The sky, the wind, the water, the earth, the void, the moon, the sun, the planets, the stars, infinite multitudes of gods, gurus, and great souls—Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwar, Ishwar, Parameshwar, Bhagwan and the like—all these manifest beings are absorbed in their own appointed tasks. None troubles themselves over another. No one needs to inquire after anyone else or seek them out.
And yet, observe: all the thinking, all the fretting belongs to man alone. With the awakening of consciousness in human beings, consciousness itself gives rise to questions—what elements compose this sky, this wind, this water, this earth, this void, this moon, this sun, these planets and stars? And who is their creator? Then comes another question: who am I? From whence have I come? Where do my beginning and my end lie?
No other being save man is stirred by such questions. Then, when man hears from the scriptures or from the lips of his teacher of God, the Supreme God, Bhagwan, the gods and goddesses, he begins to wonder—if they truly dwell in this world or within us, why do they not inquire after us? Why does man feel so desperately compelled to seek them out?
Who, then, will answer these questions? Whether they exist or not, why they exist, where they dwell, why they do not answer man's questions—all of this is answered by man himself, and by no one else. All answers to all questions lie within the awakened human being. Each person, according to his own lack or need, will pose a question and receive an answer from within himself or from another. There is no possibility of answers coming from anywhere else.
Man here, though alone, is infinite. For infinite questions arise within him, and he receives their answers from within himself as well.
Looking at human nature, it seems that man alone is responsible for everything—for all lack, all grievance, and for meeting the needs and wants that arise from them. All else appears to wait in expectation of man. God, Bhagwan, the gods themselves seem to wait for man to manifest them through his consciousness. The responsibility for witnessing the life and death, the joy and sorrow of all other creatures, of plants and trees and shrubs, seems to rest upon man alone. Is there then, besides man himself, no one who cares for man? . . . No. There is not.
How could there be? Those who lack nothing of their own, or who, even if they did lack, possess no consciousness to feel that lack—how could they ever perceive or remedy their own want or the want of others? All of it—lack and complaint, joy and sorrow, good and evil—all such perception belongs to man alone, whether for himself or for another.
Only man among all the creations of this vast universe—the animals, the gods, the divine—possesses the capacity to perceive and comprehend them all. Yet here is man bearing such an immense and solemn responsibility, and if he has become dependent on others, can he ever truly be human? He in whom all power and attainment should dwell through his own endeavor now begs from door to door for 'power' and 'attainment' like a pauper. What could be more sorrowful, more grievous than this?
Man, abandoning humanity itself and possessing only virtues and accomplishments, has performed all manner of deeds and lived all sorts of lives until he has arrived at such a juncture that the bitter fruit of his own actions bewilders and distresses him utterly—yet he still does not understand that this is the consequence of his past deeds. Still he seeks liberation through the futile hope of heaping blame upon others.
Conflict must come upon human life before true sense of duty awakens within man. That conflict now stands fully realized before humanity. Now man will see that by abandoning humanity itself, by traveling so far along that road, he has shown himself to be far from wise. To learn from this conflict and through such learning to seek deliverance, there is but one path that man must choose—the path of complete and full humanity. No other way, no other means lies open.
This age is, on one hand, the era of the utmost flowering and manifestation of inhumanity and the bitter fruits of unhuman acts; yet on the other hand, it is the golden age of ascending the ladder toward the attainment of true humanity.
Until now man has pursued his work with optimism—carrying imagination as his provision and virtue as his foundation. Now man must become a true realist. He must see unity in thought, in deed, and in result—carrying character as his provision and humanity as his foundation.
The primary and foremost duty of all human society, of every nation today is this: to strive by every possible means to expunge all forms of bestiality from man and to establish complete humanity within him. For if man fails to attain full humanity, then true sense of duty—neither for himself nor for the collective human society—can ever awaken within him.
Man desires nothing excessive. Humanity is the natural need of man; therefore he must obtain it through discipline and effort, through yoga, by reckoning painstakingly and precisely—full humanity, and must give before his country and people a true account of his humanity. Humanity is man's natural birthright. If we seek divinity, godhood, brahminhood, and such things in man while abandoning his humanity, then we are merely seeking the unnatural. Let the primer be finished first; there will be time enough afterward for the weightier tomes.
If we attain perfection in our humanity, we shall discover that within this very humanity lies divinity, godhood, supreme godhood, and the essence of the Absolute Self. The full power and sacred burden of sustaining countless millions of creatures—both base and noble—of understanding their want, their grievance, their nature, rests solely upon man. Such is the profound responsibility vested in humanity. If man, remaining at the level of the subhuman and the bestial, takes upon himself this collective burden and labors in duty's name, can we truly regard as unnatural the poisoned fruit that now threatens to erase human society itself from existence?
To judge a work by its fruits—this has never, it seems, caused difficulty for the discerning in any age. When man achieves complete humanity, he will not wish to be tainted by the name of any faction or creed. He who has learned to walk the path alone—why should he need the shelter of a group, even at the cost of dispute and contention?
Man can never inscribe his name in the ledger of immortality through works of public welfare or goodness. Good deeds earn a good name, though human society often bestows the title of immortality upon such works. Yet in no sense does this convey the meaning of true immortality. Only when man performs through his work something unique, transcending good and evil—a deed that none has ever accomplished before—only then does he perform a deed that is truly immortal.
The word immortal can be applied only with reference to the immortality of the human body itself, for how could mortal man perform an immortal deed? To become immortal and to perform an immortal work are not the same thing. Consider, for instance, the seed—it is immortal, yet the tree that springs from it is mortal. Upon examination, we see that the seed, in its primordial form, is immortal, while the tree, the seed's full manifestation and embodied form, is mortal. What fundamental difference or distinction exists such that from an immortal seed comes a mortal tree?
Grasp this fundamental distinction, and the human body, descended from the immortal Absolute, can achieve perfect unity and undivided identity with that Absolute-nature and attain eternal immortality. The seed lives on through the tree; the tree is born of the seed—thus the seed conquers death and becomes immortal in this way. Man too must become like the seed. It is precisely the genesis of this fundamental distinction within man that makes him like an immortal seed and thereby grants him immortality.
This is what is known as true, natural immortality, and it is sanctioned by all the scriptures.