Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 218)

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SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS

By Sister Gayatriprana

part 218

e) Science Has Rediscovered Some Vedic Principles But Has Not Yet Perfectly

Grasped the Final Unity

 

1. The Attempt of Both East and West to Find Unity from the Study of the Mind

Resulted in the Discovery of Force and Matter

 

The study of the mind was, above all, the science to which the sages of India

and Greece directed their attention. All religions are the outcome of the study

of the inner person. Here we find the attempt to find unity; and in the science

of religion, as taking its stand upon general and massive propositions, we find

the boldest and most vigorous tendency to find unity.

 

Some religions could not solve the problem any further than the finding of a

duality of causes - one good, the other evil. Others went as far as finding an

intelligent personal cause, and a few went further still beyond the intellect,

beyond personality, and found an infinite Being.

 

In those, and only those systems which dared to transcend the personality of a

limited human consciousness, we also find an attempt to resolve all physical

phenomena to unity.

 

The result was the akasha of the Hindus and the ether of the Greeks.

 

This akasha was, after the mind, the first material manifestation, said the

Hindu sages, and out of this akasha all this has been evolved.

 

History repeats itself; again, during the latter part of the nineteenth century,

the same theory is coming, with more vigor and fuller light.

 

It is being proved more clearly than ever that, as there is a co-relation of

physical forces, there is also a co-relation of different branches of knowledge,

and that behind all these general groups there is a unity of knowledge. (48)