Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 80)

November 5, 2001

Parts 1 to 79 were posted earlier. This is part 80. 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 80

e) Vedanta Seeks the Unity beyond Good and Evil ,Reward and Punishment

1. The Idea of Satan Was Rejected by Indian Thinkers Who Did not Want to Throw the Blame on Someone Else

The idea that souls come back is already [in the Upanishads]. Those persons who do good work with the idea of a result get it, but the result is not permanent. There we get the idea of causation very beautifully put forward, that the effect is only commensurate with the cause. As the cause is, so the effect will be. The cause being finite, the effect must be finite. If the cause is eternal, the effect can be eternal; but all these causes - doing good work, and all other things - are only finite causes and as such cannot produce infinite result.

We come now to the other side of the question: as there cannot be an eternal heaven, on the same grounds there cannot be an eternal hell. Suppose I am a very wicked person, doing evil every minute of my life. Still, my whole life here, compared with my eternal life is nothing. If there be an eternal punishment, it will mean that there is an infinite effect produced by a finite cause, which cannot be. If I do good all my life, I cannot have an infinite heaven; it would be the same mistake. (32)

I may tell you that the idea of hell does not occur in the Vedas anywhere. It comes with the Puranas much later. (33)

Om tat sat is the only thing beyond maya; but God exists eternally. As long as the Niagara Falls exist, the rainbow will exist; but the water continually flows away. The falls are the universe; and the rainbow is personal God; and both are eternal. While the universe exist, God must exist. God creates the universe, and the universe creates God; and both are eternal. Maya is neither existence nor non-existence. Both the Niagara Falls and the rainbow are eternally changeable... Brahman seen through maya. Persians and Christians split maya into two and call the good half God and the bad half the devil. Vedanta takes maya as a whole and recognizes a unity behind it - Brahman. (34)

In the religion of Persia there was the idea of Satan, but in India, no conception of Satan. (35)

The devil is recognized in the Vedas as the Lord of Anger.... But while Satan is the Hamlet of the Bible, in the Hindu scriptures the Lord of Anger never divides creation. He always represents defilement, never duality. (36)

Satan... did not have much of a chance [in India]. Why? Because they were very bold in religion. They were not babies. Have you seen that characteristic of children? They are always trying to throw the blame on someone else. Baby minds [are] trying, when they make a mistake, to throw the blame upon someone [else]. On the one hand we say, "Give me this, give me that." On the other hand we say, "I did not do this; the devil tempted me. The devil did it." That is the history of mankind, weak mankind. (37)

Devil worship is not a part of the Hindu religion. (38)

In India we see this Satan in the most ancient part of the Vedas. He just (appears) and immediately disappears…. In the Vedas the bad god got a blow and disappeared. He is gone, and the Persians took him. We are trying to make him leave the world altogether. Taking the Persian idea, we are going to make a decent gentleman of him, give him a new body. There was the end of the Satan idea in India. (39)

Cross reference to:

Rig Veda, 10.125