Swami Vivekananda about Laws Of Life And Death

[Guest guest]

The Laws Of Life And Death (Report of a lecture delivered in Oakland on

March 7, 1900, with editorial comments of the Oakland Tribune)

Volume 8, Notes Of Class Talks And Lectures

 

Life can only spring from life, thought from thought, matter from matter. A

universe cannot be created out of matter. It has existed for ever. If human

beings came into the world fresh from the hands of nature, they would come

without impressions; but we do not come in that way, which shows that we are

not created afresh. If human souls are created out of nothing, what is to

prevent them from going back into nothing? If we are to live all the time in

the future, we must have lived all the time in the past.

 

It is the belief of the Hindu that the soul is neither mind nor body.What is

it which remains stable -- which can say, " I am I " ? Not the body, for it is

always changing; and not the mind, which changes more rapidly than the body,

which never has the same thoughts for even a few minutes. There must be an

identity which does not change -- something which is to man what the banks

are to the river -- the banks which do not change and without whose

immobility we would not be conscious of the constantly moving stream. Behind

the body, behind the mind, there must be something, viz the soul, which

unifies the man. Mind is merely the fine instrument through which the soul

-- the master -- acts on the body. In India we say a man has given up his

body, while you say, a man gives up his ghost. The Hindus believe that a man

is a soul and has a body, while Western people believe he is a body and

possesses a soul.

 

Death overtakes everything which is complex. The soul is a single element,

not composed of anything else, and therefore it cannot die. By its very

nature the soul must be immortal. Body, mind, and soul turn upon the wheel

of law -- none can escape. No more can we transcend the law than can the

stars, than can the sun -- it is all a universe of law. The law of Karma is

that every action must be followed sooner or later by an effect. Action can

never die without producing action. Now, if our acts can only produce their

appropriate effects on this plane of existence, it follows that we must all

come back to round out the circle of causes and effects. This is the

doctrine of reincarnation. We are the slaves of law, the slaves of conduct,

the slaves of thirst, the slaves of desire, the slaves of a thousand things.

Only by escaping from life can we escape from slavery to freedom. God is the

only one who is free. God and freedom are one and the same.

 

--

Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram