Practical Vedanta

Practical Vedanta(Delivered in London, 18th November 1896We have been dealing more with the universal so far. This morning I shall try toplace before you the Vedantic ideas of the relation of the particular to theuniversal. As we have seen, in the dualistic form of Vedic doctrines, the earlierforms, there was a clearly defined particular and limited soul for every being.There have been a great many theories about this particular soul in eachindividual, but the main discussion was between the ancient Vedantists and theancient Buddhists, the former believing in the individual soul as complete in itself,the latter denying in toto the existence of such an individual soul. As I told you theother day, it is pretty much the same discussion you have in Europe as tosubstance and quality, one set holding that behind the qualities there is somethingas substance, in which the qualities inhere; and the other denying the existence ofsuch a substance as being unnecessary, for the qualities may live by themselves.The most ancient theory of the soul, of course, is based upon the argument of selfidentity— "I am I" — that the I of yesterday is the I of today, and the I of todaywill be the I of tomorrow; that in spite of all the changes that are happening to thebody, I yet believe that I am the same I. This seems to have been the centralargument with those who believed in a limited, and yet perfectly complete,individual soul.On the other hand, the ancient Buddhists denied the necessity of such anassumption. They brought forward the argument that all that we know, and all thatwe possibly can know, are simply these changes. The positing of an unchangeableand unchanging substance is simply superfluous, and even if there were any suchunchangeable thing, we could never understand it, nor should we ever be able tocognise it in any sense of the word. The same discussion you will find at thepresent time going on in Europe between the religionists and the idealists on theone side, and the modern positivists and agnostics on the other; one set believingthere is something which does not change (of whom the latest representative isyour Herbert Spencer), that we catch a glimpse of something which isunchangeable. And the other is represented by the modern Comtists and modernAgnostics. Those of you who were interested a few years ago in the discussionsbetween Herbert Spencer and Frederick Harrison might have noticed that it wasthe same old difficulty, the one party standing for a substance behind thechangeful, and the other party denying the necessity for such an assumption. Oneparty says we cannot conceive of changes without conceiving of something whichdoes not change; the other party brings out the argument that this is superfluous;we can only conceive of something which is changing, and as to the unchanging,we can neither know, feel, nor sense it.In India this great question did not find its solution in very ancient times, becausewe have seen that the assumption of a substance which is behind the qualities, andfile:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Chitra%20Selva...oksBySwami/PracticalVedanta/PracticalVedantaPDF.html (30 of 113)2/26/2007 12:24:33 AM