Coming to great leaders of mankind, we always find that it was the personality of the man that counted. Now take all the great authors of the past, the great thinkers. Really speaking, how many thoughts have they thought? Take all the writings that have been left to us by the past leaders of mankind, take cach one of their books and appraise them. The real thoughts, new and genuine, that have been thought in this world up to this time, amount to only a handful. Read in their books the thoughts they have left to us. The authors do not appear to be giants to us, and yet we know that they were great giants in their days. What made them so? Not simply the thoughts they thought, neither the books they wrote, not the speeches they made, it was some thing else that is now gone, that is their personality. As I have already remarked, the personality of the man is two – thirds, and his intellect, his words are but one – third. It is the real man, the personality of the man, that runs through us. Our actions are but effects. Actions must come when the man is there; the effect is bound to fallow the cause. The ideal of all education, all training, should be this man – making.
But, instead of that, we are always trying to polish up the out side. What use in polishing up the out side when there is no inside? The end and aim of all training is to make the man grow. The man who influence who throws his magic, as it were upon his fellow beings is a dynamo of power and when that man is ready, he can do anything and everything he likes: that personality put upon anything will make it work. Now we see that though this is a fact no physical laws that we know of will explain this. How can we explain it by chemical and physical knowledge?
How much of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon how many molecules in different positions, and how many cells etc. etc can explain this mysterious personality? And we still see, it is a fact and only that. It is the real man and it is that man that lives and moves and works, it is that man influences. Moves his fellow beings and passes out, and his intellect and books and works are but traces left behind. Think of this. Compare the great teachers of religion with the great philosophers. The philosophers scarcely influenced any body’s inner man, yet they wrote most marvelous books.
The religious teachers, on the other hand moved countries in their life time. The difference was made by personality. In the philosopher it is a faint personality that influences in the great prophets it is tremendous. In the former we touch, the intellect, in the latter we touch life. In the one case it is simply a chemical process, putting certain chemical ingredients together which may gradually combine and under proper circumstances bring out a flash of light or may fail. In the other it is a torch that goes round Quickly lighting others.
The science of yoga claims that it has discovered the laws which develop this personality, and by proper attention to those laws and methods, each one can grow and strengthen his personality. This is one of the great practical things and this is the secret of all education. This has a universal application. In the life of the house holder, in life of the poor the rich, the man of business, the spiritual man, in every one’s life, it is a great thing the strengthening of personality. They are laws, very fine which are behind the physical laws, as we know. That is to say there are no such realities as a physical world a mental world, a spiritual world whatever is one let us say it is a sort of tapering existence, the thickest part is here, it tapers and becomes finer and finer, the finest is what we call spirit; the grossest the body. And just as it is here in the microcosm, it is exactly the same in the macrocosm. This universe of ours is exactly like that; it is the gross external thickness and it tapers into something finer and finer until it becomes God. We also know the greatest power is lodged in the fine not in the coarse. We see a man take up a huge weight, we see his muscles swell, and all over his body we see sign of exertion, and think the muscles are powerful things. But it is thin threadlike things the nerves which bring power to the muscles; the moment one of these threads is cut from reaching the muscles. They are not able to work at all.
These tiny nerves bring the power from something finer, still – thought soon. So it is the fine that is really seat of power. Ofcourse we can see the movements in the gross; but when fine movements take place we can not see them. When a gross thing moves, we catch it, and thus we naturally identify movement with things which are gross. But all the power is really in the fine. Perhaps because the movement is so intense that we can’t perceive it. But if by any science any investigation, we are helped to get hold of these finer forces which are the cause of the expression, the expression itself will be under control. there is a little bubble coming from the bottom of a lake; we do not see it coming from the bottom of a lake; we do not see it coming all the time, we see it only when it bursts on the surface. So we can perceive thoughts only after they develop a great deal, or after they become actions. We constantly complain that we have no control over our actions, over our thoughts. but how can we have it? If we can get control over the fine movements, if we can get hold of thought at the root. Before it has become thought, before it has become action, then it would be possible for us,
To control the whoule. Now if there is a method by which we can analyse, investigate, understand and finally grapple with those finer powers, the finer causes, and then alone is it possible to have control over ourselves, and the man who has control over his mind, assuredly will have control over every other mind. That is why purity and morality have been always the object of religion; a pure, moral man has control of himself. And all minds are the same, different parts of one mind. He who knows one lump of Cray has known all the clay in the universe. He who knows and controls his own mind knows the secret of every mind and has power over every mind. Each man in his childhood runs through the stages through which his race has come up; only the race took thousands of years to do it, while the child takes a few years. The child is first the old savage man- and he crushes a butterfly under his feet. The child is at first like the primitive ancestors of his race. As he grows, he passes through different stages until he reaches the development of his race. Only he does it swiftly and Quickly. Now take the whole of humanity as a race or take the whole of animal creation, man and the lower animals, as one whole. There is an end towards which the whole is moving. Let us call it perfection. Some men and women are born who anticipate the whole progress of mankind.
Instead of waiting and being reborn over and over again for ages until the whole human race has attained to that perfection. They, as it were rush through them in a few short years of their life. And we know that we can hasten these processes, if we be true to ourselves. It a number of men without any culture, be left to live upon an island, and are given barely enough food, clothing and shelter, they will gradually go on and on evolving higher and higher stages of civilization. We know also, that this growth can be hastened by additional means. We help the growth of trees, dowe not? Left to nature they would have grown, only they would have taken a longer time we help them to grow in a short time than they would otherwise have taken. We are doing all the time the same thing, hastening the growth of things by artificial means. Why we can not hasten the grouth of man? We can do that as a race. Why are teachers sent to other countries? Because by these means we can hasten the growth of races. Now we not hasten the growth of individuals? We can we put to the hastening? We can not say how much a man can grow in one life. You have no reason to say that this much a man can do and no more circumstances can hasten him wonderfully can there be any limit then, till you come to perfection. So what comes of it? That a perfect man, that is to say the type that is to come of this race, perhaps millions of years hence, that man can come to day. All great incarnations and prophets are such men;
They reached perfection in this one life. We have had such men at all periods of the world’s history and at all times. Quite recently there was such a man who lived the life of the whole human race and reached the end – even in this life. Even this hastening of the growth must be under laws. Suppose we can inverstigate these laws and understand their secrets and apply them to our own needs, it follows that we grow, we hasten our growth. We hasten our development, and we become perfect even in this life. This is the higher part of our life, and the science of the study of mind and its powers has this perfection as it’s real end. The utility of this science is to bring out the perfect man, and not let him wait and wait for ages, just a play thing in the hands of the physical world. Like a log of drift – wood carried from wave and tossing about in the ocean. This science wants you to be strong, to take the work in your own hand, instead of leaving it in the hands of nature, and get beyond this little life.
Dr. Commander Selvam (Swamiji Sri.Selvam Siddhar) is the most learned Atharva Veda scholar. He has researched the Atharva Veda and has brought out a lot of hidden things.helps the human mankind to come out different problems in the life through Vedic Rituals.
