CHAPTER XII.

THE HIGH APPLICATION OF THE SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS.
What is the practical application of the Science of the Emotions, a very brief exposition of which has been thus far attempted ? How may this knowledge be utilised for the bettering of human life?
(a) To whom the Science is addressed. —What is
true of all other knowledge is true o f who are ... the proper tnis- We know, and we strive in
ofthentS accordance with, and with the help of, Science of our knowledge. But between the the ^ knowing and the striving there inter-
venes the wish for the object which is to be secured by the striving. Between the cogni- tion and the action there interposes the Emotion, the desire, that connects the two. So, to connect the knowledge of the Science of the Emotions with the action for the improvement of humanity, there is needed the real, earnest, true wish to improve one 's own life and that of others, Otherwise the science is useless, as a looking-glass unto the blind.
204 SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS.
Perhaps worse than useless. The unscrupulous may wrench it to suit their own evil purposes. This wish cannot be forced. It must be left to come of itself. To what has been
Those ^id before as to the broad division of
by Jivas into two classes, and of the passing
yairagya. of each Jiva from the one into the other class, it should be added that the wish must come to each Jiva, at some time or other, in the course of its evolution, when that Jiva ceases to live for itself. When after a period of v i s h a d a and v a i r a g y a and blankness, of surfeit with the experiences of worldliness and the path of pur- suit, of consequent great weariness and desolation, it seeks — still with a remnant of that purest selfish- ness which is the very beginning of unselfishness— for peace and rest and quiet for itself, then it realises that Peace, and realises in that same mo- ment also that it has to live for others, by the supreme Law of the World-Process, which com- pels it to repay in love to others what it has itself received by love from others. And then the e s h ana-tray am, the threefold 'seeking'— for putra,vitta, and 1 o k a , for progeny, for wealth, and for name and place in the world, z>., for perpetuation and expansion of the self in children, in material possessions, and in the mind and good opinion of the world — which craving led it into the incurring of the rna-traya m, the threefold debt — to the Pitrs or Ancestors,
THE HIGH APPLICATION. 205
the Devas or Gbds,. and the Rshis or Teachers, respectively, (who severally give progeny, worldly possessions, and mind and knowledge,) — is reversed, and forces it to gird up its loins to discharge that rna-trayam,by transmuting the more and more personal e s h a n a into the more and more imper- sonal kama, artha and d h a r m a, respectively — the three recognised ends of the worldly life, all under the dominance of m o k s h a, the ultimate end of the unworldly life, by, respectively, rearing new generations (putrotpadana), main- taining the world's stores of physical and super- physical wealth (dana-yajana, etc.), and keeping alight the torch of knowledge (a cl h y - a y a n a , etc.). Then the Jiva sees the truth of what Krshna said : a He who helpeth not to keep revolving the wheel of the cycles thus set going, but seeketh the pleasure of his own senses and liveth in sin, he liveth in vain indeed, O son of Prtha."
The reason why such time must come to every
The Jiva must be sought in the Metaphysic
necessary of the World- Process -of its How and
that state Why.2 It is enough to say here that in
to every that time ofvairagya and desolation
time or which comes on the Jiva when the
other. desire that guided it onwards down
* Bhagavad-Gtta, iii. 16.
2 See The Science of Peace, ch. xi. pp. 146-147.
206 SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS.
the Path of Action J, fails and dies, all Sensations
1 The Path of Action is the path of attachment to, of engagement in, of pursuit of, the material life, the arc of the JTva's descent into denser and denser matter, as opposed to the Path of Renunciation, the arc of its reascent into spirit, back through the planes of subtler and subtler matter through which it has ' descended ' to its present condition. It may be said that almost the whole of the ancient Indian theory and practice of Life is embodied in these two words and their endless variants: Pravrtti and Nivrtti (Smrtis and Puranas], sa-kama and nish-kama, sakti and a-sakti (Grta), sarga and apavarga (Nyaya), duhkha and nis-shreyas (Vaisheshika), karma and naish-karmya (Mtmamsa), I h a and u par am a (Samkhyd), vyutthana and nirodha (Yoga), bandhaand moksha (Vedanta) sanchara and prati -sanchara (Jaina), tanhaortrshna and nirvana (Bauddha), sin and salvation (Christian), evolu- tion and involution, integration and disintegration (Modern Science). The underlying idea of all these pairs is the same. Each pair expresses only a somewhat different aspect or shade of the same fact. Indeed, it may be said, all pairs of opposites whatsoever are but expressions of the infinite shades of that same fact. The subtle final how and why and what, have led to much controversy and difference of opinion, though, even there, there is a more or less vaguely felt or thought unanimity, viz., that the ultimate secret is a secret, anirvachaniya,1 indescribable.' But the fact of the rhythmic swing remains indefeasible, patent. And on and around that fact was built the whole ' Code of Life,' in and through the physical and the superphysical worlds, of the ancient Indian Law-givers.
Ethically, the end of life, the summum bonum, for the first half, the arc of p r a v r 1 1 i , is, in strictness, k a m a, per-
THE HIGH APPLICATION. 207
and Emotions— the highest, noblest, grandest,
sonal pleasure, taking, selfishness, vvorldliness, the contrac- tion of debts. But if the matter were so put to a not very careful listener, k a m a in him would defeat itself and commit suicide, in a riot of excess. The due realisation of k a m a, of a human being, at least, is possible only in and by means of organised society. Hence, selfishness must be restricted and restraind by d h a r m a , individual liberty must be governed by law, the law of give-and-take in essence, without which that organised society would be impossible. The Law-giver, as law-giver, ther efore, leaves k a m a to take care of itself, knowing full well that it will always do so even more than is necessary, and insists on d h a r m a, with detail of natural penal consequences of breach thereof. As friendly coun- sellor, he also recommends or rather permits (for it too is self- assertive) as another end, a r t h a , wealth, for without it k a m a would remain unrefined, without due development, poor, poverty-stricken, unestheticised. Hence we have three ends ordained for the worldly half of life, viz., virtue, profit, and pleasure ; virtue, for thence only profit ; profit, for thence only pleasure. Health requires the balanced exercise of all three aspects of consciousness, cognition (or study), action (or physical work and exercise), desire (or play and enjoy- ment).
For the second half of life, the unworldly, the unselfish, that of giving, the giving up to others of worldly things and personal pleasures, the repayment of debts by self-sacrifice for others — for this the end prescribed is m o k s h a or m u k - t i, in all its many senses, as the most prominent. There are two other sub-ends here also, viz., b h a k t i (love of a Personal Ideal) and shaktiorsiddhi, (' divine ' Or superphysical powers), corresponding to kama (which however, is not a sub-end, but the main end on the other side) and a r t h a, respectively. But they are kept in the
208 SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS.
dazzling and enchaining the mind, or the lowest,.
background by the Law-giver for reasons corresponding conversely to those for which k a m a and a r t h a are also kept in the background. As k a m a, and also a r t h a, obtrude themselves without help on the other side, so b h a k t i and s i d d h i are naturally unavoidable on this. As d h a r m a can be kept before the eye on that path only by strenuous effort, even so m u k t i or nish-kama-ta (the positive opposite, and not the mere negative absence of k a m a) on this. Very difficult it is for an embodied JTva to realise the first truth of Vedanta and Buddhism that life, embodied and individual life, in any form, is essentially not worth living — because all its pleasure is embittered with pain, and,, even more, because it cannot be maintained without the intense selfishness of unremittingly absorbing other indi- vidual lives. (Yoga-Silt™ and Bhdshya, ii. 15; Sdhkhya- Kdrikd and KaumiidT, verse 50 ; Brahma-Sutra and Shdnkara-Bhashya, I. i. 4; Light on the Path, i. 4 ; etc., etc.). The glamor of personality is not easily got rid of ; right- eousness, self-sacrifice, saintliness, holiness, martyrdom, saviorship, the divine glories of y o g a-v i b h u t i — through all these ( the forcible passion for personal stature,' the subtly self-centred wish to be ' oneself a savior ' rather than the wholly self-oblivious wish merely to help or ' save ' others, may run and often does run, if the Purdnas are to be credited. But if the goal of m o k s h a is borne strenu- ously in mind by the aspirant, then that passion's strength is sapped, and it runs in ever feebler current, and all these states are regarded as inevitable and regrettable stages ( — all covered by vairagya, Yoga-Sutra, iii. 37—) on the journey back ; and then b h a k t i and s h a k t i take their due position in relation to m u k t i.
While such are the ' ends ' for the individual Jiva, the one sole end, which is also its own means, of the World-Process,
THE HIGH APPLICATION.
vilest, meanest, disgusting and revolting it— are allv
is ' alternation,' give-and-take, justice which joins together and sums up both selfishness and unselfishness, equilibration, balance.
The King and Law-giver, as being a ' reflexion ' of this Providence of Balance, ordains and maintains laws for both kinds of JTvas subordinate to him, so that in the total result, the ' wheel of life ' is kept going in his land, as in the World- Process at large. And so, our own Primal Father, Manu, Adi-Manu or Adam, summing up past cycles in his memory, has framed a complete ' Code of Life ' in the six words mentioned before, viz., the two paths and the four ends, and eight more besides, viz , the four classes, castes or vocations, and the four stages of each life. In these fourteen words and the details expounding them, may be found rules and laws and dharmas covering all possible situations that can ever arise in the life of two-sexed humanity. In this scheme of his, if it were worked in the right spirit, without egotism, with due attention to both rights and duties, privileges and responsibilities, regarding both equally as constituent halves of dharma, and without grasping of the one and avoidance of the other, there would be found solutions for all the problems that would ever arise in the most complica- ted organisations of our race : problems, as mentioned in a previous note, p. 117, psycho- physical, domestic, social^ economical and political ; and their subordinate problems, regarding religious observances and moral and religious instruction and provision for or neglect of other worlds ; physical development, health and sanitation ; over and under-population ; sex and marriage and conjugal rela- tions ; education ; vocations and livelihood ; professions, occupations, castes and classes ; poverty and want of work ; labor and capital ; etiquette, mutual behavior, manners and customs ; war and military expenditure ; forms of govern- U
210 SCIENCE OF THE EMOTIONS.
without one single, solitary exception, seen to be
ment and national ideals, aristocracy, bureaucracy, demo- cracy, and so on. Whole trainloads and shiploads of ink and paper are wasted daily in the form of journals, magazines, •dailies, weeklies, books, pamphlets, all eternally going round and round the same dozen or score of problems and making no progress. Every remedy is suggested except the right one. Just as, the older medical men and medical science grow, the more they come back to dieting and nature-cures from the endless drugs of their younger days, which only produce new diseases, even so, when political science and politicians are sufficiently old, they will have to go back to the simple rules of the Manus, Buddhas, and Christs.
It is said the world has moved onward and cannot go back. This is a mistake. The world is going both back and for- wards, always ; it is always moving round and round in spirals. It is the mission of theosophical literature to bring this idea home to modern humanity. If it succeeds, well for the present races ; the Manu's ways will be adopted and adapted, mutatis mutandis, quietly, and progress made peacefully — for they are the only practical ways in which the just maxim of true Socialism, (which is the same as Universal Brotherhood and the joint Human Family,) viz., " From each according to his capacity, to each according to his needs," can be really carried out in daily life. Otherwise, Arma- geddons, Mahabharatas, and then — Manu's scheme again. To realise this significance and justness of Manu's Code of Life by attempting other schemes and finding them vain, seems to be the main purpose of the fifth sub-race ; to practice that Code deliberately, the purpose of the sixth sub-race. The Sixth Root-Race will probably realise Universal Brotherhood in a fuller sense by gradually transcending sex-difference. The child of Manu cannot get beyond " The Whole of human wisdom " — as the books describe it — concentrated
THE HIGH APPLICATION.
211
•on the same level, seen to be mere empti-
in the mind of his Progenitor, so distant-seeming, yet still ever brooding watchfully over his immense family, any more than the tree can get beyond the potentialities of its seed.
The general correspondence, by predominance and not by exclusive definition, of the main facts of human life and organisation referred to above, may be shown thus : —
1. S a m v i t or Consciousness.
A. Jn ana or Cog-
nition.
B. Ichchha or
Desire.