Evolution and Religion

In the ongoing debate about the position of religion on evolution, this is the best position I have seen, and it comes from nowhere other than Swami Vivekanada and his teachings on Vedanta.
The video at the end does a superb job of explaining the confluence of Vedanta and evolution. I am trying to give a gist here.

Vedanta rests on 2 basic beliefs with regards to existence and evolution.
1. There is a continous all pervading Consciousness in the Universe.
2. The Conscious manifests itself in a cyclic manner.

With these two basic beliefs one can understand the whole of evolution as well as the formation of universe. The underlying Consciousness first manifests itself in the simplest, the most subtlest form as energy during the Big Bang. The formed energy becomes grosser and more complex and forms matter in the form of atoms, molecules and inanimate objects.

The next step of evolution is the combination of atoms and molecules into small, living organisms, which become more and more complex from microbes to small animals to mammals. Man, of course, forms the most complex of these, and has an added faculty of rationality as a result of evolution.

The common thread in the process of evolution is the struggle of the Consciousness to manifest itself in more and more complex form, starting with pure energy and ending in man. The view of Vedanta is not antagonistic to Darwin's theory of natural selection, but in accordance with it.

The last step of this process is the evolution of man. And it is not more at the macroscopic, gross level of body, but it is in the subtler, more complicated level of mind. Human mind has no doubt evolved over time, and become more complex. What is the end result of this evolution of mind? What is the next step in the manifestation of this Consciousness after the formation of a rational mind?

That step, is the realization of the human self, the understanding of the nature of the manifesting Consciousness, the realization of the unity of all existing things into that Consciousness. This is the attainment of Buddhahood, where no duality exists, where the understanding of Consciousness as the sole all-pervading entity dawns upon the man. That is the completion of evolution, the highest possible state of manifestation, the realization of the Unmanifest.

Thus, Vedanta has complete agreement with evolution and science, as far as the mechanism is concerned. But Vedanta goes a step ahead and generalizes the entire process as the manifestation of the Consciousness.
I hope the video, with Swamiji's teachings, gives a better idea of the same.

Line becomes a circle?

This is an attempt to explain a concept from one of Swami Vivekananda's lectures. It was first raised on the SV community on Orkut.

There is no motion in a straight line. Everything moves in a circle; a straight line, infinitely produced, becomes a circle....
-Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works, Vol 5.


The essential thing to keep in mind is that there can only one thing which is infinite. A straight line when extended in either direction reaches infinity. However, it cannot reach two different infinities in two opposite directions, since having 2 infinities would be absurd. Hence, it reaches the same infinity in both directions, i.e. the two ends of a line when infinitely extended meet at infinity, or in other words, the line becomes a circle.

Apart from the geometry, what is the significance of saying 'line becomes a circle'? The point Swamiji was try to drive is that nothing in life is completely bad nor is it completely good. A person cannot have a life in which everything is bad, nor can one have a life in which everything is good. When things start taking a turn towards the downward side, they cannot keep doing so infinitely, for at some point, they have to take a turn towards good.

A belief in this inevitable cycle is 'hope'. Hope is what drives the world and makes a person do things amazingly. Hope is what provides energy to get up in the morning and do the same chores daily. Take out hope from a person and there is no difference in him and a robot. Keeping up one's hopes, inspite of the circumstances, is real test of life. What Swamiji says in the lecture is that there is no need to loose this precious hope, since it is nature's law that things will inevitably turn better.

Let our lives be always filled with the hope to do good things, and let the hope give us determination and courage to perform them.