A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

122 IMMORTALITY.tion, is the free Ruler, the Self. Therefore, the Self ruleseverything that is within the law. This Self of man goesbeyond the law, and, therefore, must be free, cannot be ahycomposition, or the result of any composition, or the effectof any cause. It will never die, because death isgoingback to the component parts, and that which was never acompound can never die. Itwill be sheer nonsense to sayit dies. It does not end here.We are now treading on finer and finer ground.Someof you perhaps will be frightened we are; treading on verydelicate ground. We have seen that this Self, being beyondthe little universe of master and force and thought, is asimple, and as a simple it cannot die, neither can it live.That which does not die, cannot live also. So, what(is death?The obverse, and life the reverse of the same coin.Life isanother name for death, and death for life.One particularmode of manifestation is what we call life ;another particular mode of manifestation of the same thingis what wecall death. When the wave rises on the top it is life ;fallsinto the hollow and is death. If anything is beyonddeath, we naturally see it must also be beyond life.I must remind you of the first conclusion, that this soulof man is one part of the cosmic energy that exists,one part of God. We now come to find that^it isbeyond life and death. You were never born, and youwill never die. What is the birth and death that we see ?This belongs to the body, because soul is omnipresent. Howis that ? We are so many people sitting here, and you saythe soul is omnipresent. What is there to limit anythingthat isbeyond law, beyond causation ? This glass islimited ;it is not omnipresent, because the surroundingmatter forces it down to that form, does not allow it toexpand. It is conditioned by everything around it there;