Unity in Diversity

[Guest guest]

Take your country which is the richest in the world, and which is

more luxurious than any other, and see how intense in the misery, how

many more lunatics you have, compared with other races, only because

the desires are so keen. A man must keep up a high standard of

living, and the amount of money he spends in one year would be a

fortune to a man in India. You cannot preach to him of simple living

because society demands so much of him. The wheel of society is

rolling on; it stops not for the widow's tears or orphans' wails.

This is the state of things everywhere. Your sense of enjoyment is

developed, your society is very much more beautiful than some others.

You have so many more things to enjoy. But those who have fewer have

much less misery. You can argue thus throughout, the higher the ideal

you have in the brain, the greater is your enjoyment, and the more

profound your misery. One is like the shadow of the other. That the

evils are being eliminated may be true, but if so, the good also must

be dying out. But are not evils multiplying fast, and good

diminishing, if I may so put it? If good increases in arithmetical

progression, evil increases in geometrical progression. And this is

Maya. This is neither optimism nor pessimism. Vedanta does not take

the position that this world is only a miserable one. That would be

untrue. At the same time, it is a mistake to say that this world is

full of happiness and blessings.

 

So it is useless to tell children that this world is all good, all

flowers, all milk and honey. That is what we have all dreamt. At the

same time it is erroneous to think, because one man has suffered more

than another, that all is evil. It is this duality, this play of good

and evil that makes our world of experiences. At the same time the

Vedanta says, " Do not think that good and evil are two, are two

separate essences, for they are one and the same thing, appearing in

different degrees and in different guises and producing differences

of feeling in the same mind. " So, the first thought of the Vedanta is

the finding of unity in the external; the One Existence manifesting

Itself, however different It may appear in manifestation. Think of

the old crude theory of the Persians--two gods creating this world,

the good god doing everything that is good, and the bad one,

everything bad. On the very face of it, you see the absurdity, for if

it be carried out, every law of nature must have two parts, one of

which is manipulated by one god, and then he goes away and the other

god manipulates the other part. There the difficulty comes that both

are working in the same world, and these two gods keep themselves in

harmony by injuring one portion and doing good to another. This is a

crude case, of course, the crudest way of expressing the duality of

existence. But, take the more advanced, the more abstract theory that

this world is partly good and partly bad. This also is absurd,

arguing from the same standpoint. It is the law of unity that gives

us our food, and it is the same law that kills many through accidents

or misadventure.

 

- Swami Vivekananda

 

.... to be continued