The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 5/Notes from Lectures and Discourses/Buddhism and Vedanta
BUDDHISM AND VEDANTA
The Vedanta philosophy is the foundation of Buddhism and everything else in
India; but what we call the Advaita philosophy of the modern school has a
great many conclusions of the Buddhists. Of course, the Hindus will not
admit that—that is the orthodox Hindus, because to them the Buddhists are
heretics. But there is a conscious attempt to stretch out the whole doctrine
to include the heretics also.
The Vedanta has no quarrel with Buddhism. The idea of the Vedanta is to
harmonise all. With the Northern Buddhists we have no quarrel at all. But
the Burmese and Siamese and all the Southern Buddhists say that there is a
phenomenal world, and ask what right we have to create a noumenal world
behind this. The answer of the Vedanta is that this is a false statement.
The Vedanta never contended that there was a noumenal and a phenomenal
world. There is one. Seen through the senses it is phenomenal, but it is
really the noumenal all the time. The man who sees the rope does not see the
snake. It is either the rope or the snake, but never the two. So the
Buddhistic statement of our position, that we believe there are two worlds,
is entirely false. They have the right to say it is the phenomenal if they
like, but no right to contend that other men have not the right to say it is
the noumenal.
Buddhism does not want to have anything except phenomena. In phenomena alone
is desire. It is desire that is creating all this. Modern Vedantists do not
hold this at all. We say there is something which has become the will. Will
is a manufactured something, a compound, not a "simple". There cannot be any
will without an external object. We see that the very position that will
created this universe is impossible. How could it? Have you ever known will
without external stimulus? Desire cannot arise without stimulus, or in
modern philosophic language, of nerve stimulus. Will is a sort of reaction
of the brain, what the Sânkhya philosophers call Buddhi. This reaction must
be preceded by action, and action presupposes an external universe. When
there is no external universe, naturally there will be no will; and yet,
according to your theory, it is will that created the universe. Who creates
the will? Will is coexistent with the universe. Will is one phenomenon
caused by the same impulse which created the universe. But philosophy must
not stop there. Will is entirely personal; therefore we cannot go with
Schopenhauer at all. Will is a compound—a mixture of the internal and the
external. Suppose a man were born without any senses, he would have no will
at all. Will requires something from outside, and the brain will get some
energy from inside; therefore will is a compound, as much a compound as the
wall or anything else. We do not agree with the will-theory of these German
philosophers at all. Will itself is phenomenal and cannot be the Absolute.
It is one of the many projections. There is something which is not will, but
is manifesting itself as will. That I can understand. But that will is
manifesting itself as everything else, I do not understand, seeing that we
cannot have any conception of will, as separate from the universe. When that
something which is freedom becomes will, it is caused by time, space, and
causation. Take Kant's analysis. Will is within time, space, and causation.
Then how can it be the Absolute? One cannot will without willing in time.
If we can stop all thought, then we know that we are beyond thought. We come
to this by negation. When every phenomenon has been negatived, whatever
remains, that is It. That cannot be expressed, cannot be manifested, because
the manifestation will be, again, will.