PDF - Swami Vivekananda

Religion of The Twentieth Centuryscience.Vedanta teaches that one Substance orReality is the material and efficient cause of theuniverse. It also describes the evolution ofthe phenomenal world, and rejects the theoryof a special creation. The process of cosmicevolution as described in Vedanta is this :From that one Substance came ether, fromether that which is gaseous, from the gaseousstate heat, from that state liquid, then thatwhich is solid ; and later came gradually thevegetables, the lower animals, and from thelower animals, up to the highest, man. Thus,it explainsthat the phenomenal universe withall the varieties of names, forms and forceshas evolved out of one eternal Cosmic Energycalled in Sanskrit Prakriti which is the motherof all manifestations. It is One and universal.Vedanta teaches that God is personal, impersonaland beyond both. Individual souls,according to this religion, are not created outof nothing, but are eternal ; they are eternalgerms of life, subject to the Law of cause and28