A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

118 IMMORTALITY.forward and backward, until it comes back to the source^from which it came. There is no motion in a straight line.Everything is in a circle, because a straight line, infinitelyproduced, becomes a circle. If that is the case, there cannot be eternal degeneration for any soul. It cannot be.Everything must complete the circle, and come back to itssource. What are you and I and all these souls ? As wehave seen in our discussion of evolution and involution, youand I must be part of the cosmic consciousness, cosmic life,cosmic mind, which get involved, and we must completethe circle and go back to this cosmic intelligence which isGod. That very cosmic intelligence is what the peoplecall Lord, or God, or Christ, or Buddha, or Brahma, whomthe materialists perceive as a force, whom the agnostics perceive as that infinite, inexpressible beyond. This is thatinfinite cosmic life, cosmic intelligence, cosmic power, andwe are all parts of that. This is the second idea, yet thisisnot sufficient ;there will be still more doubts. It isvery good to say that there is no destruction for any force.But all the forces that we see are combinations, andall the forms that we see are combinations. This formis a composition of several component parts, and soevery force that we see is similarly composite. If youtake the scientific idea of force, and call it the sum-total, theresultant of several forces, what becomes of your individuality ? Everything that is compound must sooner orlater get back to its component parts. Whatever in thisuniverse is the result of the combination of matter or force,whatever is the result of combination, must sooner or laterget back to its components. Whatever is the result ofcertain causes must die, be destroyed. It gets dispersed,broken up, resolved back into its components. Soul is nota force ;neither is it thought. It is the manufacturer of