“Life is of two kinds,—life in matter and life in the Atman, Spirit or Pure Consciousness. Biologists, physiologists and psychologists hold that life consists of thinking, feeling, knowing, willing, digestion, excretion, circulation, respiration, etc. This kind of life is not everlasting” (Sure Ways for Success in Life: p. xxxvii). The scientists’ view of the universe is not without the grave defects common to sense-perception in general. “After commonsense has attained sufficient growth, scientific reason or scientific understanding awakes in a thinking few. The world, which appeared to commonsense as a series of events coming one after another without any essential connection among themselves, now comes to be regarded as a constant series of different phenomena linked together by the law of causation. Nothing is free; everything is bound up in necessity. Give the necessary causes, the desired effect will follow. Scientists hold that the human mind cannot go beyond these phenomena and their unifying laws. What is the noumenon, the life-giving principle of those laws, is a point where the scientific understanding halts. Anything beyond these fleeting shows is terra incognita. Viveka, or the philosophical sense, then comes to the rescue of the scientific despair consequent upon the thinking ego being tied down to the shackles of necessity. The reflecting ego, the subject, has an inner conviction that it is free, although it moves in a circle of external objects bound, as it were, by the law of necessity. The want of freedom under which it seems to labour is imposed upon it by an external principle called mind, which, as a rule, makes no discrimination between the subject and the object. The philosophical sense or reason tries to investigate the principle of unity, which is the point of reference of all different existences, and which transcends the apparent diversity of things. All differences derive their meaning, their very existence, from the truth of the identity of the subject and the object which have been held as antagonistic principles” (Practice of Yoga: pp. 105-6).

“The sages, the great seers, have been again and again declaring from direct experience that the perishable is not the real, and that the real is the unseen. The aim of life here does not lie here itself, the goal is not to be sought in the means, the ideal is different from the process. The individual’s existence on earth is not a true existence, but only a process of becoming, now and again, something else. No one here can say that he is a real being, for being is what does not change or die, whereas everyone experiences such violent and constant changes in himself that he cannot but feel that he dies to himself incessantly. Hence, one has to realise the transient character of one’s phenomenal existence as an entity separated from the life of the universe. The world is the field of training for eternal life, the purgatory for the sin-hardened individual, the deserter of truth, the killer of the self, the wanderer among phantasms. Worldly life is not perfection, even as hell is not heaven, purgatory is not salvation. The world and the body are ladders and steps to the lofty realisation of God Who is called the Self, Atman, Brahman, etc.” (Light Divine: p. xii). “The world of time in which one lives is the visible face of the timeless Light of the invisible Glory that throbs at the heart of all things. The unrest and struggle of human life dimly foreshadow the feeble response which man makes to the call of the higher Life. The call is eternal, and the intensity and quality of the response to it from man’s side depend on the depth of his awareness of the fact that his state is one of a severe want which cannot be fulfilled completely by anything on earth. The welfare of society, of the different nations, is directly proportional to the extent in which the laws regulating the same accord with this deeper spiritual presence in man, which refuses to be ignored in the daily affairs of his life. When man knows that the light which glimmers within him is the light which descends from above him, he becomes fit for abundance and joy in all directions. His conceit gets melted in the willing surrender of the self to the Divine” (The Divine Life: Vol. XVIII, p. 363).

“The Atman alone exists. It appears as the objects which we cognise, just as a rope appears as a serpent. The Atman puts on the appearance of these phenomenal objects. That is Brahman which is the Self of all beings. That Brahman is without cause and without effect, without anything inside or outside, without defect or impurity, without length and breadth, without colour, shape or form. That Brahman is without limbs, parts, name or caste, without hands and legs. That Brahman is an embodiment of wisdom, peace and bliss. It shines by itself. It is self-luminous. All the objects that you cognise outside really exist in the highest Self. All objects shine after It, i.e., they borrow their light from the self-effulgent Atman. The whole world exists within Brahman. It appears as external through the force of Maya, just as your body appears in a mirror.” “An infinite Vastu (substance) must be Nirakara (formless) and Vyapaka (all-pervading). It must be beyond time, space and causation. It must be unchanging and beginningless. It must be causeless, too. A thing that is beyond time, space and causation must be immortal. This infinite Vastu (substance), having no sound, etc., does not decay or suffer diminution. Therefore, it is eternal, for what decays is ephemeral.” What is an effect is not eternal but is absorbed into its cause, as earth, etc. But this Being, the cause of all, is not an effect; and not being an effect, it is eternal. It has no cause into which it could be absorbed. It is endless; therefore, it is eternal” (Philosophy and Teachings: pp. 28, 36).

“The world is a stage where is enacted a grand play of the twin principles of consciousness and force. The world is a manifestation of Sakti, the Power of the Eternal, whose being is consciousness. It is Chit-Sakti (Consciousness-Force) that displays itself as this majestic reality of the universe. Para-Sakti (Supreme Power) moves everywhere as Brahma-Sakti (Creative Power), Vishnu-Sakti (Preservative Power) and Siva-Sakti (Transforming Power). Reason and intuition establish the truth of the existence of the Divya-Prakriti that sustains and works this vast panorama of experiential contents. Matter is reducible to energy. The Prasnopanishad says that Rayi and Prana, matter and energy, constitute the whole of creation. Matter is the outward index of the inner Power that is expressed by God. The Power that originates and sustains the universe is not Jada-Sakti or the electrical energy which is the reality of the scientists, but Chaitanya-Sakti, the Power of the immutable consciousness of Brahman. In fact, it is not a power which is of Brahman, but a Power which is Brahman” (The Divine Life: vol. XVIII, p. 349). The play of creation is not external to Reality. “The world does not exist apart from Brahman. Isvara, Jiva and the world are three different aspects of Brahman” (Practice of Yoga, p. 19). The entire visible mass is the supra-essential essence of Brahman appearing in that form. “Isvara is not something separate from the world. Sankara has refuted the theory of the Naiyayikas who admit an extra-cosmic creator.” “Isvara does not exert from outside to create the worlds. He does not want any instruments or materials to work with, as a potter requires them to make a pot. He is omnipotent. He wills, and everything comes into being. He is the internal ruler. He resides or dwells within all beings and controls everything. He is the material cause as well as the instrumental and efficient cause” (Principal Upanishads, Vol. I, pp. 431-32).

“The universe, then, is the visible representation of the highest Ideal of human realisation. In both its lower and higher aspects, Prakriti presents itself as the moving body of the Lord. The Srimad Bhagavata admonishes man to the effect that each and every visible thing in the universe is an object of adoration and worship, for God resides in the temple of all things. The worship of God means at once an adjustment of oneself with the super-individual law of the universe. There cannot be spiritual devotion and worship without an inward adaptation of consciousness to the scheme of the universe, which is God envisaged in the framework of space and time. The God outside and above is the same as the God within and below. The Upasana (worship) of the highest Deity has to be in terms of the supreme Sakti that is the eternal Mother of all beings” (The Divine Life, Vol. XVIII, p. 349). The dualism of the Sankhya and other empiricist schools is, therefore, not tenable. The human mind is dissatisfied as much with the theory of an ultimate duality of things as with the dogma of the chances of an eternal damnation of certain creatures. Swami Sivananda teaches the wholesome doctrine of the unity of creation. “There is a coconut made of sugar only. It has marks, lines, an external shell, ridges, eyes, and everything. But you have the internal feeling in the mind that it is only sugar. Similarly, though you see the different objects of the universe, you must have a feeling and determination of the Atman that is at the bottom of all these objects, which is the ultimate reality and essence of everything.” “Why do you look into the leaves, twigs, flowers and fruits of the mango tree? Look into the source, the seed. The cloth is only cotton and thread. Take the cloth as cotton only. Take the world as Atman or Brahman” (Mind and Its Mysteries, p. 352). “When you see a mango tree, it is external to you. There is externality. The mango tree is a mental percept. It is a mental concept, also. There is no mango tree apart from the mind. There is a mental image in the mind. The image in the mind, plus an external something is the mango tree. Even if you close your eyes, you can get at the image through memory. The green colour of the leaves is due to a certain rate of light vibrations. These light vibrations strike at the retina and are taken to the vision-centre at the back of the brain. The mango leaves have the power to split the white rays and absorb the green colour only. So says science. Your body, also, is as much external to you as the yonder mango tree. It is also a mental percept or concept. The mango tree is external to you with reference to your body. The mango tree itself is a mere appearance that floats in the Absolute, the one Reality. As the mango tree is external to you from the standpoint of your body, and as the body itself is external to you, the idea of the externality of the mango tree, or even this external universe, is blown up. The term ‘internality’, also, has only a false existence. There is internality only with reference to externality. If externality goes away, where is internality? Both the terms, internality and externality, are mere illusions, creations of the mind. There is only the solid existence, the one reality, the Absolute, behind the so-called internality and externality” (Ibid, pp. 253-54).

Duality is the repository of change. If change is an appearance, what is behind it must be reality. General existence is common to all objects. The meaning of a quality is in the form of the substance in which it inheres, and the being of the form is in the reality of which it is an appearance. All substances in the world, being made up of the five great elements—earth, water, fire, air and ether—which are subject to change, can be reduced to their cause which does not change. The world constituted of these elements is an expression of the manifesting energy of Brahman, and is ultimately non-different from it. The existence of the world of objects is in the changeless power of Brahman. The nature of this existence is revealed in the innermost recesses of our being. We observe by outward and inward analysis that the irreducible minimum of existence, which underlies the perception of the world of matter, motion and change, is a consciousness which is aware of all these as not belonging to its essence. The highest existence is that of pure consciousness, a consciousness that does not admit of division or separation of any kind. As the link that brings about a relation between objects outside and mental states inside, it is the sum of all their signification. All division has a divisionless substance behind it, the notion of separation is based on a unity underlying it, and the fear of death proves the immortality of the soul. Life in outright duality is inconceivable.