“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.”
Before we do anything we must, of course, know why we are doing it. But if we observe carefully, we may see that most of our actions are done mechanically. Most of the time we are not aware why we do the things we do. Often we do things because everybody seems to be doing them. A few things we do simply because we like them, that’s all. Only when we are confronted with situations we do not relish or are afraid to face, we pause and say, “Why this? Why me?” If this why-questioning is made into a habit, we may be surprised to find that many of our thoughts and actions are not only unnecessary and useless but also often harmful to us in the long run.
About studying great lives, we must begin by asking, “Why?” If we are satisfied with the answer to this question, we can go ahead with our study. If the answer fails to impress us, the study would not be worth the time and energy we may spend on it.
What do we mean by “great lives”? We have great people in every walk of life. We have great leaders, great politicians (hmm, maybe), great scientists, great explorers, great doctors, great kings and queens, great engineers, great mathematicians, great athletes, great actors… the list is endless. To be a great leader one must, of course, study the lives of great leaders of the past and learn how they flourished and achieved success. An aspiring scientist has much to benefit from the lives of the great scientists of the past whose dedication and vision are responsible for the grand march of science down the centuries. Lives of great actors would teach perhaps more than the concepts and instructions that lie buried in the manuals of acting.
The lives of spiritually illumined souls also fall into the category of “great lives,” but with one important difference. While in all other cases it is necessary to qualify the term by the adjective “great”— you have, for instance, to speak of great actors to distinguish them from ordinary actors—when you speak of the spiritually illumined, the qualifier “great” is superfluous. Every one of them is a saint, every one of them is great. There are no ordinary saints. Greatness is inseparable from sainthood.
Why should we undertake this study? We should do it for at least three reasons: education, inspiration and purification.
Education
As spiritual seekers we need education. We must have a clear idea of what the goal is. We must also know the path in a general way. Our Guru is the best person to enlighten us in these matters. There are also the scriptures for guidance. In olden days the young disciples lived with their Guru and so had the advantage of receiving the Guru’s help and guidance at every step. Today this is not possible for many. Doubts and questions crop up every now and then, and spiritual directors may not always be readily available or easily accessible. Here the scriptures have a significant role to play. But many times we wouldn’t know which scripture should be referred to in a particular difficulty. Moreover, the scriptures usually point out only the general principles, and we may have to work out their logical extensions and decide how to apply the principles in specific situations. This is not always easy.
A study of the lives of saints overcomes all these difficulties. How the abstract principles of spirituality can be made operative becomes clear from a study of their lives. How they reacted to the different situations in life, how they dealt with the kind of problems that any of us may face any time, how they ordered and disciplined themselves and overcame difficulties—all this and much more is learnt from the study.
The purpose of learning this is, of course, to practice it. The characteristics of a saint become the virtues to be cultivated by those striving for illumination. When this practice culminates in perfection, the virtues we assiduously seek to inculcate become our own characteristics. This is the reason why the scriptures go to great lengths to describe the characteristics of an illumined soul. (For more on this, please see Srī Śaṅkara’s commentary on Gītā, 2. 54.)
Take the life of Holy Mother Sarada Devi. She gave no lectures. She wrote no books. Outwardly her life seems to be ordinary. Yet the world has perhaps not seen a more extraordinary person. Her life teaches us more than a library of books on philosophy can ever do. We are captivated by her simplicity, her extraordinary purity of body and mind, her dedication to the ideal, her all-embracing love, and her self-surrender to the divine at every stage of her life—as a daughter in the village of Jayrambati, as a wife and disciple of Sri Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar, as the elder sister and guardian of her three brothers and their families, and as the Mother of all her devotee-children. The nagging and constantly bickering relatives that surrounded her almost throughout her later life present a familiar picture to us and we are at once able to identify with her life. Indeed, if we mould our lives on even a few lessons we get from Mother’s life, we need do nothing more.
This is true of the life of every saint. A saintly life educates us about what spiritual life means, where it leads us, and how it has to be practiced. It is an education that reveals to us both the way and the goal.
Inspiration
A saint’s life not only educates but also inspires. Inspiration is power and is as necessary in spiritual life as fuel is for a car. We may know the way but if our car’s tank is empty, the car cannot take us anywhere. This applies to spiritual life as well. Knowledge about the spiritual path is good and necessary, but in the absence of a driving force prodding us to move forward, this knowledge becomes only a useless burden. It is inspiration that generates this force and acts as the fuel for our spiritual journey.
Truly spiritual people are rare, although people who claim to be spiritual are legion. Whether we like it or not, we have to live in the midst of people who are overtly or covertly worldly. The term “worldly” does not necessarily mean people who are bad or wicked. Even good people can be worldly. The worldly are those for whom the world is either the only reality or is infinitely more real than the spirit. The world draws their whole being towards it. They may be seen to strive for spirituality, but their attempts are usually half-hearted and not spontaneous. In contrast, the “spiritual” are those for whom the spirit is either the only reality or is more real than—or at least as much real as—the external world. Such people may be in the world, but the world is not in them. Clearly, the worldly far outnumber the spiritual.
As beginners in spiritual life, if we are surrounded by people who are worldly, their presence can influence us in a subtle way. Our attachment to the world, instead of getting reduced, may become more strong. We may do our spiritual practices, but they may gradually become less meaningful and less authentic. Our initial enthusiasm and zeal may wear away, and we may either continue our spiritual practice mechanically out of the sense of duty or we may give it up altogether.
Here comes the all-important role the lives of saints play. Seeing their lives at close quarters, we learn that spiritual life is worth all the struggle and hardships it may entail. Hope dawns in our hearts. We discover the beauty of spiritual life in the lives of saints, and feel assured that we too, if we struggle intensely and sincerely, will discover the light within. If we are not fortunate to see such lives with our own eyes, the next best thing we can do is to hear or read about them. Their authentic lives, anchored in spirit, fill us with hope, faith and inspiration.
Inspiration plays a much greater role in our lives than many of us are aware of. Except for the purely mechanical acts of life, for every other activity we need inspiration. Much of the violence, juvenile delinquency, sex and drug abuse, and other crimes rampant today are direct or indirect results of “inspiration” derived from the social media, crime-fiction, movies, and TV. Inspiration to lead a spiritual life comes from living in the company of earnest seekers and deriving elevating ideas from spiritual literature.
Only those who are inspired themselves can inspire others. Saints and mystics are huge reservoirs of inspiration. Even after their physical passing, their inspiration lives on and nourishes us. A proper study of a saint’s life cannot but inspire us. We can derive inspiration even from the lives of outstanding men and women who have reached pinnacles of excellence in other fields of activity like art, science and business. We learn from these lives the importance of patience, perseverance, and consecrating one’s life to attain the ideal—and we can apply it to our own chosen field.
Purification
The amount of inspiration we derive is directly proportional to the amount of purification we have attained. The basic struggle in spiritual life is the struggle for purity. Our true self, the Ātman, which is pure and stainless by nature, seems to have become covered by impurities of various kinds. The goal of all spiritual disciplines is really to wash away all the dirt covering the Ātman. Once the dirt is eliminated, the Ātman shines forth spontaneously.
Among the disciplines normally employed for this purpose, none produces results as quickly as the company of holy men and women. The Bhāgavata (10.48.31) says:
न ह्यम्मयानि तीर्थानि न देवा मृच्छिलामया: । ते पुनन्त्युरुकालेन दर्शनादेव साधव: ॥
Na hi-ammayāni tīrthāni na devā mṛt-śilā-mayāḥ,
Te punanti-urukālena darśanāt-eva sādhavaḥ.
“It is not that holy waters are not purifying. It is not also that divine images made of stone or mud are not sacred. The purification they lead to is, however, attained only after a very long time, but it is brought about merely through the sight (darśan) of those who are holy.”
We normally associate the concept of company with physical proximity. But this need not always be the case. Even people living together may be miles apart mentally and hence not in each other’s “company.” On the other hand, those who are physically far away may be very near to us mentally and we can enjoy their “company” every moment. A child may be far physically and yet remain always in the mother’s heart. Space and time are no barriers to a soul seeking the company of another. The study of the lives of saints and mystics really means being in their company.
The physical world we encounter is very real to us. In no way less real is the mental world, the world of ideas. It is in this inner world that we seek to live in the company of the holy. It is wrong to imagine that the illumined ones of the past are dead and gone, leaving behind only a record of their lives and teachings. Many of the saints and sages continue to live on subtler planes, praying for all of us and for the good of the world. They help sincere seekers of spirituality in various ways.
The more we seek the company of saints and the more we fill ourselves with noble and elevating ideas, the more strength we derive in our struggle to reach the ideal. This inner strength comes from the purifying influence of the saints’ lives and teachings.
We have seen that a study of the lives of saints gives us education, provides inspiration and becomes a source of purification. It educates us about the way and the goal of spiritual life; it inspires us to struggle to reach the goal; and it purifies us and makes us fit to travel on the spiritual path.
Would everyone experience these results no matter how the study is undertaken? No. Much depends on the method of study and much depends on us too. There are a few difficulties which can potentially arise.
Possible Hurdles
The first difficulty arises if we have little knowledge about our own selves. Without at least a general understanding about our goal in life, our aspirations, qualities, desires and weaknesses, we cannot relate ourselves properly to the saint whose life we are trying to study. Unless such a relation is established, we cannot derive much benefit. Our study remains academic and leaves no lasting impression on our lives. Establishing a rapport with the saint’s life really means connecting our life with the saint’s—and if this connection is genuine and based on a true understanding of ourselves, power flows into our life and brings about a vital transformation, or at least a tangible intensification of our spiritual quest. When we attempt to relate to the saint’s life without proper self-knowledge, we may fall into the second danger: the urge to imitate.
No life can really be duplicated. Every one of us is a unique individual. What makes people imitate others blindly is ignorance of their own uniqueness. Most people are conscious or unconscious hero-worshippers. We tend to imitate whoever we admire and love. No person, said Samuel Johnson, was ever great by imitation. Emerson went so far as to consider imitation a form of suicide. It is indeed a psychological suicide. One suppresses, almost crushes, the natural growth of one’s personality, and attempts to mask it by the borrowed personality of one’s hero. The result is often pathetic, if not also self-destructive.
When we eat food, a portion of it is assimilated and the unwanted part is thrown out. What is assimilated nourishes us and helps growth. If the unwanted portion is obstructed from its way out, it creates trouble within. Same is the case with our study. The lessons we get from a saint’s life must be assimilated; that is to say, they must become a part of our system. The portion which is not needed must be kept out, else it can create trouble. To know what must be retained and what should be rejected requires knowledge of one’s own needs and capacity to assimilate. What must ideally result is a natural flowering of one’s life, and not a contrived attempt at imitating external mannerisms and behavior of the saint. Furthermore, not everything that the saint did can be—or need be—practiced by us.
Yet another difficulty is the separation created by time and other factors, between ourselves and the subject of our study. To “enter” into a saint’s life we must be able to override the time-gap, and the differences created by race, culture, society, and religion to which the saint may belong. Only then will the true greatness of the saint be revealed. To judge a Western saint through Eastern ideals and vice versa, and to study a medieval saint from the modern standpoint would yield little spiritual benefit. The essentials of sainthood do not change, but their external manifestations are usually colored by the times, culture, religion and society in which the saint is born.
One word more. We asked the question “why” in the beginning and received the answer that we should take up this study for education, inspiration and purification. Suppose we ask the question “why” once again.
Why do we need education, inspiration and purification? None of these is an end in itself. The ultimate purpose of this study—of all study, in fact—is that I must be myself. Vedanta says that we have forgotten who we really are. Ignorance has veiled our real nature from us. We have sort of become separated from our true selves. Our study should become a bridge connecting us to our real inner being. Every one of us is a potential saint and mystic. Our study should unfold this potentiality and manifest the Child of Light, which every one of us really is.
‘Take all the old messages,” declares Swami Vivekananda, “supplement them with your own realizations, and become a Prophet unto others. Each one of these Teachers has been great; each has left something for us; they have been our gods. We salute them, we are their servants; and, all the same, we salute ourselves; for if they have been Prophets and children of God, we also are the same. They reached their perfection, and we are going to attain ours now. Remember the words of Jesus: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ This very moment let every one of us make a staunch resolution: ‘I will become a Prophet, I will become a messenger of Light, I will become a child of God, nay, I will become a God!’’’ (CW, 4. 134)