A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

ButIMMORTALITY. 117number of times this has been, and an infinite number oftimes will be repeated. Thus far with the physical forms.W*hat do we find ? That even the combination of physicalforms is eternally repeated.A most interesting question that comes along with thisparticle repetition, is the explanation of all such questionsas this. Some of you, perhaps, have seen a man who canread the past life of another man, and foretell the life ofthe future. How is it possible for any one to see what thefuture will be, until there is a regulated future ? Effectsof the past will recur in the future, and we see that is so.But that does not affect the soul. Think of one of these bigFerris wheels in Chicago. These wheels are going on, andthe little rooms in the wheel are regularly coming one afterthe other, one set of persons gets into these, and after theyhave gone round the circle they get out, and a fresh batchof people get in. Each one of these batches is like one ofthese manifestations, from the lowest animal to the highestman. This is the circular chain of the Ferris wheel ofNature ; gigantic, infinite, and each one of the bodies orforms is one of these little houses or boxes, and freshbatches<~>fsouls are riding in them, and going up higherand higher until they become perfect, and come out of thewheel. .the wheel goes on, ready for others. And solong as the body is in the wheel, it can be absolutely andmathematically foretold where it will go, but not of thesoid. Therefore it is possible to read the past and thefuture of nature absolutely and mathematically. We cometo this, that there is recurrence of the same material phenomena at certain periods, that the same combinations havebeen going on through eternity. But that is not immortality of the soul. No force can die, no matter can be annihilated. What becomes of it ? It goes on changing,