Family and Nation

Author(s): Mahapragna Acharya, A P J Abdulkalam
Publisher: Harper Publications India

Page 79

THE IDEA OF UNITY
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situations. The feelings of an individual bear the impress of the meaning he gives to life and of the goal he has set for his strivings. Though feelings rule his body, they do not depend on his body; they depend primarily on his goal and the consequent style of life.
Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677) contended that everything that exists in Nature/Universe is one Reality. There is only one set of rules governing the whole of the Reality which surrounds us and of which we are a part. Spinoza viewed God and Nature as two names for the same Reality that is the basis of the Universe and of which all lesser entities are actually modes or modifications. All things are determined by Nature to exist and cause effects, and that complex chain of cause and effect is only understood in part, Humans presume themselves to have free will, he argues, because they are aware of their appetites. However, they are unable to understand why they want something and act the way they do. Spinoza's argument goes like this: substance exists and cannot be dependent on anything else for its existence; no two substances can share the same nature or attribute: substance can only be caused by something similar to itself, something that shares its attribute; substance cannot be caused; substance is infinite; therefore there can only be one substance.
In 1929, Albert Einstein (1879–1955) was asked in a telegram by Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein (1890–1970) whether he believed in God. Einstein responded: 'I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings. Some of Spinoza's philosophical positions are: the natural world is infinite; good and evil are related to human pleasure and pain; everything done by humans and other animals is excellent and divine. Spinoza contended that an emotion can only be displaced or overcome