The Argument
If it be true that nature is uniform throughout; if it be true, and so far no human experience has contradicted
it, that the same method under which a small grain of sand is created works in
creating the gigantic suns and stars and all this universe; if it be true that
the whole of this universe is built on exactly the same plan as the atom; if it
be true that the same law prevails throughout the universe; then, as it has
been said in the Vedas, "Knowing one lump of clay we know the nature of all
the clay that is in the universe...."
The Effect Is the Same as the Cause
The universe with its stars and planets has come out of a nebulous
state and must go back to it. What do we learn from this? That the manifested
or the grosser state is the effect, and the finer state the cause.
Therefore we learn that the effect is the same as the cause, not
different. It is only in another form. This glass is an effect, and it had its
cause, and this cause is present in this form. It is only that this effect is a
reproduction of the cause in a grosser form.
Next, we learn that all these particular forms which we call
plants, animals, or men are being repeated ad infinitum, rising and
falling. The seed produces the tree. The tree produces the seed, which again
comes up as another tree, and so on and on; there is no end to it. Water-drops
roll down the mountains into the ocean, and rise again as vapour, go back to
the mountains and again come down to the ocean. So, rising and falling, the
cycle goes on. So with all lives, so with all existence that we can see, feel,
hear, or imagine.
Everything that is within the bounds of our knowledge is
proceeding in the same way, like breathing in and breathing out in the human
body. Everything in creation goes on in this form, one wave rising, another
falling, rising again, falling again. Each wave has its hollow, each hollow has
its wave.
The same law must apply to the universe
taken as a whole, because of its uniformity. This universe must be resolved
into its causes; the sun, moon, stars, and earth, the body and mind, and
everything in this universe must return to their finer causes, disappear, be
destroyed as it were. But they will live in the causes as fine forms. Out of
these fine forms they will emerge again as new earths, suns, moons, and stars.
Period Of Fine, Unmanifested Action
There is one fact more to learn about this rising and falling. The
seed comes out of the tree; it does not immediately become a tree but has a
period of inactivity, or rather, a period of very fine unmanifested action. The
seed has to work for some time beneath the soil. It breaks into pieces,
degenerates as it were, and regeneration comes out of that degeneration.
In the beginning, the whole of this universe has to work likewise
for a period in that minute form, unseen and unmanifested, which is called
chaos, and out of that comes a new projection. The whole period of one
manifestation of the universe--it's going down into the finer form, remaining
there for some time, and coming out again--is, in Sanskrit, called a Kalpa or
Cycle.
Evolution
Now we find that the fine forms slowly come out and become grosser
and grosser until they reach their limit, and when they reach their limit they
go back further and further, becoming finer and finer again.
This coming out of the fine and becoming gross, simply changing
the arrangements of its parts, as it were, is what in modern times called
evolution. This is very true, perfectly true; we see it in our lives. No
rational man can possibly quarrel with these evolutionists.
But we have to learn one thing more. We have to go one step
further, and what is that? That every evolution is preceded by an involution.
The seed is the father of the tree, but another tree was itself the father of
the seed. The seed is the fine form out of which the big tree comes, and
another big tree was the form which is involved in that seed. The whole of this
universe was present in the cosmic fine universe. The little cell, which
becomes afterwards the man, was simply the involved man and becomes evolved as
a man. If this is clear, we have no quarrel with the evolutionists, for we see
that if they admit this step, instead of their destroying religion, they will
be the greatest supporters of it.
Vedanta views the entire evolutionary process as progressive
evolution of structure and form and greater and greater manifestation of the
infinite Self within. It is evolution of matter and manifestation of Spirit.
The first emergence of living organisms is marked by the
appearance of rudimentary form of awareness. This awareness grows in richness
and variety as we move up the evolutionary ladder. The evolution of the nervous
system discloses a progressive development of awareness in depth and range, and
a consequent increase in the grip of the organism on its environment.
This awareness achieves a new and significant dimension with the
appearance of man on the evolutionary scene. The field of awareness of all
other organisms is, largely, the external environment, and, to a small extent,
the interior of their bodies as well. Man alone has awareness of the self along
with awareness of the not-self. Self-awareness, which nature achieved through
the evolution of the human organism, is a new dimension of awareness containing
tremendous implications both for nature and for man.
(Message, 236-37)
Nothing Is Created out of Nothing
We see then, that nothing can be created out of nothing.
Everything exists through eternity, and will exist through eternity. Only the
movement is in succeeding waves and hollows, going back to fine forms, and
coming out into gross manifestations. This involution and evolution is going on
throughout the whole of nature. The whole series of evolution beginning with
the lowest manifestation of life and reaching up to the highest, the most
perfect man, must have been the involution of something else. The next question
is: The involution of what? What was involved? God. If that is so, take this
whole evolutionary series, from the protoplasm at the one end to the perfect
man at the other, and this whole series is one life. In the end we will find
the perfect man, so in the beginning it must have been the same. Therefore, the
protoplasm was the involution of the highest intelligence. You may not see it
but that involved intelligence is what is uncoiling itself until it becomes
manifested in the most perfect man.
The God-Man and the Universe
It, therefore, follows absolutely that the perfect man, the free
man, the God-Man, who has gone beyond the laws of nature, and transcended
everything, who has no more to go through this process of evolution, through
birth and death, that man called the "Christ-man" by the Christians,
and the "Buddha-man" by the Buddhists, and the "Free" by
the Yogis--that perfect man who is at one end of the chain of evolution was
involved in the cell of the protoplasm, which is at the other end of the same
chain.
Applying the same reason to the whole of the universe, we see that
intelligence must be the Lord of creation, the cause. What is the most evolved
notion that man has of this universe? It is intelligence, the adjustment of
part to part, the display of intelligence, of which the ancient design theory
was an attempt at expression. The beginning was, therefore, intelligence. At
the beginning that intelligence becomes involved, and in the end that
intelligence gets evolved. The sum total of the intelligence displayed in the
universe must, therefore, be the involved universal intelligence unfolding
itself. This universal intelligence is what we call God. Call it by any other
name, it is absolutely certain that in the beginning there is that Infinite
cosmic intelligence.
The Manifestation of Cosmic Intelligence
We now see that all the various forms of cosmic energy, such as
matter, thought, force, intelligence and so forth, are simply the
manifestations of that cosmic intelligence, or, as we shall call it henceforth,
the Supreme Lord.
Everything that you see, feel, or hear, the whole universe, is His
creation, or to be a little more accurate, is His projection; or to be still
more accurate, is the Lord Himself. It is all He. He Himself is both the
material and the efficient cause of this universe, and He it is that gets
involved in the minute cell, and evolves at the other end and becomes God again.
He it is that comes down and becomes the lowest atom, and slowly unfolding His
nature, rejoins Himself.
This is the mystery of the universe. "Thou art the man, Thou
art the woman, Thou art the strong man walking in the pride of youth, Thou art
the old man tottering on crutches, Thou art in everything. Thou art everything,
O Lord."* This is the only solution of the Cosmos that
satisfies the human intellect. In one word, we are born of Him, we live in Him,
and unto Him we return.
*The essence of Vedanta is that there is
but one Being and that every soul is that Being in full, not a part of That
Being. All the sun is reflected in each dewdrop. (CW, 8: 6.)