Vedanta and hereditary transmission

[Guest guest]

Hi everybody,

 

I woyld like to ask a question in connection with the following passage from

Swami Vivekananda's Jnana Yoga:

 

` " But what, " they (scientists) ask, " is the use of saying that that experience

belongs to the soul? Why not say it belongs to the body, and the body alone? Why

not say it is hereditary transmission? " ... This question is very nice, and we

admit some part of this hereditary transmission. How far? As far as furnishing

the material. We, by our past actions, conform ourselves to a certain birth in a

certain body, and the only suitable material for that body comes from the

parents who have made themselves fit to have that soul as their offspring.

 

The simple hereditary theory takes for granted the most astonishing proposition

without any proof, that mental experience can be recorded in matters, that

mental experience can be involved in matter. ... We understand a physical

impression remaining in the body. But what proof is there for assuming that the

mental impression can remain in the body, since the body goes to pieces? What

carries it? Even granting it were possible for each mental impression to remain

in the body, that every impression, beginning from the first man down to my

father, was in my father's body, how could it be transmitted to me? Through the

bioplasmic cell? How could that be? Because the father's body does not come to

the child in toto. The same parents may have a number of children...'(Microcosm,

Jnana Yoga)

 

I believe the principle of which Swami Vivekananda talks is true, i.e material

cell could not carry mental impressions, but to this it could be replied from

the position of modern descoveries of genetics (which were not found in Swami

Vivekananda's time) that every mental impression as also the diferences between

children of the same parents are due to various combinations of DNA molecules. I

would be glad if anybody could say what will be reply to this question from the

standpoint of Vedanta.

 

Regards

Milena