The Absolute and Manifestation

By Swami Vivekananda

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lhe one question that is most difficult to grasp in understanding the Advaita philosophy, and the one question that will be asked again and again and that will always remain, is: How has the Infinite, the Absolute, become the finite?

Time, space, and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen, and when It is seen on the lower side, It appears as the universe. Now we at once gather from this that in the Absolute there is neither time, space, nor causation. The idea of time cannot be there, seeing that there is no mind, no thought. The idea of space cannot be there, seeing that there is no external change. What you call motion and causation cannot exist where there is only One. We have to understand this and impress it on our minds that what we call causation begins after, if we may be permitted to say so, the degeneration of the Absolute into the phenomenal, and not before; that our will, our desire and all these things always come after that.