THE REAL NATURE OF MAN

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Posted by: " Uttishthata " uttishthata

Mon Aug 27, 2007 8:06 pm (PST)

 

THE REAL NATURE OF MAN - Swami Vivekananda

 

To return to mythology. Behind all these stories we find one idea

standing supreme -- that man is a degeneration of what he was.

Coming to the present times, modern research seems to repudiate this

position absolutely. Evolutionists seem to contradict entirely this

assertion. According to them, man is the evolution of the mollusc;

and, therefore, what mythology states cannot be true.

 

There is in India, however, a mythology which is able to reconcile

both these positions. The Indian mythology has a theory of cycles,

that all progression is in the form of waves. Every wave is attended

by a fall, and that by a rise the next moment, that by a fall in the

next, and again another rise. The motion is in cycles. Certainly it

is true, even on the grounds of modern research, that man cannot be

simply an evolution. Every evolution presupposes an involution. The

modern scientific man will tell you that you can only get the amount

of energy out of a machine which you have previously put into it.

Something cannot be produced out of nothing. If a man is an

evolution of the mollusc, then the perfect man -- the Buddha-man,

the Christ-man -- was evolved in the mollusc. If it is not so,

whence come these gigantic personalities? Something cannot come out

of nothing. Thus we are in the position of reconciling the

scriptures with modern light. That energy which manifests itself

slowly through various stages until it becomes the perfect man,

cannot come out of nothing. It existed somewhere; and if the mollusc

or the protoplasm is the first point to which you can trace it, that

protoplasm, somehow or other, must have contained the energy.

 

To be continued..

 

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Volume 2 [ Page : 74 ]

(Delivered in London)

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QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Nature grinds all of us. Keep count of the ounce of pleasure you

get. In the long run, nature did her work through you , and when you

die your body will make other plants grow. Yet we think all the time

that we are getting pleasure ourselves. Thus the wheel goes round.

- Swami Vivekananda