Life is One : 2. Sri Swami Chidananda
03/06/2019
There is another poem in which the poet says,
"One touch of nature makes all life kin." The poet here refers to the original nature in which all forms of life are related to the One. Vedanta proclaims the oneness of all existence. Vedanta declares that there is one divine principle present in all things. The first Sloka of the first Upanishad says, "Whatever exists is pervaded by the one great Cosmic Being. That Being permeates, saturates and pervades all things in the universe." Even modern science is now confirming this great truth. At the back of all this diversity, the back of all this multifariousness, there is something common to all life. If you touch it, you experience cosmic consciousness.
The Vedantic method is deductive; the scientific method is inductive. The Vedantic method starts with the one and proceeds to the many. The scientific method starts with the many and proceeds to the one. Now it seems almost as though modern science, especially modern physical science, is proposing a theory which corroborates nearly verbatim the central thesis of the ancient Sakta school of philosophy in India.
The Sakta school postulates this thesis: that universal energy or cosmic force is the ultimate factor in existence. Isn’t science saying much the same thing today? But science does not specify whether this force is conscious and intelligent or not. Whereas the Sakta philosophy is very specific on this point. The Sakta philosophy states that energy or force is the very nature of pure Consciousness.
Modern scientists are noncommittal on this point. Everything is the outcome of force. This they do admit. Force is conscious. This they do not at all accept. For, if this force is conscious the implications is clear. There must be some vast intelligence guiding the movement of the cosmos—an intelligence much greater than man’s reducing man, in fact, to no more than a puny pawn pushed about according to the degree of that great intelligence.
The very idea is so intolerable to most scientists, it is so ego-unflattering that they refuse to accept it. Only to a few, only to those who are humble and unpretentious, is it credible.
To be continued ..
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