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| The
Western Theory of Evolution |
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| Thus evolution
and involution can be, strictly speaking, postulated only of the thinker.
While so, some of the Western philosophers propound a theory that there
is gradual progress from the mineral condition to the vegetable, from the
vegetable to the animal, and from the animal to the human, and call it the
theory of evolution. In the first place no religion of the world supports
such a theory, and, as Benjamin Kidd in his Social Evolution says: "The
tendency of the doctrine of evolution has been generally considered to be
on the whole anti-religious." They say that evolution is going on in
the universe; but what it is that is evolving they have nothing to say about.
They observe different natures, bodies and objects in the universe occupying
different positions in some respects and seeing that one is more 'advanced'
than another, they make regular scales noting the different degrees of advancement.
But they do not say that what is now found in the more advanced state of
being must, in its essence, have been in existence formerly and must have
been then in a less advanced condition. In other words, they do not say
that the underlying entity, which bears a more advanced form or exhibits
a higher state or condition today is the same that formerly appeared in
a coarser garb or functioned in a lower kind of existence. In fact, they
have in general ignored the necessity, even the possibility, of the continuing
presence of the subsisting reality and have only directed attention to some
stations on the road of evolution without caring to know whether there is
anyone journeying along the road, and if so, who he is and how he is going
on.
In fact no evolution is possible from the stage of the mineral to that of the vegetable, for there is nothing in the mineral that can evolve. Dr. Bose's discoveries of the modern day can have reference only to the Isvaric life, not the life of any Jiva in the mineral. The whole mineral kingdom has emerged out of the Tamasic aspect of Maya and it forms the material which goes to make the bodies of the Jivas and their means and places of support; mineral matter not composing the body of any Jiva is called 'inanimate' or 'inorganic', not because there is no life at all in it-for it has its very existence in the life of Isvara-but because there is no separate co-ordinating life-principle connecting together the several atoms in harmonious co-operation for serving some common end. It is the presence or the absence of such a separate connecting life that makes, in fact, all the difference between the organic and the inorganic sides of Nature. The view that is now and then expressed from the modern Theosophical platform: 'every grain of sand has its Jivatma' is clearly wrong and opposed to the clear statement in the holy books that the Jivas are to be found only in four classes of bodies, viz., Jarayuja (mammals), Andaja (egg-born), Svedaja (sweat-born) and Udbhijja (earth-born). Again, as regards the alleged evolution from the vegetable to animal and from the animal to the human, the Western evolutionists do not actually trace the passage of any entity from a lower to a higher state of being. They are only able to see that one being is more 'advanced' than another and that this universe is inhabited by beings of manifold gradation of advancement, physical and mental. They mentally arrange the beings under different groups and these groups as well as the beings placed in each of these groups are then arranged according to a regular and graduated scale of advancement. They then perceive that the ladder of advancement created by them in their imagination presents a really beautiful appearance and they infer that Nature, beautiful as She is, must have brought about the advancement of beings only in the order in which the rungs of the ladder appear. A big library may contain a large number of books of different gradations of thought or size. They may be arranged in some regular order. Will it be proper to infer that a book written by an advanced author has 'evolved' out of a book written by an ordinary man, or that a big volume has come out of a small booklet? The present-day theory of evolution has no strong foundation. Further, what is the cause of growth or evolution? Why should an entity, which was sometime ago in the vegetable state, now appear in an animal body? Is its advancement or promotion to a higher state of being only accidental? If not, in what way did it merit the promotion? Is the vegetable capable of doing any responsible act or Karma for which it is rewarded? If it is itself not capable of doing any, is its ascent in evolution compulsory and due to the act of another agent? If so, does it mean that the fruits of action may go to one who did nothing to merit them? Among the lower animals themselves one is found happier throughout its life-span, from the moment of its birth, than another? Why should it be so? The differences in the animal's experience of pain and pleasure must have their own causes. What are they? The causes must relate to the previous existence of every such Jiva in question. This previous life could not have been that of a lower animal, for lower animals can do no responsible Karma. The law of Karma and justice, if it is true at all, shows unmistakably that there is no real foundation for the notion that there is evolution going on below the stage of man. Every brute, every little insect and every one of the plants and trees, all were, and are going to be again human beings themselves. They are all temporarily only suspended from the class of humanity for some offences. It may be asked, if all non-human states of being are only the results of the previous human Karma, in the beginning stage of the universe, there must have been only men and nothing else; is there any authority to show that there was a time when there were men alone and that the non-human states of being appeared only later on? The question assumes that there was a beginning for the universe. It may be that every Kalpa or Cycle of the universe has a beginning; but at the beginning of a Kalpa the universe takes the appearance in the condition in which it was just before the Pralaya or dissolution that preceded the Kalpa in question. The universe, with this alternate existence of Kalpa and Pralaya has had no beginning at all. None can say that there was a beginning for the existence of the power of Maya in the Self. As there was no beginning for the universe, there could not have been any period of time when there were men alone. At all times there have been human as well as non-human states of being in the manifested universe. What then is true evolution? It is, as once before stated, the progress of the thinker in man from his present condition of limitedness to the state of the unlimited Self. Progress of the thinker means improvement and growth of mind through which he thinks. In the physical plane, all vegetable and animal bodies develop out of the life-germ, the unit cell. The embryonic cell sometimes divides itself into two or more cells and sometimes, as in the case of the lower forms of life, become associated with new cells drawn from outside. In any case, development of the embryo implies multiplication of the cells. Mere multiplication of the cells again cannot make a living body. Along with it, there is also the widening or expansion of the life within so as to control all the cells together. Similarly, a man's mind is said to grow or expand when his thoughts extend beyond his physical body and beyond his limited personality. As the original unit cell is the earliest and lowest state of the physical body, thoughts of one's own interests alone belong to the lowest stage of the mind. The mind grows when the interests of others are also considered, as the physical body grows up packing together more cells. As there is connecting life for all the cells together, selfless thoughts or thoughts of others' interests should be bound up together by a connecting and unifying knowledge that all are only the Self. The end of the evolution of the thinker is reached when the evolving mental life becomes, by expansion, identical with the all-including life, the universal Self. If, however, his thoughts and actions are directed exclusively towards personal and selfish ends, his mind contracts more and more and recedes still further from the path of evolution. He should therefore think only such thoughts and do only such actions as may widen his mind and raise him up in evolution. The mind has to expand and expand until the limiting mind-covering, becoming very thin, is torn asunder when, the limitations of the thinker ceasing to exist any longer, his inner Self shines in his infinitude of existence, consciousness and bliss, for it was only he, the only one and the real Self that was appearing till then as enclosed in a covering made of mind stuff. |
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