by Christopher Key Chapple
Despite his penchant for theological absolutes, when it comes to the realities of everyday life on the spiritual path, Swami Vivekananda advocates the practice of Yoga. The books for which he is most famous: Raja Yoga, Karma Yoga, Jñana Yoga, and Bhakti Yoga all derive from the Yoga system of Patañjali and from major themes found in the Bhagavad Gita. All deal directly with the issue of action in the world. Karma Yoga provides psychological tips for cultivating a healthy attitude toward one’s work. Jñana Yoga outlines essential themes from the Upanishads and Vedanta. It discusses the central Vedantic notions of maya, brahman, and atman in anecdotal fashion, with comparative references to other religious philosophies. Bhakti Yoga examines several references to the concept of Ishvara in Patañjali, Ramanuja, Shankara, and others. He emphasizes that devotional practices, including the recitation of mantras, require the guidance of a guru and should be directed to one’s own favorite image of God. The culmination of this practice is the fulfillment of the Vedantic ideal:
At last . . . comes the full blaze of light, in which this little self is seen to have become one with the Infinite. Man himself is transfigured in the presence of this Light of Love, and he realizes at last the beautiful and inspiring truth that Love, the Lover, and the Beloved are One (Complete Works, III:100).
In a certain sense, Swami Vivekananda’s reading of each of these yogas regards them as a preparatory to this culminating Vedantic experience.
Without doubt, Swami Vivekananda devoted his fullest scholarly attention and care to his translation and interpretation of Patañjali’s Yoga Sutras. Writing from New York in 1895 to E.T. Sturdy, he states
I have now taken up the Yoga-Sutras and take them up one by one and go through all the commentators along with them. These talks are all taken down, and when completed will form the fullest annotated translation of Patanjali in English (Complete Works, VIII:361).
He reveals in this correspondence some of the sources that he relied upon in the preparation of the book Raja Yoga:
At Trubner’s I think there is an edition of Kurma Purana. The commentator, Vijnana Bhiksu, is continually quoting from that book. I have never seen the book myself. Will you kindly find time to go and see if in it there are some chapters on Yoga? If so, will you kindly send me a copy? Also of the Hatha-Yoga-Pradipika, Shiva-Samhita and any other book on Yoga? . . . Also, a copy of Sankhya-Karika of Ishvara Krishna by John Davies (Complete Works, VIII:361).
In the published version, he quotes the Kurma Purana, the Svetasvatara Upanishad, passages from Shankara on Yoga, and he gives a complete translation of Patañjali’s text.
The question that I wish to pursue here is whether Vivekananda’s devotion to Vedanta colors or alters his interpretations of Yoga. Vijñanabhiksu and the author of the Yogasutrabhayavivara have attempted to interpret the Yoga tradition through Vedantic categories. Given Vivekananda’s bias toward monism, one might expect him to follow, and perhaps discount the differences between the Vedanta and those aspects of Yoga that closely resemble Samkhya. However, as we will see, he remains very faithful to the ground rules or categories established by Samkhya.
The Samkhya System
Rather than examining Vivekananda’s translation of the Yoga Sutras in its totality, I will focus on his interpretation of the Samkhya aspects of the text as a means of testing his commitment to what he calls Vedantic monism. Samkhya, as is generally well known, is perceived as a competing worldview that does not profess a monistic perspective, but, for lack of a better term, advances a dualistic perspective. Dualism is unfortunately a loaded term in any context. In the purview of Western thought, both religious and philosophical, it connotes images of Zoroastrian, Manichaean, and Augustinian cosmic dualism, with forces of evil battling goodness until the apocalyptic moment when goodness prevails. It also brings forth notions of the Cartesian split between mind and body, with the inherent judgment that thought tested by doubt is the one true source of knowledge. Neither notion pertains to the Samkhya system, which hinges on a benign and necessary yet misguided reciprocity between two factors of human experience: the unwavering, noncreative witness (purusha) and the dynamic, creative realm of activity (prakriti). This reciprocity allows for both human experience and liberation. I refer to it as benign and necessary because without this reciprocity, nothing could transpire; I refer to it as misguided because for most persons it is a source of grief due to the mistaken notion that one’s “true” identity is found within the domain of activity and not in the mode of pure witnessing. According to Samkhya, liberation shines forth when the assertive power of prakriti retreats, described in the Samkhya Karika as follows:
From the study of the tattvas, the knowledge arises that “I do nothing, nothing is mine, I am not.” This leaves no residue, is free from ignorance, pure, and solitary. Then purusha, with the repose of a spectator, sees prakriti, whose activity has ceased since her task has been fulfilled and who has abandoned her seven modes (that perpetuate bondage: ignorance, virtue, nonvirtue, attachment, indifference, power, and weakness). The seer (purusha) says “I have seen her.” The seen (prakriti) says “I have been seen.” Though there is closeness of the two, there is no incentive for further creation (Samkhya Karika, 64-67).
When the influence of the ever active power of creation ceases, one can then abide in certain solitude, distanced from attachment, liberated from the causes of suffering. In this state of release or moshka one is solitary and alone, in a state of not begin attached to anything other.
This system is the basis for the practice of Yoga, and Vivekananda was well aware of its centrality to Indian thought. He describes the system at length in several essays, including “Cosmology,” “A Study of the Sankhya Philosophy,” and “Sankhya and Vedanta” (Complete Works, II:432-462). Vivekananda lauds Samkhya, stating that “The Samkhya Philosophy of Kapila was the first rational system that the world ever saw” (Complete Works, II:445) and that “Kapila is the father of all Hindu psychology; and the ancient system that he taught is still the foundation of all accepted systems of philosophy in India today . . . they all adopt his psychology” (Complete Works, III:5). He repeatedly utilizes the tripartite theory of the gunas in his lectures and writings, a hallmark of Samkhya. In the introduction to Raja Yoga he provides an accurate summary of the system, mentioning constituent groupings of prakriti and emphasizing that consciousness rests exclusively with purusha, which he translates as soul.
At key points in the translation of Patañjali’s text, Vivekananda explicitly discusses Samkhya. In his commentary on Yoga Sutra I:2 (yogascittavrittinirodhah), he summarizes the mental process using the explanation given in Ishvara Krishna’s Samkhya Karika. He asks why the mechanisms of the mind are not intelligent and then explains that “the Soul is the only sentient being; the mind is merely the instrument through which It perceives the external world.” In an argument true to Samkhya, he goes on to say that “The real man is behind the mind; the mind is the instrument in his hands. It is his intelligence that is percolating through the mind. It is only when you stand behind the mind that it becomes intelligent,” (Complete Works, I:201).
His translation of Yoga Sutra I:3 further underscores his grasp of and commitment to the Samkhya system: “At that time (i.e. the time of concentration) the Seer (purusha) rests in His own [unmodified] state.” This is contrasted with its opposite, when the self is mistakenly identified with the thoughts or vrittis that are produced by prakriti. Vivekananda inserts a personal reflection to explain this difference, writing: “For instance, someone blames me; this produces a modification, vritti, in my mind, and I identify myself with it, and the result is misery (Complete Works, I:204). In neither instance does he use the Vedantic language of oneness, nor appeal to the power or appeal of a supreme being. Though he has referred elsewhere to Samkhya as “psychology,” he scrupulously maintains its categories, which by their very content are religious or spiritual in nature and not psychological in the European or American sense of the word.
Vivekananda further demonstrates his understanding of the Samkhya system in his commentary on the two varieties of samadhi, discussed by Patañjali in I:17. Going beyond the explanation offered by Vyasa, the standard commentator on the text, he writes that
There are two sorts of objects for meditation in the twenty-five categories of Sankhyas, (1) the twenty-four insentient categories of Nature, and (2) the one sentient Purusha (Complete Works, I:21).
Vivekananda associates the various stages of samprajñata samadhi with meditation on the twenty four aspects of prakriti, and equates the stage of asamprajñata samadhi with purusha.
On the issue of Ishvara or God, Vivekananda likewise is true to the tradition and does not attempt to Vedanticize Ishvara as discussed by Patañjali. He specifically notes that the God of Yoga does not create the universe, but is the “One Teacher of infinite knowledge, without beginning or end” (Complete Works, I:217).
Patañjali provides a synopsis of the Samkhya system in the second pada (book) of the Yoga Sutra, verses 16 through 26. This section begins, as does Ishvarakrishna’s Samkhya Karika, with an acknowledgment that the goal of the system is to overcome suffering: heyamdukhaanagatam. It then states that the cause of suffering lies in the mistaken identity of the seer (purusha) with the seen (prakriti). The seen is defined as being composed of the gunas and serving the twin purposes of experience and liberation; Patañjali states that “the seer only sees.” When the purpose of the seen is complete, it disappears, leaving the seer in a state of solitary liberation.
Vivekananda makes good use of this synopsis of the Samkhya system. In his commentary on verse 18 of the Yoga Sutra, Vivekananda asks “What is the purpose of the whole of nature? That Purusha may gain experience.” He then goes on to poetically state,
The Purusha does not love, it is love itself.
It does not exist, it is existence itself.
The Soul does not know, It is knowledge itself.
It is a mistake to say the Soul loves, exists, or knows.
Love, existence, and knowledge are not qualities of the Purusha, but its essence (Complete Works, I:249).
He eloquently restates here the Samkhya assertion that purusha is inactive and not creative but that due to ignorance persons ascribe activity, creation, and identity to it. Vivekananda writes that “. . . the Yogi shows how, by junction with nature, and identifying itself with the mind and the world, the Purusha thinks itself miserable.” He then personalizes the process to liberation in a manner that shows his effectiveness as a preacher and teacher:
Then the yogi goes on to show you that the way out is through experience. You have to get all this experience, but finish it quickly. We have placed ourselves in this net, and will have to get out. We have got ourselves caught in the trap, and we will have to work out our freedom. So get this experience of husbands, and wives, and friends, and little loves; you will get through them safely if you never forget what you really are. Never forget this is only a momentary state, and that we have to pass through it. Experience is the one great teacher—experience of pleasure and pain—but know it is only experience. It leads, step by step, to that state where all things become small, and the Purusha so great that the whole universe seems as a drop in the ocean and falls off by its own nothingness (Complete Works, I:249-250).
Vivekananda’s image of enlightenment is certainly grander, more cosmic and expansive than Ishvarakrishna’s metaphor of the dancer that runs away. However, the meaning is consistent with the telos of Samkhya.
Vivekanda provides another restatement of Samkhya ideas in another definition of purusha:
According to the Sankhya philosophy, beyond the whole of nature is the Purusha, which is not material at all. Purusha is not at all similar to anything else, either Buddhi, or mind, or the Tanmatras, or the gross materials. It is not akin to any one of these, it is entirely separate, entirely different in its nature and form. This they argue that the Purusha must be immortal, because it is not the result of combination. That which is not the result of combination cannot die. The Purushas or souls are infinite in number (Complete Works, I:251).
This summary is included in Vivekananda’s explication of gunas and the various manifestations, all of which are said to be other than the purusha.
Vivekananda repeatedly refers to the three gunas, the three constituents of “Nature” or prakriti in his commentary on Patañjali1. Following Vyasa’s commentary, he interprets sutra II:19 as explicating the specific forms that the gunas assume when manifested. Defined, they become the gross elements; undefined, they are the tanmatras. The final (or original) form of the gunas is the “signless,” or the state of not being manifested at all. Vivekananda regards this sutra to firmly establish the preeminence of spiritual concerns in the Samkhya system:
The Sankhyas, and other religionists, put intelligence first, and the series becomes intelligence, then matter. The scientific man puts his finger on matter, and says matter, then intelligence . . . Indian philosophy, however, goes beyond both intelligence and matter, and finds a Purusha, or Self, which is beyond intelligence, of which intelligence is but the borrowed light (Complete Works, I:253).
On the issue of the relationship between intelligence and purusha, Vivekananda follows the explanation of Vijñanabhikshu, emphasizing the reflective powers of the Buddhi and the need for discriminative discernment. He states that,
We have seen . . . that from the lowest form up to intelligence all is nature; beyond nature are Purushas (souls), which have no qualities. Then how does the soul appear to be happy or unhappy? By reflection. If a red flower is put near a piece of pure crystal, the crystal appears to be red, similarly the appearances of happiness or unhappiness of the soul are but reflections. The soul itself has no colouring. The soul is separate from nature. Nature is one thing, soul another, eternally separate . . . You try to attribute . . . freedom to the intelligence, and immediately find that intelligence is not free; you attribute that freedom to the body, and immediately nature tells you that you are again mistaken . . . The Yogi analyses (sic) both what is free and what is bound, and his ignorance vanishes (Complete Works, I:253,255).
Following both Patañjali and Ishvarakrishna, Vivekananda emphasizes the need for discriminative discernment or knowledge in order to overcome ignorance. Although this would be an excellent opportunity to draw parallels between the Vedantic and Yogic usage of knowledge, he does not cite sources other than those of the Yoga and Samkhya schools.
Swami Vivekananda’s Reconciliation of Samkhya and Vedanta
Vivekenanda obviously holds the Samkhya system in high regard; he states that “the analysis is perfect, the psychology incontrovertible” (Complete Works, II:452). However, he also explicitly criticizes Samkhya and proclaims Vedantic monism to be the superior system. Vivekananda raises the objection, “how can there be two infinites?” and states “we have not found in it a perfect solution” (Complete Works, II:452-453). He then goes on to argue that just as the individual needs a purusha as “ruler and governor, so, in the Cosmos, the universal intellect, the universal egoism, the universal mind, all universal fine and gross materials, must have a ruler and governer” (Complete Works, II:460). In making such a statement, Vivekananda hopes to establish that the proofs for each individual purusha can and should be extended to provide proof for a universal God: “This Universal Self which is beyond the universal modifications of Prakriti is what is called Ishwara, the Supreme Ruler, God” (Complete Works, II:460). He then states that there logically can be only one infinite, hence there must be only one purusha, not multiple purushas as Ishvarakrishna contends. Furthermore, Vivekananda states that all things are born of the mind, both internal and external. However, true reality is said to reside beyond the mind, beyond both internal and external worlds, without any qualities. He then reasons that because both are without qualities, they are one:
The whole universe is one. There is only one Self in the universe, only One Existence. That One Existence, when it passes through the forms of time, space, and causation, is called by different names, Buddhi, fine matter, gross matter, all mental and physical forms. Everything in the universe is that One, appearing in different forms . . . That Self when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Self when it appears behind this little universe, the body, is the soul. This very soul, therefore, is the Self in man. There is only one Purusha, the Brahman of the Vedanta; God and man, analyzed, are one in It (Complete Works, II:461).
In the final analysis, however, he decides that Samkhya offers little more than a psychology, that “The Vedanta, as the logical outcome of Samkhya, pushes its conclusions” (Complete Works, III:5). He refutes what he attributes to the Samkhya as “duality of existence—Nature and souls” (Complete Works, III:6).
Vivekananda counters the Samkhya insistence on the reality of the created realm associated with prakriti, stating “The Advaitist would say that all this cosmology and everything else are only Maya in the phenomenal world” (Complete Works, V:299). Unlike Samkhya, which sees the interplay between consciousness (purusha) and activity (prakriti) to be the only absolutes, Vivekananda adheres to the Advaita perspective that there is only one absolute, stating that the “sentient Being which is behind the whole universe is what we call God, and consequently this universe is not different from him.” Drawing a pronounced theological conclusion, Vivekananda states that all the souls of the universe are “also a part of God, one spark of that Infinite Fire” (Complete Works, III:7); for the Advaitist, he says that each soul “actually is the Infinite Brahman.”
Like the Christian philosopher John Hick, Vivekananda posits a transcendent category, a meta-theology that subsumes and subordinates all other religious traditions, a position taken also by the perennialists. However, I would suggest that from an existentialist perspective, such a position is not ultimately satisfactory. It makes for nice prose to be assured by Vivekananda that “If you know that you are free, you are free this moment” (Complete Works, II:462), but the reality of human experience, as explained by Samkhya and Buddhism, is inextricably linked with suffering.
In the totality of Vivekananda’s writings, we see ample evidence of his own humanity, his own suffering. He struggled with the great famine of the late 1890s in India, dispatching monks throughout India on relief missions. His final years were scarred with the effects of diabetes, which caused his untimely death. Though he espoused an essentially Advaitic position and exhorted his followers to experience Oneness, his own scholarly and presumably spiritual work focused not on the texts of Vedanta but on what he termed the “psychology” of Samkhya and the practice of Yoga. Whereas Advaita Vedanta presents a wonderful picture of the Absolute Reality, Samkhya and Yoga address the issues that one confronts when attempting to encounter and enter into that blessed state of oneness: human frailty and suffering due to conditioning (samskara), karma, afflictions, obstructions, and misconceptions. Samkhya and Yoga deal directly with these issues and carefully warn against falling into the mistaken notion that a thought of liberation is itself liberating. Vedanta is less rigorous on this particular issue, often ascribing positive qualities to what in Samkhya defies description. Vivekananda summarizes the final goal of Advaita as starting “I am neither the body, nor the organs, nor am I the mind; I am Existence, Knowledge, and Bliss absolute; I am He” (Complete Works, II:462). To avoid the pitfalls of hubris and solipsism, Samkhya and Yoga leave the latter positive statements unsaid, preferring instead to leave the unspeakable unspoken.
Conclusion
Vivekananda regards the “Vedanta Philosophy” to include all the various system of thought associated with the Hindu tradition: the various ideas of the Upanishads, the insight of the epics, the Samkhya system, and various practices of yoga. Such a definition meets the standards set forth by Hacker, Halbfass, and others, who speak of Hindu “inclusivism.” However, if we look closely at the corpus of work that Swami Vivekananda left behind, we see that his short career and extensive public commitments did not allow for him to fully probe the depths of more than one tradition. Though he preaches the slogans and adages of the Advaita Vedanta, he did not systematically study or teach the texts or key ideas of Shankara or the other leading proponents of philosophical Vedanta, one of the six Hindu Darshanas.
Throughout his works, Vivekananda relies upon the Samkhya and Yoga systems for explaining the workings of the world and the individual, and advocates the specific practices found in the Yoga Sutras. He summarizes and tells stories from the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Ramayana; he dictates a translation of Narada’s Bhakti Sutras. However, if we take into consideration that his most directed study was of the Yoga system, and that he refers to Samkhya as virtually perfect (but not quite complete), the case can be made that he was not a pure Advaitin, nor can his teachings be characterized as purely Vedantic, at least in the traditional sense of the word. Furthermore, if one wishes to apply the Neo-Vedantic label to Vivekananda, in the sense that the term “oneness” is used to see all things of the universe, and all religions as an inseparable totality, again, this fails to take into account the full complexity of his writings. To be a true Advaitin, he would need only have preached “neti, neti,” not this, not this. But this was not his style, either personally or philosophically.
Taking his inspiration from the Bhagavad Gita, he worked tirelessly at expanding key themes related to action in the world: the reality of suffering and the need to cultivate nonattachment. Unlike his mentor Ramakrishna, who devoted himself to a life of worship and rarely left Dakshineshwar Temple, Vivekananda devoted himself to both thought and action, the yogas of Jñana and Karma. Hence, rather than teaching a neo-Bhakti, as did Ramakrishna, or a neo-Vedanta philosophy, as is often thought to be the case, his most noteworthy efforts were at the establishment and promotion of a new interpretation of the Yoga and Samkhya traditions, capped with an underlying (or overriding) theme of theological and religious unity.
Endnotes & References
1. Mention is made of the gunas in his comments on the following sutras: I: 2, 16, 17, 18, 45; II: 18, 19, 41, 52; III: 35, 56,; IV: 13, 14, 31, 33.↩
Wilhelm Halbfass. Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in
Indian Thought. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1991.
Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami
Vivekananda. Eight Volumes. Mayavati Memorial Edition. Calcutta: Advaita Ashram, 1989.