The Absolute and Manifestation

[Guest guest]

The one question that is most difficult to grasp in understanding the

Advaita philosophy, and the one question that will be asked again and

again and that will always remain is: How has the Infinite, the

Absolute, become the finite?

 

I will now take up this question, and, inorder to illustrate it, I

will use a figure. (chart) Here is the Absolute (a), and this is the

universe (b). The Absolute has become the universe. By this is not

only meant the material world, but the mental world, the spiritual

world--heavens and earths, and in fact, everything that exists. Mind

is the name of a change, and body the name of another change, and so

on, and all these changes compose our universe. This Absolute (a) has

become the universe (b) by coming through time, space, and causation

©. This is the central idea of Advaita. Time, space, and causation

are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen, and when It is

seen on the lower side, It appears as the universe. Now we at once

gather from this that in the Absolute there is neither time, space,

nor causation. The idea of time cannot be there, seeing that there is

no mind, no thought. The idea of space cannot be there, seeing that

there is no external change. What you call motion and causation

cannot exist where there is only One. We have to understand this, and

impress it on our minds, that what we call causation begins after, if

we may be permitted to say so, the degeneration of the Absolute into

the phenomenal, and not before; that our will, our desire, and all

these things always come after that. I think Schopenhauer's

philosophy makes a mistake in its interpretation of Vedanta, for it

seeks to make the will everything. Schopenhauer makes the will stand

in the place of the Absolute. But the absolute cannot be presented as

will, for will is something changeable and phenomenal, and over the

line, drawn above time, space, and causation, there is no change, no

motion; it is only below the line that external motion and internal

motion, called thought, begin. There can be no will on the other

side, and will therefore, cannot be the cause of this universe.

Coming nearer, we see in our own bodies that will is not the cause of

every movement. I move this chair; my will is the cause of this

movement, and this will becomes manifested as muscular motion at the

other end. But the same power that moves the chair is moving the

heart, the lungs, and so on, but not through will. Given that the

power is the same, it only becomes will when it rises to the plane of

consciousness, and to call it will before it has risen to this plane

is a misnomer. This makes a good deal of confusion in Schopenhauer's

philosophy.

 

A stone falls and we ask, why? This question is possible only on the

supposition that nothing happens without a cause. I request you to

make this very clear in your minds, for whenever we ask why anything

happens, we are taking for granted that everything that happens must

have a why, that is to say, it must have been preceded by something

else which acted as the cause. This precedence and succession are

what we call the law of causation. It means that everything in the

universe is by turn a cause and an effect. It is the cause of certain

things which come after it, and is itself the effect of something

else which has preceded it. This is called the law of causation and

is a necessary condition of all our thinking. We believe that every

particle in the universe, whatever it be, is in relation to every

other particle. There has been much discussion as to how this idea

arose. In Europe, there have been intuitive philosophers who believed

that it was constitutional in humanity, others have believed it came

from experience, but the question has never been settled. We shall

see later on what the Vedanta has to say about it. But first we have

to understand this that the very asking of the question " why "

presupposes that everything round us has been preceded by certain

things and will be succeeded by certain other things. The other

belief involved in this question is that nothing in the universe is

independent, that everything is acted upon by something outside

itself. Interdependence is the law of the whole universe. In asking

what caused the Absolute, what an error we are making! To ask this

question we have to suppose that the Absolute also is bound by

something, that It is dependent on something; and in making this

supposition, we drag the Absolute down to the level of the universe.

For in the Absolute there is neither time, space, nor causation; It

is all one. That which exists by itself alone cannot have any cause.

That which is free cannot have any cause; else it would not be free,

but bound. That which has relativity cannot be free. Thus we see the

very question, why the Infinite became the finite, is an impossible

one, for it is self-contradictory. Coming from subtleties to the

logic of our common plane, to common sense, we can see this from

another side, when we seek to know how the Absolute has become the

relative. Supposing we knew the answer, would the Absolute remain the

Absolute? It would have become relative. What is meant by the

knowledge in our common-sense idea? It is only something that has

become limited by our mind, that we know, and when it is beyond our

mind, it is not knowledge. Now if the Absolute becomes limited by the

mind, It is no more Absolute; It has become finite. Everything

limited by the mind becomes finite. Therefore, to know the Absolute

is again a contradiction in terms. That is why this question has

never been answered, because if it were answered, there would no more

be an Absolute. A God known is no more God; He has become finite like

one of us. He cannot be known, He is always the Unknowable One.

 

- Swami Vivekananda

 

.... to be continued