Swami
Ranganathananda
Darwin
established the fact of evolution and some of the factors of evolution; and
during the next one hundred years after him, biology clarified these still
further, and also dealt with the direction of evolution and with the uniqueness
of evolution at the human stage.
Biology was now bringing back to science the concept of the uniqueness
of man from a scientific point of view.
All these developments were reviewed at the week-long Darwin Centenary
Congress held at the Chicago University in 1959. The proceedings of this Congress were later published by the
Chicago University in three volumes: Evolution After Darwin : Hundred Years of
Evolution. According to Sol Tax, the
Editor, the Congress was dominated by the late scholarly Sir Julian
Huxley. Among his contributions to the
Congress was his lecture on The Evolutionary Vision, included in volume III
entitled issues in Evolution, and his writing on The Emergence of Darwinism in
volume 1, entitled The Evolution of Life.
In the latter, Huxley tells us that at the time when Darwin’s books were
published the main need was to establish on a firm basis the fact of evolution
and its scientific comprehensibility.
In recent years, however, biology has turned its attention to the course
and direction of evolution and, as a result, it has reached a number of
important conclusions about the evolutionary process, in general, and the place
and role of the human being with it, in particular. In its progress from the inorganic to the organic or biological
stages. Huxley refers to the novel
features of great significance when evolution has achieved.
‘Dharma’
constitutes the principle for integrating human being with human being in
society, from the family to the international community level; it does not mean
religion, to indicate which there is another appropriate word, namely, ‘matam’,
and so dharma does mean a creed, doctrine or ritual, or a scheme of other –
worldly salvation. A mere accumulation
of bricks does not constitute a building; there is the cement to unite brick,
with brick. Similarly, no accumulation
of human beings can constitute a society.
There is something that unites human being to human; and that is what
Vedanta calls ‘dharma’. It is a set of
spiritual values, acting silently from within.
It is the subtle expression in the life and society, of the one Atman
within all. Even a fraction of this
spiritual touch of the Atman can make the human being and human society a
playground of values and free from all fears, says the Gita Svalpamapyasya
dharmasya trayate mahato bhayat. Dharma
stresses the concept of mutuality and interdependence. There is no full freedom for the human being
within the social context. When we
examine the four Purusarthas, we shall find a place for full freedom only in
the fourth Purusartha – Mukti or Moksha, which means freedom or
emancipation. It is a spiritual
experience the highest and best, available here and now, in this very life, and
meant for the purest and bravest. It
makes the human being cease to be gregarious, without being anti social. The four deliberate human purposes or
purusarthas are dharma (ethical values), artha (wealth), kama (sensory
pleasures) and moksha (spiritual liberation).
CONCLUSION:
Vedanta
accepts science, but science does not yet accept Vedanta, because science is
still a sectarian entity, dealing only with a segment of experience. A large circle can include in it a small
circle! “Take the adjective Physical
away from physical science, it ceases to be a small circle; then science
becomes all comprehending science”.
Says Romain Rolland in his Life of Vivekananda.
From ‘Science of Human Uniqueness’