The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 2/Jnana-Yoga/Immortality
CHAPTER XIII
IMMORTALITY
(Delivered in America)
What question has been asked a greater number of times, what idea has led men more to search the universe for an answer, what question is nearer and dearer to the human heart, what question is more inseparably connected with our existence, than this one, the immortality of the human soul? It has been the theme of poets and sages, of priests and prophets; kings on the throne have discussed it, beggars in the street have dreamt of it. The best of humanity have approached it, and the worst of men have hoped for it. The interest in the theme has not died yet, nor will it die so long as human nature exists. Various answers have been presented to the world by various minds. Thousands, again, in every period of history have given up the discussion, and yet the question remains fresh as ever. Often in the turmoil and struggle of our lives we seem to forget it, but suddenly some one dies — one, perhaps, whom we loved, one near and dear to our hearts is snatched away from us — and the struggle, the din and turmoil of the world around us, cease for a moment, and the soul asks the old questions "What after this?" "What becomes of the soul?"
All human knowledge proceeds out of experience; we cannot know anything
except by experience. All our reasoning is based upon generalised
experience, all our knowledge is but harmonised experience. Looking around
us, what do we find? A continuous change. The plant comes out of the seed,
grows into the tree, completes the circle, and comes back to the seed. The
animal comes, lives a certain time, dies, and completes the circle. So does
man. The mountains slowly but surely crumble away, the rivers slowly but
surely dry up, rains come out of the sea, and go back to the sea. Everywhere
circles are being completed, birth, growth, development, and decay following
each other with mathematical precision. This is our everyday experience.
Inside of it all, behind all this vast mass of what we call life, of
millions of forms and shapes, millions upon millions of varieties, beginning
from the lowest atom to the highest spiritualised man, we find existing a
certain unity. Every day we find that the wall that was thought to be
dividing one thing and another is being broken down, and all matter is
coming to be recognised by modern science as one substance, manifesting in
different ways and in various forms; the one life that runs through all like
a continuous chain, of which all these various forms represent the links,
link after link, extending almost infinitely, but of the same one chain.
This is what is called evolution. It is an old, old idea, as old as human
society, only it is getting fresher and fresher as human knowledge is
progressing. There is one thing more, which the ancients perceived, but
which in modern times is not yet so clearly perceived, and that is
involution. The seed is becoming the plant; a grain of sand never becomes a
plant. It is the father that becomes a child; a lump of clay never becomes
the child. From what does this evolution come, is the question. What was the
seed? It was the same as the tree. All the possibilities of a future tree
are in that seed; all the possibilities of a future man are in the little
baby; all the possibilities of any future life are in the germ. What is
this? The ancient philosophers of India called it involution. We find then,
that every evolution presupposes an involution. Nothing can be evolved which
is not already there. Here, again, modern science comes to our help. You
know by mathematical reasoning that the sum total of the energy that is
displayed in the universe is the same throughout. You cannot take away one
atom of matter or one foot-pound of force. You cannot add to the universe
one atom of matter or one foot-pound of force. As such, evolution does not
come out of zero; then, where does it come from? From previous involution.
The child is the man involved, and the man is the child evolved. The seed is
the tree involved, and the tree is the seed evolved. All the possibilities
of life are in the germ. The problem becomes a little clearer. Add to it the
first idea of continuation of life. From the lowest protoplasm to the most
perfect human being there is really but one life. Just as in one life we
have so many various phases of expression, the protoplasm developing into
the baby, the child, the young man, the old man, so, from that protoplasm up
to the most perfect man we get one continuous life, one chain. This is
evolution, but we have seen that each evolution presupposes an involution.
The whole of this life which slowly manifests itself evolves itself from the
protoplasm to the perfected human being — the Incarnation of God on earth
— the whole of this series is but one life, and the whole of this
manifestation must have been involved in that very protoplasm. This whole
life, this very God on earth, was involved in it and slowly came out,
manifesting itself slowly, slowly, slowly. The highest expression must have
been there in the germ state in minute form; therefore this one force, this
whole chain, is the involution of that cosmic life which is everywhere. It
is this one mass of intelligence which, from the protoplasm up to the most
perfected man, is slowly and slowly uncoiling itself. Not that it grows.
Take off all ideas of growth from your mind. With the idea of growth is
associated something coming from outside, something extraneous, which would
give the lie to the truth that the Infinite which lies latent in every life
is independent of all external conditions. It can never grow; It was always
there, and only manifests Itself.
The effect is the cause manifested. There is no essential difference between
the effect and the cause. Take this glass, for instance. There was the
material, and the material plus the will of the manufacturer made the glass
and these two were its causes and are present in it. In what form is the
will present? As adhesion. If the force were not here, each particle would
fall away. What is the effect then? It is the same as the cause, only
taking; different form, a different composition. When the cause is changed
and limited for a time, it becomes the effect We must remember this.
Applying it to our idea of life the whole of the manifestation of this one
series, from the protoplasm up to the most perfect man, must be the very
same thing as cosmic life. First it got involved and became finer; and out
of that fine something, which wet the cause, it has gone on evolving,
manifesting itself, and becoming grosser.
But the question of immortality is not yet settled. We have seen that
everything in this universe is indestructible. There is nothing new; there
will be nothing new. The same series of manifestations are presenting
themselves alternately like a wheel, coming up and going down. All motion in
this universe is in the form of waves, successively rising and falling.
Systems after systems are coming out of fine forms, evolving themselves, and
taking grosser forms, again melting down, as it were, and going back to the
fine forms. Again they rise out of that, evolving for a certain period and
slowly going back to the cause. So with all life. Each manifestation of life
is coming up and then going back again. What goes down? The form. The form
breaks to pieces, but it comes up again. In one sense bodies and forms even
are eternal. How? Suppose we take a number of dice and throw them, and they
fall in this ratio — 6 — 5 — 3 — 4. We take the dice up and throw them again
and again; there must be a time when the same numbers will come again; the
same combination must come. Now each particle, each atom, that is in this
universe, I take for such a die, and these are being thrown out and combined
again and again. All these forms before you are one combination. Here are
the forms of a glass, a table, a pitcher of water, and so forth. This is one
combination; in time, it will all break. But there must come a time when
exactly the same combination comes again, when you will be here, and this
form will be here, this subject will be talked, and this pitcher will be
here. An infinite number of times this has been, and an infinite number of
times this will be repeated. Thus far with the physical forms. What do we
find? That even the combination of physical forms is eternally repeated.
A most interesting conclusion that follows from this theory is the
explanation of facts such as these: Some of you, perhaps, have seen a man
who can read the past life of others and foretell the future. How is it
possible for any one to see what the future will be, unless there is a
regulated future? Effects of the past will recur in the future, and we see
that it is so. You have seen the big Ferris Wheel [1] in Chicago. The wheel
revolves, and the little rooms in the wheel are regularly coming one after
another; one set of persons gets into these, and after they have gone round
the circle, they get out, and a fresh batch of people gets in. Each one of
these batches is like one of these manifestations, from the lowest animals
to the highest man. Nature is like the chain of the Ferris Wheel, endless
and infinite, and these little carriages are the bodies or forms in which
fresh batches of souls are riding, going up higher and higher until they
become perfect and come out of the wheel. But the wheel goes on. And so long
as the bodies are in the wheel, it can be absolutely and mathematically
foretold where they will go, but not so of the souls. Thus it is possible to
read the past and the future of nature with precision. We see, then, that
there is recurrence of the same material phenomena at certain periods, and
that the same combinations have been taking place through eternity. But that
is not the immortality of the soul. No force can die, no matter can be
annihilated. What becomes of it? It goes on changing, backwards and
forwards, until it returns to the source from which it came. There is no
motion in a straight line. Everything moves in a circle; a straight line,
infinitely produced, becomes a circle. If that is the case, there cannot be
eternal degeneration for any soul. It cannot be. Everything must complete
the circle, and come back to its source. What are you and I and all these
souls? In our discussion of evolution and involution, we have seen that you
and I must be part of the cosmic consciousness, cosmic life, cosmic mind,
which got involved and we must complete the circle and go back to this
cosmic intelligence which is God. This cosmic intelligence is what people
call Lord, or God, or Christ, or Buddha, or Brahman, what the materialists
perceive as force, and the agnostics as that infinite, inexpressible beyond;
and we are all parts of that.
This is the second idea, yet this is not sufficient; there will be still
more doubts. It is very good to say that there is no destruction for any
force. But all the forces and forms that we see are combinations. This form
before us is a composition of several component parts, and so every force
that we see is similarly composite. If you take the scientific idea of
force, and call it the sum total, the resultant of several forces, what
becomes of your individuality? Everything that is a compound must sooner or
later go back to its component parts. Whatever in this universe is the
result of the combination of matter or force must sooner or later go back to
its components. Whatever is the result of certain causes must die, must be
destroyed. It gets broken up, dispersed, and resolved back into its
components. Soul is not a force; neither is it thought. It is the
manufacturer of thought, but not thought itself; it is the manufacturer of
the body, but not the body. Why so? We see that the body cannot be the soul.
Why not? Because it is not intelligent. A corpse is not intelligent, nor a
piece of meat in a butcher's shop. What do we mean by intelligence? Reactive
power. We want to go a little more deeply into this. Here is a pitcher; I
see it. How? Rays of light from the pitcher enter my eyes, and make a
picture in my retina, which is carried to the brain. Yet there is no vision.
What the physiologists call the sensory nerves carry this impression
inwards. But up to this there is no reaction. The nerve centre in the brain
carries the impression to the mind, and the mind reacts, and as soon as this
reaction comes, the pitcher flashes before it. Take a more commonplace
example. Suppose you are listening to me intently and a mosquito is sitting
on the tip of your nose and giving you that pleasant sensation which
mosquitoes can give; but you are so intent on hearing me that you do not
feel the mosquito at all. What has happened? The mosquito has bitten a
certain part of your skin, and certain nerves are there. They have carried a
certain sensation to the brain, and the impression is there, but the mind,
being otherwise occupied, does not react, so you are not aware of the
presence of the mosquito. When a new impression comes, if the mind does not
react, we shall not be conscious of it, but when the reaction comes we feel,
we see, we hear, and so forth. With this reaction comes illumination, as the
Sâmkhya philosophers call it. We see that the body cannot illuminate,
because in the absence of attention no sensation is possible. Cases have
been known where, under peculiar conditions, a man who had never learnt a
particular language was found able to speak it. Subsequent inquiries proved
that the man had, when a child, lived among people who spoke that language
and the impressions were left in his brain. These impressions remained
stored up there, until through some cause the mind reacted, and illumination
came, and then the man was able to speak the language. This shows that the
mind alone is not sufficient, that the mind itself is an instrument in the
hands of someone. In the case of that boy the mind contained that language,
yet he did not know it, but later there came a time when he did. It shows
that there is someone besides the mind; and when the boy was a baby, that
someone did not use the power; but when the boy grew up, he took advantage
of it, and used it. First, here is the body, second the mind, or instrument
of thought, and third behind this mind is the Self of man. The Sanskrit word
is Atman. As modern philosophers have identified thought with molecular
changes in the brain, they do not know how to explain such a case, and they
generally deny it. The mind is intimately connected with the brain which
dies every time the body changes. The Self is the illuminator, and the mind
is the instrument in Its hands, and through that instrument It gets hold of
the external instrument, and thus comes perception. The external instruments
get hold of the impressions and carry them to the organs, for you must
remember always, that the eyes and ears are only receivers — it is the
internal organs, the brain centres, which act. In Sanskrit these centres are
called Indriyas, and they carry sensations to the mind, and the mind
presents them further back to another state of the mind, which in Sanskrit
is called Chitta, and there they are organised into will, and all these
present them to the King of kings inside, the Ruler on His throne, the Self
of man. He then sees and gives His orders. Then the mind immediately acts on
the organs, and the organs on the external body. The real Perceiver, the
real Ruler, the Governor, the Creator, the Manipulator of all this, is the
Self of man.
We see, then, that the Self of man is not the body, neither is It thought.
It cannot be a compound. Why not? Because everything that is a compound can
be seen or imagined. That which we cannot imagine or perceive, which we
cannot bind together, is not force or matter, cause or effect, and cannot be
a compound. The domain of compounds is only so far as our mental universe,
our thought universe extends. Beyond this it does not hold good; it is as
far as law reigns, and if there is anything beyond law, it cannot be a
compound at all. The Self of man being beyond the law of causation, is not a
compound. It is ever free and is the Ruler of everything that is within law.
It will never die, because death means going back to the component parts,
and that which was never a compound can never die. It is sheer nonsense to
say It dies.
We are now treading on finer and finer ground, and some of you, perhaps,
will be frightened. We have seen that this Self, being beyond the little
universe of matter and force and thought, is a simple; and as a simple It
cannot die. That which does not die cannot live. For life and death are the
obverse and reverse of the same coin. Life is another name for death, and
death for life. One particular mode of manifestation is what we call life;
another particular mode of manifestation of the same thing is what we call
death. When the wave rises on the top it is life; and when it falls into the
hollow it is death. If anything is beyond death, we naturally see it must
also be beyond life. I must remind you of the first conclusion that the soul
of man is part of the cosmic energy that exists, which is God. We now find
that it is beyond life and death. You were never born, and you will never
die. What is this birth and death that we see around us? This belongs to the
body only, because the soul is omnipresent. "How can that be?" you may ask.
"So many people are sitting here, and you say the soul is omnipresent?" What
is there, I ask, to limit anything that is beyond law, beyond causation?
This glass is limited; it is not omnipresent, because the surrounding matter
forces it to take that form, does not allow it to expand. It is conditioned
be everything around it, and is, therefore, limited. But that which is
beyond law, where there is nothing to act upon it, how can that be limited?
It must be omnipresent. You are everywhere in the universe. How is it then
that I am born and I am going to die, and all that? That is the talk of
ignorance, hallucination of the brain. You were neither born, nor will you
die. You have had neither birth, nor will have rebirth, nor life, nor
incarnation, nor anything. What do you mean by coming and going? All shallow
nonsense. You are everywhere. Then what is this coming and going? It is the
hallucination produced by the change of this fine body which you call the
mind. That is going on. Just a little speck of cloud passing before the sky.
As it moves on and on, it may create the delusion that the sky moves.
Sometimes you see a cloud moving before the moon, and you think that the
moon is moving. When you are in a train you think the land is flying, or
when you are in a boat, you think the water moves. In reality you are
neither going nor coming, you are not being born, nor going to be reborn;
you are infinite, ever-present, beyond all causation, and ever-free. Such a
question is out of place, it is arrant nonsense. How could there be
mortality when there was no birth?
One step more we will have to take to come to a logical conclusion. There is
no half-way house. You are metaphysicians, and there is no crying quarter.
If then we are beyond all law, we must be omniscient, ever-blessed; all
knowledge must be in us and all power and blessedness. Certainly. You are
the omniscient. Omnipresent being of the universe. But of such beings can
there be many? Can there be a hundred thousand millions of omnipresent
beings? Certainly not. Then, what becomes of us all? You are only one; there
is only one such Self, and that One Self is you. Standing behind this little
nature is what we call the Soul. There is only One Being, One Existence, the
ever-blessed, the omnipresent, the omniscient, the birthless, deathless.
"Through His control the sky expands, through His control the air breathes,
through His control the sun shines, and through His control all live. He is
the Reality in nature, He is the Soul of your soul, nay, more, you are He,
you are one with Him." Wherever there are two, there is fear, there is
danger, there is conflict, there is strife. When it is all One, who is there
to hate, who is there to struggle with? When it is all He, with whom can you
fight? This explains the true nature of life; this explains the true nature
of being. This is perfection, and this is God. As long as you see the many,
you are under delusion. "In this world of many he who sees the One, in this
ever changing world he who sees Him who never changes, as the Soul of his own
soul, as his own Self, he is free, he is blessed, he has reached the goal."
Therefore know that thou art He; thou art the God of this universe, "Tat
Tvam Asi" (That thou art). All these various ideas that I am a man or a
woman, or sick or healthy, or strong or weak, or that I hate or I love, or
have a little power, are but hallucinations. Away with them I What makes you
weak? What makes you fear? You are the One Being in the universe. What
frightens you? Stand up then and be free. Know that every thought and word
that weakens you in this world is the only evil that exists. Whatever makes
men weak and fear is the only evil that should be shunned. What can frighten
you? If the suns come down, and the moons crumble into dust, and systems
after systems are hurled into annihilation, what is that to you? Stand as a
rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self, the God of the universe. Say
— "I am Existence Absolute, Bliss Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, I am He,"
and like a lion breaking its cage, break your chain and be free for ever.
What frightens you, what holds you down? Only ignorance and delusion;
nothing else can bind you. You are the Pure One, the Ever-blessed.
Silly fools tell you that you are sinners, and you sit down in a corner and
weep. It is foolishness, wickedness, downright rascality to say that you are
sinners! You are all God. See you not God and call Him man? Therefore, if
you dare, stand on that — mould your whole life on that. If a man cuts your
throat, do not say no, for you are cutting your own throat. When you help a
poor man, do not feel the least pride. That is worship for you, and not the
cause of pride. Is not the whole universe you? Where is there any one that
is not you? You are the Soul of this universe. You are the sun, moon, and
stars, it is you that are shining everywhere. The whole universe is you.
Whom are you going to hate or to fight? Know, then, that thou art He, and
model your whole life accordingly; and he who knows this and models his life
accordingly will no more grovel in darkness.
- Notes
- ↑ An amusement device consisting of a giant power-driven steel wheel, revolvable on its stationary axle, and carrying a number of balanced passenger cars around its rim."—Webster, G. W. G. Ferris erected the first of its kind for the Chicago Exposition of 1893. In India we have a corresponding wooden device very common in fairs. — Ed.