The Philosophy of Vedanta

My notes from ‘Vedanta: Voice of Freedom” – a selected compilation from the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda.

“The Philosophy of Vedanta” – Chapter Highlights reproduced below:

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To every man this is taught: Thou art one with this Universal Being, and, as such, every soul that exists is your soul, and every body that exists is your body. And in hurting anyone, you hurt yourself. In loving anyone, you love yourself.

As soon as a current of hatred is thrown outside, whomsoever else it hurts, it also hurts yourself. And if love comes out from you, it is bound to come back to you. For I am the universe. This universe is my body. I am the Infinite, only I am not conscious of it now.

Another peculiar idea of Vedanta is that we must allow this infinite variation in religious thought and not try to bring everybody to the same opinion, because the goal is the same.

The Vedantist says that a man neither is born nor dies nor goes to heaven, and that reincarnation is really a myth with regard to the soul.

Every soul is omnipresent, so where can it come or go? These births and deaths are changes in nature which we are mistaking for changes in us.

The Vedanta system begins with tremendous pessimism and ends with real optimism. We deny the optimism of the senses but assert the real optimism of the supersensuous. That real happiness is not in the senses but above the senses, and it is in every man.

Vedanta recognizes the reasoning power of man a good deal, although it says there is something higher than intellect. But the road lies through intellect.

Vedanta teaches that nirvana can be attained here and now, that we do not have to wait for death to reach it. Nirvana is the realization of the Self.

The real individuality is that which never changes and will never change, and that is the God within us.

There are three principal variations among the Vedantists. But on one point they all agree, and that is that they all believe in God.

The first school I will tell you about is styled the dualistic school. The dualists believe that God, who is the creator of the universe and its ruler, is eternally separate from nature, eternally separate from the human soul. God is eternal, nature is eternal, and so are all souls. Nature and the souls become manifest and change, but God remains the same.

According to the dualists, again, this God is personal in that He has qualities— not that He has a body. He has human attributes. He is merciful, He is just, He is powerful, He is almighty, He can be approached, He can be prayed to, He can be loved, He loves in return, and so forth.

In one word, He is a human God, only infinitely greater than man.

The real Vedanta philosophy begins with those known as the qualified nondualists. They make the statement that the effect is never different from the cause; the effect is but the cause reproduced in another form. If the universe is the effect and God the cause, it must be God Himself— it cannot be anything but that. They start with the assertion that God is both the efficient and the material cause of the universe— that He Himself is the creator, and He Himself is the material out of which the whole of nature is projected. Now, the whole universe, according to this sect, is God Himself.

They say that these three existences— God, nature, and the soul— are one. God is, as it were, the Soul, and nature and souls are the body of God. Just as I have a body and I have a soul, so the whole universe and all souls are the body of God, and God is the Soul of all souls.

Now we come to Advaita, the last of the Vedanta schools, and, as we think, the fairest flower of philosophy and religion that any country in any age has produced, where human thought attains its highest expression and even goes beyond the mystery which seems to be impenetrable. This is the nondualistic Vedanta. It is too abstruse, too elevated, to be the religion of the masses.

What does the Advaitist declare? He says: If there is a God, that God must be both the material and the efficient cause of the universe. Not only is He the creator, but He is also the created. He Himself is this universe.

How can that be? God, the pure, the Spirit, has become the universe? Yes— apparently so. That which all ignorant people see as the universe does not really exist. What are you and I and all these things we see? Mere self— hypnotism. There is but one Existence, the Infinite, the Ever— blessed One. In that Existence we dream all these various dreams. It is the Atman, beyond all, the Infinite, beyond the known, beyond the knowable. In and through That we see the universe. It is the only reality.

What does the Advaitist preach? He dethrones all the gods that ever existed or ever will exist in the universe, and places on that throne the Self of man, the Atman, higher than the sun and the moon, higher than the heavens, greater than this great universe itself.

“I worship my Self,” says the Advaitist. “To whom shall I bow down? I salute my Self. To whom shall I go for help? Who can help me, the Infinite Being of the universe?”

The Advaitist or the qualified Advaitist does not say that dualism is wrong; it is a right view, but a lower one. It is on the way to truth; therefore let everybody work out his own vision of this universe according to his own ideas. Injure none, deny the position of none. Take a man where he stands and, if you can, lend him a helping hand and put him on a higher platform, but do not injure and do not destroy. All will come to truth in the long run.

Wonderful is the idea of the Personal God apart from nature, whom we worship and love. Sometimes this idea is very soothing. But, says Vedanta, that feeling is something like the effect that comes from an opiate. It is not natural. It brings weakness in the long run, and what this world wants today more than it ever did before is strength.

The next idea that I want to bring to you is that religion does not consist of doctrines or dogmas. It is not what you read nor what dogmas you believe that is of importance, but what you realize.

Creeds and sects have their parts to play, but they are for children; they last but temporarily. Books never make religions, but religions make books. We must not forget that. No book ever created God, but God inspired all the great books. And no book ever created a soul. We must never forget that. The end of all religions is the realization of God in the soul. That is the one universal religion.

He who only studies books for religion reminds one of the fable of the ass that carried a heavy load of sugar on its back, but did not know the sweetness of it.

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