A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

IMMORTALITY. 115life which is everywhere ? This one mass of intelligencewhich is from the protaplasm up to the most perfected man,slowly and slowly uncoils itself. What was it ? It was apart of the cosmic universal intelligence involved in thatlittle protoplasm itself,and it was all there. Not that itgrows. Take off all ideas of growth from your mind.With the idea of growth is associated something comingfrom outside, something extraneous, and that will breakthe mathematical demonstrationthat the cosmic energy isthe same throughout. It can never grow. It was there,onlyit manifests itself. What is destruction ? Here is aglass. I throw it on the ground, and it breaks to pieces.What becomes of it ? It becomes fine. What is destruction? The gross becoming fine. The elements, thepartieles, the components, the materials, the causes arecombined, and become this effect called the glass. Theygo back to their causes, and this is what is meant by destruction going back to the cause. What is the effect ?The causes manifested. There is no essential differencebetween the effect and the cause. Take this glass, again.Here was the material, and that material plus the will ofthe manufacturer, these two made the glass, and these twowere its causes, and were present in it. In what form ?Adhesion.If the force were not here, each particle wouldfall off. What has become of the effect then ? It is thesame as the cause, only taking a different form, a differentcomposition.When the cause is changed and limited andcondensed for a time, or space, then the very cause is calledeffect. We must remember this. Applying it to our idea oflife,the whole of the manifestation of this one series, fromthe protoplasm up to the most perfect man must be thevery same thing as cosmic life. First it got involved andbecame finer, and out of that fine something which was