Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 83)

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Parts 1 to 82 were posted earlier. This is part 83. 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 83

 

Now, when these ideas of religion came, a glimpse of something higher, more ethical, dawned upon the intellect of humankind. The old gods were found to be incongruous - these boisterous, fighting, drinking, beef-eating gods of the ancients - whose delight was in the smell of burning flesh and libations of strong liquor. Sometimes Indra drank so much that he fell upon the ground and talked unintelligibly. These gods could no longer be tolerated. The notion had arisen of inquiring into motives, and the gods had to come in for their share of inquiry. Reason for such-and-such actions was demanded and the reason was wanting. Therefore people gave up these gods; or rather, they developed higher ideas concerning them. They took a survey, as it were, of all the actions and qualities of the gods and discarded those which they could not harmonize, and kept those which they could understand, and combined them, labeling them with one name: deva-deva, the God of gods. The god to be worshipped was no more a simple symbol of power; something more was required than that. He or She was an ethical god, He or She loved humankind, and did good to humankind. But the idea of god still remained. They increased his or her ethical significance and also increased his or her power. He or She became the most ethical being in the universe as well as almost almighty....

We perceive at once that the idea of some Being who is eternally loving us - eternally unselfish and almighty, ruling this universe, could not satisfy. "Where is the just, merciful God?" asked the philosopher. Does He or She not see millions and millions of his or her children perish, in the forms of human beings and animals, for who can live one moment here without killing others? Can you draw a breath without destroying thousands of lives? You live, because millions die. Every moment of your life, every breath that you breathe, is death to thousands, every moment that you make is death to millions. Every morsel that you eat is death to millions. Why should they die? There is an old sophism that they are very low existences. Supposing they are - which is questionable, for who knows whether the ant is greater than the human being or the human than the ant - who can prove one way or the other? Apart from that question, even taking it for granted that these are very low beings, still why should they die? If they are low, they have more reason to live. Why not? Because they live more in the senses, they feel pleasure and pain a thousand-fold more than you or I can do. Which of us eats dinner with the same gusto as a dog or a wolf? None, because our energies are not in the senses; they are in the intellect, in the Spirit. But in animals, their whole soul is in the senses and they become mad and enjoy things which we human beings never dream of; and pain is commensurate with the pleasure. Pleasure and pain are meted out in equal measure. If the pleasure felt by animals is so much keener than that felt by human beings, it follows that the animals' sense of pain is as keen, if not keener, than human beings’. So the fact is that the pain and misery human beings feel in dying is intensified a thousand-fold in animals, and yet we kill them without troubling ourselves about their misery. This is maya. And if we suppose that there is a personal God like a human being, who made everything, these so-called explanations and theories which try to prove that out of evil comes good are not sufficient. Let twenty thousand good things come, but why should they come from evil? On that principle, I might cut the throats of others because I want the full pleasure of my five senses. That is no reason. Why should good come through evil? The question remains to be answered. The philosophy of India was compelled to admit this. (44)