Unity in Diversity

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In this world we find that all happiness is followed by misery as its

shadow. Life has its shadow, death. They must go together, because

they are not contradictory, not two separate existences, but

different manifestations of the same unit, life and death, sorrow and

happiness, good and evil. The dualistic conception that good and evil

are two separate entities, and that they are both going on eternally,

is absurd on the face of it. They are the diverse manifestations of

one and the same fact, one time appearing as bad, and at another time

as good. The difference does not exist in kind, but only in degree.

They differ from each other in degree of intensity. We find as a fact

that the same nerve systems carry good and bad sensations alike, and

when the nerves are injured, neither sensation comes to us. If a

certain nerve is paralysed, we do not get the pleasurable feelings

that used to come along the wire; and at the same time we do not get

the painful feelings either. They are never two, but the same. Again,

the same thing produces pleasure and pain at different times of life.

The same phenomenon will produce pleasure in one, and pain in

another. The eating of meat produces pleasure to a man, but pain to

the animal which is eaten. There has never been anything which gives

pleasure to all alike. Some are pleased, other displeased. So on it

will go. Therefore, this duality of existence is denied. And what

follows? I told you in my last lecture that we can never have

ultimately everything good on this earth and nothing bad. It may have

disappointed and frightened some of you, but I cannot help it, and I

am open to conviction when I am shown to the contrary; but until that

can be proved to me, and I can find that it is true, I cannot say so.

 

The general argument against my statement, and apparently a very

convincing one, is this that in the course of evolution, all that is

evil in what we see around us is gradually being eliminated, and the

result is that if this elimination continues for millions of years, a

time will come when all the evil will have been extirpated, and the

good alone will remain. This is apparently a very sound argument.

Would to God it were true! But there is a fallacy in it. and it is

this that it takes for granted that both good and evil are things

that are eternally fixed. It takes for granted that there is a

definite mass of evil, which may be represented by a hundred, and

likewise of good, and that this mass of evil is being diminished

every day, leaving only the good. But is this so? The history of the

world shows that evil is a continuously increasing quantity, as well

as good. Take the lowest man; he lives in a forest. His sense of

enjoyment is very small, and so also is his power to suffer. His

misery is entirely on the sense-plane. If he does not get plenty of

food, he is miserable; but give him plenty of food and freedom to

rove and to hunt, and he is perfectly happy. His happiness consists

only in the senses, and so does his misery also. But if that man

increases in knowledge, his happiness will increase, the intellect

will open to him, and his sense-enjoyment will evolve into

intellectual enjoyment. He will feel pleasure in reading a beautiful

poem, and a mathematical problem will be of absorbing interest to

him. But, with these, the finer nerves will become more and more

susceptible to miseries of mental pain, of which the savage does not

think. Take a very simple illustration. In Tibet there is no

marriage, and there is no jealousy, yet we know that marriage is a

much higher state. The Tibetans have not known the wonderful

enjoyment, the blessing of chastity, the happiness of having a

chaste, virtuous wife, or a chaste, virtuous husband. These people

cannot feel that. And similarly they do not feel the intense jealousy

of the chaste wife or husband, or the misery caused by unfaithfulness

on either side, with all the heart-burnings and sorrows which

believers in chastity experience. On one side, the latter gain

happiness, but on the other, they suffer misery too.

 

- Swami Vivekananda

 

.... to be continued