The Greek religion was, essentially, worldly and pragmatic.

Though Socrates raised the religious attitude above the positivistic level, it was never pursued by the Greeks beyond the social level. Protagoras, most famous among the Sophists, formulated the dictum, Man is the measure of all things. The well--known historian Stace explains: By man he did not mean mankind at large. He meant the individual man.... Each individual man is the standard of what is true to himself (Stace, Critical History of Greek Philosophy, p. 113). Protagoras lived nearly five centuries before Christ. Socrates, who is known by the scholars as the finest flower of Sophistic culture, gave the world a new dictum---Know Thyself. In that statement, Know Thyself, he gave special emphasis to the first word, Know, and dedicated his entire life to the dissemination of knowledge. To him, knowledge is virtue. He thought that right knowledge will easily help people to get an insight into right conduct. Western scholars never bothered about the real concept of the Self.

Plato only said that there were three kinds of Soul, the plant, the animal and the rational, without making the attempt Aristotle made to explain that this difference ultimately referred to a difference in the degree of consciousness. But he too finally upheld the contradictory notion that these different degrees of consciousness constituted the different kinds of Souls.

A vast body of scholarship has been produced through the untiring efforts of many Western scholars during the last two and a half millennia. But the result is disappointing. In his lecture, Origin of the Vedanta, Max Muller quotes the remarks of the German philosopher, Frederick Schlegel:

. . .'It cannot be denied that the early Indians possessed a knowledge of the true God; all their writings are replete with sentiments and expressions, noble, clear, and severely grand, as deeply conceived and reverentially expressed as in any human language in which men have spoken of their God. . . Even the loftiest philosophy of the Europeans, the idealism of reason, as it is set forth by the Greek philosophers, appears, in comparison with the abundant light and vigour of Oriental idealism, like a feeble Promethean spark in the full flood of heavenly glory of the noonday sun-faltering and feeble, and ever ready to be extinguished.' And with regard more especially to the Vedanta Philosophy, he says: 'The divine origin of man is continually inculcated to stimulate his efforts to return, to animate him in the struggle, and incite him to consider a reunion and reincorporation with divinity as the one primary object of every action and exertion.' (Three Lectures on the Vedanta Philosophy, pp. 10-11.)

Western thought cannot give us a concept like the Vedantic Self, which is self luminous Atman, the sole spiritual entity. According to Vedanta, all else belongs to the realm of matter, gross or subtle, being devoid of intrinsic Consciousness. Change cannot be cognized unless there is an unchanging observer to relate the succeeding with the preceding condition. According to Vedanta, the mind is subtle matter, the finest of all material substances, and it is basically pure. It is distinct from the physical body and the knowing Self as well. It is intermediate between the two. It has been the prevailing tendency in the West to identify mind either with the soul or with the body. There is a good deal of vagueness in the writings of Western philosophers and psychologists. From Plato onward, philosophers in the West have held that the mind has three faculties---the cognitive (knowing), the conative (willing), and the affective (feeling). Will being only a special function of the mind and the mind itself being influenced by thoughts and desires---how can the will ever be free? The sense of freedom in our life is due to the presence of the higher Self in us. (Western scholars, denying the existence of Soul, consider human personality to be an offshoot of matter. The concept of Soul in the West is something like the concept of the subtle body in Vedanta.) Swami Vivekananda says, The West never had the idea of soul until they got it through Sanskrit philosophy, some twenty years ago. ( Complete Works, pp. 111, 126.)

European philosophers, in general, excepting a few, take an objective attitude to comprehend the Self. They labour hard to explain the subjective in terms of the object, the inner in terms of the outer. This inherent and predominant bias for objectivity is at the root of all the failures that spoil the Western theories of Self. Yet despite their objectivism, they naturally recognize, almost invariably, that the Self is unique---that the Self cannot be interpreted or understood through objectivity, regardless of their desire to do so. This objective attitude of the West fails to explain the important problem of human experience---the relation of the one and the many, changelessness and change, unity and plurality. The objective attitude of the Western philosophers failed to give a satisfactory solution to the perennial problem of Self.

The tragedy of human life stems squarely from our metaphysical ignorance about our divinity. A more serious source of resistance, says Rollo May, is one that runs through the whole of modern western society---namely, the psychological need to avoid and, in some ways, repress, the whole concern with "being". In contrast to other cultures, which may be very concerned with being---particularly the Indian and Oriental---the characteristic of our period in the West, as Marcel rightly phrases it, is precisely that the awareness of the sense of the ontological---the sense of being---is lacking. Generally speaking, modern man is in this condition; if ontological demands worry him at all, it is only dully, as an obscure impulse. (Swami Tathagatananda, Meditation on Swami Vivekananda, The Vedanta Society of New York, 1994, p. 239.)

In the Western view, man consists of body and soul. Here soul is synonymous with mind, ego, and consciousness. In the West, generally, no distinction is made between mind and soul. Soul refers only to the different forms of experience of a normal human being. This is the general idea in all non-Hindu spiritual traditions in which the Self as a real entity distinct from body, mind, and ego has never been satisfactorily established.

In Vedanta, Atman or Self is beyond body and mind, ego, intellect, and all physical appearances. It transcends everything. The Self is self-existent, pure and immortal.

In the West, each soul is created by God individually.

In Vedanta, the human being consists of Atman, mind, and body.

In the West, human being consists of body and mind which are created by God. Western scholars study only what the Vedantists call attribute consciousness, not existential consciousness.

According to Vedanta, the human is divine, as the Pure Self is the inmost essence of man. God is not extra--cosmic or distant, He is immediate, direct and the nearest. Two concepts---the non-divine nature of man and the distance of God---are not accepted in Vedanta.

In the Western view, God being the Creator, is the subject, while the created soul is the object; the two can never be the same.

God is not only the ultimate but also intimate, according to Vedanta.

God is nearer than our arteries, our inmost being.

God, in Vedanta, is not the Creator but also the created.

In summing up, the transcendent character of the ever-pure and immortal Self is never tainted by the impurities of mind, nor is it saved by the grace of a saviour. When impurity is removed, the bliss of the Self is spontaneously experienced. In the West, soul is not a transcendent entity, it is created. Hence the impurities of the mind taint the soul, which is mind, and hence it requires the grace of a saviour. The Self of Vedanta is not a created entity; soul in the West is created. The doctrine of the eternal, pure, self--luminous and infinite Self was developed in Vedanta alone.

Practical Relevance

The pressing need for the real conception of human life is the main key not only to right living but also to right knowledge of the universe.

Practical points are that:

1. The microcosm and macrocosm (the individual and universal) are built on exactly the same plan. The infinite is the support of the finite. Behind the world of multiplicity there is essential unity and interconnectedness.

2. The wisdom of the unity of existence provides a holistic view of life and the universe. This insight can make our life contemplative, spiritual, and dynamic.

3. The infinite glory of the human personality can be experienced by those who are really convinced of the divinity within. Religion is the manifestation of the divinity already in man. This idea of Swami Vivekananda will be more appealing to humanity in the future. It is the expression of divine qualities in our life and not the subscription to a creed or a dogma. Religion essentially unites us with God.

4. Swami Vivekananda's idea that in the future the thought of immanent God---God manifest in human beings, will impel us to serve them as God. This future vision of Vivekananda will be immensely fulfilled.

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  Read Part 1 and Part 2 of this article.

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Books by Swami Tathagatananda:

1. The Vedanta Society of New York -- A Brief History, 2000
2. Mahabharat--Katha (Bengali), 1998
3. Ramayan Anudhyan (Bengali), 1996
4. Healthy Values of Living, 1996
5. Meditation on Swami Vivekananda, 1994
6. Meditation on Shri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, 1993
7. Glimpses of Great Lives, 1989
8. Shubha Chinta (Bengali), 1988
9. Smaran--Manan (Bengali), 1987

You can order these books from The Vedanta Society of New York.

Other books on Vedanta can be purchased from any Vedanta Center.

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