THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS JNANAM -2 SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
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09/12/2019.
[A Jnana-Yogam class delivered in New York, Wednesday, December 11, 1895, and recorded by Swami Kripananda]
2.
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To understand reincarnation, we have first to know that in this universe something can never be produced out of nothing. If there is such a thing as a human soul, it cannot be produced out of nothing. If something can be produced out of nothing, then something would disappear into nothing also. If we are produced out of nothing, then we will also go back into nothing. That which has a beginning must have an end.
Therefore, as souls we could not have had any beginning. We have been existing all the time.
Then again, if we did not exist previously, there is no explanation of our present existence. The child is born with a bundle of causes. How many things we see in a child which can never be explained until we grant that the child has had past experience — for instance, fear of death and a great number of innate tendencies.
Who taught the baby to drink milk and to do so in a peculiar fashion?
Where did it acquire this knowledge?
We know that there cannot be any knowledge without experience, for to say that knowledge is intuitive in the child, or instinctive, is what the logicians would call a "petitio principii".
It would be the same [logic] as when a man asks me why light comes through a glass, and I answer him, "Because it is transparent".
That would be really no answer at all because I am simply translating his word into a bigger one. The word "transparent" means "that through which light comes" — and that was the question. The question was why light comes through the glass, and I answered him, "Because it comes through the glass".
In the same way, the question was why these tendencies are in the child.
Why should it have fear of death if it never saw death?
If this is the first time it was ever born, how did it know to suck the mother's milk?
If the answer is "Oh, it was instinct", that is simply returning the question. If a man stands up and says, "I do not know", he is in a better position than the man who says, "It is instinct" and all such nonsense.
To be continued ....
========================================================================
09/12/2019.
[A Jnana-Yogam class delivered in New York, Wednesday, December 11, 1895, and recorded by Swami Kripananda]
2.
========================================================================
To understand reincarnation, we have first to know that in this universe something can never be produced out of nothing. If there is such a thing as a human soul, it cannot be produced out of nothing. If something can be produced out of nothing, then something would disappear into nothing also. If we are produced out of nothing, then we will also go back into nothing. That which has a beginning must have an end.
Therefore, as souls we could not have had any beginning. We have been existing all the time.
Then again, if we did not exist previously, there is no explanation of our present existence. The child is born with a bundle of causes. How many things we see in a child which can never be explained until we grant that the child has had past experience — for instance, fear of death and a great number of innate tendencies.
Who taught the baby to drink milk and to do so in a peculiar fashion?
Where did it acquire this knowledge?
We know that there cannot be any knowledge without experience, for to say that knowledge is intuitive in the child, or instinctive, is what the logicians would call a "petitio principii".
It would be the same [logic] as when a man asks me why light comes through a glass, and I answer him, "Because it is transparent".
That would be really no answer at all because I am simply translating his word into a bigger one. The word "transparent" means "that through which light comes" — and that was the question. The question was why light comes through the glass, and I answered him, "Because it comes through the glass".
In the same way, the question was why these tendencies are in the child.
Why should it have fear of death if it never saw death?
If this is the first time it was ever born, how did it know to suck the mother's milk?
If the answer is "Oh, it was instinct", that is simply returning the question. If a man stands up and says, "I do not know", he is in a better position than the man who says, "It is instinct" and all such nonsense.
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