Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 202)

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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 202

2. The Grand Ideas of God Developed by the Jews Did Not Mention the Soul

 

Among the Jews of the Old Testament you do not find any mention of soul. It is

only in the Talmud that it is found. They got it from the Alexandrians, and the

Alexandrians from the Hindus - just as the Talmud had [developed] later on the

idea of transmigration of the soul. But the old Jews had grand ideas of God. The

God of the Jews developed into the Great God - the Omnipotent, Omniscient,

All-Merciful - and all this came to them from the Hindus, but not through the

idea of the soul. So spiritualism could not have played any part in that,

because how could the person who did not believe in any soul after death have

anything to do with spiritualism? (5)

 

In studying the religions of the world, we generally find two methods of

procedure. The one is from God to humanity. That is to say, we have the Semitic

group of religions in which the idea of God comes almost from the very first -

and, strangely enough, without any idea of a soul. It was very remarkable among

the ancient Hebrews that, until very recent periods in their history, they never

evolved any idea of a human soul. Human beings were composed of certain mind-

and material particles, and that was all. With death everything ended. But, on

the other hand, there was a most wonderful idea of God evolved by the same race.

This is one of the methods of procedure. The other is through humanity to God.

The second is peculiarly Aryan, and the first is peculiarly Semitic. (6)

 

The peculiarity you find is that the Semitic races and the Egyptians try to

preserve dead bodies, while the Aryans try to destroy them. The Greeks, the

Germans and the Romans - the ancestors [of the Westerners] before they became

Christians - used to burn the dead. It was only when Charlemagne made them

Christians with the sword - and when they refused, he cut off a few hundred

heads and the rest jumped into the water - that burying came [to the West]. The

burying of the dead can only remain when there is no idea of a soul, and the

body is all. At best there came the idea later on that this very body will have

another lease of life, after so many years - mummies will come out and begin to

walk the streets again. (7)