Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 221)

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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 221

 

4. The Theory of All-Pervading Life-Principle Has Failed as a Theory of This Universe

The theory of the all-pervading life-principle, of which all life in this universe is but a differing manifestation, was understood in Vedic times; it is found in the Brahmanas. There is a long hymn in the Samhitas in praise of prana of which all life is a manifestation [Atharva Veda, 11.4.1-6] By the bye, it may interest some of you to know that there are theories in the Vedic philosophy about the origins of life on this earth very similar to those which have been advanced by some modern European scientists. You, of course, all know that there is a theory that life came from other planets. It was a settled doctrine with some Vedic philosophers that life comes in this way from the moon….

[but] if the theory of all-pervading life failed as a theory of this universe, it would not mean anything more if worked out in detail, for the details do not change the principle of the universe. (55)

 

5. The Modern Theory of Evolution Cannot Explain the Ideal of the Perfect Human Being

The idea of evolution was to be found in the Vedas long before the Christian era; but until Darwin said it was true, it was regarded as a mere Hindu superstition. (56)

[The Vedantic view of evolution] is the process of achieving the conquest [of external nature] though the subjective, by perfecting the subjective. I may make bold to say that the only religion which agrees with, and even goes a little further than modern researches - both on physical and moral lines - is the Advaita; and that is why it appeals to modern scientists so much. They find that the old Dualistic theories are not enough for them, do not satisfy their needs. A person must have not only faith, but intellectual faith, too. (57)

Behind all the [mythological] stories we find one idea standing supreme - that humanity is a degeneration of what it was. Coming to the present times, modern research seems to repudiate this position absolutely. Evolutionists seem to contradict this assertion entirely. According to them, human beings are the evolution of the mollusk; and, therefore, what mythology states cannot be true. There is in India, however, a mythology which is able to reconcile both these positions. 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 human beings cannot be simply an evolution. Every evolution presupposes an involution. The modern scientist 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 humans are an evolution of a mollusk, then the perfect human being - the Buddha-person, the Christ-person - was involved in the mollusk. If it is not so, whence come these giant personalities? Something cannot come out of nothing. Thus we are in the position to reconcile the scriptures with modern light. That energy which manifests itself slowly through the various stages until it becomes the perfect human being, cannot come out of nothing. It existed somewhere; and if the mollusk or the protoplasm is the first point to which you can trace it, that protoplasm, somehow or other, contained the energy. (58)