A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

THE COSMOS:THE MICROCOSM.believe that they are the outcome of nothing, and then, withthe grandest logic, try to deduce the theory that althoughthey have come out of zero, they will be eternal ever afterwards. Those that come out of zero will certainly have togo back, to zero. Neither you nor I, nor any one present,have come out of zero, or will go back to zero. We havebeen existing eternally, and will exist, and there is nopower -under the sun, or above the sun which can undo youror my existence, or send us back to zero. Now this idea ofre-incarnation is not only not a frightening idea, but is themost essential idea for the moral well-being of the humanrace. It is the only logical conclusion that thoughtfulmen can arrive at. If you are going to exist in eternityhereafter, it must be^ that you have existed througheternity in the past ;it cannot be otherwise. I will tryto answer a few objections that are generally broughtagainst the theory. Although many of you will thinkthey are very silly objections, still we have to answer themfor sometimes we find that the most thoughtful men areready to advance the silliest ideas. Well has it been saidthat there never was an idea so absurd that it did not findphilosophers to defend it. The first objection is, why dowe not remember our past? Do we remember all our pasthere ? How many of you remember what you did whenyou were babies ? No one of you remembers your earlychildhood, and ifupon memory depends your existence,,then, this very argument proves that you did not exist asbabies, because you do not remember. It is simplyunmitigated nonsense to say that existence depends onsomebody remembering it.Whyshould we remember theand a newpast ? That brain is gone, broken to pieces,brain has been manufactured. What has come to thisbrain is the resultant, the sum-total of the impressions