A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

134 THE FREEDOM OF THE SOUL.Then came the philosophers. The work of the Upanishadsseems to have ended at that point the next was;taken up by the philosophers. The framework was giventhem by the Upanishads, and they had to work out thedetails.So, many questions would naturally arise.Taking forgranted that there is but one impersonal principle which ismanifesting itself in all these manifold forms, how is it thatthe one becomes many ? It is the same old question which,inits crude form, comes into the human heart in the shapeof an explanation of the existence of evil and so forth.Why does evil exist in the world, and so on ? But the samequestion has become refined, abstracted. No more is itasked from the platform of the senses why we af? -unhappy,but from the platform of philosophy. How is it that thisone principle becomes manifold ? And the answer, as wehave seen, the best answer that India produced was thetheory of Maya, that it really has not become manifold,that it really did not lose a bit of its real nature. Thismanifold is only apparent. Man isonly apparently aperson, and, in reality, he is the Impersonal Being. Godis a person only apparently, but really he is the ImpersonalBeing of the Universe.Even in this answer there have been succeeding stagesphilosophies have varied. All Indian philosophers didnot admit this theory of Maya. Possibly most of themdid not.There are the Dualists, with a very crude sort ofDualism, who would not allow the question to be asked,stifled it at its very coming into existence. They said youhave no right to ask such a question, you have no right toask for an explanation ;it is simply the will of God, and wehave to submit quietly. There is no liberty for the humansoul. It is all predestined what we shall do, and have,