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<span style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><font size="4">More
of Yajnavalkya</font><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'><font size="4">&nbsp;&nbsp; 
</font> </span></span></b></p>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></i></b></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>LAST time I told you the
story of the great Rishi Yajnavalkya. But that was about the later Yajnavalkya
when he had become a full-fledged rishi, a guru with an Ashram and disciples. Today
I will tell you something of the earlier Yajnavalkya, the beginning of his rishihood, the start of his spiritual life. You know the structure of the old
Indian society, it consisted of four castes, varnas, and four stages, Äśramas.
I shall speak of the Äśramas now. Each individual person
had to follow a definite course of life through developing stages. First of
all, naturally, when you are a baby, in your early childhood, you belong to the
family and remain with your parents. As soon as you grow up and the time for
your education arrives, you are initiated into a stage called brahmacarya; you
may generally call it as the stage of self-discipline, you go to a guru and
pursue your studies through a disciplined life, something like the life of the
children who are here like you. In those days a student's life did not mean
merely studies, that is to say, reading and writing, book knowledge, but as
here a very active life. The physical education in the old time Äśramas
in certain ways was even more complete than what is given here, for it
included the art of warfare also, combatives like serious archery and many
other items of physical training. When you have terminated this discipline or brahmacarya,
when you have become an accomplished young man you are allowed to return
to the world, and take to the worldly life, enrich yourself with all
experiences of that life, that is to say, you marry and become a family man. It
is the second stage called gÄrhashtya. Next when you have fully
enjoyed or fulfilled the duty of the worldly life, you pass on to the next
stage that is called the vÄnaprastha . That is the hermit life, the
beginning of the true spiritual life. Finally at the<span style='font-family:
Arial'> 
<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Times New Roman;'>Page – 53<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>end of the vÄnaprastha,
you pass still beyond and adopt the life of the sannyasi, abandoning
everything, concentrating wholly on the Supreme Truth and merging into it.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Now
our Yajnavalkya in the normal course of things has passed through the stage of brahmacarya,
he has also pursued the stage of domestic life and is now at the end of it.
He thinks the time has now come to him to take to spiritual life and enter into
vÄnaprastha. He had married and had two wives. So one day he called
the first wife, Katyayani, and said to her: &quot;Katyayani, I am now leaving
this life and entering the spiritual life. You have given me comfort and
happiness. I am thankful to you for that. Whatever I have, my possessions,
movable and immovable, I have divided into two. This is your portion.&quot;
Katyayani accepted the decision without a murmur. She answered: &quot;Since you
are my lord and husband, as you ask me so I shall do.&quot; Then Yajnavalkya
went to his second wife, Maitreyee; to Maitreyee too he said the same thing as
he had said to Katyayani: &quot;Maitreyee, I am leaving this life, I am taking
to the spiritual life. I have given to Katyayani her share of my possessions.
This is your share.&quot; But Maitreyee answered: &quot;Wherever you go, I will
follow you, I will also give up the world and its life.&quot; Yajnavalkya said:
&quot;No Maitreyee, it is a very hard, very difficult life, particularly for a
woman. Follow the life to which you have been accustomed. Enjoy freely the
possessions I leave you.&quot; Then Maitreyee uttered those famous words which
you must have heard and which have been ringing through the centuries down to
us also, even today: &quot;All these possessions, will they give me
immortality?&quot; Yajnavalkya answered: &quot;No, Maitreyee, that they will
not give you, it is quite another matter.&quot; Maitreyee answered <span
style='font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>―</span> uttering a mantra as
it were <span style='font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>―</span> &quot;What am I
to do with that which does not give me immortality?&quot; So Yajnavalkya had to
accept her and allow her to accompany him. Now Yajnavalkya gives his first
lesson of spiritual life to Maitreyee: &quot;Maitreyee, you love me, so you are
coming with me. But do you know the real truth of the matter? The real truth is
that you do not love me, but you love the soul that is in you, which is also in
me: you love your own self in me. Therefore you love me. And I love you, I love
you not for your sake but for the sake of the self in you which is the self in
me. All love is like that. A husband loves his<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:11.0pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 54<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>wife, the wife loves her
husband, the brother loves his brother or sister, a sister loves her sister or
brother, it is not for the sake of the person or the relation but for the sake
of the self-one's own self which is in everybody. That is the first lesson
which you have to learn. Forget the outer person, your own person or another's
person, find the self that is in you and everybody else. That is the basis of
the spiritual life.&quot;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>I
told you there were four stages of life for an individual in the ancient Indian
society. You complete one stage and then proceed to the next, and then to the
next and so on. But they also say that you need not go through the stages
gradually, step by step in this way; you can skip one or two stages in your
stride if you have the capacity to do so; if you want the spiritual life when
you are young, even when you have not gone through the worldly life, even then you
can jump over, take a leap into the life of the sannyÄsin. It is
said the day you feel detached from your worldly home, then forthwith you may
take to the life of the ascetic. It depends upon the urge in you, the
insistence of the truth in you. A large freedom was given to all who really
wanted a spiritual life.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>I
have said that Yajnavalkya had two wives. You did not ask me why: for to us
moderns such a thing is not only immoral but inconvenient; it is however
another story, a long story. In those days, those far-off early days of
mankind, thousands and thousands, millions perhaps, of years ago, it was the
law, die social custom and it became a duty, to have more than one wife and the
relation too between man and woman was much freer and more loose. That was
because, as you know, man started his earthly life at a certain stage of
creation; before that stage there was no man, there were only animals. The
earth was filled with animals, only animals, wild animals, ferocious animals,
insects, worms, all kinds of ugly and dangerous creatures. Man came long, long
after; he is almost a recent appearance. It was a mysterious, indeed a
miraculous happening, how all of a sudden, out of or in the midst of animals
there appeared a new creature, quite a different type of animal. Still in whatever
way it happened, they were not many in number. The first creation of man must
have been a very limited operation, limited in space, limited in number.
Perhaps they sprouted up like mushrooms here and there, a hundred here, another<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:11.5pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 55<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>hundred there, or perhaps
a few thousands <span style='font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>―</span> few and
far between. So man led a dangerous and precarious life. All around him these
animals, some too big, some too small to be tackled withstood against him, and Nature
also was as wild and as much against him. So for self-preservation and survival
they needed to be numerous, to increase in number as much as possible. It is
exactly what is needed in war; the larger the number of troops, the greater the
chance of winning the war. So the impulse in man, in the social aggregate was
to have more men, increase the number, to strengthen the extent and volume of
the force to be able to fight successfully against the enemy. So a necessity
became a religious duty to multiply, to procreate and redouble the race. In
later days, even when the necessity was not so imperative, even then the habit
and custom continued. To beget children was a praiseworthy thing, the more the
number the greater the merit. Women who had numerous children were considered favourities of the gods. King Dasharatha had, it appears, a thousand wives,
King Dhritarashtra had more than a hundred, Vashishtha had a hundred sons and
King Sagar a thousand. Draupadi had five husbands and she was considered the ideal
chaste woman.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.2pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>In
the modern age we have gone to the other extreme, we have tided over the danger
of under-population. At the present day it is over-population that threatens
the existence of mankind. Now we are anxious, we are racking our brains, trying
to find out all kinds of means and ways to restrict and control any increase in
population.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.2pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>I
said, in the early days the need to marry in any way <span style='font-family:
"Book Antiqua"'>―</span> a very free choice was given in the matter of
the way of marriage <span style='font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>―</span> and
to procreate was a social duty: but note it is not for individual pleasure.
Today we have discarded all notion of that kind of action as superstition, a
form of tyranny. We are for freedom of the individual. Whatever we do we must
do for our personal gain, our personal pleasure. But in those days that was not
the ideal nor the custom. Even when you marry, you marry not for the sake of
personal enjoyment but for the sake of the society, to give birth to healthy
and useful children, to increase the number of able-bodied members of your society.
Service for society, not personal pleasure was the aim. Yajnavalkya lifted
that ideal on to a still higher level <span style='font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>―</span>
you exist not</p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 56<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-bottom:0'>for your
own sake of course-own means the personal ego individual <span
style='font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>―</span> but for the sake of your soul,
the greater self.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>In
this connection I am reminded of what Sri Aurobindo said when he was taking
leave of his students at Calcutta in his farewell address before starting his
public political activity: he said, &quot;When I come back I wish to see some
of you becoming rich, rich not for yourselves but that you may enrich the
Mother with your riches. I wish to see some of you becoming great, great not
for your own sakes, not that you may satisfy your own vanity, but great for
her, to make India great. . .&quot; <span style='font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>&sup1;</span>:
that is the ideal ideal, not individual satisfaction, exclusively personal
accomplishment or achievement; one must work in view of the welfare of all, a
global well-being. The goal is not one's own little self, but the Great Self in
all. This is of course, in the secular way in the secular field. But here also
the appeal, it must be observed, is not to the social life as a mere machine of
which individuals are dead helpless parts and units meant to serve as obedient
instruments in the production of useful goods. The appeal on the contrary is to
the soul, the free inner individual, choosing its destiny but with a view to
collaborating and uniting with others in the <span lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:
EN-GB'>realisation</span> of a global truth.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>In
the spiritual sphere also Sri Aurobindo gives us the same ideal and outlook. In
the early days spiritual <span lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>realisation</span>
was sought for personal salvation, a complete renunciation of the world,
absolute freedom from this transient unhappy world<span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp; </span><span style='font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>―</span>
anityam asukham lokam imam. The individual person leaves his individual
existence upon earth and retires and merges into the Infinite Brahman. But here
in Sri Aurobindo's Revelation we are taught that the individual realisation and
spiritual attainment is not to dissolve oneself into the nameless formless
Beyond but to maintain it, preserve it in a pure divine form, for the sake of
the sorrowful ignorant world. The knowledge, the power, the delight that the
individual gains-not as something merely individual but as the result of one's
identity with the universal <span style='font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>―</span>
are at the service of earth and humanity so that these may be transformed and
share in the same realisation. One becomes spiritually free and complete and
enters into all so that all may be transformed into a new divine reality.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.55pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='font-family:"Book Antiqua"'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-family:
"Book Antiqua"'>&sup1;</span> <span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Sri Aurobindo, Bande
Mataram, Sri Aurobindo' Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 1, p. 516.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:10.55pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 57<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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