OCEAN OF NECTAR

Introduction

We love to read a book we have never read before. We are anxious to gather whatever information is contained in it and with such acquirement our curiosity stops. This mode of study prevails amongst a large number of readers, who are great men in their own estimation, as well as in the estimation of those who are of their own stamp. In fact, most readers are mere repositories of facts and statements made by other people. But this is not study. The student is to read the facts with a view to create, and not with the object of fruitless retention. Students, like satellites, should reflect whatever light they receive from authors, and not imprison the facts and thoughts just as the magistrates imprison the convicts in the jail!

Thought is progressive. The author’s thought must have progress in the reader, in the shape of correction or development. He is the best critic who can show the further development of an old thought; but a mere denouncer is the enemy of progress and consequently of nature. “Begin anew,” says the critic, “because the old masonry does not answer at present. Let the old author be buried because his time is gone.” These are shallow expressions. Progress is certainly the law of nature and there must be corrections and developments with the passage of time, as progress means going further or rising higher.

If we follow our foolish critic, we are to go back to our former terminus and make a new race, and when we have run half the race another critic of his stamp will cry out: “Begin anew, because the wrong road has been taken!” In this way our stupid critics will never allow us to go over the whole road and see what is in the other terminus. Thus the shallow critic and the fruitless reader are the two great enemies of progress. We must shun them.

The true critic, on the other hand, advises us to preserve what we have already obtained, and adjust our race from that point where we have arrived in the heat of our progress. He will never advise us to go back to the point whence we started, as he fully knows that in that case there will be a fruitless loss of our valuable time and labor. He will direct the adjustment of the angle of the race at the point where we are. This is also the characteristic of the useful student. He will read an old author and will find out his exact position in the progress of thought. He will never propose to burn a book on the ground that it contains thoughts that are useless. No thought is useless. Thoughts are means by which we attain our objects. The reader who denounces a bad thought does not know that even a bad road is capable of improvement and conversion into a good one. One thought is a road leading to another. Thus the reader will find that the thought which is the object today will be the means of a further object tomorrow. Thoughts will necessarily continue to be an endless series of means and objects in the progress of humanity.

The great reformers will always assert that they have come not to destroy the old law, but to fulfill it. Valmiki, Vyasa, Plato, Jesus, Mohammed, Confucius and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu assert this fact, either expressly or by their conduct.

Subjects of philosophy and theology are like the peaks of towering and inaccessible mountains inviting attention and investigation. Thinkers and men of deep speculation take their observations through the instruments of reason and consciousness, but they take different points when they carry on their work.

These points are positions chalked out by the circumstances of their social and philosophical life, different as they are in the different parts of the world.

Plato looked at the peak of the spiritual question from the West and Vyasa made the observation from the East. Confucius did it from further East and Schlegel, Spinoza, Kant and Goethe from further West. Their observations were made at different times by different means, but the conclusion is all the same, in as much as the object of observation was one and the same. They all hunted after the Great Spirit, the unconditioned Soul of the Universe. They could not but get an insight into it. Their words and expressions were different, but their import is the same. They tried to find the absolute religion and their labors were crowned with success, for God gives all that He has to His children, if they want to have it. It requires a candid, generous, pious and holy heart to feel the beauties of their conclusions.

The true critic is a generous judge, devoid of prejudices and party spirit. Party spirit, that great enemy of truth, will always baffle the attempt of the inquirer and will make him believe that Absolute Truth is nowhere except in his old religious book. What better example could be adduced than the fact that the philosopher of Benares will find no truth in the universal brotherhood of men and the common fatherhood of God? The philosopher, thinking in his own way of thought, can never see the beauty of the Christian faith. The way in which Christ thought of his own Father was love absolute, and so long as the philosopher will not adopt that way of thinking, he will ever remain deprived of the absolute faith preached by the Western Saviour. In a similar manner, the Christian needs adopt the way of thought which the Vedantist pursued before he can love the conclusions of the philosopher. The critic should, therefore, have a comprehensive, good, generous, candid, impartial and sympathetic soul.

The Bhagavata, the revealed scripture of the Vaishnavas, does not allow its followers to ask anything from God except eternal love towards Him. The kingdom of the world, the beauties of the local heavens, and sovereignty over the material world are never the subject of Vaishnava prayer. The Vaishnava meekly and humbly prays, “Father, Master, God, Friend and Husband of my soul, hallowed be Thy name! I do not approach You for anything which You have already given me. I have sinned against You and I now repent and solicit Your pardon. Let Thy holiness touch my soul and make me free from grossness. Let my spirit be devoted meekly to Your holy service in absolute love towards Thee.

“I have called You my God, and let my soul be wrapped up in admiration at Your greatness. I have addressed You as my Master, and let my soul be strongly devoted to Your service. I have called You my friend, and let my soul be in reverential love towards You, and not in dread or fear. I have called You my husband, and let my spiritual nature be in eternal union with You, forever loving and never dreading or feeling disgust. Father! Let me have strength enough to go up to You as the Consort of my soul, so that we may be one in eternal Love! Peace to the world!”

The spirit of this text goes far to honor all great reformers and teachers who lived and will live in other countries. The Vaishnava is ready to honor all great men without distinction of caste, because they are filled with the energy of God. See how universal is the Vaishnava religion! It is not intended for a certain class of Hindus alone, but it is a gift to man at large, in whatever country he is born and in whatever society he is bred.

In short, Vaishnavism is the Absolute Love binding together all men in the Infinite, Unconditioned and Absolute God. May peace reign forever in the whole universe, in the continual development of its purity, by the exertion of the future heroes who will be blessed, according to the promise of the Bhagavata, with powers from the Almighty Father, the Creator, Preserver and Annihilator of all things in Heaven and Earth.

—From a lecture delivered by Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur in 1869 in Dinajpur, West Bengal