The Macrocosm

[Guest guest]

We see then, that nothing can be created out of nothing. Everything

exists through eternity, and will exist through eternity. Only the

movement is in succeeding waves and hollows, going back to fine

forms, and coming out into gross manifestations. This involution and

evolution is going on throughout the whole of nature. The whole

series of evolution beginning with the lowest manifestation of life

and reaching up to the highest, the most perfect man, must have been

the involution of something else. The next question is: The

involution of what? What was involved? God. The evolutionist will

tell you that your idea that it was God is wrong. Why? Because you

see God is intelligent, but we find that intelligence develops much

later on in the course of evolution. It is in man and the higher

animals that we find intelligence, but millions of years have passed

in this world before this intelligence came. This objection of the

evolutionists does not hold water, as we shall see by applying our

theory. The tree comes out of the seed, goes back to the seed; the

beginning and the end are the same. The earth comes out of its cause

and returns to it. We know that if we can find the beginning we can

find the end. E converso, if we find the end we can find the

beginning. If that is so, take this whole evolutionary series, from

the protoplasm at the one end to the perfect man at the other, and

this whole series is one life. In the end we will find the perfect

man, so in the beginning it must have been the same. Therefore, the

protoplasm was the involution of the highest intelligence. You may

not see it but that involved intelligence is what is uncoiling itself

until it becomes manifested in the most perfect man. That can be

mathematically demonstrated. If the law of conservation of energy is

true, you cannot get anything out of a machine unless you put it in

there first. The amount of work that you get out of an engine is

exactly the same as you have put into it in the form of water and

coal, neither more nor less. The work I am doing now is just what I

put into me, in the shape of air, food, and other things. It is only

a question of change and manifestation. There cannot be added in the

economy of this universe one particle of matter or one foot-pound of

force, nor can one particle of matter or one foot-pound of force be

taken out. If that be the case, what is this intelligence? If it was

not present in the protoplasm, it must have come all of a sudden,

something coming out of nothing, which is absurd. It, therefore,

follows absolutely that the perfect man, the free man, the God-man,

who has gone beyond the laws of nature, and transcended everything,

who has no more to go through this process of evolution, through

birth and death, that man called the " Christ-man " by the Christians,

and the " Buddha-man " by the Buddhists, and the " Free " by the Yogis--

that perfect man who is at one end of the chain of evolution was

involved in the cell of the protoplasm, which is at the other end of

the same chain.

 

Applying the same reason to the whole of the universe, we see that

intelligence must be the Lord of creation, the cause. What is the

most evolved notion that man has of this universe? It is

intelligence, the adjustment of part to part, the display of

intelligence, of which the ancient design theory was an attempt at

expression. The beginning was, therefore, intelligence. At the

beginning that intelligence becomes involved, and in the end that

intelligence gets evolved. The sum total of the intelligence

displayed in the universe must, therefore, be the involved universal

intelligence unfolding itself. This universal intelligence is what we

call God. Call it by any other name, it is absolutely certain that in

the beginning there is that Infinite cosmic intelligence. This cosmic

intelligence gets involved, and it manifests, evolves itself, until

it becomes the perfect man, the " Christ-man, " the " Buddha-man. " Then

it goes back to its own source. That is why all the scriptures

say, " In Him we live and move and have our being. " That is why all

the scriptures preach that we come from God and go back to God. Do

not be frightened by theological terms; if terms frighten you, you

are not fit to be philosophers. This cosmic intelligence is what the

theologians call God.

 

- Swami Vivekananda

 

.... to be continued