A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda
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A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

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132 THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL.detail, nobodyhas dared to touch them. The commentators came, of course, and tried to smooth them out, andto bring out wonderful new ideas from very old things ;they tried to find spiritual ideas in even the most ordinarystatements, but the texts remained, and, as such, they arethe most wonderful historical study. We all know thatin every religion in later times, as thoughts began to growand develop there came this spiritual progress. One wordis changed here and one put in there another is thrown;out apart from the commentators. This, probably, hasnot been done with the, Vedic literature at all, or if everdone, it is almost imperceptible. So we have this greatadvantage, we are able to study thoughts in their originalsignificance, to note how they are developing, how frommaterialistic ideas, finer and finer spiritual ideas aregrowing, until they attain their greatest height in theVedanta. Some of the old manners and customs are alsothere, but not very much in the Upanishads. The languageis a peculiarterse mnemonic.The writers of these books simply jotted down theselines as helps to remember certain facts which they supposedwere already well-known. In a narrative, perhaps, as theyare telling a story they take it for granted that it is wellknownto everyone they are addressing, and thus a greatdifficulty arises, we scarcely know the real meaning ofanyone of these stories, because the traditions have nearlydied out, and the little that is left has been very muchSo many new interpretations have been putexaggerated.on them that when you find them in the Puranas theyhave become lyrical poems already. Now, just as in the"West,we find one fact in the political development of"Western races :they cannot bear absolute rule, they arealways trying to throw off any sort of bondage, any one

"ThouTHE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL. 133man ruling over them, and they are gradually advancingto higher and r/dgher democratic ideas, higher and higherideas of physical liberty ;so in metaphysics exactly thesame phenomenon happens, only in spiritual life. Multiplicity of gods gave place to one God of the Universe, andin the Upanishads there is a rebellion against that oneGod. Not only was the idea of so many governors of theUniverse ruling their destinies unbearable, but it was alsointolerable to them that there should be one person rulingthis Universe. This is the first thing that strikes us.The idea grows and grows, until it attains its climax. Inalmost all of the Upanishads we find the climax comingat the last, and that is the dethroning of this God of theUniverse^ The personality of God vanishes, the impersonality comes. God is no more a person, no more a humanbeing, however magnified and exaggerated, ruling thisUniverse, but God has become an embodied principle in us,in every being, immanent in the whole Universe. And ofcourse it would be illogical to go from the personal God tothe impersonal, and at the same time to leave man as aSo the personal man has to be broken down, manperson.is also a principle.The person is without, the principle isbehind, the Truth. Thus from both sides simultaneouslywe find tfre breaking down of personalities and the approachtowards principles, the personal God approaching theimpersonal, the personal man approaching the impersonalman, and then comes the succeeding stages of delineatingthe difference between the two advancing lines of Impersonal God and Impersonal Man. And the Upanishadsembody these succeeding stages, by which these two linesat last become one, and the last word of each Upanishad is,art That." There is but one eternally blissful, andthat one principle is manifesting itself as all this variety.

"ThouTHE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL. 133man ruling over them, and they are gradually advancingto higher and r/dgher democratic ideas, higher and higherideas of physical liberty ;so in metaphysics exactly thesame phenomenon happens, only in spiritual life. Multiplicity of gods gave place to one God of the Universe, andin the Upanishads there is a rebellion against that oneGod. Not only was the idea of so many governors of theUniverse ruling their destinies unbearable, but it was alsointolerable to them that there should be one person rulingthis Universe. This is the first thing that strikes us.The idea grows and grows, until it attains its climax. Inalmost all of the Upanishads we find the climax comingat the last, and that is the dethroning of this God of theUniverse^ The personality of God vanishes, the impersonality comes. God is no more a person, no more a humanbeing, however magnified and exaggerated, ruling thisUniverse, but God has become an embodied principle in us,in every being, immanent in the whole Universe. And ofcourse it would be illogical to go from the personal God tothe impersonal, and at the same time to leave man as aSo the personal man has to be broken down, manperson.is also a principle.The person is without, the principle isbehind, the Truth. Thus from both sides simultaneouslywe find tfre breaking down of personalities and the approachtowards principles, the personal God approaching theimpersonal, the personal man approaching the impersonalman, and then comes the succeeding stages of delineatingthe difference between the two advancing lines of Impersonal God and Impersonal Man. And the Upanishadsembody these succeeding stages, by which these two linesat last become one, and the last word of each Upanishad is,art That." There is but one eternally blissful, andthat one principle is manifesting itself as all this variety.

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