Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 223)

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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 223

 

2. The Proofs of the Hindu Philosophers for Reincarnation Which Are in Accord with Reason and Scientific Thought

i) The Pre-Existence of the Soul

Are there any proofs apart from the teaching of the Vedas upon which the doctrine of reincarnation has been founded by the Hindu philosophers? There are, and we hope to show… that there are grounds as valid for it as for any other universally accepted doctrine….

The arguments for and against the doctrine of a pre-existing soul reincarnating through many lives have been many, and some of the greatest thinkers of all ages have taken up the gauntlet to defend it; and so far as we can see, if there is an individual soul, that it existed before seems inevitable. If the soul is not an individual, but a combination of skandhas (notions) as the Madhyamikas among the Buddhists insist, still they find pre-existence absolutely necessary to explain their position.

The argument showing the impossibility of an infinite existence beginning in time in unanswerable, though attempts have been made to ward it off by appealing to the omnipotence of God to do anything, however contrary to reason it may be. We are sorry to find this most fallacious argument proceeding from some of the most thoughtful persons.

In the first place, God being the universal and common cause of all phenomena, the question was to find the natural causes of certain phenomena of the human soul, and the deus ex machina [god from the machine or extraneous factors] theory is, therefore, quite irrelevant. It amounts to nothing less than a confession of ignorance. We can give that answer to every question in every branch of human knowledge and stop all inquiry and, therefore, knowledge altogether.