The Macrocosm

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If it be true that nature is uniform throughout, if it be true, and

so far no human experience has contradicted it, that the same method

under which a small grain of sand is created, works in creating the

gigantic suns and stars and all this universe, if it be true that the

whole of this universe is built on exactly the same plan as the atom,

if it be true that the same law prevails throughout the universe,

then, as it has been said in the Vedas, " Knowing one lump of clay we

know the nature of all the clay that is in the universe. " Take up a

little plant and study its life, and we know the universe as it is.

If we know one grain of sand, we understand the secret of the whole

universe. Applying this course of reasoning to phenomena, we find, in

the first place, that everything is almost similar at the beginning

and the end. The mountain comes from the sand, and goes back to the

sand; the river comes out of vapour, and goes back to vapour; plant

life comes from the seed, and goes back to the seed; human life comes

out of human germs, and goes back to human germs. The universe with

its stars and planets has come out of a nebulous state and must go

back to it. What do we learn from this? That the manifested or the

grosser state is the effect, and the finer state the cause. Thousands

of years ago, it was demonstrated by Kapila, the great father of all

philosophy, that destruction means going back to the cause. If this

table here is destroyed, it will go back to its cause, to those fine

forms and particles which, combined, made this form which we call a

table. If a man dies, he will go back to the elements which gave him

his body; if this earth dies, it will go back to the elements which

gave it form. This is what is called destruction, going back to the

cause. Therefore we learn that the effect is the same as the cause,

not different. It is only in another form. This glass is an effect,

and it had its cause, and this cause is present in this form. A

certain amount of the material called glass plus the force in the

hands of the manufacturer, are the causes, the instrumental and the

material, which, combined, produced this form called a glass. The

force which was in the hands of the manufacturer is present in the

glass as the power of adhesion,without which the particles would fall

apart; and the glass material is also present. The glass is only a

manifestation of these fine causes in a new shape, and if it be

broken into pieces, the force which was present in the form of

adhesion will go back and join its own element, and the particles of

glass will remain the same until they take new forms.

 

Thus we find that the effect is never different from the cause. It is

only that this effect is a reproduction of the cause in a grosser

form. Next, we learn that all these particular forms which we call

plants, animals, or men are being repeated ad infinitum, rising and

falling. The seed produces the tree. The tree produces the seed,

which again comes up as another tree, and so on and on; there is no

end to it. Water-drops roll down the mountains into the ocean, and

rise again as vapour, go back to the mountains and again come down to

the ocean. So, rising and falling, the cycle goes on. So with all

lives, so with all existence that we can see, feel, hear, or imagine.

Everything that is within the bounds of our knowledge is proceeding

in the same way, like breathing in and breathing out in the human

body. Everything in creation goes on in this form, one wave rising,

another falling, rising again, falling again. Each wave has its

hollow, each hollow has its wave. The same law must apply to the

universe taken as a whole, because of its uniformity. This universe

must be resolved into its causes; the sun, moon, stars, and earth,

the body and mind, and everything in this universe must return to

their finer causes, disappear, be destroyed as it were. But they will

live in the causes as fine forms. Out of these fine forms they will

emerge again as new earths, suns, moons, and stars.

 

- Swami Vivekananda

 

.... to be continued