Swami Vivekananda

Vivekananda was born on 12th January 1863. In 1881 meet Swami Ramakrishna. Accepted him as his friend, philosopher and guide
His philosophy arises from the awareness of the social, religious and economic conditions of Indian masses The main body of his thought is derived form the Upanishads and Vedanta

His basic belief in the essential unity of everything

That is completely monistic nature of reality

He emphasizes the need of re-interpreting Vedanta in accordance with the demands and needs of the time

Swami Vivekananda
He was influenced by Buddhist Philosophy also
Mass liberation (Buddhistic idea of Bodhisattva) Struggle against suffering

From Christianity
Takes up the idea of service and love For him man contains within him the spark of Divinity

The profound influence was from his master Swami Ramakrishna Pramahamsa
Ramakrishna Pramahamsabrought about a spiritual transformation in the personality and the mental make-us of Vivekananda

Reality & God

Traditional philosophy treats reality as a metaphysical concept and God as a religious concept For Vivekananda such distinctions are irrelevant He combines Abstract Monism and Theism
God according to him is personal

We find two currents flowing side by side in his philosophy

That resembles Advaita Vednta and the other reminds of Bhakticult

For him they are just two ways of looking at Reality Reality is one absolute Brahman He emphasizes the monistic character of reality: Reality is one but not a whole
whole implies that there must be parts

According to him Absolute is perfect unity

Hence the distinction between whole and parts vanishes

Reality & God

Brahma is beyond space, time, causation
As such changeless Being changeless does not mean that it remains the same in all points of time. It means that the question of time is irrelevant

God is neither outside nature nor inside nature But God and nature and soul and universe are all convertible terms Absolute is indeterminate Absolute has been described as indeterminate
You cannot properly attribute qualities to Absolute

Absolute can be described as Sat-Chit-nanda Sat (existence) Chit (consciousness) (similar to Advaita Vedanta) nanda (bliss) : love the essential core of bliss

 The absolute the impersonal Brahman is looked upon by mind as the Creator, ruler and the Destroyer of the world Thus along with this impersonal nature of the Absolute, a belief in Personal God also emerges In Advaita Vedanta God has been conceived as a product of ignorance and My
Metaphysically speaking reality is absolute Brahman

Reality & God

Vivekananda believes the Absolute and God are not two That God is not a creation of My Reality is absolute Brahman Same reality is viewed from the religious point of view is God He who is supremely real God is present everywhere and in everything As he says: through his control the sky expands, and through his control all live. He is the reality in nature. He is the soul of your soul

Reality & God

He is the Reality in nature. He is the soul of your soul
According to him: the Absolute is the ocean, while you and I , and sun and stars,
and everything else are various waves of the ocean. And what makes the waves different? Only the form, and that form is time, space and causation all entirely dependent on the wave. (Complete Works, 136)

Reality & God

'Shiva Jnane Jiva Seva' God in poor later formed the backbone for his universal message of 'Atmano Mokshartham Jagadhitayacha'
for the liberation of the self, and welfare of the world

It requires very high level of spiritual growth-to actually see 'God' in the poor It is a rare development of soul (consciousness)
Which can be achieved sadhana (spiritual practice)

'compassion for all beings' No, no; it is not compassion to Jivas but service to them as Siva."

Reality & God

'Every soul is potentially divine we ourselves, and everyone around us are potentially divine. Religion is to manifest this divinity within us first which would automatically make our vision clear enough to see the same divinity in others as well. Then the poor would not remain poor; he would become divine in our eyes - as he really is. For Vivekananda, the attitude of worship of 'God in poor' was in fact the highest spiritual experience itself.

 To quote some of his teachings, events and incidents in this regard: "Look upon every man, woman, and everyone as God. You cannot help anyone, you can only serve: Serve the children of the Lord; serve the Lord Himself, if you have the privilege. If the Lord grants that you can help any one of His children, blessed you are; do not think too much of yourselves. Blessed you are that that privilege was given to you when others had it not. Do it only as worship. I should see God in the poor, and it is for my salvation that I go and worship them. The poor and the miserable are for our salvation, so that we may serve the Lord, coming in the shape of the diseased, coming in the shape of lunatic, the leper, and the sinner!"

Proofs for Gods Existence

'my God the poor' was the intuitive realization of God in
Its manifestation as poor-as one aspect of Reality.

God has to be presupposed as the necessary support and ground of both the world and the soul.
If so, then is it that people of all religions and sects always try to prove Gods existence?

It is possible to have a direct realization of God His existence can be felt and realized it is not possible for everybody to have the realization any day he likes Years of rigorous discipline and meditation It is the proofs that creates initial interest and even faith

Teleological Proof
He says:
The whole of nature at best could teach them only of a Being who is the ruler of the Universe; it could teach nothing further. In short out of the external world we can only get idea of an architect that which is called design theory There must be an architect, an intelligent designer of the Universe Though it is not a very logical argument, but we can know about God from the external world, that this world required a builder He is not a God outside, but He is inside He is the heart of man, the Soul if our souls, the Reality in us

Causal Proof
We come across many things whose origin and movements cannot be account for in any naturalistic term We are not their authors, there must be Divine author Everything in the universe is by turn a cause and an effect This is called the law of causation and is a necessary condition of all our thinking This causal series itself leads to a finial and ultimate cause to a cause which, although is the cause of everything , is itself not caused This is the Absolute or God Oneness of everything

Unity of Everything
The universe expresses an essential unity of everything He says:
If you go below the surface, you find that unity between man and man, between races and races, high and low, rich and poor If you go deep enough all will be seen as only vibrations of the one.

This fact of unity itself is an argument in favour of the One There cannot be any other explanation of this unity except that the reality is one

Fact of Love
What is the nature of love? What de we really love?
He says, we do not really love any other, but we love ourselves Love consisting in discovering oneself in the object of love

He says:
None, o beloved, loves the husband fro the husbands sake, but it is for the sake of the self who is in the husband, that the husband is love; none, O beloved, loves the wife for the wifes sake, but it is for the sake of the self who is in the wife that the wife is loved. If love is of this type, then in the act of love and distinction between me and thou would vanish This carried to its ultimate conclusion, will show that there is no other, that reality behind everything is just one supreme principle of love

Analogical Proof
For example: a beautiful picture Who enjoys the picture, the seller or the seer?...
The seller is busy with his accounts, computing what his will be , how much profit he will realize on the picture

That man is enjoying the picture who has gone there without any intention of buying and selling So this whole Universe is a picture, and when these desires have vanished, men will enjoy the world. He conceives God in the analogy of a painter or a poet or an artist He is the Great Poet , the ancient Poet, the whole universe is His poem, coming in verses and rhymes and rhythms, written in infinite bliss

Necessity of gods notion

Gods idea is shown to be necessary
It is necessary because it is Truth and Truth is necessary It is necessary also because it is freedom

Human freedom presupposes the ideal of absolute freedom

which is nothing but Divine freedom It is inherently present in man.

He hays
It is the God within your own self that is propelling you to seek for Him, to realize Him. After a long research here and there, in temples and in churches, earth and in heavens, at last you came back . To your own soul and find that H for whom you have been weeping and praying in churches and temples, is nearer of the near, is your own self, the reality of your life, body and soul.

God is necessary, because the very condition of existence involved God