A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

370 VEDANTA.about our own soul, the atman. In order to know theatman we shall have to know it through the mind, andtherefore what little we know of this atman is simply theatman plus the mind. That is to say, the atman coveredover, fashioned, arid moulded by the mind and nothingmore. We shall come to this a little later, but we willremember it here.The next thing to understand is this. The questionarose, this bodyis the name of one continuous stream ofmatter. Every moment we are adding material to it, andevery moment material is getting out of it, like unto ariver continually flowing, vast masses of water alwayschanging places at the same time we take up the whole;in imagination, and call it the same river. What do wecall the river ? Every moment the water is changing, theshore is changing, every moment the trees and plants,theleaves, and the foliage are changing what;is the river ?It is the name of this series of changes. So with the mind.There is the Buddhistic side, the great Kshanika VijnanaVada doctrine, most difficult to understand, but mostrigorously and logically worked out, and this arose also inIndia in opposition to some part of the Vedanta. Thathad to be answered, and we will see how, later on, it couldonly be answered by Advaitism and by nothing else. Wewill see also how, in spite of people s curious notions aboutAdvaitism, people s fright about Advaitism, it is the salvation of the world, because therein alone is the reason ofthings. Dualism and other things are very good as meansof worship, very satisfying to the mind, may be it has helpedthe mind onward ;but if man wants to be rational andreligious at the same time, Advaita is the one system inthe world for him. Well, now, the mind is a similar river,continually emptying itself at one end, and filling itself at