Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 67)

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Parts 1 to 66 were posted earlier. This is part 67. Your comments are welcome... Vivekananda Centre London

Earlier postings can be seen at http://www.vivekananda.btinternet.co.uk/veda.htm

 

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS

By Sister Gayatriprana

part 67

 

2. The Surest Way of Arriving at Facts Is through Change in the Subjective

Here is another thing to learn. How do you know that nature is finite? You can only know this through metaphysics. Nature is that Infinite under limitations. Therefore it is finite. So there must come a time when we shall have conquered all environments. And how are we to conquer them? We cannot possibly conquer all the objective environments. We cannot. The little fish want to fly from its enemies in the water. How does it do so? By evolving wings and becoming a bird. The fish did not change the air or the water; the change was in itself. Change is always subjective. All through evolution you find that the conquest of nature comes by change in the subject. Apply this to religion and morality, and you will find that the conquest of evil comes by the change in the subjective alone. That is how the Advaita system gets its whole force - on the subjective side of humanity. To talk of evil and misery is nonsense, because they do not exist outside. If I am immune against all anger I never feel angry. If I am proof against all hatred I never feel hatred.

This is, therefore, the process by which to achieve that conquest - through the subjective, by perfecting the subjective. (18)

[There are] various levels and kinds of spiritual consciousness and of the superimposition or projection (adhyasa) of these inner states of being upon external nature creating, as it were, the universes experienced at different stages of spiritual awareness. It is thus that various truths have been revealed to saints and seers in accordance with their own various levels of consciousness and points of view - all of them equally valid, none of them revelations of absolute Truth, of which there can be no description and no revealer. (19)

A proper psychology is essential to the understanding of religion. To reach Truth by reason alone is impossible, because imperfect reason cannot study its own fundamental basis. Therefore the only way to study the mind is to get at facts, and then intellect will arrange them and deduce the principles. The intellect has to build the house, but it cannot do so without bricks and it cannot make the bricks. Jnana-yoga is the surest way of arriving at facts. (20)