blind old father of the Kauravas asked Sangara to tell him how the battle had gone. He replied that, just as the fighting began, Krishna, the Heaven-Born One, stationed his glorious chariot between the armies and entered into a long conversation, with Arguna, the prince-general of the Pandavas. Said Arguna, "My grief at seeing these kindred peoples at war is beyond bearing, and the omens are unfavourable. I long not for victory, but for peace and for the prosperity of all. Behold, in battle array grandfathers, fathers, sons, friends, and allies. We have resolved to commit a great sin, to slay our kindred and a.s.sociates, and all for l.u.s.t of wealth and power."

The Holy One (Krishna) said in reply, "Thou grievest for those who need no grief of thine; yet are thy words words of wisdom. The wise have no grief for dead or living; know thou, O Arguna, that the man who has knowledge of the Eternal and Absolute One will never more be born, nor will he know death. As one puts away an old used garment, putting on a new one, so the self in a man puts away the old body and a.s.sumes one that is new. He, the Everlasting One, is unchanging and inconceivable.

Be not thou grieved and have no fear. If slain in the battle, thou shalt reach endless bliss in heaven. If victorious, thou shalt have happiness on the earth; get thee, therefore, honoured one, to the fight and have no care for pleasure or pain.

"Some obtain comfort from what the Vedas promise with reference to eternal bliss. But these very Vedas teach that a man should strive at self-mortification and advancement in virtue with no regard to any reward. The final good after which men are chiefly to aim is a state of supreme indifference and contempt."

"But," asked Arguna, "what, pray, is that state of equipoise of spirit which thou urgest?"

Said the Holy One, "There is a twofold law: that of Sankhyas, or intellectual devotion, and that of Yogis, or practical devotion. Men must strive after the highest knowledge, that of Brahma, and also seek after right conduct." "What," asked Arguna, "is the cause of sin?" To which the Holy One replied, "Love and hatred, for hatred is begotten of love, and ignorance of moral distinctions and of anger; from all this comes unreasonableness and resulting ruin. A man's knowledge carries always with it desire, as the fire smoke. The senses are great, the mind is greater, and the intellect still greater, but the greatest of all is the Eternal Essence, Brahma.

"Many," said the Holy One, "are my births, and I know them; many too, are thine, but thou knowest them not. I am born from age to age for the defence of the virtuous and the undoing of the wicked. He who believes in my divine birth and work has no second birth, but enters me and abides with me for ever. Know me as the creator of the cates, know me also as the Eternal one that creates nothing. Faith brings with it knowledge, and knowledge contentment. Without knowledge and faith the soul is lost."

Arguna asked, "How fares it with the man who is not able to suppress his lower instincts and to undergo the discipline of Yogis? Is he for this, to be undone for ever?"

"No," replied the Holy One, "neither in this world nor in the next is he lost. The virtuous man does not enter an evil state. He reaches that heaven provided for all the good, and is born thereafter with higher moral capacities, with which, and by means of the knowledge gained in his previous existence, he rises to greater perfection; so that after many births he reaches absolute perfection and is united for ever with Brahma. But learn thou my higher nature; what thou seest is my lower, for I am divine and human. All the world came forth from me, and I will at the last destroy it. Higher than I does not exist. I am taste, light, moon, sun; I am the mystic OM; I am the mystic seed from which all things grow. He that offers sacrifice to inferior G.o.ds goes after death to those G.o.ds, but they that wors.h.i.+p me come to me."

"What," asked Arguna, "is Brahma, the supreme spirit, the supreme sacrifice?"

The Holy One answered, "He is the Supreme, the Indestructible One; I am the Supreme Sacrifice in my present body.

"Hear now, Son of Pritha," said the Holy One. "If thy heart be fixed on me, and thou seekest refuge in me, thou shalt know me fully, and I shall reveal to thee the perfect knowledge of G.o.d and man. There are countless myriads of men in this world, but few there are who seek after perfection, and fewer still there are who obtain it."

_OTHER PARTS OF THE MAHABHARATA_

Though the husband die unhappy on account of his wife's ill-treatment and disobedience, yet if she consign herself to the flames after his death she is deserving of great praise. How much more should a woman be venerated who flings herself of her own accord into the flames after the death of a husband whom she has treated with affection and submission!

Let gifts be avoided; for receiving them is a sin. The silkworm dies of its riches.

It is not proper to rebuke or even blame wrong acts of G.o.ds or priests or seers; though no one is justified in following them in these acts.

Virtue is better than everlasting life; kingdom, sons, renown, and wealth all put together do not make up one-sixteenth part of the value of virtue.

The greatest sin that a king can commit is atoned for by sacrifices accompanied with large gifts [cows, etc.] to the priests.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE

RELIGIO MEDICI

Sir Thomas Browne, English essayist, came of a Ches.h.i.+re family, but was born in London on October 19, 1605. Educated at Oxford, where he graduated in 1626, he next studied medicine at the great universities of Montpelier, Padua, and Leyden, and in 1637 went to live at Norwich, where he remained until his death on October 19, 1682. He was happily married in 1641, and was knighted by Charles II. in 1671. Sir Thomas Browne is one of the greatest figures in English literary history. He had extraordinary learning, a magnificent style, a certain dry humour, and, above all, great power and n.o.bility of mind. In his two most valued works, "Religio Medici," or "Religion of a Physician," published in 1643, and "Urn Burial," in 1658, he deals with the greatest of all themes, the mysteries of faith and of human destiny. The "Religio Medici," written about 1635, was not at first intended for publication; but the ma.n.u.script had been handed about and copied, and the appearance, in 1642, of private editions, forced the author to issue it himself.

_I.--THE BROAD-MINDED CHRISTIAN_

For my religion I dare, without usurpation, a.s.sume the honourable style of a Christian. Not that I merely owe this t.i.tle to the font, my education, or the clime wherein I was born; but that having, in my riper years and confirmed judgment, seen and examined all, I find myself obliged, by the principles of grace and the law of mine own reason, to embrace no other name but this.

But, because the name of a Christian is become too general to express our faith--there being a geography of religion as well as lands--I am of that reformed new-cast religion, wherein I dislike nothing but the name: of the same belief our Saviour taught, the apostles disseminated, the fathers authorised, and the martyrs confirmed; but, by the sinister ends of princes, the ambition and avarice of prelates, and the fatal corruption of the times, so decayed, impaired, and fallen from its native beauty, that it required the careful and charitable hands of these times to restore it to its primitive integrity.

Yet do I not stand at sword's point with those who had rather promiscuously retain all than abridge any, and obstinately be what they are than what they have been. We have reformed from them, not against them, for there is between us one common name and appellation, one faith and necessary body of principles common to us both; and therefore I am not scrupulous to converse and live with them, to enter their churches in defect of ours, and either pray with them or for them.

I am naturally inclined to that which misguided zeal terms superst.i.tion; at my devotion I love to use the civility of my knee, my hat, my hand, with all those outward and sensible motions which may express or promote my invisible devotion. At the sight of a crucifix I can dispense with my hat, but scarce with the thought or memory of my Saviour. I could never hear the Ave-Mary bell without an oraison, or think it a sufficient warrant, because they erred in one circ.u.mstance, for me to err in all--that is, in silence and dumb contempt.

I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion; I have no genius to disputes in religion. A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender; 'tis therefore far better to enjoy her with peace than to hazard her upon a battle. If, therefore, there rise any doubts in my way, I do forget them, or at least defer them, till my better settled judgment be able to resolve them. In philosophy, where truth seems double-faced, there is no man more paradoxical than myself; but in divinity I love to keep the road, and, though not in an implicit, yet an humble, faith follow the great wheel of the Church.

Heads that are disposed unto schism, and complexionally propense to innovation, are naturally indisposed for a community, nor will be ever confined unto the order or economy of one body; and, therefore, when they separate from others, they knit but loosely among themselves; nor contented with a general breach or dichotomy with their church, do subdivide and mince themselves almost into atoms.

As for those wingy mysteries in divinity and airy subtleties in religion which have unhinged the brains of better heads, they have never stretched the membranes of mine. Methinks there be not impossibilities enough in religion for an active faith; I love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to an _O alt.i.tudo!_ I can answer all the objections of Satan and my rebellious reason with that odd resolution of Tertullian: "It is certain because it is impossible."

_II.--THE DIVINE WISDOM_

In my solitary and retired imagination I remember I am not alone; and therefore forget not to contemplate Him and His attributes who is ever with me, especially those two mighty ones, His wisdom and eternity. With the one I recreate, with the other I confound, my understanding; for who can speak of eternity without a solecism, or think thereof without an ecstasy?

In this ma.s.s of Nature there is a set of things that carry in their front, though not in capital letters, yet in stenography and short characters, something of divinity; which, to wiser reasons, serve as luminaries in the abyss of knowledge, and to judicious beliefs as scales to mount the pinnacles of divinity.

That other attribute wherewith I recreate my devotion is His wisdom, in which I am happy; and for the contemplation of this only, do not repent me that I was bred in the way of study. The advantage I have of the vulgar, with the content and happiness I conceive therein, is an ample recompense for all my endeavours in what part of knowledge soever.

Wisdom is His most beauteous attribute; no man can attain unto it; yet Solomon pleased G.o.d when he desired it. He is wise because He knows all things; and He knows all things because He made them all; but His greatest knowledge is in comprehending that He made not--that is, Himself. The wisdom of G.o.d receives small honour from those heads that rudely stare about, and with a gross rusticity admire His works. Those highly magnify Him whose judicious inquiry into His acts, and a deliberate research into His creatures, return the duty of a devout and learned admiration. Every essence, created or uncreated, hath its final cause and some positive end both of its essence and operation. This is the cause I grope after in the works of Nature; on this hangs the providence of G.o.d.

That Nature does nothing in vain is the only indisputable axiom in philosophy. There are no grotesques in Nature, nor anything framed to fill up unnecessary s.p.a.ces. I could never content my contemplation with those general pieces of wonder, the flux and reflux of the sea, the increase of the Nile, the conversion of the needle to the north; but have studied to match and parallel those in the more obvious and neglected pieces of Nature which, without further travel, I find in the cosmography of myself. We carry with us the wonders we seek without us; there is all Africa and her prodigies in us.

Thus there are two books from whence I collect my divinity: besides that written one of G.o.d, another of His servant, Nature, that universal and public ma.n.u.script, that lies expansed unto the eyes of all. Surely the heathens knew better how to join and read these mystical letters than we Christians, who cast a more careless eye on these common hieroglyphics, and disdain to suck divinity from the flowers of Nature. Now, Nature is not at variance with art, nor art with Nature, they being both the servants of His providence. Art is the perfection of Nature. Nature hath made one world, and art another. In brief, all things are artificial, for Nature is the art of G.o.d.

This is the ordinary and open way of His providence, which art and industry have in good part discovered, whose effects we may foretell without an oracle. But there is another way, full of meanders and labyrinths, and that is a more particular and obscure method of His providence, directing the operations of individual and single essences.

This we call fortune, that serpentine and crooked line whereby He draws those actions His wisdom intends in a more unknown and secret way.

This cryptic and involved method of His providence have I ever admired; nor can I relate the history of my life, the occurrences of my days, the escapes, or dangers, and hits of chance, with a bare grammercy to my good stars. Surely there are in every man's life certain rubs, doublings, and wrenches, which pa.s.s a while under the effects of chance; but at the last, well examined, prove the mere hand of G.o.d. 'Twas not dumb chance that, to discover the fougade, or powder plot, contrived a miscarriage in the letter. I like the victory of '88 the better for that one occurrence which our enemies imputed to our dishonour and the partiality of fortune: to wit, the tempests and contrariety of winds.

There is no liberty for causes to operate in a loose and straggling way, nor any effect whatever but hath its warrant from some universal or superior cause. 'Tis not a ridiculous devotion to say a prayer before a game at tables; for even in sortileges and matters of greatest uncertainty there is a settled and pre-ordered course of effects. It is we that are blind, not fortune. Because our eye is too dim to discover the mystery of her effects, we foolishly paint her blind, and hoodwink the providence of the Almighty.

'Tis, I confess, the common fate of men of singular gifts of mind to be dest.i.tute of those of fortune; which doth not any way deject the spirit of wiser judgments, who thoroughly understand the justice of this proceeding; and, being enriched with higher donatives, cast a more careless eye on these vulgar parts of felicity. It is a most unjust ambition to desire to engross the mercies of the Almighty.

I have heard some with deep sighs lament the lost lines of Cicero; others with as many groans deplore the combustion of the library of Alexandria; for my own part, I think there be too many in the world, and could with patience behold the urn and ashes of the Vatican, could I, with a few others, recover the perished leaves of Solomon. Some men have written more than others have spoken. Of those three great inventions in Germany, there are two which are not without their incommodities. Tis not a melancholy wish of my own, but the desires of better heads, that there were a general synod--not to unite the incompatible difference of religion, but for the benefit of learning, to reduce it, as it lay at first, in a few and solid authors; and to condemn to the fire those swarms and millions of rhapsodies, begotten only to distract and abuse the weaker judgments of scholars and to maintain the trade and mystery of typographers.