CHAPTER XII.— THE HIGH APPLICATION OF THE

SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS : (a) To whom the Science is addressed : — Who are the proper students of it — Those touched by v a i ra g y a — The inevitable arising of that mood in its due time — The world-scheme — The ends of life — Manu's all-comprehensive and all satisfying " Code of Life " and laws — Expla- natory triplets — Full understanding of the scheme not possible till the Jiva sets foot on the Path of Renunciation— Deliberate, open-eyed choice and cultivation of Love possible and necessary for such only — The meaning of deli-
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berateness and free-will— Metaphysical signifi- cance and justification of counsel— Why the counsel of this Science may be addressed to all, even those who are not yet definitely on the Path of Renunciation — The need for cultivating v a i r a g y a — An objection and the answer — The results in and on the outer life, of following the counsel- The first half of the world-cycle — The second half.
(6) Human Life :— The growth of individuality. — In terms of Self : (i) Consciousness, (ii) Self- Ccnsciousness; (iii) All-Self-Consciousness — In terms of Not-Self: (i) The physical body (and etheric double, sthula and pranamaya) ; (ii) the subtle body (sukshma, Hriga, manomaya, as- tral, mental, karana, vijnanamaya, causal, etc.); (iii) buddhic or mah~karnna, etc— The meaning of individuality— Certain fundamental triplets and trinities— Final ideal to be the highest possible, intermediate ones being im- plicit.
(c) How Human Life is helped by this Science : — Deliberate Love— Constant self- watchfulness — Avoiding provocation of evil and promoting evocation of good emotions in others— Avoid- ance of much laughter— And much talk— And objectless reveries and imaginations — Pro- motion of mutual trust and harmony— One- pointed Yoga and Final Unification, Union, Moksha. ...203—246.
LAST WORDS. ...247—248.
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5
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u What hast thou to do with riches ? what hast thou to do with kin ? how shall wives bestand thee, son ! that shalt surely die ? Seek the A t m a n , hidden in the cave within the heart. Where are gone thy father, and the fathers of thy father ? "
Such was the teaching, still more ancient, addressed by an ancient Indian father to an ancient Indian son — addressed by Vyasa to his son Shuka — Shuka who grew to be greater even than his great father. And such used to be the beginning of philosophy, the search after Truth, the truth of life and death, in olden India. l Mahabharata, Shantiparva, cccxxiii. 72.
SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS.
u He in whom hath arisen sense of difference between the Passing and the Eternal, he in whom desire for the fleeting hath died away, his shall surely be the great gain of wisdom. " So Vish- vamitra assured Rama when leading him to Vasishtha for the teachings embodied in the Mahd- Rdmdyana. From vairagya *, the ceasing of
1 Yoga-Vasi$htha, I. xi-2. The work is also called the Maha-Ramayana or the Great Ramayana.
2 This word, v a i r a g y a, is of great importance in Sam- skrt philosophy. Like the periodic crises in the life of the physical body, when it adjusts itself anew to its environments, this mood marks the critical turning-point in the life of the inner Jiva, when it adjusts itself anew to the world-process and alters and renews its outlook upon it. There is not yet any adequate English word for it. * Pessimism, ' ' cynicism,' * the world is hollow,' • life is not worth living,' ' there is nothing good,' etc., and l aloofness,' ' detachment,' ' weari- ness,' ' indifference,' etc., are shades of its first and second, or r a j a s a and t a m a s a , stages or forms — //we add the very important element of unremitting search for the real explanation of the world-process and for the real significance of, and element of truth in, the mood itself. More on it will be found in the last chapter here ; also in The Science of Peace, ch. i. For illustrative description see Yoga Vasish- tha, I. In one of its later forms it appears as ' the night of the soul ' so often spoken of by Christian mystics. In its perfection and final or sattvika form, when it distinguishes between the individualised and separative life and the Uni- versal Self (viveka-khyatih of Yoga) it is the highest knowledge also (Yoga Sutra and Vydsa-Bhdshya, i. 15, 16)
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desire— from viveka, the discrimination which sees that all objects of desire are limited and fleeting, and, therefore, painful— from these alone but from these without fail, proceeds the b o d h a, the knowledge that grasps that which is not limited, not fleeting, and, therefore, beyond pain.
Thus ancient philosophy took its rise in the relation of the Jlva, the separated or individualised self, to those two constant companions of its life, the two sole guides of all its action — Pleasure and Pain, Joy and Sorrow, Happiness and Misery, Gladness and Sadness. It set a distinct aim before itself, the aim of relieving pain — that pain, that master pain, of doubt, uncertainty, and hopeless- ness, which, while it lasts, poisons the very roots of life, and throws all other pains, even the pains of positive material loss and physical torture, into the shade. And it proceeded straight from pain to the cause of pain, and thence to the remedy. 1
That philosophy remains and will remain true for ever, but it has to be modelled into ever new forms to meet the needs of the ever changing races of humanity.
The more advanced races and classes of the present humanity have, in the march of evolution,
and expresses itself as renunciation, self-denial, self-sacrifice, universal love, compassion, devotion and service. Thus indeed it is the alpha and the omega of philosophy, the first word and the last of wisdom, V e da nt a , (Bhagavad-Gtta, ii. 59). 1 Sankhya Karika, 1, and Yoga-Bha§hya, ii, 15.
4 SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS.
come to the stage where 'Intelligence' (according to theosophical literature, the fifth principle, the distinguishing characteristic of the Aryans, the fifth race, the p a ii c h a j a n a h) 1 is attaining its highest development. In order to reach its proper perfection,2 it has become in the beginning exaggerated beyond its due proportion. The immediate result is that even as itself -being in reality only a means to the service of that other aspect of the nature of the Jiva, viz., Desire- Emotion — has taken up the position of end and thrown emotion into the background, so, in all departments of the life of those modern advanced races and classes, the means are overpowering the ends, and loom far larger in the mind, and occupy a far larger share of time and attention, than that which they in reality seek to subserve. A ton of plate is used to eat an ounce of food ; the record of a piece of business has more time given to it than the performance of that, business ; there is more supervision and inspection than work to be supervised and inspected ; more writing than reading ; more newspapers than
1 Amara-ko§ha, II. vii. 1.
2 J. S. Mill, Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, are illustrations, in one sense, of what is meant by this. See in their autobiographies, their confessions of, and regrets at, their lack of emotional enjoyment, the atrophy of that faculty, and consequent sense of want, due to over-cultivation of only the intellectual aspect of their minds.
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news. So much precise and elaborate calculation is made, that it very often ends in defeating its own purpose by not making sufficient allowance for contingencies which are beyond calculation ; a thousand, a hundred thousand men are sacrificed, by competition, to ensure the success of one man ; the outer is looked at far more than the inner ; governments, systems of administration, diplo- macies, and policies come to be believed sincerely to be far greater and more important than the people and their simple well-being, for which only they exist ; cities come to be greater than fields ; town-life than country-life ; a line dress than a beautiful physique ; the author than the book ; the writer than the reader ; non-productive activity than productive labor ; money and material luxuries than the soul's contented blessedness ; showy arts than honest industries ; ' glorious war ' than l inglorious peace ' ; an ever-growing, an ever more unwieldy statute- book than never-changing good men ; an education that cultivates the outside, that gives external polish, that fits for struggling with others and profiting surreptitiously and plausibly at their ex- pense, than a training which opens the inner man, and fits him for real peace with Self and peace with others, fits him to suffer wrong rather than do it. The culmination point of this high growth of one-sided exaggeration is reached when professional philosophers assert that the object of
6 SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS.
philosophy is not Truth, but the pursuit of Truth ; that the latter has far greater interest than the former. x
Such are the inevitable consequences, at a certain stage, of the onward process of evolution ; and they need not be regretted, since they have their proper place in the story of man. Without passing through them, the Jiva would remain wanting in a very necessary experience.
But it must pass through them, and not remain immersed in those quagmires.
That intelligence, developing and expanding, should, even through exaggeration, reach per- fection in wisdom, and not descend into the deep imperfection of cunning, it has to become self- intelligence, and not only self-intelligence, but All-Self-intelligence ; it has to understand its own true nature, in one Jiva and in all Jlvas.
To know man, what he is and whence and whither and how and why, is the noblest — and whether noblest or not is the most urgently needed- qualification of man. Philosophy in this sense is
1. See Sir William Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. I., Lee. i. It is as if we should say the object of the science of medicine is not health, but only the pursuit of health. And yet that even this has an element of truth in it, as indeed have all opinions whatsoever ever entertained by any mind, may be realised when we consider the fact of Jlvas returning to new systems and cycles after having attained m o k s h a in previous ones.
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the very highest of sciences, and has always been thus regarded in the East. And it has been pursued in the West too, but the reasons which, as just said, have there very often made philosophers find greater interest in the pursuit of Truth than in Truth, have confined attention largely to the psychology of the senses and the intellect— the means of cognition— on the one hand, and to the discussion of ethics — the principles of action— on the other.
That which is directly or indirectly the energising motive of both the motor-organs and the senses and intellect, viz.) the Desire-nature,
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the Emotion-nature, of man, his *l ISWf, r a g a - d v e s h a m , love-hate, has not received proper attention, and what it has received has not been fruitful of good and true results. Further, because of the initial defect in selecting the starting-point of investigation, the other two branches of philo- sophy, to which there have been given so much time and labor, have also remained untraced to their true roots.
Not till the springs of Pleasure and Pain are reached and plumbed, not till there is earnest sympathy of search between the questioner and the teacher, the student and the science, not till mere superficial and cynical moods of asking are cast away, not till the human heart is pierced as deeply as that of Shuka by vairagya such as
8 SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS.
that which underlies the ancient counsel given to him by his father Vyasa— -not until then can the pure waters of true knowledge and deep consola- tion well up within that heart and flow forth ever after in a constant, sure, and never-failing stream.
For students thus touched with vairagya, and yet by necessity of circumstance belonging to and dominated by the prevailingly intellectual nature of the present races, this booklet is written ; it treats of the Desire-nature of man, his Emotions, in the way, as far as may be, of the usual books on the science of psychology, and attempts to lead those students on from the Science of the Emotions to that highest science which deals with the very roots of life, with the ultimate principles of the whole world-process, the Science of Peace.
May the little book serve its appointed purpose, under the blessings of those who are the Guardians and the prayers of those who are the servants of Humanity.