Vivekananda on the vedas (part 74)

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Parts 1 to 73 were posted earlier. This is part 74. 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 74

PART II, SECTION 5: THE EVOLUTION OF VEDANTIC TEACHINGS ON CAUSATION AND CREATION

 

Chapter 14: The Law of Causation and Transmigration

 

a) Subject to the Great Law of Spiritual Evolution, the Human Spirit Finally Attains Release

Another [Aryan] idea is that when the body dies the soul [which] is immortal remains beatified. The very oldest Aryan literature - whether German or Greek - has this idea of a soul. The idea of the soul has come from the Hindus. (1)

The Vedas teach that the soul of humanity is immortal. The body is subject to the law of growth and decay; what grows must of necessity decay. But the indwelling Spirit is related to the infinite and eternal life; it never had a beginning and it will never have an end. One of the chief distinctions between the Vedic and the Christian religion is that the Christian religion teaches that each human soul had its beginning at its birth into this world; whereas the Vedic religion asserts that the spirit of humanity is an emanation of the eternal Being and had no more a beginning than God Him or Herself. Innumerable have been and will be its manifestations in its passage from one personality to another, subject to the great law of spiritual evolution, until it reaches perfection, where there is no more change. (2)

That race which spent the best part of its energies in the inquiry into the nature of humanity as thinking beings - the Indo-Aryan - soon found out that beyond this body, beyond even the shining body which their forefathers longed for, is the real person, the principle, the individual which clothes itself with this body and throws it off when it is worn out. Was such a principle created? If creation means something coming out of nothing, their answer was a decisive "no". This soul is without birth and without death; it is not a compound or combination, but an independent individual; and as such it cannot be created nor destroyed. It is only traveling through various states.

Naturally, the question arises: where was it all this time? The Hindu philosophers say, "It was passing through different bodies in the physical sense or, really and metaphysically speaking, passing through different mental planes." (3)

There are certain doctrines [of the Upanishads] which are agreed to by all the sects in India. First, there is the doctrine of samsara or reincarnation of the soul.... This jiva or Atman - jivatman as it is called by various sects - is eternal, without beginning and... it is going from birth to birth until gets a final release. (4)

You must keep it clear in your mind that the Atman is separate from the mind as well as from the body, and that this Atman goes through birth and death, accompanied by the mind - the sukshma sharira - and when the time comes that it has attained to all knowledge and manifested itself to perfection, then this going from birth to death ceases for it. Then it is at liberty either to keep that mind, the sukshma sharira, or to let it go forever and remain independent and free throughout all eternity. The goal of the soul is freedom; that is the one peculiarity of our religion [Vedanta]. (5)