Practical Vedanta

Practical Vedantawhich require little things to build them up, never venture to soar high in thought.Their conceptions are very good and helpful to them, even if only of little godsand symbols. But you have to understand the Impersonal, for it is in and throughthat alone that these others can be explained. Take, for instance, the idea of aPersonal God. A man who understands and believes in the Impersonal — JohnStuart Mill, for example — may say that a Personal God is impossible, and cannotbe proved. I admit with him that a Personal God cannot be demonstrated. But Heis the highest reading of the Impersonal that can be reached by the humanintellect, and what else is the universe but various readings of the Absolute? It islike a book before us, and each one has brought his intellect to read it, and eachone has to read it for himself. There is something which is common in the intellectof all men; therefore certain things appear to be the same to the intellect ofmankind. That you and I see a chair proves that there is something common toboth our minds. Suppose a being comes with another sense, he will not see thechair at all; but all beings similarly constituted will see the same things. Thus thisuniverse itself is the Absolute, the unchangeable, the noumenon; and thephenomenon constitutes the reading thereof. For you will first find that allphenomena are finite. Every phenomenon that we can see, feel, or think of, isfinite, limited by our knowledge, and the Personal God as we conceive of Him isin fact a phenomenon. The very idea of causation exists only in the phenomenalworld, and God as the cause of this universe must naturally be thought of aslimited, and yet He is the same Impersonal God. This very universe, as we haveseen, is the same Impersonal Being read by our intellect. Whatever is reality in theuniverse is that Impersonal Being, and the forms and conceptions are given to itby our intellects. Whatever is real in this table is that Being, and the table formand all other forms are given by our intellects.Now, motion, for instance, which is a necessary adjunct of the phenomenal,cannot be predicated of the Universal. Every little bit, every atom inside theuniverse, is in a constant state of change and motion, but the universe as a whole isunchangeable, because motion or change is a relative thing; we can only think ofsomething in motion in comparison with something which is not moving. Theremust be two things in order to understand motion. The whole mass of the universe,taken as a unit, cannot move. In regard to what will it move? It cannot be said tochange. With regard to what will it change? So the whole is the Absolute; butwithin it every particle is in a constant state of flux and change. It is unchangeableand changeable at the same time, Impersonal and Personal in one. This is ourconception of the universe, of motion and of God, and that is what is meant by"Thou art That". Thus we see that the Impersonal instead of doing away with thepersonal, the Absolute instead of pulling down the relative, only explains it to thefull satisfaction of our reason and heart. The Personal God and all that exists in theuniverse are the same Impersonal Being seen through our minds. When we shallbe rid of our minds, our little personalities, we shall become one with It. This iswhat is meant by "Thou art That". For we must know our true nature, thefile:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Chitra%20Selva...oksBySwami/PracticalVedanta/PracticalVedantaPDF.html (28 of 113)2/26/2007 12:24:33 AM