Everything
in nature grows from some fine seed-forms, becomes grosser and grosser, exists
for a certain time, and again goes back to the original fine form. Our earth,
for instance, has come out of a nebulous form which, becoming colder and
colder, turned into this crystallised planet upon which we live, and in the
future it will again go to pieces and return to its rudimentary nebulous form.
This is happening in the universe, and has been through time immemorial. This
is the whole history of man, the whole history of nature, the whole history of
life.
Every
evolution is preceded by an involution. The whole of the tree is present in the
seed, its cause. The whole of the human being is present in that one protoplasm.
The whole of this universe is present in the cosmic fine universe. Everything
is present in its cause, in its fine form. This evolution, or gradual unfolding
of grosser and grosser forms, is true, but each case has been preceded by an
involution.
The whole of
this universe must have been involute before it came out, and has unfolded
itself in all these various forms to be involved again once more. Take, for
instance, the life of a little plant. We find two things that make the plant a
unity by itself — its growth and development, its decay and death. These make
one unity the plant life. So, taking that plant life as only one link in the
chain of life, we may take the whole series as one life, beginning in the
protoplasm and ending in the most perfect man. Man is one link, and the various
beasts, the lower animals, and plants are other links. Now go back to the
source, the finest particles from which they started, and take the whole series
as but one life, and you will find that every evolution here is the evolution
of something which existed previously.
Where it
begins, there it ends. What is the end of this universe? Intelligence, is it
not? The last to come in the order of creation, according to the evolutionists,
was intelligence. That being so, it must be the cause, the beginning of
creation also. At the beginning that intelligence remains involved, and in the
end it gets evolved. The sum total of the intelligence displayed in the
universe must therefore be the involved universal intelligence unfolding
itself, and this universal intelligence is what we call God, from whom we come
and to whom we return, as the scriptures say. Call it by any other name, you
cannot deny that in the beginning there is that infinite cosmic intelligence. What
makes a compound? A compound is that in which the causes have combined and
become the effect. So these compound things can be only within the circle of
the law of causation; so far as the rules of cause and effect go, so far can we
have compounds and combinations.
Beyond that
it is impossible to talk of combinations, because no law holds good therein.
Law holds good only in that universe which we see, feel, hear, imagine, dream,
and beyond that we cannot place any idea of law. That is our universe which we
sense or imagine, and we sense what is within our direct perception, and we
imagine what is in our mind. What is beyond the body is beyond the senses, and
what is beyond the mind is beyond the imagination, and therefore is beyond our
universe, and therefore beyond the law of causation.
The Self of
man being beyond the law of causation is not a compound, is not the effect of
any cause, and therefore is ever free and is the ruler of everything that is
within law. Not being a compound, it will never die, because death means going
back to the component parts, destruction means going back to the cause. Because
it cannot die, it cannot live; for both life and death are modes of
manifestation of the same thing. So the Soul is beyond life and death. You were
never born, and you will never die. Birth and death belong to the body only.
One of the most powerful means of concentrating mind on God is through Bhajans wherein we focus on the form, attributes,
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