Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 78)

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Parts 1 to 77 were posted earlier. This is part 78. 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 78

 

2. The Evolving Human Soul Sojourns in Low as Well as High Forms

The dualist claims that the soul after death passes on to the solar sphere, thence to the lunar sphere, then to the electric sphere. Thence he is accompanied by a purusha to Brahmaloka. (Thence, says the Advaitist, he goes to nirvana) (24)

People [in the USA] think it too horrible that a human being could come up from an animal. Why, what will be the end of these millions of animals? Are they nothing? If we have a soul, so have they; and if they have none, neither have we. It is absurd to say that humanity alone has a soul and animals have none. I have seen people worse than animals.

The human soul has sojourned in lower and higher forms, migrating from one to another, according to the samsaras or impressions, but it is only in the highest form as a human being that it attains to freedom. The human form is higher than even the angel form, and of all forms it is the highest; humanity is the highest being in creation because it attains to freedom. (25)

The householder has five objects for worship. One of them is learning and teaching. Another is worship of dumb creatures. It is hard for Americans to understand the last worship and it is difficult for Europeans to appreciate the sentiment. Other nations kill animals wholesale and kill one another; they exist in a sea of blood. A European said that the reason why in India animals are not killed is because it was supposed that they contained the spirits of ancestors. This reason was worthy of a savage nation who are not many steps from the brute. The fact is that the statement was made by a set of atheists in India who thus carped at the Vedic idea of non-killing and transmigration of souls. (26)